The Medusa Gambit (Veil Knights Book 6)

by Rowan Casey

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No, I’m sorry. It was my fault. I was rushing, so as not to keep you waiting. I wasn’t cautious enough. But the point is, that’s why I couldn’t tell you, Sir R—…Rex. I couldn’t bear to have you not trust me. I hadn’t expected it to be like…like this.”

  “Like what?”

  She gave a quick rattle to her head, dismissing the question. “When you looked at me, you saw a woman. A human woman. A woman you trusted. I had never been looked at like that before.”

  Those blue eyes held mine in a gentle grip until she broke off her gaze and fixed it onto the floor. This conversation was heading in a direction that was, at best, complicated, and one we really didn’t have time for if I had any intention of staying alive. Even if we did, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable having it.

  I slapped my hands together, startling even myself. “Okay, now that we have that out of the way, don’t we have someone’s ass to save? And by ‘someone’s,’ I mean, mine. Oh, and the world’s, too. That’s pretty important, also.”

  “Yes, of course.” She wiped at her eyes, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. Women. I will never understand them, even ones with green skin. “But we don’t have much time. Moonrise is in six hours.”

  “Could be worse,” I said, shrugging. “We might be able to find the chest by then.”

  “But Sir Regis—Rex, it’s not six hours to start the Contest. It’s six hours until you need to finish it. At least, that’s what I overheard them talking about. That’s why they were trying to stall, why they made you drive out to that place. They obviously had no intention of letting me live. And they definitely did not want you starting, let alone finishing, the Contest. They assumed you were chosen because you had some special talent or knowledge that made it possible for you to win.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to make Vegas change the spread.” I rubbed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose. “How long does it take to play?”

  “I have no idea. They seemed to believe it would last for hours.”

  Great. The hits just kept on coming.

  “Rex,” she said. “We have to find that chest. Your time is running out.”

  “Okay…What do we know?” I started to tick things off on my fingers. “We know they captured you to lure me away. Was the fire a back-up plan, in case I didn’t show or if we got away?”

  “I don’t know, but that would make sense.”

  I thought about that, one finger hooked over the other in mid-count. “No, that really doesn’t add up.” I hooked the next finger. “We know someone burned the place down, after I left. The barmaid, maybe? I could have sworn it was her voice on the phone when they called to tell me they had you.”

  “She remained,” Pip said, sitting up on the couch, suddenly looking alert. “She was there at the museum and they left. To start the fire. I heard her voice. They told her, ‘thirty minutes.’ I distinctly remember hearing that.”

  “So, that was their plan all along. To burn the place, after I left.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “There are only three reasons people torch buildings,” I said, trying to fit the pieces together, “insurance, spite, or to destroy evidence.”

  “Do you think they were trying to cover up the fact the chest was missing? So no one would look for it?”

  I swished that around in my head, but it didn’t taste right. “Why would they care? If they were planning to kill you, and me, why would they bother covering things up? I mean, so drastically?”

  “You told me about security camera footage. Could it have been the curator’s preference?”

  That was certainly logical, I had to admit. “But the guy ran the place. Couldn’t he have just turned it off? Erased it? Other than weighing a metric ton, was moving it really that big a deal? A few guys and a moving van. Who would care? Burning the place to cover it up seems extreme.”

  “Obviously, they had a reason. Perhaps by destroying the whole place, they wanted to delay your discovering some clue. Maybe they never expected to kill you. Maybe they just wanted to slow you down until the window closed. It’s possible they were worried you would learn something if you started your search at the museum.”

  My mind flashed the equivalent of a search result that prompted me to push off the desk. “That’s it!”

  “What, Sir Regis?”

  I didn’t bother to correct her. “I couldn’t budge that chest an inch. That gal from the bar would have needed four or five guys, if it could even be moved. Maybe once the game has begun, it can’t be moved until it’s over. Maybe that’s why they set the fire. To keep me from being there when it finished.” I suddenly became aware of my state, standing there in my underwear. “I need to clean up, change clothes. Armament’s in the trunk?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “I’m so glad I remembered to go back and get it. I came close to forgetting.’”

  “Then we need to get going.”

  “You know where the chest is!”

  “I sure do.” I smiled, genuinely happy to see that look on her face, those white teeth showing between those red lips, surrounded by green cheeks. “It’s right where we left it.”

  14

  The sun was past its midpoint in the sky by the time we arrived, another beautiful day in paradise. The only cloud anywhere close was the dark one hanging over me, reminding me it was probably my last.

  Police and fire units had all cleared out. Sharp traces of smoke peppered the air, irritating my nose. Cones and paper signs and police tape warned that the area was a crime scene and that no unauthorized personnel were allowed to enter. Fortunately, they sort of left that to the honor system, along with the deterrent warning of a felony conviction being among the possible consequences. The large, bold lettering was meant to let you know they were serious.

  I parked down the street. Pip was waiting when I pulled up. I retrieved the bag from the trunk, and she insisted she take it for me. She wasn’t going to give up the squire-gig easily, that was obvious. Not that I wanted her to. I just wanted her to feel bad about lying to me.

  “I have to ask,” I said, watching her pull the handle to roll the bag—which was heavy—along the sidewalk. “Where’s your car? I’ve never even seen it.”

  She made a dimpled frown and tilted her head. “I don’t have a vehicle, Sir Regis. I had to allow you to believe I did. Or else you would have been suspicious.”

  “Then how do you get around?”

  Her mouth opened like she was going to answer. But then she stopped, thought for a moment, and spoke with a different, almost mischievous look on her face. “I will show you, but if you want to know, you will have to win the Contest first.”

  I snorted a laugh and shook my head as we headed for the burnt-out building. Finally, some incentive.

  Negotiating the cones that cordoned off the drive was easy enough, as was the perimeter tape. But I paused as we got close. Seeing me stop, Pip assured me the Imp Trap only worked once.

  “Besides,” she added, gesturing toward the pavement. “All that water and sooty runoff washed away half of it and smeared the rest.”

  The front entry required that I cut the tape that formed an X across it between the doors. Unfortunately, those doors were boarded over and locked. Firefighters probably busted out the glass going in. Too bad the locks still worked.

  I was scrambling to come up with options other than prying off the wood when Pip said, “Wait here, Sir Regis.”

  She trotted around the side of the building and I lost sight of her. Enough time passed that I was about to go looking for her, but then I heard the metallic sound of something sliding and a door opened.

  “I found a window,” she said, answering any questions I may have had.

  She took the case with my armament and I followed her inside. The air was prickly with the smell of smoke and burnt fabric and pungent chemical odors from melting objects. Each breath scraped my airways and scratched my thro
at. Aside from the fumes and stench, the place was a wreck. What the fire didn’t consume or char or melt, the high pressure hoses smashed and toppled and shredded. Things that had survived a war didn’t survive this.

  Since I knew where I wanted to go, Pip fell in behind me as I headed for the medieval room.

  Enough ambient light crept in to make out objects, but the room was dark. It was also in worse shape than the main exhibit hall. The fire had hollowed out the walls, destroyed every display case and stand, and consumed most pieces of fabric down to pasty clumps of soot and ash. Some metal items survived more or less intact, others were warped and buckled, most were deformed beyond recognition, if not reduced to molten lumps.

  Material had been tossed haphazardly into the middle of the room, probably the result of firefighters hunting for smoldering remnants. I stepped and hopped past scattered debris and standing water to where the trunk had been. One by one I removed random objects from a pile and tossed them aside. A half-burned shield that looked like a bite had been taken out of it; pieces of charred armor, a sword with blackened leather hanging off the handle.

  When I pulled a piece of filthy, wet tapestry off the pile, I saw it.

  I pushed and yanked the rest of the stuff off in a hurry. At first, it looked charred and cooked, but when I touched it my fingers came away covered in soot and ash and the spots beneath where my fingers had brushed looked undamaged. I started wiping and quickly realized all the discoloration and burnt layering was superficial. The chest didn’t seem to have so much as an extra scratch, let alone a scorch anywhere I wiped. In fact, the more I rubbed, the more I realized that the weathering and aging of the chest was all superficial, too. It looked practically new. Incredibly old, but as sturdy and functional as if those centuries passed by in a day.

  And after a few strokes of my fingers, the lock looked that way, too.

  “You were right, Sir Regis!”

  I nodded and stood up. “I guess this is it.”

  “Shall I help you into your armor, Sir?”

  “Why the hell not? Armor away, I say.”

  Pip found a spot to open the suitcase. Inside, neatly packed, were the tools of what Grimm described as my ancestral calling. I took off my coat, folded it and placed it on the opened half of the luggage. I put the Colt on top of it and waited for Pip to do her thing.

  She told me to take off my shirt and trousers, but to leave my undergarments and socks. I was looking around for a clean spot to take off my shoes, but she had that covered. She reached into the suitcase and unrolled a thin piece of plastic about five-feet square for me to stand on. Then she got to work.

  It wasn’t a short process; trousers and leather boots first, then leg armor in pieces, a plate that covered my foot, over that a shin guard, a jointed piece strapped around my knee, a thigh guard. Just the lower half of me took about fifteen minutes. Then she had me slip on a loose blouse with long sleeves, followed by chain mail. Over that, a heavy tunic with an embroidered bird, wings spread. Huge gloves covered each hand, armored hand guards slid over those. She cinched it all up tight with a series of leather straps and buckles.

  Then she reached into the suitcase and removed a sword and shield. My sword and shield. In a two-by-three suitcase.

  “How in the hell…?”

  She smiled but didn’t answer. She turned to the case one final time and removed a helmet. She slid it over my head and opened the visor.

  “Are you ready, Sir Regis?”

  I wanted to correct her, for the umpteenth time, but didn’t see the use. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “The Key?”

  I tilted my head, or as much of my head as my gear would let me, toward my coat. She patted around a few times, then retrieved it from a pocket. She also retrieved my phone.

  “Here,” she said, sliding it behind my chest plate. “You still have your earpiece, right? It’s worth a shot.”

  I lifted my arm, which felt like lifting a kettle ball, and forced my armored fingers into a thumbs-up gesture.

  She took hold of that hand and pressed the Key into it, positioning it so the bent end was protruding just the way I’d need it. She wrapped her relatively small hands around my armored one and pressed it closed.

  “I know you can do this, Sir Regis. Whatever the Contest proves to be, I know you are up to the challenge.”

  “Well, if I’m not, at least I’m going out in style. A style that hasn’t been in vogue since the 1600s, but still.”

  She tightened her lips into a straight line, a look that hinted of being both sad and happy, and then hopped high enough to give me a kiss. Just a peck, but smack on the lips. Before I could react, she shut my visor and turned me toward the trunk.

  I knelt down, which was much harder to pull off than it sounds, and managed to find the lock through the slits in my helmet. I inserted the Key, gave it a turn, and the shackle sprang open.

  I took a few breaths, then opened the lid.

  Nothing happened.

  No surge of light, no blinding display, no swirling galaxies of brightness reaching to the heavens. It was just a chest, practically empty. The only thing in it, tucked down in the bottom, was a game board. Old, wooden. The kind used for checkers. Or chess.

  “ARE you sure the giant didn’t do anything other than open the lid?”

  We were sitting among the debris, the floor strewn with scorched weapons, trying to figure out my next step. Well, I was sitting, at least. Pip was taking serious steps in one direction, then switching, wearing the machinations of her mind on her sleeve.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure. He tossed me aside, opened the lid, and then rose in a spectacular funnel of light.”

  Two steps right, two steps left. It was making me dizzy. “Did he say anything? Some kind of phrase when he opened it?”

  “No. Nothing I heard.”

  I watched her march back and forth a few more times. I wanted to join her, burn off some nervous energy while I thought, but the weight of my outfit made sitting a much more appealing option.

  Looking down at my arms, I said, “Do you think it’s the armor?”

  She stopped, a hopeful cast to her face. Then she shook her head. “I don’t think so. Grimm said he didn’t know much about the Contest, but he was certain armor was appropriate. He said…” She paused, catching my eye directly. “He said your father had told him you should wear it. I wish I could reach him, but he’s not answering.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but taking it off was too much of a hassle for me to dump it all just yet. The chest sat there, closed now. Lock back in place. How it got back in place, I couldn’t say. I just closed the lid, and it was there, all locked up, Key on the floor. Three times, three identical results.

  “What else did he say he knew?”

  “Hardly anything. That it had been around for centuries, that there was no historical record of it, but that there were rumors of the Contest, the ultimate test of a warrior’s mettle. That’s it. And, that your father somehow knew that armor was appropriate.”

  My throat was getting sore from the scratchy, stagnant air. I took my helmet off, though I didn’t expect that would help.

  “And the game board? What does that have to do with it? I find it hard to believe Golgameth was transported to sit opposite some wizard playing checkers. And I’d be even more surprised if he knew how to play chess. And why would you need armor and weapons for a board game?”

  Pip’s brow popped up and she looked at me. “Mr. Grimm didn’t say anything about weapons! Maybe you’re not supposed to take any? Maybe the Contest supplies you with weapons!”

  I started to think she was onto something, but then shook my head. “Golgameth took a battle axe,” I said, resting my chin on the gloved palm of my hand. “Grabbed it right off the wall. So I don’t think that’s it.”

  Her posture deflated a bit. “Maybe it was a magic battle axe.” After a moment, her voice perked up. “Maybe it was here because it was associated with the Contest!”


  “I suppose that’s possible, but if that—” I cut myself off. “Wait a second. What did you say?”

  “I said, maybe the axe was part of the Contest. Associated with the chest?”

  “No, before that.”

  She thought for a moment. “That maybe it was a magic battle axe? What is it, Sir Regis? What are you thinking?”

  I stood up, a feat that required some effort. My gaze slipped to the chest, then over to the suitcase.

  “How did you get this big sword into that suitcase?”

  “Mr. Grimm, he…Sir Regis! That must be it!”

  I made my way over to the chest. “Okay, this trunk obviously has a spell over it, or in it, or whatever, so maybe that’s part of it. The ultimate test of a warrior’s mettle. It would make sense for it to forbid any magic.”

  “Or weapons that were touched by magic! That must be it!”

  It took a few minutes of rummaging for me to find a sword that seemed undamaged enough by the fire to be serviceable. I held it up and Pip gave it a lukewarm nod of approval.

  I needed her help to get the helmet back on my head. When that was done, she handed my shield.

  “This fit on its own,” she said. “So let’s hope you can take it.”

  The sword tucked through my belt well enough, freeing up a hand for her to place the key in my fingers. I smiled, dipped my head in a way I’m sure she understood as both a thank you and a goodbye. No awkward kiss this time, though I could tell the thought crossed her mind.

  I knelt in front of the lock and inserted the key. The shackle popped free, and I opened the lid. This time, the inside of the chest didn’t look empty.

  It looked alive.

  Light raced around me, dancing through my eyes, a supernova surrounded by fireworks and comets and blazing meteors. Whole star systems swirled, planets and comets and nebulas, all within an arm’s length. My hand reached out to touch one, to see if this was real, and then I was soaring, surging into space, my sails filled with a cosmic wind. The universe seemed to fold. I could feel time bending, distorting, like a Dali painting. Part of it was slipping away, faster and faster, part of it was standing still. Some of it unwound before me, like a spool of information being undone, each bit released to find a new home, new bits to pair with. Colors spattered my senses, flooding my eyes with hues and tones, my nose with scents that distinguished between shades, my ears with notes that truly expressed the meaning of each color they heard. Celestial wonders gave way to scenes racing by, glimpses, snapshots appearing and disappearing in rapid-fire succession. The experience grew in intensity until I doubted I could tolerate it anymore.