P.S. If you are not wearing the pendant I gave you years ago, please do so. It can offer some measure of protection.
Thia’s hands shook, rattling the letter as she went over it a third time. What was Lettie talking about?
A relic of great power. A calamity. Charmed cloths and protective pendants.
Had Lettie lost her mind?
Her fingers went to the silver charm she habitually wore around her neck. The metal, though it lay directly on her skin, was cool to the touch. She’d been twelve when Lettie had given it to her. There’d been no mention then of magical powers then. Good grief. Thia hadn’t even looked at it as a charm—though it’s subject, the gorgon of Greek myth, probably meant it was supposed to be one. But that was superstition, like carrying a rabbit’s foot for luck. It might make someone who believed in such things feel better, but it didn’t actually do anything. Did it?
No. She’d taken to wearing it simply because it had been a gift from Lettie, whom she had near to idolized at the time. She’d put on the medallion, with its garish image of a woman’s face with fangs and oversized eyes, and had imagined she could be just like her great-aunt. Free-spirited. Adventurous. She continued to wear the medallion years later out of habit. Nothing more. She was used to its weight, its presence, and missed it when it wasn’t there, that’s all.
She let go of the necklace, set down the letter in order to pick up the box. Whatever was in there, it wasn’t what Lettie claimed. It couldn’t be. She sliced through the thick tape and cardboard with increasingly unsteady motions. Lettie always seemed so on top of things…but she was in her early eighties. Even a brilliant mind could fall prey to senility.
Heart in her throat, she reached into crumpled wads of tissue and pulled out something hard and small and wrapped in white silk. She removed the cloth, sending a scrap of paper fluttering to the counter, and found herself holding a rock.
A nice rock, sure—some sort of grayish brown crystal, carved into a sphere and polished to a glassy smoothness—but still, just a rock. There were several quite like in a display near the register. They were popular with the New Age crowd, said to bring clarity to dreams, attract love, stimulate creativity, and the like, depending on the type of stone.
Oh, Lettie. With tears pricking her eyes, Thia brushed a finger across the sphere’s glossy, dark surface.
Something like static electricity shot through her, holding her in place for a bleak, terrifying moment while the world seemed to fall away…only to slam back in place.
Hard.
She blinked, dizzied, her arms tingling as a strange warmth moved up them, soft and seductive. Unable to resist, she lifted the Stone to the light.
No longer dull and opaque, the crystal glowed the color of well-steeped tea. Strange shapes, like captive shadows, swirled as she turned the ball between her fingers and thumb. It called to her, somehow. A thing of mysterious beauty, whispering of potential. She was tempted. So tempted. It was hers, whatever it was; she knew that without question.
It thrilled. And frightened beyond words.
Hastily, she re-wrapped it in the cloth. The strange sensations faded, leaving her shaken and somehow…empty.
“So, what is it?”
At Abby’s voice, Thia nearly jumped out of her skin.
She whirled around to find her holding open the door, her brows drawn in what Thia took to be understandable impatience.
“I’m so sorry,” Thia said. Her voice was rough. She swallowed. “I completely lost track of time.” Surreptitiously, she tucked the cloth-wrapped crystal into her pocket. “I’ve got to make one quick phone call, and then I can—”
“Not so fast.” Abby pointed to the packing scraps and stepped inside. The door closed behind her. “We had a deal.”
Thia cringed. Lettie’s note might be full of crazy…but what if it wasn’t? After what had just happened, she didn’t know what to think.
“It’s just a travel souvenir.” Unable to maintain eye contact, she busied herself by scooping up the mess of paper and cardboard.
“Really.”
“Yep. Just a…paperweight.” Thia shrugged and shoved the debris into a drawer. The note followed.
“A paperweight.”
She shut the drawer. “Uh-huh.”
Rapid knocking cut through the uncomfortable silence.
“Hold on.” Abby gave Thia a look that said this wasn’t over, then moved to answer.
A worried-looking Lynette stood outside the door. “There’s someone asking to buy the last of the wormwood. But he’s not on the list, and he doesn’t want to wait for the approval process.”
Abby sighed. “Okay. I’ve got this,” she told Thia. “You make that phone call. Then we can go to lunch. By three.” She tapped on her watch for emphasis, then followed Lynette out.
“Thank you,” Thia called as the door clicked shut. Lettie had potentially lost her mind—and Thia might have as well, to consider for even a moment that such nonsense might not be nonsense. And now she’d lied.
Trouble comes this day.
“Ah, hell.”
CHAPTER 4
Bloomsbury, London
28 October
Cormac pulled open the drapes to admit the amber light of the streetlamps. This room was no better than the others. Shelves laid bare; drawers pulled from chests to sit empty, one atop the other; books in haphazard stacks; paintings propped against bared walls; rugs rolled up; cushions carelessly strewn on sofas and chairs. A grievous over-reaction to a missing persons case—or even a death.
Not for the first time, he felt a niggling unease, a suggestion he wasn’t seeing the whole picture. Leticia had always been an upstanding, if unusual, member of the Brigantium. This comprehensive, almost desperate search…it was as if her own people held her under suspicion.
Of what, though, he couldn’t fathom.
He wandered over to the desk, not that he expected to find anything. But he needed something to do while the search-and-seizure crew finished its work below.
A stack of photographs, their frames dismantled and set nearby, came as a pleasant surprise. As he began to leaf through them, he understood why they’d been left behind. They were personal, mostly snapshots of Leticia in various locales, sometimes with people, more often posing solo. He found himself flipping through them more quickly, seeing Leticia at different ages, different aspects. Same exuberant smile, though. The same as on that long ago day when sheer luck on her part—and curiosity on his—put them face to face in Lancashire. Here, tonight, in the skeletal remains of her home, the memory became like a living thing, at once powerful and achingly fragile.
Full of energy, she’d come striding down the coal-stained streets as if the world around her was a fresh, unspoiled adventure. He’d spotted her in plenty of time and had identified her as a Novitiate—easy enough to do when one knew the signs. And it would’ve been easy enough, too, for him to have avoided detection. But he’d been intrigued, he remembered, a melancholy smile tugging at his mouth. She’d seemed so vibrant, not at all the sort to shackle herself to the stodgy bunch of bookworms and curators that was the Brigantium. So, on a whim, he’d stepped out, undisguised, from his hiding place between two boarded up buildings.
Her reaction had been deliciously surprising.
She’d walked right up, her bright, blue eyes meeting his without a hint of alarm though she had to know who—and what—he was. Then, before he could decide