Page 7 of Wolf's Keep

She peered closer.What the—?Engraved into the reverse side was writing in small curlicue script. Some type of runic language? Not Latin or Old French. A linguist would know, and they’d consult one for sure, but that didn’t help her now.

She chewed on her lip. It may not be very scientific, but… She whipped out her phone, thumbed up her home screen and tried to open Google.Damn. No service.She held the phone above her head, searching for a signal. No luck. She was too far underground. With the disc and her phone in hand, she grabbed her clipboard and a pen and headed up the stairs.

Fresh, cool air brushed her face as Erin exited the stairwell. She waited a moment for a signal, then opened Google and typed in runic languages. A whole plethora of options appeared, but none of them matched the symbols on the disc.

Mmm, what else can it be? Some form of forgotten language?She’d never seen this script before, and she’d spent most of her career specializing in medieval Europe.

She tapped her phone, pacing. Why would someone use a language other than the standard Latin? Because they had something to hide. She paused. Could it be a secret code? She typed secret codes into Google. No luck there either. Only a bunch of references to the enigma machine from World War II.

Erin resumed her pacing, running through her mind all she knew of the tenth century—the people, the politics, the religion. Christianity had made great inroads, but some still held to the old ways even though they might have had to hide it from their neighbors. Pagans perhaps? She typed in pagan alphabet andvoila!There, dancing across her screen, was the curling script on the disc.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

“Theban,” she read. “A substitution cipher.” Erin peered at the script again. Definitely Theban. She’d never heard of it. She kept reading. “The Theban alphabet was used as a substitution cipher of the Latin alphabet by early occultists. First published in 1518.”

Wait, what?

That didn’t make any sense. How had it ended up on a disc buried with tenth-century bones? Or were they?

Disappointment tasted thick on her tongue. If the disc belonged with the skeleton, then the bones couldn’t belong to Gaharet d’Louncrais. Finding the cell, the shackles and the bones, she’d had high expectations. A sixteenth century script dashed her hopes in one fell swoop. It suggested the cell’s use had continuedafterthe construction of the larger château, and a much more recent prisoner.

But…could it be too much of a coincidence to find an item stamped with the family crest of the man they were searching for, for itnotto be him? The d’Louncrais line had died with Gaharet, so it couldn’t be a descendant. And they’d found no evidence of another family appropriating the crest. Not in France anyway.

She studied the script again. Could the inscription itself provide any clues to the identity of the pendant’s owner? Could she be so lucky? She fingered the disc.

“Ouch!” A sharp edge pierced her finger. Blood formed and dropped onto the disc, sliding into the grooves of the inscription. She pressed her thumb against the spot to stem the flow.

Wonderful.

She’d embedded her DNA on an artifact. Anyone would think she was a newbie. She couldn’t clean it. Any chemical used could damage the piece. She’d mention it to the conservator, and should probably look into getting a tetanus shot, but first…

Balancing the phone on her clipboard, she wrote out the script, spacing the lines apart, leaving room for her translation. She hoped her Latin was up to the challenge. If not, she had Google.

She took her time, pausing over the words, scratching out some and replacing them with others. Finishing, she studied her translation.What. The. Hell?It made no more sense than the use of the Theban alphabet. Clutching the disc, she read the inscription out loud.

“Vanish from all human sight,

Those who favor moonlit night.

To bloodstone shall they return,

So no man of their secret learns.”

Darkness hit like a solid wall, and Erin lost her balance. She screamed, falling, her clipboard and phone slipping from her grip, her pen flying off into the inky blackness. Bracing her arms, she waited an eternity for the impact.

She hit the ground hard, smacking her forehead on something solid—a rock, a piece of the crumbling keep. Pain lanced her head, and she tasted bile at the back of her throat. She raised her hand to her forehead, grimacing. Her palm came away damp. Blood.

“Oh, just great.” She’d have a decent egg on her head by morning and, more than likely, a rather nasty headache. She might even need stitches. “Shit.”

She looked around, trying to see something, anything, disoriented by the darkness. She took a deep breath… Someone must have turned the lights off. “Idiots.”

She scowled at the darkness. They should’ve checked everyone had left the site. It shouldn’t matter. Security dictated the lights stayed on all night. Maybe a fuse had blown. She groaned.

Well, she couldn’t lie here all night. Fumbling around for her phone, she swept her hand around. Nothing. On her knees, she widened her search area. Still nothing.

Crap.

She didn’t dare search too far. The last thing she needed was to fall down the steep steps of the underground cell.

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