Page 10 of A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience
“I...beg your pardon?” Margaret glanced back at her husband for assistance—was she missing something obviousagain?—but received in return a look of equal confusion.
“Oh, just come in. You may as well, at this point!” Turning his back on them both and leaving the front door open, Morningford stomped sulkily down the short and narrow entryway, then took a lurching turn to the right.
Margaret hurried after him, and Lord Riven—having been formally invited—followed after, closing the door firmly behind them.
Much to her own chagrin, Margaret had found herself wondering, more than once in the past, exactly what the inside of Morningford Cottage might look like. Would it be full of priceless antiques gathered by the college founder? Private notebooks full of fascinating research never shared with the official college library? Or would the loutish current resident have filled it to the brim with lewd paintings and sculptures?
As it transpired, the gaslamp-lit parlor he led them to was filled largely with trays of half-eaten, abandoned food and scattered paperwork, ranging from pages of freshly-scribbled notes to what looked appallingly like recently-wine-stained ancient documents. Margaret was so horrified by Morningford’s inappropriate treatment of research materials that it took her a long moment before she finally noticed, hidden in the midst of all that chaos, the fist-sized, dark red garnet that sat nearly camouflaged atop the patterns of the carpet.
Her breath stopped as everything else fell away from her field of vision.
The Rose of Normandy.
It was, of course, no polished and glittering piece of modern jewelry but a roughly-cut, ancient gemstone. Some of its facets looked deceptively plain in a dull, near-brownish red, while others, smoother and brighter in their color, gave off an eerie but unmistakable glow. More than one of the facets, in their various fractures and gradations, gave the illusory impression of hidden depths, as if other worlds lurked deep within it.
Of course, in their own fashion, they did—and the power of all those waiting possibilities drew Margaret in a lunging step forward across the littered floor, heedless of the detritus that crunched beneath her sturdy boot heels. A buzzing sensation reverberated through the air and vibrated against her skin like a warning of imminent lightning or thunder, rumbling too deep for any mere human to hear.
“Take care, my dear,” her husband said softly behind her...
Just as Morningford let out a contemptuous snort. “You see? It’s utterly useless.”
At that, even in the grip of breathless passion, Margaret stopped and turned to gape in disbelief. “I beg your pardon?” she demanded.
Morningford scooped up an open bottle from a side table and took a long, sloppy swig, while Lord Riven looked on with open distaste. “Oh, yes. All those centuries of wild stories... All my ancestors’ promises of what could happen when we finally tracked it back down for our own use... All thosewasted bloody yearsI spent watching you take everything that should have been mine... And what for?”
He gave a bitter laugh as he gestured with the hand that held the bottle, heedless of the drops that flew across the room to spatter across priceless documents and make Margaret cringe. “They were all wrong! And so were you, for all your smugness. This rock may have worked miracles in the past, but it’s long since lost all of its powers. It won’t do a thing for anyone anymore!”
“It hasnotlost any of its danger,” Lord Riven said through his teeth.
As Margaret said, “That is patently absurd. I can feel its power from here!” She pointed impatiently at the Rose and felt its vibrations ripple through the air, drawing her an involuntary half-step closer. “Why in the world would you come to the conclusion that it had lost anything?”
“Because I’ve spent thelast three daysthrowing everything I have at it without a single effect!” Morningford snarled. “I’ve thrown every invocation at it that I can think of. I’ve even rubbed its damned sides like a lamp from a story! In the end, I even got so desperate, I broke down and used that stupid poemyousuggested in your thesis.”
He grunted with bitter humor as he took another swig. “That’s some satisfaction, anyway. At least you were wrong too. I alwaysknewyou must be faking all that certainty, no matter how many people you fooled. Your work was shoddy all along.”
“What?” Everything fell away but his sneering face as his words rocked through her. “My work isnot shoddy!”
“My dear...” her husband began, nearby.
She ignored him, her glare fixed on her nemesis. “Exactlyhowdid you attempt the Norman ritual that I suggested in my thesis?”
Morningford blew out his wine-smeared lips in a whuffling sound of contempt. “How do you think? You’re always so damnedfussy, getting lost in all the details.Iwas man enough to scoop the damn rock up, read the stupid little one-line poemexactlyas you wrote it in your thesis, and...”
“Thetranslatedversion?” Margaret’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “The original poem is in the appendix. Did you not even bother to read that part?”
“Mydear...!” her husband repeated, more urgently.
“One moment!” She flapped one hand in impatient reassurance. “I just need to sort out this point and show him how very wrong he is,again.”
“But—”
Morningford spoke over Lord Riven, looking both affronted and uneasy as he scooped up a familiar thesis from a pile on the floor and began to flip through its pages. “Why would you bury the original in the appendix if it actually mattered?”
“Because it wasn’t meant as an instruction manual!” she snapped. “I was following best academic practice, as you’d know if you ever paid attention to the rules.”
“Individual words shouldn’t matter anyway,” Morningford muttered, his shoulders hunching as he read.
“It’s aritual,” Margaret said sternly, “a holy one. Did you even bother to start it with a prayer?”
