Page 16 of Aleko
“We’ll make Hudson do it when he gets home,” said Alex, and Sebastian grinned.
“I don’t get it,” said Trevor, poking at the metal boxes in the foot locker. “What are all these symbols? They’re Egyptian, aren’t they?”
“So is the jar,” said Pellos. “I’d have to look it up, but I think that’s a canopic jar. They put organs in there when they were mummifying people.”
“So what does that, or any of this junk, have to do with Nazis?” asked Colin.
Alex glanced at Pellos.
“Is it in your kit?” asked Pellos, and Alex nodded. “Be right back.”
“After the war,” said Alex as Pellos disappeared below deck, “I made it back to where Howell had been stationed. Of course, none of the pack had collected his belongings, so I got them.” Alex didn’t add that selling his dead brother’s belongings had been the first step in putting his life back together. Among the items was a box with my name on it. It looked like he’d packagedit up, but hadn’t gotten around to shipping it.”
Pellos reappeared and held out his hand, the string of deep blue lapis lazuli worry beads dangling down, and the blood-red carnelian amulet he’d attached to them glinted in the sunlight.
“The package contained this medallion.”
It was bulbous on one side, carved in the shape of a scarab beetle, all the legs tucked up tight to the body, but on the other side were three incised hieroglyphs—a bird, a hand, and a bent arm—the same mark as the box that Trevor had found on the bridge.
“Well, what the hell does that mean?” demanded Trevor.
“The Nazis were known to have been interested in Supernatural artifacts. Hudson, who found the location of theStrumwolkein the Nazi archives, said there was an Egyptian manuscript mixed in among the files. It’s possible that the spell the Nazis used is based on some sort of Egyptian magic.”
“And a month ago,” said Sebastian, “we spotted the same symbols on an Egyptian artifact that was offered for sale on the dark web. That’s where Luca is—he went to check out the artifact and bring it back.”
“Well, should we open these?” asked Colin, picking up the box they’d retrieved from the bridge. “I can’t say I’m too anxious to give that a go.”
“I think we should wait for Luca,” said Alex.
“When does he get back?” asked Trevor.
“Tonight,” said Pellos. “We hope.”
Colin and Trevor exchanged a look and seemed to come to an agreement.
“All right. We wait for the magic-wielder before start popping open evil Nazi boxes,” said Trevor, nodding.
“Sensible,” said Alex, with a chuckle.
But as they pulled into the harbor, they saw that Luca’s ship was already docking ahead of them. The two selkies whoopedin excitement and back-flipped off the boat. Sebastian rolled his eyes, and Alex laughed. He jumped from the deck to the dock, landing lightly on his bare feet, and set about tying off the boat. The sun was setting in the west, casting long shadows, and he realized he should have grabbed his sweatshirt.
He finished tying up and turned to watch as a crate began to be lowered from the ship’s deck to the dock. He headed toward the gang plank, looking for Luca. He was easy to spot. Tall and thin, Luca always looked like he needed a few more meals to Alex. He knew it was probably an alpha thing that he always wanted to feed everyone. Keeping a pack fed and alive was the first responsibility of any alpha—everything after that was open to discussion. But he suspected that he would have wanted to plump Luca up anyway. At nearly six-foot-five, Luca towered over most people, but he probably weighed less than Sebastian, who was a brawny five-ten.
“Alex!” Luca waved to him from the ship’s deck. Alex grinned and waved back. It was a relief to have at least one of his people back home. He hated having them all scattered. It made it hard for him to sleep. Luca might not be a member of the pack officially, but Alex still felt responsible for him, and it made him feel that the others would be returning soon as well.
“What is this?” he called to Luca. Luca’s narrow face split into a grin, and he scrambled to grab his gear.
“That is a complete and unopened Egyptian sarcophagus!” Luca yelled, waving his free arm in excitement as he came down the gangplank. The other hand held the AK-47 that accompanied him on every trip out to sea. For a wizard, Luca had a steadfast belief in bullets. He also carried an old .38 revolver on his hip, which made Alex laugh. But Luca got grumpy whenever they tried to change it out for an automatic or anything slightly more modern. He said the old wheel gun worked like it was supposed to, and he didn’t want to put in the time to learn something new.Alex tried not to roll his eyes. As the oldest of their family, he was all for sticking with classics, but Pellos was right—new tech was just better.
“I may have spent more of your money then we planned on,” Luca said as he stepped onto the quay. Luca had a long pale face with a wide mouth, and an apologetic smile tugged at his lips as he spoke.
“Well, was it worth it?” asked Alex.
“The cartouche from your scarab amulet is on the top. We may need an Egyptologist to decipher it, but the idiot human I bought it off had no idea how much magic he was dealing with. I had to bid against a museum, three private collectors, and I think the representative from Hobby Lobby.”
“I hate those shit heads,” said Alex in annoyance. “I thought they only bought black market Biblical artifacts.”
Luca shrugged. “Apparently, the potential for having large quantities of gold inside made it Biblical enough.”
