Page 30 of Disabling Relics for Dummies
“Barter. I once did a favor for the pack, and now I get a bottle from every batch. I can’t think of any two people I’d like to crack this bottle open with more.”
“Are you serious? Hasn’t someone been stabbed over this whiskey?” Killian asked.
Key just shrugged.
“In all fairness, people have been stabbed over watered down, shitty whiskey in dirty pubs all over the world.”
“That’s true,” Killian said as we moved to my living room.
Key had a briefcase with him. He didn’t usually bring one to the museum. He set it on my coffee table and opened it. Key took a book out and slid it towards Killian and me.
“I was going to give this to you once I got all the scans, and Valentine wasn’t around.”
It was a pretty ornate book. There was nothing on the cover except beautiful gold work that looked a little Viking. I could see someone picking this as a grimoire. When I opened the cover, Key had already translated the pages he had received so far, but he didn’t stop there. He’d started illustrating it like the cult’s grimoire.
I always wanted one of those beautifully illustrated grimoires like we got in the museum, but drawing had never been a strength of mine. Shit, the Cult of the Aether Sisters had members that drew better than I did. Key was also an amazing artist. He had the line work down on the first page and even did borders.
“This is beautiful,” I said, stroking the vellum.
Key just shrugged like it was no big deal.
“I told you. I’m trying not to get arrested again. I need to be at the museum to help stop Valentine. These are just doodles.”
He wasn’t just saying that to be modest. He had a pretty healthy ego when he wanted to. Key really was bored when he wasn’t at the museum, so he drew in this book and didn’t think it was a big deal. I was pretty amazed at his drawings, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Though, I doubted that might be possible.
“You know you can always come here if you’re bored. Just leave Valentine at the hotel.”
I saw his facade crack a little. He looked grateful for the invitation. Was he lonely here? Did he know anyone?
“I’d like that. Anyway, these are mostly healing potions so far. The cult didn’t start out bad. They twisted into something evil later.”
Killian and I leaned over the book and took in the potions and salves in here. There was one for burns the rest of the world hadn’t seen. Most of the burn remedies we used now had aloe in them. This one didn’t. I didn’t even know what some of these herbs were.
“What is this, and how does it treat burns?” I asked.
“They lanced wounds a good bit. There wasn’t much treatment for the burn. This is a psychotropic tea. I guess if you are hallucinating, you can’t feel it. There are some potions for coughs and salves for rashes in here so far.”
“These are all for healing. Aren’t there stories of people going to them for medical remedies and getting potions that either killed them or made them worse?” Killian asked.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they didn’thaveworking remedies or give them out at first. How fast can your girl get us the rest of the grimoire?”
“Sasha is an amazing worker, and she’s good at what she does. She’s getting us the pages as quickly as she can without damaging the grimoire,” I said.
“What about the puzzle box?”
“We’ve finished all the scans. We can’t identify what’s at the center,” Killian said. “It’s obviously magic, but nothing we’ve ever seen before. It could be the magic they need to come back during the eclipse. Theyhaveto know that no one would be insane enough to raise them with necromancy.”
“There’s not a lot of them out there, but thereareseers. They were revered next to gods in the past, and any successful group of people out there had one close to them. The few that exist now tend to view it as a curse and don’t get involved in people’s business. This prophecy came from a seer, but visions are never whole. It’s always snippets. At most, they knew the upcoming eclipse was vital, but nothow.
“Witches are able to raise the dead and commune with spirits because Lilith made you that way. The only beings capable of doing that are gods and witches. The Cult of the Aether Sisters weren’t witches.They wouldn’t have the same mastery over the spirits as one. They weren’t in power long enough to cook up something that would beat good old-fashioned necromancy. They converted Valentine. It’s not a huge stretch he’d find friends out there willing to help.”
I’d never personally met a seer, but I knew Lilith had created those too. The only reason I knew that was because Bram told my sister he lived with one when he stayed with Talvath. Key was right. Talvath held his seer in high regard, and so did Bram. But he rarely left Talvath’s house because of his visions.
Killian made some good points too. There was a gigantic mass of magic at the center of that puzzle box that none of our high-tech scanners could identify. If Key knew what it was, he wasn’t telling us. Also, the craftsmanship on the puzzle box was way too advanced for that era. It didn’t match anything else from the dig or anything else in my museum from that time period.
I still wanted to open it.
“What if this box didn’t belong to the cult?” I asked. “There’s no damage to it from the fire, and there are mechanical gears on the scans. Those definitely weren’t around then.”
