Day of the Dragon--Two full books for the price of one Page 5

  I ignored the mention of his pet conspiracy theory—that there was a group of supernatural beings who mingled among normal people—and gritted my teeth for a moment over the sting of his insult. “Just as you like. Oh, I sold the manuscript leaf that came yesterday. It was snapped up almost immediately. In fact, the buyer came by late last night to pick it up—”

  “What? What the hell did you say?” Edgar’s voice rose an octave. “What the fuck did you do with my manuscript?”

  “I sold it. For the maximum amount,” I said, knowing that Edgar’s policy of setting an initial price that was way above what an object was worth should make him happy. I decided to leave out that the men had taken me by surprise and the odd reaction I had had to Archer. “The buyer came with a certified check and took the leaf away with him last night.”

  “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?” he screamed into the phone, loud enough that it made pain lance my eardrum. “You stupid bitch! Are you telling me you sold that manuscript? For how much?”

  I told him, wondering what was going on. My palms pricked with sweat at his reaction, worry flaring to life within me. “It’s well above what you normally ask—”

  “You stupid bitch!” he repeated, screaming in my ear. “Who did you sell it to?”

  “A man named Archer,” I said quietly, my stomach twisting on itself again. “The price was good—”

  He raged even harder, calling me names that I pretended not to hear. I gritted my teeth while he worked off the worst of his bile.

  When he paused for a breath, I spoke as calmly as I could, despite shaking and feeling sick at the attack I’d just survived. The irony that Edgar could make me feel a hundred times worse than Archer’s unexpected visit didn’t escape me. “You didn’t tell me not to sell the manuscript, Edgar. I had no idea you wanted to keep it—”

  “Get it back,” he snarled, his voice low now, but his breath came as fast and rough as if he’d just run a marathon. But it was the undertone of pure, unadulterated threat that left goose bumps prickling along my arms. “You will get it back, or I will break every bone in your body, and when I’m done with you, I’ll break your precious grandmother. Do you hear me? Get the fucking thing back, or you will wish you had never been born.”

  I was shocked into silence. Edgar was not the best employer by any stretch of the imagination, but there weren’t a lot of jobs available for someone with degrees in art history, medieval history, and art restoration. Especially for someone who shunned museums with staff members constantly staring and commenting about people who looked different.

  “What was the problem with selling it?” I asked, sick with fear. “If you had told me you didn’t want it sold—”

  “I could get ten times that amount, that’s what the problem is, you stupid slag! You have until tomorrow to get it back. If you don’t…well, you brought it upon yourself. And your grandmother. Don’t forget that. If she suffers, it’ll be your fault.” His voice seeped horror from the phone, making me shiver.

  He hung up before I could do anything more than sit in a stunned state of shock and disbelief. He hadn’t really threatened Gran, had he? He knew how vulnerable she was, how frail, and how hard I worked to keep her in the care facility where they treated her with compassion. Driven by a need too horrible to face, I called the facility and asked to talk to my grandmother.

  “Thaisa? Isn’t this your day to visit?” one of the carers asked. “I will hold the phone up for her, but I’m afraid she’s having one of her foggy days.”

  “That’s okay. I just want her to hear my voice, even if she doesn’t realize it’s me,” I said, and spent the next ten minutes prattling mindlessly, talking about nothing and anything and not getting any response other than a few unintelligible murmurs.

  “I’ll see you in a few hours, Gran,” I said at the end of my time. “I’ll bring you some puzzle magazines, all right?”

  “Puzzle books?” My grandmother stopped mumbling to herself. I could almost see her eyes light up. “I like puzzle books.”

  “I know you do. I’ll bring some tonight. Love you.”

  “What am I doing with this phone?” I heard her ask the attendant, who said a brief goodbye to me before hanging up.

  I have never been a forceful person, preferring reason rather than passion, and never have I acted in an aggressive manner toward anyone, but as I sat there on Edgar’s chair, sightlessly staring at his desk, resolve was born deep in my belly. I would do whatever it took to protect that dear, lovely, gentle woman. If it meant demanding that handsome Archer give back the manuscript, then demand I would. And when I was done, when I had given Edgar his damned manuscript leaf, I would quit. I would rather live on the streets and give the care facility every cent I earned from some menial job rather than continue with a man who could so callously threaten a harmless old woman.

  The door opened, and a laconic Jamie wandered into the office, picking at his teeth. “Hey, Thaisa, there’s a man here who wants to buy that Spinoza set, and the check is for over a hundred bucks. Can you come approve it?”

  A red wave of anger washed over me, foreign to my normally less volatile nature, the strength of it forcing me to my feet. I slammed my hand down on the desk, snarling, “And if that bastard ever messes with me again, he’ll be the one who will suffer. I’ll kill him myself before I let him so much as touch a hair on Gran’s head!”

  Jamie’s eyes widened, and he backed out of the office, his Adam’s apple bobbing frantically. “Holy shit! Okay, I’ll tell him he has to use plastic!”

  The anger ebbed away at his words. I looked up but saw only Jamie’s back as he scurried out to the cash register in the main room. “What? Did you want me, Jamie? Oh…hell!”

  Chapter Four

  MY PHONE RANG WHILE I WAS SNARLING ARCHAIC obscenities at a website that refused to give me what I wanted unless I paid a large sum.

  “What?” I snapped, answering it absently without even looking to see who was calling. Immediately, guilt pinged me. “Er…sorry, hello.”

  “Wow. If you worked for anyone else, I’d ask you what bee got up your butt, but knowing the man formerly known as my husband, I don’t have any doubt he’s been working your nerves. What’s the matter, Tha? What’s the bastard done to you now?”

  “Oh, Laura,” I said, a sudden rush of tears making my eyes swim as self-pity swarmed all over the anger that had been my constant friend the last few hours. “He really is a bastard.”

  “Uh-oh.” Her tone, which had been light, sobered instantly. “He totally is, but you almost never admit it. What’s up? Wait, can you tell me in…er…two and a half minutes?”

  “I don’t…I guess,” I said confused. “Why the time limit?”

  “I’m on a plane and we’re about to take off. I’ve been called to the Portland office for a couple of days. What did Edgar do to make you so upset? You sound like you’re crying.”

  “Not quite, but it’s a close thing.” I swallowed back the lump of tears that made my throat ache. “He threated to hurt Gran.”

  She said something very profane. “Call the cops.”

  “I can’t. I mean, I did, and asked if a verbal threat was enough to get a restraining order against him in Gran’s name, and the police said no, mostly because he’s on the other side of the country, but if he continues, then I can lodge a harassment complaint. But other than that, they won’t do anything.”

  She swore again. “Why is he being such a dick?”

  “You remember last night at the bar?” I asked, trying to pick out what I wanted to tell her. For some reason that I didn’t understand, I felt almost reluctant to explain how Archer had held me against the wall. I decided that hiding behind my embarrassment at my reaction to his body being pressed against mine was a sign of cowardice and blurted it all out in one garbled sentence. “The man with the pretty eyes, the tall one not the auburn-haired one, he was in the office when I came home, but he wasn’t alone. He had the other guy here, too, and they were rifling
through some items that Edgar had sent here, and when he saw me, he pushed me up against the wall and squashed me against it with his body, saying that I’d tried to trick him and not give him a manuscript he bought, but I was going to send it to him today, so I let him take it and holy hellballs, was he hot, really hot, not just sexy hot but physically hot, and I think you’re right after all that I’m going to need a man because if I could get so hot and bothered by one man leaning on me, then what does that say about my life?”

  “Wow. That was a hell of a sentence. Dammit, can I just…Fine. Sorry, Tha, I have to turn off my phone now. I’ll call you as soon as I’m free, okay? I just wanted to tell you that I can’t do dinner tonight after all, but Bree said she’d fill in for me. Love you!”

  The phone went dead before I could respond.

  I glared at the laptop screen, frustration making my skin feel itchy. “Why is nothing going right today?”

  The door of Edgar’s office creaked open just enough for Jamie to stick his nose through it. “Uh, Thaisa? It’s my lunchtime. I was going to get a burger, but if you don’t want to come out and watch the store—”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, glancing at the clock and stretching as I stood up. “I didn’t realize it was so late. You go off to lunch, and I’ll do my research out at the register.”

  Jamie was still a bit skittish about me after the morning’s episode, despite my copious apologies about my behavior. He flashed me a few nervous looks while he got his skateboard and headed off to a burger place near a local skate park. I went out to the front desk, but there were only two people in the store, and I could tell at a glance that they were browsers, neither one likely to buy anything. I settled behind the cash register and pulled out my phone, about to continue the Internet search on the term Archer Andras California, but at that moment the shop phone rang.

  “The Illustrated Grimoire,” I answered, making a face to myself at the search results.

  “Good afternoon,” a smooth voice said, one that instantly had me setting down my cell phone. It had a husky quality, and a mix of an English and Irish accent. “Do I have the pleasure of speaking with Thaisa Moore?”

  “Speaking,” I said, a little prickle of awareness skittering down my back.

  “Excellent. My name is Vehar, and I understand that you are the finest scholar on the subject of medieval Europe to be found in Northern California. I wish to discuss a little project with you.”

  “I’m…I’m flattered,” I said, uneasy for some reason I couldn’t pinpoint. “But I assure you that I’m far from being the finest scholar. There are any number of good ones at the university—”

  “Ah, but they are evidently away attending a conference in Frankfurt. And you, fortunately, are here. Would you be available to meet with me? Say this evening?”

  “What does your project entail?” I asked.

  “The translation of an obscure French work dating to the late fifteenth century. I believe it to be a fable, but alas, it’s written in a cipher, which I understand is your specialty.”

  “It is.” If I convinced Archer to let Edgar have his manuscript back, then I could quit and thus would need the income a freelance job would provide. “I would be delighted to look at your manuscript and am available this evening. Er…are you in the Santa Mar area?”

  “Indeed I am. Since I am aware women of your standing are no doubt loathe to meet with a stranger in a private home, shall we meet in a public venue? There is a club whose atmosphere I can recommend, one where we might discuss the details of the project.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate you picking a public place.” He gave me the address and suggested nine as a meeting time. I did a fast check on the club, decided the overwhelmingly good reviews meant it would be a safe place to meet, and agreed to do so. “I’ll be there,” I promised, my mind already returning to the problem of finding Archer.

  “I look forward to seeing what you make of this,” he said in that silky voice that sent another peal of warning bells off in my head. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what worried me about this man but figured so long as I was aware of what was going on around me in the club, it would be fine.

  Besides, I had much more important problems to tackle than a man who made me vaguely uneasy. A half hour later, I was still struggling with a search for Archer’s information. All I found was a man bearing that name associated with a coastal town a half-hour drive from me, so I knew it had to be the correct Archer, but how was I supposed to find his house number without paying for that information?

  Suddenly, I remembered the e-mail printout and ran to fetch it.

  “Got you now, Mr. Sexy Eyes,” I said, going back out to the register, almost immediately disappointed when the e-mail lacked a physical address.

  “Really? That sounds good, unless all you have are eyes.” Bree sat on the counter next to the register, swinging her legs and leafing through a small book the size of a modern-day cell phone. My eyes widened not just at her outfit (hot-pink velvet corset and bloodred tulle skirt), but also at which book she was holding.

  “Bree!” I dropped the e-mail printout and sprinted to her, doing a little dance in front of her. “That’s the Liber Salomonis! How did you get that? It was locked up in the case. Please, be careful with it. It’s very old, and very fragile.”

  “It’s not a very good grimoire,” she said, flipping through a couple more pages, almost giving me a heart attack at the thought of what the oils on her fingers would do to the fragile pages. “There are loads of mistakes here. Take this…” She pointed at one of the pages. I eeped, and ran back into the office to grab a pair of the cotton conservation gloves I wore whenever touching fragile objects.

  “Their suffumigation of Hermetis is all backward. They have the days mixed up, and the four Nota Orationem are just dead wrong. Ha! Dead wrong! Pun!”

  “Let me just take that from you,” I said, gently prying her hands from the book, sighing in relief when there was no visible sign of damage. I placed it back in the climate-controlled case that sat next to the register, propping it back up on a stand, a discreet price tag next to it on the archival cloth that lined the case. I made sure it was locked tight before turning back to Bree. “I don’t know how you got that out of there, but please don’t do it again. The books in the climate cases are all very fragile, and extremely valuable. This one is such a prize that Edgar doesn’t want to sell it. Unless, of course, someone has the price of a small house; then he’d probably let it go.”

  “I don’t see why anyone would want it when it’s just wrong about so many things,” Bree said, pulling another book onto her lap. This one was slightly bigger. “Let’s see how badly this Liber Iuratus Honorii gets things wrong.”

  “No!” I squawked, all but snatching the book out of her hand. I gave her a long glare before I replaced it in the second case, also climate controlled and also locked. “That is a very rare copy I only just finished transcribing.”

  “Really?” Bree tipped her head to the side as I counted the books in the two cases. They were all present. I don’t know how she’d gotten them out of there while leaving the cases locked, but so long as they weren’t hurt, I wasn’t going to lecture her.

  Not overly much, anyway.

  “Yes, really. That’s what I do—I translate the works that Edgar finds. A lot of them are copies made by scribes who intentionally—or unintentionally—slightly tweaked the original text, and it’s actually quite interesting to see what changes were made, and speculate why. In that Iuratus Honorri, for instance, I found a section talking about making a type of amulet that I’ve never seen referenced anywhere else.”

  “Dragon amulet,” she said, nodding, and to my utter amazement, recited, “‘After this ye shall know that the first seven-cornered star be made of azure, the second of vert, the third of crimson, the fourth of night, and the round circle of or.’ That was the forming of the dragon race, although I’ve not heard of gold dragons.”

  I gawked at her. “Ho
w…Where did you…Have you studied—”

  “Laura says I’m supposed to take you to dinner,” she said, jumping down off the counter. “Did you want to talk about the dragon from last night?”

  My mind felt like it was circling around and around. I couldn’t get over her knowing about the passage on amulets that I’d never seen anywhere else. “The what?”

  “I’m assuming you must have seen him again.” She reached out and touched one of my earlobes with a finger, holding it up to show me. “Dragon scales.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I asked, shaking my head and wondering if Edgar had finally driven me stark, staring mad.

  “Could be a dragon hunter, but their scales don’t usually shine like this,” she said, considering her fingertip. “Hey, let’s do Chinese.”

  I stared at her in confusion, finally shaking my head a second time. It didn’t help any more than the first time I tried to clear it. “I would be happy to have dinner with you tonight, but I have to see my grandmother first. Chinese is fine. There’s a good restaurant out by the home my gran is in, so we could meet there.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said, beaming a happy smile at me. “Old ladies love me! What time?”

  “Er…” I was at a loss as to how to tell her politely that my grandmother had few visitors, most of whom she didn’t recognize. “I suppose it would be all right for you to come, but my gran gets confused easily, and I wouldn’t want her upset.”

  “I’ll bring a puppy,” she promised after I told her the address of the home. She hurried toward the door, pausing long enough to look back and say with absolute sincerity, “Everyone loves a puppy, right?”

  “No animals are allowed at the home—” I started to say, but with a little wave, she was through the door and dashing down the street. “Except service animals,” I finished, suddenly exhausted, like I’d gone five rounds with a boxer.

  I touched my earlobe, then examined my finger. There was nothing on it but the faintest shimmer of iridescent glitter, and I was sure that had come from the dash of powder I’d put on my face that morning in lieu of cosmetics. “That girl is downright loopy!”