The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) Page 4

  As I retrieved the fragile papers, I saw a smudge on the rug. Rather, I found a long black hair on the rug. I shoved the scroll under my arm and rubbed the end of the hair. It took a bit, but sure enough faint black dye came off on my fingers. Alric obviously went for the cheap hair dye.

  “You had better not damage those. I might forget our friendship.” Covey stood next to me tapping her foot. I’d been so engrossed in the hair I hadn’t noticed her. With a chagrined smile I handed the scroll to her.

  “Where’s the other one? There were two over there, I think they’re part of the same work.” She peered around me as if I might be holding out.

  I raised my arms, careful to keep my grip on the evidence pinched between my fingers. “There is only one.”

  She literally picked me up and moved me to the side. Another side effect of her ancestors. She was skinny, but strong as five oarsmen.

  “It’s not here.” I waited until she had checked everywhere. “How did you think they were connected?”

  Covey went back to her desk and dropped into her chair. “I may not be able to read them yet, but some of the symbols…” She dropped off as she tried to look for the right words. She finally shrugged. “I can’t explain it. But some of the symbols seem to belong together. This one and the one our friend took are tied together.”

  “Who would want something no one can read?”

  “That is a very good question. Perhaps another researcher.” She paused and nodded toward my hand. “What’s that?”

  “Oh.” I unclenched my fingers and let it drop to the desk. “I have a feeling this is a mate to this one.” I dug out the hair Leaf had ripped from Alric’s head. “And I think both of them belong to the man who was here. The same man I brought in last night.” That thought didn’t make me happy. I may love finding answers, but I had a feeling his answers weren’t ones that would be safe to know.

  Covey’s bright golden eyes glowed. Whether from excitement at a new mystery to solve or annoyance at the man who had dared to ransack her place and steal from her I wasn’t sure. I was betting it was a little of both.

  “Tell me exactly what happened. Don’t leave out a single speck.” She grabbed an old fashioned quill pen and ink pot, flailing around until she found some paper to write on. “Well? Start. Everything.” She waved the pen at me. “You never know when something might be the keystone.”

  It took far longer than I wanted to tell it all. At least two hours went by as she picked apart each comment. What color was Alric’s shirt? Was the female guard part gnome? From which side of the street did the faeries fall into me after he’d shaken them? She was also fascinated with the goo, but set it aside for later uninterrupted researching pleasure.

  By the end of the two hours I felt like I’d been selling illegal gnome-weed to a junkie.

  “Excellent. So we have an intruder who steals what cannot be read, who is wanted by hoodlums, but doesn’t fear them. He’s hiding, but has been so for quite a while.” Covey tapped her pen against her chin in thought. “What did he use on the faeries and why did he want an unreadable scroll?”

  I rocked back in the chair I’d borrowed from a neighboring office. Actually, broken in and liberated by force would be more accurate. There was no way I could have told her anything in the piece of wooden evilness she offered visitors to sit in. “I was sort of hoping you might know.” I brought the front legs back to the ground with a thud, then winced when a few jars above her head shook around a bit. “About the sap at least.”

  Her eyes were starting to glaze over. Once I’d told her all I could, she forgot me. I’d seen her do this before. About a week from now, or whenever the mystery was solved, she’d come apologize, send over some fine ale, and all would be good. But for now she was gone.

  “Okay then, I’ll just show myself out.” I stood, waiting to see if she’d react, but a distracted wave was the best I got. “I guess I’ll just have to go look for another bounty job. Maybe just spend the day at the Shimmering Dewdrop.” When she didn’t even look up at that, I showed myself the door. Covey hated the Dewdrop even more than she hated when I had to bounty hunt. I’d agree with her on the bounty hunting, but not on my pub.

  The campus was a ghost town by the time I walked down the halls, my own footsteps the only thing keeping me company. I’d had a busy day—between the night before, my lack of sleep, and the parade of assorted visitors that morning—so it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t hear someone behind me until it was too late.

  Chapter 4

  “I normally don’t have a problem with attractive women following me.” The voice was rich, exotic, and not totally unexpected. I kept my eyes closed, but Alric clearly knew when I’d regained consciousness. The dull throb that slammed from the back of my skull into the floor boards told me he’d been far less gentle with me than I had with my capture of him.

  We’d see about settling that score.

  “But you keep showing up. You’re following me again, and I can’t afford to have certain people find me at this point.”

  I slowly tested my arms to see if he’d tied me up. My left hand quickly smacked into a hard metal something, but they were both free. I opened my eyes at the same time I jumped to my feet.

  And fell spectacularly into the pile of extremely used clothing behind me. I looked up from all fours to see he’d trapped me in some tiny apartment, or rather the back half of it. This looked like an unused bedroom, the type only found in the tenements. He was on the other side of the door and had it cracked open a few inches. Enough to see that the look he was giving me was exceptionally wary. Uselessly so. I had no weapons, I wasn’t a magic user, and he could slam and lock that door in an instant. My brief foray into upright-position-land had given me a glimpse of the windowless walls. He shut that door and I wasn’t getting out.

  And if I was right about the neighborhood I was in, no one was going to come get me if I screamed for help.

  “Don’t worry. Once I’m finished, I’ll leave word with your academic friend on where you are.” He used his square chin to point toward the back of the room. “There’s a bathroom, water, and military food packets. You’ll be fine.”

  It was sad he was so damn good-looking because he wasn’t going to be when I got out of here.

  “Look, I wasn’t following you—my friend was attacked. I didn’t even know you were behind the attack until now.”

  “Liar.” He flashed a dimpled grin. “You knew it was me, and you gave that woman a few samples to analyze.” The grin faded as fast as it had appeared. “You’ve made me speed up my timeline, and that makes me sloppy. I can’t waste any more time here.” He started to close the door.

  “Wait! I’ll leave you alone. Just don’t leave me in here.”

  “Why not?” All I could see was a slice of his face and one exotic leaf green eye through the small open space of the closing door.

  “I’m afraid of small places?” I knew he wouldn’t buy it, but I had to try something to keep that door from shutting.

  He laughed, then shut the door with a solid thud. “An archeologist afraid of small places? Good try.” His voice dropped, but I had rushed to the door and could still hear him muttering to himself. “Perallan never said she had a sense of humor.” Then the outer door shut and he was gone.

  Perallan? He’d known my former patron? Whoever Alric was, he wasn’t a part of the digger community. Someone like him would have stood out. So how did he know Perallan?

  Crap, what if he had been the one who killed him? The witch doctors had said it was a heart attack, but Perallan had been healthy as a team of oxen. His heart had been fine. I’d just chocked it up to the medical community being dumber than usual. But maybe it was something worse. My mouth went dry. I’d been seeing Alric as a nuisance. But what if he was far more depraved than that?

  I dropped back on the pile of clothing. It was clean, just left in a huge pile. Had we found something in the ruins that got Perallan killed? I wracked my brain, but the l
ast major find had been a small burial pit. A few trinkets covered in salt mud, nothing more.

  I picked at one of the pieces of fabric from the pile of clothing in thought. Come to think of it, Perallan had been excited. Wouldn’t even let me properly clean or catalog the find. Covey would have killed me for that. But I made it a policy to never tell people things that would piss them off. Especially someone who could throw me across the room. Now I wished I had paid more attention. I normally studied what I found before I called in my patron, but these were so close to the surface I hadn’t given them much thought.

  There was only one thing to do, break out of here, sneak into a guarded and closed dig site, and find out anything I could about my last dig for Perallan. I would have added break into Perallan’s former home and try to find the original artifacts to my list, but his widow had sold everything before his last breath had fled the building. But if I could at least find out something about what Alric was looking for…I had to get out of here fast.

  ***

  Hours later I was still trying to figure out how to do that very thing.

  Dusk must have fallen by now, but I couldn’t tell from my windowless tomb. Severe lack of nourishment had forced me to swallow one of the military rations. I tried to ignore the fact that the glorious kingdom of Lindor hadn’t been at war with anyone for over ten years. Problem was, they’d planned for a much larger and longer battle with our rather peaceful neighbors to the west, but they didn’t want to play. The entire country surrendered in less than a month. Leaving us with stockpiles of useless war spells, weapons, and rations. Although it wouldn’t be too far off to classify the rations as weapons as well.

  However, I had been exploring my prison while I’d been trapped. I prowled through Alric’s back room as if it were a prize dig. I carefully sorted items, noting in my head the exact location where I found them. As I worked my way through the small room, more mysteries appeared concerning my green-eyed adversary.

  The clothes weren’t his.

  I pulled up clothes randomly. Wherever the clothing had come from they were in the same condition. Shabby but clean, and in random sizes ranging from children to dregs at least five times as wide as Alric.

  So he had a stash of military rations and a bunch of clothing that he’d found or picked up even though he wouldn’t be able to use most of it. This man was just begging me to pry into his life.

  Thoughts kept bouncing around my brain—who or what was Alric? Were these the castoffs of his victims? A brief shudder twitched through my shoulder blades. A serial killer who kept his victims’ clothing? And one who washed it? Sadly that wouldn’t make him the most perverse killer in Lindor.

  But even though our meetings had been mercifully short so far, Alric just didn’t strike me as the slaughtering of innocents type. Mysterious? Yes. Dangerous? Hell yes, on numerous levels. Sociopath? Probably not.

  Which left me back with the clothes. Lots of clothes. I rocked back on my heels and pushed a few more pieces of clothing out of the way to widen my search area. Aside from the odd infestation of clean clothing, the floor was immaculate.

  When I’d first moved to Beccia I’d had to live in the tenements for a few months until my credentials came in and I could start digging. I knew for a fact this floor hadn’t looked this good since being built 200 years ago.

  What kind of freak moved into the crappiest part of town, cleaned the sty immaculately, then filled it with useless crap? I was going to have to get Alric back for knocking me out and leaving me here, but I was going to make sure I got some answers out of that pretty mouth first.

  My head began to pound. I’d like to blame it on the love tap Alric gave me earlier, but he really hadn’t hit me that hard. My head had been scrambled worse in turf fights in the ruins. So, on top of being a skilled fighter, he knew how to control how much force he used.

  My head pounded more. The last thing I needed in my life was someone like Alric and his twisted lifestyle. Besides, aside from my professional interest in the artifacts I found, I didn’t like mysteries or mysterious men. All I wanted in life was a good dig, interesting finds, and good money to spend at the Shimmering Dewdrop. The laughter in my head at my unspoken affirmation sounded suspiciously like Covey.

  Even though he was the last and worst thing I could think about, my thoughts continued to drift back to Alric. And not just because of his looks, although that was a face and body to dwell on.

  The problem was that he reminded me of a new artifact. One with enough features to be familiar, but with enough new components to make him rare and unknown.

  I felt an overwhelming urge to catalogue him.

  After I pounded him, of course. He was the better fighter, so I’d have to cheat. The faeries would come in handy for that. Good-looking mystery men weren’t excused when they committed acts of battery and kidnapping.

  With a sigh I went back to the clothing, but there were few clues there. Except that the only clothes even close to Alric’s size were too worn out for decency or just too ugly to be believed. When no bursts of insight jumped out at me, I forced myself to have another ration bar and get some rest. I wanted to be ready in case Alric came back.

  ***

  I’d just settled into a disturbing dream of armies of bodiless clothing chasing me when an explosion rocked me awake. It wasn’t huge, so the town wasn’t under attack, just this building. And it was close enough to leave a fine rain of plaster drifting in the room.

  I leapt to my feet to yell for rescue. I had no idea why the city guards would be trying to blow up Alric’s home, but hopefully they could get me out before they did.

  I drew in another breath for a louder yell, but it wasn’t needed. Instead I had to fling myself behind a mountain of neatly stacked clothing as the door shattered with a force definitely not found in nature.

  Picking a few troll-sized toothpicks out of my hair, I slowly rose to my feet with my hands up. No use getting an arrow in my belly because they thought I was Alric.

  “Taryn St. Giles, drop any weapons you may have on your person and submit to the King’s guards.” Four guardsmen glared at me over drawn crossbows from the doorway. It sounded like there were more behind them. That many for Alric? Although he must have hit me harder than I originally thought, I almost heard my name.

  I flashed a calming smile at the front guard, but kept my hands up. “Alric isn’t here, he kidnapped me and trapped me here—”

  My comments were cut off as one of the guards stepped forward with a small dart gun. He raised it to his lips and shot me in the thigh.

  I swore at the five-inch-long needle sticking out of my leg. I only got halfway through my litany of swear words when the contents of that needle overwhelmed my ability to remain conscious and I crashed to the floor.

  Chapter 5

  Unlike my awakening after Alric kidnapped me, I didn’t wake on a pile of fluffy clothing. The ground was tamped dirt, so hard it felt like metal. It was also old and crusty and gross. With an oath I threw myself off the ground. Unfortunately, it’s damn hard to throw yourself off the ground and even harder when your limbs won’t work.

  Whatever had been in that dart hadn’t been designed for someone my size. Dogmaela the troll would find it hard to recover from this dosage. I settled for rolling over so I at least didn’t have to look at the filthy thing I was laying on.

  The face above me made me want to take my chances staring at the floor. I’d been dumped right in front of a crumbling metal bunk-bed and one of my cell mates was passed out cold above me. A half-breed harpy. Wasn’t sure what the other half was, but it was even uglier than the harpy half. The lavender drool coming out of its snout didn’t help much.

  “You might want to move,” a voice far above me said. “That purple stuff has been burning holes in the dirt all night long.”

  My formerly numb limbs managed to rally enough to let me roll a few times to get away. Now I was lying in the middle of the cell, still on my back, but away from the harpy
.

  “Damn, girl, what have you been drinking?”

  A voice different from the first shouted. Actually they weren’t shouting, they were just so drunk they couldn’t hear themselves. I twisted my head to see who was talking.

  Two lovely female goras of the night were staring at me from atop one of the bunk beds at the far end of the cell. Neither had a stitch of clothing on, and both were covered with so much body paint it was clear they’d started out that way.

  Goras were so promiscuous their prostitutes paid the clients.

  Both had the thin, waif-like look of satiated gora women, long gossamer hair clung to the rude but practical paint covering their bodies. When goras weren’t sexually satiated they looked worse than the harpy half-breed and smelled twice as bad.

  “I wasn’t drinking. Some jackass darted me.” I moved my left leg, then emboldened, tried to sit up. It took three tries.

  Glorious laughter trickled out of the prostitute goras’ mouths, but then cut off as they both turned toward the bars.

  The guard who’d first spoken to me in Alric’s place marched forward, then stood at attention as a commander came forth. Thank the goddess, now I could get this mess cleared up and get the hell out of here. This was officially going down as the worst thirty-six hours in my life.

  “Now see here, I don’t know who in the hell told you I was Alric, but there’s a bit of a gender difference.”

  The commander lowered his bushy white brows at me in a look of confusion, or at least as much as he would ever allow to show.

  “Are you one Taryn St. Giles?”

  “Yes, but—”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Then you are in the correct place. You have been brought in for murder. Your trial will be in four weeks.” He glanced around the crowded cell with an evil smirk. “Enjoy your stay.”