Wolves and the River of Stone (8 page)

“Thanks,” she said. She flipped a piece of velvet off the third shelf to reveal a plethora of obsidian jewelry.

There were several pendants, one of which I would have bought in a heartbeat, and that made me very glad Sam had mentioned Nixie’s aquamarine pendant. I looked over the earrings for a while and then laughed.

“What?”

“I don’t know if she has pierced ears. Hell, I don’t know if her ears
can
be pierced.”

“Well, I have some clip-ons, but I really don’t like the things. Too easy to lose and they hurt if you wear them too long.”

I nodded and lifted a heavy bracelet out of the corner slot. My eyes widened as the light from the ceiling fixture hit it. The blue obsidian was thin enough to let light through, but it didn’t feel fragile. A ring of discs made up the bracelet, woven together with a fine silver chain. Each disc had four eighth-inch notches that allowed the chain to be wrapped repeatedly until it formed a square across the front of each. I glanced up at Ashley. “How much?”

She smiled and adjusted her monkeys. “For you? And the convenient hours you call?”

I snorted a laugh and nodded.

“Just make it fifty bucks.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously, especially if you’ll leave, so I can sleep.”

I had a feeling she was cutting me a serious deal. “Fair enough, oh priestess.”

She smacked my arm hard as she stood up and closed the chest with a smile.

“Where did you get these stones? I’ve never seen anything like them.”

She glanced at the front wall which had a neat row of photos hanging vertically between the window and the half wall. “Oh, I was visiting my relatives in Germany. I try to go once every ten years or so. When the Rhine River was low, we found a cache of them buried with some broken pottery in the river bottom.” She took the bracelet out of my hand and rubbed her thumbs over the discs. “They were close to Thurnberg. I don’t know if we were actually supposed to be there, but ...” she shrugged and smiled.

“Close to what?” I said.

“Thurnberg, it’s sometimes called Maus Castle. It’s along the Rhine, pretty close to Rheinfels Castle. Well, it’s across the river, anyway.”

“Never been there.”

“Have you even been to Germany?”

“Nope.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “A lot of people haven’t been there, but it’s a beautiful place.”

I stood up and took the bracelet as Ashley handed it back to me. I handed her fifty dollars.

She walked over to the desk in the corner and pulled out a small cardboard box. “It should fit in here.”

“Perfect. Thanks,” I said as we both walked to the door.

“I’m sure I’ll see you around the shop sometime soon,” she said.

“Sounds good. You should get some sleep.”

She gave me a lopsided grin as she closed the door behind me.

I
t took almost an hour to get to the Pit from Ashley’s house. Considering I’m usually comatose at this hour, I had no idea how much construction went on in the dead of morning. It was enough to have me cursing at everything as I made my way past the final flagman.

Highway 270 was blessedly clear and I was speeding a little too much in celebration. It was only a few minutes before I passed under the decorative overpass at Olive, which boasts more landscaping than my apartment complex, before I got off at Ladue. I took a few more twists and turns until I finally arrived at the U-shaped drive in front of the Pit.

I tucked Nixie’s bracelet into the glove box and locked Vicky’s doors before I walked up to the black front doors, with six decorative panels embedded in each. I glanced up and shook my head at the enormous chandelier hanging above the porch. It was dripping with antique bronze chains, which matched the core of the chandelier and stretched to the wall and the pillars at the front of the porch.

I used my secret knock, which involved pressing the doorbell over and over and over until an irritated vampire opened the door. Footsteps sounded behind the door, and quickly turned into irritated stomping. The door whipped open to reveal Vik, who had an impressive scowl etched across his face. It was an intimidating look, with his sharp nose and cheekbones. He had on an unremarkable white button-down shirt and olive slacks, but his raven-black hair was trimmed to a quarter inch, with a lengthier stripe down the middle. It wasn’t his usual style, but he hadn’t been himself for a while.

I stared at the stripe for a moment, until Vik slowly raised one eyebrow.

“Hi!” I said with as much teenage-style perk as I could muster.

“Vesik,” he grumbled and nodded. “I assume you are looking for Zola?”

“Yeah.”

“She is still in the archives. I will take you in.”

My eyes widened. “Really? You don’t usually let me in.”

“You need to see what she has found.”

I beat the mixture of excitement and dread back with a bat and said, “Okay.”

I glanced at the cherry bench on the right side of the entryway as we walked by. It was my usual waiting place while vampires milled around me, but today there wasn’t another vampire in sight. The Pit’s house was beautiful, and my curiosity about our lack of company quickly vanished as my eyes wandered over the entryway. A vaulted ceiling spread out from the front door and over a magnificent wooden staircase, with a path to the basement in the center and two sides that flared out and met on the second floor. We started up the right side and I got a good look at the ancient coat of arms hanging above the stairs to the basement. The swords had been cleaned and oiled again since their use in last year’s battle. We continued on to the second floor and Vik turned left down the empty, wainscoted hallway.

“Where is everyone?” I said.

“The sun is rising, so most are already downstairs.”

“Oh yeah, it’s morning.” I laughed. “I’m not usually up this early, much less here.”

Vik nodded and continued his steady stride toward the archive.

Almost all of the vampires I knew were paranoia in motion. Sunlight wouldn’t kill them; it would only weaken them to near-human levels of strength. They didn’t burst into flames or anything, at least not without help. Only the young ones, who’ve yet to reach their full paranoia potential, prowl the daytime streets. Most vampires avoid daylight because they don’t trust other vampires not to kill them in their weakened state, never mind the fact the other vampires would be just as weak. Ah, the gift of paranoia.

My escort stopped at the end of the second story hallway. The door was titanium, painted to look like wood. I’d rarely seen the other side. You drop one little four hundred year old tome ...

I smiled at the memory and looked at Vik. He was almost as tall as me, and I stand about six five, but his shoulders had a slight slump to them, giving away more than he probably realized about his mental state after Devon’s betrayal last year. Getting over your ex-girlfriend become a demon-worshipping warlock before trying to kill you and all your friends is something I hope I never have to relate to. “How’re you doing Vik?”

He paused and met my eyes. “I am better, Damian. Thank you.” He smiled a little as he turned around and unlocked the door to the archives with his thumb print. The locks disengaged with a muted click.

As he pulled the door open, he said, “Try not to drop anything.”

“That was an accident!” I said. “You know I love old books.”

I caught a hint of a true smile as he closed the door behind me in silence and left me to the archive.

For a few minutes, I just stared. Row upon row of brushed metal shelving ran from the floor to the twelve-foot ceiling on either side of the entryway. The shelves were so packed there was hardly space to add anything more. The outer walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling display cases filled with antiques and memorabilia the vampires had collected over hundreds of years. The windows had been bricked over to prevent UV damage to the antiques and books, some of which were thousands of years old. You couldn’t see the bricks from the outside; the windows just looked like curtains from the street. The archive took up the entire south wing of the second floor, which was no small thing.

“Shit,” I whispered as I shook my head and walked toward the reading nook. It was in the back row, all the way to the right. I had always thought I had a lot of books on the second floor of the shop, but this was something else entirely.

Zola was there, hunched over with her nose about three inches from a yellowed monstrosity of a tome. As I got closer I could see the brittle parchment was hand written and still legible. Even with her nose literally buried in a book, Zola has an intense presence. Her braids fell to either side of her head as her white gloved fingers danced down the pages. Tiny bits of iron and Magrasnetto tinkled as she glanced at me. Her eyes were bright and slightly sunken below her forehead, hidden among her distinguished wrinkles. Zola leaned back into her deep gray cloak and squeezed the bridge of her nose.

She sighed, looked up again, and gestured to the mesh seat beside her. “Pull up a chair, boy.” Her old world New Orleans accent was heavy when she was tired, and now it was very heavy indeed.

I looked at the display case in the corner as I pulled out the chair. One of the vampires—I think Sam said it was Vassili—was a gun nut. He’d amassed an astounding collection of engraved rifles, ancient hand cannons, and pistols. I recognized a few, like a Colt Dragoon, and an 1851 Colt engraved Navy revolver, but there were far more obscure weapons like a harmonica pistol in the case too. Perhaps most impressive were the rows and rows of dueling pistols, many of which purportedly participated in some monumental and infamous conflicts. I sat down and turned my attention back to Zola.

“Vik said you found something.”

“Ah suppose you could say that,” she said as her eyes rolled back down to the open book. “Vik does like to oversimplify.” Zola paged back and forth in the book and sighed. “Ah believe Philip could resurrect Prosperine without your blood.”

“How?” I said.

“By using a soulstone.” She turned the book so I could read the page.

I stared at the words for a moment. “What language is that?”

“A dead one. Older than Sumerian, and Camazotz believes it is over 10,000 years dead. We don’t know how old the writing is.”

“You can read it?”

“No.” Her voice was small and her eyes flicked across the room.

“Meaning?”

“Ah called in a favor from Ronwe.”

I blinked a few times. “You called in a favor to a demon? How in hell does a
demon
owe
you
a favor?” I held up my hand and said, “Actually, never mind. I’d rather not know.”

Zola’s lips quirked up just a little. “That is wise of you.” She nodded and pointed to some of the illustrations on the page. “These give you the basics.” She turned to the next page and I did a double take. It had a drawing of a crystal almost identical to one I’d seen very recently.

“The one in the corner looks like the artifact Tessrian is bound in.”

“Yes, it does. The book calls it a bloodstone. From what Ah can tell, it is much like a soulstone, only formed on the battlefields of demons, not men.”

“It traps a demon’s soul?”

“Not a soul, no. It absorbs fragments of the demons themselves as they’re obliterated.”

“So is the crystal with Tessrian in it just a fragment of a demon, or is it actually Tessrian?”

“Oh, it is Tessrian.” Zola chuckled and flashed a wicked grin. “Ah put the bitch down myself.”

I stifled a shiver at the gleam in Zola’s eyes. “Does it say how to destroy it?” She nodded and my excitement died almost as fast as it was born. “And you didn’t tell me this already because of
what
terrible portent of doom?”

“You’re getting wise in your old age, boy.”

I sagged back in the mesh chair, staring at the taupe ceiling for a moment before I blew out a breath. “Hit me with it.”

Zola’s finger followed along the page as she said, “To destroy a bloodstone one must fuse it to a soulstone in the Devil’s Forge and smash it with the Smith’s Hammer. What truly worries me, is the chance Philip has to release the demon trapped in a bloodstone. He may only need a soulstone, or the right soulart.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ah think we need to destroy Tessrian’s stone.”

My face curled into a frown and I said, “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

She chuckled and rested her chin on her knuckles with her elbows on the dark wooden table. “Really? If Ah didn’t know better Ah would assume you have no idea what either the Devil’s Forge or the Smith’s Hammer is.”

“I may be a bit rusty on the topic,” I said as I scratched my head. “How hard is it to find a blacksmith’s hammer?”

Zola laughed outright.
“The
Smith’s Hammer, Damian. Some legends place the hammer in Vulcan’s forge. Others label it the cause for Vesuvius’s eruption and the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii in 79. That is 79 AD.”

I stared at Zola in disbelief.

“It is
the
Smith’s Hammer, Damian, not
a
smith’s hammer.”