A million smart answers sprang to attention, most of them focused on how abnormal Sam was in every way, but my throat felt too swollen and rough to deliver them. Sam’s eyes reflected the ache in my chest, and he leaned down and kissed me heavily on the lips, drawing me into his arms. Not the passionate embrace of first love, but the sweet agony of a couple who knew every kiss might be their last. I wound my arms around his neck and surrendered myself to the moment.
A sharp slap on my buttocks brought the romance to an abrupt halt.
“Is this a joke?” Aza raised her two hands in the air, and I swiveled to remove my stinging backside from the firing line.
Sam rubbed a hand over his butt cheeks and winced. “Did you just crack me on the ass, Aza?”
“You count yourself lucky I didn’t whip your butt, boy. Making out like a couple of lovebirds on the side of the street. Get your heads straight, or I will snap you out of here so fast your head will spin, you got that?” Aza glared from Sam to me, and I nodded my head vigorously.
Aza took a step closer to Sam, and he dropped his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
She clicked her tongue and snapped open her purse, tugging out a small black satin bundle. Muttering to herself, Aza unfolded the fabric to reveal a pair of ballet-style pumps. “I told Niamh a million times, Ireland is no place to bring lovesick puppies. Everybody stopping and kissing on Grafton Street, declaring their love on the Ha’penny bridge—it’s enough to make a woman vomit.” Aza tossed the shoes at me. “Put those on. Gonna’ be another few decades before you can complete a mission in heels.”
I frowned down at the five inches of razor-sharp heel attached to Aza’s sandals as I slipped my toes into the ballet pumps. A groan escaped from my lips. I didn’t even care about looking like a hopeless amateur next to Aza—heaven couldn’t possibly feel better than flat shoes on aching feet. Brandon grabbed my high heels and dashed to the other side of the street, ignoring the Demon’s thunderous glare. He tapped the shoulder of a girl who was standing alone at the edge of a group outside a bar and whispered something into her ear as he handed her the shoes. Her face glowed as she watched him run back to us.
I linked my arm through his and squeezed it tightly. “You know she’s going to be in love with the mysterious designer shoe guy forever now, right?”
Brandon looked back over his shoulder and gave the girl a goofy thumbs-up. A boy, standing behind her, watched the interaction with lowered brows and started to shuffle closer to her. Brandon grinned. “Nah, she’s going to be all right.”
“Ah, Brandon the hero of—whoa!” I stopped short as we reached the end of the street and the side gate of the university came into view. A colossal queue snaked its way slowly along the side of the road, and firework and laser beams flashed across the sky from inside the college walls. The sound of crowds cheering and chanting at the live bands was overpowering even from where we stood. “Dublin knows how to party,” I said. “How the hell are we going to getting into the library without being seen? Actually, how are we going to get in at all if we aren’t allowed slip or use our gifts?”
Aza snapped her mask into place and gestured for us to do the same before she answered me. “You’re going to rely on somebody else’s gifts, princess child.”
The Demon’s smile was deadly sharp as she sashayed her way past the crowds and straight to the top of the queue. Eyes followed her every step.
The head of security at the main gate approached Aza with his palm out, attempting to usher her to the back of the queue. She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, wrapping her long fingers around the other side of his neck. Her magnificent cloud of dark hair hid his face entirely from view, but I caught a glimmer of white as she pressed her lips against his throat. When she pulled away a blissful smile tugged at his mouth, and his eyes followed her devotedly.
She flashed us a wicked grin. “Come on, guys. Patrick is going to give us the grand tour.”
Chapter Five
Grace
Aza beckoned for us to follow her and I picked my way past the waiting crowds apologetically. Patrick nodded at the security guards standing in front of the enormous wooden door, and they stood aside to reveal a smaller door, set inside the giant one. He twisted the handle to let us pass through a hallway with a curved ceiling and out into a breathtaking courtyard.
I took a step forward, looking over the crowds of dancing partygoers and stared at the immaculately maintained buildings flanking all sides. I felt like Alice, but instead of a mushroom, I had shrunken down by a huge bite of history. Sam slipped his fingers through mine and gripped me against his side while we followed Aza and our impromptu tour guide around the heaving quadrant.
Aza whispered into Patrick’s ear, and we came to a halt outside an imposing building. A laser beam flashed through the night from one of the live shows and slid over the granite walls like a colorful shadow. Patrick retrieved a colossal set of keys and a handheld computer from his pocket and began to unlock the door and deactivate the security systems. I reached out and pressed my fingertips against the door as we followed them into the entrance hall. “It’s a beautiful campus, isn’t it?”
“Fancy old buildings, cobblestones, manicured lawns—reminds me of somewhere else we’ve been recently, and that little trip worked out insanely well, didn’t it?” Sarcasm rolled off Sam’s tongue effortlessly. I squeezed the purse under my arm against my body, grateful for the bulk of my Spirit Blade inside as I remembered our narrow escape from the Guardians on our last university visit.
Brandon readjusted his mask and tapped the bridge of his nose. “The two universities are actually markedly dissimilar, Sam. Trinity College has a long tradition of Demon and Human involvement, and while Angelic students aren’t actively discouraged, there are less than ten Angels on the faculty, and none of those have strong links to the High Council.”
Patrick looked up from his computer screen with narrowed eyes. “What did you say?”
Aza stretched her arm out to stroke his face, but Patrick jerked away and backed against the wall. Aza tilted her head to one side apologetically before springing through the air with her mouth open wide and her needle sharp fangs exposed. I squeezed my eyes shut as she descended on him.
“That wore off quicker than I expected. Your mama was right, girl. There’s a drop of fairie blood in every single one of these Irish.” Aza rolled Patrick’s body into a corner and plucked the small computer from his hands. “We’re going to need this, Patrick—sorry.”
Sam let out a low whistle. “Man. I was not expecting to see any bloodsucking deaths tonight.”
“Cool yourself, boy. He’s only sleeping.” She shot him a poisonous glance from the corner of her eye as she tapped her fingers on the computer screen and unlocked a door. “If we survive this war alive, you and I are going to be spending a lot of time on your studies, Samuel. It’s a crime for somebody with such power to be so filled with ignorance.”
Sam blinked at her back as Aza disappeared through the doorway. I gave him a sympathetic grimace as we followed her. Sam grumbled under his breath. “It was a joke. Demon studies mightn’t be my forte, but I’m hardly the black hole of ignorance, right?”
Brandon screwed up his eyes. “Black hole of ignorance—I’m confused by your use of imagery. Are you asking me if I think you’re so full of ignorance that you have collapsed in on yourself and—”
Sam’s lip curled. “Brandon, man, you’re draining me. Could you please not make every single scenario into a—”
“Shut up!” I thrust my two arms out, silencing them both with a smack to the solar plexus. My mouth gaped open as I took a step forward and tilted my head to examine the breathtaking scene in front of us. Sam pulled his Spirit Blade from his inside pocket and held it aloft like a torch of Spirit Light, illuminating the endless rows of books that rose from the floor and up onto a gallery on either side. I pressed my hands against my throat and inhaled the sweet, musty smell of old books. “There must be thousands.�
�
“Over two hundred thousand books in the Long Room alone.” I jerked my head and squinted at Sam. He raised one shoulder. “I wasn’t the one who said I was ignorant.”
Brandon grinned as he passed us and followed Aza’s bobbing light toward a collection of glass cases. Aza snapped her fingers in the air. “Here it is, children. Do your work quickly, I have manipulated the computer system to make it appear as if there has been no breach, but I was unable to divert the routine security visit without alerting people to our presence. We have ten minutes before a security team arrives here and finds their boss unconscious inside the front door.”
I took a deep breath and faced the glass covered manuscript. I could feel Aza and Brandon’s eyes boring through the side of my skull as I approached the book—willing me to discover something that would change our standing in this war and help us fight the Elders. Help us prevent the mass genocide of the Human race.
No pressure.
The glass was cold under my fingertips. “Okay, what am I looking at?” I stared down at the exquisitely detailed page and bit my lip. “I remember from the Junior Cert history syllabus that the manuscript is hundreds of years old. It’s the gospels, right?”
Sam nodded and stepped closer to me, peering into the case over my shoulder. “It’s written on vellum. Emmanuel reckoned nearly two hundred calves worth. The work of a monk on the island of Iona.”
I glanced up at Aza who was standing to our left. “Jonah’s friend was a monk?”
“Yes.” I raised my eyebrows and Aza crushed her lips together. “I didn’t know him, he was living in seclusion before I arrived in your world.”
“As a monk?” Sam stretched the words out.
“Yes, child, as a monk. He had been here longer than any of the other Demons. It was his trail that Jonah followed to this realm, but by the time Jonah found him the Veil had fallen and he was half mad with grief. People think Jonah was crazy? Ha—from what Niamh tells me, this man was twice as kooky. Said he could smell the evil in this world. Maybe crazy was just a family trait.”
“They were family? Jonah and this monk?” I crushed my knuckles against my forehead.
“He was Jonah’s daddy. That’s what people think started the madness in Jonah, his father taking his own life. It must be a cruel thing to understand—why your parent would give up on a world that their child still existed in.” Aza stared down at the manuscript and shook her head. “But he sure knew how to make words look beautiful.”
I ran my finger over the glass, tracing the intricate Celtic design on the page below. Brandon leaned closer. “They change the page every day. I’ve never seen this one before.”
A forest of wild animals wound their way around the script. The pigment was still vibrant, even after hundreds of year. I could understand how Jonah had spent years looking at the book—an entire mortal lifetime would not be enough time to examine every detail.
My shoulders straightened at the thought of Jonah and I forced myself to clear my mind. I let my eyes mist over and drew air into my lungs, hoping for the page to pull me in as Jonah’s diary had, but the manuscript remained unchanged—beautiful but inanimate.
I swiveled to face Sam. “We need to combine out magic.” Aza opened her mouth to speak and I grabbed her hand. “Please, Aza. One try, then we’ll leave. I promise.”
Aza stared down at the small computer tablet she had taken from Patrick and sighed. “You have four minutes. No more.”
“Thank you, Aza.” I released her fingers with a grateful squeeze and turned to find Sam already had his shirt unbuttoned and his torso exposed. My stomach contracted and I felt the familiar rush of blood to my face that seemed to be my biological response to his bare flesh.
Sam eyed my full-length dress. “This is going to be interesting.”
“Maybe if I…” I pulled at the straps of the dress, stopping short when I remembered my braless state. Aza tapped the computer screen and widened her eyes. I looked from her to Brandon. “Sorry, it just works better if we’re physically connected. Because we haven’t practiced much. Jonah said skin to skin is most powerful—”
I squealed as Aza placed the computer tablet on the glass case, grabbed the front hem of my dress between her two hands and ripped it all the way up to my ribcage. She pulled it apart and tied it behind my back, leaving me standing in what was essentially a cropped top and a pair of knickers. I glared at her and dropped my hands to my crotch. She picked up the computer and returned my stare. “Three minutes.”
Shit. I threw my arms around Sam and crushed my bare flesh against his. His magic hit me like a freight train, enveloping my body in a blissful coat of complicated beauty. I tilted my head to meet his eyes and forced myself not drop my gaze—the connection was intense enough to burn my skin.
Without speaking, we turned to face the manuscript and immediately the world began to tilt under my feet as the book dragged us in. I dug my fingernails into Sam’s back. My eyes twitched rapidly, and my heart began to pound. This was nothing like Jonah’s soft whisper. This was a scream. A terrible, clawing, tortured shriek. I tore myself away from Sam and stumbled into the glass case, beating my fists against my eyes. Sam heaved twice before regaining his composure.
The sound of distant voices ripped us from the moment, and Aza’s fingers whipped through the air as she opened a portal to Hidden Cottage and yanked me across the floor. Sam’s strained voice came from a thousand miles away as Brandon helped him through the portal. “He didn’t kill himself—Jonah’s father. He was murdered.”
Chapter Six
Grace
“You are certain you didn’t misinterpret the manuscript?” Niamh stopped pacing the floor and twisted her pinched face in my direction. “Perhaps, you were overawed by the surroundings? The Long Room is distracting in its beauty. And the Book of Kells is unrivaled—you may have been confused.”
“There was no mistake. It was exactly as Grace described—the manuscript showed us the monk being confronted by the Elders at his work. And how the confrontation ended.” Niamh flinched in response to Sam’s words.
Gabriel leaned heavily against the wall beside Eve. “You’re sure it was the Elders?”
I nodded. “Yes. Peter was there.”
“I recognized one of the other Elders too. One that used to . . . visit me in the Silent Homes when I was a kid—I only realized that he was an Elder when I saw him in the painting Jonah showed us under the Shadow City.” Sam’s voice was strained. He glanced in my direction, and I tried belatedly to disguise my surprise at this piece of information. Sam’s face hardened. “I didn’t mention it before because it had no bearing on anything.”
Aza opened her mouth to speak, but Gabriel silenced her with a shake of his head. He crossed the floor with soundless steps and crouched down in front of where Sam and I were sitting. The light from the computer monitors on the wall behind Aza flickered across Gabriel’s face and painted his skin with a rainbow of colors. “The monk was arguing with the Elders about his work?”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress and chewed at the corner of my lip. “Not really arguing, it was more like they were handing down a punishment that he guessed was coming? He wasn’t surprised—just sad. He wanted to see Jonah before he died.”
My voice cracked, and Sam picked up my ragged train of thought. “The Elders said he had been told to stop digging, the Spirit Demons were not his concern, but it was too late now because he hadn’t heeded their warning.”
“What had he learned about the Spirit Demons, Sam?” Gabriel pressed his fingers into Sam’s knees, and Sam shifted back in his chair with a clenched jaw. Gabriel lifted his hands and held them in the air. “I’m sorry. You’ve already said you don’t know.”
Niamh’s lips thinned, and she widened her arms. “But surely Jonah’s father must have left some trace of the message he wanted someone to discover? It’s a Seeker’s mark—why waste it on merely showing his death? If he left the message for Jonah, is that what he wa
nted him to witness? His execution?”
I dropped my gaze and stared at the floor. Sam’s fingers wound between mine and squeezed tightly. A surge of gratitude warmed my chest as I met his eye—he had felt it too, I was certain of it. That message was never meant for Jonah. The monk had been staring straight at us.
Eve stepped forward and pressed her hand onto Niamh’s shoulder. “The children bear no responsibly for what the Seeker shared.”
Niamh covered her eyes with her hands and inhaled deeply before pushing back her shoulders and lifting her chin. “Yes. Of course.”
“I think he wanted us to know he was studying the Spirit Demons, and whatever information he uncovered was valuable enough for the Elders to kill him to prevent him sharing it. I think that he was hiding his research in the book. We should examine it again.” The words burst from my lips like bullets from a gun.
Aza pointed a long finger at the wall of screens. Each one showed a different live CCTV feed from Trinity College. Crowds of party-goers were being ushered off the grounds, their masquerade masks unable to conceal the disappointment at the premature end to the night’s revelries. The cameras inside the library revealed a huge team of security and members of the police force assisting university staff to carefully transport the manuscripts into armored trucks waiting to be loaded in the square.
“They think we were trying to steal the manuscript?” Sam asked.
Brandon grimaced. “It will be all over international news by now. No chance the Elders will miss it, do you think they will suspect what Grace and Sam were trying to do? That the monk might have left a message in the manuscript?”
“We would be fools to assume otherwise.” Niamh pinched her mouth closed and crossed her arms. “No. We can’t risk trying to access the manuscript again.” Niamh stared at Gabriel. “We could talk to Callum. He was Jonah’s father’s assistant for centuries.”
The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series) Page 50