Arden, no longer in control of her emotions after the mention of the kidnappers, began to shake. Her eyes glazed over, and she lost focus.
“Yes. They wanted to blow up the market. “
“Who were they?”
Arden quaked, and she reached inside her vest, Gibbs’s hands flew up instinctively as she pulled out a bottle. Taking two pills she swallowed them in one gulp. The act alone, calmed the woman and she stared at Gibbs, eye to eye.
“Those artifacts don’t belong in this world. Your market has done this before, selling objects belonging King Solomon. Objects that need to be hidden and never see the light of day. The market you’re so intent on protecting needs to be destroyed.”
“This was his plan all along? Yes? Robert coming to see you was your way in wasn’t it?”
Arden nodded. “Yes. After Benaiah died, after the ring was lost, I knew it was only a matter of time before I found it again. I heard the Fraternitatem was here, I knew the Wizard Guard had the ring. I just needed the ring.” She cackled. The sound bounced off walls, Gibbs felt it vibrate against the table.
“The Fraternitatem wasn’t responsible for the plan to blow up the market?”
She shook her head. “No. Benaiah asked for my help. He was angry that the djinn wanted the ring. He wanted the market gone. He and the Fraternitatem… he and the Fraternitatem no longer agreed on the direction of the order. They fought. And, well, you know what happened.”
“The Fraternitatem kidnapped you and trained you as their assassin. Is that correct?”
Arden’s only answer was a wide smile.
Chapter 32
June 1970
The Fraternitatem of Solomon. I can’t help but wonder what their true intentions are. They—Nicky—took me. They waited for someone to decide to find the ring. Nicky insinuated himself into my dig for the sake of finding the ring. He took me, took my life, and now I find out it’s all for this Fraternitatem.
July 1970
They promise me this is for the greater good. The ring is dangerous and needs to be hidden. I work all day, all night to find the spell to turn the ring on. And then what, hide it forever?
Sept 1970
I found the spell. Nicky said it is good and I’ll be able to go home. Home. I’ve missed so much. They tell me I’ve been here for a year. I met with the Fraternitatem of Solomon today. This group says it is for the greater good, saving the world from the ring. Keeping the ring safely hidden, away from society.
January 1971
I don’t trust them. They want to train me. Reward me for my sacrifice. For my skill. I’ve helped them so much. They think I will be a good fit for the Fraternitatem.
August 1971
I’ve been home for months. It feels foreign, like I no longer belong to this world. I belong to the Fraternitatem. I can shoot a gun; I can brew potions. I’ve seen so much that I can’t unsee. I belong with them. Not here, cataloguing bones and shards of clay. They promise me more, saying that I will be useful in the future and be able to continue my training.
September 1971
I’ve been contacted with my first job. The ring is missing. My ring is gone. How they let that happen I will never know, and I’m mad, angry. That was my hard work. It’s all gone.
October 1971
The Fraternitatem of Solomon paid for my excavation. After learning about my thesis claiming there was another temple of Solomon hidden in the desert, they offered me the money for the dig. It was them all along. They used me, and I can’t escape.
I shot my first man. A market in Tibet. We were both chasing the ring. It should have been here but we’re too late. The ring is gone again.
“Hi, sweetheart. Look who I’ve brought.” Kathy entered through the fabric walls that surrounded Annie’s bed. She dropped the diary in her lap. Annie let Kathy envelope her in her motherly arms. Kathy didn’t let go as she smoothed the back of Annie’s hair. The scent of strawberries and vanilla, warm and familiar, wafted to Annie. It was the same scent she wore, the gift Kathy had given her when Annie first came to live with her and Ryan after her father died.
It had been a little treat, one of many she gave to help Annie from her darkness. Eight years after her father’s death, it was the one gift that still comforted her. Annie took a deep sniff.
“I’m okay now, Kathy. You can stop.” Annie said. She rolled her eyes for Ryan’s sake; he chuckled behind his wife.
“Sorry. We just saw Don and Marina. Cham’s doing well.”
“Yeah. He’s awake. I thought you were staying away?” Annie asked Ryan. As the Grand Marksman, he should be at home serving his term, rather than surveying the situation on site.
“I need to be here, for you for all of this,” he said.
“Yeah. It is. The market’s gone, there’s hundreds of shape shifters that can’t change back, and I can’t get my work done with all these interruptions.” She smiled for their benefit, but only Ryan laughed.
“Annie, you need your rest.” Kathy said gently.
“Yeah, you do.” Samantha ran into the tent and flopped on the bed. Her arms wrapped around Annie. She offered her sister a kiss on the cheek and grimaced at Annie’s stench. “You need a bath,” she said.
“Go help someone else. I’m fine.”
Samantha pulled away, her lips pursed together. “Yeah, yeah. I have been since you’ve been asleep. Now you’re awake. Can’t I visit?” She kissed the top of Annie’s head and didn’t let go.
I must stink!
“As much as I love you being here, I have work to do,” Annie said firmly and shifted on the uncomfortable cot, readjusting the pillows.
“You need rest,” Kathy reiterated.
“I need to resolve this.” Annie was firm, but Kathy and Samantha were unconvinced.
“Two things. Zola’s doing great, by the way. And this came for you.” Samantha handed her a scroll, sealed with a wax glob with no particular design inside. Annie broke the seal and unrolled the note.
The second spell is meant to blow up the market. Benaiah’s idea. Stop the market from selling anymore objects. Gibbs
“That’s a new one.” She handed the note to Ryan.
After reading it quickly, he asked, “Have you found anything in her diary?”
Annie fumbled with the diary and opened the book to her last read entry. “I think they’re a wealthy group. They funded Arden’s excavation. My guess based on Gibbs’s note is that the Fraternitatem has basically good intentions. They keep King Solomon’s artifacts safe and out of dangerous hands. Benaiah wanted to blow up the market to keep items from entering it. He probably stole the ring, and offered it to the djinn once he was in control. Once he had the ring at the market, he could blow it up. In his mind, without the market there’s no place to sell the items. A little short sighted.”
Ryan grimaced. “Without the big market, little markets will be popping up everywhere. You’re right. This wasn’t well thought out. Unless Benaiah just wanted to bring down the Fraternitatem and this is how he chose to do it.”
“Why would he want that?” Samantha’s frown hung low with worry and concern, though Annie thought she often looked like that without cause.
“It can be a host of things, sweetie.” Ryan sighed.
“Sam, Dad dealt with them eight years ago. He knew Benaiah. They told him to drop his case, and they took back the Chintamani Stones he was after.”
“But that’s a long time ago,” she whined.
Sometimes I could just smack you.
Annie rolled her eyes instead.
“Not such a long time if your organization is over two thousand years old. Eight years, that’s just enough time to remember. The stones get out, Benaiah waits for the right time, waits to find the ring and he moves forward with the plan. And as it turns out, we’ll be the ones who make that plan a reality.”
“Anything else in the diary?” Ryan paced in the aisle between Annie’s row of beds and the others across from her. Elves, trolls, a
nd wizards were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Many of them slept, probably resting for the first time in days. An older witch with long, white, straw-like hair observed Ryan carefully.
Annie nodded once, forcing him to close the walls around her bed.
“Nothing yet. Lial and Mrs. Cuttlebrink are looking for the exact location of the Fraternitatem. I think it’s time to bring them down. They caused a huge problem for us.”
“I’ll see where Milo is on that. Rest,” he said and kissed her cheek. “I’ll come back when I can.”
Preoccupied, Ryan hurried from Annie’s bed space and headed out the crowded tent.
“I have work to do. You take a nap.” Samantha offered Annie a smile.
“There’s no time, but I’ll see you later.” They touched hands before Samantha headed out to care for the elves. Annie sighed and fell back against the pillows.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Janie squeezed Annie’s hand. “Ready to see Cham?”
“You have no idea.”
Annie let them assist her into the wheelchair. Though she protested she was strong enough to make it on her own, Kathy and Janie walked with her through a less chaotic medical camp.
Even when she entered the tent where Cham convalesced it felt different—lighter, higher energy.
When she saw him, he was sitting up, resting against several pillows, looking much less pale than the previous night. He smiled widely when he saw her and patted the cot beside him.
Annie waved away help and sat on the cot, which sunk several inches with her added weight.
“Hey.” Cham didn’t let Annie answer before his mouth was on hers, his near death experience weighing heavily on both their minds. She smelled the smoke in his hair and stifled a cough.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He played with the ends of her hair and touched her cheek and her chin where his fingers lingered. “For what?”
“For leaving you down there.” That guilt had been sitting in her chest since she regained consciousness. The walls had crumbled around him; she saw it every time she closed her eyes.
I should have waited with him.
“I was saving you.” He leaned his chin against her shoulder. His breath rattled as he inhaled and again with an exhale. He wasn’t doing as well as she had been told. “Let me do that for you sometimes.”
“We could have done it together.”
“We both could have died.” Cham coughed and leaned back against the pillows. He pulled Annie to him, and she snuggled against his chest, where she could hear the fluid rattling inside. Annie shuddered, fearful he might still be in danger from something she couldn’t save him from.
I almost lost you.
“How are you feeling, Anne Elizabeth?” Annie looked up to see Marina, whose voice was motherly, warm, and loving. Marina was clearly tired. The circles under eyes were dark and deep.
“Much better. Thanks.”
Marina reached for her hand and held it, rubbing her thumb against Annie’s palm, something Cham did for her regularly. The action calmed Annie; maybe it calmed them too.
Though Marina didn’t always like the influence Annie had over her son, Annie knew Cham’s mother loved her.
Because I can really control what he does.
Annie smiled to herself.
“You okay?” Cham whispered.
“Yeah. I’m better than okay.” Her arm lay across his chest. She rubbed his left arm and stared through the open curtains into the larger tent that had added a few patients since the night before.
“Oh, I am so glad you two are both okay. I’ve never been more worried.” Marina wrung her hands together.
Before Annie could assure her they were both fine, Lial entered the semi-private room.
“Hey Annie, Cham. So good to see you guys are okay. Sorry to bother you.” He grinned broadly, exposing a gap in his front teeth. Annie sat and noticed Marina’s glare as Lial entered the personal space.
“What’s up?” Cham asked.
Lial held up the ring; it shone brightly under the artificial light.
All of this trouble caused by that stupid ring.
“I see you got into my storage unit just fine,” Annie remarked.
“No, not really. We figured it out though. Are you sure you’re up for this?” Lial asked.
“We have no choice. We have to turn that zoo back to human.” She was reluctant to leave Cham behind, wanting to stay here in his arms. “I have to go.” Even as he convalesced in bed, his arms were strong around her, protective.
“Do you have to leave? You should rest too,” Marina said in a tone more peeved than concerned.
“I will. When this is over. For now, we have to change the shapeshifters back before we can’t.” She kissed Cham, and the stubble on his chin scratched her cheek. “I’ll come back later.”
“I thought the ring will destroy the market. How are you doing this?” Kathy asked.
“We have two spells. One to control the djinn. Mrs. Cuttlebrink is sure that’s what it does. And the second spell will eviscerate the market. We think,” Annie said.
“Can’t someone else do it? You’re still weak,” Marina asked.
“It’s so dangerous,” Kathy wrung her hands.
“I love you, mama. It’ll be okay.” Annie gave her a warm hug and sat back in the wheelchair. With a wave goodbye to Marina and Kathy and a hug from Janie, Annie let herself be wheeled to what was now referred to as the zoo.
Chapter 33
“And that’s it, you think?” Exhausted, Jack followed Milo back to the fourth portal in Busse Woods. They had been tracking roaming shapeshifters all day and sending them to Patagonia. Graham Lightner and his team rejoined them after casting another round of spells that kept the protection around the market mostly intact. Another plume of smoke had just disappeared. The black cloud grew smaller, though not by much.
“Yeah. But keep an eye out.” Milo ordered. “Graham. What’s the word?”
Graham’s sallow, pale face was covered in soot, and a five o’clock shadow had begun to grow in. He had been caring for the protection spell for too many hours. He wiped his hands across his brow, leaving behind his handprint, and frowned, creating deep lines in his forehead and around his mouth.
“All that’s left is the protection spell,” Graham said. “Did you hear about Cham?”
“What happened to Cham?” Jack asked. He’d been with Milo all day and had no idea when he heard whatever he heard.
“I got a text. The incinerators in the market blew, Cham was in the elf dormitory when it caved in. Bitherby saved him. He and Annie are fine in the temporary hospital in Argentina.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I’ve been worried about them for days.” Jack paced in the mud and grasses.
“Jack. I’m sorry. We’re all under stress. I saw the note and moved on. I can’t change what happened, and we all have our jobs to do.” Milo said pointing toward the clearing and the nonmagicals that were still loitering inside.
“Then let me help. I can do more than search for shapeshifters.”
“We’re going to have to say something to the world regarding this. Maybe then we’ll have you help us.” Graham advised. “Until then we need to make sure that the rest of the shapeshifters are out of the woods and that we’re still fanning the protection spell. I think it’s cleaned out. We’ll be ready to blow it then.”
Jack followed Graham’s gaze to the sky and back to the wizards in the middle of the forest. “Um, won’t that still leave questions? An explosion in the middle of the forest?”
“It’s a magical bomb. We’ll wipe the market from the plane of existence, so when the protection spell fails, there won’t be anything here,” Graham explained.
“So while you do that, can I go to Patagonia?” Jack asked Milo. The wizard guard manager surveyed the forest, listening for nonmagical voices that were still trying to get a handle on the phenomenon of the fireless smoke.
&nbs
p; “Actually, Jack, you come with me. I can use you in the market,” Graham advised.
“I agree. You okay with that, Jack? I can’t have you near the ring. Protection and all,” Milo explained.
“Sure, whatever. I’ll help in the market,” Jack said.
Milo waved and teleported before Jack could protest.
“Come on, Jack. Consider yourself lucky. You are one of the only nonmagicals to ever see inside of THE black market.” Graham offered a smile and waved Jack forward.
“I’ll consider myself lucky,” he griped. If Graham heard his tone he ignored it and led Jack toward the clearing, close enough to hear the din of voices of those still observing the smoke. Before hitting the crowd, they walked a narrow path roughly four inches wide.
“Watch the ivy. It’s called needleweed, and once it attaches to you it will grow quickly, completely surround you, and strangle you.”
“You have the creepiest things in this world,” said Jack. As instructed he kept himself to the thin strip of mud and snow, teetering slightly as he tried too hard to not step on the vines.
I wonder if he’s exaggerating.
Jack didn’t want to find out and sidestepped his way to Graham, who stood in front of an empty space, staring at it as if there was something there.
“It’s one of the only remaining portals,” Graham said. He reached his hand through out in front of him and held it there before pulling it back. “It’s wrong though.”
“What’s the matter with it?” Jack worried, wringing his hands since he was afraid to start pacing against the needleweed.
“It was designed to work with the protection spell. Anyone nonmagical coming near would feel a chill, an ominous sense of dread.”
Jack reached his hand into the air. He felt a buzz and pulled his hand away.
“It’s vibrating,” Jack said.
Graham chuckled. “It’s the remnant of the magic. For many millennia, the portals fought to control this space with the nonmagical world. Just weeks ago, if you came near one of these the cold would chill you to the bone. The magic’s dying.”
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