by Unknown
“Sure.”
The towel wrapped around her didn’t feel nearly big enough. She walked to her bag, which sat on the chair, and fished around for jeans and a shirt. The heat of his eyes burned into her back as she dropped the towel and tugged them on. It was unexpectedly intimate to change in front of him and a shiver went down her spine.
“I’m going to shower.”
She didn’t turn to face him. “Okay. We’ve still got an hour before it’s quiet enough to break in. I’m going to go keep an eye on the museum through the window.”
“All right.”
Her grip on her shirt loosened when she heard pipes squeal from the running water. A great sigh heaved out of her. Treating this as something casual wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped.
An hour later, Ian followed Fiona down the stairs and out onto the rain-dampened street. They’d spent the last hour at the window, surveying the museum to see if any of the god’s demons would try to get in, but he hadn’t been able to keep his mind off Fiona.
He couldn’t help but feel like he’d been cleaned out. Like the worst of the fog that prison had cast over his mind had dissipated. It’d been a hell of an introduction back to the real world, but it had worked.
The whole time he’d been in prison, as new prisoners had told of the changes that were occurring in the outside world, he’d thought that the biggest thing he’d have to adjust to would be changing culture and technology.
He’d been wrong. It had been connecting with another person. He’d known he was lonely in prison, but he hadn’t realized how much so until Fiona had shown up. The connection he felt with her reminded him that he wasn’t broken after all.
She had done that for him. He felt pathetically grateful to her and helplessly intrigued. He’d wanted it to be just another shag. Like any of the nights with countless women before he’d been thrown in prison.
But it hadn’t been. It’d been more. He liked her, more than ever now. Sure, maybe it was infatuation because she’d sprung him from jail. And she hated that he was a thief. Probably didn’t even trust him.
But she’d been with him today, been more generous than he’d had any right to hope for, when he was at his lowest low. He wore a collar, for fuck’s sake.
He glanced at her as she strode across the street toward the museum. Confidence blazed from her, brighter than the car headlights in the distance.
No woman had ever been with him when he hadn’t been at his best. It had taken him nearly forty years to figure out the true extent of his powers and learn to use them well. Once Ian had accumulated some wealth, life had been fine. Women had flocked to him.
But when he’d been poor and powerless, no woman had ever wanted him. He couldn’t blame them. Poverty had made him a mean bastard. Without charm or wealth, there’d been no woman willing to take a risk on him, especially not when they’d lived in a time when, more often than not, a woman needed a man to take care of her if she didn’t want to face a life of poverty and never-ending drudgery.
But Fiona lived in the modern age. She took care of herself and had the freedom to choose anyone. Even a criminal. Thank you, women’s liberation.
He shook his head. None of it mattered. As soon as they got to the book, he’d have to use it to force her to free him. She’d lose her job and hate him for it. Then he’d have to flee Scotland so that the university never found him again. There was no future for them.
Hell of a mess.
The blare of a car horn dragged his attention back to the present. They strode down the street in front of the museum, headed for the alley with the side door. Two figures stood at the alley.
“Shite,” Fiona said.
Police. Right at the entrance to the alley, either guarding it because of last night or just running patrol on the popular street since it was a Friday night and the pubs were bursting.
“We’ll have to go through the roof entrance,” Fiona said, and walked past the police officers without a pause in her step.
He nodded. They turned at the next alley and made their way to the back of the museum. It was dark and silent in the back alley, with only dim moonlight illuminating the rain-slicked cobblestones. No pubs back here, so no people.
They reached the rear of the museum, a simpler construction of stone with few windows. A fire escape ladder crept up the side of the three-story building. Fiona walked to a tree in the middle of the small courtyard and broke off a dead branch. She broke it down until it was shaped like a hook.
“Can you give me a boost?” she asked when she returned to his side.
He nodded and lifted her, hoisting her over his head until she stood on his shoulders. For mortals, it would have been a feat of acrobatic strength. For Mytheans, it was nothing. Her legs were firm where he gripped her, trying to steady her as she reached up with her hooked branch and pulled the fire escape ladder down.
Metal screeched against metal. His shoulders tensed. Fiona hopped down and tossed her branch aside. They scaled the ladder quickly and hopped onto the roof. The small building with the door that led to the stairs was only ten yards away.
He was walking toward the end of his time with her, he realized. As soon as he had the book, he’d barter his freedom and be out of the there.
Shite.
CHAPTER NINE
Ian beat Fiona to the door and pushed it open to slip inside. She followed and eased the door shut. Quickly, she pulled a glass vial out of her pocket and unstoppered it. A pale blue mist wafted up from the top, a spell that would disengage the alarm.
Once she was confident that the police wouldn’t be alerted, they crept down the stairs until they reached the door that led out into the exhibits. Ian pressed an ear to the wood to listen for the footsteps of the night guard. She drew the short sword she’d brought, having decided that since the odds of encountering the god’s demons were so high, it’d be better than her daggers.
Eventually, he nodded at Fiona, palmed the dagger she’d given him, and slowly pushed open the door into the darkened room. The red exit light shone down from above, and dim white lights illuminated the long space that was cast in shades of gray. The room was full of ancient pottery. Enormous pots crouched on the floor while tiny vases decorated pedestals.
Ian motioned for her to wait in the doorway and stepped into the room. He walked to the nearest large pot and laid both hands on its round belly. When nothing happened, he turned around and nodded at her.
So that’s how he deactivated the spells. They sensed him. She and Ian made their way through the pottery exhibit and stepped into the next room, a small one that contained eight tables displaying glass art and kaleidoscopes.
The darkness immediately turned to blinding color, geometric shapes spinning through the room in patterns made up of dozens of colors and designs.
“What the hell,” Fiona whispered.
Pinks, purples, blues, and yellows in triangles and diamonds and pentagons shone from every inch of the room. She could no longer locate the artifact displays. They were in a giant kaleidoscope.
Fiona reached out and grasped Ian’s hand. He pulled her until she stood behind him, her chest pressed to his back.
“Follow me exactly,” he said.
Colored lights and shapes flashed before her eyes as she followed Ian. His steps were deliberate, and before long she realized they followed a specific pattern. She tried to put her feet where he’d put his, but suddenly she was stepping on what felt like pebbles. Shards of glass crunched beneath her soles. A second later, she was knee deep in pebbles and glass. The insides of the kaleidoscope were filling up the room.
“Ian!” she hissed.
“This is new. Hurry!”
They pushed their way through the bits of glass, slowing as it reached their chests. Shards cut her exposed hands, burning and turning her grip on her sword slick with blood. It was nearly to her neck. She could drown in this, sucking shards of glass into her lungs.
The glass bits were nearly to their
mouths by the time they stumbled into the next room. Panting, she spun to look at the kaleidoscope room. It had returned to normal.
“What the hell!” she said. “You stopped the magic in the pottery room, but no’ this?”
Ian shook his head, his hands laced with tiny cuts that dripped blood. “I tried. There was a specific route to walk through the room. I stayed on it, but it didn’t work. The magic has mutated.”
“So that’s really possible?” She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She peered at the tiny cuts on her hands. They were so small that they were healing quickly, thank gods.
“With this much time? Aye. Magic is no’ my strength. We’ll still get to the vault, it will just be trickier.”
Shite. What about the rest of the museum? She looked around at the landing they’d stumbled onto. Wide marble stairs went three stories down to the main floor, with expansive marble landings on each level. In the middle of the stairwell, with the square-oriented stairs wrapping around it, was a huge steam engine from the late eighteenth century.
Boulton and Watt steam engine, the sign said, invented by the Scotsman James Watt. It was nearly thirty feet tall and thirty feet long. Its great wheel, beam, cylinder, and many pipes all looked gray and ominous in the low light of the stairwell.
“Wait here,” Ian said.
She nodded and watched him sprint across the landing to the rail surrounding the stairwell. He leaned over and pressed his palm to the side of the steam engine.
The great beam and wheel of the engine creaked, then began to spin and pump.
Oh, damn.
It was turning on, steam pouring out of the machine magically fast and beginning to fill the space. Her skin burned from the heat.
“Shite,” Ian said. “Come on!”
She ran to him. He grabbed her hand and yanked her down the stairs.
She could barely see, and stumbled at the first landing. Ian righted her.
Faster. If they didn’t make it out of this stairwell soon, they’d burn to death in the steam filling the space. By the next landing, the metal hand rail had turned hot as a stove. She yanked her hand away and flew down the last set of stairs blindly, unable to see through the steam.
Her skin felt like it was on fire and her lungs were drowning in hot steam as she stumbled out of the huge stairwell and into the main lobby of the museum.
Sudden silence and cold. Her wet clothes stuck to her rapidly cooling skin as she gratefully sucked in the fresh air of the lobby. Ian stood next to her, panting and wet.
She nodded, still unable to speak, and propped her hands on her knees. When she’d finally caught her breath, she asked, “That was wrong too, wasn’t it?”
“Aye. My touch should have deactivated the spell. But it dinna.”
Damn. Stable magic was hard to create. So now, everything was going haywire. What would be coming at them next? They were still four rooms away from the basement entrance. The expansive lobby spread out from the stairs, the glass ceiling soaring three stories above. Moonlight shone upon the marble floor.
Fiona squinted toward the big admissions desk along the wall. It wasn’t empty. A guard lay slumped over the desk, a dagger protruding from his back.
“Holy shite. The demons have beaten us here.”
“Aye. Come on, then.” Ian nodded toward the east wing. The entrance to the basement was tucked at the end, right past medieval, ancient, and geological history. If only it had been in the west wing, the one he’d blown up, the magic would all be gone. She could have sailed right though.
She cursed and followed him through the huge room, praying that the lack of artifacts in the lobby meant that there were no enchantments here to get them.
They hesitated at the entrance to the next room. Suits of armor. They lined the walls and marched down the middle of the room, metal gleaming dully in the dim light.
“These will fight us?” she asked.
“Aye. Give me a moment. And be ready to run.” He slipped into the room and approached the first suit of armor along the wall. He set his hand on its shoulder and said, “I am Ian MacKenzie.”
Fiona held her breath. The helmeted head nodded slowly, the metal shifting.
Ian’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded at her. “Should be good.”
She gripped her sword and followed him into the room. Her gaze darted around the space, watching warily for movement, but they made it through safely. They stopped at the entrance to the next room.
Weapons. Swords and daggers of all sizes lined the walls.
She waited and watched Ian step into the exhibit and press his back against the wall. She peeked around the entryway to see him inching toward a display of swords and shields. When he reached a great sword mounted on the wall, he gripped the hilt and paused. He scowled.
Damn, that couldn’t be good. Ian left the sword and continued to inch his way down the wall toward the exhibit of shields. He yanked two off the wall, then moved back to her.
“Here. I doona think that worked.” He thrust one into her arms. “Go fast.”
Shite. She was immortal, but that didn’t mean that beheading couldn’t end her. She glanced at him, and bolstered by the steel in his gaze, turned back to the room. They set off at a sprint, the shields raised against the blades, and she’d have sworn that Ian held back to stay by her.
Swords and knives pried themselves off walls and shot through the air, pinging off the shields. She glanced around frantically, moving her shield to stop blades that hurtled from either side of the room. A dagger flew off the other wall and nailed Ian in the arm. Pain blossomed in her side and she reached for it. A slice across her abdomen wept blood.
Dozens of blades shot around the room. She dove left and narrowly avoided a sword headed straight at her. Ian flung himself right to avoid another blade, and soon they were separated.
As they limped over the barrier to the next room, she caught sight of the fallen, bloodied body of a demon that was just beginning to sublimate.
“Are you okay?” Ian asked when they stood in the threshold. His shield had half a dozen blades sticking out of it. Hers had more. The flying blades behind them clattered to the floor. A second later, the weapons returned to their original places on the wall and in display cabinets.
She peered down at her stomach and pulled the blood-and-water-soaked fabric away from her skin. The gash stung like a bitch, but it wasn’t fatal.
“Fine. You?” She frowned at his arm, which was now liberally covered in blood.
“Perfect. That demon’s corpse is no’ more than a few minutes old,” he said.
She nodded. Soon it would sublimate entirely and the soul would return to its afterworld. “We need to hurry.”
Ian paused beneath the arch to the next room and peered in, tensed and wary. They’d made it safely through the last room–stone weapons that could pack a hell of a punch—but this endeavor had gone to shite. His enchantments had gone mad in the ninety-odd years he’d been in prison. Like a forest left to grow wild, the magic had grown and mutated. It should have been a stroll through the museum. But not with the changes. And they were far worse than he’d expected.
They hovered at the entrance of the Hall of Geology. Huge boulders lay like sleeping giants in the middle of the floor and smaller precious stones dotted the walls, pinned in their glass cases like flies. In the middle stood a statue of James Hutton, a Scotsman and the father of modern geology.
The door to the basement was at the other end of the room.
Ian looked at Fiona and nodded.
“Who are you and what is your purpose?” The statue bellowed.
The marble statue of James Hutton had awoken. Gleaming white hands were moving idly, swaying slightly, back and forth, the movement unnatural and eerie.
“I’m Ian MacKenzie,” Ian said, and hoped for the best. James Hutton should let him through and fight all others.
“You are not he!” The statue’s roar echoed through the huge room.
Shite. Of fu
cking course.
The great boulders crouched in the hall were moving as well, rolling back and forth as if they were trying to drum up momentum. They moved in sync with the statue’s hands. Dread carved a black pit in his stomach.
The statue waved its marble arm, a fluidity to the motion that belied its substance.
A crack sounded and one of the huge boulders flew across the room, not rolling so much as hurtling through the air. Straight at them. Ian and Fiona dove away from each other, out of range of the boulder. The air whooshed as the boulder shot behind him. It crashed against the wall and fell still.
Lungs bellowing, Ian surged to his feet as Fiona did the same. Another crack of sound and a great column of marble flew at them from the opposite side of the room. He dodged it by a foot, Fiona by less.
“Run for the vault,” Ian yelled. He had no fucking clue what was going on.
Speed was the only thing that could get them out of here. They had no way to fight the sheer power of the rocks. If just one caught them, they’d be crushed to death.
Fiona scrambled to her feet and took off toward the far exit. He followed just behind. Halfway through the room, they had to dive to the floor as the precious stones flew out of their glass cases on the wall and hurtled toward them like bullets—rubies, diamonds, emeralds glinting in the low light.
Several lodged themselves in his right arm and leg. He looked up through the arm that shielded his face and saw Fiona flinch as some of the stones hit her.
An unfamiliar protectiveness welled within him, tightening his throat and making his fists clench. So unfamiliar, but so strong. He crawled to her and threw himself over her. She tensed, then stilled. Finally, the sting of stones stopped.
“Go,” he said.
She scrambled to her feet and he followed, taking off with only twenty yards between them and the entrance to the basement. From behind, the sound of creaking and groaning echoed through the room. Like a great iron bridge breaking. He swore he could feel the reverberations through his chest.
Ian glanced left. A hulking boulder, like the stone trolls of myths, hurtled across the floor, headed for Fiona.