Cursed (Codex of Enchantment Book 1)

by Briana Snow

  Cursed

  Codex of Enchantment: Book One

  by Briana Snow

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Prologue

  The thing was a book in outward appearance only. The man that was holding it shook his head at the silly notion.

  “A book is a book is a book!” the man mumbled, his hand clamping the volume closer to his side as he hurried down the winding stone steps. This man—of all men who should know, it was he—after all, he was the deeply-learned Brother Lazzaro, Chief Archivist to the Florentine Monastery of St. Antony the Pious. His head was small and had a somewhat shrivelled look, and upon the bridge of his nose there sat a pair of tiny spectacles, through which he peered at the walls of the vault that he was descending into.

  Brother Lazarro did not come down here very often—preferring his study far above, with its warm fire and thick curtains. But occasionally, just occasionally, he had cause to descend into the depths of the monastery below him, to the Locked Vault. The Brother hummed a little prayer to himself as he did so and re-adjusted the heavy grimoire at his side. For some reason, he was beset with the overwhelming feeling of being watched.

  “Ow!” Lazzaro suddenly stumbled, the hand that held the lantern reaching instead to grasp the wall at his side. There was a loud, echoing smash and a series of ever-decreasing thumps as the lantern fell, bounced, and dismantled itself as it fell down the winding stone staircase.

  “Oh, drat it!” Lazzaro swore, before immediately moving to cross himself at his sin of anger. For the briefest of moments, Brother Lazzaro could have sworn that the book that he held had bit him. A pain as sharp as a pin had entered his side where he had been holding the ancient tome.

  Probably just one of the embossed filigree coming off, or something… he tried to tell himself as he shifted the book that he was holding from one hand to another. A flickering orange glow came up from the lantern far below him. The wick and the pool of oil must still be alight down there, but it wouldn’t be for long. Even now, the glow was starting to fade, the stairs losing their definition.

  “Should I go back, or go on?” Brother Lazzaro mumbled to himself. He was already several stories below the Monastery of St. Antony’s main hall, and, as appealing as heading upwards back into the light was, the Locked Vault—where this accursed tome was destined to dwell—should only be a little way below.

  “There’ll be surplus candles by the door,” the Archivist consoled himself, wishing that he could see the grimoire that he was carrying so that he could examine what it had been that had so shocked him. Distantly, he wondered if the tome needed more restoration work. Perhaps there was a part of its binding had come loose…

  Brother Lazzaro ran his ageing hands over the cover of the book that was almost as big as his chest, feeling the pock marks and bumps that had identified it as some sort of hide, or skin outer covering. His fingers found the depressions of the stamped words, their gold leaf long since scratched off.

  Luminaire Minus Clavem. The exact translation from the original Latin was something along the lines of ‘the smaller light key.’ What it referenced, Lazzaro was not certain. It was a mystery, but one that he was not going to be allowed to fathom anytime soon. The Abbot of Saint Antony had forbid Brother Lazarro to work any longer on that hellish manuscript which the Chief Archivist thought was probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but he obeyed his superior all the same.

  “Really, what harm can a book do?” the Archivist grumbled, his sandaled feet fumbling as they found the next step, and then the next in the fast-diminishing glow. His hands moved to the metal clasp that had bound the front cover to the back, the one which had been shaped like a serpent biting its own tail. He suspected this was the part of the book that had caught on his ribs and caused the pain.

  No, the clasp remained determinedly closed, and the metal appeared smooth to the touch from decades, generations—even centuries perhaps, of handling. Next, as the monk carried on down the stairs, his fingers meandered to the binding: the leather or skin or hide of some soft-skin animal bunched and stretched into ridges that were almost organic in the way they sat. In between the folds there sat the smallest pinpricks of thread, piercing the back of the book to join with the pages on the other side. The Luminaire manuscript, as he was coming to call it, really was a thing of beauty—a very fine example of medieval book binding. He thought the book dated around the tenth or the eleventh century, and wondered why on earth the Abbot had hated it so much.

  Brother Lazzaro leaned against the wall and felt for the next step, and then the next.

  The current Abbot of the monastery was, if anything, more superstitious than he was pious. He had forbidden any meat but fish to be eaten within the monastery walls, as well as outlawing cats, dogs, anything with cloven hooves—which made obtaining milk for the cheese and the butter a real pain, as they had to trudge, on foot, all the way down the hill to the nearest town and then haul up the goods by hand.

  “I know this is all for the glory of heaven, but seriously… can we not be just a little more comfortable whilst mortifying the flesh?” the Brother asked of the darkness, but did not receive any answer.

  The Luminaire Manuscript had come into their keeping by way of a Special Envoy from Rome, no less, and with it a missive from the holy office of the Vatican that Brother Lazzaro should seek to ascertain its patronage.

  Of course, Brother Lazzaro, Chief Archivist and determined scholar had been over the moon that his skill with studying and restoring ancient tomes had spread all the way to the Holiest of Holies, and had set about the task with relish. It was only later, after one month had passed, and then a season, and then a year and still no messages had answered his from the Vatican, that he came to suspect that the Luminaire Manuscript was not so much a wonderful opportunity for him to rise in the ranks of the blessed—but instead it was a way for the Papal City to dismiss irritating dilemmas.

  After the three year mark of having been studying the document, and still with no way to understand its
strange symbols or language inside those covers, the Abbot had confided in Brother Lazzaro that no one, ever, had been able to decipher the Luminaire Minus Clavem. It was a document that had been recovered at some point during the Crusades, and it had confounded the Holy Catholic Church ever since. If it was a language that it was written within, then it was not one that any scholar knew. But around it there had followed strange rumors and dire warnings: all those who looked at it died, all those who handled it were stricken with madness, any who sought to burn it would themselves burn instead…

  “Poor, simple Abbot,” Brother Lazzaro sighed, certain now that the Abbot had given in to his own fears and commanded that it be locked up in the deepest of the monasteries vaults, never to be seen by the light of heaven again.

  It was at that moment that the Luminaire Manuscript chose to bite him. This time, Lazzaro was certain that he could feel teeth, very real, very actual teeth slicing into the meat of his thumb. They were sharp, like the curved and serrated fangs that he had once seen a merchant wear on a necklace, claiming them to have come from a shark, and they hurt.

  “Aaargh!” Lazzaro released the book, to feel it obscenely still hanging from his afflicted hand, like it was alive, and hungry for more. It’s true! The thing was alive! With a panicked shriek, Lazzaro dashed his hand and the gnawing book against the side of the wall, feeling a crunch and a spasm of pain as one of his outstretched fingers broke.

  The Archivist screamed, recoiling violently from the wall as the book fell to a thump on the steps below. The broken lantern at the bottom of the stairwell had now gone out as the Archivist flailed, rocking forward and backward on the stairs for a terrible moment in pitch darkness.

  Something hit the man’s ankle—a hard shove. As Brother Lazzaro fell forward into the gloom, there was no doubt within his mind at all that the book had somehow pushed him down the stairs. The monk’s scream was cut short with a terrible crack as his body broke upon the stone.

  Behind him, the book lay on the steps as silently and as immovably as ever before.

  Chapter I

  “Drat it, drat it, drat it!” Penelope Harp repeated under her breath as she hurried across Fifth Avenue. She was going to be late—nope, she corrected—she already was late, and she wasn’t quite sure how her supervisor was going to take it.

  It’s not technically my fault though… Penelope tried to console herself, wondering if Simon Jones, the tall, debonair, and shockingly erudite Supervising Director of the New York Public Library would see it that way.

  Probably not, Penelope thought, picking up her steps and starting to half-walk, half-jog to get to the Library before he did. It was eight o’clock on a crisp and fresh October morning, in the center of the city of New York, and Penelope Harp dashed across the pedestrian boulevard, her hand-knit, and some would say ragged, crimson scarf, fluttering behind her as she startled the pigeons that were trying to roost on the marble lions.

  “Morning, Miss Harp,” said Leonidas, the chief security guard, in his deep blue uniform, as impeccably dressed as ever. Leonidas had been with the New York Public Library for pretty much forever, or so it seemed to Penelope, but his position now must surely be one in name only, as his short-trimmed afro was almost pure white, and his glasses were thicker than any she had so far seen.

  “Is he here yet?” Penelope whispered frantically as she made her way, two at a time, up the marble steps to the main entrance. Already, Leonidas was swinging one of the heavy glass doors open for her, under the pristine marble columns that made the Library look more like an ancient Greek Temple than it did a place of study.

  “I am afraid so, ma’am.” Leonidas inclined his peaked cap a little bit, instantly knowing who the ‘he’ must be that Penelope was referring to. “And he’s already been calling for his favorite intern…” Leonidas gave her a warning nod.

  “Ugh. It’s not even nine o clock in the morning yet!” Penelope said. “But thank you, though.” She shot past him, and into the large entrance hall beyond, before making a beeline for the restricted staff-only door, hoping to at least make it down to the upper stockroom to claim that she had been inside all along, and not late at all.

  “My pleasure, Miss Harp,” Leonidas chuckled to himself, shaking his head at the strange ways of the academics and staff contained within his charge.

  ***

  Past the door, and the intern hurried through the narrow corridors that snaked their way through the Public Library, behind the stacks and on the other side of partition walls. It was one of the things that she had been most surprised at when she had first come here as an intern—that there was this whole other world behind the reading desks and the bookshelves. The books on the public shelves of the New York Public Library were in fact only a fraction of the entire books collected within its walls. Most were second, third, and fourth copies—or the extended and obscure catalog of more famous authors and disciplines.

  But Penelope knew that there were also rooms and laboratories and archives dedicated to the special collections held by the institution. Behind the public face of the serene library there was a hive of activity, as collections were prepared, assembled, and in some cases studied, or restored, to eventually take their place behind glass cabinets or temperature-controlled rooms.

  The New York Public Library prided itself on being ‘the most comprehensive’ public library in the western world, although Penelope thought that perhaps The British Library might give it a run for its money. They had a first edition Don Quixote, a first edition The Hobbit, some Virginia Wolf and of course enough Hemingway to hand them out at Christmas.

  It was to one of these many storerooms that Penelope was heading, divesting herself of her pastel blue shawl, getting tangled in her red scarf as she did so, almost falling over, before finding the door to the Upper Storeroom 1 and lurching inside.

  “Ah, there you are Miss Harp,” said the man on the other side, the Director of the New York Public Library, Simon Jones.

  Drat it! Penelope smiled weakly.

  ***

  “Ah… I can explain?” Penelope hazarded, meaning to get her apology for being late in early, like a pre-emptive strike of manners.

  “No need to, Miss.” Simon put down the book that he had been perusing: a rather weighty history volume of some ancient and forgotten war or another, taking his time to slide it back, expertly and exactly, into the space that it had occupied. Penelope watched as the older man paused for a moment, taking a second to straighten the spines of the books on the shelves, licking his lips and nodding appreciatively to himself, before straightening back up to address her.

  Simon Jones looked, Penelope thought, a little like a later-career Morgan Freeman. That is, if Morgan Freeman could ever exude menace and authority in the way that Simon Jones currently was. He wore his perfectly tailored deep blue suit with an off-orange colored bowtie (it matched the security guard’s uniform, Penelope realized dimly) over a crisp white shirt, and appeared ready to walk into a meeting with the President of the United States or broker a multi-million record deal. It has been said that the recent success of the New York Public Library was all down to this man alone, as he had presided over its current incarnation for the last ten years.

  He was also known as a stickler for the rules, for the tiny, exact, precise observance of every procedure and rule in the book.

  He’s going to fire me, Penelope knew, finding herself gulping nervously, wishing that she had worn black slacks today instead of the pleated skirt. She distractedly straightened her lanyard with its displayed identity card that had hung, tied up and twisted with her red scarf.

  “You see, I have a cat—Blake…” Penelope embarked on her entirely true story of the events that had conspired to her being late. Like most New York city cats, Blake was an apartment cat, and like all New York city cats, Blake hated that fact. He was an aging ginger tom whom Penelope had rescued from a life of fast-food leftovers outside of her apartment block, but now had seen fit to start using her fi
re escape as his own personal exploration of the upper stories of the city. By the time that Penelope had recovered the near geriatric ginger from whichever hazardous metal stairwell or balcony he had decided that he liked the look of, she had been irrevocably and irretrievably late for work.

  “Blake…” The Director raised one quizzical eyebrow. “Pop group or Poet?”

  “Poet,” Penelope said.

  “Of course,” Simon nodded his head as if that answered a question that he had been asking for a long time. “Either way, you don’t have to apologize for being late today, as you will not be working on the acquisitions and delivery desk any more with us.”

  I knew it! Penelope’s hand swept to her mouth, and her shoulders slumped. He is really going to fire me for being twenty minutes late! She thought about all of the consequences of this. It had taken her three years of college education and working every hour that she could to get this internship. This internship was meant to be the big one—the one that would assure her a good chance of getting work. Librarianship jobs were hard enough to come by in these times of the squeezed middle, and behind her she knew there were a hundred fresh-faced, bright, eager, and cat-less interns wanting the opportunity that she had.

  “But sir…” Penelope started to say. She wasn’t above pleading for mercy when her future career depended upon it.

  “You will now be deployed, full time, at the New York Libraries Special Manuscripts Division,” Simon beamed. “We need to sort out your contracts and what have you, of course, but you can start right now if you like.”

  “You—you’re offering me a job?” Penelope stuttered. “But, but I was late?”

  Simon Jones looked at his newest employee with a flicker of concern, before admitting, “If you had said the pop group, then that might have changed the matter entirely. Good day, Miss Harp—or perhaps I should say, Special Archivist Harp.” Simon indicated the nearest table, where a set of employment forms and a new lanyard with her new identity card and clearance already awaited her. “See to it that you get the forms to HR by the end of the day.”