Cursed (Codex of Enchantment Book 1)

by Briana Snow

  “Ah, Miss Vorja!” A small, rounded man with a faint Italian accent and a small mustache greeted them. “Your usual table and order?”

  “Fabio, lovely to see you, as always. Yes please, and the same for my colleague here.” Verity air-kissed the space above the coffee-shop owner’s cheeks on both sides, as he chuckled throatily and led them to a corner that looked out onto the window, where high-backed padded chairs provided a welcome rest for Penelope’s tired and travel-sore bones.

  “You know everyone in London, huh?” Penelope said, still clutching her small suitcase on her knees as they waited for Fabio to bring them over a tray, on which sat two tiny expresso’s, and a selection of dishes of olives, crackers, salad, and cheeses.

  “Oh, you are spoiling me, Fabio!” Verity said in a scandalously low whisper, which Penelope thought was entirely unnecessary, causing the coffee-shop owner to blush, and laugh as he left.

  “I don’t know everyone in London, just those that make the best coffee,” Verity confided to the librarian sitting opposite, who was looking sceptically at Fabio. “I’ve been coming here for years, and the poor dear thinks that I’m distant European royalty.”

  “And you’ve never disavowed him of the belief, I take it,” the librarian said.

  “Of course not! We’re only a couple of streets away from the very people who killed your parents, probably killed your brother Marius, brainwashed your other one, and would probably kill us both if they could,” Verity whispered.

  For every reason, all this talk of murders and assassinations seemed out of place in these surroundings to Penelope. The British Library did not seem to her to be the home of an international network of religious nutcases.

  “Then why bring us here then? Why bring the Luminaire here?” she asked over her coffee (which was strong enough to make her eyes water).

  “Because…” Verity looked up as the door opened and the bell went off, and a thin, harassed-looking man in a dirty trench coat appeared. The man had round wire-rimmed spectacles and a close-cropped brown beard, over a rather fetching magenta bowtie. It was the horrified, glaring man from the British Library courtyard, who scanned the coffee shop, saw Verity, and his face blanched once again as he hurried over.

  “Doctor Shenk, what a pleasure to see you again.” Verity looked up with a smile, but did not extend her hand, and Penelope could see that the smile was brittle and cold, like the sort of grin a snake might make when it had located a mouse.

  “Good heavens, Vorja!” Doctor Shenk burst out in an angry whisper, slapping his folded paper down on the table and looking over his shoulder at Fabio, who nodded towards the coffee machine as Shenk nodded and sat down. “What are you doing here? Do you know what is going on? This is no time for your games!” It was clear to Penelope that there was no love lost between them.

  “Penelope, this is Doctor John Shenk, of the British Library Special Manuscripts Division,” Verity demurred. “Doctor Shenk, this is Penelope Harp, lately of the New York Public Library.”

  “Good day, good…” the man’s face visibly fell as his brain registered just what his ears had heard. “Harp. As in…?”

  “The one and the same,” Verity nodded. “As in, Darius Harp, Marcus Harp.” She said the last name with a touch of steel to her voice.

  Chapter XIX

  Doctor Shenk of the Special Manuscripts Division looked over Penelope with what she could only describe as hesitant anticipation, even fear.

  “How do you do, Doctor?” Penelope broke the assessing gaze, and the man flinched, almost knocking into Fabio arriving behind him with a coffee.

  “Ah yes, the effect that Miss Vorja has on me as well!” Fabio laughed, setting the drink down and, as the Doctor started to rifle through his pockets for payment, “No, no. Any friend of Miss Vorja’s is a fried of Fabio’s! Enjoy!” The man turned and left, leaving the threesome to examine each other like wary cats.

  “Have him wrapped around your little finger too, do you, Vorja?” the Doctor said sulkily, before glaring at Penelope. “And you too, I guess? What has she told you—that you’re here to reclaim your rightful heritage and all that? Did she tell you that she was Gandalf and you’re Frodo?”

  “What?” Penelope frowned, getting the reference, but just not the relevance.

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Doctor Shenk shook his head as he downed half the coffee, pulled a terrible, pained face, and then downed the other half. He was clearly a man on edge. “What I came here to say, Vorja, and Miss Harp is this: not now. There’s something huge going on, and the entire Templar have been drafted in—”

  “The Luminaire has been opened,” Verity interrupted. “I know.”

  “But how do you know? We don’t even know where the first volume is,” Doctor Shenk said.

  “Ah Shenk, ye of little faith. You are looking at the woman who has opened the first volume of the Luminaire.” Verity indicated Penelope.

  “Hi,” Penelope waved her hand at the deeply shocked Doctor.

  “Oh, dear gods. It’s true. And you are a Harp, so…” the Doctor trailed off.

  “Yes, Penelope is genetically predisposed to psychism, allowing her to handle the Luminaire volumes without being hit by a bus, or falling down a forgotten Roman mineshaft or something.” Verity shrugged, before turning to her other librarian companion. “Yes, in case you were wondering, the good Doctor Shenk here is a Knight, or rather a Knight-Researcher I think they call him, but he has been good enough to help me and the Order of St. Agnes in the past.”

  “Well, only because if I didn’t you’d reveal to the Templar where I’ve been getting half of my information!” Doctor Shenk rolled his eyes. “You know what they’d do to me. Found hanging under London Bridge before morning, I bet.”

  “Doctor Shenk here used to be a practicing Necromancer, before he saw the light and changed his ways,” Verity confided to Penelope. “I found out, and we have had a very successful relationship ever since.” She turned to the errant necromancer-librarian. “But come on now, John, you know that there’s more to it than that, don’t you? You know that I’m right. You like helping me. We’re trying to stop the end of the world, remember. It’s only the rest of the Knights who don’t see the world the way we do,” she purred at him.

  “Yeah, but the Knights are the ones with all of the torture devices,” Shenk grumbled. “Anyway. What is it now, Vorja? Because in case you haven’t heard—it really is the end of the world!”

  “It will be if we don’t get Penelope here to the second volume of the Luminaire, and quickly,” Verity said, her tone serious and losing all hint of humor or pretense as she showed how deadly the situation really was.

  She’s scared, Penelope realized.

  “Have you…? Did you…?” the bookish Knights Templar said, looking at once alarmed and excited at Penelope.

  “Did I bring the Luminaire with me, you mean?” Penelope said, throwing a brief look at Verity, who had her eyes narrowed and her expression unreadable.

  Doctor Shenk just nodded.

  For a moment, Penelope hesitated. Her hands moved to the suitcase on her lap, and she could feel the grimoire within it, feeling heavy with intent and magical power. Her eyes flicked to the Doctor, who had leant forward and licked his lips, the look of hunger and obsession almost palpable. Penelope’s hands paused on the top of the suitcase and she shook her head to herself. There was something wrong about this.

  “No,” she said softly to the table. She didn’t like the hungry look in his eyes. “Of course I brought the Luminaire with me—I couldn’t very well leave it back there in the hands of an Archon now, could I? But I am afraid that I am not about to bring it out for a viewing. Don’t you think that would be a bit reckless of me, given the circumstances?” She saw Verity nod, seeming to acknowledge that she made a wise decision.

  “Oh, yes, of course, I see…” The Doctor sat back, his face regaining some of its color and composure. “Well, yes, I suppose that makes sense.”


  “The second volume, Doctor Shenk,” Verity cut in. “Tell us about the second volume of the Luminaire. It’s active, isn’t it?”

  Shenk rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Half the vaults have been sealed off thanks to an infection by a rather angry team of poltergeists. We have some of the Vatican’s top exorcists on route from Rome, and the fire alarms are going off every few hours with the electrical disturbance.”

  “Paranormal activity,” Penelope murmured, remembering what Verity had said about the planes of reality, and electrical interference.

  “Yes. It was the first sign that something was going on, you see,” Shenk said.

  “And the manuscript itself? Has anyone opened it?” Verity pressed.

  “How would I know something like that!” Shenk scoffed. “I’m a researcher at the British Library, not one of the Special Consuls or anything.” He shook his head sadly. “But between you, me, and the wall, I wouldn’t think so. Not after Paris.”

  “The massacre?” Penelope asked. “The recent one where a contingent of Knights got killed?”

  “Uh, yes, well I see that bad news travels fast,” Shenk grumbled. “Yes. They were trying to transport the second volume of the Luminaire to the Vatican, and on the way pick up the third volume, in the Paris National Library.”

  “You know where the third volume of the Luminaire is?” Penelope said with some excitement.

  “Of course. The Knights have always known. The trouble hasn’t been locating it, it has been hiding it, and transporting them as soon as anyone touches them.” Shenk looked away, his voice coming back smaller than before. “They all died, save one.” Shenk looked at Penelope long and hard. “The Knight who survived was Darius Harp.”

  Penelope felt herself flush with a feeling akin to shame, or embarrassment. She knew that she should feel bad for her brother, but hadn’t Verity told her recently that her brother had helped orchestrate her parent’s death? How could she ever forgive him for ever taking her parents away?

  “Your brother Darius was the only Knight to survive the attack, and he was the only one to be able to bring the second volume of the grimoire back to the British Library, about a month ago,” Shenk said. “Since then, no one has seen Darius or the Luminaire, but we think that they are being held in the deepest of vaults. You’ll never get access to them.”

  “We have to,” Penelope insisted. If what Verity had told her was true, if she didn’t get all three grimoires together then they would open, and stabilize the portal to hell itself.

  “Yes, she’s right. We have to, Shenk. And you have to help us,” Verity said.

  “Me? Oh no, oh no way,” the Doctor started to say, shaking his head and moving to grab his coat as if to leave.

  “Don’t you dare, Shenk!” Verity slapped a hand on top of the Knight-Researcher’s own. “You have no idea what I will do if you abandon us.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that you will leak it to my superiors somehow that I’m a traitor, or something, and then that will be the end of me,” Shenk said miserably. “But there’s nothing I can do. I haven’t got the access to get you down to the secure vaults.”

  “Doctor—John, please…” Penelope said, her tone pleading and soft compared to Verity’s ‘bad cop’ routine. “Look, I know that you are a good man. I can see that in you. I know that you know what’s at stake here. I lost my parents to the Knights, and now I have just found out that I lost my brothers as well. I’ve seen just what the Archon can do. I don’t want that to happen again… Please, we have to stop the Luminaire from opening the final portal, we have to,” she said, and it felt to the Doctor as though her eyes were boring straight into his soul as he blinked, flushed once more, and nodded.

  “Fine. There is a way,” he said heavily.

  “Thank you!” Penelope grinned.

  “Don’t thank me yet, as you still have to be the ones to get to the Luminaire minus Clavem,” Shenk said. “The North-East emergency door. You’ll know it because it’s a double set of fire doors. I can get to the alarm system the next time the fire alarms are tripped by the electrical interference, and isolate the door alarms for you.”

  “And meet us,” Verity said quickly. “Meet us at the door and guide us down to the Vaults. Make up some story that we’re—”

  “Vatican exorcists?” Shenk shook his head in disbelief, looking at the very obvious fact that neither Penelope nor Verity looked like nuns, off or on duty.

  “Whatever. Just meet us there, and walk us down,” Verity insisted. “Don’t worry about getting into the Vaults—we can manage that bit.”

  We can? Penelope thought, but didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” Shenk sighed heavily. “Tonight at eleven. That will be just after a shift change, so you might be able to take advantage of the general confusion.”

  “Good. We will.” Verity grinned savagely.

  “Thank you, John,” Penelope added, a little quieter.

  “No. If it’s true what they all say about that book you are carrying, and the book that we have below our feet over there, then thank you, Penelope Harp,” John Shenk said seriously. “Now, I must get going if I have a security system to infiltrate, and a lifetime of vows to break.”

  “Try anything once, huh?” Verity shot over her coffee, causing him to make an annoyed harrumph on his way out.

  As the two women watched the Knight-Researcher hurrying out of the café and into the street back to the British Library, Verity said appreciatively, “He’s not bad, really. Misguided and in with the wrong crowd, but his heart is in the right place.”

  “I just hope that his heart stays in the right place,” Penelope murmured, thinking of how Leonidas’s possessed form had seemed to tear right through the crowds of people between him and the book that Penelope had been holding in her hands.

  “Come on you, we’ve got a few hours yet, and there are a few things that we need to pick up before we do,” Verity said. Penelope hoped that the things would include more coffee, a bath, and a meal, but from the way that Verity’s eyes glittered with excitement, she didn’t think that they would be.

  Chapter XX

  Penelope felt generally and specifically ridiculous. “Are you sure that this is necessary?” she said, her voice slightly muffled from behind the scarf that she had wrapped around her face.

  “Of course! Do you want everyone recognizing us within a moment of walking through those doors?” Verity said, or rather, the tall Andy-Warhol lookalike man said in Verity’s voice beside the smaller Penelope. Verity had pinned her hair back and wore over it a bright white-blonde wig (cut in a boyish sort of fringe), heavy black shades, and a fetching grey linen suit. She looked to Penelope just as outlandish as she usually did, but didn’t look Verity Vorja outlandish, and instead looked like some eccentric academic.

  Penelope dreaded to think what she herself must have looked like, in her black trousers, black suit, white shirt and tie, but with a black scarf and a brown panama hat that was a size too big for her. Like a cross between a Tarantino spoof and a very second-rate James Bond, she thought, eyeing her reflection in the dark glass of the British Library as they walked up the pedestrianized plaza towards the North-east door. The Special Collections Librarian also had clipped up her long hair under the hat, and wore matching sunglasses to Warhol-Vorja beside her.

  “I’m surprised that you have all of this stuff, you know,” Penelope confided as they saw the double-doors, painted in emergency dark blue with a reinforced steel plate along the bottom. “Is book collecting really that dangerous?” Verity had taken her to the Charing Cross Postal Centre, where the Sisterhood of St. Agnes kept a secure post office deposit box, and there had retrieved these disguises.

  “Haven’t the last few days taught you anything?” Verity said in a tone that was meant to be confident and breezy, but came across just worried and exaggerated. They were standing outside of the north-east emergency doors, and waiting.

  “Shouldn’t we walk past and come back,
or something?” Penelope whispered. She had already clocked about three security cameras on the way over, and was still worried that they might be recognized despite what Verity had said about electrical interference and noise on the tapes.

  BONG-BONG-BONG! There came, floating over the noise and hubbub of the distant city center, the faint sounds of Big Ben ringing the hour.

  “It’s time,” Verity said, stepping forward and giving the double doors a push.

  They swung open easily, without making any sound whatsoever.

  ***

  The emergency doors revealed a short but wide hallway, leading to a T-Junction. The floors were the standard public-service building shiny-lacquered floor, and the hallway was lit with the dim inset light of an almost-sleeping building.

  And no Shenk, Penelope thought immediately.

  “Where the hell is he?” Verity scowled, looking less like an extravagant academic and more like an annoyed Verity Vorja in disguise. A moment of silence passed as the two women stared into the empty British Library corridor, as if daring each other forward.

  “Oh, come on then,” Penelope said, breaking the silence and the tension as she stepped over the threshold.

  “Here! I’m here!” hissed a voice, as the harried and hurried Doctor Shenk seemed to burst out from around one of the corners of the T-Junction, looking flustered and apprehensive. “Come on,” he whispered, beckoning them closer. “We haven’t got long.”

  “You’re telling me!” Verity rolled her eyes. “The end of the world is nigh, and you’re telling us that we have to hurry!” She scoffed, marching swiftly down the corridor with Penelope and her battered suitcase in tow.

  “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble,” Penelope said as they reached the form of Shenk, who was looking embarrassed.

  “No, oh no… Not so much trouble in the end,” he said, placing an odd emphasis on the words as Penelope and Verity looked behind him to see, standing just around the corner, a collection of very angry looking men and women, each in professional clothing, but a few with jackets taken off and sleeves rolled up.