Moseh's Staff

by A. W. Exley

  With a tension-filled debut over, the crowd seemed to sigh—then follow the lead set by Cara and Nate. She left Clarence and Brick surrounded by an adoring crowd eager to be seen with a titillating new couple. Women were lining up to have their outfits dissected by the eager eyes of the fashion-forward pair.

  Arm in arm, Cara and Nate roamed the halls. Every available space was cluttered with antiquities plundered from Egypt after the Napoleonic wars. Tombs were raided and statues carted away dangling in airship cargo nets as Egyptians fired in vain at the retreating pillagers.

  Sarcophagi were cracked open and their slumbering occupants half-unwrapped to delight the audience. Heavily embalmed corpses with brown wizened flesh clinging to bone became supper entertainment as ladies pretended to be horrified. Although sometimes, the occupant turned out to be far younger as she once discovered.

  Cara walked with a slow step, stopping at each ancient object. She caressed statues of jet that seemed warm under her hand but never once did the cold tingle travel down her spine and whisper artifact.

  She stopped before one item; a statue recently discovered in an excavated workshop in Amarna. The bust of Nefertiti sat on a pillar, a lone electric spotlight highlighted her high cheekbones and full lips. Her hair was pulled back tight and hidden under her regal crown. Cara gazed on the woman whose heart now bound her own with Nate’s.

  “It makes me shiver looking at her face. I wonder what happened to her and Akhenaten, their bodies have not been found. Their tomb lies empty.”

  Nate circled her waist as they stared at the beautiful queen. “Perhaps there was nothing to bury and they still walk amongst us.”

  Cara frowned. “But we have her heart and if the embalmers took it from her chest like the legend says, where is the rest of her?” Did the diamond mechanical heart really come from her body or did some ancient mage create it as a trinket to amuse the pharaoh’s wife? They knew so little about the item that allowed them to share their life force. As time elapsed, the bond strengthened and deepened. Cara struggled to remember a time when her heart beat alone, Nate’s touch now as much a part of her as the air in her lungs.

  He lifted a champagne flute from a passing waiter and pressed it into her hand. “Stop trying to solve everything like a riddle. Enjoy the evening. Business calls,” he said as he disengaged from her and targeted a group of rich merchants. The frozen Thames stopped all river traffic and heavy wagons were bogged down in the mud, even the new rail lines froze and buckled. Transport issues generated a boon for the airships, or at least those brave enough to risk mechanisms freezing on the approach and dashing them to the ice below. Lyons airships found a steady stream of new customers in the businessmen desperate to ship in cargos languishing outside London.

  She glared at his retreating back. How could she enjoy the evening with Nefertiti watching her every move? Where was the legendary queen buried and what became of her pharaoh? Nate might brush the questions aside, but they sat in the back of Cara’s mind while she chewed over what parallels the heart brought to their lives. The heart linked the two couples and if she knew what happened to the fabled pair, she might be able to predict their own path. The question of immortality chief among her many concerns. Would she and Nate have centuries together to unravel the mysteries of the artifacts?

  A rustle of fabric came from behind her. She turned to see who trod so lightly to find the prey in their current hunt. Or is he the prey? Sometimes I think he is the hunter the way he watches me.

  The Curator gave a slight bow with his hands tucked into the deep oriental sleeves of his grey jacket. It fell to below his knees and was secured around his waist with an ebony obi.

  “You have not come to visit me yet.” His face wavered, the strong young man gazed at her for an instant and then vanished to be replaced by the paper-thin skin and milky eyes of advanced age.

  “Nate is rather protective. He would prefer that I don’t.” The Curator wielded something influencing nature itself. The warning prickle at the back of her skull told her to stay beyond his grasp and not to be fooled by his elderly appearance. She would not underestimate him or venture back into his territory.

  The cold smile touched his lips. “I thought you were a modern woman of independent mind, not one who obeyed her husband.”

  “In this matter, we are in agreement. Might I enquire as to how to address you? Curator is a strange epithet, surely you have a Christian name you would prefer or a title?” Her curiosity needed to be sated and a name would give her investigation a starting point.

  He chuckled. “Names are but words, and I cast off mine a lifetime ago. Curator is my occupation, description, and identity now.”

  He stepped closer, now almost within touching distance. Or close enough to stab with her reinforced fan. Her gloved fingers tightened on the delicate object in her grasp. She tried not to pout. All she wanted was a name. A lead.

  “Curator, then.” She gave her own cold smile while her gut rioted. Standing this close to him woke her demons and made a shiver run over her skin. Even worse, proximity made the nightmare replay deep in her mind. His two faces ravaged her sleep as they grabbed her legs and tore her from the corner. Why him and why now? So many questions and no answers were forthcoming.

  “You could think of me as a mentor; I have much knowledge to share with you.” He slipped his hands from his sleeves and cast them wide, an open gesture trying to lure her to take his bait.

  “I doubt it would be a free exchange. I would rather stumble on my own than be led the wrong way.” He would drain her like he was doing to London, of that she was certain, even if she didn’t know how.

  “So like Lucas,” he murmured. “He too had a strong belief in his own path.”

  She shook her head to displace the idea before it settled. She would not fall into his trap, no matter how seductive. “Some things are best left in the past. I have nothing to gain by discussing my father.”

  He caressed the statue at his side. One finger ran down the stone arm. “Are you so sure there are no secrets you wish to learn?”

  She was a hatchling on this path compared to him, but his knowledge came at a cost. “My father is dead; I wish him to stay that way.”

  He cocked his head to regard her with open curiosity. “Not even to know of your origins? Your history swirls with items of power, your every breath tied to an artifact. You are so precious, and yet you are unaware of it.”

  Nate reappeared at her side, a breath of fresh air in the stultifying presence of the Curator. “I know her value, which is why she will never again cross your threshold.” He took her elbow and steered her away from the elderly aristocrat.

  ara popped her head into Nate’s study. Over the last few weeks, he wrested order from chaos, and the slips of information obeyed his command. The scraps were now all stacked in several different piles around the floor. One mound sat on a corner of his desk, and he held a page in one hand and a pencil in the other.

  “How goes it?” she asked, knowing he made slow progress but at least he had a direction, unlike her own fruitless search. He spent most evenings in the Pit sparring with the men to burn off his growing frustration.

  He raised tired eyes. “My predecessor was an incompetent fool, but I gnaw away at this pile each day like a hungry rat.”

  She admired his determination; she would have thrown the lot onto the fire and started from scratch. “I’m going to see Malachi but perhaps this evening we could do something for a distraction?”

  His brows shot up. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I thought I would join you in the Pit. I’ve been cooped up for a several days now and it’s been some time since you and I sparred.” She loved sparring with him. Stripped to the waist with sweat slick on his torso as they fought, aggression and adrenaline would fuel other desires. In the Pit, he could drop the mask and reveal the primal beast he kept on a short leash. She wet her lips as the evening played out in her mind. Tonight she would openly court danger. H
er body demanded she fight before she yielded.

  His gaze darkened to forged steel and something molten flowed along their bond. “Careful, Cara.” He shifted in his chair as though uncomfortable.

  “I don’t want careful. Tonight, I need to fight, with you.” She wanted to burn away the nightmares so her body would slip into dreamless sleep. She needed his beast free to hunt and destroy her demons. She craved to sleep with her muscles aching, her soul sated, and his skin pressed against hers. “Please.” She would beg if she had to. She needed peace and only he could deliver it. He was the only man who held her complete trust. With Nate, she could submit knowing he would never abuse her but hold her grounded in his care while she soared.

  He made a deep growl in his throat. “Tonight. I’ll make sure no men are below.”

  She swallowed, nodded and then slipped out the door.

  Brick followed her into the bookstore and headed for the armchair next to the fire. He fed the flames another shovel of coal and picked up the book waiting on the side table. Cara watched him settle before walking up the main aisle to the high counter.

  Malachi smiled and peered from milky eyes. The few white wisps on his head were carefully combed to one side. “You look tired. Not sleeping?” He patted the stool next to him.

  She jumped up on her seat and unslung her satchel, dropping it to the ground. The small electric lamp illuminated their desk, the rest of the bookshop lit by candles in multiple candelabra dotted around the ceiling. “Every night I close my eyes only to battle my demons and wake more exhausted than when I climbed into bed.” She tried to smile but lacked the energy to give it any real warmth.

  He made a tsking sound and peered so intently at her, she wondered what he saw. “You are sensitive to these things. We need to find a way to ensure you slumber uninterrupted.”

  This time she did rustle up a bigger smile, thinking of her plan to escape her demons by exhausting her body. “I have something in mind that may work.”

  “Hit it hard, then.” He grinned at her.

  Cara snorted back a laugh and then winked. “That’s part of the plan.”

  “What do you want to work on today? Any text in particular?” He opened a drawer on his side and extracted a clean sheet of paper and a pencil for Cara. He proved to be a patient tutor, helping her rudimentary Latin and never once commenting on her numerous mistakes.

  She sighed. The time had come to tackle a particular topic; she had danced around it for long enough. “I need to uncover what has London in its grip, and to do that, I need to know more about the Curator. I need to start at the very beginning and before I can figure out what he possesses to cause all this, I first need to know who he is.”

  “Know thy enemy.” He let out a long breath and laid down his quill with ink-stained fingers. “I wish you did not have to face him, little one. But you are two stars set on paths long ago, which were destined to collide.”

  “You sound like a seer.” She laid a hand over his. “I need all the help I can get. If you know something, now is the time to tell me, please.” A slow tickle down her spine told her another piece of the puzzle sat next to her. Inspector Fraser once said he didn’t believe in coincidences and she suspected life threw Malachi in her path for a particular reason.

  With a fingertip, he stroked the barbs of the stiff feather. “I have known him for a very long time, ever since we were pupil and master.”

  “You taught him?” The cold knot in her stomach whispered wrong as soon as she uttered the words.

  A slow shake of his head. He gazed down the aisle, as though seeing his past played out among the books. “He was my master when I was a boy.”

  So, an artifact had extended the Curator’s life. If he taught Malachi, he could be hundreds of years old, uncovering his true identity will be like hunting a needle in a haystack. She needed to find out what he used and how it was linked to the arctic conditions consuming London. And she prayed neutralising it would defeat her nightmares once and for all.

  “How old is he?” She always sought a starting point, a known place to begin and trace a story, person, or artifact forward in time until she could identify its current location.

  He muttered under his breath for a moment. “I believe he was born in the mid-sixteen hundreds. He was well over a hundred when he taught me Latin, Greek, and Hebrew eighty years ago.”

  “No.” She tapped his hand. “You cannot be a day over seventy.”

  He grinned. “Flirt.” The smile dropped away and he stared at their hands. Her smooth flesh on top of his wrinkled and age-spot marred one. “What do you see, when you lay eyes upon him?”

  She sucked in a breath. What to tell? But by the very question, it hinted that he saw the same thing. “I see an ancient man and trapped below the surface, a younger, stronger, more virile version trying to break free.”

  He nodded and made a noise deep in his throat. With head bowed, he remained still for long minutes. If it weren’t for the pulse ticking under his skin, Cara would have worried he expired on her.

  Finally, he spoke. “He has found something ancient to extend his life and perhaps rejuvenate his body, hence the duality you see. The younger man contained within, waiting to be released.”

  Cara thought the artifact, whatever it was, wasn’t working so well for him. The Curator certainly looked at least two hundred years old and the younger version only came in stolen glimpses. “Could one thing do that and also cause the unnatural winter?” Another question rushed to the tip of her tongue, and she bit it back. Could an artifact also replace Clayton’s face in her nightmares with the Curator’s dual visage?

  He squeezed her hand. “I do not know. Possibly there is one powerful artifact at play or two lesser ones working in tandem.”

  Fantastic. Potentially two artifacts to identify, find, and stop. All the while Nate is distracted trying to bring together the disparate strands of Victoria’s spy network before she had any hope of escape to Russia.

  Her mind jumped to the end of the story, but she needed to haul her attention back to the very beginning. “So, he was born in the mid-seventeenth century. Where and who were his parents, his family? Nate said he is Eastern European aristocracy. That narrows it down to several countries.” At least several countries was better than having the entire world to search for his origin.

  “Ah.” Malachi tapped the side of his nose. “This I can help with, for he once let slip the name of his brother. Many years ago, I succumbed to curiosity and did my own digging based on the scant clues I held.”

  He slid off his stool and headed down the central aisle. His feet shuffled in their soft-soled slippers and he muttered to himself in Greek. Soon he reappeared with a large book tucked under his arm. He placed the tome on the desk and climbed up next to Cara.

  She ran a hand over the unusual binding. The outer was some kind of paper with the words deeply inked into the fibres. She peered closer, trying to identify the material used. “What is it?” She tapped a nail on the book.

  “Human skin.”

  Her hand jumped in the air of its own accord. I’m stroking a flesh-bound book. She gulped, but simply had to ask the obvious question. “How did the words for the title get there?”

  Malachi chuckled. “The text for the frontispiece was tattooed into the skin of the donor while he lived and then removed for the book post mortem.”

  “Who does that?” What sort of person had a book tattooed on them to be stretched and tanned after death? Did someone follow him around to claim their book cover when he died or was his death brought forward to coincide with publishing the book?

  “Eastern Europeans, apparently, since that is the book’s origin. It’s a genealogy for a particular line of Hungarian nobles. Perhaps a lesser relative wasn’t important enough to make it within the pages, so gave his life to bind them instead.”

  She groaned. “That’s a terrible joke.” If it was one. The old bookseller had a dry wit and poker face to rival Nate’s.

&n
bsp; He dragged the book closer to him and laid open the heavy front cover. “Here we are.” A blood red ribbon lay between the pages and ran a finger down the side. He flipped to the right spot. Spread out over the double page was a family tree, starting in the fourteen hundreds and branching out over time. The central tree was rendered as a twisted, skeletal thing of incredible detail; knots and gnarls ran over the bark and up the outstretched arms. From bare branches hung baubles that each contained names and dates in a tiny but ornate, swirling calligraphy. Cara squinted to make sense of the text. Malachi tapped one page, closer to her, and held out a magnifying glass.

  “Here. He originates from the Cseszneky clan. They possessed a castle of the same name until it fell from the family line in the fifteenth century.” His finger traced a particular limb of this ancient tree. Then his finger stopped on a name. “And here. He is the older son of two. Csenger. The closest meaning in English is to want.”

  “Fitting for someone known as the Curator. He wants, he acquires, he wants no more.” Under Malachi’s fingertip lay the swooping and embellished date, 1660. The Curator was over two hundred years old. She used the glass to bring the names and dates into focus among the scattered leaves of the tree.

  “Two years later, his hellion of a brother joined the world, Imrus. That’s the Hungarian version of Henry.” Another date, 1662, but with less embellishment since it was the second son.

  “Henry?” Sparks ignited in her brain. She knew a hellion Henry from the seventeenth century that caused problems. Although knew was a generous definition. She knew a portrait that possessed a crossbow bolt in the forehead and needed its mouth taped shut. Another coincidence? The image of Fraser leapt to the front of her mind, perched in the parlour in Mayfair. I don’t believe in coincidences.

  She chewed her bottom lip. Two hundred years old, was that even possible? Could it simply be an older relative? A great-grandfather? “How do you know it’s him?”

  A faded smile settled on his lips. “A keen mind seeks puzzles. When he taught me, he was known as Master Csenger and his accent intrigued me. He once mentioned his brother’s name and spoke of exploring the castle they called home. One wet winter, in pursuit of distraction and goaded by my curiosity—”