Aria thought for a moment. “What did you actually hear him say?”
Cillian and Niamh stared at each other, but Cillian answered. “Almost nothing. I heard your half of the conversation, and nothing while he was speaking. I did not see his lips move, nor feel the vibrations of his speech in the air. I heard ‘I must clarify things with you’ and ‘Expect no further assistance from me.’ That’s all.”
Niamh nodded agreement.
“How did you know he was terrified, then?” Aria asked.
Niamh hid her eyes again, and her voice shook as she answered. “It beat upon us in waves. He could not hide it, though his human form showed little sign of fear. He spoke to you, but he thought of fire and pain and a terrible screaming silence.”
Aria swallowed. “But he wasn’t afraid of me.”
Owen’s voice was faint. “No. Nor I think of El. Not exactly. It was as if he had veered too close to a precipice, and was correcting his course by speaking with you.” He hesitated. “I heard more, but perhaps not all of what he said. Choices, and changes in me.”
Cillian looked at his brother more closely. “Hm.”
Owen raised one eyebrow.
Finally, Cillian murmured, “It’s very subtle. I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it. But I do see something different.”
“Different in what way?” Aria asked.
“I can’t yet tell. If anything, he seems more human.”
Afterword
Thank you for reading Things Unseen. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review! This story continues in The Dragon’s Tongue. If you’d like to check out my other works, you can find a complete list on my website. If you’d like a quick note when I publish a new book or short story, please sign up for my newsletter! I send send out information on contests, giveaways, and how to snag review copies, too. If you’re on social media, you can find me on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
Sneak Peek: The Dragon’s Tongue
Gabriel looked at the books spread out before them and the list Jenison, Levi, and Bartok had assembled. “So. Dandra sold history books.”
Levi added, “Plus two books on Jewish history and three Bible commentaries.”
Aria picked up the book Memories Kept and looked at it again. Her bookmark was still between the pages, and she opened the book.
“Did you move the bookmark?” she asked.
“No. That’s the page where we found it,” Jennison said.
Aria frowned. “That’s not where I was reading.” A faint green pencil line caught her eye on the righthand page, underlining the words beside the wall.
She flipped through the rest of the book, skimming pages. There were no other markings in the book; no highlights, no notes. Aria never wrote in books, and Dandra was strict about her patrons not defacing the volumes. Few people were inclined to do so, anyway, and fewer still had ever noticed this book. She remembered the conversation about the colored pencil markings used in editing; maybe Dandra had intended this message specifically for her.
“I think Dandra did this. As a message.” She turned the book around and showed them.
“We’ll go back tonight.”
Bartok, Evrial, and Clint, a former police detective, went back to Dandra’s that evening with Aria. Niall accompanied them; he’d volunteered for the duty by showing up at Aria’s side as they were leaving. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“You want to go?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” Maybe he would see something they couldn’t.
It was a long walk, but everyone was silent, subdued. Aria shivered in the cool, still air of the tunnels, and even more once they reached the surface. They emerged from the tunnels through an access hatch hidden beneath a small overpass. Deep in the shadows, they waited for a car to pass on the lower street before darting out and around to the upper road. Another two blocks and Niall stopped at a back door in an alley. White stenciled letters marked it as Dandra’s back door.
Clint tried to pull the door open, but it was locked. Niall touched the door handle and it unlatched with a soft click. He pulled it open and gestured for them to enter.
Clint gave him a quick look. “That’s a handy trick,” he murmured.
Aria smiled a little, but Niall merely nodded.
Inside, they risked a tiny penlight in the storage room, though it would be too dangerous in the main shop. With the wide glass windows, any light from the sales floor would be visible to passersby.
“‘Beside the wall.’ Which wall?” Clint spoke in a whisper.
“I don’t know.” Aria stared around, biting her lip. “I’ve never been in the back before.”
Niall turned to look away from the light, then motioned that he was going into the front. Clint turned the light off while he slipped through the door, then played it slowly around the walls. He covered the whole room, then began again.
“There.” Bartok pointed. “What’s that?”
A narrow desk, barely more than a foot deep, stood in one corner against the wall. A green pencil lay beneath the desk.
They moved forward and studied it, not touching anything.
“I don’t see anything,” said Aria. “But that’s the green pencil. It must be around here somewhere.”
“Neither do I.” Clint sounded confused. He shifted and considered the pencil and desk from a different angle, playing the light around crack between the desk and the wall.
“There.” Aria and Bartok spoke at the same time. Bartok reached down to lay one finger against a green mark on the floorboard near the wall, then pushed it firmly.
The other end of the board some twelve inches away rocked upward, revealing a dark hole. Bartok moved forward to shine his flashlight into it. After a moment, he reached in, the gap barely wide enough for his hand. He had to twist and turn his hand to pull it back out holding a book with some papers folded into the front cover. He shone the penlight around again and then pushed the same button. The trapdoor closed again.
“How did you see that?” Clint asked.
“The pencil tip pointed at the mark.” Bartok stared down at the book in his hands.
“What is it?” Aria asked.
Bartok was silent, and Aria moved closer.
Finally, Bartok said softly, “It’s a Bible.”
Things Unseen Page 25