Sacrifice (The Venus Chronicles #1)

Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

Sitting in the exhibition space alone after lunch was nothing short of surreal.

Eve sat at the little desk in the corner, supposedly checking through that day’s delivery notes. Very little information was going in. Her eyes skated over the words and slid out of focus.

What the actual fuck, Eve?

For some time now, she’d been trying to deny the connection she shared with Lucien. He always seemed to know the right thing to say and what she was thinking. She, in turn, had instinctively known what he’d wanted too.

Instinct. It wasn’t instinct. There was no denying the silent communication that had gone between them earlier.

So, what? You’re a mind reader now?

She snorted out a laugh at the ridiculousness of it but then scrubbed at her temples with stiff fingers. The sapphire ring spun on her finger, ill-fitting and ill-got.

If not that, then what?

This whole Ishtar’s descendant story was insane; the experience in Tiffany was like a hallucination. She dragged the ring from her finger and tossed it into a drawer.

Paperwork.

She’d concentrate on that instead and then, maybe, at some point, this would all make sense. She determinedly focused her mind.

The Egyptology department had sent up a couple of pieces from the vaults, which were still packaged in crates.

“Thanks for nothing boys,” she grumbled. Someone was going to have to get them out again, and those crates had broken fingernails and splinters written all over them. She picked up her phone and put in a call to the porters.

The phone answered on the seventh ring.

“Hi, this is Eve Areli. I’m up in the fourth-floor exhibition space. I have some new pieces up here that need careful unpacking.”

“Uh-huh.” The voice on the other end didn’t sound especially interested. Eve suspected this might be the very same person who’d been responsible for dumping them there and disappearing before anyone could say anything about it.

Eve considered her options and came to the conclusion that getting shitty about it was unlikely to get her anywhere. She remembered Saleh and how she’d seen inside his mind to find his motivations and tried to get some feeling about the man she was speaking to. The line crackled, but there was nothing.

Pity. That would actually have been useful.

Eve sighed. She couldn’t feel anything about them down the phone line, but she did have some insider knowledge about this department and the people that worked there. Mostly they felt put upon and pissed off, undervalued by the academic staff.

“I don’t think I’ve got the right skills to dismantle the crates—it’s so specialized,” she said, wondering if she was laying it on a bit thick, “and I just don’t think I'm strong enough to get them out of their cases, even if I could get them undone. Am I speaking to Tim?” Eve hazarded a guess, and it paid off.

“Yeah, it’s Tim.”

“Perfect! I’m so pleased that it’s you.” Tim was one of the shift supervisors. He was around Eve’s age and had the aggravated aura of a man who’d been passed over for a promotion one time too many. She’d recognized it from herself. “Could you help me out? I’d ask Wesley, but that guy hacks me off.” Eve knew Wesley had got the job Tim had been angling for a couple of months back.

Tim snorted. “Give me five.” He hung up.

Eve allowed herself a little smile. She’d never realized she was sensitive to auras, but now it had been so succinctly demonstrated by her experience in Tiffany, she’d couldn’t believe she’d not realized before. The shop assistant’s mind had been a freakishly open book.

She looked at the next delivery note. It was the second shipment by the French courier she’d used to pick up the artefacts from Lucien’s chateau.

She snatched up her scissors and sliced through the packaging to pull out the small box she’d protected so carefully with bubble wrap and packing peanuts.

Residing among the golden treasures of Lucien’s collection, the clay bowl had stood out to her for its simplicity. Eve had assumed it was an artefact dating back to the correct time period and an enrichment piece, but as she unwrapped it suddenly, it occurred to her that this was something way more significant. She snapped open her laptop and tapped in a search. A Wikipedia entry came up immediately and she scrolled through its images and text.

‘An incantation bowl, also known as a demon bowl, devil-trap bowl, or magic bowl, is a form of early protective magic found in what is now Iraq and Iran. Produced in the Middle East during late antiquity from the sixth to eighth centuries, particularly in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria, the bowls were usually inscribed in a spiral, beginning from the rim and moving toward the center. Most are inscribed in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The bowls were buried face down and were meant to capture demons. They were commonly placed under the threshold, courtyards, in the corner of the homes of the recently deceased and in cemeteries.’

Eve pulled her eyes from the screen and back to the bowl.

A demon trap? She turned it over in her hands.

There was a knock on the already open door and Eve looked up to see Tim come bowling in. He slithered the backpack of tools from his shoulder as he walked and went immediately over to the crates.

“These, I take it?” he said, briefly looking over to Eve and it took her a moment to focus on him and register his demeanor.

He wants recognition for coming so quickly. An ego boost for being so much better at this than Wesley.

Eve took on an expression of polite shock. “Here already? Brilliant, thanks Tim. You’re a bloody star.”

Tim nodded to himself, satisfied, then crouched to unpack his bag.

Marvelous.

Eve’s attention slipped back to the bowl. She couldn’t read Aramaic, but her eyes followed the script, the shape of it making a pattern in her mind. She ran her finger along behind the characters as she examined each one.

The power to trap a demon, held in something so small.

Her eyes drifted out of focus and suddenly the script seemed to stand proud of the fired clay surface, to float above it, revealing infinite depths to the spaces between. The unfamiliar shapes formed sounds in her mind. Words.

The evil Lilith,

who causes the hearts of men to go astray

and appears in the dream of the night

and in the vision of the day,

Who burns and casts down with nightmare,

attacks and kills children,

boys and girls.

Eve’s vision contracted to see only the words as they rose from the surface. They spun to keep pace with the motion of her finger as she traced them. All sound was replaced with the rushing of air.

She is conquered and sealed

away from the house

and from the threshold of Bahram-Gushnasp son of Ishtar-Nahid

by the talisman of Metatron,

the great prince

who is called the Great Healer of Mercy....

who vanquishes demons and devils.

A tendril of hair licked across Eve's face to sting her eye. She blinked it away and stared further into the bowl. Down into darkness. Down into the underworld. The surface area of the bowl altered its dimensions the more symbols she traced.

“Eve!”

Vanquished are the black arts and mighty spells.

Wind rushed in her ears, and the temperature dropped dramatically.

“Eve!” The voice; more insistent this time. She dragged her eyes up from the bowl to see Lucien standing in the doorway. He stood, feet splayed apart—one hand stretched out toward her, fingers spread wide. Between them, Tim lay on the floor, his breathing labored, as if he had a great weight on top of him. Shredded paper and packing peanuts rode the air in a cyclone that skimmed the edges of the room.

“Eve, stop!” Lucien yelled above the roar of air and Eve looked back at him, not understanding what he was doing there.

She looked down at the bowl and saw more words that waited for her. The words that would set the trap.

“Eve, no!” Lucien dropped to one knee. “My queen!” His face twisted with pain. “Please!”

She dropped the bowl. Instantly the wind stopped and the packaging detritus rained softly to the stone floor. Tim sucked in a rattling breath and Lucien lurched toward him, muttering incoherently.

Eve watched them both in mute shock and when Lucien finally lifted his eyes to find hers, they burned with rage. “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

Eve floundered for words. She had no idea. “I- I-,”

He was standing on the other side of her desk before she’d had time to blink, his presence pushing her back in the chair. He snatched up the bowl. “This is not a fucking toy! You could have killed me! Him,” he corrected, “Him! You can’t go round randomly chucking ancient magic about. Look at the fucking state of him!”

Eve looked past Lucien to Tim, now retching and gasping on the floor. She wrapped her arms around herself. Suddenly, it was incredibly cold. She started to shake. Lucien’s lip curled, and Eve cringed away.

Lucien’s breathing was ragged with fury and in that moment, Eve felt sure he was preparing to strike her. She braced for the impact, squeezing her eyes tight shut. He let out a bellow of frustration and the tension in the air dissipated.

When Eve opened her eyes, Lucien was crouched down beside Tim, slapping him lightly on one cheek.

“Wakey, wakey. You’re alright. Come on now. Had a bit of a fainting fit, I think.” The tone of his voice had changed completely.

Tim levered himself up onto his elbows and looked blearily up.

“Not had any lunch? Yeah, that’s bound to be it. Here.” Lucien pulled a note from his pocket and squeezed it into Tim’s hand with his own in a handshake that he also used to pull him to his feet. “Get yourself something on me. Can’t have you falling about like this. It's not safe, is it?”

Tim nodded dumbly and wobbled out of the door. He left his rucksack behind.