Chapter 2 #5
A faint pulse of lightning once again ran down the edge of the blade I was holding, but this time it echoed through the Eye—which was not only the second part of the triune, but was in fact the actual eye of the goddess Ethine, who’d been turned to stone long ago and who’d gifted her eyes in the form of black seeing stones to both an ancestor of mine and the hags.
Mom had used it to amplify her second sight when relic hunting, and to keep in contact with Beira and the other hags when she was undertaking tasks for them.
The triune had supposedly been designed to gift the women of my line with foresight, knowledge, and protection, thereby providing all the tools we needed to fight those seeking the rebirth of the dark gods in the tangible world, but by the time I’d come into possession of it, the triune’s true power had not been used or even remembered for centuries.
Which meant that between the lack of directions and my own inexperience, my ability to use it to its full capacity was currently somewhat limited.
However, the fact that the Eye had echoed the knife’s reaction meant that not only was there magic to be found here, but quite possibly a vision to chase.
I glanced back at snake man. “I need to touch the external wood with the knife—is that okay?”
“Yes, but please keep your contact to a minimum. We’ve not dusted the outside, only the inside and doors.” His voice was soft and whispery, and while not unpleasant, it still had those goose bumps running again.
I moved over to the left booth. The song emanating from the oak was slightly stronger here than on the banister, but it still ran with loneliness.
These booths had been constructed after the main vault area, and as such, had no physical connection to the building’s greater network.
To both Aodhán and Tàileachs pixies, that network was something of a superhighway—living, breathing rivers of golden energy that allowed us to follow the various connections throughout a building, seeing the locations of rooms, furniture, and even people without ever having to physically enter.
In the very distant past, many pixies had a secondary line in thievery—and indeed, it was a light-fingered distant ancestor that had gotten us kicked out of the relic guarding business—but the invention of metal door and window furnishings had ended all that.
This booth, however, couldn’t really tell me anything.
Processed wood, unlike trees, didn’t hold much in the way of memories—not when it came to people, anyway.
The oak here did whisper of the earth in which it had rooted, but its memories were growing ever distant as every year passed.
I switched the knife to my left hand, then dug the Eye out from under my sweater and wrapped my hands around the lovely metal “cage” Lugh had made me so I could wear it as a pendant without having to risk it constantly hitting my skin.
That tended to have unfortunate consequences, such as being hit by unwanted visions at inconvenient times.
I warily touched the knife’s tip to the edge of the wood.
Light flickered faintly down its fuller, then died, indicating that whatever they were sensing, it wasn’t emanating from here.
I turned to the next booth and again touched the knife tip to the wood.
This time, lightning shot down the blade and danced across the wood toward the door, and the Eye pulsed in time to the movement.
I glanced at snake man, discovering he was recording what I was doing on his phone. “I need to step inside.”
He reached into his pocket with his free hand and dragged out a set of silicone gloves, handing them to me. “Put these on then.”
I tucked the knife under my armpit, pulled on the gloves, then stepped left and opened the door.
Both the knife and the Eye flared to life again, spinning dark lightning through the room’s golden light.
I moved inside warily. The booth was pretty basic in design, holding nothing more than a comfortable-looking chair, an oak table attached to the side walls, and a smaller shelf sitting above it.
I took a step toward it, and the pulse of lightning immediately eased.
I frowned and turned, pointing the knife at the rear wall.
The pulse sharpened once again. Did that mean our thief had come into the bank from the building next door?
If so, why? A vaporous form could move through walls unimpeded, so why wouldn’t he have simply slipped in from the street frontage and then come down into the basement? Why take such a roundabout route?
He wouldn’t have. Not when he’d given himself so little time to find what he needed. Leaving this way, however, was a different matter entirely.
He had, after all, called in a warning about his intentions, so it made sense for him to leave in the opposite direction from which the IIT was entering. A vaporous form wasn’t the same as an invisible form, and what could be seen could be caught.
I glanced at Daniel again; he was now filming my actions from the doorway. “My second sight is twitching, so I need to sit.”
“Did he use the chair?” Ruadhán asked before snake man could answer.
“I don’t believe so. I think he left the vault via the back wall, but to be sure, I need to—” I stopped.
With my aunt and cousin dead, there were probably only five people—aside from the gods themselves—who knew about the triune and its power, and I really wanted to keep it that way.
Especially when we were damn sure the IIT was riddled with people working for the other side.
“To use my focus stone to see what second sight is trying to tell me.”
“Do you think it wise when you’ve spent three hours in Liadon’s domain and are still suffering the side effects?” Mathi said.
“Wise? No. Necessary? I think it is.”
He half shrugged, as if it was of no matter, despite the fact that even from where I was standing I could feel his disagreement. He didn’t show it, of course, but I’d known the man for a long time now, and could generally read him pretty well.
I sat on the chair, drew the second knife, and placed both on my lap.
I took off my glove then pressed that hand on top of them and wrapped the other around the Eye.
I didn’t have the Codex—the third part of the triune and basically a doorway through which I could access a godly library holding all manner of information about all manner of relics—with me, but unless I was intending to visit said library, I generally didn’t need its physical presence.
With a bright flare of purple, the knives and the Eye combined, and my mind’s eye was swept away so damn fast, it was briefly disorientating.
For several seconds, there was nothing more than darkness, then light speared through it, so bright it made me blink.
The shadows lifted, revealing the vault’s innards and a dark figure standing in the middle of it.
The vision shifted position, giving me a view from above and to the front of the figure.
He was almost fully cloaked in black, wearing thick gloves, a ski mask that covered his face, and ski goggles over his eyes.
It was hard to see the shape of his body because his clothing seemed overly large, but the bottom part of his pants was black and crisply ironed, and he was wearing dress shoes.
They definitely weren’t the type of shoes I’d have thought ideal for thievery—unless, of course, our thief believed it was only proper to dress well when you were targeting the security boxes of Deva’s upper echelon.
He pulled off a glove, revealing dark skin, and began to murmur softly, making quick gestures with a hand that was free of lines or spots or anything suggesting age.
A heartbeat later, the security boxes ripped free from their places and formed a line in the air in front of him.
He touched something at his neck with his right hand and briefly closed his eyes; his left hand and arm became invisible.
One by one, he reached into the boxes, withdrew their contents and examined them, then dropped both the items and the box to the floor and continued on.
He was three quarters of the way through the line when he found what he was obviously looking for—an old-fashioned and rather ornate key, and several rolled up scrolls.
My view shifted again, this time giving me a direct look down the line of boxes, allowing me to catch the number of the one he’d just raided as it bounced onto the pile and was covered by the remainder.
He tucked the key and scrolls into his pocket, placed both hands on the pectoral, and became black smoke.
The light went out and I was torn from the vision.
I gasped and leaned over the knives, my body trembling as I sucked in air and fought the blackness that threatened to sweep me into unconsciousness. When my pulsed rate eased, I dragged the chocolate out of my pocket and broke off another row.
Daniel frowned at me, something I felt more than saw. “I do not think that—”
“If you want fucking answers then you’ll let me consume this slab of chocolate,” I growled without looking up. “Otherwise, you’ll be taking me to the hospital and talking to me there.”
He sucked in a breath, as if to argue further, but another figure pushed him out of the way then knelt in front of me. “Here,” Mathi said softly. “Drink this.”
“This” was my tea. I handed him my knives and accepted it gratefully, but my fingers were shaking so badly, bits of tea splashed up through the lid.
I quickly sipped it, not wanting to waste a drop, and alternated between it and the chocolate.
It still took a good five minutes before the threatening blackness retreated.
“Better?” Mathi said eventually.