Chapter 21 #2
“It’s a pleasure to meet a young woman with such a keen mind,” he said, his voice practically dripping with smarmy arrogance. “Are you a student?”
Lienna nodded. “On exchange from UCLA. I’m trying to decide on my dissertation topic right now, and my GM—I’m a member of a small research guild in LA—suggested I talk to a couple of experts.”
“What areas interest you?”
Lienna eyed the office interior. “Can I come in?”
The fuzzy-browed man stiffened. A prickly feeling of suspicion oozed from his mind.
If there was one lesson I’d picked up from my old empath pal, Quentin, it was that the more strongly someone was feeling an emotion, the harder it was to steer them away from it. I’d also learned that dumping the opposite sentiment on their brain was the least effective way of countering it.
So instead of soaking Ballester’s brain cells in feelings of calmness and complacency, I drizzled a heady helping of vainglorious self-satisfaction over his mind. Didn’t it feel nice to have a beautiful young woman fawning over him? Why not indulge her for a few minutes?
His supercilious smile returned. “Of course. Come in.”
He returned to his oversized desk, which boasted a fancy Tiffany lamp and another name plaque with even bigger letters, ensuring no one could possibly forget whose office they were in.
I slipped my invisible form past Lienna. As she closed the door and sat in the chair opposite Ballester, I scanned the office in search of the glass case from M’s photos.
“I’ve done some research on archaeoentomology and paleoenvironmental change,” Lienna said, leaning forward with bright eagerness. “I even interned for a summer under Dr. Almos, doing stratigraphy in Appalachia. But these days I’m more drawn to cross-cultural approaches and comparative ethnology.”
Ballester gave her a bemused smirk. “I know a thing or two about that.”
I finished my inspection of Ballester’s office, frustration tightening my jaw.
The arrangement of artifacts was slightly different from what M had photographed two years ago, and the case that had displayed the grimoire now held a piece of ancient pottery.
Concentrating on keeping both my invisi-warp and Lienna’s makeover flawless, I severed my flow of empathic ego inflation just long enough to aim a few swift, telepathic words at Lienna: The grimoire isn’t here.
Ballester’s forehead was already crinkling, and I flipped back to empathy to soothe his worries with another wave of self-important gratification.
Lienna clasped her hands together in her lap. “I’d really love to study material artifacts with evidence of diverse ethnic and cultural inputs.”
“Any particular ethnographies or regions?” Ballester asked, his interest increasing.
“Well, this isn’t some post-grad research paper,” she said with a knowing eyebrow raise, eliciting an elitist smirk from the archaeologist. “So, it can’t just be a piece of Yuan dynasty porcelain with Marco Polo’s initials on it.
It needs to be unexpected. Something with practical—or even linguistic—significance. ”
Ballester hummed thoughtfully and folded his hands on his desk. I poured more benevolence into his mind.
“The museum has an artifact that fits your criteria,” he said after a moment.
“Really? What is it?”
Ballester hesitated. Stepping behind Lienna so I could watch his expression, I simmered his mind in an addictive sauce of indulgence, gratification, and vanity. It wasn’t easy; that sort of narcissistic emotional stew wasn’t my thing, and I was only passingly familiar with the feelings.
“A grimoire—a truly unique piece of mythic history,” Ballester answered. “I’ve not been permitted to publish any papers about it yet, but the grimoire was written by two different authors and contains Futhark and Arabic text, as well as Latin spells.”
Triumph blazed through me—he was definitely talking about the Sha’ir’s grimoire—but I tamped down on the emotion and channeled boastful conceit at Ballester.
Lienna scooted to the edge of her chair, her eyes wide with excitement. “Is it on display? Can I see it?”
“I’m afraid not, my dear.” He sounded smugly disdainful rather than apologetic. “It’s incredibly valuable and under lock and key in the vault.”
The vault? Why the hell would a museum like this need a vault? Two years ago, the grimoire had been proudly displayed in Ballester’s office. What had changed? My thoughts whirled back across our tour of the museum. What was really going on here? What was I missing? Something wasn’t right.
As my feeling of suspicion deepened, I realized I could feel the same emotion from Ballester.
“What was your name again?” he asked, his voice devoid of any indulgent tones. “Who let you back here without an appointment?”
Shit! Distracted by my own suspicious musings, I’d let that emotion leak into Ballester’s brain. Now he was directing it at Lienna.
“Please, Dr. Ballester,” Lienna pleaded. “Hire me as your research assistant. I’d do anything to work on such an important project!”
I risked giving Ballester a double dose of friendliness, but it barely took the edge off his increasing distrust.
He shook his head. “That’s all the time I have today. I’ve called security to escort you out.”
He’d called security? When? How?
Abandoning my useless empathy attempts, I switched to clairsentience. Immediately, I sensed nearly a dozen mythic minds—the security team—and they were all converging on a single target.
Us.