Chapter 19
The next morning, Derek arrived at Victor’s apartment with his laptop and three coffees.
“I’ve been thinking about the offering.”
“The offering?” Ava asked, still wrapped in Victor’s shirt.
“Victor said we’d need something valuable to get Marchosias’s attention. Something rare.” Derek set up at the dining table. “I went down a research rabbit hole at three AM, and I found it.”
He pulled up an image of cuneiform text.
“The original tablet. The Right of Substitution. The actual document Marchosias created six thousand years ago.”
“We can’t use it,” Ava said immediately. The words came out too fast. “It’s a trap—”
“We don’t want to invoke it. We want to show it to him.” Derek clicked through his notes. “This is leverage, Ava. Lilith used his seal, his authority, for fifteen years of predatory contracts. If we can prove she violated his own laws while using his name…”
“He’ll have to respond,” Victor finished. “Dukes don’t tolerate subordinates undermining their reputation.”
“Exactly.” Derek’s excitement was building. “We’re not just accusing Lilith of fraud. We’re showing Marchosias that his name has been used for something he created laws against.”
Victor straightened, his expression darkening. “The tablet is in the firm’s deep archives. Babylonian section. Basement thirteen.”
“Can you just check it out?” Ava asked.
“That part of the archive requires blood access. Two demons minimum. And even then…” Victor hesitated. “If we request official access, word gets back to the partners. Lilith will know we found our angle.”
“So we don’t ask permission,” Derek said.
Victor and Ava both turned to look at him.
“What? I’m just saying what you’re both thinking.” He closed his laptop with a decisive click. “We go tonight. After midnight when security is lightest. I can loop the camera feeds for maybe twenty minutes.”
“Derek—” Ava started.
“Your parents, Ava. Your family’s restaurant.” His voice was firm. “We do what we have to do.”
“Tonight,” Victor agreed finally. “Midnight. I know how to navigate the deep archives. But Derek’s right about the timing: we won’t have long.”
“What about the blood access?” Ava asked.
Victor held up his palm, where the brand from the hearth ritual still marked his skin. “I’m demon enough. And after the soul bond…” He looked at her. “You might be too.”
“So we’re really doing this?” Derek looked slightly ill. “Breaking into a demon law firm to steal a six-thousand-year-old clay tablet.”
“Borrowing,” Victor corrected. “We’re borrowing firm resources for firm business.”
“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”
Ava looked between them.
“Midnight,” she agreed. “We get the tablet, we take it to Marchosias, and we make Lilith answer for what she’s done.”
After midnight, the building stopped pretending.
Ava’s pulse thundered as she crossed the lobby of Grimm, Malphas stone that looked stolen from somewhere ancient.
Possibly from several ancient places, badly stitched together.
The ceiling dripped steadily, but the drops never hit the floor.
They disappeared halfway down, absorbed by darkness that seemed to have weight.
“This way.” Victor led them through a corridor that turned left, then left again, then left a third time, which should have brought them back to where they started, but didn’t.
They passed doors that bled rust. Doors that whispered in languages Ava almost recognized. One door that was just a child’s chalk drawing on the stone, complete with a crooked doorknob and “KEEP OUT” in purple crayon. The crayon looked wet.
“Don’t touch anything,” Victor murmured. “Don’t answer if something calls your name. And whatever you do, don’t run.”
A sound echoed from somewhere ahead. Footsteps, maybe. Or something dragging itself across stone.
They reached a door more ancient than the others: bronze and wood, with two holes carved beneath what used to be a scanner. Fresh stone dust clung to grooves around Abyssal runes that hadn’t been there six months ago.
“This is new.” Victor pressed his palm where the scanner should have been. Nothing happened. “Someone’s added security since my last visit.”
Derek muttered something about needing to survive long enough to regret this.
The bond let Ava read the runes. Blood of the Abyss. Blood of intent. Blood of sacrifice.
“Two holes,” she said. “It needs two sources. Demon blood.”
“Or two demons.” Victor was already rolling up his sleeve. “I’ll use both hands.”
He shoved his right hand into the first hole. His breath hissed between his teeth as something inside bit down. Blood ran down the bronze, following channels she hadn’t noticed before, spelling words in languages that predated speech.
He reached for the second hole with his left hand.
The door shuddered. The bronze flared white-hot. An invisible force slammed into Victor’s chest, sending him stumbling backward with a sound like tearing fabric.
“Victor!” Ava caught his arm. His right palm had five perfect puncture wounds, bleeding freely. His left hand was untouched; the door had rejected it before it could enter.
“One source isn’t enough.” He stared at the door, jaw tight. “It knows I’m the same person.”
“So we need an actual second demon.”
“Or someone the door thinks is demon enough.” He looked at her. “The bond changed you. Your blood might read differently now.”
Ava stared at the second hole. The bronze around it was still warm, still hungry.
“Absolutely not,” Victor said, apparently reading her expression. “I’ll find another way.”
“There isn’t another way. Not in the time we have.” She met his eyes. “We’re partners. In everything.”
“Ava—”
“Would you let me do this alone if our positions were reversed?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
“On three,” she said.
They stood before the door together. Victor’s blood still dripped from his right hand. Ava pressed her left palm against the second hole, feeling cold metal and something else: anticipation, maybe. Hunger.
The teeth inside bit deep.
She didn’t gasp. Didn’t give the door the satisfaction. Her blood mixed with Victor’s on the bronze, and where they merged, the metal began to glow, not red or white, but silver-blue. The color of their marks.
“Security feeds are looped,” Derek said from behind them, fingers flying across his laptop. “You’ve got maybe eighteen minutes before the night shift checks this level.”
The door swung open with a grinding metallic sound that went on too long.
“Stay close,” Victor murmured.
The floor inside gave under their feet. Not stone, not wood; something soft and moist, like packed earth that was breathing.
The walls expanded and contracted in a slow rhythm.
Shelves stretched into darkness in every direction, filled with scrolls and tablets and books and things that weren’t quite any of those.
“The Babylonian section is deep,” Victor said, leading her between stacks that seemed to rearrange themselves when she wasn’t looking. “Past the Sumerian collection, through the antediluvian wing.”
“Antediluvian?”
“Before the flood. Before most floods, actually.” He paused at an intersection where three corridors met at angles that shouldn’t have been possible. “This way.”
They walked in silence. Ava kept one hand on Victor’s arm, not because she needed the guidance but because the archive felt like it was watching them. Waiting for them to separate.
A shelf groaned to their left. Books slid like chess pieces, reorganizing themselves around a gap that hadn’t been there before.
“Someone’s been here recently.” Victor glanced back at the gap. “The archive is still settling.”
“Someone like who?”
“Better not to speculate.”
They turned at a shelf that was screaming softly, a high, thin sound like steam escaping, and nearly walked into the guardian.