Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Peabody had spent most of the day with the lovely woman from Misty Cliffs, Ethel, and now was using the evening to measure the castle’s rooms. The light from his headlamp bobbed along the walls of the old servants’ quarters, which had never been electrified, as he moved around boxes and gently set dusty antiques into other boxes.
The meter was gently ticking, a low, happy sound of lives that had once taken up residence there.
Occasionally Peabody’s thoughts drifted.
Cole was still a phenomenon, and now her brother deepened the complexity of the curse’s powers and the timing of when it had become active in Rowan’s generation.
He wished that he’d been at the castle a few days before and witnessed the rebirth of Orabilia and the appearance of her one true love, Ormr. All had said that seeing Cole as Ormr had been frightening.
The MacLaoch solicitor had described it with disgust and fear, calling Cole a snake molting.
Peabody had advised her to seek out counseling with a good therapist. So, there in his happy place, thinking and measuring, Peabody was startled when he heard noises from lower in the castle.
Making his way down to the second floor, he distinctly heard whispers, then a crash.
Without the buzz and hum of daily life—Marion and Flora had been the last to leave, after letting him know that there were extra sandwiches from the tea service in the main dining hall for him—sound traveled farther in that ancient stone castle.
At the crack of plexiglass, the meter outputs in his handheld device shifted, clicking with a kind of urgency that he’d not seen before. Curious, he continued to investigate, plunging on down to the artifacts hall, hoping to get a moment with Cole.
It was not Cole. Three men were ransacking the room.
The sturdy plastic storage boxes had been yanked from under the display tables and were now open on the tables around the room’s perimeter.
Their protective stuffing had been removed, and instead of holding just a few delicate, precious artifacts each, they were now packed up to their brims. Two of the men were older—Peabody’s age—and the third was younger and had a pistol tucked into the back of his jeans waistband.
The younger man, whose blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, was reaching into the broken case of the Ulfberht.
Peabody felt his body react to the sight of the man’s hand preparing to grab the handle of the ancient Viking sword that belonged to Ormr. He’d only heard tales of it, but he still pictured Cole holding it above her head.
Lightning had rained down over the field she had been studying just days before she “became” her ancient grandfather, the field that was also the final resting place of her ancient grandfather’s men.
Rowan had shared with Peabody that the only thing the Viking loved more than his one true love, Orabilia, was the Ulfberht sword.
Little wonder: The sword, as Peabody knew, had been forged in fire in Persia, or present-day Iran.
He would have had to travel the long and treacherous Volga Corridor of the Silk Road, a route that connected the Baltic and Caspian Seas.
And retraced his steps back home. Then to have it be a superior blade in combat?
Well, Peabody could understand that Ormr believed the sword made him into the dominating force he’d become in his lifetime.
And now, someone other than his granddaughter was about to grasp it.
Peabody held his breath as the younger man, hand within the case, wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
In Peabody’s arms, his equipment shifted and began a low ticking, a second hand counting, Peabody hoped, something other than what was left of their lives.
The pulse was in the frequency he’d recorded previously.
They were Cole’s metaphysical energy readings.
Peabody was suddenly more curious than afraid. Was that young man Cole’s relation?
He looked up to find all three men staring at him and his ticking device.
“Oh, hello.”
The young man pulled the sword out and gripped it with two hands, making the meter’s notation hiccup as if energy were coughing into the pulse.
The shorter of the older men, with a deeply etched face and who looked like he drank hard, smoked cigarettes from sunup to sundown, and punched before he asked questions, said, “The fuck you?”
Peabody answered calmly as the ticking increased. “Who am I? I’m Dr. Edwin Peabody; I’m here researching the MacLaoch curse.”
The other older one, tall, lean, and who also seemed to smoke more than eat, told him to “Get the fuck—”
Peabody interrupted, “Young man with the sword, are you by chance a Minory?”
Taking note of his elder comrades’ demeanors, the young man mimicked their ready-fight attitudes: “What the fuck is a Minory?”
“Hmm.” Peabody looked down at the meter; it was clicking faster. He was trying to figure out what it meant if the young man was not a Minory. Could it be signaling something or someone getting closer, like a sonar?
“Is that a bomb? You about to fuck us up?”
The question interrupted his thoughts, and it became apparent to Peabody that to keep them talking would also keep them from entering a physical altercation with him.
An altercation he was now not sure he could leave his place at the door without entering—he doubted these were men fit for much of a gab.
His main reservation was that the men might think his foreign-looking equipment was a threat and smash his things, which he’d gladly engage in fisticuffs to prevent.
“Young man, this is a metaphysical energy meter.” At their blank faces, he added a Tiberius-ism: “A metal detector. -Ish.”
All three looked at one another. The lanky man asked him, “That finds gold?”
The detector had started to click so swiftly that it was almost a buzzer.
Peabody was about to explain when a muffled boom shook the castle’s stone foundation. He flinched before he recognized the sound of the heavy rear castle door being opened.
A shiver rolled down his spine; the meters whined.
“The fuck was that?” the young one asked as the older two snapped to and grabbed boxes.
“I believe, young man,” Peabody explained, realizing it was a sonar signal they were hearing, “that sword’s owner has arrived.”
Swallowing down apprehension at what would come down the stairs, Peabody stood frozen in the doorway. Tales of the Viking battle on the cairn knoll swam in his head. The only way the young man was not going to die was if he were Orabilia herself.
There was shouting. Peabody recognized the voice of the head research assistant, Holly Alexander, then what sounded like a body hitting a wall.
Then, more shouting.
He caught: “Holy fuck” from a man. Then another: “Run! Lou! She’s possessed—”
A body came tumbling down the stairs. The man bounced solidly on the bottom two on his back before going head over heels into the wall. He groaned and went silent.
Peabody, a stone’s throw from the unconscious man, held out his meter’s receiver node. He could feel his chest pumping in time with the footsteps pounding down the stairs.
He heard Holly again: “Hey, Mickey’s da! Where are ye, ya bastard!” Then, like a witch from a fairy tale, she cackled and sang, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The older, hardened man in the archives room shoved past Peabody. His shoulder struck Peabody in the chest, sending him backward into the stone corner with a crash and knocking his wire-rimmed glasses askew.
“Oof.” Peabody slid to the ground. Meter gripped to his chest, he looked down the hall frantically, adjusting his glasses so as not to miss the moment.
The rough man saw his acquaintance slumped unconscious at the foot of the stairs and went red with rage. He shouted, “Is that you, Alexander, ya cunt?”
Holly laughed. The sound echoed off the stone as the thing on the stairs stepped down and into view. There, towering in the lower hallway, with the man sprawled out at her feet, was Nicole. Peabody sucked his breath through his teeth as adrenaline mixed with fear surged through his body.
Nicole was lit with golden light. Each one of her curly copper hairs looked to hold power, snapping and crackling like a halo around her head.
Around her neck was a dragon torque; on her wrists were golden cuffs, whether physical or metaphysical, he couldn’t tell.
They sparked along with the neon green of her eyes.
It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
This was…unbelievable. Except he was witnessing it with his own eyes.
“What did you say?” Nicole asked. The timbre of her voice shook the stones, and Peabody scrambled upright and pointed his machine at the confrontation.
His movements grabbed her attention, and she watched him with goblin-green eyes. Halfway to standing, he crouched, waiting for her reaction. He prayed to Madam Curie that he wouldn’t perish that night in the holy pursuit of science.
“Peabody,” her voice echoed, “you’ve been tossed about. Has this man harmed you?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but her eyes went to the man before her. Now seeing her compared to another, Peabody was reminded how human she really was. In her Wellington boots, she was only the man’s height. She was bare-legged and in an oversized plaid shirt. Yet she was also not human.
Holly popped into view. “Peabody?” She was scared for him. “Shit, you gotta go.”
“What about you?!”
Holly pointed at the pants-less demon. “She’s about to fuck shit up; someone’s touched the Ulfberht—”
The hardened man stepped in with a heavy fist at Cole’s face.
Holly shrieked.
Cole dodged it and in the same movement, stepped in under his swinging arm and punched the man in his abdomen. The man blew off his feet. He hit the ground, went ass over teakettle, and came to a stop next to Peabody.
“Fuuuck” came from Holly at the stairs.