The Hunt: A Custodes Noctis Book (7 page)

Rob gently turned the pages in one of the books. He’d purchased it the summer he stayed with Billy Hernandez. They’d gone into town and Rob had found it in a small out-of-the-way thrift shop in New Mexico. The book, in Old English, was a translation of an earlier Latin version of one of the Hunt Sagas. He disliked translations, but this was the oldest extant version he could find.

“How’s it going?”

“What?” Rob looked up, startled, he hadn’t heard—or sensed—Galen’s approach. “Oh, how long have I been up here?”

“Four hours,” Galen said with a smile.

“Sorry. I found that line I was looking for ‘first they come as men’ and I’ve been trying to track the original source down. All I can find is that one and the next, ‘darkness follows, calling all to rise.’ There’s another line that I think goes with it, from further down in the Saga, but I can’t be sure and I can’t find the rest—or where it’s from. Maybe Father Blake will know. What time is it?” He looked frantically around, he hadn’t noticed the clock chiming.

“About five-thirty. I thought I’d come and check on you before closing. I already sent Flash home.” Galen grimaced.

“What did he break?”

“Nothing, but it was a near miss.” Galen looked at the books. “How many have you been through?”

“Enough for now,” Rob said, standing up and stretching. “I’ll come down and help close. Did that order come in from Ex Libris Books?”

“It did. They didn’t have three of the herb books I ordered.”

“It was just the stuff for the store?”

“No, there was something else pretty carefully wrapped. I don’t remember ordering anything that deserves an ‘extra fragile’ sticker on the package. How much did that cost?”

“Don’t worry about it, I didn’t even pay for it. I got it on trade for a Latin translation I had—never liked the thing but Walter really wanted it, so we traded. I got the best part of the deal,” Rob said as they walked down to the store. Galen had placed the package on Rob’s stool behind the counter. Rob picked up the carefully wrapped book and removed the paper from the tattered volume.

“What is it?” Galen asked as he started counting the till.

“
The Spells of Athelwulf,
it’s fairly rare.” Rob flipped reverently through the pages.

“Wait, that’s an actual copy of Athelwulf?” Galen stopped and stared at his brother.

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No.”

“But Rob, that thing is worth at least twenty thou… What the hell did you have to trade for that?”

“I told you, a Latin translation I had.”

“A Latin translation?”

“Yeah.”

“And it was worth enough to trade for that thing?”

“Actually a bit more, it was a Book of Hours—with a little extra—from the Fifteenth Century.” Rob smiled at the look on his brother’s face. “Which I got for…”

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I helped someone with a little research, they were grateful.”

“Tens of thousands grateful?” Galen said, rolling his eyes. “Sometimes I worry about that book habit of yours. If someone ever broke in and knew what they were looking at we’d be in trouble.”

“Says the man with the 1552 edition of Hieronymus Bock. What’s that worth these days?” Rob grinned at him. “Don’t worry, most thieves would just take guitars and money.”

“As comforting as that is, don’t say that.”
 
Galen pulled the insert out of the cash register. “It was a good day.”

“You can buy dinner then, we’re meeting Father Blake at Gateway to India at six.” Something rippled up the street, the dark waves like mirage on a hot day. Rob walked towards the window and focused with his Sight—letting the full strength of his Gift flow, without the usual restraint he maintained—trying to get a better “look” at what was there, he sensed Galen step up behind him.

“What’s out there?”

“I’m not sure, it’s not really visible, but something moved.” Rob concentrated, the movement was growing, becoming more substantial. “What the hell is it?”

“I can’t see anything,” Galen said.

Rob turned to him and blinked. Seeing his brother with the full effect of the Sight in force was always a surprise, power flowed around Galen like liquid silver, Rob reached out an put his hand on Galen’s arm, watching as the quicksilver power flowed over his hand. He let the Sight alter so Galen could “see” as well. “Can you see it?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?” Rob asked.

“I don’t…” Galen stopped with a sharp intake of breath. “The Veil.” Rob wasn’t sure if Galen said it or he heard the thought through their connection.

“No,” Rob whispered, but he knew it was true, they were seeing the ripple of the wall between the corporeal and non-corporeal worlds. The Between World was on the other side of the Veil, darkness lurked there, waiting for a chance to escape into the physical world. “Gods, no, it can’t be.”

“I think it is,” Galen said softly.

The movement subsided, the street empty. Rob let go of Galen’s arm and opened the door. There was nothing there, nothing moving but a single car. He glanced over at Becci’s stand, Cassie, the woman who worked evening shift waved at him. She was smiling, he guessed unaware of what had just happened. “No one noticed.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t here, Rob. I might have felt something, but I wouldn’t have seen it.”

“You really think it was the Veil?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re right.” Rob sighed. “And the creature in the park was only partially corporeal.”

“They’re connected.” Galen said with a nod.

“Yeah.” Rob took a deep breath, trying to dispel the sense of unease slowly tying a knot at the base of his neck. “We should head to the restaurant.” He stepped out the door and waited for Galen to lock it behind them. The restaurant was less than two blocks from the shop, so they always walked. He looked around, but there was no trace left of the ripple he’d seen. “‘The Wall is breached, the Veil torn asunder,’” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“It’s that line I was telling you about—the one I think goes with ‘first they come as men/darkness follows, calling all to rise’. It’s just a snippet, a single line that has never really been matched to anything. There was a debate in the Nineteenth Century about the origins of…”

“Rob?” Galen held a hand up, laughter in his voice. “Before you launch into an analysis of the shortcomings of a translation and the etymology of one of the words—what’s the line?”

“Oh.” Rob chuckled. “Sorry. ‘The Wall is breached, the Veil torn asunder.’ There was a question of…”

“Will this take a while?” Galen asked, opening the door to the restaurant.

“Uh.” Rob smiled. Sometimes he did get a little over-enthusiastic about things. “Maybe we should order something to drink first.”

“Should we order appetizers? Do you think Father Blake will mind?” Galen asked as they were seated.

“I don’t think so, he might want to hurry. He said he had an errand in town, which is why we’re meeting him here.”

The owner spotted them and came over with a couple of bottles in his hand. He carried a variety of local microbrews and knew what they preferred. They ordered a couple of plates of appetizers and he bustled off to the kitchen.

“Maybe Father Blake knows what that line goes to, I think he knows a lot more than he said in his book and the treatise on the Sagas.”

“Oh?”

“He wrote the definitive work on Petronius the Alchemist.”

“I’ve read a little about Petronius,” Galen said with a reflective frown. “He also wrote part of an herbal, I used a little of it for my Ph.D. At least there’s part of an herbal credited to him.”

“Yeah, Blake talks about that in
Mercury of the Philosopher,
too. Petronius was arrested for witchcraft and nearly burned at the stake, but someone stepped in and stopped it.” Rob took a sip of the beer.

“Dramatic pause there, Brat?” Galen asked.

“I don’t have any real evidence for my suspicions, you know. It’s just chasing through source material, following Petronius, because of his connection to the sagas.”

Galen took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “You’re in fine form tonight, okay, I’ll bite, Rob, who do you suspect?”

“You think I’ll make it that easy?” Rob said, grinning.

“Never,” Galen sighed.

“It started with the account of the trial I found in another alchemist’s biography. He hinted at something special about Petronius, you know an ‘it’s who you know’ kind of thing. It was when I started going through things, trying to track more on this hint in Petronius about the
Saga of the Winter King
that I found it.”

“Found what? He knew a king and that’s who got him out of the charges?”

“Better,” Rob said, smiling at his brother, wondering if Galen would figure it out.

“A Keeper?”

“I think so, there’s a line about a guardian, but he used
Custodes
like a title.”

“So a Keeper got Petronius out of the charge of witchcraft? Interesting. I wonder why?”

“I have no idea,” Rob said. “And I’m not sure it really matters, but I still hope Father Blake might know. He seems to know what the
Custodes Noctis
are.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“That must be him now,” Galen said, nodding towards the door.

Rob turned so he could see entrance. A swirling maelstrom of color, of light and shadow entered the room. He blinked, then closed his eyes against the visual assault that hit him with a physical blow.

“Rob?”

“Holy shit,” Rob whispered, he tried to open his eyes, slamming them shut again an instant later. A headache started pounding through his skull.

“Rob?” Galen asked, Rob felt his brother’s hand on his forehead. The gentle warmth and light of the healing slid into him. “What’s going on?” Galen said softly. Rob knew his brother was trying to calm the headache—fast approaching migraine status. He could feel the echo of the pain in Galen. Once again he tried to his open eyes, only one this time, and only a crack. The maelstrom was now standing by their table. Pain shot through Rob as surely as if whatever it was had stabbed him.

“Is everything okay?” he heard a deep voice ask.
 
“I’m Stephen Blake.”

“Don’t touch,” Rob groaned out the warning. He wasn’t sure if the priest was the source of what was happening, but if he was, the last thing his brother should do was come into contact. Galen immediately pulled his hands away. “No, not that.” He grabbed blindly for Galen. “Can you help? I can’t…”

“What? Rob?”

“Sight,” he said, trying to let his brother know he had no way to bring the Sight back under control. Galen put his hand back on Rob’s forehead, laying the other over his heart. Rob tried to relax, letting Galen take the headache away—layering in something that felt almost like Novocaine the way it numbed the fiery pain in his skull. After a moment, the healing altered, Rob felt a pressure behind his eyes as Galen muted the Gift the way he’d numbed the pain. Rob lifted an eyelid, the Sight was completely gone for the moment. “Thanks,” Rob said, sagging back against the chair. He opened his other eye.