Page 64 of Luthias

As soon as Emery stepped inside Main Storage she locked the door behind her and then turned on the overhead lights. A sprawl of wooden crates and spilled straw made the room smell woodsy, and it was hemmed by three oversize work tables covered with thick flannel cloth. Wide, heavy-duty shelving held carefully wrapped objects of various sizes; some had been labelled and tagged. There were so many sword-shaped bundles that it would take her hours to unwrap them all.

“Think like a stupid thief,” Emery muttered to herself. “Where would you hide it?”

Her gaze drifted around the room, and settled on an umbrella stand next to the roll-up door for truck deliveries. Three curved handles stuck up out of the stand, along with something twice as long as an umbrella that had been wrapped in dark cloth. She walked over to it, and as she reached for the object she felt her hand tremble.

Of course, she was scared. She could get fired for this. She might even go to jail for this.

“What if he collects swords, and was talking about one he bought with his own money?” Emery almost snatched her hand back, and then thought for a minute. “No. He panicked when I mentioned I might go to work for the cops. Classic sign of a guilty conscience. He stole it.”

She took hold of the object and carefully pulled it out of the stand. It felt huge and heavy, and under the cloth she could feel the long hilt of a weapon made to be held with two hands. Her fingertips traced the projections of four quillons, which sloped forward over the blade.

It felt like a medieval claymore.

Emery’s arms shook as she took hold of the wide blade near the tip with her other hand and carried it over to the nearest work table. Carefully she untied the black twill tapes holding it wrapped, and drew back the folds of the dark cloth to expose the most beautiful sword she had ever seen.

“Hello, you gorgeous thing,” she whispered.

For a moment Emery thought the blade was made of gold, and then saw it was the effect of dense inlay on the steel. She didn’t recognize the etched design, which looked like some kind of ancient script. The precious metal gleamed so brightly it looked as if it had been fused into the steel only yesterday.

Her fingers shook again as she traced the dark gold transparent hilt. Somehow the sword maker had carved it from a single, huge chunk of amber in such a way that it looked like the end of the blade had just burst into flame. She saw no inclusions in the enormous carving, and wondered if it had been made of glass instead of amber. Fossilized tree resin amber wasn’t technically a gem, but a flawless example of this size and weight might very well be priceless.

“How could a man have held something like this?” Emery slid her fingers carefully around the hilt’s curving pieces until she felt a gap.

Behind her the doorknob rattled, making her jump, and then someone knocked.

“Emily, are you in there?” Buc called in an anxious voice. “I need to speak with you right now. Open the door, please.”

Emery pushed her hand into the gap, which allowed her to grip the hilt, and lifted the blade from the table. This time her arm didn’t shake as she closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath. All she had to do was hide the sword, and then wrap up something else and put it in the umbrella stand. She climbed onto the table to see if she could reach the ceiling tiles.

“I can hear you moving around in there. Let me in right this minute,” her supervisor shouted, and the door shuddered as he pounded on it.

A strange feeling came over Emery as she lifted the sword up toward the ceiling. It felt as if something were wrapping around her, as soft and warm as an enormous invisible feline. It curled and whirled its way from her ankles to her knees, and then her hips and shoulders, and finally caressed her face. Tendrils of her hair started floating as if she were under water.

“Uh-oh.” As she glanced down every exposed inch of her skin began to sparkle with tiny red, orange and gold lights. “What’s going on?”

An image of herself on the floor, her head at an odd angle, flashed through her mind, making her go still.

I shall save you, child, a deep, sad voice whispered inside her head. You must save mine.

All the lights went out, plunging the room into complete darkness. That startled Emery so much she took a step back, and banged into something made of ice-cold stone. The next breath she took felt crisp and almost frosty, as if the temperature had suddenly dropped thirty degrees. She moved to climb down, and only then realized that she wasn’t standing on the table anymore.

“Did I fall?” She squinted, trying to see something. “Hello? Buc?”

The sound of a door being flung open made her jump, but she held onto the sword tightly as an aura of light appeared. It came from a lantern, and the person holding it had on a leather gauntlet over a sleeve of rough, pale fabric.

It wasn’t her supervisor, Emery thought, and lowered the blade.

A big hand put the lantern on the table between them and turned up the flame. The brightness revealed a very tall man with long, fiery blond hair. Over his loosely-woven tunic and dark trousers he wore the same patterned tartan as the manikin in the highlander exhibit. He’d secured it with a wide brown belt studded with dark red cabochons set in elaborate rose gold filigree. Another, larger stone carved from a vivid orange gem flashed from the gold penannular brooch on his left shoulder, where it pinned his tartan to the tunic underneath it.

When he lifted his head and locked his gaze with hers, Emery’s heart skipped a beat.

Shadows made his noble features appear almost unearthly, as if he’d come from another dimension. Not a single freckle or blemish showed on his smooth, lightly tanned skin. He looked so perfect she would have thought him another manikin, except she could see his chest moving as he breathed, and the faint whiteness of his breath in the air between them. He stood well over six feet tall, and looked so well-built she wondered if he modeled for men’s fitness magazines. At that moment the light from the lantern flared and his eyes caught the reflection. His irises glittered like shards of white, lavender and violet glass, as if they’d been chiseled from amethyst crystals.

Emery felt utterly enchanted by his masculine perfection. Outside of photoshop men just didn’t look like this guy anymore. He could have been a character from an epic fantasy come to life.

He tilted his head as he looked over her. “Have you naught to say, then?” he asked, his accent plain.

He looks like that and he’s Scottish? Emery hoped he worked in her department. “Can you please help me? Someone is trying to steal this sword.”