AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Ten
Discovery
I followed Emily into a small office off the main library. The library was different than the archive, not only in its reading material, but in its openness and warmth. The room was flooded with sunlight from three large windows, the bookshelves only shaded by a pair of bright patterned curtains on either end. The furniture was pastel and, by all appearances, soft, scattered with an eclectic but somehow balanced collection of pillows that made me want to curl up there for the rest of the afternoon. So, I was a bit snow-blind when she closed the door on the tiny, dark room where Morgan’s things were stored.
She moved two large boxes from the floor onto the polished black desk. “Most of it got thrown out, but there were a few things we thought might be of some importance,” Emily explained.
I stepped forward, shifting a couple of notebooks on top of the pile aside. “You’ve already looked through it, then?”
“Not really,” she said. “Aern and I pulled this stuff from Morgan’s office and the other box was gathered from his private rooms.” She waved vaguely at the box in question before sliding the chair out of her way to stand beside me. “We didn’t take much time examining it. It was pretty creepy, all in all.”
I flipped open a hardcover journal, feeling a spasm of revolt that nearly had me throwing it back down at the words scribbled in Morgan’s hand.
Emily leaned over my shoulder, peering at the text that spelled out our own names in hurried, uncontrolled script. “Yep. Like that.”
I forced myself to continue through the pages, seemingly random notes and numbers interposed with quotes from the prophecy, all in more than a few different languages. And the word Dragon. Over and over.
“Blood of the Dragon,” I mumbled in Latin, not entirely meaning to, and Emily ran a hand over her bare arm.
“Well, this is fun,” she said. Using a pencil to pull a silk blindfold from the box of personal belongings, she tossed it toward the far corner of the desk with a stifled gag.
I laid the journal aside and drew out another. “Didn’t he have a cell phone or something? A planner his assistant kept?”
Emily nodded. “We can’t find anything digital. My guess, they’re with said assistant and he’s still out there. Protecting it.”
“I should have waited,” I said. “I should have come with him here, in the center of it all—”
“Back to his lair?” Emily interrupted, holding up a set of black satin wrist straps as she did so.
I felt my face draw up. “Yes. Back to his lair. At least that way I’d have had the chance to find out more, maybe to reverse the sway on everyone.”
“Please,” Emily said while flinging the satin onto her pile, “alone with Morgan was the last place you needed to be.” She reached into the box with her pencil once more, grimacing at a second pair of silken restraints.
I stared at her. “Why did Aern keep that?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, “but we’re definitely going to have a talk about it.” She tossed the material to the side, and it landed under the dim light of a desk lamp.
“Wait,” I said, leaning forward over the boxes. “Is that blood?”
She leaned closer, the look on her face confirming my suspicion. “That would explain it,” she said, her gaze slowly going over the other items lying in the box. She held up the pencil, gingerly pointing toward a black satin drawstring bag. “So, what do you suppose is in there?”
“You’re the one with the pencil,” I offered.
“Thanks,” she muttered. She picked up a second pencil and held them chopstick style to loosen the string while holding the bag with the barest possible grip of thumb and forefinger from her other hand.
For a moment, she looked relieved, and then, briefly, confused. It didn’t take long to work itself out in her head, and the instant she realized what she was seeing, she looked pure sick.
She was frozen, hand unable to release the horror it held.
“What is it?” I asked, more stunned than concerned. Whatever it was couldn’t hurt us. It was just a box of junk. The real danger—Morgan—was locked away.
She opened her mouth in a choked breath, but no words followed.
“Emily,” I started, but fell silent when I’d moved enough to see the contents for myself.
Each of her reactions made sense then, and my own thoughts followed the same line. But when I finally made it to disgust, I didn’t freeze. Instead, my hand reached out of its own accord, unable to keep from grasping that one last piece of her, even with the awfulness that it signified.
A small shudder escaped Emily when I removed the lock of hair from the bag to lie across the fingers of my open hand. It was so familiar, so perfect ... and so utterly horrible. It was the same soft texture I’d known as a child and I had to resist the urge to bring it closer to my face, to see if it still held her scent. It was a warm chestnut color with the faintest blonde streaks, healthy even as it lay disconnected in my hand. There was no question who the lock of hair belonged to.
