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He had always wonderedwhat form his salvation would take. He knew salvation was coming—he had not allowed himself to believe otherwise. To accept that he would spend the rest of eternity imprisoned as he was, would be to invite a final madness into his mind.
So he stayed silent. He waited. He watched.
And he dreamed of how he might one day be free of the chains that bound him.
Perhaps the building would burn. And once he was rendered to ash and the silver chains melted away, he could climb from the rubble. Perhaps the building would become a relic of the past in the centuries to come—some tourist attraction, and he would become relegated to a curiosity along with the rest of the vault in which he was being stored.
Yes. Along with the books, and the trinkets, and the dangerous baubles the human mortals collected, he had become just another dusty thing that was to be kept.
Perhaps his brother would finally come to free him. Realizing the error of his ways, he would storm the building or slink in as a shadow and wrest the blade from the chains that kept him bound. Oh, he would be a fashion of grateful for a time, perhaps.
Or one of his brother’s children would come, hearing of the legend of the forsaken creature that had been cast from his graces and cursed to an eternity in chains.
Over and over in his head he played out every possible outcome of his particular dilemma. Would it be a power-hungry mortal, striving to rise above the rest? Perhaps another supernatural being endeavoring to make an ally or mistaking him for something that could be controlled and wielded.
But what stepped through the doors that day was not among any of his lengthy and tiresome ponderings of how he might one day be freed. What stepped in through the doors of the vault, trailing nervously behind a priest and a woman in a wheelchair—a demoness, of all things—was not anywhere on his list of options.
The realization that he could still be surprised would have brought a smile if he still owned a lower jaw.
Or the tendons and sinew required.
Regardless, he let his inner eye examine the woman. His own eyes had rotted away beneath his closed lids long ago. She was a beautiful, tiny little thing. She wore clothing that did not belie the potential he saw in her. He could picture her wreathed in pearls and bedecked in silk, not…hiding beneath baggy clothing that ill suited her ample bust and narrow waist.
Hiding. Yes. That was precisely what the young, delicious thing was doing. Hiding. He could feel the anxiety that swirled around her. She stared at every object she passed as though it were about to leap from the shelves and devour her. She marveled at the items all the same. Anxious but curious thing. Intelligence burned in her large green eyes.
But that was not why he knew she was to be his salvation. No. It was the reek of death about her that made him itch with anticipation. Not the sweet, tangy smell of rotted meat. Not the older, dusty scent of desiccated flesh. She was not wreathed in pearls and silk as he wished to see her adorned—but instead she was aglow with the very essence of death itself.
It was as though a halo of bones arched behind her head, the very Holy Mother of Death herself. He could see it reflected in his inner eye. Exhalant and pure. The apotheosis of the moment itself.
He would have thought an angel of death had come to visit him, save for the fact that he could smell that she was very, very much human. She was not nearly so mundane as an angel, either. She was no simple spirit.
She was something new.
Something he had never witnessed before.
How utterly wonderful!
He wished to kiss her feet. Her hands. Her face. He wished to touch her, to caress her, to drink her, to love her. But she was not his. Another’s mark lay on her. He knew not whose. And it seemed she did not come here for him. They headed deep into the vault in the opposite direction from where he had been stashed away, forgotten and neglected.
But he would be free this day. This he knew.
He simply needed to be patient.
And patience was a skill he had long practiced. Not because he had a choice, perhaps, but it was a learned trait all the same. And so…he waited, and he watched.
* * *
There was somuch to look at, Maggie didn’t even know where to start. Two elevator rides down into the depths of the building, and down hallways that grew more and more narrow as they went, and she was officially lost. All she knew was that she was very far underground, and in a very old portion of the building.
Naked bulbs burned in sockets overhead, and the ground beneath her was hard-packed dirt. Nobody spoke as they made their way farther and farther into the depths of the building. When they rounded a corner, she was surprised to see a huge metal door in front of them. The narrow corridor emptied into a much larger space, the ceiling soaring overhead and into the darkness, unlit by the two bulbs attached to the walls by conduit. The door was chained shut, with a large and elaborate lock holding it in place.
Rinaldo walked forward, fished the oversized iron key from his coat, and unlocked the door. It wasn’t until he draped the chain over a pipe nearby that Maggie realized the chains were etched with symbols. She didn’t know what they meant, but she was pretty damn sure they were magic.
“What is this place?” She finally had to know.
“The vault of dangerous antiquities.” Rinaldo sighed. “Things we can’t even keep in our archives. Things that only people inside the Order know about.” He yanked on the door, grunted as it stuck, and then put his back into it. It finally opened with a loud creak of metal straining against rust.
