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“Apart from her Nerds addiction and traveling shamans, she seems perfectly agreeable.”
Skip inched closer to the back wall. “If you explain in greater detail what you hope to accomplish, that will help me choose the right pyxis for you.”
“I’ve encountered powerful wards at a private house that I need to break. They seem to be almost sentient.”
Skip whistled. “Sounds like quite a good challenge.”
A good challenge was whether I could finish the ice cream on my cone before it melted. I wasn’t interested in this kind of challenge. I only wanted to finish the job for Big Boss, get my moat, and make sure the secret in the house wasn’t going to wipe out the entire town of Fairhaven.
“One ward was connected to the owner. When he died, it seemed to trigger another ward. The house forced me out, and I need to get back in.”
Skip stroked his fluffy beard. “I think I have something that can help with that.” He bustled to the wall to his left. “What are the wards protecting? Something either very valuable or very dangerous, I suppose. Or both.”
“I have no idea, and that’s what I intend to find out.”
He smirked. “Curiosity is a highly underrated quality. I wholeheartedly approve.”
I had no interest in his validation, only his pyxis collection.
Skip selected three boxes. In the center of the floor, the planks shifted, and a glass table rose from beneath us. He placed each pyxis carefully on the glass.
“I’m guessing this feature wasn’t prewar.”
He chuckled. “No, I made a few modifications when I purchased the property.”
“You must never want to move. It would be a real bitch to transport all these boxes.”
“I have an emergency evacuation plan, but no plans to relocate, although I have to admit the desert gets more appealing with each passing year.”
“You might lose a good portion of your clientele in the desert.”
“Which is the main reason I stay.” He placed a proprietary hand on the first box. “This one I acquired on the island of Santorini. I was there on vacation, but I can never resist an opportunity to add quality pieces to my collection.”
The pyxis was minimalist in style with a gold leaf motif and a blackish-purple tint. “What’s inside?”
“A powder. You should only use a teaspoon. Any more than that is risky.”
“In what way?”
“You could open a chasm in the earth.”
“Noted.”
His hand moved to the middle pyxis. “This one is liquid. Two tablespoons.”
“I’m not baking a cake.”
His smile exuded patience. “I try to keep instructions simple for my clients. Trust me, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that milliliters and ounces confuse people, especially when they’re under pressure, as many of my clients are.”
It wasn’t very user friendly either. I couldn’t see Gunther carrying around a scale to measure the weight of his poison before he administered the right dosage to his victim.
The middle pyxis was tall, slender, and elegant in design. The lid was topped with a carving of a horse. “It looks like a regular lid, but it’s actually a cork,” Skip explained.
“And what will happen if I use more than two tablespoons? A rip in the fabric of this dimension?”
“No, it stains. The liquid is bright green, so you don’t want to spill it anywhere except a lawn.”
The third pyxis was squat in shape and dark blue in color, decorated with orange silhouettes of men and monsters. “This one works as an atomizer.”
