Mac paused to recall his junior-high years. “Chef’s Surprise...” A shiver ran through him.
“See what else is in there,” said Mira.
“Oh, suddenly we’re curious.”
“Well, it is kinda fun.”
Mac rummaged through the trunk, hauling out a dusty vase, chipped; a set of fountain pens still in their case, unused.
Mira plopped into the armchair with the old letter:
“It was she in the tower who drew us in, silken raiments hardly concealing nubile curves, flowing hair the color of moonglow framing a mythical face such as one to lure ships to their doom on rocky shores.
“As if her beauty were not enough to slake the hunger of my battle-scarred troops, the meal she kindly set out for us warmed our hearts to her as well as our loins.”
Mira peered up over the parchment. “ ‘Warmed our hearts to her as well as our loins?’ Puh-lease.”
Mac held an old fishing reel, fifty-pound test uncurling all over the floor. “Keep readin’. I’m startin’ to like this letter.”
She frowned playfully and continued:
“It was earlier this very eve, while in the grip of some torpor brought about not by wine and revelry but of some otherworldly sort, when she seduced three of my soldiers, draining them not only of bodily fluids but of their very essence, as if a Satan-hewn succubus, no doubt killing to retain her youth or some other such devilry that is beyond my means to comprehend.
“What she had done to them I was not witness to firsthand. The heavy meal had satiated me to the point where pleasures of the flesh were not foremost on my mind, and indeed I was at the time of these events searching the tower for any riches that could be easily plundered while our hostess was thus occupied in her bedchamber.
“It was on this midnight search that I discovered the palimpsest, a curio that had me oddly bewitched. In a small antechamber, the book lay open and encased under glass atop a black marble pedestal. Candles flickered around it and a dark breeze seemed to ruffle crimson velvet curtains draping the walls. It appeared to be the only item in the room. Indeed, it appeared as if the very room had been constructed around it, so obvious was the thing’s importance to our beguiling hostess.
“I stepped closer. So light they were, the pages of the open tome, like wisps of air, as if paper pressed of rice in some Eastern temple. The words scrawled thereupon were of a language foreign to me, the letters indistinct, some inscribed with heavier ink than others, or perhaps written with a more insistent hand. In fact, there appeared to be generations of words coexisting on these pages. The lower right corner of one page contained a drawing formed of fine lines, difficult to make out in the chamber’s dim light. I held one of the lit candles closer to the glass, the better to observe it.
“What the candle flame revealed to me was of a nature too hideous to make reference to within these pages. Even a man of war like myself, a man who will perhaps one day pay his due to the devil, must have some moral compass, and the needle of my soul’s guide was sent whirling as if in magnetic confusion by the image I beheld on that withered parchment.
“It was then I heard the sound behind me, that of a heavy sandaled foot scraping stone. I twisted to see the thing lunge toward me, a scabbard in its claws and death within its blackened eye. What it was I do not know, I’ve never seen its like before, but a creature of God I am certain it was not.”
Mira put down the letter.
Mac had paused in his search of the trunk, a broken bisque doll in his hand.
“Why’re you stopping?”
“Because it’s ridiculous, that’s why. I mean, come on, succubi and monsters with scabbards...” She expelled a dismissive burst of air, shaking her head.
“Hey, we don’t know how old that thing is. Way back when, in unexplored parts of the world, all kinds of weird stuff was going on.”
“Not this kind of stuff, hon.” She joined him again on the floor next to the trunk. “You find any eBay treasures?”
“Not really.” He pointed out the contents of the trunk, now piled on the floor around him. “I might get something for this doll. Even though it’s busted.”
Mira peeked inside the big, open maw of the empty trunk. “Didn’t find any jewelry? Engagement ring?”
Mac, tremulous: “Engagement ring?”
“I’m just saying.”
Mac’s brow knitted. “Did I forget a birthday or anniversary or something?”
“No. But sometimes we ladies need a ‘just because’ gift.”
“ ‘Just because’?”
Mira nodded, grinning sweetly.
“Can we get back to the business at hand?”
“What business?” Mira reached inside the trunk. “Not even the trunk is worth anything. It’s water-stained and mildewed. Look, this corner is warped.”
Pinching an inside corner of the browned lining, she peeled it away, holding it up like roadkill.
Both heard the soft thunk. Peering over the lip of the trunk, Mac made out the brownish lump in the shadowed corner.
He reached in and pulled it out; about the size of a fish stick, wrapped in brown waxed paper, tied with a short length of knotted twine.
“It must have been hidden inside the lining.”
“Now we’re talking.” Mira beamed with curiosity.
Mac tugged on the twine, the knot petrified with age. “Hand me those scissors.”
Mira did and Mac cut the twine, carefully unwrapping the heavy brown paper to reveal a simple key inside; long and slender with a fleur-de-lis head and a double notch at the other end of the dark metal stem.
“Looks like a skeleton key,” he said.
“There’s writing on the paper,” Mira pointed out.
The inside of the wrapping had faded letters broken by heavy creases in the wax paper. Mac kept turning it into the light so as to make out the faded words:
“I will soon send this across the seas and pray it falls into the hands of one stronger than I, one with the will power to destroy this parchment writ of sorcery and devilment. God be with you, Commander Hintze, on the river Khorad Dur, sixteen September, seventeen eighty-one.”
“Where the hell is the Khorad Dur?” he asked.
Mira hauled the old world atlas from the bookcase, blowing dust off the top of it. “Let’s find out.”
“He was talking about the palimpsest. Shipping it across the seas... somewhere.” Weighing the key in his palm, Mac trailed off in thought.
Mira scanned the index in the rear of the atlas. “Can’t find a Khorad Dur anywhere. Sometimes names change after so long. Or maybe it’s a regional thing, the translation is different. My guess would be the Middle East, or maybe Northern Africa. I’ll check online later.”
“But why would he want it destroyed?”
“Seems he thought it was the work of the devil. Ooooooo...” Intoning the ghostly sound, Mira reshelved the atlas and chuckled.
“I’m not sayin’ I believe any of it. But that doesn’t mean somebody else wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I could find this thing? I put it up for sale online, list it as a genuine book of black magic, sort of like that famous one, the Necro...?”
“Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead. I think that was made up, hon.”
“Whatever. I list it along with the key and that letter to prove how old it is. People would pay good money for it.”
“Nutjobs, you mean.”
“Nutjobs with money.”
“Don’t waste too much time looking, hon. We still have bills to pay.”
The next morning, first thing Mac did was get to the hardware store when it opened and traipse into the back corner where virgin keys lined the wall, waiting to be notched. He was told that the old guy who ran the key-maker wasn’t in, probably out getting his java. Frustrated, Mac did the same, going across the street to the 7-Eleven for a coffee and donut, leaning up against his car in the hardware-store parking lot to eat it. Soon, a beat-up Toyota the color of a rotten tangerine pulled next to the rear door of the hardware store. A sixtyish gentleman unfolded himself from the front seat, holding a Starbucks cup. Wisps of sandy hair fluttered atop his sun-marked pate. Mac recognized him from when he’d been in before.