She smiled. “Yep. The longer they keep looking, the longer it’ll take them to form an alternate plan.”
Callie laughed. “Slick. I like you, girlfriend.”
“Even better,” Lina added, “if we can locate the tablet, we can protect it and then send the cockatrice on a wild-goose chase and try to figure out who’s involved in their plan.”
Daniel scratched his head. “I haven’t seen the tablet in over a hundred years.”
“Do you know where it is now?”
He shook his head. “No. Bertholde didn’t leave you any clues?”
“Not in the box of stuff she sent. I don’t know if there’s anything at her house. That’s our next stop.” She had brought several of the books to the confab with her. Kael and Zack were translating them for her. She pulled them out of a backpack and set them on the table, as well as the puzzle box and the stone figurines. “We’ve been going through her journals and it’s great background information, but no clues.”
Daniel picked up the puzzle box. In three quick movements, he opened it and handed it back to her.
The room went silent. Lina finally closed her gaping jaw and took the box from him. Inside lay a scroll.
“How the hell did you do that?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “I made it for her. She told me what size she wanted. Didn’t tell me what she wanted it for. Made it for her, oh, over a hundred years ago.”
Kael looked stunned. “Well bend me over and frost my bacon.” Everyone stared at him. His face reddened. “What?”
Zack rolled his eyes. “Yes, he belongs to me. Any questions?”
Brodey cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt or anything, but can someone please take a look at the scroll?”
With trembling fingers, Lina removed it from the box. The bleached parchment felt new, not old. Lina laid it on the table and carefully unrolled it. Written in the same hand as the letter from Bertholde, it was in French.
Jan translated for her.
Dearest Lina,
If you are reading this, you have either met Daniel Blackestone, broken open the box, or some third party has intercepted this.
Although I suppose you might have figured out how to open the box, but that is unlikely since it took me several days to remember how to open it.
Anyhow, your suppositions are correct. I did exactly as you suspect. (Trust your instincts!) You know exactly what I’m talking about. The answers you seek are exactly where you suspect they are. For obvious reasons, I cannot state all here. You are the sole caretaker now, you and your men.
Enjoy your journey, and take care to watch your back, as they say. Lacey’s clan will love and protect you as one of their own. Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to talk with her by now. If not, do so immediately.
I apologize in advance for the squeak.
(And Andel, you can still go fuck yourself. My, I do love saying that! And yes, he knows I still love him.)
Love to you and your men,
Bertholde.
Lina laughed, but the cryptic note didn’t make things clearer. “Okay, so I’m guessing we’ll find the clue to the tablet’s location at her house?”
Brodey nodded as he read the scroll over Jan’s shoulder. “Yep. And I’m guessing she also means she moved it from wherever it was last hidden, so none of the other keepers know its location.
“What the heck does she mean by the squeak, I wonder?” Lina pondered.
Lacey, however, had a wide ear-to-ear grin on her face. “I know exactly what she means.” She looked at Lina and winked. “As soon as you get to her house, call me on a cell phone and I’ll tell you. Any time, day or night.”
“Why a cell phone?” Zack asked.
Lacey shrugged. “We don’t know what we’re up against. I wouldn’t put it past anyone to bug her phone. Don’t worry. Even if they ransack her house, they won’t find what she left for you. I guarantee it.”
Jocko called a brief recess in their discussion to call the server back in for their orders. “While this place is owned by one of our Pack, it still pays to take precautions,” he said.
Daniel ordered a drink and sat back in his chair with a sad look on his face. Once the server left, he said, “I hate those goddamned bastards.” Lina knew if she reached out and touched his hand, she’d feel a wave of sadness from him.
“What happened?” she asked.
“They killed my family and half the goddamned village we lived in. Wiped them out. Everyone except me, my sister, and one of our neighbors.” He finished his drink in three swallows. “She’d just started shifting and my parents had asked me to take her out one night on a run. Keep her safe. We got back just before dawn and found everyone dead. The three of us managed to catch up with one of their stragglers, an orc who’d thrown their hat in with them.” His expression hardened. “We finally let him die the next night after we knew we’d gotten all the information out of him. Unfortunately, by the time we got word to other shifter strongholds and they sent reinforcements, the cockatrice had skittered into hiding like the fucking roaches they are.”
She thought about what Lacey had told her about Andel. “That sounds like a common theme with these asshats. They like to pick on people who can’t defend themselves.”
“It’s definitely one of their calling cards,” Daniel agreed. He looked into Lina’s eyes, then around the rest of the room. “They thought we had the tablet. They’d found out, somehow, that my father was one of the guardians of it.”
“But they didn’t get the tablet?” Kael asked.
“Nope. The tablet wasn’t in the village. Back then, it was never kept anywhere near where the guardians lived.”
“How did you find out where it was?” Lina asked.
“They made me one of the guardians,” Daniel said.
She looked at Lacey. “I thought you said all of them were old?”
Daniel interrupted. “I’m not a keeper of the tablet anymore. I bowed out when I left Europe.”
“Oh,” Lina said, mollified.
Zack opened up the knapsack he’d brought with him and put the book, the figurines, the two knives, and the remnants of the charmed handcuffs Lenny had put on Rick and Jan on the table. “Any of those look familiar to anyone?”
Brodey said, “Sorry I didn’t think to bring the ones he’d used on Lina with us.”
Callie held her hand out, a frown on her face. “Can I see those?”
Zack handed them to her. Now mangled and broken from when Jan and Rick broke the chain before Brodey helped free them, their charmed powers were gone.
Callie ran her fingers over the marks etched in the silver cuffs. “This looks familiar. There used to be a guy in Brussels who did work like this. I thought I’d heard he died, but this sure looks like his handiwork.” She returned them to Zack.
“What about these?” he asked, holding the catlinite figurines.
Lina shuddered at the very sight of them, but Callie took them, turned them around in her hands, and handed them back to him with a frown. “They’re soaked in dragon blood.”
“See?” Lina said. “I told you they were squicky!”
Callie thought for a moment. “There was an artisan, also in Brussels, who used to make all sorts of magickal carvings and talismans, if I remember correctly. In the older days, Brussels was a very popular central location for vendors to set up shop who had dealings with fey races.”
“Fey races?” Lina asked.
Callie nodded. “Nonhumans. Shifters, that sort of stuff.”
“Well,” Zack said, “we can make Brussels our second stop after we get done at Bertholde’s house.”