Nine Swords

She wiped the sand off her cheeks with the back of her arm, or at least she tried to. The moisture on her skin just smeared it into a smooth layer from her chin to her ear. At this rate, she'd be covered with a fine patina in an hour or so and anyone passing by would leave her in peace for eternity, thinking she was a half-buried statue.

“They never show you how patient you have to be when Indiana Friggin' Jones does it, do they?” Jenn crouched back down in the pit and returned to brushing whisper-thin layer after layer of desert from the wall she'd exposed. The sun seared the gulley at a merciless angle, leaving only a sliver of shade, even at the bottom of the dig pit. She wasn't going to catch a break till she got done with this and could retreat to the village, or even better, to the Agartha, to her flat in London, and into the lap pool in the basement.

A carefully exact transcript of the scroll sat on the ground next to her, pinned open by two small chunks of sandstone. She glanced at it occasionally, automatically translating the hieroglyphs audibly, “'The true source of the well from which flows both desire and despair.' Way with words the ancient Egyptians. Can't imagine what their advertising fliers read like. 'Pharoah's Visage Hair Gel... strewing virgins supine before you... order now, and we toss in a free ankh.'”

Now there was sand in her mouth. She tried spitting, but that would require actual moisture in her body. Stupid sun. “This is what you get for taking up Archeology, Jenn. Stuck in a pit at eyebrow-igniting noon in the middle of the Egyptian desert, talking to yourself, tracking down some lead you bought off a skadgy wanker with one leg and an honest face, on the off-chance you can get enough extra credit to pass the term this go-round.”

She wasn't entirely certain what her instructors would have to say about a... spontaneous dig off Oxford's registered student sites. She was pretty sure what Sonnac would say about an unauthorized dig for an artifact for which there was not the slightest trace of documentation in the Library.

“In a perfect world, this is going to be some pretty bit, flashy enough to wow the faculty and boring enough not to catch the Temple's attention. And it's always a perfect world, right, Jenn?” She really needed to bring a worker or two with her next time... so at least it looked like she was talking -to- someone.

Just her luck, wasn't it that her focus for the term had been Amarna period art and realism? She'd had a bit too much of the reality of the Amarna period from the Temple lately for her taste. It had been a lot easier when it was just a matter of documenting how they drew Akhenaten's nose, not running his undead minions to ground in ruined temples riddled with lava flows.

“Take -that-, Mr. I. Jones. Wish I had your fecking hat at the moment, though.” She shoved her hair back out of her eyes, sending another spray of sand down over her nose... causing a massive sneeze.

The sand shifted in front of her and flowed down off the face of a weathered stone. The shape was immediately obvious as something manipulated by man, and she thought she could see the faint outline of carvings. Everything else forgotten, Jenn went to work furiously, but with painstaking care, brushing the sand clear of the stone.

*******************************************

By the time she had the surface clear, there was a shadow in the pit, and she couldn't make out the words. She climbed up the rope ladder. Dusk was swallowing the desert, painting the sky a dozen colors like a fancy caftan. The gully was mostly in shade now, cooling things off wonderfully. She fetched a work lamp from her rucksack and strapped it around her head. Shimmying back down into the pit, she went to see what she'd found.

The beam of the light panned from the stone to the scroll and back to the stone. The hieroglyphs on the stone were an exact match to the scroll supposedly stolen from an overseer's tomb some 4000 years ago. It looked to be a stone forming part of the rim of an ancient well. The stones next to it were faintly visible now, where she'd cleared the edges of this one.

“Great, so they desired actual water and despaired about getting it. I guess I can haul this bloody chunk of stone back and turn it it. At least it's got primary documentation.” She sat back on her rump in bottom of the pit and stared at her 'find'.

As the last of the sun's rays fled the gully, leaving the pit a black hole in the sand, Jenn was about to climb out for the day when she saw a flicker of light out of the corner of her eye. Her attention snapped back to the stone, but the light seemed to fade. Tilting her head to the side, she could see it again. You couldn't look at it directly.

Reaching back to grab the small book she kept on a shoulder strap almost all the time now, Jenn forced anima to build in the blood in the fingertips of one hand, then she gingerly ran them over the stone.

The reaction was instantaneous. A pulse of red-black light flashed over the stone and the surface of the rock fell away with a blast that knocked Jenn clear across the pit. She scrambled to her feet, letting her vision clear. The headlamp revealed a swirling cloud of dust in the pit, each mote reflecting the light till she couldn't see even a few feet ahead of her.

Pulling her shirt up over her mouth, Jenn made her way through the cloud and knelt down in front of the fractured stone. The dust cleared, settling with unnatural speed, and she saw the box in the cavity left where the face had sheared off the well stone.

Gold. There was going to be no keeping this one quiet. She reached out and carefully picked up the box with both hands. It was only about a foot square, but every inch was covered with ancient writing. It didn't weigh much more than a large cat, so she hefted it carefully under one arm and climbed the rope ladder carefully.

She shoved the box unceremoniously into her rucksack. She desperately wanted to open it, but she -knew- better. You had to document this stuff, unseal it carefully, do it in a lab setting... she knew all the rules... so why did she just want to rip the thing open to get inside?

Shouldering her bag, she headed for the Agartha, leaving the pit and her dig site behind, forgotten.

*******************************************************

“I've got to get context for this.” Jenn sat at the table in her kitchenette, piles of books and papers surrounding the gold box. She had started the research as soon as she got back from her night assignment in Romania. She was still wearing her work clothes and just grabbed her flak jacket as she bolted for the door.

“Wes has a translation in the original Latin that might do it. I know I saw it on his shelf on Who night.” She had her cell phone out before she hit the street, texting him.

<text> Wes, are you in London? I have a problem.

She leaned against the front stoop of the building, waiting for an answer. Nothing. Well, she couldn't just go and break into his stuff... at least not without trying a little harder to reach him. She keyed the gps on her phone and selected the ping Wes had given her when they first started working together. She had a tendency to get lost in the swamps out in Maine, and it helped to have a gps point.

Well, he -was- here in the city, and not too far away! Weasel was probably holed up in a pub with a pint and a book and hadn't even heard his phone. She started following the gps signal...

… to the end of an alley. There he was, down the alley! Down the alley with... okay, “Um.. is this a bad time?”

****************************************

An interesting hour or two later, Wes had been safely tucked into (or, at least dropped onto) a cot in the barracks by an irritated pair of strapping young Templars who were really regretting drawing guard duty that night. They'd had to haul his unconscious form the whole way back from Tabula Rasa.

Jenn collapsed onto the bed in the women's quarters of the Swords barracks. She hadn't wanted to go back to her flat and stay alone. Usually, she was happier alone. Just not tonight.

She stared at the ceiling but couldn't sleep. She'd forgotten to ask Wes about the book. Something about finding him in an alley with an... enthusiastic woman trying to turn him into a puppet had finally gotten her mind off that gold box on the table at her flat. She'd just learned that the streets of London were as full of beautifully dangerous beasts as a South American jungle. She'd sleep any minute now. Really... she just had to close her eyes. She just had to stop thinking about what would have happened if Tom -hadn't- answered his cell phone.

She could sleep. Easy, right? Just close her eyes. It was safe here. It wasn't like they could get into the Temple.

Her laughter was hollow, and she got a pillow thrown at her and curses in a half-dozen languages from the rest of the barracks telling her to go to sleep.

Sure they could. Apparently, some of them worked here.

They said there were no quiet days in the Templars, but she thought they were probably talking about field work. The field work today had been cake compared to her off-duty time.

Jenn watched to make sure Tom made it to the barracks in one piece... watched him go inside... all from far enough back to give him privacy. She kept going over in her head what she -should- have said. “You're brilliant in hindsight, Jenn. Now if you could just engage a few brain cells in the moment. And... also if you could just stop talking to yourself.”

She glared at a kid, complete with skateboard, who had no business being out this late and less business laughing at her the way he was. She didn't scare the kid, apparently. Big surprise there. Jennison Edwards didn't scare anybody, except sometimes Jennison Edwards.

“So, let's review our day,” she said to herself... well, she thought to herself. The kid had convinced her to keep her internal monologue internal, at least on the street. “First, Wes drops a bombshell on you that makes Venator's toys look like cap-gun charges. You handle that with all the finesse of a Bond Girl... no, you handle that by blathering and stammering.” She shuffled down the sidewalk, careening off the corner of a building as she cut a quick turn to take an alley shortcut. Her hair was in her eyes, and she wasn't even bothering to try to push it away. She'd been in a blind fog about everything else today, might as well add navigating home to the list.

“Then Tom finally opens up to someone about what's been eating him all this time... and, instead of providing a shoulder and a patient ear, you go off half-cocked and probably cost him thousands of pounds in future therapy. Judging by his reaction, the only costume you're going to need for that party on Saturday is 'The Invisible Woman'.”

She recognized the sidewalk pavement outside her building. That struck her as particularly funny, because it meant she was usually staring at the ground and talking to herself by the time she reached her flat. Her fragile laugh scared the doorman. She added him to her list of successes for the day as she traipsed up the stairs, unwilling to risk getting stuck in a the small space of the elevator with anyone for even a short time.

She got the key in the door on or about the third try and entered her flat to the reassuring brush of fur and rumble of purring around her ankles. Kat and K-9 (he thought he was a dog) circled and mrrowed around her legs, threatening to tumble her unless she paid attention to them. A few moments of stroking fur and cooing was enough, and they vanished into the bedroom to reclaim the bed. Cats. Incredibly simple.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket as she shed her jacket and scarf over a table in the hall and moved into the kitchen. She started to key in Tom's number, then stopped. He wanted to sleep. She canceled the text. She started to key in his number again. She stopped and canceled the text again and flung the phone down on the table. It landed with an unfortunate crunch and slid over to land against the golden box sitting there.

“How did I forget about you?” She dragged a chair out and curled her legs up on it, staring at the box. The translation began in her head before she even realized she was reading the hieroglyphs again. She ran a fingertip over each carved figure and spoke the words out loud this time, rather than just reciting them in her head. As she reached the end of the inscription, her vision blurred and she noticed that the hand she'd been tracing with was startlingly pale.

Jenn forgot all that in an instant as the lid of the box opened with a soft click, sliding to the side on its own, as if she'd pushed it, which she was almost certain she hadn't.

The ancient Egyptian words whispered in her head, even though she'd finished the translation. “I need to call the lab at Oxford. This needs to get put in a vacuum box right away. How'd the thing come open anyway?” She'd gone back to talking to herself as she pulled the box toward her, sending her cell phone sliding along the table.

The sound of the phone scraping along the wood distracted her, and she blinked. “I never did get that book from Wes. And I should send something to Tom... at least let him know I didn't just let him walk home alone.”

She looked back at the box and peered inside, unable to resist one peek at the artifact she'd worked so hard to find for her paper.

*******************************

Jenn's abused phone rattled around on the antique oak of the kitchen table. Neither the Tull ringtone nor the vibration had the slightest effect on her. Jenn's head rested on a pile of notes, hair a mess of silky black fluff, eyes closed in apparently blissful sleep.

The phone rattled again a few minutes later, this time bumping its way across the table to smack into the glyphed golden box. The box sat serenely just beyond Jenn's head in a puddle of warm sunlight that filtered in through the charmingly warped glass in the kitchen window. The lid of the box was shut tightly, sealed, and showed no sign of ever having been opened in the past several millenia.

The noise of the phone annoyed the cats, who came in from the bedroom and began a plaintive chorus related to breakfast and the pathos of starving felines. None of it disturbed the sleeping girl.

Jenn nearly broke her neck in the shower, trying to get ready. She'd awakened, crooked into a pretzel shape by a night spent at the table, to the strains of Tull's Broadsword crooned directly into her ear. The phone had finally worked its way under her head, apparently, after the 14th or 15th call from Sonnac.

She'd barked out, “Assignment, field, right. On my way!” She was pretty sure she'd worked in a dozen “sir”s as well.

The cats were fed, she'd shot a text to Tom, and she even remembered to throw on her flak jacket before she ran out the door toward the Temple compound.

Then she ran back four blocks and back up the stairs to get her rifle.

K-9 was sitting on her grimoire by the door, grooming his paw, or she'd have forgotten that too. Foci thrown in place on their shoulder straps, she ran down the stairs again, nearly flattening the elderly gent who had the second floor flat. “Sorry! Work!” She kept up a steady jog as she left the building to the sound of his dignified calumny about her complete lack of decorum.

Jenn left actual skid marks on the marble as she practically dove for cover in front of Sonnac's desk. He looked down at the black scuff marks with a pointed lack of comment. She managed a reasonable facsimile of a salute.

“Sorry. Must have fallen asleep working late on something for school.”

“While I applaud your continued academic diligence, it would be refreshing to see a similar enthusiasm for your field assignments.” Sonnac's smile was charming and entirely crocodillian. She had seen an actual crocodile just the other day in the Nile with the exact same expression... though the reptile had a bit of ibex stuck in its teeth and Sonnac's were pristine. He must spend half his pay at the dentist getting those whites that pearly.

“I'll give it my full attention, Sir. Sorry, again.”

“Very well, who's your squad going to be today?” Sonnac pulled his tablet closer on the desk to check assignments.

“Oh, Wes, Sir. Farnham? I'm sure he'll...” She trailed off, remembering yesterday. “You know, I imagine he's going to want a different assignment today.” She couldn't imagine Wes would want anything to do with her today. She hoped it was just today. Her shoulders drooped slightly, and she had to pull herself back to attention.

Sonnac glanced up. “Well then? Your squad?”

Jenn began to blurt out, “Jackso.... yeah, no. No, I don't think he wants to see me ei... I mean, they're both really busy, and I know I'm late.”

Sonnac's left eyebrow performed an arch worthy of a Cirque de Soleil acrobat. “I see. So....?”

Jenn stared down at her boots. Back where you came in, Jenn. Least it's a familiar place. “Think I'd best take a solo for the week, sir. Or a canine assignment if you need search work done?”

Sonnac leaned back, pushing the tablet away. “Didn't we determine that you are.. at a bit of a risk in the field by yourself? Your... talents... run to support.” He clasped his hands behind his head, giving her that knee-melting assessment that he and her professors had perfected.

“I don't think I'd be an asset on a team at the moment, Sir.” She drew in a deep breath. “To be frank, every time I open my mouth, I seem to be compromising people I would prefer to protect.”

Sonnac sighed and leaned forward in his chair, flicking a finger at his tablet to confirm the record. “Same old Edwards. One of these days, girl, I'm going to assign you to Lethe... as a target.” Ironically, his smile was more genuine now.

“Thanks, Sir. Where to?”

“Romania. The resistance there needs every operative they can get... whether they have a reasonable life span or not.”

Jenn glared, but it was a poor job of a glare. “That all?”

Sonnac nodded. “We don't have a dog free for you. They're all in the field. Try learning how to kill something yourself. It will be a novel and exhilarating experience for you -and- the enemy!”

“Nothing in Egypt, Sir?” Jenn wasn't even sure why she asked. It wasn't like she hadn't seen enough sand lately.

Sonnac glanced up, confused. “No, Edwards, Romania. Go.”

“Gone, Sir!” She almost made it to the door. “Er... Sir? Can I get a new phone?”

Sonnac didn't even look up. “Leave the broken one at the quartermaster's desk. I'll do your paperwork and they'll send the new one to your Romanian contact.”

Jenn pushed the door open with her hip, briefcase strap over one shoulder and rifle strap over the other. She herded cats with her feet till she could get the door closed, and then she leaned back against the door a moment, just taking a deep breath. She was exhausted. She'd slept like a baby, but it had been an emotional morning already, and she was not beyond dreaming wistfully of a quick curl-up on the couch. Maybe with a good book...

She knew she should be relieved that she had run into Wes and they had talked. He'd apologized. She'd explained. Things weren't normal with him... they'd never be what she'd thought of as normal again... but they were what they were. She'd go to Hell and back to keep him safe. Hell was just a lot easier to navigate than his new coterie of friends. For all the talk of having each others' backs, they barely spoke when they saw each other in public anymore. She couldn't blame him. Trying to fit her into his new circle would be a lot like trying to sneak a sheep into a herd of gazelles.

Everything he'd said this morning had set her thinking. Was she really just one of the monsters? Just another immortal now, slowly bleeding away her humanity? Was it just a matter of time until all the things she held precious became irrelevant to her, and she became as cold and power-hungry as the things they saved? What sort of predator would she become?

She shook her head. She couldn't picture it. She tried... but all she wanted to do was keep the ones she cared about, the ones she had a duty to, safe.

She dropped the briefcase on the couch and walked over to the wall next to the television, opposite the victorian-dresser-turned-hidden-bar. Sliding the print of Parrish's “Fountain of Pirene” aside, she let the biometrics reader on her gun safe scan her thumb and retinal prints.

Rifle safely stored, she retrieved the briefcase from the couch and the Egyptian box from where she'd left it on the side table.

A few minutes later, Jenn was ensconced at her kitchen table, two laptops and a mountain of photocopies strewn around her. OCR for hieratic scripts was useless, so she tended to photocopy a lot more than the Templar Library was cheerful about. Apparently they had a Green policy. How very modern of them.

She knew now how to get the ornate container open. She'd triple-checked her translations. The trick was going to be getting it open without draining herself entirely of blood. Some trick! She gave the box a baleful stare, but her expression quickly shifted back to curiosity as she looked back to her notes.

If you built a container like this, you built it to hold something... and if that something was locked inside a near-fatal blood ritual... yeah, what could that say about the artifact inside here? She needed more information on it before she opened it again.

Jenn looked up and ran a finger over the box again, tracing the hieroglyphs absently. The first four columns of letters were glowing a strangely cold red when K-9 leaped up on the table and knocked into her arm, demanding attention.

She found herself stroking blood into the cat's fur from her fingertips. While the stain only showed as a darker patch on his inky black fur, the feline was not amused. He sat down and began frantically grooming, pausing now and then to give her baleful stares.

“Bloody hell...sorry K-9.” She grabbed for the small book in the shoulderbag she'd slung over her chair and quickly channeled her blood to seal the wounds on her fingertips. The scars vanished after a moment, and the miasma of blood anima around her hands vanished as well, a moment later.

“There's got to be something about what's in there that I'm missing.” She pushed the chair back. “Think like an archaeologist, Jenn.” She laughed. “Right, back to the source.”

She went to change into something more...Egypt. She'd picked up a new phone, so she'd see if Tom had time to catch a drink before she went. She could catch him up then, so he'd know what sort of trouble she was likely to be dragging into his lap. At least, with Jan Smith effectively off her radar until she got the okay from higher up... where higher up was Wes in this case... she had time on her hands to do some more thorough excavation. She hadn't seen hide nor pink hair of the other suspect agent she'd gotten an alert on, either.

--------------------------

Jenn trotted into the Agartha after checking her new rifle for the fourth time. She never quite trusted a new weapon. You had to find the quirks in it before it became an old friend.

She hadn't had time to talk to Tom about going to the dig or her growing curiosity about the artifact inside that casket. She'd been waylaid by an incredibly amusing creature named Molly, who had, if she wasn't mistaken, tried to sweep her off her feet, put on a one-woman bardic performance (if puns could be called bardic...), and then fallen in love with Tom, all in the space of a half-hour.

Jenn was also fairly sure she'd hired Tom to kidnap herself somewhere along the course of the conversation. She wondered how much ransom she could get from herself? Maybe she'd buy herself those new boots...

Jenn sat on the window seat in Tom's new private quarters, knees drawn up to her chest. She'd surveyed his rooms... the typical darkly stained oak, marble, ornate molding, heavy velvet curtains. He'd added his own touches, furniture-wise... apparently from the dumpster behind Ikea. She'd given up on finding something comfortable to sit on and retreated to the window seat.

Outside, a steady grey drizzle of rain washed the paving stones. Temple Hall, down the street, loomed like a stern commander looking disdainfully at its troops, the smaller buildings that lined the streets around it. Trails of rainwater obscured most of the view out of the thick, old glass, revealing the whole scene like an impressionist's working sketch.

Leaning her head back against the paneling, Jenn hit the speed dial on her cell and held it up to her ear. Tom had had to run out first thing in the morning, so she wouldn't be disturbing him. Tom grumbled about Sonnac snapping his fingers and him having to jump, but Jenn thought it was really more that he wasn't about to let anyone else take the dangerous jobs if he could get to them first. Eh, maybe she was wrong. He'd been on about a vacation, and honestly, he was starting to look like he needed one. Badly. One thing went without saying: Sonnac really did call at the worst times.

“Daddy?” She smiled and closed her eyes when she heard his voice on the other end of the connection. “How are y... no, really? I didn't know you were working on that. Did you have a minu.... really, barrel erosion? With anima? Wouldn't that need friction? Oh, chemical? This is why you're the engineer.” She smiled fondly, looking back out the window.

“Daddy, I needed to tell... what? Oh, aye. I can come out soon and test it for you. Do you have time to tal... No, no, the anima seems to act just like a regular round when I use it. It just splits itself sometimes, to heal and... no. That happens way outside the weapon, I think. Closer to the impact point.”

She held the phone aside a moment, took a breath, and then held it back to her ear, listening to her father's accounts of his latest projects... filling in gaps for him when he interrupted himself with a question for her. The weather shifted, the rain increasing to tap a steady tattoo on the glass.

“What? Oh... everything's fine, Daddy. Yes. Sonnac liked the last batch of schematics. Oxford?” She almost considered trying again, then, “It's going well. Nothing for you to worry about here, Daddy. Yes... yes, I'll call you when I can get out to the range. Be well, Daddy! Love you!”

Jenn rang off, set the phone down on the window ledge next to her, and stared out through the glass. After a short time, the rain-washed glass blurred even more and the images of the past days, of what she'd been trying to tell her father, filled her vision instead.

She saw the sun baking the sand in front of her while she talked on her phone with Wes... remembered her excitement seeing the images come through of the script he'd found that looked so much like the script on the box and the carvings referencing it. It had been hard to contain her reactions when she recognized that cartouche... the one that didn't match any royal names she could find listed but appeared on the casket as well. She'd had him trace it... she knew that had to be part of a key...

Then she remembered her skin going cold in the middle of that desert heat and the sheer panic when his phone went dead. She'd nearly driven an Oxford jeep into a ravine trying to get to the gps location he'd sent her. The motor pool frowned on that.

Jenn managed a rough laugh, her own humor saving her for a moment from the memories. Then the window blurred again, and she saw Wes laying there in front of that massive obelisk. She'd had to leave the jeep and jump across two lava flows to get to him. He hadn't mentioned the find was next to a bloody Hell rift. How does that not come into conversation?

The damned key had bled him half out. She knew the signs the minute she crouched down next to him. It took a good portion of her own anima to get him on his feet again, and even then, she'd needed to help him back on foot to the Agartha. She'd parked that jeep a little too close to one of the lava flows. Not good on the tires.

Jenn focused back on the room, her gaze falling on the shoulder bag she'd filled with clothes and odds and ends as they'd fled her flat the night before. One of those odds and ends was the scroll case she'd taken from the open panel in that obelisk... the one that Wes's blood had opened. She'd shoved it in there beneath a handful of silky underthings, a copy of Milan Vogue, a novel, four extra clips for her backup pistol and a toothbrush.

She was pretty sure that scroll would talk about what was -inside- that casket, not just how to get into it. The translation was going slowly though. For one thing, she hadn't had a chance to open it. For another thing, what Wes had commented on about the script being...strange... had made her take a second look at the casket itself.

He was right. The figures were just slightly off, and she hadn't noticed... or mentally written it off to the artist. Heiroglyphs were like handwriting... as diverse in form as the people who wrote, painted, and carved them. These figures though... there was something just slightly alien about them. Like the person who'd carved them hadn't quite grasped the concept of 'owl' or 'duck'.

Add that information to the obelisk where Wes found the scroll being next to an open hell rift, and she and Tom had been left coming to some new conclusions about the source of the artifact. If they were true, it wasn't going to be providing the background for a paper on Amarna period art.

Jenn laughed again and leaned her head back, eyes closing. “Sure, Jenn. Fail another term after all this fuss.” She realized she probably shouldn't talk to herself in Tom's quarters. She could hear the talk in the Templar officer's mess. “Jackson, you keeping another crazy woman in your room?”

The window blurred again, and she was seeing Wes, calmly explaining as he visited her apartment that the doctors said he had some sort of 'anima shadow'... some residue from the obelisk, or from her healing, or Bryn's caring for him after. She blinked and the window was just rain-washed glass again. She remembered looking for the shadow with her blood magic, but not what had happened after. She really had to get a hold on channeling too much blood. She'd passed out on poor Wes. If she was this helpless, what good -was- she in the field?

She'd had the same sort of problem that evening. She could remember working on Tom's back, trying to ease some of the pain he never talked about. Then it was morning. Neither of them remembered anything. Maybe Lethe could talk to her about healing, as well as killing? Sha, not bloody likely.

Squirming to find a comfortable spot on the window seat, Jenn muttered to herself. “I miss my flat... oh hells, my FLAT! I forgot to feed the cats. They're going to eat me alive.”

She'd get dressed, go back, feed the cats... pick up the blood that Bryn had gotten for her. How morbid was that? She had a fridge full of blood. Bryn might be right about it. It might just need any blood to open the casket. It was worth a try, anyway. The other way was... not working out all that well so far. She knew reading the script had something to do with it, and obviously the thing wanted to be fed blood while you did. It was just a matter of getting the whole ritual done, probably. She wondered if being a blood mage had anything to do with it. She'd have to get her research back from the flat and look at it again.

They'd rushed out so fast last night... the window blurred again as she stared out, trying to make out figures walking in the street below.

Jenn hadn't expected to see Walsh again after that chance meeting where he'd saved her from a slight overdose of vampires in Romania. She really had to be more attentive when she went walking through those old apartment blocks. Luckily, Walsh had been handy and shot the lot of them...and there'd been quite a lot of them.

Nice chap, ex-army. They'd shared a drink and a chat before they both had to head out. He'd told her he was out there doing intelligence consulting for the villagers. He'd had enough run-ins with strange occurrences in the army, apparently, to set him up for that sort of work. She thought, in retrospect, he'd left a few details out.

Like showing up at the door of her flat in London, looking into some disturbance of an ancient evil that his tame psychics had pinged for him.

She'd done her best to fast-talk her way out of that one. That attempt had ended in a wrestling match that took out her coffee table and half the living room and him pulling a pistol on her. Maybe Lethe could talk to her about fast-talk?

He'd left without the box, though. He'd also left without drinking the bourbon she'd drugged for him.

And so, here she was, spending the night in Tom's quarters because he didn't want her there if Walsh came back to her place. She and Tom had followed Bryn's map into the tunnels beneath Temple Hall and left the golden box, wrapped in Jenn's bedsheets, in a crypt. The wards had been strong down there. Jenn couldn't suss why an empty crypt had been warded like that, but there had been a lot of questions Bryn hadn't asked -her-, and she thought, for now, she'd repay the favor by not asking.

So for now, the casket was as safe as they could keep it... shielded, at least, from Walsh's psychic-driven radar.

The rain was stopping outside. Jenn needed to get to her apartment to get that blood, so she could try to open the casket and get to the bottom of all of this.

The Fountain of Desire and Despair. It had sounded so mysterious and adventurous... a great paper for school. Then everything had gone, quite possibly literally, to hell. An artifact kept in a box with a key that required bloody sacrifice. Hellspawn craved human suffering. What were the chances of that artifact being something beneficial?

She had to find out. And then she probably had to find a way to destroy it.

AMARNA PERIOD ART SURVEY
Working Notes

1/14: Source lead: Innundation Temple, underwater excavation, near Dendarah... previously part of main temple complex, or alternate cult? Inscriptions point to “Fountain of Desire and Despair”. Location description matches Amarna area. If this is an undiscovered example of Amarna art or architecture, can use for paper. Hopefully will include significant realism.

1/20: Showed inscription scans from Dendarah to 'antiquities dealer' in Al'Mereyah while on assignment for S. He says he has an Amarna period reference to this same piece. For a price. Tomb robbing... the family business that just keeps on giving.

1/31: Have the scroll. Primary translations definitely point to an Amarna location, not a Dendarah one. If it turns out to be a pre-Ahkenaten piece, I'll pass it along to someone else for their field study.

2/22: Having unlimited financial resources makes expediting a dig much easier. Skipping the formalities of paperwork with the Ministry of Antiquities also speeds up the process. Have cleared to the Amarna-era strata and dismissed the crew. If it is something worthwhile, the last thing I need is a site full of 80th generation grave robbers observing.

2/23: Can't believe the quality of this piece. If the casket is this fine of craftsmanship, what must the ritual object itself be like? Left dig as soon as it was uncovered. One of the Edwards jets is running up the engines for London.

2/24: The casket doesn't have the realism I'd expect of an Amarna piece. With no portraiture or living creatures depicted on it, it's hard to pinpoint as Amarna art. Hopefully the ritual object itself will be more indicative of the period.

2/25: Fell asleep working on the thing. I can't get it open. The box is entirely covered in text, no images. I thought the text was a 'spell' instructing one how to open it. In other words, a typically convoluted poem leading to the physical locking mechanism built into the casket. I'm starting to wonder...

3/1: I feel like I've been studying this thing forever. The more I translate, the more I wonder about what this thing might be. I wish I could get a carbon date on it. It's so well-preserved.

3/2: I swear, my laptop is out to get me. I keep losing the files with the translations of the box text. You'd think, as many times as I've gone over it, I'd remember the thing. Will record the translation again tonight.

3/3: This isn't funny.


(Further, undated notes:)

*Wes's find will go a long way to helping understand what this thing is supposed to do. I think he's right about the glyph text. There's something wrong with it. Falcons don't have three eyes and ducks don't have claws. The differences are small and so subtle, I had written them off as stylistic ephemera. (*a note here, handwritten in the margin: Izumi, I included a photo comparison)

Wes found this other refering scroll in an obelisk by a Hell rift. He'd found similar glyphs there and showed me scans. I had him trace them, even though I knew what tracing the box did to me. It nearly killed him. What was I thinking?
* I think Tom's right. If this thing is from the Hell planes, then it's not going to settle for just an external blood source for the opening ritual. It's going to want suffering to open the casket. What the hell is in there? And why are we still trying to find out?

* The more I translate, the more frightened I am. I've got to get that thing open and find out what we're dealing with.

* A man I'd met by chance in Romania appeared on my doorstep today and said he had a psychic who had told him that if I kept up as I was with the artifact, I would kill millions. He offered to dispose of it. We disagreed about that. Going to stay at Tom's for a little while. B found a place for us to store the box. I barely made it past those wards. It should be safe for now.

* I've kept so many secrets for so long. I can't seem to stop. I go to tell someone and it just doesn't happen. Is this one of the artifact's phenomena?

Recording this, in case I forget:

The box requires blood and the reading of the glyphs to open. Contact with the glyphs as you read seems to be required, or at least facilitate the transfer of the blood. How could anyone who's not a blood mage even survive this?

I keep forgetting that the name has to be important. The references were to the Fountain of Desire and Despair. Tom speculated that it might be an elaborate trap with nothing inside, and that the box is the artifact itself. I know this isn't true. I just don't know how I know.

Mood Music:

Jenn wandered up the stairs of the tube station, yawning, and finished texting Thanasi...
She set her phone on the ground and drove her boot heel down on it with a satisfying crunch. Bending down, she scooped up most of the pieces and tossed them in one of the garbage cans where someone had set a fire for warmth or companionship... or to toast a rat. The smell of burning circuit boards wafted up as she rambled out of the station.

Coming out for the show had been a good idea. Fox and Quantum had really rocked it.. and Q's finishing off the night down chatting with them while he spun Dr. Who music from the DJ software on his phone was the perfect end to the party.

Being around people had distracted her from obsessive translations and research. She'd been in the far reaches of the Templar archives for a good part of the day, digging up information on phylacteries. It was a strange, cyclical sort of research. She'd started researching these spells trying to help Frank with his wards. Then she'd kept at it to try to use the same sort of wards to lock up her artifact. Then she'd found something that brought her back to Frank's problem... and worried her more. Now she'd turned up information suggesting the two problems might have a lot of similarities. Both powerful blood magic. Both potentially nasty. And both apparently spelled to obscure or protect themselves. Frank kept forgetting his hand was injured when he wasn't looking at it... and accepting it was caused him intense pain until he could be distracted from it. Her artifact? Well... she'd been sleepwalking apparently. And there was this nonsense with the phones and computer files. She needed to try the wards Bryn had written up for her... if she could place them without turning herself into a fine pile of dust.

She wrapped Tom's jacket more tightly around her and looked up. Where the hell was she? She'd been headed back to Tom's building when she left the tube station. Now she was on some twisty alley she didn't recognize. She was having an awful time focusing and not getting any sleep wasn't helping. She buried her face in the jacket's high collar and wished he was home. Sonnac had really outdone himself this time, sending Tom off in the middle of the night with no warning on some black ops mission that could take 'anywhere from ten minutes to ten years'. No phones. No nothing. She wondered if he was okay out there. It had been days now since she'd seen or heard from him... and days since she'd slept properly.

She'd woken up, at one point, almost all the way to Edwards, rambling down the sidewalk barefoot in jeans and an oversize t-shirt. At 3 a.m. No idea why she was there. The last thing she'd remembered was going to sleep on the couch, using Tom's jacket as a blanket. The cats had been arranged on her feet, and at least one sharp-pointed claw was braced on her calf to discourage moving and shifting them. Then she'd been on the sidewalk a few blocks from Edwards. She was pretty sure the damned thing was getting into her head again.

Wandering into the light spilling out from the door of an all-night diner, she blinked till she could make out the interior. Empty except for one tired-looking waitress and a line cook reading the paper. That seemed like a good idea, so she shoved a few coins into the machine by the door and took out the latest gossip rag.

She slid into the booth farthest from the door and rested her back up against the wall, stretching her legs out on the seat. The waitress gave her a dirty look, but Jenn just fished a wad of bills out of her pocket and put them down on the table. That handled the dirty look and got her a cup of coffee and a tired-looking pastry.

She read the headlines...

Headline: Rain Expected

It had been pouring at that party in Seoul, when Frank took her off down some twisty alley to let her apologize for using her magic to knock him on his arse and make him talk. She didn't think he was ever going to completely get over that... and he was right, she had been so incredibly out of line doing it... but how else was she going to get him to talk about his situation? He was obviously spelled not to realize there -was- a situation. She'd done it to help him. Now she just felt like dirt about it, mostly. He'd forgiven her, and he'd let her help him since then... another alley, come to think of it. And did the man ever keep his shirt -on-? If he wasn't taking it off to show someone those henna symbols, he was taking it off to give to her to keep her dry. Why did he even bother putting one on in the morning?

Headline: New Restaurant Opening

Oh! That's right! Speaking of Frank's shirt coming off... She had to get a hold of Kat and see if she could get that home-cooked meal from her and some company. It would be really nice just to lounge around and have some girl talk. If she could even figure out how to have girl talk. She'd never had friends like that. Kat really had been an angel lately. She'd walked Jenn home when Jenn had admitted to Izumi, Kat, Thanasi and... by extension apparently... Wes... that she'd been sleepwalking to Edwards. She'd meant to tell Wes first. She'd been on her -way- to tell Wes first. Only that hadn't happened, somehow.

Thanasi'd offered his place for her to stay while he was out working. Wes had too, apparently... though Jenn had not, for the life of her, been able to remember him sending that offer. It had been clear as day on her phone though, when he told her to look. She'd stayed at Tom's though, still. Or wandered around from coffee shop to coffee shop.

Jenn sipped the coffee. It was awful, but it was coffee...which made it better than most other things, even when it was awful. She wrestled the newspaper to the next page and slumped back down a bit more against the wall. This was a comfortable booth bench.

Headline: Rabid Dog Rampages Through East End

Sha, Wes. She had a sudden flash of what it had been like to see into his head when she went to try to calm him down that night of the blue moon. It had been such an... alien feeling... so very not human. It had also been intense, intoxicating, and very easy to fall into. She began to understand why normal human minds, infected with that sort of wolf spirit, could fall so easily into savage, unchecked behavior. “No rules,” he'd said.

Maybe she should call him and go curl up on his couch for a while. At least then if she went sleepwalking, she wouldn't get past the door. And maybe Bryn's cat would keep her feet warm.

Jenn blinked awake. She'd drifted off. The coffee on the table next to her was cold, but the waitress came over with the pot and a sympathetic look, topping it off enough to get it at least to tepid. Jenn gave her a tired, grateful smile and picked the paper back up off her lap. She tugged Tom's jacket tighter around her again.

The waitress came and put down a paper bag on the table. “Here's the food you asked for to go, luv.”

Jenn looked up, “I did?”

The waitress nodded, smiling uncertainly.

Jenn shrugged, grinned, and shoved the bills across the table toward the woman. Climbing to her feet, she grabbed the bag and folded the newspaper up... poorly... before shoving it under one arm. “Guess I've no excuse not to get to work then! Ta!”

She padded out the door of the diner.