The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) (18 page)

Don’t look, don’t look, he kept repeating to himself, but finally couldn’t resist the urge a second longer and as he rose with Lily he allowed himself a glimpse of Lucien’s face. It was a horror, a mask of torture, his fangs fully extended and looking like ebony daggers. His eyes, gods help him, those black eyes burned with the fires of hell.

“Go!” Meirta urged.

“Are you all right?” He heard Meirta ask Lucien after Hunter was back inside the room, almost to the bathroom.

“I need a moment,” Lucien said.

Brother, you need a whole day. Shit, take the rest of the week off.

He got Lily seated with her head tilted back and thankfully it didn’t take long for the bleeding to slow and then cease. He left her to clean herself up and when she reappeared her face was ghostly pale.

“What happened?” Meirta asked Lily.

Lily pulled the blood soaked blouse away from her chest. “Could I borrow one of your shirts?”

“Sure.” Meirta moved towards the closet.

“I felt something,” Lily said. “It might have been the tablets.” She touched underneath her nose with her fingers and rubbed them together. “I need to see them.”

Meirta reappeared with two tops. “Red or white?”

Lily pointed towards the red one. Smart choice.

Hunter grabbed a fresh shirt and slipped into the bathroom to change. They’d need to take the towel and shirts to a dumpster, because if the cleaning crew found them they might think the worst and call the police. When he came back everyone was standing in different corners of the room.

“I need to see them, the fragments, in person,” Lily said to Lucien.

He slipped his phone from his back pocket and sent a text message. A moment later there was a ping of a reply. Lucien stared out the open balcony doors while he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Meirta, would you mind taking care of this while we’re gone?”

“No problem, Mr. Black,” she said.

“Hunter, you go on foot. I’m taking Lily by air.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Hunter asked. When did Lucien decide that Lily was going? “Dr. Toolley is expecting Meirta to be there.”

Lucien didn’t respond but held out his hand to Lily, who took it without reservation, and in a few blinks of an eye they were gone.

“What the hell just happened?” Hunter gave Meirta a hug. “I’d rather stay with you than be alone with those two.”

“You be safe.” She exhaled and kissed him. “I’ll wait up.”

Lily and Lucien were standing by the entrance just outside the halo of the street light when he got there. Dr. Toolley was the last one to arrive. He had an easy grace about him and the light colored hair and eyes of a California surfer.

“Dr. Toolley,” Hunter shook his hand and made introductions. “Thank you for meeting me again. This is Lily Ayres and Lucien Black.”

“Thank you for accommodating us,” Lily said.

“I meet your father a few times. I’m sorry for your loss.” The doctor peered around Hunter’s shoulders, clearly looking for Meirta.

“She sent her regrets,” Hunter explained.

“Oh,” he replied, disappointed.

I don’t regret one bit you not seeing her again, Hunter thought.

“The tablets,” Lucien urged.

“Right.” Toolley fumbled for his keys and opened the side entrance to the British museum. They went down two flights of stairs and through a bleak corridor. 

“Here we are,” he said, unlocking the door and flicking on lights that took their time illuminating the space.

Hunter glared up at them. He hated the new energy efficient bulbs and the light they produced which always seemed too muted, too dull, to read anything by.

“I left them out on the table from our meeting this morning,” Len said. “I wish Father were here to see someone in the archeology community interested in these. His will dictated that all the items of Grandfather’s digs be placed on loan with the British museum. As far as I know, you’re the first to ask to see them.” The room was filled with utilitarian steel shelving units and smelled musty. Hunter tried not to think about the strange dark pattern that clung to the wall to his left. Mold, perhaps? “The rock stars are upstairs on display for the Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur exhibit.” Len pulled chairs out around the table.

Lily walked inside a few steps and stopped. “They aren’t what touched me,” she said.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Toolley said.

“Be quiet,” Lucien ordered.

“It wasn’t them.” She indicated the items on the table.

Hunter could see Dr. Toolley’s trepidation. “Private joke,” he said with a smile.

Lily ignored them all, even Lucien who was shadowing her movements, and walked over to the table, running her hands over the clay fragments. “Please, I’d rather if you didn’t touch them,” Dr. Toolley said. “They’re very fragile.” 

Lucien moved towards him but Lily placed her hand on his chest. 

“Don’t.” She paused, then started, “Dr. Toolley–”

“Len, please, when you say Dr. Toolley I keep looking around for my father.”

“Len, I think you have them in the wrong order.”

“I didn’t have them in any particular order.” Len sounded defensive.

She pointed to a jagged-edged piece. “That one should go with this one.” She pointed to another tile on the other side of the table. “And that there.”

“I would have never guessed.” Len moved the pieces around as she pointed where each should go.

“Fragments are missing.” Lily sighed. “But there are readable parts.”

Really, Hunter didn’t see anything but cryptic symbols on fragments of dried clay. “That’s a language?”

“The oldest language we know of, Sumerian,” Len explained. “These pieces date to around 3100 BCE.”

“Shouldn’t they be upstairs with the rest of the exhibit?” Hunter asked.

“That’s why I was surprised when I got your call” –Len nodded towards Hunter– “requesting to see these particular artifacts. They caused my grandfather a lot of grief within the archeology community.” He inhaled and rested his hands on the table. “The story goes that when my grandfather was excavating in Ur, he found a sealed stone room underneath Queen Pu-Abi’s tomb, and these were inside.”

Hunter was about to ask what was so controversial about that when Lily spoke. “That.” She pointed to a small fragment. “And that, aren’t Sumerian.”

“Precisely.” Len nodded. “He was accused, wrongly I might add, of contaminating the dig.”

That was clear as mud, Hunter thought, and shook his head.

“Most of this was dug up in the twenties and thirties. There weren’t all the rules and protocols that we have today. He could never prove that he found these at Ur, and because they didn’t quite fit, people said he’d found them elsewhere and tossed them in.”

“Oh,” Hunter mouthed.

“My grandfather was adamant that these tablets contained a language predating Sumerian, but the community never accepted this and for the sake of his career he stopped trying to convince them.”

“Couldn’t they go back and look for more evidence?” Hunter asked.

Len gave him a quizzical look. “I explained all this to Meirta, your assistant.”

Yes he had, but Hunter had been occupied with taking photos from every angle possible, and had only half-listened. “My better half.” He smiled at Toolley. “Please explain for Miss Ayres.”

“I see.” Toolley stared at the floor. “Impossible to search any further. The city of Ur is located in southern Iraq. It’s been inaccessible to us for decades. Tragic how much has been lost. The Iraqi museums housed an amazing collection of Sumerian writings and art, but they were completely sacked during the Gulf War.”

Lily leaned down so close her nose was almost touching the rearranged tablet. “I can just make it out, I think, ‘the watchers protect us from he who knows heaven’.”

Len leaned in, rubbing shoulders with her and causing Lucien to flinch and then resettle.

“No, close, but those symbols represent the guardian.” Len pointed to what looked like wedge marks to Hunter. “The guardians protect us from he who knows heaven.’”

“Why would guardians protect us from angels?” Hunter asked.

“Not angels,” Len said. “Well not exactly how we think of them.” He twisted his hands together. “Sumerians believed that people from outside this world came here. Heaven to them meant the universe.”

Not being a religious man, Hunter did not see the difference. “God is something from outside this world. Non-terrestrial.”

“Gods,” Lucien said.

“Or space-men. We don’t know.” Len rubbed his eyes. “Not precisely. From what we can tell they didn’t see heaven quite the way we do. It didn’t necessarily mean the pearly gates and all that. It was more of a place where other beings lived.”

While they were bogged down in theological minutiae, Lily was intently studying the tablet. “Gates.” She pointed to a symbol and turned to Len.

“Yes.” Len inhaled deeply. “The pieces surrounding it are gone, probably less than dust now.” He made a circling motion with his hand over the tablet fragments. “We have no idea what these writings were trying to convey.”

She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small fragment which easily rested in the palm of her hand and inserted it into a blank space.

“It fits.” Len was astounded, and then a little incredulous. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in Walter’s study.”

Did she? Or was it with the Legacy Foundation’s archives, Hunter wondered.

The fragment Lily inserted created a picture of what looked like a moon with two lines bisecting it. “Waxing and waning,” Hunter found himself saying out loud.

Lily was mesmerized by the image. She took out her phone, taking pictures from multiple angles. “What else did you find?” she asked Len.

The archeologist shoved his hands in his pockets. “That was it,” he said, barely maintaining eye contact with Lily.

 She tilted her head slightly to the side and stared at him, intently. Hunter watched as a bead of sweat emerged and traveled down Len’s temple to his chin until it finally took the plunge and dropped to the floor.

“Lucien,” she whispered, still holding Len’s eyes with her own. “I think we could use your assistance here.”

The first thought that flashed through Hunter’s mind was that Lucien intended to kill Len. Who was backing up and mouthing something but no words were forthcoming. Before he reached the door, Lucien had intervened and Hunter realized he was trancing him.

“You will answer truthfully all of our questions. If you speak an untruth you will feel unbearable pain.” Lucien eyes almost glowed. “Do you understand?”

All Hunter could see was the back of Len’s head and him nodding, yes.

“Speak when spoken to,” Lucien ordered.

“Yes,” Len answered.

“Did you have to be so harsh?” Lily asked.

“Slayers are blunt instruments,” Lucien replied, and led poor Len back to the table.

“I need to know everything about this tablet,” Lily spoke softly to Len. “Exactly where it was found and if there was anything else, anything unusual or unexplained. Don’t leave out any detail that you were told.”

Hunter had witnessed Harvey, the vampire who’d helped in Australia, trance a hotel worker. He realized how gentle the vampire had been. What Lucien had done to Len was brutal. He looked completely helpless standing there with his face slack and his eyes vacant.

“Underneath the queen’s tomb was a staircase leading down to another room. That,” Len said, pointing to the tablet, “was found directly outside the room. At first, they thought the room was made of stone, but then they realized it was solid iron.” His eyes became wide like he was worried they wouldn’t believe him.

“Go on,” Lily encouraged.

“They had to blast an opening. Inside was a giant chain of silver wrapped around a corpse. He swore that it moved.”

“The corpse?” Hunter asked.

Len stared straight ahead. “Yes. It crawled out of the room and into the long hallway which led up top, but a shaft of light hit it. Back then they used a system of mirrors to reflect the light underground.”

“It turned into dust.” Lucien crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back onto his heels.

“Is this all you have?” Lily’s hand hovered over the tablet.

“No.”

“Bring it to us,” Lucien said.

It must have been in the farthest corner of the room, because it took Len a while to come shuffling back with a drawer sized box held out from his body. He gently slid it onto the table and backed away without opening it.

Lucien did the honors and exhaled a long breath of air. “Explain the contents.”

“Father referred to them as the mother and child. There isn’t much there, but enough of the pelvic bones to identify one of them as female. The other…”

Was clearly a young child. Hunter scanned the contents of a jumble of bones. The child’s skeleton was almost intact, everything except for the head, while the female skeleton was bits and pieces. Also with no head. Was it destroyed in the blast or had someone removed the heads before burying them inside? He hoped they hadn’t been imprisoned to slowly starve.

“When they blasted a hole through the iron a chunk of it destroyed their skulls.”

So much for that, Hunter thought.

“What is this?” Lily reached inside and brushed past the bones to pull out a small, circular locket attached to a chain, a necklace. She turned it over, rubbing her fingers across its surface. Abruptly, she said, “We can go now.”

“Excuse me.” The words flew out of Hunter’s mouth. “We find out that an iron cage had something imprisoned with silver chains, something that moved, just like in Australia. But this was eons ago and had a woman and child in the room. And you say we can go now.”

Lily could be extremely detached at times. She gave him an unconcerned look and gestured around the room. “Is this all that was found inside the room?” she asked Len.

“Yes.”

She cradled the necklace in her hands. “You see, we are done here. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

Lucien was in front of her before her hand could grasp the door knob. “You will stay.”

Hunter thought she might protest, but she didn’t.

“What do you want me to do with him?” Lucien asked Lily.