Storm of Shadows (20 page)
Authors: Christina Dodd
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General
“I
don’t understand how Dr. Al-Ruwaili could be so rude. What did he think I was going to do, steal the prophetess’s manuscript right out from under his nose?” In a rage, Rosamund threw her travel pack on the floor and flung herself on the bed in her hotel room, arm over her eyes.
don’t understand how Dr. Al-Ruwaili could be so rude. What did he think I was going to do, steal the prophetess’s manuscript right out from under his nose?” In a rage, Rosamund threw her travel pack on the floor and flung herself on the bed in her hotel room, arm over her eyes.
Aaron lingered by the door. “Mubeen told you what Al-Ruwaili feared—that if the daughter of famous ar cheological explorers looked closely at the book, everyone would dismiss his accomplishments as hers.”
“That is so absurd.”
“Men’s egos are never absurd. Pitiful, perhaps, but not absurd.”
She lifted her head and stared at him in confusion, then laughed. “You’re being ironic.”
“Very good.” Coming to the bed, he placed his hands at her sides on the frayed bedspread, trapping her between his arms. “I’m going to go out and see what I can find. I want you to promise me you’ll lock the door behind me and open it to no one. Not room service, not a messenger, not the manager of the hotel.”
“But if I’m hungry—”
“Before I brought you back to the hotel, I fed you for just that reason. Now, promise you’ll do as you’re told, or I can’t leave.”
Having him lean over her like this and act concerned rather pleased her. She wanted to squirm closer, rub herself against his chest, see if he would kiss her again.
Of course, that was impossible. He wasn’t drunk.
She scooted away. “Why would someone hurt me?”
“Some people are threatened by women who are intelligent. Some people are threatened by women who are beautiful. You are both.”
“Right.” Sitting up, she looked into his eyes, expecting to see expanded pupils or bloodshot whites. “You don’t look as if you’re drugged.”
He sighed. “I’m not drugged. I’m concerned. Now—promise.”
“I promise.”
“Fine.” He actually did kiss her. Lightly. Like someone indulging a child. “Now lock the door behind me, then go to sleep. I’ll be back before morning.”
“Wake up.” Aaron shook Rosamund out of a sound sleep. “Wake up. I have the book.”
She dragged herself into a sitting position, blinked and rubbed her eyes, then grabbed her glasses and shoved them on her nose. His face came into focus: excited, dynamic, vibrant. “How did you get in here?”
“I got a copy of your key from the front desk.” He held a small package wrapped in cheesecloth. “Look. This is it!”
She looked at the clock. It was one thirty in the morning. “What were the people who work the front desk thinking? You could be a murderer or a rapist.”
He straightened in obvious annoyance. “Yes, I could, but we came in together. This is a male-dominated society, and you’re a woman alone. As far as they’re concerned, I’m in charge of you.”
Annoyed in her turn, she said, “That is so politically incorrect. And I put the security bar on. How did you get around that?”
“There are ways. Now—pay attention. Look!” He handed her gloves and placed the package in her lap.
She unwrapped the cloth, and her exasperation evaporated.
This was the slim, leather-bound volume she’d seen from afar in the university library.
Awed, she carefully touched the binding. “This is the prophetess’s book. But Al-Ruwaili was so adamant. How did you convince him to let me examine it? Not just let me examine it, but take it out of the university library?”
“I am a very persuasive soul,” Aaron said.
She opened the book to the fly page, where in ornate French penmanship, a woman had written
The Works of Sacmis, prophetess of Casablanca, as scribed by Rasheeda Jedidi.
Rosamund leafed through the first few pages. The book had been a journal, blank pages meant to be filled with a girl’s dreams. Instead, it was a recitation of dread prophecies suggested by the prophetess and at first recorded with some excitement by Rasheeda.
The Works of Sacmis, prophetess of Casablanca, as scribed by Rasheeda Jedidi.
Rosamund leafed through the first few pages. The book had been a journal, blank pages meant to be filled with a girl’s dreams. Instead, it was a recitation of dread prophecies suggested by the prophetess and at first recorded with some excitement by Rasheeda.
But something about this situation with Aaron niggled at Rosamund’s brain, some memory of a similar incident involving her, and a library, and Aaron. “You got my notebook out of the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library, too.”
“So I did.” He seated himself on a chair nearby, a broad, tall, dynamic man with dark, sharp eyes and strong hands capable of loving a woman . . . or killing a man.
She said, “You shouldn’t have been able to get to the antiquities department without me.”
“As I said, I’m very persuasive.”
She leafed on, looking at the way the precise handwriting began to change, to become a scrawl of worry and then panic as Sacmis’s prophecies began to come true. “Is there something you should tell me?” she asked politely.
With equal civility, he said, “I can’t imagine what.”
She met his gaze with a fierce impatience. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“That is the last thing I think.” But he had the guts to pretend he didn’t know what she was going to say.
“You came up from the most dire poverty, yet now you live with a bunch of people in a huge mansion in New York City. You apparently have no job, but you dress in designer clothes. You get people to give me texts when they should not. . . .” She hated to say it, but she was morally obliged to confront him. “I know what you do for a living!”
“What?”
“You make people an offer they can’t refuse.”
Aaron’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she demanded. “You threaten people so they give you what you want!”
He appeared to be thinking before he spoke. “I do not threaten anyone, but I do what is necessary in the performance of my duty.”
“I can’t believe it.” She stared at him accusingly. “You’re the Godfather!”
The corner of his mouth twitched over and over, as if he were fighting profanity—or a smile. “Are you willing to study this text regardless of how I obtained it?”
She shouldn’t consent to work with Aaron. She knew she shouldn’t. He was immoral, and if she collaborated with him, then by extension, she was immoral, too.
But . . . she looked down at the carefully bound book with its yellowed paper, felt the desperation and worry that leeched from the increasingly hurried writing, and knew the intense curiosity of a researcher who held a precious manuscript within her hands. “Will you return it when I’m done?”
“I promise I will.”
“Give me a half hour, and I’ll tell you what we need to know.”
Chapter 20
R
osamund sat propped against the pillows on her bed and read the last page of the journal aloud. “ ‘Sacmis is gone, sold to the French king’s agent. May the curse upon us now lift.’ ”
osamund sat propped against the pillows on her bed and read the last page of the journal aloud. “ ‘Sacmis is gone, sold to the French king’s agent. May the curse upon us now lift.’ ”
At those words, the hair rose on the back of Aaron’s neck, the warnings from Hamidallah and Mubeen echoed in his mind, and he knew they needed to get out of here.
“The French king.” She absentmindedly rubbed the binding with one gloved finger. “I wonder which one?”
“Louis the Sixteenth.” He snatched the book away from Rosamund, wrapping it in the cheesecloth and taking care not to touch it with his bare hands.
“If you believe in the curse, I suppose that’s right.” Laughing quietly, she pulled off her gloves. “But you can hardly blame the French Revolution on the prophetess.”
“I can blame his beheading on her. The royal family should have fled France. What prophecy did she give them that they stayed?”
Rosamund grew serious. “You don’t like Sacmis very much, do you?”
“I don’t have to believe in witches to know there are people in this world who enjoy making other people suffer.” He didn’t know what was making his instincts riot. Maybe Dr. Al-Ruwaili had realized his book was gone. Maybe their activities today in the medina had attracted the attention of the Casablanca police. Or maybe Sacmis was everything she claimed to be—a witch, a seer, and a hovering and constantly malicious spirit. And one of the Others? “I think a prophetess who produces only evil visions is dabbling in the occult.”
“There’s no such thing as the occult,” she said automatically.
“There’s no such thing as a prophetess, either, but we’re busting our butts chasing her. Now.” He took Rosamund’s hands. “I’m taking the text back. It’s two ten in the morning. Make sure you put the security bar on the door after I leave.”
“I will, although if you can get in, I don’t really understand the point.” She rubbed her eyes like a tired, cranky child.
“I’m a very special person.” That feeling of urgency increased. “Promise you won’t let anyone but me through that door.” When she would have answered smartly, he put his finger on her lips. “Promise.”
She pushed his hand away. “I promise.”
He kissed her, a swift, warm kiss that tasted of surprise on her part. “I wish I could linger, but this cursed thing has to go back.” He smoothed his fingers across her lips.
For one moment, she looked at him as if he were a god of the Indian nations. Then her interest withered. “Any knothole in a tree,” she said.
“What?” What did that mean?
She lay down, pulled the covers up to her chin, and turned her back to him.
He did not understand her.
Hell, he didn’t understand women in general, but he didn’t understand Rosamund in particular, and no matter how warmly tempting she looked, her eyes heavy and her hair rumpled from sleep, right now he didn’t have time to figure her out.
He checked his weapons, the knives and the pistol, then took the stairway down to the lobby, took a taxi to within five blocks of Hassan II Ain Chok University. There he stepped onto the lonely streets and assumed the dark mist of his other self. He wrapped himself around the book, shielding it from anyone who might be watching. Driven by that awareness of looming trouble, he hurried to the university. Slipping into the library, he returned the blighted book.
The security alarm never went off. The cameras never caught sight of him. Dr. Al-Ruwaili would never be any the wiser.
Next he hit the night-clad streets, intent on getting back to the hotel and Rosamund. It was three in the morning, no time to be wandering around a strange city alone. Yet he had no choice; a taxi was nowhere in sight.
He was tired. After three city blocks, his gift failed him, returning him to normal form. He gathered his strength, once again became a mist in the night, and walked another block before his disguise wavered and collapsed. But surely by now he was far enough away from the scene of the crime.
But the smell of danger grew stronger.
Rosamund.
Was Rosamund secure? He needed to return to Rosamund.
Was Rosamund secure? He needed to return to Rosamund.
Taking a breath, he hurried through a market filled with shuttered stalls, toward the heart of Casablanca where the lights still shone and he could catch a ride.
He and Rosamund both felt certain they were on the track of the right prophecy. He, especially, noted the prophetess’s oblique references to the Chosen Ones and the Others, to a battle that would begin in the New World with an explosion and could be averted . . . somehow.
But they hadn’t found the right text yet, so the trip to Casablanca had been both a success and a failure. When he got back to the hotel, he would have to e-mail the Chosen Ones and tell them. . . . Footsteps. He heard footsteps behind him. A man’s tread.
His heart picked up speed. He picked up speed.
The footsteps followed at his exact pace.
He slowed.
The footsteps slowed.
He came to a corner, stopped, and turned.
In the light of the stars, he saw a man—young, wiry, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He held a knife loosely in his right hand, and continued steadily toward Aaron.
Aaron looked to the left.
Two men in djellabas, their eyes fixed on him, walked toward him. Both were holding clubs.
Not good, Aaron. Not good at all.
He turned to walk the direction he had been going.
Another man, in jeans and a T-shirt, moved toward him, fists clenched, smiling with the pleasure of the kill.
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