The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(56)
“What occupies the lower floors?” he asked Ben-Meir when the student had left.
“Storage, mainly. A few old laboratories which are no longer in use.”
Not likely. Michael sensed a vast amount of open space beneath his feet. There were, at a minimum, four lower levels, each one darker than the one above. But in all that darkness, Michael didn’t sense even a single spark of celestial light. Fortunato wasn’t there, either.
Ben-Meir escorted him back through the courtyard. The archeologist bid him good day and locked the main gates behind him. Once on the sidewalk, Michael gazed up at the iron angel and demon, locked in eternal enmity.
He opened his fist and looked down at his hand. An iridescent feather, a perfect match to the five already in his possession, sparkled in his palm. This was beyond serious. Fortunato wasn’t inside the Institute now, but he had been. How? Why? And where was he now?
The Prague Institute for the Study of Man hid far too many secrets for Michael’s comfort. The dark subterranean levels, for example. Nothing good could be going on there.
Michael looked left and right down the sidewalk. No one seemed to be paying him any mind, so he willed his fleshy body to fade into nothingness. Once in spirit form, he drifted through the marble-faced walls of the Institute.
As he suspected, the door to the lower level was locked. He passed through it and found himself in a long corridor. As Ben-Meir had said, the rooms on either side appeared deserted. Michael returned to the stair and drifted down another flight.
This level proved more instructive. He discovered a room that appeared to be an alchemic laboratory. Long worktables were littered with glass beakers and flasks, some with distilling tubes attached, set above gas burners. Cauldrons hung above stoves heated by wood or coal. Rows of test tubes, filled with powders and liquids of every color imaginable, lined the far wall. Copper pots and urns, and glass and ceramic canisters, stood neatly arranged on a table below. One particularly large glass bottle was filled with a dark crimson liquid. He leaned close and sniffed it. Blood. Human blood.
All this faded to the back of Michael’s mind as he focused on a long, golden platform, vaguely coffin-like, which occupied the center of the room. A container, he realized, though the hinges, and the cracks where the lid met the sides were barely visible. Even stranger, the oversized box was constructed of a substance he’d only rarely encountered.
Alchemical gold. Though the material held its shape with perfect corners and precise lines, it wasn’t completely solid. The surface shifted and moved. What’s more, an aura of...life...surrounded it. Most odd, considering it was the work of a Nephil. He reached out a hand to touch it. It felt like...nothing. Nothing at all.
What was in that golden box? His senses gave no hint. His angelic perception couldn’t pass through it. Was Fortunato trapped inside? He thought it unlikely. Even the most powerful Nephil couldn’t contain a celestial life force.
Shaking his head, he drifted back to the stairwell. Another level lay below this one, but when he reached the locked door at the bottom of the stair he received a shock. He couldn’t pass through. What was worse, the surrounding walls were just as impenetrable. Gravely troubled, Michael returned to the level above and tried sinking through the floor. He couldn’t do that, either.
Vaclav Dusek’s magic could block the will of an archangel. How in Heaven’s name could that be?
THIRTEEN
“Where do you think Jack went?”
Cybele picked up a black and white kitten. She stroked its tiny head and murmured sweet nothings. It tangled its claws in her blouse.
Arthur blew out a breath. The nausea he’d experienced during dinner had faded to a sour taste in his mouth. A vague rage lingered. His body’s reaction was all out of proportion to the situation. Yes, religious rituals were difficult for a Nephil to endure, but Mr. Spencer’s prayer at dinner hadn’t been all that sincere.
Arthur had been reacting to Jack.
He tried to puzzle it out, but it was difficult to think with his nerves angry and jangling. The urge to shift and kill was growing stronger by the minute. He wanted to order Cybele to return to their room while he waged battle with his demon nature. There was a less than zero chance she’d obey, however, so he didn’t bother wasting his breath.
They’d excused themselves from the dinner table after Jack’s precipitous departure. They waited barely ten minutes before slipping out of the house after him. The litter of barn kittens had been easy enough to find. But Jack himself was nowhere to be found. They’d checked the barn, the chicken coop, and all the surrounding area. The only creatures visible in the bordering fields were sheep.
“He couldn’t have gone far,” Arthur grumbled.
Cybele paused in the motion of stroking a kitten. “Do you think he really heard moans on the hill?”
“I don’t think he’s lying. He fairly oozes goodness and innocence.” Arthur suspected that’s what had made him so nauseous.
“True,” said Cybele, frowning. “He’s even got a glow about him.”
Arthur shot her a look. “You saw that, too?”
“Yes. Faintly.” Cybele detached the kitten’s claws from her blouse. “So if he’s not lying about the moaning, what do you think he heard?”
“Not Merlin,” Arthur said flatly. “Maybe a demon.” He didn’t have much experience with demons—they tended to avoid areas already inhabited by Nephilim.