Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(46)

Kirsten had been watching his reaction, and now she gave him a bemused smile. “You were expecting the Ark of the Covenant?” she teased.

Jesse laughed and shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

“They’re meant to look boring,” Alice said helpfully. “We don’t add or remove things very often, but when we do it’s in these dull, plastic tubs. Who’d give them a second glance?”

She took off down one row, beckoning for them to follow. Jesse paused to look at the label of one of the tubs next to him. It said only Romanian artifacts, 1753. The tub on the shelf above it read Japanese artifacts, 1752. He caught up with Alice and Kirsten, glancing at the labels along the way. They were all similarly worded.

Kirsten must have noticed the puzzled look on his face. “They’re vague like that on purpose,” she explained. “Even the year is just the year that each object fell into the hands of the witches, not when the object was created.”

“Are they all Jewish artifacts?”

“No,” she said. “But most of the Jewish artifacts the witches control are here.”

“Is there a directory?” Jesse asked. “An index of all the boxes?”

Alice shook her head without stopping. “Not here, anyway,” she called over her shoulder. “You can see why the vampire needed Samuel’s help to find the right place.”

The place may have looked pedestrian, but it was huge. Alice threaded them through rows and aisles with no hesitation, and Jesse was grateful she was there. “I’ve been thinking about that,” Jesse said, “about Olivia needing his help.” He told them, with as little detail as possible, what the cop outside had said about Samuel suffering before death. “Why would Olivia have to torture the rabbi instead of just pressing his mind?” Jesse asked. Before either woman could answer him, Jesse remembered what Kirsten had said about canceling out magic. “Wait, was he a witch too?”

Kirsten and Alice exchanged an uneasy look that Jesse couldn’t interpret, and Kirsten said, “No. There are a handful of male witches, but Samuel wasn’t one of us. He was considered a Friend to the Witches.” The way she said it made it sound like a title, but Jesse didn’t push it for the moment.

Alice stopped abruptly, pointing forward. “Here,” she said unnecessarily. Jesse saw the mess right away: several tubs had been enthusiastically dumped on the ground. Shards of broken glass were scattered on the ground like sequins, and Jesse squatted down and saw bits of dried herbs and battered books mixed in with other unidentifiable wreckage. He looked up at Kirsten, whose face was stricken. “I didn’t move anything,” Alice volunteered. “I wanted to clean up, but you know…I watch TV.”

Jesse nodded absently. He was staring at the wreckage, wishing Glory was there to help him understand what he was looking at. There were definite trails in the glass, like Olivia had dragged Samuel back toward the door when she was finished. They weren’t neat, though, so Jesse thought Samuel must have been struggling.

“So Olivia was just torturing him for the hell of it?” Jesse asked. “I know she’s nuts, but that seems sort of risky, given how public Beth Israel is.”

“It’s possible,” Kirsten said hesitantly.

He straightened up to meet her eyes. “But…?”

She sighed. “The witches keep certain things private. Certain things we can do, I mean. One of those is to create protection amulets.” She gave Alice a meaningful look, and the heavyset woman pulled a long chain out of her button-down shirt. Jesse saw a locket at the end of the chain, in the shape of a stylized Star of David. She held it in her palm as Jesse stepped forward to get a better look, but he instinctively knew not to touch it.

“Alchemy again,” he said, looking at Kirsten.

The witch nodded. “Alice, like Samuel, knows about and deals with this repository,” she said. “The handful of humans who know have protection amulets. They cannot be pressed by vampires, nor can they be turned.” Her face was grim. “Although they can be killed, as you can see.”

“Would Olivia have known about these?”

Kirsten bit her lip again, thinking. “Probably not,” she said at last. “I created these myself, and I’m very careful about who knows about them. Honestly, I’m not even sure if Dashiell knows about these. It may have frustrated Olivia, that she couldn’t press Samuel, which might be why this was so violent.” She stared at Jesse, and he got the message. Keep it to yourself.

Alice put the locket back under her blouse, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Jesse realized he was making her nervous by being there. She wasn’t used to outsiders, and she had said she wanted to get the mess cleaned up. Jesse took one more look around and stood up. “We should let you get back to work,” he said kindly to Alice.

Her shoulders slumped in relief. “There’s so much to do,” she murmured, distractedly. “I need to call his brother and sister-in-law in Montana, and speak to the board…” She headed back up the aisle in the direction of the door, still muttering under her breath. Kirsten gave Jesse a questioning look—did you get what you came for?—but he just shrugged and tilted his head to follow Alice. He didn’t want to talk in front of the older woman in case there were things she wasn’t supposed to know.