Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang(81)

 

Magda sat back, a look of disappointment on her face.

 

“Maybe.” I looked at the book again, going back to the beginning, where Kristoff’s name was first mentioned. My finger traced the centuries-old text, following along until I came to a spot near the bottom of the first page. “Magda.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“This, right here. Does that look like ‘ in tua luce videmus lucem ’?”

 

“What is that, Latin?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Her dark head leaned over the book. “Yeah, it does. Why, what does it mean?”

 

“‘In thy light we see light.’”

 

“Sounds like a university motto.”

 

I stared down at the page. “It well could be. It also happens to be something that the Brotherhood people say as part of their rituals.”

 

Her eyes widened. “What do you think it means?”

 

“I’m not sure. Look, does this say ‘Lodi’?”I tapped a word on the following page.

 

“Um . . . maybe. It could be. Then again, it might be ‘loom.’ Or even ‘look.’ The writing is too hard to decipher for sure.”

 

“I think it’s Lodi,” I said slowly, trying to remember what Rick Mycowski had told us about the origins of the war against the vampires. My fingers slid across the thin vellum until they rested beneath the date noted alongside the entry in question. “It says 1643. That sounds about right for the Lodi Congress.”

 

“The what?”

 

I explained what I knew of the history of the Brotherhood.

 

“Gotcha. So this is, like, a mention of the war starting. If so, it’s seriously old, and has to be valuable. I wonder why Alec doesn’t have this in some sort of archival protective storage rather than shoved into the hidey-hole of a desk?”

 

I flipped back a page, looking at the dated entry containing Kristoff’s name. Why, if the Lodi Congress started the year following that, was the Brotherhood mentioned in the earlier entry? Had Kristoff been one of the first vamps to go after the reapers? I made a mental note to ask him when things were less hectic and he’d be more inclined to chat.

 

“Regardless, it’s valuable enough to warrant having Kristoff translate it,” I said, gently rubbing my thumb across the goatskin covering. “If it turns out to be nothing, we’ll return it to Alec. Assuming he comes home, that is.”

 

“I guess we’re finished here, then,” Magda said, glancing around the room.

 

“We’ve looked everywhere. We can move on to the floor below us.” A thought occurred to me: Kristoff hadn’t been in contact with me for over half an hour. While that wasn’t in any way remarkable, I would have thought he’d be interested to know of our progress, or lack thereof. Boo, I’m ready to go on to the main floor. You about finished in the guesthouse?

 

Silence was my only answer.

 

Kristoff? Everything OK?

 

I stood up as the profound silence filled my head. “Something’s wrong,” I said, trying to open up my senses to locate Kristoff.

 

She paused at the door. “What?”

 

“Kristoff isn’t answering me.”

 

She glanced at the phone for a moment before her eyebrows arched. “Oh, the mind thing? Maybe he’s busy. Or out of range.”

 

I shook my head, suddenly filled with the strongest portent of danger. “I don’t think so. Something has happened to cause him to close his mind to mine, and that can only be one thing.”

 

“Reapers?” she asked, her face losing some of its animation.

 

I nodded. “Or worse.”

 

She froze for a moment. “Come to think of it, Ray should have been upstairs by now. Even if he had been drinking that lovely Costa Russi, he should have. . . . I’m going to go check on him.”

 

She dashed out of the room without waiting for a response.

 

Possessed by a sudden sense of urgency, I hurriedly wrapped up the journal, shoved the bit of trim back onto the desk, and without an alternate choice, stuffed the journal under my dress, into the band of my underwear.

 

I snatched up the penlight that Kristoff had left me, flipping off the room’s light before carefully closing the door. The house was dark now that the sun was setting, but the penlight allowed me to pick out the way to the stairs that led down to the main floor. It, too, was in the dark, and for a moment I hesitated, the primitive part of my mind refusing to march blindly into what felt like certain danger.

 

My foot had just hit the first stair when a noise behind me startled me, causing me to simultaneously gasp and spin around, one hand clutching the penlight, the other groping the journal as it pressed against my skin.