“I don’t want to give up when we’re this close,” she pleaded.
He lifted a brow. “And yet, what more can we do?”
She wished she had the answer to that question, but she did not.
He noted her hesitation and said softly. “Now that we know where to start looking, I’m confident that we shall discover it when the time is right.”
Scratch…scratch…scratch…
The hair at her nape stood on end. “There! Did you hear that?” Marlene rushed over to the brick wall toward the back of the shop and started to feel around the mortar. “It’s trapped beyond here. I’m sure of it.”
“Trapped?” he questioned behind her. “As if it were alive?”
She spun on him in exasperation. “You heard the noise again. It is trying to gain our attention. Be thankful that it is choosing us, rather than Hector.”
He sighed heavily, but he did not argue as he started to help her search.
“Blast,” she muttered under her breath, when the bricks remained steadfast. “They are impenetrable.”
Alaric slowly rose from where he’d been kneeling and moved toward her. “Not exactly. Perhaps we are just trying too hard.” He glanced around and spied a paper knife sitting on the bookseller’s tidy desk. He reached for it and quickly sliced his palm.
Marlene gasped in shock. “What are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
“I’m a witch,” he explained, wiping the blood from the knife and putting it back where he’d found it. “Sometimes magic demands blood.”
He lifted his palm, and keeping it outstretched, slowly swept it about the room.
Alaric wasn’t sure if his ploy might work to coerce the manuscript out of hiding or not, but he decided it was worth a try if it would keep the Book out of Hector’s clutches. He had a chance of defeating his enemy with the tome, but more importantly, of keeping Marlene safe. What he hadn’t told her was that, once one engaged in sex magic with a witch, that tie between them was never fully broken; it merely lost some of its potency if that person were to lay with another. While Hector might not be able to slip into Marlene’s visions at the moment, it didn’t mean that his power couldn’t be restored to a point. It would never be as strong as what Alaric had shared with her, because their passion had been explosive, like a burst of light from the sun and because their lovemaking hadn’t been forced or engaged in with trickery.
Beside him, Marlene tensed. He knew finding the Book was just as important to her as it was to him, not only because she knew the consequences of what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands, but he knew it was also because she trusted him to do the right thing once he was in possession of it.
He was humbled by her trust.
“There!” While Alaric had been woolgathering, Marlene pointed out a small glow from behind one of the bricks.
Scratch…scratch…scratch…
The sound was nearly deafening in its intensity.
He hesitated, wondering if they should even free it from its current confines, for the power it brought with it could easily bring chaos and destruction in its wake.
“What are you waiting for?” she urged, and her words compelled him to move forward.
Gathering the lantern in one hand, he set his bloody palm against the brick, directly in the midst of the light. The stones melted away to reveal a shimmering wall. On the other side rested a collection of pages in dos-à-dos binding.
As his palm remained on the bricks, Alaric reached inside and grasped the Book, withdrawing it from its hiding place. For a moment, he stared at the lettering, written with iron gall ink in Latin and archaic English, some of which he did not fully understand, all penned in a careful hand. More than that, he could feel the magic emanating from between those pages, pulsing with a life of its own.
Marlene reached out a tentative hand. When she brushed against the top page, it appeared to almost curl into her touch, like a lover’s embrace. Alaric looked at her. “This book has the ability to conquer—and defeat.”
A pistol cocking filled the silence, and he stiffened in awareness. “And I have the ability to maim.”
Together they slowly turned to find a man in a white nightshirt standing near an open door that led to a set of stairs, and most likely, his lodgings above the shop. Alaric closed his eyes, chiding himself for being so careless. He’d allowed Marlene’s enthusiasm over this grand adventure to cloud his senses. It was the worst mistake that he could have made. He reopened his eyes to find the flintlock still pointed directly in the center of his chest.
“I should have you dragged out into the street and hanged for the witch you are, Sir Gothry,” the man with the spectacles said in a deadly voice. “I was warned that you would try to steal the Book. It appears that it was a warning I heeded well.”
Alaric knew that the best thing to do would be to remain calm, while his mind whirled with a way to rid them of this newfound danger. If he was dead, there was no way he could protect Marlene. “Who told you this?” he countered in a mocking tone. “Hector Corinth?” He tilted his head to the side. “Or perhaps you are the man himself, unable to have located the tome on his own merit.”
He snorted. “I hold no loyalty to Hector. I only intend to keep a promise given to me by my uncle on his deathbed. He swore to keep the Book out of the hands of a witch, and that is what I intend to do.”
