Usually, he worked alone, and that was to his advantage, and working with MERS was not that bad, as far as contracts went. They didn’t try to ingratiate themselves into his life and try to pick apart his brain, or pry at his secrets and his past out of morbid curiosity. This contract wasn’t even his first MERS case, and each time he worked for the agency the stakes seemed to behigher, the cases even more dangerous, and his secrets stayed that way.
Not that he really had any secrets anymore, not after pulling Monica Blevins back from the edge of oblivion. He was sure his dual affinity wouldn’t be a secret much longer. His actions would have been reported in briefings from the medical staff and likely anyone he interacted with while under contract.
Yet this time, with Chase and Harlan, he wasn’t pretending. They already saw him in all his glory in action in the last several days. And Grendel didn’t seem to care all that much, even when he poked at her patience.
Ezra snuck a glance at Norsson as the professor carried a new stack of books to the table, shuffling them around as he organized the books by whatever category he had in his head, every movement the man made enchanting Ezra and distracting him from his task. The other man appealed to him because most academics tended to be a type of personality that he meshed with easily, merely due to their profession and studies. Spending a lot of time in your head, and the past, let people develop idiosyncrasies that most people in other careers never did. Academia could be insular and isolating, and Ezra found it easier to relate to professorial types.
Ezra wondered if Norsson would find him aggravating or annoying the longer they worked together. Or maybe—and the hope was small but bright—the sexy professor would think him not annoying at all and might come to regard Ezra with some fondness and return his fascination.
Ezra dragged his attention back to the book he was reading—it was full of annotated sticky notes covered in thoughts and questions, written in slashes of frenetic energy, leaving the impression of quick insights and lightning epiphanies. Thankfully the brand of sticky notes was safe for the old paper of the antique book, or Ezra would be peeling them off one byone. He was as enchanted by the notes as he was by the contents of the book, a niche subject of lesser-known mythological beings and stories from the folklore of various Nordic peoples in the Late Antique and early medieval periods. That was a rarity, as much of Nordic mythology had been maintained orally and wasn’t written down in any organized manner until at least two hundred years after the arrival of Christianity in Scandinavia. This library having primary sources of such detail and uniqueness was probably due to the intervention of the longer-lived peoples, like the fae and the sentient undead. Those that literally lived through such times had the memories and recollections to retain the closest versions of the oldest myths.
He suspected the notes were Nórsson’s, the books his as well, coinciding with his research. His surname was Scandinavian, and he certainly had the look of it, the quintessential modern-day Viking vibes with his broad shoulders and long hair. If both his parents were centuries-old as he claimed, it was very likely they were fae themselves, or of significant enough heritage to extend their lifespans, and it was even likelier that they had first-hand knowledge or intimate insight into many of the legends Ezra was reading about. Guessing which specific species or people of fae took too long—there were many, many fae peoples, some more common than others, and the vast majority were deeply private and generally secretive.
Nothing so far in his reading had come close to resembling the storm skull, though. And yes, he’d named it. It was easier to call it that in the privacy of his head than anything else.
“Anything?” Harlan asked, interrupting Ezra’s internal rambling, the soldier stretching his arms over his head. They’d been at it for a while now, and Ezra noticed his own body complaining at sitting for so long.
Ezra sat back in his chair and shook his head, rolling his shoulders and arching his back a bit. “Plenty of relics mentioned, but nothing close to resembling the storm skull.”
He tested out the name he’d given the artifact, and no one made a face at it or voiced a complaint, and Ezra smiled slightly to himself, head ducking, relieved.
Raum closed a book he was leafing through, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Perhaps we should look instead for a culture or person who might have been capable of crafting such a relic, or perhaps mention of an Elder fae individual who became the relic. Looking for the artifact itself seems to be a dead end, no pun intended.”
Ezra still snorted in quiet amusement, and Raum flashed a brilliant smile at him.
“That’s a great idea.” Ezra gently closed his book and eyed the stacks of tomes around him on the table. “How to narrow our search down, though. The skull manifests an uncontrollable blizzard, so perhaps looking through what information exists for the Elder fae clans that lived in regions with such weather events might be prudent?”
Raum continued his thought. “An Elder fae with the ability to control such a powerful weather event would stick out in tropical zones in the mythological and historical records but would blend in amongst dozens of others in the lands closer to the poles and with distinct seasonal changes. The Elder fae peoples’ magics were often aspects of the natural world when they were born. An Elder fae born in Northern Scandinavia would likely have aspects that were indicative of the clime, like blizzards on the steppes, mountain ranges and glaciers, things like that. Their magics were often manifestations of the immediate environment into which they were born. Not always true, but more true than not. ”
That was a tidbit of information Ezra never knew, but to hear it from Raum made it seem less like a hypothesis and more like an established fact. Fae magic, biology, and cultures were nothing like human practitioners’, despite the species living alongside each other for millennia.
Raum sifted through the books and pulled out a folder stamped with the university logo, opening it to read a report from the archaeology department. “Extrapolating from the location the skull was found, the storm skull was in the hands of white colonizers in the 1800s, traveling across rough terrain. There’s no mention of the skull being with them, but a reliquary of the size and strength necessary to contain the storm skull would have been a high-value item, and there’s no record of any person of substantial wealth being among the people who died when the fur trading outpost disappeared, or in the original roster of those in the group.”
“Maybe a family heirloom?” Ezra guessed, thinking out loud. “Its potential value would be enough for people to risk carrying it across the country, even with limited space and resources. Where were the settlers from?”
Raum pulled out a photocopy of what looked to be an antique parchment, and he handed it to Ezra. He took it and squinted at the antiquated penmanship. He was terrible at reading handwriting from previous centuries, even with his history degree. It made his head hurt. He genuinely couldn’t see past the minuscule and tight lettering with all the flourishes. There was an imposed line of modern type set at the top of the page, identifying the image as a land charter from a fur-trading company based in Edmonton that controlled the region at the time, deeding the settlement to the families listed on the charter.
Ezra set the paper down between him and Raum, trying not to show his frustration. “Is there a typed-out list or translation of the charter I can read?”
Understanding dawned in Raum’s eyes, and without hesitation he dug through the file and handed Ezra a few pages of paper, the information typed out with footnotes identifying the corresponding words in the scanned document.
“Thanks.”
Employees of a fur-trading company were deeded land with the intent to set up a new trading post and a supporting town. They were hoping to establish a stronger foothold in the region, allowing for supplies and storage of furs and goods to bolster against potential losses due to accidents or competing fur-trading companies. Nearly a dozen families, along with trappers and support staff for the outpost set out in the early 1800s, several decades before most European colonizers reached the area to homestead. Fort Edmonton existed, founded by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the late 1700s, and it was the only place at the time to find non-indigenous people for hundreds of miles. It was also the place the expedition set out from.
“This part of the province was largely uninhabited by colonizers at the time,” Raum said when Ezra set down the papers after reading them through. “There were many indigenous bands and nations in the area, though their histories of the time aren’t part of the university’s records. First Nations historians would probably have some idea of what happened in the area, as a storm that big could probably be found in their historical record, but Simmons never reached out to the local indigenous peoples or even the First Nations members we have in the History Department for help.” Raum explained with a grimace. “Fur traders and small exploration teams funded by the trading companies were the few white people to make it out this far prior to the expedition. The file contains Simmons’ theory that it was a very early attempt to establish a monopoly of the region beyond what the Hudson’s Bay Company held at the time. Simmons drew all his research from the records and personalaccounts from the expedition members, the trading company, and those funding the mission.”
“Money and the acquisition of power,” Ezra set the papers next to Raum. “Led to so much destruction and death.”
Raum nodded in agreement. “There was no support system in place for the expedition, and the mysterious choice to bring the relic ultimately destroyed them all. The blizzard theory for the expedition’s disappearance seems sound—though it was no random act of nature, but rather magic, and from a relic they brought with them. And definitely not from the indigenous peoples in the area. That was another of Simmons’s theories—that it might be inimical magic from a nearby First Nation people attempting to stop the invasion of white settlers.”
“Simmons is an asshole,” Ezra stated loudly in disgust. “Anyone with a measure of empathy and common sense wouldn’t have unleashed a massive blizzard on the region, killing everything.”
Ezra stopped speaking and shut his mouth with a snap. His thoughts stopped spinning and stumbled up against the confusion he first felt when he saw the incomplete drawing of the chest being unearthed by Simmons and Blevins.
“Ezra?”
If the storm killed everyone in the original expedition, and the location of the nascent outpost had been lost to time and undiscovered for over two centuries, fading into local legend....
