“I’m not sure,” Saemund answered. “Depends on the type, and size. There are many kinds.”
Ezra only knew of one kind of reliquary, but he was only schooled in the western discipline of magic—and there was no comparison to a being potentially several thousands of years old with exposure to more types of magic than Ezra could imagine.
Ezra turned back to Harlan. “Can you ask the Major, please?”
“I can ask, but be prepared for a hard no,” Harlan cautioned. “It’s under heavy guard on base.”
“Tell her it may mean the difference between a huge uncontrollable explosion or a single funeral.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EZRA
“I’m not too keen on everyone and their grandfather seeing the artifact,” Major Grendel said, her aggravation clear through the phone. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’m aware,” Ezra replied. “But I need options other than destruction. If Saemund can help me find a solution that’s not destructive, I want to accept his help. Right now all I have is destroying the skull, and I really think that’ll involve a catastrophic release of energy.”
“How big of a blast are we talking, here?” Grendel asked.
“Equivalent to the power and range of the blizzard, most likely. Several square miles, if not more.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she spoke, this time quite seriously. “We may need to bury it, then.”
Burying it was an option, but it left too much to chance—humans had too much greed and curiosity to leave anything in peace, especially something so dangerous.
“Or we can let Saemund see the skull, help me determine if there’s a less extreme solution.” Ezra stressed his reply, even though burying it had been one of his ideas. “I don’t want this thing to exist as it is now—it’s cruel to the living soul still inhabiting its remains, and the skull is too powerful to leavein a reliquary forever. The temptation of power is too great for people to resist. Someone in the future will open it again, whether in five months or five centuries. I need more options.”
“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Grendel sighed. “I’m having the sergeants bring you and your guest to see the skull.”
“Thank you, Major.”
“Don’t thank me yet, this may be the biggest mistake ever,” she replied, but she didn’t sound too upset about it. “I’ll meet you there.”
Ezra
Gettingto the MERS base was easy—Harlan drove through Edmonton and a little bit outside city limits to a nondescript base with a small private airstrip and multiple large hangars and several buildings. Fenced-in with razor wire and a guarded checkpoint, spotlights and cameras everywhere, the base was on high alert from what Ezra could tell. Armed guards with dogs patrolled between the buildings, and vehicles drove along the inside of the perimeter fence.
The sun was warm and the sky was clear, with a few puffy white clouds in the distance. It was a beautiful day to examine a dangerous artifact.
Ezra was moping. Sulking, pouting—he knew it, and it had nothing to do with the drive across town and everything to do with the fact that they left Raum behind at the library. He had no reason to come—his grandfather was the potentially essential consultant, and that made Raum redundant in a way. Ezra had trouble getting the sexy professor out of his head. He wanted totext the handsome man and ask him innumerable questions, but he had a job to do and he had to focus.
The hangar was older, less modern in design, and was behind several buildings and away from the airstrip, an outlier in the clustered base. It appeared to be a converted storage facility, built to hold anything from a small airplane to stacks of copier paper.
And it was mostly empty.
Ezra stood in the cavernous space and stared at the reliquary that held the skull. It was newish, as reliquaries went—made of polished marble and brass, with a very mundane human religious aesthetic to it—and it was shiny and clean. Usually when he came across a reliquary in his job it was rusty or coated in dust and grime. A clean and maintained reliquary was a novel experience. It was large enough to comfortably hold the skull and then some, easily three times larger than necessary, but Ezra figured that was fine—he knew MERS had gone with the first reliquary they could find that worked, and no one was willing to crack it open again to find a better fit.
“Fancy,” Ezra finally said, hands in his pockets, and Saemund snorted a bit in amusement, standing beside him.
“It’s doing what it needs to,” Saemund replied, amused and yet somehow sad.
Ezra looked at the sidhe, taking in the shiny eyes wet with unshed tears and the wry smile on his lips. “Are you okay?”
“Not even a little bit,” Saemund replied. “But I’ll keep it together for now.”
“What do you see?” Ezra asked quietly. It was obvious that Saemund could see through the reliquary to the skull within, considering how morose he appeared.
“I can’t see everything, but what I do see is more than enough. A soul trapped in a fruitless endeavor, unable to reach peace.”
