“Three hours then? Shouldn’t we have waited for the second shift?”
Her master shook his head. “Like I said, we might have competition for the job. Arachne?”
“Standing guard. I’d let her in but I’m not sure if they have alarms on the doors or not.” Eva gestured around the slumped over figures in the front lobby. “They obviously don’t have motion sensors or the guards and cleaning crew would set them off.”
“Maybe it’ll deter any others.” Devon turned, glancing about the ceiling. He stopped and pointed almost immediately. “Cameras though.”
Eva groaned and ran her fingers down her face. “You should have reminded me before we stepped in.”
He chuckled and said, “don’t worry. While you were working your runes, I made myself a bit useful. For the next six hours we should appear as nothing more than shadows on any sort of recording. Hopefully.”
“Very reassuring.”
“Better than having to hunt down their server room only to find they have off site backups.”
“Right,” Eva grumbled. “What does this phylactery look like?”
“Golden skull, not sure on the size but it has two rubies for eyes and opal teeth. If you find it, don’t touch it just destroy it. I doubt anything bad would happen as it was handled by the archaeologists without problem, but take no chances.”
“Splitting up then?”
Nodding, Devon said, “it might not be on display yet. I’ll check the storage rooms, you run through the main areas. If it proves resistant to your efforts at destroying it, find me and I’ll see what we can do.”
With that said, her master turned and stalked down the hallway.
—
Eva had never been in a museum before. As she walked through the silent halls, she couldn’t help but wonder if museums were as creepy during the day as they were at night.
Main lights were turned off in all the rooms except one room. That room had a number of the custodial crew that looked to be in the middle of polishing glass and waxing floors before a sudden drowsiness overtook them. Dim lights illuminated the floor, probably for patrolling security.
The display lights were the worst. Most were turned off to prevent damaging the works, but some were left on. The hallway leading to the Egyptian exhibit was lined with statues, each with a spotlight trained on them.
Eva walked through the Egyptian exhibit, looking through the displays for any sign of the phylactery. She passed by a set of scrolls spread out on the wall. There was not enough light to read them even if she had the time.
She focused on gold objects instead. There was a surprising amount. Several amulets and knickknacks glinted under the dim lighting. A small fortune could probably be made off just the gold in the room, let along whatever historical value the objects themselves had.
One of the displays caused Eva to do a double take. Beneath a thick glass display case sat a golden dagger. The information plaque to its side said that such gold knives were flaunted by the extremely wealthy and that the displayed dagger was one of the few intact ones they had come across.
Eva had to struggle to keep from bursting out laughing.
It was obviously a ritual dagger. The gold blade would be worthless for any sort of combat, but that could be confused with a simple ornamental or ceremonial dagger. The bloodstone capping the hilt is what gave it away. Eva smiled at the plaque which mistakenly identified it as a ruby.
A golden sheath, inlaid with several more bloodstones, lay just beneath the blade in the display case. Eva wondered at that. Her own sheath was a simple wrapping of hardened leather with no bloodstones or magical properties of its own.
All the bloodstones were in pristine condition. Almost like the dagger had never been used. It struck her as odd for ancient bloodstone. Use and time would degrade them. Eva had to replace her own twice so far, though her first one had been very poorly formed. Whoever made the ones on the golden daggers knew what they were doing.
Eva brought her own dagger to the bare skin on her left arm and drew blood. Dark-red droplets ran down the edge of the blade. Rather than drop to the ground, the blood hung in the air. Three marble sized globules formed before Eva sheathed the dagger. A quick flick of her wrist set the residual blood to healing the cut.
She tapped her index finger to a globule and dragged a small trail to the glass. She completed a circle and snapped her fingers. The blood circle flashed and with a light tap of her finger, fell into the display case.
Dipping her finger into one of the remaining globules, Eva reached into the case and smeared blood across the blade of the dagger. She repeated the action with the sheath, just in case.
