Elton’s heart twisted at Artemus’s request and the agony he could see reflected in the younger man’s eyes. The same agony coursing through Elton.
He’d made a promise to his brother six years ago, on the day of his death. He’d promised he wouldn’t reveal the truth to his young apprentice. Not unless it became absolutely necessary.
In the time they’d gotten to know Artemus, both brothers had come to cherish the boy. Karl like the son he’d never had, Elton like a recalcitrant nephew whose ears he sometimes wanted to box.
Both men had realized early on in their relationships with the young man that he was meant for something extraordinary. Something beyond their understanding. Something sacred.
And it seemed others had sensed this too.
The world had changed a lot in the last twenty years. Elton no longer recognized it as the one he’d grown up in. This new world was stranger. Darker. Full of mystifying things. Of forces and beings that seemed to originate from both the brightest of man’s visions and his most wicked nightmares.
No government or religious official could openly admit that evil existed and walked among ordinary men. That witchcraft and sorcery and black magic were all faces of a single power and entity, one hellbent on mankind’s very destruction. Just as they couldn’t admit that other forces also prevailed in these strange days. Beings who had awakened at the same time as the darkness now pervading the world. Beings who represented the opposite of evil.
It was sheer coincidence that had brought Elton to the antique shop on the day Karl was killed. He’d been in the area on business and had decided to invite his brother out for an early dinner. He’d entered the building through the front door like he always did and gone through to the workshop at the back, where he knew he would find Karl and Artemus working at the forge. Except Artemus wasn’t there that day. Karl had sent him on an errand on the other side of town. Which was fortuitous in many ways.
“When I went into the workshop that day, the back door was open,” Elton started. “I didn’t think anything of it. Karl kept wood and coal stored in the shed in the alley, so I presumed he was out getting some. After a while, I went out to see what was keeping him. That’s when I saw them.”
Artemus’s heart pounded violently in his chest as he watched the older man’s mournful expression.
“There were two of them. A man and a woman. They’d cornered Karl against the wall at the end of the alleyway. They were talking to him. Asking him things. By the time I got to them, the man and the woman had gone. They just leapt onto the wall and…vanished.” A shudder ran through Elton. “I saw them up close just for a couple of seconds. Their faces were not human. And they moved as if they were made of shadows.”
Artemus’s mouth went dry. He swallowed convulsively. “What did they do? What did they do to Karl?”
Elton’s eyes darkened. “Nothing that I could see, at first. It wasn’t until I loosened his clothes that I saw the mark on his chest. It was a black handprint. It looked like it’d been burned into his skin. But it wasn’t there for long. By the time the paramedics got there, it had disappeared.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “The official verdict given by the medical examiner was that Karl had suffered a heart attack. But I knew.” The older man’s voice grew stony. “I knew they’d killed him.”
Artemus watched him for a stunned moment as the reality of what had really happened that day sank in.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said shakily. “Why did you hide the truth from me for all these years?”
Something shifted in Elton’s face.
Artemus suddenly didn’t want to hear what he would say next. Because in that moment, he grasped the unspoken answer in Elton’s gaze.
“It was me, wasn’t it?” he said after a moment’s silence. “They were looking for me.”
A muscle jumped in Elton’s cheek. He clenched his jaw and nodded once. A wave of dizziness swept over Artemus. He stared numbly at the drink in his hands.
The man who had been the closest thing to a father he’d ever known had died because of him. A hot feeling filled his chest, making it hard to breathe.
Artemus jumped to his feet and hurled the glass into the fireplace, an animal sound leaving his throat.
Elton stiffened. “Look, I didn’t tell you this to make you feel guilty. Hell, neither of us blamed you for what happened that day. Especially not Karl.”
Artemus’s vision blurred as he looked at his old friend. “You have every right to hold me responsible. I’m the reason they came to the shop. The reason Karl had to die. I’m the monster they were after!”
Elton scowled and rose to his feet. “If you ever say those words again, I will slap you to kingdom come! You are not a monster. The reason Karl didn’t want me to tell you was exactly this. He knew how you’d react. That you’d blame yourself.”
He closed the distance between them and pressed his hands down on Artemus’s shoulders.
“There are strange forces at work behind everything that has happened,” he said after a moment, his voice softening. “Karl always believed that. He was convinced it was Fate that put you in our path. That we were meant to meet. That’s why he taught you everything he knew about metalwork. Of the two of us, he’d inherited the talents of our forefathers the most.” Elton smiled gently. “I also believe that’s why I was compelled to teach you how to fight. I think we both knew you would need those skills one day.” A determined expression dawned on his face. “Do you remember what Karl was working on in the months before his death?”
Artemus swallowed the lump in his throat. “You mean his secret project? The one he wouldn’t show me?”
Elton nodded. “It’s time I gave it to you.”
Artemus watched, puzzled, as the older man turned and walked over to one of the bookcases lining the walls of the study. He reached for a late nineteenth century copy of the Bible, tilted the spine toward him, and stepped back.
Artemus gaped when the bookcase moved inward three feet before pivoting on its axis. A room appeared beyond it. Elton headed inside.
Artemus followed and stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the hidden chamber. “What the—?”
Weapons crowded the stone walls and display cabinets around him. There were revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, machine guns, knives, swords, shields, maces, hammers, axes, even bows and arrows. Beneath them were recessed drawers labeled with different types of ammunition.
Elton ignored the deadly arsenal and made for a safe in the back wall. He stared into the retinal scanner, pressed his right hand against the biometric panel, and keyed a code into the digital screen that emerged from the metal door. The vault opened with a pneumatic hiss.
Elton removed a polished walnut box from inside, closed the safe, and took it over to a table. He flicked the latches holding the lid closed and lifted it.
Artemus joined him and stared at the weapon sitting inside the black, velvet-lined, French-fitted interior. It was a stainless-steel gun, unlike any he’d seen before.
The slide was long, with the barrel protruding slightly beyond it to accommodate a suppressor. He could tell without touching the weapon that Karl had blended other metals and alloys into the steel. Mounted on the frame were textured ebony grips. Words had been engraved into them. They were written in a language Artemus had never seen before but instinctively felt he knew.
“Take it,” Elton said. “It’s yours.”
Artemus reluctantly dragged his gaze from the gun. “Why did Karl make this?”
“He told me you would need it one day,” Elton replied.
Artemus hesitated before reaching for the weapon. Goosebumps broke out across his skin when his fingers made contact with the metal. With it came a wave of sadness.
He could feel Karl’s touch in the gun.
Artemus lifted the weapon lovingly from the case and smoothed his hand over it. It was well balanced and fitted his grip as if it belonged there.
“I had the runes looked at by paleography and linguistic experts some time after Karl’s death,” Elton said. “Their best guess was that it was written in a tongue similar to Enochian.”
Artemus raised an eyebrow as he ran his index finger over the inscriptions. “The heavily disputed holy language named after Enoch, Noah’s great grandfather?”
“The very one,” Elton murmured.
Artemus’s flesh tingled at the power he could feel thrumming through the engravings. “They aren’t wrong. It’s a blessing. A prayer, you might say.” He grimaced. “Or a curse, in another context.”
Elton stared at him for a moment before heaving a sigh. “I’m not even gonna ask how you know that.”
Artemus frowned slightly. “There’s something I don’t understand. If those creatures were looking for me on the day Karl died, why haven’t I seen them since?”
Elton rubbed his chin. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that.”
Artemus ejected the gun’s magazine from the expanded well and inspected the cartridges. “These the same silver-leaded ones you used in your gun tonight?”
“Yes,” Elton said. “We modeled ours on the cartridges Karl made for your weapon.”
Artemus pulled a face. “And they’re really impregnated with Holy Water?”
“Yes.” Elton hesitated. “It comes all the way from the Vatican.”
Artemus froze. “What?!”