Rupert nodded. “Unpleasant. I’ll have someone collect the others.”
“Unpleasant?” Cyrus snorted. “I don’t know. I love having a picture of my mom with a skull drawn on her face. And the one of Dan bleeding has a nice note on the back, too.”
Antigone slid to her feet. “Ignore him,” she said. “It’s been a rough day.”
“Rough?” Cyrus asked. He wanted to be angry at Greeves, at someone, but he didn’t feel up to the effort. He sighed. “That’s one way to put it.”
Antigone collected herself. “I have a question. Two, if that’s all right. Maybe three.”
“Maybe twelve,” Cyrus muttered.
“Ask,” said Rupert. His eyes were on Cyrus. His accented voice had grown an edge.
Antigone looked at Nolan. “You think he’s going to be okay?”
Rupert nodded. “Yes. Nolan is always okay.”
“Dan,” Cyrus said. He had to keep his voice calm. “What are you doing to find our brother? What’s happening? Where is he? What do you know?”
The big man straightened, his head nearly grazing the ceiling. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news,” he said. “Maxi sent him to Phoenix, his handler. They used a small grass airstrip not far from your motel, and I have a description of their plane. But where Phoenix is right now, I cannot say. In the last ten years, I have flushed him out of dens in Paris, Miami, and Quebec. I’ve even put a bullet in him. He’s not immortal — nor even transmortaled, I suspect — but he has some vile charm about him. Tonight, I have people and”—he paused, rubbing his jaw—“things searching for where he might be. In a few hours, I will be joining them.” He raised his eyebrows, turning from Cyrus to Antigone. “What might Daniel have that Phoenix wants? Does he have any particular gifts, strengths, abilities?”
Cyrus shook his head slowly. Greeves continued. “Did Skelton give him anything before he died? The doctor always has a twisted reason for what he does. He’s after something.”
Antigone swung meaningful eyes onto her brother. “What’s he after, Rus?”
Rupert waited. Cyrus chewed his lip. “I want to come.”
Greeves crossed his thick arms. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said you were going to be looking for this Phoenix guy tonight.” Cyrus cleared his throat. “I want to come. I can’t stay here, sleeping in this … basement. I have to do something. Let me come.”
Rupert Greeves leaned forward slowly until he was eye to eye with Cyrus. For a moment, the man simply stared, and Cyrus struggled not to squirm, not to blink or shuffle or look away. When Greeves finally spoke, his voice was soft. “Rightly or wrongly, you feel some guilt for this. Now, do you want to make yourself
Cyrus exhaled. “I don’t even know who Phoenix is. How should I know what he wants?”
“Who is he?” Antigone blurted. “And don’t say we don’t need to know.”
“Right,” Greeves said. He ran a hand over his tightly shorn head. “Phoenix is someone I hope you never meet. In his own mind, he is the greatest of all altruists, philanthropist to the natural order, god to new races, savior to the world. In reality, he is a soul-crippled, subhuman devil of a man, part scientist, part sorcerer. He was expelled from the Order when I was young. He should be an old man now, but he still appears relatively young. I have no doubt that he robbed the collections of Ashtown before his expulsion, but there is very little order to them, and the darkest collections are sealed. Few people would miss anything. If I knew what he took, I might understand his weaknesses better. Then again, I might not. There may not be any weaknesses.”
“What did he do to get kicked out?” Antigone asked.
The big man’s jaw rippled, clenching. He pulled at his pointed beard. “The truth will not be reassuring. Phoenix began by secretly conducting experiments — as cruel as can be imagined — on animals in the Order’s zoo. He moved quickly to working on Acolytes, staff, and poor ignorant wretches he and his friends collected from the surrounding population — pulled from farmhouses, bus stops, schools.…”
Rupert’s scarred chest inflated. His eyes lost their focus. He was looking straight through the stone wall and into memory, seeing old horror. Cyrus glanced at his sister. Her eyes were wide, worried.
“Ten years ago,” Rupert said quietly, “I found the … remains … of seven Acolytes hidden in the floor of his old rooms. I dug graves for them myself. Among the murdered was my elder brother, missing from my childhood. Also among them”—Rupert’s eyes found Cyrus’s, and they were heavy, glistening—“were the bodies of Harriet and Circe Smith.” He turned to Antigone. “Your father’s sisters.”
Antigone blinked.
“What?” Cyrus said. “What? Our dad didn’t have … How do you know?”
“Because Phoenix labeled them.” Rupert’s voice was cold and level, his face undisturbed. “Phoenix is why I strove to become the Avengel, and I am why he lurks in shadow, afraid to show himself. The blood of the Order that he spilled is mine to avenge. And so help me God, I will leave his lifeless body to the birds so that he might be spattered across the land. But if, through witchcraft and devilry, he now numbers among the transmortaled, I will prepare for him a place in the Burials of Ashtown, deeper in anguish than any before him.”
Cyrus swallowed. Antigone slid to the back of her bench. The big man’s dark eyes had become stone.
“Keys,” Cyrus said quietly, and he looked down at his own toes. Rupert’s eyes were too uncomfortable to meet. “Skelton gave me his keys before he died. He told me to keep them safe.”
The big man breathed in slowly and turned his face up to the ceiling. “And have you?” he asked.
Cyrus was confused. “Have I what?”
“Kept the keys safe.”
Cyrus nodded. “Yeah. Well, I still have them.”
“And whom have you told?” Rupert asked. “Who else may know what you’re carrying?”
“Just Nolan,” Cyrus said. “He’s the only one.”
“And there were two keys?” Rupert’s eyes grew even darker.
“Yeah.” Cyrus nodded. “Normal-looking. Old, I guess. One is small and silver, one’s longer and gold, but the gold one was just to his truck.”
“Mother Mary.” Rupert breathed deep and shook his head. “Too many Skelton rumors prove to be true. No, Cyrus, the gold one was not just to his truck.” He became suddenly worried. “He placed these keys in your hand? He gave them to you? You did not take them?”
Cyrus nodded.
Greeves seemed relieved. “Then Skelton has already given you more than you can imagine.” He stepped toward Cyrus, blocking the ceiling lanterns with his shoulder. “With these two keys, was there anything else? Did Skelton speak to you about a tooth? Not a whole tooth. A shard? It would have been black. He might have called it a dragon’s tooth.”
Cyrus blinked. His neck was suddenly quite heavy.
“Reaper’s Blade? Resurrection Stone? Anything like that?”
Cyrus glanced at his sister. Her eyes were wide, nervous, waiting for his decision. He looked back up at Rupert, and then he shook his head.
“Skelton didn’t say anything.” He swallowed. It wasn’t really a lie. Skelton had been dead. Horace had done all the tooth talking.
Rupert’s brows slid slowly down, and his eyes disappeared in shadow.
“Are you going to take the keys from me?” Cyrus asked quickly.
Greeves blinked, and the shadows on his face slid away in surprise. “Take them? Is that what you think of me? Cyrus, I am not a bullying thief. And if I were, Solomon Keys protect themselves. If I did force them from you, those keys would be deadly for me. For any mortal. They do not take kindly to theft. And if you gave them to me freely, they could never be returned to you. They are ancient, they are powerful, and no man living can know or understand the charms woven into them.”
Cyrus burst out laughing.
Antigone, surprised, blinked daggers at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that, well, we’re talking about different keys. These are just regular old keys. They’re not ancient at all.”
“Where are they?” Rupert asked. He sat in the alcove across from Cyrus and leaned forward onto his knees. Seeing Cyrus hesitate, he quickly waved off his own question. “I understand your caution. The Order has not yet
