“I’m not a one-trick pony. This is where I got to demonstrate my fine bargaining skills.”
“What do you mean? What bargaining skills?”
Peyton chuckled. “In the course of doing my normal thing for you I come across a lot of information on artifacts, but most of it is low- or mid-range garbage. Basically, stuff you wouldn’t get out of bed to recover but might pick up if it were on the ground and you had nothing better to do.”
“Okay, I get that, what’s that have to do with me not getting melted and your bargaining skills?”
Peyton laughed. “Well, just because you don’t care doesn’t mean other people don’t care. So, I traded some info on an artifact you don’t give a crap about to get information on an artifact you care about, namely the egg and its dangers, with someone on the dark web.”
Shay nodded toward the box and walked over to her grenade shelf. Lily picked up the box and followed her, curiosity in her gray eyes.
The hacker sighed. “Anyway, we’ve got one of those classic good news-slash-bad news situations.”
The tomb raider started grabbing grenades from the shelf to set in the box. “Give me the good news first. I always like to end on a pissy note.”
“Don’t I know it! Good news is you should be able to get the egg without melting. It was moved to Argentina without teleportation, so that proves it’s possible.”
“Now give me the bad news.”
“Yeah, well, the only people who can handle the egg directly are those with equally strong magic.”
Shay tossed a sonic grenade into the box and frowned at her phone. “You just told me I could handle it without melting. Unless I somehow managed to be a witch or Oriceran all these years without knowing it, I don’t think I’m gonna suddenly manifest strong magic.”
“Sure, sure. But you can still move it. From what I’ve been told, it wasn’t a wizard who last moved it, so you just need to figure out how. What I’ve found out is that you have to be prepared to grab the egg, but not with your bare hands or a piece of cloth, or anything like that.”
The tomb raider scoffed. “So I can handle it, as long I just don’t touch it directly or indirectly.”
“Yeah, that’s about it. Hope you have some ideas, but like I said, we at least know it’s possible.”
Shay chuckled. “I’ve got a few ideas I’ll try for twenty million. Transmit all the relevant location data to me when you get a chance. I’m gonna finish arming up here and then head to the airport with Lily.”
A cat yowled in the background on Peyton’s end and a loud crash followed.
Shay snickered. “I don’t even want to know what the hell is going on. Talk to you later.”
Peyton mumbled something under his breath as she hung up.
Lily lifted the box and shrugged. “Problems?”
“How much do you know about handling dangerous artifacts?”
She shrugged. “A little. My father showed me a few things, but not going to lie and say I’m an expert.”
Shay nodded. “Let’s pack this gear up in a few of my special boxes for the airport. We’ll make a stop before we hit it.”
“Where’s that?”
The tomb raider grinned. “A place where I can show you a few more things about handling artifacts. There’s just one more thing I need to grab here first.”
Lily peered around the large open space of the main room of Warehouse Five with a frown on her face. “This looks a lot like Warehouse Three. I mean, you’ve got a bunch of racks of stuff, and it just looks like random crap, at that.” She pointed to a velvet painting of a young Drake from twenty years prior when he was still in his prime. “Talk about random. I thought you said this was some big artifact warehouse, not the world’s lamest garbage dump.”
Shay laughed. “Most of that random stuff is just about confusing people. Almost all of it is random junk that was here, or that I bought just to mess with people if they found this place. Artifacts aren’t always obvious, so it helps keep people on their toes.”
Lily looked back and forth. “But there’s lots of magic in this place. Even some on the racks.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a few minor artifacts here and there as chaff, but none of the good stuff. Sure, it won’t fool an Oriceran or a wizard, but the typical idiot hitman wouldn’t get any of the good artifacts even if he got in here. Not that that would ever happen, but it always helps to have multiple lines of defense.”
“So, where’s the real stuff, then?”
“This is where it gets cool.” Shay marched over to a wall in the corner and pressed her palm against the middle. A small portion of the wall retracted to reveal a retinal scanner. She leaned in, and after the scan, another small silver panel revealed itself.
“Got enough locks?”
Shay shook her head. “Probably not. I’ve thought about getting magical locks on here, too.”
The tomb raider placed her thumb on the silver panel and waited for the telltale burn of a DNA scan.
She grinned. “You’re getting to see something cool and new. I remodeled some of this lately. Let me tell you, that’s not easy when you have to bring in a bunch of people blindfolded and use artifacts to block their ability to be traced. Not cheap either.”
The entire wall slid open to reveal two joysticks, a keyboard, and a couple of displays set in a black console at waist level. Thick plexiglass separated the rest of the vast and dark hidden chamber from the main warehouse.
“Welcome to my artifact vault.” Shay grinned. “Bulletproof glass. Also has a few enchantments on it to take minor spells and help disrupt magical tracking. Guess it’s a good thing I’m
