The drow halfling released a heavy breath and stared, unblinking, at the drow artifact she now knew her father had left behind for her.
“What the hell was that?”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Corian flipped on the desk lamp, which gave off enough light to cast a dim glow over the desk and the bare metal folding chair. Pressing the cell phone to his ear, he counted to four rings until the line picked up.
“Yeah, it’s me. Can you hear me okay? Good. Yeah, I reached out, and I think I got a bite. No, she’s skeptical enough as it is. I’ll give her however long she needs to get back to me, then we’ll move forward. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she’ll crack it. And she’ll have no problem finding the trail of breadcrumbs I left behind. I’m sure. I’ve been watching her for twenty-one years, Zeldar. She’s good. Trust me. We’re close. Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll wait.”
With a sigh, Corian leaned back in the metal chair and glanced one more time at the new topic posting on the Borderlands forum. I’m Looking for Durg. She went all out with that one. He chuckled and drummed his fingers on the tiny wooden tabletop mounted on metal legs.
“Yeah, I’m still here. Hey, can you get a message to the Cu’ón for me? Dammit, Zeldar. It’s not like you have to do this more than once a year. Right. Yeah, I know there’s a process. Will you…hey! Hey, shut up and listen to the message, will ya? I swear you’re starting to sound like one of them. I know it’s your cover, I know. Everyone has a life. Will you hear me out? Okay. Tell him I made the first move, huh? Tell him she’s starting to dig, and she’ll find him soon. Yeah, that’s it. Hey, I don’t care how you get it to him, just make sure he hears the words. Thank you. Sure, I’ll call you when I have more.”
The man sitting in the dark room somewhere outside downtown Richmond ended the call and set down the cell phone. “And maybe you’ll learn how to relax.”
Corian picked up the glass of water on the table beside his laptop and took a long drink. “Okay, ShyHand71. Your move. Better make it a good one.”
Chuckling, he sat back in the chair again and whipped the stupid baseball cap off his head. It thumped onto the table next to the laptop and he ran a hand through his hair, staring at the VCU Ram embroidered on the front.
“Soon, you and I are gonna meet in person, kid. We have so much to talk about. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. We both have.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Cheyenne Summerlin had no idea how much it would hurt just to turn off her alarm. The not-so-gentle blare coming from her cell phone on the bedside table was the only sound that got her to wake up with any kind of regularity. Except for today. Today, when the drow halfling flung her hand onto the bedside table to fumble with the alarm—or at least hit snooze—the agony piercing through her shoulder was a better wakeup call than an ice-cold bucket of water splashing all over her face.
“What the— Oh, man.” Groaning, she clutched her shoulder and felt the thick, folded wads of surgical gauze taped over her flesh. That and staring at the blank wall across her bedroom reminded her of what kind of dumb halfling decision she’d made the night before. “So stupid.”
She pushed herself up off the mattress and crossed her legs beneath the comforter, squinting a little but not resisting the need to look at what she’d done to her shoulder. When she peeled away the medical tape and the gauze she’d stuck there before going to bed, the two gaping holes in her flesh looked even bigger than when that Skaxen asshole had put them there.
“Damn CVS tweezers!” She hissed when her fingers brushed an especially sensitive bit of raw red completely unhealed flesh, which was pretty much all of it.
She ripped the rest of the gauze and tape off before she promised herself she’d put a new bandage over it as soon as she got to the bathroom. Fully awake now, she turned back toward her bedside table to reach for her cell phone and nearly threw herself to the other side of the bed.
There, right behind her phone, was the copper puzzle box etched with drow runes on all six sides—runes she had no idea how to read or where to start trying to decipher.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Cheyenne eyed the box sideways and reached out again to poke it and make sure it was actually there. She’d made a big deal out of leaving it on the carpet just inside the front door of her apartment last night. “Great. I have my own dark elf Chuckie doll.”
Blinking the rest of the sleep out of her eyes, she snatched the puzzle box off the bedside table and held it in her lap. She tapped it, then gave it a little shake. It didn’t budge when she tried to twist apart the pieces the way she’d seen it do all by itself yesterday, like some kind of possessed Rubik’s cube. Nothing.
Her shoulders sagged in disappointment.
The copper box vibrated in her hand, a faint golden light just barely shining from all those hair-thin lines etched into the metal surfaces. In three seconds flat, the cube went from cold to warm to burn-holes-in-your-hands-hot, and the half-drow dropped it onto the rumpled sheets beside her.
Whatever made this thing start moving around after twenty-one years of just sitting on her shelf or dresser and looking halfway pretty, she’d figure it out. Professor Bergmann at least knew what the puzzle box was, if not what the drow called it, so maybe Professor Bergmann knew why it was doing whatever it was doing.
Puffing out a sigh, Cheyenne dragged her body out
