Page 25 of Monsters in the Museum (Defenders of the Light #1)

Chapter twenty-five

N ora sipped at the cup of tea in her hands. She barely tasted it, even as the steam thawed her still-chilled cheeks. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the phone sitting in the center of the table in front of her, now with a cracked screen from being dropped on the icy sidewalk.

It played the messages from Odelle for the third time in a row as the worried faces of Drew and the Eteria members looked on. Drew sat next to Thad, and Nora was grateful that he was still there, concern on his normally calm face. Everybody snuck glances out of the corners of their eyes at Nora, as if they thought she might implode at any moment. Nora thought they probably weren’t that far off base.

The first message from Odelle started again, the panic and confusion in her voice apparent even on the low-quality microphone.

“Nora, I need your help. I was at work reporting on the blizzard when a huge sheet of ice fell from a building, and now I’m trapped in an alley. I can’t climb out. The ice is too slick, and I’m wearing my work legs.”

There was a crackling and shuffling noise coming across the receiver before Odelle’s voice returned.

“Nora, there’s something happening. I don’t know—”

There was a sharp crack as if the phone had been dropped on the ground, followed by the beginning of a shriek before the message cut out.

The cheerful automated voice that recited the options to delete the message or save it was jarring after the horror in Odelle’s scream. Antony reached out and hit the option to play the next message, cutting the recording off.

It wasn’t the first time Nora had heard the message, but it still made her heart freeze in her chest.

“You’re a tricky one to scare, Nora Zvezda.”

Nora would recognize the disturbingly articulated voice of the agent anywhere, but hearing it on a voicemail left by Odelle’s phone was something she had not imagined, even in her nightmares.

“I think I figured out the right tactic this time, though. Why don’t you come find your sister while she’s still in one piece? Don’t even think about bringing along those friends of yours if you don’t want to make things worse for her. I look forward to having another chat with you.”

Antony reached out again to stop the phone from playing the message a fourth time.

“You’re sure it’s him—the agent?” Ezra asked, his fists tight under his folded arms.

Nora nodded. She had barely spoken since hearing the voicemails for the first time, but her mind whirled a mile a minute. This was all her fault. She hadn’t come clean to Odelle about what was happening soon enough and now she was paying the price. Odelle wouldn’t even know what the Shadow was, leaving her completely vulnerable to its manipulation. Nora’s stomach felt like a lump of coal.

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?” Thad probed gently.

“None,” Nora said. “I don’t know how he expects me to come find them. Maybe he’s just taunting me. Giving me false hope that she’s still alive.”

Adam reached out and put a hand on Nora’s shoulder, making her jump, “I’m sure she’s all right. Remember the Shadow’s game is fear and manipulation. He wouldn’t give up a piece like Odelle that quickly if he’s trying to get to you. We’ve seen this before.”

Drew ran a hand through his hair with a scowl. “If you’ve seen it before, why does the Shadow keep doing it?”

“Just because we know what it’s doing, doesn’t make it less effective,” Antony said. “We know it’s a trap, but that doesn’t make us care about the bait any less.”

Nora nodded, although the thought of Odelle being alive in the clutches of the agent wasn’t particularly reassuring either.

“Then what are we waiting for? I have to go find her.”

“ We have to go find her,” Antony amended, giving Nora a pointed look that she didn’t quite understand.

“You heard what he said,” Nora argued, “I have to come alone or—”

“He’s the bad guy. Of course, that’s what he said,” Adam reasoned, doing his best to sound reassuring but not totally hiding his concern. “He’s messing with you, trying to separate you from help.”

Nora knew this was the part of the story when the hero would run off, reckless and alone, to save the damsel in distress, and Nora would bang her head against the wall in frustration at them for being so incredibly dense. Still, her sister’s panicked voice played on repeat in her head. Maybe it was Nora’s turn to be incredibly dense.

“You’re right.” Nora leaned into Adam’s hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for wanting to help. We need a plan, though.”

Adam looked relieved and turned to the rest of the group to start throwing out ideas on how to find Odelle. Nora wasn’t paying attention, though. Her mind was too busy with her own plan, which she had to come up with before Adam finished outlining his. She caught Antony still staring at her with unnerving perception, but she quickly looked away.

As Thad chimed in with some information about combing the city in a grid pattern, Nora leaned over to murmur in Adam’s ear. “If we’re going to go on a manhunt, I’m going to need to rest for a bit. This has all been… a lot to process. Do you mind if I go lay down while you guys comb out the details?”

Adam looked at her with furrowed brows.

“Do you need me to come with you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I think I’d rather be alone. I need a minute to clear my head.”

Adam continued to appear worried, but he agreed.

“Ok, go ahead and use my room. I’ll come fill you in when we’re finished here.”

Nora nodded gratefully and did her best to look worn out as she made her way out of the courtyard. As she passed Antony, he looked up and met her eyes. She looked down at the ground quickly, as if he might spy her intentions in her face. Her whole plan would be for nothing if he guessed it too soon.

As soon as she was out of sight of the group, Nora quickened her pace, striding purposefully through the halls toward the main entrance. She hadn’t made it fifty feet when she stopped in her tracks and doubled back in the other direction. Just because she was being reckless didn’t mean that she had to be completely unprepared.

Nora was pleased to find that she was able to remember her way through the labyrinthian hallways back to the armory. She pushed open the heavy wooden doors as quietly as possible before slipping inside, leaving the door ajar to light her way.

She looked over the racks of weapons only for a moment before heading to the same case that had caught her attention the last time she was in this room. Now, standing in front of the case with the Warrior’s armor, she understood why she felt so drawn to it.

It was hers.

She fumbled with the latch for only a moment before getting the case open. As she went about taking the breastplate off the wooden form, she thanked her profession for making her well-versed in dressing and undressing mannequins in ancient armor. She never would have guessed such a skill had applications outside of working in a museum.

She finished buckling the breastplate to herself, before deciding to add the grieves for good measure. She got the impression they were not designed to go over skinny jeans, but she made do.

Nora looked longingly at the helmet with its impressive plumage, but decided it was best to forgo it. She was already making quite the fashion statement with the bronze armor over her jeans and sweater.

Just as Nora was closing the case again, the room got dimmer, as if the light coming from the cracked door had been blocked.

“I see you figured out who the armor belonged to.”

Nora whirled around so fast that she almost toppled over with the new weight now attached to her body. When she had found her footing, she looked up to see Seraphina standing in the doorway. The woman’s arms were crossed over her chest, and her chin was raised at an angle, which suggested she was accustomed to wearing a crown.

“It took you longer than I expected for somebody who so obviously enjoys sticking her nose in other people’s business,” Seraphina continued.

“I’m a historian,” Nora snapped, unable to stop herself. “Other people’s stuff is my job.”

Seraphina acted as if she hadn’t spoken.

“I heard what happened to your sister.” The way she said it was a simple statement, holding neither comfort nor judgment.

“And I suppose you’re here to tell me what I’m doing is incredibly stupid?”

“No. I knew you before, and criticizing you when you were doing something rash was never an effective way of dissuading you from anything.” Seraphina’s tone left Nora with no doubt she had disliked her former self as much as Nora’s current incarnation.

“Then why are you here?” Nora huffed, getting impatient with the conversation. She had wasted too much time already.

Seraphina walked into the room until she stood only a foot in front of Nora. “I came to tell you that you buckled this on all wrong.”

She reached down and tugged a few of the straps around Nora’s midsection, none too gently, while Nora looked on with her mouth hanging open.

“You’re…helping me?” she asked, dumbfounded.

Seraphina did not look up from her work. “Surprisingly, yes.”

“Why?”

At this, Seraphina paused and met Nora’s gaze. Her typical haughty expression was still firmly in place, but Nora caught a hint of something softer in the woman’s pale blue eyes.

“I guess because everybody deserves a chance to save the people they love.”

As Seraphina looked down to finish her adjustments, Nora remembered what Adam had told her about Seraphina’s husband. He had died in the Defeat, just as she had. Adam and Nora had gotten a second chance at their love. Seraphina hadn’t.

“I hope I’m not doing all this work for you to go out and waste it all by getting killed in seconds,” Seraphina commented as she finished up. “Please tell me you have some sort of plan besides charging blindly into a trap?”

Nora chewed her lip for a second.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

Seraphina raised a brow. “Another favor? Will the wonders never cease?”

Nora ignored the dig.

“I need you to give Adam a message for me.”

Nora walked through the museum after hours for the second time in three days as she mentally berated herself. A few months ago, she had felt nervous about bringing Adam down to the office when it wasn’t strictly allowed. Now, she had made a habit of breaking into the museum and was planning to steal from her job. Although, she could argue that this no longer counted as stealing considering she had recently found out that the spear in the museum had once belonged to her former incarnation.

She might have been afraid as she walked through the darkened hall to the arms and armaments exhibit, considering what had happened the last time she was alone in this museum. But some voice in her gut told her that the Shadow would not touch her while she was here. The agent was waiting to spring his trap for her.

Not to mention that Nora was too angry to be afraid right now. The icy numbness that filled her when she first heard the fear in Odelle’s voice had gradually melted into a simmering rage that boiled through her veins. Nora had never let anybody bully Odelle about her legs on the playground as a child, and she was not about to let anybody bully her now.

The only feeling that managed to cut through the anger was a shred of guilt in the back of her mind. She tried not to envision Adam coming after her and what he might be doing, knowing her plan would never work if she thought about him like that.

Nora reached the case with the spear and slowly opened it with the key she had grabbed from the downstairs office. She had already deactivated the alarms using the system they used when they took artifacts out to clean them, so all she had to do was reach in and grab the spear from its plinth. Her hands immediately slid into the worn handholds comfortably, like walking back into her apartment after a long vacation. Nora loved having her wooden practice spear in her hands, but it was nothing compared to this. With this spear in her hands, she would be a force to be reckoned with, and the agent had better be careful who he tried to catch in his snare.