Page 5 of Monsters in the Museum (Defenders of the Light #1)
Chapter five
N ora dreamed that she was in Millenium Park, under The Bean. She was staring into its mirrored surfaces, the reflections of faces around her. She recognized Adam and Drew. Drawing closer to her reflection, she stared into her own green eyes, seeing they were glazed with fever. She was so close that her nose touched the cold metal surface, but it wasn’t metal at all. It felt like water, burning cold against her hot skin, and then there were ripples moving out from where she touched the surface. The ripples warped the reflections around her, and she lost sight of Adam’s and Drew’s faces. She opened her mouth to scream, but then she pitched forward and began to fall again.
Now Apollo, the sun god himself, stood above her as she lay on a cloud. His arms were raised, the orb of the sun shining impossibly close behind him. He was draped in vibrant green fabric, contrasting with his dark skin, which shone in the light. His voice was deep as he called her name.
“Nora, you have to wake up.”
She tried to tell him that she was awake, but then he was pouring molten sunshine into her open mouth, and she coughed and spluttered around it. It burned her from the inside out, but Apollo didn’t relent. He kept pouring it down her throat until she was drowning, and her vision went white. She could think of nothing but the brightness of the sun and the heat coursing through her veins.
Nora’s mind slipped gently back into her body. When she opened her eyes, it was a clear blue sky and the sun above her. As she stared up into it, she wondered why the sky had such an odd texture until she realized that she was not really outside but looking up at a very realistic fresco painting.
She let her gaze drift down, registering that she was lying on a gigantic four-poster bed, cocooned in a fluffy white comforter. Nora was glad to see that she was so thoroughly swaddled because her next realization was that she was naked against the silky sheets. While Nora was all for sleeping in the buff, she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable being completely exposed when she was… where was she?
As if in answer to her silent question, the man from her dreams approached from outside her field of vision. He smiled at her and said, “Welcome to the Sanctuary, Nora Zvezda.”
“Apollo,” she whispered in awe.
His head tipped back and he laughed deeply before continuing in an accent that she couldn’t quite place. “No, not even I am quite that good-looking. My name is Thaddeus, but you may call me Thad. I’m the reason you are still alive.”
“Thad,” she echoed, remembering the name being shouted during her white-hot haze of confusion. “Adam brought me here.” Wherever here was. “Why am I not in the hospital?”
Thad chuckled once again, this time with wry amusement. “The hospital wasn’t going to be able to help you, no matter how talented your physician was. Only a Healer here at the Sanctuary can treat the poison you were suffering from.”
Adam had said something about poison, but none of this made any sense. She shook her head as if that could somehow straighten out the jumble of thoughts in her mind. Also, why was Thad wearing a green toga?
Thad’s expression was sympathetic.
“Adam will explain everything. He’s waiting outside.” He motioned to one side of the room, and sure enough when Nora looked around the cavernous space, she spied an open archway on one wall, real sunlight shining through.
Thad continued as she looked around the vast bedroom. “I put some clothes over there for you to try on. If you then head out into the courtyard, Adam will tell you everything.” He took another long glance at her confused face before adding, “It’s good to see you, Nora.” Then he drew back and made his way out of a heavy wooden door.
With Thad’s departure, Nora pulled herself into a sitting position, keeping the comforter clutched to her chest. She counted it as a small victory that her head didn’t spin, and she was able to move with much more strength than she had in the hospital. From this angle, she was able to take in her surroundings more thoroughly than she had before. The large bed occupied one end of a room that had to be the size of her entire city apartment. While the ceiling was painted to mirror the summer sky, the walls and the floor were made of polished white stone. A lack of furniture other than a few barren bookshelves made the room appear even more cavernous and foreign.
As overwhelming as her predicament was, Nora concluded that everything would be easier to face when she was no longer naked.
She swung her feet around to put them on the floor and stood, pulling the comforter with her, and was surprised to find the process painless after her ordeal. She padded over to the screen and stepped behind it, finding a low stool with a pile of red fabric folded on it.
Letting the comforter drop now that she was behind the privacy of the screen, she glanced down and drew in a sharp breath. The gash in her leg was now nothing more than a thin pink scar. She ran the pads of her fingers over it in wonder for a few moments before remembering that she was supposed to be getting dressed. She picked up the fabric from the stool, only to be dismayed to find that it was not, in fact, clothes, but instead a large rectangle of fabric with no discernable arm or leg holes. Remembering how Thad had been draped in fabric like the figures of ancient Greek statues, she grimaced. Sure enough, under the pile of fabric, she found a set of small golden clasps and a thin gold cord that could serve as a belt.
Thanking her lucky stars that she was a historian and knew how classical Greek clothing worked, she draped the scarlet fabric around herself, albeit awkwardly, and used the clasps to fasten it at the shoulders before tying the cord around her waist, gathering in the voluminous fabric. She searched in vain for any undergarments before deciding that going commando under a toga was hardly worthy of her concern at the moment. Nora did succeed in locating a pair of leather sandals next to the stool and tried her best to lace them up her calves with unpracticed fingers. Her hair fell loose around her face, and even without a mirror, she could tell that her brown curls had become a mass of frizz, but the hair elastic she normally kept around her wrist was missing, so she had no choice but to leave it. A hysterical giggle bubbled up in Nora’s throat as she glanced down at her outfit. Maybe she was still hallucinating.
An image came to her mind then of a swirl of dark creatures and Adam at the center of it, slicing and hacking with a bronze sword. Her smile slid from her face as she remembered how terribly real that had been, and suddenly, it seemed more plausible that this might be real, too. Part of her longed to run for the shelter of her cozy apartment and bury her head under the covers—pretend this had never happened. But who knew if she would be able to find her way home from wherever this was? Listening to Adam’s explanations was her best option. She stepped from behind the screen and made her way over to the arch that Thad had indicated.
As she stepped out into the dazzling light, Nora was forced to blink rapidly. Once her eyes adjusted, she found herself in a courtyard made of the same white stone as the room before and surrounded by towering Ionic-style Greek columns. The gentle murmur of running water greeted her, and as she looked around, she located the source—a fountain at one end of the courtyard. The outer basin was covered in small turquoise tiles, and at the center of the pool stood a grand statue of a man. The figure had his face turned up with a spear held aloft in his hand; the blade pointed straight up at the sky. Water shot out of the tip of the spear, cascading around him before falling into the pool at his feet, the tinkling of the water reverberating around the almost deserted courtyard.
Perched on the edge of the fountain, Adam looked up at the man. The dark jeans and argyle sweater he wore made him look out of place in the sun-soaked courtyard, and Nora felt even more self-conscious in her odd ensemble. She hesitated, steps stuttering. When Adam heard her footsteps echoing off the polished stone, he turned to look.
As he caught sight of her, he froze for a second with his lips parted and eyes wide, probably in shock at her ridiculous outfit. Her cheeks warmed, but the look was gone as quickly as it came, and he jumped to his feet.
“Nora, you’re up!” He looked her over, and his voice contained an edge of laughter as he continued. “I see Thad gave you a peplos to sort out for yourself. I’ll see if I can’t find you some real clothes after we’re finished talking.”
Nora managed a tight smile as he motioned toward the edge of the fountain, and they both sat down, Nora angling her body to face him. She wanted to inspect his face as he spoke. At this point, she wasn’t sure she would be able to discern truth from a lie, but she wanted to read his expressions when he explained. A silence fell between them, and Nora realized that she had so many questions that she didn’t even know where to begin. She opened her mouth to say something, but Adam got there first.
“I thought you would have attacked me with questions by now.”
Nora tilted her head in thought before responding. “Well, I’m actually debating whether or not to shove you into this fountain for dragging me from a weekend business meeting into a life-endangering fiasco that has me thinking I might be more than half insane, not to mention putting my entire career at risk.”
Adam grimaced, “And what’s the verdict?”
“I think I’ll let you explain yourself and then decide if you deserve to go for a swim.”
“Fair enough,” Adam conceded. “What do you want to know?”
Nora opened and closed her mouth a few times before admitting, “I don’t know what I want to ask first.” She paused again and then asked, “Who are you?”
He certainly wasn’t the charming professor she met in a café the day before.
Adam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Then talk,” responded Nora, leaning back on her hands and crossing her legs. Adam quickly looked away from where a large expanse of Nora’s bare thigh peaked through the red fabric. Nora tried not to think about the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Adam took another deep breath as if to steady himself before diving in.
“I am one of the Eteria, an ancient order dedicated to defending the Light. The Light is an endless source of wisdom and beauty, but it is also the source of our power. It allows us to do things like heal the wound on your leg, but it can also be concentrated and used in battle to take out dozens of enemies at a time.”
“You’re… what? Sorcerers?” Nora knew she should have been dizzy with disbelief, but her mind was strangely logical as she weighed his explanation.
The corner of Adam’s mouth twitched. “I suppose you can call us that, although that calls to mind all sorts of images of garish hand waving and strange incantations. Our use of the Light is far more… cerebral than that. Not to mention, we don’t spend all our time haphazardly throwing around balls of magic or anything. We also celebrate the gifts of wisdom and beauty the Light brings us by studying philosophy, art, and literature.”
“That explains the whole English professor thing, I suppose,” Nora mused, tapping her chin. “Can anybody learn to use the Light, or are you some special breed of human or something?”
Adam shook his head. “We are human, just born with a special ability. It’s like… being able to roll your tongue or wiggle your ears. Not everybody can do it, and it seems to be hereditary. We haven’t exactly used genetic testing, but nobody with the ability has been born outside the Eteria in thousands of years.”
“But if you Eteria people can do so much with your Light, then why hasn’t anybody noticed you? Seems like you all would be rather… conspicuous.” Nora asked with a furrowed brow.
“Well, because we can’t actually do much with the Light—not anymore, at least. So we keep to ourselves. When I said we were an ancient order, I wasn’t exaggerating. With the Light, there is also Shadow, a power of darkness that feeds on doubt and insecurity.”
Nora couldn’t help but snort, and Adam raised a brow at her. “Sorry, it’s just that this is starting to sound a whole lot like a sci-fi movie—the whole light and dark sides thing.”
“Storytellers often come closer to the truth of the world than people like to think.”
Nora had to suppress her disbelief that she was discussing science fiction movies with a sorcerer and dragged her attention back to the issue at hand. “You were saying about the Shadow?”
“Right. About three thousand years ago, the Shadow started gaining power. The Eteria did our best to stop it, but for every bit of power we gained, the Shadow gained even more. It was insidious, worming its way into the dark recesses of people’s minds, causing fighting within the order and turning us against ourselves. Both the Shadow and the Light reached the height of their power in about 400 BC. At the time, the headquarters of the Eteria was located near Athens, which was a center of Light—full of art and philosophy and human progress.
“There came a point when the Shadow was threatening the existence of Light itself, and we knew we had to act. The full force of the Eteria marched out to meet the forces of Shadow on the plains outside the city, and we clashed in the largest battle our order has ever seen. At the end of the battle, when the dust had settled, the Eteria had won, but at a terrible price. While it appeared the Shadow had been vanquished, only a few dozen of us had survived. Nearly all our leadership had been wiped out. Even worse, a barrier had formed between us and the Light, making it difficult to use without exhausting oneself to the point of near death. It was a pyrrhic victory. The survivors used what little magic we had left to take our headquarters, the Sanctuary, and put it in a pocket dimension, with points of access all over the world for those who know how to find them.
“What remains of the Eteria have lived here in this Sanctuary ever since, thinking for a time that we had paid a steep price, but it was worth it to rid the world of the Shadow. We stayed out of worldly affairs for the most part, assuming we had done our job and could now stay in our pocket dimension to lick our wounds. We were wrong, though; the Shadow has begun to creep back into the world. With our limited access to the Light and our decimated numbers, we have done what we can to slow its spread, but it’s not enough.”
Nora was breathless from Adam’s story, but her brain was already whirring, reconciling everything that had happened to her with what she had just learned. Unable to hold still any longer, she stood and began pacing back and forth in front of the fountain. Adam followed her movements with unreadable eyes.
“So, the Shadow is back and for some reason, it decided to attack us at the museum? And you knew how to fight it because you are a warrior sorcerer from an ancient order?”
Adam nodded. “A Defender, technically, but that’s not material right now.”
Nora blew out a breath through her lips and stopped her pacing, “You know what? I don’t have time for this. I already only get five hours of sleep a night without having to worry about an ancient war. Thank you for saving my life and all, but I’d like to go home now.”
Adam’s mouth twisted as if he was chewing on his next words in distaste. “I’m not sure that’s an option anymore.”
Nora froze. “What do you mean, not an option ?”
“When the Shadow cut your leg, some of its essence was left in your bloodstream, which acted as a poison against you. Thad managed to draw it out of you, but the Shadow does not like being denied a victim.” Adam shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the fountain. “There is a chance it might be… drawn to you, now that it has been in your blood. It tends to act as a kind of homing beacon for disasters.”
Nora blinked once. Then again. “You mean I can’t leave this place without those… things attacking me again?”
“No, we can keep you safe,” Adam assured, shaking his head emphatically. His hands twitched, as if he wanted to reach out to her, but he ended up clenching his fists on his thighs. “But you have to work with us. You’ll need a guard for now, and we can teach you to defend yourself going forward.”
Nora sat down hard and dropped her head between her knees. The cool stone was reassuring against her bare legs, but her world still tilted on its axis, as if a pair of giant hands had picked up the entire courtyard and thrown it on its side.
“Why did they have to attack me in the first place?” she mumbled toward the floor, but Adam still seemed to hear her.
He sighed from his perch on the fountain before embarking on another explanation. “I’m afraid the attack may have happened even if I wasn’t there. The sword and the spear are both very powerful artifacts. The Shadow would be drawn to that power.”
Nora raised her head and squinted up at Adam through the hair that had fallen across her face, doing some quick mental math. “Powerful artifacts? And you said that the Eteria took their final stand against the Shadow around 400 BC. The battle took place near Athens.” It all made sense to her now. “We carbon dated the sword and spear to about that time period. They were left from the battle with the Shadow.”
Adam nodded, “They are both Eteria weapons, forged by our Smiths. That’s why they haven’t deteriorated throughout the centuries; they were forged using the Light.”
“Explains why you wanted to see them so badly,” Nora observed, piecing together the puzzle formed by Adam’s explanations. Nora had a sudden thought about the lengths Adam might have gone to see the sword, but she kept that thought to herself for now, putting it away to examine later.
“Well, yes.” Adam looked down and rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. “I will admit that I was rather desperate to see the sword once I saw it in the paper. I was particularly interested in seeing the sword, because… well—it’s mine.”
“You mean mine, as in it belongs to the Eteria?” Nora clarified.
“No,” Adam would not meet her eyes as he spoke, choosing his words as if she were a wounded animal who might bolt if he said the wrong thing. “That sword belonged to me personally. It was made for me, and I used it in the battle against the Shadow.”
Nora pinched her eyebrows together. “But Adam, that can’t be your sword. That weapon was left behind over two millennia ago. You can’t be…”
Adam grimaced.
Nora’s ears rang.
“No, no. If that sword was yours, then you’d have to be—”
“I’m 2600 years old, give or take.” He cut her off, glancing up through his lashes.
Nora stared in silence, waiting for him to burst out laughing and tell her that it was all a joke. When she looked into his eyes, though, she found no amusement. She shook her head. She had been trying to take his explanations in stride up until this point, but this tipped her over the edge.
“Our connection with the Light prevents us from aging,” Adam began to explain, “Just like the weapons in the museum show no signs of the centuries of wear and tear, we are protected from accumulating damage and signs of decay. We are immune to most sickness, and we won’t die unless we are killed. Even though using the Light is nearly impossible these days, the connection sustains us.”
The gears in Nora’s brain that had come to a standstill earlier began to move again, attempting to integrate this new bit of information. The theory had made sense when he had been explaining why the weapons did not age, but it still somehow seemed farfetched to apply the same principle to human beings.
Something caught at the back of Nora’s throat, and for one horrifying moment, she thought she was going to burst into tears. Instead, a small laugh bubbled up. The single quiet giggle seemed to break the damn of hysteria within her. It grew into violent laughter until she was rocking back and forth on the ground, shaking uncontrollably.
Adam’s mouth hung open, and his eyes were round as he watched her antics. Nora wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he had expected, but she was sure this wasn’t it. To his credit, he did not reprimand her or tell her to calm down. Her hysteria echoed around the smooth stone of the courtyard for long minutes, and she let the ridiculousness of her situation wash over her.
Eventually, her laughter subsided, leaving Nora gasping for breath and dashing tears from her eyes. She was probably as red as the crimson fabric she was draped in, but that seemed to be the least of her issues at this point.
Adam commented mildly. “Well, you took that better than Drew did.”
Nora’s face fell, her mirth fading. “Drew. Where is he?”
“He’s fine. Totally fine,” Adam reassured, his palms held out toward her placatingly. “He came with us to the Sanctuary. He refused to let you out of his sight, and he stayed with you while Thad drew the Shadows out of your blood—kept yelling about breaking sterile procedure while Thad was healing you. Still, after seeing Thad work, he was in a better position to believe our explanation.”
Nora’s anxiety ebbed a little, a plan starting to form in its place, “But you said I took it better than he did?”
“Well, yes.” The corners of Adam’s mouth twitched up. “When Thad told him how old he was, Drew fainted.”
Nora’s hand flew to her open mouth, “Is he okay? Can I see him?”
“Yes, yes, he’s fine. Thad saw to it that he was well taken care of, and he’s probably anxious to see you. If you’re feeling up to it, of course.”
Nora nodded as she pushed to her feet. “I’d like to see him right away. I need a little space to process all of this.”
“Of course, take as long as you need. I’m sure a familiar face will help,” Adam said as he also stood, offering her a small smile.
“Thanks. Oh, and Adam?”
“Yes?”
Nora took a quick step forward and braced both of her hands on Adam’s chest before giving him the most forceful shove she could manage. He stumbled back a step or two, arms wind-milling wildly to regain his balance before his knees hit the edge of the fountain, and he toppled backward into the water with an almighty splash.
When he surfaced, he spluttered and shook his soaked hair out of his eyes like an oversized dog. The wet strands plastered to his high cheekbones as he gaped at her.
“That’s for almost getting me killed,” she snapped, before spinning on her heel and marching out of the courtyard. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought the beginnings of a smile formed on his face before she turned away.