Skin Deep

CHAPTER 35

LAURA LOOKED TO see if Saffin was among the Archives staff. She should have been with them near the podium. “I’m going down to the basement vault. If there’s a problem, Saffin should have called or found me,” Laura said.

“I’m going with you,” Sinclair said.

She placed a gentle hand on his chest. “No. You’ll slow me down. Your clearance isn’t as high as mine. It’s probably nothing. I’ll be quick,” she said.

“At least let me escort you to the elevator. If Foyle sees me without you, I’ll get a bad mark in my file.” His playful expression amused her, so she decided not to pull rank and let him go with her.

Terryn, have you seen Saffin? she sent.

Negative, he replied. His instant reply increased her concern. Terryn was supervising grounds security outside. If he heard her, Saffin should have. They cut across the loge. Security officers flanked the elevators. She flashed her Guildhouse badge at the nearest guard. “I need to go downstairs.”

He spoke briefly into the two-way on his wrist, and an elevator opened a moment later. As she stepped in, he started to follow. She held her badge up again. “Thank you, Officer, but I’m attending a private meeting.”

He checked her badge security level, then backed away. The doors closed. As the car descended, Laura sent a surge of her body essence into the perfect stone around her neck, and the Mariel persona enveloped her. The illusion of a long evening gown vanished to reveal a form-fitting jumpsuit.

The lower level was closed to the public for the evening. Security staffers challenged her as soon as she stepped into the theater lobby. She lifted her Mariel Tate ID. “I need to do a last-minute review in the vault.”

Two guards confirmed the ID badge before letting her approach the locked area. She slid the ID through a scanner and entered the hallway leading to the vault. She sensed a residual trail of Saffin’s essence, but there was no way to tell which direction she had gone. At a T-shaped intersection, she met two Capitol police officers. The badge went up again. “Last-minute review.”

They let her through without question. Turning right, she reached the vault area beneath the Rotunda. The open round room held the mechanism that raised the documents for display upstairs. The Bill of Rights was off the mechanism and secured to one side, flanked by two guards. The Treaty of London had taken its place on the mechanical system to be raised at the moment Guildmaster Rhys gave the formal unveiling speech.

“I was told a Guild staffer named Saffin Corril was down here,” she said to the nearest guard.

“She reviewed security on the Treaty about an hour ago.” His voice spoke truth to her.

Laura sensed a residual echo of Saffin’s essence on the document casement. Within the elaborate bronze frame, the black text of the Treaty stood out from the pristine white parchment as if it had been written yesterday. At the end of the second page, crisp signatures finalized the agreement-Wilson’s tidy, slanted hand first, Asquith’s sinuous swirl lower and to the right, and Maeve’s elaborate spider scrawl to the left on the bottom. She wondered if the progressively chaotic signature styles reflected the progressively complex issues for each of the signing parties.

Three original copies existed, held by the governments of the original signatories. The American copy had been preserved the same way as the founding documents of the U.S. and resided in its original helium-filled casement. Given its more recent vintage, the encasement had not been upgraded during the renovation of the Archive, a subject of controversy in some quarters. It didn’t need to be. Fey craftsmen had assisted with the Treaty and applied several layers of spelled preservation. Active druidic and fairy spells vibrated against Laura’s sensing ability.

Satisfied that the Treaty was secure, she turned to leave. A flicker of essence in the casement caught her eye. She looked back but saw nothing amiss. Taking care not to arouse interest from the guards, she focused her ability on the casement. Essence lit in her vision, swirls of red, yellow, and green in tangled protection patterns. Nothing unexpected or unusual. She moved slightly, and the flicker came again.

She held still, waiting, as essence trembled on the edge of a blank space in the document. She pushed more body essence into her sensing ability and a subtle change rippled across the white space in a dull blue haze.

Terryn, I need you to see something in the basement vault. Bring Cress, she sent.

On our way, he sent back.

She roamed away from the Treaty to look at the mechanism that raised and lowered it. If the electronic system failed, it had a manual override. The guards watched her in a bored way.

When Terryn and Cress arrived, she muttered a sleep spell in Gaelic. A curtain of essence fluttered across the room and settled over the four guards. They froze, eyes staring forward with no sign of awareness.

Laura waved Terryn and Cress over to the Treaty. She pointed to the blank space. “Cress, there’s something here. It feels like a fairy spell, but I don’t recognize its type.”

Cress directed her black, dark stare at the Treaty. Laura watched her probe the case gently with delicate tendrils of essence. The strands twined their way through the security bindings without touching or triggering them. Apparently, whoever had created the spells had not taken into account the refined skills of a leanansidhe.

“It’s a masking spell,” she said, her voice low and flat.

“Can you get through it without stripping it?” Laura asked.

She extended more tendrils from her body essence. “It maintains itself with ambient essence, making it likely a Danann spell. A newer security spell is layered over it and causing interference. I can absorb the essence from the casing without altering the template of the security spells. I won’t be able to hold it long without the template degrading and the alarms triggering.”

“Do it,” said Laura.

Cress closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The essence in the surrounding air changed, fading from sight as it flowed into Cress. The patterns of the protection spells glistened as they bled off, Cress absorbing each spark of their essence. The ghost of the spell framework remained behind. She burrowed through the spells, moving faster as if each step relieved pressure on the next. She reached the final, strange blue haze. As essence leached off the spell, words materialized in the blank white space.

A sharp intake of breath from Terryn grabbed Laura’s attention. She didn’t know what surprised her more-the hidden paragraph or Terryn’s reaction. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said.

Laura scanned the new paragraph. “Aid against Seditious Elements…” she read aloud. She finished the rest in silence. “Danu’s blood, Terryn, does that mean what I think it means?”

“The spell’s degrading,” Cress interrupted.

Terryn recovered from his surprise. “Release the essence, Cress. We don’t want attention.”

Cress exhaled with a soft rasp, the violet tendrils of her essence expelling softer red-lit essence as it retreated. As she withdrew, the spell on the casement glowed with renewed energy. Cress swayed at the final disengaging of her essence. Terryn wrapped his hand around her waist. Laura averted her eyes as she siphoned some of his fairy essence.

“What the hell is going on, Terryn?” Laura asked.

“Wake the guards before they realize how much time has passed,” he said. Terryn and Cress moved to where they were when Laura had executed the binding spell, while she took position again by the manual override. With the muttering of a cantrip, the binding released. The guards shifted in place, their muscles reacting to the sudden freedom.

Will you please tell me what this means, Terryn? Laura sent.

She shuddered at the wave of anger that preceded his response.

War.