Storm of Shadows Read Free Page B

off his thumbprint and slipped the micromillimeter-thin plastic into his pocket.

    “Just take the elevator down to the bottom floor,” she called after him.

    “Thank you, I will. I’ve been here before.”

    “That’s right. You have.” Her voice faded.

    The corridor was plain, painted industrial gray, while the elevator was stainless steel on the outside and pure mid-twentieth-century technology on the inside. The wood paneling was obviously plastic, the button covers were cracked, the numbers worn to near invisibility, and the mechanism creaked as it descended at a stately rate.

    But this was the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library, and their funding didn’t include upkeep on nonessen tials like a new elevator for the seldom-visited antiquities department. They were lucky to have updated security in the last ten years, and that only occurred when it was discovered one of the librarians had been systematically removing pages from medieval manuscripts and selling them for a fortune to collectors. If he hadn’t decided to get greedy and remove a Persian scroll, he might still be in business, but Dr. Hall had been the antiquities librarian for about a hundred and fifty years and he caught on to that right away.

    In fact, it was Dr. Hall that Aaron was on his way to see now. When it came to ancient languages, the old guy was a genius, and he knew a hell of a lot about prophecies, religious and otherwise. Which was exactly the kind of expertise Aaron needed right now.

    The elevator door opened, and he strode along another short, industrial gray corridor that led to a metal door at the end. He rang the doorbell at the side. The lock clicked, he turned the handle, and he walked in.

    Nobody was there. Whoever had let him in had done so remotely.

    The place smelled like a library: dust, old paper, cracking glue, broken linoleum, and more dust. Gray metal shelving extended from one end of the basement to the other, clustered in rows, filled to capacity with books.

    No one was in sight.

    “Hello?” he called. “Dr. Hall? It’s Aaron Eagle.”

    “Back here!” A voice floated over and through the shelves. A woman’s voice.

    They must have finally dug up the funding to get Dr. Hall another assistant. Good thing. The old guy could croak down here and no one would notice for days.

    Aaron headed back between a shelf marked MEDIEVAL STUDIES and one marked BABYLONIAN GODS. He broke out from among the shelves into the work area where wide library tables were covered with manuscripts, scrolls, and a giant stone tablet.

    A girl leaned over the stone tablet, mink brush in hand. “Put it on the table over there.” She waved the brush vaguely toward the corner.

    Aaron glanced over at the table piled with Styrofoam containers and fast-food bags wadded up into little balls. He looked back at the girl.

    Her skin was creamy, fine-grained and perfect, and that was a good thing, since she did not wear a single drop of makeup. No foundation, no blush, no powder, no lipstick. She was of medium height, perhaps a little skinny, but with what she was wearing, who could tell? Her blue dress drooped where it should fit and hung unevenly at the hem. He supposed she wore it for comfort. He didn’t know any other reason any woman would be caught dead in it. The neckline hung off one shoulder, revealing a dingy bra strap, the elastic stretched and frayed. She had thin latex gloves stretched over her hands—nothing killed a man’s amorous intentions like latex gloves—and she wore brown leather clogs. Birkenstocks. Antiques. As the crowning touch, she wore plastic-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses that looked like an extension of the frizzy carrot red hair trapped at the back of her neck by a scrunchie that had seen better days . . . about five years ago.

    Yet for all that she was not in any way attractive, she paid him no heed, and he wasn’t used to that treatment from a woman. “Who do you think I am?”

    “Lunch. Or”—her