Don't Touch My Men - Helen Scott Page 0,67

first glance, it looked like there were two halves to the front part of the skull, the actual face, then the rest made up the back part. Five pieces, and all had cost us all something to get. Mae lined a couple of the pieces up, looking at the markings that were contained within.

“Look, do you see this?” she asked excitedly as she pointed to something that looked like slightly different markings than the other scratches and such.

“That’s definitely not English,” I muttered.

“No, it’s not,” Mae replied, sounding defeated as she ran her finger over the mark, trying to remove some of the dirt. “I have no idea what it is, do you?”

“It’s certainly not mage-script, and it’s not any human language I recognize, though some of the letters do look familiar.”

“Do you think it’s safe to wash the pieces with the inscription on them?”

“Probably, but let’s take a picture first, just in case,” I said as I slipped my phone from my pocket and snapped a few shots of the engraving.

Mae took it into the small bathroom and washed some of the dirt away. Well, as much as she could without damaging the bone. Some of the dirt was too stuck in there though, and after centuries of being buried, that made total sense. The cleaning had made some of the markings clearer though, and I started to transcribe them onto the hotel notepad.

I wasn’t sure how long we sat there with the skull, trying to figure out bits and pieces. It was hard work, since I didn’t have any of my books to use for reference, but working on it with Mae was some of the most non-sexual fun I’d had in a while.

When a knock came on the door, we both figured it was the guys with the food, since no one else knew where we were. I was focused on a particular section, I felt like I’d almost transcribed successfully, so Mae got up to help them in. They probably ordered enough food to feed an army.

“Oh, it’s you.” Mae’s voice raised in surprise, and before I could turn and see who she was talking to, I heard a thud. When I looked, she was on the ground unconscious, and the old woman we’d seen on the side of the road was there.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded as I prepped a fireball in my hand. I was still somewhat drained from my experience earlier, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to go down swinging.

“Just someone who wanted the skull and had no way of getting it,” she said as she stepped into the room.

“Master will be pleased,” said another voice from behind her, and a large man stepped inside.

Two against one wasn’t so bad. I’d had worse odds. The woman stepped a little closer, so I said, “Come any closer and I’ll throw this.” I hefted the fireball in my hand as though it actually felt like it weighed something, when in fact, it was only a slight warmth that I felt.

“Hold him, son,” she said as she stepped aside for the man to come through.

I let my fireball fly, and he just grunted when it hit him, as though he had felt no more than a stubbed toe.

“That’s the thing about golems—they’re pretty damn near indestructible,” she replied with a cackle.

“Then why didn’t you just use him to get the pieces?” I demanded as I edged away from the thing coming toward me. I needed time to think, time to come up with something that would work against a golem. Time wasn’t exactly on my side in this instance though.

“The dark magic in that place was too much for me to handle on my own and keep the golem alive,” she said.

I’d been so focused on the golem that I hadn’t seen the old woman move. Suddenly, she was there, right in front of me, holding her hand out and blowing a powder in my face. Darkness swept over me like a blanket and dread filled my heart as my body collapsed under me a moment before my mind drifted away into the emptiness.

30

Grim

I’d been dozing on and off in my cell for a while when I heard the cheer go up. Thunderous applause sounded, and the Horseman’s voice boomed so loud that the door to my cell shook on its hinges. “Victory is upon us!”

Fuck.

That didn’t sound good, whatever it was. The foreboding that slithered down my spine made me