He nodded.“Mon coeur entier.”
“Which means?”
“My whole heart.”
Lyra nearly sighed. The ring was spectacular. It was made of polished silver, and the metal had been twisted and shaped into an intricate braid. At the center was a love knot, making reference to the binding of two souls into one. To think some lucky woman five hundred years ago was given the ring by a man who loved and adored her. If only she could be that lucky someday.
“And now to what you’ve been waiting for.”
Startled from her fanciful thoughts, she blushed as Theron led her to the middle of the room to another glass case. Inside was a thick, black, leather-bound book.
“This grimoire is said to be two thousand years old.”
Lyra bit her lip to stop the squeal of delight she was about to emit. She loved ancient texts. She got her best spel s from them.
“From the way you spoke about books the last time I saw you, I knew you’d appreciate it.” Smiling, he nodded to the book. “Would you like to touch it?”
She glanced at him, unable to hide her surge of pleasure at the sight of the book and the fact that he remembered her love of texts. “Real y?”
He pushed a red button on the side of the case, and the glass box slid to one side, opening it. Stepping out of the way, he gestured toward the book.
Rubbing her hands together, Lyra took a deep breath, reached out and opened the book. Instantly, the tips of her fingers began to tingle. The book was old and powerful.
Residual magic stil clung to it like spiderwebs. There was a faint red haze over the pages.
As she flipped the aged pages, she took in some of the spel s. Some were of a common variety. Charms for love and prosperity. But others were written for more nefarious reasons.
She skipped over the text, not wanting to invoke anything nasty by accident.
Her fingers halted on a page of symbols. She recognized some of them from the murders that had plagued Necropolis and San Antonio several months ago.
Three women had been murdered so far—their throats slit, blood drained from their bodies and ancient magical symbols painted onto their torsos in blood.
The crime-scene teams in both Necropolis and San Antonio believed they had solved the crimes, but Lyra hadn’t been so sure.
“I know these symbols.”
Theron glanced over her shoulder at the page. “Hmm, it appears to be an ancient demon summoning. Black magic that hasn’t been used in two thousand years.”
“This outlines what I’ve been seeing in a couple of cases stil unsolved back home.” She ran her finger over the text and symbols, excitement making her hands shake. “Could I take this book with me? I’d love to be able to go over it and translate these words. Maybe I can final y figure out what all the ceremonies real y mean.”
“Hmm, I don’t think so.”
Startled, she looked at him. “I’m sorry?”
He pushed the button on the case and the glass lid slid back over the book. “This book is much too valuable to be out of its sealed environment for long. I can’t even imagine what hours of touching would do to the integrity of the pages.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said the information in that book could help in more than one murder case.”
“I heard what you said, Lyra. But you have no idea how much money I paid for that book. Maybe if you wanted to look through the book here, with gloves on, I could accommodate you.”
“I have a plane to catch in four hours.”
“Oh, wel , that wouldn’t be enough time now would it?”
She gritted her teeth. “No, it wouldn’t.”
He gave her that amused look again that nearly had her biting down on her lip to stop from screaming.