“I’m going to hug you. Don’t freak out.”
“What?! No.”
Ignoring his protest, Jax slung an arm around his shoulders. Kerry rolled his eyes, but didn’t push him away. When Jax released him and pulled Gigi back into his arms, Kerry looked over at Rome with resignation painted all over his face.
“Nah, man. I’m good.” Rome held his hands up.
“Thankyou.”
Right then, Rome’s phone dinged with a text. He scanned it, then turned the screen to face us.
“It’s official. Hank said the Council issued a lockdown order. No going back now.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Kerry rumbled.
44. Guess What?
Kerry
“Travis dug up some information on Christopher Remington!”
Excitement hummed in Tara’s voice through my phone’s speaker, and I rubbed the sleep crusties outta my left eye with my knuckle.
“He’s into real estate and finance,” she went on. “Like Wall Street stuff. I didn’t understand it all, and Travis could explain it better, but we can’t get him out of the library, and the biblios are strict about talking in there, so he wrote out the main facts for us.”
“Slow down.” I’d never been much of a morning person, and now it felt like bees were buzzing in my head.
“Okay. The main offices of Remington’s business interests are in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and he owns houses all over the world. He’s single, likes to throw elaborate parties, and is worth a fortune.”
“And he went to Columbia with Hubler?” Rome asked.
“Yes. Travis is digging into Columbia’s records, trying to find something that ties him and Hubler to the other two Alchemists.”
“Or you can just find Remington,” John broke in, “and have Kerry beat the names out of him.”
“That would be my very great pleasure.” I nodded. “Any idea where Remington is right now?”
“Working on it. But guess what? Ms. Chapman helped us get in the Vault and we found the book Zoe Becerra had glamored. It was an old textbook, believe it or not. The Keeper was shocked. Well, we told a curator about it first, but he didn’t believe us. Insisted it was impossible. When we discovered it was a textbook, I thought Ms. Chapman was going to fry him with lightning for not listening to us!”
“Was it a guy named Anthony?” One of my hands fisted up and my shoulder muscles tensed.
“How did you know?”
“I almost killed him that day the gargoyle got loose. He’s a motherf—
“Anyway,” Tara interrupted, “we went straight to the Keeper after that. And guess what? She called for an immediate and thorough inventory of the Vault. Of course, they tried to push us out of their investigation, but Ms. Chapman— Let me just tell you guys, that woman is fierce! She out-argued the Keeper, and we were allowed to help the curators!”
“You must have seen some amazing things.” Jax slipped an arm around Gigi’s waist. “I’m a little jealous.”
“I know, right?” Yeah, Tara was wound up today. “But I’m telling you this because one of the items we inventoried was a sword. And guess what? According to its label and information tag, it was supposed to be a soul-reaper, but it was a sword of destruction. We found its maker’s mark, and the Keeper let Kyo Yumi do his voodoo on it. Guess what?”
“Stop saying guess what, Garden Girl!” Jax laughed. “It’s making Kerry’s eye twitch.”
“Oh. Sorry. So this sword, Maledetto, was part of a dragon’s horde stored at the Sanctuary in Nepal. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one that Zick Black told you about.”
“And what does that matter?” I was having trouble connecting the dots.
“How did it get in the Vault?” she asked. “There is no record of it being seized or logged in the inventory. And what happened to the soul-reaper sword? Its name is Carcer, by the way, and it was logged in by Clem two hundred years ago. When we asked, he told us he brought it back from the mission he was on when Amanda was petrified.”
