Page 59 of Bent Out of Shade
She dropped her foot abruptly and shrugged.
I studied her for a long moment. “How about a different trade?”
“Like what?”
“A puzzle.”
Nora rubbed her chin. “Keep talking.”
Sitting down once more, I pulled the amulet I’d gotten in Vegas out of my purse and slid it over to her. “Any clue what this is? It may be connected to a fire demon.”
“Oooh.” She leaned in, her eyebrows raised and her eyes wide. “May I?”
“Go ahead.”
Nora examined the amulet, muttering to herself. “Not Mesopotamian. Egyptian? No, that doesn’t feel right either. I don’t recognize it from any tales I’ve studied in ancient cultures.” She pulled out her phone. “Mind if I draw them for further examination?”
“Do we have a trade?”
“Hell, yeah.” She quickly sketched them in a drawing app.
I tapped the middle figure. “My favorite is the one that looks like a wingless duck.”
She nodded. “It’s pretty good, but I like this figure on the left. Poor dude is just the number seven with legs. Doesn’t even get a head.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the angels Senoi, Sansenoi, and Sammaneglof, would you?” I said casually, over the pounding of my heart. “Like maybe if these engravings are of them?”
Nora began the third drawing. “I don’t know about those three in particular, but angel sigils tend to be abstract. These engravings are crude, but these guys have legs and the two birdlike ones have heads, so they do convey a physical form.”
“When you say sigils, you mean pictograms to summon angels?”
“Summon or invoke their powers. There was this grimoire called the Key of Solomon, thought to belong to King Solomon, who had a bunch of them.” She tapped the amulet. “It’s likely these three are demonic in nature.”
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.
Once she was done copying images, she gave the artifact back. “Harry said you wanted to know about a recent supernatural event, but he didn’t specify. Which one?”
I wrinkled my nose. “You seem like a bright young woman, but I’m unclear how you’re possibly plugged in enough to help me.”
“Ah.” She swung one leg over the other, her foot bobbing. “My mom is an archivist. And…” She bit her bottom lip, studying me, then exhaled. “She works for the Library of the Arcane.”
“That’s a thing?” I slapped the table. “How do I get a card?” Why hadn’t Tatiana told me about this place?
“It’s not open to the public and it’s a highly guarded secret.” She gave me a pointed look and I nodded, even though I had a million follow-up questions. “Archivists document all things supernatural. Events, important people, that kind of thing. The records are filed in the library. I’ve been helping my mom document things in our community for years.”
“I’m archiving and cataloguing Tatiana Cassin’s documents for her memoirs.”
“Wow, Tatiana’s a legend. That must be fascinating.”
“It is.” I was reassured by this random similarity between Nora and myself. Still totally wanted into that library, though. “Fred McMurtry’s death. What do you know?”
Her face shuttered.
Oh crap.
I rolled my chair back a couple inches into a shadow. “Touchy subject?” I said blithely.
“What’s your interest in it?” she asked.
