Saffron
Chapter 1
"Present for you!" Jake called out as he walked through the doors of the annex office that morning. The room was empty. He looked around in confusion. She was usually always here by now. Then he remembered why he had bought the present in the first place and headed off to the lab.
Sure enough, there she was, pouring over a series of lines on an intricately detailed map of somewhere.
"Present for you," he repeated, raising the small package in the air as she looked round. "Think fast!"
"What?" Cassandra frowned, then utterly failed to catch the small, flat packet. "Oh! Ow!"
"It means catch, Cassie," Jake smiled, trying not to laugh. How could someone so good at physics be so inept at catching stuff! He walked over, picked up the item and placed it on the map, then turned the redhead toward him, gently lifting her hand away from where the edge of the projectile had caught her on the head. "Come here, let me see. You okay?"
"I've had worse headaches," she shrugged, staring at her hands, now resting on his chest while he ran his fingers through her hair, checking her head for damage. "Please tell me it's not anything breakable. I'm so sorry I dropped it."
"You're adorable," he grinned, kissing the spot on her head where the gift had made contact. "I throw a box of highlighters at you and you apologise to me!"
"Ooh! Yellow ones?" Cassandra's smile brightened and she looked up.
"Yes, yellow ones," he smiled back, letting his hand fall to her waist. "I checked the drawer after we got back from Chicago. You're almost out."
"I know! I didn't even think to check until this morning," she rolled her eyes. "I just had so much on my mind after..." Cassandra shook her head, retrieved her hands and turned back to the map. "I'm nearly finished this, by the way," she blurted, waving her hands at the map and focussing on the lines drawn across it.
"I know, Morgan le Fay, right?" Jake said at the same instant, stepping back and turning to lean back against the desk, his arms folded very definitely in front of him.
"What?"
"What?"
"Ahem!"
Jake and Cassandra spun round to the door. Ezekiel was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with one hand on his chin and the other tucked under his opposite arm. He was watching them with a slight grin.
"You're here early, Jones," said Stone. "What is it?"
"Baird sent me to find you," replied the thief. "Well, she went to find you, Stone. She sent me to find Cassandra. Should have known you'd be... nearby..."
"Get to the point, Ezekiel," sighed Cassandra. "Why are you both looking for us?"
"Oh, didn't I mention?" Ezekiel blinked innocently. "We have a case. Can't think why I didn't say so sooner. Must have got... distracted."
With a smirk, Jones vanished.
"How long do you think he was standing there?" Cassandra frowned.
"How should I know: you're the one who was facing him," Jake grumbled.
"Yes, but I wasn't really..." Cassandra's voice tailed off as her brain caught up with what she had been about to admit. She turned back to the map and pressed her hands into the desk.
"Remind me not to give him a warning if I ever plan on throwing something at him," said Jake, leaning back against the desk again and looking over at the empty doorway.
"Unlike me, he probably wouldn't need one!"
"No, he'd probably steal whatever I threw his way before it even got to him! Damn thing'd probably vanish in mid air if he's around," Jake admitted, smiling as the corners of Cassandra's mouth began to turn upwards again. "Come on, let's go see what's so urgent." He put his hand over hers and felt her jump in surprise. "Leave the map for now. It is possible to focus on something too hard, you know."
They made their way back to the office side by side. Stone ignored the grin on Jones' face as he held the door open for Cassandra, then joined her beside Baird and Jenkins at the clippings book.
"What's today's mystery?" Stone asked, still ignoring Ezekiel.
"A murder mystery it appears, Mr Stone," replied Jenkins, pointing a finger at the scattered reports on the page. "Although beyond that, I'm afraid you'll have to tell us. Modern languages were never my strong point."
Stone looked down at the page. The chalk outline of a body in one picture, the staring eyes of an actual body in another, and the police tape marking out an area around a house in a third all gave the case the hallmarks of a murder. Only by reading, and translating for the others as he did so, did he discover not one but three murders.
"All in Prague?" Baird asked, frowning. Stone nodded. "Then why show up here? Surely the authorities in Prague will be dealing with it?"
"Maybe they can't," Stone shrugged. "If it's something in our field, not theirs, where else would it appear."
"Magical murders?" Baird looked unconvinced.
"Wouldn't be the first," shrugged Cassandra. "But where do we start? There has to be more linking them than just the city."
"Maybe it's the golem, back for round two!" Jones quipped, his voice filled with sarcasm.
"People are dead, Jones," Baird frowned, looking over at the younger man. By the time she looked back to the trio by the book, Stone and Jenkins were exchanging very worried looks. "I hate it when you do that!"
"What's a golem?" Cassandra piped up, looking up at the two men on either side of her.
"Dangerous," said Jenkins, his brow wrinkling in consternation. "Very dangerous."
"Gonna need a little more than that, gentlemen," said Baird, folding her arms. "A lot more."
Stone sighed and walked over to a shelf, running his finger along the books until he found the one he wanted, then bringing it back to the desk and opening it to a page.
"I was looking at this just last week," he said as they gathered round. "It's a history of Prague and some of it's notable characters. Emperor Rudolf the second collected a lot of artwork. Most of it's still on display at Prague Castle, and I mean, the castle itself..."
"Golems, Stone," Baird reminded him.
"Right," he said, flicking through a couple of pages of pictures. He stopped by a photograph of a small house with a large, vaguely humanoid statue outside it. On the opposite page was a woodcut print of a man, taller than any other in the picture, throttling another. There were three Jewish letters visible on the tall man's forehead. "This is the legend of the golem of Prague," he continued. "It tells about a rabbi who, along with two helpers, created a man out of the clay of the river and brought him to life with sacred words. The man was a golem, the golem. He was called Joseph, and he protected the Jewish community from attacks on it. The story goes that he got out of control and started attacking people randomly, so the Rabbi deactivated him and hid him in the attic of the old-new synagogue."
"Old-new?" Cassandra frowned.
"It was new when they built it. Now it's old," Jake replied. "The attic's been explored many times, though. No trace of the golem was ever found."
"How did you know?" Baird asked Jones, frowning at the thief, who hadn't bothered coming over to look in the book.
"Like Stone says: Prague Castle has some of the most expensive artwork in the world, and it is so easy to get around you just have to visit it!"
"What did you steal?" Baird growled. "On second thoughts: don't tell me. I really don't want to know!"
"Probably for the best," grinned Jones.
"If it is Rabbi Loew's Golem," said Jenkins, "it is not only dangerous, but also incredibly difficult to spot. If memory serves, Joseph was not the near shapeless lump of clay most people think of, but almost indistinguishable from an ordinary human being. He was taller than average, but that is hardly a rare thing these days. He could not speak, but again: that's not a characteristic confined to non-human entities. He will be difficult to find and, especially, difficult to disable."
"Yes, about that..."
"Golems were said to be brought to life by sacred words," explained Stone. "They would either have the word inscribed on their foreheads, like it is in the print there, or they would have it on a scroll or tablet that was inserted in their head or mouth, called a shem. The only way to deactivate them was to remove the shem, or remove a letter from the word on their forehead to change it from truth to death."
"I'm not one for word puzzles," said Cassandra, "but that doesn't..."
"Hebrew letter," said Jake. "The golems are a Jewish legend. The word for truth in Hebrew is only one letter different to the word for death."
"Oh."
"If you are investigating a murder, or series of murders, on the opposite side of the globe, you will need a base of operations over there," said Jenkins. "You should pack a bag each. I will endeavour to arrange accommodation and transport while you do so. I trust you will not be needing the services of a translator?"
"I think we'll stick with Stone," said Baird. She looked round at her charges. "Everyone pack a bag and meet back here. Pack light: we don't know what we might need, but I'm sure Jenkins can get us anything essential that we find we don't have with us. Any questions?"
"I have one," said Cassandra. "I've never actually looked for Prague on a map, but I think I've seen it recently. Where exactly is it?"
Jake flipped the book he was still holding to the inside of the front cover. There was a map of Europe with a drawing of a round-ended map pin pointing to the city in question. Cassandra scrutinised the map, then nodded.
"I have seen it recently," she said. "Wait here."
Disappearing out of the room, she returned moments later carrying the map she had been working on. She laid it out on the desk and pointed to the city's name emblazoned in the top corner, in an area less highlighted than the one in the centre of the map.
"This is a map of Slovakia," she explained. "I've been working on the ley lines shown in it. There's a problem here," she pointed to a spot in the lower portion of the map, diagonally opposite the corner pointing to Prague. "It's like they're... untethered. Like they should be attached to something and they're not."
"That sounds like they're broken," said Jenkins, frowning. "The sudden influx of raw magic could do that. It would be like pouring cold water onto a hot sheet of glass. It can't take the sudden change and it cracks."
"What should we do about them?" Baird asked.
"Like Miss Cillian says: they ought to be attached to something and they're not," Jenkins shrugged. "We simply need to reattach them."
"And I take it you have a plan for that?"
"Of course," the old man drew himself up to his full height, as if the very suggestion that he might not have such an idea was a sheer travesty of justice. "I shall explain the details to Miss Cillian while you are all busy packing."
"Who's packing Cassandra's bags?" Ezekiel cried out from the far side of the desk.
"I already have a bag packed," said Cassandra sheepishly. "In case."
"In case of wh..." Ezekiel stopped when Cassandra tapped her head. "Oh. Right."
"Go, noisy people!" Jenkins shooed the other three out of the office. "The sooner you are gone, the sooner you are back and the sooner I can wave you off to Europe for a few days blissful peace. Do try not to get murdered by any golems while you're there: it would make me feel dreadfully guilty for at least a day!"