The Librarians and the Eternal Tomb
Jake double-checked the invitation in his inbox.
"Dear Doctor Oliver,
The University of Denver is pleased to invite you to attend our upcoming symposium on prairie architecture.
The symposium will be held on March 3, 2016. We would be honored if you would accept the invitation to speak as our keynote speaker during the afternoon general session.
Please RSVP promptly so that appropriate arrangements can be made."
Prairie architecture. It wasn't his strongest area. But growing up in Oklahoma, it wouldn't be so hard to get excited about it. After all, he'd spent early years ogling the old homes in his hometown when he'd drive by on the way to his pop's fields.
He hit the reply button and sent off a quick message accepting the invitation to the symposium.
"Hey," Cassie said as she walked up to the desk where Jake was working.
"Hey, yourself." Jake smiled as she sat opposite him.
"What are you working on?" she asked, handing him a steaming mug of tea.
"Workin' on clearin' out my inboxes. Things build up while we're out savin' the world."
She smiled. "It can't be easy, keeping up on seven email addresses."
"Eight plus the clippings book. Sometimes feels like a job on its own, to keep everything movin' How're your maps going?" Jake sipped his tea.
"I've got North America down. Jenkins is doing maintenance on the back door or I'd start on South America."
"What about the wedding?" Jake asked.
Cassie ducked her head. "I haven't RSVP'd yet. She's my cousin and we were practically like sisters growing up. But-" she trailed off.
"Family ain't easy. We both know that. My offer still stands."
She met his eyes. "I know. Thank you. But if I face my family, I don't want to drag you down into that."
"You just let me know, darlin'," he said with his signature smile and wink.
"The clippings books have been silent for a while now," Cassie said. "What do you think that means?"
"Probably that Prospero is scheming and hasn't put any plan into place yet. I don't mind the quiet unless it's just the calm before the storm. We know a storm's comin', Cassie. We should take the chances we have while we have them."
Suddenly Jake wasn't sure if he meant Cassie should go to her cousin's wedding or if he should take the chance he wanted to since they first met. He swallowed and focused his gaze on his screen.
"Like this symposium," he said. "I just got invited to be a keynote speaker in Denver. It's not a subject I'm all that solid in, but it's a big step for me."
"For you or one of your aliases?" Cassie asked.
"Both?" He asked it more than said it. "I already wrote one of Oliver's papers as Jacob Stone. Maybe this'll be my chance to introduce myself as the real Thomas Oliver."
"Or a chance for you to further bolster your alias and keep hiding."
"Like I said in Oklahoma, Cassie. Family ain't easy. But this is my life and I'm finally making my choices. Without my pop in my ear."
She gave him a little smile that he wasn't sure to take as encouragement or placation. "We're all making our own choices now."
Jake watched Cassie walk away. He'd missed another opportunity with her and he was mentally kicking himself for it. He hadn't had the nerve to try to ask her out again since they were interrupted in London by one of Dorian Gray's victims.
He turned to the library shelves surrounding him. "All right. Where do you keep the books on Wright and his contemporaries and prairie style architecture?"
Ever since the consciousness of the library had returned, things had been slowly reordering themselves to the right places. But it had been a slow process so Jake liked to ask first before he started digging around, in case what he needed wasn't where he thought it should be.
The lights overhead blinked on and off, leading Jake down the aisles to the sections devoted to classic Greek and Roman art and architecture.
"Really? C'mon!" he said as he found the books he needed. "It's been months."
The lights blinked on and off again as if the library were shrugging and saying, "Not my fault I got severed from this reality and thrown into a bearded man's body."
He sat down at the ornate Rococo-era desk he'd found and claimed for his own. The lights overhead went back to full brightness as he set to work on his keynote address for the symposium.
###
A month later, Jake was driving through the streets of Denver toward his hotel near the university. He loved Denver and that they sometimes actually seemed to appreciate history and its preservation. After all, they'd repurposed the decommissioned air base into housing and commercial uses when the city needed to expand to accommodate growth. But it wasn't like back east, where old homes and buildings got restored more than they got demolished.
He'd arrived the night before the symposium so he could practice his address in privacy before he got swept up in the day. Dinner was room service from the hotel and then the rest of the night he spent confirming the clippings book didn't have anything new and practicing for the next day. Sure, he'd given keynote addresses at conferences before. But this was the first time for Dr. Thomas Oliver and the first time since he'd published a paper under his own name.
As he showered and shaved the next day, he kept eyeing the clippings book. He couldn't shake the feeling that it was lurking, waiting to spring to life and steal the chance at revealing the name behind the name to his fellow academics.
He almost had the courage to do it and hoped that feeling wouldn't go away as the day progressed.
When the time came for him to leave for the university, he sighed in relief that the clippings book had remained still. He tucked the little book into his satchel as he walked out the door. Better to keep it on him than risk housekeeping finding it as it sprang to life.
Walking across the university's campus, he kept a firm hand on the side of his satchel to feel for any movement from the book. He should be stoked about speaking at a symposium. But all he felt was dread.
Walking into the building, he spotted a familiar redhead across the lobby.
"Jacob!" Cassie squealed when she saw him. "Why are you here and not at your symposium?"
He returned her hug. "My symposium is here. Why aren't you at the wedding?"
"The clippings book brought me here. The wedding is in Colorado Springs so I slipped away when the book activated. Your book didn't tell you anything?"
He checked it. "No. it's been quiet as a tomb."
"It must be a simple retrieval, then. Can't be anything too complicated if it didn't summon all of us, right?" Cassie asked.
"Right." He handed her his copy of the symposium schedule. "Find me if you need anything."
She tucked the folded paper into her own bag and smiled. "Thanks, Jacob."
Why would the clippings book drag Cassie all the way up there when he was already nearby? He checked the book again but it still showed nothing.
Jake checked in with the symposium registration table. The undergrad who was manning the table handed him his credentials without a word. Jake made his way to the room where the opening session would be held, looping the name badge over his head so it hung at standard awkward level in the middle of his chest.
"Doctor Oliver!" a man in a tweed coat with suede elbow patches, fitting all the stereotypes of college professors, greeted him as he walked in.
Jake checked the name badge. "Doctor Cromwell. Thank you for inviting me today."
"My absolute pleasure, m'boy." The man smiled warmly at Jake as he steered Jake toward the front of the room.
There was something off about the man. Jake's radar was going wild and he kept a firm hand on the clippings book, should it decide to need him. Doctor Cromwell introduced Jake to the other symposium speakers. All of them were from the University of Denver except Jake.
"Tell me, Doctor Oliver, where do you teach these days?" one of the other speakers asked.
"Actually, I'm on sabbatical right now. Taking a couple years off to work on research and other academic interests outside my current teaching load. I'll go back to teaching at Yale in 2017." Jake hoped the Library would forgive him the lie. He had no intention of teaching any time soon. He'd work for the Library as long as it wanted him.
Or until there wasn't anything there for him any more.
He smiled through the sadness at the thought, forcing himself to keep up the appearance of the academic he was at heart.
He saw Cassie run by the windows behind the faculty he had been introduced to. She looked like she was being chased but he couldn't see what pursued her. His muscles tensed, wanting to bust through the glass to get to her and make sure she was safe.
A minute later she ran by the other direction, this time looking to be in hot pursuit of whatever had been chasing her. Jake smirked. She'd got the upper hand and would be fine.
Jake settled into the seat at the long table between Doctor Cromwell and another faculty member. As the head honcho in charge of the symposium welcomed everyone, Jake felt the shudder of magic wash over the room. He used his water glass to look out the windows at his back but saw no sign of Cassie. He wondered if the magic was just her retrieving whatever her clippings book had sent her here to get.
Doctor Cromwell stood at the podium. Jake peeked at the second copy of his symposium schedule, checking again when his talk was.
"Welcome everyone," Doctor Cromwell began his talk. He started out speaking about the architectural history of Denver.
Jake looked up when Doctor Cromwell began chanting in Latin and the waves of magic rolled over the room like a tsunami.
"What?" He checked the clippings book but there was nothing. The floor erupted as a giant stone monolith rose up from beneath them.
Doctor Cromwell continued chanting in Latin. Jake watched, struck dumb as the faculty in the room snapped to attention.
No, not attention. Their eyes had glazed over and they moved like puppets on string.
Jake saw Cassie standing in the doorway. He shook his head.
"The eternal tomb will be forever," Doctor Cromwell said, still in Latin. "Let our sacrifice today retain the peace that has been here for so long."
Jake studied the monolith, not noticing Cassie inching toward him. When she put her hand in his, he was pulled from his thoughts.
"Cassie, what-" he looked around and lowered his voice even more. "What're you doing?"
"Here," she palmed a small device to him. "Spectral mapping. It'll show us the ley lines leading to that and give us an idea of what's inside."
He smiled. "You're brilliant, y'know that?"
He assumed the same look as the rest of the faculty had on and moved closer to the monolith. Cassie waited for him, taking a position he noted among a group of faculty who were entranced but not moving.
The first row of faculty reached the monolith. The runes covering it placed it at roughly the same time frame as Stonehenge. Which couldn't be right since the people in the Americas at that time wrote in a runic language much more akin to ancient Egyptian than what the Celts and Picts ever used.
The rune in the middle of the monolith shifted. It looked as though the stone was cracking open.
In a gust of wind, the fifteen faculty standing closest were sucked into the monolith. Jake jumped, despite his best judgment.
Doctor Cromwell's head snapped to attention and he gazed right at Jake as Jake accidentally made eye contact.
"He is resisting! Seize him!" Doctor Cromwell yelled. Jake glanced at Cassie but she was nowhere in sight.
The faculty around Jake reached for him, trying to get purchase on anything they could. He brushed their hands off but they persisted.
He spotted Cassie outside the room, standing in the courtyard he'd seen her running through earlier. She was deep into sorting out something in the air before her. He smiled in spite of himself, knowing she was hot on the trail of something that would help.
Jake shoved the entranced faculty aside and scanned the monolith with the device Cassie had thrust into his hand before hightailing it out of the room. He wasn't sure if it was working. He barreled through the faculty, making his way behind the monolith and spied Cassie giving him a thumbs up as she looked into device she held. The things must be working.
Ten more faculty got sucked into the monolith as the building began to shake.
"So that's how you're gonna explain the missing people," he muttered when the ground outside the building roiled. "Freak earthquake? Does Denver even get those?"
Cassie rapped on the window. When he looked she frantically gestured for him to run. Glancing around, he found an out and booked it, satchel flapping at his side.
"How do we stop this thing?" Jake asked her as he got outside.
"The ley lines run along tiny fissures in the plates. The fissures aren't big enough to be considered seismic hazards, but they're enough to let the magic seep in and out. The spectral imaging readings you got for me show that there's–" she paused to splay something out in the air in front of her again. He watched as she moved things around.
"Force too strong. Area too narrow." She started to spiral down a stream of consciousness path.
"Hey, Cassie. Cassie." Jake put a hand on her elbow. "The other memory. Focus. You can control this."
That snapped her to it. "The surface area of that monolith isn't enough to handle the force of the magic flowing into it. It's going to fracture and destroy the whole university."
"And unleash whatever's in that thing that's feastin' on those faculty." Jake pulled out his cell phone.
"Jenkins! We need a door, now!" Jake looked around and saw the telltale blue glow emanating from the nearest building entrance. He grabbed Cassie's hand and they ran for it.
Jake set his satchel down as Cassie filled Jenkins in on what was happening in Denver.
"Ah. I was afraid this was going to recur," Jenkins said.
"Recur? This has happened before? Why didn't the Librarian fix it?" Jake asked.
"What is it?" Cassie asked, a bit more calmly than Jake had been asking.
"It, Miss Cillian, is an ancient tomb which houses the mortal body of an ancient Pictish god. The Picts traveled far south to the Salisbury Plains in England to entomb the body when they finally defeated the being. Or so some of the legends would have you believe. In reality, they buried him and set up Stonehenge in order to mark his grave."
"Stonehenge? You're sayin' Stonehenge is the grave marker for a deranged god who eats people?" Jake asked.
"Yes, Mr. Stone, that is precisely it. Or rather, that is what Stonehenge was for. It was to mark the site of the grave so that when the god rose on the solstice, the people could be ready with the annual sacrifice they believed would keep him buried another year. In reality, this god, well, uh, he is devouring people to become more powerful so he can escape his prison and devour the world."
"I think that's about to happen in Denver," Cassie said. "How do we stop it?"
"I don't know. By the time the Library was established and the earliest Librarians went to investigate, the tomb was gone. Many Librarians have spent years trying to track down its whereabouts."
"Well, we found it. And that explains why the clippings book didn't alert anyone about it. It's just like Dorian Gray. An old threat resurfacing. The clippings book would've alerted the early Librarians when the Library was established."
"Cassie, you said the ley lines are running along fissures in the ground and the magic is going to overwhelm them and destroy the university and crack that monolith open?"
"Yes. And we don't have much time. I calculate it at roughly twenty-three minutes before the amount of magic surging into the tomb causes an earthquake of–" she paused and sorted the calculations in the air. "seven-point-one. That's enough to level a lot of Denver and definitely break that tomb open."
"So we have to bleed off the magic so it disperses and the pressure on the earth is eased. Then we have to figure out how to destroy that tomb and its resident for good so this threat doesn't resurface."
Cassie focused on something only she could see. "If we run–" she trailed off into unintelligible muttering while she worked out her plan.
"If we can bleed off the magic, we got anything around here that can transport a giant stone tomb to someplace we can blow it to pieces? Will that work to get rid of it for good?"
Jenkins pondered this for a moment. "You could try the trumpets of Jordan to destroy it. If you hang the monastic relics the Library has on hand in sector C14, you may be able to protect the building itself."
"Great. Cassie, I'll be right back." Jake took off at a run for the right section of the library. He grabbed two trumpets that sat on faded pillows in a display case. Then the lights overhead guided him to the monastic relics. He pulled out a stack of ratty robes. Cistercian by the looks of the rosaries still hanging on them.
"How's our time?" Jake asked as he raced back to the back door.
"Seventeen minutes."
Together, Cassie and Jake stepped through the back door right back into the fray of the chaos in Denver.
"Any ideas how to bleed off that magic?" Jake asked her.
She pulled a whirling contraption from the bag at her hip. "Jenkins and I have been working on this for a while. I think if I run the wires along the perimeter of the building, I can direct enough of the magic along the ley lines not affected by what's happening inside and diffuse the energy in there long enough to disrupt the sacrifice."
"What do you need from me?" Jake asked as he duct taped old brown cloth over the windows in the conference room.
"Just get inside and get in position. We don't have much time."
He nodded and set off to sneak back into the room where the ancient tomb had taken up residence. When he got there, he saw that only about a dozen faculty remained. The other three dozen appeared to have been sucked into the tomb already.
Doctor Cromwell still stood at the podium overseeing the destruction. Jake hung the last robe on the outside of the door into the room and slipped inside. Cassie joined him a couple minutes later.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Here's hopin'."
They raised the trumpets to their lips and started blasting. They walked away from each other to start circling the room.
Doctor Cromwell covered his ears as the air in the room began to quiver. Jake watched the tomb shake. As he neared it, still blaring his horn, he saw fissures begin to form.
"No!" Doctor Cromwell yelled. "He's not ready! He's not strong enough!"
Doctor Cromwell lunged for Jake. Jake struck him over the head with the trumpet. Either Doctor Cromwell was far weaker than Jake anticipated or he'd hit him right. The man crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Jake took up playing random notes on the trumpet in his hands.
Together, he and Cassie made five circles around the room. When they met on the last one, the tomb crumbled to dust and he felt the last wave of magic dissipate.
"We did it. And the building is still standing!" Cassie hugged him and after a moment's surprise, Jake wrapped his arms around her to return the hug.
"We sure did, darlin'."
"We have to go tell Jenkins," Cassie exclaimed.
"First, I think we better get you back to your cousin's wedding. Do we have time to drive down or do we need to take the back door?"
"We?"
"I owe you one, Cassie. Least I can do is pretend to be your excuse for disappearin' on the big day." He smiled at her.
She glanced at her watch. "We'd better take the back door. The wedding starts in forty minutes. And neither of us are dressed for it."
He looked down at his khakis and plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. "You're right. Better get changed if we're gonna do this right."
Jake called Jenkins to ask for him to fire up the door. When they stepped through, they weren't in the Annex.
"How'd he know?" Jake asked as he looked around at his small apartment in Portland.
Cassie shrugged. "It works for me. I'll meet you back here in ten minutes."
She left to go change in her apartment. When they'd all come to the Library months ago, he and Cassie had found apartments on the same block as each other. Jake had felt weird, of course, having her so close at first. But then he got used to meeting up outside their buildings to walk to the Annex together.
Jake hurried and changed into his best suit and tie. He scrubbed dust and dirt off his face and hands then ran a comb through his hair.
Cassie knocked on his door.
"Comin'," he said. He grabbed his satchel and clippings book, just in case, then opened the front door.
Cassie stood in the hallway wearing the same green dress she'd worn when they were trying to find the infernal contract.
"You look amazing," he finally managed to say. She blushed and ducked her head before coming inside.
Jake pulled out his phone and dialed the annex without looking away from Cassie. "Hey Jenkins, can you fire up the door again for us?"
The door from his living room to bathroom turned blue.
"Ready?" Jake asked, holding out his arm for Cassie.
She looped her arm through his. "As I'll ever be."
They walked through the back door into Cassie's hotel room in Colorado Springs as someone was knocking on her door.
"Coming," she called.
"Where have you been?" a woman Jake assumed to be Cassie's mother asked. "No one has seen you all day today."
"I–"
The woman cut Cassie off. "No matter. Come along, dear, or we'll be late."
Then she noticed Jake standing there. "And who is this?"
Cassie glanced at him. "My date for today, mother. I was gone today to pick him up in Denver where he–"
"You didn't say you were bringing a date. That's very poor form, Cassandra, to RSVP as a single and then surprise everyone with a plus one at the last minute." The woman eyed Jake. "Well, I suppose it's rude to leave him alone in your hotel room so he'd better come."
Cassie's mom turned on her heels and left. Jake slipped up beside Cassie and put his arm around her waist. "Sorry for making that uncomfortable."
"Don't be," Cassie whispered. "She'd have found something else to be negative about if you weren't here."
The wedding itself was beautiful. But afterward, Jake made sure to stick close to Cassie. He watched her get bombarded with passive aggressive question about her health and work. Everyone had an opinion.
"Have you gone to the specialists in Boston?" one cousin asked her. "They're so much more advanced than the doctors you could possibly have in… Where'd you say you live again?"
"Arizona," Cassie lied. "I live in Arizona."
"You must come to Boston. Your doctors don't know a thing they're talking about."
"You've been going about this all wrong," another cousin said. "Essential oils. That's all you need. They'll shrink the tumor until it's nothing and you'll be fine again. I've got a friend whose cousin's friend is a distributor. I'll get you the catalog and you can order through me for a discount. Essential oils are the purest form of healing."
No one really let Cassie say anything. They talked over her and around her like she wasn't even there, despite supposedly being in conversation with her.
All the while, Jake kept a steadying arm around her waist.
Cassie's parents joined them after cocktail hour when the reception was set to start.
"Jacob was it?" her father asked him. "What do you do?"
"I work the oil fields in Oklahoma with my pop and sometimes for other friends," Jake lied.
He caught the sad look Cassie gave him. But lying came natural when he was with strangers. Made him a good Librarian, he thought sometimes, being able to come up with smooth covers on the spot when investigating something.
He also caught the disdainful look that passed over her parents' faces.
"The blue collar type, then. Never had any interest in education or bettering yourself." It was said as a statement rather than a question.
Jake squeezed Cassie's waist and smiled. "Who needs education? I've got the internet if I need it right here with Cassie."
Her mother sniffed. Jake was saved from further conversation by the entrance of the bride and groom. Everyone applauded as they walked to the middle of the dance floor and welcomed their guests. Jake helped Cassie to her seat and they enjoyed a meal of more-than-decent salmon and pilaf accompanied by a nice red wine of a good vintage.
After forty minutes at the reception, Jake leaned over to Cassie. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."
She smiled and he could feel the tension leave her. "Okay."
They slipped out of the hall on the pretense of using the restrooms. Instead they made a break for Cassie's rental.
Once inside her hotel room, they grabbed their things and Jake called Jenkins to ask for a door. After a brief stop at Jake's hotel room in Denver, they returned to the Annex.
"That worked great, Jenkins," Jake said as he folded up the Cistercian robes he'd used to protect the buildings. "Crumbled just like the walls of Jericho must have back in the day."
"Why didn't Jacob and I fall into the trance the others did?" Cassie asked.
"That's what I can't figure," Jake said. They both looked at Jenkins.
"The tea, Miss Cillian. There is a reason I insist you all drink the tea Mr. Jones deteests so much is a custom blend of herbs which are designed to prevent you from being unduly influenced by magic. It won't protect against everything. But simple spells of mind control are prevented from taking effect on you."
Jake set the trumpets on the main table in the Annex. "Well, the tomb's gone now. We swept up the ashes and scattered half of them into the river near where Cassie's cousin got married. I'll leave the other half to rot in the pond in the menagerie."
"Go home. Get some sleep," Jenkins said. "And well done."
Jake walked Cassie home, leaving her at her door with a smile and a soft hug.
"Thank you for today. I couldn't have gotten through that reception without you," Cassie whispered.
Jake looked her in the eye. "Thank you for all your help with that tomb. I couldn't have survived today without you."
###
Four days later, Jake sat at his desk in the Annex, looking at the news reports of what happened in Denver.
Sinkhole Opens Up Beneath University of Denver– More than Twenty Missing
Sure, sinkhole. Jake sighed. At least they knew that no more people would mysteriously go missing to feed an ancient mythical being.
The soft tap-tap of shoes came toward Jake. He looked up to see Cassie heading his way, holding a gift-wrapped box in her hands. With a smile, Jake opened his desk drawer and pulled out a gift of his own.
"Hey," Cassie said. She sat in the chair opposite him.
"Hey."
"Merry Christmas," Cassie said as she handed him the gift in her hands.
"Merry Christmas, Cassie." Jake gave her his gift to her.
She gently took apart the wrapping paper, carefully undoing the tape holding it together around the gift.
A small gasp escaped her lips when she opened the box to find a glass sculpture carved into a perfect fractal pattern. "Jake, it's beautiful."
"A little something I picked up when I visited a friend of mine at MIT," Jake said. "He carved it himself for me. He's like you, sees in numbers and sequences."
She smiled. "I love it."
"Okay. My turn." He quirked his eyebrows up and down real quick as he smiled. She bit her lip, her nervous tic. It only served to pique his curiosity.
He pulled out a coffee mug that had words printed in a cool font on its outside. He grinned as he read aloud, "I don't need Google. My girlfriend knows everything."
Cassie ducked her head. "I'm sorry. I just loved what you said to shut down my parents when they asked about your education. I couldn't get one made that said friend instead of girlfriend. I–"
Jake came around the desk and leaned against it right in front of her. "Cassie, I love it. And it's true. You know everything. I already told you you're faster than the internet."
Cassie looked up at him. "I know. But was it too much too soon?"
He took her hand and pulled her to a standing position. Cradling her head with one hand, he whispered, "No."
Then he pulled her close. Their lips met gently at first. Cassie wrapped her arms around his waist as Jake's other hand rested on the small of her back. He tilted her head to deepen their kiss. Jake kept it sweet and broke away sooner than he would have liked. But he didn't want to scare her off.
"Definitely not too much too soon," he reiterated with a smile. Cassie smiled and lay her head on his chest as she wrapped her arms around him more tightly.
"Good."
Jake thought he heard trumpets blaring a note of triumph. He glanced up at the Library ceiling and just shook his head. For all its efforts, Jake and Cassie had gotten there without help from the Library.