Author's Note: I don't own any of this history stuff: it's not my creation. It's all from Assassin's Creed video games.
Chapter 33: Journals
Peter and Piper pulled up to the driveway of Daryl's house not long after. Peter had driven back while Piper made sure they weren't being followed. He could tell she was starting to get weaker and he knew he needed to get her to Daryl as quickly as possible so he could help her. He also knew if he drove too quickly or ran red lights, he risked being pulled over and possibly implicating them in the deaths at the bookstore. He pushed it as much as he felt he could without drawing too much attention. When they finally pulled up, he got out quickly and ran up to the door, wrenching it open.
"Daryl, Willow, we need help out here," Peter said before running back over to the car. Piper was already out and making her way toward the chest in the trunk. "You go inside, Piper. Willow and I can get this. You need to let Daryl take care of you."
"I'm ok," Piper said opening the trunk.
"Please," Peter pled. He wasn't even sure how she was moving around still. Before she could even argue, Daryl and Willow walked up to them.
"What happened?" Daryl asked when he saw the blood on Piper.
"The Templars were looking for this at the bookstore and beat us to it," Piper said waving at the chest in the trunk.
"Willow, help me get it inside and we'll tell you more," Peter said. Willow nodded and helped Peter lift the chest out of the trunk while Daryl helped Piper inside. Peter and Willow set the trunk down on the floor next to the coffee table in the living room while Piper sat down on a chair to let Daryl inspect her wound. Daryl went to get the back of first aid supplies they'd just used on Davy while Piper carefully took her shirt off so he could get a better look at her wound when he came back.
"What is this?" Willow asked.
"We aren't sure yet, but the Templars wanted it," Peter answered as Daryl came back in with the first aid kit. "The bookkeeper was killed trying to keep it from their hands. We think your dad was looking for this."
"It's locked," Willow said.
"The bookkeeper gave me a key," Peter said pulling it from his pocket.
"What is that?" Willow asked looking at the ring attached to the key.
"I don't know," Peter said looking at it again. This time he felt a sort of mesmerizing pull; like he couldn't stop looking at it. It almost seemed to glow with a yellow-white light, lighting up the etchings on the thick metal. He shook his head and bent down to unlock the chest. He wasn't sure to expect when he opened it, but inside he found books and other items he didn't know about. He pulled the item on the very top out. It looked like a cuff that goes around someone's wrist, but it was ornately decorated and was made of a sturdy metal and thick leather straps; though it looked aged, it was still in good condition.
"What is that?" Willow asked.
"It looks like a bracer," Piper said as Daryl continued to tend to her.
"What's a bracer?" Willow asked again.
"It's a piece of armor," Peter answered. "Soldiers used to wear them around their dominant wrists to protect them during a battle."
"That looks Renaissance," Daryl said stopping briefly enough to examine it. Peter inspected the bracer further and realized there was some sort of mechanism on the inside. Out of curiosity, he put the bracer on and tried to activate the mechanism by flexing his wrist. A small, but very deadly blade immediately shot out of the metal bracer, startling all of them.
"Oh my God," Piper said with an astonished excitement. "Do you know what that is?!"
"A knife hidden in a bracer?" Peter said though he had a feeling that wasn't really the answer. He quickly took off the weapon and didn't want anything to do with it anymore.
"It's a hidden blade," Daryl said.
"Isn't that what I just said?" Peter asked.
"A hidden blade?" Willow echoed. "Are you sure?"
"Yes!" Piper said excitedly. Peter was very confused. "Peter, our Assassin ancestors used to use them for most of history. It was only in the last hundred years or so we stopped. When bracers fell out of style and became too obvious. I've never actually seen one in that good of shape. Most are made of pure leather and fall apart within a few decades."
"Well, whoever made that one knew what he was doing," Daryl said. "It definitely looks Renaissance in design. That would make it at least five or six hundred years old."
"Doesn't look it," Willow said taking the hidden blade from him. "Though it does have the Italian Renaissance emblem." She pointed to a symbol etched on the metal that Peter didn't recognize. It was similar to the symbol of the Freemasons, though it only seemed to feature the compass part of the symbol and the ends of the compass part seemed to come together in a way that resembled an eagle's beak.
"What do you mean?" Peter asked.
"The Templars have their Iron Cross as their symbol and we have this emblem," Piper said. "It varies by brotherhood and has changed slightly over the years. We learned about the different symbols as a way to identify ourselves when we travel to other regions and meet up with other brotherhoods."
"Oh," Peter said. He moved his attention back to the rest of the items in the chest. Now most of what he could see were books. He pulled one out and flipped it open. The pages were handwritten and on one side was a language he didn't understand while the other in English. It appeared to be a translation. He read from the page he opened up to and realized he was reading someone's journal. Though he would normally feel as though he were violating someone's privacy, this appeared to be the journal of an Assassin who lived a long time ago.
"What is it?" Piper asked after a few moments.
"Looks like someone translated an Assassin's journal," Peter answered closing the book. He wanted to keep reading, but it appeared that Daryl was finished and he wanted to know how badly she was injured.
"How bad is it?" Willow asked before Peter could; she'd been inspecting the bracer.
"She'll be ok," Daryl said. "The bullet grazed the top of her stomach, but took a good chunk out. She'll be down for a while, too, but will be OK with rest."
"Sorry, Willow," Piper said.
"For what?" Willow asked.
"We're supposed to be following leads on your father and who killed him and why," Piper said. "This chest was as far as we got."
"This chest must be important if he wanted it," Peter said. "There might be something in these journals that could be useful to us."
"Like what?" Daryl asked. "If those journals go with that bracer, they're about events that happened hundreds of years ago. How could they possibly be of use to us now?"
"I don't know, but Peter's right," Willow said. "If my dad was looking for it, it's got to have something important and we just have to figure out what that is."
"But we don't have time," Piper sighed. "We need to find Micky and the others. And I don't know if I can keep up with that."
"I can," Willow said. "I can continue following up on leads."
"Are you sure?" Piper asked.
"Yes," Willow answered. "I've had a couple days to grieve."
"That's not really a lot," Peter said.
"It doesn't matter," Willow said. "We're stuck now. Piper, you stay here and rest, I can go out and look for Micky."
"So can I," Daryl said.
"What about Davy?" Peter asked.
"You can stay here and read those journals while taking care of Davy and Piper," Daryl said.
"Then it's settled," Willow said. "Piper, you should get some sleep. The adrenaline that kept you going is gonna wear off any moment now."
"She's right," Daryl said. "I'll give you a dose of morphine and you should get some sleep."
"Alright," Piper said seeming weaker again. "But we all should get some sleep. You two don't know what you'll run into tomorrow and you need to be on par, too."
"Of course," Willow said. She put the bracer back in the chest and Daryl gave Piper the shot of morphine before helping her to her bed. Peter assured her he'd go to bed soon, but he wanted to look at the chest for a bit more. He reopened the journal to the first page and sat on the floor. He found himself soon getting lost in the world in the journal. It was from a man named Altair, an Assassin from what Peter could tell was the Crusades. He had grown up in a castle at Masyaf, a small village near Damascus and Jerusalem. His father was betrayed by a fellow Assassin and killed by the Saracen army at a young age. The Assassin then killed himself in front of a young Altair out of guilt and remorse leaving behind his own young son, Abbas. The pair of orphaned boys were raised by the Assassin Brotherhood and were close friends until Altair tried to tell the truth about the death of Abbas's father, after which the young boy turned on him and tried to kill him.
In their adult years, Altair grew to be a master Assassin, one of the best of his order. He was sent to retrieve an artifact from beneath Jerusalem with two other Assassin's, Malik and his brother. On the mission, Altair said he failed and Malik's brother was killed. At the time, he'd thought that both were killed and the artifact was lost to the Templars, who had gotten there first, led by a man named Robert de Sable. However, when he reported his failure to his Master, Al Mualim, he discovered that Malik had made it out alive with the artifact, but missing an arm. Because of his failures, Altair was nearly killed and demoted. He said he had lost what it meant to be an Assassin. He had to re-learn. His mentor sent him on missions killing men across the land to relearn the tenets of the Order. Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent; he had killed an innocent priest in Jerusalem. Hide in plain sight; he had been over-confident and had drawn attention to himself before he was ready to strike Robert de Sable. Never compromise the Brotherhood; he had allowed his brothers to die due to his over-confidence and led the Templars back to Masyaf, the Assassin stronghold. Now he would work to re-learn what these tenets meant and the overall creed: nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Altair killed several bad men in his attempt to redeem himself. Garnier de Nablus who called himself a doctor, but brutally experimented on his "patients" even going so far as to cripple them if they tried to escape. William of Montferrat who murdered over 3,000 Saracen prisoners meant to be exchanged for Crusader prisoners and enjoyed the murders far too much. Sibrand who secured the port of Acre and prevented any supplies from being sent to the Crusaders in order for the Templars to gain control of the land. Tamir who sold weapons to the Crusaders, but would brutally murder any merchant or artisan who defied him or didn't meet his demands. Talal: a slaver, Majd Addin; a brutal man who murdered those who did not agree with him, Jubair al Hakim: burned scrolls and forbade education, and Abu'l Nuqoud: a merchant who murdered rivals and friends alike. Altair learned later that all of these men were Templars working directly under Robert de Sable to regain the artifact they lost to the Assassins beneath Jerusalem.
Peter hadn't realized how long he'd been reading. He was so deeply entrenched in the adventures of this man and wondered if this artifact he spoke of, an apple, as he called it occasionally, was one of the artifacts that Robert now wanted Ginny to get for him. It seemed likely, but so far Altair hadn't spoken much about the artifact other than when he had first seen it in Jerusalem and had been slightly mesmerized by its apparent glow. If this had been what William was looking for when he died, perhaps he knew that these journals contained information about the locations of other artifacts. Though Peter wasn't sure how that could be useful to them, he intended to find out. The bookkeeper had died to keep these from the Templars. Peter wouldn't just let that go. He thought he'd only been reading for an hour or so and was pulled out of his thoughts when Piper said something to him from the hallway.
"Peter, you need to get some sleep," Piper said softly.
"Oh, right," Peter said. "Just another couple minutes."
"No, Peter," Piper said. "Now. You've been reading that stuff long enough. Come to bed."
"I have?" Peter looked at his watch. It was 3 am. He'd been reading these journals for nearly 5 hours. "Whoa."
"Yes, come to bed please," Piper said.
"Right, let me help you first," Peter said closing the book and getting up. His legs were stiff but he stretched a little and walked back over to Piper.
"Come to bed with me," Piper said softly when he approached her.
"What?"
"Peter, I was so scared when I heard those gunshots…I thought I had lost you. I can't sleep knowing how much danger I put you in tonight."
"I went willingly. And there's no way you could have known what would happen."
"I know that. Just come sleep with me, ok? Just so I can know you're ok."
"Of course," Peter answered after a moment. Piper smiled at him and they walked off to her bed. He helped her under the sheets before joining her. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. He'd never really slept in the same bed as a woman before and felt nervous. But after a few moments, he realized how comfortable this felt. He fell asleep quickly, not even having realized how tired he was. In the morning, he'd read the journals again, hoping that they'd somehow lead him to an answer; some way to help his friends.
