Luminescence 35

Marcus and Eros exchanged a look. “You know something we don’t?” Eros breathed. Something in his quicksilver blood stirred and Eros get a firm finger to the hot metal in his pocket. This meeting had taken quite a turn.

            “Scuse me if I didn’t open with this but I wasn’t sure until now you were connected to it,” Ramon surveyed them both. He leaned in, lowering his voice and shooting a glance to the rest of the shop as if the walls had ears. “A certain book arrived this morning.”

It took Eros a moment to comprehend what the man was saying. He sized up the tremor in his Adam’s apple, the bead of sweat that had pooled in the base of the man’s scruff neck. And if Eros listened closely, very closely straining his ears he could make out a heartbeat that was faster than before.

Ramon was an antiques dealer, he knew his legend, his myth and all the histories of Aurelia and the other demon cities. He knew things even they could not, but he knew there was only one book anyone ever whispered about. One book.

“It disappeared straight after I read the page dat was open. Now I never expected it ever to come to me, frankly I thought this legend to be one of dem made up ones, so many these days. This book, well…There’s only one book that comes and goes as it pleases, only one book that all Guardians worship n revere n it don’t matter dat I’m Ex-Guardian,” he shot Eros a glare. “What matters is the message, as if it knew you would come here lookin for answers.” Eros had been rocking on the balls of his feet for the last minute as he leaned in ever so slightly. 

            Marcus Ambruge might have been silent so as to pick up Ramon’s heartbeat.

            Ramon lowered his voice, “It wants you to find a Portal.”