“Even down here? In the bowels of the Earth?”

“Less so, fortunately.” She paused, holding her hand up for silence. The light from a narrow window over the door illuminated her eyes, almost as if she had a mask across her face again. She was dressed all in black, as usual. “Guards.”

There were two voices, conversational and relaxed as they rattled door handles and moved on.

Niel took comfort in the fact that so far, everything had gone smoothly. They had entered the museum an hour before closing time and wandered the halls and galleries, and occasionally Mouse held his hand, or looped her arm around his elbow. She had smiled playfully and said, “Let’s pretend we’re lovers.”

His loins stirred again, even at the thought. His response had been harsh, though. “I’ll pretend, but your nasty habit with a Taser has soured my ardour.” A shutter had fallen across her eyes, and he kicked himself for his response. But she had been true to her word. She had accessed a staff door in a crowded corner of a large hall and snuck inside, pulling him along a short corridor and down a flight of steps until they were on the level they were hiding on now. They had passed no one, which seemed like a miracle. She obviously knew her way around well.

They waited until silence fell before Niel spoke again. “How much longer?”

“Another ten minutes. Normally, the guards settle into a routine. They’ll come back this way, and then won’t return for another hour or so.”

Niel adjusted his position, stretching out his legs between tall stacks of shelving. A variety of boxes were stored on them, some were labelled, others were unmarked. “Do you know what’s in this room?”

“Fragments of pottery, jars, vases, pots, some animal bones, sculptures, and figurines.” She shrugged. “Most of it is uncatalogued, and nothing looks vaguely interesting to me. I picked this room to hide in because it’s one of the biggest and the most unorganised. In fact, from what I can tell, most of the rooms on this floor are.”

They were two levels below the ground floor. “All from archaeological digs, then?”

“I think so. The lowest level has the most interesting finds. The big ones.” Her eyes gleamed.

“Like what?”

“Huge statues, massive stone blocks from digs, half destroyed pillars. Some were donated. I read the inventory when I can find it.”

“You really are a little mouse, aren’t you? Scurrying into dark corners. How did you get into this line of work?”

“Stealing, you mean?” Niel nodded. She intrigued him, even more so now that he was getting to know her better. “I had a poor childhood and was unattended for hours. It was a fun way to pass my time. And lucrative.”

“How come you work for others?”

“Certain people always need a good thief, just like you do.”

“But clearly you do get caught, which worries me, or else why do you need multiple passports?”

“It’s an occupational hazard. Besides, I’ve never been truly caught. Just suspected. That’s very different. Shush.” She held her finger to her lips, and he heard the bang of a door from further down the corridor.

They both fell silent, and Niel used the time to try to feel for Belial’s horn, but there weren’t any tell-tale whispers or strange hums of power. After another few minutes, the guards returned, and eventually Mouse stood up. “Time to go.”

She progressed stealthily to the door and peered into the corridor; satisfied, she stepped out and headed left. “The stairs to the lowest level are this way.”

They passed several locked doors, finally reaching a lift with a staircase next to it. They ignored the lift and headed down the stairs. The lowest level was in darkness, and both accessed the torches on their phones.

“It’s supposed to be in the end room,” Niel said, wondering which end of the corridor that would be. Mouse had run through the layout earlier, but he was slightly disoriented now.

“There are two set of steps down here,” Mouse told him. “One at the other end, close to the more populated areas of the museum, and this one. I suggest we try right, away from the steps. That way leads to the big service lift.”

“Fine by me.” He scanned every door they passed, noting that the place was a warren. Several smaller corridors led off the main one, and his spirits dropped. “This will take hours if the horn isn’t where I expect it to be.”

“We’ll just be methodical,” Mouse suggested. “Otherwise, we’ll forget where we’ve covered.”

They reached the huge doors of the service lift that opened onto a large, square area. “This is where the biggest pieces are stored,” she said, gesturing to the rooms behind them. She accessed her skeleton keys and opened one. “Look.”

The beam of the torch showed a large room filled with enormous stone sculptures, broken columns, and what looked to be the remnants of old temples.

“Holy shit,” Niel said. “It looks like an ancient site.”

“Probably several. Come on.”

In a few minutes they reached the end room down a side corridor. There was nowhere to go from there. Mouse opened the door and Niel stepped inside, expecting to feel a blast of power, or something insidious, but still felt nothing.

“Bollocks.” The room was a mass of boxes and shelving, and he progressed down them, looking into bigger boxes, and ignoring the rest. “It’s not here. I’d feel it anyway, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Mouse turned to the door. “I suggest we check every room in this corridor, and then head to the far end of this level. At least then you’ve checked the end rooms, as your source suggested. Then we work our way from there. We could split up, if you’d like?”

“No. I don’t trust the horn, and if we’re discovered somehow, it’s best we’re together.”

It didn’t take long for them to ascertain that the horn wasn’t in their corridor, and with a weary sigh, Niel said, “The other end it is, then.”

Twenty-Seven

Harlan watched the last of the local police leave with Anna, feeling very relieved that Maggie was there to liaise with them.

He’d grown bored of watching JD investigate the central area of the cave, and desperate for fresh air had headed into the grounds for the latest news. There had, not surprisingly, been several reports of noise from the neighbouring houses, and a few reports of fireworks that would be the interpretation of the incandescent angels that attacked them.

“Is that it?” he asked her, as she turned back to him and Jackson.

“For now. They were a twitchy pain in the arse.” She rolled her eyes as she pulled her jacket around her. It was another cold and misty day, and JD’s grounds were barely visible. It was with the greatest difficulty that they had kept the police out of the marquee. Jackson was responsible for that. He’d flashed his government badge around, which had not impressed the local police at all.

“You two,” Harlan said to them, as they headed back to the marquee, “make an impressive power couple.”

Jackson exhaled, sounding resigned to the issue. “They didn’t like being restricted, but Waylen pulled a lot of strings. It was still tricky, though.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Maggie said with feeling. “No one sees that emerald cave except us. I don’t care how much they complain.”

“What did Layla say?” Harlan asked. She had arrived much earlier, when he’d been with JD.

“She’ll do the autopsies on the Nephilim. She’s quite pleased, actually, having obviously never done one on them before.”

Jackson laughed. “It’s a strange world we live in.” Then his laugh was replaced by a frown as he looked beyond Harlan, pointing to the flower borders by the house. “Is there something in the grass over there?”

Harlan turned. “I can’t see anything.”

Jackson strode across the grass and other two followed, Maggie almost running to keep up with his long stride.

“There!” Jackson said, triumphantly. “That’s a ring.”

The ring was battered, its metal dull and the gemstone cracked, but it still exerted a trickle of power. Enough that Harlan could feel it, anyway. Jackson stepped towards it, but Harlan pulled him back. “Don’t touch it! It must have fallen from the dead Nephilim.”