Arcane Society Story 01 - The Scargill Cove Case Files

That’s what the voices in the crystal told me, you see.”
    “I understand,” Abby said soothingly. She started up the spiral staircase.
    Grady gave Hannah and Mrs. Jensen a quick, uncertain look and seemed satisfied that neither of them would cause him any trouble. He followed Abby up the staircase. Abby was aware of his heavy, labored breathing. It was as if he was exerting enormous energy just to hold the gun on her.
    “You’re ill,” Abby said. “Maybe you should leave now and go to the emergency room.”
    “No. Can’t leave without the book.”
    “What sort of crystal research are you doing?” she asked.
    “Know anything about latent energy in rocks?”
    “Not a lot but it sounds interesting.”
    “So much power,” Grady said. “Just waiting for us to figure out how to tap it. I’m almost there. Got to have that book.”
    Abby reached the top of the spiral steps and walked along the balcony to the section of shelving that contained Hannah’s fine collection of volumes devoted to the paranormal properties of crystals. Many of the books were filled with the usual woo-woo and occult nonsense. Hannah said she collected those volumes for historical purposes. But a few of the titles contained the writings of researchers, ancient and modern, who had done serious work on the power of crystals, gemstones and amber.
    The most valuable book in the Vaughn collection was Morgan’s The Key to the Latent Power of Stones . Written in the eighteenth century, it was locked in a psi-code that added enormously to its value. In the world of antiquarian and collectable books that had a paranormal provenance, encrypted volumes were the rarest of the rare.
    Abby stopped and ran her fingertips along the spines of the books on the shelf.
    “Quit stalling,” Grady said. The gun shook in his hand.
    “Here it is.” She pulled out the old leather-bound volume. The energy locked in the book whispered to her senses. “Morgan’s Key .”
    Grady eyed the worn leather cover warily. “Are you sure that’s the right one?”
    “Do you want to see the title page?”
    “Yes. Show me.”
    Cradling the heavy book carefully in one hand, she opened the cover. Grady took a step closer and looked at the title page. He frowned.
    “I can read it.”
    “Yes, you’re lucky it was written in English. A lot of the old alchemists used Latin.”
    “No, I mean I can read it. The Key to the Latent Power of Stones .” Grady reached out and gingerly turned a page. “I can read this page, too. This isn’t the right book. The voices in the crystal told me that the book I need is encrypted.”
    “Oh, right,” Abby said. “You think that because you can read the text the book is not locked in a code. But that’s exactly how psi-encryption works. It camouflages the real text in subtle ways, just enough to distort and conceal the true meaning. You could sit down and read this book cover-to-cover and think you were reading the original text. But in the end, it would be just so much gibberish.”
    “Break the code,” Grady demanded. “Let me see if the text really does look different.”
    Abby braced herself for the inevitable shock and focused on the layers of energy that shivered around the old book. Few sensitives possessed the ability to lock a book or other written material in a psi-code; fewer still knew the oldest and most powerful techniques. Talents like her who could crack such codes were even scarcer. The whole business was a dying art. Encrypting a book or a document required physical contact with the item that was to be encoded. In the modern world people tended to store their secrets in digital form in cyberspace, a realm where old-fashioned psychic encryption did not work.
    It figured that she had chosen a career path that was fated to go the way of buggy-whip manufacturing, Abby thought. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. The old books filled with ancient paranormal secrets called to her senses. And those wrapped in psi-encryption were irresistible.
    She found the pattern of the code. It was not the first time she had unsealed the old volume. She was the one who had acquired it for Hannah’s collection in the first place. She had unlocked the book twice already, once to verify its authenticity and again to allow Hannah to make some notes. Hannah had requested that the book be relocked after she had read it in order to maintain its value.
    “Done,” Abby said. “I broke the code.”
    “Are you finished