Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

slid it and its thinner twin into the lock.
    One, two, three…
Click
.
    I edged the door open, slipped through, and locked it behind me. The moonlight spilled through the windows, giving more than enough illumination to examine the scene where I had almost died. The snake woman was gone and so were the snakes. The dark smears of Gloria’s blood still painted the floor. Beyond them, the back door waited for me. I walked past the stains along the counter. The cops had probably swept the scene, but I didn’t want to contaminate it if they hadn’t yet.
    The back door had a serious look about it. I rapped my knuckles on the door. Steel. Large lock, with a few fresh-looking scratches across the metal. The PAD must’ve gotten a locksmith to pop it open. I tried the door handle. It turned easily in my hand. The door swung open, revealing darkness. I stepped inside, shut the door behind me, and slid my hand along the wall, groping for the light switch. My eyes did fine with little light, but this was complete blackness. No moonlight meant no windows, so nobody would see me.
    The air smelled of jasmine, that same dark, entrancing, menacing scent I’d smelled before. My ears caught nothing. No sound troubled the silence except for my own breathing.
    My fingers brushed the light switch. A row of recessed lights ignited in the ceiling. I stood in a long rectangular room. In front of me four rows of heavy-duty shelves stretched the length of the space, almost all the way to another door in the opposite wall. Odds and ends filled the shelves. A collection of beige stone spheres, ranging from the size of a grapefruit to as big as a basketball. A strange metal contraption with a tall metal rod in the center and two-feet-wide rings of metal threaded onto it. A dozen empty bottles, green, yellow, brown, and clear, were thrust through holes in rings, suspended upside down at an angle. A spear with a stylized metal flower for a guard. A lantern wrapped in chains. A fishing net hanging off a hook in the shelf. Clocks, a bust of a monkey carved from some dark wood, an ancient underwater helmet, a violin, an Egyptian cat next to brass scales, a Catholic priest’s vestmentswith a purple stole…There was no rhyme or reason to it. No organization by type, no markings on the shelf.
    A smorgasbord of junk, protected by an inch-thick metal door. That meant the junk was likely magic.
    I squinted at the door in the opposite wall. A metal chain sealed it, locked with a heavy padlock. The PAD must’ve run out of time or experts, because from where I stood, the padlock didn’t look touched. I tiptoed through the gap between two shelves toward the back room.
    The padlock featured a little black wheel. Combination-based. Great.
    I grasped the chain and pulled. Little black dots swam in front of my eyes. My nose felt wet, as if I was bleeding.
    The metal gave with a tortured screech, and the links of the chain snapped.
    I wiped my nose on my sleeve. No blood.
    I pulled the chain out of the loops on the door and eased it open. A small office waited inside: a writing desk with a computer and a phone on it, shelves filled with files, and a tall glass cabinet. Inside the cabinet, a staff rested, caught between two metal hooks. It stood at least six and a half feet tall, its shaft of brown, aged wood polished to a smooth sheen. At about five feet high, the wood gave way to ivory that flared into a complex shape that seemed oddly familiar. A ferocious male face with a long mustache had been carved into the ivory, followed by rows of Cyrillic characters etched into the wood.
    Cyrillic. I wondered how Roman was doing.
    I moved to the desk and turned the computer on. It started with a quiet whirring. Code scrolled up on the screen, some sort of mathematical nonsense, and the log-in screen came on, requesting a password.
    Let’s see. “123456.”
    The PC beeped and the log-in refreshed with a warning in red. Denied.
    “12345678”?
    Another beep.
    “Password.”
    Beep.
    Okay, fine. How about “password1”?
    The screen blinked and Windows booted up.
    Heh. One of the most common passwords, right up there with “Jesus,” “letmein,” and “Iloveyou.” I bet she’d thought she was brilliant.
    I pulled up the recent documents. Two clicks and I stared at the picture of the knife from the photograph in Anapa’s study.
    I leaned back. Something was vitally important about this knife. If Raphael was right and Gloria and Anapa were two independent