Prince Of Twilight

Present day "Melina Roscova," the slender blond woman said, extending a hand. "You must be Maxine Stuart?" "It's Maxine Malone, and no, I'm not her." Stormy took the woman's hand. It was cool and her grip very strong. "Stormy Jones," she said. "Max and Lou are busy with another case, and we didn't think it would take all three of us to conduct the initial interview." "I see." Melina released her grip and dug in her pocket for a business card. "I guess this must be out of date." Stormy took the card, looked it over. The SIS logo superimposed itself over the words Supernatural Investigations Services. In smaller letters were their names, Maxine Stuart, Lou Malone, Tempest Jones and beneath that, in a fancy script, Experienced, professional, discreet and a toll-free number. She handed the card back. "Yeah, that's pretty old. Maxie and Lou got hitched sixteen years ago now. Of course, we didn't get new cards made up until we'd used all the old ones. You have to be practical, you know." "Naturally." "So why all the mystery?" Stormy asked. "And why did you want to meet here?" As she spoke, they moved through the entrance and into the vaulted corridors of the Canadian National Museum. Their steps echoed as they walked. Melina paid the entry fee in cash, and led the way deeper into the building. "No mystery. I want you to handle a sensitive case for me. Discretion--" she tapped the old business card against her knuckle "--is imperative." "You can trust us on that," Stormy said. "We wouldn't still be in business after all this time if we didn't know how to keep our mouths shut." She looked at a threadbare tapestry on display inside a glass case. Its colors had faded to gray, and it looked as if a stiff breeze would reduce it to a pile of lint. "So why this place?" "This is where it is," Melina said, eyeing several tarnished silver pieces in another case. Bowls, urns, pendants. "Where what is?" "What you need to see. But it won't be here for long. It's part of a traveling exhibit. Artifacts uncovered on a recent archaeological dig in the northern part of Turkey." Stormy eyed her, waiting for her to say more, but Melina fell silent and moved farther along the hall, among line drawings and diagrams of dig sites, framed like pieces of art. Then she turned to go through two open doors into a large room. There were items lining the walls, all of them safely behind glass barriers. Brass trinkets, steel blades with elaborately carved handles of bone and ivory. Stormy glanced at the items on display, then rubbed her arms, suddenly cold to the bone. "You'd think they'd turn on the heat in here. It's freezing," she muttered. Then, to distract herself from the rush of discomfort, she snatched up a flyer from a stack in a nearby rack and read from it. According to it, the items found didn't match the culture of the area in which they'd been located, and many were thought to be the spoils of war, brought home by soldiers who looted them from faraway lands and conquered enemies. The dig site was believed to have been a monastery of sorts--a place where men went to study magic and the occult. "Here it is," Melina said. Stormy dragged her gaze from the flyer to where the other woman stood a few yards away, in front of a small glass cube that sat atop a pedestal. Inside the cube, resting on a clear acrylic base, was a ring. It was big, its wide band more elaborately engraved than the gaudiest high school class ring she'd ever seen. Its gleaming red stone was as big as one of those, too, only she was pretty sure this stone was real. "It's a ruby," Melina said, confirming Stormy's un-spoken suspicion. "It's priceless. Isn't it incredible?" Stormy didn't reply. She couldn't take her eyes off the ring. For a moment it was as if she were seeing it through a long, dark tunnel. Everything around her went black, her visShayne, Maggie is the author of 'Prince Of Twilight', published 2006 under ISBN 9780778322795 and ISBN 0778322793.