The Binding

Chapter Sixteen

   Leif slid the card into the slot and waited for the light above the doorknob to turn green. He quickly pushed down the handle and slipped into the room with Ezra on his heels. He flipped the lights on and surveyed the room.

   Ezra marched to the closet and pulled out a suitcase. He bent over and fastidiously began searching through every pocket. Leif reached under the bed and pulled out a laptop case and carried it over to the desk. Everything was exactly where he had left it. He was becoming more certain Esther was in Portland alone. He had already made a copy of the hard drive before returning the computer as a precaution. But he hadn't had time yet to download the hard drive's contents to his laptop.

   He grabbed a piece of hotel stationery, folded it in half, and slid it over the small camera at the top of the monitor before turning it on. The computer took a minute to load. Seconds later, Leif had disabled the GPS locator, remote access, and wireless connection. He sorted through the computer's documents while Ezra emptied each drawer and packed the contents into Esther's suitcase.

   Leif swore under his breath. "I can't read any of it. It's all in Hebrew, Arabic..." he pulled up another document, "and I don't know what this is. It has Latin letters. Turkish?"

   Ezra stopped and turned toward Leif. "Let me look at it. Just pack everything."

   Ezra glanced through the pages Leif left open on the screen. There were half a dozen pages in Hebrew. They were notes about people... dozens of people... where they were born and where they went. At first glance, he couldn't tell who the people were— if they were mortals or Avati.

   The next few pages weren't Arabic. They were written in Soranî, but Ezra didn't expect Leif to recognize a Kurdish dialect from Arabic. It was a confusing story about a man named Felat and his grandson Payan. The page in Turkish was a discussion about the excavation of Çatalhöyük. Ezra smiled. That was the modern name they had given to the ancient city. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the name of the town when he lived there, but it seemed to have vanished from his memory.

   He was very young when he lived there. He had marveled at the maze of buildings and the throngs of people. He hadn't known that many people existed in the world and couldn't believe there could be so many in one place. Thousands of people had lived and died there. As far as he knew, it was the first city in the world. The page was discussing in detail the human remains found in most of the city dwellings. The excavators believed the people buried their dead inside their homes. Ezra smirked. Of course, that wasn't true. Only the family's spirit protectors were buried inside the house, chosen by the elders for some quality they possessed. They were usually under the hearth or under a bed if someone in the family was ill, to guard the home against wandering demons. Ezra remembered a beautiful girl, nine or maybe ten years old. She was charming, full of wonder, and she was a favorite of one of the old men in the city. He had her killed and buried under his new hearth. He also remembered the girl's young mother. The old man was too arrogant to know he was already doomed.

   Ezra closed the files and shut down the computer. Everything seemed to be some kind of research. He'd have time to study it later. None of it was relevant to Esther hunting Kaja.

   Leif grabbed the phone charger from the nightstand and, with an afterthought, pulled open the small drawer. Something rattled in the back. He reached in and pulled out a couple slips of paper and a small silver object about three inches long in the shape of a hexagon. One of the receipts was from a local private detective. Leif looked at the silver object.

   "It's the scabbard." He tossed it to Ezra. It was beautifully designed with elaborately detailed etchings of deer and cranes carved into the surface. Early eighteenth century, he thought as he traced his thumb down the design. A small clip protruded from its side to hold it in place on a belt or stocking. Daggers like this one were meant to be ornamental. "She bought it from an antique auction house in Washington a week ago," Leif continued gesturing to the other receipt.