Chapter Text
“….shit….” Eve barely heard the mutter behind her before the awful wheezing began again, and she and Cassandra whirled around, one on each side of the scholar. Jake was pale, his lips beginning to turn blue as he stumbled. The women helped him sit and watched as the symptoms gradually eased until he was breathing normally.
Two months before, the LIT’s had been on a mission that had ended about as well as their missions ever did, but the lasting, and debilitating, effects were only now being realized.
*******
Ezekiel and Stone had been investigating the lower level of an old church while Eve, Cassandra and Flynn had been in the vestibule on the main floor distracting the bishop who was trying to draw them into discussion. Eve was trying her best not to roll her eyes out loud, wishing that Jake was here instead, but she knew that his encyclopedic knowledge of Latin was needed more below, where he and the thief were looking for the parchment that the Clipping Book had sent them after.
Within the six weeks prior, eight priests had been found in their confessionals, dead, without a sign of causation. The Medical Examiners had chalked the deaths up to natural causes, and no one questioned it because each one was in a different country. The Library, however, had obviously found a connection between all the deaths.
So now they were here, at the Cathedral in Petra, trying their hardest to distract the priest so that Jake could find the parchment and hopefully make some sense of it. Jones was there in case he needed to….borrow…the parchment.
“Disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus…” Ezekiel could hear Stone muttering in the corner, his head bent over a pile of loose parchments and scrolls. He huffed another sigh and started to nose around the collection of important looking chests. ‘Important looking’, meaning covered with gold gilt and scrollwork, with ornate locking mechanisms that the thief’s fingers ached to play with.
“Jones, get away from that,” the scholar grumbled, watching out of the corner of his eyes as the other man moved closer and closer to the priceless artifacts. “Just because this place is a tourist trap above doesn’t mean that the security down here is lacking. I mean, you had to break us in through three different doors, for crying out loud.”
“But you’re boring, mate,” the Australian pouted, letting his head fall back on his shoulders as he turned. “This whole place is boring.”
“Well, I’m so sorry about that,” Jake snapped, looking fully at the thief and glaring. “Why don’t you get over here and translate then?”
Ezekiel just gave Stone a withering look and spun back to the pretties.
“Veneficum…um…..spiritum… This looks like… Wait, what?! The Malleus Maleficarum??!“ Jake breathed in shock, making the thief turn around a third time.
“The Malleus Malefic-who?” he asked.
“Malleus Maleficarum!” Jake said again as if Jones had lost his mind. “The Hammer of Witches! It’s the best known and the most important treatise on witchcraft ever imagined! It was written by the discredited Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer, under his Latinized name Henricus Institoris, of course, and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1487. It’s…. Aaaaand you’re not listening to me, are you.” The last was a statement rather than a question.
“Of course not.”
Jake shot the thief a dark look that Ezekiel ignored, rolling his eyes and resuming his wandering. A grumble from behind him made his head swung back around.
“What?” Jones asked, seeing Jake shaking his hand out.
“Huh? Nothing, must have pinched my finger or something,” Jake said, distracted and still annoyed. The majority of his attention was focused on the book and parchment in front of him. “Anyway, I think I found what the Library was after. And…I think we should probably take the Book too.”
“Hey now, weren’t you the one who just told me to keep my mitts away from the interesting stuff?”
Jake turned up his lip and stuck his tongue out at the thief before his face changed totally. “Watch out!” he yelped, lunging forward. The stack of chests and assorted relics that Jones was standing by (and he wasn’t touching them, he wasn't) started to tilt like an oversized Jenga game with Ezekiel right in it’s path. Stone crashed into the thief just before it tumbled to the ground with a crash.
“Damn….” he muttered, sitting up and watching the last of the little gold statues fall.
“…ow…”
Jones looked over to see Jake rubbing the side of his head, his eyes scrunched closed in pain. “Hey, you okay?” he asked.
A growling grunt was his only answer as the scholar stood up, stumbling once before righting himself. “‘M fine. Let’s get out of here before someone comes to find out what that noise was,” Jake grumbled. “And before you decide to drop anything else on my damn head.”
The back door whooshed to life and they went through, bickering back and forth like usual, returning to the Library only to find that Flynn, Eve and Cassandra had beaten them there.
“What was that crash?” Eve asked, and Jake just shot a look to the thief, whose eyes bulged. “Not me!” he exclaimed.
“Oh yeah?” Jake returned, continuing the argument, looking a little flushed. “Then why did it just happen to fall when you were right next to it??”
Jenkins interrupted the soon-to-be-tirade between the two by simply stepping between them, facing Jake. “I see you’ve found something of interest, Mr. Stone?” The curator looked down pointedly at the scroll and book he was holding.
“Mmmm. Yeah,” Jake said, moving to put them onto the center table so the rest could follow along with his translations. “So I found out that….”
*******
Eventually they managed to discover through the parchment that the priests had been poisoned through means of the Malleus Maleficarum, which was then hidden in the bowels of the Library, warded with charms and spells. The culprits, a group of underlings in the Church who called themselves the Order of Mortum Caeli, or basically, Dead Air, had used a spell from the treatise to literally steal the breath from the priests so that others from their Order could take their places. The Librarians, having stopped their trail of death, notified the Church of what had happened and the priests of the Order were quickly replaced, leaving the Order of Mortum Caeli back where they started, only now with the eyes of the Church watching for the hidden members that were left.
It was as good a solution as they could come up with, and the LITs decided to take a well earned rest. They’d worked six cases back to back, and Flynn had disappeared like usual through three of them, leaving the younger members of the team carrying the extra weight. All four of them were exhausted from endless door crossings and close calls, chases and treks across various landscapes, from the hills of Budapest to the rainforests of Brazil and seemingly everywhere in between. At times Eve thought the Library had even sent them across the deserts of Mars just for a little variety.
Cassandra was going to go to the Minnesota Sculpture Garden, because she’d never seen a cherry on a spoon bigger than she was, and the moment Jake had mentioned it in passing she’d put it on her bucket list.
Jones was debating on going with her, because he was interested in listening to the northern Norwegian drawl with all of the ‘Oy vey, you betcha, yah sure’s and even Snookums’. He’d been adamant that he didn’t want to go wherever Stone was going, ever since the argument that Eve had had to nip in the bud that Jake had been ‘whining ever since Petra’. The scholar kept reminding him that Ezekiel had caused something very heavy and very painful to fall on his head and probably gave him a concussion, thank you very much, but the Australian waved that off as inconsequential.
It was either Ezekiel go with Cassandra or be the third wheel with Eve and Flynn, wherever they were going. The choice made, he followed behind her as she sprang through the door, which shut behind them only to open again to the Guardian’s choice of Hawaii for a much waited for vacation on the Big Island.
Jake was the last to leave. He was planning to go back to Oklahoma, not to go back to his home but to revisit some of his fishing haunts from when he was younger. A fishing hat sat on top of his tackle box and a couple fishing rods beside the door waiting for him, but he was in the bathroom, trying his best not to throw up the last of his dinner but losing the battle.
He’d suffered with a nagging headache for the past couple of days, ever since getting clobbered by the trinket when he and Jones had stolen the Malleus Maleficarum. In truth, the artifact had only been the size of his hand but he swore was made of lead for the size of the ache it left behind.
Sighing, he rinsed out his mouth and splashed water onto his face, then hung his head as he braced himself with his hands on the counter top, trying to make his head stop spinning. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he was coming down with the flu or something. Sucking it up, he raked his hand through his hair and left his rooms, heading down the hall to the staircase, fully intending to take his vacation just like all the others.
When he got to the stairs, however, his vision wavered, making the steps wobble like liquid. Grabbing onto the handrail out of instinct, he waited for it to settle before descending, his face feeling hotter and hotter by the second. He groaned out loud as he got to the door and looked down at his fishing rod. He’d really been looking forward to just sitting at the lake and soaking his feet in the cool water, but as the sweat started to drip into his eyes, he realized that he’d better just stay at the Library. At least for a day or two to get rid of this bug.
Grumbling, he picked up the tackle box, hat and poles and returned to his room, his shoulders drooping in disappointment.
*******
Excited chatter burst into the room as the door flashed to life five days later. Cassie and Jones had managed to hop from Minnesota to Hawaii via the back door the day before, catching up with Eve and Flynn. Now the quartet returned to the Library only to face a stern-faced Jenkins.
“Thank goodness you've all returned, I’ve been waiting,” the caretaker said with some concern. “I was about to call you.”
“What is it?!” Eve rushed to ask, seeing the worry on the older man’s face and growing worried herself. “What happened?” She looked around. “Wait, where’s Jake? Did something happen to Jake??”
“Yes. Well….no. I mean, yes…” Jenkins hedged, as if unsure of how to say it.
“Spit it out, man!” Flynn urged.
“Well, Mr. Stone is rather ill, I’m afraid.”
“What!” Cassandra yelped, starting to bounce on her tiptoes like she did when she became agitated, her hands flapping and tangling with themselves. “What happened?” she repeated.
“I thought it was just a slight concussion,” Jones piped up softly, chewing on his bottom lip.
“He was about to go on his vacation, rather late, as I recall,” Jenkins started up the stairs, the group following as he explained. “His tackle box and reels were gone by the time I got back to the annex, so I thought he’d finally made his trip. It wasn’t until two days later that I heard him in his room.”
By the time he’d filled them in on that much, they were at Jake’s door and Jenkins opened it. Jake lay partially on his side in the bed, the covers rumpled as if he’d kicked half of them off in his sleep. His face was flushed and slick with sweat, and he panted shallowly, his breath harsh and wheezing in his throat.
“Jake!” Cassie gasped at the sight of the normally strong Oklahoman lying so still. She rushed to the bed, perching on the edge as she took his limp hand in hers, her other hand moving to his forehead. “He’s burning up!” she said, looking back imploringly.
Jenkins shook his head. “He’s been alternating wildly from high fevers to shaking chills for the last two days, sometimes reaching nearly 104°, which has been…rather worrying.”
“We need to take him to the hospital,” Eve said, starting forward.
“I’m afraid that modern medicine won’t be able to help in this case,” Jenkins interrupted, stepping in front of the guardian and reaching down for Jake’s hand. Turning it over, they were able to see a faint skull and crossbones hovering like a shadow on the inside of his left wrist.
“It’s the mark of the Malleus Maleficarum,” he said.
“When would he have gotten that?” Flynn wondered. “We locked it up, it’s under wards.…” His voice trailed off as he saw Jones narrow his eyes. “Didn’t we?”
“What?” he startled as Eve bumped his arm. “Yeah. N…what? Oh, yeah, mate. It’s under wards. At least it is now.”
“And what do you mean by ‘now'?” Jenkins asked, rounding on the thief.
“I mean that I think the Malleus Maley-fic-y thing got him before we got it back to the library,” Jones said, unperturbed by the scrutiny. “He poked his finger on it when we were at that church. Like freakin’ Sleeping Beauty.”
“In any case,” Jenkins interjected, stopping the thief in his tracks. “Jake is suffering from a form of ‘Magical Meningitis’, as far as I’m able to surmise. He’s obviously had nausea, limb pain and sensitivity to light, and when lucid, complains of confusion and stiffness of the neck, which is indicative of meningitis. Combined with the shadow, however, it leads me to believe that a hospital will not aid him.”
“So, what can we do?” Cassandra’s voice was small.
“For now, treat the symptoms,” Eve said firmly. “Make him comfortable, keep him cool when he’s got a fever, and bundle him up when he gets cold. Make sure he drinks enough liquids so that he doesn’t get dehydrated.”
“Anything else?” Jones asked.
“Yes!” She whirled on him in frustration and he jerked back a step. “Research! Figure out how to fix this! We’ve a whole library to investigate, so let’s all. Get. Moving!”