Page 73 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

“Feels expensive,” Julian added. “And whoever is paying them has deep pockets.”

I looked at Manu. “Have you picked up anything on their communications?”

“Encrypted,” he replied. “Rotating codes, clean discipline. No one is using names. They are referring to the shipment by number.”

“Which we have,” Julian said with a little flourish. He tapped another key. “Your precious Pentacoris fragment is listed as Item Seven.”

I frowned. “If they label everything by number, that means there is an auction manifest.”

Julian’s smile thinned. “There is.”

“Do you have it?”

He hesitated for half a beat, then spun the laptop back toward himself. “Yes and no.”

I arched a brow. “You either hacked it or you did not, Julian.”

He sighed as if I had insulted his religion. “I have it, but some of it is still scrambled. Let me show you the fun part.”

He keyed in a string of commands. A window opened, listing items in a sterile font, each with a line of description and a series of internal codes.

Con and I stepped closer.

Item One—Acquired grimoire, pages partially intact, origin unknown.

Item Two—Dark warlock bone fragment, lesser variant, high magical conductivity.

Item Three—Feral lycan blood sample, stabilized.

Item Four—Cursed relic, recovered from Eastern crypt, details redacted.

Item Five—Magical artifact, warded container required.

Item Six—Confidential, invitation only.

Then Item Seven, our target—Metallic fragment, unidentified alloy, part of ancient construct. High resonance. That was the piece.

“That is quite a shopping list,” I said.

Julian smirked. “We should bring a cart.”

“Is this everything?” Con asked.

“No,” Julian answered. “There are more pages.”

He scrolled. Item Eight, Item Nine, each with short tags and codes. Then he stopped.

Abrupt.

His expression changed.

He blinked once, the humor draining from his face. His mouth pressed into a flat line.

I watched his eyes, not the screen. “What is it?”

Julian did not answer right away. He swallowed, then turned the laptop slightly, as if he were not sure he wanted me to see.

Item Ten had fewer words and more redacted blocks than anything else on the list.