Page 259 of Caelum

For whatever reason, Frazer grinned at that. “That’s the beauty of the crime.”

Though I rolled my eyes, I had to agree with him.

Seven wishes to destroy the Screamer,

Solomon’s ring to lure Drekavac to you,

Bucegi where he sleeps.

The treasure map inked onto Eve’s body had given us some answers, but it had mostly led to an epic to-do list that made the workload at Caelum look like a walk in the park.

Once she’d revealed the translation’s meaning, Avalina had explained that Solomon’s ring had been used to seal ‘written commands of good and evil.’ She’d posited that Drekavac might be lured by its abilities as Solomon had been able to command theJannahwith them. Which gave us a whole host of nightmares to deal with.

Did Drekavac know that aJannahhad been born?

If he did, and if he ever got his hands on the ring, did that mean he’d be able to call Eve to him?

Of course, we’d gone the easy route first—had tried uttering the wish back in Bartlett and Avalina’s office, but when the world hadn’t gone to hell, we’d figured nothing had happened, and we’d realized we needed aplan.

Could nothing ever be simple?I thought grumpily.

Leaving the first of the first truly mind blown, Samuel had immediately gone on the hunt for more information. He’d run several searches on Solomon’s ring which was, apparently, forged of iron and brass, but—thank God for Google—his searches had heralded more than just aWikipediapage, and thereafter, with a theory in place, Sammy had turned to the Dark Net.

An article in theNew York Timesthat was the basis of this theory recounted the tale of a certain businessman, Mihai Adamescu, who had an obsession with religious artifacts—Solomon’s signet ring, in particular. Subsequent research gave us what we needed to know.

Adamescu had mafia ties, and his base was in Ploie?ti—the Bucegi mountain range overlooked the damn town. In certain circles on the Dark Net, there was talk of a reward if someone came across Solomon’s ring, and there was information on how to go about receiving that reward.

What had sealed the deal?

When Samuel had looked into the guy’s past, he’d come across a bar that was in the businessman’s name.

That bar?

It was calledDrekavac.

That was what had started this crazy as fuck ‘adventure.’

We had no idea where the ring was, just knew that it truly had existed because after explaining our intentions to the professors, Bartlett had emailed us a drawing of it—the guy actually remembered what it looked like—because Samuel had come up with the notion that we didn’t have to possess it to use it as a lure. And so, our hustle had begun.

Our to-do list was:

•Steal from the son of a Nazi officer purported to have robbed from his Jewish prisoners at Dachau.

•Create a fake ring that was good enough to pass the test of Abraham Ibramovicz, a fence with a rep that was beyond repute.

•‘Big up’ said ring and sell it as Solomon’s signet ring.

•Lure the apparently obsessed-with-religious-artifacts Drekavac to come to us.

Simple.

Ha.

Scraping my hands through my sweaty hair, I mumbled, “I need a shower. I sweated buckets in there.”

Eren laughed. “I’m relieved to know that even you are scared of bank robbery.”

“Not scared of the robbery,” I argued, but I grinned at him. “Just getting caught. Especially with so much at stake.” We both sobered at that.

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