Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (essential reading txt) 📗

ribbed each other some more. They’d started in on Theo’s giant feet when Owen came down the hall. He looked freshly showered; his dark hair combed carefully back from his face and his chin shaved. He nodded at everyone and headed for the coffee pot. His eyes caught mine and he smiled warmly.

“Morning,” he said quietly. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” I answered him. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s this email from Uncle Luke about?” asked Julian, looking at his phone.

“I asked the family to read through the journals and find all the references to Greek fire. Uncle Alex said there were three of them. I think the email has where in the journals to look.”

“Greek fire?” Julian asked.

I let Theo run through the history for Julian and when he finished, I told them I had a couple of ideas for the cave. “But I want to read the diary sections that Dad sent first.”

“Okay, what should the rest of us do?”

“I need to get to the post office and pick up the gun box,” Owen said. Julian offered to go with him and Theo wanted to stay and read the journals too. We split up and I headed for the couch with my tea and my phone.

I pulled up Dad’s email and found my first reference, opened the link to the journal, and started to read.

We tracked the todorats for three days before we finally got close enough to count their numbers. Two males and a female. Marcus circled around them overnight with the cheirosiphone and I knew he would be in place at dawn. The siphon had sufficient fire for two sustained blasts and no more. I knew I would need to take on the third todorat myself. I wondered, not for the first time, why would the mages refuse to train more to use the Greek fire?

In the morning, as they rose from their sleep, Marcus attacked. He’d crept close enough to spray the two males with the siphon and then he lit the liquid with his magic in one movement. The fire engulfed them immediately. The female charged him and I hit her directly in the center of her forehead with my crossbow bolt. They were all three dead. 

...

I asked the mage why could I not train to make the Greek fire. I wished to learn every tool in our arsenal. I knew it was not wise to keep the secret with only the five of them. It should be written somewhere, even if it was not taught to any others.

I would talk to Marcus in private. Maybe I could persuade him.

…

The cheirosiphone did not fire. The siphon was clogged, perhaps. Did I not follow the recipe exactly? Marcus threw the projector out of the way and drew his sword, but it was too late. The bauk was on him. I watched it tear into him, knowing I was too far away.

I screamed. The bauk tossed Marcus’ body aside and ran toward me. I met it with rage in my heart and after I killed it, I ripped out its teeth and burned them with Marcus’ body on the pyre. He would know I avenged him.

I stopped reading. I looked over at the other couch and saw Theo put down his phone as well. Our eyes met and he said, “She had the recipe. If it’s not in the journals, where would she have put it?”

I agreed. “She definitely had it. Email your dad and tell him someone needs to fly down to the storage facility in Seattle and check through the crates again.”

Theo nodded. I tried to think about what I knew of Aunt Irene’s belongings sent back to the family in 1960. It was pretty much just weapons. Crates of weapons. All weapons.

I jumped to my feet and ran to my bedroom. I grabbed the nightingale knife from my bedside table and held it up to the light. Theo followed me into the room and I handed him the scabbard to check while I peered closely at the knife.

After a moment, I found it. At the base of the hilt there was a small indentation. I pressed it and when the button rose, I pulled out a thin, narrow tube. Rolled around the tube was a piece of paper.

I unrolled it and there it was, the recipe lost to this world for centuries. I scanned it and then handed it to Theo. He snapped a picture with his phone and then read it more closely.

“I don’t know what half of these ingredients are,” he finally said.

“Me either,” I agreed. “Can you send that picture to the family, and also the four of us here? Let’s brainstorm. Also, change that email to your dad and tell him we just need one thing from storage – that projector you bought online.”

“Aha!” Theo said. “I knew I was brilliant.”

A little while later, Owen and Julian were back from the post office. We updated them and then the four of us sat, staring at the recipe.

There were five ingredients, and no quantities or instructions for mixing. Naphtha, quick lime, pine resin, sulfur, and saltpeter.

“It’s written with a pen on modern paper. She must have done it from memory,” I said.

“Why don’t you tell us your idea for using it? Before we get caught up on how to make it, let’s be sure of the why we need it part,” Julian said.

“Yes, good point,” I agreed.

“One idea,” I started, “is to set up a trap near the impact crater in the mountains. We bait it with meteorite pieces, on the assumption that it was the besy that stole the scientists’ crate of meteorites the other day. When the monsters come to snatch the bait, we raze them with the Greek fire. Any survivors will be hurt and disoriented. We pick them off with bows and arrows, and then swords. And maybe guns,” I added with a nod to Owen.

“There are several problems with this plan. First, what if it wasn’t the besy that stole the crate?