Free Key of Solomon: Relic Defender, Book 1 by Cassiel Knight Page B

her. “You will ensure its protection?”
    She lifted her chin. As if he needed to ask. She gave him a brief nod, but did not reply. She knew her duty. Her family spent lifetimes defending the tribes against monsters. Those that walked the land. And those that skulked in the shadows.
    Yet, she was different. The first woman in her family’s line to serve
    He looked down, fingertips stroking the leather cover of the grimoire.
    “Take it.” He offered the book. “You and your descendants will need it if you are to keep the Vessel safe.”
    She kept her surprise hidden and stepped forward. Calloused fingers brushed against his smooth ones as she accepted the grimoire. His eyes widened. She, too, felt the slight pulse of energy. So, Solomon retained some of his magic. Taking her hand back, she stepped away and swung up on to her stallion. She pulled his dark head around. Putting heels to hide, she sent the horse galloping after the cart.
    The protection of the Vessel was her onus. Her burden. Her responsibility. Her right hand curled protectively around the slight bulge at her hips. And those of her line. She must not, would not, fail. The lives of the human race depended on the protection of the Vessel.
    No matter the temptations. No matter the evil that stalked her even now.
     
    Lexi sat up with a gasp, and her eyes popped open. God, what a dream. Though she hadn’t moved, her heart raced, hulking in her throat instead of resting comfortably within her chest. The damn dream had felt so real. Desert heat and pungent scents lingered on her skin and in her nose. She shivered. Even her tongue seemed to scrape grit from her lips. She half lifted from the cushions then fell back into the soft depths. The room did a slow spin before settling. Damn, just what had happened last night ?
    The last thing she recalled with any degree of clarity was the confrontation with Howard and the mysterious McKay. Everything after that wouldn’t materialize. The harder she tried to grab the images, the faster they slipped away.
    Her gaze swept the room, and her eyes widened. Where the hell was she? Certainly, not in her clean, if messy, apartment. Had she, somehow, ended up in a hotel? On second thought, not a hotel. Not with the gorgeous beige, olive and red chobi sirjand Oriental rug glittering on the floor like a jewel. And certainly not with the abundance of historical relics of various shapes, sizes and materials spread about the room as if the owner simply tossed them there. An archeologist’s paradise. The kind of stuff she’d expect to see in a museum. Someone had fantastic, and expensive, taste.
    Definitely not her sparse, economically efficient apartment.
    She sat up and swung her legs to the floor. The light coverlet over her shoulders drifted to the priceless rug. She tugged at the bottom of her tank lowering it over her stomach. At least she still had on her street clothes. Wrinkled and twisted, but still there. Her battered backpack rested on the floor near where her head had been.
    “Hello,” she called out. Her voice didn’t so much echo as fall flat. Hollow.
    Praying the woozy sensation had dissipated, she stood. Her gaze shifted about the room, wandering over an item and then moving on. Until she saw the objects sitting on the wide marble shelf over the big ass fireplace. Excitement pushed her to the antique mantel.
    Every inch of the warm ochre and beige marble was covered with Canopic jars, small funerary vases used by ancient Egyptians to guard the viscera of mummified corpses. The lid of each vase depicted a representative god’s head, one of the four sons of Horus. Each god guarded a particular organ. Baboon-headed Hapy guarded the lungs, Kebehsenuef, the falcon, protected the intestines, Duamutef watched over the stomach and Imsety defended the liver.
    Her fingers itched to trace the outline of each god’s head, the smoothness of the alabaster, the speckled granite, the pitted limestone and cold bronze. All begged