Blood Red City by Justin Richards Page A

to its place on the shelf and started on the next. No pause for sleep or food. Like a machine.
    Until he found it.
    There were two photographs. One of the artefact lying on the ground in the forest where it had been found. The other was on a plain background, a measuring stick laid alongside to give the scale. He was surprised how small it was. It would fit into the palm of his hand. It was made of a single piece of stone, the symbols carved into it, just as the girl had sketched. An angular hourglass with a reference number displayed on a card at the edge of each photograph: V-962-X7.
    The number yielded a single card in the index drawer. Neat block handwriting told him:
    Stone implement. Likely buried at the site in antiquity and disturbed by the crash.
    Given the location it was found, suggestion that it could even be the mythical ‘Axe of Thor’. The runic markings support this theory. Thor is said to have used the axe to hammer on the Gates of Asgard to awaken Odin and the other gods when they slept through the Long Dark Night of Damnation.
    Hoffman turned over the card. On the back, someone else had written:
    Artefact removed from Archive on 27 October 1938. Authorisation – Standartenfuhrer Hans Streicher.
    Streicher was dead, so Hoffman couldn’t ask him. But where was the artefact now?
    *   *   *
    Papers and manuscripts were spread across the table of the conference room at Station Z. Guy and Leo sat one side of the table, Elizabeth Archer and Miss Manners on the other. Brinkman, already briefed by Mrs Archer, left them to get on with it. All Guy knew was that he and Leo were going to France. He had yet to discover why.
    â€˜Sumner is holding a reception to open the new wing of his personal museum or gallery or whatever he calls it next week,’ Leo was saying. ‘He’s already sent out a catalogue to various local collectors and luminaries, which is how we found the axe-head.’
    â€˜Assuming it’s the same artefact as Miss Roylston saw,’ Guy said.
    â€˜It’s the same,’ Miss Manners confirmed. ‘I showed her the catalogue at lunchtime when she managed to slip away from Crowley’s house for a while. There’s no doubt.’
    â€˜What I do doubt,’ Elizabeth said, ‘is the supposed provenance.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’ Guy asked.
    â€˜Its apparent origin. According to the notes in Sumner’s catalogue, he believes the axe-head to be an ancient artefact that originated in North America.’
    â€˜That’s possible, surely,’ Guy said.
    â€˜It is,’ she agreed. ‘But it is also possible that the artefact in Sumner’s possession is this.’
    She pushed an ancient parchment towards Guy. He leaned forward to inspect it. The writing was Greek, he could tell that much. But it wasn’t modern Greek, which he could read fairly easily. He didn’t spend time trying to interpret what he did understand. His attention was focused on the picture.
    It was a drawing of an axe, complete with its wooden handle. But the head of the axe looked identical to the photograph in Sumner’s catalogue.
    â€˜It’s the same,’ he murmured, pulling the catalogue closer so as to compare the two.
    â€˜Perhaps,’ Miss Manners said.
    â€˜Or,’ Leo added, ‘we think it’s possible that there are two of these axes.’
    â€˜If not more,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But we have to be sure. We know the Vril are after the one in Sumner’s possession. Or we have to assume that they are.’
    â€˜Though we don’t know why,’ Guy said. ‘And of course, they may be after this Greek one as well, if there are indeed two. We have no way of knowing. It is Greek, I take it?’
    â€˜From the text,’ Elizabeth explained, ‘this is the axe that Theseus took from Procrustes.’ She pulled the parchment back and started to gather up the other papers and