Read Online A Beautiful Evil by Kelly Keaton - Free Book Online Page B

correct, and then the clothing definitely made sense. It must’ve been filled with gears and a power source, and obviously had a mechanism that allowed speech. Whoever had built this was a genius or a magician. Maybe both.
    “Study topic, please.”
    I cleared my throat. “Um, right, okay . . . ,” I said, trying to get back on track. “I’d like anything you have on Athena, her temple, her weapons, her weaknesses. Anything about the war between Athena and the other gods. Oh, and curses, ones made by the gods, and any stories or myths about people overcoming them would be good.”
    The Keeper turned, walked down the counter a few steps, and opened a gate I hadn’t noticed. He stood back and I entered the study area. The Keeper didn’t frighten me so much as surprise me, and I didn’t feel threatened—if I had, I’d have been halfway to the crack by now.
    At the edge of the study area I found the source of the music—an old record player box with a huge horn on the top. The song reached its climax, becoming louder and more dramatic, cresting and cresting, then crashing in waves of beautiful notes and intense emotion that surprised me.
    “What’s that song?” My curiosity came out before I could stop it.
    “‘Nessun Dorma.’ In your tongue, ‘None Shall Sleep.’ It is an aria from the final act of Turandot , an opera composed by Giacomo Puccini,” he answered in a monotone voice. A talking encyclopedia. “It is sung by Calaf, the unknown prince, to the cold Princess Turandot. She recoils at the thought of marrying him. He tells her if she guesses his name by dawn, she may execute him and be free. If she fails, she must marry him. The princess decrees that none of her subjects shall sleep that night until they discover his name. Should they fail her, they all will die.”
    “That’s horrible,” I muttered. She sounded as brutal and unfair as Athena. “What happens in the end?” The record had ended and was playing a chorus of static, skip, and scratch over and over again.
    “Dawn arrives. The princess and her subjects have failed to discover the prince’s name. He tells her his name, allowing her to make the choice to execute him or love him. She chooses to love him.” The Keeper pulled out a chair. “Please take a seat. I will return.”
    I stood near the corner of a table and watched the tall bronze automaton go to the old record player, lift the needle, and set it at the beginning of the opera again. Then it disappeared down one of the long aisles.
    I didn’t sit, but instead browsed some of the rows near the study area. The shelves were packed with books, manuscripts, scrolls, and tablets. Other shelves held artifacts: boxes, jars, small statues, shields, weapons. I moved slowly, scanning, taking it all in.
    The light grew dimmer as I went, but there was enough for me to see that there were things from nearly every era of civilization—that I knew of, anyway—and some that didn’t seem to have a time period at all. The aisle ended in an area with tables and items too big for the shelves: tall statues of people, gods, and animals; an actual chariot; a massive oil painting; a throne made of gold. There were chests and plates on the table full of gold, bronze, and silver coins.
    Nearest to me was a long table made of thick black wood. A small marble basket containing a marble infant didn’t seem to fit with the other things I’d seen so far, but maybe that was due to the two marble hands clenching the sides of the basket from behind, broken at the wrists.
    “The material you requested is up front.”
    “Jeez!” That thing was going to give me a heart attack. For a metal robot, the Keeper was eerily quiet as it moved. Or maybe I’d just been too lost in thought.
    “What’s with this statue?” I asked it.
    “Tose are the hands of Zeus. And that is the child fated to kill him.”
    The Keeper turned. With a parting look at the strange broken sculpture, I trailed behind the bronze