Tantalizing

[Aiden Finnegan]

Sage was silent. He hadn’t said much since they had left the Cabaret; Aiden assumed it was Jaxen. The fact that both were hackers only served to raise questions in his mind. There had to be some kind of past or history there. Sage seemed to have his cyber tentacles stretched out across the globe, there was no way the pair hadn’t ever had a run in… 

                Unless Jaxen wasn’t a very good hacker…

                Aiden really wasn’t sure. The only prowess for the craft their host had shown was pulling up tabloid images from Aiden’s past. Anyone could access those. No doubt all of that fluff was making the rounds on the net following his performance at the Cabaret. If there was no new news, people just tended to rehash the old shit. It was annoying.

                The windows located by the balcony-pool began to move and images sprung to life around the area. It was fantastic to witness, but Aiden had figured that Sage could do better. He had a few flashes in his mind of their first night together, watching movies through a holographic display. Aiden tended to use large flat screens for his computer, a bit retro for most, but he liked it… Still, seeing the setups that Jaxen and Sage used made him reconsider his stance.

                A familiar map flashed before their eyes. It was Trinity College, of course, both of Aiden’s parents had graduated from that marvelous place. There were plans in place for Aiden to attend the same school, but his career in the arts took off so swiftly, any thoughts of higher education were swiftly banished. That did not keep him from visiting the place once, shortly after he had moved to Suzdal, actually…

                The map shifted towards the Trinity College Collection and Aiden’s brows furrowed. That library was one of the chief reasons that he had made the trip to the College. He had met a few interesting people around that library… Jaxen resembled one of them…

                Nah. Couldn’t have been him. He would’ve said something… Still… There’s something familiar there…

                A lot of the research for Aiden’s current novel had been done in those very rooms. The place was simply stunning, as was the collection. Countless artifacts of scholarship and history were housed amongst the stacks, many had been digitized, but Aiden had to get his hands on the physical copies. One could learn much just by touching a piece of the past. Modern works on those subjects were all well and good, but most were clouded with theories of the author or other needless conjecture, not to mention errors in many translations... No. The originals were always better.

                Jaxen carried on with his speech, guiding them through with his hands and clearly dangling bits of information above their noses. Aiden had grown a little impatient with it all, but Jaxen was a showman, of course, he would take his time revealing whatever it was he ‘had to show them.’

                The Book of Leinster… Surely he can’t mean…

                Aiden perked up, lunging forward in his seat and spoke with animated gestures.

                “The novel I’m about to publish… Most of the research material I gathered was from that book, although it’s missing quite a few pages; a travesty that they were ripped from the tome… still, what I read was most illuminating,” Aiden took a sip of his glass before carrying on, “The book actually came to mind after our earlier conversation… Gods and monsters… Jaxen, are you about to tell me that the Tuatha Dé Danann were real?”