by Kami Garcia
She looked up from the stack of library cards she was stamping. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I’m looking for books about magpies, metamorphic rocks, and…” He lowered his voice. “Aconite poisoning.”
The woman didn’t bat an eye. She was definitely the librarian. “That’s an interesting combination. Some scholars believe the Roman emperor Claudius was poisoned with aconite.” She stood and came around the desk. “Come with me, and I’ll point you in the right direction. Are you researching Claudius or just the poison?”
Mulder coughed and followed her toward a narrow staircase. “I’m researching deadly plants.” That sounded plausible.
Gimble and Phoebe caught up to them, and Mulder gestured in her direction. “And my friend is writing a paper about metamorphic rocks.”
“Minerals, actually,” Phoebe said. “Everything from the physical properties to new age stuff, like crystal healing and—”
“Magic spells,” Gimble added.
The librarian paused on the third-floor landing and gave Gimble a curious look. “Are you interested in alchemy?”
Phoebe swooped in. “He plays Dungeons and Dragons.”
The librarian started to ask a question but changed her mind. “Here we are,” she said, leading them to the stacks on the third floor.
Phoebe stood at the railing and peered down at the floors below and then at the ones above. Despite the fact that the layout forced people to squeeze past one another as they searched the shelves, the view was impressive.
“Birds are over here.” The librarian ran her finger along the side of the shelves to indicate where to look. “And minerals and crystals are over here in the five hundreds.”
After the librarian pointed Phoebe in the right direction, she told Mulder, “We need to go up to the fourth floor to find what you’re looking for.”
“Okay.” He signaled Phoebe. “Grab Gimble when you finish, and let’s meet up in the study rooms.”
“They’re on the top floor,” the librarian added.
After the librarian showed Mulder where to find books on aconite and historical figures who were poisoned—cleverly titled Lessons in Poison: Historical Figures Who Died from Common Poisonous Plants—Mulder pulled every text he could find that mentioned monkshood and wolfsbane, the common names of the plant that produced aconite.
It took him a few minutes to make his way up to the top floor. He had to inch his way past the students gathered at the shelves facing the center atrium. He spotted Gimble and Phoebe in one of the rooms, sitting at a table piled with books.
“You made it,” Gimble said as Mulder opened the door.
“Poison is a popular subject,” he said, dumping the texts on the table. “What’s the game plan?”
“I must’ve heard you incorrectly. Are you suggesting we need a plan?” Phoebe gave him an incredulous look. Mulder didn’t make plans, unless they involved acting on his impulses and strategizing at the last minute. She seemed like herself again, but he couldn’t forget last night that easily.
“Just this once,” he said, trying to put on a good act. “But don’t get used to it. I’m switching back to the unpredictable guy who makes snap decisions as soon as we walk out of here.”
She ignored him. “I’m already taking notes on nuummite, and you should cover aconite since you saw the autopsy report.”
“Why do I get stuck with birds?” Gimble complained. “I want poison or volcanic rocks. Birds are lame.” Phoebe opened her mouth to respond, and Gimble backtracked. “Forget it. I’ll take birds.”
“I love it when we all agree.” She returned her attention to the volumes open in front of her.
Within minutes, Mulder’s friends were madly taking notes, while he breezed through his pile of books. He didn’t need notes. Even without a photographic memory, it would’ve been easy to remember the information. It was straight out of an Agatha Christie novel.
Mulder leaned back and stared up at the perforated ceiling squares.
“Anything interesting?” Gimble asked.
“It depends. Do you want to poison an emperor or harpoon a whale?” Mulder shut the last book and pushed it away.
Phoebe looked up from her notes. “What have you got?”
“Aconite comes from the monkshood plant, and it’s one of the oldest poisons in history. ‘The mother of all poisons’—that’s what one of the books calls it. It dates back to the twelfth century BC, and cultures all over the world used the stuff.” He rattled off the facts, his volume increasing to match his frustration. “In ancient China they used aconite to make poison darts, aboriginals in the North Pacific coated harpoons with mashed-up monkshood leaves to hunt whales, and the Greeks and Romans poisoned their enemies with it.”
“Fox? Why are you getting so upset?” Phoebe asked.
Mulder ignored the question.
“Forget the whales,” Gimble said. “Will the aconite help us track down the killer?”
Mulder pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “No. Because monkshood grows all over North America. The killer could have it in his backyard.”
“Are there different species? Maybe that would narrow it down,” Phoebe suggested.
“I doubt it matters. Aconite is a toxic compound in all of them.” Mulder stared out the window, overwhelmed.
“What about the rock?” Gimble asked. “Will that help?”
Phoebe flipped through her notes. “I’m not sure. Nuummite has been around even longer than ‘the mother of all poisons.’ It’s the oldest mineral on earth, formed three or four billion years ago in a volcano in Greenland.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t know anything about it until now.”
“If we’re dealing with the occult, the stone probably represents something,” Mulder said. “Like strength or fertility.”
Gimble raised an eyebrow.
“Fertility?” She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.
“I was throwing out words.” Mulder raked his hands through his hair, and it left pieces sticking up all over.
“Nuummite is associated with elemental magic and protection.”
“That’s something.” The fire ignited in Mulder again. “It could explain the bird and the arrows.”
“I don’t think so.” Gimble propped his elbows on the table. “There’s plenty of elemental magic in D and D, and none of it involves stabbing birds with arrows made of human bones.”
Phoebe picked up one of the books in front of Gimble. “You didn’t find any connection between birds and arrows?”
“Of course I did. People use arrows to hunt them,” he said. “Other than that? No. But I found plenty of other stuff.” Gimble ran his finger down the margin of his notes. “Magpies are part of the crow family. They love shiny objects, and they steal all kinds of things to build their nests. Magpies are also really smart, and they can mimic the calls of other birds.”
“None of that sounds relevant,” Phoebe said.
Gimble looked up from his notes. “That’s because I’m not finished. There’s a ton of superstition and folklore about magpies, but none of it meshes. So here goes. In Europe, magpies are considered bad omens, and, according to an old Scottish superstition, if you see a magpie hanging out solo, it’s a sign someone is going to die. But in Korea, magpies mean someone is bringing you good news, and in China, they’re a sign of good fortune.”
“I doubt anyone would stab a bird with arrows if they thought the bird was a sign of good luck,” Phoebe said.
“It gets better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. Magpies are also associated with witchcraft, the devil, and occult knowledge. And—this is my favorite part—they can also transport souls into the spirit realm and bring back messages from hell.” Gimble leaned back with his hands behind his head, reveling in the moment.
“Nice work, man.” Mulder wasn’t ready to let himself feel hopeful yet. But he also didn’t feel as hopeless. They were back in the game. “An occult connecti
on could explain the arrows.”
“Then we’re dealing with dark magic, not harmless hippie stuff, like astral projection,” Gimble said. He took a couple of his D & D dice out of his pocket and rolled them on the table.
Phoebe frowned. But she wasn’t angry. This frown was different—a smaller crease between her eyebrows and a faraway look.
“What’s wrong?” Mulder asked. “You’re making that face.”
“Which face?” Now it looked more like the angry frown.
“The face that means you’re concentrating.”
“Oh.” She relaxed. “I just can’t figure out how the nuummite fits in. It’s a protective stone people use to combat negative energy. Why would a killer use it in a ritual that involves murdering a child, and then leave it on the body of the victim?”
“Maybe the killer doesn’t know what it is?” Gimble offered. “He could be confusing it with a different black mineral.”
She shook her head. “It’s too obscure. And they call it the Magician’s Stone. If the killer is involved with the occult, he would know about it.”
Mulder dropped down in the chair. “People don’t use it for anything else?”
“Just for new age practices,” she said. “The protection stuff I mentioned.”
He reached for the book in front of her and flipped it around so he could read it. “Auric shielding and shamanic journeying? We’re going to need a translator to explain all this new age crap.”
“Look at the chapter title. It’s called ‘Healing Arts,’” she pointed out.
Mulder glanced at the clock.
1:15.
One hundred and eight and a half hours, at the most—that was how much time Sarah Lowe had left if the coroner had calculated Billy Christian’s time of death correctly. And he knew those estimates weren’t always accurate. What if no one found Sarah before then? Would she spend the last few days of her life waiting for someone to save her?
“If we really want to figure out if the killer is involved in the occult, we need to talk to people who know about that stuff,” Gimble said.
Phoebe groaned. “This isn’t the kind of thing I want to discuss with your dungeon master.”
“I’m not talking about my dungeon master. I mean the people who know about herbs and crystals, and dead birds with sticks in them.”
“What you meant to say was, people interested in new age practices.” Phoebe neatly stacked the books she’d been reading and stood. “I saw some pay phones when we came in. I’m going to check the Yellow Pages for new age stores. I’ll be back.”
Gimble rolled the dice on the table while they waited. “In D and D there’s a monster that looks like a puma with tentacles growing out of its shoulders.” He watched the dice each time he rolled. “It’s called a Displacer Beast, and taking it down is hard, because the Displacer projects an illusion of itself nearby. So you end up attacking the illusion. What if we’re chasing the illusion instead of the real monster?”
Mulder wondered the same thing, minus the part about the Displacer Beast. “I guess there’s no way to tell until we get more information. But either way, we know the cops aren’t chasing the real monster. They don’t even believe he exists.”
Phoebe knocked on the glass wall of the study room, from where she stood on the other side. She waved a yellow scrap of paper in the air, as students in the library hallway squeezed past her. “There’s a new age bookstore in Craiger, Maryland,” she said the moment she walked in. “I called to make sure they were open today, and the woman who answered the phone said the store is about an hour and a half from here, near the Patuxent River.” Phoebe gathered her notes and rushed toward the door. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder.
As she walked out the door, Gimble watched, his eyes lingering too far south.
“Stop staring at her ass, or you can walk to Maryland,” Mulder warned.
Gimble stole another look. “It’s worth it.”
CHAPTER 16
Bowie, Maryland
4:40 P.M.
“Are you sure the lady on the phone said the bookstore was in Craiger?” Gimble asked from the backseat of the car, studying the map he’d bought when they stopped for gas.
Mulder had been driving around Bowie, Maryland, for twenty minutes while Gimble navigated, which wasn’t easy to do when the town they were looking for wasn’t on the map.
Phoebe turned around in her seat and glared at Gimble. “Of course I am. It says it right here.” She held up the strip of paper she’d torn out of the Yellow Pages. “And I wrote down the directions she gave me on the back.”
Gimble rotated the map until it was upside down. “Yeah, well, I’ve never heard of a town that isn’t on a road map.”
“Maybe it’s small,” she said, refusing to give an inch.
“What did the woman say exactly?” Mulder asked.
Phoebe blew out a long breath. “That the store is on Route 320A—”
“We’re on 320A,” Gimble pointed out.
“I wasn’t finished,” she snapped. “On 320A near Powdermill Road.”
“Hold on,” Gimble said. “Powdermill Road is on here. Keep going straight and we should run right into it.”
The two-lane road was empty, and within minutes, Mulder spotted a metal road sign. WELCOME TO CRAIGER, MARYLAND.
Gimble shook his head. “What kind of town isn’t on a map?”
“A town we probably shouldn’t be visiting,” Mulder said.
“It’s right there.” Phoebe pointed at a peach-colored building on the corner. BEYOND BEYOND was hand-painted on the wood, in rainbow colors.
He turned into the gravel driveway and parked. He was the first person out of the car, and he peered through the front window. Long counters with glass cases beneath ran along the wall. One cash register was near the front, next to an arched doorway, with COFFEE BAR written above it in loopy script. The shelves along the walls displayed crystals, tarot cards, books, and candles.
“There’s a coffee bar inside,” Mulder said. “Who gets coffee at a bar?”
“Maybe it’s a joke.” Gimble hopped the curb and walked up to the window. He cupped his hands around his eyes with his nose an inch from the glass and looked inside. “This must be the right place. It’s full of candles and hippie junk.”
“I’m going in to check it out. I could use some caffeine.” Phoebe opened the door, and a lopsided wind chime jingled.
“We might as well go in, too.” Gimble shrugged and followed her, hanging back enough to check out her ass again.
The moment Mulder stepped inside, he was hit with the overwhelming scent of cinnamon, sickeningly sweet flowers, and patchouli. He coughed and fanned the air.
“It’s our signature blend of essential oils,” said a willowy woman with a mane of unruly blond curls framing her face. She breezed toward Mulder. “We call it Sacred Dream.”
Gimble glanced up from where he stood at a shelf, already toying with a head massager. The moment he saw the curvy woman with the wild hair, he gave her ass his full attention. At least he wasn’t looking at Phoebe’s anymore.
“It’s interesting,” Mulder said, referring to the noxious odor.
“I haven’t seen you in the shop before, and I never forget a face.” The woman winked at Mulder. “Corinda Howell. Psychic, medium, and co-owner of this beautiful sanctuary.”
“Nice to meet you.” Mulder shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly self-conscious. “Fox Mulder.”
“What a powerful name.” She smiled.
Gimble rushed over and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “Gimble.”
Corinda raised an eyebrow. “That’s one I’ve never heard before.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s a family name.”
“And that’s Phoebe.” Mulder nodded in her direction, but she wasn’t paying attention. Not to them, anyway.
Under the archway, Phoebe was talking to one of the tallest men Mulder had ever seen. He didn’t look as old as their paren
ts—maybe thirty? But the guy’s dark hair and confident posture reminded him of a movie star from the 1950s. Phoebe stared up at him like she was hypnotized.
Even if Mulder and Phoebe weren’t together, he wasn’t okay with some random older guy hitting on her. He strode over to them, with Gimble on his heels. When he reached the archway, he slid his arm around Phoebe’s waist and thrust his other hand at the tall asshole talking to her. “Mulder.”
Phoebe looked at Mulder like he was insane.
The tall guy towered over him, and Mulder expected him to make a dominant tough-guy move. Instead the guy studied him with the gentle eyes of an old soul.
“Sunlight.” The man’s voice sounded smooth, like liquid silver.
“What about it?” Mulder asked.
“I’m it,” the movie star said.
“Sunlight is his name,” Phoebe said.
“That’s even weirder than mine,” Gimble said, joining the conversation. “Name’s Gimble, by the way. Your parents really named you that?”
Sunlight smiled. “I named myself.”
Gimble whacked the giant in the arm as if they were best friends. “Me too. So do you play Dungeons and Dragons? I bet you’d kick ass.”
Sunlight gave him a strange look. “I’m not familiar with it.” Then he turned back to Phoebe. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Phoebe. And if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Mulder wanted to punch him in the smooth-talking mouth.
Sunlight joined Corinda, the psychic medium, near the door where they huddled in a private conversation.
“If you change your mind about what?” Mulder asked Phoebe now that the guy was gone.
She shoved him and stalked toward the coffee bar, where a line was already forming from a group of people coming out of the back room.
He slipped into line beside her. “Think they were having a séance back there to commune with Elvis?” She gave him a dirty look.
“What?” Mulder threw up his hands, playing innocent.
“You’re going to play dumb after that show you just put on?” She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.