Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib

by David J. Schwartz

  It wasn’t much of an invitation, but Joy followed Abel inside anyway.

  Joy hadn’t been sure how literally to take the word “library” in this context. She’d known people who called sitting rooms or offices libraries; her own father used to refer to the bathroom—or at least the toilet—as a library, when he sat on it. This was different. Except for the east-facing window in front, every wall surface in the apartment was lined with floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves. Skylights had been installed in the ceiling, and bright light fixtures had been placed between them. Large worktables, leather couches, and reclining chairs sprawled over the floor. Stacks of books floated in midair. Above one table a series of a dozen globes rotated, independent of any stands. There were crude maps drawn on them, marked with designations from -5 to +7.

  Bebe and Abel led her through the space to where the wall between the apartments had been removed. That space was also lined with bookshelves.

  “There must be ten thousand books here,” she said.

  “Closer to twenty,” said Abel. “Some of them you won’t find anywhere else on this planet.”

  “Really. You mean books from other dimensions? Biographies, possibly?”

  Bebe Stapleford glared at her, but before either of them could speak, Yves Deschamp greeted them from near the far window, where the rest of the group sat around a large oval table. “Come in,” he called. “Sit down.”

  Joy approached the table but didn’t sit. “What’s happening?”

  “I’m honestly not sure,” said Yves. “Ken asked me to call the meeting. I know there was an attack last night—”

  “You don’t know,” Ken Song interrupted. He was leaning on the table; he didn’t look up as he spoke. “Months, now, I’ve had to defend this town, this group, and its secrets. It’s…” He groaned and sat up, his eyes bright. “I thought I could fight them, but I don’t think I can. Not anymore. It’s…”

  Simone Deschamp laid a hand on his arm. “We can talk about that later,” she said softly. “First tell us what happened.”

  “Fine,” he said, in a tone that implied otherwise. “There were two attacks. One magical, one physical. I wasn’t really ready for either one, but the only reason I’m not dead is that Philip was there.” He laughed. “Except that this is not Philip. Philip never came back from his last scouting trip. So.” He motioned grandly at Philip. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

  Philip Fitzgerald had been silent through the meeting so far. He sat slumped, his lips pressed together as if he were pouting.

  Yves cleared his throat. “Philip? Er…could you offer some explanation?”

  Philip shook his head. “Oh, my children,” he said. “What explanation could I possibly offer? Kango is correct; I am not Philip and Philip is not me. Philip is at the Barrow. A desperate little place, but safe, at least for now. We cast lots to see who would leave it, go out into the multiverse and try to turn the tide. But you can’t turn the tide without knocking a moon out of the sky.

  “Your Philip came looking for the source of the attacks on his beloved Kango, but he was in the wrong place, and he found us instead. Found our little hiding place. No Hermes, my dear Bebe, no. No Ananse, no Loki. A raven we’ve got, and a coyote, and a rabbit, although he’s lost two of his legs. A few others, some too shell-shocked to remember their names. A tiny, doomed confederacy of tricksters to stand against the inexorable tides of order. With only a handful of old men and women to ally with.”

  Philip stood; he was changing as he spoke. His body became leaner and taller; his hair darkened and fell to below his shoulders. He began to braid it as if he were unaware of what his hands were doing.

  “You may call me Otter, or Lutrineas. Or Philip. I’ve come to like it; it’s a watery sort of a name. Philip, Philip, Philip.”

  Joy wanted to say something about the book—the stories she had read, the Emissary—but she couldn’t speak. The only one who seemed to have access to his voice was Ken Song.

  “Tell them about the men who attacked us,” he said.

  “Sons of order,” said Lutrineas. “Bodyguards. Assassins. Not a match for a god, of course, even a half-starved and degraded one, but more than enough of a match for most humans.”

  “They were identical,” said Ken.

  “Dark-skinned?” Joy asked. “About five eleven? Hair shaved down to the scalp?”

  “You’ve met them?” Lutrineas sounded surprised.

  “I met someone else, too. You mentioned that they work as bodyguards. One of these men was traveling with someone who called herself the Emissary.”

  “Where?” Lutrineas was across the table, his face right up against Joy’s, before she realized he was moving. His breath smelled like fish, and he was trembling.

  “On the El. In Chicago. She sent me a book about you. Not that I knew it was about you until just now.”

  “Well.” He turned away as if she were no longer important. “That bodes ill, if she is already here.”

  “I’m curious,” said Simone. “Transformation is my specialty, you know. How did you manage to fool Ms. Wilkins?”

  “Their auras are similar,” said Joy. “I noticed the difference, but I didn’t think anything of it. People’s auras do change over time.”

  “That’s why I was chosen to take Philip’s place,” said Lutrineas. “Our auras matched.”

  “I thought you said you cast lots,” said Joy.

  Lutrineas shrugged. “Has a more mythic feel to it, doesn’t it? I have my legacy to consider.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Abel. “Did you say a confederacy of tricksters?”

  “Oh, do catch up,” said Bebe. “Tell me, Lew—Lute—”

  “Lutrineas,” Joy and the Otter said together.

  “Lutrineas, then. What was your purpose in coming here?”

  “When your Philip came to us, he made it sound like there was an actual resistance here—not half a dozen retirees with a library. I thought perhaps we might make a stand here. But”—he raised his arms and looked down at his feet—“nothing to stand on, is there?”

  “We have resources,” said Cyril Lanfair.

  Lutrineas groaned. “My sister has assassins, or did you forget that already? She has librarians. Police officers. Meter maids. Army captains. Agents provocateurs.” Something flashed outside the window, followed a moment later by a sound like something igniting. “Like that one, probably.”

  “What was that?” Bebe asked. They crowded around the window.

  “Oh my God,” said Joy.

  Hector owned a loft on the third floor of a refurbished warehouse building just a block away from the waterfront. It was modern in ways that Hector sometimes felt didn’t match up with him, precisely; he wished that the stainless steel were a little more rustic, for example. And the toilet was a sleek, massive red vehicle that he half expected someone to ask him if he had a license to operate. But he liked the view in the summer and the spaciousness of it during the winter, when the ice and snow had a tendency to make him feel claustrophobic. He got a break on the association fees because he maintained the security wards, and there were portals in the basement to affiliated buildings in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Portalling had a leveling effect on the real estate market, so it wasn’t quite the steal it might have been twenty years ago, but the consulting had been going well when he’d bought it, and he’d be able to at least keep up the payments as long as he didn’t lose his job at the college.

  He managed to leave the last part out of his nervous monologue as he led Zelda up the stairs from the lobby. Or maybe it was the geas, censoring him. If so, he was grateful for the damn thing for once.

  “Anyway,” he said as he led her into the loft, “this is my place.”

  “Wow. It looks like an art gallery or something. Except for how you don’t really have any art.”

  Hector laughed. “I guess I could stand to decorate a little more. I’ve kept it simple because I like the feeling of space.” He was about to offer to ta
ke her coat when he realized she wasn’t wearing one. Probably because it was still eighty-five degrees. God, he was nervous. She was wearing black slacks and a cowl-necked tank top in a shade of pink that Hector was sure there was a name for other than “pink.”

  She looked amazing.

  “Um. You look really nice,” he said, and then wondered why he hadn’t just said what he was thinking.

  “Thanks.” She looked around the loft, scratching absently at her elbow. “Could be an art gallery, but it could also be an aviary. Why does anyone need ceilings this high?”

  He led her toward the kitchen, where he had tamales steaming. “I like it. I grew up in an old house with tiny rooms, narrow hallways. This makes me feel like I have room to move.”

  “Where do you sleep?”

  He pointed to the steps next to the door, which led up to a lofted bedroom space.

  “Oh.” She blushed. “It’s not very private, is it?”

  “Unless my neighbors across the river are standing by with binoculars, it is,” said Hector. “Safe enough to walk around in my purple underpants.”

  “Now you’re trying to make me blush.”

  “You’re cute when you blush,” he said.

  “And you are…dangerous,” she said.

  “Not really,” he said. “Would you like a drink? I have some Surly beer, and I have some wine, and I have some Scotch, and if you don’t want any of those I have water.”

  “I’ll have a beer.” There were bar stools by the kitchen island, but she didn’t sit. She took a long sip of the beer he handed her and wandered over to his bookshelves. Hector wondered if he was blushing, himself. Something about just being this close to her made him crazy. He wanted nothing more than to skip the tamales and give the hypothetical Wisconsinites with the binoculars a show.

  “I hope you don’t mind spicy food,” he said. “I mean, it’s not truly spicy—just a few chilies, mainly—but then people around here consider garlic salt a spice.”

  “I’m not actually from here, you know,” she said. “Besides, I grew up on Turkish food, which is spicy, although in a different way.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “New Jersey,” she said. “What, you never heard the accent before?”

  “I’m not as good at accents in English,” he admitted. “But I heard it when you said ‘Jersey.’ ”

  “That’s where it happened, you know.” Her tone turned serious. “The curse.”

  “Oh.” He wasn’t sure she was going to elaborate, but he wanted her to feel safe to if she wanted to, so he didn’t say any more.

  She started to sip at her beer again and then set it down on his coffee table. “This is—I actually didn’t drink for years until pretty recently. That’s part of…that night, with you. I wish I hadn’t drunk so much. I like wine a little more than is healthy, really. Now I do. Back then it was beer, because it was cheap and we could get a lot of it. I was seventeen.

  “I think it’s important that you know…dammit. Hector, I wish I wasn’t cursed, but the truth is, I deserve it.” Her voice cracked as she spoke, but when he started toward her she waved him off.

  “Give me a minute,” she said. “I have to tell this. I was seventeen. I was a popular girl. Cheerleader, if you can believe that. I went to a lot of parties. And I always drove, because even though my car was crappy, it was a car, and that was a big deal. So even after I drank more beers than I bothered to count, I always drove myself home, because I was stupid. And one night, there was someone crossing the street, and I didn’t see her until it was too late, and…I lived. She died. She was two years younger than me. She had a late-night paper route. She…her name was Amber. I think about her every day.

  “Her mother didn’t think fourteen months in juvie was a very high price for her daughter’s life, so she cursed me. And then she killed herself. I think about her, too.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Hector said.

  Zelda shook her head. “I just think…I don’t know who you think I am, Hector. But I can’t let you think that I’m…I don’t think I’m a bad person. At least, I don’t always think that. I tried so hard to become a better person after all that, after I got my second chance. But I did something really, really awful once, and this thing I’m living with is just payback for that, and if I let you believe otherwise, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

  “Can I hug you now?” he asked, and she nodded. But she was tense, and he didn’t squeeze her as hard as he would have liked to. She was right; he hadn’t thought very much about why she had been cursed. He didn’t know a lot about curses, but he did know that the more powerful ones had righteous anger behind them; simple spite could only fuel a hex for so long. He tried to picture Zelda at seventeen, a thoughtless girl, irresponsible. He couldn’t see her. He didn’t know her.

  “I can’t even pretend to know what that feels like,” he said. “But you aren’t the same person who made that mistake then.”

  “But what I’m trying to tell you, Hector, is that I am that person. I own what happened. I have to.”

  “OK. I’m not sure I understand completely, but I’m glad you told me.”

  “I can leave,” she said.

  “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I made tamales.” The buzzer went off; they were ready. He lifted the lid on the steamer and used a pair of tongs to pull the banana-leaf-wrapped bundles out and set them on a platter while Zelda wiped her eyes.

  “I thought we could eat out on the patio,” he said. He shut the stove and the lights off, grabbed the platter and his beer, and led her through the glass door and outside.

  It was still warm—it had been an unusually warm September so far—but not sticky, and the breeze off the river was cool and fresh and piney. The table was already set, and the sun was just beginning to. Tea lights lined the deck railing. Hector placed the tamales on the table.

  “Have a seat.” There were candles on the table, but he hadn’t lit them yet. He took a box of matches from his pocket and began lighting the tea lights.

  “You thought of everything, didn’t you?” she asked as he set one on the patio railing beside her.

  “The stars won’t be out for a while yet, and we need to see what we’re eating.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “What is the story with you and Joy Wilkins?”

  “Joy?” Hector tried to stall. “I don’t know what you mean.” He was so focused on trying to find a way to talk around the geas that he didn’t see what was happening right away. He smelled it first, and looked up to realize that Zelda’s hair had caught in the candle flame.

  Her hair was on fire.

  Hector picked up the nearest thing—which happened to be his beer—and poured it on her. It put out the flame, but she yelped and stood up, pitching the table over sideways. Hector watched, unable to stop it from happening, as his lovingly crafted platter of tamales colorados pitched off the patio toward the dark street below.

  “You threw beer on me,” Zelda said. The smell of burned hair covered the delicious scent of the tamales completely.

  “You were on fire,” said Hector.

  “I ask you about Joy, and you throw beer on me.”

  “I’m sorry.” This was the end of it, then. He had just blown it once and for all. Hector felt like throwing himself after the tamales.

  “I need to use your bathroom.” Zelda’s voice was the sort of calm that was just on the edge of being not calm at all. Hector hurried to let her back in the apartment, but he spun around when he heard something ignite, afraid one of his stupid candles had set the entire patio on fire.

  “Dios mío!” He reached for Zelda and wrapped an arm around her protectively.

  “What the hell is—oh!”

  A barrier of flame had ignited in the air, and beyond it, in the middle of the St. Croix River, towering above them, stood a massive, long-legged owl wearing a thirteen-pointed crown. Its beak parted, and it was not a hoo
t that escaped but rather a massive roar.

  Episode 9

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  YOU’RE DOING FINE

  There was a new school of military demonology that advocated negotiation with infernal entities. Depending upon what you wanted from the demon in question, Ingrid supposed that the approach might be worth an attempt. Demons were venal, and their reputation for trickery was well-earned, but most of them were intelligent enough to be reasoned with. Perhaps someday that would become standard operating procedure.

  Ingrid’s experience and temperament led her to prefer the old-fashioned way: threatening them. To that end, she stood on the roof of her rental house in the center of a power circle of chalk and salt, holding an ancient bow made of bone, horn, and sinew, wearing the lily-covered yellow shirtdress that Zelda had handed her the other day in the Frog’s Umbrella. That seemed like months ago, now. Some impulse had told her to dress up for the occasion. She felt powerful, standing barefoot on the cooling shingles, looking up at the enormous demon who had answered her call.

  “Howdy, Prince,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

  It was partly the magic and partly the psychedelic mushrooms, but when Stolas responded she saw and felt the words as waves of heat. The giant crowned owl’s beak didn’t move—it had growled once and that was it—but its words reverberated through the link between the summoning circle and her own circle of power. The jewels of its absurd crown left trails of color every time she blinked.

  YOU ARE THE ONE CALLED INGWIERSEN, said Stolas.

  “You’ve heard of me.” She laughed. “I hope it’s been good things.”

  YOU HAVE A REPUTATION. Stolas’s voice was like the wailing of a hot summer wind. TONIGHT WILL BE THE END OF IT.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” It was true; she was beyond fear. She was thrilled—her heart was racing—but there was no fear in her.

  NEVERTHELESS.

  She held up the bow. “Do you know this weapon?”