Bookburners: Season One Volume Two

by Max Gladstone

  Bella screams as she takes her first breath, cupped in a midwife’s hands, trying to focus on a pair of smiling brown eyes behind a mask.

  Her nephew Matteo had said that the new games on expensive phones, apps, made pleasure centers fire in people’s brains, which led to addiction. While Bella Ferrara disapproved of the time Matteo—so handsome if you saw him from the angle that didn’t show the scar on his right cheek—spent with his phone, a small, secret part of her understood completely. She felt that way whenever she could make the gears fit, make the ticking happen, make a clock live again. Every tick was dopamine to her.

  She hides from bullies in an old clock shop, and watching the old clockmaker’s hands work, so deft and so precise, her fear fades, and her own world snaps into place.

  Matteo understood. He was her protégé, her lousy brother’s third child, ignored by all except his aunt. He didn’t have the skill, but he had the passion.

  Mother laments that Bella will never find a husband, never knowing that Antonio left for the war, carrying her heart, and never brought it back home to her.

  Her hands were old now, the knuckles swelling and the movements painful and slow, as if she had just dragged them from an ice bath. Her days as a clockmaker were numbered, she knew, and none of her nieces or nephews wanted the shop that would be their inheritance.

  Golden streams of time, snarled and tangled like yarn and smoke and veins of silver. Time is everywhere and everything.

  “Zia Bella, why don’t you just retire? You deserve it!” Matteo would say. “Sell the shop, buy a cottage by the sea, and live out the rest of your life relaxing.”

  Antonio touches her, lights fires within her, and time slows.

  Matteo had the passion but his hands were large and bulky, the hands of a sailor or a construction worker. If she had willed the business to him, he would have had to bring in another clockmaker, and that wouldn’t do. No one else in her family wanted the business. She was sad they didn’t love it as she did, but someone who didn’t love this business had no right being in it. Clockmakers are Called.

  Her father dies in a stinking hot room, and time stops. But only for a second.

  At night she would dream of time, golden streams of it, how they crossed, some going faster than others, and all she had to do was pick a stream to place a boat upon, and go anywhen. During the day, her shop sang to her, the little ticks and clicks marking her life. Every hour the song reached a crescendo, and then subsided. Going home was always a disappointment. Removing her hands from her work broke her heart a little each day.

  She receives riches, as more and more wealthy customers seek her, as Rolex hires her to consult, as she becomes known as the finest clockmaker in Italy, but never leaves her tiny shop.

  Matteo’s love for his zia and his impressive business skills (something to do with computer chips, things with even smaller working parts than ladies’ watches) led him to scour the antique shops when he traveled on business, and he brought her wonderful treasures: clocks to fix, clocks to clean, antique tools even older than her own. The latest find had been glorious. He would tell her nothing about where he got it from, except to say that the seller’s name was Norse.

  She buys the clock shop from her old master, the man who unknowingly rescued her, both body and soul, the day she ducked through his door. She pays in cash she has saved for decades.

  It was a rounding-up tool made of brass. It was clearly old, but had no sign of wear on it anywhere. She knew it was old because these tools simply weren’t made anymore. It sang in her hands, like her clocks did. The wheel spun silently and everything seemed to slow as she worked on her clocks. She had never been happier.

  She dies, bleeding and broken in the corner, thinking it is somehow fitting that she dies among her clocks, and she wonders if any of them will stop when she does.

  Everything happens at once, and it takes forever.

  1.

  Place: Sal’s Apartment

  Time: 5:47:39 a.m.

  Cleaning house.

  Buzz.

  Time to clean the house. Get the gloves and the bucket and—

  Buzz.

  Like a towrope pulling her from deep water, the buzzing phone led Sal from her dream into reality. She blinked, then swore.

  Buzz.

  She stood in her bedroom, her hands flat on her dresser. Nothing was amiss beyond this—her modest jewelry box still sat in the middle of the dresser, and on the left side was the stack of clean laundry she was too lazy to put away.

  She looked up into the mirror and met her own eyes, seized by a sense of vertigo. “Why are you standing here”—she checked her bedside clock—“before six?” she asked her reflection.

  It didn’t answer.

  “At least I’m not in the Archives this time,” she muttered, rubbing her face.

  The phone buzzed again from its place next to her clock, and Sal finally was able to unlock her joints and walk on shaky legs to retrieve it.

  It was a text from Grace. The Orb must be active. Menchú had said they’d earned a day off, especially Grace. But if duty called . . .

  “Time to make the donuts,” Sal grumbled, and pulled up the text.

  “Knock, knock, Neo.”

  The phrase stuck in her head, but she couldn’t place the memory. She blinked and was about to text back, but a knock came at her door.

  Right. The Matrix. She sighed and went to answer the door.

  Grace stood there, a backpack slung over one shoulder, grinning widely. Sal stared at her, sure that something had to be wrong. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is it the Orb?”

  Grace pushed past her with no invitation. “Of course not,” she said. “It’s my day off. Remember?”

  “Why does your day off mean I get dragged from my bed at ass-o’clock?” Sal asked.

  “Because you’re coming with me,” Grace said. “Arturo approved it. Insisted on it, really. We’re going to have some fun, and nothing is going to interrupt us.”

  Sal raised her hand. “Okay. My brain is going about five miles an hour. I’m gonna make some coffee and you’re gonna tell me what exactly you’re talking about.”

  Grace frowned briefly in irritation, but then relaxed into her grin again. “Usually, when a mission’s done, Liam goes to surf the internet. Arturo returns to his church duties and his studies. Sometimes, he tells me, he sees a movie. You come here and do . . . whatever the hell it is you do.” Grace waved her hand to encompass Sal’s apartment. “You know what I do?”

  Sal paused from scooping coffee into her coffeemaker. “I know you can’t afford to burn your candle on relaxation,” she said softly.

  “Exactly. When I relax, it’s usually while traveling to and from a mission. Even then Arturo had to fight the big guns to not keep the candle snuffed until the team needs me.”

  Big guns. Sal had never thought of the priests and cardinals as big guns.

  Sal winced at the idea of carting Grace around like a vampire in a coffin, waking her up only to fight. She wondered who was in charge of deciding when to light Grace’s candle, but saved that question for another time.

  “A few years ago, I demanded a day off, twenty-four hours just for me,” Grace said. She sat down in a kitchen chair and leaned back, smiling. “No demons, no travel, no demands. So they gave me one a year.”

  Sal got two mugs from the dishwasher and filled both with coffee. She put a bottle of cream on the table and handed Grace one of the cups. Sal sat to join her, sipping her black coffee. “Not that you don’t deserve it, but I find it hard to believe they agreed to not having you on call at least. That’s what bugs Liam: we’re not like normal cops because we’re always on call.”

  “Liam gets downtime. I don’t,” Grace said.

  “Hey, what was with the Matrix comment anyway?” Sal asked.

  Grace’s eyes gleamed. “A while back I watched a marathon of all three of the Matrix movies. I loved them.”

  “All of them?” Sal asked
suspiciously. “Years after they came out?”

  Grace nodded.

  “You really are sheltered from pop culture,” Sal said.

  “I catch up as much as I can on days off. Sometimes travel. Now finish your coffee. I have a full day planned.”

  • • •

  A spin class. Grace wanted to go to a spin class. They bought a trial membership to a local gym and made it in time for the seven a.m. session.

  “Why are we doing this again, exactly?” Sal asked.

  “All of my workouts consist of sparring with Liam and doing . . . our job,” Grace said, glancing at the people around them as she watered down their day-to-day duties. “I never, ever, get to exercise just for the fun of it.”

  “We could go for a run, hike near some of the ruins outside the city, take a swim . . .” Sal trailed off as music began thumping and a tightly muscled woman with short, white-blond hair began talking into a headset.

  “Oh, we’ll do those things too, if you want,” Grace said, “but I’ve seen these classes on TV and I’ve always wanted to try them.” She turned the tension up on her bike and began to pedal furiously.

  As she climbed onto the bike next to Grace’s, Sal found herself hoping to be called away to fight demons. It would likely be more fun. As soon as she started pedaling, her phone buzzed, and she gratefully searched her pocket for it. Asanti was texting. Oh, thank God. She glanced at Grace. “Asanti,” she said, waving the phone.

  Grace didn’t take her eyes off the class leader. “Answer her if you like. I’m not going back until this day is over.”

  Sal slowed her pedaling and focused on her phone, avoiding the irritated looks of the men and women pedaling to the video of the Italian countryside that was playing behind the leader.

  Did Grace drag you out of bed? Asanti texted.

  Yep. We’re at a freaking spin class. Everything okay there?

  Things are fine here, u 2 have fun. Likely be the last fun you have b4 summer spotless.

  Will try. Would rather not be spinning tho. Sal sent the final text and put the phone back in the slot on her handlebars made for those who couldn’t be away from their precious devices.

  She picked up her pace to rejoin the fake ride through the countryside (when the real countryside was just a few miles away), but the class leader pointed her out.

  “If you do not respect the class, you are given the mud bike!” she called in heavily accented English. She pointed to a bike near the back, far from Grace. Sal paused to see if she was serious—the woman had stopped pedaling and kept pointing.

  Sal groaned and grabbed her phone, then went to the bike and climbed aboard, noticing that it didn’t have a tension knob. The pedals were very heavy. It had been locked on the tightest position. Like she was biking through mud. Clever.

  Sal shot an irritated look at Grace, who grinned at her and shrugged.

  I’m doing this for her.

  It was going to be a long hour.

  • • •

  Place: The Black Archives

  Time: 7:04:43 a.m.

  “Damn autocorrect,” Asanti said after she reread her last text. She put the phone in her pocket, then glared at Liam. “Can I help you, Liam? Or do you want to watch the next text I send as well?”

  “‘ Things are fine here?’” he asked, pointing at the glowing Orb, its transcription apparatus chattering quietly as it delivered information. “Does that look ‘fine’ to you? Why did you lie to her? We might need them.”

  Asanti glanced at the notes the Orb had spat out thus far. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like a big deal. Local. Something has awakened. We can handle it with the people we have.”

  “Just the two of us?” Liam asked, nodding toward Menchú, who sat at Asanti’s desk.

  “Of course not,” Asanti said, finishing her notes. “I’m going with you.”

  Liam rolled his eyes and stomped off, mumbling something about breakfast.

  After he had gone, Asanti looked at Menchú. “At least this looks like minor activity.”

  “Don’t discount minor activity. It can turn major in a short time. The Glasgow incident started minor, didn’t it?” He looked at her, unblinking.

  She met his gaze. She knew he was waiting on her to show some sort of guilt for the Glasgow trip, but she regretted nothing. They had learned a lot about Sal on that trip, and the group enjoyed their one-day vacation in Glasgow. Yes, the vacation had been largely spent at a wake and funeral, but a change of pace was nice.

  “We’ll be fine,” she repeated. “And if you don’t trust me on this—”

  “Don’t say that, Asanti, not again,” he said, interrupting her and standing up. “I trust you to do the right thing, always. I just don’t trust you to judge the danger of a situation as quickly as the others. They see a lion, while you see a fascinating bone and muscle structure of yellow purring fluff that you’d like to study more closely.”

  “Then I’m not sure about the wisdom of having Sal exempt from duties, as Grace is.”

  “Sal will come if we need her,” Menchú said, watching the Orb. “And Grace has never let us down.”

  Liam returned clutching a bag of breakfast sandwiches, which he dropped on Asanti’s desk. He rummaged around in the bag and grabbed a sandwich. “What I don’t understand,” he said, as if he had never left, “is why Sal gets a day pass. Grace deserves one; she doesn’t take a lot of time off, it seems. But the new bird comes in and suddenly gets the same treatment.”

  He shrugged, winced, then stretched. Asanti watched in sympathy. They needed more than one night’s sleep to recover after the Delphi trip, but the Orb had to be heeded.

  “With what we’ve been dealing with, everyone needs time off. You get tomorrow,” Menchú said.

  Liam pulled a chair to Asanti’s desk and tore into his sandwich as if it had offended him.

  “I think someone is a bit jealous,” Asanti said. The Irishman flushed. “It’s tough being the odd person out. But they’re not consciously excluding you.”

  Liam choked. “That’s not the issue.”

  Asanti noted how he avoided her gaze, and began to guess the real reason behind his discomfort. “Does this have something to do with you and—”

  “Goddammit, Asanti,” Liam said. “Mind your own business. I’m fine.”

  Asanti watched him carefully. She would have to broach the subject with him later, without Menchú around. Liam needed to talk something out, that was clear.

  The Orb glowed again, and Asanti examined the new data. “We have the location now. A clock shop a few kilometers north of here. Looks like an artifact, not a book. Thank goodness.”

  “An artifact in a clock shop?” Liam asked. “How much do you want to bet it messes with time? How are we supposed to deal with that?”

  “Carefully,” Menchú said. “Find out who owns the shop.”

  Liam frowned and went to his backpack to get his laptop. Asanti glanced at Menchú and noticed him typing on his phone, his back to them.

  Asanti wasn’t worried. If he was texting Grace, she’d ignore him today. Unless maybe Menchú was in trouble.

  2.

  Place: Grande Cerchio Caffè

  Time: 8:29:27 a.m.

  “Have a Bellini,” Grace said grandly, passing one of the tall bubbling flutes to Sal. “It will calm your muscle spasms.”

  “It will?” Sal asked, raising an eyebrow. Her legs had been shaky and unpredictable after the spin class. Add that on top of the aches and pains she had from the previous day’s trip to Delphi, and she felt about a hundred years old.

  She’d not been allowed to get off the “mud bike” for the entire class. She almost left, but the look on Grace’s face—pleading—stopped her.

  Not that Grace was pleading now. She lounged across the table at perfect ease, in a tie-waist floral print dress and a panama hat cocked back at an angle. The woman didn’t even have the decency to look flushed.

  Sal accepted the glass and sipped the
Bellini. She didn’t understand why one would ruin sparkling wine with peach puree, but figured adding the fruit made it okay to booze it up in the morning.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” Grace said, flipping a hand, careless. “Alcohol relaxes you. Doesn’t it?”

  Sal looked at the menu. The prices were shocking, but Grace had said she didn’t have a lot to spend her income on, especially with the Vatican covering her lodging at the convent. Sal thought about all the gold that was rumored to be inside the Vatican and figured they could spring for expensive pastries and a few more Bellinis. They ordered, and then relaxed back into their seats.

  Sal wasn’t used to drinking in the morning, and the wine hit her hard. She studied her friend. “One day off a year. How do you not lose your mind?”

  Grace frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of cops get PTSD from dealing with shit much less scary than what we fight. They need rest with friends and family and, sometimes, a therapist. But you have terrifying fights, go down, and wake up to more terrifying fights. It doesn’t seem mentally healthy.”

  Grace focused past Sal, thinking. “Arturo helps me. He wakes me every week for a short talk to let me know what day it is and what has been going on.” She took a sip of her drink and smiled at Sal. “Lately we’ve had so much activity that he doesn’t need to do that, but it helps when things are slow.”

  “You two have been through a lot together,” Sal said, putting down her empty glass. Another Bellini appeared at her elbow.

  “Yes. For me, it’s only been a few years’ time. For him, decades.” Grace focused again behind Sal, toward the windows of the café. “Imagine it. You’ve been here a few months. What if everyone else had aged forty years by now, and you stayed the same?”

  Sal shook her head. “I couldn’t handle it. And we come back to my original question, how do you deal with this without going crazy? I mean, you could outlive us all if you burn your candle right. Have you ever thought about leaving the Vatican and taking your candle along?”

  Grace drained her second flute. “All the time. But I can’t live alone. I would need someone I can trust to relight the candle, or I just let it burn, and my life would last—not long.”