Bookburners: Season One Volume Two

by Max Gladstone

  He just wanted to have the money to live in it well. Sure, he could have just inhabited a rich person, but he wanted to make his own money. He liked the challenge. This codex tucked under his arm, though, was just the way to get his payday in one shot. He’d make sure to sell it to someone who was interested in using it on some other plane of existence. I’m definitely saving this one, he thought, for myself. All he had to do was kill Eriath as soon as possible—maybe before he even left this room—and the dream would be his. He had his eyes on a house on the coast of Kyushu. He could already see it in his mind.

  Which was when he felt the pressure around his torso, and found that he couldn’t get free.

  • • •

  Sal was still fighting the Hand when the liquid demon reappeared with the Codex and started sprinting across the wasteland of paper for the stairs. She had seen the flames light the antechamber to the Archives, seen Resketel jump from the door, followed by Asanti, Menchú, and Liam, trailing smoke from Asanti’s fire. It had been less than a minute since the demons had arrived and demolished the library. She hadn’t moved an inch.

  Somewhere near the base of her skull, the Hand purred.

  Fire. Good idea, he said to Sal.

  She felt a heat inside her, a growing fireball, just under her heart. It coursed through her limbs, broke through her skin. She screamed.

  Don’t kill me, she pleaded. Please don’t.

  I have no such plans, the Hand said.

  The flames cauterized as they cracked through her, and the pain gave way to something else.

  • • •

  For the rest of Team Three, it was as though a torch had been lit. Sal was still Sal. Except that she was wreathed in purple fire.

  She raised her right hand as Resketel passed, and a million bits of shredded paper and splinters of bookcases kicked into the air in his wake.

  Resketel changed. He split in two. But this time it wasn’t his idea. As the conscious half of him looked back in surprise, the other half had formed into the hand that now captured him. He had lost control of himself.

  “I do not at all appreciate you attempting to steal what’s mine,” the Hand said. Smoke poured from Sal’s throat as he spoke.

  Resketel looked down at the human form that held him captive.

  “My lord,” he said. “If I’d had any idea you were here, I would never have done what I did.”

  The Hand’s voice curdled. “Give me the book.”

  Resketel dropped the Codex Umbra. It fell toward the floor and stopped in midair, then floated over to Sal’s outstretched left hand.

  “Excellent,” said the Hand. “For your compliance, I offer you a quick death.”

  As Resketel howled, the Hand pulled another hand, bigger than the first, from Resketel’s own body and wrapped its fingers around his head. Both giant hands tightened their grips, twisted Resketel four times over as though wringing out a wet dishrag, and then pulled him apart. A dark orange liquid burst from him as from a water balloon. The hands fluttered and disintegrated in the air, and Resketel’s thin, empty skin dropped to the floor.

  The Hand made Sal take a deep breath.

  “And you,” he said to Eriath, who was in a frenzy trying to get to the top of the stairs. “You who sought to use the book to usurp me. Come back here.”

  The Hand made Sal open the Codex, and pulled power from it like a battery. Sal’s fingers made seven quick flicking motions, and the top seven stairs, above the gap Asanti’s explosion had left, popped out and bounced off the stone walls of the Archives, just before Eriath could escape. Now Sal made a motion with her hands as if opening a book, and the protective cage around the stairs opened to expose the terrified demon. Eriath shouted and flailed. Then, at once, she wasn’t moving at all, or making a sound.

  “And you call yourself more than human,” the Hand said. “My host has more strength than you do.”

  With a languid, beckoning gesture, the Hand caused Eriath to float from the stairs, through the air, down to the floor in front of him. Eriath’s face was frozen in the shriek she had been making.

  The Hand put both hands on Eriath’s head. The demon’s body shuddered and cracked, and then, in a sudden series of crackles, imploded up into her skull. Working Sal’s fingers across Eriath’s scalp as if polishing it, the Hand worked the demon’s head—its host’s head—making it smaller and smaller, until it was big enough to fit in the palm of Sal’s right hand.

  Then the Hand made Sal eat it. She turned to her teammates.

  “And to think that creature is still alive after all that,” she said, sending a new trail of smoke toward the ceiling. “That must be painful.”

  Grace leapt at the Hand, fast. But not fast enough. The demon pushed air toward her and knocked her to her knees.

  “Anyone else want a shot?”

  Liam and Asanti just stood there, anger and terror passing across their faces.

  Behind Sal, Menchú was murmuring to himself.

  “Is that the litany of saints I hear?” the Hand said. “An exorcism prayer? Save your breath, Father. We’re long past that. There are no books to help you understand what I am about to unleash upon this world. And you will have no words for description when you see it. There are none. Not in human tongues.”

  The Hand brought the book to Sal’s breast.

  “See you soon,” the demon said out loud.

  Are you ready? the Hand said to Sal, inside.

  For what? Sal asked.

  You’ll see, the Hand said. A flood of feeling poured through her. More pain. A lot more fear. But underneath it, something else, growing stronger and stronger, an emotion intense enough that it took Sal a moment to recognize what it was, and then be horrified for feeling it: exhilaration. Ecstasy.

  Wrapped in flames, Sal’s face broke into an expression of pure bliss. She heard her own voice intoning words she didn’t understand. She pointed upward with one finger and a door opened in the air above her. A wind picked up, and the millions of scraps of paper strewn about the Archives lifted into the air like luminous feathers. Sal was swept into the door. It closed behind her. In the Archives, the paper settled. And just like that, she was gone, and the Codex with her.

  The alarm still blared away. Team Three could hear voices above them, from Team One. They’d arrived. Just too late.

  Grace stood up.

  “What’s our next move?” she said. “We can’t let Sal just be taken like that.”

  Asanti and Liam both looked toward Menchú. He stood there, unmoving.

  “Do we even have a choice?” he said. “We have to go find her. Get rid of the Codex at last.” He looked at Liam. “And figure out how this happened.”

  Episode 13: Keeping Friends Close

  By Mur Lafferty

  1.

  Falling. Not the wind-whipping-through-your-hair falling, but the stomach-precedes-you-by-about-fifty-feet falling. The feeling of being completely out of control, and knowing that when the thrill stops, there’s going to be nothing but pain.

  Sal had stopped trying to wrest control of her body from the Hand. She mentally let go, not wanting to see what it was doing to Team Three’s library with her body. She didn’t want to feel the pains—little burns and cuts, but enough—that the Hand’s spells inflicted on her. She didn’t want to see the looks on Grace’s, Liam’s, Asanti’s, and Menchú’s faces.

  Once she let go, she fell into the maelstrom of the Hand.

  As a child, she had visited Niagara Falls with her family, and she remembered being disappointed. She had wanted to see a waterfall, but all she saw was what looked like a big cliff, and then a lot of mist. She wished she could have seen through the mist to the waterfall, never mind the fact that the waterfall and the mist were the same.

  Now she felt as though she would be able to see the Hand, understand him, if only the chaos of his power wasn’t making it impossible to concentrate. She glimpsed a ruined plain, cracked and smoking, with countless demons of all sizes standi
ng still, waiting. Another vision buffeted her, and she saw herself, startled, but grim and determined. Perry’s view, she realized. Her face looking into the mirror, slack and lifeless except for the eyes, and then her kitchen, and her oven.

  Shit, the oven. It wasn’t broken at all.

  The sudden stop after the Hand’s rampage was painful. It was even more painful to open her eyes and look at her apartment.

  Sal wanted to ask how they got there, but she didn’t have to. They stood in her kitchen, the Hand and Sal, and her oven door gaped open, with light streaming out of it.

  Close the oven, you’re wasting energy, she admonished mentally. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity. The laugh didn’t make it all the way to her mouth.

  “Welcome back. I thought you had maybe checked out for good,” the Hand said, using her mouth. “You missed the fun.”

  Missed. Funny word. Sal pushed momentarily at the barrier the Hand had raised between her and her actual motor functions, and it didn’t give. So you have what you wanted. What are we going to do now?

  “‘We?’” Her voice sounded odd to her ears. “You make it sound like we’re partners in crime. Or that I want you along.”

  You need a body, so perhaps wanting and needing are the same thing. Was it time to devolve into 1970s soft-rock references? Probably not. And the whole of the Vatican just saw me blow shit up and attack my friends and steal from the library. I think we broke about five commandments and committed five deadly sins right there. They will always suspect me now. She felt sick—but the sensation didn’t make it to her stomach. The Hand apparently controlled involuntary muscles as well.

  “No one left to play with,” said the Hand, rummaging through her dresser. “You always wear the most boring things. Why can’t you look more interesting?”

  You have the Codex Umbra, you have control of a cop’s body, and the first thing you’re going to do is play dress-up? You’re wasting one of your wishes, man!

  The Hand actually laughed. “No, I’m not playing dress-up. Just looking for your spare weapons. You hide them like squirrels hide acorns.” Her hand closed around a small gun. She tossed it onto the bed. “But someone who understands fashion might be good to talk to, now that you mention it. I hadn’t thought of her . . . yes.” It removed her cell phone from her pocket and dialed it.

  Cell phone service has been crappy in my apartment, Sal said helpfully.

  “No, I’ve been blocking your reception,” the Hand said. “Now hush, I’m on the phone.”

  Sal realized with horror that the Hand had started to take on her way of speaking. This would be bad if they encountered Team Three again. Her only saving grace was that the Hand was very obviously not Sal, behavior-wise. What if it started acting like her?

  She held her mental breath and waited as the Hand spoke into the phone.

  2.

  If she had hoped to eavesdrop on a conversation between two demons, she was out of luck. The Hand spoke guttural, harsh syllables Sal would have been incapable of making on her own. The voice on the phone was similar, crude and cruel. Sal focused on her body briefly, feeling the burns on her hands, the cuts on her arms, the scrape on her leg. She held on to these little pains as tenuous connections to something she no longer owned.

  The Hand ended the call. “You wanted to find out what I’m up to. Come and see,” it said as it stashed the Codex Umbra under her arm as if it were nothing more than a textbook.

  Like I have a choice.

  Sal was grateful that they didn’t travel by oven again. She suspected it was that moment that she had lost control, when everything around her had gone from using magic to being used by magic. She hadn’t considered what the view would be like while teleporting. She had never had reason to wonder. But this time, the Hand left her apartment and walked confidently out into Rome.

  “We’re going to see an old friend,” the Hand told her. “A number of friends, in truth.”

  You going to kill these demons, too?

  “Not all of them,” the Hand said, with mock hurt in her voice. “You’ll like Vogue. She lives at the offices of a leading Italian shoe designer.”

  Let me guess. A demon of vice? Pride?

  “We all own each of the sins to one degree or another. But sometimes one sin can dominate the others, yes. We don’t fall into categories, though.”

  No one around to classify you into the right kingdom, I suppose. Are you vegetable, mineral, or plant?

  The Hand didn’t answer. Sal concentrated on the feel of her feet on the sidewalk and the scents of the city in summer.

  You want to tell me why we aren’t taking your magic oven teleporter?

  Again, no answer. They continued on toward the corporate offices of Monroe, the premier Italian shoe designer.

  • • •

  Liam watched the people, robed and not-robed, scurry about with their accusations and their questions. He didn’t care. Other, better people were there for damage control. Grace rushed around busily, cleaning up books under Asanti’s direction. There were the damaged books and the undamaged books, stacked near their former shelves. The dangerous books she kept next to her desk. The archivist looked disheveled and defeated. A thin cut on her cheek bled freely, and she ignored it.

  Menchú was speaking to some officials, low and quick, trying to undercut their objections, calm their obvious rage. They swept from what was left of the library, with promises to return.

  Liam noticed and dismissed all of this. He was helping clear a space for the temporary ladder to get people in and out of the Archives now that the stairs had been blown up. He refused to touch anything associated directly with the library.

  As he cleared more rubble, he thought about Bran. Liam had trusted him. He had introduced Liam to the group that eventually plugged him into the vast expanse.

  Jenna, with the deep brown hair and dimple on one cheek. Short, curly-haired, round face, not the kind of person you’d think was into dark magic. But she’d tricked him, and fucked him, and the trap sprang shut. Metaphorically and physically.

  He had trusted Asanti until he had seen her eyes light up at each new magical abomination.

  Grace had been odd, but seemed trustworthy, despite keeping her situation from him for so long.

  And Sal. How long had she hidden a demon inside her? What influence did it have on their relationship—good or bad? He shuddered, remembering the times they had been intimate: Sal, Liam, and whatever was inside her.

  Menchú could still be trusted.

  “Liam, you were closest to her. How could you not see this?” Menchú said from across the room.

  Liam looked up so sharply that his neck cracked. He winced and rubbed it. “That’s where we are, then? Blame? Usually you circle the wagons before you start whipping the children.”

  “Easy, Liam,” Grace said, her voice dangerous.

  “And you’re the one who just spent an entire day doing God knows what with her,” Liam said, waving his hand at Grace. “How come you didn’t see anything? You’re supposed to be all attuned to this shit.”

  He turned to Asanti. “And your special, ‘this-magic-isn’t-bad-because-it’s-useful’ Orb, how come that didn’t catch anything, huh?”

  “Liam,” Menchú said.

  “No, don’t do that, don’t point your self-righteous finger at me. If I’m to blame we’re all to blame. And while we’re blaming, has anyone noticed that Sal has the Codex Umbra?”

  “It’s not Sal,” Grace said, low and stubborn. “She’s a victim here. And we have to help her.”

  Liam stared at Grace. “Are you serious?”

  Menchú gave him a level look. “Sal is in trouble. She’s possessed.”

  “Sal is dead,” Liam said. “Demon ate her, took over her body, good-bye stubborn-as-nails cop from New York.”

  “Shut up, Liam,” Grace said, carrying a stack of singed books to where Asanti directed her. “We’re going after her.”

  “The lot of you are crazy! How many p
eople have we actually saved who have been full-on possessed like that? I’ll even let you count dear comatose Perry. That’s one. Anyone else got another?”

  Menchú’s tenuous calm broke. “Should I have left you, then? A boy plugged into a server? A tool for a digital cult? I could have let you die. I could have left Grace packed in a crate in Guatemala. Should I have? Sal is a member of our team. She is in trouble. Therefore we help. She would do the same for you.”

  Liam pressed his lips together. He picked up a book at random. The pages still smoldered. He dropped the book with a wince.

  “We’re going after her,” Menchú said. “Are there any other objections?”

  Asanti and Grace were silent.

  “Good,” he said. He put another book on a scorched pile.

  “I have more faith in our ability to separate Sal from the demon than I have in our ability to protect her from them right now,” Asanti said. She jabbed her finger at the now-stable ladder by which the men had departed.

  Menchú frowned. “We’re going to have to stay a few steps ahead of Team One. We don’t need another gaping hole to explain.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of One,” Asanti said. Even Liam looked up at the seriousness of her voice. “You know what Team Two will do if they find her.”

  Menchú set his jaw. “So we’ll find her before they do. Liam, Grace, you’re our search party—but I need to have a word with Liam first. Outside of that, I’ll run political interference here. Asanti, see if you can get a fix on Sal with the Orb.”

  Asanti glanced at the precious artifact on her desk. It had a scorch mark on the right side, and looked battered. She rubbed a sleeve across its smooth surface. “I’ll do my best.”