by Jim C. Hines
The JG-367 was the pinnacle of military magic, a wand mounted on a handgun’s grip, fully programmable through its cutting-edge touch-telepathy interface. The wand was titanium, infused with more than twenty firing modes, including sleep spells, transformation, and temporary or permanent petrification. More importantly, this new model included an exorcism mode, capable of tearing spirits and demons from their human hosts and trapping them in a sphere of magical energy.
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GERBERT D’AURILLAC HAD USED not the spring constellations, but the winter. Canis Major, Orion, Ursa Minor¸ Draco . . . each revealed another piece of his message. The name Meridiana was worked into the poem, along with Anna. The next word I found was paeniteo, which meant repent. The names made sense. The significance of repentance was less clear. Was d’Aurillac asking for forgiveness, or commanding Meridiana to confess and atone for her sins?
Shadow. Bridge. Spirit. The constellation of Gemini, the twins, revealed the name Gerbertus twice, but the second was spelled backward. I stared at that for a time, trying to understand. Was the duplication a play on the image of the twins? And why backward? Twins weren’t mirror images of one another, any more than Otto III and Anna had been.
Goose bumps spread up my arms. What if the poem itself was the mirror? Then d’Aurillac’s reflection was whoever found and deciphered this poem. I crossed out the letters of the reversed name and inserted my own.
Gutenberg and Lena walked into the room. I took one look and jumped to my feet. “What happened?”
Gutenberg tossed my holstered shock-gun through the air. “Put that on.”
He carried a sword, a short, thick-bladed weapon with a flared pommel and a simple S-shaped guard. A Katzbalger, if I remembered my history correctly. The blade was made of a dull gray metal. Tiny lines of black text were etched along the edges. He scanned the room, then sheathed his sword.
Lena’s twin bokken had flattened into wooden blades, sharp and strong as the best steel. “Jeneta is in Chicago. They attacked Nicola’s home.”
The chairs by the computer were empty. “Where’s Nicola?”
“Bathroom,” Lena said. “Gutenberg won’t let her leave. The friend who was taking care of her animals called a few minutes ago. When he showed up today, he found four of them dead and the rest escaped.”
“Oh, no.” Nicola’s chupacabras and the hybrids she crossbred with poodles were as dear to her as family. They were also dangerous as hell. For someone to take down four of them . . .
“How close are you to deciphering the spell?” asked Gutenberg.
“I’ve got most of it worked out. The next step is to update it with the current constellations.” Starting with the keywords, then working those letters into the proper patterns. “I’ll need another day to finish the poem. Maybe two. As for infusing it with magic and retrieving the sphere—”
“You complete the poem. I’ll perform the magic,” he said.
It made sense. Gutenberg knew more about libriomancy than anyone, and given my lack of magic, it wasn’t as though I could do it myself. But logic did nothing to stop the crush of disappointment that someone else would finish my work.
“We’re out of time.” Nidhi hurried out carrying Smudge’s cage in one hand. Nicola followed a moment later. Nicola’s face was dry, but she was fidgeting more than normal, and she wouldn’t look at anyone.
Inside the cage, Smudge was blazing away. I adjusted my shock-gun to level six, which should be enough to make even a sandworm from Dune decide to go elsewhere.
Gutenberg gathered the books from the table, shoving them into a brown carpet bag that should have been far too small to hold them all. “Juan?” he shouted. “Sorry to cut your shower short, but we may be receiving guests.”
Nicola slid into her customary place in front of the computers and began pulling up what looked like video feeds from the building’s perimeter. “One of the cameras is damaged.” She turned the monitor off and on again. “Wait, it’s not the camera. The screen is partially burnt out.”
“Where?” Nidhi looked over Nicola’s shoulder. “I don’t see it.”
“Second monitor from the right. The entire top-left quadrant is blacked out.”
I moved to join them, anxiety worming through my gut. I pointed to an irregular blob of dead pixels. “You can’t see that?”
Nidhi shook her head.
If this was what I thought it was, I shouldn’t have been able to see it either. It looked like black-and-gray smoke had seeped into the screen. Lighter gray circles bulged and popped, as if the plastic was melting. “Is that—”
“Char, yes.” Gutenberg touched the corner of the screen with one hand and jumped back as if it had given him an electric shock.
Magical charring was invisible to mundanes. “Are you using magic in your network?”
Nicola shook her head. “Low-level security, nothing more.”
“Get away from it.” Ponce de Leon raced out of the bathroom. He had thrown on a pair of trousers without bothering to dry himself.
“The manifestation reminds me of a report Isaac filed about his first encounter with one of Meridiana’s ghosts,” said Gutenberg. “In an abandoned warehouse in Detroit. I believe you called them ‘devourers.’”
“We had to drop the whole building on that thing to stop it,” Lena said. “I’d prefer to not go through that again. Especially with us inside the building.”
Gutenberg stepped around the bar and began yanking power cables from the battery-powered surge protectors. The screens flickered and died, but the ashen stain continued to grow.
“Whatever they are, they’re searching.” Ponce de Leon gripped his cane in one hand. With his other, he slicked his wet hair back from his face.
“They?” asked Nicola.
“I can hear others throughout the city. If we use magic to fight them, we’ll give our position away to Meridiana.”
“Excuse me,” said Gutenberg. Nicola surrendered her seat, and he sat down to examine the spreading char. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gold fountain pen.
My mouth went dry. The sight of the pen brought back memories of magical cold, of losing myself to Meridiana and her ghosts. I remembered the sharp pressure of that pen against my skin. The tip had felt like it was cutting my skull, slicing through the bone, though it hadn’t left a visible mark. When he pulled it away, he had taken my magic with it.
“Isaac?” Nidhi touched my elbow.
“I’m all right.” I unclenched my hands and took a deep, slow breath. “How many are there?”
Ponce de Leon shook his head. “Dozens. This one is exploring a hundred computers and phones in this building alone. They know we’re in the area, and I suspect even the residual magic in your network is enough to attract attention.”
“We knew this location was temporary.” Gutenberg pressed the pen to the monitor and began to write. I couldn’t make out the words. “Anything?”
“Whatever it is, it’s still coming through. I believe it has abandoned its assault on the other residences, however.” Ponce de Leon pointed his cane toward the monitor. “Step aside, mi corazón.”
I couldn’t see what he did, but a web of cracks spread from the center of the screen. He stabbed his cane forward, and the screen bowed inward like a trampoline with a weight in the center. The invisible weight sank deeper, though the cane never appeared to touch the screen. The smoke and ash began to slide inward, pulled into whatever mystical singularity Ponce de Leon was creating.
Gutenberg tucked his pen away and drew his sword. He ran one finger over the flat of the blade. The text in the metal responded to his touch, letters rearranging themselves along the edge. He extended the tip and cut sharply down and to the right,
slashing a rift through the air in front of the monitor. Flame flickered from the edges, and the smell of sulfur drifted into the room.
“Ready?” asked Ponce de Leon.
Gutenberg cut a second line across the first, opening an X. Triangles of reality flapped like flags, offering glimpses into a cavern of burning, dripping rock. “Bring it through.”
Ponce de Leon spun, yanking his cane with both hands like a fisherman reeling his catch into the boat. The monitor exploded, and a creature of glass and ash and electricity flew out, directly into whatever hellgate Gutenberg had opened.
He sheathed his sword, and the rift vanished, taking the devourer with it. Bits of broken glass and plastic fell to the floor.
Ponce de Leon flashed Gutenberg a lopsided smile. Gutenberg raised two fingers to his brow in salute. Neither one was even breathing hard.
I looked at Lena, remembering what it had taken for the two of us to destroy one of those things.
She folded her arms and asked, “Where can the rest of us get swords like that?”
I shoved the printed constellations and the rest of my notes into an old leather briefcase, along with a Latin dictionary. Gerbert d’Aurillac’s poem and my initial efforts to update it were folded and crammed into my rear pocket. I didn’t want to keep everything in one place, just in case Meridiana got her hands on the briefcase. Or on me.
Nicola was singing 80s techno to the computers. Each one sparked and smoked in response to what I assumed was a musical self-destruct command.
I clipped Smudge’s cage to my belt and looked around. Lena had taken up sentry duty at the door. Nidhi was ready and waiting, watching nervously out one of the windows. Given the nature of our arrival, the three of us didn’t have much to pack.
Gutenberg was another matter. This was his home. He had emptied almost a quarter of the shelves, and was tossing more into his bottomless carpet bag. He moved too quickly for me to see which titles he chose to save, though the Gerbert d’Aurillac manuscript was one of the first ones he took.
The telltale whoosh of a spider bursting into flames made me jump. The fiberglass lining on the side protected my jeans, but I had to hold my arm away to avoid burning my hand or wrist.
“We need to go, Johannes.” Ponce de Leon joined Lena at the door and peered into the hallway.
Gutenberg looked at the remaining books on the shelves and sighed. “Nicola, please let the other Regional Masters know this location has been compromised.” His sheathed sword bounced against his hip as he hefted his carpet bag and strode toward the door. “The elevator is to the left, ladies and gentlemen.”
We were halfway down the hallway when I noticed Smudge’s reaction. “Stop!”
“What is it?” asked Lena.
“The closer we get to the elevators, the hotter Smudge burns.”
Ponce de Leon jogged ahead. “He’s right. There’s a great deal of magic coming up over here.” He touched the doors to both elevators. A series of electronic chimes rang out. “I’ve shut one down. The other is on its way. The ghosts are blocking my efforts to stop them, but I’ll do what I can.”
Gutenberg pulled his sword. “Lena, would you assist me, please?”
I followed them to the elevator, where Lena wrenched open the doors. Gutenberg leaned out to press his blade against the moving cables.
“Wait,” said Nidhi. “What if there are innocent people inside?”
“Nothing in that elevator qualifies as ‘people’ anymore,” Ponce de Leon said quietly.
The text on Gutenberg’s blade burned orange, and individual filaments of twisted steel cable began to snap. He pressed harder, slicing through the rest like flame through ice. A deafening screech echoed up the elevator shaft. The emergency mechanisms on the car would prevent it from falling, but it wasn’t climbing anymore, either.
Ponce de Leon dug his fingers into the edge of the carpet in front of the elevator and peeled it back. “Lena, I could use your magic here.”
They conferred together, and moments later, a thick tangle of black tendrils began to rise from the floor. It reminded me of cotton candy, if cotton candy came in tar flavor.
“Mold,” said Ponce de Leon. “Strengthened with Lena’s power as well as my own. It won’t stop them from climbing up the elevator shaft, but it should give us an additional minute or two.”
“If any of Meridiana’s thugs have asthma, it might scare them off completely.” I heard pounding from within the elevator shaft, along with the ring of an alarm. A particularly loud thump echoed through the building, and the alarm went dead.
“Stairs?” I wasn’t looking forward to descending thirty-plus stories on foot.
“They’ll have someone on the ground to watch the stairs as well.” Gutenberg’s sleeve was ripped and bloody. The metal strands must have lashed out like whips. One side of his face was bleeding, and his ear was torn.
His magic started to heal the damage as I watched. The gouge down his face zipped together, leaving a single line of blood. He noticed me staring and grimaced. “It still hurts like hell.”
“Take the stairs,” said Nicola. “Get out on the second floor, break into one of the apartments, and go out through the window.”
Gutenberg nodded and hurried past, leading us toward the end of the hallway.
A door opened behind us. I spun, one hand going to my shock-gun as an older man peered out and shouted, “What the devil is going on out here?”
“Emergency drill, Mr. Bennett.” Gutenberg strode past the door toward the stairs. “Best to stay inside. Things will soon quiet down, one way or another.”
Another door opened. Gutenberg sighed. “Juan?”
Ponce de Leon tapped his cane on the floor. Mr. Bennett yelped as the door swung shut in his face. Up and down the hallway, I heard deadbolts click into place.
Gutenberg pushed open the door to the stairs, peered down, and swore. “They’re coming up. Back to the apartment.”
“We could do that newt thing again,” I suggested.
“That’s unlikely to work this time,” said Ponce de Leon. “Particularly now that Johannes and I have vanquished one of her devourers. She knows we’re here. If she can’t find us, she might decide to destroy the entire building to prevent us from escaping.”
Once we were back inside Gutenberg’s apartment, Lena shut the door, locked it, and sank her fingers into the wood. Roots began to grow into the frame and the walls.
Gutenberg and Ponce de Leon were arguing in low tones. Gutenberg glanced at me long enough to say, “I believe the window now offers our best escape. Isaac, if you would?”
I fired the shock-gun, leaving a smoldering hole in the curtains and an empty frame with bits of jagged, semi-molten glass dropping from the edges.
Gutenberg tilted his head to one side. “Dramatic, but effective.” He reached into his carpet bag to produce an umbrella with a carved head in the shape of a parrot.
“That’s from Mary Poppins,” I said. “I knew I recognized that bag!”
“The umbrella’s magic should carry us safely to the street, so long as everyone holds tight.”
“Will it support all of our weight?” asked Lena.
“That won’t be an issue. The umbrella’s magic creates a field of near-weightlessness.” Gutenberg yanked open the curtains. “Poppins wasn’t clinging for dear life as she flew about, after all.”
“There are people on the street,” said Nidhi. “I can’t tell whether they’re with Meridiana or if they’re trying to see why lightning just shot out of somebody’s window.”
I looked past her. “How close is the nearest automaton? We could try to set up an ambush, or they could teleport us away . . .” I trailed off when I saw the grim expression on Ponce de Leon’s face.
“He doesn’t feel them,” said Gutenberg.
“Doesn’t feel what?” I asked.
“The Ghost Army.” Ponce de Leon traced a symbol onto the door with his cane. “If Meridiana had simply brought the same handful of
warriors she had in Rome, we might have a chance. But the presence of additional ghosts complicates both our defenses and our escape. Teleportation is dangerous at the best of times, but I’d risk it now if not for the ghosts. The slightest interference, and we could end up rematerializing in the sun or scattered across a three-mile stretch. Assuming we reappeared at all.”
“And what stops the ghosts from sucking the magic from that umbrella and dropping us in mid-flight?” I did my best to match their calm, though I suspect I failed.
Ponce de Leon twirled his cane. “Me.”
Gutenberg opened the umbrella and approached the window. “There’s a parking garage across the road, close enough for us to reach.”
Something smashed against the door. Books fell from the shelves, and dishes rattled in the kitchen cabinets.
“Television!” Lena shouted.
Ponce de Leon spun toward the flat-screen, which had begun to bulge outward. He pinned the struggling, partially-formed devourer in place with his cane. “Johannes?”
Gutenberg pulled a book from his back pocket, opened it one-handed, sank his thumb into the text, and tossed the book to Ponce de Leon, who caught it and thrust it into the screen. Creature and television both imploded into nothingness.
Ponce de Leon touched the end of his cane and grimaced. “Almost took the tip with it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gutenberg. “Next time I’ll look for a gentler black hole. Now get over here.”
We each grabbed the umbrella’s handle, pressing together like we were part of the world’s weirdest maypole dance. Lena kicked shards of cooling glass from the window frame. People were shouting and pointing from the ground below.
“Don’t look,” Nidhi whispered.
I nodded and held tighter.
Wind filled the apartment, rustling fallen books and tugging the umbrella. Then, as if we were standing on an invisible platform, we rose gently out the window.
“Here they come,” said Ponce de Leon. “Brace yourselves.”
The instant we were out of reach of the building, we dipped like an airplane hitting turbulence. I wrapped both hands around the handle. I didn’t know which was worse, the potential fall or the fact that I was helpless to do anything about it.