I stared at him, not wanting to believe that my dad was this arrogant lothario. It didn’t match up with the Hiram I’d seen in my dreams. Plus, part of me was desperate to believe that he and my mother had been head over heels in love, and that he’d only had eyes for her. The same part that had waited at the front door of the orphanage, convinced that my parents were coming back for me.
Isn’t that every kid’s dream, to have the perfect parents?
His eyes were starry. “Mind you, Hester was no better. She was an obnoxious overachiever, if you ask me. She didn’t mind stepping on a toe or two, if it meant advancing through the coven. Oh, I had my feet squashed many a time by her, just to gain a brownie point or two,” he went on, slurring slightly. “You hear about these twins who can’t do anything without each other—they finish each other’s sentences and are totally inseparable? Well, Katherine and Hester weren’t like that.”
“They weren’t?” I asked, coaxing him.
“My word, no. You see, Katherine had been eyed for a position on the board of this coven. She was far more gifted that Hester, though not as vocal about it. As soon as Hester heard about it, she scooted her way around Katherine’s back and snatched it for herself. You should have seen the argument! I thought they were going to blow the roof off this place. There were sparks, literal sparks, flying everywhere. I nearly lost an eyebrow trying to get away from it. You know, I asked them both out, and they both rejected me for Hiram. Can you believe that? And then you ask why I hated him so much! Murders aside… well, not murders, I suppose, if he had that curse on him. Poor bastard. What a way to go. She was always a jealous one, that Katherine. But what a peach!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you saying Hester goaded Katherine into doing what she did? Killing her like that?”
“No, certainly not! They might have had their differences, but Hester didn’t deserve to suffer and die like that at all. None of Katherine’s victims did. I’m just saying there was no love between the two of them. They were always sniping and bickering, wandering around these halls with a black cloud above them. We’d always whisper if they were coming and get out of their way.” He cackled and knocked back another half-glass of whiskey sour. Any more and he’d be on the floor. “How strange… I brought you here to question you, and here I am, telling you all of this. How absolutely hilarious!”
I sat in silence, letting the information sink in. Yes, it was coming from a man who was very tipsy, but people always tended to speak the blunt truth when they were drunk. Plus, I could sense honesty coming from him. A swirl of mixed emotions churned in my stomach. It was hard to feel proud of my parents, after hearing all of that, but like Salinger had said, nobody was perfect. They’d had fears and flaws and worries of their own. Somehow, despite the bad image Salinger conveyed, it made them seem more real to me. It made them seem like people I could have understood, instead of a perfect fiction in my head. I love you regardless…
“It says here that the Shiptons are all dead, too. Did Katherine do that?” Santana asked, brandishing the family tree from the folders we’d made. He’d copied them for us before we’d come here.
Salinger nodded. “Killed them in the midst of a violent rampage. Can’t imagine it had much to do with that spell, though. She probably just did it for the”—he hiccupped violently—“and giggles.”
“You’re probably right,” I muttered bitterly.
“You know, I’m so glad we decided to do this. I rarely have the chance to let my hair down,” he said, chuckling. “I’m not normally allowed in here. I’ve got a rap sheet for all the silly stuff I got up to when I was a youth.”
“You understand that reparations will have to be made in the near future, to clear Hiram’s name of any wrongdoing?” I hoped he wasn’t too incapacitated to understand.
Salinger wore a puzzled look. “You’re quite right, Miss Merlin. Reparations will have to be made. Although, before such a thing can proceed, we’ll need absolute proof that what you’ve discovered is true. The coroner seems to think that rune is just a tattoo—we all did. You’ll need to convince the New York Mage Council, and then the Supreme Court of the United Covens of America. I don’t envy you!”
He was right, although the news wasn’t particularly heartening. “But if we could somehow get a confession from someone who was around when it happened…” I said, not even sure where I was going with that thought.
“A confession would be good, though you’d have to get it from Katherine herself, or one of her little minions. And good luck trying that! Until then, dear old Hiram will have to wallow a while longer in the quagmire of his apparent guilt. A confession may be a long time coming. Poor bastard. He doesn’t deserve the bad reputation if he was under a spell. Hell, I’ve done some ridiculous things in the name of love, and nobody put a curse on me.” He giggled into his drink.
“Since we’ve got zero leads in that direction, looks like we’ve still got a lot of work to do before we can clear Hiram’s name,” I muttered, fixing my gaze on Santana.
“Yeah, a hell of a lot of work,” Santana said. “Seems pretty unfair, if you ask me.”
“Life is unfair, my dear,” Salinger replied. “Believe me, I’d be the first to champion Hiram’s innocence, and I’ll offer this new information to the board. However, I know what the old shrews are like. They won’t accept it unless they’ve got the goods to back it up. They’d be crucified if they suddenly overturned their verdict. I mean, they killed the guy, for goodness’ sake—they executed him, even though he maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Think about how that’ll make them look. My word, they’ll be eager to cover it up instead of going about singing his innocence.”
Fear gripped my chest in a vise. Unless we could find considerable evidence to back up what we’d found, nobody would lift a finger to announce Hiram’s innocence—or lack of culpability, at the very least. It would make them all look really bad.
“Well then, if you’re all done here, why don’t I get us some more drinks?” He grinned like an idiot. I would’ve felt bad for putting him in this state if he hadn’t been such a stuck-up asshat when we first arrived. Plus, this was all Santana’s doing.
“That’d be great, but there’s one other thing,” I said.
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”
“I was wondering if you could grant us access to Hiram and Hester’s Grimoire.”
Salinger sighed. “Ah, I’d forgotten about that. Despite it all, those two lovebirds were made for each other. He drove her crazy, and she was way out of his league, but they adored each other like you wouldn’t believe. I think she was the only woman who ever stopped his eye from roving, even if he floundered from time to time. Impulses and whatnot. I don’t believe in that sort of thing, myself. I’m a loyal sort of chap. When I’m with a gal, I’m with a gal. Like superglue! No separating us. Still, I know not everyone can believe in love the way I do.”
Just what we need, Salinger waxing romantic. I’ll never get him to focus!
“Can we see it?” I pressed.
“You know, I’d love to let you have a look at it, so you could see their unconventional love in action. It’s a powerful thing—you can feel it radiating off the pages,” he said wistfully. “However, that’s beyond my control. It’s stored in the Special Collections reading room, but you’ll have to file an application and prepare for an interview and jump through about a million hoops before anyone will let you within ten feet of that book.” He paused, a smirk spreading across his face. “Do you know, I shouldn’t have even told you that. That’s the trouble with alcohol: it slithers in and turns your brain to jelly. Brain, arms, legs, everything! Ah well, you won’t tell anyone I said anything, will you?”
I smiled sweetly. “No, of course not. Like you say… alcohol, eh?”
“Exactly!”
So, the Grimoire was in Special Collections. We had the location, but that didn’t give us any feasible way of getting in there to have a look at it. Magical bu
reaucracy, the great big thorn in my side. Even so, I wasn’t about to let something as insignificant as red tape stop us from seeing the Grimoire. I needed to touch it, to use my Empathy to sense my parents’ emotions. My soul ached to feel close to them, even just for a moment.
“Could you show us where the Special Collections room is, on our way out?”
He pondered my request for a moment. “I don’t see why not. Let’s have a guided tour! You’re new here, and this place is nothing if not impressive. Although, personally, the gothic touch is not to my taste. I like a warmer color palette.”
“A guided tour sounds like a great idea.” I smiled sweetly. “Should we head upstairs then?”
“Yes indeedy. If you’d all form an orderly line and follow me, we can get out of this hellhole with time to spare. Oh, I wish I had a flag, so I could wave it and you’d know where I was,” he said, giggling as he turned around and left the bar.
“So, what’s the plan?” Santana whispered, while we followed.
“Can you create a diversion while I duck into the Special Collections reading room? I only need a couple of minutes,” I begged, unashamed of the pleading note in my voice. “I need this. I can’t leave without at least touching it.”
She smiled. “It’s important to you, huh?”
“Very important.”
“Then how can I refuse?” she said. “I’ll create the best damn diversion the magical East Coast has ever seen. Although, we’ll have to make sure that we don’t get caught, obviously.”
I grinned at her. “Obviously.”
Twenty-One
Santana
Giddy from all the drinks I’d plied him with, Salinger took us on the promised tour of the New York Coven. He was well and truly out of it, chattering on like nobody’s business.
“Now, here on my left you’ll find the repositories. I don’t like to go in there much, since I don’t have that big of a need for spells and the like. Books and essays are more my speed. I don’t think there’s anything in the world that you can’t find in a book. All of this is extraneous,” Salinger explained, his words slurring a hell of a lot. He was swaying, too. I’d had to reach out a couple of times on the spiral staircase to stop him from keeling over. How the guy had managed to get so tipsy in such a short span of time was beyond me. Then again, I had been giving him double measures and chasers to go with them. Oops.
As we walked along, Harley and I kept exchanging glances. We’d agreed to come up with a diversion so Harley could get a shot at checking out her parents’ Grimoire. How hard could that be with a wayward audience like this?
“Are we close to Special Collections?” Harley asked. Meanwhile, I was wondering where everyone else was. We hadn’t passed too many people on our guided tour, which led me to believe we were in a fusty wing of the coven that nobody liked to visit. Good for us, though.
Salinger waved a hand down the corridor. “Two doors up, but you simply must come in here and take a look at the Global Library. I bet you’ve never seen anything like it, not if you’ve come from the San Diego Coven, anyway. That place is a dump compared to New York. We’ve got every book of global mythology you could ever hope to find, all under this one roof.” He chuckled to himself. “There are artifacts and ancient Esprits from bygone eras. There are so many wondrous things behind these doors.”
This was the moment to start diverting. Come on, Santana, let’s show this ninny what the San Diego bunch are really made of. Reaching within myself, I urged my Orishas to come to my aid. I turned my back to Salinger for a moment—not that he was looking. The guy was fixated on his beloved books.
The Orishas rose up inside me, that familiar cold-and-hot feeling pulsing through my veins, like putting icy hands in front of a fierce fire. My palms burned blue, and I knew my eyes would be doing the same. They whispered all around me, the spirits asking what I wanted of them. Focusing on their multitude of voices, I mentally explained what I needed them to do for me. My Orishas could cast identical images of people, but the facsimiles couldn’t speak or hold a solid form. Not that that’s going to matter, with Captain Chatterbox over there. He’ll be glad nobody’s interrupting his pompous ass.
Two whorls of blue light twisted up from my palms and landed close behind Salinger with a puff of azure sparks. A trickle of sweat dripped down my spine. This was going to take a lot out of me, but it would be worth it to keep the boozehound busy. He’d already stepped into the Global Library, gaping into the room beyond with his back to us. Perfect.
The forms took shape, imitating Harley and me. I nodded to my friend, urging her to hide behind something. She darted into the shadow of a suit of armor, while I stepped into one of the creepy alcoves that lined the hallway.
“Well, don’t dither in the corridor, come on in! I have a world of merry wonders to show you, ladies. You’ll certainly appreciate what this place has to offer,” Salinger said, beckoning for the imitations to follow him. He paused in front of the door and murmured, “Da nobis accessum,” before disappearing inside. The imitations did as they were told, my Orishas controlling them as they dutifully followed. A mental link existed between me and the spirits in charge of the facsimiles, so I’d know what they were up to while we were busy.
Not wanting to waste a moment, in case Salinger suddenly got hit with a dose of clarity, Harley and I hurried along the hallway to the room marked “Special Collections.” It didn’t look any different than the other doorways, but the energy within felt instantly more powerful. The items inside here were valuable, I could tell.
Harley turned to me. “Did you hear what he said?”
I nodded. “Da nobis accessum.”
She put her hands on the doorknob and repeated the words. Something clicked, the door opening wide. Not wasting a moment, Harley ducked into the room. I lingered a second longer on the threshold, looking up and down the corridor to make sure there was nobody else around. Satisfied that we were alone, I followed Harley inside.
“Orishas, warn me if someone is coming,” I whispered.
We will stand sentinel for you, Santana, they replied, their voices echoing in my head. There was something kind of soothing about the way they spoke to me in unison.
Crossing the threshold, I felt a strange throb of Chaos energy, letting me know there were some magical defenses in place. Considering no alarms had gone off yet, I figured these measures were there to stop anyone from taking items from inside the Special Collections vault—like a tag being put on certain books in a city library to stop them from being taken out, only way more powerful.
The Special Collections reading room had definitely been done up by the same person who’d designed the rest of the New York Coven. Thin windows of jeweled stained glass showed glimpses of Central Park, while a cavernous ceiling of dark gray granite curved to an apex above us. A gothic chandelier of bronze and silver cast its light downward. One long table stretched the entire way up the room, with the bookshelves and stacks tucked away to the sides. Halfway down, a staircase led up to a second floor, which held even more shelves of intense leather-bound tomes alongside a handful of desks with emerald-green reading lamps.
“You know, I’m starting to wonder about this place. This whole Coven would be enough to turn anyone a bit batty, old Katie Shipton included,” I muttered. The room was, thankfully, empty. “I’d say it encourages a sort of murder-and-mayhem vibe, don’t you think?”
“I was just thinking that,” Harley replied, as she moved across to the first stack of books. The room wasn’t particularly big, but we didn’t have a lot of time to scan through everything. Even to a drunk guy who liked the sound of his own voice, the imitations would start to look a little off soon enough.
“Should we get started?”
Harley nodded. “Let’s take a side each. We’ll cover more ground that way.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
I moved over to the opposite side of the room and started to search. By the time I reached the end of the right-hand w
all of books, it became clear that Hester and Hiram’s Grimoire wasn’t in here. The shelves were labeled weirdly by content, with related Grimoires intermingled with ordinary tomes. The Merlins’ book didn’t seem to be anywhere. We had no idea what sort of content it contained, which made things a little trickier.
Harley seemed to have come to the same conclusion. I could hear her muttering angrily under her breath as she ran her fingertip along every dusty spine. Magic brimmed from the Grimoires, setting my remaining Orishas on edge. These weren’t dangerous ones, from what I could sense, but they were still majorly powerful.
Drawn by the staircase to the smaller second floor, I walked up the black-iron steps until I reached the platform above. This part of the Special Collections room was more of a study than anything else, a place for peace and quiet. The heavy stone walls seemed to deaden any sound coming in, rejecting even the slightest whisper of noise. Creepy, creepy, and even more creepy.
“It’s not here!” Harley’s muffled voice barked from below. I leaned over the balcony of the weird study-cum-platform to look at her.
“No luck?”
She glanced up at me and shook her head. “It’s not on any of these shelves. They’ve got a few Grimoires, but none of them belong to my parents. Do you think they might have locked it away somewhere else? They thought my dad was a murderer, so it makes sense that they’d want to keep it away from snooping eyes. Although, we don’t know what’s in it, so maybe not.” She grunted. “But then, why would Salinger have said it was in here?”
Harley Merlin 3: Harley Merlin and the Stolen Magicals Page 21