“I’ll meet you outside.”
“How long until the rest get here?”
“Sal just called. She said a half hour.”
“I hope it’s enough time.”
She heard the howl through Liam’s phone first. Then in the hallway outside her door.
“Run,” she told Liam.
“I already am.”
4.
“I think we’re going the wrong way,” Sal said.
“I’m only going the wrong way because you told me to,” Grace said, turning the car around.
“I’m sorry I can’t read Russian,” Sal said.
“Not as sorry as I am,” Grace said. “We should have sent you instead of Liam so I could read the map.”
“Or you could let me drive for once,” Sal said.
“Not on your life,” Grace said.
“Now, now,” Menchú said.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I miss him,” Grace said.
“That’s better,” Menchú said.
“At least as a driver. Or navigator. Or as a person on the team who can read Russian, unlike Sal.”
Menchú sighed. We really are his children sometimes, Sal thought, and turned it over in her mind. Saw, in many ways, how that was a good thing. Without Liam and Asanti, they could limp along. But missions ran better when they were together, even if all they needed was someone to read the signage in a language Sal didn’t know.
“Here,” she said, and pointed to the gate on the side of the road.
“Is that them?” Grace said.
Asanti, Liam, and Frances stood in front of a grotesque, brutalist building, waving. They didn’t look happy. Grace pulled up next to them.
“We’re late because of her,” Grace said, pointing to Sal.
“There’s no time for this,” Asanti said. “Leave the car here. We want it to be in one piece.”
The rest of Team Three got out of the car.
“What are we dealing with?”
Asanti described what they had seen: the strange occurrences at the hotel, the creature she and Frances had fought in the hallway, what Kapos had told them.
Grace shrugged. “Doesn’t sound so hard.”
“Well,” Liam said, “you should see the hotel right now.”
They could hear a din of voices and breaking wood as they approached the complex. The lobby doors had been knocked out. Inside, the lobby furniture was whirling through the air, as though caught in a cyclone. Conference-goers and hotel staff cowered behind the counter or lay flat out on the floor. In the middle of the room, the ashen man Frances had seen earlier stood with his hands out, cackling with pleasure.
Grace looked grumpy. “I fly all this way for this?” she said. Before anyone else could move, she dodged through the flying furniture in a blur and stopped right next to the man, cocked her arm back, and punched him square in the face four times. His head jerked, his knees buckled, and he flopped to the floor. The furniture crashed with him, splintering against the marble floor.
“Who’s next?” Grace said.
But the gremlin wasn’t unconscious. He gathered just enough strength to let out an ear-splitting scream, of pain and anger and warning, before Grace stomped on his face and put him out. For the briefest moment, there was only the sound of something small and metal rolling across the lobby floor, a piece that had come loose from something when it fell. Then they could hear windy, elemental howls from five different directions, gathering force as they approached. Gusts of air blew in from the hallways, and then there they were, the other five, the gray woman in front. They were all still in human form. Maybe just so they could make it clear how angry they were.
“This is our kingdom,” the gray woman snarled. “Our kingdom for three days.”
“You won’t have much of a kingdom now that you’ve trashed this place,” Liam said.
“To drive you out!” the gray woman said. “You don’t belong here. You know nothing of magic. You haven’t for centuries, since you drove your wizards away. Beat them down, my brothers and sisters.” The four ashen people around her slipped into other shapes, duplicates of the thing that had chased Frances down the hall. They all jumped for Grace at once, were on her in a pack as the gray woman spread out her hands. She started to lift the jagged debris of the furniture into the air.
“Sal, Asanti,” Menchú said, and nodded toward the woman. Liam was already running to help Grace, who had knocked out one of the gremlins by throwing it against the floor but was still wrestling with the other three. Menchú followed Liam.
Asanti turned to Frances. “Hit the floor,” she said.
“Not a chance,” Frances said. She joined Sal and Asanti, and they made a running leap for the gray woman. A chair bouncing off the floor caught Frances in the side and she toppled. Sal and Asanti kept going. On the other side of the room, Menchú and Liam had pried one of the gremlins off of Grace and Liam punched it until it gave up. With only two creatures left, Grace got one in each hand just as Sal and Asanti reached the woman and knocked her over. Grace smashed the two gremlins together until both lost consciousness. She dropped them on the floor.
“Haven’t done that in a while,” she said.
Sal and Asanti had the gray woman pinned.
“Tell us what you meant,” Asanti said to the woman. “What wizards?”
The woman smirked.
“What wizards?” Asanti said again.
The gray woman broke into laughter and started to change shape.
“Oh, screw this,” Sal said, and punched her out.
5.
“The Thaumatological Symposium did not get its security deposit back,” Yolanda said. “Citing the extensive damage to the lobby, the management said that they would never allow us to come back for as long as the resort complex existed. They’d like us to check out as soon as possible.”
Kapos’s hotel room, again. Kapos shook his head. Three of the gremlins, again in human form, sat on the bed. Grace stood near the door, arms folded. Asanti and Menchú looked at each other.
“We can’t keep running the conference like this,” Kapos said.
“But you still need us,” the gray man said. “Who will hide the magic you conduct from the sight of others? Who will protect you from the bigger demons?”
“Your protection,” Kapos said, “isn’t worth it. Not anymore. Not for the damage you cause. Besides, we’d have to keep the Society on call, in case anything goes awry.”
Grace nodded at the gremlins on the bed.
“We have history,” the gray woman said. “We’ve been coming here for years.”
“And yet,” Yolanda says, “in light of your behavior the past few years, none of that seems to matter.”
The gremlins shifted uncomfortably.
“We were just having fun,” the gray man said.
“People got hurt,” Yolanda said.
“But they’re okay now.”
“Don’t belittle the pain you’ve caused. Our current plan, if you don’t give us any alternative, is to ban you for life,” Yolanda said.
At this the gray man looked upset. He didn’t seem to be able to speak.
“He needs this conference,” the gray woman said. She drew herself up, looking defiant. “He doesn’t have tenure yet. How dare you threaten his livelihood?”
“Spare me your fake indignation,” Yolanda said.
“It’s not fake,” the gray man spat.
“Well, it’s not justified, either,” Yolanda said.
“There’s no other way to fix this but being banned?” the gray woman said.
Kapos pursed his lips. “Well,” he said. “We could agree to a code of conduct of some sort.”
“You’re treating us like we’re pariahs already,” the gray man said.
“No more explosions,” Yolanda said. “No more equipment meltdowns, or setting off the sprinklers, or trashing the lobby. No more chasing people through the halls. No more maulings.”
“Or what?�
� the gray man said.
“Or you’re banned,” Kapos said.
“But first,” Grace said, “they’ll call us to clean up again.”
The gremlins looked at the hard faces around the room. Their anger was visible.
“This is an outrage,” the gray man said.
“Good,” Yolanda says. “We’ll draw up the paperwork.”
• • •
Team Three had two cars to make the long drive back to Moscow. Sal, Liam, and Menchú took one. Asanti, Frances, and Grace took the other—they spent most of the ride out of the Russian countryside in relative quiet, enjoying the silence. Grace drove. Asanti was in the passenger seat; Frances in back.
“Is this more than you asked for?” Asanti said eventually.
“Are you talking to me?” Frances said.
Grace snickered a little.
“Yes,” Asanti said.
“If I’m honest,” Frances answered, “yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Asanti said. “I didn’t think the conference would be like this. Though in retrospect, I suppose I should have known better.”
“You asked me if it was more than I asked for. Not if it was more than I could handle,” Frances said.
“You did handle it,” Asanti said. “Very well.”
“Well enough to continue being the assistant to the archivist at the Black Archives?” Frances said.
“Better than that. I just wish we were closer to knowing what happened to Team Four. All I have is that rumor, a rumor that is almost a cliché, of hikers coming across a mountain village in Poland in the 1800s. Not enough to be a real lead. Especially given the time that passed between their disappearance and that rumor.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Frances said, “in the context of a panel I went to about magic and time. One of the panelists had a theory about how magic could change time. Not let you go forward or backward in it, at least not in any controlled way. But it could let you come … unglued from time. Like Rip Van Winkle. Or maybe the opposite of Rip Van Winkle, if you weren’t careful. It was all theoretical, but it got me thinking. Have you ever encountered anything like that?”
“No,” Asanti said.
Grace kept her eyes on the road.
Frances leaned forward. “But say it’s possible. Say you could figure out how to unglue yourself from time. Why not something else? An inanimate object? Or, well, a place?”
“How big a place?” Asanti said.
“I asked,” Frances said. “Again, it’s only theoretical, but if someone really knew what they were doing, the place could be quite large.”
“A house?”
“A village. Or a city. Maybe the entire planet, if there was enough magic, and the people using it were strong enough.”
“The entire planet sounds far-fetched,” Asanti said.
“Sure,” Frances said. “The point, though, was that the possibilities are wide open. Which means that maybe Team Four didn’t disappear—they’re just hiding. And not just hiding somewhere, but somewhen.”
“Which means we can never find them,” Asanti said. “At least not in my lifetime.”
“Or mine,” Frances said.
“Unless …” Asanti said.
“The Orb can help us?” Frances said.
“It’s just an idea,” Asanti said.
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“I think it’s possible that if Team Four made the Orb, then we might be able to use it to follow them.”
“You mean it could take us where—or when—they’re hiding,” Frances said.
“It’s worth thinking about,” Asanti said. “Definitely worth thinking about.”
Grace didn’t say a word.
• • •
Asanti sat at her desk with the Orb’s manual, poring over a page. She understood the words on it, but it was difficult to tell how to translate that knowledge to working the Orb. They needed time, and tools. The space to tinker. Just as they had repaired and restored the Archives themselves, she thought, they now needed to repair and restore the Orb as they had never done before.
“Can we talk?”
Asanti looked up. It was Menchú.
“Of course,” Asanti said.
“I just spoke with Monsignor Fox.”
“Why? He doesn’t have much jurisdiction over you, does he?”
“He is unhappy about us opening the door to Team Four’s laboratory.”
“But think of what we have already learned,” Asanti said. She could feel the excitement rising in her, and let it bubble to the surface. “And if we are careful and clever—”
“Careful, yes,” Menchú said, cutting her off. “Which you haven’t been. I don’t like to bring this up, but once again I feel I have to remind you—”
“Of what?” Asanti said, cutting him off right back. “That I haven’t been touched by tragedy because of magic? Because I didn’t destroy the place I was from, as you did? Because I wasn’t possessed by demons, like Sal and Liam? Because I am not a slave to a candle? No, none of those things have happened to me. But I have seen my life’s work shredded before my eyes. I have seen all of you, my dear friends, brought far too close to death. Isn’t that enough? Arturo, I am proposing we learn to use magic to our advantage because of these things, not despite them. Some magic does not go mad. We know it, even if we haven’t seen it. Why shouldn’t we aspire to try to use it, when we know we’ll use it in the right way, and for the right reasons?”
“Because there are no right reasons, Asanti,” Menchú said. “I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s true.”
“Why are you sorry?” Asanti said. “I don’t have to take orders from you, remember? Or do I have to remind you of that?”
“You don’t. Just as I don’t have to remind you that I will report you if I have to,” Menchú said.
Anger flashed through Asanti. She quelled it.
“Right now,” she said, “I’m only reading a book.”
Menchú looked annoyed. She didn’t care. She waited until he left, then called Frances over.
“Did he threaten to report you?” Frances said.
“Yes.”
“So what are we doing?”
Asanti looked at the cover of the book on the desk in front of her.
“We’re going ahead,” she said, “like we said we would.”
Bookburners
Season 2, Episode 4
Ghosts
Margaret Dunlap
1.
When Grace’s candle was out, the others said that she was “asleep.” But it was nothing like sleep. Grace did not dream. When consciousness returned, she was not granted a groggy transition to the waking world; she had no active subconscious to blur and ease the hard edges of reality. In a leap that would have made Descartes proud, one moment Grace was not, and then she was.
It was dark—pre-dawn, she guessed, from the quality of the sounds coming through her drawn shutters. Grace blinked to clear her eyes; sometimes they didn’t quite close, and got dry and dusty.
“What’s going on?” she asked, trying to bring the room into focus.
Asanti said, “I wanted to ask you something.”
Grace immediately sat up, eyes finally confirming what her ears had told her. What is Asanti doing here? What have I missed this time? “What happened? Where’s Menchú?”
“Nothing’s happened. He’s fine,” said Asanti.
In a heartbeat, confusion and fear turned to irritation. “Is this an emergency?”
“No—”
“Then ask me later.” Grace closed her eyes, reached back, and pinched out the candle flame that had brought her to life for no purpose other than Asanti’s curiosity.
She had time to think, Ten seconds gone, before there was nothing.
Grace had no sense of time when it passed without her, but she didn’t think more than a few seconds could have elapsed before she was once again looking up at Asanti’s concerned face. Asanti’s clothes hadn’t cha
nged. The light, or lack thereof, from outside was the same. Her own eyes were still clear and moist. “I’m sorry,” Asanti said.
Grace sighed. Telling her to apologize later and put out the candle again would clearly be counterproductive, quicker just to hear her out. But the next time they were all in transit together… oh, the two of them would have words about using her time without permission.
“What do you want?” asked Grace.
“I’m sorry,” Asanti repeated. “I know your time is precious. But I need to ask you something, and I wanted to be sure that we could be alone.”
Grace raised an eyebrow.
“If you could live normally again, without the candle, would you still want to?”
“What kind of question is that? Do you think I would have chosen to tie my life to a candle?” Grace rose to her feet in outrage.
“No, but this is the life that you’ve been given. I’ve watched you over the years. You’ve become accustomed to living with it.” Asanti stopped just short of touching her with a placating hand. Good choice.
Grace felt sick to her stomach. She did not want to have this conversation. Roads not taken were better left unmapped. She wanted to put out her candle, end this now, but she had a feeling that was the kind of reaction Asanti was talking about. What normal person was so matter-of-fact about extinguishing their consciousness? “What are you talking about? I’m still—I’m still a person.”
Asanti spoke gently. “Of course you are. But you used to worry about getting hurt as if you had a normal body. You don’t anymore. Your situation is not ideal, but I didn’t want to assume that you would want to give it up.”
The feeling in Grace’s stomach shifted again, into an emotion she had not known in a very long time. “Is this a hypothetical question, or have you found something?”
“Not yet. But Angiuli’s approval to look for a way to fix the Orb opens the door for the Society to take a more proactive stance toward magic and magical phenomena in general.” Asanti’s eyes shone with the possibilities. “Now I can go on the offensive. I can look in earnest for a way to cure your condition, not just hope to stumble across a miracle as we do our job. But if you’d rather I didn’t, I won’t.”
Bookburners The Complete Season Two Page 12