The Book of Secrets

by Melissa McShane

“Give me your number, and I’ll text it to you,” Harry said. “Or did you think us old folks were too out of touch with modern technology?”

  “Not at all,” I lied, and recited my number. Harry swiftly entered it, and a few seconds later my phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  “Seven o’clock, and don’t worry about bringing anything,” Harriet said. “Have a nice day, dear. It was lovely to meet you, Viv.”

  When the door closed behind them, Viv burst out, “Harry and Harriet?”

  “Shut up. They’re nice and it’s hardly their fault what their names are.”

  “And they’re—what did you call them, magi?”

  “I think so. There seem to be a lot of people who know the secret who aren’t magi. Like Lucia. And me.”

  “Well,” said Viv, “you can add me to that number.”

  Mr. Briggs’ car drove like a dream, for something that had almost 120,000 miles on it. I checked my rearview mirror every five seconds, looking for cop cars. It was possible the car had some kind of warrant out on it—could cars have warrants?—or at least something that associated it with a murder investigation. But I didn’t have any other way to get to the Kellers’, and I didn’t like telling them no just because I was afraid of the slim chance I’d get pulled over.

  Rain had started falling about an hour before closing, a freezing rain just this side of slushy, and it had reduced the number of customers to zero. Viv left around that time, promising to come to my house Sunday for some kind of fun that would let both of us forget about our jobs. I locked up around 6:30 and headed through the busy streets toward Arlington Heights.

  The Kellers lived in an upscale neighborhood, nestled into the gentle hills west of town. I skidded occasionally going up the rain-slick roads and tried not to think about how I was going to get back. Most of the houses were the sort of blocky, modernist construction I admired without wanting to live in one. Not that anyone was asking me to. I was fairly certain the Kellers were as wealthy as Malcolm Campbell, in their own idiosyncratic way.

  I slowed to a crawl, looking for the Kellers’ driveway. Trees clung to the curbs and the steep hills where the houses perched, obscuring their lower levels. Lights from the windows gilded the tops of the trees, but cast the streets into shadow. I drove past a hedge, registered the house number was the one I was looking for, and backed up to make a turn into a curving driveway that circled the house. Deadheaded rosebushes brushed the car windows as I passed. The driveway would be beautiful in summer.

  The Kellers’ house was gray, trimmed in either dark gray or blue; I couldn’t tell in the darkness. A BMW was parked in the driveway—not the sort of vehicle I’d pictured them driving. I pulled into the driveway next to it and sat for a few seconds with the ignition turned off. I’d already decided it would be bad manners to bring a list of questions to a dinner party, demanding answers, but friendly conversation couldn’t be wrong. Friendly conversation that happened to touch on some of the many, many things I wanted to know was perfectly acceptable. I ran over a few of those questions in my head, things like What do different kinds of magi do? and Who was Silas Abernathy? Though I wasn’t sure it would be polite to ask the latter, if his reputation was as dire as he’d implied.

  The rain was turning to sleet. I hurried from the car to the front door and knocked, huddling into my coat. There was a garden gnome in the planter next to the front porch, its rosy cheeks and bright eyes gleaming at me in the porch light. I hoped it meant the Kellers had a whimsical sense of humor, and wasn’t a sign of tacky bad taste.

  The door opened. “Oh, good, you’re here,” Harriet said. “Come in, dear, it’s so nasty outside. I hope you didn’t have any trouble getting up the hill. Some years we’re completely iced in—though that never lasts long, right?” She winked, leaving me confused as to what she meant. I handed her my coat and followed her into a spacious sitting room.

  “Good to—” Harry said.

  I screamed. Scrabbling along the carpet toward me was a chitinous thing, with too many legs and an oversized head. Dripping mandibles gnashed in my direction. Its eyes, deep red like drops of blood, swiveled on eye stalks, looking everywhere at once. I screamed again and bolted for the door.

  ait!” Harriet said, grabbing my shoulders with a surprisingly firm grip. I tore free with some effort and had my hand on the knob when she said, “Oh, dear, we should have warned you about our familiar.”

  The door was locked. She’d locked it. I fumbled at the deadbolt, turning it—no, now I’d locked myself in. Harriet put her hand on mine. “I had no idea you could see its true form. Calm down, dear, it can’t hurt anyone.”

  I turned around and pressed my back to the door as if I could force my way through. “That… thing… why—”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” Harry said. He rose from his recliner, tugging on a long chain leash to bring the thing in check, and bent to pat it between its eye stalks. Its fangs dripped sticky goo that boiled in the air and evaporated before it hit the carpet. “I’ll take it outside if that will make you more comfortable. Will?”

  I realized Harry wasn’t the only one in the room. William Rasmussen rose from the pale gray sofa where he’d been sitting next to Judy. On a nearby loveseat sat a woman I didn’t know, her spiky red hair a stark contrast to her pale surroundings. She took up all the space on the loveseat, with her muscular arms stretched out across its back and her long legs extended in front of her, as relaxed as if nothing were wrong.

  Another creature perched on her lap, this one a vivid green and segmented like a caterpillar, but with razor-sharp teeth in a circle where a head should be. I heard a high-pitched whine that felt as if it were coming from inside my head, and released the breath I’d been holding. Now I could see the evil caterpillar had a strange sort of harness strapped around its midsection, all silver metal and black webbing, attached to a chain leash. So did the eyestalk creature, and a third monster I hadn’t registered because I’d been so freaked out. The third monster looked like it had been flayed; its “skin” was red and glistening, with thick blue veins spidering across its surface. A faint smell of paint thinner wafted from their direction.

  All three of the monsters were straining at their leashes, trying to reach me. Rasmussen pulled hard on the leash of the flayed one, forcing it away. “Brittany, leash it in the sun porch,” Harry said, and the leggy redhead stood, slowly, an act of defiance, though Harry didn’t seem put out by it.

  I stayed pressed against the door until all three creatures had disappeared down the hall. “You think those are under control?” I said, my voice shaking. Forget the leashes—those things would have torn me apart given an opportunity.

  “How can you see them?” Judy said. “Those are permanent illusions.”

  “I’m the custodian of Abernathy’s,” I said, and couldn’t stop myself giving her a smug look. Judy’s eyes narrowed. Well, I was feeling rattled.

  “Sit down, dear, and let me get you some wine, you look like you need it,” Harriet said, steering me to a second recliner. I perched on its edge and looked around. The Kellers were as enamored of pale colors as the outside of their house suggested; all the furniture was white or pale gray, the deep pile of the carpet was a gray a few shades darker than the recliner, and the drinks cupboard was a light ash rubbed to a silvery sheen. An odd coffee table that looked more like a giant prism framed in ash lay at the center of the seating arrangement. Landscapes hung on the walls, the only colors in the entire room. A fire burned in the fireplace, behind brass andirons that caught the reflections of the flames and made the hearth glow. It reminded me of something you’d find in a home decorating magazine, cold despite the fire.

  Harriet handed me a glass of pale wine. Of course she wouldn’t serve anything here that might stain if it spilled. “I really am sorry,” she said. “That must have been a terrible shock.”

  “First exposure to familiars, eh?” Harry said, taking his seat. Rasmussen and the woman he’d called Brittany followed suit
. I covertly examined her. She reminded me of Campbell, all that coiled tension ready to leap into action. But where Campbell had that air of being permanently annoyed with the world, Brittany gave off a sense of self-possession, as if she knew she was good at whatever it was she did and was proud of herself. She made me nervous.

  Rasmussen, on the other hand, examined me openly. “So you can see through those illusions,” he said. “Is that an advantage, or not?”

  “What are those things supposed to look like? They smell awful.”

  “Dogs,” Brittany said. “Big ones. The kind you’d expect to maul a child, given the opportunity. You get used to the smell.”

  “Why do you—how can you keep them under control?”

  “Why? Because their magic can attack their kind directly,” Rasmussen said. “A familiar lets someone who isn’t a steel or wood magus go into combat with the invaders. It expands our pool of fighters substantially. As to how, well, that’s the harness—and the smell is a side effect. I’d explain the ritual that binds a familiar, but it wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  He didn’t sound disdainful. He sounded polite, friendly even, and I was having trouble reconciling this man with the one who’d been so angry when I wouldn’t abdicate. “If this is a ploy to get me to change my mind—”

  “I wouldn’t abuse our hosts’ hospitality that way.” Rasmussen accepted a glass of the pale wine from Harriet. “The Kellers thought you’d like to get to know some of our people outside work, so to speak.”

  “Where are my manners?” Harry said. “Helena, it seems you’ve already met Will Rasmussen. This is his daughter Judy, and Brittany Spinelli. She’s a steel magus and a damn fine one. What do you mean, change your mind?”

  I decided not to start a fight in the Kellers’ living room. “It’s nothing. Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Supper’s ready,” Harriet said, “if you’d all join me in the dining room?”

  The dining table, made of glossy red oak, was big enough to seat twelve. Harriet had set the table so we all clustered at one end, companionably. I tried not to feel nervous about the fine china place settings or the many forks. I did know how to behave myself in a formal dining situation, but it left me on edge nevertheless. A cut-glass chandelier hovered over the center of the table, reflected brilliantly on the table’s surface, and I wondered why there was no tablecloth. I put my napkin in my lap and wished I were dressed appropriately, though no one else wore formal attire. Rasmussen, in his suit with pocket square, came the closest to looking dressed-up.

  “Helena,” Harry said, “tell us a little about yourself. What brought you to Abernathy’s?”

  It reminded me of dinner at Chet’s house, months ago, the time I met his parents. They’d grilled me on my education, and my family, and my prospects, until I’d nearly forgotten my own name. “I, um, answered an ad in the paper—”

  Judy made an indelicate noise. She was seated directly opposite me, and I saw her cheeks go even rosier. I ignored her. “Mr. Briggs told me I was exactly what he was looking for, and he hired me. If he hadn’t been murdered”—is murder a polite topic of conversation at dinner?— “who knows how long I might have gone without knowing any of this existed?”

  “You must feel terribly overwhelmed,” Harriet said. Coming from her, it was an expression of sympathy and not a thinly-veiled jab.

  “A little, but I’m learning fast.” I took a large bite of green salad to give myself an excuse not to speak for a moment.

  “You haven’t told your family, have you?” Brittany said. She made it sound as if telling people was the worst sin she could imagine.

  “No. I don’t think they’d believe me.” I didn’t mention Viv. That was none of their business. “Pardon me if this is stupid, but are you all Nicolliens?”

  A laugh went around the table. “That’s what outsiders call us, dear,” said Harriet. “We prefer to be called magi. We’re carrying on the true tradition of magery, after all.”

  “The Ambrosites would like you to believe we’ve deviated from the true path,” Rasmussen said, his voice putting air quotes around “true path,” “but it’s experimentation and innovation that have given us every weapon in this war. Without taking chances, no one would ever have become a magus, and this world would be drained to the bone, lifeless and hollow.”

  “How do you become a magus? Lucia said there was a ritual.”

  “The Damerel rites,” Brittany said. “They implant—”

  “Is that really suppertime conversation, dear?”

  “I don’t see why not. They implant a fragment of steel, or whatever material you’re bound to, into your heart. Metaphysically and literally.” Brittany tapped a spot on her chest left of center.

  “Into your heart?”

  Brittany smiled, a lazy, smug smile. “It’s very dangerous. Used to be only one in ten survived Damerel.”

  “We’re better about identifying suitable candidates these days, dear, don’t look so worried,” Harriet said. “Excuse me, I’ll go get the roast.”

  “I—it still sounds dangerous. Are you all magi?”

  “Not Judy, obviously. The custodian of Abernathy’s can’t be a magus,” Harry said, oblivious to how the tension in the room went up several notches. “Harriet and I are glass magi. Brittany’s a steel magus, and Will is a paper magus—the most skilled of his generation, and don’t go being modest, Will.”

  Rasmussen shrugged. “Then I won’t. But I also don’t like to brag.”

  “What does a paper magus do?” I remembered what Campbell had said about illusions, but he hadn’t been very forthcoming.

  “We create illusions,” Rasmussen said. “Sights, sounds, even textures if you’re good enough. We’re the ones who make familiars look socially acceptable.”

  The image of Quincy slapping a strip of paper on the brick wall came to mind. “Do you use actual paper?”

  “That’s an Asian technique. Very few Western magi have adopted it. It’s slower, but can be more powerful if you’re willing to make the trade-off. Some paper magi produce illusions through, for example, origami, that a non-paper magus can activate.”

  “You can… buy magic?”

  “Usually with sanguinis sapiens. There’s a market in Beaverton where most of the trading gets done. A sort of neutral zone where we and the Ambrosites can do business.”

  My fear was wearing off, replaced by a growing excitement at finally getting some answers. “And a steel magus can fight the invaders directly.”

  “The steel aegis prevents an invader from sucking the magic out of your body,” Brittany said, tapping her chest again. “It’s what the fragment is called. Aegis, I mean.”

  Harriet emerged from the kitchen, pushing the swinging door open with her rear end. The smell of hot roast beef came with her. “No more talking shop, Harry. Helena wants to eat without having her digestion disturbed, don’t you, dear?”

  “I don’t mind,” I said as Harry began to carve the roast, though my stomach growled at the delicious aroma. “It’s interesting.”

  “Not as interesting as your job,” Judy said sweetly. “Tell me, have you found it difficult at all to handle the sanguinis sapiens transactions? I always thought it would be hard to make those deposits.”

  “I haven’t had any trouble,” I shot back, not saying because I have no idea what you’re talking about. “My biggest problem was finding the shipping boxes for the augury orders.” This was a lie. The stacks and stacks of folded boxes and padded mailers were in the corner behind the basement stairs. But it made me sound competent.

  “Oh, yes,” Judy said. “Those orders would certainly be a huge task. But of course you know to set the extra catalogues out by the front counter.”

  “Of course.”

  “Judy,” Rasmussen said, his voice a warning.

  “I’m just curious. I was in training to be the next custodian. I think it’s only natural—”

  “This roast is wonderful,” Harry said, p
assing the plate of beef slices. “I don’t know how you do it every time.”

  “It’s the balsamic vinegar and diced tomatoes that make it so rich,” Harriet said.

  I took a bite. Heavenly. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me the recipe?” I said. “My mother would love it.”

  “You don’t cook, dear?”

  “Not well. Boxed macaroni and cheese is the extent of my skill.”

  Harriet gave an exaggerated wince. “I’d be happy to email it to you.”

  “Now, a paper magus,” Rasmussen said, “could make someone believe your macaroni and cheese was this roast.”

  “Even the taste?” I took another bite. That was incredibly hard to imagine.

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk shop, Will.”

  “No, I really am interested.” I accepted a bowl of roasted new potatoes from Brittany. “What does a glass magus do?”

  “Glass magi are perceptors,” Harry said. “We see traces of magic, particularly where invaders have passed.”

  “It’s more than that,” Harriet said. “We see things that are hidden, buried secrets, lost treasures. It’s a relatively new kind of magic, developed during World War II for use against the Allied powers.”

  “You mean… invented by Hitler?”

  “By magi suborned by the Nazis. We fought on both sides of that conflict.”

  “A secret war,” Rasmussen said. “Abernathy’s was almost lost. Say what you like about Silas Abernathy, he was certainly willing to give his life for the cause of magery, independent of Axis or Allies.”

  “I’ve heard of him. He said people called him a wartime deserter, though.”

  “What do you mean, ‘he said’?” Harriet put down her fork and gave me an intent stare.

  “I, um, have a book he wrote—”

  The table erupted in loud argument. “I knew the book existed,” Harry said. “Where did you find it, young lady?”

  “It can’t be,” Rasmussen said. “It’s a myth. There must be some mistake.”

  “You couldn’t possibly have the book,” Judy sneered.