I settled into the passenger seat beside Kett — I’d shouldered Drake away from the front — and glanced over at the vampire. He looked pale. He shouldn’t look pale, because he was always pale. More pale was a bad sign.
“Everything cool?” I asked him as we pulled into traffic.
He nodded but didn’t look at me. The edge of the neck of his sweater was twisted, and I reached over to smooth it without thinking. It was stretched actually, the delicate cashmere fibers torn in places.
Kett snatched my hand away from his neck, crushing my fingers in his grip. He glared at me, red whirling in his eyes. The SUV lurched into the other lane, and a squeal of wheels indicated we’d narrowly missed being hit from the side.
“You’re going to break my fingers,” I whispered, trying to not wince from the pain of him grinding the small bones of my hand against each other.
He released my hand and returned his attention to the road.
“Touchy, touchy, vamp,” Kandy said from the back seat. Her warning was obvious. She took her protection duties seriously.
“We got two more names from Edmonds, but he hasn’t seen Sienna,” I said. My even tone sounded forced as I pulled Blackwell’s list from my satchel and compared it to the sorcerer’s sticky note. “Same names.”
“We’ll head to the bookstore as planned, then.” Kett’s remoteness sounded perfectly natural.
Kandy and Drake started digging through some brown paper bags they’d found in the back hatch area. Kett had gone grocery shopping.
“You need to feed,” I whispered to Kett without looking at him.
“Are you offering?” He snapped the question back at me, full of anger and indignation.
“No. I —”
“Then it’s none of your business.”
Drake passed an apple over my shoulder and I gladly took it. It was cold, as if it had been in a refrigerator. I pressed it against my cheek and stared out my window as the city of London creeped by. Kett didn’t speak further, didn’t ask for directions. I didn’t make any more observations.
I’d always had a hard time keeping or finding friends, except Sienna. I didn’t like acknowledging that hard spot lodged in my heart. And the fact that the spot was still there after all Sienna had done told me so much about myself that I didn’t want to know. That I was stupid, and slow, and loyal to a fault.
Just like I was being stupid about how the vampire’s pissiness bothered me. Not that Kett was a friend. He’d never pretended to be, and my reactions were my own, not dictated by him.
I bit down on the apple, and sucked the tart juice from the flesh. I reminded myself that this trip to London wasn’t about seeking revelation. I didn’t need any more insight. What I needed was resolution, otherwise I was going to be caught in limbo between the two halves of myself — of my life — forever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The bookstore Kett referred to was in the basement of a posh brick building in the South Kensington area of London. Once again, I had no idea where I was, but if I had been really into high-end shopping, this would obviously have been the place to come.
The bookstore owner — Clark — had been listed second by Blackwell and first by Edmonds. He didn’t seem to have a phone, but that might have been a magic thing. Why some Adepts could use phones or other electronic devices while others couldn’t didn’t seem to be completely dependent on sheer power, so I wasn’t sure yet what made the difference. How an Adept carried or used their magic, maybe?
Kett hadn’t needed the GPS to find the bookshop, which was tucked between a shoe store and a clothing boutique. One look at the shoes let me know they cost more than the monthly rent on my bakery. And the clothing wasn’t up to the sword-and-sorcery lifestyle I was currently living.
The bookstore was actually below ground. The front door — heavily warded — sat at the base of a narrow set of stairs. McGrowly, with his insanely broad shoulders, wouldn’t have fit through it.
Why were my thoughts so constantly haunted by powerful people who I wasn’t sure had my best interests at heart these days? Life was much simpler when I just needed to worry about matching my nail polish to my newest cupcake creation. The question looming before me was, whether I wanted to go back there. To the simplicity. And could I do so now even if I wanted to?
A placard on the sidewalk declared that the store was open and called ‘Books, Tomes, and Other Publications.’ A bright orange arrow pointed down the stairs. Clark had as much flare for naming things as I did … as in, opting for the very obvious.
Despite the sign, though, the store wasn’t open. At least it wasn’t open for us, or for unknown Adept in general. Also, we belatedly realized as we crammed down the stairs together that we didn’t actually all fit on the small landing in front of the entrance and the side window.
Runes were carved into the wood of the doorjamb. A playbill for ‘Wicked’ was displayed in the window, through which I could see a book-covered bench. Other than that, all I could see inside was shelves upon shelves of used books.
“There’s a bell,” Kandy prompted. She was still on the stairs behind Kett and me. Drake was between her and us … the better to keep an eye on him.
“I’ve been here before,” Kett said.
“And yet you hesitate to enter. That bodes well. Not,” I said.
Kandy snorted.
Ignoring us, Kett closed his hand on the door latch. The silvery-blue magic of the runes shifted. They tasted of cloves and nutmeg … gingerbread cookies, actually, with that earthy sorcerer undertone.
The door opened. Kett flicked his ice-blue eyes to me. The blood I’d seen whirling in them in the car was gone.
“Try not to eat anyone we’re looking to get answers from,” I said, hoping he would be willing to move past whatever was currently standing between us.
The vampire offered me a toothy grin and then slipped silently into the bookstore. So I guess we were okay. Maybe I’d been overreacting. I wouldn’t be surprised. I was on edge about everything.
The door closed behind Kett. I couldn’t taste or feel anything beyond the runes of the doorway.
“Wouldn’t books get musty in a basement?” I asked.
“Easy to defend,” Kandy said.
“If there are two exits,” Drake added.
“The guy’s a sorcerer. He probably fled out the back the moment he knew we were here,” Kandy said.
“I don’t think we triggered any spells on our way down,” I said.
“There are probably spells to prevent mustiness,” Kandy offered.
The door reopened, and Clark — or so I assumed since I couldn’t feel his magic beyond the wards — stood smiling at us. I couldn’t see Kett. Clark couldn’t have gotten more typically sorcerer if he’d tried. Unlike with Edmonds, I suspected he didn’t bother to be anything other than what he was — a sixty-plus, gray-haired, round-bellied, magical bookstore-owning sorcerer with a comb-over.
“Jade Godfrey?” His British accent was so thick it took me a moment to recognize my name.
“Yes,” I answered. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Clark.”
“Just ‘Clark,’ there’s no mister here,” he responded. “Yes, yes. The vampire says you have a book I might be interested in.”
“We aren’t selling,” I said. “But we have questions.”
“Yes, yes. We will see, won’t we?” He stepped back from the doorway. “Come, come. Let’s see what you have.”
Clark had just stepped beyond the first bookshelf when I cleared the ward that he’d opened with his invitation. The sorcerer stumbled, and Kett appeared from among the shelves at his side.
Drake stepped into the store with Kandy behind him. Clark twisted back to us, clutching the bookshelf and visibly paler. Kett was supporting the shelf instead of touching Clark.
“What?” Clark murmured. Then he snapped his mouth shut while he stared at us crowding the entrance to his bookstore. “I … I …” Clark s
tarted again but didn’t continue. His smile was entirely wiped from his face. “You said … witch and werewolf,” he finally articulated to Kett.
“Yes,” Kett responded smoothly, lying through his perfectly white, straight teeth.
Clark straightened. His face was now closed and questioning. Not fearful or angry, but unsure and wary. “Well, let’s see what you have,” he said, then he continued farther back into the store.
Not everyone found my magic tasty, or Drake’s compelling, it seemed.
∞
Clark crossed behind a book-strewn counter deep within the shop. After shifting a few volumes around, he found and pulled on his reading glasses. Thus bespectacled, he took another moment to take Kandy, Drake, and me in.
I tried smiling, but the sorcerer’s earlier jovial nature didn’t return.
He nodded, though to what I wasn’t sure, then cleared a space on the counter and patted the worn wood before him.
I obligingly pulled Blackwell’s demon history chronicle out of my satchel and placed it before the sorcerer.
He hovered his hands over the book for a moment, then touched its edges lightly to rotate it toward him. “Not the original,” he said.
“No,” I answered, though it hadn’t been a question.
He flipped open the cover and perused the first entry. “A fine duplication.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, well, Blackwell always employs the best.” Ah, Clark recognized the book and its owner.
“Does he?”
Clark looked up at me and offered a grim smile. “Does he still have the original?”
“No.”
Clark’s lips tightened. “Have you left him alive?” he asked. Then he glanced over all of us again.
“Unfortunately,” Kandy answered, standing to my right.
Clark smiled more genuinely in the werewolf’s direction. “That’s too bad. I was hoping you’d agree to auction the books in his collection.”
“We have left the sorcerer and his collection unharmed,” Kett said. He was half hidden in the shadows to my left. His voice was as neutral as it ever was, but something was still bothering him. I didn’t like it when things bothered the vampire. It took a lot to get him riled, and it was damn difficult to rein him in after the fact. He’d once left a tooth in Desmond’s neck. I wondered if it had grown back yet, not that I wanted a close look at his fangs.
“Are you seeking the original?” Clark asked as he returned his attention to the book.
“In a way,” I answered. “We’re looking for a witch.”
“And you think she might have come to me? What do I have that would draw her?”
“Your power,” I said, very aware that the gingerbread magic I referred to was swirling around him now like a cloak. His manner was understated but his magic was uneasy. My suggestion further agitated it.
“And what are you here to try to take from me, Jade Godfrey, who is not a witch?”
“Nothing, sir,” I answered. “I just have questions about my sister, Sienna — or Valencia, depending on what name she is currently using — and the book. A specific entry in the chronicle.”
Clark held my gaze. This time I didn’t smile. He nodded.
“I have read this history, page by page. There are three incidents that take place in London. Is it to one of those you refer?”
“The witch we seek has the sacrificial knife that was used in the Dorset Street rising,” I said.
“What good would such a knife do a witch?”
“I don’t know. We’re still in the finding-the-puzzle-pieces part of our investigation.”
“Information such as you seek is something I usually trade for.”
“All right,” I said. Then I waited. I was getting better at waiting, because I had learned during my dragon training that waiting was also the state of anticipating … taking a pause to watch which foot your opponent shifted his weight to, or to notice where or to who his eyes flicked.
Clark glanced at Drake, but then quickly looked away. The sorcerer couldn’t just openly demand to know what sort of Adept the fledging guardian was, because not knowing made him look weak.
He then slid his gaze to take in Kandy, who’d become antsy by my side. She rolled up on the balls of her feet and rotated her shoulders.
The air in the bookstore wasn’t musty in the least. I cast my gaze around while Clark decided what he would ask us in return for information. Once beyond the wards, I had expected to feel magic from the books Clark collected and sold, but most of the shelves contained completely nonmagical hardbacks written and probably purchased by humans. History dominated many of the shelves — broken down by year and region — but a smattering of fiction paperbacks held a prime spot by the front door. A large section in the back corner seemed devoted to London specifically.
I’d expected magic to be buzzing at me from various points around the room, but besides a couple of books on Clark’s counter, all the magic was concentrated behind and below where the sorcerer stood. This area — another basement level, I surmised — was warded from detection. Obviously, I could feel those inner wards, but I shouldn’t have been able to feel the books hidden by those wards at all.
My gaze fell on three rocks sitting on the counter between Clark and me.
The sorcerer was watching me again. “You won’t consent to leave the book with me?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
I shook my head. “I have something more valuable to offer you, sorcerer.”
Clark’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe me for one moment.
I grinned. I used to loathe being underestimated, but now I was becoming a bit of a show-off. It wasn’t a great character trait by any means, but Kandy, Kett, and Drake didn’t care. On a daily basis, they were far more sure of themselves than I ever was.
“You have a large — I’m guessing rare by the various tastes — collection of books in your basement, sorcerer. You’ve taken pains to hide them, but you haven’t succeeded.”
Clark, who’d been thoughtfully tapping the demon history book, stilled. Then, he covered this pause with an amiable smile. “Of course I have a rare book collection. I advertise as much.” He gestured to the shelves behind him. Those shelves did indeed hold a variety of magical books, but their magic was dim, almost flavorless.
“I’m not referring to those tasteless bits of bound paper. I’m speaking of the hundred or so books that lie beneath your feet.”
Kett slipped by Kandy to stand directly beside me. He was a big fan of hidden collections.
Clark’s eyes flicked to the vampire and then back at me. A glimmer of magic drew my attention to a ring he wore on his left index finger. The ring, which had been invisible before, was now imbued with his gingerbread power.
“Can you cast with that ring, Clark?” I asked, derailed by the bright shiny object — yes, I was still me underneath all the sword training and dragon DNA.
Clark looked startled. Then he smiled. “Dowser,” he said.
I gifted him with an answering smile. Yeah, if I was going to blather on about hidden books and invisible rings then I wasn’t hiding much from anyone, which was fine by me. Hiding took too much energy, and I didn’t have any to spare.
“I’m surprised Blackwell lets you out of his sight.”
“Who says Blackwell has any dominion over me?”
Clark’s smile broadened. Sorcerers were such power sluts.
“Have you seen or been contacted by this witch with the book and the knife?”
“No,” Clark answered readily enough. “No witches at all. Just you, dowser. Not for about three weeks.”
“She would be …” — I wasn’t sure if Sienna still looked all black-witchy and veiny like she had the last time I saw her — “… unmistakable.”
Clark’s smile faded as he nodded. “Dark?”
“Yes, and possibly accompanied by a fledgling necromancer.”
“
No necromancers either. But then, they keep to themselves and aren’t fond of old books, or of London in general.”
“Too many ghosts,” Drake whispered behind me to Kandy.
“I got it,” the green-haired werewolf replied. “I’m not an idiot, boy.”
I leaned over and flipped the pages of the chronicle until it was open to the picture of the sacrificial knife and the demon rising of November 9th, 1888.
Clark peered down at the entry. “I still don’t understand what a witch would want with a book about vanquished demons. They can’t be raised again, knife or no knife.”
“Would you be capable of raising a demon?” I asked.
Clark paused. His ring glowed brighter for a moment. I drew back from the counter and wrapped my left hand around my necklace. That caught his attention, and the glow in his ring subsided.
Going around asking sorcerers if they could raise demons was so asking to get my ass kicked.
“You said you had something valuable to trade, dowser,” Clark said.
I glanced over at Kett. He was a far better poker player than I. He nodded.
I stepped back up to the counter and took a closer look at the three stones laid out across the edge closest to me.
At first glance, the stones appeared to be smooth, slightly flattened, hunks of granite in different shades. Perhaps they’d originally been collected at some river’s edge. However, I could taste pulses of power coming from underneath them. This magic was a dimmer version of Clark’s clove-and-nutmeg spiced gingerbread. Even without flipping them over, I was totally willing to bet that each stone was carved with a rune. And that the three runes — connected to each other — were the anchor for the inner ward over Clark’s hidden book collection.
“The stones are in the wrong order,” I said.
Clark bristled as if I’d just informed him that his child was hideous and stupid to match. “No witch knows runes better than a sorcerer,” he snapped.
“See how the magic slides around but not over the middle stone,” I murmured to Kett, completely ignoring the sorcerer. Clark looked as if he was gearing up for some extensive rant, flushed cheeks and all.
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic Page 10