by Jim C. Hines
The library door slammed open, the oak frame splintering like balsa. Cold fear splashed over the excitement and wonder of magic, urging fight or flight.
Neither option was likely to work against sparklers.
I leaned against the desk, doing my best to appear unworried. “I’m sorry, the library’s closed. Furnace trouble. If you could come back in the morning—”
“Isaac Vainio?”
So much for the faint hope that they weren’t after me. The speaker was a teenaged girl, maybe fifteen years old. That was the age she had been turned, at any rate. She wore a bright orange hoodie and too much makeup. Short black hair poked from beneath her hood, and a red flannel scarf looped around her neck. An old backpack hung from her left shoulder. Her dull, red-black eyes never left mine.
Her companions were a burly brown-skinned man in flannel and a pale, middle-aged woman in an ankle-length raincoat. The raincoat was a bright floral pattern utterly at odds with the rage and hunger in her eyes. The man wore a Green Bay Packers cap, and looked like he had been custom carved to be a professional ass-kicker.
“That’s me,” I said, tapping the plastic badge clipped to my shirt pocket. White powder from the fire extinguisher mostly hid my slack-jawed photo. “What can I help you with?”
“Information and payback.” She pushed back her hood and craned her head, as if searching to make sure I was alone. Her lips curled, revealing crooked teeth, and I wondered briefly if braces would have any effect on vampires. “You should be more careful in your choice of friends, Isaac.”
I studied the trio more closely. I was certain I had never seen them before. Not locals, then. Relatively young, since Meyerii had only begun popping up back in 2005.
I had read pretty much every vampire book ever written in English, German, Spanish, and French. In recent years, authors had whittled away many of the more monstrous vampiric traits. More to the point, they had eliminated many weaknesses as well. Going after Meyerii with sunlight, garlic, or stakes to the heart was about as useful as trying to tickle them to death.
It took every bit of focus to shut out the voice in my head whispering that I was about to die. I reached instead for anger. “Two years, three months, and sixteen days.”
Red eyes narrowed. “Take him!”
The middle-aged woman snarled. Her coat flapped sharply as she moved, too quickly for me to see. Her hands clamped around my biceps and hauled me off the ground.
“That’s how long it’s been since I last used magic.” My words were hoarse, squeezed out through fear and adrenaline. I jabbed the barrel of the gun into her side and pulled the trigger.
Green energy burned through her midsection. She dropped me, eyes wide with panic, and grabbed the hole with both hands as if trying to hold herself together. It took less than a second for the energy to devour her body, leaving nothing but a faint ozone smell in the air.
I pointed at the girl, hoping they would be so stunned by the loss of their companion that I could get off another shot. No such luck. The disruptor was ripped from my hand, and something the approximate size and power of a pickup truck flung me across the room. I slammed into the shelves and crumpled to the ground, paperbacks showering down around me.
Green Bay had tossed me into the romance section. Not much I could use here, even if the room hadn’t been spinning like a bad carnival ride, preventing me from focusing. If I squinted, I might have been able to pull a claymore from one of the Scottish Highland romances, but that would do precisely nothing against these two. Where was a good invisibility cloak when you really needed it?
Green Bay twisted his hand into my shirt and lifted me one-handed, pinning me against the shelves hard enough to compress my rib cage.
“If he so much as looks at another book, rip off his arms.” The girl walked over and plucked the disruptor from her companion’s hand. She stabbed the barrel into my side. The metal was hot enough to burn.
“If you want a library card, you’ll have to fill out one of the yellow forms,” I said. Good old banter, the last refuge against terror and imminent death.
Her face was dry and filthy. She was several inches shorter than me, but the feral hunger in those red eyes made her seem bigger. “You should have left us alone, Isaac.”
I tasted blood. I must have bitten my cheek when I hit the shelves. I swallowed, hoping to minimize the scent. “You realize you broke down my door, right?”
Her voice tickled the inside of my skull, like millipedes crawling through my cerebral cortex. “Tell me who among the Porters has been hunting us.”
“I’m retired from the field.” Even after more than two years, the words stung. “And I never hunted vampires. We leave it to you to police your own kind. The automatons take care of any rogues your masters can’t handle.”
Her voice grew soft, and the millipedes dug deeper. Most Meyerii didn’t have psychic powers. This could be another damn hybrid. One of these days, vampiric experiments in transfusion were going to create something they couldn’t handle.
“Don’t lie to me, Isaac. You will give me their names.”
“I’m a libriomancer. Mind tricks don’t work on me. Only money.” When all else fails, fall back on movie quotes.
“Dammit!” She spun away.
“You’re new to the vampire thing, right?” I asked, doing my best to control my breathing. “You probably weren’t around the last time your kind went toe-to-toe with the Porters. It wasn’t pretty. Twenty-three rogue vampires marching down the streets of New Orleans versus one old mechanical warrior. All it took was a single automaton to reduce those vampires to twenty-three piles of dust and ash.” I might have been a mere cataloger, but I was still a member of Die Zwelf Portenære. Killing a Porter was a death sentence. They had to know that.
She didn’t look at me, but I could feel the other one shifting nervously. “I have no idea what’s going on, but if I was involved, do you really think I’d let you march through my front door? That I’d allow myself to be captured so easily? That I’d be wearing a name tag?”
Her attention dropped to the plastic badge. She wiped a thumb through the powder and stared at the washed-out photo that made me look a little vampiric myself.
If I hadn’t been two years out of practice, I would have had something better than a ray gun waiting for them. Back in the days of Dracula, humans had a fighting chance against the undead. But the more they evolved from monsters into angsty, sexy superheroes, the more the odds of a human being surviving an encounter with an angry vampire shrank to nothing.
“He’s got a point, Mel.” Green Bay’s grip loosened ever so slightly. “He doesn’t look like much. He’s nothing but a librarian.”
“What do you mean: nothing but a—”
He thumped me against the shelf without even blinking.
“He’s lying,” Mel insisted.
“I’m an awful liar,” I said quickly. “Ask anyone.”
Mel stepped back, setting the disruptor on the desk. “We’ll have a reader sift through his thoughts.”
Reader, slang for the different species of vampire who could absorb the thoughts and experiences of their victims. Maybe I had a few hours of life left after all. They’d have to transport me back to whatever nest they had come from—probably Detroit or Green Bay. If I could get my hands on another book, or even just make a quick phone call—
Mel opened her backpack and pulled out a large Tupperware container and a butterfly knife. “Drain him. His blood will give the reader the memories she needs.”
“Hold on, you’re supposed to give the prisoner time to bargain! It’s traditional. I’m a libriomancer, remember? You want money? Take me to the history section and I’ll give you the Hope Diamond.” I turned my attention to Green Bay. “Or how about a Packers Super Bowl ring? Give me two minutes in the sports section, and it’s all yours.”
He followed my gaze, but Mel punched him in the shoulder.
“What’s he going to do?” he asked. “Attack us with
a football?”
“We are not giving the libriomancer more books.” Mel jabbed her black-polished nail into Green Bay’s shoulder, punctuating every word.
A lazy knock on the broken doorframe made both vampires whirl.
“Get out of here!” I shouted, trying to warn whoever it was. I grabbed Green Bay’s fingers, trying to break his grip, but it was like trying to bend steel. Kicking him in the stomach was equally futile.
“The library’s closed,” snapped Mel.
Footsteps crunched on broken wood and glass. When I saw who had entered, my body went limp with relief.
Lena Greenwood was the least imposing heroine you’d ever see. She was several inches shorter than me, heavyset but graceful as a dancer. I didn’t know her actual age, but she appeared to be in her early twenties, and was about as intimidating as a stuffed bear. A damned sexy bear, but not someone you’d expect to go toe-to-toe with your average monster.
Wisps of loose black hair framed dark eyes, a round face, and a cheerful smile, as if she had walked in on a surprise party. She wore a motorcycle jacket of black leather, the kind with slip-in plastic shields to protect the shoulders, elbows, and back. The T-shirt she wore beneath was filthy, as were her jeans and the red high-top sneakers on her feet. She carried a pair of bokken: curved wooden practice swords that matched the brown shade of her skin.
“Vampires?” she asked.
I managed a nod. “They didn’t want to pay their late fees.”
“I thought you might be joining us,” Mel snarled. To her companion, she snapped, “Make sure she’s alone.”
Green Bay released my shoulders and blurred across the library like the Flash. I didn’t see what happened next, being busy falling down and gasping in pain, but when I looked over, the vampire was pinned to the wall like an insect with one of Lena’s bokken protruding from his chest.
He snarled and grabbed the hilt, trying to pull himself free. The stake-through-the-heart bit didn’t work on Meyerii, but he appeared unable to break or remove Lena’s weapon.
“What did you do to him?” Mel demanded.
His struggles grew more frantic as Lena turned her back on him and strode toward us. “The wood is alive,” she said softly. “It put out roots.”
I looked at Mel. “You still have time to run away.”
Mel rushed for the disruptor. Lena lunged, swinging her remaining bokken two-handed in an overhead smash that struck the weapon before Mel could pull the trigger. Green sparks spat from the barrel, but nothing more. Mel flung the disruptor away and seized my throat, her nails piercing my skin. “I’ll kill him!”
Lena rested the tip of her bokken on the floor, folding both hands over the hilt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lower lip was swollen. “I’m tempted to let you. What’s the matter with you, Isaac? Letting a pair of vampires get the drop on you like this?”
“There were three,” I corrected, my voice strained from the pressure on my windpipe. “I got one.”
“With your toy gun? The gun they promptly took away from you?” She shook her head. “An entire library, and that was the best you could do? How did you ever survive in the field?”
“They kicked me out of the field, remember? Besides, I’m out of practice.” But she was right. There were shields that would have protected me from the vampires’ attacks, mind-control rays, and so much more.
“Shut up, both of you.” Mel’s gaze flicked to her partner, who continued to writhe and struggle. I imagined tiny roots punching through his body, anchoring him to the wall, and shuddered.
Movement overhead caught my eye. I forced myself to look straight at Mel, so as not to call her attention to the fire-spider slipping slowly downward from the ceiling on a silken line. Smudge dropped the last foot or so to land ever so lightly atop Mel’s head like a fuzzy red-and-brown crown.
An angry, burning crown.
Flame whooshed through Mel’s hair. She shrieked and spun, launching Smudge through the air into the computers. I grabbed the top shelf, lifted both feet, and shoved hard.
Vampires might be strong, but Mel’s mass was merely human, and I had physics on my side. She stumbled back, and then Lena’s bokken smashed her forearm, shattering bone.
Mel’s good hand twisted into the leather of Lena’s jacket. The two of them seemed to fly through the library. Mel slammed Lena to the ground by one of the spiral book racks, which toppled over with a loud crash. Mel reached for Lena’s throat.
Lena grabbed the vampire’s arm at the wrist and elbow, then twisted.
Undead or not, Mel could still feel pain. I winced at the loud pop that signaled a dislocated elbow. Behind them, Green Bay let out an animalistic snarl and strained to free himself. The wall behind him cracked.
I retrieved Vulcan’s Mirror, skimming the pages until I reopened the magic I had used before. I picked up the disruptor with my other hand and thrust it into the book, letting the text re-form the damaged weapon to its original shape and function before pulling it free once more. Not the safest move, but homicidal vampires qualified as “extenuating circumstances.”
Green Bay finally broke free with an animalistic scream, taking a good chunk of the wall with him. As he staggered toward Mel and Lena, I sighted and pulled the trigger. He vanished in a flare of green energy.
Lena hauled Mel upright. “Your turn. Who ordered the attack in Dearborn?”
“What attack?” I asked. Lena lived in Dearborn, making me wonder what exactly had brought her to my library.
“Shut up, Isaac.”
Mel clenched her fist and swung, connecting with Lena’s jaw. From the way Mel cried out, the blow hurt her as much as it did Lena, but it was enough to let her break free. She spun toward me.
I fired one last time, and Mel vanished.
Lena picked up her remaining bokken. I had vaporized the other along with Green Bay. Keeping her back to me, she ran her fingers over the wood. “What did you do that for?”
Her flat tone took me aback. “Why did I shoot the woman who tried to cut my throat?”
“She was beaten. You didn’t have to kill her.”
“You ran her buddy through with one of your swords!”
“I stopped him. I would have stopped her.” With a sigh, she turned to face me. “They used to be human, until magic changed them into something else. Do you think that girl truly understood what she would become?”
I picked up the butterfly knife Mel had dropped. With the immediate threat passed, I was feeling rather shaky. “I’d have more sympathy if not for the part where she tried to cut my throat.”
“What did they say to you?”
“They thought someone from the Porters had been hunting vampires, and wanted me to tell them who was involved.” I dropped to my knees and crawled beneath the computer desks, searching through tangled cords for any sign of Smudge. I found him hiding in a nest of blue network cables. From the smell of burnt plastic, we’d have to call the computer guy in the morning, but Smudge appeared unharmed. He scurried up onto my shoulder, searing tiny black dots on my sleeve.
“So what did you tell them?” asked Lena.
“Nothing. I’m retired, remember? Nobody tells me anything.” I picked up Vulcan’s Mirror again and flipped to chapter eight. I searched the inner edges for char, but this was a new release, and the pages were clean of magical decay. I dissolved the disruptor back into the text and set the book on its cart. “Thank you.”
She picked up one of the overturned tables. “Any time.”
I hadn’t seen Lena since I moved back up north two years ago. The last I knew, she was the only dryad living in North America, and was currently serving as live-in bodyguard for Doctor Nidhi Shah, a downstate shrink who worked with a number of “unusual” clients. Myself included, back in the day.
“You mentioned another attack. What’s going on, Lena?”
She returned to the doorway to check outside. “From what I can tell, the vampires have declared war on the Porters.”
Chapter 2
THE IDEA OF VAMPIRES DECLARING WAR on the Porters was about as ridiculous as the Upper Peninsula marching to war against Canada.
Originally known as Die Zwelf Portenære or The Twelve Doorkeepers, the Porters had been around for roughly half a millennium. The original twelve had consisted of nine libriomancers, a sorcerer, a bard, and an alchemist. All save two were long dead, but the organization had grown over the centuries, and now numbered between four and five hundred members worldwide.
Its mission was unchanged. Every Porter took an oath to preserve the secrecy of magic, protect the world from magical threats, and work to expand our knowledge of magic’s power and potential.
“Vampires get stronger every year,” Lena commented as she examined the wall where the Green Bay vamp had ripped himself free, exposing the studs. Chunks of plaster littered the carpet.
“I blame Anne Rice. She helped start this whole vampire resurgence back in the late seventies. Then Huff and Hamilton and a few others helped it build . . .” And of course, in more recent times, you had Stephenie Meyer.
Supernatural creatures came about in one of two ways. A handful were natural-born, having evolved alongside Homo sapiens with whatever magical gifts or abilities helped them survive. These days, survival meant concealing their existence, like the deepwater Pacific merfolk or the handful of naga living in Laos.
But the majority of such species were created, thanks in part to the magic of libriomancy.
There were only twenty-four known libriomancers in this country, and we knew better than to go sticking our hands into a vampire scene where we might brush against an exposed fang. But there were always others with potential, readers with natural talents who didn’t understand what they were doing.
Had Mel reached into her book and felt the vampire’s teeth sink into her arm, the magic searing through her veins? Or had she been turned the old-fashioned way by another Meyerii? Lena was right that she couldn’t have truly known what she was getting into, even if she had been given a choice.