by Jim C. Hines
I dragged myself back to more immediate concerns, starting with, “How did you get inside?”
“You barred the back door with a wooden stick.” She twirled one of her bokken, narrowly missing the desk. “That doesn’t work so well against me.”
“So is this the point where you explain what’s going on?”
“Food first. Questions second. I didn’t want to raid your fridge without permission, but now that you’re here . . .”
Lena and I had different definitions of “food.” She tossed her jacket over a chair, then seized a two-liter bottle of Cherry Coke and an old carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I grabbed a bowl and spoon and offered them to her without a word.
She took the spoon, plopped down at the table, and pulled a bag of M&Ms from her jacket pocket.
“You’re worse than Smudge,” I said, watching her sprinkle the candy over her ice cream.
She dug in with an almost feral grin. “High metabolism.”
I remained standing. “Well?”
“This isn’t the first attack against the Porters.” She lowered her head, and black hair curtained her face. “A few days ago, I learned Victor Harrison had been murdered.”
“Oh, damn.” Victor was a modest, awkward man. He was brilliant, but I had no idea how someone so kindhearted had made it through fieldwork. He was one of the few people who could make magic and machines play nicely together. He had built the Porters’ server network from the ground up, adding layers of security both mundane and magical.
Three years back, one unlucky woman had come close to hacking our systems. Rumor had it she was enjoying her new life as a garter snake.
One of Victor’s favorite tricks was programming his DVR to record and play back shows that wouldn’t air for another six months. He was supposed to send me next season’s Doctor Who. “How did it happen?”
“They tortured him to death in his own home.” Lena stabbed her spoon into the ice cream. Her shoulders were tight. “Nidhi was called down to Columbus to help examine the scene. The house was a wreck. Walls smashed in, windows broken, and blood everywhere. He put up a good fight, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Wait . . . how good of a fight?” Any serious magical conflict should have attracted attention.
Lena gave me a grim smile. “Exactly. From what we could tell, his television incinerated at least one vampire. He had rigged an extra channel to put out a burst of ultraviolet light through the screen. Nobody could understand exactly what he had done to his garbage disposal, but they found blood and a fang in there.” She crunched another bite of ice cream and M&Ms. “It should have been more than enough magic to alert the Porters and summon one of their automatons to investigate, but that didn’t happen. Nicola Pallas first learned of the attack on the news.”
Meaning the Porters hadn’t been the first ones to arrive. Most of the police officers I’d met were decent people, but they weren’t equipped for this kind of investigation and didn’t know how to avoid tainting any magical evidence.
“The next attack was similar,” Lena said. “An alchemist in northern Indiana. The Porters think vampires might also be behind the death of a telepath in Madison about six months back. That time, they tortured her whole family before killing her.”
Madison . . . that would have been Abigail Dooley. I remembered hearing about her death, but I hadn’t known the details. She had retired years ago, and had been making a comfortable living via the occasional visit to the casino.
“Why punish her family? She was out of the game. She didn’t know anything worth—” The realization made me ill. “They were torturing her. So she’d hear her family’s thoughts as they died.”
“That was Nidhi’s guess, too,” said Lena, her voice dead.
Three murders. “Why haven’t I heard about this before now?”
“I’m not a Porter. You’d have to ask them.” Lena stared at the table, but it was obvious she wasn’t really seeing it. “There were two more attacks yesterday,” she said slowly. “The first was against Nidhi Shah.”
And Lena was Doctor Shah’s bodyguard. “Is she all right?”
Even as I asked, I saw the answer in her face. “There were four vampires. I was forced to kill the first. I stopped another, but they found my tree. They cut it down. I’ve never felt pain like that before. I tried to fight, but as my tree died . . .”
“I’m sorry.” The words felt utterly inadequate, but she gave a tiny nod of thanks. “Are you . . . with your tree gone—”
“I’ve survived the loss of a tree once before.” She stared past me, her eyes wet. “It takes time for life to leave a fallen tree. The leaves wither and fall away. The wood dries and cracks. Insects bore through the bark.” She shuddered. “I’ll need to find a new home for that part of myself, but your oak will do for today. It’s not the same, but it’s enough.”
For once, I managed to suppress any tactless questions about her nature.
“They ruined my garden, too,” she said distantly. “Uprooted my rosebushes and my grapevines. I guess they were afraid I could use the plants as weapons.” She twirled her spoon, digging a pit into her ice cream. “Nidhi shouted for me to get away. I crawled into the closest tree that was big enough to hold me, a thirty-year-old maple. I stayed only long enough to keep myself from following my oak into death, but when I emerged, they were long gone.”
I had met with Doctor Shah several times, though rarely by choice. I understood the logic of making people who warped reality on a regular basis check in with a professional psychiatrist, but given how that had turned out for me, my feelings toward Shah were mixed at best. None of which mattered now. I could only imagine what Lena must be feeling. As far as I knew, Doctor Shah was the closest thing she had to a family. “You did everything you could.”
“There was no body.” Lena’s fingers sank into the wood of the table as she spoke. “The only blood I could find came from me and one of the vampires. I don’t know where they went or why they took her. She might already be dead, or they might have turned her. So I sought out the nearest help I could find.”
“I’m just a cataloger these days.” If the vampires wanted to turn Shah, she might have a chance. For some species, the process could take days. But why torture and murder the others and not her? “What are the Porters doing about this?”
“They won’t say. They’re strictly a humans-only club, remember?”
Guilt made me turn away, though I had no control over our policies. “Who was the second victim?”
She hesitated. “I’m sorry, Isaac. They found Ray Walker’s body yesterday night.”
Pop psychology described five stages of grief. I went through all five in less than a minute as I struggled to accept the death of my friend.
Walker was no danger to anyone. There was no reason for any vampire to go after him . . . but there was no lie in Lena’s gaze. My body tightened, fists clenched, stomach taut. My mind flipped through its mental catalog, searching for magic that would allow me to bring back my friend. But books with such power were locked, and trying to reverse death would accomplish nothing except to earn my exile from the Porters.
I sagged into a chair and wiped a fist across my eyes. “How?”
“Like the others.”
Ray Walker had brought me into the world of magic. The Porters found me when I was in high school, and arranged for me to attend Michigan State University where I could work with Ray. For four years, I had spent every free night in his bookstore or apartment, reading handwritten texts on magic, examining artifacts, and discussing the possibilities of magic.
Ray had personally recommended me for a research position in Die Zwelf Portenære. He had given me purpose and a goal. When I screwed that up, he helped to arrange my job here. While he had never said anything, I had no doubt he had argued on my behalf, to keep Pallas from booting me out altogether.
My cell phone buzzed. I dug it out of my pocket. The caller ID read UNKNOWN. My fingers moved mechanicall
y, accepting the call and bringing the phone to my ear.
“Isaac? Thank God. Are you all right?”
I recognized the faint New York accent at once. “Three sparklers tried to kill me this afternoon, and now I find out Ray’s dead? What the hell is going on, Deb? Why aren’t the Porters doing something?”
Deb DeGeorge was a fellow libriomancer and librarian, but whereas I worked for a small public library, she held a position with the Library of Congress in Washington DC. She had a pair of Master’s degrees, spoke and read five languages and could spout obscenities in six more, and worked as a self-described “cataloger of weird shit.”
“I’m sorry about Ray, hon. I only learned about him a few hours ago. You said you were attacked? The vampires—”
“Are ash.”
She gave a disbelieving snort. “Three sparklers? Damn, Isaac.”
“I had help. Lena Greenwood showed up and did her ass-kicking thing. Deb, I couldn’t get through to Pallas either.”
“She’s alive,” Deb said quickly. “You’ve heard about Harrison? Whoever killed him found a way to hack the spells he cast protecting our communications. We’re still working to secure everything, and until we do . . .”
Until then, our murderer could be listening to every word we said. “I understand.”
“Stay put, Isaac. I’ll be there soon.”
“But what—”
“Stay!” The phone went dead before I could respond.
“What did she say?” asked Lena.
“Not much, but she sounded nervous.” This was a woman who had faced down a homicidal Chilean mummy and walked away without a scratch.
Between Smudge, Lena, and my personal library, we should be safe for the moment. I looked out the kitchen window. Trees secluded the houses from one another, and this part of town was quiet enough the neighbors’ kids down the street sometimes played an entire set of tennis in the road without having to move for cars.
Lena reached over to touch my arm. “What is it?”
“I’m not a field agent.” Deb and the others would investigate Ray’s death. They would figure out who took Doctor Shah. They would stop whoever had done this, while I . . . filed paperwork and stayed out of the way. “Ray was my friend.”
We sat in silence for a time. My thoughts were manic and uncontrolled, jumping from the attack at the library to Ray to the other deaths. “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Individual vampires are tough, but in an all-out war, they wouldn’t stand a chance. More than half of them are helpless during the day, and at last count, humans outnumbered them a million to one.”
“Some sort of civil war among the vampires?” Lena scooped up the last of the ice cream.
“The Porters would have heard.” Though whether or not they would have bothered to tell me was another question entirely. “Have there been similar attacks in other countries?”
“Not that I know of.”
Most vampires were perfectly content to live in peace, but plenty of them were still monsters at heart. If they were attacking Porters with impunity here, it wouldn’t be long before others followed suit.
Meaning if this wasn’t stopped soon, we could be looking at a worldwide war with the undead.
Chapter 3
MAGIC HAD ALWAYS MESSED with my dreams. According to years of Porter research, brainwave excitation during REM sleep immediately following the use of magic tended to mimic the patterns seen in active magic use. And according to Porter gossip, Nicola Pallas had once awoken following a day of intensive spellcasting to find that she had transformed herself into a two-hundred-pound green rabbit in her sleep.
I wasn’t powerful enough to suffer such problems. Instead, I simply endured surreal, too-vivid dreams in which my magic failed me when I needed it most. Sometimes I reached into my books, only to find myself unable to pull my hand free. Or I would fling the book away and watch in horror as what remained of my arm slowly dissolved, consumed by the book. The worst nightmares were when I fell through the magical portal I had opened in the pages, or worse yet, something on the other side of that portal pulled me in.
Tonight was one of the bad ones. I jolted awake so hard I fell out of bed. Remnants of my dreams screamed that I was tumbling deeper into darkness. Soft fingers touched my shoulder and I shouted, slapping them away.
“Take it easy,” said Lena. “It’s me.”
I tried to shove her back, but it was like trying to uproot a tree. Slowly, reality pushed the dream aside, and the pounding of my heart eased.
She helped me to my feet. I sat down on the bed, rubbing my eyes. The sheets were damp with sweat.
Doctor Shah had once prescribed pills that were supposed to help me sleep. Unfortunately, I had thrown my remaining supply away two years ago. Even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have risked them tonight. I needed my mind clear if anything happened. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
“Someone just pulled into your driveway,” said Lena.
The sky outside was dark. The red glow of the alarm clock provided just enough light to make out Lena’s shape as she sat down beside me, one hand still gripping my arm. I heard Smudge stirring in his tank beside me. At night, he slept in a thirty-gallon aquarium lined with obsidian gravel and soil.
A single cricket chirped somewhere inside the tank, probably roused out of hiding by all the noise. That was a mistake. A scurry of feet and a faint spark followed, and that was the end of the cricket.
I flipped on a light, which helped to banish the dream. Smudge froze, cricket clutched in his forelegs. He watched me as if making sure I wasn’t about to reach in and steal his snack, then retreated into a thick web that reminded me of unspun cotton.
I snatched up the Heinlein paperback I had left on the bedside table, fighting a shiver. I had fallen asleep in my blue jeans, and the cold air raised bumps along my naked chest and arms.
Lena stared unabashedly as I grabbed a flannel bathrobe from the floor and pulled it on. I ignored her, opening the book to the page I had dog-eared earlier.
The doorbell rang just as we reached the entryway. Lena gripped one of her bokken with both hands while I skimmed my book, then peeked out the front window.
I doubted vampires would be so obvious, but after yesterday, I wasn’t taking chances. I relaxed at the sight of Deb DeGeorge standing impatiently on the front porch. “Go ahead.”
Lena unlocked the door, and Deb stepped inside. “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re still alive.”
I snorted. “Nice to see you, too.”
Deb was in her early forties, with gray hair cut playfully short and a trio of silver rings in each ear. I had never seen her wear any color but black, and today was no exception. A thigh-length black jacket covered a matching shirt and long skirt.
She gave me a quick hug before moving toward the living room. Her breath smelled of gum and mint mouthwash. Her nose wrinkled at the sight of the books spilling over the end table and spread over the floor.
“Don’t even start,” I said, tossing the Heinlein onto the closest pile.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.” I jabbed a finger at the books. “I’ll have you know that I’ve developed a highly refined, if unorthodox, cataloging system.”
Deb ran a hand over the shelves, clucking her tongue. “So many books, and no nonfiction? No biographies or histories?”
“Office library, Miss Snooty. Just because you have no imagination doesn’t mean the rest of us should limit ourselves to dusty old textbooks.”
Deb’s first love had always been history. Whereas I could reach into a sci-fi thriller and yank out a blaster, she could produce invaluable artifacts from three-hundred-year-old texts. Rumor had it the Porters had recruited her at the age of sixteen, after she successfully sold a copy of the Star of Bombay, a 182-carat star sapphire currently housed in the Smithsonian.
I preferred my lasers and magic swords.
Deb’s eyes were puffy, and she moved with a barely-co
ntained manic energy that suggested either recent magic use or a major caffeine overdose. Possibly both, knowing her.
She studied me in turn. “Those are some nasty bruises.”
I touched my throat. I had managed to hide those with my collar yesterday after work, but the bathrobe exposed more of the bruises and scratches left by Mel and her minions. “You should see the other guys.”
My stomach chose that moment to let out a loud growl, earning a sympathetic look from Deb. Magic burned a lot of energy, but it ruined your appetite. Even hours later, the thought of food made me feel mildly nauseated. Magic was a great weight-loss plan, but as any doctor could tell you, losing too much weight too quickly was a bad idea. Magic users had died of malnutrition before. By the end of my time in the field, I had been down to a hundred and twenty pounds. My nails had been yellow and brittle, my blood pressure dangerously low, and I had been cold all the time.
“What’s going on, Deb?” I asked.
She sagged into the armchair. “I would have been here sooner, but there was another attack.”
I braced myself. “Who?”
“Not who.” Emotion roughened her words. “Around eleven o’clock last night, the Michigan State University library burned to the ground.” Her eyes met mine, sharing a pain few others would have understood.
Her words choked away any remaining fatigue. “How bad?”
“All of it.”
“Why would vampires go after a library?” asked Lena.
“Because,” I said numbly, “the MSU library housed the regional archive for the Porters.” So many books . . . so much knowledge. “Have any other archives been hit?”
“Not yet.” Deb pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen, then tucked it away again. “Whoever’s behind this, they’re keeping it local so far.”
Lena edged closer. “We know who’s behind this.”
“I don’t think vampires did this.” Deb stared at the floor. “What would you say if I told you Johannes Gutenberg disappeared three months ago?”