by Jim C. Hines
“Meaning we have angry, frightened vampires running through the city,” Lena said.
“We did this,” I said. The timing couldn’t be an accident. “When we found Hubert’s cabin and destroyed his automaton. He panicked. We pushed him into launching this attack.”
“How long will it take you to reach Gutenberg?” asked Pallas.
I bit my lip, visualizing the highways and calculating speed. “Twenty minutes if I go all out.”
“Do it.”
“Hubert isn’t stupid,” I said. “He’ll have kept at least one automaton back to protect him. Maybe more.” Four were currently attacking Detroit. We had destroyed a fifth, and Johann Fust was a wild card, meaning there could be a half-dozen automatons waiting for us.
“You said you defeated one,” said Pallas. “Do it again. We’re doing our best to contain the scene, but we’re outnumbered and outpowered.”
“I thought you didn’t trust me.”
“I don’t,” Pallas said flatly. “However, at this point in time, I need every Porter I can find. Besides, you’d be hard-pressed to make things worse.”
“Was that . . . was that a joke?”
The phone went dead. I shifted into fourth gear and gunned the engine, engaging the overdrive. The car surged ahead, magic holding us to the road as we sped down 66 toward Mecosta.
“Isaac, the text message is from Alice Granach.” Fear chilled her words. “It was sent at six-thirty.”
Right after the automatons attacked the nest. “What does it say?”
“It’s just her name and a phone number.” Lena was already dialing. I heard it ring once, and then a young-sounding male voice answered, “You’ve reached Dolingen Properties. How may I direct your call?”
“Tell Granach that Isaac Vainio needs to talk to her.”
“Yes, sir. I believe she was expecting you. One moment please.”
The speaker began to play what sounded like an old Beach Boys tune, and a minute or so later, Granach picked up. “Is Lena with you?”
“I’m right here,” said Lena.
“Good.” Gunfire crackled in the background. “I thought you’d want to hear when I drain the blood from your lover.”
“The man behind the attack is Charles Hubert,” Lena shouted. “We know where he is. We’re on our way to end this!”
Granach didn’t answer right away, but the screams and explosions continued from the speaker, interrupted by crackling static. “Tell me where to find this man. In exchange, the doctor dies quickly.”
Doctor Shah would die, and then the vampires would find Gutenberg. Everything Charles Hubert had done in the madness of possession paled beside the damage the true Gutenberg could do if Granach turned him. Vampires were nothing but mosquitoes to someone with Gutenberg’s power, but depending on what Hubert had done to incapacitate him, he might be vulnerable . . .
“We’re trying to help you,” I protested. A minivan honked, and the driver flipped me off as I cut in front of her and hit the gas.
“Your Porters are more worried about stopping those of us who escaped, and hiding our presence from the mortals.”
“Enough,” Lena snapped, bringing the phone to her face. “Here’s a counteroffer, Granach. Isaac and I will end this attack. Once we do, we’re going to have access to everything Charles Hubert has done. The automatons, the magic he’s used to control your people, even Gutenberg himself. So you’re going to hand Nidhi back to us alive and unharmed, or I will use those weapons to end you. Do we have an understanding?”
I heard shouting and more gunshots, but Granach didn’t answer right away. She was furious, but she was also smart. I imagined her calculating odds, reviewing everything she knew about Lena Greenwood. I realized I was holding my breath, and forced myself to exhale.
“Agreed,” Granach said grudgingly. “But if the automatons reach the heart of our nest, I will see your lover dead before they destroy me.”
Lena hung up and handed me the phone.
“You weren’t bluffing, were you?”
“Nope.”
“Awesome.” I reached forward and flicked the wiper lever twice, activating another spell. True invisibility would have been suicidal, so de Leon had opted instead for a spell that encouraged others to forget what they had seen. I’d piss off plenty of drivers tonight, but they would get over it as soon as I passed out of sight.
More importantly, if we passed any police cars, they should soon forget who they were chasing and why.
I pushed the car past a hundred miles per hour. As I did my best to dodge through traffic, the rest of my mind struggled to figure out how we were going to take on Charles Hubert and survive.
The needle was on empty when we reached Mecosta. I stopped at a gas station on the edge of town and filled the tank while Lena hurried inside. It was difficult to plan without knowing exactly what we were heading into. Maybe Hubert had already succumbed to madness, and we’d find him unconscious or dead in some shack in the woods, but I doubted it. More likely, that shack would be guarded by automatons and vampires both.
We could hold our own against a vampire or two, but Hubert wouldn’t make it so easy. The characters in his head might be mad, but they were also brilliant, and Hubert himself had years of military experience.
I peered through the window at the books tucked behind the driver’s seat. I had kept a copy of Gutenberg’s biography. If it worked for Hubert, it should work for me. Possessed by Gutenberg, I could slow or confuse the automatons long enough for Lena to reach Hubert.
At which point he could still use the Silver Cross against her. Crap. Okay, so what if I used Moly or some other magic-inhibiting substance to try to protect her from the cross’ effect? Only Mister Puddles had ignored the effects of my love magnet, back in Detroit. Hubert’s magic was too damn strong.
Lena emerged carrying a warmed-over hot dog, a one-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, and a handful of frosted fudge cakes. She handed the hot dog to me and kept the rest. “I fight better on a full stomach.”
“How do you even function on a diet like that?”
“Trees use glucose for energy, too. Anything I don’t burn off, the tree pulls for itself.”
I stared warily at the shriveled hot dog in its stale bun. Anxiety and overuse of magic churned in my gut, but I forced the hot dog down.
“What if we go in small?” Lena asked over the crinkle of cellophane. She broke off a few crumbs of chocolate and set them out for Smudge. “Sneak in like we did back at the MSU archive?”
“Automatons can sense magic. No matter what we do, they’ll see us coming.” Lena and Smudge were magic, and I was carrying around a magical fish in my head. “We could try to overwhelm them. Some of the weapons in those books could take out an entire building.”
“What about Gutenberg? We don’t even know for certain that Hubert will be with him.”
“Gutenberg is too great a threat,” I said. “Hubert won’t risk anyone finding him. He’ll be there.”
We continued to brainstorm as we drove, discarding one plan after another. A quick, hard strike seemed to be the best option. Hubert should be distracted with his assault on the Detroit nest. If we hit fast enough, we might be able to overpower him before he could respond.
Lena watched the tracking screen, calling out directions as we drove. The tracking device didn’t include street maps, which created a bit of a challenge, but Mecosta was a small town. Our automaton was a little way west, toward Big Rapids.
“There,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s your magic box, and it says we’re right on top of that thing.”
Which meant Johannes Gutenberg was being held captive at Mecosta Auto Sales and Repair. The office building was a small, blocky structure of brown brick and glass. The windows were dark. One had been broken and covered with plywood. A sun-faded banner announced an old going out of business sale.
Behind the office was a larger building with four separate garage door
s, presumably the repair bays. A handful of cars were parked in a large, mostly abandoned lot. Prices were still painted onto the windshields.
I kept driving, just to be certain, but the signal on the tracking device didn’t change. Smudge confirmed it, turning in place to keep a wary eye on the dealership.
I pulled off the road a mile past the dealership and grabbed my books. The sunglasses I had used back at Hubert’s cabin were damaged. I dissolved them into Heart of Stone and waited for the magic to re-form them. A thin line of char marked the center of the pages, but I went ahead and retrieved a second, identical pair, which I handed to Lena.
Next, I proceeded to arm myself much the same as I had at the Detroit nest, with garlic, crucifix, and a pair of pistols. I also created a sheathed broadsword with a gold, jewel-encrusted hilt. “Excalibur number seventy-three.” We had more than a hundred versions of Excalibur cataloged in our database. “Cuts through just about anything.”
“Nice,” said Lena. “Shades, sword, and guns. Very badass.”
“Very heavy,” I complained. The books in my jacket were bad enough. “Did you want anything else?”
She studied me over the top of her sunglasses. “I think maybe you’d better hold off on any more magic. You’re shivering.”
I didn’t bother to deny it.
She pushed up the glasses and examined me, then Smudge. “Do we really have to kill Hubert?”
“He knows he’s dying. He chose death the moment he opened himself to possession.” I returned my books to their pockets and slipped the sword over my shoulder. “I’m thinking our best chance is to speak to someone else.”
I reclined the seat as far as it would go, trying to ignore Lena’s amused smile as I struggled to sit back down with my various weapons. The tremors in my hands didn’t help matters. I finally had to lower the top so Excalibur’s hilt would stop catching on it.
With Smudge in his cage, I pulled onto the road and did a U-turn. Through the enchanted sunglasses, Mecosta Auto Sales and Repair was a very different place. Hubert had painted an illusion of normalcy over what was essentially a small fortress. The office building was magically dead, but the garages in back were surrounded by a makeshift barrier that could have come straight out of World War I, with wooden posts and barbed wire woven into an impassible web.
Chrome spikes protruded from the garage walls, and a pair of armed vampires patrolled the roof. The garage doors appeared to be magically reinforced. The cars in the lot were likewise infected with magic of some sort. Every car had a bright patch of power. The location varied from one to the next.
“How did Hubert do all of this?” Lena asked, squinting through her lens. “I thought libriomancers couldn’t create anything that didn’t fit through your books.”
“We can’t.” I pulled into the lot as casually as I could.
Lena handed me the charred copy of Sherlock Holmes. “You said those voices were all mad. Do you have a backup plan?”
“Not this time,” I lied. I climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the vampires on the roof who had readied rifles. I skimmed down the page until I found the story I wanted. I reread the dialogue, memorizing Holmes’ lines. Cupping my hands to my mouth, I shouted, “Your occupation is gone, sir. You are lost if you return to London!”
One of the parked cars lurched toward us. Throughout the lot, other vehicles came to life. Some screeched toward Lena, but most targeted me. Lena leaped easily over a rusted Corvette, then dropped low as one of the vampires fired at her. Bullets cratered the parking lot as she sprinted toward the side of the service garage.
I shoved the book back into my pocket and pulled out both pistols. I shot blindly at the vampires until they ducked down, then sighted carefully at a red Chevy Cavalier. The laser punched through the engine, and my next shots shredded the front tires for good measure.
High beams from my right momentarily blinded me. I squinted through the sunglasses to see a fifty-eight Plymouth Fury racing toward me. And Charles Hubert was a libriomancer.
“Nice,” I said, firing again. The Fury had been cannibalized straight out of Stephen King’s Christine. I could see now where Hubert had welded parts of King’s homicidal car to the other vehicles, bringing them all to life. Had he grown them all from a single, book-sized piece of that Fury? King’s book had hinted that the car could repair itself.
I pocketed the gun in my right hand and drew Excalibur, while continuing to try to pin down the vampires with the other pistol. “Until this moment, I failed to understand or appreciate the might of your organization,” I shouted. The dialogue was straight out of “The Final Problem,” the story in which Holmes sacrificed his own life to destroy his archenemy, Professor Moriarty.
I hoped that wasn’t prophetic.
I fired left-handed, then jumped back. Excalibur twisted in my grip, jerking my arm out and downward. The impact of sword on car reminded me of hitting a baseball, if the baseball was made of solid lead.
I couldn’t have released the sword if I wanted to. It sliced through tires and steel, emerging from the Fury with enough speed to whirl me in a complete circle. The Fury spun out, wrecking a station wagon.
I checked Smudge’s cage to make sure he was all right, then ran to hide behind the mangled car. “Best. Sword. Ever!”
Lena was using her bokken to cut through the barbed wire. I crouched behind the Fury as both vampires concentrated their fire on me. I blasted the side mirror off the car and used it to peek over the hood. I fired blindly, using the mirror to try to guide my shots toward the figures on the roof. Then a cloud of mist flowed out from the garage and solidified into the figure of a woman.
Lena thrust her bokken through the new arrival, who promptly dissolved into ash. One of the vampires on the roof dropped his weapon and sprang into the air. He snatched one of Lena’s bokken in now-clawed feet, ripping it from her grasp.
“This is inevitable destruction!” I shouted, quoting the story once more. “Surely you can spare me five minutes to hear what I have to say.”
The cars slowed. Over the idling of their engines, I heard an answering cry, “All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.”
That was one of Moriarty’s lines to Holmes. I had hooked him. I peeked out from behind the car. “Have you any suggestion to make?”
“You must drop it.”
For the first time, I revised the script, trying to preserve Holmes’ voice the best I could. “I’ve done what I could, but I cannot beat you. You know every move of this game, and I am not clever enough to bring destruction upon you. I know it would grieve you to have to take extreme measures against me. Let us meet, that I might present an alternative solution.”
Silence. Had my changes snapped Moriarty’s hold on Hubert’s mind? I looked to Lena and readied my weapons.
And then the rightmost garage door began to rise.
Chapter 20
FLUORESCENT LIGHTS FLICKERED INSIDE. Directly in front of me, an automaton was stretched out on a car lift like Frankenstein’s monster. Three other automatons lay as if dead in the repair bays to either side, while two more stood in the shadows in the back.
Stacks of tires lined the back wall. The air smelled of grease and oil. I knew this place. I had seen it through a book when I touched Hubert’s mind.
Lena joined me, a single bokken resting on her shoulder. I sheathed Excalibur and kept one hand in my pocket, finger on the trigger of my laser. “Over there,” I whispered, pointing to what appeared to be a small office in the back corner.
The door swung open. The office was dark, but through the glasses I could make out the glow of magic. And then what was left of Charles Hubert stepped out.
The soldier from the newspaper photos was gone, replaced by a pale scarecrow of a man who looked like he weighed maybe a hundred pounds, tops. Filthy green sweatpants hung from his bony hips. His chest was bare, white skin outlining every rib. He had lost most of his hair, and his head was like a painted skull. His scar was a vivi
d pink line down the side of his head and face.
Lines of faded text covered his skin. From the irregular handwriting, it looked like he had done it himself with a black marker. I saw English, German, and what looked like Pashto. In one hand, he held a heavy silver cross, encrusted with rubies.
Lena grabbed my forearm and tugged. The laser burned through my jacket pocket and blasted the back wall, filling the air with the stench of melted rubber. She twisted my arm and plucked the gun from my hand, then retrieved the other pistol. She stripped Excalibur from my back as well.
“Lena . . .”
She removed her sunglasses and tossed them to the floor. In the dim light, I could just make out the pointed crosses of Lena’s pupils. The sight made me ill. He must have taken control of her before he ever emerged from his office.
“You have less frontal development that I should have expected,” Hubert said, still quoting the story. Moriarty had such a civilized way of insulting one’s intelligence. “It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s jacket.”
“How did you persuade my companion to betray me?” I asked, and was rewarded by a glimmer of confusion in Hubert’s eyes. A mind such as Moriarty’s would never believe in magic.
“She was clever enough to see the truth,” he said after a pause. “To join me rather than be trodden underfoot. Now tell me of the footprints.”
I blinked. “The footprints?”
“I see them in my memory. Two lines of footmarks clearly marked in the moist blackness of the soil, both leading away. None return.” His precise diction couldn’t conceal his confusion or his fear.
“Of course,” I said, pulling out the Holmes book. The footprints were from the very end of the story.
“You murdered me,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “You flung me into the swirling water and seething foam!”