Imprinted

by Jim Hines

  “Nobody knows. You broke it before it could finish.”

  More than a thousand people lived at New Millennium. Close to a hundred more had come for the ansible presentation. That meant at least eleven hundred potential suspects. “It wasn’t just another spell.” Jeneta watched Nkiruka toy with another bit of popcorn. “I felt like I was drowning.”

  “That doesn’t sound like libriomantic possession.” The trouble with reaching into books to perform magic was that occasionally the books reached back. A libriomancer who pushed too hard could end up carrying those characters around in their head, hearing their voices, even losing themselves in the characters’ stories.

  “I’ve read New Destiny cover-to-cover. This was nothing from the book.” Jeneta hesitated. “I want to help Isaac find whoever did this.”

  “You want to feel in control again.”

  Jeneta turned away, blinking back unexpected tears. Damn therapists.

  “You can ask, but we both know what he’s going to say. Not to mention your father.”

  “God, everyone’s going to be even more overprotective, aren’t they.” Jeneta had already seen it from her father. Mmadukaaku Aboderin disliked and distrusted magic, but he loved her. He’d moved them to New Millennium because he believed it was the safest place for her. Who knew what he’d do now. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You know your triggers, and you know the techniques for managing them,” Dr. Shah reminded her. “Pay attention to how you’re feeling and what stories you’re telling yourself about what happened. This isn’t your fault, any more than it’s Isaac’s. It’s the fault of whoever sabotaged your magic. Jeneta, have you talked to any friends since the presentation? Gotten out of your apartment?”

  Jeneta shook her head.

  “Then that’s your homework. Go for a walk. Text a friend. Give yourself a chance for a little normalcy.”

  “We live across the hall from a werewolf janitor.”

  “Normal is relative.” Dr. Shah smiled. “And don’t be afraid to call or text me if you need.”

  * * *

  “What’s more normal than schoolwork?” Jeneta muttered to herself as she left the eastern residential building late that night. She’d fallen behind in her classes as a result of her work on the Mars project, and finals were coming up in three weeks.

  Nkiruka burned like a little red lantern in her cage as she cooked a small grasshopper for dinner. The cage hung from Jeneta’s shoulder by a canvas strap decorated with small pins and buttons.

  Jeneta made her way to a bench near the Johannes Gutenberg Memorial Library Tower and set her books down beside her. Goosebumps tightened the skin of her bare arms. The desert was surprisingly cool at night.

  She grabbed a mechanical pencil and opened her trigonometry textbook, reading by the light of the nearby lamp post. Maybe circular functions and practice problems could drive off the nightmares that had ambushed her when she tried to sleep.

  Cheers broke out from a volleyball court over by the western residential building, making Jeneta jump so hard she almost dropped her book. She slowed her breathing, trying to calm her heart, while the vampire team celebrated the point against their opponents.

  “Man, that game is intense,” said a cheerful voice.

  This time her book did spill to the ground, along with her review sheets. Jeneta spun to find Greg Parker standing behind her, hands raised in apology.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” He wore jogging shorts and a NASA T-shirt. Sweat darkened the neck and pits. A worn fanny pack was buckled around his waist. “You’re Jeneta Abodine, right?”

  “Aboderin.”

  Embarrassment colored his white skin like a stop sign. “I suck with names, sorry. I’m Greg.”

  “I know.” She waved away the apology. “What are you doing?”

  “Couldn’t sleep, so I went for a run.” He pointed to the volleyball court. “The furry ones, are those real werewolves?”

  She nodded. “Most are from a pack in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They’re the only team that can give the vampires a run for their money.”

  “They’re playing against vampires?”

  “You should have been here last month for the roller derby tournament.”

  He stared at her like he couldn’t decide whether she was joking. Eventually, he sat on the end of the bench and asked, “What about you? Do you always work on trigonometry at two in the morning?”

  It was later than she’d realized. She turned away, remembering dreams of drowning, of other thoughts constricting her own.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” He ran a hand through his sweaty brown hair, making it look like a hedgehog’s spines. “You know, that presentation of yours was the first time I’d seen real magic. I’ve watched stuff on the news and the web and all, but never in real life. My brain keeps insisting it’s a trick, like something from a Vegas show.”

  “It’s not a trick.”

  “I know, but there’s a difference between knowing and knowing, you know?”

  She tilted her head. “Are you always this articulate?”

  “Pretty much.” He sighed. “My dad’s supposed to fly a magical spaceship later this year. Ever since things went haywire with the ansible, I keep thinking what if something goes wrong while he’s flying? What if—”

  “They’ll find whoever disrupted my spell, and the plan is to have at least one libriomancer on board. We’ll make sure your father is safe.”

  He pulled a half-empty water bottle from his pack and gulped down the contents before asking, “Disrupted? Someone tried to mess with your magic? Why would they do that?”

  “Power and control.” Jeneta looked away. “An awful lot of evil comes down to power and control, either taking it away from others or gathering more for yourself.”

  Greg’s eyes narrowed. He pulled back, one hand coming up to point. Jeneta had seen that expression more times than she could remember, and she braced herself for what came next.

  “I know you,” he said. “I mean, I’ve seen you before. You were on the news a while back. You burned down a guy’s house in northern Michigan. You attacked—”

  “I was possessed by a necromancer who called herself Meridiana. She used my body and my magic to hurt a lot of people. She…we…tortured them. Consumed their magic. She tried to create an army of the dead.” Jeneta rushed through her script as quickly as she could, eager to reach the point where Greg mumbled something uncomfortable and departed. “Isaac, Lena, Dr. Shah, and a lot of other people risked their lives to save me.”

  “You changed your hair.”

  Jeneta stumbled. That wasn’t among the standard replies. She touched her dreadlocks, feeling self-conscious. “Everyone knew what I looked like. I was tired of being recognized.”

  “Did you…do you remember everything Meridiana did as you?”

  She blinked hard and turned away. “Yeah.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Understatement of the century.”

  “Sorry.” He hesitated. “That sucks balls.”

  A sound that was half laugh, half snort burst loose from her chest. She covered her mouth with one hand. Greg started laughing too, which made it harder for her to stop.

  Nkiruka paced in her cage, glaring up at each of them in turn like she was trying to figure out what had broken the two humans. “I’m all right.” Jeneta took a half-squished chocolate-covered ant from a plastic bag in her pocket and dropped it into the cage to reassure her. “There you go.”

  “Whoa.” Greg practically pressed his nose to the cage as Nkiruka’s forelegs ignited. “It’s on fire! Is it magic too?”

  “Her name’s Nkiruka. She’s a fire-spider.” Jeneta gave her a second ant. “Do you really want to know what magic’s like?”

  “Hell, yes!” Eagerness turned his mouth and eyes round.

  She pulled her trig book into her lap.

  “You can do magic with a textbook? What are you going to do, create enchanted t
riangles?”

  “Pictures don’t work for libriomancy, but any writing that’s been read by enough people should have magical potential.” She flipped past a page of diagrams and exercises to the next block of text, a discussion of the laws of sines and cosines. She touched the page, moving her fingers over the shiny black ink of the characters.

  “I thought you used e-books for your magic.”

  “It’s easier for me, but I can do printed text too.” She realized she was showing off. “I prefer working with poetry.”

  There was poetry in math, too: structure and rhythm and flow from one logical step to the next. Her fingertips sank into the paper. Greg’s breath caught.

  Jeneta grinned and reached deeper. Abstract concepts like mathematical formulae weren’t something she could create in the real world. She reached instead to touch the emotional imprints left by thousands of readers poring over copies of this exact book—students working to memorize, and less often, to understand. She felt their frustration, their boredom, their annoyance…

  She sorted through those impressions until she touched a moment of revelation, the moment when everything fell into place. Satisfaction and excitement blossomed in her chest. She touched her other hand to Greg’s arm, and was rewarded by a sharp gasp.

  “Holy shit!” He stared at her, then at the book. “What is that?”

  “Emotional echoes of what people felt when they finally got it.”

  “I never felt anything like this when I took trig.”

  “Maybe you should have studied harder.” She smiled to tell him she was joking. “We’re connected to every copy of this book in existence. You’re feeling the cumulative impressions of hundreds of people. It strengthens the impact.”

  “That is so cool.” He put his free hand on the page beside hers. The tips of his nails whitened as he pressed down. A disappointed sigh escaped his lips. “Guess I’m not a libriomancer.”

  “On the bright side, that means you shouldn’t have to worry about hosting an evil dead woman who uses you to spread death and terror.” Jeneta pulled her hand away, breaking the spell. “Sorry, that came out harsher than I meant.”

  Gravel rattled in Nkiruka’s cage. She’d finished eating, but red flames continued to ripple over her back.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Greg.

  “I’m not sure.” A dragonfly buzzed loudly as it circled the lamp post, feasting on other bugs. Maybe Nkiruka just wanted to join the hunt?

  A shadow darted across the walk to her right. Jeneta jumped to her feet and grabbed her cellphone.

  The shadow floated closer. Instead of fading as it entered the lamplight, its edges grew more distinct. Thin tendrils undulated behind a body like an elongated ostrich egg. Jeneta’s stomach twisted. She felt like she might throw up.

  “What is it?” Greg looked around, seemingly blind to the thing that stretched tentacles of blackness toward them.

  “We have to go.” Jeneta snatched Nkiruka’s cage and texted Isaac one-handed: Need help. By the library. 911!

  “What about your books?”

  “Leave them!” The hairlike tip of a tentacle lashed out, piercing her thoughts. She felt herself falling. Drowning. “Get out!”

  Greg caught her elbow. She used him for balance as she thumbed to her e-reader program and pulled up Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.” More tentacles stretched toward her.

  I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

  And on a day we meet to walk the line

  And set the wall between us once again.

  We keep the wall between us as we go.

  Ghostly stones tumbled forth from her screen, rolling and growing and piling themselves into a wall between her and the shadow. Stones like softballs and bread loaves and small boulders rose up to encircle her and Greg. There was so much more to the poem, but right now, all she cared about was putting a barrier between herself and her attacker.

  “Jeneta?” Isaac’s voice, muffled by the magic of Jeneta’s wall.

  “Here!” Shadowy tendrils wormed between the stones, inching closer. She reread Frost’s words, strengthening the wall until it blocked out all light and sound, save for Nkiruka’s glow and Greg’s nervous breathing. Still the shadows came.

  And then…nothing. Her spell crumbled away. The shadows disappeared. Nkiruka’s flame died.

  Isaac ran up behind her, followed closely by Kiyoko. “What happened?”

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  He clutched a black pearl bracelet in one hand. Jeneta had seen such tools before, used for countering the effects of magic. He turned in a slow circle. “All I saw was your spell. Frost, right?”

  She nodded and hugged herself. “Whoever or whatever attacked me on stage…they’re still here. They’re still coming after me.”

  And she was the only one who could see them.

  * * *

  In some ways, Metrodora Medical Tower was like the hospital Jeneta had gone to when she broke her leg playing kickball in fourth grade. It had the same light-colored walls and tile floors, the same cheerful posters and murals, the same antiseptic smell.

  The staff were a mix of libriomancers who specialized in healing, full-time medical professionals, and a handful of visiting professionals. Most patients came from outside New Millennium for help with ailments traditional medicine couldn’t fight. Metrodora Tower also handled the day-to-day injuries and illnesses of the New Millennium community, everything from cuts and scrapes to heartworm preventatives for the werewolves.

  Jeneta lay in a narrow hospital bed in a small, private room. Isaac and Kiyoko stood to one side. Her father sat in a chair to the other. After several hours of examination, the doctors had found nothing wrong with her, but asked that she stay a while longer for observation.

  “We have people searching every inch of the grounds,” Isaac said quietly. Frustration creased his brow and the corners of his eyes. “We’ll also be questioning all visitors. Security ran background checks on everyone, but given what’s happened…”

  She turned to the side, watching the pink light of the sunrise through the cracks of the window blinds.

  “What was this thing?” asked Mmadukaaku Aboderin, his deep voice tight with restrained emotion.

  “I’ve searched our databases,” said Isaac. “I tagged several near-matches for follow-up research, but nothing quite fits what your daughter describes.”

  “I have run multiple queries as well,” Kiyoko added.

  “That was a hell of a shield you put up, Jeneta.” Isaac adjusted his glasses and began to pace. “Robert Frost, right? From what I saw, I’d have guessed nothing could get through that thing.”

  She didn’t move. “Well, it did.”

  Her father cleared his throat. “If you’re through questioning my daughter, I would like to speak with her alone.”

  Isaac started to say something, noted the expression on his face, and nodded. “Kiyoko, could you—?”

  “I will wait outside the door,” said Kiyoko. “I can monitor Jeneta’s vitals from the hallway.”

  Isaac pressed a folded note into Jeneta’s hand. “Greg Parker asked me to give this to you. And Nidhi offered to stop by later if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks.”

  They shut the door behind them. Jeneta’s father rose. “I spoke to your mother.”

  She groaned, mentally bracing herself for the inevitable phone calls and video chats demanding to know whether Jeneta would abandon this “magical nonsense” and get out of New Millennium before it killed her. The same things her father used to say, before he gave up on changing her mind. “What did she say?”

  “She’d seen a news story about your ansible presentation. What do you think?”

  “Sorry.” Jeneta set Greg’s note on the rolling table beside her bed, next to a half-eaten cup of applesauce. Hospital food, even in a magic hospital, was no substitute for home cooking.

  As if reading her mind, her father said, “I thought I’d make dodo today. If you’re
hungry.”

  Her mouth watered at the thought of the deep-fried plantain slices, but why was he acting so nice? “Aren’t you angry?”

  “I am furious.” He ran a hand over his receding hair. “Furious with whoever did this to you. With Isaac and New Millennium for letting it happen. With you, for following this path. With me, for allowing it.”

  “I can’t change what I am.”

  His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. “I understand, but there are other changes we could explore.”

  She sat up, suspicion chasing away her weariness. “What changes?”

  “After the presentation, once we knew you were all right, someone approached me to offer…an alternate path. Another way for you to be what you are. A safer way.”

  “I’m happy here.”

  “Are you?”

  Those two words pierced her skin like a scalpel, exposing the dread that had festered since that moment on stage.

  The door cracked open, and Kiyoko peered inside. “You have two visitors. Elizabeth Collins and Gellert Nguyen. They say they’re expected. Shall I let them in?”

  “Yes, please,” Jeneta’s father answered.

  Two people entered, a white woman and an Asian man. After a moment, Jeneta recognized them: they’d been in the second row during her presentation. Collins wore black slacks and a denim-style shirt, with a beige blazer. Nguyen’s outfit was all black, from his shoes to his bow tie. Someone was trying a little too hard to look dark and dangerous.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see us.” Collins shook Jeneta’s hand, then her father’s. “I’m the VP of Research for JP Multinational. Mr. Nguyen is a libriomancer from our Paris office. We’re here to offer you a job.”

  “Shouldn’t I finish high school first?”

  She laughed far more than the comment warranted. “We have tutors on staff who can help you complete your education, and we’d assist you with any advanced degrees you cared to pursue.”

  She continued to move about the room, reminding Jeneta of certain species of shark that had to keep swimming or die. “New Millennium has been in the spotlight since day one. With so much magic and so many extraordinary people and creatures living together, it’s bound to attract attention and…strife. JPM would provide everything you needed to continue your magical work, but more importantly, we’ll give you privacy and security. You’d be safe.”