Libriomancer mel-1

by Jim C. Hines

  “Ray once told me magic was like electricity. Pump too many amps through a cord that’s not rated for it, and you risk melting it or starting a fire. Books can channel a lot of magic. So can people, for that matter. But there are limits.”

  Smudge had crawled into the back seat, where he was digging into a writhing pile of maggots. He settled down and began to gobble them like popcorn.

  “That is beyond gross,” I said, using a Jelly Belly to lure him out. I slammed the door shut. Lena started toward her motorcycle, but I shook my head. “We’re safer together.”

  “We’re also an easier target.”

  “Whoever targets my car deserves what they get.” I keyed in the code to the garage door opener. The door lurched upward, squealing in protest, to reveal the gleaming curves of a black 1973 Triumph convertible. Despite having sat untouched for more than two years, not a speck of dust marred the paint.

  “It’s cute,” Lena said, tracing her fingers over the red pinstriping.

  “It’s not cute.” I climbed into the driver’s seat. “The body’s mostly steel, so it’s tougher than a lot of modern cars. And it’s been modified for the field.”

  Lena grabbed a small pack from her motorcycle’s saddlebag and squeezed it into the back, along with her two bokken. She waited while I backed out of the garage, then wheeled her bike in beside the old snow blower.

  “I approve,” she said when she joined me in the car. She reached out to touch the wood-paneled interior, then poked the tiny blue TARDIS that hung from the rearview mirror. “That’s the flying phone booth from Doctor Who, right?”

  “It’s a police box. It was a gift from Ray, when I came back from my first solo mission in the field.” Ray had taken me out to the local pizza place to celebrate. I was pretty sure he had been even more excited about my success than I was.

  Smudge raced down my sleeve, over the steering wheel, and onto the dash. Driving fascinated him. I had never figured out exactly why, but the old iron-and-ceramic trivet secured to the middle of the dash was his favorite spot in the world. As a bonus, in cold weather, he did a great job of keeping the windshield defrosted.

  Lena pointed to the lower edge of the rearview mirror, where tiny symbols were etched into the glass. “What does this say?”

  “It’s Spanish. The spell gives the driver a form of night vision. You’ll see the same characters on the windshield.”

  “Nice. And that gray rock tied to the steering wheel?”

  “A piece of hoof from a mountain goat. For traction control. We could take this thing snowmobiling on a frozen lake if we wanted, and we’d never lose control.”

  “I didn’t think libriomancers could do that kind of magic.”

  “We can’t.” I sped toward Highway 41. “I kind of stole it.”

  “From who?”

  “Ponce de Leon.”

  I could see her staring at me from the edge of my vision. “As in Ponce de Leon the conquistador?”

  “He wasn’t using it anymore.” I kept my attention on the road, especially the wooded areas to either side. Tough as the car was, a deer leaping out at the wrong moment could still inflict a fair amount of damage. I had deer whistles on the bumper, but I had seen too many wrecks and too many suicidal deer to trust them. “Besides, is it really stealing if you’re stealing from an asshole?”

  “I’d have to double-check, but I don’t think the criminal code includes an asshole clause.” She rolled down her window and reached out, fingers spread against the wind. Smudge flattened his body on the dash. “So where are we going?”

  “To see a vampire named Ted Boyer in Marquette.” Most vampires kept to the bigger cities where it was easier to go unnoticed, but Ted was a Yooper through and through, born and bred in the U.P. “He should be able to fill us in on the latest bloodsucker gossip.”

  Lena played with the radio for a while, eventually settling on a country station. The air and the music all but swallowed her uncharacteristically quiet question. “Isaac, how many strains of vampirism can be cured?”

  “Eleven,” I said. “There are a handful of others that can be managed like a chronic disease.” I had once met a vampire who worked as an electrical engineer, and had rigged an insulin pump to deliver a steady dosage of holy water into his system, just enough to keep the symptoms at bay. But most, including Deb’s strain, were incurable. “You’re worried about Doctor Shah.”

  “About her, and about what they could do with her. Nidhi knows every Porter in the region. She evaluated and worked with you all.”

  I gritted my teeth and pressed down on the accelerator. If the vampires were starting a war, they couldn’t have found a better person to fill them in on the strengths and weaknesses of their enemy.

  Chapter 5

  I took my time getting to Marquette, wanting to wait until the sun was fully risen. Ted was an old school vampire, mostly Sanguinarius Stokerus, though the hybrid that turned him had given him a few extra quirks. He would be sluggish and weak during the day, which suited me just fine.

  “How do we know your friend isn’t involved in whatever’s happening?” asked Lena.

  “First of all, Ted’s a coward. I don’t recall him ever going after a victim who was strong enough to put up a fight.”

  “What’s the second reason?”

  “I stuck a bomb in his head.” I searched for the arched wooden sign I remembered from my last visit. Ted lived on the southern edge of the city, about two miles in from the bay. “He had been preying on humans, so Pallas ordered me to eliminate him. Normally, the vampires would have taken care of him, but there were ‘jurisdictional complications’ between the Detroit and Green Bay nests. When I found Ted, he begged me to give him another chance. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have my own informant. The device also lets me track his location. He’s not tamed by a long shot, but this is the next best thing.”

  “What happened after you left the field?”

  “The Porters send someone up every couple of months. Mostly they just let the computer map his movements. It sends up an alert if he goes anywhere he’s not supposed to, like the Boy Scout camp west of town.” When I found him, he had been living in the woods and sneaking into tents at night to feed.

  Lena looked around as I drove up the winding road. “And now he lives in a trailer park?”

  “He says he’s comfortable here.” I veered left, toward the more heavily wooded area in the back. I quickly spotted Ted’s trailer, a yellow double-wide with green trim. An American flag jutted from a pole in the doorframe. Ted’s blue Ford Bronco sat in the dirt driveway, the body slowly losing the war against rust. A faded bumper sticker on the back read, Say yah to da U. P., eh?

  While Lena grabbed her weapons, I opened the glove box and took out a small nylon bag and an old space opera. From chapter twelve of the book, I created a PDA-sized device with a glowing red dot dead-center on the screen.

  I tugged open the screen door and knocked. Ted should be sleeping, but you never knew. Frenzied barking erupted from inside, followed by the sound of claws scratching the door. I tried the knob. “How are you with locks?”

  Lena handed her bokken to me. They were heavier than I had expected. She slid a toothpick from a small pocket in the seam of her jacket and winked. “Watch this.”

  She held the toothpick between her finger and thumb. The wood grew as if alive, lengthening and sprouting a flat triangular bump on one side. She slid the toothpick into the lock and closed her eyes. Instead of trying to pick the lock, she simply waited. Moments later, she grinned and turned the toothpick. When she pulled it back out, it had grown into a reasonable imitation of a key.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “You should see what I can do with rosebushes.”

  I checked the nearby trailers to make sure nobody had noticed. The dog continued to protest our arrival to all who would listen, but either the neighbors had left for work, or else they had learned to tune out Ted’s pet.

  Work. “Oh, crap. Remind m
e to call the library when we finish here.” I was supposed to open this morning. How many angry messages would be waiting on my machine when I returned home?

  Lena opened the door and braced herself as a small, hyperactive beagle pounced at her legs, barking and sniffing. He didn’t appear aggressive, just happy. His entire butt wagged as he examined Lena’s sneakers.

  Smudge shifted on my shoulder, watching the dog closely. “Watch yourself,” I said to Lena. “You know how dogs are with trees.”

  She punched my arm, but did issue a stern, “Don’t even think about it,” to the beagle.

  Ted’s home was unchanged from my last visit, well-kept and smelling faintly of barbeque. The living room was to the left, with a handmade entertainment center dominating one wall, and a decent collection of video games filling the shelves. On our right was a small kitchen and dining area.

  I peeked in the fridge. No sign of blood, which was good. The freezer was bursting with venison packed into plastic bags, each one dated in black marker. “Ted’s a good hunter. He doesn’t bother to bring a bow or rifle, but ever since our ‘talk’ a few years ago, he’s made sure to pay for his hunting license every year. It’s amazing how quickly you start following the rules when someone sticks a cranial explosive to the base of your skull. He hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket since then.”

  I walked down the hallway into the small utility room in the back, where peeling linoleum and the scent of antiseptic greeted us. The beagle grew even more excited, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. His collar and tags rang against the empty steel dish on the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said. “No food until your owner wakes up.” I opened the storage closet to find a pile of rags and towels stuffed haphazardly onto the shelves. I dropped to one knee and reached past the towels until I found the tiny steel handle sunk into the back. A tug rewarded me with a metallic click. Standing, I pulled the entire closet, which swiveled out to reveal an aluminum ladder secured to the wall studs with what appeared to be old metal coat hangers.

  Lena squeezed past, the brushing of her body against mine momentarily distracting me as she peered into the dark hole in the floor.

  “Ted sleeps hard,” I assured her. I double-checked Smudge, who seemed far more anxious about the beagle than the vampire below.

  She descended one-handed, holding both bokken in her other hand. I followed, and the beagle’s yips changed to a drawn-out, pathetic whine as he watched us from the edge of the hole.

  The air below was damp and cool. A single incandescent bulb hung overhead. I found the chain and pulled, illuminating cinder block walls and a low ceiling lined with cobwebs and daddy longlegs. Ted’s makeshift cellar was the size of a small bedroom. A pair of metal support pillars were stuck into the middle of the cement floor, bracing the underside of the trailer.

  Ted’s coffin rested on two wide logs, positioned like fat tree stumps. The coffin was glossy black, trimmed in silver, and looked entirely out of place in these dingy surroundings. The thing was polished so well I could see us both reflected in its surface. I wondered idly, not for the first time, how he had gotten it down here. Had he simply dug out a cellar and then moved the trailer into position on top, using his vampiric tricks to erase the curiosity of anyone who might have questioned?

  Half of a Ping-Pong table was shoved against a wall. Ted’s old paddle and a single yellowed ball rested on the corner. He had painted a net on the wall, giving him a practice table where he could play against himself. A minifridge hummed beneath the table. An orange extension cord trailed up through a heavily caulked hole in the ceiling.

  I checked the fridge and pulled out one of eight identical blue thermoses, each one dated like the venison from upstairs. I unscrewed the lid and took a whiff.

  “Blood?” Lena guessed.

  “Probably deer blood.” I stepped toward the coffin and pulled the detonator from my pocket. “Go ahead.”

  Lena tucked one bokken through her belt, readied the other, and yanked open the lid. The black barrel of a sawed-off shotgun poked out. From inside the coffin, Ted shouted, “Who the hell are-?”

  Lena slammed the lid back down on the barrel, pinning it long enough for her to grab the end. Ted swore as he struggled to control his gun. I crouched low, trying to stay out of the line of fire.

  Lena’s lips tightened in a smile. She adjusted her stance and thrust the gun backward, ramming the stock into Ted’s body. Ted’s cursing grew in pitch and intensity as Lena twisted the shotgun free and set it on the Ping-Pong table.

  “Since when do you sleep armed, Ted?” I asked.

  “Isaac?” The lid opened, and his words turned wary. “What brings you out this way?”

  “Three vampires tried to kill me at work yesterday. A Wallacea showed up at my house early this morning to finish the job.”

  “A what?”

  “Bug-eater.”

  “Yet here you are.” He snorted and sat up, pushing the lid back. A rubber pad glued to the wall protected the coffin’s edge. “Maybe the next one will have better luck.”

  Ted was a small, slender man with wild eyes, wilder hair, and a complexion that would have made Snow White jealous. He was wearing nothing but ratty gray sweatpants, revealing a lean, bony torso. A vivid red mark on his right shoulder showed where Lena had rammed the gun into him.

  I tossed him a thermos. He unscrewed the lid and took a long drink. Bloodshot eyes flitted from me to Lena and back. I could see the tension in the corded muscles of his neck and shoulders. The longer we waited in silence, the more nervous he’d get.

  He smelled like death and Old Spice, the latter being the best thing he had found to overpower the former. When he spoke, his lips peeled back to reveal pale, receded gums and gaps among his ivory teeth where his fangs had once been. “Who’s the fat chick?”

  “Oh, good, Ted. Insult the woman who just took your gun away.” I raised the detonator, earning a low snarl. “Her name’s Lena Greenwood. She’s the one who’s going to humiliate you-again-if you give us any crap.”

  “Yah, I know that name. Tree lover, right?” He pointed to the trapdoor. “Would one of you bring Jimmer down here before the damn fool jumps and breaks his neck?”

  The beagle looked ready to do just that. I could hear his claws scraping the edge of the hole as he peered down at us, his entire body quivering. He whined piteously as I approached. The instant I held out my arms, he launched himself into the air. I nearly dropped the detonator, but managed to catch both it and the dog. I set him down, and he raced toward the coffin.

  Ted dipped a finger into the thermos and offered the red-coated digit to the dog, who reared up and began lapping at the blood.

  “If you’ve made yourself a vampire beagle-” I began.

  “Nah, Jimmer just likes the taste.” He set the thermos in the corner of the coffin and stretched. Without looking, he grabbed a plastic lighter and a half-empty pack of cigarettes from a pocket in the coffin’s blue satin lining. “So what will it take to get rid of you so I can go back to sleep?”

  “A clean blood test, for starters.” While he lit up, I opened the small pouch I had taken from the glove box. Inside was a compact plastic glucose meter, modified by the same engineer who had rigged his insulin pump to fight his vampirism. I uncapped a canister of blood test strips, pulled out a green one, and stuck it into the meter. “Which arm?”

  He blew a stream of smoke in my face, but extended his left arm. I jabbed a silver needle into the skin and pressed the drop of blood to the test strip. The meter beeped a few seconds later, the screen reading 23.

  “Am I clean, boss?” Ted asked with a scowl.

  “You’re within normal range.” The green strips were calibrated for Stokerus vamps. Anything under 60 meant Ted was sticking to his nonhuman diet. “The bug-eater who tried to kill me used to be a Porter.”

  Ted paused in mid-drag. “They turned a Porter? That’s ballsy.”

  “What’s going on, Ted? Why come after us now?” />
  “Don’t ask me.” He sucked his finger clean, then dipped it into the thermos again for the dog. “If it was up to me, I’d have sent someone to off you years ago.”

  I sighed. “And if I’d followed orders, I’d have left your ashes in the bonfire pit at Camp Gichigamin.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re here because I convinced the Porters you could be useful to us.” I leaned closer. “If you’re going to give me attitude instead of answers, then you’re not useful anymore.”

  His attention shifted to the detonator.

  “Go ahead, take it. I can make another. Any libriomancer can.”

  “All I know is you aren’t the only one with problems,” he said sullenly. “Vampires have been disappearing for a few months now. We figured they’d been dusted, that maybe another idiot was trying to play slayer. It happens every once in a while. They don’t usually last long. But then a few of the missing vampires showed up again and started causing trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Lena.

  “Hunting humans. Fighting and killing other vamps.” Ted chugged the rest of the blood, then licked his lips, leaving a faint residue on his beard and mustache. “That’s nothing new. Every newborn vampire thinks he’s hot shit until someone else pounds the shit right out of him and shows him what’s what, but this is different. One of these upstarts even slew her own sire.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.

  “Nah, the way I hear, this was a southerner. They don’t mess with their makers. They can’t.” He lit another cigarette and flicked the first butt into the corner.

  “Southerner?” Lena asked.

  “Sanguinarius Henricus.” Another relatively young bloodline, one which had arisen from Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series. “Ted’s right. Harris’ vampires are intrinsically incapable of acting against their masters.”

  Ted wouldn’t hesitate to lie to me, but he was a lousy actor. The shotgun, the chain smoking, the twitchiness in his hands… everything suggested he was genuinely spooked.