Libriomancer mel-1

by Jim C. Hines

  “As certain as I can be without having lived in fifteenth-century Mainz.”

  Another pause. “So what do you intend to do next?”

  “Ted said there had been other problems among the vampires. We need more information, and I figure the best way to get it is to go to the source.”

  “I see. Be careful, Isaac. I’m short on people, and would prefer not to lose any more.”

  The phone went dead. I stared at it in disbelief. “She didn’t tell me to back off.”

  “That’s good, right?” The bed shifted as Lena sat down beside me. “Would you have followed her orders if she had?”

  “Pallas doesn’t generally give her underlings much choice in the matter.” I replayed our conversation in my mind. “She doesn’t believe Gutenberg could do this.”

  “You disagree.” It wasn’t a question.

  “There are Porters who treat Gutenberg like a god, but he’s not. Nobody’s invulnerable.” Even if Pallas was right that no one alive had the power to control Gutenberg, that didn’t mean he wasn’t acting of his own free will. We just didn’t know why. “I’ve got to talk to the vampires, find out what they know.”

  “Tomorrow.” Lena’s tone was hard. These were the same vampires who had taken Nidhi Shah, who had pursued her into the U.P. and tried to kill us both.

  “Will you be all right?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said, too quickly. She smiled and traced the veins on the back of my hand with her finger. “Though I could be better.”

  I tried not to stare at her bare legs, or the way her breasts pulled the thin material of her shirt taut, or the quirk of her full lips that suggested she knew exactly what was going through my mind, dammit.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Lena said softly. “About me. Why I sought you out.”

  I nodded, lost for words and distracted by the gentle tingle of her finger on my skin.

  She glanced at the wall. “The couple two rooms down is having sex right now.”

  I managed a moderately coherent, “Huh?”

  “I can feel it. Their desire. The pleasure.” She tilted her head slightly, a bemused smile on her face. “He’s not terribly good at this. He’s trying too hard.” She turned her attention back to me and shrugged. “This is what I am. I can’t stop any more than you can stop seeing the world in color.”

  “Actually, the rods in the eye only see black and white, and they require less light than the cones, so if it’s dark enough-”

  “Shut up.” She gave me a playful smack on the arm. “Did you know we passed one couple and two individual men having ‘automotive relations’ on the road today? Including one on the Mackinac Bridge?”

  “Thank you so much for telling me that. In addition to everything else, now I can worry about some lonely guy jerking his wheel at the wrong time and driving my car off the bridge.”

  She laughed. “On the bright side, being able to sense desire and lust means very few men can sneak up on me. It’s not something I want to know. It’s voyeuristic and uncomfortable. But it’s what I am, meaning I can’t help knowing how much you’re struggling with your desire, trying so hard to do the right thing.”

  “I’m-”

  “If you apologize, I’ll drag you out of the room and throw you into that sorry excuse for a pool. You’re supposed to want me, Isaac. It’s how I was written. And the more time I spend with you, the more I see you in action…” She smiled again. “Just know the feeling is mutual.”

  “What about Doctor Shah?” Between my exhaustion and the labyrinthine tangle of urges and emotions, it came out more harshly than I had intended.

  Lena jerked back. “I should lie to you,” she said softly. “Say you’re the only one I want now. But I love her, too.”

  “Too?” I repeated.

  For the first time, I saw Lena Greenwood blush, her cheeks and ears darkening. She raised her chin and looked me in the eyes, which glistened with unshed tears. “Nidhi used to struggle with the same conflicts. She felt guilty. She questioned whether I truly loved her, or if that love was just an artifact of what I was, a magical rebound after losing my former lover. ‘It takes time to truly fall in love,’ she said.”

  “How did she move beyond that guilt?” I asked.

  “By accepting what I was.” Lena stared at the TV, but it was obvious she wasn’t seeing it. “She worked with one of your catalogers to figure out where I had come from. We read my book together. I remember lying in bed, laughing with her over some of the more over-the-top scenes. I remember holding her as she wept angry tears after we read the chapter where the rules of my being were spelled out. She is… was a good person, Isaac. She made me a good person.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”

  “I want to show you something.” She took my hand, tugging me toward the door. We walked together out of the hotel and around to a small park out back, beyond the fenced-in pool that smelled of mildew and chlorine.

  The playground was old and ill-tended, built back before brightly-colored plastic equipment replaced aluminum and steel. The heavy chains of the swing set clinked in the breeze. A chipmunk darted through the muddy wood chips at the bottom of the slide and vanished into the pine trees beyond. I filled my lungs with the humid air and the smell of the clover that had overgrown much of the ground. It made me momentarily homesick for the U. P.

  Here I was, walking hand in hand with a gorgeous woman, slowly starting to relax for the first time in days. Naturally, I had to open my mouth and spoil it. “How much of who you are is you?”

  “You mean, how much of who I am will change and shift to adapt to my new lover?” She didn’t appear offended. “Physically, my coloration shifts, but my body doesn’t change. Beyond that… I don’t know. I don’t think of it as changing so much as getting to experience more of life. With Nidhi, I learned to love rock climbing and skydiving, country music, fresh malapua, and old episodes of M*A*S*H. Before her, Frank Dearing taught me to love the earth, the feel of the soil, the pride of the harvest, the satisfaction of a long day’s work. Those loves don’t go away, exactly… but they fade to make room for the new.”

  “So if you and I…”

  She winked. “Yes, there’s a good chance you’d turn me into a devoted Doctor Who fangirl.”

  Her fingers remained twined with mine as she led me past the monkey bars toward the trees. She gave me a sideways glance. “I’ll be here when you make up your mind. Or if you just need help getting to sleep tonight.”

  With a mischievous smile, she jabbed her bokken into the ground and tugged me close, her arm circling my waist. Before I could react, she slipped her other hand behind my neck and kissed me.

  She leaned into my body, and we both staggered a step before catching our balance. Her legs and hips pressed into mine, and her fingers twisted into the back of my shirt. She tasted faintly of mint, and any remaining conflict I was struggling with slipped away as her tongue darted between my lips. I kissed her harder, wrapping my arms around her body.

  “Mm.” The soft moan of her mouth against mine made me pull her in even tighter. When she finally broke away, both of us were breathing hard. Her eyes were bright, and the way she looked at me was more sensual than any kiss.

  She stepped away, pulling me after her through pine branches that jabbed my exposed skin but didn’t appear to bother her in the slightest. Without taking her eyes off of mine, she reached out to touch the trunk of the largest tree. Her fingers slipped between folds in the bark, disappearing in much the same way that I reached into my books, and I gasped.

  “Can you feel it?” she whispered.

  I nodded dumbly. The air brushed over every pine needle, making the hairs on my body rise in response. The tree’s roots dug deep into the ground. I curled my toes into my boots, feeling the immovable strength of the tree rising through my bones.

  “Nidhi never could,” she said quietly. “I hoped, given what you said about sensing magic, that I might be ab
le to share this with you.”

  A squirrel jumped from the branches, and I laughed. “It tickles.”

  “A little, yes.”

  “This isn’t your tree.” I wasn’t sure how I knew. It simply felt off, like trying to sleep in an unfamiliar bed.

  “I can rest in any tree, but you’re right. This isn’t the tree that houses what I am. After the vampires cut down my oak…” She shook her head, tugged me close, and kissed me again. “I took cuttings from my tree. When I went to your house, I grafted one to the oak tree behind your house. If you decide- If I return, that will become the tree that houses the rest of what I am.”

  Her brown eyes watched me, reading my face. I still didn’t know what was fair or right. All I knew was as I stood there feeling Lena’s magic and her connection to the trees, thinking about her returning to Copper River with me, I felt happier than I had been in a long time.

  “Isaac?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sweet dreams.” She grinned and slipped her hand free from mine, pressing herself against the tree. A part of me felt like I should turn away to give her privacy, but she had invited me to watch this. Her arm thrust deeper into the trunk. One leg followed. She turned sideways, squeezing into a tree barely wide enough to accommodate her.

  She brought her fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss. I read both mischief and lust in her eyes, and then, seconds later, I was alone.

  Chapter 9

  I spent most of the night thinking about Lena, even in my dreams. I spent half of breakfast trying to put those thoughts into words.

  Lena was uncharacteristically quiet as she ate. I got the sense she was deliberately giving me time. She split her attention between me and a Belgian waffle drowned in strawberry syrup and topped with what might best be described as the Mount Everest of whipped cream.

  I usually approached food as a necessity, a refueling process to be completed as quickly as possible, but Lena turned each meal into a sensual experience. I watched the tip of her tongue capture a speck of whipped cream from her upper lip. She glanced up at me through her lashes and smiled.

  I set down my fork and pushed away a half-eaten omelet. One way or another, I had to start this conversation now, before we headed into the Detroit nest. “I’ve been thinking of you as human.”

  “Oh?” Confusion creased the skin between her eyebrows.

  “I created Smudge out of a book,” I said. “The magic is no different than what I used to create the potion and gun I used at the archive. He’s bound by the rules of his character. But he’s alive.”

  “How do you know?” she asked, her tone neutral.

  “Nothing in his book said anything about liking SpongeBob or chocolate-covered ladybugs dipped in cinnamon. He came from a stereotypical pseudomedieval setting. Nothing in that setting made him hate Journey songs.”

  Lena snorted. “Journey? You’re kidding.”

  “Why do you think I was so quick to change the station when we were driving down 127 yesterday? He melted one of the speakers in my truck the first time he heard ‘Faithfully.’”

  “You created him. You could have shaped his likes and dislikes.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t stand SpongeBob.”

  “What about Journey?”

  “We’re getting off topic.” I finished the last of my coffee and waved away the waiter who started to offer me a refill. “It’s easy to remember what Smudge is. No other spider cooks his own horseflies. But you look human. You’re strong, you can manipulate wood, but I’ve seen other humans do equally impressive magic.”

  I traced the grain of the false wood tabletop, remembering the sensation of Lena’s magic flowing through my body, connecting us to one another through the pine tree. “I’ve been trying to treat you like a human woman, and by that standard… no one should ever be forced or coerced into taking a lover.”

  She frowned. “Are you suggesting a woman who isn’t human is fair game?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I groaned and leaned back in the booth. The hardest part was trying to separate logic from desire. Whatever I said or did, how could I ever know my attraction to Lena hadn’t swayed my choice? “Showing up on an acquaintance’s doorstep and asking him to become your lover… your mate… isn’t normal. Not for humans.”

  “Normal?” she repeated. “Yesterday you fed me cake from Wonderland so we could ride your spider into a magical basement and fight a vampire.”

  “True enough. Look, my parents dated for four and a half years before my mother proposed. Humans choose at the end of that courtship period. For a human, picking a mate you hardly know is madness. But you’re not human. Last night at the pine tree, feeling your magic-feeling you — helped me to finally understand that. And this is how you choose.”

  “Pine trees have never been my favorite. The smell lingers in my hair for days.” Lena munched a piece of bacon. “So what are you saying, Isaac?”

  I had rehearsed this bit time and again last night, but my mouth was dry. I lifted my coffee mug, remembered it was empty, and sighed. “I need to stop treating you as human and start taking you for what you are.”

  “Oh, so you want to take me, do you?” Her tone was playful, but her expression was as serious as I’d ever seen.

  I knew what I wanted. The hardest part was accepting that it was okay to want it. “If you’re sure.”

  She dug a twenty out of her wallet and slapped it onto the table. I barely managed to grab my jacket before she was hauling me away from our table and out the door. When we reached the car, she caught my shoulder, spun me around, and kissed me. Her hand slid around my waist, holding me so tightly I couldn’t have broken free if I’d wanted to.

  Not that I wanted to. Last night when we kissed, I had been torn. I realized now that Lena had been holding back as well. This time, I could feel her joy, much as I had sensed the magic of her tree before. I lost myself in that kiss, in the pleasure she took and the pleasure she gave in return.

  I felt like a kid finding magic for the first time. It was the same excitement, the same joy in her touch. In her.

  I pulled away, momentarily dizzy. “Wow.”

  She laughed, a sound of such untarnished happiness that I couldn’t help but do the same. Her hands slid beneath my shirt and up the skin of my back, making me shiver. I ran my hand through her hair, then traced the curve of her ear, eliciting a soft moan of enjoyment.

  She pressed her cheek to mine so her breath warmed my neck. “Do we have to go vampire hunting right away?”

  I didn’t want to answer, so I kissed her again, a move Lena seemed to appreciate. Her leg curled around mine, her body resting against the trunk of the car for support as I leaned into her.

  A loud whistle yanked me back to reality. A woman watching from the entrance to the restaurant smiled and gave us a thumbs-up.

  Lena nipped my ear, then whispered, “Why couldn’t you have figured this out last night?”

  “That’s a good question, and once the blood flow returns to my brain, I might even be able to answer it.”

  She laughed, kissed my palm, and circled around to the passenger side.

  Neither of us spoke as we drove, but each time I peeked over at Lena, she was smiling. Her body appeared relaxed, her movements more fluid.

  As for me, I felt like I was on a roller coaster that had just started climbing that first hill. I was anxious, exhilarated, and a little uncertain what I had gotten myself into. Lena Greenwood was a literal fantasy woman, written by a man as an imaginary plaything for other men. But the moment she stepped out of her tree all those years ago, she had become something more. Something magical and beautiful and strong.

  Much as I wanted to head straight to the nearest hotel and spend the rest of the day exploring that magic, we had undead killers to stop, and that meant another shopping trip.

  A short distance from the Ambassador Bridge, I pulled into a small, fenced-in lot beside a four-story warehouse. The store was unimpressive from the outside. Sm
all safety glass windows did little to break up the monotony of the red brick walls. A peeling billboard on the front of the building read, “K’s USED BOOKS.”

  “I hate big cities, but there are a few advantages,” I said as we climbed out of the car.

  The bookstore had no coffee shop. No Internet cafe, no window displays, no toys or greeting cards or cute little calendars with inspirational quotes and pictures of kittens. K’s Books sold books. Four stories worth of books. Row after row of ten-foot-high wooden bookshelves, every shelf bowing under the weight of its inventory.

  I stepped inside and inhaled the old-paper smell. Dehumidifiers hummed away in the background. Fluorescent lights flickered in the aisles. A hand-inked map tacked onto the wall by the staircase detailed the subjects to be found on each floor.

  Had there been any justice in the world, the owners, Kevin and Fawn Shamel, would have been libriomancers. They loved books as much as any man or woman I had ever met. But strong as that love might be, they lacked any magical ability whatsoever.

  Fawn was working the front today, behind an old-fashioned cash register and a pile of empty brown paper grocery bags. She was in her late sixties, slender as a twig, with braided gray hair and a perpetual grin that widened when she spotted me. “Isaac Vainio! Long time no see, stranger!”

  “When are you going to open up a store in Copper River?” I demanded as I reached over to pet Brillo, the store cat, who was curled up on the edge of the counter. Age had robbed Brillo of most of the kinked hair on his back that had given him his name, leaving him rather pathetically pink and balding, but the years had taken none of his attitude. He yowled and batted my hand when I stopped petting him.

  Fawn shook her head. “We’re barely breaking even these days. The economy’s in the toilet.” She jabbed a finger at me. “I expect you to put us into the black this month, Isaac Vainio!”

  “Yes, ma’am. So where’s Kevin?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Book fair in Grand Rapids.”

  “Oh, really?” I glanced at the old clock on the wall, calculating how long it would take to reach Grand Rapids. Lena jabbed me with an elbow, reminding me why we were here.