by Jim C. Hines
I lay flat, reaching deeper. It couldn’t hurt me now, though it certainly tried. The arm passed through my throat and face without effect.
“I don’t care what Nidhi’s files say,” Lena whispered. “You are completely insane.”
“Not yet.” I don’t think she heard me, but the voices surged in response, screaming for me to get away. I touched what felt like burnt cardboard. My fingers closed around a book, the pages wrinkled and brittle like autumn leaves. “Part two: manifestation.”
I carefully closed my hand around the book, leaned back, and pulled out the thing’s heart.
The creature collapsed into black smoke and dust. As its mass dissolved, the rubble shifted beneath me. I squawked and tumbled onto my side, bruising my elbow and scraping my hip. I rolled down like a child on a hill, and likely would have brained myself on the cement if Lena hadn’t caught me.
She held my elbow as we limped back into the clearing, where I examined my prize. The lower part of the book’s cover was completely illegible, but I could make out a bit of the red-and-gray artwork in the upper right corner. When I opened the book, more of the cover flaked away. The interior pages were ash black.
“It’s still leaking,” I said quietly. The dust on my hands charged my skin with magical pseudolife, trying to re-form. “Not as quickly as before, but given enough time, we’ll have to fight that thing all over again.”
“So have Smudge finish destroying it,” Lena suggested.
“ Every copy of this book is damaged. Eliminating this one could protect us, but it could also shunt the other libriomancer’s magic elsewhere.” I grabbed Feed from the sack, studying the lock. Gutenberg had locked these books using a quote from the Bible. He was a libriomancer, after all. It made sense his magic would come from books.
And how was I supposed to concentrate on magic when I needed all of my focus just to cling to sanity, to hold on to who I was? Voices had broken down into screams, and they were getting stronger.
The lock I had seen was a fragment of Biblical magic. Which would have been useful information if I had a copy of that Bible on hand, and Gutenberg looking over my shoulder to tell me how to use it.
“Isaac?”
The screams drowned Lena’s words. Only the shape of her lips told me she was speaking my name. Shouting. The world beyond was a blur. I squinted at Lena, then at the blazing ball that was Smudge. I was out of time.
I shoved my hand into Rabid, and the world around me vanished. I couldn’t see my hands, but I felt them, the jagged magic of the unlocked book flaying one, and the cold heaviness of the locked text in the other. Praying this worked, I thrust the locked book into the heart of Rabid, willing that lock to expand and encompass them both.
The screaming stopped. The world snapped into focus, and Rabid fell away. Lena was shouting at me. I pushed myself up and started to speak, but my legs gave way. I watched the ground approach with all the inevitability of an oncoming plow, sweeping consciousness to the curb like the first slush of winter.
Chapter 14
I awoke in a bedroom that smelled like muddy dog.
The queen-sized bed was uncomfortably soft, with blue satin sheets and thick pillows. Cracks of sunlight snuck around heavy patterned curtains. I was wearing nothing save brown sweatpants.
The room was silent. More importantly, so were my thoughts. I touched my fingers to my neck, checking my pulse. A little quick, but better than it had been for days. My respiration seemed normal as well, though my breath was rather foul. Either I had somehow recovered from my near-possession at the old auto plant, or else I had gone completely mad.
I sat up and wished I hadn’t. Pain tore my stiff back, every vertebra protesting loudly. I bit back a gasp and, moving more cautiously, reached for the lamp on the bedside table to my left. The lamp responded to my touch, bulbs brightening beneath a stained-glass shade to illuminate a room with patterned wallpaper and a sloped ceiling.
The skittering of tiny feet on metal bars pulled my attention to Smudge. His cage sat on a potholder atop a heavy oak dresser by the wall. He was hyper, running laps as if to celebrate my awakening, but he wasn’t on fire. I crossed the hardwood floor and pulled back the curtains to reveal a field dotted with pine trees and bordered by a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. A brown barn stood near the back. I counted four dogs sleeping in the shade beside the barn.
My jacket was nowhere to be found, but the rest of my clothes were waiting for me in the closet. My shirt and jeans hung on wooden hangers, and my socks and underwear were neatly folded on a shelf. My boots were so clean I hardly recognized them.
As I dressed, I discovered a number of healing, yellowish bruises scattered over my body. I twisted in front of the mirror on the closet door, checking the damage. I looked like I had lost a fight with a pickup. I touched the mottled bruise on my right cheekbone. I must have gotten that one when I passed out.
I also found several small puncture wounds inside my left elbow, along with a relatively fresh burn mark on my chest, none of which I remembered. The burn lined up nicely with a crisp-edged hole in the front of my shirt.
I tossed the sweatpants across the rumpled bed, grabbed Smudge’s cage, and opened the door. I stepped into a narrow hallway, then jumped back as a pair of black-furred creatures raced past. They resembled clumsy, oversized puppies, though they weren’t dogs. Both animals skidded to a stop in front of me. One raised a row of black spines on its back. The other whimpered and proceeded to piss on the floor.
“And now I know where I am.” I had never been in this house before, but I knew the location, I was roughly a half-hour south of Chicago, in the home of one of the most powerful bards in the world.
The more aggressive animal pounced on my boot. Oversized fangs were no match for the leather-covered steel toes. I let him play for a few seconds, then shoved him away. He tumbled into his companion, which set off a new round of mock-growls, and then they were off again.
I followed them into a large, open room with wood paneling and a bay window looking out on the yard. Circular white speakers in the ceiling piped out a steady stream of jazz. The walls were lined with shelves, but where my shelves back home were overflowing with books, this collection included CDs, old audio tapes, vinyl, and even a selection of 8-track tapes, all meticulously organized by artist and release date. I clasped my hands behind my back, resisting the urge to reshelve them based on the ANSCR standard we used at the library.
Lena sat barefoot on a brown couch covered in animal fur. Nicola Pallas was pacing behind the couch, followed closely by a strange-looking beast with curly white fur that looked like a cross between a dog and a nightmare. The animal glanced over at me, its black tongue lolling to one side.
“How do you feel?” asked Lena.
“Like a mummy freshly risen from the dead.” I stretched again, grimacing as various joints popped in protest. There were no other chairs, so I joined her on the couch. I didn’t know the proper distance for people-who-were-almost-lovers-until-the-dryad’s-girlfrien d-turned-up-alive, so I settled awkwardly onto the opposite end and rested my feet on the coffee table, earning myself a pointed glare from Pallas.
“The attitude is familiar, at least.” Nicola Pallas, Regional Master of the Porters, looked exhausted. Her tan, ruddy face drooped, and the bags beneath her eyes were darker than I remembered. She wore a rumpled denim jacket over a tight turtleneck. A silver ring glowed faintly blue on her right index finger. She pointed that finger at me. “What is your name?”
I raised my hands, making the movement as slow and nonthreatening as I could. I didn’t know what that ring could do, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out. “Isaac Vainio. It’s just me. No fictional hitchhikers in my head, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That was one of our concerns.” Pallas studied me a moment longer. The magical glow of her ring dimmed, but didn’t entirely go out. “Lena brought you to me four days ago.”
“Four days?
” That would explain the dry mouth and the rumbling in my stomach. “Did anyone remember to feed Smudge?”
“I have,” said Lena. “Nicola said he had to stay in his cage, but I’ve been giving him bits of hamburger and some butterscotch candies I found in the other room.”
“I wanted him caged for his own protection.” Pallas reached down to scratch her pet behind the ears, carefully avoiding the black spines that lay flat along the middle of the animal’s neck and back. “Pac-Man eats pretty much anything.”
“Pac-Man?” The beast looked up at me, oversized fangs giving it an expression that straddled the line between deadly and dopey. A string of drool waved pendulum-like from the jaw, pushing it firmly into the latter category.
“When he was a puppy, he tried to eat a ghost,” Pallas explained.
I had never been able to tell when she was joking. Another puppy bounded through the room. “How many animals do you have here?”
“Four pureblood chupacabra, six poodles, and three crossbreeds, not counting the eleven puppies. I also keep goats in the barn. Louis is the pack leader, but he’s locked in the kennel right now. He has a fungal infection, and I don’t want him spreading it to the other animals. Bessie’s upstairs. Chupacabra get vicious when pregnant. I can’t even go near her without using magic, so it’s hard to make sure she’s getting enough goat blood. The little one who just went by is Pumbaa. My niece named him. He tends to be rather flatulent. I’m trying to adjust his diet to see if it helps, but so far-”
“What’s happened since Lena brought me here?” I interrupted. I had the feeling Pallas could go on all day about her pets.
“I kept you sedated for the first forty-eight hours. I couldn’t risk any sort of magical healing, not in your state. I estimated we had at best a fifty-fifty chance of getting you back. We roused you every twelve hours to give you food and drink, and to allow you to use the bathroom.”
“I… don’t remember that.” I glanced at Lena.
“This wasn’t how I had planned to get you out of your pants,” she said wryly.
Pallas continued as if she hadn’t heard. “You may experience nausea, dry mouth, and constipation as the rest of the drugs work through your system.”
“Good to know.”
Pallas whistled a countermelody to the trumpet and piano riff playing over the speakers, and I felt her magic pass through me. Pallas was one of four known bards with the ability to shape magic through music. I had no idea what she was doing with that magic now, though. Using magic on another Porter without permission violated both rules and politeness, and while Pallas had never worried about politeness, she tended to be rather hard-assed about the rules. “Lena told me what you did.”
My hackles rose at the implicit disapproval. “What I did was find the libriomancer who killed Ray. I saw him. It’s not Gutenberg. I need to look up the name Jakob Hoffman. If we can track him down-”
“You had a vision, and you heard voices. That’s not the same thing as finding a killer. Our database has no record of any literary character named Jakob Hoffman. We’ve contacted thirteen Jakob and Jake Hoffmans so far, but none have any magical abilities, nor do they appear to have any connection to this murderer.” Her rings clinked as she fidgeted. In all the time I’d known Pallas, I don’t think I had ever seen her still. “You’ve given us a lead, nothing more. A lead that may or may not pay off.”
“When I spoke to you on the phone the other day, you said there was a magical attack in London. Did it hit Baker Street, by any chance? Anywhere near Sherlock Holmes’ fictional residence? You mentioned Afghanistan as well. Watson, Holmes’ partner, was a veteran from Afghanistan. Those attacks could be coming from the various personalities struggling for control of our killer.”
“A rather elementary conclusion, Isaac.” Though her expression never changed, I was pretty sure that was a joke. “We’re looking into the connection and trying to tie the other attacks to specific literary characters.” She tilted her head toward one of the speakers and stared out the window. “Lena also brought me the book you destroyed. Do you have any idea what that level of char can do? To the libriomancer, and to this world?”
“I know what it almost did to me,” I said.
“I doubt that.” She moved closer, and the clinking grew faster. “Lena says you barely escaped that book, that you were like a gibbering child when your awareness returned.”
“Not true. I was like a gibbering grown-up.” But the memory of those moments undermined my attempt at humor. “He tried to lock me into the book. When that failed, he sent… something after me. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. It was like-”
“Like a single disharmonic note, growing in volume until it overpowered the melody that defines you.”
“Sure.” I suppose, to a bard, that was as horrific a description as any. “You know what it was?”
“It was proof that I erred in allowing you to investigate this matter. Isaac Vainio, you are forbidden from practicing magic until further notice.”
Her tone never changed, so it took me a second to understand what she was saying. I jumped up from the couch. “I found the man who killed Ray Walker!”
She hummed quietly, and her stereo switched to a faster-paced song. The magic in the air grew stronger as well, like a magnetic current through my bones. Her animals were less subtle. As one, they growled and raised their spines.
“What would have happened if you hadn’t managed to cling to your sanity back there in Detroit?” Pallas asked. “If you had lost yourself to possession? Instead of one rogue libriomancer, you would have forced us to fight two. Imagine yourself terrified and insane, your body flowing with uncontrolled magic. What do you think you would you have done to Lena?”
“I wouldn’t have hurt her.” But even as I protested, I remembered staring at Lena with no memory of who she was. If that darkness had caught me… “What was it? Ray described the consequences of magical screw-ups in great detail, and he never mentioned anything like that. None of the Porter texts or reports I’ve read-”
“Your antics with the vampires have had consequences as well,” Pallas said, as if I’d never spoken. “Attacks worldwide have increased over the past four days. I spent this morning on the phone with Luis Quenta in Bolivia. They had to firebomb the Santa Cruz nest to keep the vampires contained. They’re testing us. And with Gutenberg and his automatons gone, we’re failing that test.”
“They gave me a week to find this killer,” I protested. One week, more than half of which I had now wasted, lying unconscious in Nicola Pallas’ apartment.
“Granach gave you a week. She said nothing about the rest of the world, nor are all vampires bound by a deal made by Alice Granach.” Pallas picked up an enormous dog bone that appeared to be made of some sort of woven black material. “My animals are beautiful, but they will always be part monster. I have their toys custom-made from Kevlar. Anything else they destroy within minutes. If I ever forget, if I expect them to be other than what they are, then whatever happens to me will be my own fault as much as theirs.” She threw the toy across the room, starting a riot of growling and fighting. “Magic is the same way. If you forget the rules, it will turn on you.”
“We’d know even less if I hadn’t broken the rules.” I shivered, remembering my flight through the book. “How could someone get so powerful without the Porters knowing?”
For the first time, Pallas looked uncertain. She turned toward the window, staring out at the field. “That is something we’ve been asking ever since these attacks started.”
“And?” I pressed.
“And the Porters will continue to investigate until we have answered that question.”
“He’s possessed, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?” I pressed. “Possession would drive him mad, force him to lash out. It wouldn’t give him the power to rip open locked books, or to send that thing through a book after me. He’s killing Porters, enslaving vampires… why?”
Palla
s reached down to scratch one of the puppies on the belly. “This matter is no longer your concern.”
“No longer my concern?” I stood and turned to face her. “He tried to kill me!”
“He tried to do far worse than that.” She raised a hand, her ring pulsing a warning. “You have been touched by something you don’t understand.”
“So explain it to me!”
“When the immediate crisis is resolved, we will speak more about what you saw.”
“What about Nidhi?” Lena asked quietly. “What happens to her while you continue to investigate?”
“We will not turn Isaac over to the undead. Nor will this rogue libriomancer be delivered to their laboratories, where who knows what power they might try to extract from him.” Pallas rubbed her temples. “I’m struggling on three fronts. Our first priority is finding this libriomancer. If what you saw is true, he will soon destroy himself, but who knows what damage he’ll cause in the meantime. We’re also speaking with the vampires, doing what we can to maintain peace and persuade them to return Nidhi Shah unharmed.”
“What’s the third front?” I asked.
“Politics. At least vampires don’t bother to mask their hostility in pointless pleasantries.” Her laughter had always sounded forced to me, and this was no exception. She knelt to scratch Pac-Man’s ears as he gnawed the Kevlar toy he had triumphantly stolen from the other animals. “Gutenberg may yet live, but we can’t wait for him to return. He built the Porters to function after his death, but there are… differences of opinion as to who should take his place. We’ve established a temporary ruling council, twelve regional masters from throughout the world. In magical affairs, I now speak for most of North America.”
“Which means you’re overwhelmed and understaffed. Let me help! I have copies of the books he stole from the archive. I can show you-”
“Those books have been shipped to Philadelphia, where they are being examined by two of the most skilled libriomancers we have.”