“I hope so. Let’s go home.”
“I’m not tired. I feel like I could take on the world.” Viv punched the air a couple of times like a victorious prizefighter.
“Movie night?” said Judy.
“Movie night,” I said. “But it’s my turn to choose.”
They groaned. “Please, please let it not be Hitchcock,” Viv said.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” I said. “Brilliant screenwriting, wonderful acting, and bonus points for how sexy Gregory Peck is.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” Viv said.
Wednesday was even busier than Tuesday had been, though thankfully no more invaders in human suits tried to enter the store. Everyone wanted auguries related to identifying traitors. Some of them even tried asking “who?” and I had to gently remind them not to waste the oracle’s time. They eyed each other furtively, rarely engaging in conversation, and it left Abernathy’s feeling cold and quiet and tense.
A couple of Wardens wore small pins on their lapels or shirts, ribbons like the ones people wear for breast cancer awareness, but white instead of pink. After the third Nicollien with one handed over his augury slip, I asked, “What’s the ribbon for?”
“It’s to show I’m free of the marker,” he said, tapping it with his fingernail. “So people know I can be trusted.”
“But there’s nothing keeping a traitor from wearing it.”
He blinked at me. “Um…I guess not.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a good way to reduce tension, reminding everyone of the ongoing tests.”
“Every little bit helps.”
I wasn’t sure that was true in this case, but I smiled and retreated into the oracle, where I found his augury immediately. Maybe that meant the oracle thought it was dumb, too.
We had Nicolliens in the store right up until quarter to two, filling me with anxiety at the possibility of the two factions encountering one another. I ushered the last one out the door and smiled at the waiting Ambrosite, though I had no intention of letting her in early. I hadn’t had my lunch yet.
“It’s like a fishbowl,” Judy said, handing me half a tuna fish sandwich and biting into hers. “Only I’m not sure whether we’re the fish, or they are.”
“The way they press their noses against the glass, they’re definitely looking in at us fish.” My sandwich was moist and filled with crunchy bits of celery, which was the only way I’d eat celery. “I don’t think it’s been this busy since last summer, when all the Nicolliens were looking for Malcolm. And the Ambrosites weren’t as active then as they are now.”
“It’s frightening, not knowing who might be a traitor. I can see why they’d want the comfort of an augury.”
“You know what’s weird?” I took another bite. “That there haven’t been reports of shadow cabal members attacking Wardens. Just that one massive attack, and then of course they fight back when they’re arrested.”
“Do you have any idea how much magic it must have taken to pull that off? Striking all the steel magi at once? I think their reserves were exhausted.”
“But not everyone was involved, according to Jeremiah. And now they can’t conceal their existence anymore, so why haven’t we seen more killers like Mitch Hallstrom?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, so long as they keep quiet or flee. I wonder if Lucia’s met with Jeremiah yet.”
I stuffed the last bite of sandwich into my mouth and checked the time. “Do you think she’ll call us?”
“I doubt it. She seemed pretty serious about keeping us out of any more detective work.” Judy snorted. “I looked up Nancy, Bess, and George. Apparently it’s Nancy Drew and her two best friends. I have trouble picturing Lucia as a young reader of detective stories.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have to be detectives if she’d do the work herself.”
“That’s not fair. You know how much she’s had to deal with.”
I gaped at her. “You just said something in defense of Lucia. I didn’t know that was possible.”
Judy shrugged. “Maybe I appreciate her job a little better now. I believe in being fair.”
“Well, I’m sorry I was critical. You’re right, she’s had a lot on her plate recently.” I wiped my mouth and went to open the door to the mob outside. “This is going to be a long afternoon.”
But the mob hung back, making room for the tall, olive-skinned figure at the head of the line. “Ms. Davies,” Acosta said, “how are you?”
“Fine.” He stood hovering in the doorway, his hands jammed into his coat pockets. “Are you coming in? Because you’re in the way of all these nice people.”
“How do you know they’re nice?” He sauntered in, followed more slowly by the Wardens, who had umbrellas and hoods up against the drizzling rain. “It’s impossible to tell a person’s character from his face. Or hers. They might be felons. They might be murderers. That book thief, Hallstrom, wasn’t it? He looked perfectly innocent.”
“That’s true. But I think the percentage of murderers and felons in the general population is small enough that I’m safe assuming these people aren’t going to try to kill me or steal my stuff.” I saw a couple of Wardens wearing the white ribbon and wondered if that was true. Acosta was right about one thing; you couldn’t tell a traitor just by looking.
“Probably.” Acosta shrugged.
“Well, how can I help you, detective?” Maybe I could get him out of here quickly.
“You can give me an augury,” Acosta said.
The room went very still. It had already been quiet, with the Wardens unwilling to speak to anyone who might be a traitor, but this was a frozen, rigid silence, painful and hard. “Excuse me?”
“I want an augury.”
Answer his questions honestly, Lucia had said, but could she possibly have anticipated that request? Knowing Lucia, yes, she might well have. “You have to write it down in the form of a question,” I said, though my mouth was dry and my throat felt numb.
“I don’t care who knows it,” Acosta said. “My question is—‘What is Abernathy’s?’”
He’d spoken loudly, and the question hung in the air like a gauzy curtain, drifting away on invisible currents. “Just one minute,” I said, and walked into the oracle.
I’d hoped, in the instant between stepping from one world to the next, that the oracle would refuse to answer, throwing up a red light like the glow from a dying star. But the air was blue-tinted and cool, not cold, and in the distance I saw a brighter gleam, blue light haloing a bookcase some ways away. I walked down Abernathy’s narrow aisles, some so narrow only one person could pass at a time, until I reached the spot that was the center of the oracle. Four bookcases at least ten feet tall stood facing each other in a square, surrounding a small open space big enough for me to stand comfortably within.
High on one of the bookcases, a large book shone with blue light that traced its edges. I climbed on the lower shelves, gingerly, feeling the bookcase shift under my weight, and carefully removed the book from the shelf. The Revelation Unveiled, the title page said, and written in silver ink below that were the words Gregory Acosta, $1000.
“You actually want this guy to know things about you?” I said, closing the cover. “He’s our enemy! He wants you destroyed!”
Silence. I hadn’t expected anything else. The oracle never spoke except under extreme duress, which this wasn’t. “Fine,” I said. “It’s your choice. I wish I knew how he knew to ask for an augury. Makes me wonder who else he’s been harassing.”
I returned to the front of the store. Acosta was browsing the shelves facing the window, the ones that weren’t part of the oracle, as far as I knew. The Wardens all had their eyes on him, which I would have found unnerving, but Acosta either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He turned to me and said, “Is that it?”
“$1000. And I’m going to have to ask for cash.”
“My check’s not good here?”
“No. And I’m sure you remember we take payment in t
rade, but you don’t look like you have a box of books under your arm.”
“That’s all right. I came prepared.” Acosta pulled out his wallet and counted out one thousand dollars in hundreds. I handed it off to Judy, who’d been watching this in silence, and handed the book to Acosta. Judy wrote him a receipt.
“Detective,” I said as he turned to go, “what do you expect to find there?”
“Answers,” he said, and let the door swing shut behind him.
The Wardens erupted in noisy argument. Fears were forgotten in their common shock and horror that an outsider had known to use Abernathy’s. I didn’t tell them my sister, also an outsider, asked for auguries frequently—that was different in every way. “All right, calm down,” I said, though I felt anything but. “Assuming he knows how to interpret that augury, it’s not like it would be admissible in court or anything. He’s not going to bring the mundane authorities down on us.”
“He’s police,” said Evelia Duclos, who’d stood by the window watching the detective walk away. “You’ve just given him proof that Abernathy’s isn’t what it seems to be. Of course he’s going to bring the authorities down on us!”
“Lucia told me to answer his questions if he came back, and I did. She wouldn’t steer me wrong.” But a niggling doubt crept into the back of my mind. It hadn’t exactly been a question; what if I was wrong? “Besides, if he knew enough to ask for an augury, that means someone else was loose-lipped, and we’ve got more to worry about than one detective.”
That silenced them, or at any rate reduced their outrage to low murmurs. “I’m going to make a quick phone call, and then I’ll take your auguries, so if you’d like to form an orderly line…”
I ducked into the office and called Lucia. “Detective Acosta came in and asked for an augury. I gave him one. Please tell me I didn’t screw everything up.” Then I went back and accepted the first augury slip without making any exasperated noises. It wasn’t the Ambrosites’ fault I might have given control of the store to my enemy. And there wasn’t anything else I could do about it.
But as the afternoon wore on, I became increasingly tense about my encounter with Acosta. I’d been so stupid. Of course Lucia hadn’t meant me to reveal everything to him! What was I thinking? He now not only knew that Abernathy’s was special, he had an augury that would answer his questions about what Abernathy’s actually was. It was too much to hope for that Acosta wouldn’t know how to interpret the augury. He wasn’t stupid, just single-minded and wrong-headed. I stopped before leaving the oracle with the latest augury and banged my head gently against the nearest shelf. What if the Board heard about this? I was going to be in so much trouble they’d have to invent new words to describe it.
My phone rang just as I took the final augury slip in hand. Lucia. “Wait just a minute,” I said to the customer. “Hello?”
“So our friend has made some discoveries,” Lucia said.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“You did just fine. We want Acosta to learn the truth, one baby step at a time.”
“But why? He’s our enemy!”
“When he thought you were a front for the Mob, sure. Once he knows the truth…I’ve been thinking about cultivating a contact inside the police force for some time now.”
“With all the Wardens we have, how do you not have a contact inside the police?”
“Police work is the same kind of full-time job the Wardens have with the Long War. The two are mostly incompatible. Any Warden with an instinct for police work funnels it into front-line fighting.”
“I guess that makes sense. But why now? Is Acosta really the best you could do?”
“With the shadow cabal no longer lurking in the shadows, we can expect them to start striking at us once they’ve recovered from their attack on the steel magi. Another set of eyes, particularly one privy to things I can’t see, can only help us. And Acosta’s intelligent and driven—a perfect tool.”
“Lucia, I don’t think Detective Acosta is the kind of person you can manipulate.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Davies. And I don’t intend to manipulate him. Much. If his partner Green comes in, steer him toward asking Acosta any questions he might have. Don’t tell him the truth about Abernathy’s. He won’t believe it unless it comes from his partner. And don’t worry. I have everything under control.”
“You sound unusually optimistic.”
“I am. We just cleared Ryan Parish of being a traitor. I don’t mind telling you I’m relieved. Having to replace the Ambrosite leader in addition to all of this would be a pain in my ass I do not need.”
“I’m glad to hear it. What about Jeremiah?”
There was a pause. “We’re meeting in an hour in a mutually determined spot. I have to say I’m impressed he’s willing to take this risk.”
“Impressed enough to believe his story?”
“Don’t push, Davies. I agreed to listen. That’s all.”
“That’s enough for me.”
“It warms my heart to meet with your approval. Now, get back to work.” She hung up.
I smiled politely at Doug Schrote, patiently waiting for his augury. “How does it feel, being right about the attack on the steel magi?” I asked.
“Weird,” he said. “Like I caused it somehow. I mean, I see connections everywhere, you know? But I’m not used to them being right.”
I read his augury slip: Where is Nathan Morris’s fortune buried? “Maybe you’re more insightful than you think,” I said.
15
Once Doug was gone, I busied myself for the last half hour cleaning, mostly dusting shelves that constantly seemed to need it. Judy hurried past, wrapped in her coat. “Father’s hosting a party tonight,” she said. “Call if you hear anything about Jeremiah.”
“I will.” I picked up the broom and swept the front area clean. I couldn’t call Viv, since Jeremiah presumably still had her phone, and Lucia would just yell at me for pestering her, so all I could do was wait and hope. I checked my watch, then locked the front door and turned the sign to CLOSED. One more day done. Would anything ever return to normal? Or at least a new kind of normal, given that the revelation of the shadow cabal—the Mercy—had shaken the magical world to its foundations.
My phone rang while I was in the basement, putting the broom away. “Come let me in,” Malcolm said. “I brought dinner.”
I squealed and darted up the steps, flinging open the back door with such haste I had to catch it before it bounced. Malcolm stood there with a pizza box in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other. “Lowbrow cuisine, I know,” he said, “but I’m too tired for anything else.”
I followed him up the stairs to my apartment. “I don’t mind. I was going to have boxed macaroni and cheese.”
He shuddered. “I don’t know how you can stand to eat that when your palate has supposedly been honed by years of exquisite meals.”
“You underestimate my commitment to not liking to cook.” I found plates and helped myself to two slices and a can. “Bill’s Pizzeria is as close to heaven as takeout pizza comes.”
“Even if your idea of heaven is a little strange. You must have an iron-clad digestion to eat that many jalapeños on your pepperoni.”
“Someday, it will catch up to me, but until then, I’ll eat my spicy pizza with gusto. Did you want to watch a movie, or something?”
“A movie would be nice.”
We settled on Stagecoach and cuddled up together on my couch, eating and drinking and occasionally (me) burping jalapeño-scented burps. Malcolm didn’t seem to mind. I knew we were comfortable with each other when I felt I could eat spicy food with impunity.
I set my plate down on the floor and snuggled closer. “Any other year, and this would have won the Academy Award for best picture. 1939 was an amazing year for film, don’t you think?”
Malcolm was silent. “Malcolm?”
He startled. “What?”
“I said…are you watching the mo
vie?”
“Of course. I was just…thinking of something else.”
“We don’t have to watch it if you’re distracted.”
“I’m enjoying it.”
I sat up, making him turn to look at me. “Something’s bothering you.”
“I’m fine.”
I paused the movie, leaving John Wayne standing up straight with his mouth open. “I can tell you’re not.”
“I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
The rebuff hurt. “All right.” I unpaused the movie and settled back in next to him, stiffly, my hands folded in my lap.
“And now you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You’re sitting like you have a board strapped to your spine and your jaw is set. You’re not happy.”
“I’m as much not angry as you’re fine.”
He took the remote from me and paused the movie. “I don’t know how to untangle that sentence.”
“You’re supposed to be able to share your unhappiness with me, Malcolm.”
“I don’t want to burden you.”
“You’re never a burden. Talk to me. Maybe it will help.”
Malcolm sighed. He set the remote on the arm of the couch and took my hand in his. “The team and I were in training all day,” he said. “We have to rework all our tactics to…accommodate me.”
He sounded so bitter I squeezed his hand and said, “Don’t feel sorry for yourself.”
“I don’t. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to be angry that it’s necessary. At night I lie awake wishing I had those magi in my power, the ones who did this to me. They’re not pretty fantasies.”
“I’m not sure—” I stopped before I could complete that sentence.
“Not sure of what?”
“I don’t want to tell you how to feel. I’m just not sure it’s healthy to dwell on wanting revenge. Though the truth is I feel a little bloodthirsty about them myself, so I shouldn’t criticize.”
“I try to direct that anger into fighting invaders. Mostly I’m successful. Anyway. Training is never fun. It’s exhausting. But today was just…discouraging. So much of what we used to do is useless now. I can’t just point myself at the enemy and let fly anymore. I actually—Helena, you won’t understand how significant this is, but I had to disarm myself of my knives so I wouldn’t go for them instinctively.”
The Book of Betrayal Page 16