The Gambler Grimoire: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Wicklow College of Arcane Arts Book 1)

by BR Kingsolver

  “Call me Katy,” the woman said and pointed to where a dozen flat boxes were stacked against the wall, along with scissors, tape, and marking pens.

  “You’re one step ahead of me.”

  Katy smiled. “I try.”

  “Katy, no one cleaned out that office. I mean, someone dusted it, but left all his stuff. Did the police ever search it?”

  The secretary looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. They searched his apartment, but I never opened his office for them. The only person I ever opened it for was the custodian, the beginning of last week.”

  “Could someone else have gotten in there?”

  “I don’t think so. Brett had a key, you have the spare, and I have a master key to all the faculty offices. It’s only for emergencies, you understand. Most faculty ward their offices, so even having a key normally wouldn’t help anyone who wanted to get in.”

  I was taken back a little. “Ward their offices? Why?”

  Katy smiled. “Not against ordinary criminals. The building itself, and all the buildings on campus, are warded against intruders. Outsiders have to be escorted. But students have probably wanted early access to examination questions for the past thousand years, and when your students are witches, you have to take extra precautions.”

  I had to laugh. “I never left exams in my office in Sausalito.”

  “The police did spend a week going through his apartment, though. They still won’t let us clean it up.”

  “Someone told me you and Dr. Kavanaugh were friends.”

  Katy nodded. “Yes, for a long time. Twenty-six years.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”

  “Other than an ex? No, not really. And if you want to know who his exes are, get a phone book and start with A.”

  “Ladies’ man, huh?”

  Katy pointed to a wall covered with people’s portraits. “Second from the left in the third row.”

  “Tall, blond, and handsome?” I asked.

  “Very handsome, charming, and a very gifted flirt with a voice that made women want to believe his sweet lies and drop their drawers. His family had money, so that didn’t hurt either. He didn’t need this salary.”

  “You and he?”

  Katy shook her head. “I was a newlywed when Brett started here. I had eyes only for one man. Brett respected that. Maybe that’s why we became friends—I was inaccessible.”

  “What about his family?”

  “His father died about three or four years ago, his mother has dementia and is in a nursing home. He didn’t keep in touch with his sister.”

  “Any idea who his heirs might be?”

  Katy shook her head again. “None. He never spoke of that sort of thing. He never married, so I guess his sister.”

  I took the boxes down to my office in two trips, then got to work sorting through Kavanaugh’s files. Some of it that I judged to be useful, such as research papers of his and others, I kept. I also kept the personal files in that bottom right desk drawer to go through for clues as to his activities. They included a lot of financial information, such as stock investments and bank accounts.

  The books on the shelves were mainly academic texts. No grimoires or spell books that I wouldn’t want a student to lay their hands on. That made me wonder what the bookshelves in his apartment held. But how to get in there? David Hamilton was the only person I’d seen going into any of the doors along the portico where I lived, but there were lights in most of the windows at night.

  I assumed that any wards Kavanaugh might have set disappeared with his death. I looked out the window, across the Quad toward his apartment, but other buildings blocked my view. The outer door at ground level wouldn’t be either warded or locked. I wondered who might live in the apartment immediately below him. For the first time, I wondered who might live in the two apartments above me.

  I drew runes on my office door, placed Kavanaugh’s personal files in a banker box, activated the ward, and took the box to my apartment. In contrast to the day before, there were a lot more people on campus. The students had definitely started returning.

  As I walked along the breezeway between the two faculty apartment buildings, a man walked up the front stairs. He turned toward the doors on the north side, across from my entrance.

  “Hello,” I called as I drew even with him.

  He turned from opening the door to the stairs, and I saw it was David Hamilton, the man who watched me from his window the day I arrived.

  “Hello,” he responded. “Dr. Robinson?” His voice was a mellow, pleasant, cultured New England baritone.

  With a smile, I said, “Yes. And you’re Dr. Hamilton?”

  His smile wasn’t openly friendly, but it was a smile. “Yes, I am. Welcome to Wicklow.”

  For the first time, he seemed to see the box I was carrying and quickly moved across the interval between us.

  “Here, let me take that.” Without waiting for my response, he snatched the box from my hands. “Hard to open the door carrying this.”

  We stood, the two of us looking at each other. After a few moments, I realized he was waiting for me to do something. I fished my key from my purse and turned to open the door. I dissolved the ward and pushed the door open. Hamilton was so close behind me that I couldn’t easily turn around.

  I stepped into the hall, and he followed, then passed me. He walked across the sitting room and set the box on the desk.

  “There you go.” He looked around the room. “Are you settling in?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure anyone can tell. It still looks like a man’s study from eighteen-eighty.”

  Glancing up at the portrait over the fire place, Hamilton chuckled. “William Howard, fourth Earl of Wicklow. He was never here, you know, but he provided the seed capital for this pile of rocks. He commissioned the portrait in Ireland and shipped it over here so wayward son Robert might never forget who gave him the butter for his bread. You’ll notice that this wall is as far from the mansion Robert built as you can get, and still be inside the college.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “That is highly irreverent. I was told you’re a conservative traditionalist.”

  “Oh, I am. So hidebound I can barely see past my stiff upper lip. But I was told the same tale when I was a student here, and I’ve never had reason to doubt it,” he said with a grin.

  I sighed. “I wish I didn’t have him staring at me all the time, but I’m sure if I try to take it down, someone will throw a fit.”

  “I think it’s holding the wall up,” Hamilton said. “You’d be responsible for the entire college falling apart.”

  I couldn’t believe this was the same man I had pictured as dour and judgmental as he watched me from his window.

  “May I offer you something to drink? I have wine, tea, and coffee.”

  “No, thank you. I must be getting along. But another time, perhaps.” He started toward the door but stopped and turned just before the hallway. “You know, we do have porters who haven’t nearly enough to do. Next time you want to haul half the library home, call one of them to do the heavy lifting.” With that, he turned and exited.

  Not at all as I had envisioned him from Kelly’s description.

  Two streets ran between my apartment and the river, one inside the college walls that circled the campus, and one outside the walls, running north and south parallel to the river. To the north was Wicklow City, and to the south, the road eventually merged with the highway to Pittsburgh. Kelly parked her car in a lot inside the wall across the street from my place, and as a result, walked by every morning and afternoon.

  An hour after Hamilton left, I answered a knock on the door to find Kelly standing there. She pulled a bottle of vodka and a bottle of cranberry juice out of her purse.

  “May I come in and borrow a glass? It’s been a hell of a day.”

  Laughing, I ushered her in and retrieved two glasses with ice from the kitchen.

 
“I thought libraries were quiet places. What’s going on?”

  “The monsters from hell have returned. Students.”

  “I figured they’d all be either in the pubs, or shagging each other,” I said, “not in the library.”

  “You would think. I must have done terrible things in a past life.”

  She poured a third of her glass full of vodka and passed the bottle to me. I poured far less in my own glass. Kelly filled both glasses with juice and held hers up.

  “Cheers.”

  We clinked glasses, and I took a sip. Kelly took a gulp.

  “I met David Hamilton today,” I said. “I was pleasantly surprised after what you said about him. I found him to be witty and rather charming.”

  Kelly grimaced. “I may be jaundiced. He was my professor in three classes as an undergrad, including Elemental Physics. I worked my ass off in that class to pull a three.” She took another large swallow of her drink.

  “You should go easy on that. You have to drive.”

  Kelly shook her head. “I’ll take the bus, or if I’m too far gone for that, you can call the porters to carry me back to the library. I have a small room with a cot off my office. Comes in handy around finals time when students want to cram a trimester’s worth of study into a few nights.”

  “Today can’t have been that bad.”

  “Oh, yeah it could. Caught three kids trying to break the wards on a restricted area in the museum. A room that holds magical books and artifacts that no one wants running around free in the world. That’s all we need, some idiots trying to call a demon, or reroute the Allegheny.”

  I laughed. “Do you know, the police never looked in Kavanaugh’s office? I wonder what he has in his apartment they might have missed? If he collected rare grimoires, I’d hate for them to fall into the wrong hands.”

  Kelly eyed me over the rim of her glass. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’ll bet the cops didn’t ward his apartment. It may not even be locked. And that means students could get in there. You know they’ll try. The allure of a murder scene? What we need is someone to take a look at what he had. The books, the artifacts.”

  In spite of Kelly eyeing me suspiciously, I ploughed on.

  “Besides, Kavanaugh had no heirs, and Carver said I could have any of his books I wanted, and the rest would go to the library. His personal grimoire wasn’t in his office, so unless the murderer took it, it’s in his apartment. An alchemist’s grimoire could be a very dangerous thing in the wrong hands. Who lives in the apartment below him?”

  “Dr. Jameson, but he’s never there. He basically lives with his mistress up on Hilltop Road, east of the city.”

  “See? There’s no protection for anything in that apartment.”

  “So, you’re saying we should just pop over there and loot the place.”

  “That’s a very crude way of looking at it. I’m just saying that someone should inventory what’s there, and anything that’s possibly dangerous should be secured.”

  I watched her drain her glass and pour another. “You should eat something. Omelet? I have some smoked salmon.”

  “Sure, that sounds good. Considering that Brett died in March, students had two months before the end of term to go snooping in there. I’m not sure any of them have an attention span that would sustain their interest over the summer. Other than you, I haven’t heard anyone mention Brett in months.”

  Chapter 7

  No one was around, and the stairway door to Kavanaugh’s apartment was unlocked, as we expected. Kelly had verified that Jameson’s car wasn’t in the parking lot, so once inside the stairwell, I kindled the magelights illuminating the stairs.

  We passed Jameson’s door at the landing, and at the top faced Kavanaugh’s door with a single band of yellow police tape across it. I could see fingerprints on the doorknob that was still white with powder from the forensics investigators. I put on latex gloves, reached under the tape, turned the doorknob, and pushed. The door swung inward.

  “I told you it wouldn’t be locked,” I whispered, ducking under the tape. Inside, I kindled a dim magelight in my palm and set it on my shoulder. Kelly did the same. The smell was most unpleasant, so I reached in my pocket for a small bottle. Pulling the stopper, I passed it under my nose, then under Kelly’s nose.

  “Wow. Roses. That’s great. Got two of those?”

  I smiled. “It won’t wear off for a couple of hours.”

  The apartment was identical to mine, only flipped. It was far more personalized, and far more cluttered, though. The ceiling was also lower, and in Kavanaugh’s apartment, instead of the wall of windows I had facing the herb garden, he had two waist-high windows overlooking the greenhouse and the countryside beyond to the south. He also had windows that overlooked Howard Quad. And, of course, there was no outside door.

  That gave me a bit of a claustrophobic twinge, like I always had in my apartment in Oakland. It bothered me to be high above the ground with no fire exit.

  On the floor in front of the fireplace was a large bloodstain, and the fireplace itself and the hearth were splattered with blood. A chalk line on the floor, including part of an oriental rug, showed where the body had lain.

  “They’ll never get that stain out now,” Kelly said. “They’ll have to replace the floor.”

  I turned to her and said, “No, I can whip something up that will draw it all out. Not a problem. The rug, not so easy, but I can make something that will do blood as well as red-wine stains.”

  “I need some of that.”

  “Well, Miss Archivist, what do you think?”

  Kelly moved to the bookshelves on our left, walking slowly along, her open hand held up with her palm facing the books.

  “Here,” she said as she reached the end of the shelves. She started pulling books from a shelf and handing them to me. She stopped after five books, then knelt down and pulled two more off the bottom shelf. I slipped them into the tote bag I’d brought without looking at them. There would be plenty of time for that later.

  Next, Kelly checked the low shelves behind the desk running under the windows. She pulled two more books from that shelf, both of which would have been in easy reach of someone sitting behind the desk. I recognized both as books of alchemical formulae that I also owned. I had seen the third book in the set in the laboratory downstairs.

  Kelly turned her attention to the desk. “Nothing magical in here, but you might want to check his files. There might be something else about GG.”

  I nodded as Kelly moved toward the bedroom. The desk was identical to the one in Kavanaugh’s office in the Administration Building, so I tried to pull open the bottom right door. As with the other one, it was locked. I bent down and sketched a rune against the lock. “Patentibus.”

  The lock clicked. At the same time, I heard the sound of the outside door opening. Someone crept down the hall toward me, a dim magelight such as mine providing light. I killed my light and stayed crouched behind the desk until the intruder emerged from the hallway.

  I slid my wand from my sleeve and my athame from the sheath on my belt, then raised up. “Solis praeclara luce!”

  A light as bright as the sun shot from my wand, blinding the man standing there. He ducked his head and raised his arm in front of his eyes, but not before I recognized him. David Hamilton.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Kelly in the bedroom doorway, also holding a wand. The librarian pointed at Hamilton and said a Word. Hamilton froze.

  I cut off the light, reflexively glancing at the windows behind me. If anyone was on the Quad, they would have seen that bright flash. I rekindled my magelight and moved around the desk toward Hamilton.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He stared straight ahead, hand still in front of his face, completely motionless.

  “Kelly?”

  The younger woman dissolved her spell, and I saw the rigidity leave Hamilton’s posture.

  “You could probably see that li
ght from space. I might ask you the same question,” he said. “I was coming home and noticed a glow in the window. It hasn’t been there the past few months, so I was curious.”

  “Dr. Carver said that I could have Dr. Kavanaugh’s books,” I said. “I came to see what was here.”

  Hamilton chuckled. “Don’t you think it would be easier to see them with the lights on? Or maybe even in daylight? Of course, I’m sure you notified the police you were coming.”

  “I caught students trying to break into a restricted area at the museum today,” Kelly said. “We thought there might be things in here they shouldn’t have, so we checked, and the door wasn’t even locked.”

  “Ah. That makes all kinds of sense,” Hamilton said. “Did you find anything too dangerous for them?”

  Kelly hesitated, and I glanced her way.

  “I think he kept his grimoire in the bedroom,” Hamilton said. “He had a spelled box.”

  Kelly crooked her finger. “I think you need to see this.”

  “What is it?” I asked as I sheathed my knife and tucked the wand back into its sheath fastened to my forearm inside my sleeve. I motioned Hamilton to precede me, and with a slight bow of his head and a quirky grin, he followed Kelly into the bedroom.

  An intricately carved box of reddish wood—more than two feet square and a foot deep—sat open on the bed. Inside were four books, a necklace, and a small figurine. I leaned close, shining my light on the contents, then gasped.

  I’m sure the chill that passed over me, the sinking feeling in my stomach, were psychological, but the contents of that box scared me.

  “Well, that certainly lends some credibility to your story for being here,” Hamilton said. I thought his voice sounded a little shaky.

  The book on the right was covered in some kind of leather. The black lettering said, ‘Maleficium Spiritus’—Evil Spirits—possibly the most notorious book of black magic in the Western world. Magic could be felt emanating from it, and it wasn’t a warm, cozy feeling.

  “I’ll bet it’s the real thing,” Kelly said. Her voice was definitely shaky. “I think the cover is human skin, and the lettering is painted in human blood. The book next to it, I think, is Brett’s grimoire. I haven’t touched either of them, so I’m not sure what those books underneath are.”