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

by BR Kingsolver

  “So, you didn’t see anyone?”

  “I never made it through the door. The first person I saw was Dr. Hamilton.”

  Kagan walked over and looked at the papers on the table, then looked at me.

  “Those are for you,” I said. “I found them mixed in with some scholarly papers in Dr. Kavanaugh’s desk. I planned to call you after I got to my office.”

  He picked them up and thumbed through them, then tucked them under his arm.

  “Thanks. Any idea why someone tried to kill you?”

  “The only thing that comes to mind is someone might have seen me go with you to Kavanaugh’s apartment. And you’ve come to my place a couple of times. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, this and his death have to be connected.”

  That caused Kagan’s eyebrows to shoot up, but that was his only reaction.

  “She has asked quite a few questions of various people about Dr. Kavanaugh and his murder,” Hamilton said, “but I think you would agree that’s understandable, in her situation.”

  “What if he was killed because someone didn’t like alchemists?” I asked. “Or they don’t want this position filled? I’ve been here less than a month, and I never heard of him before.”

  “Or they don’t like blonds,” Hamilton said. Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged. “Both she and Brett are blond. Or, in his case, was.”

  “We are persecuted a lot,” I said, and gave him a wink. “People are jealous because we have more fun.”

  Both Kagan and Crumley rolled their eyes.

  “I also discovered Agnes Bishop and Joshua Tupper. Maybe someone thinks I know more than I do about their murders.”

  After the police left, I asked David, “What about the other folder in my briefcase? The one that had classroom stuff?”

  “I gave it to Katy. It didn’t look like something Kagan would be interested in.”

  “Well, I guess I should stop lying around and get some work done. Nurse? May I have my clothes, please?”

  “Let me know before you go back to your place,” David said. “I set a ward at the end of the hall to block your apartment. You don’t have a door, and I didn’t think you would appreciate strangers wandering around in there, whether they were in uniform or not.”

  That was a surprise, but a pleasant one. “Thank you,” I said. “One would think the police would keep whoever planted the bomb out, but we’ve seen that their procedures in securing crime scenes are rather unprofessional.”

  The nurse called the doctor, who came and examined me again, then pronounced me well and let me go.

  Chapter 17

  When I left my office that afternoon, I found David, Kelly, and Kagan waiting for me.

  “Are you my guard detail?”

  Kagan looked sheepish, Kelly laughed, and David simply dipped his head.

  “I would like to talk with you about the bomb,” Kagan said. “At your place.”

  “As long as you’re buying the drinks, I’m at your disposal,” I responded, and enjoyed his spluttering reply that he was on duty.

  As we walked across the quad, I said, “So, only a few days after I first walked into a classroom, and I’m already the talk of the campus. I assume some of the students here have friends in San Francisco and heard what kind of witch with a b I really am.”

  Again, Kelly chuckled. Too bad that I couldn’t find a man who thought I was that funny, but David’s mouth showed a bit of a smirk as he flicked me a glance from the corner of his eye. I always seemed to intimidate most men, either with my intelligence or my power. I’d also been called cold, but I wasn’t sure how to fix any of it.

  When we reached my home, the reality of the blast’s power hit home. The shredded remains of my briefcase sat twenty feet away from the door. The door itself was splintered and buckled; the door frame torn loose from the wall. That was probably the only reason the door still hung on its hinges. The three-inch thick oak door was at least one hundred fifty years old, almost as hard as iron, but it would have to be replaced.

  “This was one serious bomb,” Kagan said as they examined the damage. “We haven’t figured out how it was set off. No evidence of a detonator or trip wire. Maybe triggered remotely?”

  Picking my way carefully through the debris, I ran my hands over the door, the frame, and the sill.

  “Nitroglycerine,” I announced. “Probably set off by a spell. When I pushed my briefcase through the doorway, the spell that held the vial against the door frame let it drop.”

  I walked away in a straight line from the small crater in the stone by the door. Thirty feet along, I found what I was looking for. I bent down and picked it up, then walked back to the group, holding up a small piece of black rubber.

  “Your forensics people might find remnants of a glass test tube scattered about,” I said. “This was the stopper. I’d check the top of it to see if there is a thumb print, but I doubt it. I would wear gloves working with this stuff.”

  “Nitro?” Kagan asked. “How can you tell?”

  “I’m an alchemist. I can detect the residue. I show students how to make it—and why they shouldn’t. Simple stuff. Glycerol, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid—all of which are present in every chemistry lab on campus. Really touchy, so you bottle it, freeze it to move it, attach it to the doorframe, and it thaws out hanging there. That makes it even more touchy.”

  “And you show students how to make it?” Kagan seemed appalled.

  “They can get the recipe and the steps online,” I said. “The way I show it to them, I make a tiny amount from a distance of about fifty feet out in a pasture, or someplace like that, using levitation rather than my hands. When it’s finished, I let it cool a little while I lecture them on how dangerous it is, then shake the test tube, and blow up the table and everything I used to make it.”

  Hamilton burst out in a loud guffaw while Kelly chuckled. After a moment, Kagan allowed himself a chuckle as well.

  “Hey,” I said, “a lot of these kids are fearless. They think they’re invincible. Unless you can cast a substantial personal shield, and still maintain dexterity, I wouldn’t touch that stuff. I need them to know there are some things you don’t do, even if you know how.”

  “Like summoning a demon,” Kelly said.

  “Exactly.”

  David turned to Kagan. “How long is this going to remain a crime scene? Until the college can repair the door, she can’t stay there. Five or six months, like Brett’s place?”

  Kagan turned bright red. “Not tonight, but I’ll try to finish here tomorrow.”

  “I have a spare room,” Kelly said. “Go get an overnight bag and clothes for the weekend.”

  I knew David didn’t have a spare room, but I caught myself hoping—just a little bit—that he might offer me a place. I probably would decline it, but the idea was kind of exciting.

  I looked to Hamilton, who nodded. Kagan was turned away from him, and I saw David sketch a rune and speak a word. With that, I picked my way through the ruins of my doorway, and went in to pack. Remembering Kavanaugh’s apartment, I also cleaned out the perishables from the refrigerator.

  Kelly lived in a small two-bedroom bungalow three blocks east of Main Street, and a mile north of the college. White, with blue trim, a white picket fence, flowers, a patch of grass in the front, and a vegetable garden in the back. Inside, it looked more like an exotic foreign bazaar, with rugs, figurines, and wall hangings from all over the world.

  “Some of this stuff I collected on holiday, some my mum or aunt brought me. I’ll be doing London again at Christmas, but I’m thinking of the Mediterranean for spring break.”

  She took me to a quiet little German restaurant owned by the descendants of witches fleeing persecution in Europe during the late seventeenth century. They immigrated to Pennsylvania, the colony of religious freedom. Construction workers needed to be fed, and so they came to Wicklow and started their restaurant when John Howard started building his college.

  Afterward, we w
ent back to Kelly’s, and I went to the kitchen to brew some chamomile tea. While I waited for the water to boil, a small bookshelf in the corner caught my attention. Thirteen cookbooks and a couple of ‘household tips’ books by a popular television cook—From the Kitchen Witch’s Kitchen—lined the shelf.

  “I have a couple of those,” I said to Kelly. “You must really like them. That’s the whole collection, isn’t it?”

  Kelly laughed. “And I’ve tried every one of those recipes. Mum wants them to be idiotproof before she puts them in a book, and I’ve always been the designated idiot.”

  “Loretta Grace is your mother?”

  “Yup. That’s where the money came from for me to attend Wicklow. Da is a civil servant. A British diplomat in Washington doesn’t get paid well enough to afford this place.”

  We discussed the bomb, the students she had caught trying to enter a restricted area of the museum, and the three murders.

  “I’ve decided someone has it out for apothecaries,” I said. “Kavanaugh, Agnes, now me. Tupper was studying alchemy. Someone must have sold a bad potion to the killer’s grandmother or something.”

  “Giving up on the Gambler Grimoire theory?”

  I shrugged. “You told me Joshua Tupper’s room was searched and his computer is missing. Grimoires and computers are missing for all the victims. I assume the cops searched Corey Lindsay’s room when they arrested him. Since they haven’t charged him with three murders, I also assume they didn’t find Agnes’s or Kavanaugh’s computers.”

  “Or grimoires,” Kelly said. “Those are also identifiable.” She shook her head. “There are places in town where you could pawn a grimoire, but I doubt any of the dealers would be willing to touch items associated with a recent murder victim. The cops did ask me to verify Ophelia’s and Corey’s computers. Their registrations checked out.”

  “Where could a student hide things like that?”

  “Other than their room? Maybe where they work, if they have a job. I can imagine a lot of places I could hide a book in the library.”

  I laughed. “You mean, just about any shelf? But maybe I should check out the greenhouse and the laboratories. Places where Ophelia has access.”

  “You know, Tupper’s murder feels different than the others,” Kelly said. “A professor or a staff member would have a lot more places to hide the loot—especially if he or she lives off campus.”

  The kettle whistled, and Kelly poured hot water into my cup.

  “I’ve noticed that you use a lot of Latin,” Kelly said. “We don’t even know what language the mythical Gambler Grimoire is written in. Would a student know what it is, let along what to do with it?”

  “Interesting point. Yes, almost my entire grimoire is written in Latin. I inherited it from my paternal grandmother, who was Italian, and there are some Italian and Catalan spells from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well.”

  Chapter 18

  On Tuesday, Kelly gave me a ride to the college, and we walked by my apartment on my way to my first lecture. The doorway was still a shambles. But when I rushed from my lecture course back to my lab to meet with my graduate students that afternoon, two men were clearing debris away from the doorway, and the yellow police tape was gone.

  I was surprised to find Lieutenant Kagan at the lab, chatting with the grad students as well as the girls who worked in the greenhouse. He broke away from them when he saw me approach.

  “I spoke with Mrs. Bosun,” he said, “and the door should be repaired this afternoon.”

  “Yes, there were some men working on it already. Thank you.”

  I told the students to give me fifteen minutes, then led Kagan into my apartment through the back door. I placed my new briefcase on the desk, then headed to the kitchen.

  “Lemonade, Lieutenant?”

  “Sure. Thank you.”

  He stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, while I poured a glass for each of us.

  “You didn’t find any grimoires or computers in Corey Lindsay’s room, did you?” I asked.

  “No. I was hoping you might let me search your lab and the greenhouse. Maybe his girlfriend hid them."

  "Not that I can find. I searched this weekend. But maybe you can find something I couldn’t. You have my permission."

  Kagan pursed his mouth, then said, “I should have figured.”

  “Have you tried any magical techniques?” I asked. “You know, like scrying to find Kavanaugh’s killer?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like that would be admissible in court.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes, but resisted. “Not in a mundane court. But at least it might give you a direction.”

  “I’ll run it by the chief. He’s a witch, so maybe he’ll go for it. Something like that is beyond my talents, though.”

  “Not my strong point either, but we offer divination courses here on campus, so I assume there are people who might be able to help.”

  Wicklow College had the deepest repository of arcane talents outside the Witches’ Council, but the local cops wanted to play Poirot and not use us. And I had thought students were the densest material in the universe.

  After Kagan left, I quickly changed clothes and went back to the lab. The girls who worked in the greenhouse were waiting for me in the herb garden.

  “What happened to your door?” Ava Martinez asked.

  “There was an accident. A student experiment gone wrong, I think.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?” Barbara asked.

  “Why should I be afraid?”

  The girl stared down at her feet. “Well, Dr. Kavanaugh and Ms. Bishop were murdered, and someone tried to blow you up.”

  I tried to chuckle, but my mouth was too dry. “I don’t think any of those things are connected. I didn’t know Dr. Kavanaugh or Ms. Bishop, and I’ve been here only a couple of weeks. No one has seen any of my exams yet, so I don’t think anyone has a reason to harm me. I think that was a prank gone wrong.”

  “No exams, but your reading lists are pretty hefty,” one of the graduate students said from the lab doorway.

  I forced a smile and a laugh. “I’m devoted to my students. I don’t want anyone thinking they aren’t getting their money’s worth. Besides, if anyone told you that graduate students have a social life, they lied.”

  A different voice from inside said, “Great, we’ll all die old maids.”

  I urged the undergrads to get back to work and led the graduate students into the lab.

  “There are worse fates than dying as old maids, as long as you don’t die as sacrificed virgins. Let’s explore socially acceptable ways of dealing with headaches. As you can see by my presence here today, blowing up your professors doesn’t always work. Miss Simmons, tell us everything you know about willow bark.”

  Steven was sprawled on my back steps when the tutorial finished, providing a visual dessert for the students as they left.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I unlocked the back door to my apartment and grinned at the gawking young women streaming past as I ushered him inside.

  “Flying back to San Francisco tonight. Talked to Carver today, and he understands that I have to deal with my apartment there and bring my car out here. So, I have an extra week.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Taxi is supposed to pick me up in about half an hour. I stashed my suitcase in my new apartment. I didn’t see any reason to haul it there just to haul it back. Do you think you can manage to survive until I get back?”

  Steven’s on-campus studio apartment was free but even smaller than his place in San Francisco. Basically, it was a one-third size version of mine, without the garden view. When I saw it, I once again marveled at my luck.

  “I’ll try. You’re probably smart not to be seen with me too often. You could end up a target, too.”

  “Savanna, what in the hell is going on here?”

  “I truly wish I knew. I think it has something to do with a book called the Gambler Grimoire. If you can s
niff out anything about it on the West Coast, I’d appreciate it.” I proceeded to tell him what little I knew about the book.

  Steven looked thoughtful. “An old buddy of mine lives in Vegas. I’ll give him a call.”

  A car horn beeped from outside.

  “Probably my taxi. See you in a couple of weeks.”

  I saw him to the door and watched as he trotted to the taxi waiting out front.

  The door. Two shiny new keys sat on the table in the entrance hall, and I tried both on the new door. When I finished the experiment, I locked up, and used the lipstick in my purse to sketch runes on both sides of the door so I could cast a warding spell. Then I set off for the Faculty Club dining room.

  On my way there, I reflected that perhaps I should call a few of my own contacts as well.

  “Savanna, the Gambler Grimoire is just one of a group of fabled spell books that people are mad to find. Surely, you’ve come across tales of spells that will actually turn lead to gold,” my father said when I called him.

  “Yes, and with a nuclear reactor, I might be able to pull it off. Those ancient alchemists didn’t understand atomic theory. Or how absolutely inert lead is.”

  “And I would guess that probability is as easily altered.”

  “But, Dad, it doesn’t have to actually work for someone to believe enough—or hope—it does to kill for it.”

  “True. I’ve seen people do some pretty stupid things. I’ll ask around, but you be careful. This fictitious book might have started the mess you’re dealing with, but it sounds as though things have progressed. Whether the book is real or not may not be as important as a killer trying to cover up his tracks.”

  I stared at the phone after hanging up. Four deaths, assuming Merriweather was connected to the Wicklow murders. Even though Kagan thought Joshua Tupper’s murder was unrelated to Brett Kavanaugh’s, I didn’t buy it. Coincidence was the one kind of magic I had trouble believing in.