Jim Hines - Libriomancer

I returned the vial to the book, then surveyed the damage to my library. Angry as I was at Deb’s betrayal, seeing the bullet-ridden texts was worse. It was one thing to shoot at me, but to destroy my books… I picked up an Asimov paperback, examining the tattered hole through the spine and pages.

“So you have vampires among the Porters,” Lena commented. “That’s new.”

“Deb’s not exactly a vampire.” I set the damaged book on the arm of the chair-she had shot my chair, too! — and returned to the kitchen to finish the rest of my water. “Muscavore Wallacea, from a ninety-year-old book called Renfield. It’s a sequel to Dracula, written by Samantha Wallace. In her book, the Renfield character wasn’t mad at all, and actually gained certain powers by consuming the smaller lives of insects and other creatures. Renfield was strong, fast, and able to influence the thoughts of others. Let a child of Renfield into your head for too long, and that ‘madness’ becomes infectious.”

Lena whistled. “In other words, I owe you a thank you.”

“After the sparklers at the library, I think we’re at one save apiece.”

Her answering smile took some of the sting out of the past twenty-four hours. She picked up her bokken and strode out the back door, glass crunching beneath her bare feet. “Do you think she’s right about someone from the Porters working against the vampires?”

“I don’t know.” I took a slow, shaky breath, trying in vain to calm myself. I was in way over my head, but I no longer cared. “But I say we get out of here and find out.”

I stood in front of the open hall closet, staring at a brown suede duster on a wooden hanger.

I’m officially reassigning you back to the field.

One little sentence, alluring and seductive, offering me a path to my dreams, then snatched away before I could seize it. Before it could seize me.

My breathing was rapid, and my heart continued to beat double-time. I hadn’t just fallen off the magical wagon; the wagon had run me over and dragged me six blocks down a pothole-ridden street. The effects were worse after two years away. My body was no longer used to channeling this kind of energy.

Two years behind a desk, cataloging magic but never able to touch it. Two years of purgatory, redeemed in that one little sentence.

I reached for the hanger. My hand trembled, to my great annoyance-another aftereffect of magic and adrenaline. The duster was heavy, lined with a polyethylene fiber weave that could stop small caliber bullets or turn away a blade. It held up pretty well against zombie horses, too.

I had sewn pockets into the lining, carefully sized and positioned to accommodate most American book formats. Twin constellations of black dots marked the leather shoulder pads where Smudge had ridden in the past. I slipped the familiar weight onto my body and brushed dust from the sleeves. The jacket still smelled ever so faintly of smoke.

“Looks good on you,” Lena commented.

It felt good. Familiar. It conjured memories of hope.

I returned to the library to stock up, a ritual my body remembered well even after so much time. My hands moved automatically to pull books from the shelves: Heinlein, Malory, L. Frank Baum, Le Guin, an old James Bond adventure. The spines were worn, and the pages fell open to the scenes I had used most often. I looped rubber bands into the books, top to bottom, to mark the pages I might need.

All total, I was packing sixteen titles when I finished, including a hardcover in the front that should provide a little extra protection for the heart.

“What about Deb?” Lena asked softly. “Shouldn’t you let the Porters know?”

“She’s not completely turned,” I protested weakly. Deb had tried to recruit me. Why would she bother unless something of our friendship remained? But when that failed, she had also tried to shoot holes in me.

“How do you know?”

“Someone can do magic or they can be magic, but not both. As Deb’s transformation continues, she’ll lose the ability to perform libriomancy.” She had to know the cost of her transformation. No libriomancer would willingly sacrifice their magic.

“We could go after her. If there’s any way to save her…”

I shook my head. Deb wasn’t like a drug addict who could check into rehab and get her life back. This kind of magical transformation was irreversible. I didn’t want to turn her in, but I had no choice. Given her access to the Porters, the damage she could do was too great.

I turned away and picked up the phone. Pallas wasn’t answering, so I left a brief voice mail letting her know our friend Deb had been “poached by a competing firm.”

“What will they do to her?” asked Lena.

“Knowing Pallas, she’ll assign someone to hunt and destroy her. Destroy the thing she’s become, I mean.” My words sounded distant. Mechanical. Deb was already lost. Knowing that didn’t ease the guilt for signing her death warrant.

“They’ll kill her for what someone else did to her?”

“Whatever bug-eater wormed their way into Deb’s mind killed her.”

“Isaac, she’s a victim.”

“I know that.” Just like Nidhi Shah. If Shah was alive, would the Porters have to destroy her as well? I slammed the phone back into its cradle. “I’m sorry, Lena.”

She peered out the broken door without answering.

“Of course, until Pallas says otherwise, Deb’s still an agent of Die Zwelf Porten?re. As such, I’m obliged to follow her orders.”

Lena raised her eyebrows at my logic, but didn’t argue. I retrieved Smudge, who climbed up my sleeve to take his familiar place on my right shoulder.

Despite being out of the field for two years, I still kept a go bag packed with clothes, money, a small folded cage for Smudge, a handful of books, and a few other essentials. I stopped long enough to duct tape a bed sheet over the broken glass door to keep the mosquitoes out, then headed outside with Lena.

The Dalmatian a few houses down was barking madly from the fenced-in yard. I glanced up and down the street, but the houses out here were built with plenty of space and trees between them. Aside from the dog, nobody appeared to have noticed our little battle.

Deb’s car sat abandoned in the driveway. The doors were locked, but when I returned to the living room, I found the keys in her jacket pocket.

The instant I opened the car door, the stench of stale, rotting food poured out, making me gag. Fast food wrappers, pizza boxes, and crumpled cups filled the back seats, along with half-eaten crusts and spilled fries. Flies buzzed angrily at the intrusion.

“She was using the mess to attract insects,” I said, feeling ill. “The more she ate, the stronger she became.”

Smudge had perked up at the sound of the flies. He crept down to my wrist, crouched, and pounced. His forelegs snapped out to catch a black fly from midair. He landed on the side of the car, cooking the hapless fly in his legs and stuffing it into his mouth.

I opened the door and searched the front. A printout from the Lansing State Journal Web site described the destruction of the MSU library. Deb had told the truth about that much. If anything, she had understated the damage. A color photo showed yellow police tape around a low hill of rubble. The nearby buildings appeared untouched.

I found several books tossed carelessly onto the passenger seat. A pair of bloody brown feathers were stuck to the floor mat. Apparently Deb was starting to move up from insects to birds. I picked up a well-worn field guide to Michigan insects and fanned the pages.

Lena looked over my shoulder, her body brushing mine. “She was using libriomancy to create her own snacks?”

“Magically created insects wouldn’t give her the same strength or power, but they might have helped her control the hunger.” I studied the pages, noting the faint signs of char, like rot or mold eating the paper from the binding outward. “She’s been overusing this book, probably trying to stave off the change and hold on to her magic as long as she could.”