Jim Hines - Libriomancer

“And that’s bad?”

“Ray once told me magic was like electricity. Pump too many amps through a cord that’s not rated for it, and you risk melting it or starting a fire. Books can channel a lot of magic. So can people, for that matter. But there are limits.”

Smudge had crawled into the back seat, where he was digging into a writhing pile of maggots. He settled down and began to gobble them like popcorn.

“That is beyond gross,” I said, using a Jelly Belly to lure him out. I slammed the door shut. Lena started toward her motorcycle, but I shook my head. “We’re safer together.”

“We’re also an easier target.”

“Whoever targets my car deserves what they get.” I keyed in the code to the garage door opener. The door lurched upward, squealing in protest, to reveal the gleaming curves of a black 1973 Triumph convertible. Despite having sat untouched for more than two years, not a speck of dust marred the paint.

“It’s cute,” Lena said, tracing her fingers over the red pinstriping.

“It’s not cute.” I climbed into the driver’s seat. “The body’s mostly steel, so it’s tougher than a lot of modern cars. And it’s been modified for the field.”

Lena grabbed a small pack from her motorcycle’s saddlebag and squeezed it into the back, along with her two bokken. She waited while I backed out of the garage, then wheeled her bike in beside the old snow blower.

“I approve,” she said when she joined me in the car. She reached out to touch the wood-paneled interior, then poked the tiny blue TARDIS that hung from the rearview mirror. “That’s the flying phone booth from Doctor Who, right?”

“It’s a police box. It was a gift from Ray, when I came back from my first solo mission in the field.” Ray had taken me out to the local pizza place to celebrate. I was pretty sure he had been even more excited about my success than I was.

Smudge raced down my sleeve, over the steering wheel, and onto the dash. Driving fascinated him. I had never figured out exactly why, but the old iron-and-ceramic trivet secured to the middle of the dash was his favorite spot in the world. As a bonus, in cold weather, he did a great job of keeping the windshield defrosted.

Lena pointed to the lower edge of the rearview mirror, where tiny symbols were etched into the glass. “What does this say?”

“It’s Spanish. The spell gives the driver a form of night vision. You’ll see the same characters on the windshield.”

“Nice. And that gray rock tied to the steering wheel?”

“A piece of hoof from a mountain goat. For traction control. We could take this thing snowmobiling on a frozen lake if we wanted, and we’d never lose control.”

“I didn’t think libriomancers could do that kind of magic.”

“We can’t.” I sped toward Highway 41. “I kind of stole it.”

“From who?”

“Ponce de Leon.”

I could see her staring at me from the edge of my vision. “As in Ponce de Leon the conquistador?”

“He wasn’t using it anymore.” I kept my attention on the road, especially the wooded areas to either side. Tough as the car was, a deer leaping out at the wrong moment could still inflict a fair amount of damage. I had deer whistles on the bumper, but I had seen too many wrecks and too many suicidal deer to trust them. “Besides, is it really stealing if you’re stealing from an asshole?”

“I’d have to double-check, but I don’t think the criminal code includes an asshole clause.” She rolled down her window and reached out, fingers spread against the wind. Smudge flattened his body on the dash. “So where are we going?”

“To see a vampire named Ted Boyer in Marquette.” Most vampires kept to the bigger cities where it was easier to go unnoticed, but Ted was a Yooper through and through, born and bred in the U.P. “He should be able to fill us in on the latest bloodsucker gossip.”

Lena played with the radio for a while, eventually settling on a country station. The air and the music all but swallowed her uncharacteristically quiet question. “Isaac, how many strains of vampirism can be cured?”

“Eleven,” I said. “There are a handful of others that can be managed like a chronic disease.” I had once met a vampire who worked as an electrical engineer, and had rigged an insulin pump to deliver a steady dosage of holy water into his system, just enough to keep the symptoms at bay. But most, including Deb’s strain, were incurable. “You’re worried about Doctor Shah.”

“About her, and about what they could do with her. Nidhi knows every Porter in the region. She evaluated and worked with you all.”

I gritted my teeth and pressed down on the accelerator. If the vampires were starting a war, they couldn’t have found a better person to fill them in on the strengths and weaknesses of their enemy.

I took my time getting to Marquette, wanting to wait until the sun was fully risen. Ted was an old school vampire, mostly Sanguinarius Stokerus, though the hybrid that turned him had given him a few extra quirks. He would be sluggish and weak during the day, which suited me just fine.

“How do we know your friend isn’t involved in whatever’s happening?” asked Lena.

“First of all, Ted’s a coward. I don’t recall him ever going after a victim who was strong enough to put up a fight.”

“What’s the second reason?”

“I stuck a bomb in his head.” I searched for the arched wooden sign I remembered from my last visit. Ted lived on the southern edge of the city, about two miles in from the bay. “He had been preying on humans, so Pallas ordered me to eliminate him. Normally, the vampires would have taken care of him, but there were ‘jurisdictional complications’ between the Detroit and Green Bay nests. When I found Ted, he begged me to give him another chance. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have my own informant. The device also lets me track his location. He’s not tamed by a long shot, but this is the next best thing.”

“What happened after you left the field?”

“The Porters send someone up every couple of months. Mostly they just let the computer map his movements. It sends up an alert if he goes anywhere he’s not supposed to, like the Boy Scout camp west of town.” When I found him, he had been living in the woods and sneaking into tents at night to feed.

Lena looked around as I drove up the winding road. “And now he lives in a trailer park?”

“He says he’s comfortable here.” I veered left, toward the more heavily wooded area in the back. I quickly spotted Ted’s trailer, a yellow double-wide with green trim. An American flag jutted from a pole in the doorframe. Ted’s blue Ford Bronco sat in the dirt driveway, the body slowly losing the war against rust. A faded bumper sticker on the back read, Say yah to da U. P., eh?

While Lena grabbed her weapons, I opened the glove box and took out a small nylon bag and an old space opera. From chapter twelve of the book, I created a PDA-sized device with a glowing red dot dead-center on the screen.

I tugged open the screen door and knocked. Ted should be sleeping, but you never knew. Frenzied barking erupted from inside, followed by the sound of claws scratching the door. I tried the knob. “How are you with locks?”

Lena handed her bokken to me. They were heavier than I had expected. She slid a toothpick from a small pocket in the seam of her jacket and winked. “Watch this.”

She held the toothpick between her finger and thumb. The wood grew as if alive, lengthening and sprouting a flat triangular bump on one side. She slid the toothpick into the lock and closed her eyes. Instead of trying to pick the lock, she simply waited. Moments later, she grinned and turned the toothpick. When she pulled it back out, it had grown into a reasonable imitation of a key.