chapter twenty-four

Though given the end of Jack's tale, perhaps that wasn't the best plan.

Or I could grow Lena a new tree. Did she have to live within an oak? I could grow a whomping willow from Harry Potter, giving her tree the ability to defend itself. No, Gutenberg had locked Rowling's work. Perhaps one of the ent knockoffs from various fantasy tales, a tree with the ability to uproot itself and move about.

What would happen if I planted Yggdrasil, the world tree from Norse mythology? I doubted such a seed would fit through the pages of a book, but if I could break off even the smallest twig for Lena to graft to her oak…

"Right," I muttered to myself. "Because nobody would notice an enormous tree growing miles into the sky." The roots would probably devour most of Copper River. I tried to imagine how much water a tree like that would consume. It could drain half of the Great Lakes, killing off most of the surrounding vegetation in the process.

I set the book aside, jumped up, and paced the length of the garden, doing my best to avoid stepping on the plants. At the rate the pumpkins were growing, we were going to have some amazing jack o'lanterns for Halloween.

What if Lena grafted branches from her oak onto multiple trees? Would spreading herself in such a way help to protect her from attack, or would it splinter her mind?

My thoughts were scampering about with all the frantic energy of Smudge in a rainstorm. I hadn't even begun to consider what Jeneta had done tonight. Why had my magic set things off like a rock to a wasp nest when hers merely lulled them to the flowers? I had watched her work with e-books and print alike, and as far as I could see, there was nothing unusual about her process.

I stopped in mid-step. I had been assuming it was something she was doing, a technique others could learn and master to take advantage of electronic books. What if, instead, it was something inherent in her? What if she was simply more powerful? True sorcerers could shape magic with their minds alone, and if she did possess that kind of power, it might explain why the devourers were drawn to her.

I forced myself to sit down, but couldn't stop my legs from bouncing to an unheard beat. A bad case of post-magic twitchiness was essentially Restless Leg Syndrome for the whole body. Perhaps pleasure reading wasn't the safest idea tonight. After ripping into so many books today, the barriers between myself and these books was dangerously thin.

Deb DeGeorge liked to describe spellcasting as shooting holes in a beer keg filled with magic. Shoot a single bullet through the keg, and you can fill your cup from a steady stream. Fire a few more, and the magic starts flowing faster than you can keep up with it. Blast the whole thing with a shotgun, and you end up soaked in the stuff.

It was an elegant trap, one which had claimed the sanity of many libriomancers over the years. As you exhausted yourself physically and mentally, your judgment eroded as well, leading you to make mistakes when you could least afford them.

Sleep was the best cure. Naturally, insomnia was a common side effect of magic use. As much as I loved being a libriomancer, sometimes magic was a pain in the ass.

I set my books aside, powered up the laptop, and began filling out a requisition form for my shock-gun. Porters were supposed to avoid carrying magical artifacts around long-term, but I thought the circumstances justified keeping the gun until this was over.

My cell phone went off before I could finish. I glanced at the screen and swore. A call from Jeff DeYoung at this time of night couldn't mean anything good.

He wasted no time on niceties, and his terseness confirmed my sick sense of

foreboding. "We've got another dead wendigo. Right around the same area. I think this might have been the first one's mate, come to see what happened. Two weres heard the noise and interrupted the son of a bitch, but it was too late to save the wendigo."

I straightened. "Did they see him? Were they able to track where he went?" "Laci didn't see shit," Jeff snapped. "And Hunter died before we could get

him to the hospital."

"I'm—" I bit back the word "sorry." A werewolf wouldn't appreciate empty words. "I can drive out with a healing potion."

"Laci's got a thick head. She'll be okay. She and Hunter had snuck off for a late-night romp, and weren't expecting anyone to try to kill them. They found the body, then something attacked them from behind. Whatever it was, he was strong. Tossed Laci into a tree, and clubbed Hunter hard enough to crack the boy's skull."

I hadn't seen anything to suggest superhuman strength in either of the two figures who had killed the first wendigo.

"What the hell is wrong with these kids?" Jeff continued. "There's no excuse for letting yourself get caught unaware, I don't care how horny you are."

"Did Laci notice any insects by the body? They would have been metal." "Not that she mentioned, but I'll check when she wakes up." He sighed.

"How are you and Lena doing? Neither one of you looked to be in great shape this evening."

"I think whoever killed those wendigos tried to take out Lena's tree. We dealt with it, but she's pretty wiped."

"Any idea who or what we're looking for?" There was a hunger to his words, an eagerness that made me nervous.

"We're working on a few things," I said carefully.

"Bad enough to kill those white-furred cannibals in our territory, but now they've killed one of our pack. That makes it personal. You Porters can do whatever you'd like, so long as you stay the hell out of our way."

Vigilante werewolves. Just what we needed. "Jeff, this guy tore up two wendigos, tossed a pair of werewolves around like dolls, and has magic I've never seen before." Not to mention the devourers. "This is a bad idea."

"He jumped a pair of dumb kids who weren't expecting trouble.