chapter forty-one

I grabbed Heinlein's Friday from my jacket. The vampires had taken care of their side of the bargain, after all. The Shipstone battery I created was no larger than my wallet. It could light the entire vampire city, deep in the underground salt mines, but it might not be enough to make up for the death of three of their number. "Be careful."

"Don't worry about me, hon. Anyone asks, I'm putting all the blame on you." Deb shoved the Shipstone into her pants pocket. "Watch your back. And give me a call if you change your mind about wanting a few extra years of reading and study."

We waited for the first of the Porters' clean-up crew to arrive. A pair of fresh-faced field agents nodded a greeting, then set about erasing our mess. One strode into the Sanchez house as if he owned it, while the other used some kind of purple crystal to search for fragments of magic, like the expended pellets from my shock-gun.

Once we were back on the road, I examined a handful of fragmented insect parts: wings and shells, mostly, along with a few gears, a bit of wire that might have been an antenna, and a pair of oversized grasshopper legs. I squinted through my enchanted sunglasses, but the scraps were magically dead.

We knew where the bugs had come from, but where had Harrison found his accomplices? How had he persuaded them to help him butcher wendigos? More importantly, what did they all want? Harrison was motivated by power, but what did he hope to do with his magically-boosted brute squad?

And why come after me? If he had gotten into Victor's system, he could have tracked down any Porter he wanted, but I hadn't heard of any other breakins. Harrison had come to the U.P. and hacked my computer. I looked out the rear window toward Lena, thinking of my private notes. There were things I had learned about her that I refused to share even with the Porters.

If August Harrison had found those files, it would take time to decrypt them, but if he was even half as smart as his son had been, he would get there

eventually. Whether or not he could do anything with that information was another question. He had no direct magical ability. I had no idea what else his would-be libriomancers could do.

I called Nicola Pallas. "The serenade worked beautifully, thank you. Please tell me the automaton has Harrison and his friends."

"Not yet."

"Dammit."

Jeff turned in his seat. "What's taking so long? I thought those things were supposed to be unstoppable."

"Not exactly," Nidhi said mildly. "Isaac destroyed four earlier this year." Jeff cocked his head and stared at me like I had just turned into a were-

rabbit. Admittedly, this was a tremendous improvement over wanting to tear me limb from limb. "Well, shave my ass and call me a poodle. How the hell did you manage that?"

"You have to know how they think." Which August might also know, depending on what he had gotten out of my computer. This just got better and better. To Nicola, I said, "Why doesn't it materialize in front of their truck, punch out the engine, and be done with it?"

"As far as we've been able to determine, the automaton is having trouble

seeing them."

Perfect. "I need to talk to Gutenberg. The people August had with him were using magic I'd never seen or read about before."

"Hold on."

I'll say this much about Nicola: she was efficient. It couldn't have been more than five seconds before my phone beeped.

"What have you learned?" asked Johannes Gutenberg. It was his customary greeting. Never "Hello, Isaac," or "Great job cleaning up that will-o'-the-wisp situation at the strip club last month, Isaac." All he cared about was whatever new knowledge I had uncovered, whether it was the innermost secrets of a forgotten branch of Egyptian magic or the extra ingredient Loretta Trembath used for her spicy Cudighi.

I had never been able to describe Gutenberg's accent. I would have expected his words to be colored by his upbringing, but I heard no trace of Germanic when he spoke. Instead, his voice was simply…precise. Every word, every syllable was carefully chosen and articulated. It made sense when I thought about it. How many languages had he learned and relearned over his lifetime?

"August Harrison has help," I said. "Three people, all young and Asian in appearance. They used books to absorb or dissipate magic. I think the books held

some kind of ghost that diluted or consumed whatever we threw at them." "Describe these ghosts," Gutenberg said sharply.

I did the best I could, beginning with Nicholas' complaints about other ghosts. Nidhi and Jeff chipped in additional details. "Who the hell are these people? You said you sent me the full, uncensored history of the Porters for— For my research project. There was nothing about this style of magic."

"Tell me about the books."

I closed my eyes. "They were hardcovers. Larger than most modern books. Quartos, maybe, bound in red cloth or leather. They looked like something you'd keep in the rare books section of a library." But such uncommon or one-of-a- kind editions shouldn't work for libriomancy. Books had to be mass-produced to build up the cumulative belief and power you needed for magic. "I didn't see any embossing on the cover. The pages looked yellowed."

"Did you see what language the books were written in?"

Was I imagining the urgency in his words? "I didn't get close enough." "It's not libriomancy," Gutenberg said quietly.

I waited for him to explain. Eventually, I started to realize I could be waiting a very long time. "Then what is it?"

"I'm not sure."

I didn't buy it. He might not know for certain, but he wouldn't be this pensive if he didn't have suspicions. "So guess, dammit."

The silence that followed gave me time to realize I was barking orders at the founder of the Porters.