chapter eighty

Every religion I've studied has laws or commandments against killing.

Historically, humanity has shown tremendous creativity in finding every possible loophole, rationalization, and justification to ignore those commandments.

Animals kill for food, and to protect their territory, which suggests killing can be a normal, natural part of life. But humans are civilized. They've supposedly moved beyond mere instinct. Yes, animals kill. They also eat their young, but if you suggest a human mother do the same, people tend to react poorly. Animals will happily interbreed with their siblings as well, but that's frowned upon among humans. (Though some of them do it anyway, and many others fantasize about it.) The behavior of animals does not provide moral justification for human beings to do the same.

Is killing ever a moral choice? What if the personal decision to avoid inflicting harm leads to a greater evil? Countless writers have penned tales of traveling back in time to kill Hitler. Would such a murder be right if it prevented millions of other deaths?

Isn't doing nothing while a vampire attacks my loved one a greater crime than destroying the vampire? Both choices lead to death. One choice stops a killer.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf praised the pity of Bilbo Baggins in sparing Gollum, despite Gollum's evil nature. As it turned out, that choice saved all of Middle Earth in the end. But then, it's easy to present simple answers to ethical questions when you're the one shaping the story. What of those times when Gandalf rode his moral high horse into battle, helping to kill countless orcs and goblins?

Gollum was a victim of the ring, corrupted and twisted. The vampire is diseased, driven by maddening thirst and inhuman urges. And I…given a cruel

enough lover, I could become a creature much worse than any of them. Can I judge and kill others for acts I have the same potential to commit?

I've killed before. To defend myself and those I love. Was that the right choice, or simply the easy one?

The day Kawaljeet Sarna began teaching me Indian stick fighting, he began with a simple lesson: Prevent, Practice, Protect.

Prevent conflict when you can. Avoid the enemy. Diffuse their anger. Take their mental balance, and search for peaceful resolution.

Practice confrontation. Learn to deescalate the conflict, to dampen the flames instead of adding fuel. Seek peace, even in battle.

Protect yourself and those unable to defend themselves. When possible, protect your opponent as well. Protect your physical self, but also your mental and emotional selves.

If any of the words I've written here have the power to shape who I am, let it be these. If I'm unable to hold to these rules, if I become a monster like those I've fought, then I ask only that others not hesitate to end me.

THE FIRST PORTER TO join us in the library was Antonia Warwick, who greeted us each in turn. She whistled softly as she surveyed the damage. "I've heard of giving an old building a facelift, but I'm pretty sure this isn't what they meant."

Like Nicola Pallas, Toni was one of the handful of Porters who wasn't a libriomancer. She performed sympathetic magic, manipulating small objects to create larger effects. I had once seen her summon a nasty ice storm with nothing but an old Snoopy Snow Cone maker. She lived in Winnipeg, but her talents were always in demand, meaning she traveled more than most field agents.

She was in her early forties, with faint wrinkles by the eyes and a crooked nose. Dreadlocks hung just past her shoulders. She wore a black tank top, exposing well-muscled arms. Around her waist was what appeared to be the result of a one-night stand between a handyman's leather tool belt and Batman's

utility belt. Gleaming silver studs decorated the black leather belt, which was weighed down by an array of pouches and tools of every shape and size. Additional straps rose over her shoulders for support.

She had a mug of pop as big as her head, and sucked absently at the straw as she studied me more closely. "What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Vainio?"

"The usual."

"That would explain it." She climbed onto the desk and studied the broken ceiling beams. "Lena, you're good with wood, right? How about you get up here and let's see if we can keep this place from caving in any more."

Normally, I would have been fascinated by the way they worked together. Lena strengthened one of the cracked beams, giving it life enough to grow and heal. Toni spread that strength to the rest. The ceiling groaned, and we backed away as plaster and insulation snowed down, but by the time they finished, the exposed beams were visibly stronger.

I watched the entire process, but my thoughts were elsewhere. "How much worse is this going to get?"

"That depends on how swiftly we can find and stop August Harrison," said Gutenberg.

I had lost control of the situation the instant Gutenberg arrived. Not that I ever really had control. Harrison and his wendigos I could have dealt with, but the students of Bi Sheng and an Army of Ghosts? I needed help.

I just wished I knew what the cost of that help would be. How much of Copper River would be left when this was over?

One by one, the rest of the Porters gathered in my library. Most I had met, at least in passing. All were field agents, with the exception of Nicola Pallas and Gutenberg himself. The amount of active magic in the air tickled my skin. I dug my nails into my palms to keep from scratching.

Every libriomancer carried his or her own arsenal of books. Some wore backpacks or messenger bags. Whitney Spotts had fashioned what looked like a makeshift skirt of books, each one clipped to a thick leather belt by a light cha in. John Wenger's books simply followed him through the door in a self- propelled red wagon. I had no idea how it had navigated the broken steps.

Then there were the weapons. I saw two different Excaliburs, a monofilament whip, some sort of electrified jumpsuit (in neon pink), a steampunk-style short rifle, and a pair of six-shooters that could have come straight from Billy the Kid's holsters. Toni was one of the few who appeared unarmed, but in her hands, just about anything was a potential weapon.

"Is the town contained?" Pallas asked.

Maryelizabeth, a libriomancer from New York who worked for one of the major publishing houses, tugged a small black gas mask from her face. "Diluted spray of Lethe-water took care of most of the bystanders."

"Electronics are covered," said John, waving a trade paperback. "Broad- field magnetic blaster. Anyone who tried to record this on their phones will have a very bad day. A few shots probably leaked onto the Internet, but we can track those down and discredit them later."

"I intercepted the cops," said Whitney. "They're back at the police department, writing the whole thing up as a nasty traffic accident."

One by one Pallas took their reports. In less than a half hour, the Porters had swept through the streets of Copper River and erased most of the evidence of our battle with the dragon. Even the dragon itself was no longer recognizable, having been carved into scrap. I didn't know how the Porters meant to pass off the huge pile of metal in the road as a traffic accident, but I had no doubt they would find a way.

"Good." Pallas was rocking back and forth, snapping her fingers to a rhythm nobody else could hear. She was even less comfortable with noise and crowds than I was, and music was one of the ways she coped. I wondered if it would work for Jeff DeYoung, who was looking from one person to the next, trying to watch everyone at once. He knew and liked me, but he was a werewolf, and part of his brain instinctively classified the Porters as potential predators.

Given what I had learned, I couldn't entirely disagree with that assessment.

Pallas turned to Gutenberg. "We have between 90 and 95 percent containment. We can finish cleaning up later. Dream-manipulation should help take care of any lingering memories."

Without preamble, Gutenberg set the last of his books atop the pile and said, "As some of you know, when Victor Harrison died earlier this year, we were unable to control the scene before the police arrived. As a result, August Harrison was able to gain access to his son's work, including a swarm of mechanical insects. He used those insects to break into the Porter network, as well as to access Isaac Vainio's private research notes. He also discovered a cult called the Bì   de dú  ;, the students of Bi Sheng.

"Harrison then tracked and killed a pair of wendigos near Tamarack, Michigan. Using the magic preserved in their skins, he attempted to create monsters of his own, soldiers who would be stronger and deadlier."

"How many?" asked Whitney.

"At least twenty-four," I said. "They're not true wendigos, but they have most of the strength and temper. Depending on the amount of skin he used, the

transformation might not be permanent."

"The wendigos are the least of our concerns. Harrison has also created his own dryad." Gutenberg extended his arm toward Lena like a museum curator showing off an exhibit. "Unlike Ms. Greenwood, this dryad is new and untrained. However, she possesses the same strengths and weaknesses."

"What weaknesses?"

I didn't see who asked the question, but I cringed as Gutenberg began detailing how the loss of Lena's tree could cripple her, how her skin would resist normal weapons, but not magical ones. She stood like a statue, her eyes fixed on the wall as Gutenberg verbally dissected her. I took her hand, offering what comfort I could. Nidhi squeezed her other hand.

"Why go to the trouble of breaking into our archives and making a dryad if he already had wendigos?" That was Whitney again.

Gutenberg nodded at me. I grimaced and stepped into the center of the ring of libriomancers. "Five hundred years ago, some of the students of Bi Sheng were able to preserve their thoughts and memories in books. Their descendants have spent centuries protecting those books, and searching for a way to restore them. When Harrison hacked into my private notes, he found the answer. Not only does Lena recreate her physical body each time she leaves her tree, but earlier this year, we discovered she can do the same for another person."

Everyone began talking at once. New comments and questions poured forth, one atop the next.

"That's a hell of a magical kluge."

"Can you change the body you create? Make it younger or thinner?" "Or better looking? Especially for Bobby over there."

"Bite me. What about cloning? If you had access to the mind, how many copies could you make?"

"Have you examined the body at the genetic level? Are they affected at all by their dryadic birth?"

"Do they have belly buttons?"

Lena turned to me and mouthed the word "libriomancers" while rolling her eyes. I gave her a sympathetic smile.

Gutenberg clapped his hands once. "August Harrison forced Ms. Greenwood to restore a woman named Bi Wei. In her time, Bi Wei would have been a rudimentary libriomancer of limited ability, but time in her book gave her a more direct connection to magic. She was a part of magic, able to manipulate it without books or other tools. While she appears to have retained this power, the greater danger is what else Lena brought forth. Bi Wei had been touched by what

the followers of Bi Sheng call    duì. The Ghost Army."

Maryelizabeth snorted. "Wendigos, insects, dead libriomancers…how many armies does this dude need?"

"Harrison doesn't know about the Ghost Army," I said. "They're using him, not the other way around."

"Why haven't we heard any of this before?" asked John. The handle of his book wagon wagged back and forth like a scolding finger.

"Because libriomancers are utterly incapable of letting sleeping dragons lie," Gutenberg said calmly. "The Ghost Army slumbered for centuries. I was aware of something that occasionally reached through to corrupt and consume whoever it touched, but such contacts were rare. I feared that too much poking and prodding would rouse it, so research into the Ghost Army has been restricted and carefully monitored."

"Carefully?" Lena asked. "You assigned Isaac to study this thing."

"Only when we realized it had begun to stir," Gutenberg said sternly. "Isaac survived an encounter with these ghosts, an accomplishment limited to only a handful of Porters throughout the years."

He raised his hands, forestalling further questions. "Isaac was attacked when he channeled more magic than he could control. These ghosts strike when our barriers are weakest. They are awake, and they are watching. Use precision over power. Do not overextend yourselves."

"How do we find them?" asked Whitney.

"Originally, I intended to use Ms. Warwick." Gutenberg waved Toni forward.

"Worst assignment in years." Toni grimaced. "If I can touch the corpses of the wendigos Harrison butchered, I'm pretty sure I can find him, or at least his pets."

"And what do you intend to do about the war you'll be starting with every werewolf in Michigan?" Jeff asked, his words a full octave lower than normal.