Bookmarked
by Dru Pagliassotti"Are you stalking me?" the wizard asked.
I looked up, annoyed at having been caught, but glad that he was more astute than he looked. His breath plumed before him. It was still early, and winter mornings along the Southern Californian coast are colder than most outsiders think.
"Have you found God?" I asked, in my brightest voice.
He recoiled.
"I was just wondering," I continued, earnestly, "because you seem different from the others in the mission. Troubled. But if you'll accept Jesus into your life, He'll do great things for you."
"Christ," he muttered, his brown eyes sliding back and forth as he sought some means to escape me.
"Exactly!" I beamed.
Pretending to be an obnoxious evangelist was probably racking up years on my Purgatory account, but I'd watched him making faces during the rescue mission's pre-dinner sermons, so I figured the tactic would work. Sure enough, he was already sidling away, trying to look at anything but me.
The wizard called himself Nicholas Brant, and he was wearing the loose-fitting, multi-layered uniform of the homeless - a drab green army jacket, a mustard yellow sweatshirt, and ragged blue jeans. His sandy hair was short and stuck up in uncombed tufts and clumps, and he sported several days' growth of beard. I don't find beards very attractive, as a rule, but he had a strong jaw beneath it that just managed to raise the growth from ratty to unkempt. If someone took the time to clean him up, he might even be handsome, in a kind of rough and ready way.
Not that I was planning to take over Nick Brant's care and feeding. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was trying to decide if I wanted to be kept by him. Being homeless was a big check on the "no" side, as far as I was concerned, but I had a small inheritance, and I liked some of the other things I'd seen about him.
I mean, things besides his strong jaw.
Although that was a plus.
"What's your name?" I asked, keeping my voice chipper. "Do you want to come to church with me? There's a prayer meeting - "
"Uh, look, sorry, miss, but I've got to go. It was, um, nice meeting you." He gave me a false smile colored with desperation and turned, just as a car horn blared and a man's body was thrown against the sidewalk.
I leaped to my feet and ran toward the fallen man, a beat behind the wizard.
The car was already screeching off, to a barrage of curses and shaking fists from the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Several of the bystanders were whipping out their cellphones, and others were edging closer to the sprawled victim of the hit-and-run, looking like they wanted to help but weren't certain what to do.
My heart pounded as I stared at the young man's sprawled body, and my mind flashed back to a bloodier accident in Rome.
"You shouldn't move him," someone said, as Nick knelt next to the fallen man. The wizard's mouth tightened as he gazed at the blood covering the man's head and the ugly bend in his arm. He pressed his fingers against the man's neck, searching for a pulse.
"I've got 911!" a woman cried out, her phone held to her ear. "What's our address?" A chorus of voices replied, and she began to relay the information to the emergency dispatcher.
"Man, that doesn't look good." Another man knelt next to us. "Are you a doctor?"
"No." Nick took a deep breath, grasping the fallen man's hand. "Are you?"
"No." The newcomer raised his voice. "Hey, is anyone here a doctor?"
Nobody answered. Maybe doctors get to their offices before 9 a.m. Or maybe they just don't walk through this kind of neighborhood.
Then I felt the aether stir, and my gaze snapped back to Nick. It was the first time he'd used his craft since I'd started watching him, and I could tell at once that his ability to channel power was more a matter of stubborn willpower than training.
Still, relief made my knees week. I wasn't helpless, this time. I could do something to help.
"Here." I knelt next to him and laid my gloved hand over his bare wrist.
Aetheric sparks flew and he flinched, then gave me a disbelieving look. I felt the aether begin to surge through me and into him, and from the way his eyes widened, he felt it, too.
"What - "
"Caph," I whispered. He fell silent, his brown eyes losing focus as he instinctively read the ideogram I'd just conjured for him. Whether he was operating on instinct or basic training, he knew enough to shape the aether to match the symbol.
The injured man drew in a deep breath and seemed to relax. He still looked terrible, but I could sense the aether wrapping around his wounds, dulling his pain and slowing the bleeding.
It wasn't a healing. Nick Brant wasn't adept enough to heal, which was just as well, given the number of people standing around watching. But it was an easement, and that was the best either of us could do at this point.
It was a lot more than I'd been able to do in Italy, just a few months ago.
We waited by the victim's side, with everyone else, until paramedics arrived and carried him off. Then, at last, I stood. Nick followed. He wasn't trying to avoid my gaze anymore. Now he was staring at me.
"Who are you?" he asked, as the crowds dispersed. "Some kind of ... faith healer or something?"
"I'm a Book," I said, meeting his eyes.
A proper wizard, male or female, would have reacted with shock or awe and then immediately turned on the charm. Nick Brant just looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
It was obvious that he'd never heard of a Book.
For a moment I wavered. An untrained, grossly ignorant wizard who lived on the streets - was that really what I wanted? I could have my choice of much wealthier and wiser patrons, wizards who'd respect my choice and honor me as their partner in the craft.
Or, if I got unlucky, try to enslave me. And that was why I wasn't advertising my newly available status in the Circles. I'd fled Italy as fast as I could after the accident, and I'd been laying low ever since. I'd met lots of powerful wizards over the years, and I didn't trust a one of them. Not with my life.
"A book?" Nick asked, carefully, as though afraid he might be stepping into crazy territory. "Um, is that what you call your...particular denomination?"
I sighed.
"Buy me a Diet Coke and I'll tell you what we just did," I replied. He hesitated, plunging a hand into one pocket. I heard a jingle as he counted his change.
I know. Diet Coke at 9 a.m. Well, 9:45, by then. Not very appetizing, but what can I say? I craved caffeine, cheap coffee gives me indigestion, and Nick Brant didn't look like the kind of guy who could afford to buy me a hazelnut caffe latte.
A few minutes later we were sitting in a tacky orange Taco Hut booth, nursing two small sodas and being watched by the acne-scarred young man behind the counter. Nick hadn't looked thrilled about paying for the sodas from his handful of small-denomination bills and coins, but there are traditions to these things.
Now he sat across the table, watching me as he squeaked his straw against the plastic cup lid. His steady gaze made me a little uncomfortable. I'm used to being stared at, at least in the Circles, but this wasn't a Circle affair and Nick's expression was more incredulous than covetous. Plus, let's face it, after three days of pretending to be homeless in order to watch him, I wasn't looking or feeling my best. In fact, I was really hoping to resolve the whole matter one way or the other right then and race off to take a long, hot shower back at my uptown hotel room. The hotel room I'd been paying for but not using for the last three days.
"Take a sip," I directed. "It's ritual."
He raised an eyebrow, then took an obligatory slurp through his straw. I did the same, watching him. We both lowered our cups back to the bright yellow tabletop.
"Good." I rested my forearms on the table. "I assume you realize that you're a latent wizard."
His eyebrows shot up.
Okay. Maybe he hadn't realized it.
"A wizard? Like Harry Potter and Gandalf?"
"Well, you're not that talented."
He scowled.
"Gandalf wasn't so tough."
"Huh?" I hadn't expected that.
"He never once threw a fireball or called down lightning. And the kid's gotta use a wand."
I rolled my eyes.
"Have you ever thrown a fireball or called down lightning? Or even used a wand, for that matter?"
"No, but - "
"Look, you can call yourself something else, if it makes you feel better," I said, trying to be patient. "Mage. Sorceror. Practitioner. Witch. Whatever."
He gave me a faint, crooked smile.
"Witch?"
"The term used to be gender-neutral."
"Uh-huh. What about 'psychic'?"
"That depends. Can you read minds?"
"No." He gave me a level look. "But I bent a spoon once."
I smiled, despite myself.
"With your hands or your mind?"
"I wasn't touching it. But I had to straighten it back out with my hands. I didn't do a very good job, and now my food keeps falling off whenever I use it."
"You could throw it away."
"It's the only spoon I own."
I shook my head and tried to get us back on track.
"At any rate, you know you have unusual powers."
"Yeah. I figured I was psychic. Now you're telling me I'm a wizard." He took another sip of his soda, then set it down. His expression was that of a man who'd decided to humor a nutcase. "What's the difference?"
"There are no such things as psychics. I take it you've never been formally trained in magic." I didn't really need to ask, but I just wanted to make absolutely sure.
"I haven't even been informally trained in magic." He looked bemused. "But I own a Gryffindor t-shirt, and I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. Is this the part where you say you'll become my mentor, or do I have to go on some kind of quest to prove myself worthy?"
"A little of both."
"In D&D;, it's always some white-haired old geezer who's looking for an apprentice. Never a pretty girl." His brown eyes danced. "This is the first time I've liked reality better than fantasy."
"If you want this to become reality, you'd better convince me that I'm not wasting my time," I replied. "Taking me seriously would be a good start."
He started to say something, then changed his mind.
"Okay. I'm Nicholas Brant. Nick is fine. Who are you?" "Codex Operae." "Oprah?"
"Operae, as in 'works.' But I prefer to be called Dex."
Amusement softened his face, reminding me again that there was a handsome man under the dirt and whiskers.
"Dex. The great and mighty wizardess Dex?"
"I'm not a wizard. I'm a Book." I pulled off my right glove to show him.
"Holy shit!" He grabbed my hand, flinching at the aetheric spark, and stared at the tiny words tattooed in a solid block across the back of my hands down to my wrist. He turned my hand over and stared at the words written across my palm. "Jesus. How far - "
"Everywhere except my neck and face," I said, tugging my hand back and pulling on the glove again. It's important to set boundaries early with a wizard. There are lots of dirty jokes about Books and their wizards, and I've heard them all. "The wizard who wrote me thought I'd be more useful if I could go out in public, and I agreed."
"The wizard who wrote you." His amusement was turning into discomfort. "Those tattoos aren't some kind of...weird cult abuse or something, are they?"
"No. I chose to become a Book." I hesitated. Not that I'd had a lot of options. A starving teenager will always sell herself, one way or the other. "It wasn't always like that, in the old days, but times have changed."
He looked like he wanted to ask more, but then he took a sip from his soda, gazing into the distance. I waited. When he set the cup down, he refocused on me.
"So, are you a crazy lady with an ink addiction, or is this for real?"
"You felt what happened when I touched you."
He gave a reluctant nod.
"Yeah. I did. But...does this mean you really were stalking me?"
"Well, I happened to notice you a few days ago, and I was curious. It's unusual to see someone with the power living on the streets." I stopped, seeing his gaze slide away. "You're not really homeless?"
"Uh, not exactly," he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "But let's talk about it later, okay?"
I looked around. Nobody in the Taco Hut was watching us except the bored server. Someone needed to buy him a TV.
"I'd rather hear about it now," I said. "I'm not interested in working with a tweaker or a drunk." Or in going back to the life I'd fled to become a Book.
He scowled again, giving me a long look.
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"You felt it."
He sighed, shoulders slumping. "Yeah, I did. It's just ..." he hesitated again, then seemed to make up his mind. He kept his voice low. "I'm doing some recon down here. This is just a useful disguise."
"You're a cop?" I whispered. He shook his head.
"Private."
I straightened, satisfied.
"Do you use your magic much on the job?"
He blinked. Apparently that wasn't the question he'd expected.
"Magic? Uh, right. I don't know. Sometimes I can - sometimes things work out for me, or I get hunches that come true. Once in a while weird things happen, like that spoon bending. I don't know if I'd call that magic." His tone became a bit sour. "Can you teach me how to use magic to make my bills disappear?"
"More or less. Do you have time to talk about this now, or should I meet you in a few more days, after you've closed your case?" I cheered up, imagining a hot shower and a lunch date with room service in my immediate future.
"I've got time now. I mean, I know what I need to check out, but I was going to wait until sundown to do it. Unless you can show me how to go invisible and walk through walls, the way you showed me how to help that guy out there." He was joking, but only a little.
I sipped my Diet Coke as I considered my answer.
Nick Brant had possibilities. I liked the fact that he was a PI - all the investigators on TV have flexible hours and know about computers and self-defense. I got the feeling he wasn't very wealthy, but that would change. What I didn't know was how well we'd work together, and whether he had a personality I could live with.
Watching him work would tell me a lot about him.
I sighed as my vision of a hot shower room service faded.
"This place you need to visit - is it a long way off?"
"Down by the port."
"Then we'll have a nice chat while we walk."
We took the road that led through the bad part of town to the coast and then strolled along the boardwalk as far as we could go. The sky was heavy with gray clouds, a typical winter morning along the beach, and the wind off the water made the morning chill even sharper. The tide wasn't high enough to attract surfers, so the only people we passed were a few joggers and dogwalkers. As we walked, I gave Nick a quick and dirty overview of world of aether, ideograms, and wizardly Circles.
And Books, of course.
"What I don't get is, why in the world would you agree to become a Book in the first place?" Nick asked, frowning. "You had to change your name, get all those tattoos - and you can't tell me they didn't hurt like hell, because I've got one, myself - and then you live your whole life worrying that some wizard's going to kidnap you and lock you in a basement. It doesn't sound like a healthy lifestyle choice."
"Most wizards don't abuse their Books," I countered. "Remember, it's a symbiotic relationship. Wizards get easier and faster access to ideograms through a Book, and Books are protected and taken care of by their wizards. My wizard wasn't a bad guy."
Mostly he'd been an old scoundrel who'd wanted a good-looking young Book as a status symbol, but I hadn't minded. Acting as his arm ornament at cocktail parties had been an small price to pay for security and comfort.
Helping him carry out some of his darker political schemes hadn't been so great, but that's what Books do, after all. Help.
"What happened to him?" Nick asked.
"He was killed in a car accident. In Rome." I'd been with him, but I'd been wearing my seat belt, for all the good it had done. I can't heal anyone by myself.
Nick studied my face.
"Wizards aren't immortal?"
"No. They live a long time, but they don't have anything like vampire or werewolf regeneration."
He looked askance.
"Um, there are vampires and werewolves?"
"And ghosts and boogeymen." I smiled at his expression.
"Boogeymen," he repeated.
"Well, we call them boogeymen."
"Cool. I've fallen into a Jim Butcher novel."
"You read a lot, do you?"
"All the time."
"No hobbies? Girlfriends? Buddies at the local bar?"
"My hobby is reading," he objected, sounding disgruntled.
"Sounds like you're a typical wizard," I observed. "Most of them have workaholic, lone-wolf personalities."
"Huh." As he mulled that over, I put another check in the positive column: no girlfriend. Wizard/Book relationships can get complicated when there's a jealous lover involved. Not that I was planning on starting a romantic relationship with Nicholas Brant. I barely knew him, after all. But he was good-looking in a, well, a living-in-the-streets kind of way. And I was my own woman again for the first time since I'd been a teen. It could happen.
Unless he was gay. I shot him another look. Did I dare ask?
"You know, this has been really interesting," he said, breaking into my thoughts, "and it might even be true, but you never answered my first question. Why me? Are you shopping for a new wizard?"
"Yes." I glanced at him. "I thought I might try you on today to see if you fit."
"That sounds like fun," he said, perking up.
Looks like I wouldn't have to ask.
"Remind me to tell you about wizard/Book boundaries."
His shoulders slumped. "Not so fun."
"If you want to enter the Circles, you're going to have to learn their rules."
He fell silent for several yards, his hands jammed in his jacket pockets. I wondered how old he was. Early to mid-thirties, I guessed. Mature enough to take surprises in stride, but young enough to still feel out of his depth sometimes.
"All right," he said at last. "Back to 'why me' and 'why today'?"
"You because you're an unknown, a political neutral. I like that. My last wizard was deep into Circle politics, and a lot of times he was up to things that were pretty ... unethical." I swallowed. As his Book, I'd seen and heard a little too much for my own comfort. "I don't want to be involved in that anymore. You're off the Circles' radar, so if we're careful, we can get you trained up to speed before anyone drags you into any alliances you might not want."
"Okay ... sounds like we need to talk more about that later. Why today?"
"You said you've got a job to do, right? I'm going to help you and see how well we fit."
"What happens if we do?"
"Then we talk terms. I can enhance your power, teach you about wizardly ways, and introduce you to the Circles. But in return, you have to take care of me. That means you pay me an executive salary or provide me with room and board and everything I need to keep myself comfortable. I've seen it work both ways, although the second is more traditional."
"How executive of a salary?"
I gave him a steady look. "Books aren't a poor wizard's commodity."
His expression grew pained.
"Your first wizard kept you well?"
"He provided everything. I lived in his villa and was served by his staff. He gave me my own rooms, a clothing allowance, and a car. And there was no hanky-panky."
Nick grimaced.
"I've got a two-bedroom apartment and pizza delivery on speed dial. I don't have any place to put you up, and I couldn't scrape together minimum wage, much less anything that looked like an executive salary."
"Then you can pay me in service until your situation has improved. I want a new identity. I want to learn how to hack into computers. I want to learn how to ride a motorcycle. I want to learn how to shoot a gun." I jammed my hands into my pockets and lifted my face to the sea breeze. "And I'm sure I'll think of more things I want to learn, later."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Why do you want to know how to shoot a gun?"
"So I can kill the evil wizards who want to lock me up in their basement."
"I'm not convinced you're sane, Dex."
"You have a few hours to decide. Now tell me about this lead of yours."
Nick was investigating a crime that I'd always assumed was an urban myth - black market organ sales. But in this case, his client hadn't been robbed; his client was a prospective buyer.
"You're working for a black-market surgeon?" I wrinkled my nose.
"He's not a bad guy. He has his MD and everything. But he sews up knife and bullet wounds without reporting them to the cops, prescribes under-the-counter meds for druggies trying to kick the habit, stuff like that. He's honest enough. He just doesn't like rules and paperwork."
"Honest? He's buying black market kidneys!"
"Well, he's considering buying them, anyway."
"That's disgusting."
"Have you ever seen the waiting list for a transplant? It can take eight years to get a kidney. Longer for a heart."
"That's tragic, but come on - black market organs? Does the word 'accomplice' mean anything to you?"
"He's not buying anything yet. And all I'm doing is finding out if these body parts are stolen, snatched, or shoddy."
"Shoddy?"
"Guts go bad. What if this group's slapping new expiration dates on old batches?"
I made a face to indicate my feelings on the whole matter.
"So, what have you found out?"
"I've got some questions," he admitted. "I've tracked the organ deliveries back to a small warehouse here by the port, but I haven't been able to get past this point to figure out where they're coming from - which is why I want to do a little, uh, reconnaissance."
"Breaking and entering?"
He smiled.
"What happens if you find out the operation's criminal? I mean, more criminal than it obviously is."
"I'll report it. Anonymously. My client has left that up to my discretion."
I sighed. Okay, so he wasn't homeless, but I wasn't sure I approved of the kind of work he was doing. I'd had my fill of shady dealings back in Italy. Still, it was just one job, right? Once he learned a little magic, he'd attract a better class of clientele.
"Just tell me there hasn't been a sudden crime wave of people waking up in ice-filled bathtubs."
"No. I checked the papers." He grinned and ran a thumb over his scruffy beard. "But these guys keep showing up with coolers full of organs. My client wants to know how. They could be semi-legit. They could be buying from a foreign supplier and smuggling them in for private American clients. But he wants to be sure. He's picky about which laws he breaks."
"Black market doctors." I frowned. My medical needs had always been handled within the Circle. A mundane doctor would ask too many questions about my tattoos; neither wizards nor Books needed that kind of attention.
If I was going to live outside the Circles for a while, I might need a black market doctor of my own, someday.
"Okay, I'll help you with this...reconaissance," I said at last, "but if we find something really gross in there, like a body in a bathtub, I'm reporting it to the police." As soon as I finish screaming, I added to myself.
"That's fine." He nodded, looking serious.
"Good."
"Now, about going invisible...."
"You're really keen on invisibility, aren't you?"
"When I was a kid, I used to dream about it all the time."
"Why? You wanted to steal all the cookies?"
"I wanted to sneak into the girl's locker room."
I rolled my eyes.
"There's a code of ethics about using your powers."
"Yeah, I can tell wizards are really ethical from the way you keep talking about them."
I shifted, glancing at him.
"Well, they've got a code, anyway. 'Don't get caught breaking it' is one of its unwritten rules."
Nick gave me a steady look.
"Your wizard's car accident - was it really an accident?"
"That's what the investigators said. The wizards as well as the police."
"Do you believe them?"
"I don't have any reason not to. I was in the car with him." I took a deep breath. "Life's not like fiction. Not every death is shrouded in dark secrets. Sometimes wizards die of normal things, too."
"Then why are you so scared?"
I stiffened. "I'm not scared!"
"You're hanging out in a homeless shelter gambling on the possibility that some untrained wizard who can barely pay his bills might be worth your time, instead of finding yourself a comfy place with a rich and powerful wizard you already know. You're scared and you're running. I just don't understand from what."
"Nothing." I looked away from him. "My wizard made enemies. I'm not sure I'd recognize them all. A Book's got to be careful."
He reached out and grabbed my gloved hand. I turned and gave him a startled look as he squeezed it.
"If you were my Book, I'd protect you," he promised.
I squeezed his hand back, pleased even if he didn't have the first idea what he was talking about.
We waited until dusk. While we were waiting, I showed Nick the ideogram Gat for keeping the ambient temperature warm, and ideograms for calling birds and conjuring a small light. They were all harmless parlor tricks, but Nick was impressed.
"And all these spells have been written on you?" he asked, gazing at me with wonder.
"They're not spells; they're ideograms. Like energy patterns. My tattoos anchor the combination of ideograms that was used to write me, but they aren't the ideograms themselves. They're more like, well, a book cover that keeps all the pages from spilling out. Without them, I couldn't contain and share my knowledge. But they're not important by themselves." I laughed. "I mean, could you imagine how awkward it would be if I had to read an ideogram that had been tattooed on my butt?"
"Obviously, that's why you'd need a wizard," he said, leering a little. "Do you really have tattoos on your butt?"
"I told you, they go all the way around."
His eyes glazed, and I punched him.
"Stop. Thinking. About it."
"Lady, I'm a wizard, not a miracle worker."
"Anyway, there's another reason Books have ideograms printed all over them," I added. "It means we're more valuable alive. Kidnapping a living person is harder than stealing a corpse, and keeping somebody prisoner is harder than killing and flaying them. Anyone who rips off a Book's cover loses the Book itself."
Nick's expression hardened.
"Why did you agree to this, again?"
"I suppose every Book has a different reason."
"And you're not going to tell me yours?"
I glanced away. "It's power. All power comes with a price."
He sighed, then shrugged.
"Fair enough." His eyes shifted up to the darkening sky. "Are you ready to teach me that invisibility spell?"
"It's not really invisibility. It's more like becoming insignificant and doing your best to stay in the viewer's blind spot."
"So a security camera will still pick me up."
"Yes." I was surprised by his insight. Most trainees needed the whole explanation.
"I told you, I read a lot. I was hoping your invisibility would be more like a cloaking device - something that'd take me off the sensors entirely."
"You'd need more training to do that."
"So just knowing an ideogram isn't enough?"
"Some ideograms are more complicated than others, and for an advanced effect like the one you're talking about, you need to be able to combine them. That takes practice and concentration."
"But you know how to do it."
"I can show you how to do it," I corrected him. "Think about birds flying. You can study how it works, but you can't do it on your own. That's me and magic."
"Can wizards work without Books?"
"Yes. But having a Book makes it easier."
He gave a chagrined laugh. "I'm sorry. You must feel like a professor teaching a kindergartner."
"You've got a lot of power for someone who's never been trained."
"Then teach me your look-away spell, and I'll handle the cameras." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ski mask. "I only brought one. Do you want it?"
"You go ahead." I tugged my scarf up higher, bandit-style. "My face isn't on any official records, anyway. That's part of the reason I need a new identity."
"Huh." He pulled on the ski mask, and I took his hand, showing him the ideogram he needed to render us instantly forgettable. Power shifted between us, and I nodded.
"I can still see you," he protested.
"I'm acting as your Book - remember, it's a symbiotic relationship. The aether's affecting us as a unit."
"Yeah? Makes it hard to tell if the spell is working."
"Ideogram." I checked. "It is."
He turned and headed out. I paused a moment to assess the view and nodded with approval.
Being a follower isn't so bad, as long as the wizard you're following has nice buns.
Nick didn't need any magic to disable the alarm or pick the lock. We slipped into the dark warehouse and stood still, listening. No sound except our own breathing. After a minute, I felt the aether tremble around us and a pale glow hovered over Nick's hand. I waited as he found the security camera console and switched it off. Then he pulled off his ski mask and grinned, looking proud of himself.
I grinned back. My old wizard had never needed me to teach him anything. I'd been his reference work, not his training manual.
Nick's pale light revealed that the small warehouse was halved by a wall and a door. Our half was filled with medical supply crates. We examined a few. Lots of surgical supplies, but not much in the way of chemicals or drugs.
"No organs?" I whispered. Nick shook his head. We both looked at the second door in the warehouse. It was made out of metal, and next to it was a button-punch keypad.
"Can you disable that?" I asked.
Nick walked over and gave it a close look.
"Tell me about magic and computers," he suggested.
"I can show you an ideogram that will short out an electrical system."
"How about something that would hack into it and download a security code?"
"Sure. Just describe the types of aetheric manipulations you'll need, and I'll pull up the right ideograms," I said, sarcastically. He shot me a rueful look.
"So, magic has its limits."
"Knowledge has its limits. I can give you any tool you want, as long as you can tell me in detail what it needs to do."
He grimaced. "The problem with frying the keypad is that it'll probably freeze the locks."
"We can always go through the wall."
"Teleportation?" He brightened.
"Blowing out chunks of drywall."
"Nice. You know, I once read a line about wizards being subtle and quick to anger. Is that why they have so many spells for frying and blasting?"
"Subtle wizards learn how to hack. Quick-to-anger wizards, not so much."
"I'll bet you're one of the quick-to-anger types."
"I'm not a wizard at all."
"But you were written by one. Was he?"
I made a rude sign that I'd picked up in Rome, and he grinned.
"Let's try frying the keypad first and save blowing out the wall as a last resort," he decided.
I reached out to show him Dath just as the metal door swung open in a flood of bright light.
I froze, my heart racing.
A man in a blood-covered apron stood in the doorway, looking around with a scowl. He held a gun.
Nick started to move and I grasped his wrist, holding him tight. The glowing ball of light that hovered over him was almost imperceptible in the brilliance from the other room, like a candle flame in broad daylight.
The newcomer looked right past us.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
I wondered if he really expected an answer. Next to me I felt Nick relax as he remembered that we were invisible. I released his wrist, lifted a finger to my lips, and then pointed to his light.
It blinked out.
Good boy.
The stranger with the gory apron edged out into the main room of the warehouse, raising his gun and peering around. I was running through all the ideograms that might be useful in this situation, trying to decide which would be easiest for an untrained wizard to use, when Nick reached into his faded army jacket and pulled out a small black box.
I gasped as he took three fast steps forward and jammed it under the man's rib cage. A faint crackle sounded.
The stranger grunted and folded over on himself, his gun clattering on the floor from an open hand.
Nick lowered the man to the floor, then checked his pulse. The gunman's eyes and mouth were open.
"Is he dead?" I asked, horrified.
"Nope. Just stunned." Nick held up the little black box, looking proud of himself. "Talon Mini. 800,000 volts."
"I was going to show you an ideogram...."
"I've been working without magic for a long time, Dex. I have a few tricks of my own." Nick stood, flicking a switch on the weapon and tucking it back beneath his coat. He used his ski mask to pick up the gun, clicked a button, and slid it into his pocket, too. "Are we still invisible?"
"As long as you're still channeling." I took a deep breath to calm my pounding heart and tried to sense the aether. Ket, the ideogram for deflecting a gaze, was still active around us. "Yes. You can't tell?"
"I don't even know how to tell." He walked to the doorway and poked his head into the bright room. "Huh. That's strange."
"I don't want to look in there, do I?"
"It's okay. There's nothing except some kind of pavilion."
I peered over his shoulder.
The next room was as big as the one we were in and filled with bright lights held by standing lamps that ringed the area. The pavilion in the center was a metal frame draped with heavy black-out curtains.
"An operating room?" I guessed.
"Maybe, but why cover it like that?" Nick stepped inside.
"Wait." I closed my eyes. "I should go with you, shouldn't I? In case it's dangerous."
He laughed. "I've never had a girl say that to me before."
"Girl?" I opened my eyes, offended. "What was that, boy?"
"Lovely young woman," he amended. "You stay here. Judging from the blood all over our friend's apron, we're going to find a bathtub in there."
"Oh, don't say that," I groaned.
He walked to the pavilion. I screwed up my nerve and hurried after him as he carefully lifted a fold of the drapery. He peered inside and swore.
"Is it bad?" I asked, being very careful not to look anywhere but the floor.
He was silent a moment, then took a deep breath.
"There's a guy in here, chained to some kind of wide metal table. I'm guessing he's our bathtub man, judging from all the ... the blood." He swallowed. "There's a lot of tubes hooked into him. IVs, I think. He's kinda strange-looking. Big, bald, flabby, and really pale. And he smells bad, too...."
I was starting to smell the same thing - a sweetish, rotting scent. Faint alarms began to ring in my memory.
"Wait a minute. Don't go inside." Damn. I really, really didn't want to look for myself. "There's light in there, right?"
"Yeah. Lamps bolted to the metal frame."
"Don't go in."
"I heard you the first time," he complained, but I was already striding across the room. I switched off one of the standing lamps and read the writing on the top of the bulb. Then I gulped and quickly flipped it back on again.
Nick had let the drape fall and was watching me curiously.
"What is it?"
"They're full-spectrum UV bulbs," I reported. I jammed my hands into my coat pockets. "Oh, crap, I'm going to have to look inside."
"Why?" His curiosity turned into suspicion. "This is wizard stuff, isn't it?"
"Not exactly. Is it really gross in there?"
"Yeah."
I took a deep breath, then another. Okay. I was going to see some blood. Maybe some guts. I could handle it. I'd seen worse on cable TV. I'd seen worse standing behind my wizard at some of his more tumultuous "business meetings."
In the split second before I'd closed my eyes, anyway.
I took a quick glance in, then yanked my head back.
That wasn't surgery. That was butchery.
"Easy, Dex!" Suddenly Nick had a hand under my arm. "Take a deep breath. Do you want to sit down?"
I shook my head but let him support me until the little black dots in front of my eyes went away.
One more look. I needed one more look to be sure, and the second time wasn't going to be nearly as bad as the first. The second time is never as bad as the first.
"Wait - what are you doing?" Nick's hands tightened as I started to move toward the curtain again.
"I didn't get a good look at his face. I was...." staring at the big gaping hole in his body.
"Do you recognize him? Is he a wizard?"
"No."
"Then what's going on? Don't go all mysterious on me, Dex. You're supposed to be my teacher."
"I think it's a vampire."
While Nick was digesting that, I risked one more glance inside.
Pale, soft, barely even human-looking anymore, the man really had been chained to the operating table. Blood covered everything, and a medical organ transport box stood on the floor next to the table, waiting for the harvest. Someone had been digging around in his chest, and his rib cage was held open by a scary-looking metal device.
The sickly sweet smell of decay was exactly as described.
I closed the flap, shuddering.
"Is he a vampire?" Nick pressed.
"Uh-huh."
"He doesn't look much like Brad Pitt."
"It might if it was awake and strong. Vampires cloud minds. They make people think they're attractive and desirable. That's how they lure their prey in for the kill."
"Is that one just particularly ugly, or...."
"No. They all end up looking like that, or worse." I was grateful for the chance to lecture; it helped me forget what I'd just seen. "Think about it - vampires live on blood. It doesn't provide much nutrition, so they tend to be sedentary. And they can pretty much live out of their house, with telephones and the internet to deliver books and clothes and things. It doesn't add up to body beautiful."
"Does that mean I'm never going to run into any sexy, leather-clad vampire dominatrix chicks while I'm working a case?"
"Only in your wet dreams." I gave him a considering look. "Do dominatrix vampire chicks turn you on?"
"Uh, probably only in my wet dreams." He grinned. "I'd probably turn and run like hell in real life."
"A dominatrix might like that."
"Great." He made a show of looking around. "Are these full-spectrum lights a back-up defense, in case the vampire gets loose?"
I decided to let him change the subject. We were both skirting around the real issue: what to do with Nosferatu in there.
"Probably. Vampires are hypersensitive to UV. It won't turn them to dust, but it gives them bad burns, and it might kill them in time. The lights are either their secondary defense or protection against another vampire coming to this guy's rescue. Although vampires aren't too social."
"I think I'm going to get me some of these bulbs." Nick ran a hand through his short, sandy-blond hair. "All right. What the hell are a bunch of black-market organ runners doing with a vampire?"
"A vampire is the answer to your question to how they're getting their organs. Vampires regenerate. If those IVs are feeding it nutrient-rich blood, your black marketeers can probably harvest it every two weeks or so."
Nick whistled. "Scary. I wonder if this is their only warehouse."
I shrugged, just as we heard a clattering outside. Nick swore and ran to the door, yanking out his stun gun.
I didn't follow. He'd already proven that he could take care of himself in a fight, and he was still invisible. Instead, I forced myself to pull open the pavilion flap. With my hands clamped over my nose and mouth, I gave the vampire one last, long look.
Its heart was still beating, but somebody had driven a metal spike through its skull.
Pithed. I guessed that was the organ runners' first line of defense, not the chain.
Gagging, I stepped back out.
A minute later Nick returned, dragging the stranger behind him.
"Are you sure he's going to survive?" I asked, uneasily. Nick dropped the man on the floor.
"He's young. His heart's probably in good condition."
I rubbed my forehead. Cute, but coming up a little short in the ethics area.
Maybe ruthlessness was carried on the wizard gene.
"Are vampire organs safe to put into a human?" he asked, ignoring the man at his feet.
"I don't know."
"What if they turn people into vampires? I mean, I've read dozens of books where drinking a vampire's blood...."
"I don't know," I repeated. "I don't think anybody's ever been crazy enough to try it before." I was chilled by the thought of a bunch of new vampires walking around. How many organs had this group sold, anyway?
"You know, I don't think I can recommend this supplier to my client."
I nodded. His gaze wandered back to the pavilion.
"And they really drink human blood?"
"It doesn't have to be human. But they need a lot of it, so they can't just keep a pet dog or two. Vampires used to live among herders and farming communities. Now they stick to big cities. Humans aren't missed as much as cows, at least in the U.S."
"And it's fatal? Being sucked on?"
"One way or the other. If you were a vampire, you wouldn't want a bunch of people complaining about vampire attacks, would you? All those space aliens let their abduction victims go free, and look what happened."
"Space aliens?" Nick stared at me.
"Joke."
"Ho ho." Disgruntled, he looked around. "Got an ideogram for conjuring a wooden stake?"
"Are you going to kill it?"
"That okay with you?"
"Well..." I hesitated. If we didn't kill it, what would we do with it? Pull out the spike and let it go hunting again? Not a chance. Turn it over to the justice system? It'd charm itself out of a cell in no time.
"I guess we have to," I sighed. "It's too bad that we don't know if its organs are safe or not."
"If they were, would you leave it here?"
"Vampires have been killing humans for centuries," I said, defensively. "At least as organ donors, they'd be useful."
"Well, if you feel that way about it, my client might - "
"No! No, no, no." I ran my hands through my hair, scrunching it to clear my head. "We're not going there. Just kill it. It's vermin. It's a parasite. It doesn't deserve any more mercy than a roach in the kitchen."
"Gotcha." He started for the other room. "Some of those crates were wood - "
"Forget the stake," I said, stopping him. "Stakes don't kill vampires. A vampire's heart can't regenerate with something stuck in it, but as soon as you pull it out, the heart will start healing again. You need to cut off its head. A head can't regenerate without a body to fuel it, and a body can't regenerate without the ability to drink blood. Uh, normally, that is. You'd better yank out the IVs, too."
"Cut off its head?" Nick grimaced. "Isn't there some kind of wizard clean-up crew we can call? I mean, I don't mind stomping on roaches, and I think I could hammer a stake into a vampire's chest, but sawing off a guy's head...." He grimaced. "That's brutal."
"We don't want wizards seeing what's in there. They might get ideas."
"Like what?"
"What if transplanted vampire organs really do turn people into vampires? Imagine manufacturing an army of vampire servants...."
"Who'd be in thrall to the evil wizards, yeah, okay, I see where you're going. Can we just drop it on the beach until morning?"
"What if someone sees the body and calls the police? I mean, it might work, but it's not guaranteed..."
"Oh, boy. Do you get turned on by macho guys who can chop off a man's head without flinching?"
"I've never thought about it."
"Well, I'm going to try really hard not to puke, but I don't know if I can keep from flinching." He handed me his stun gun. "If the mad scientist over there tries to stand up, zap him."
I turned away when Nick walked into the curtained pavilion. Unfortunately, there was nowhere in the warehouse I could go to escape the high-pitched whine of the bone saw or the meaty sound of it biting into flesh and bone.
"That was not a high point in my career," Nick declared, pulling off his army jacket, which was now covered with blood and other stuff I didn't want to think too much about. He wiped off the bone saw's grip, then tossed it back into the surgical pavilion. His face was pale. I hadn't heard him puke, but I was guessing he'd flinched a lot. "I hope the next few years of psychological counseling don't cost me too much."
"You had to do it." I laid a hand on his arm, glad it had been him and not me.
We looked at the surgeon, who was still down for the count.
"What are we going to do with him?"
"Tie him up and leave him here," Nick said. "I'll call the police from a pay phone. We'll be reading about this on the front page tomorrow." He began wiping down everything we may have touched. "Are we still invisible?"
"Yes."
"The police are going to think this guy's crazy when he says he was attacked by the Invisible Man." Nick looked pleased by the thought. I could tell he was still getting a kick out of walking around unseen. "Still, I'm going to take all the security recordings. The cameras would have caught us coming in, and even with masks on, we might be identified."
"Sounds like a good idea."
As he went about doing his clean-up work, I looked down at our unconscious captive.
Depending on how many details got out, there were wizards who might notice what we'd done here. I didn't like it, but I didn't know how to avoid it.
My old wizard would have killed the mad scientist and torched the warehouse - or hired someone to do it for him, anyway - but I wasn't going to live like that. Not anymore.
Nick pulled out a disc from the computer and slipped it into his army jacket, then wiped down the keyboard.
"All done?" he asked. I nodded and met him at the door. He closed and re-locked it.
Night fog had rolled in off the ocean, and everything was damp, cold, and overcast. We both shivered and hurried away. A few blocks down, Nick made a phone call from a booth next to a bar while I kept an eye out for anyone who might be watching us too closely. Then he wiped off the receiver and we kept walking, moving briskly to stay warm against the chill.
"Are you done with the homeless shelter?" I asked.
"No reason to go back." He jammed his hands into his jean pockets, shivering. His jacket was bundled under one arm, the discs and gun wrapped inside. "I left my car at the airport."
"That's too far to go tonight. I've got a suite across town. We can order a roll-out bed for you tonight and pick up your car tomorrow."
"You don't need to do that, Dex. Order an extra bed, I mean. I'll share."
"Boundaries," I reminded him.
"Uh-uh. You said there were boundaries between Books and their wizards. You didn't say anything about Books and freelance investigators applying for the job."
"Are you sure you want to become a wizard?"
"You bet. My second-favorite daydream, back when I was a kid, was learning how to fly."
"Let me guess - so you could look through second-story bedroom windows."
He grinned and thrust out a hand.
"I wonder if this is the first time a Book’s checked out a wizard," I mumbled.
He laughed, and we shook.
©Dru Pagliassotti
Dru Pagliassotti is a professor at California Lutheran University and the editor of The Harrow. Her short stories have appeared or will appear in a variety of webzines and anthologies, including "Defender of the Faith" in Reflection's Edge, and her first novel, Clockwork Heart, will be published by Juno Books early next year.