though he seemed to have changed his name several times the stories about him cropped up in journals from a dozen countries over the course of hundreds of years. He was called Sweetblood, but it was unclear whether this was a literal translation of his Italian surname, or if the surname was simply another variation on that descriptive appellation.
By all accounts Sanguedolce had been the most powerful sorcerer who had ever lived. Yet early in the twentieth century, he had simply disappeared. None of the dark powers in the world had laid claim to having destroyed him and though there were rumors and whispers, no mage was ever proven to have knowledge of his whereabouts, or his possible demise.
'You know your boss has been looking for the mage for a very long time?' Eve asked.
Squire chuckled without humor. 'That's an understatement. Never thought it was a great idea, myself. You know what they say about searching for Sweetblood.'
'We may have found him.'
The goblin jerked the steering wheel so hard to the right as he spun to stare at Eve that he nearly plowed the limousine into a squat blue mailbox on the sidewalk. In a panic, Squire hit the brakes and got the limo's nose headed in the right direction again.
Eve watched him in the mirror. Several times the annoying little creature opened his mouth and closed it again, as though for the first time in his life he had no clever or boorish remark to make. She knew it would pass, though. With Squire, it always did.
'Hell,' the goblin said, the word coming out in a harsh grunt. 'All the stories say… ah, hell, Eve, all the stories say that would be a bad idea.'
Squire kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. A taxi cut in front of the limousine despite that there were only a handful of cars on Seventh Avenue. Ahead a light turned red and the goblin began to slow the limo.
'True.'
The word came from Doyle. Eve glanced over at him and saw that his eyes were red and his face somewhat flushed. He had not slept nearly enough, but that was not unusual. Magic had suspended the aging process in him, had even partially reversed it, but there was no escaping that the man was still human. An alchemist and magician, a brilliant writer and scholar, a believer in both the goodness of the world and the darkness that tainted it, Mr. Doyle was among the most powerful magicians on Earth, but he was also just a man. Human.
Eve envied him that. She could not even remember what it meant to be human.
'Boss, you're awake,' Squire said, turning to glance back at Doyle now that he was stopped at the red light.
Tiredly, Mr. Doyle smoothed his jacket and ran his fingers through his silver hair to straighten it. 'And you, my small friend, have a gift for stating the obvious.'
'What can I say?' Squire muttered happily. 'I'm blessed.'
The light turned green but Squire was careful to look in both directions before the limousine picked up speed again. Behind him, his employer tugged out a pocket watch and clicked it open. He checked the time and then slid the watch back into his vest pocket.
Doyle cleared his throat and glanced at Eve, then turned his attention to Squire again.
'The warnings about what would happen to anyone who searched for Sweetblood are dire,' the magician absently admitted as he began searching the inner pockets of his jacket for something. 'But I suspect they were spread by Lorenzo himself in an effort to dissuade the curious.'
Eve stared at him. 'And if you're wrong?'
Doyle raised an eyebrow and stared at her, his eyes as silver as his hair. 'If I'm wrong, then we handle it.'
'That's your plan?' Squire asked. 'That's not much of a plan.'
'There isn't time for subtlety,' Doyle replied. 'My search has always been a casual one, rarely the focus of my efforts. But Dr. Graves has word that someone — someone with malevolent intentions — has indeed located Sweetblood.'
'And we need to get to him first,' Squire said, nodding to himself as he turned the limousine down a side street, the rear tire bumping up over the curb.
'Precisely.'
The goblin turned south again at the next corner and soon enough the city was changing around them. The skyscrapers had given way to brownstones and rowhouses and there were trees growing up out of the sidewalk. They passed a park that seemed remarkably free of litter and graffiti.
'All right,' Squire said. 'I get it. But I was still half-asleep when you got me out of bed to drive you, so there's still one thing I'm not understanding.'
'Only one?' Eve taunted.
Doyle frowned at her. 'What's that, Squire?'
'Where do the glass spiders come in? You said something about glass spiders, didn't you? Or was that in my dream?'
Before the dapper magician could answer, Eve spied their destination, the address plainly exhibited on the front door of the brownstone. The sky had begun to lighten but the drenching rain and the heavy cloud cover would shield her from the sun.
'Stop here. This is it.'
The goblin pulled the limo to the curb. Doyle leaned across the back seat to peer through Eve's rain-streaked window, eyebrows raised. Then he popped his own door open and slipped out. Eve stripped off her suede coat, folded it and left it on the seat, then followed suit. The rain began to dampen her hair immediately, streaming like tears upon her cheeks. Thunder rolled across the sky, echoing off the faces of the buildings. Lightning blinked and flickered up inside the clouds as though behind that veil the gods were at war.
Doyle slammed his door without another word to Squire. His gaze was locked upon the brownstone and he stared up at its darkened windows as he strode around the limousine to join Eve on the sidewalk.
Her nostrils flared and she sniffed at the air. 'Does this seem too easy to you?'?'I'm not certain that's a word I would choose,' Doyle replied, wiping rain from his eyes.
Eve pushed her hair back from her face and rapped on the limo's passenger window. When Squire rolled it down she bent to peer in at him. The goblin's eyes went to her chest, where the tight cotton of her turtleneck stretched across her breasts.
'Up here, you little shit.'
A dreamy smile spread across his features. 'Sorry. What can I do for you?'
'Open the trunk.'
He reached for the release and there was a small pop, then the trunk lid rose. The sound of the rain pelting the metal altered at this new angle. Eve went to the rear of the limo and reached into the trunk to retrieve a parcel wrapped in soft leather. She unfolded the leather and folded her fingers around the stock of the sawed-off shotgun, and she smiled as she dropped the leather wrap into the trunk and slammed it shut.
Turning to Doyle she cocked the shotgun. 'Too easy.'
'Perhaps,' he replied. Then he nodded toward the brick steps in front of the brownstone. 'Would you like to get the door?'
Eve strode purposefully up the short walkway, not even bothering to check the windows of the surrounding homes for prying eyes. That sort of thing was Doyle's problem, and he dealt with it often enough. She went up the four steps and paused on the landing, then shot a kick at the front door. The blow cracked it in half and tore it from its hinges. The bottom part of the door flew across the building's foyer and shattered the legs of a small table; the top half swung like a guillotine from the security chain that still connected it to the door frame.
With preternatural swiftness she darted inside the brownstone, swinging the gaping double barrels of the shotgun around as she scanned the parlor on her left, and then the formal living room on her right. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed.
Doyle stepped in behind her. Eve glanced at him and saw the corona of pale blue light that encircled his eyes, the aura of that same glow surrounding his fingers. The illusion of the kindly, aging gentleman had disappeared. This was the magician. This was who Doyle was.
'Anything?' he asked.
