magic of my sandals and brought me slowly back to Earth, flailing and screaming the whole way down.
It was Ray who welcomed me into the world of magic, introducing me to libriomancy. Years later, he had introduced me to Johannes Gutenberg as well.
I didn’t want to believe Gutenberg could be involved, but I couldn’t ignore the evidence. I set the book aside and picked up my phone and dialed Pallas’ number.
“Isaac. Wait one moment.”
I grimaced at the electronic squeal that erupted from the speaker. “Nicola?”
“What did you find in East Lansing?”
“Deb said someone had hacked our communications,” I said warily. “I’ve already had one Porter try to kill me this week.”
“This connection is now secure. We’ve heard nothing further from Ms. DeGeorge. Her apartment was empty, and she appears to have gone underground. Perhaps literally. As for myself, either I’ve been turned by our enemy and therefore already know any information you might share, or else I remain human and Regional Master of the Porters, in which case I would appreciate your report.”
That certainly sounded like Pallas. “I dragged Ted Boyer down from Marquette. He sniffed out the vampire that killed Ray and tracked it to the archive.”
“We investigated the archive. There was no sign of any vampire.”
I explained how the vampire had snuck back in through the steam tunnels. “Something pounded that library to rubble. I don’t know anything that can inflict that kind of damage without being spotted, except one of our automatons.”
The phone went silent. I could imagine her playing with the earpieces of her reading glasses, which always hung from a gold chain around her neck.
“Why did you allow my not-so-official return to the field?” I demanded. Pallas wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but she wasn’t stupid. Much as I wanted to find Ray’s killer, honesty forced me to recognize I wasn’t the best choice. “Why aren’t there a dozen field agents in East Lansing right now?”
Lena emerged from the bathroom wearing cutoff shorts and a T-shirt, rubbing a towel through her hair. She cocked her head, and I mouthed Pallas’ name.
“I know Gutenberg is missing,” I said. “I know the automatons have vanished. Why allow a cataloger who’s already proven himself unfit for field duty to take the lead on this?”
“Because I’ve lost DeGeorge, the automatons, and Gutenberg himself,” Pallas said. Fatigue slurred her words. “As a cataloger who’s unfit for field duty, I imagine you’re low on the list of potential vampire targets. At least you were, until Lena led them to you.”
“Or maybe I’m the perfect target,” I shot back. “Someone low on the food chain, who you wouldn’t bother to watch as closely.”
“Which is why I asked someone from outside the Porters to look in on you and confirm your humanity.”
Someone from outside… “De Leon?”
“He owed me a favor. Isaac, there are larger problems here. Moscow was struck by an ‘earthquake’ two weeks ago which appears to have been magical in nature, destroying several former KGB facilities. Similar strikes have been reported in London, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, and Nigeria over the past three months.”
I remembered hearing about the quakes in London and Hong Kong. “Automatons?”
“Possibly. Though we suspect at least one such attack was carried out by a Porter with an all-too-human grudge. There’s no pattern, and with Gutenberg and the automatons gone, I’m doing everything I can to keep the Porters from fracturing beneath the weight of regional and national differences.” She took a long, slow breath. “None of which is your concern. What else have you learned?”
I described my fight with the vampire, including the way he had self-destructed at the end. “I’ve never come across anything like it, either the eyes or the ability to burn a vampire from within.” I hesitated, then added, “I think it might have been Gutenberg’s work.”
“Unlikely,” Pallas said flatly.
“Who else could control the automatons? Who else would speak a six-hundred-year-old German dialect?”
“I know Johannes Gutenberg as well as you knew Ray Walker. Better, in fact. We would know if he had been turned. He would never turn against his own Porters, and there’s not a man or woman living today with the power to force him to do anything he doesn’t want.” When she spoke again, she sounded pensive. “You’re certain about the dialect?”
“As certain as I can be without having lived in fifteenth-century Mainz.”
Another pause. “So what do you intend to do next?”
“Ted said there had been other problems among the vampires. We need more information, and I figure the best way to get it is to go to the source.”
“I see. Be careful, Isaac. I’m short on people, and would prefer not to lose any more.”
The phone went dead. I stared at it in disbelief. “She didn’t tell me to back off.”
“That’s good, right?” The bed shifted as Lena sat down beside me. “Would you have followed her orders if she had?”
“Pallas doesn’t generally give her underlings much choice in the matter.” I replayed our conversation in my mind. “She doesn’t believe Gutenberg could do this.”
“You disagree.” It wasn’t a question.
“There are Porters who treat Gutenberg like a god, but he’s not. Nobody’s invulnerable.” Even if Pallas was right that no one alive had the power to control Gutenberg, that didn’t mean he wasn’t acting of his own free will. We just didn’t know why. “I’ve got to talk to the vampires, find out what they know.”
“Tomorrow.” Lena’s tone was hard. These were the same vampires who had taken Nidhi Shah, who had pursued her into the U.P. and tried to kill us both.
“Will you be all right?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, too quickly. She smiled and traced the veins on the back of my hand with her finger. “Though I could be better.”
I tried not to stare at her bare legs, or the way her breasts pulled the thin material of her shirt taut, or the quirk of her full lips that suggested she knew exactly what was going through my mind, dammit.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Lena said softly. “About me. Why I sought you out.”
I nodded, lost for words and distracted by the gentle tingle of her finger on my skin.
She glanced at the wall. “The couple two rooms down is having sex right now.”
I managed a moderately coherent, “Huh?”
“I can feel it. Their desire. The pleasure.” She tilted her head slightly, a bemused smile on her face. “He’s not terribly good at this. He’s trying too hard.” She turned her attention back to me and shrugged. “This is what I am. I can’t stop any more than you can stop seeing the world in color.”
“Actually, the rods in the eye only see black and white, and they require less light than the cones, so if it’s dark enough-”
“Shut up.” She gave me a playful smack on the arm. “Did you know we passed one couple and two individual men having ‘automotive relations’ on the road today? Including one on the Mackinac Bridge?”
“Thank you so much for telling me that. In addition to everything else, now I can worry about some lonely guy jerking his wheel at the wrong time and driving my car off the bridge.”
She laughed. “On the bright side, being able to sense desire and lust means very few men can sneak up on me. It’s not something I want to know. It’s voyeuristic and uncomfortable. But it’s what I am, meaning I can’t help knowing how much you’re struggling with your desire, trying so hard to do the right thing.”
“I’m-”
“If you apologize, I’ll drag you out of the room and throw you into that sorry excuse for a pool. You’re supposed to want me, Isaac. It’s how I was written. And the more time I spend with you, the more I see you in action…” She smiled again. “Just know the feeling is mutual.”
“What about Doctor Shah?” Between my exhaustion and the labyrinthine tangle of urges and emotions, it came out more harshly than I had intended.
Lena jerked back. “I should lie to you,” she said softly. “Say you’re the only one I want now. But I love her, too.”
