could do, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out. “Isaac Vainio. It’s just me. No fictional hitchhikers in my head, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That was one of our concerns.” Pallas studied me a moment longer. The magical glow of her ring dimmed, but didn’t entirely go out. “Lena brought you to me four days ago.”
“Four days?” That would explain the dry mouth and the rumbling in my stomach. “Did anyone remember to feed Smudge?”
“I have,” said Lena. “Nicola said he had to stay in his cage, but I’ve been giving him bits of hamburger and some butterscotch candies I found in the other room.”
“I wanted him caged for his own protection.” Pallas reached down to scratch her pet behind the ears, carefully avoiding the black spines that lay flat along the middle of the animal’s neck and back. “Pac-Man eats pretty much anything.”
“Pac-Man?” The beast looked up at me, oversized fangs giving it an expression that straddled the line between deadly and dopey. A string of drool waved pendulum-like from the jaw, pushing it firmly into the latter category.
“When he was a puppy, he tried to eat a ghost,” Pallas explained.
I had never been able to tell when she was joking. Another puppy bounded through the room. “How many animals do you have here?”
“Four pureblood chupacabra, six poodles, and three crossbreeds, not counting the eleven puppies. I also keep goats in the barn. Louis is the pack leader, but he’s locked in the kennel right now. He has a fungal infection, and I don’t want him spreading it to the other animals. Bessie’s upstairs. Chupacabra get vicious when pregnant. I can’t even go near her without using magic, so it’s hard to make sure she’s getting enough goat blood. The little one who just went by is Pumbaa. My niece named him. He tends to be rather flatulent. I’m trying to adjust his diet to see if it helps, but so far-”
“What’s happened since Lena brought me here?” I interrupted. I had the feeling Pallas could go on all day about her pets.
“I kept you sedated for the first forty-eight hours. I couldn’t risk any sort of magical healing, not in your state. I estimated we had at best a fifty-fifty chance of getting you back. We roused you every twelve hours to give you food and drink, and to allow you to use the bathroom.”
“I… don’t remember that.” I glanced at Lena.
“This wasn’t how I had planned to get you out of your pants,” she said wryly.
Pallas continued as if she hadn’t heard. “You may experience nausea, dry mouth, and constipation as the rest of the drugs work through your system.”
“Good to know.”
Pallas whistled a countermelody to the trumpet and piano riff playing over the speakers, and I felt her magic pass through me. Pallas was one of four known bards with the ability to shape magic through music. I had no idea what she was doing with that magic now, though. Using magic on another Porter without permission violated both rules and politeness, and while Pallas had never worried about politeness, she tended to be rather hard-assed about the rules. “Lena told me what you did.”
My hackles rose at the implicit disapproval. “What I did was find the libriomancer who killed Ray. I saw him. It’s not Gutenberg. I need to look up the name Jakob Hoffman. If we can track him down-”
“You had a vision, and you heard voices. That’s not the same thing as finding a killer. Our database has no record of any literary character named Jakob Hoffman. We’ve contacted thirteen Jakob and Jake Hoffmans so far, but none have any magical abilities, nor do they appear to have any connection to this murderer.” Her rings clinked as she fidgeted. In all the time I’d known Pallas, I don’t think I had ever seen her still. “You’ve given us a lead, nothing more. A lead that may or may not pay off.”
“When I spoke to you on the phone the other day, you said there was a magical attack in London. Did it hit Baker Street, by any chance? Anywhere near Sherlock Holmes’ fictional residence? You mentioned Afghanistan as well. Watson, Holmes’ partner, was a veteran from Afghanistan. Those attacks could be coming from the various personalities struggling for control of our killer.”
“A rather elementary conclusion, Isaac.” Though her expression never changed, I was pretty sure that was a joke. “We’re looking into the connection and trying to tie the other attacks to specific literary characters.” She tilted her head toward one of the speakers and stared out the window. “Lena also brought me the book you destroyed. Do you have any idea what that level of char can do? To the libriomancer, and to this world?”
“I know what it almost did to me,” I said.
“I doubt that.” She moved closer, and the clinking grew faster. “Lena says you barely escaped that book, that you were like a gibbering child when your awareness returned.”
“Not true. I was like a gibbering grown-up.” But the memory of those moments undermined my attempt at humor. “He tried to lock me into the book. When that failed, he sent… something after me. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. It was like-”
“Like a single disharmonic note, growing in volume until it overpowered the melody that defines you.”
“Sure.” I suppose, to a bard, that was as horrific a description as any. “You know what it was?”
“It was proof that I erred in allowing you to investigate this matter. Isaac Vainio, you are forbidden from practicing magic until further notice.”
Her tone never changed, so it took me a second to understand what she was saying. I jumped up from the couch. “I found the man who killed Ray Walker!”
She hummed quietly, and her stereo switched to a faster-paced song. The magic in the air grew stronger as well, like a magnetic current through my bones. Her animals were less subtle. As one, they growled and raised their spines.
“What would have happened if you hadn’t managed to cling to your sanity back there in Detroit?” Pallas asked. “If you had lost yourself to possession? Instead of one rogue libriomancer, you would have forced us to fight two. Imagine yourself terrified and insane, your body flowing with uncontrolled magic. What do you think you would you have done to Lena?”
“I wouldn’t have hurt her.” But even as I protested, I remembered staring at Lena with no memory of who she was. If that darkness had caught me… “What was it? Ray described the consequences of magical screw-ups in great detail, and he never mentioned anything like that. None of the Porter texts or reports I’ve read-”
“Your antics with the vampires have had consequences as well,” Pallas said, as if I’d never spoken. “Attacks worldwide have increased over the past four days. I spent this morning on the phone with Luis Quenta in Bolivia. They had to firebomb the Santa Cruz nest to keep the vampires contained. They’re testing us. And with Gutenberg and his automatons gone, we’re failing that test.”
“They gave me a week to find this killer,” I protested. One week, more than half of which I had now wasted, lying unconscious in Nicola Pallas’ apartment.
“Granach gave you a week. She said nothing about the rest of the world, nor are all vampires bound by a deal made by Alice Granach.” Pallas picked up an enormous dog bone that appeared to be made of some sort of woven black material. “My animals are beautiful, but they will always be part monster. I have their toys custom-made from Kevlar. Anything else they destroy within minutes. If I ever forget, if I expect them to be other than what they are, then whatever happens to me will be my own fault as much as theirs.” She threw the toy across the room, starting a riot of growling and fighting. “Magic is the same way. If you forget the rules, it will turn on you.”
“We’d know even less if I hadn’t broken the rules.” I shivered, remembering my flight through the book. “How could someone get so powerful without the Porters knowing?”
For the first time, Pallas looked uncertain. She turned toward the window, staring out at the field. “That is something we’ve been asking ever since these attacks started.”
“And?” I pressed.
“And the Porters will continue to investigate until we have answered that question.”
“He’s possessed, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?” I pressed. “Possession would drive him mad, force him to lash out. It wouldn’t give him the power to rip open locked books, or to send that thing through a book after me. He’s killing Porters, enslaving vampires… why?”
Pallas reached down to scratch one of the puppies on the belly. “This matter is no longer your concern.”
“No longer my concern?” I stood and turned to face her. “He tried to kill me!”
“He tried to do far worse than that.” She raised a hand, her ring pulsing a warning. “You have been touched
