three.” We had more than a hundred versions of Excalibur cataloged in our database. “Cuts through just about anything.”
“Nice,” said Lena. “Shades, sword, and guns. Very badass.”
“Very heavy,” I complained. The books in my jacket were bad enough. “Did you want anything else?”
She studied me over the top of her sunglasses. “I think maybe you’d better hold off on any more magic. You’re shivering.”
I didn’t bother to deny it.
She pushed up the glasses and examined me, then Smudge. “Do we really have to kill Hubert?”
“He knows he’s dying. He chose death the moment he opened himself to possession.” I returned my books to their pockets and slipped the sword over my shoulder. “I’m thinking our best chance is to speak to someone else.”
I reclined the seat as far as it would go, trying to ignore Lena’s amused smile as I struggled to sit back down with my various weapons. The tremors in my hands didn’t help matters. I finally had to lower the top so Excalibur’s hilt would stop catching on it.
With Smudge in his cage, I pulled onto the road and did a U-turn. Through the enchanted sunglasses, Mecosta Auto Sales and Repair was a very different place. Hubert had painted an illusion of normalcy over what was essentially a small fortress. The office building was magically dead, but the garages in back were surrounded by a makeshift barrier that could have come straight out of World War I, with wooden posts and barbed wire woven into an impassible web.
Chrome spikes protruded from the garage walls, and a pair of armed vampires patrolled the roof. The garage doors appeared to be magically reinforced. The cars in the lot were likewise infected with magic of some sort. Every car had a bright patch of power. The location varied from one to the next.
“How did Hubert do all of this?” Lena asked, squinting through her lens. “I thought libriomancers couldn’t create anything that didn’t fit through your books.”
“We can’t.” I pulled into the lot as casually as I could.
Lena handed me the charred copy of Sherlock Holmes. “You said those voices were all mad. Do you have a backup plan?”
“Not this time,” I lied. I climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the vampires on the roof who had readied rifles. I skimmed down the page until I found the story I wanted. I reread the dialogue, memorizing Holmes’ lines. Cupping my hands to my mouth, I shouted, “Your occupation is gone, sir. You are lost if you return to London!”
One of the parked cars lurched toward us. Throughout the lot, other vehicles came to life. Some screeched toward Lena, but most targeted me. Lena leaped easily over a rusted Corvette, then dropped low as one of the vampires fired at her. Bullets cratered the parking lot as she sprinted toward the side of the service garage.
I shoved the book back into my pocket and pulled out both pistols. I shot blindly at the vampires until they ducked down, then sighted carefully at a red Chevy Cavalier. The laser punched through the engine, and my next shots shredded the front tires for good measure.
High beams from my right momentarily blinded me. I squinted through the sunglasses to see a fifty-eight Plymouth Fury racing toward me. And Charles Hubert was a libriomancer.
“Nice,” I said, firing again. The Fury had been cannibalized straight out of Stephen King’s Christine. I could see now where Hubert had welded parts of King’s homicidal car to the other vehicles, bringing them all to life. Had he grown them all from a single, book-sized piece of that Fury? King’s book had hinted that the car could repair itself.
I pocketed the gun in my right hand and drew Excalibur, while continuing to try to pin down the vampires with the other pistol. “Until this moment, I failed to understand or appreciate the might of your organization,” I shouted. The dialogue was straight out of “The Final Problem,” the story in which Holmes sacrificed his own life to destroy his archenemy, Professor Moriarty.
I hoped that wasn’t prophetic.
I fired left-handed, then jumped back. Excalibur twisted in my grip, jerking my arm out and downward. The impact of sword on car reminded me of hitting a baseball, if the baseball was made of solid lead.
I couldn’t have released the sword if I wanted to. It sliced through tires and steel, emerging from the Fury with enough speed to whirl me in a complete circle. The Fury spun out, wrecking a station wagon.
I checked Smudge’s cage to make sure he was all right, then ran to hide behind the mangled car. “Best. Sword. Ever!”
Lena was using her bokken to cut through the barbed wire. I crouched behind the Fury as both vampires concentrated their fire on me. I blasted the side mirror off the car and used it to peek over the hood. I fired blindly, using the mirror to try to guide my shots toward the figures on the roof. Then a cloud of mist flowed out from the garage and solidified into the figure of a woman.
Lena thrust her bokken through the new arrival, who promptly dissolved into ash. One of the vampires on the roof dropped his weapon and sprang into the air. He snatched one of Lena’s bokken in now-clawed feet, ripping it from her grasp.
“This is inevitable destruction!” I shouted, quoting the story once more. “Surely you can spare me five minutes to hear what I have to say.”
The cars slowed. Over the idling of their engines, I heard an answering cry, “All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.”
That was one of Moriarty’s lines to Holmes. I had hooked him. I peeked out from behind the car. “Have you any suggestion to make?”
“You must drop it.”
For the first time, I revised the script, trying to preserve Holmes’ voice the best I could. “I’ve done what I could, but I cannot beat you. You know every move of this game, and I am not clever enough to bring destruction upon you. I know it would grieve you to have to take extreme measures against me. Let us meet, that I might present an alternative solution.”
Silence. Had my changes snapped Moriarty’s hold on Hubert’s mind? I looked to Lena and readied my weapons.
And then the rightmost garage door began to rise.
Chapter 20
Fluorescent lights flickered inside. Directly in front of me, an automaton was stretched out on a car lift like Frankenstein’s monster. Three other automatons lay as if dead in the repair bays to either side, while two more stood in the shadows in the back.
Stacks of tires lined the back wall. The air smelled of grease and oil. I knew this place. I had seen it through a book when I touched Hubert’s mind.
Lena joined me, a single bokken resting on her shoulder. I sheathed Excalibur and kept one hand in my pocket, finger on the trigger of my laser. “Over there,” I whispered, pointing to what appeared to be a small office in the back corner.
The door swung open. The office was dark, but through the glasses I could make out the glow of magic. And then what was left of Charles Hubert stepped out.
The soldier from the newspaper photos was gone, replaced by a pale scarecrow of a man who looked like he weighed maybe a hundred pounds, tops. Filthy green sweatpants hung from his bony hips. His chest was bare, white skin outlining every rib. He had lost most of his hair, and his head was like a painted skull. His scar was a vivid pink line down the side of his head and face.
Lines of faded text covered his skin. From the irregular handwriting, it looked like he had done it himself with a black marker. I saw English, German, and what looked like Pashto. In one hand, he held a heavy silver cross, encrusted with rubies.
Lena grabbed my forearm and tugged. The laser burned through my jacket pocket and blasted the back wall, filling the air with the stench of melted rubber. She twisted my arm and plucked the gun from my hand, then retrieved the other pistol. She stripped Excalibur from my back as well.
