“Which makes you better qualified than many to do so,” de Leon countered.
He couldn’t be serious. I was a failed field agent, utterly unprepared to run a global network of magic-users. To make sure nonhuman races remained hidden from the public, and to enforce the peace between various races. To supervise my own people. To oversee the locking of potentially dangerous books.
“You’re unlikely to have another chance,” he continued.
“Why are you telling us this?” Lena asked. “Did you come here to persuade us to kill your rival for you?”
De Leon merely chuckled. “What I want is for you to consider the consequences of your choice, whatever choice you make.”
“How can we know that?” Gutenberg had chosen to allow the vampires to establish a nest in Detroit. As a result, a rogue vampire had murdered Charles Hubert’s brother. Gutenberg had locked Hubert’s mind and magic instead of imprisoning him. Years later, an explosion had shattered that lock, creating a murderer. Who could have foreseen any of that?
De Leon merely shrugged and examined another book.
All I had wanted was to be a researcher, to see how far magic could take us. To truly understand magic. “When Charles Hubert died, I saw the characters that had crept into his mind. I saw something else, too.”
“Something that frightened you,” said de Leon, nodding. “Something old and terrible and unstoppable.”
“Yes.”
“What you saw is the reason Gutenberg allows creatures such as vampires and werewolves to exist and multiply.”
“Why is that?” asked Lena.
“Because if that thing ever finds its way to our world, we will need their strength to defeat it.”
I thought of Hubert’s attack on the Detroit nest, and my meeting with Alice Granach. “Why would they help us?”
“Survival.” He stepped past me and looked down at Gutenberg. “Choose quickly, libriomancer. But whatever choice you make, be certain you’re prepared for what comes next.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “Johannes is a brilliant, stubborn, prideful man. The Porters did their best to cover up his disappearance, but this night has destroyed their efforts. The world of magic will know what has happened. After all this time, we know that Gutenberg is vulnerable. There are those who would exploit such vulnerabilities.”
“Tell me what I saw in Hubert’s mind.”
He shook his head. “Only Gutenberg knows the truth.”
And if Gutenberg died, that truth went with him. If I wanted answers, I had to restore him.
Ponce de Leon’s mouth quirked, suggesting he knew exactly what I was thinking. Had that been his intent all along, to make sure I saved Gutenberg by reminding me how much knowledge would be lost if he died?
De Leon bent over the body and planted a soft kiss on Gutenberg’s lips. “Te amo, you old fool.”
I stared. Over the years, I had often wondered what would happen if Ponce de Leon and Johannes Gutenberg were to confront one another face-to-face. This had never come up as a possibility.
De Leon cupped Gutenberg’s cheek, then backed away. “Suerte, Isaac Vainio and Lena Greenwood.”
“Good luck to you, too,” I said automatically.
He walked through the desk and the wall beyond, disappearing like a ghost.
I turned my attention to Gutenberg. Whatever sins he had committed, he knew more of magic than anyone alive. If destroying a book was an act of evil, how much more evil was it to destroy a mind? I nodded to Lena.
She set her sword aside and peeled back the tape of Gutenberg’s IV. The flesh beneath was red and raw. Blood seeped from damaged skin. Lena tugged the needle free, and a single drop of dark blood trickled down his arm.
I reached out with my remaining arm, touching the magical web Hubert had woven to suppress Gutenberg’s power. With what remained of the automaton’s magic, I tore Hubert’s spell away like cobwebs.
Johannes Gutenberg bolted upright in the cot, blinked at Lena and myself, and vomited onto my legs. Lena grabbed his shoulder to steady him.
When he finished, his face was pale, and beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “I’m sorry about that. Thank you, Lena.” He nodded a greeting to her, then turned his full attention to me. “Isaac Vainio? What are you doing in my automaton?”
“How did you know?”
“You’ve inscribed yourself into the text, for those with the ability to read it. Also, the fire-spider gives you away.” He rose on shaky legs, leaning on Lena for support. “What of Charles Hubert?”
“Dead,” said Lena. “Consumed by magic.”
“A shame.” He combed his fingers through his hair, his movements becoming visibly stronger from one second to the next. I could see his magic at work, like antibodies devouring the remaining drugs in his system.
He brushed his hands over his wrinkled purple silk shirt and black trousers. His silver belt buckle gleamed like polished chrome. “Hubert was brilliant, but undisciplined. He used magic to protect the men in his unit ten years ago. He killed six enemy combatants. That… was not his first violation.”
“You punished him for protecting his own people?”
“For his methods in doing so,” Gutenberg said. “What would happen when those deaths became public, Isaac? The Porters are not an American organization, but a global one. We cannot afford to interfere in political conflicts. How long before national interests would splinter us? Before we turned on one another in an ever- escalating war of magic?”
“Hubert sent the automatons to attack the Detroit nest of vampires,” said Lena. “Alice Granach is holding Nidhi Shah as a hostage.”
Gutenberg stepped toward the desk, examining the books. “There was an old text, bound in leather. I remember Hubert taking it from my library. Have you seen it?”
I knew exactly which book he meant, and I knew what must have happened to it. Only one other person had entered this office since Hubert’s death.
“I… don’t remember seeing a book like that.”
He studied me closely, then shrugged. “I’ll find it eventually.”
Somehow I doubted that.
Gutenberg grabbed another book from the desk. It opened in his hand. He glanced at the pages, then reached into the book to retrieve a small, black cell phone. “I assume Pallas is overseeing the conflict in Detroit?”
I nodded dumbly, trying to understand what I had just seen. Gutenberg hadn’t even looked at the cover or title before picking up that book. It was like he had known instinctively which one held the potential magic he wanted, and had opened the book to that exact page.
“Nothing.” He tossed the phone at the book. It vanished the instant it touched the cover. “They’re following standard containment practice. A single libriomancer uses a book to create an electromagnetic pulse to scramble radios and cameras. Unfortunately, such magic also plays havoc with communications.”
He gathered a handful of books from the desk, then marched out of the office and through the garage, stopping only briefly to survey the damaged automobiles in the parking lot. A Volkswagen Beetle growled to life and crept toward us. One headlight flipped upward, trying to blind us. The other pulsed with magic.
That second headlight was the piece that had come from Stephen King’s killer car. I braced myself. Hubert was dead, meaning the remaining cars were free of his control. My arms were useless, but I should be able to stomp these things into-
Gutenberg snapped his fingers, and flame exploded within the Beetle’s haunted headlight. The magical pseudolife within the car flickered out, and the engine died. Momentum carried the Beetle onward, but it was easy enough to intercept. The car crunched harmlessly into my leg.
Gutenberg spun in a slow circle, and magical fire blasted the cannibalized parts Hubert had welded to his other cars. I stared at him, trying to understand how a libriomancer could fling magic with such ease. For an instant, his body seemed to flicker. I saw not living flesh but text, skin made up of layer upon layer of pages, a palimpsest of books, magic, and humanity. At the same time, I felt Smudge fade. For that brief span as Gutenberg eliminated the last of Hubert’s guardians, Smudge was simply a spider, oversized and mundane.
Smudge was a manifestation of a book’s magic. Gutenberg had bypassed the book, stealing Smudge’s magic directly and using it to disable the cars. I felt simultaneously protective of Smudge and eager to figure out the trick
