I chuckled and stared at the ground, wanting to stall, to keep her here a few minutes more.
She looked away, tracking something I couldn’t see. Her fingers shot out to trap a mosquito hovering in the air. She offered the buzzing bloodsucker to Smudge, who cooked and gobbled it down in one quick movement. “You keep him safe, okay?”
I wasn’t sure which one of us she was talking to, but I nodded. I forced myself to release her other hand. “I’m sure Gutenberg will want me to check in with Doctor Shah to make sure my brain’s working properly. I’ll see you then?”
It sounded weak. What were you supposed to say in a situation like this, when it was time for the most amazing woman you’d ever met to return to her lover?
She leaned in and kissed me one last time, her arms tightening around my bare skin. Her forehead pressed against mine. I breathed in, holding the scent of her as long as I could.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she pulled away. She followed the others out of the office without looking back, as if she were afraid of what she would do if she hesitated. I watched through the doorway as they vanished with one of the automatons.
Gutenberg stooped to pick a handful of metal letters from the floor. “Now then,” he said. “I believe you had a question for me…”
I swallowed. “I want to know what I saw in Hubert’s mind.”
He picked up another book from the floor and pulled out a pair of pressed black pants, like a magician pulling scarves from his sleeve. Within seconds, he had created an entire tuxedo, which he handed to me without looking, one piece at a time. It was too tight, and didn’t include socks or underwear, but it was a step up from wearing Deb’s jacket.
“James Bond you aren’t,” Gutenberg commented.
I left the top shirt buttons undone and pulled on the jacket while he gathered up the rest of the books from the desk. “You founded the Porters to keep that thing out of our world, didn’t you?”
“In part, yes.” He began stacking books on the desk. “The truth, Isaac, is that I don’t know precisely what they are.”
“They?”
He shrugged. “I believe so, but I know only four things for certain. Whatever they are, they have existed at least as long I have, though they could be far older. As old as the universe itself, perhaps, though I doubt it. In these past centuries, they have grown stronger. They hate with a fury unlike any other. And sooner or later, they will find a way to fully enter our world.” He scowled at me. “Sooner, if idiots like you and Hubert keep flinging magic about with abandon and weakening the boundaries of our world!”
“How many people know about this?” I whispered.
“Twenty-three, now. The risk has always been that shortsighted madmen would work to summon and command these things. It’s happened before.” He opened the office door and walked out into the parking lot, where he stared into the sky. “The first time they struck at me, I thought they were the host of Hell itself. I’ve broadened my theories considerably since then, though I’ve found nothing to either confirm or disprove that original belief.”
“How do you fight them?”
“The same way you fight any enemy. With knowledge.” He smiled. “As I recall, you once expressed interest in a research position…”
Chapter 24
I finally made it home around sunrise the next morning, jittery from caffeine and magic both. Lena’s motorcycle was in the garage where she had left it. I could probably pay Dave Trembath to drive it down to Dearborn on his trailer… or I could use it as an excuse to call Lena.
And then what, Vainio? Ask how she and Nidhi are getting along? Tell her you’re always here if her current lover gets kidnapped by vampires again? I shook my head and turned away from the bike. I could deal with it later.
Inside, the house was every bit the disaster it had been when I left. Despite my precautions, flies and mosquitoes had found their way in through the back door. I halfheartedly pressed the duct tape back into place, trying to fix my makeshift curtain, then gave up.
I checked the library next, mentally cataloging which books I might be able to use to repair the bullet holes in the walls and ceiling. The back door was a lost cause.
My voice mail held six increasingly pissed-off messages from Jennifer Latona, demanding to know why I hadn’t returned to work and asking for an update on the insurance claim.
Crap. I knew I had forgotten something…
All things considered, I should have been happy. I had stopped the man who murdered Ray Walker, and earned a promotion in the process. For years I had imagined this moment: I would have full access to the Porter archives, centuries of magical research to explore.
Only I wouldn’t get to choose which project to join, which research to duplicate and expand, adding my own ideas and insights. I had a single assignment, one which could only be shared with a handful of others Porters cleared by Gutenberg himself: find the origin of the thing I had seen in Hubert’s mind, and figure out how to stop it.
Gutenberg would be sending me material from his own personal library. Scanned copies of documents five hundred years old, including firsthand descriptions of his encounters with our unknown enemies, and an uncensored account of the founding of Die Zwelf Porten?re… including the identities of the twelve men and women who had been transformed into automatons.
Only six remained. Six trapped souls, forced to serve and protect their master. Gutenberg had offered to free them… if I could come up with a better way to protect and enforce magical law.
With a sigh, I headed for my office. While I waited for the computer to power up, I stared out the window, my thoughts drifting back to my clumsy, glorious landing on the surface of the moon. Going back would be difficult in this body, but not impossible. Science fiction had spent decades on such matters, designing energy suits that could protect me from the cold and the vacuum.
“I’m going back,” I whispered. And not just to the moon. Wherever magic could take us.
I sat down at the desk and pulled up the Detroit Free Press Web site. They described last night’s events as an explosion caused by a natural gas line rupture, though one eyewitness in the comments section insisted it had been a terrorist attack and the government was trying to hide the truth. The photo showed a simple fence where people had posted photos of missing loved ones. Flowers and other tokens were piled at the base of the fence.
Nothing was said about vampires or metal giants, or the magic used to bring the chaos under control.
I closed the site, choosing to focus instead on the lives we had saved. How much longer would it have been before the damage grew too widespread to contain? Another hour, maybe two, and the events Hubert had started would have led to war the likes of which the world had never seen.
I glanced at the phone, tempted to call and check on Lena. The Porters would have made sure she and Nidhi were safe. By now, they should be back home… and knowing Lena, they probably didn’t want to be disturbed right now.
I swallowed to ease the knot in my throat and opened up our insurance company’s Web site to start an online claim for the damage to the library. I’d be talking to Jennifer tomorrow about cutting back to a half-time position in order to focus more time and energy on my research. Nicola Pallas had already arranged a cover story to explain my absence over the past week: a severe bout of rotavirus that had put me in the hospital. A forged doctor’s note was on its way to Jennifer’s mailbox.
Once the insurance claim was sent, I logged into the Porter database. Research began with reading, and I had a lot to catch up on.
For two straight days, I threw myself into my work, reading every treatise on magic, every report on possession, every scrap of information I could find.
Including the personnel reports on every Porter whose magic had been locked and their memories rewritten.
