Space Shuttle Columbia from its original 1981 launch, signed by both John Young and Robert Crippen, the commander and pilot of that first mission. “The trees told me you were back.”
“The trees?”
“I was resting in the big oak in your backyard.” She gave me a half-shrug. “They talk to each other. I can watch the entire house through the root system, if I sink deeply enough into the heart of the tree.”
That simple statement set off a cascade of questions in my head. I knew Lena had to return to her tree, and that many of her superhuman abilities came from that connection. The tree’s strength was her own. She wasn’t invulnerable, but a tree’s roots could crush concrete and stone. Lena could do much the same.
But I knew nothing about what happened when she entered a tree. How could she perceive what happened outside? Did those senses weaken with distance? If that connection passed through the roots to other trees, did those trees have to be the same species? Were some trees more conducive to magic than others?
I dragged myself back to more immediate concerns, starting with, “How did you get inside?”
“You barred the back door with a wooden stick.” She twirled one of her bokken, narrowly missing the desk. “That doesn’t work so well against me.”
“So is this the point where you explain what’s going on?”
“Food first. Questions second. I didn’t want to raid your fridge without permission, but now that you’re here…”
Lena and I had different definitions of “food.” She tossed her jacket over a chair, then seized a two-liter bottle of Cherry Coke and an old carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I grabbed a bowl and spoon and offered them to her without a word.
She took the spoon, plopped down at the table, and pulled a bag of M amp;Ms from her jacket pocket.
“You’re worse than Smudge,” I said, watching her sprinkle the candy over her ice cream.
She dug in with an almost feral grin. “High metabolism.”
I remained standing. “Well?”
“This isn’t the first attack against the Porters.” She lowered her head, and black hair curtained her face. “A few days ago, I learned Victor Harrison had been murdered.”
“Oh, damn.” Victor was a modest, awkward man. He was brilliant, but I had no idea how someone so kindhearted had made it through fieldwork. He was one of the few people who could make magic and machines play nicely together. He had built the Porters’ server network from the ground up, adding layers of security both mundane and magical.
Three years back, one unlucky woman had come close to hacking our systems. Rumor had it she was enjoying her new life as a garter snake.
One of Victor’s favorite tricks was programming his DVR to record and play back shows that wouldn’t air for another six months. He was supposed to send me next season’s Doctor Who. “How did it happen?”
“They tortured him to death in his own home.” Lena stabbed her spoon into the ice cream. Her shoulders were tight. “Nidhi was called down to Columbus to help examine the scene. The house was a wreck. Walls smashed in, windows broken, and blood everywhere. He put up a good fight, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Wait… how good of a fight?” Any serious magical conflict should have attracted attention.
Lena gave me a grim smile. “Exactly. From what we could tell, his television incinerated at least one vampire. He had rigged an extra channel to put out a burst of ultraviolet light through the screen. Nobody could understand exactly what he had done to his garbage disposal, but they found blood and a fang in there.” She crunched another bite of ice cream and M amp;Ms. “It should have been more than enough magic to alert the Porters and summon one of their automatons to investigate, but that didn’t happen. Nicola Pallas first learned of the attack on the news.”
Meaning the Porters hadn’t been the first ones to arrive. Most of the police officers I’d met were decent people, but they weren’t equipped for this kind of investigation and didn’t know how to avoid tainting any magical evidence.
“The next attack was similar,” Lena said. “An alchemist in northern Indiana. The Porters think vampires might also be behind the death of a telepath in Madison about six months back. That time, they tortured her whole family before killing her.”
Madison… that would have been Abigail Dooley. I remembered hearing about her death, but I hadn’t known the details. She had retired years ago, and had been making a comfortable living via the occasional visit to the casino.
“Why punish her family? She was out of the game. She didn’t know anything worth-” The realization made me ill. “They were torturing her. So she’d hear her family’s thoughts as they died.”
“That was Nidhi’s guess, too,” said Lena, her voice dead.
Three murders. “Why haven’t I heard about this before now?”
“I’m not a Porter. You’d have to ask them.” Lena stared at the table, but it was obvious she wasn’t really seeing it. “There were two more attacks yesterday,” she said slowly. “The first was against Nidhi Shah.”
And Lena was Doctor Shah’s bodyguard. “Is she all right?”
Even as I asked, I saw the answer in her face. “There were four vampires. I was forced to kill the first. I stopped another, but they found my tree. They cut it down. I’ve never felt pain like that before. I tried to fight, but as my tree died…”
“I’m sorry.” The words felt utterly inadequate, but she gave a tiny nod of thanks. “Are you… with your tree gone-”
“I’ve survived the loss of a tree once before.” She stared past me, her eyes wet. “It takes time for life to leave a fallen tree. The leaves wither and fall away. The wood dries and cracks. Insects bore through the bark.” She shuddered. “I’ll need to find a new home for that part of myself, but your oak will do for today. It’s not the same, but it’s enough.”
For once, I managed to suppress any tactless questions about her nature.
“They ruined my garden, too,” she said distantly. “Uprooted my rosebushes and my grapevines. I guess they were afraid I could use the plants as weapons.” She twirled her spoon, digging a pit into her ice cream. “Nidhi shouted for me to get away. I crawled into the closest tree that was big enough to hold me, a thirty-year-old maple. I stayed only long enough to keep myself from following my oak into death, but when I emerged, they were long gone.”
I had met with Doctor Shah several times, though rarely by choice. I understood the logic of making people who warped reality on a regular basis check in with a professional psychiatrist, but given how that had turned out for me, my feelings toward Shah were mixed at best. None of which mattered now. I could only imagine what Lena must be feeling. As far as I knew, Doctor Shah was the closest thing she had to a family. “You did everything you could.”
“There was no body.” Lena’s fingers sank into the wood of the table as she spoke. “The only blood I could find came from me and one of the vampires. I don’t know where they went or why they took her. She might already be dead, or they might have turned her. So I sought out the nearest help I could find.”
“I’m just a cataloger these days.” If the vampires wanted to turn Shah, she might have a chance. For some species, the process could take days. But why torture and murder the others and not her? “What are the Porters doing about this?”
“They won’t say. They’re strictly a humans-only club, remember?”
Guilt made me turn away, though I had no control over our policies. “Who was the second victim?”
She hesitated. “I’m sorry, Isaac. They found Ray Walker’s body yesterday night.”
Pop psychology described five stages of grief. I went through all five in less than a minute as I struggled to accept the death of my friend.
Walker was no danger to anyone. There was no reason for any vampire to go after him… but there was no lie in Lena’s gaze. My body tightened, fists clenched, stomach taut. My mind flipped through its mental catalog, searching for magic that would allow me to bring back my friend. But books with such power were locked, and trying to reverse death would accomplish nothing except to earn my exile from the Porters.
I sagged into a chair and wiped a fist across my eyes. “How?”
“Like the others.”
Ray Walker had brought me into the world of magic. The Porters found me when I was in high school, and arranged for me to attend Michigan State University where I could work with Ray. For four years, I had spent every
