Codex Born

15

My mistake cost me my position with the shelter, though a number of the other volunteers privately thanked me for living out their fantasy, and several stayed in touch for a while. And then Hailey called two months later to tell me Christopher Hill had shot Melinda four times before putting the gun beneath his own chin and pulling the trigger. She said she thought it was better if I heard the news from a friend.

Nidhi found me curled at the base of my tree, crying. I recognized her by her footfalls on my roots. “I should have killed him.”

She knew without asking what had happened. Maybe she had already heard the details from a colleague, or on the radio. “You can’t save everyone, Lena.”

“I could have saved her.” I dug my fingers into the earth, seeking the strength of my tree. I wouldn’t give up what Nidhi and I had for anything, but for the first time, I found myself missing the simplicity of my life with Frank.

“You tried to give her a choice.”

“She made the wrong one.”

She sat down beside me and hooked her arm through mine. “So you should have taken that choice away from her?”

“What about her son’s choice?” I asked. “His parents are both dead. I wanted—”

“I know what you wanted,” Nidhi said softly. “You think I haven’t imagined similar things? Protecting the helpless, saving those who have been hurt.”

“You do something better. You help them to protect themselves.”

“Sometimes.” She rested against my shoulder.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?” Perhaps his showing up to confront her would have hardened Melinda’s resolve to leave. Hailey had been trained for this. She could have helped Melinda to make the right choice. Instead, by attacking Melinda’s husband, I had driven her back to him.

“You didn’t kill that woman, Lena. He made the choice to pull the trigger, not you. Don’t you dare take that responsibility away from him.” We sat in silence as the sun drifted lower. “I spoke with the Regional Master of the Porters this morning about the possibility of you becoming a field agent.”

She raised a hand before I could give words to the burst of hope in my chest. “Pallas said no. Gutenberg doesn’t allow nonhumans in the Porters.”

“Can you blame him?” I sank back against the tree.

“Yes,” she said evenly. “But there may be another option. So far, my only magical clients have been human, all classified as low-risk. Field agents mostly, with the occasional researcher. But there are others who need help. Displaced nonhumans. Recently-turned vampires, werewolves, and others, trying to come to terms with their new existence. People considered too unstable and dangerous for a mundane psychiatrist to help.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ve asked that my client list be expanded to level two and three patients,” Nidhi said. “If they approve my request, it would mean more travel, and I’d need someone along for my protection. That person doesn’t have to be a Porter.”

I swallowed, torn between hope and fear as I realized what she was offering. “What if I screw up again?” I whispered. “If I lost you—”

“I trust you,” she whispered.

THE BOOK I NEEDED wasn’t on the shelf. I ran back to the computer and pulled up our circulation database, drumming my fingers on the desk as I waited for the program to open.

“Even if he can unlock the book, he can’t create a fully-formed dryad.” Uncertainty turned Lena’s words into a question, a plea for confirmation. “It took time for my tree to grow. Years, probably.”

“Your tree grew naturally. Harrison isn’t going to wait.” I waved impatiently at the science fiction and fantasy section of the library. “Belgarath, from David Eddings’ Belgariad. Irene in Piers Anthony’s Xanth books. The water of life from L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Prospero Regained. The magic of those books could grow an acorn into a fully grown oak within hours, and Bi Wei knows enough of libriomancy to make it happen.”

“What about the other books at the archive?” Lena asked. “If she can unlock one, why not others? There are weapons in those books that could wipe out all of Michigan.”

“ Bi wouldn’t do that,” I said. “She wants to restore her friends, but she won’t give those books to a madman.”

“ Bi?” Lena’s brows rose.

“Bi Wei.” I had used the familiar term instinctively. It was hard to think of someone as a stranger after touching their memories and sharing one of the happiest moments of their existence. “She doesn’t want to fight a war.”

Lena’s fist cracked the desk. “Do you think August Harrison cares what she wants?” she shouted.

Shock robbed me of words.

“She’s going to give Harrison an army of dryads. You can’t—” Her voice broke. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. What I’m capable of.”

“I’ve read your book,” I said, trying to reassure her. Where was Nidhi when I needed her? “I’ve seen what you can do. You’re amazing, but you’re not omnipotent, and you’re not a monster.”

“You haven’t seen everything.” She moistened her lips and moved her hands over the front of her body.

Between one breath and the next, I forgot all about August Harrison or Nymphs of Neptune. Blood pounded hot through my body, as if she had stripped away all traces of civilization, leaving only raw, primitive lust. I wanted to tear her clothes away, to take her right here. My chair clattered backward. I took her by the arms and pressed her against the shelves, hard enough that several books fell around us.

I didn’t care. My pelvis ground against hers as I yanked her shirt roughly over her head and flung it aside. I thrust my hand down the front of her pants, and she writhed with pleasure.

“Stop.” She pushed me away and held me at arm’s length. I tried to twist free, but her grip was unbreakable. Slowly, my arousal faded to more human levels, though my jeans still felt painfully constrictive. From the tightness of her nipples and the quickness of her breath, Lena was having similar struggles. “All right,” she gasped. “Maybe that wasn’t the best demonstration.”

I swallowed and backed away. “What did you do to me?”

“I’m sorry.” She turned away. “I told you once that I could feel lust in others. I never told you I could manipulate that lust.”

“Chapter four,” I whispered. The fourth chapter of Nymphs of Neptune put protagonist John Rule in the middle of a territorial conflict between a river nymph and a dryad. It was yet another layer of the author’s wish fulfillment fantasy, with both nymphs battling first over their borders, then over Rule himself, each stoking his desire until he was little more than an animal. He wound up bedding them both, naturally. “Before you and I got together…” I trailed off, uncertain how to finish the question.

“Never,” Lena said firmly. “Not since before I met Nidhi. Sometimes I have to work to stop myself, but I wouldn’t do that to you, or to her.”

A part of me was angry at the loss of control. Another part wanted desperately for her to do it again.

“Imagine what I could make you do. What I could make men do. Many women as well.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “I used to seduce Frank when I wanted him. Or when I wanted to punish his wife.”

I bit the inside of my lip. The pain helped me to focus.

“I fought her once,” Lena continued. “She couldn’t take it anymore, so she attacked me. I broke her hand.”

“You were protecting yourself,” I said.

“Marion was never a real threat. I hurt her because I wanted to. Because I enjoyed it. I liked fighting for Frank. I liked the power I had over her, and the sound of her crying.” She bent to retrieve her shirt. “The dryads Harrison creates will be worse.”

I nodded and returned to the computer. “Then let’s find a way to stop him.”

According to our system, Robin McKinley’s Beauty was on the reserved shelf. Thankfully, the person who had placed a hold on the book hadn’t yet been by to pick it up.

The Copper River Library might not have Nymphs of Neptune, but the Beast’s magical library in Beauty held a copy of every book ever written. As I reached into the story, I found myself wondering at the implications of such a library. Did the Beast sit around reading fairy-tale retellings? What would he make of modern erotic fiction like 50 Shades of Grey? Had he discovered his own book, and what kind of magical paradox might I create if I used this book to create a new copy of Beauty?

This wasn’t the time for experiments, dammit. I focused on the book I needed, and pulled Nymphs of Neptune through the pages.

“Can you lock it?” Lena asked.

“I don’t know how.” I opened the book and swore. Both times I had read Nymphs of Neptune, it had felt empty: a void whose life was locked away by Gutenberg’s magic. As I skimmed the opening pages now, I could feel the book’s magic waiting just beneath the page. I ran my fingers over the rough, yellowed paper. “They’ve got it.”

“If we call Gutenberg—”

“Do it, but I’m not sure it will work. Bi Wei might be too strong.”

Those words broke something within Lena. She tried not to let it show, but her entire bearing changed. She closed her eyes, and the energy and alertness that always reminded me of a pacing cat drained from her body. When she spoke, her words were listless. “Can you stop them from using it?”

“Maybe.”

While she dialed the phone, I reached into the pages and allowed the icy air of Neptune to flow into the library. If there were a way to fine-tune the flow of this book’s magic, I might never need to pay for air conditioning again.

“Nobody’s answering,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”

“Breaking one of the cardinal rules of libriomancy,” I said. “I’m going to deliberately char the everliving hell out of this book.”

I reached deeper until my fingers touched frigid snow.

Lena dialed another number. “Exactly how dangerous is this plan?”

“Calling it a ‘plan’ might be a bit of an overstatement.”

She turned away, and I heard her filling someone in on what was happening. Hopefully Gutenberg could fix this, but I couldn’t afford to concentrate on that conversation.

John Rule had been transported from Earth to the underground world of Neptune. According to the author’s ridiculous pseudoscience, the ice of the frozen surface somehow focused the rays of the sun like a giant magnifying lens, providing light and just enough warmth to the inhabitants below.

I pulled that environment into our world, channeling the book until my breath began to fog and frost crept across the floor.

I heard the characters calling to me. Whispering seductively, giggling as they invited me back to lavish bedchambers furnished in the thick furs of ferocious alien beasts. I heard their grunts and cries as they fought each other for the entertainment of their Neptunian lords. Just as Lena had fought Frank Dearing’s wife.

This was the book that had birthed Lena Greenwood. One of the strongest women I knew, and she had been written as a sexual plaything. I wanted to bring the author back from the grave purely so Lena, Nidhi, and I could take turns punching him in the face. And yet, without his trash, Lena would have never been a part of my life.

“He’s trying, but Bi Wei is holding the book open somehow.” Lena covered the phone. “Isaac, your arm.”

I glanced down. The skin of my wrist and forearm had taken on a faint bluish tinge, and I couldn’t feel anything from the elbow down. I wrenched my hand free of the book. Pain hit a moment later as blood flow returned to my numb fingers. I clamped my jaw to keep from shouting.

Cold continued to flow from the book. “I probably should have done this out back,” I said through clenched teeth.

The voices were growing louder. John Rule shouted defiantly at the Prince of Harku’unn, the northernmost kingdom of Neptune. I tightened my fist, feeling the weight of his stone-bladed sword, and his need to act. I would strike down the tyrant who would torture and enslave the free people of Harku’unn, including the exiled nymph who had saved my life.

“Isaac!”

One of the prince’s dryads stepped closer, her barbarian weapon held in a defensive position. I raised my own sword.

“Oh, hell.” The dryad parried my thrust and stepped inside my guard. Her other hand caught my chin and lifted, twisting my spine and forcing me off balance. She kicked my front leg out from under me before I could recover.

I landed hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My sword fell, and my shield fluttered to the ground.

I blinked. I was reasonably certain shields weren’t supposed to flutter.

“Concentrate on my voice,” said the dryad. “You’re Isaac Vainio. You’re in Copper River, Michigan, and we don’t have time for this!”

Snow gusted through the cave. A stone sword with a blade like chipped blue glass lay beside me. I rubbed my face and tried to focus.

“Don’t move.” She left me shivering on the floor, but returned seconds later, ripping open a cellophane package. “Eat this.”

Strong fingers shoved something spongy and chocolate into my mouth. I chewed without thinking. “You raided my Tastykake supply?”

“Tastes and smells are powerful triggers. They can help to anchor you in the real world.” Lena crammed another bite past my lips. “You once told me how your parents used to bring them back from trips out East, remember?”

I stared at the book on the floor beside me. The pages were blackened, charred by the amount of magic pouring through. No sane libriomancer would use a book so badly damaged, not if they wanted to hold on to that sanity. Like Gutenberg’s lock, that damage would flow through other copies of the book, and only time would heal it.

I placed both hands over the book and wrenched my spell closed, then took the second cupcake from Lena, trying to keep from trembling. Color had begun to return to my skin, but I could also see the faint overlay of char, like a layer of ash just beneath the surface. I had done this to myself once before at Mackinac Island, after channeling a Martian death ray through my own flesh to fight off a group of undead horses.

I had a peculiar life.

To my surprise, the cupcakes helped. The voices pressing into my head were still there, but no longer threatened to drown me. I scraped the last bit of chocolate frosting from the wrapper with my finger. “I’m sorry,” I said as I realized what I had done. “Did I hurt you?”

A single elevated eyebrow and an amused smile was all the answer that question needed.

The taste of chocolate didn’t block out the faint scent of methane and ammonia. Cleaning this mess would take hours. Jenn was going to kill me. Not to mention the damage the moisture would do to the books. I needed to get to the basement and bring up the portable dehumidifiers.

As my mind continued to clear, I noticed Lena was shivering. Charring her book shouldn’t have hurt her. Unlike my time-viewing spell back in Tamarack, Lena was a fully formed magical creation. Her connection with her book had ended the moment someone pulled her acorn from the pages. “What’s wrong?”

“The smell.” She scooped a handful of snow from the floor and stared at it, entranced. “I remember this, even though I know it’s not real. I’ve never touched snow like this before, but my body recognizes it, and suddenly everything else seems wrong. You, the library, even these clothes.”

I jumped to my feet, grabbed her elbow, and dragged her back to the children’s section. Lena stumbled drunkenly along. I snatched her branch and pressed it into her hands. She gripped it like a lifeline.

“Stay with me, Lena.” I punched in the alarm code and propped open the back door, then pulled her into the fresh air.

She stood like a statue, holding the branch from her tree and staring into the distance. Eventually, she reached over with one hand and tugged me to her. She kissed me fiercely at first, and then I felt her body begin to relax. She broke away and rested her head on my shoulder.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I said at the same time.

“What for?”

I tucked her hair back over her ear, then traced the edge of her ear down to the curve of her neck. “I’m an idiot. I should have known better.”

Nidhi would have caught my mistake. She would have made certain Lena was safely out of range before I opened up a portal to the fictional world that had birthed her. I could think of no better way to induce a schizophrenic break than blurring the lines of Lena’s two realities.

“Did it work?” she asked.

“I think so.” It was five in the morning. I had held that book open for more than a half hour. I smiled wearily. “August Harrison is going to be pissed.”

The mess inside made me sympathize with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. If I had the slightest idea how to enchant the mops and brooms to clean up the library, I’d be tempted too.

I ended up using a push broom to sweep most of the snow out the front door, then brought the dehumidifiers up. After an hour, the smell had dispersed enough for Lena to come back inside with no apparent ill effects.

By the time Jenn arrived, I had propped open the doors for airflow, returned the beanbags to their proper place, and wiped down the circulation desk. Jenn stopped in the doorway, sniffed the air, looked from me to the dehumidifiers, and sighed. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“A friend called me around four in the morning. Said he saw a couple of kids snooping around in here. They had gotten the chemistry books out, and as far as I can tell, I think they were trying to make their own little drug lab.”

Jennifer Latona had about twenty years on me. I fought to keep a neutral expression as she gave me a you-expect-me-to-believe-that look that was eerily reminiscent of my mother. “How did they break in?”

“The alarm was armed, so if I had to guess, I’d say they came in during the day, snuck into the basement, and hid out until everyone left.”

“Did you catch them?”

“They must have ducked out of sight when we pulled up. Lena and I started cleaning up the mess, and they took off through the back door.”

She set her briefcase on the desk and rubbed her temples. “You cleaned up the evidence? Did it ever occur to you to call the police? Or to call me?”

“I can honestly say it didn’t.” I gave her an apologetic shrug. “I was just trying to save the books. Can you imagine the damage if this stuff seeped under the shelves? We did the best we could, but we need to get steam vacs in here if we want to avoid a major mold problem. Not to mention the bugs.”

“I’m supposed to have a children’s story group in here at eight-thirty.” She popped open her suitcase, grabbed a pair of old socks, and waved them under my nose. “I brought sock puppets! I can’t have kids sitting around in a library that smells like a chem lab.”

I peeked outside. “The sky looks pretty clear. Why not do puppets in the park?”

“I never had this kind of trouble when I was working down in Lansing.” Before I could answer, she raised a hand and said, “Just get someone in here to do the carpets.”

I gave her a quick salute, then sat down to call Cody Terzaghi about renting his steam cleaners. Nicola called back on my own phone as I was wrapping things up with Cody.

“Harrison got the book,” she said without greeting or preamble. “Jane Oshogay is dead.”

I slumped lower in the chair. “How?”

“Jane was first on the scene, and arrived as Harrison and the others were leaving. Her orders were to wait, but you know libriomancers and their books. From the look of things, she put up a good fight.”

“Damn.” I hesitated. After reading Bi Wei’s book and touching her mind, some part of me had hoped she would object to Harrison’s rampage, that she would stop him from hurting anyone else. “I, um, kind of charred Nymphs of Neptune last night. I don’t think they’ll be able to use it, but we should make a note in the catalog.”

“Good. I need you to stay where you are. Once we’re done cleaning up at the fort, we’ll join you at the library.”

“We?”

“Gutenberg, myself, and every other Porter within traveling distance. It’s time to put an end to this.”

“Past time.” Relief hit first, followed closely by fear. Gutenberg had tried to destroy the students of Bi Sheng once before. I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t attempt the same thing. But Bi Wei might be a match even for Gutenberg. Regardless of who won, the collateral damage would be ugly.

Copper River was about to become ground zero in a magical war the likes of which the world hadn’t seen in more than five hundred years.