The book was incredibly old, which meant it would have most likely come from the library’s collection of rare books. And since libraries usually only let professors or academics have access to those books, the list of rare books out on loan should be short. If Lucifer had the titles of those books, it should only be a process of elimination to discover which one was the book Gina and her friends had used at the Worcester House.
But after an hour, she wasn’t any closer to finding the book than when she walked in. None of the library’s rare books were out. All were accounted for. And there was no indication that the records had been maliciously altered.
Lucifer entertained the idea that magic was somehow involved, that there might be a ghost in the machine hiding the information behind its pale and tattered rags. But if there was anything magical going on, Lucifer would know. Magic and technology didn’t mix terribly well, so whenever someone tried, there were always telltale signs. But there was nothing. According to the records, the book just simply didn’t exist. None of this made sense.
Isis said that this was where she found the book. But rare books were often tucked away in a room where the public didn’t have access to them. Lucifer supposed someone might have accidentally shelved the book where anyone could just take it. That might explain why there was no record of it missing. Even though that was a possibility, it seemed highly unlikely. Was Isis lying? Now that was certainly a possibility, but Lucifer didn’t think so. But if she wasn’t lying, then what was that book even doing here?
“Hey you.”
Lucifer turned to see David smiling down at her, his perfect teeth glinting in the surreal sunlight beaming through the windows. But there was no joy in his expression, only the calm confidence of a mark standing over a Three-Card Monte game convinced he knew which card was the ace. He sat down next to her and placed his elbow on the table, resting his chin in the palm of his upturned hand. “I just had the most interesting phone conversation with Olivia.”
Lucifer rubbed her eyes, trying to ease the tension from having stared at a computer screen for so long. “What part of ‘keep it to yourself’ does that girl not understand? What exactly did she tell you?”
David’s mouth curled in slight confusion. “Well, let’s see. She said you tied her to a chair and tried to poison her. Right before she . . . hmmm, how did she say it? Puked up a leprechaun with scoliosis.”
“Don’t be silly. Leprechauns aren’t real.”
“You don’t say.” After a moment, David asked, “Is it true you were attacked?”
Lucifer nodded and gestured toward her face. “I normally don’t look quite this hideous.” David only stared at her. Lucifer could feel her face getting even redder. “I’m a bit busy right now—”
“Gina’s dad finally called me,” David said with an expression more worried than angry. “He wouldn’t tell me anything, just that Gina’s sick and she’ll be fine in a few days. But I could tell he was lying to me. I don’t believe any of this supernatural garbage you talked about, but I know that Gina really is missing. And I want to help find her.”
She stared at him in silence. Gina was his girlfriend and he had a right to know, but Lucifer absolutely hated this. There were few things worse than being the teller of this unfortunate truth: magic was real. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, it was real and it was often dark and ugly and people were always better off not knowing it existed. And short of a lobotomy, there was no way to ever un-know. But Lucifer knew from the pained look on David’s face that being kept in the dark was even worse.
“All right. I’ll let you help.”
“Let me?”
“Yes, let you. You want to help? Take me to the section where all the kids make out.”
David didn’t move. “Lucifer, are you trying to tell me you want to kiss me?”
Lucifer could feel her face flush. Suddenly, all she could do was stare at David’s mouth and the way the corner of his lip curled into a tiny wisp of a smile. She lifted her gaze and looked at his eyes, but that just made it even worse. Why did he have to be so damn pretty? It was distracting. “Most every library has a section where kids go to be alone together. And Isis said she found the book in a section where she was kissing somebody.”
David laughed. “Ethan. That’s the only reason that guy would ever be in a library.”
“Oh, basketball guy.”
“He’s Isis’s guy friend,” David said.
“You mean ‘boyfriend’?”
“I don’t know if I’d consider Ethan her boyfriend. They’re not really dating, just sort of going through the motions. You know?”
“Not really.”
David shrugged his shoulders. “Neither do I, but I think it’s because Isis and I used to go out.”
When Lucifer didn’t say anything, David continued. “We dated for a little while, but we weren’t really right for each other, so we broke up. And then one night, Olivia threw a party when her mom was out of town. Half the school was there. Anyway, Isis saw me there with Gina and got a bit jealous. So she kissed Ethan, hoping it would get to me. But it didn’t. And since she’d never admit that that’s why she kissed him, she’s been kind of stuck with him ever since.”
The way David described it made it sound so mundane, but to Lucifer it was like listening to a fairy tale. Kissing, parties, jealousy . . . Lucifer had seen things and been to places that few people alive even knew existed, but David’s world seemed more strange and alien to her than any of them. David’s boring memory fascinated her. But Lucifer had to push that fascination to the back of her mind. There wasn’t any room in her life for such things, and there was no point in wishing for something that could never be.
“That sounds . . . complicated.”
“Welcome to high school.”
Desperate to change the subject, Lucifer quickly logged off then slipped her trick bag over her shoulder. “I’m following you.”
“This way,” David said.
He led her through a maze of shelves that snaked around a small cluster of tables and chairs being used by a number of people who Lucifer assumed must be students at the university. Most of the library was well lit with plenty of room to browse the shelves without bumping into other people, but the deeper into the library they went, the darker and tighter the rows became. They came to an intersection with Applied Sciences heading off into one direction and General Reference in the other.
David said, “Over here,” then reached down and grabbed her hand. Her hand almost disappeared inside his, his fingers completely wrapping around her palm. The pleasantness of it surprised her. It felt as if a soft wave of electric current was running up the length of her arm. He gently pulled her between the stacks where the height of the shelves kept out the fluorescent light from overhead.
As they stepped into the shadows, Lucifer saw a couple leaning against the shelves, lost in a kiss. David looked down at Lucifer and said, “I think this is the place.” The couple looked up, surprised to discover they weren’t alone.
“Oh, hey,” said the boy. His hair was long and wavy, and he had a bit of blond scruff jutting from the end of his pointy chin.
The girl he was kissing wiped the side of her mouth with the back of her hand and gave David a broad, toothy grin. “Hi, David.” Her gaze was locked on David, as if Lucifer wasn’t even there. Lucifer couldn’t help but wonder if she appeared just as idiotic as this girl did whenever she looked at David.
The boy gave Lucifer a quick glance before nodding at David with a knowing smile. “What’s up, bro?”
David shrugged. “Doing some research for Ackerman’s class. My paper is due in a couple of weeks and I haven’t even started yet.”
When the girl finally pulled her gaze away from David to look at Lucifer, her goofy smile instantly vanished. Lucifer didn’t realize she was still clutching David’s hand until the girl looked down at them. Lucifer quickly let go. “So, David,” the girl said, looking back up at Lucifer. “How’s Gina?”
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“Good, for the most part. But she’s home with the flu.”
The boy put his arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Hope she feels better.” Then he shot a quick glance at Lucifer before saying, “Good luck with your paper.”
“If you need a study partner, just let me know,” the girl said through the blinding perfection of her smile. The boy scowled at her as he ushered her away. As they ducked around the far bookshelf, Lucifer heard the girl say, “What? I’ve got Ackerman third period.”
David leaned back against the bookshelf and sighed. “Ah, the curse of being attractive. But I’m sure you already know what that’s like.”
Sadly, Lucifer knew all too well what it was like to be cursed. But attractive? She became acutely aware of how red and irritated her face was and pulled her hood up over her head. “Keep a lookout for me, okay?”
Lucifer reached into her trick bag and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. After snapping them on her hands, she pulled out a thin bundle of waxed brown parchment paper tied closed with a brittle piece of twine. She set the parchment on the floor and carefully untied the twine, revealing the object inside. It was a shiny black feather roughly twelve inches in length with a red quill that grew deeper in color the farther along it came to the end.
“What’s that?” David asked.
“Supernatural garbage.”
“Ha ha. But seriously.”
Lucifer looked up and said, “You’re not doing a very good job of being a lookout.”
“Don’t worry. It’s just us back here.” He squatted down next to her. “Why the gloves? Afraid some crazy magic might hex you?”
David blanched from Lucifer’s scowl. Her entire life had been turned upside down because she had been hexed by crazy magic, and it was certainly nothing to scoff at. “David, you know that curse you have? The curse of being pretty? You’re about to have it lifted.”
He raised his hands up in submission. “Easy, now. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just this all seems a bit . . . silly to me.”
“Then I’m really sorry, David.”
“Why would you be sorry?”
“Because it’s all about to become very un-silly to you.” Lucifer held the feather out at arm’s length, giving David a good view of it. “This is a feather from a Strix. And, thankfully, there haven’t been any around in well over a thousand years. But to keep it from disintegrating I have to take precautions. Like wearing rubber gloves.” Of course, that was only partly true. The real reason Lucifer wore gloves was because Strix were foul, disgusting birds, and the idea of touching one of its feathers grossed her out. But David didn’t need to know that.
“So what do you do with it?” he asked.
“This.”
Lucifer let go of the feather and watched it slowly drift toward the floor. Just before it touched the ground, it raised up in the air as if caught on a current of air and hovered between them.
David reached out and moved his hand through the empty space above the feather. “How are you doing that? There aren’t any strings!”
Lucifer gently pulled a wide-eyed David against the bookshelves as the feather danced in tiny circles as it floated past. “The Strix were owls known for their love of eating human flesh. Their feathers are magically drawn to dead things, particularly dead . . . human . . . things. I stole this one from some grave robbers who were using it to pillage undiscovered burial sites. Stupid chacais.”
“You think there’s a dead body here?” The look of wonder on David’s face was replaced by one of disgust.
“No, the book was bound in human skin. You don’t find books like that in public libraries. But Isis insists this is where she found it. If she really did, the feather should show me exactly which shelf it came from.”
The Strix feather bobbed in the air for a moment before turning the point of its quill toward a shadowy corner of a nearby bookshelf and darting through the air. It hit the edge of the shelf with a soft TINK! and quivered like an arrow in a bull’s-eye.
The shelf was filled with books on subjects that Lucifer doubted anyone had ever bothered reading. Economics, statistics, and a few on governmental tax codes during specific presidential administrations. She could feel herself getting drowsy just reading the titles.
However, the space above the feather was empty.
“I guess Isis was telling the truth,” Lucifer said. “It was here. But what was it doing in a section about economics?”
“That was bad . . . ass!”
Lucifer looked back at David. “Really? You think?”
“Hell yes!” He walked over and examined the feather stuck in the wood of the shelf. “Magic is real!”
Lucifer gently pulled out the feather and wrapped it back up in its packaging. “Let’s keep that to ourselves, okay? It’s bad enough Olivia’s telling everyone about our little exorcism party. I don’t need you adding fuel to that fire.”
“Don’t worry. I can keep a secret.” David ran his hand through his hair. “But I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around this.”
“Yeah, floating feathers can take a little getting used to.” She softened her sarcasm with a grin.
“So, were you born a witch or did you have to study to become one?”
“What is it with people thinking I’m a witch? I’m not a witch.”
“You can do magic. How does that not make you a witch?”
“I can hammer a nail into a board, too. Doesn’t make me a carpenter. And I can’t do magic. Only use it. If you had dropped the Strix feather, it would have done the same thing. And it wouldn’t make you a witch any more than it would me.”
Lucifer took several of the books off the shelf to see if there were any magical markings etched into the wood, but other than some rather crude scratchings of various body parts, there was nothing. “The book was definitely here, but it’s not in the library’s system. And if it were, why was it shelved here? This just isn’t making sense.” She turned to David, only to find him staring at her like a mangled knot he was trying to untie. “What?” she asked.
“Who are you? Really?”
“Oh David, we don’t have time to get into that.”
He took a small step forward, gently pressing her back against the bookshelf. Lucifer strained her neck to look up at him as he stared down at her, his brow knit in confusion. “You’re a teenage thief, you can perform exorcisms, make feathers fly like arrows, even shrug off being attacked by a man with a can of mace. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re . . . you’re fascinating.”
“Fascinating, like rainbows are fascinating? Or like . . . bug guts are fascinating?”
“Rainbows. Definitely rainbows.”
Lucifer didn’t know what to do. She spent her life moving through the shadows, trying to remain unseen. She had no idea how to deal with this kind of scrutiny. And the way his blue eyes looked almost black in the low light made her palms slick with sweat.
“David . . . there’s something happening in my pants.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her vibrating cell phone. “Yeah?”
As soon as she heard Buck’s voice on the other end, the spell David had over her disappeared. She easily moved past David, focused on what Buck was telling her. “Do you have an address?” Lucifer asked.
“Why? There’s nothing you can do,” Buck said.
“Do you remember what I told you at Olivia’s? I said it was very difficult. I didn’t say it was impossible.”
Buck was silent for a moment before saying, “God, Lucifer. I’ll do anything to get Gina back, but . . . but this?”
“Don’t worry. You’re not doing anything. I am. Now give me the address.”
Lucifer reached into her trick bag and pulled out a pen. She pressed her phone to her ear with her shoulder and grabbed David’s hand. As Buck gave her the address, she scribbled it on David’s broad palm. “Got it. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Lucifer, be careful. This is getting . . . dark
er than I expected.”
“It always does.”
Lucifer put her phone back in her pocket and leaned back against the shelf with a heavy sigh. David stared at the address scrawled across his palm, then said, “That was Officer Pierce, wasn’t it? Is this the address of the guy who attacked you?”
“No. Helen Peltier. The woman whose name was written on the book.”
“Then why are you sulking? Let’s go talk to her!”
“That’s the address to Crestview Cemetery, David. Ms. Peltier’s dead.”
David’s excitement evaporated. He fell back against the bookshelf next to Lucifer and stared off into the shadows. “What do we do now?”
“Something I really don’t want to.” Lucifer looked up at David, trying to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach.
“We’re going to need a couple of shovels.”
CHAPTER 11
The gibbous moon fell behind a thick column of black clouds. Faint shadows of gravestones swelled and grew until they bled into the surrounding darkness. The only thing Lucifer could clearly see was the silhouette of a twisted, leafless tree rising from the center of the tiny graveyard, back-lit by the fake sunrise of distant city lights reflecting off the clouds above.
Crestview was an old cemetery lost on the side of a forgotten road that wound its way through the countryside west of the city. Each gravestone sat at an imperfect angle, leaning in exhaustion after decades of neglect. From what Lucifer could see, it had been quite a long time since anyone had been buried here.
She cringed when she heard the car trunk slam shut and the shovels clink as David tossed them over his shoulder. “Stealth, David. All the kids are trying it these days.”
David sauntered over to her, the crunch of gravel beneath his feet screaming in the still darkness. “Sorry. But c’mon. There’s no one here. The nearest house is at least a mile away, and we haven’t seen a single car since we got off the highway. Who’s going to hear us?”
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