by Lee Isserow
“He's not taking calls. . .” she said, speaking only to him, as if standing at his periphery.
“Dammit,” he said, hanging up.
“Okay, seriously, explain the finger-telephone. . .” Ana said, with a scoff.
“Urban magick,” he explained, gruffly as he started pacing back and forth across the living room.
“Urban like cities, or urban like black?”
“Cities. Some sigils have been written into reality, like holding up a thumb and pinkie to indicate a phone. Or the sigil to call a bus, which looks like you're lighting a cigarette.”
“There's magick to call a bus?”
“Only do it at a bus stop, otherwise you end up with the number 82 in your living room. . .”
Ana caught a glimmer of a smile on his lips, but it shed as swiftly as it appeared.
“Whoever this man is, he's connected. This isn't just an attack on your family. . . It's a conspiracy or, a vendetta of some kind. . . Comstock said so in the first place, but it didn't make a damn bit of sense, until I knew you had magick in your blood. . .”
“Why would anyone have a vendetta against my family? I don't even know who my damn family are!”
“I have no idea. . . But I know where we can go to find out.”
Chapter 40
The staircase doesn't like it
It took Rafe ten minutes of profusely apologising to Tali, begging for forgiveness for hanging up on her, to convince her to send a door to the Library Arcana. As Ana stepped through, she realised it was possibly the oldest building she had ever been inside.
It looked as though it were a relic from some bygone era, architecture the likes of which she had never seen before. The floor was raw stone cobbles, with grass and flowers growing out of the cracks, neither of which were things she ever thought existed inside buildings that were in use. It seemed the type of thing that she reckoned happened in derelict ruins. Then again, the library looked as though it were some kind of ruin, re-purposed to house tomes and texts, with little effort put in to refurbishment, let alone health and safety.
The main room was expansive, the walls so far apart, and ceilings so high, it looked as though the Raven's Lodge could have fit inside ten times over. Spiral staircases around the sides of the room led up to floor upon floor of balcony levels lined with books, each with ivy and vines growing along the side, clinging to ancient wooden and wrought iron barriers that barely looked as though they could be leaned upon without bringing the whole thing down.
There were a number of old wooden desks set out in the main room, reminding her of a visit she took to the New York Public Library. But it looked as though these desks were rarely used, these days at least, only a handful of people were sitting at them with their noses deep in books. Ana spun around, taking the building in, and began to wonder how they funded the place, given that it was so empty. All the libraries she knew were being shut down one by one.
Rafe cleared his throat to get her attention, and led the way to an old woman sitting at a desk on the left hand wall. She had appeared to be engrossed in a book that was only inches from her face.
“One minute,” she said, in a warm, withered voice.
“Take all the time in the world,” he muttered.
“I said, one minute.” She raised an eyebrow, but continued to read. After exactly sixty seconds, she licked her finger and drew a sigil on the page, closing the leather bound tome and placing it on the desk. Large, kindly owl eyes glanced up from behind thick spectacles at Rafe.
“Causin' trouble again?” she asked, with a smile. Creases rippled out across her cheeks, and Ana wondered if she had ever seen so many wrinkles on a single human being in all her life.
“Me? Trouble? Never!”
“What's he got you caught up in, young miss?”
“She's got me caught up in something,” he said, defensively.
The old woman smiled at Ana, and there was something in her eyes that looked almost like recognition, as if she had seen something in Ana that was familiar. Her smile became even wider. “You'll want lineage, fourth floor. Take the spiral staircase up to three and walk along the end to the ladder. The staircases don't like people going up to four. . .”
“The staircase doesn't like it?” Ana asked.
“New to all this, ain't she?” the old woman said.
“Don't use the third person! I'm standing right here!”
“Yes y'are, dear. But you should have been here a long time ago. . .”
Rafe wrapped his fingers around Ana's arm and gently tugged her away, mouthing a “thank you” to the old woman.
“What does she mean, 'I should have been here a long time ago?'”
“Old magick talk, elderly magickians like to screw with your head sometimes.”
“It's cryptic, and menacing.”
“She probably just means you should have been taught all this as child, rather than discovering it as an adult.”
“Sent off to Hogwarts? Given an owl―I don't know how to look after an owl! What do they even eat?!”
“You're not a wizard. . .”
“So what am I?”
“You're. . . I don't know, you're magick, like the rest of us. Well, like the rest of them. . . We'll find out more when we know your lineage.”
Ana didn't like the idea that her worth was based on those that came before her―her father no less, whoever the hell he was. He left before she was born, her mother never talked about him. She suddenly realised that there was a good reason her mother didn't have anything to say, let alone have any photos of him―because it wasn't her mother's partner that was her father. . .
Still, she couldn't deal with the idea that that man, that bastard who had vanished into thin air, would have so much control over who she was now and where her life was heading. Let alone be the reason for someone trying to kill her.
And then there was the other part of her, the part she tried to suppress, that wanted to know more than anything who her father was.
Chapter 41
How far his seed has spread
The lineage section of the Library Arcana was massive, books upon books containing the genealogy of every magickian that had ever lived. At first, the tomes were laid out by family name, which was useless for Rafe's investigation. With a quick sigil, the books rearranged themselves by location, and then by date, so they could track down the volume that would feature Ana's bloodline.
“Put them back when you're done!” the librarian shouted. Rafe shot a scowl in her direction that he hoped she didn't see.
Flipping through the pages of a thick book of 1980's London births in search of Ana's name, they were redirected to 1870's London for her mother.
“That would make her almost a hundred and fifty years old!” Ana protested. “She wasn't a hundred and fifty!”
“Looks like she was.”
“Nobody has ever lived to a hundred and fifty!”
The sound of muffled laughter echoed across the grand room from the librarian's desk.
“Magickians live longer than mundanes.”
“But not fifty years longer!”
“More than, most of the time. Unless something gets in the way of the natural order. . .” Rafe said, finding the correct page. He scanned the list of names, and as he found Mary Wallace, was referred to a volume of conceptions. The book opened on Mary Wallace's name, and as Rafe scanned the page, he turned the book from away Ana's gaze.
“What? Did you find it? Show me!”
There was something in his gut that wanted to close the book, rearrange the shelves, never let her see it. The path they were on wouldn't bring her answers, if anything, it would just bring more confusion and anxiety. But he couldn't bring himself to lie to her like that.
She grabbed the book and went through the page herself until she found the line in question. There was a blank space where Ana's father's name should have been.
“Why wouldn't he be listed?”
“Could be a bun
ch of reasons. . . Might be it's someone important, or someone who doesn't want others to know how far his seed has spread.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“What can I say, your dad might have been a shagger.
“A shagger?”
”Is that not a common expression? Y'know, I mean he got around.”
“I know what it means, I just don't understand. . . First of all, who calls anyone 'a shagger'? And second. . . how does that help?”
“It doesn't. If his name's not here, means we still don't have a clue why or how your people pissed off the whoever has the box.”
“You said it could be someone with a vendetta against my family. . . What if it's not about me, my mother, what if it's about getting back at whoever my father is?”
“You've been around for twenty-something years, your mother for fifty-something, why would they wait all this time?”
“I don't know. . . Are there any records of. . . I dunno, other potential mates? Feuds between sparring males or whatever?”
“Magickians aren't stags butting heads.”
“I know, but. . . there's got to be a record. . . Duels! Were there every any duels?”
“There's no big book of feuds or duels.”
“So, someone writes down the names and copulations of every magickian, but doesn't write when they have a fight to the death?”
“Nobody writes it. The books write themselves. . . But. . .”
“But what? I like but.”
“There are no lists of feuds. . . But there are stories.”
“Stories? How are stories going to help?”
“They're an oral history, handed down through the generations. Any magickal event is ripe for bedtime story material, and that's how the past is taught to little magickians. Same as a parent might read the Hardy Boys or whatever,” Rafe said, as he placed the book back in the shelf, before leading the way down the ladder to the third floor.
“Like the Dybbuk story you told me? That wasn't a great 'bedtime story'. You've got to tell your people assault-demons have no place in bedtime stories.”
“I'll be sure to bring it up at the AGM.”
They took the spiral staircase back down to the ground floor and approached the librarian. Once again, she made them wait a minute whilst she finished the sentence she was reading, and placed the book on the desk.
“What can I do for you?”
“Do you know of any feuds?” Ana asked, hesitantly.
“Feuds?”
“Someone tried to kill me. . .”
“They're trying to wipe out her bloodline,” Rafe added.
The librarian scoffed. “Good luck to them, I say. Your bloodline ain't going nowhere, nor should it.”
“What do you mean? Do you know who my father is? Do you know why his name is missing in the book?”
“Sometimes a name just don't want to be known,” the old woman said, with a smile.
“Cryptic doesn't help us right now.” Rafe sighed.
“Crypic's all I got.”
“What about feuds between bloodlines? We don't know much about Miss Brooks' family, but do you remember anyone hating on them?”
“Brooks' ain't that old a line, far as I know, and I ain't heard no stories of that. . .” The old woman looked away, chewed on her lip, and fixed her eyes on Ana's. “But maybe it ain't so much a feud, as it is a dispute. Matchmaking gone awry.”
“Why would you say that?” Rafe asked.
“Why do we say anything we say?” the old woman said, with a giggle. “Words just like to come out sometimes.”
“You are infuriatingly abstruse!” Ana muttered under her breath, hoping the librarian didn't hear.
“That's a gift that comes with age, girl.”
“Have people been telling you it's a gift? Because they're exaggerating.”
“Please don't be rude to the very powerful old magickian. . .” Rafe whispered.
“She can be as rude as she likes, but don't you dare call me old!” The old woman snapped, with a glint in her eye. Her attention turned solely to Ana. A kindly smile graced her lips. “Your mother was Mary Wallace. Her mother before her was Anita Musgrove. Her mother before her was Lucy Winterbottom.”
“How do you know that?”
“When you're surrounded by books all day, you get to know things. . . All three 'a them were well known in the circles of The Circle, if y'know what I mean.”
“I don't. . .” Ana said, but the old woman did not appear to be listening.
“And when it came time for, uh, mating, as you put it? All manner of eligible bachelors were D.T.F. for all a'them.”
“I've never heard anyone over thirty say 'D.T.F'. . .”
“Oh, I got all the acronyms, girl,” the librarian chuckled with a sly smile. “But a'course your mother and grandmother and great grandmother were holding out for someone special. Didn't want to just be making babies for the sake of it, eh?”
There was a knowing look on the old woman's face, and an ever so swift glance over to Rafe. “They didn't give in to the formality of breeding to keep lines strong. Thought it weren't proper. Believed that babies should be had for love, not preserving the magicks.”
“Damn right,” Ana heard herself say, even though she had never thought herself the most maternal of women.
“But some didn't take too kindly to that.”
“Like who?” Rafe asked.
“Well that's where I can't be too specific.”
“This whole time you've not been specific. . .” Ana said, with a huff. “Even though you know way too much about my family, you're still vague as hell. This whole 'wise woman' thing you have going on? It's not helpful, can't you just be straight with me?!”
“Ain't being mysterious for the sake of it, Miss Brooks, I assure you. Truly don't know who's wishing you ill, let alone who vied for the affection of your maternal line. If I did, I'd be sure to tell you, as a kindness to your lineage if nothing else.”
A pit suddenly dug itself in Ana's gut. Her mouth went dry, and she swallowed hard over a lump in her throat. “You. . . You know who he is. . . My father?”
“Truth for another time,” the librarian she said, picking up the book in front of her.
A whistle picked up from somewhere deep on the other side of the grand hall, a wind that whipped around them, gaining speed, rustling with a cornucopia of autumnal leaves that were caught up in its grasp.
The wind howled, as a rainbow spread of orange and brown whisked past them. And yet they remained unaffected by the wild howl of the gale, as if they were in the eye of a hurricane. The leaves grew in number exponentially, blocking out the light in the library. Darkness consuming them.
In an instant, the leaves fell to the floor.
They were no longer in the library, returned once again to Rafe's living room. They had been evicted, temporarily barred from return for whatever reason the librarian had.
And even though they had more answers about who Ana was, who her family actually were, it felt like they were no closer to working out who was trying to kill her, let alone why. . .
Chapter 42
A little possessed
Rafe didn't have anything close to the words required to make Ana feel better. He decided it was best to just clean up the entire tree's worth of leaves from the living room, whilst she stewed.
Anger was radiating off her in waves. The old woman clearly had answers, but rather than hand them over, she just posed more damn questions. Sitting on the couch wasn't helping her mood, and she rose to her feet, pacing for a few minutes, then tried to distract herself, calm down by looking at the trinkets and curios that Rafe had stacked up on his shelves.
All this, from the death of her grandmother, to the violation in her dreams, to the attack on her mother, was because of who she is, who her grandmother was―Ana couldn't help but notice how “eye of newt” looked very different to what she would have expected―But it wasn't just about her grandmother, it was also
about who her father was. A man she never knew. This was all personal, someone had a vendetta against her because of him―ancient books have stupid names, she decided, and there was a lot less Latin that she would have expected―whoever was letting the Dybbuk out of its box, whoever had turned it into an instrument of vengeance, wasn't going to stop. . . either her mother―her sister, or she was going to be attacked again. Ana picked up a tiny, hairy brown fist, a gnarled stump at the wrist. She wondered if it was a monkey's paw, and then found herself wondering why that was such a familiar thing. Wasn't there a Twilight Zone episode about that?―she couldn't bear the thought of her mother, her sister, getting hurt, and committed herself to stepping in the way. Make herself the target again somehow.
Ana came upon an item that looked like a sock, a small sock, as if it were for a baby. But as she held it in her hands, it seemed as though it was too long to be a sock, and it was leathery, certainly didn't look comfortable. And if it were a sock, why wasn't it in a pair? It looked old, fleshy, like it might be from the inside of an animal.
Rafe passed by her with a black plastic bag full of leaves, and put it in the trash. There was something under her skin, electricity sparking, a stirring, a lust. She grabbed hold of him, knocking the garbage can over in the process, sending leaves across the living room floor.
Ana kissed him, and it felt like something she had been waiting to do her entire life. As her tongue met his, every iota of restraint they had instantly shed, his hands wandering up her top, unhooking her bra. She ripped his shirt open, her hands navigating the scars that stitched his muscular flesh together. Her thumb flicked the button on his fly open at the same time as his hand slid down her waistband, his fingertips teasing her loins.
They needed to be naked, needed to be close and pleasuring each another, as if a volcano of pent-up sexual frustration was erupting between them. They ripped and pulled clothes from the other, throwing them to the ground, rolling back and forth over the crunching leaves. Their bodies so warm, so perfect, as if they were made to be in this tight an embrace. Ana could feel how hard he was, finding herself overcome with the desire to have him inside her.
