Bookburners

by Max Gladstone

  “Isn’t it? Maybe you don’t remember all the times you called me to bail you out. I’ve covered for you since we were kids, and you depend on that.”

  “Sure, when we were kids. But I’m an adult, I’m sharing my mind with a powerful supernatural being, and you still treat me like a kid! When are you going to trust me?”

  “You don’t give me anything to trust! You take off for a year, then start showing up randomly on missions, where you say something cryptic and swan off again. If you want trust, that road has to go both ways.”

  Perry made a sound of exasperation, all pretense of keeping their argument at an ignorable volume long gone. “You want me to be honest with you? All of you? Are you really sure?”

  “Yes, I am, you patronizing asshole!”

  “Fine! Everything Hannah said back in Guatemala—it was all true. You know the story about the world being created in six days? It was a rush job. A community project. God, angels, the demons, whatever you want to call them, we built the world because the higher-ups wanted to know how life worked: blood, cause and effect, time, all that fun, gross squishy stuff. And what better way to do that than create a habitat and let it run around for a few billion years while you took notes?”

  Asanti looked first at Sal, then to Menchú. “Arturo, what is he talking about? Guatemala?”

  He looked uncomfortable—not half as uncomfortable as Sal felt. “Hannah told us this story when we saw her there. We didn’t know what to think.”

  “She was telling the truth,” Perry said. “The whole truth.”

  “You could have said something then!” shouted Sal.

  “I was trying to play by the rules! Just because she went rogue, doesn’t mean I should.”

  Liam half-closed his laptop screen. “You’re saying the whole planet is some kind of terrarium?”

  Perry rolled his eyes. “It’s not just the Earth. That’s your problem—you guys never think big enough! It’s a universarium. A cosmic jar full of dirt and moss. After a couple millennia the creators lost interest and now there’s a crack in the lid and the whole thing is growing mold.”

  The room had gone silent. No one moved. No one breathed.

  Sal swallowed several times before she was able to speak. When she did, her anger was already dying off. “And Hannah has come to scrub out the jar?” she asked.

  Perry shook his head; the heat was leaving him as well. “Hannah doesn’t want to destroy Earth. But our world is leaking into yours faster and faster—your little island of sanity’s sinking—and she believes the only way to save the experiment is to create controlled cracks to relieve the pressure. That’s what the City Eater is for. She wants to just scoop London off the map. The rest of the UK, while she’s at it. She believes that’ll even out the pressure—for a while. Sacrifice some so that the rest may live.”

  “What do you believe?” Sal asked.

  Perry blushed. “I was sent here to observe the experiment by living among humans. I went native. I don’t want to sacrifice anyone.”

  Which was when the alarm went off.

  Not the museum alarm. The noise was too low, too brash and cinematic, and it was coming from Frances’s laptop speakers.

  Liam glanced down at the screen, and when he looked back up, he was even paler than usual. “Hey guys? This thing isn’t starving. It’s getting bigger.”

  4.

  Liam’s announcement forced the room into motion.

  “Frances,” Asanti barked, “what happened?”

  “I … I don’t know. The manifestation must have found another energy source.” She checked the figures that had arrested Liam’s attention, then returned to the machine. “Liam’s right, it isn’t getting smaller.”

  Asanti rose, swaying alarmingly on her feet as soon as she took her first step. Menchú caught her elbow, and a moment later Perry had crossed the room to support her other side.

  Sal had a sudden and horrifying idea what, or rather, who was serving as the City Eater’s new source of energy.

  Perry reached the same conclusion at nearly the same instant. “Asanti’s still connected to the circle. The creature must be drawing off her through it.”

  “Get her unconnected!” Menchú practically shouted.

  “She’s the only thing keeping the circle intact!” Frances rushed into the cluster gathering around Asanti. “If the City Eater has pulled enough energy to form a physical body, the power Asanti is putting into the circle is probably the only thing keeping it from breaking out and into London.”

  “Has it?” Perry asked. “Does it have a physical body in there?”

  “Why don’t you stick your hand inside the circle and find out?” Frances bit back.

  “Everyone be quiet!” Menchú barked. Unbelievably, they all shut up. Sal was impressed. “We need suggestions, not questions. One at a time.”

  While Frances tried to formulate her next argument as a statement and Asanti gathered her thoughts, Liam stepped into the gap. “If Frances and I work together, I think we have enough combined expertise to keep that thing contained in the circle without Asanti’s support, for a little while anyway.”

  “What good does a little while do us?” Frances demanded. While this was technically a question, Menchú let it go. Sal guessed it was because he wanted to know the answer too.

  “First of all, it keeps that thing from draining Asanti dry,” said Liam. “Second, it gives us a few minutes so we can be ready to kill it when it does break free.”

  Grace cracked her knuckles. “Physical manifestation means it’s physically vulnerable.”

  “Does it?” Menchú asked Perry.

  Perry made a vague shrug. “Probably? The City Eater really wasn’t my area.”

  Sal caught Menchú’s eye. “Maybe it’s time for you and me to clear the building. Just in case.”

  She could see him calculating the size of the museum, the number of visitors inside. “It’s going to take a while to get everyone out.”

  Sal couldn’t argue. He was right. But still: “I’d rather get some out than none out.”

  Menchú took in the team—the two teams—the creature, and the rest of the room. Finally, he turned to Liam and Frances. “All right. Keep it contained as long as you can.” To Grace: “If they cannot, do whatever you need to tear it to pieces before it can hurt anyone else.” To Perry: “If you are here to help us, then help. But if you cannot contain the creature, I want you all to save yourselves. Failure here only becomes irrevocable if we do not survive to make our next attempt.”

  Sal moved to the door, and Menchú joined her. He reached for the knob, but Asanti’s voice caught them before they could leave. “Are you going to call in Team One?” she asked.

  There was the briefest pause before Menchú said, “No time.”

  And then he and Sal were out of the room. It went against all of Sal’s instincts to leave her team behind with the monster while she ran to safety. Especially when her team included her brother. Even if she wasn’t sure he was quite her brother anymore. She consoled herself with the thought that it wasn’t as though she would be in any less danger than they were. If they failed, nowhere in Great Britain would be safe.

  • • •

  While the others worked, reinforcing the circle, watching Asanti, calling out readings from either the computer or Frances’s machine, Grace stood by the wall and watched. And waited.

  She was used to it. Her work was characterized by long periods of inactivity punctuated by a few seconds of action that could encompass a lifetime’s excitement, surprise, and terror between one heartbeat and the next. The trouble was, you never knew when those heartbeats would occur. And so, while Grace was inactive, she was not idle.

  She watched her prey. In its current form, the City Eater resembled a blob the size of a Doberman. Every few seconds it would throw off a pseudopod and probe at the edge of its cage. Although … probe implied intent, and as she watched, Grace could see no indication that the thing inside the circle h
ad a definitive goal. Since it had been trapped, it had fed, moved, reacted, but she could see no recognizable signs of … mood. It did not lurk, sulk, or seethe.

  Grace shook her head free of such nonsense. Demons were not humans, and anthropomorphizing their motives and reactions was a tempting but dangerous trap. Grace had learned to trust the evidence before her, not theories. Turning to her other senses, Grace listened.

  She could hear Perry speaking. “Asanti, you have to let it go. You’re going to kill yourself like this.”

  “Are you ready?” Asanti asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Are. You. Ready?”

  A frantic clacking of laptop keys and a soft click from the machine. “Liam?” That was Frances.

  “As ready as we’re going to get.”

  A pause, more clicks and whirs. Asanti groaned. “Okay,” Frances said, “that’s all I can do. Let it go, Asanti.”

  There was nothing to hear, but Grace caught a whiff of sulfur and ozone, and felt a tingle against her skin. But it was only a passing moment, and she couldn’t be sure.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the creature. Frances confirmed what her eyes told her. “It’s holding.”

  She didn’t have to add “for now.”

  Grace consciously relaxed her muscles as she readied herself. Whatever came next, she would be ready.

  • • •

  Menchú let Sal take the lead out of the basement and into the service corridors of the museum. “Do you have a plan?” he asked.

  “If we have to convince everyone in the museum individually that they need to leave, we might manage to get half a dozen civilians out the door before that creature breaks free and we all become demon food.”

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked.

  “All public buildings have evacuation plans. We need to find the person who can trigger this one, and persuade them.”

  Menchú nodded. “That would be my part of the plan, then?”

  “Please.”

  There was an art to appearing as though you belonged somewhere you had no authorization to be. Especially when you were in a tearing hurry. Walking without running, with intent but not panic, Menchú continued down the hall until they came across a woman wearing a blue sweater and a nametag that said Fiona.

  Menchú approached her. “Excuse me,” he said. “I seem to be lost. Could you direct my colleague and me to the office of the chief administrator? We have an appointment.”

  The woman startled, then smiled. “Of course, Father. I’m going that way myself.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  Moments later, she was leading them through the warren of corridors with a businesslike stride.

  It took only half a mind for Menchú to keep up his end of their guide’s innocuous small talk. Had he come far to see the director? Indeed, he had traveled all the way from Rome. Was this to do with the new international cooperative exhibit on early Christian artifacts? Yes, as a matter of fact it was. Wasn’t it a shame how the government was making everything even more complicated than it had been before? Well, naturally, but personal connections could so frequently accomplish what international agreements could not. By the time they were nearing the office of the director, she had practically created his cover story for him. And from what? He had approached her without the name of the person they were supposed to see, without even a proper title. The woman should have seen through him in an instant. Probably would have, if not for one thing.

  The collar around his neck. That was all she had needed to see.

  Menchú had always liked that. No matter where he went in the world, when people saw the collar, he had a connection. Even for people who did not have warm feelings toward the Church, and there were certainly more than a few of them, the collar was a way to engage, and where there was engagement, even the thickest wall might be breached. Connecting was what Menchú was good at. He liked people, and people liked him. But after what Asanti had said to him, he found himself questioning what that connection meant. When he talked to strangers, were they speaking to him, Arturo Menchú, or only to the office he represented? If Asanti, a woman he had known, worked with, and considered his closest friend for more than a decade saw him as a cog in the great Catholic machine first, was there anyone on the planet who knew him as a person?

  After so many years as a priest, was there a person left?

  Fiona left them with the director’s personal assistant and a warm farewell.

  Sal waited for Fiona to vanish out of sight before flashing her badge to the befuddled PA. “We need to see your boss right now.”

  The badge was just as effective as the collar.

  • • •

  The scream of a fire alarm echoed in the boiler room, and Grace held up a hand to shield her eyes from the flashing light above the door.

  Liam barely looked up from his screen. “Looks like Sal and Menchú are making progress on the evacuation.”

  “Can someone shut that off?” Frances demanded.

  Perry waved a hand and the speaker in the room went silent, although Grace could still hear the echo of the alarm from the corridor.

  “Thank you,” said Frances. Then, “No. It’s surging—”

  Before Frances could finish her sentence, it was too late. A low crackle of energy burst against Grace’s skin, burning and intense for an instant before it disappeared as quickly as it had come. The lines Asanti had drawn on the floor vanished with it.

  The City Eater had escaped.

  Grace did not hesitate. She did not hold anything back. She pressed off the wall, and leapt into the air to meet it.

  5.

  Grace leapt at the City Eater. She landed in it. But this was not like being swallowed, as she had been by the hydra. The hydra had been rooted in its physical body. Every caustic and slimy inch of it.

  Neither was it like her encounter with the demon trapped by the Network in Belfast. That had been incorporeal, intangible, but governed by a clear intelligence. That demon had been seductive, with obvious intent directed at her with a specific aim.

  This demon … Grace wasn’t even sure demon was the right word. It consumed her senses. Like being in deep water out of reach of the light, only without the chill or the wet, with no sense of temperature at all. She was smothered by a solid vacuum.

  What had Perry said, that the jar had cracked and the demon world was leaking in? Hannah hadn’t unlocked a cage, she had opened a floodgate.

  For the first time in many years, Grace felt the clench of true fear in her gut. She had just started a fistfight with the ocean.

  • • •

  Liam saw Grace fling herself into the air, collide with the shadow, and disappear. Asanti, Frances, and Perry were shouting at each other. Frances shoved Liam away from the computer.

  “Can you get it contained again?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you get Grace out of there?”

  “None of these readings make any sense. I think it’s still at the edge between having a physical form and not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know! This has never happened before!”

  The City Eater, now a dense ball of shadow, getting darker and denser by the moment, roiled and grew to the size of a small horse. Liam hoped it was agitated because it had eaten something that didn’t agree with it. He turned to Asanti and Perry. “Well?”

  Perry was shaking his head. “It isn’t a creature. It’s … a big gob of magic that got loose.”

  “That’s the technical term, is it?”

  “Not helpful, Liam,” said Asanti.

  Liam ground his teeth. Asanti was one to accuse him of not being helpful, but she wasn’t wrong. The big gob of magic wasn’t contained. It didn’t look like it was going back to being contained anytime soon. He’d deal with that later. Job one, get Grace back.

  He looked around for something he could use. Could he throw her a rope? T
here didn’t seem to be any rope to hand. Plenty of Fairy liquid, though. Liam took a bottle of the dish soap and chucked it in the blob’s direction. It was absorbed with an audible blooph! but no other obvious effect. Liam went back to rummaging through the contents of the room.

  “What are you doing, Liam?” asked Asanti.

  “Something,” he growled, coming up from his search of one of the junk piles with a length of rebar. Liam wasn’t trained in swordplay, but his early life had given him plenty of opportunities to become an expert in how to whack something really hard with a stick. And magic wasn’t supposed to like iron, right? That had a familiar ring to it. Muttering a brief prayer, Liam charged the ball of shadow and swung.

  The bar slowed when it hit the edge of the City Eater, but passed through. Liam swung again, harder. It was like batting practice with a cloud. One more time. He leaned forward, putting all of his power into the swing, and extending so far that his hands disappeared to the wrists inside the City Eater.

  The iron bar hit something, and stuck fast.

  Liam braced himself and leaned back, not sure what he had on the end of his line. He didn’t care. Either it would be Grace, or it would be something he could kick to death once it was in range of his boots. But as he strained to pull it back, the rebar didn’t budge. Liam felt his grip slipping and fought the pain roaring up his arms to tighten his fingers. A second pair of hands grabbed the bar behind his. Perry, pulling too. He felt Asanti’s arms lock around his waist, bracing him. Behind Perry, Frances was doing the same. Together, the four of them gave one mighty pull.

  Grace tumbled out onto the ground, the other end of the bar still clasped in her hands. They all went down in a heap beside her.

  Grace coughed once, then took a great and shuddering breath.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “No problem. You okay?”

  “Better than I was a second ago.”

  Liam nearly laughed with relief, but the sound died in his throat when he heard a low growl on the other side of the room.

  The City Eater had settled on a form.

  The form of a tiger.

  A very angry tiger, crouched to spring.