Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial)

by Schwartz, David J.

  “No potions for owl-demons on the stove downstairs?” Ken said finally.

  Cyril just pursed his lips at him.

  “Come on, Cyril. Don’t tell me you’ve never lain in bed agonizing over the idea that one of your babies might be carried off by a great horned owl. I know you’re the one who was sabotaging Simone’s bird feeders out back.”

  “The squirrels were the only things eating out of them,” Cyril said.

  “Oh, my goodness, that’s practically a confession!”

  “Quit badgering him, Ken,” said Bebe. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “No, I’m just supposed to sit here and wait until I’m attacked again, and my heart stops, and the town’s defenses fail completely, and an army of orderly Cyril clones marches across and tattoos serial numbers on all of us.”

  Abel’s amulet hovered and locked into place above a spot near the river. “Ken,” Abel said, “shut up.” He grasped his crystal and said, “Joy Wilkins…Joy, this is Abel. I have something for you. Ingrid’s on the point, just across the harbor from the Mandrake. There are some rentals out there.” He gave her an address and paused. “Yes, one moment. Bebe, do you have anything for Agent Wilkins?”

  “Not yet,” said Bebe. “The sooner there is anything resembling quiet in this place, the sooner I can help.”

  “We’ll call you back,” said Abel, and let go of the crystal. “I’ll never understand why no one in this group is capable of just saying yes or no,” he said to the room at large.

  “You know what I can’t understand?” Ken said. “You lent that girl your truck like it was nothing. Your baby-blue classic that you won’t even give any of us a ride in. Just like that. Do you have a crush on our Agent Wilkins, Abel?”

  “Ken, I know you’re worried, but maybe you could do something useful instead of needling everyone.”

  Trust Abel to see right through him. “Apparently my usefulness is limited at the moment,” Ken said.

  “I’m going to go see what the news is saying about this,” said Cyril. “Does anyone need anything?”

  “Yes or no,” said Ken, and was pleased with Cyril when he ignored him and left. He felt so pleased that he resolved to do something.

  “I don’t like this plan,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for them to attack me. I’m going to go on the offensive.”

  “So long as you’re sticking to your strengths,” Bebe said.

  “We really do need some new blood in this group,” said Ken. “Even the jokes are old.”

  He walked to the other wing of the library. The entire place was a shared space, in theory, but Ken spent less time here than the members who lived in the Arms, and he felt slightly less at home. Philip had staked out the globe table as his home, mapping the other Earths he had visited searching for the enemy. Simone liked to work near the door, because Simone was Simone and liked to keep track of people, to make sure they were happy and fed. Abel and Bebe and Yves could work for hours at the main table in a companionable silence.

  Cyril had never seemed comfortable in the library. It was too cluttered and crowded, and cats had never been allowed. After what had happened at the school, Ken thought that decision even more sensible. He himself, when he couldn’t avoid it, read and worked in the leather chairs at the back of the south side of the space. The truth was he often napped there until Philip was ready to leave.

  Now he settled onto the leather ottoman, slipping off his shoes and tucking his legs underneath him to sit cross-legged. He slowed his breathing, pushed Philip and Lutrineas and Cyril and Prince Stolas out of his mind.

  Gather.

  Once engaged, a magical duel never ended unless one opponent disengaged. The funiculus was just a thought away, a slender connection between Ken and the still-nameless, still-faceless opponent at the other end. Ken shut his eyes and visualized himself traveling along that thread.

  Focus.

  Attacks in a long-distance duel—in any duel other than a show duel—were always sudden, because it was so difficult to sneak up on an opponent to whom you were always connected. You couldn’t simply spy. You had to distract first, and the best way to do that was with pain.

  Execute.

  Ken was no sadist, but there was satisfaction in striking back at someone who had caused you pain. He preferred to go after the hands. The boy he had lived with in New Orleans had been a medical student, a surgical intern; he had pointed out to Ken that the hands had an enormous amount of nerves in a relatively small area. But to really hurt someone that way you needed to have a pretty good idea of where those nerves were, so Ken had borrowed the surgical intern’s textbooks. Out on the circuit, they considered this tactic less than sporting, but Ken had another word for it: effective.

  He could feel the agony in his opponent. They had been grasping something, and now they couldn’t let go of it. They were distracted enough that Ken was able to get a mental picture through the agony: an office, much like Philip’s office, but the yellow-and-blue color scheme was reversed. It might actually be Philip’s office.

  Ken tried to go for his opponent’s neck, to goad them into turning their head so he could see more of the room, or possibly the view out the window. But something was impeding his focus; a discomfort, a distant pain. Ken’s eyes shot open, and he reached for the cloth that was wound tightly around his neck.

  Someone was trying to strangle him.

  ***

  Joy called Flood directly on her crystal three times before he picked up. “Wilkins, I am in a meeting. This—”

  “We’ve got a physical manifestation of a major demon in the middle of the St. Croix River here, sir. I thought you’d like to be informed.”

  “What the—which one?”

  “Prince Stolas. Sir, Stolas’s demonic number is one-four-niner, which happens to be—”

  “The number of people killed in the Minneapolis Heartstopper. I know those files as well as you do, Wilkins. Why is it there?”

  “Sir, someone left some crucial information out of Ingrid Ingwiersen’s file. Her sister is recently deceased, yes, but it’s not that simple. She was a victim of the Minneapolis Heartstopper.”

  “Oh, for the—so this is revenge? That’s what you’re thinking?”

  “I’m thinking Ingwiersen is the person doing the summoning, yes. I may have an address for her current location.” Joy repeated the address Abel had given her as she came to a stop at the Stagecoach Trail intersection. Abel Bouchard’s truck smelled like rubber and chocolate; Joy half expected that the glove compartment would turn out to be filled with bicycle tires and Lindor truffles.

  “Locate Ingwiersen but don’t engage, not yet. I’m sending in two conjure-and-capture teams, and I’ll be there myself in a few minutes. We’ll have to evacuate.”

  “If there’s time,” said Joy. “Sir, this is big. You have to notify GUMP.”

  “I know my job, Agent. You do yours.” Flood disconnected. Joy swallowed her irritation and turned left around the campus. The river, and the colossal bird wading in it, were hidden from view behind the ridge. Traffic was racing past, but Joy had no idea whether they were aware of what was happening or not.

  “What is GUMP?” Lutrineas asked.

  “Global Union of Magical Police,” Joy said. “Some things are too big for one jurisdiction. They’re a combination of oversight, enforcement, and containment, basically.”

  “Sounds very orderly,” said Lutrineas. “I thought you were concerned about having all these people underfoot, and yet here you are notifying them.”

  “If I didn’t, they would find out anyway, and no one would trust me,” said Joy. “I’m not exactly sure who I’m working for right now, so I still have to keep everybody happy.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “Oh God,” she said. “I liked you better when you were pretending to be Philip. Actually, you should probably change back.”

  Lutrineas’s long hair shimmered and fell away to return to Philip Fi
tzgerald’s thinning mop. A deep growl rattled the cab; in its wake, alarms went off all over the town. Prince Stolas was unhappy about something.

  “Do you have a plan?” Lutrineas asked.

  “I’m hoping Bebe will come up with a plan,” Joy said. “What about you? Any experience with demons?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “But you’re a god, right? Demons and gods must be related in some way.”

  “I…I think I’m insulted,” said Lutrineas-Philip. “Demons are like squatters from the lower planes. Gods are the lords of creations. We created creation.”

  “What did you ever create?”

  “I thought you read a book about me!”

  “I mostly skimmed it.” Joy was wishing that Abel’s truck had a siren on it; if there was ever a time she needed to run a red light, this was it.

  “I created an alphabet! I taught mankind how to fish and cultivate wild rice!”

  “That’s great,” said Joy. “Can you teach me to hunt giant owl?”

  “I don’t understand why you are all assuming that Ingwiersen can’t handle this. Doesn’t she have all kinds of military experience with demons?”

  “I don’t think Ingwiersen is thinking straight,” Joy said. “What she’s doing is illegal in so many ways that I’m sure she thought she had to do it alone. She may think she can handle it, but I think she could use some backup.”

  “If my sister died, I’d have a party.” Lutrineas shrugged at the look that Joy gave him. “I would. I’d be shocked, of course. Gods are hard to kill. I’d even be ever so slightly sad. But she’s really kind of a horrible person.”

  “A control freak?”

  “You humans,” Lutrineas said as the light changed. “You really do have a gift for understatement.”

  ***

  Hector led Zelda out the front door of his building and across the street toward the riverfront. There was a steady stream of people running in the opposite direction. It occurred to him that he was, in this case, one of those people who ran toward danger instead of away from it. The realization didn’t make him feel brave so much as stupid.

  He ran down the alley between buildings to the back of the Mandrake. “Before I decided to go with the home cooking option, I was considering taking you here for our date,” he told Zelda. He knocked on the back door to the restaurant. Chuck had hired him to do security for the place, and he often came by to chat and check on the wards. Hector liked contracting for restaurants—he got a lot of free meals that way.

  “You can tell me whether or not I made the right choice,” he said, to fill the silence. Zelda raised an eyebrow at him. Even with her mouth in a line and her hair matted down on one side, Hector thought she looked amazing. I have really got it bad, he thought.

  One of the cooks opened the door. “Oh, hey,” he said, recognizing Hector. “What’s up?”

  “Is Chuck around?”

  The cook opened the door wider and spotted Zelda. “Hey,” he said again.

  “Mind if we come in? I need to talk to Chuck,” said Hector.

  “We’re not really open or whatever,” said the cook.

  Hector stared. He wasn’t trying to intimidate the man, he just had no idea what to say; he suspected that the man was high.

  The cook shrugged. “Whatever.” He stood aside to let them in.

  A few of the kitchen staff were standing around the prep tables, calmly talking. To the left, Chuck’s office was wide open but unoccupied.

  “He went up front maybe ten minutes ago,” said the cook. “If you see him, maybe ask him if we’re still open or whatever.”

  “You’re closed,” said Hector. “You should start leading everyone out the back and up towards the campus. Didn’t anyone tell you that there was a giant owl-demon out on the river?”

  “Yeah, but, you know. We weren’t really sure if it was a big deal or whatever.”

  “It’s a big deal,” said Zelda.

  “Oh, OK. But I don’t think we should do that unless Chuck says it’s OK.”

  “Chuck can blame me,” said Hector. “Just do it.” He led Zelda through to the service area beyond the door. Margaret May was standing there, talking to a black man wearing a yellow denim jacket. He looked vaguely familiar. When they saw Hector and Zelda coming, the man patted Margaret on the arm and went back into the restaurant.

  “Professor? What are you doing here? I mean, Professors.” Margaret picked up a pair of menus. “You should probably have come to the front door. Except not now. There’s something really bad happening out on the river.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Margaret. Is Chuck around? I need to get up on the roof.”

  “Chuck went up on the roof already. He locked the door. We’re not really sure if we should stay open. You know about the giant owl? Is it safe?”

  “Does it look safe?” Zelda asked.

  “What Zel—what professor Akbulut means is you should get the customers out of here. Lead them out through the kitchen and get them to higher ground. Lead them up to the campus.”

  “All right.”

  “Wait…on second thought, Margaret, you stay here.” Hector was remembering how effective Margaret’s antivermin ward had been. “I could use your help, if you don’t mind. It’s…I can’t promise that it won’t be dangerous,” Hector said. “I could…do you think it’s unethical of me to offer her extra credit?” he asked Zelda.

  “Yes,” she said. “Margaret, Professor Ay is going to put some emergency defenses around the town, and he’s wondering if you will help him. It’s a bad idea and I recommend you say no.”

  “It’s a simple inertial ward,” Hector said. “You’ll be learning about them in a couple of weeks. We’ll do it on the roof so we can visualize it better, but the demon is enclosed in a summoning circle. If that breaks, we’ll leave immediately.”

  “You’re a student,” Zelda said. “This is not your responsibility. It’s not Professor Ay’s responsibility either, but he’s got an inflated sense of his own importance and he’s trying to impress me.”

  “Ouch,” said Hector. “What do you say, Margaret?”

  “Um.” Margaret looked back and forth between the two of them. “OK?”

  “Good,” said Hector. “Chuck is already up there?”

  “Yeah.” Margaret led them down the hall, past the restrooms, to a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Chuck had talked a lot at first about opening the rooftop for dining, but the expense of cleaning it up and reinforcing it to code seemed to have quashed that idea for the moment. It was also a bit of a climb; two stories up a narrow staircase with a locked door at the top.

  Hector squeezed past Margaret May and hammered on the door. “Chuck? It’s Hector, Chuck. What’s going on? Can you open the door, please?”

  If there was a response, it might have been drowned out by a scream from Prince Stolas that shook the entire building.

  “Chuck?” Hector turned. “Does anyone else have keys?”

  “Um. I do,” said Margaret May. “The lead waitress gave them to me, and I sort of forgot to give them back. But I’m not sure we should—”

  “I agree with Margaret,” said Zelda. “We shouldn’t. You’re not Orville Shantz, Agent of GUMP. This isn’t a comic book. We could all get killed.”

  “Your objections are noted,” said Hector, and he took the keys from Margaret. His ears burned as he fumbled to find the right one. Zelda was certainly keeping her word and not being helpful, but some of her commentary was beginning to grate. He didn’t think he was Orville Shantz—although he did enjoy the films. They were totally unrealistic, of course, but that was Hollywood.

  “There.” He turned the key and pushed the door open.

  Hector had known Chuck for about three years, since before he had left the college and opened the Mandrake. He had worked with him on the Mandrake’s security and drunk beer with him a hundred times or more. Chuck worked in culinary magic, of course, but Hector had never known him to be involve
d in any other sort of magic.

  Until now.

  A casting circle of salt and charcoal was laid out on the roof, with incense-filled braziers smoking at five points. Iron demon canisters lined the inside of the circle, vibrating with suppressed energy. In the center of the circle sat a cauldron—a vat, really—into which Chuck was pouring something pink and white out of a plastic bag. Whatever the mixture was, its odor was horrifying.

  “Is that…is he cooking something?” Margaret asked.

  “That’s fat,” said Zelda. “That’s human fat. This is dark magic.”

  “Don’t! Don’t come any closer!” Chuck dropped the bag, clumps of congealed flesh still clinging to its inside. “This isn’t—I can’t—I have to do this!”

  “Jesus, Chuck.” Hector stepped forward, gathering energy as he moved. “What the hell are you involved in?”

  “This is a recipe for some kind of massive attack spell,” said Zelda. “There are numbers written in the casting circle, see?”

  “Oh my God,” said Margaret May. “Oh my God.”

  “You don’t understand.” Chuck stood for a moment with his hands outspread. He smiled at Hector. “I like you, Hector. You always helped me out.”

  “Chuck, just leave this, and come talk to me.”

  “I think…I think this is a Heartstopper,” said Zelda. “He was getting ready to set off a Heartstopper.”

  Chuck lowered his hands and ran for the front of the building.

  Hector chased him.

  “Hector, no!” Zelda shouted. “He’s going to jump!”