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

by Schwartz, David J.

  “He is,” said Yves. “Beyond that, I don’t know what to think. We’ve been compromised in a way I never thought possible…” He shook his head and stepped aside. “Perhaps you can get some answers.” He spoke quietly, and nodded toward the back of the room. “The others are down there.”

  Ken Song was sitting on a leather couch, with Simone beside him. Cyril Lanfair was pacing in front of a wooden chair next to the couch.

  Tied to the chair, looking deflated, was Bebe Stapleford.

  “Cyril found her trying to strangle Ken with a belt,” said Yves.

  The way Cyril Lanfair was pacing in front of Bebe was almost protective, but Joy noticed that he wasn’t looking at Bebe even when he turned. “I walked in from downstairs and I found them. She was…she didn’t put up much of a fight. I just pulled her off of him. Ken barely seemed to realize it was happening.”

  “We thought it would be better if she were restrained,” said Yves.

  Bebe glared at Joy as she approached. A tiny, spiteful part of Joy felt vindicated by the scene; it had been clear from the outset that Bebe had not cared for Joy. Mostly, though, Joy was tired.

  “Ken?” Joy said. “You’re OK?”

  Ken nodded.

  “It hurts for him to speak,” said Simone. “I’m taking him to the hospital once we get some answers.”

  Cyril was still pacing. “This. Makes. No. Sense,” he said.

  Joy put a hand on his shoulder, and he stopped walking. “Do you mind if I ask Bebe a few questions, Cyril?”

  He shook his head, walked to the nearest bookshelf, and slumped against it.

  Joy pulled out another chair and sat in front of Bebe. “Are you working for order, Bebe?”

  Bebe stared at the floor, her mouth set in a line, but Joy could tell that she had heard the question.

  “Are you working for the Heartstoppers?”

  Bebe scoffed, but didn’t answer.

  “That sounds like a no,” said Joy. “But the manifestation sent you into a panic. Why?”

  Bebe shook her head. “It wasn’t that,” she said softly.

  “What was it?”

  “That manuscript you brought in,” said Bebe. “That girl…I knew Carla. She…she came to me. Somehow she had dug up a book, a biography, of another Crowley. From a negative dimension.”

  “Negative dimension?”

  “We distinguish between the dimensions we know of by negative and positive numbers,” said Simone. “Positive dimensions are in the direction of order and its environs. Negative dimensions are as yet untouched by the greater force of order.”

  “So Carla had a biography from a dimension order hasn’t reached yet,” said Joy. “One in which Aleister Crowley never went to work for the United States. He never weaponized demons, and he never founded the FBMA.”

  Bebe looked up at Joy. “You read the manuscript,” she said.

  “Yes. I can read. I assume you looked at it as well.”

  “Of course. She came to me about a year ago, as the semester was starting. I had taught a seminar the spring before, and we had met on campus. Somehow she had found out about the Thirteenth Rib. She wanted our help.”

  “And instead, you turned her over to order,” said Joy.

  Bebe nodded.

  “Where did they take her?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t tell me things like that.”

  “How long, Bebe?” Cyril Lanfair crouched down to shout his questions in her face. “How long have you been working for them? Lying to us?” He was crying; Joy didn’t intercede. Bebe’s own eyes pooled with unshed tears.

  “After…” Bebe’s voice cracked, but when Joy offered to have some water brought, she refused it. “A few months after Hilda died, I heard her voice. I was calling someone on my crystal, I don’t even remember who, and Hilda answered. I almost…she wasn’t looking for me; she didn’t know me. But hearing her made me realize how much I missed her. So I tried something stupid. I tried to summon her spirit, just to talk to, and maybe convince her to…I don’t know.” Bebe laughed, a brief, jarring sound. “To haunt us, I suppose, but in a benevolent way. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Hilda was…well, you all know. Most of you do, anyway.”

  “You shouldn’t even be saying her name,” said Cyril.

  “Let her talk,” said Joy.

  “It wasn’t Hilda that came through. It was…it was another me!” Bebe smiled as she said this, and there were tears in her eyes. She looked as though she were seeing a glimpse of paradise. “A version of me from one of the positive dimensions. Positive Seven. She was dead, of course, but she’d had such a good life. She’d had a family, she—”

  “Damn you, Bebe,” said Cyril.

  “Don’t you get it?” Bebe shouted at him. “It wouldn’t have mattered what we did. This world we live in is just built for us to fail. We were born to be miserable! It doesn’t matter what we felt.

  “You read that manuscript,” she said to Joy. “A hundred years, they’ve been laying groundwork for this. They’re organized, they’re smart, and there are millions of them. Even if we were on the right side, we’d never win.”

  She was crying so hard that snot ran out of her nose. She hiccuped. “Does someone have a tissue?” Joy asked. Simone, finally, reached over to wipe Bebe’s face with a handkerchief.

  “So I guess our secret society is not very secret at all,” said Yves.

  “They don’t even care about us,” said Bebe. “The only one they’re concerned about is Ken. And maybe him,” she said, glancing up at Lutrineas.

  “If you’ll forgive me the hypothetical, Ken, what can they do if you die?” Joy asked.

  “Just about anything they want,” said Simone. “Ken basically keeps the door shut. When they attack, they can sometimes slip one or two of their people across while Ken is distracted. If he was out of the way, they could start rolling tanks through.”

  “OK,” said Joy. “So what if we distract them?”

  Her crystal chimed. They were all staring at her. She stood and crossed to the other side of the library.

  “Joy Wilkins,” she said.

  “Where are you, Wilkins?” It was Flood. “Your demon exploded, and Ingwiersen has disappeared, but we’ve got a Heartstopper setup down here on the riverfront. It looks like your informant was involved.”

  “My informant?”

  “The security magic professor. He went off a roof with another suspect. Where are you?”

  “I was delayed,” Joy said. “There was an assault. People went a little out of their minds when the demon appeared. Is Hector OK?”

  “He’s alive,” said Flood. “Leave the assault to the local cops. I want you to head over to Ingwiersen’s house and see if she portalled past us somehow. Agent Brooks will be your backup.”

  “Yes, sir.” Joy hung up.

  “What should we do with her?” Simone called from across the room.

  “I could arrest her, if you like,” said Joy. “But that will lead to a lot of questions. Speaking of which, I have one more for you, Bebe: did you know Ingwiersen was planning this? Was she working with you?”

  “No,” said Bebe. “She was always too much of a wild card. Ask them,” she said, nodding toward the rest of the group. “We never knew where she stood, really.”

  “That is true,” said Yves.

  “All right,” said Joy. “You’d better get Ken looked at. Let me know when you decide what to do with her.”

  Cyril had his face turned to the wall; Bebe wouldn’t even glance in his direction. Simone and Ken were holding hands and looking down at them. Only Yves made eye contact with Joy as she left.

  “Do send Abel up,” he said softly. “We have some decisions to make.”

  ***

  Hector never lost consciousness. He wanted to, because the pain was like a thousand hammers pounding on his right side. He knew bones were broken; he was probably bleeding internally. Blood trickled into his eyes. He tried to wipe it away, but he couldn’t feel
his right arm, and his left arm wouldn’t move the way he wanted it to. His hand just circled his head, like a self-administered blessing.

  He was pretty sure Chuck was dead. He had landed on Chuck, which was probably why he was alive, though broken. Chuck lay on the asphalt with his back to Hector. Hector thought this was probably a good thing; he probably didn’t want to see Chuck’s face, for more than one reason. Even so, he tried to call out to Chuck, but he couldn’t even hear himself. That was when he realized that one of his lungs had collapsed.

  He went away then, but he still didn’t lose consciousness. He was flying with the crows, looking down at the campus, out at the river. The massive owl-demon was still there. It could have swallowed him, crow and man, in a breath. Instead it wavered like an elusive TV signal, yelled…and crumpled into nothing.

  When he came back, Zelda was next to him, crying and telling him he was going to be OK. She wiped some of the blood away from his eyes, but he still couldn’t see her and he couldn’t speak. He moved his arm some, and she told him to be still.

  The paramedics arrived soon after that. Hector thought to himself that he should start measuring time in units of pain, somehow. Breathing was painful; he could count the breaths. But he lost count when they moved him to the stretcher, and again when they cut off his clothes, and again when they portalled to the hospital. Zelda was with them but they told her to wait outside. Hector grunted and tried to speak, but there was a tube in his mouth and no one heard him.

  He went away again. The crows were wheeling away from the campus in a flock, descending on the riverfront, seeking out chunks of what was left of the owl-demon. He looped through the air with them, swooped down to the banks, squawking and tussling over the meat they found. The meat was lean and gamey. It glistened with blood and magic.

  He woke up on an operating table. They were still working on him, poking, cutting, talking behind their paper masks. The pain was gone, but he felt dull, like a stone ax some Paleolithic ancestor had given up for useless and tossed away. Why didn’t I just fly off the roof? The thought made perfect sense in the moment. No one had wings only part of the time. That wasn’t how the world worked. He tried to roll over so he could stretch out his wings, but he could only move far enough for it to hurt, and to make himself go away again.

  The crows tore stringy chunks out of the owl meat and left the rest. Hector was almost worried, but he supposed that it wasn’t the first time in the history of the world that crows had eaten the corpse of a demon. They screeched at each other and took off again, their never-full bellies still panging them. They wheeled up through the rose and black of the sun setting far to the west, chasing and looping back up to their home on the bluff.

  ***

  Agent Brooks—Piper—met Joy outside the McMonigal Arms in Joy’s own car.

  “Once this is over, I’d like to talk to you about my insurance,” Abel Bouchard said to Joy, glaring at her car as if he would like to smash its back end. Then he snatched his keys from her and went inside.

  Piper was still in the driver’s seat. She wore a different hoodie over a different tank top and leggings.

  Joy leaned in the passenger-side window. “I thought you were probably too young to drive,” she said.

  “Funny,” said Piper. “I thought you were probably the one person in the agency who didn’t judge by appearances.”

  Joy had been about to insist upon driving to Ingrid Ingwiersen’s house on the south side of town, but Piper’s comment stopped her. She climbed in and put on her seat belt as Piper turned on the headlights and pulled away from the curb.

  “I, uh. You’re right,” she said. “Flood told me you’ve foiled two attempts on my life already.”

  “Three,” said Piper. “There was a limo full of guys down by the river, just now. More clones. Like the guy on the train, you remember?”

  “I remember,” said Joy. “You were down there too?”

  “Protecting you is my job,” said Piper. “And you don’t make it easy, let me tell you. Not that I don’t appreciate the workout and everything.”

  “But how did—did you follow me down there on foot?”

  “Let me guess. I don’t look that fast?”

  Joy stared at the girl. Young woman, she corrected herself. Piper was right, she wasn’t being fair to her. The back of Piper’s neck and her hairline shone with sweat.

  “Did any of them hurt you?”

  Piper made a face.

  “No, listen,” said Joy. “This isn’t me doubting your abilities, this is me showing concern. I fought one of those guys in the desert.”

  “I know,” Piper said. “No offense, but you got lucky. I do this for a living. Six guys who are a little too impressed with themselves aren’t much of a challenge when you know what you’re doing.” Piper took a left onto Virginia Avenue, part of an upscale subdivision at the southeast corner of town. “So I appreciate the concern, but they weren’t much trouble.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “I punctured the tires, left them on the side of the road, and went after you. My priority is keeping you safe. I called Flood, but he was busy at the time.”

  “Maybe we should have had you take on Stolas,” said Joy.

  “I never fought an owl before.” Piper sounded thoughtful. “Leverage would have been a challenge. Might have been interesting.” She pulled up outside a very conventional-looking ranch-style house. “This is the address.”

  It wasn’t until Joy got out of the car that she realized she wasn’t wearing her gun. “Dammit. You weren’t exaggerating just now about how badass you are, were you?”

  “I was not,” said Piper.

  “Good, because sometimes being undercover means that your bureau-issued firearm is in a locked drawer at home instead of in a holster under your blazer.”

  Piper nodded. Her aura showed complete confidence. “I’ll go first.”

  Joy rang the doorbell and knocked on the front door. “Federal agents,” she called out. She waited a few seconds, not expecting a response, and then tried the door handle. “It’s open,” she said.

  “Could be booby-trapped,” said Piper. “Let me do it.”

  Joy stood back, feeling foolish, while Piper crouched beside the door and flung it open. Nothing exploded. The door opened onto a foyer tiled in a reddish-brick color, with an uncarpeted staircase to one side. Piper went in first.

  “Federal agents,” Joy called again as she stepped inside. She readied a simple wind spell, just in case.

  “Hello?” The voice was faint.

  “Do you need assistance?” Joy motioned toward the hallway, and the kitchen beyond, then followed Piper in that direction.

  “Yes,” came the voice again. It didn’t sound fearful, just tired.

  There was a door to the basement in the kitchen. Joy and Piper stood to either side of it, and Piper pulled it open. Joy peeked around the doorframe…and saw a pale woman about halfway down the stairs, wearing a robe and clinging to the railing. Her aura was silver, pulsing bright yellow: a nurturing person, currently very much afraid.

  “The note said to call an ambulance,” said the woman. “I think…she may have underestimated how hard it would be for me to get to a phone.”

  “Call them,” Joy said to Piper. She hurried down the stairs to the woman’s side and helped her climb the rest of the way. “You must be Selma,” said Joy.

  “Have I really been dead?”

  “I can’t answer that question,” said Joy. “You were presumed dead. The truth seems to be a bit more complicated.”

  She helped Selma into a seat at the kitchen table. There was a note on the counter that read:

  BANANA SMOOTHIES IN THE FRIDGE

  PUT THE CUP ON THE BLENDER AND HIT PURÉE FOR A FEW SECONDS

  Joy followed the instructions. There was no reason to believe that Ingrid would have gone to all the trouble of bringing her sister back to life only to poison her once she was mobile. She found clean glasses above
the sink and filled one for Selma.

  “Paramedics on the way,” said Piper, coming in from the dining room.

  “Thanks.” Joy sat down and waited for Selma to drink a bit of the smoothie. The recently dead woman was looking out the window at Ingrid’s backyard, unkempt but green in the twilight.

  “It’s spring,” she said.

  “Actually, it’s nearly fall,” said Joy. “It’s September 13th.”

  Selma said something emphatic in what Joy could only assume was Danish. “How long?” Selma asked.

  “Well, it must be nearly six months, if you were caught in the Minneapolis Heartstopper.”

  Selma shook her head and smiled. “I don’t even know what that is,” she said. “Can you tell me where my sister is?”

  “I was about to ask you that question,” said Joy. “Did she leave any more notes or anything?”

  “Yes. Downstairs. No, wait.” Selma reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is the only one that really has any information. I don’t know what to think of it. Maybe you can tell me.”

  Joy read the note quickly, then folded it back up. “I think we’ll want to hold on to this, if you don’t mind. You can probably get it back after the investigation.”

  “And just what are you investigating? My miraculous resurrection?”

  Joy considered for a moment before realizing that she was free to tell someone the truth, more or less, for the first time in a while. “We believe that your sister forced a major demon to manifest in the middle of the St. Croix River—the same demon which we believe was animated by the attack in which you were apparently killed. What happened after that isn’t clear, except that the demon is now gone, and your sister is missing.”

  Joy gave Selma a moment to consider this. Sirens faded in, came close, went silent. Joy exchanged a look with Piper, and the bodyguard went outside to meet the paramedics.

  “The note said it might take her a while to get home,” said Selma. “It didn’t say she wouldn’t come home.”

  “True.” To Joy, it had read very much like a suicide note, but Selma needed hope right now as much as anything.