by Anton Strout
Connor checked his watch.
“On second thought,” he said. “Maybe you just better meet me here at three a.m.”
“You sure it’s wise to be here that late at night?” I shouted back down the hill. “You’re wary of the park in daylight hours.”
“Kid, the idea of being here at night terrifies me,” he said, looking around, “but I’m sick of playing catch-up on this case. If we go back to the docks now, we’d simply be wasting time. We need to catch this ghost if we’re going to get some answers. We’ve got a job to do, and even though I’m not happy about being out here at three a.m., at least I can take comfort that I won’t be alone in my misery.”
Connor smiled and turned back to the spire just in time to miss me flipping him off, which, all in all, was probably a good thing. I didn’t need to give him any excuses when we met up later tonight to push me into the path of any creepy crawlies or boogeymen we might run into.
14
By the time I got back to the office, I was thankful that my pants had finally dried from their dip in the reservoir to retrieve my bat. As I walked through the coffee shop, I noticed that Godfrey Candella was scribbling furiously in one of his notebooks. He barely looked up.
I pushed my way through the theater curtain and headed down the aisle toward the offices. Nosferatu played on-screen, and an army of young gothsicles was crowding the theater for it. I continued on, swiping through the office door and then shutting it against the stench of clove cigarettes coming from the theater.
The main office area was pretty busy this time of day, and I couldn’t find signs of Jane anywhere. I stopped by my desk, hoping to remember where I had scrawled her phone number at some point. Since I only had it programmed onto the SIM card of my now-melted phone, I didn’t know it off the top of my head. Who the hell memorizes phone numbers these days anyway?
After several minutes of looking, I shifted a growing pile of my casework into my in-box, and found the number scrawled on the corner of my desk blotter. I also noticed that someone had already printed out black-and-white copies of the obelisk photos Connor had taken and left them on his desk.
I sat down and flipped through the photos while dialing Jane’s cell phone number from the phone at my desk. It felt strange to be using a regular phone, and I wondered if I had ever actually used it before at all.
“Tome, Sweet Tome,” I heard Jane say when she finally answered. “Everything from abracadabra to zoology for the cryptozoologist. How may I help you?”
“Jane,” I said. “It’s me.” I checked the number on the caller ID. I hadn’t dialed the bookstore, had I? “I’m sorry … Did I call the store by mistake?”
“Shoot,” she said. “No, you got my cell. I’m back in the Stacks, and I forgot what line I was answering. I’m a bit distracted right now. Sorry.”
The sounds of her shifting books around came over the line.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just happy to hear your voice.”
“Oh,” Jane exclaimed. “Did you get your new phone from Supply yet?”
“No. I’m at my desk. I was hoping to get a little investigative work done, hoping you were here.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“We’ve established that.”
“Right … duh!”
She was back to her normal self, not a trace of the ol’ darkness. There was something so cute about the way she sounded that all of the paranoia that Mina had planted in me last night started melting away.
“I could probably swing by the store,” I said. “I have to log some time back in the Black Stacks anyway. We came across this Egyptian monolith thing in Central Park when Connor and I were called in to check out a dead jogger at the base of it. I have to head back out to the park at some ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow, but I need to check the Stacks in the meantime to see if there’s anything listed about Cleopatra’s Needle in them.”
In the background, I heard a male voice, and the cadence of it seemed distinctly like Director Wesker. His words gave way to laughter and Jane started laughing as well.
“Thaddeus, shh!” she said on the line. “I’m sorry, Simon. What were you saying?”
Last night’s paranoia quickly seeped back into my heart. I cleared my throat.
“The Stacks,” I repeated. “I need to use them.”
“Oh,” she said. Jane sounded distracted. I tried to imagine what she could possibly be doing there that was so damned important. Maybe she’s doing Wesker, Mina chirped up in my head. I tried to shake that image loose, but couldn’t.
“I’ll be there soon,” I said, and hung up.
Was I crazy and just simply the victim of an overactive imagination? Or was I right on the mark about there being something going on between the two of them? I grabbed my shoulder bag and stuffed the printouts of the photos into it. I headed back toward the exit, trying not to break into a full sprint across the office as I did so. The entire office didn’t need to get caught up in my private life. As it stood, there was ample material for them to ridicule me about.
In the cab heading uptown to Tome, Sweet Tome, I reminded myself to give Mina a swift kick in the ass later for causing all this doubt in me with her evil, twisted whispers last night. Not to mention the fact that because of her, I might be committing a felony tomorrow night, and that was weighing heavily on my shoulders.
The cab pulled up to the curb. After I paid the driver, I hurried toward the bookstore and swung open the front door, but no one was up by the registers. Of course not. Why would there be? Why would either of them hang out up there when they could be all alone hidden away at the back of the store? I wandered through the towering piles of books, careful not to knock any of them over, although lashing out at something felt like a pretty good idea right about now.
I entered the gated Black Stacks and was relieved to find Jane seated alone cross-legged in the middle of one of the aisles. She made notes on a PDA, but she wasn’t actually using a stylus to enter information. Jane was staring at the screen while that now-familiar sound of old-school dial-up came from her mouth and words magically appeared on the screen in front of her.
“Well, that’s new, isn’t it?” I asked.
She looked up, startled. She didn’t smile.
“That was rude,” she said, and turned back to the PDA.
“What was?”
Jane finished whatever she was working on and then set the machine down. “Hanging up on me like that before,” she said. “What was that all about?”
I looked down the aisle toward the back of the store. “Is Wesker around?”
Jane shook her head. “One of the books tried to escape again. I think they really miss having Cyrus as their owner. I know he was evil and responsible for the whole Ghostsniffing operation, but they really seem like they were attached to him.”
It had been a while since I had heard anyone say his name. Just hearing it mentioned was enough to bring back horrifying memories of the several times I had been attacked by the Black Stacks at Cyrus’s command.
“Anyway, Thaddeus went chasing off after it somewhere,” she continued, still looking somewhat disconnected. “I suggested we start chaining the more aggressive ones to the shelves but he said no.”
“Can you please not call him that?” I said, losing patience. “He’s your boss. You should call him Director Wesker. That’s just good business”
Jane rose from the floor with a sinister look in her eyes. She slammed the book she had been working with back on the shelf, then gave it a soothing pat. “I’m sorry if Other Division is so formal.”
“Don’t tell me you’re now part of the Departmental in-fighting, too? Are you telling me that you and Thaddeus are thick as thieves? Ask anyone in Greater and Lesser Arcana about him, Jane. Do you think they all live in fear of him because it’s some kind of joke?”
“If you remember,” Jane said, defensive, “Director Wesker saved us from the Sectarians. He’s the one who clocked Faisal Bane w
hen we were cornered in my old office … with your own bat even.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m just going to blindly trust him.”
“And I’m not either,” Jane said, getting angry now. “But I do work for the man, and I have to take how he treats me at face value. So far he’s been nothing but kind, which is more than I can say about you lately.”
I felt slapped in the face by that. “Meaning what?”
“How’s Mina?” Jane asked with acid in her voice, and there we had it.
Now I felt slammed in the stomach, feeling shady once again for having to even deal with Mina. I wasn’t cheating on Jane with her, I reminded myself, but I still felt shady hiding our criminal past together.
“You said you were okay with her staying for a few days,” I said.
“Well, thanks to you getting all suspicious about me, I just became un-okay with Mina staying in your apartment,” Jane said. She stormed past me toward the gates. “I’ll be up at the front of the store. Try not to agitate the books, will you?”
“Wait,” I said. “How am I going to find what I need?”
“Find it yourself,” she said, and I watched as she walked out the gates toward the registers.
Maybe it had been a blessing when my powers used to be out of control. Sure, I couldn’t really stay with a woman too long because of my inability to harness my psychometry, but at least it kept me from having to deal with these petty jealousy issues that came with a long-term relationship. It was enough to drive me mad, but I pushed it from my mind as best I could.
I turned my attention to the Black Stacks and started walking up and down the aisles, gloves on and careful not to touch any of the books that might take offense. I didn’t want a repeat of the time Connor had had to rescue me from a rampaging shelving unit.
I needed something that might give me more information on Cleopatra’s Needle and what arcane purpose it served. After a few minutes of pacing the aisles, I found a stretch of books that was a section on local historical phenomena, and I perused the titles until I came across one that looked the most promising: The Rough Guide to Supernatural New York City.
I reached for it, then stopped myself before actually coming in contact with it. I looked up at the bookcase it sat in.
“Umm, hello,” I said, feeling somewhat foolish. “I don’t know if you’re friends with that other bookcase that had a gripe with me that other time I was here, but I was hoping to take one of the books off your shelves.”
The bookcase, as I expected, didn’t react.
“Okay,” I said. I raised my hand to the book. “Well, I promise I’ll read it right here and then return it in the same condition. No harm done. No need to attack me or anything like that.”
Still no reaction. With one hand I reached for the book and with the other, I thumbed off the leather safety strap on my bat holster. I grabbed the book and pulled it slowly from the shelf, ready to put it back at the slightest hint of movement on the part of the bookshelf.
I let out a sigh of relief when nothing happened.
“Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this particular bookcase was even like the other, more homicidal one, but it didn’t hurt to be polite anyway.
I sat down on the floor just as Jane had, put the book on my lap, and flipped it open.
Only to have it slam shut on both my hands. Well, it wasn’t a slamming shut so much as it was a biting down. With teeth. Hard. I let out a scream of pain and instantly reached for my bat, pulling it out by using the open palms of both hands. I had to push the button to telescope it out against my knee, but I was still screwed. In order to use the bat against the book, I needed to have one hand free to swipe at it. The pain in my fingers grew stronger, even through the gloves, but luckily there didn’t seem to be any blood seeping through the gloves.
I dropped the bat and started slamming the book against the floor. It didn’t release, but it did increase its pressure on my hands. My fingers were screaming with pain now. Movement at the end of the aisle struck panic into my heart. I prayed it wasn’t another bookcase coming to kill me. I looked up and saw Director Wesker running down the aisle toward me. It wasn’t a vision that inspired much relief.
He shouted something I stood no chance of understanding, and instantly the book let go and fell to the floor, harmless.
I flexed my hands, checking my purple little fingers for any breaks in the skin. Luckily there were none, but both hands now felt like they were asleep with pins and needles.
“What the hell was that?” I said, hissing with pain.
“That,” Wesker said with disdain in his voice, “would be just another reason green agents should never be left alone in the Black Stacks.”
“You left Jane back here,” I reminded him.
“While she may be new,” he said, “she’s a quick study, unlike some people. Besides, I wasn’t very far away. I would never leave her unattended back here.”
“I bet you wouldn’t.”
“Do I detect something accusatory in your voice, Agent Canderous?” he said. “If so, let’s hear it.”
“Funny,” I said, “I don’t hear you laughing it up and having a grand old time when it’s just you and me back here in the Stacks.”
“That’s because Jane doesn’t do ridiculous, dangerous things,” he said. He bent over and picked up the book, closing it and placing it back on the shelf. He pointed to the title on the spine on the book. “It’s called a ‘Rough Guide’ for a reason, nitwit.”
15
I left Tome, Sweet Tome in a state of complete frustration, without even saying good-bye to Jane. Empty-handed, I stormed out of the bookstore past her and headed back downtown to the Department. I had another option for answers. I’d seen him sitting in the Lovecraft Café a few hours ago.
Godfrey Candella was exactly where I had left him, with his head down in one of his notebooks, scribbling away.
“Busy day?” I asked. Godfrey finished the line he was writing before he looked up.
“Actually,” he said, pushing his horn-rims back into place on the bridge of his nose. “It’s a slow business day. I’m catching up on my records for the Gauntlet.”
“Slow day, huh? I wish someone had told me,” I said, and recounted the story of the dead jogger we’d found in the park as well as our failed chase after his ghost. When I was done, I pulled out the printouts of Cleopatra’s Needle and showed them to Godfrey. He looked through them carefully.
“We should bring these down to the Gauntlet,” he said, standing up. I didn’t move. “Have you ever been?”
I shook my head.
“Come with me,” he said. We headed back through the movie theater and straight to the D.E.A. offices. Past the cubicles and beyond the red velvet curtain that separated the front office from the back, he led me down a set of stairs that I had never noticed before. They went down forever and my knees actually started to hurt from the walk. At the bottom was an office door much older than the ones I was used to upstairs. Godfrey swiped a different colored keycard than the one I had against an electronic plate and the heavy door swung open. Immediately, a wave of musty air hit my face and I coughed.
“It’s a little bit stuffy down here,” he said, giving a small cough of his own, “but you get used to it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, but followed him anyway … down more stairs. These were far older than anything in the building above and were actually carved into the very rock itself. “We’re off the grid, aren’t we?”
Godfrey gave a little laugh. “Yes, I suppose so. The Gauntlet predates the construction of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs by a few hundred years or so.” He pointed up at a line of cables hanging from hooks along the chiseled ceiling. “We’ve slowly been bringing computers into the picture and backup systems for archiving purposes, but it will take years to deal with all the historical data. The team and I are up to the year 1820 right now. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin was a necromancer?”
“Fascinating stuff,” Godfrey said, excited.
We entered a natural cavern lit from high above by electric lights that had been hung from a precariously mounted iron grid. The room itself was full of activity. The trappings of an office were scattered throughout, including some ancient-looking file cabinets that lined the walls and several dozen wooden tables stained with ink from ages gone by. A half dozen of Godfrey’s fellow archivists were busy at several of the desks—writing, filing, and even a few working with computers.
Godfrey pointed to one of the desks with two empty chairs. I walked over to it while he stared at a section containing several of the old filing cabinets.
“Give me a few minutes to pull some records on Cleopatra’s Needle. I think I’ll start with Egypt, Monuments, Central Park, and, on a long shot, Sewing.”
Godfrey disappeared into the darkness of a nearby row of cabinets, leaving me to watch the rest of the Gauntlet in action. All the scurrying around reminded me of that old kids’ game Mouse Trap. Every movement of Godfrey’s coworkers seemed like part of a well-oiled machine. When one got up from a workstation, another took his or her place. One woman’s sole purpose seemed to be working the room and handing books to various employees in a pattern that looked random but definitely had a rhyme and reason all its own.
Several minutes later Godfrey returned with a stack of books and file folders that were piled up to just below his eyes. He let them loose on top of our table and they scattered across it.
“Well, this should be a start,” he said, sitting down next to me. He scooped up several folders and quickly started flipping through file after file, scanning them like lightning. He had a researcher’s prowess that I was pretty sure I could never equal.
