A Study in Spirits

by Byrd Nash

  Bandemer replied, “Yes, we all want answers, don’t we?”

  “Preferably before my library is brought down around my ears,” insisted Frau Burkhalter.

  “But we need the right answers,” spoke Herr Géza. He had a quiet, calm, but forceful manner that Bandemer found soothing and pleasant.

  Yes, he will need to invite Géza to all his luncheons in the future. He would be an excellent wingman to take care of these little problems, like pushy administrators.

  “Indeed,” agreed Bandemer. Picking up a glass of red wine, he expounded upon this theme. “It would be easy to blame this incident on a prank done by a few foolish students.”

  Burkhalter opened her mouth as if to speak, but Bandemer’s French drawled on before she could insert her thoughts.

  “Before you accuse some of our fae students, you should know that so far, my investigation has revealed that there is no fae magic involved.”

  “It must be related to that monk we saw at the opening,” suggested Burkhalter. Géza agreed, “It stuck out — it wasn’t normal or human.”

  The chancellor acknowledged their hit with a bow of his head. “Exactly. It said it was a favored guest. I believe it is probably linked somehow to the new collection of manuscripts we received over the summer.”

  “The collection!” The head librarian’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “It could become dangerous if we startle it. So let my man investigate this. He will snoop out this scoundrel, and we shall deal with its tricks.”

  Bandemer wiped his hands from the sugar left by the almonds, before stating, “Until he brings me his recommendations, the abbey library will remain closed.”

  “But!”

  “No buts, Frau Burkhalter. We cannot risk the lives of students. Nor valuable illuminated manuscripts, by irritating something lurking in the library.”

  Bandemer closed the discussion by asking if she had tried the truffles? The dark chocolate paired well with today’s wine choice, did she not think so?

  Kados Géza watched the chancellor wind his way through the group, leaving a word or suggestion to the thirty or so luncheon guests. As soon as he saw that creature at the gallery opening, the maestro knew there would be trouble.

  “The chancellor does not like to deal with sticky problems.”

  Burkhalter, who was quite a bit younger than Géza, groaned at the maestro’s word.

  “Don’t I know it? What do I tell my staff? As it is, everyone refuses to work the evening shift; they leave as soon as the sun is setting. Only a handful will go down in the cellar to clean up the mess in the stacks. What am I going to do?”

  “Do you sincerely want my suggestions?”

  “Yes, please. Anything.”

  “I agree that no one should be in the library after dark. It is too dangerous. We do not know what lurks. If you have a weapon, I would wear it.” Kados Géza was sure to say this in a voice that Paul, the chancellor’s man who was passing them, would overhear.

  “I would bring the books up from the cellar during the daytime hours. Put them in the abbey’s nave and work on sorting them out there. It is the safest place in the library since it is the oldest and the holiest part of the structure.”

  “That could help with some of their objections,” agreed Frau Burkhalter, nodding. “but, I don’t see why we can’t call in the griffins. Don’t they deal with these types of problems?”

  “The griffins only deal with Bewachterberg’s borders. What comes through and what is to be removed. They are not responsible for the criminal behavior of something that has arrived with government sanction.”

  Kados Géza saw Paul had paused nearby. The Doppelgänger was reaching over their table to select a truffle from the silver compote dish.

  Géza continued his explanation to the librarian, “For Griffins to have the authority to act, the welcome must be rescinded. You cannot make a mistake about it, for once the griffins are summoned, they take a life. It is the price of their justice. It is how your imprudent predecessor died. He rashly called them to wreak revenge on his wife’s lover, and well, we all know how that ended.”

  Paul’s eyes locked upon those of Kados. The maestro raised his bushy white eyebrows before turning back to the librarian.

  “Now, let us talk over something far more pleasant. There is a new Italian restaurant that has opened last week in downtown Geheimetür. Have you dined there, yet?”

  Paul knew Bandemer’s mood would not be pleasant after the luncheon. Not only did the chancellor quickly grow tired of having to listen to the demands from administrators and faculty, but the situation at the library remained an unsolved puzzle.

  Bandemer quickly grew impatient when things did not get done promptly. In other words, before it became a bother to him. Thus it was not a surprise to the Doppelgänger that as soon as they were alone, Bandemer demanded, “What of the investigation?”

  “The being you saw at the gallery opening has proved elusive. It operates like a ghost, appears and disappears at will.”

  “Merde!” cursed Bandemer. The use of a foul word proved how upset his liege was about the matter for the chancellor believed cursing unbecoming. “If it’s a ghost, call in an experienced human spiritualist and rid the abbey of it. I don’t mind a few old monks babbling their prayers in Latin, but this disruption of the library must cease.”

  “I said it operates like a ghost, but it is not of their sort. Ghosts form from the desires of dead humans. They are stagnated beings, following certain precepts of how they act and what they do because of their former lives.”

  “So it’s fae?” declared the chancellor, only to be given another rare correction by Paul, “No, my liege, it’s from Outside.”

  The chancellor stopped in his promenade across campus, with his walking stick frozen in mid-step. Paul stopped beside him under a tree where a crow perched.

  “From Outside? Then we could be dealing with anything!”

  “Well, almost anything,” agreed Paul. “That is why we need to take this slowly and proceed with all caution.”

  Outside was a world neither the Perilous Realm or the Human Lands. It wasn’t unknown for things to cross over from other dimensions. However, they were usually snuffed out quickly by the griffins.

  Bandemer frowned in concentration. It wasn’t a deep frown because of his Botox treatment last month.

  “Why didn’t the griffins take care of this invader? Are they falling down on their job?”

  Paul thought about the conversation he overhead at the luncheon between the maestro and the head librarian. He said slowly, still mulling over that discussion, “The griffins only track those who cross the boundaries. If this was already in the country, it might not have triggered the Bewachterberg watchdogs. Or if it might have arrived attached to something else, and thus fooled them. Or it might have accidentally been welcomed into the country.”

  “Pursue that line of reasoning,” commanded the chancellor. “The library did get that recent donation, that collection of illuminated manuscripts. During the reception, that thing claimed it was the star of the show. I do not believe in coincidences.”

  Paul gave his liege a bow and, with a new line of inquiry, excused himself.

  When Paul arrived at the abbey library the next day, the Doppelgänger felt he had brought a cup of water to put out a raging forest fire.

  The situation had not become calmer since his last visit. If anything, the tensions among the staff had risen. The rector and the chancellor were blamed for unsafe working conditions. There was talk of unionizing.

  The head librarian, Anna Burkhalter, was again complaining about the lack of money for the needed restorations.

  “This is the direct result of the negligence in not updating the security system in the building. We need security cameras, doors that track employee entry cards. Anything would be better than the primitive locks we have. At the very least, we should assign a fae security guard to be here.”

  Paul was posing a
s an administrative assistant presumably sent by Rector Schubert. He tried to listen patiently to the complaints, but they never seemed to stop.

  “Since the fundraising during the opening, the needed money has been raised. Once this situation resolves, the work can be bid upon and started.”

  “Renovations should start now. We need the protection,” said one of the other librarians in the meeting.

  “Renovating and changing a historic building of this size is a massive undertaking,” Paul reminded both women. “Last year, the security update in the vaults exhausted the endowment.”

  One of the assistant librarians angrily said, “We need help today, not some distant time promised in the future. We have damage in the basement that will require overtime that you keep refusing to put into our budget.”

  The arguments continued to rage for some hours. Paul finally soothed them only by promising that Rector Schubert would agree to pay overtime. They needed the abbey re-opened soon, as it was the most extensive library on campus, and midterms would be gearing up next month.

  After he left the abbey’s conference room, the chancellor’s spymaster decided he would go down once again and survey the damage. Maybe he could find something or someone to blame that would make everyone happy.

  Unmasking

  Every fae being had a unique set of powers. Some of Jib’s powers were to grow or shrink in size. It could become invisible. The True Beast also had a touch of beguiling; no sensible person could resist doing what a cat wanted.

  Knowing no door could stop a cat, Jib waited outside the library for the right moment. Paws tucked underneath, orange eyes mostly closed, Jib meditated upon its need to enter. It wouldn’t be long before some human would appear and feel compelled to let him in.

  A librarian, poking his head out the door, asked, “Anyone out here? Did someone want in?”

  Silent and invisible, Jib slipped between his legs. Inside, the cat púca traveled on soft paws that left no noise.

  A week had gone by since the encounter with the creature. It felt guilty for not being present during the start of the battle, so Jib promised Brigit and Logan that it would visit the abbey and report back.

  It was easy to see the library staff were in an uproar; there were a lot of accusations being hurled back and forth in the staff meeting. However, while they were good at casting blame, they didn’t seem to be aware of Jib prowling their halls.

  Some security, Jib thought to itself.

  The cat left the beings to squabble. The púca had work to do; it wanted to explore.

  The black cat left the main areas of the library and started prowling the sections with less scent and more dust in the air. Jib opened its mouth and tasted smells on the roof of its mouth. Being a True Beast, Jib’s senses were sharper than the dryad’s.

  With this area of the library mostly deserted, it was easier to track the aroma that magic produced. Yes, that was what it had tasted last week: an unpleasant, musty, and stale signature with an undertone of something burnt.

  The púca followed the trail, winding its way through the dark corridors. Because it kept its shield of invisibility up, none of the movement lights came on, helping Jib keep its activity secret. It had no plan on notifying the creature of its presence.

  “Hello. Who are you?” asked a ghost. He floated behind the cat. The púca’s invisibility was no protection against a shade; they excelled at the game of not being seen themselves.

  The púca stopped to chat. That meant listening first to a long discourse about the being’s previous life, the problem with a professor that tried to take credit for his research, the monotony of grading papers as a teaching assistant, and why he committed suicide.

  Jib made itself into a black loaf: paws tucked, eyes slit, absorbing what the ghost said. The cat’s stillness earned it a sharp accusation from its ghostly companion. “You're not asleep, are you?”

  “No, I’m listening,” said the púca. To prove it, the cat repeated the last few sentences the ghost had said. That was an easy task as they were on the third round of the same story.

  Unlike Brigit, Jib didn’t hold the ghost’s tedious recital against the human shade. They couldn’t help it for it was part of being dead for decades, perhaps centuries. On the other hand, Jib did have things it needed to do. Before the spirit could begin a fourth re-telling, the cat inquired, “Tell me of more recent events. Such as the eater of knowledge.”

  “Oh, so you know about him? What a pompous ass. We call him the critic without a brain.”

  “He does seem to fit that description,” agreed the cat, thinking of their encounters with the creature. “When did you first notice its presence?”

  “He showed up sometime during the summer. Calls himself Aristarchus. But that could be a joke.”

  “A joke? How would that name be humorous?”

  “Aristarchus was a librarian in the city of Alexandria of the ancient world,” the teaching assistant explained. “While I rather doubt he is that old, the creature is certainly an aristarch.”

  At Jib’s silence, the ghost explained, “An aristarch is a term used to describe someone that delights in pointing out errors. What kids nowadays call the grammar police.”

  “Ah,” purred the cat, finally understanding. “That is very informative and helpful. Thank you for explaining.”

  Jib’s words encouraged the ghost. This was his first captive listener for at least twenty years.

  “As soon as the librarians close for the night, he starts muttering about the library’s management. At heart, though, he’s a coward. Always griping about Frau Burkhalter but never confronts the head librarian. Instead, he re-shelves the books in categories he thinks fits them better. He leaves warnings with sticky notes on the computers of the junior staff, correcting their emails.”

  “Sounds like a perfect pest.”

  Jib’s patience was paying off as the ghost settled in to discuss the situation.

  “He got into a fantastic row with — I can’t remember her name now. She wrote a treatise on some weird fantasy creature that supposedly roams Mexico. Anyway, they got into a blazing row, and he destroyed her treatise. Without her work to support her existence she vanished. I don’t think she’ll be able to regenerate herself unless they replace her paper.”

  “He accomplished this by eating her knowledge?” guessed the cat.

  “Yes,” said the ghost more quietly. The graduate student looked nervously over his shoulder. Reflexively, the cat purred to provide comfort, but it was in vain. Frightened, the ghost started to fade. Jib asked quickly, “How many of your brethren have you lost?”

  “I don’t know,” the TA whispered, his form now ragged wisps. “We try to stay away from him, so as not to attract his notice.”

  After he evaporated, Jib sat still for another hour to meditate upon the problem.

  Jib lost track of time. Traveling the library revealed a labyrinth of possibilities. While the púca did not read itself, relying upon its photographic memory and television for entertainment, it did respect such a vast repository of knowledge.

  It enjoyed a restorative lunch of mice before heading towards the epicenter of the attack upon itself, Logan, and Brigit. The púca worked its way around the area, approaching in stealth in hopes of not attracting the attention of the creature.

  In the end, the True Beast stumbled upon Aristarchus. Not secure in its belief it was invisible to all, the púca found a physical hiding spot, crouching under a bookshelf, to observe it.

  The being was mumbling angrily to itself as it rearranged a bookshelf. It was not very tall, taller than Brigit, but not as tall as Logan. Its appearance was of an elderly male wearing a linen tunic, in the Greek style. Over his shoulders was draped a white wool cloak. He wore sandals.

  Oddly enough, it smelled not like the creature Jib had fought, nor did it stink like a human. It was musty and dry like the pages of an old book.

  At face value, the thing looked harmless enough. However, Jib was
fae. It knew physical looks were often the most deceptive thing about a being. Nor did the púca forget the form it took during their battle: a demonic monster.

  Yes, the creature was not all that it seemed. Jib was becoming certain it was something the púca had never encountered before, either in the Perilous or the human lands.

  The man’s hand removed a volume from the shelf. It opened the book, thumbed through several pages. It snarled, “They call this poetry? Nothing but worthless doggerel.”

  His hand moved down the page, and Jib could feel the vibration of magic as words vanished from the page. The cat would not tell Brigit what it saw; it would only enrage his fae princess and encourage her to some rash behavior.

  “I believe the librarians call that vandalism,” said a voice from behind the púca. Jib lowered his crouch.

  The owner of the voice came into the cat’s view. The newcomer was Paul, the university’s Doppelgänger. With the cat’s concealed position, it was the potent smell of the Doppelgänger’s magic that identified him to the púca.

  Jib had met the Doppelgänger last spring when a deal was struck to help Logan. Paul used Mindbending magic to appear as Logan, making it seem the American attended all of his classes. Instead, the human was home recuperating from an illness caused by his stay in the Perilous Realm.

  Doppelgänger magic was powerful, making their Sept a legend among the fae. For it was their magic which hid Bewachterberg for 99 years and a day from the human world.

  Jib settled down, interested to see how Paul would defeat the aristarch.

  “Anna Burkhalter doesn’t do her job,” replied Aristarchus with a sneer. He closed the book and carelessly re-shelved it before facing the Doppelgänger. “If I were in charge here, abominations like yourself would not be tolerated.”

  As Paul moved closer, Jib could now see the man’s back as well as his legs.