by Jim Butcher
The newt self-consciously touched the wadded bandages on his face. “Then they went away and left me there. The golem seemed guilty, even sorry, but the rock monster was just mean.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “Rock monsters tend to be hard and grumbly, while golems are made of clay, so they are softer in general.”
“What am I going to do?” Geck wailed. “If there’s still a hit out on me, someone might try to take my other eye. I’m not safe.”
I knew I could take him down to the precinct and ask for protective custody from my BHF, my best human friend, Officer Toby McGoohan, but that would be only a temporary solution, and this needed more direct intervention.
“We have to find out who took out a contract on you,” I said. “Learn what you did and try to make amends. Do you have any idea who it was? Who’s got a grudge against you? Do you owe money?”
“Any idea at all?” Sheyenne pressed, hovering close to him.
Geck hung his head. He looked ill, although I knew the greenish brown tinge to his hide was probably natural. “Only the library comes to mind. I think I’ve seen the rock monster and the golem there—they sometimes work as security guards. And I do have an overdue book and a fine.” He blinked his remaining eye. “You don’t think . . . ?”
Even Sheyenne paled, and I steeled myself. “You don’t mess with the Spider Lady of the Unnatural Quarter Public Library. Everyone knows that.” This was going to be a more dangerous case than I had expected. “We’d better go face her—in person, you and me—and see if we can resolve this. You won’t be safe until you’re off her hit list.”
II
Geck and I headed through town toward the Unnatural Quarter Public Library main branch and the Vault of Secrets. We made a side trip to his dank lair, a communal subbasement where other newts shared the rent, with mud and moss for carpeting and a steady drip through the ceiling for running water. Not a good place to keep an overdue library book, I thought. At least he had it on a high shelf, away from the drip. Geck hauled over a stepstool so he could retrieve it.
“So, tell me about this book you checked out,” I said. “How long is it overdue, and why is it so important?”
“A month overdue. I kept putting it off, Mr. Shamble. And then it got worse and the fines built up.” He held the thick volume close.
“How much?”
“Ten bucks.”
“Better take twenty. We may need to pay off the Spider Lady, but we’ll get you back on the straight and narrow.”
He looked down at the heavy volume that seemed too big for him to carry. For the sake of efficiency, I took it from him and we set off, while two other newts were waiting to stand under the ceiling drip for a shower.
“Never even finished it.” Geck sounded guilty. “I went to the library for something to read in a puddle on a sunny day. I really enjoyed all the Harry Potter books, and I heard that the Harry Dresden novels by Jim Butcher were excellent, but they were all checked out.
“Then somebody said Shakespeare in the same sentence with Butcher, so I decided to look into that Shakespeare guy as my second choice. The only copy available was a rare special edition, The Complete Pre-Humous Writings of William Shakespeare. It was even autographed.”
I frowned, knowing that someone who purported to be Shakespeare’s ghost had been publishing new posthumously written plays and sonnets, but his claim had been debunked. He was, in fact, just another aspiring ghostwriter with a good costume and literary airs, but apparently the library hadn’t caught up yet.
“I tried to read the Shakespeare stuff, but I couldn’t get into it,” the newt said. “It wasn’t like Harry Potter at all. It was boring. But I kept trying. And then the book was late and I felt guilty, so I kept trying to read it. The fines piled up, and then I started getting threatening letters, so I was afraid to come to the library. And then . . .” He self-consciously touched the bandages covering his right eye.
“You need to bring the book back, and you’ll have to make amends to the librarian,” I said. “That may be the only way we can keep you intact, more or less. When we get to the library, let me do the talking. And bring your twenty bucks.”
On our way across the Quarter, we passed vampires sitting outside under sun umbrellas at a blood bar. Two werewolf women offered discounts on “full claw treatment” pedicures. A mummy rode by on a bicycle, wobbling and unbalanced; he was taken completely off guard when one of his unraveled bandages caught in the chain, and he and the bicycle tumbled into the gutter.
We passed Ghoul’s Diner, where I often liked to sit at the counter with an abysmally bad cup of coffee and a disgusting miasma of a daily special. The diner and its unfortunate food were upstaged now, however, as the entire block had been barricaded for the final rounds of the Stone-Cold Monster Cook-off. A grandstand had been set up for the culinary acrobatics, and spectators gathered around, hoping for—or dreading—free samples.
I assumed the diner’s business had suffered due to the event, but the ghoul proprietor never seemed to pay much attention to the outside world or his customers. It was business as usual.
In fact, everyone in the Unnatural Quarter—monsters and humans—got along about as well as anybody got along in the rest of the world. Ever since the Big Uneasy more than a decade ago, the world had been settling down from the change. The event had been caused by a strange alignment of planets and a completely coincidental spilling of virgin’s blood on an original copy of the Necronomicon, which resulted in cosmic upheavals, rifts in the universal continuum, and a shift in reality.
But after all that was over, naturals and unnaturals had to learn how to coexist, and everyday life returned with surprising stability. It could have been a real zombie apocalypse, but it wasn’t so much an apocalypse as an awkward reunion.
Back then, I was a private investigator who hadn’t seen much success in the real world, but I found a whole new clientele among the unnaturals. My business partner, Robin, joined me because she insisted that downtrodden unnaturals needed legal representation, too. Everything had been going fine—until one of my cases went south and I ended up being shot in the back of the head.
These days, that isn’t quite as final as it might sound. I rose from the grave and got right back on the case, eventually solving my own murder, then moving on.
It goes to show how much the world has settled into a new normal if a crowd of naturals and unnaturals can get excited about a cook-off.
Up onstage, after a round of digestive elimination, the Stone-Cold culinary marathon had settled on its three finalists. On the left side of the grandstand was Leatherneck, a burly man in a leather apron, leather mask, and upright shocks of greasy hair. He used a rusty shovel to scoop mangled animal remains into the hopper of a meat grinder that was about the size of a wood chipper.
“To make Texas chain-saw chili,” he said, “any sort of roadkill will do—as long as it’s been seasoned with hot sun and asphalt for at least four days.”
The meat grinder whirred and spat out a brownish red paste flecked with hair and fur that glopped into an already bubbling cauldron. The big chef added a pinch of salt, bent over to sniff the pot, then held up a gigantic razor-edged butcher knife. He raised his left forearm, which was a network of white scars. Without flinching, Leatherneck drew the blade down his forearm, opening up a wide gash that bled profusely into the pot. He held his arm over the chili as red dripped into the sauce, then with bright eyes behind his leather mask, he said, “And now for the special ingredient.” The crowd fell into a hush, and the big man lifted a jar of green spices with his nonbleeding arm. “Oregano!” He sprinkled a third of the jar into his pot.
The vampires in the audience had become extremely attentive when they watched him shed blood for his chili, but the oregano left them with sour frowns.
Next up was a heavyset, matronly woman whose beehive hair had a white lightning str
ipe, like the Bride of Frankenstein. Her skin was chalky and pale but her eyes were fiery red. Sheyenne sometimes watched her TV show, Kitchen Litch, and she complained that the Kitchen Litch considered herself superior to her viewers. “The sort of person who would say ‘tomaaahto coulis’ instead of ketchup,” Sheyenne had described her.
The Kitchen Litch held a large sauté pan over a gas burner. “Every ingredient must be frrrresh,” she said with an exaggerated roll of her r’s. “First, we start with clarified butter.” She ladled a greasy yellow pool into the pan, then reached inside a wicker basket and rummaged around. “And the frrreshest of frrresh is an ingredient that is . . . alive!”
She pulled out a black beetle as large as her hand. It squirmed and thrashed, but she threw it onto the sizzling pan. “And I always keep a special container of fresh bloodsucking gnats for garnish, but that will be for the finish.” She reached into the basket to grab another beetle, while the first beetle flopped and hopped, dancing on the hot pan surface. Its black carapace cracked open, and it buzzed its wings to fly away.
“No, no!” The Kitchen Litch swatted with a spatula as the second skittering beetle also tried to take flight. She smashed that one into a pulp, and it sizzled in a little beetle patty in the frying pan. The first beetle, though, got away, winging up from the stage. Three more beetles escaped from the still-open wicker basket, and the flustered Kitchen Litch slammed the lid back down. Trying to recover her composure, she said to the audience, “Of course, frrresh ingredients also pose certain challenges.” She busied herself nursing the beetle patty with her spatula.
The third chef, a loud green-skinned man, the Ragin’ Cajun Mage, cooked flamboyantly beside two large glass aquariums filled with thrashing ingredients. He looked at the Kitchen Litch with scorn. “I agree with my incompetent rival: fresh ingredients are key, but so are secret ingredients, and I have about a dozen secret ingredients.”
The Cajun Mage rapped his knuckles against the aquariums filled with silty gray-brown water. Swarms of thrashing tentacles writhed at him like a wrestling match between a squid and an octopus. Armored claws clacked in another aquarium. “We have a live mutant-crawdad tank and a live assorted-tentacles tank. They’ll wait, though, until my nightmare étouffée is ready. It takes half a day to simmer properly. First, we make a nice roux, starting with some perfect sassafras filé.” He dumped a gray-green powder into the bottom of his stockpot. “Then some toadstool filé.”
His eyes twinkled as he lifted a crystalline vial. “And for the perfect seasoning, the tears of heartbroken girls. Two tablespoons will do.” He poured the vial into the pot, then whisked it around as he increased the heat.
Geck and I had paused to watch the show. The smells wafting around the grandstand were an odd mix of appetizing and disgusting. My client glanced around the crowd, fidgeting and nervous, as if afraid someone might attack him right there out in the open, but I was sure he would be safe here. The Spider Lady from the library would not make a move on him at the Monster Cook-off. She had already delivered her ominous message.
One of the escaped black beetles buzzed through the air toward us, wobbling like a drunken bumblebee. Geck’s yellow eye brightened, and he swiveled his salamander-like head, poised, tense. . . . Then he lashed out with his tongue. But he missed the beetle entirely, which buzzed away unaffected.
Geck groaned. “Bloody depth perception! I’m going to starve!”
As the green-skinned Cajun Mage moved to the next stage of his highly complex recipe, I nudged the newt along. “Come on, then. It’s off to the library. This is a matter of life or death.”
III
The Unnatural Quarter Public Library and Vault of Secrets was not meant to be a terrifying place, but Geck looked as if he would rather have been going to the dentist—and I didn’t even know if newts had teeth.
The large stone building was impressive in one sense, looming in another sense. A poster in one of the dust-specked windows said “Come for fun in the library!” in dripping-blood letters. Because the stone steps were so widely spaced, I had to help Geck up each one.
As we climbed to the pillared entrance, he seemed more and more nervous. “You have to face this,” I said. “If we can resolve your overdue library book, the Spider Lady will take you off her hit list. Then you won’t have to worry anymore.” The newt swallowed and moved on.
At the top of the broad steps, two fierce-looking stone lions crouched on pedestals. Just as we reached the top of the platform, a nervous-looking vampire scuttled out of the library entrance with a book hidden under his arm, and the two stone lions woke up. The ferocious living statues snorted, snarled, and rose on their heavy paws.
The nervous vampire clutched his book and scuttled backward, looking from side to side, trapped. One lion bounded off its pedestal and pinned him to the ground. He flailed and screamed. “I’ll check out the book, I promise. I’ll check it out!”
The vampire had been trying to smuggle out a hardcover copy of Twilight.
With a snort, the stone lion smacked the vampire and sent him careening back into the library. Though uninjured, he was extremely embarrassed to have his reading material revealed.
The incident did little to calm Geck’s nerves. I tried to reassure him. “I’m here to protect you and negotiate on your behalf.” I did not point out that even the most highly skilled zombie P.I. could do little to protect against giant stone lions or demonic head librarians.
The main library smelled of books, that weighty, dusty aroma that always brings back nostalgic memories. The patrons included humans, particularly college students doing reports on the social changes brought on by the Big Uneasy. Mummy scholars worked with large stacks of papyrus, jotting down notes in hieroglyphics. Vampires developed family trees, while full-furred werewolves stood muttering together in the pets section.
On the high shelves, accessible only by rickety ladders that looked more dangerous than the evil-spell books themselves, a cleaning crew of goblins skittered about, stringing cobwebs. In the middle of the floor, two large spinner racks held paperback bestsellers.
Geck looked around nervously, scanning the library. He whispered, “I don’t see the rock monster or the golem. They’re usually guarding the doors. Maybe they’re off stealing someone else’s eye.”
“Or maybe it’s their day off,” I said.
“Or maybe they’re waiting to pounce on me again! Keep your eyes open, Mr. Shamble. You have more of them than I do.”
At the main reference desk sat a withered, prim old woman who looked as if she suffered from chronic hemorrhoids. Her hair was pulled back into a bun so tight she didn’t need a face-lift, and she wore cat’s-eye glasses that were large enough to be used as a weapon. She scanned the library like a high-tech targeting system, and when a young college couple began talking too loud, she suddenly reached out with a freakishly long, multijointed arm that held a ruler. Even though they were twenty feet away, she rapped on the table in front of them. “Quiet, please, in the library!” The old woman folded her extra arm back down under the desk.
Her nameplate said, “Hi, I’m Frieda. I’m here to help.”
I nudged Geck, and we walked up to the desk. The newt was far too short, and I had to lift him up so he could meet the cat’s-eye glasses with his remaining eye.
I looked behind the counter and saw that Frieda the Spider Lady had a nest of additional multijointed limbs all curled up beneath her flower-print dress. One set of hands was typing, while another paged through a printed book; behind her, two more limbs reached out to pluck volumes off a shelving cart. She gave us part of her attention. “How may I help you?”
“I’m Dan Chambeaux, private investigator, ma’am, and this newt is my client, Geck. I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding, and I’m here to help resolve it.”
The librarian frowned. “Misunderstanding? If words and sentences were stated clearly, there
would be no misunderstandings.”
“My library book is late,” Geck blurted out, sounding ashamed.
The Spider Lady practically recoiled, as if he had hurled a terrible insult at her. “That changes things. Substantially.”
I interjected, holding up the Shakespeare Pre-Humous Writings volume I had carried from his dank quarters. “My client has incurred library fines, which he is willing to pay, so long as he stops receiving threatening letters from the library. As you can see, he has already suffered a great deal of physical harm.” I used my “be reasonable” voice, which rarely worked against villains; even so, the detective-training handbook suggested being reasonable as a first step.
Frieda’s voice was filled with venom. “And what is this book? How valuable is it?” Beneath the counter, her hidden limbs twitched. Many of them ended in claws. “And how despicable are you?”
Geck stammered and held out a rumpled receipt, while I slid over the book. The Spider Lady nudged her cat’s-eye glasses, and her face seemed to wither even more. “This was part of our special Shakespeare collection—do you have any idea what sort of damage you’ve done? How many college treatises have been delayed because the authors had no access to this wonderful tome?”
“I . . . I’m sorry.”
“And it’s autographed, too!” said Freda, as if that were the last nail in the coffin.
“You do realize that the autograph is fake, ma’am?” I pointed out, hoping that might mitigate her ire. “The author of the posthumous works is not the real Shakespeare’s ghost.”
The librarian sniffed. “It’s still of historical and popular interest.” She shuffled papers and withdrew a formal parchment document that looked like a death-sentence decree. A dozen names were written on it, seven of which had been crossed off, as if terminated.
