Brandywine Investigations

by Angel Martinez

  "Ah. Is this…" Leander's deep voice rumbled above him. "Will my lord Azeban be maintaining his raccoon aspect for his visit?"

  Charon leaned a hip against the high back of the sofa, his tone dry as dust. "I expect my lord Azeban will do as he pleases. Why?"

  "The… That is, if Lord Azeban intends to stay with the library assistants, their door…"

  The choked sound Charon made could only have been a laugh. "Az, he's telling you that your butt's too big for the panda door."

  "That's not even remotely what I said."

  Azeban sat up on his haunches, whiskers twitching in time to the agitated rhythm of Leander's paintbrush tail. "The cousins have their own door?"

  "Whoa. Cool. Human words in raccoon mode," Ti murmured from somewhere behind him.

  Charon raised a white brow, which could've been in response to Azeban's question or Ti's observation. "The assistants live with Leander in the library. They have their own room and their own panda-sized door. Leander's concerned that you'd want to stay in their room and that you won't be able to follow them in."

  "It's a big place, right? I can sleep anywhere." Even with the cousins for company, Azeban didn't have a burning desire to go to a library for gods, where any god might show up any time. He wanted to disappear, but he had to have eyes off him before he could do that. Cute and charming, that's the only way. He washed his paws one against the other. "I won't get in the way. Promise."

  As he knew it would—who could resist the pleading raccoon face?—Leander's expression softened. "Of course not, Lord Azeban. No one suggested it. Jane will make certain you have all you need."

  "Char? Are you—" He had no idea what the end of that sentence should be. Are you coming, too? Would you stay with me? Is this really a good idea? Are you going to hate me soon? The questions swarmed his brain and smothered his words.

  "I'll come check on you, Az. Promise."

  Azeban's throat was so tight that he could only nod. He clambered onto the side table beside Charon and stood on hind legs, making little come-here motions with his paws. When Charon bent down, he touched his nose to Charon's cheek as a thank-you, then thumped back to the floor. The cousins surrounded him, talking about the wonders of the shelves and the corridors in their chittering way, and Azeban had no choice. He dropped to all fours and hurried with them to Lord Hades' study.

  The death lord sat at his desk beside a strange door that led into a chamber that shouldn't have been there. That space in the human world was outside the condominium, in the common hallway.

  Lord Hades pointed to the doorway. "Once through that door, you cannot return on your own, Azeban. It will only open for me or for Charon. There are many doors into the library, but you will find them all closed to you. Do you understand?"

  "That it's gonna be the world's biggest leg trap? I get it, your lordship." Oh, shit! You did not just say that to him in his own house! Say something else, quick! "I'm not ungrateful, Lord of the Dark River. Please. I'm just so tired."

  Lord Hades' frown didn't ease much, but that seemed to be his normal expression. "I understand what it is to be tired, Azeban. This is your choice. My hope is that you accept my protection."

  Azeban whispered a thank-you and followed the cousins as they galumphed over the doorsill and into the shifted plane that was the Eternal Library. It was the best offer he was going to get. Even if it felt like walking into a cage. He clutched the tie clip he'd taken from Charon tightly in his teeth, a talisman against the world, a surety that the ferryman would come find him again.

  Reading to a Raccoon God

  Chapter Seven

  His lordship clearly feels poorly." Charon sipped his tea, fighting the urge to fidget under the steady, dark gaze across the table. "Of course, he won't admit it."

  "Of course not." Lady Hestia's sniff said what she thought of her younger brother's pigheadedness. "Is Ti away at a conference?"

  Charon shook his head, his heart doing an odd sidestep when he caught a glimpse of shaggy brown hair through the window. Not Az. He's safe. "He's home, my lady, and has been sleeping with his lordship, so that's not the issue."

  "Is he past due?"

  "Not possible. It's not even midwinter yet, and we were just in the Underworld to have dinner with Lady Persephone and Zagreus. Last month. He can't be failing, because he's been away too long."

  "Has he visited since he began feeling so poorly?" Lady Hestia stirred her coffee, sipped, frowned, and added another packet of raw sugar.

  "No. Not yet." Charon tapped a claw on the side of his cup. "He's working on a case he feels he mustn't abandon and must resolve himself."

  She patted his arm. "In other words, he claims he's fine, and he won't take advice."

  "My lady knows him so well. Tenacity is both his best and his worst quality."

  "So diplomatic. I understand that you don't want to call your lord stubborn. But he is."

  Charon hid a smile in a sip of tea. "If my lady insists."

  The smile didn't last long as he skimmed through the Obituaries pages in the News Journal, which were in the usual place in the paper. Oddly though, there were no notices after the tenth of the month. On the twelfth, there should have been some from the previous day. One or two, at least.

  Lady Hestia's forehead creased in concern. "Is something wrong?"

  "Just odd." Charon pulled out his phone and called his office. "Yvonne? Did we get a Journal today?"

  "We should have, unless you finally canceled the subscription like a normal person."

  "The dry crinkly sound makes me happy. Could you check for me? And check the Obituaries?"

  Yvonne grumbled, the rustling of pages masking her actual words. Finally, she let out a little huff. "They're there. Just like always."

  "Any from the eleventh?"

  "Aren't any, Boss. I guess no one died."

  "Hilarious. Check online for me, please. I'll be in soon."

  Charon hung up to find Lady Hestia still regarding him steadily. "I'm sure it's nothing, my lady. Merely professional concern."

  "Do you check the obits every day?"

  "Naturally." Charon managed a little smile. "What else should a good death harbinger do?"

  "Stuff and nonsense." Lady Hestia let out an unladylike snort. "You've always been a guide, not a harbinger."

  He waved a hand as if it didn't matter. "I do check them. Mostly out of habit. Usually to make certain the announcements are correct for my clients."

  "Always so conscientious." Lady Hestia patted his hand as she rose. "I'll be back down to visit in a day or two, Char. If he's still feeling poorly, we'll stage an intervention."

  "Your advice and expertise in the care of death lords is always appreciated, my lady."

  Her laugh was soft, her gaze distant. "Who knows him better? I was all he had once. So very long ago."

  Strange day when even Hestia is melancholy. He watched her until she had turned the corner before gathering his thoughts and his limbs under him so he could head back to his place of business. Unlike Lady Hestia, who had to take a train back to her home in New York, Charon could cross between the planes and arrived at Stygian Funeral before his seat at the coffee shop had time to grow cold.

  "Good morning, Vincent." Charon nodded to the young man staffing the front desk. "Did Gio call out again?"

  "Yes, sir. He said his mother—"

  Charon waved a hand to cut him off. "No need to tell me. But this isn't your job."

  "Yvonne said it looks bad when there's no one out front."

  "I see." Charon shuffled through the mail, separating out the junk in a distracted fashion. He hated firing staff, but Gio's absences were coming fast and furious with thinner and thinner excuses. Must be a character flaw of mine that I can't hire reliable front-office staff. "In the future, please forward the front-desk phone to the back. I hired you to help Yvonne, and the embalming assistant job description does not include receptionist duties."

  Vincent paled and pushed his desk chair b
ack a few inches. "I am helping Yvonne, sir. You asked us to look for obits."

  "Hmm. I did do that, didn't I?" Charon tossed the mail back onto the desk in two distinct piles, frowning at the way Vincent twitched. Not quite as jumpy as when he'd started, certainly, but the typical human reaction to Charon's appearance made him tired. "Contrary to rumors, I'm not going to eat your brain. What did you find?"

  "I only checked a sampling of papers from the east coast: Boston, New York, Miami, DC. I hope that was all right?"

  "Quite. What did you find, Vincent? Before I expire from over-anticipation."

  "There were notices from the eleventh—"

  "Ah. Just an odd local anomaly, then."

  "—but only three."

  Charon drummed his gloved claws on the desk. "I suppose it's possible."

  "One was a little girl, a week old. Another was a boy baby, a month old. The third one was four months."

  "It's probably just a statistically strange day, but indulge me, please? Check some of the west-coast papers. Maybe two or three from other countries."

  No, he didn't believe what he'd said for a moment. Icy tendrils of dread dragged down his spine. This meant something, and it couldn't be something good. But what?

  The rest of the day was taken up with taking care of their current client who had, yes, passed away on the tenth, and in appointments with new clients interested in end-of-life planning. Yvonne eventually helped Vincent with the obit search, and they both confirmed the dearth of notices for people passing away on the eleventh. The scattering of obits they did find listing the eleventh as the day of death were, chillingly, all children under a year old.

  "What's it all about, Boss?" Yvonne asked as she pulled up the obits for Chicago. "I get that it's weird, but you're getting kind of intense here."

  "Death is our business, oh faithful embalmer of mine. And while a lack of obituaries other than infants is not, strictly, our business, I don't like mysterious fuckery being afoot in my domain."

  Vincent repeated the words mysterious fuckery afoot in a deliberate manner, as if he were taking notes. Strange little man. Definitely had a future at Stygian.

  But the obits? Some strange worldwide newspaper hack? Charon couldn't imagine what else it could be. At the end of the day, he said good night to Yvonne and Vincent and informed them he would be working from home the next day. He intended to keep an eye on this and do some digging of his own.

  Char hadn't been exaggerating. The library was huge, intriguingly twisty, and full of weird shit. Azeban had left his belongings up by the pandas' door and tagged along with Darcy and Elizabeth as they gathered up a set of books that had a bad habit of teleporting if no one was holding them. Someone had left their spelled case open, and all but one had escaped. He even got to help, since it was easier for him to walk on his hind legs and carry books in his paws than it was for the cousins. Red-panda paws were extra clever, and these pandas were scary smart, but they still would've had to waste time running back and forth with a single book each trip.

  Elizabeth chittered a question at him as she replaced the last wandering book and closed the case.

  "I know I'd be taller, but I'm staying raccoon for now," Azeban protested in response. "I just feel… safer? It's hard to explain."

  Darcy butted against him, and Elizabeth leaped down from the shelf to knead at Azeban's shoulder fur with both paws. Don't worry, they both said clearly. It's safe here.

  "Well, okay, but if I go human now, I'll be walking around naked, since I left my clothes up by your room. I mean, I know you don't care, but I'll shock all the respectable gods."

  Both pandas made little wheezing sounds, red-panda laughter. The younger ones were full of mischief and delighted in small things. They laughed easily, unlike the oldest panda, Jane, who was all about rules and propriety. Don't tease the cat scrolls. Don't ride the moving bookshelves for fun. Don't pester the librarian unless it's important.

  But the young ones? If things had been different, they could've been friends and had some wicked fun. Kau would have…

  Azeban shivered. Except he's not here. Because you couldn't keep him safe.

  "Would it be all right if I just explore by myself for a while?"

  Darcy stood on his hind legs, paws spread wide, chittering in obvious distress.

  "Of course I like being with you. You guys are great. I just… need some alone time, okay?"

  Elizabeth cheked a sharp warning at her brother and chittered at Azeban that, yes, he should take the time he needed and to go back to the Circulation Desk or wait outside the panda quarters if he needed anything.

  Aimlessly, Azeban wandered the shelves. If he were a scholarly god, maybe this place would be useful. He could research things and find something he could use. As it was, he didn't have a clue where to start among the hundreds and hundreds of books around every corner. A Field Guide to Natural Poisons. The History of Canopic Spells. A Treatise on the Making of Charms for Speaking to Stones. Folktales of the Early Cycladic Period. Come to think of it, how was most of this stuff useful to anyone?

  Azeban grumbled as he wandered through the twists and turns of the third floor. A book about how to defeat an ancient death goddess would be nice. Or maybe one about becoming invisible and undetectable to immortal senses. That would be good. Nope. All the titles he stopped to read were of esoteric, stupid stuff. Scholarly masturbation.

  I like that phrase. Have to remember that one.

  He followed his own scent back to his starting point in Lord Hades' reading room or study or whatever the hell it was called. Interesting which gods had rooms here in the library, but Leander said it had to do with which gods had helped in the construction and in gathering the Collection. The rooms he'd seen reflected each god's personality and tastes. The one belonging to Quetzalcoatl was bright and airy, with a high ceiling decorated in gold and colored frescoes. Set's was full of screens and mirrors that confused the eye and was stuffed with strange objects. Lord Hades' was practical and comfortable, decorated in dark woods and large, heavy pieces of furniture. Great place for a nap, and Charon had left a plate of sandwiches for him.

  Azeban ate one while he sat on the claw-footed tapestry sofa and brooded. Sure, he was safe here, but sitting around waiting was so frustrating, especially since he knew no one could help. While the broad sofa made a nap tempting, he was far too restless, so he took a second roast-chicken sandwich and went back out into the corridors, walking on his hind legs with the sandwich clutched in his front paws.

  Near Odin's reading room (heavy timbers and carved stone dragons), Azeban caught the incongruous sounds of flapping. When he turned the corner, he ducked instinctively as a flock of songbird-sized books flew overhead.

  He had nothing better to do, so he followed with the seed of an idea germinating in his brain. Stuffing the rest of the chicken in his mouth, he held onto the remaining bread and hustled after the bird books.

  The flying books had settled on a case containing an illuminated manuscript, pages rustling as they roosted and jockeyed for position. Azeban hunkered down a few feet away so he wouldn't scare them off and started breaking his sandwich bread into crumbs, which was a little harder to do with paws than fingers but not too bad. Moving slowly, he spread the crumbs out in front of the case, then moved back again.

  Yeah, probably stupid to expect books to want bread crumbs…

  Still, he waited. The books flapped their covers, flittering around the case. He swore they watched him, tilting their spines to keep him in sight. One little book hopped toward the front edge of the case and peered down. It tilted this way and that before finally deciding the coast was clear enough. With a flutter of pages, it descended to the buffet of crumbs.

  That first book hopped about on the corners of its hard covers, tilting forward from time to time to peck at the crumbs with the end of its spine. Where it pecked, the crumbs vanished, which was all sorts of creepy when Azeban thought about it too much. Books eating things was all kinds of
wrong.

  He shivered, waiting patiently until the entire flock joined the first book. His coat would've made things easier, but this was just a trial. If it worked, he'd come back in his human aspect with his coat and do it properly. With the book birds distracted, he crept closer… closer… and pounced.

  The books took off in a flurry of startled pages, but Azeban clung doggedly to three of them, holding tight to cover edges with his paws. They strained and flapped, trying to escape, and he held them up over his head. If this worked, he could use the flock to fly into Itzpapalotl's grove, rescue Kau, and fly out. He'd have to tether them somehow, but this could work.

  They flapped and screamed. How could books scream? It felt like there was some lift though, wasn't there?

  "Az, let the poor things go."

  He whirled, Charon's deep voice shocking him to his bones. One of the books used his distraction to escape and began beating at his ear. While he tried to swat it, the other two got loose and the smallest, a little red-covered one with gold leaf, slammed its covers shut on his nose.

  "Ow. Damn it." Azeban flumped back on the floor with his nose held between his paws. The books zipped away around a corner. "Why did you do that? I almost had it."

  "If you were trying to fly, all of those little ones together couldn't lift you." Charon crouched beside him, a book the size of a milk crate cradled in his arms. "We could go ask Lady Athena for her owl. That one probably could."

  "No!" Azeban shrank from him instinctively. "No owls. Especially not one big enough to carry me off."

  Charon sat cross-legged on the floor. "All right. No owls. I'll assume no eagles or large buzzards either. Where's my tie clip, by the way?"

  "Your what?"

  "My silver raven tie clip, Az. I don't lose things. You snuggled up and stole it. Not that I mind the snuggling, but you don't need to keep taking something of mine to ensure I'll come looking for you again."

  Azeban blinked at him. Didn't mind the snuggling? Was the ferryman flirting with him? Or something… "Ah, yeah. I— It was pretty. It's up in my coat by the panda room."