The Gambler Grimoire: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Wicklow College of Arcane Arts Book 1)

by BR Kingsolver

  “God’s gift to women? Royal pain in the ass? Yeah, I remember him. He giving you trouble?”

  “In an abstract way. He was murdered, and I got his job.”

  “That’s a little extreme, Savanna. Academia is supposed to be cut-throat only in a metaphorical sense.”

  “That’s what I thought. Who else gave you problems?”

  “A guy named Jerome Carver. Married, but the absolute octopus king of sexual harassment. The only man I ever wanted to turn into a toad. Louis Aubert. Backstabbing son of a bitch. Stole a paper I wrote and submitted it to a journal as his own work. Anton Ricard. His problem was persistence, and the fact he took Aubert’s side in our dispute. I haven’t trusted a French-Canadian since. Anton and Brett couldn’t get it through their heads that I wasn’t interested.”

  “Anyone you were interested in?”

  A sigh. “Yeah. David Hamilton. Is he still there? I don’t think I ever chased a man that hard. I practically had to hit him over the head and drag him home. You know, he’s the only person from that time I ever think about. And my apartment. I had a lovely old place with a private entrance to the college’s herb garden.”

  “He’s still here. Still single, and still sexy.”

  Another sigh. “I’m not. Single, I mean. Probably not sexy, either. I’ve been living with a guy for almost five years now. We’re talking about spawning.”

  “The spawn of Catharine. It could be a movie.”

  “A very boring one, nowadays. My older sister, Rosemary, got all the fame. You still single?”

  We chatted a while longer, then as I was about to say goodbye, I thought to ask, “What about a woman named Katy Bosun?”

  “The dean’s secretary? A good woman to have on your side, and a bad enemy. A major gossip.”

  “Was Carver the dean then?”

  “Oh, no, just a professor. But the dean was retiring, and there was talk about Carver becoming dean. That’s when I knew I had to get out.”

  “He’s the one who hired me. I guess I’m not sexy, either, since he’s never tried to touch me.”

  “Probably knows who your father is.”

  “One last name. Lowell Carragher. Owns a bookstore here in town.”

  “Buddy with David and Brett. Rich. You know he owns a lot more than that bookstore, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lowell’s a strange one. Can’t say anything negative about him, but I never really trusted him. I always got the feeling he considered the college as a play. Like a Shakespearean comedy staged for his entertainment.”

  With an occasional murder thrown in. I could see that.

  The following Saturday, Steven drove in. He told me that he packed what he owned and truly cared about and shipped it to Wicklow, then packed his clothes and a few personal things into his sports car, and drove east. Everything else had gone to Goodwill.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I’ll treat you to the Faculty Club.”

  “You’re on.”

  We walked over, and I asked, “Did you talk to your buddy in Vegas about the Gambler Grimoire?”

  “Yeah. I thought he’d bust a gut laughing. It’s the unicorn of the gambling world.”

  “I knew that. Anyone offering it for sale or offering unrealistic amounts of money for it?”

  “Both. You and I should write one. I think we can publish it on Amazon.”

  I glared at him.

  “I’m serious, Savanna. My friend says you can buy one on about every corner in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. The only problem is finding one with spells that work.”

  “Yeah, that’s the only problem I have with spells that turn lead into gold.”

  “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

  Over dinner, I told him of my plan to try and scry Kavanaugh’s murder.

  “My specialty is more in the line of creating potions and poultices, not breaking and entering,” Steven said. “I mean, it’s locked, right?”

  “Locks aren’t a problem.”

  “Is that why you’re a professor instead of a cat burglar? No challenge?”

  “Something like that. I do need some help with the scrying spell, however. I’m not sure I can pull enough power for the spell.”

  Steven took a sip of his wine. “It does surprise me that no one thought of scrying the scene before. Maybe that’s just not done with murders for some reason.”

  “No one I’ve met has accused Lieutenant Kagan of creativity or imagination.”

  After dinner, we went to the alchemy lab, gathered the tools we would need, then proceeded to Kavanaugh’s apartment as the sun was setting. I sprang the lock, we entered, and set the equipment where it needed to be.

  “He was killed by the fireplace?” Steven asked.

  “Yes, and that’s part of the puzzle,” I replied. “The killer had to be between him and the fireplace to grab the poker.” I walked over to where I had seen the blood spot before it was cleaned. “I get the impression his head was lying here when he was found.”

  “And where were his feet?”

  “The chalk outline indicated here,” I pointed.

  “So, his body was lying parallel with the fireplace. What we don’t know is where his assailant was standing.”

  “From what I was told, he was hit four times. Twice in the back of the head, once on the left side of the head, and once at the junction of his neck and shoulder on the right side. The tool stand was here, so I assume that is where the killer grabbed the poker from.”

  I began laying out the clear, soft plastic tubing filled with witch’s salt. First, I laid the longest piece into a circle, then five straight pieces to create the pentagram inside.

  “Interesting,” Steven said. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “I’m not going to be running a vacuum cleaner to clean up the salt,” I said. “This is actually very handy anytime you’re working in someone else’s house. Someone who my father thought was a bad influence taught me about doing it.”

  The candle holders I set at the points of the pentagram were collapsible, as was the podium—actually, a sheet music stand—that I set in the middle of the pentagram. On one side of the podium, I set a piece of paper with the spell written out and held down by a small copper bowl, and on the other side, I set a six-inch glass lens.

  “I have the spell memorized, so that is for you,” I said.

  Steven picked up the paper and read it, the second time silently mouthing the words.

  “Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

  Little light came through the windows from the setting sun, and it was almost dark in the room. Drawing my wand, I touched each of the candles, lighting the wicks.

  “Shall we begin?”

  I recited the incantation alone the first time, letting Steven hear my cadence and intonation. He joined me as I began chanting the Latin words the second time. Halfway through the seventh recitation, the lens came to life.

  Kavanaugh faced us. His mouth worked, but there was no sound. Since he was angry, and obviously shouting at times, it was difficult to read his lips. He turned away, and a fireplace poker appeared, sweeping down and striking him on the left side of his head.

  Kavanaugh stumbled, and the poker descended again, and again, and again as he fell. A pool of blood began to spread, and the image in the lens faded.

  “That’s it? We don’t get to see the killer?” There was outrage in Steven’s voice.

  “Sorry. I had Kavanaugh’s DNA—I mean, it’s all over the apartment—but since I don’t know who the killer was, I couldn’t give you the entire TV show. Did you notice the book lying on that table next to this chair? Not very thick, green with a red spine?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t try to read what it said. It looked like a journal or a ledger book.”

  “There wasn’t any writing. But as far as I know, it wasn’t removed by the police, and it wasn’t here when I entered this place the first time. What else did you notice?”

  “
The killer was shorter than Kavanaugh was. You can tell by the angle of the blows. None of them came from above him.”

  I looked around. “Or the killer was sitting in that chair, grabbed the poker, and swung it before he or she stood up.” I began gathering my tools and stuffing them in my duffle bag.

  “Either way, I’m willing to bet the killer was a woman.”

  I chuckled. “You and everyone who knew him. How short would you guess? My height? Shorter? Taller?”

  He considered. “Your height. The angle of the poker would be different if swung by someone very short.”

  “I agree. That eliminates one suspect.” I blew out the last candle and put it in the bag. “Shall we go?”

  Chapter 25

  The major problems with teaching at a university of the arcane arts were the teachers and the students. Not only were they talented but also intelligent, and many were potentially dangerous. Witches had cast complex spells for centuries—most without any formal education—and underestimating anyone who might intend harm in a place such as Wicklow College was a serious mistake.

  I was reminded of that as I walked past Kavanaugh’s apartment the following morning. I didn’t notice at first that I’d walked into a spider’s trap. I proceeded four or five steps, each one meeting increasing resistance, before everything slowed down and my progress halted.

  “You venture into dangerous territory,” a bright sign read in front of me as I slowed. The sign slowly faded.

  It had been many years since I concerned myself with surveillance and ambush. Either I was being watched, or someone had set a spell on Kavanaugh’s rooms that sent an alert about my visit the night before. At least no one was trying to blow me up.

  I took a deep breath, activated my wand, and shattered the spell holding me. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t send an intimidating message to anyone watching, as the spell hadn’t been intended to hold me for long and was already fading.

  It was a complex spell, or rather a set of spells. The sign was separate from the trap spell. The sign might be something a student picked up in a class, but the trap came from either a family grimoire or the Witches’ Web. I couldn’t imagine a legitimate reason for teaching it at Wicklow College.

  Who else could I be putting in danger with my investigation? Steven, Kelly, and David had all been in Kavanaugh’s apartment with me at various times. And Kagan, of course. Someone was concerned, and that was a cause for my concern. Someone had tried to kill me once already.

  I walked through the quad, stopping by the coffee shop next to the Faculty Club before going to my first class. When I emerged, I noticed Emma and Ophelia standing together near the breezeway leading to Howard Quad. Were they watching me? As soon as I caught sight of them, they turned away and walked toward the classroom building on the other side of the quad.

  In my Introduction to Alchemy course that morning, a student asked, “How much of the science of alchemical magic is really documented and understood? I was reading a book from the library, and the author maintained that only half of what we consider magic is understood at all.”

  A different student asked, “What is the difference between religion and magic, or is there a difference?”

  After escaping, I decided it might be a good idea to talk to someone who knew far more about magic than I did. There were a couple of my older friends in Sausalito who might have been able to shed some light on the Gambler Grimoire and other such books, but one of the grand experts on the history of magic was closer.

  I walked outside the quads, found a bench under a large tree near the library, and made my call.

  “Dad? Have you got some time? I have a problem.”

  “I always have time for you, sweetheart. What’s going on?”

  It took almost forty minutes—occasionally interrupted by my father’s questions—to tell him the whole story.

  “Okay. So, other than telling you that you should move somewhere safer,” he said, “or be sensible and leave this thing alone, what do you need from me?”

  I sighed. “I keep getting the feeling that this book, or at least the spirit of this book, is something that captures people. That I can’t really leave it alone, and that people will continue to die until the book is locked away someplace safe. Does that make any sense, or am I just being obsessive and paranoid?”

  “I doubt that the spirit of the book is influencing people who’ve never seen or held it,” he said. “But the idea—the concept—of the book seems to have taken hold of some people’s imaginations. Assuming you’re right, and all these deaths are connected—and connected to the book—then I would say finding the book is almost like a religious quest. I agree with you that it’s more than the idea of riches. The possibility of changing the future, of loading the dice for things far beyond simply games of chance, could mean something very different to different people. It could have very different ramifications, depending on what people wanted to do with it, or the ways they might conceive of using it.”

  “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Not any more than I did before you called. Anything else you need from me?”

  “Yes, I need you to check on some people for me.” I gave him several names, then hung up.

  My next call was to Kagan.

  “Lieutenant? Savanna Robinson.”

  “Don’t tell me you found another body.”

  I bit my tongue, then continued when I managed not to laugh. “No, I just thought I should tell you that someone is harassing me. Some men with British accents confronted me in town the other day. They seem to think I know something about that GG book. And then today, I had something odd happen on campus.”

  “Odd?”

  “I’m not sure how much I should say over the phone.”

  “Ahh. I see. Are you free this afternoon?”

  “I will be, after three-thirty.”

  “I’ll stop by.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. One thing I was curious about. You didn’t find any women’s hair in Kavanaugh’s apartment, did you?”

  The guffaw from Kagan confirmed my guess. “Take your pick—blonde, brunette, or redhead. We’ve ruled out the redhead.”

  “Really?”

  “She was serving me a beer at Shillelagh at the time he was killed.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yes, only one beer. And only one redhead—natural redhead. They are a very small minority of the population, you know.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  When Kagan came, I served tea and banana bread I’d baked. As I suspected from his shape, Kagan liked to eat.

  I told him first about the spider trap and the message that morning, not mentioning my foray with Steven into Kavanaugh’s apartment. Then I told him about being accosted in town.

  “Lowell Carragher said the man’s name is George Peterson. Remember the correspondence we found between Kavanaugh and Harold Merriweather in London? This Peterson character showed up at Merriweather’s shop a couple of weeks ago. That night, the shop was burglarized, and Merriweather’s copy of that correspondence was taken. Then Peterson shows up here.”

  The sour expression on Kagan’s face told me that he wished the whole Kavanaugh mess would go away, and take me with it.

  “You didn’t happen to identify any of the DNA at Kavanaugh’s—other than the redhead’s—did you?” I asked.

  Kagan shook his head. “I can’t go around asking every woman in town for a DNA sample. The only reason I know about the redhead is that she volunteered that she’d spent the night with him a few days before he was killed. She’s a friend I went to high school with, and she didn’t want me to think she was trying to hide something. They seem to have had an informal arrangement—nothing serious—and her boss told me they had been meeting for years.”

  He sighed. “Dr. Robinson, we found hair samples from seven different women—four of them in his bed. It made me wonder how often he changed his sheets, but it does lend s
ome credence to the theory that he was killed by a jealous lover.”

  Chapter 26

  “Dr. Robinson?”

  Ophelia trotted toward me on Howard Quad while I was on my way to the Faculty Club to meet Kelly for dinner.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I asked, giving the girl a smile.

  She slowed and fell in beside me. “I just wanted to tell you, they let Corey out on bail. I kept telling them that Josh attacked Corey, and the knife they found was Josh’s.”

  “That’s good to hear. I guess. It still doesn’t change the fact that a young man is dead.”

  The girl’s face fell. “That’s true. What a mess. I wish it had never happened.”

  I shook my head. “Three deaths of people you knew fairly well. It’s been a rough year.”

  Ophelia nodded. “It really has. I mean, this is the sort of thing you read about. The sort of thing that happens to other people.”

  “Make you sort of wish you’d gone to school in Boulder?”

  “Who said anything about Boulder?”

  “I heard you were accepted there.”

  “Yeah, but I never really considered it. It was my backup if I didn’t make it here at Wicklow. Dr. Aubert wasn’t very supportive, but Dr. Kavanaugh offered me the job at the greenhouse and agreed to be my advisor.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what was Dr. Aubert’s issue?”

  “He wanted me to do my thesis in protective amulets, which is his area of study. As I told you, I want to do potions.”

  I leaned down. “Sometimes professors get a little grabby with students’ ideas, don’t they?”

  Ophelia turned wide, frightened eyes toward me.

  I winked. “A roommate of mine had a professor publish a paper she wrote. It happens.”

  “I’ve heard of things like that.”

  “I have to go,” I said, “but you keep your head down. There’s some strange stuff going on around here, and you and Corey don’t want to get caught up in any more of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My lawyer says that we’re not out of the woods yet.”