Death Magic (29 page)
Authors: Eileen Wilks
“Without a coffeepot, I should add. I can’t locate mine. I’ve tried simply boiling the grounds, but the results are less than satisfactory.” This sigh was windier and filled with regret. “I do miss Martha.”
Cullen knew Fagin was a widower, but he was pretty sure the man’s wife had died a decade or two ago. It seemed ample time to learn how to make coffee. “I can probably figure something out. Martha was your wife?”
“My housekeeper. She refused to leave Cambridge, unfortunately. I miss Janie, too, but not for her coffee. She made terrible coffee. Brilliant woman, but her coffee was even worse than mine, and that’s saying something. The kitchen’s this way.”
The kitchen was narrow and made narrower by more packing boxes. Most of these had at least been opened. “How long did you say you’d been here?”
“Priorities, dear boy, priorities. I had to work on the library first. Ah, here’s the coffee.” Fagin beamed and held out a foil package from Starbucks. “There’s a pan on the stove that I used to boil previous attempts.”
So there was. Surprisingly, it looked clean. Cullen handed it to Fagin. “Fill it halfway with water. Filters?”
“With the coffeepot, I imagine, wherever that may be.”
Paper towels would do, and Cullen saw a roll of those. “I need a strainer or a funnel and something to decant the brew into. Did you know there’s an earth elemental lurking beneath your porch?”
“A very small one, yes. It took some negotiating, which Sherry was kind enough to handle for me, but it agreed to keep an eye on the place in exchange for the traditional offerings. Will this do?”
Cullen accepted the large mesh strainer Fagin held out and tore off a couple paper towels. “Get the water boiling.”
“That much I know how to do. Why are you here?”
“That damn dagger. The one someone left in Senator Bixton.” Cullen dumped grounds into the paper-lined strainer. “Do you have another pot? A big one?”
“Hmm, yes, I think . . . here.” After clattering around in one of the boxes, he tried to hand the pot to Cullen.
“Put it in the sink. This goes on top.” Cullen followed and balanced the strainer over the pot. “Part of the spell on the dagger is Vodun. Part of it is something that . . . well, it sounds crazy, so I need to check. I went to see a Vodun priestess I know, but she wasn’t helpful.” Celeste had been royally pissed, in fact, when she learned he’d meant those marriage vows he took a few months ago. The offer of cash hadn’t eased her troubled spirit. “You told me you had a journal by Papa Araignée.”
“Oh, yes. It’s not long, but it is quite remarkable. So few Vodun priests write things down, and Araignée was . . . hmm. Twisted, but very bright. Do you read French? Are you sure that’s enough coffee?”
“Yes and yes. Do you have anything by Knoblauch or Czypsser?”
“Just that treatise Armand wrote on Knoblauch, which, as I’m sure you know, is mostly hogwash. However, I’ve got a copy of Czypsser’s
Ars Magicka
that was supposedly made from the original
.
”
Ars Magicka
that was supposedly made from the original
.
”
A thrill went through Cullen. “The entire thing?”
“Alas, only fifty-two of what is reputed to have been eighty pages, and some of them are damaged.”
Fifty-two pages. Fifty-two pages of one of the most sought-after grimoires in the world. Czypsser hadn’t been an adept, but he’d studied under one as a youth. Five years ago, Cullen had paid five thousand dollars for a blurred copy of two pages from Czypsser’s
Ars Magicka
.
Ars Magicka
.
And Fagin was going to let him see fifty-two pages? Cullen twitched all over just thinking about it. “Do those pages include his list of elven runes?”
“Oh, yes. Most of them are legible, and some have brief definitions or notes on congruencies. Do you read medieval German?”
“No, but you do.”
“I’m fairly fluent. That doesn’t look like enough coffee. I’ve been using at least twice as much.”
“And drinking it?”
“I take your point.”
IT
wasn’t the best coffee Cullen had ever had, but it wasn’t bad. He sipped from the mug Fagin had washed while they were waiting for the coffee to drip through its makeshift filter and nodded acceptance of Fagin’s grateful praise. Once the man paused Cullen said, “About that journal and the Czypsser manuscript . . .”
wasn’t the best coffee Cullen had ever had, but it wasn’t bad. He sipped from the mug Fagin had washed while they were waiting for the coffee to drip through its makeshift filter and nodded acceptance of Fagin’s grateful praise. Once the man paused Cullen said, “About that journal and the Czypsser manuscript . . .”
“Oh, yes. The library’s right through here.” Fagin headed for a door on the far end of the kitchen.
Cullen followed . . . and stepped into a room that bore no resemblance to the rest of the place.
Large, airy, and orderly, it ran the length of the house. The floor was wood. An area rug marked a reading zone at the far end, where two comfortable armchairs and a square table invited you to sit and browse in front of a bow window. Cable lighting zigzagged over the entire ceiling, but it wasn’t needed now. In addition to the bow window, two tall windows interrupted the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the west wall.
In the center of the room rested a huge, battered desk flanked by a pair of low bookcases. It held the usual sort of detritus, both electronic and traditional: computer, printer, calendar, a small scattering of papers. And at this end, a long library table held court. A single, half-empty packing box sat on it.
There was even a card catalogue. An honest-to-God, old-fashioned wooden card catalog claimed pride of place in a section of wall clearly reserved for it. “Priorities,” Cullen murmured. “Yes. You’re a man after my own heart, Fagin.”
Fagin beamed proudly at his domain. “I had the wall removed and the shelves added. It started out as a bedroom and dining room, you see. This suits me better.” He lumbered into motion. “I don’t have my entire collection in here, but I think I unpacked Papa Araignée’s journal. It should be in the Vodun section . . . ah, yes. Here it is.” He held out a tattered, leather-bound journal. “You can take it with you, if you like.”
Cullen’s eyebrows lifted. That was an unusual degree of trust—but then, Fagin wasn’t a practitioner himself. He tucked the slim journal carefully inside his jacket. “Thank you. And the
Ars Magicka
?”
Ars Magicka
?”
“You’re drooling.”
“Hardly at all,” Cullen said repressively. “I have tremendous self-control.”
Fagin chuckled. “The original is in my safety-deposit box back in Cambridge. I recently acquired a safety-deposit box here, but I haven’t made the trip to Cambridge to retrieve the items from my Cambridge box. But perhaps my translation will work better for you anyway, since you have some difficulty with medieval German.”
“I’ve never seen anyone actually twinkle before, but damned if you aren’t doing it. An English translation, I take it?”
“Of course.” Fagin headed for his desk. “It’s a work in progress, mind, not finished, but I have a decent rough draft you can see. I’ll burn you a disc so—”
The front window shattered.
Without blinking or thinking or any of the things there was no time for, Cullen flexed into a deep crouch. A shiny glass shower cascaded into the room. He sprang. A second projectile followed the first as he slammed into Fagin, grabbing him and twisting so momentum would spin them sideways as they fell—
the desk, the desk, it will shield us—
the desk, the desk, it will shield us—
The ground reached up and smacked them as the air ignited in a wall of stink, heat, and flame.
TWENTY
THE
woman’s gray hair frizzed around her face in an untidy halo. Her eyes were small and suspicious, her skin as scuffed and worn as an old suitcase. She smelled of baby powder, sweat, and the chicken concoction she shoveled into a small, pursed mouth with all the dainty greed of a cat enjoying a dish of tuna. Her hands were small and immaculately clean, even under the nails he suspected she trimmed with her teeth. They looked chapped.
woman’s gray hair frizzed around her face in an untidy halo. Her eyes were small and suspicious, her skin as scuffed and worn as an old suitcase. She smelled of baby powder, sweat, and the chicken concoction she shoveled into a small, pursed mouth with all the dainty greed of a cat enjoying a dish of tuna. Her hands were small and immaculately clean, even under the nails he suspected she trimmed with her teeth. They looked chapped.
She did not smell of alcohol, unlike the man on Rule’s right. He gave off fumes that should have robbed everyone in a nine-yard radius of their appetites. “But you do know Birdie, I think,” Rule said. He didn’t say the woman’s name because he didn’t know it. She wouldn’t give it to him.
“Everyone knows Birdie,” she said without looking up. “I ain’t seen him lately, but that don’t mean he ain’t around.”
“How long do you think it’s been since you saw him?”
“Well, now let’s see.” She stopped eating and mimed patting her pockets. “Sumbitch. I think I done lost my PDA, where I jots down all that important shit.”
Rule wasn’t sure why he didn’t give up and move on to someone else. She didn’t want to talk to him, and he couldn’t make her. But she was enjoying giving him a hard time. Why not let her have a few more minutes of it? “It’s hard to know who to trust, isn’t it?”
She snorted. “That’s easy. Don’t trust nobody. Do I know you from someplace?”
“I’ve been on TV now and then. I’m the Lu Nuncio of my clan.”
“Of your . . . shit, you’re that prince guy. The werewolf.” Her eyes narrowed even more and she pointed at him with her fork. “You’re a ce-le-britty.” The last two syllables sounded more like “bratty.”
Rule grinned. He was beginning to like her. “Of sorts, yes.”
“How come you’re here without the cameras? Ever’ time you goddamn ce-le-britties come around to feed the homeless, there’s a camera someplace. Marianne says it’s good publicity. Brings in donations. I say it’s a pain in the ass.”
“But I’m not here to feed the homeless. I’m looking for Birdie.”
“He ain’t here.”
“True. Is there anyone else who’s usually here who you haven’t seen lately?”
“Tom Cruise. That man plumb loves the chicken and noodles. Can’t figure why he ain’t been around lately.”
“Perhaps he’s on a diet. Us celebrities have to watch our waistlines.”
“Ha!” In high good humor, she slapped the table. “P’raps he is. Watchin’ your waistline, are you? Why you wanna know all this, anyway?”
He glanced across the noisy room. It wasn’t as crowded now. The line of people to be fed was gone; there was a shorter line now leading to the trash cans. Patrons were encouraged to scrape their cafeteria-style trays before turning them in.
Lily was talking to a tall man in a spattered white apron—one of the servers. She had instructed Rule firmly not to divulge why they were here. Some of these people were not screwed down tight, and all lived a precarious existence. It would not be helpful to tell them that someone might be snatching homeless people and killing them to power their magic. “I’m not supposed to tell you,” he said at last.
Her mouth twisted in scorn. “But I’m supposed to tell you stuff?”
“I can’t think why you would,” he admitted. “I may not be here for a photo op, but I do want something from you. Why should you care what I want?”
She stuck a forkful of chicken-whatever in her mouth and chewed in silence for a moment. “She’s a cop. That woman you came with.”
“Yes. Federal, not local.”
“Why’s she want Birdie?”
“She thinks someone may have harmed him.”
“You ’spect me to believe some big-shot federal cop cares what happens to Birdie?”
“She cares.” Rule looked at the nameless woman who smelled of baby powder, whom life had taught a great deal about survival and very little about trust. “You have no reason to believe that, but it’s the truest thing I know. She cares what happened to Birdie.”
“Hmph.” The sound was scornful, but after another bite the woman put her fork down. “You wait here. I’m gonna turn in my plate, then maybe I’ll tell you.” She heaved herself to her feet.
Rule waited. Why not? While she was gone the pungent man on his right got up. The two who’d sat across from him had already left. By the time the woman who wouldn’t share her name returned, they were alone at that end of the table.
“Better get up. They don’t mind if’n we talk awhile, but they don’t want us camping out once we’re done eating.”
He pushed back the folding chair and stood.
She was shorter than he’d realized and wide in the hips, wide through the shoulders, with heavy breasts restrained by a dark green tee. The flannel shirt she wore over that was thick, frayed at the cuffs, with the buttons on the right—a man’s shirt. Her jeans might have been meant for a man as well. They were cuffed up several times at the ankles and none too clean. She had dainty feet tucked into tattered athletic shoes smaller than the ones Rule had recently bought his ten-year-old son.
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