Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Originally published by Serial Box Publishing as part of Bookburners, Season One

1.

Sal had come to the Societas Libris Occultatem’s gym under the Vatican to lift weights, put in some treadmill time, and take out a little pent-up aggression on the heavy bag. All of those plans, however, flew right out the window when she found Liam with his shirt off, taping his hands and showing off both his physique and tattoos to very good advantage. Not that she wasn’t intimately acquainted with all of his ink already. Still, just because a girl was familiar with the scenery didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate the view.

He caught her looking and smirked.

“You come to work out, or just window shopping?”

“I can’t do both?”

“I’d hate for you to get hurt because you were distracted.”

Well, she couldn’t just let that pass, could she?

Despite being in a genuine roped-off ring, their sparring was more mixed unarmed combat than straight-out boxing. (Liam was scandalized to learn that New York police did not generally engage in recreational fisticuffs, at least, not since handlebar moustaches had gone out of fashion.) But they both had enough training to make for an interesting bout, and if one or the other of them periodically wound up flat on their back against the canvas, Sal wasn’t complaining. From the press of his body against hers, Liam didn’t object either.

Liam was helping her to her feet, and Sal was just about to suggest that they hit the showers and then continue their conversation in a less public setting when she was cut off by Father Menchú clearing his throat behind them.

Caught engaging in sparring-as-foreplay by a priest. There was an effective mood-killer for you.

Sal covered her blush by scrubbing her face with a towel.

“Father,” said Liam, his form of address betraying the depth of his discomfort. There was one advantage to being a lapsed Presbyterian who just happened to work at the Vatican: Sal might not be familiar with Catholic politics and hierarchy, but at least she didn’t have to fight years of childhood conditioning every time her boss walked in. Most of the time, Liam did pretty well at ignoring the fact that Menchú was a priest. This, apparently, was the line.

Menchú nodded to Liam in acknowledgment, then turned to Sal. “I need you to go home and pack a bag. We’ve got an assignment. Our train leaves in two hours.”

Sal snapped into ready mode, tossing aside her embarrassment along with her used towel. “I’ve got a go bag here. We can leave now.”

Menchú raised an eyebrow. “We could, but the train still leaves in two hours, and you need something you can wear in upscale company for the next three days.”

Sal wasn’t sure she had anything in Rome that she could wear in upscale company. Depending on how upscale he meant, she wasn’t sure she owned anything appropriate at all. “What’s the assignment?”

“I can’t say.”

That apparently caused something to click for Liam. “Is it Beltane already?”

Menchú gave him a quelling glance.

“What’s going on?” Sal demanded.

Menchú shook his head. “Can’t say.”

“Can’t? Won’t? Or aren’t allowed to?”

“Does it matter?”

Well, when he put it that way, Sal didn’t suppose it did.

The train took them to Zurich. Once there, Menchú rented an economy car, and they drove north through the mountains. Through it all, he wouldn’t say a word about where they were going, what they would be doing there, or why they were the only members of Team Three involved. Although Sal had come to accept that answering questions was not the Society’s forte, it was troubling that Menchú didn’t want to talk about anything else, either.

Finally, after hours of silence and crossing the border into Liechtenstein—of all places—Sal asked, “Are you mad at me?”

Menchú glanced at her in surprise. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m starting to feel like the cat you’re planning to abandon three states away, hoping that I won’t be able to find my way home.”

Menchú looked pained. “I’m sorry, Sal. I’ve been a bit distracted.”

“No shit.”

He glanced at a passing kilometer marker and came to a decision. “All right. We’re close enough now. Let me tell you about the Black Market.”

Somehow, Sal had a feeling he wasn’t talking about tax-free booze and cigarettes.

“It’s properly known as the Market Arcanum, or more commonly, the Market. The Society was first invited in the 15th century, thanks to the connections of certain members of the Order of the Dragon. From what we can tell, however, the Market dates back at least another half-millennium before that. In any event, every year at Beltane, covert practitioners of magic gather for a three-night conclave. It’s part auction, part high-level diplomatic conference for every power player who uses magic to rig the game.”

“Wait,” said Sal. “There’s an annual clearing house where people buy, sell, and trade the objects that we’re supposed to be hunting down and destroying?”

“Yes.”

“And Team One hasn’t nuked it from orbit?”

Menchú gave her a sardonic look. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that individuals within our organization do not always agree on matters of policy.”

“Yeah, but this time you’ve managed to stop team trigger-happy. How?”

“The Society leaves the Market alone for two reasons. First, it was pointed out by one of Asanti’s long-ago predecessors that even if we could destroy the Market, it wouldn’t eliminate magic from the world. At least this way, we can keep an eye on things.”

“That seems surprisingly sensible,” said Sal. “What’s the second reason?”

“In an open assault against the Market, The Society isn’t sure they’d win.”

“There are going to be people at this thing who could take Team One?”

“It’s highly possible that there are people at the Market who could take Team One without breaking a sweat.”

Sal wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate that. “Who are these people? World leaders? Guys who go to Davos? The Illuminati?”

“The members are…rather eclectic,” Menchú said. “The backbone is made up of representatives from the old noble European families. Though there’s been an influx of new money and technologists in the last hundred years, much to the disgust of the old guard. You’ll also see practitioners from Africa, Asia, and the New World, but we believe most of them have core gatherings in their own regions.”

“I’m sure the Society would love to have invites to those.”

“The Society would like to be able to send more than two representatives to this one, but wanting and getting are two very different things.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but why isn’t this a Team Two job? Aren’t they the diplomats?”

Menchú snorted. “They are, but objects and texts are our jurisdiction. Also, the members of the Order of the Dragon who secured the original invitation were part of Team Three, and so, by tradition, we’re the ones who go.”

Sal had a sudden suspicion. “Are you a member of this Order of the Dragon?”

Menchú actually rolled his eyes. “The Order of the Dragon was founded hundreds of years ago to protect Christendom from encroachment by the Ottoman Turks.”

“That is not a denial,” Sal pointed out.

Menchú quirked his lips, but said nothing.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Balzers, a town tucked into a valley in the middle of the mountains, which—as far as Sal could tell—was a fair description of most of Liechtenstein. Spring came late to the Alps, but the hills behind the small B&B where Menchú had booked their rooms were definitely greening up, and Sal took a minute—after she had changed out of her travel clothes into the black pants, black button-down shirt and black jacket that were as formal as she had managed—to appreciate the smell of clear air and growing things. She was getting used to Rome, but even after all her years in New York, Sal wasn’t a city girl at heart.

The Market Arcanum was to be held in Gutenberg Castle. Compared to the Papal Palace it seemed like more of a big stone house than a castle, but Sal supposed that if you ran a country, you could call your buildings whatever you wanted. It was outside of the town proper, and she and Menchú walked together up the hill from their inn.

“The Market is run by a woman known as the Maitresse,” Menchú explained. “She sets the rules, and for the next three nights, her word is law.”

“What are the rules?”

“The Market is considered neutral territory, which means that no member is allowed to offer violence against another.”

“What constitutes violence?” asked Sal. “Harsh words? Assault? Murder?”

“During the Market, violence is whatever the Maitresse and her Guardians say it is.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

“Any bargain struck at one Market must be fulfilled before the beginning of the next. If not, the owed party can demand a forfeit of their choosing.”

Sal could only imagine what powerful magic-wielding people could come up with for a forfeit.

“Lastly, anyone violating the secrecy of the Market will be permanently banned, along with their cadre.”

The penny dropped. “That’s why you couldn’t give me any information earlier?”

“Yes.”

Sal considered. “So if I piss someone off badly enough, I could get the entire Catholic Church banned?”

“In theory, yes.”

“I’m not gonna lie. That’s just a little tempting.”

Sal wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn she heard Menchú mutter, “You have no idea.”

2.

The sun was only a finger-width above the horizon when Sal and Menchú reached the castle. The Maitresse waited at the gates, flanked by two immense statues of armored men carrying stone swords. If the Maitresse had been anyone else, Sal would have pegged her age as somewhere between her forties and her sixties, an indeterminate maturity where experience, strength, and sex appeal came together and women with the standing to back it up could wear their power without even a whisper of apology. Something about her bearing, however, made Sal suspect that this woman had not apologized for her authority for a very, very long time.

“Maitresse,” said Menchú with the barest nod of respect. “Thank you for inviting us to the Market once again.”

The woman did not return the courtesy. “Bookburner.” Her eyes flicked to Sal. “And this is?”

Menchú blinked, but took the hint. “Our newest member, Sally Brooks.”

The Maitresse swept Sal with a penetrating stare. “Is she, now? How lovely for you.”

Sal took Menchú’s lead and nodded. “Ma’am.”

The Maitresse’s gaze lingered for another moment, and then, to Sal’s relief, transferred back to Menchú. “Do you claim a debt outstanding from the last Market?”

“We do not.”

“Very well.” At her gesture, the two statues stepped forward and away from the doors. Apparently, the Maitresse had figured out how to use magic without being consumed by madness, supernatural backlash, or a demon she sought to control. Which was…not a reassuring thought, actually.

The artificial men reached out and opened the huge wooden doors leading into the courtyard of the castle proper.

The Maitresse’s smile was anything but welcoming. “Welcome to the Market Arcanum.”

The courtyard was lit by sconces along the walls and illuminated orbs that floated overhead, unconnected to any visible tethers or power sources. Among the crowd already gathered, Sal could pick out at least half a dozen different languages being spoken, and guessed there were probably that many more that she couldn’t distinguish from the general murmuring.

“Does the Market supply translators?” Sal whispered.

Menchú grimaced. “This is just opening night posturing. Everyone keeping to their own group and proving how esoteric and mysterious they are. Once the Market officially opens, everyone switches over to a lingua franca.”

“Please, tell me that’s pretentious-speak for “English.’”

“These days, yes. It used to be Latin, then French, and some of the old families who insist on doing business ‘traditionally’ will use those for official documents and transactions, but English is the world’s second language, even here.”

“Oh. Good.”

Putting aside for the moment the part of her brain that kept trying to understand all of the words floating around her, Sal concentrated on what her eyes were telling her instead. Now that Menchú had pointed it out, she could see that all the people in the courtyard kept to small clusters of four or five. Apparently, not every group was limited to the Society’s two invites.

One group of men wearing wolf pelts draped over their shoulders like hoods looked like they had hiked in out of the Alps. The pelts had heads still attached, artificial eyes staring glassily from above their wearers’ own faces. It was disconcerting. Especially when Sal saw one of the wolves blink.

On the opposite side of the yard, a group of men and women in jeans and black T-shirts had apparently not gotten Menchú’s “dress for company” memo and were all busily bent over some piece of equipment. Support staff? As Sal tried to get a glimpse of just what they were working on, one of the men looked up and met her gaze. Sal felt suddenly cold. Then he looked away, turning back to his work, and she wondered if she had imagined it.

“Who are they?” she asked Menchú.

“Techno-cultists.” Sal wasn’t sure she had ever heard him sound so disgusted. “They believe that magic, like information, ‘wants to be free.’ And that by combining human technology with the supernatural, they can bring about the singularity, not just of artificial intelligence, but of all human knowledge.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That they’re a bunch of anarchists who have no respect for the power they’re playing with.”

Sal’s stomach clenched. “Are these the people Perry was mixed up with?”

“Philosophically, maybe, but we never had evidence that your brother and his friends were working with anyone except themselves.”

Before Sal could pursue the subject any further, the loud bang of a wooden bar falling across the entry doors reverberated through the courtyard. The assembly fell silent, and in that pause, the Maitresse stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the Market.

“Tonight begins the Market Arcanum. For three nights, from sunset to sunrise, all debts and grudges are to be set aside within these walls. In the outside world we are friends, rivals, enemies. Here we are equals.”

The Maitresse clapped her hands once, and the air throughout the castle vibrated, as though they stood inside a giant bell. On the stone wall above her, a clock face appeared. It had only a single hand, creeping from sunset on the far left edge of the circle toward dawn marked opposite.

The courtyard instantly erupted in conversation once again.

The Market had begun.

One of the men with the wolf pelts examined the contents of a lacquered wooden box held by a woman wearing an elegant evening gown, but whose exposed skin was completely covered in tattoos. The techno-cultists went back to their equipment. And a tall man wearing a suit that probably cost more than Sal earned in a year was striding toward her and Menchú.

When he arrived, his voice dripped with false cordiality. “Excellent. I had hoped that the Bookburners would deign to make an appearance.”

Sal wondered if everyone at this gathering hated them, or if they just kept running into the ones who did.

“We don’t burn books,” said Menchú, gently.

“Of course not. You take them. Even when they don’t belong to you.”

Sal frowned and glanced at Menchú. Did he have any idea who this man was or what he was talking about?

Menchú’s expression was impossible to read. “There are no debts or grudges within these walls. If you have a problem with the Society, I suggest that you take your quarrel elsewhere, Mr…?”

The man smiled. “The name is Mr. Norse.”

Mr. Norse. Owner of the Fair Weather. Sal was mildly impressed that he was more upset about the book than his burned yacht, but maybe he didn’t know Team One had been behind that. Maybe his yachts spontaneously caught fire all the time. With hobbies like his, it had to be a risk.

“Since you took something of mine,” Mr. Norse continued, “now I’m going to take something of yours.” He was practically leering. On instinct, Sal placed herself between the two men.

“You heard the lady on the balcony. This is neutral territory. But if you want to step outside, I’d be happy to kick your ass three nights from now.”

Mr. Norse only smiled. “I’ve already stepped outside, Ms. Brooks.”

He laid a particular emphasis on her name, rolling it on his tongue.

Sal felt her phone vibrate against her thigh. Incoming call. She ignored it.

“Congratulations, you know my name. Am I supposed to find that intimidating?”

“You’ll want to get that,” said Mr. Norse.

Behind her, Father Menchú's hand slid toward his own ringing phone.

“Why?”

“It’s the part you’re supposed to find intimidating.”

Sal pulled out her phone and glanced at the caller ID. Liam.

Liam and Asanti stood at the center of a maelstrom. A fierce wind roared through the Archives, picking up books and sending them flying off their shelves, hurtling through the air like mad birds.

“What’s going on?” Liam shouted.

Above them, the towering shelves swayed, metal creaking like an old barn in a storm. Liam wondered just how many tons of paper loomed above their heads, and how long it would take to dig out their bodies if it all came tumbling down.

And then something was falling toward them: Grace. No, she wasn’t falling. She had slipped through the lattice surrounding the central stairs and was skittering down the supports like they were a giant, swaying jungle gym. She landed lightly on her feet, not even out of breath.

“Are you insane?” Liam asked.

She shrugged. “Faster than walking.”

“Did you find the monsignor?” Asanti asked.

Grace shook her head. “Couldn’t get out.”

“We’re sealed in?”

It wasn’t really a question, but Grace nodded. Liam reached for his phone.

“I tried,” said Grace. “No signal.”

Liam didn’t look up. “I’ve got some boosters built into mine. I might be able to get through whatever’s causing this so we can warn the other teams.”

Asanti grabbed Liam’s shoulder to get his attention. “Try Sal and Menchú first.” Even though she was shouting directly into Liam’s ear, he had trouble hearing her over the creak of shelves and the thumps of falling books.

“Why?”

“Because the Market began tonight, and whatever this is, it started at sunset.”

Once Sal had hung up with Liam, Menchú calmly returned his attention to Mr. Norse. “All right. You’ve shown that you can attack my people. Now stop.”

The other man smiled. “No.”

“I will report you to the Guardians. It is against the rules of the Market—”

“The rules of the Market forbid any member to offer violence against another within these walls. I have not lifted a hand against you or your companion. But you killed three of my people. Return my book,” said Mr. Norse, “or the attacks will escalate every night until the rest of your team is just as dead as mine.”

3.

Sal and Menchú left the castle the instant the doors were unbarred at sunrise. Their landlady gave them a look as they arrived for breakfast through the outside door, but Sal was too strung out to care. As soon as they could, they adjourned to Menchú’s room and called Asanti.

“The maelstrom stopped briefly at dawn,” she reported, “but it keeps picking up again, randomly and without warning. Which is almost worse.”

“Is everyone okay?” Sal asked.

“A bit battered, but so far, yes.”

Well, that was something, at least. “Could Mr. Norse be bluffing?” Sal asked.

Menchú shook his head. “Unfortunately, I think we have to assume that whatever Mr. Norse is doing will escalate to more lethal levels until he makes good on his threat.” Then he added, to Asanti, “We should be there with you.”

“As much as I’d appreciate your company and assistance, I think you can do more good working on Mr. Norse where you are. Besides, we’re locked in.”

Menchú said something in Spanish that Sal suspected he wouldn’t be willing to translate. She decided to get back to the matter at hand.

“Okay, so if you’re stuck in there, what can we do from Liechtenstein to make sure that you don’t, you know, die? I mean, besides give Mr. Norse a book leaking demonic goo that wants to drown the world.”

“It depends on what he actually wants,” said Asanti.

“He sounded pretty clear about wanting all of you dead,” said Sal.

“If Norse wanted to kill us, there are a lot of faster, easier, and more deniable ways to go about it,” said Asanti.

Menchú grimaced. “Which means that this is just the opening of negotiations.”

Indeed, Mr. Norse responded immediately and favorably to their request for a meeting, which Sal had to admit lent a certain degree of credibility to Asanti’s theory. They arranged to meet before sunset, in a small room that was normally part of the castle’s museum.

Mr. Norse seated himself on a tapestried stool that must have been at least four hundred years old as though he sat on Renaissance furniture every day. Maybe he did. Menchú and Sal remained standing.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Menchú began.

“Do you have my book?”

“We do. Locked in our Archives.”

“Then I suggest you unlock it,” Mr. Norse remarked drily. “If transport is a problem, I have an envoy in Rome who will accept delivery on my behalf.” He took a card out of his jacket pocket and held it out to Menchú. Menchú ignored it.

“The book is both damaged and highly dangerous. We cannot hand it over.”

Mr. Norse raised a brow. “I thought Catholics believed in the value of human life.”

“We are aware that you purchased the volume, and are prepared to compensate you for your loss of property.”

“My demands for compensation are very simple. I want my book. Since I suspect you will not provide it, I will kill your team. And then, I want you to live with the knowledge of the deaths you caused with your obstinacy.” His smile was flat and cold. “Unless you can offer me something better than that, I think our discussions are concluded.”

So much for negotiations, Sal thought.

“Time?” asked Liam.

“One minute to sunset,” came Grace’s calm reply. As though they weren’t anticipating all unholy hell breaking loose in the next sixty seconds.

Liam had faith in Menchú and his powers of persuasion. He believed that God would protect those committed to His work on earth. Liam had also been taught that the Lord helped those who helped themselves—and so that was what he and the rest of the team had spent the day doing. Now, Liam’s entire body felt like one huge bruise, and his ears rang from stress, hunger, and lack of sleep. But this time, they would be prepared.

“Are you ready?” Asanti asked.

“Gimme five seconds.”

“Thirty seconds to sunset,” said Grace.

Liam took hold of two heavy iron maces—originally part of some forgotten order’s regalia, now wrapped in wire stripped from every reading lamp in the Archive—and lifted his arms to their greatest extension, one on either side of his body. “Do it.”

Grace and Asanti both jammed spliced electrical plugs into outlets on opposite walls, one for each mace. It hadn’t been easy to create electromagnets with things that were stashed around the Archives, but pain and annoyance were both powerful motivators, and Liam had plenty of both to egg him on. Now he just needed this harebrained scheme to work.

“Grace, a little more on your side.”

Liam heard a scrape as she pushed a set of iron shelves through the cascade of books covering the floor. He fancied he could see Asanti wince out of the corner of his eye, but she didn’t say anything. First, save themselves. Worry about the damage later.

The pressure on his left arm eased, as the magnetized mace wavered, torn between the pull of the magnet in his other hand and the huge hunk of iron Grace was moving toward it. The pull was easing, nearly neutral…

“There!”

Grace froze. Liam held his breath. Slowly, carefully, he let go of the maces, trying not to jostle their positions in the air. Then he stepped away. The two weapons hung, perfectly balanced between the attractive force of the iron shelves, the central stairway, and each other.

Liam let out a long, slow, breath. No one moved.

“Time?”

“Four seconds to sunset.”

Three. Two. One.

The Archives remained silent. No winds. No flying books.

Grace looked at Liam, impressed. “Field is holding. Nice work.” Then, she frowned. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“High-pitched sound. Like a fluorescent bulb that’s slightly off-cycle.”

Liam shook his head. “No, but my high frequencies aren’t great.”

“Too much time with your headphones on,” said Asanti.

Liam shrugged. “Probably.” Then a sound tickled at the edge of his hearing. “Wait. Is it kind of…?”

The high-pitched noise exploded in his head like someone was driving an ice pick through his eardrums. Liam gasped in pain. He heard Asanti shout. And Grace…

Grace, who could take a fist to the face without blinking, whom Liam had seen head-butt armored demons twice her size and not even bruise, crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

From the instant Menchú and Sal stepped into the courtyard at sunset, it was obvious that everyone at the Market knew what was going on. Not that Mr. Norse had been at all subtle with his threats the night before, but Menchú couldn’t help but notice how every whispered conversation paused as they passed and then resumed as soon as they were out of earshot. He wished that Asanti were there with them. Actually, he wished that Asanti were there instead of him. Menchú had learned over the years to take people as they came. His easy manner with all sorts was one of the reasons he had been recruited into Team Three. But the Market, with its casual magic use and even more casual classism, made his teeth crawl.

He did his best to shake off his annoyance. It wouldn’t help, and railing against the good fortune of people who did evil over those who did good was bush-league theology of the first order.

As if she could read his mind, Sal let out a sigh. “It’s not fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“We probably have the largest collection of magical books and artifacts in the world in the Archives.” She gestured to the crowd around them. “We could be sitting on something that could not only stop Mr. Norse, but also make his balls fall off the next time he even thinks about going after our people, but it doesn’t do us any good because we never use any of the artifacts we find.”

Quickly, Menchú drew Sal off to the side where they could speak without being disturbed. That kind of thinking had to be nipped in the bud. “We are fighting this, Sal,” he assured her, “and we are going to win. Liam, Grace, and Asanti are going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that. We can’t give Mr. Norse the book because he would use it to destroy the world, I get that. But look around us; this place is full of people who use magic every day. It doesn’t seem to be driving them insane.”

“You don’t know them very well yet.”

Sal shook her head. “I just don’t understand why you won’t even consider—”

“Because I know what happens when people try to use forces they don’t understand.”

Sal was clearly still in the mood to argue, and Menchú realized they would be at it all night if he didn’t give her something productive to do. “Why don’t you call and check in with the others? Let them know what’s going on and make sure that they’re still all right.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Menchú couldn’t stop the grimace. “Look for allies.”

Sal’s conversation with Liam had not gone well. A burst of static exploded from the phone the instant he picked up. She tried to tell him what had happened with Mr. Norse, but wasn’t sure that he could hear anything over the bad connection. From what she’d been able to tell over the interference, the situation in the Archives had only gotten worse, and there was still jack-all that she could do about it from goddamned Liechtenstein.

When Sal hung up, the techno-cultist who had been staring at her the night before was standing at her elbow. She jerked in surprise, and her phone went flying from her fingers.

The techno-cultist’s hand darted out, picked her falling phone out of the air, and handed it to her. All without ever once breaking eye contact. He worked his mouth for a moment, as though he had to remember how to talk. Finally, he said, “You’re Perry’s sister, aren’t you?”

Sal felt her heart lurch in her chest. She checked the courtyard. Menchú was nowhere to be seen. “Yes. Who are you?”

“You can call me Opus93.”

“How about I call you by your real name?”

He shrugged. “What makes Opus93 less real than the name I was born with?”

Because Opus93 is a stupid-ass name, Sal didn’t say. “What do your friends call you?”

“Opus93.”

Sigh. “What do you know about my brother, Opie?”

“Word is he got his hands on something real, but he brought it to his sister the cop. He goes nova, puts out a huge spew of phantom data, then goes dark. And now Cop Sister is a Bookburner, and no one’s heard from Perry since.”

“What are you implying?”

“Implications are imprecise. Facts are what’s needed.”

Sal didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or fight back tears. It was too much like talking to Perry when he got into one of his esoteric fugues.

“Fine. Are you offering facts? Or just fishing for them?”

“Information wants to be free, doesn’t come without a price. You want help with your little billionaire problem, you need to ask the Index.”

The Index. Even Sal could hear the capital letter. She looked around again for Menchú. Still no sign of him. She swallowed. “Tell me more.”

Either the small room the techno-cultists had reserved for their use during the Market was not normally part of the castle’s museum, or it had been lovingly restored to its original purpose of storing dirt. Though dirt wouldn’t have required the window the cultists were using to vent the portable generator they had brought. That was the only familiar piece of equipment in the room.

Through a shared childhood with Perry, Sal had become passably familiar with circuit boards, resistors, and the various shells that computers and their innards came in. Not that she could do anything with them, but at least she knew what they were supposed to look like.

These computers—and Sal used the term loosely—had probably started their lives as standard PCs. What had happened to them next…One laptop looked like it had been repurposed as a planter, the keyboard replaced with a bed of moss ringed by yellow flowers. Above, a screen glowed with life. As Sal watched, Opie brushed a hand over the moss, and the blinking cursor and command line vanished, replaced by scrolling code that flew by faster than her eyes could follow. Another half-open desktop was filled with boards where glowing crystals grew among the circuits, absorbing the machine into their structure. A screen on the opposite wall connected to a large aquarium, complete with a herd of tiny sea horses milling in the purple-hued water.

Opie caught her staring. “Biocomputer. Only working example in the world.” He walked over to the aquarium and pulled a keyboard off a nearby shelf. A few keystrokes later, the blank screen above the tank changed to display a video of a baby panda. “Panda cam in the Beijing Zoo. It’s closed circuit. Not publicly accessible.”

Sal was more disturbed by the sea horses. As soon as Opie picked up the keyboard, they fell into formation, then scattered. They were currently swimming in a very intricate pattern through the tank. Except that every few seconds, all of the sea horses would suddenly freeze in place, like a buffering video. The baby panda, meanwhile, rolled on its back happily, and a hand reached in from off-screen to rub its belly.

“I thought biocomputers were still theoretical.”

“In the rest of the world, yes. But if you have a little bit of magic to help you…” He gestured to the rest of the room. “All things are possible.”

“Is that the Index?”

“The Index makes this look like a Commodore 64.”

“So why are you wasting my time? I have friends in trouble. Can you help me or not?”

Opie gave her a smug look. “I can help you. But the Index contains the sum of all human knowledge. Like I said, you don’t get to access that for free.”

Sal scoffed and held up her cell phone. “I already have access to the sum of all human knowledge. Costs me sixty-five dollars a month.”

Opie snorted. “We both know that if that was enough, you wouldn’t have followed me, Cop Sister. The Internet is merely the totality of human knowledge that’s been written down and put on online. The Index is a repository of everything known by any human who has ever interfaced with it.”

“And that includes Mr. Norse?”

Opie nodded. “Ask your question, and know what he knows about what’s happening to your friends.”

“What’s the catch?” asked Sal, torn between being fascinated by the possibilities and really disturbed by the implications of what Opie was saying.

“For every question you ask, the Index takes one piece of knowledge from your mind, and you can never know it again.”

4.

Sal had found Menchú when they both returned to their B&B after sunrise. Predictably, he had not been enthusiastic when Sal told him about her encounter with Opie and his offer.

“I don’t like the idea of losing a chunk of my memory any more than you do, but I don’t think we have a choice,” she said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. Sal couldn’t imagine that getting snippy with Menchú would help matters, and it wasn’t like any of this was his fault.

“We always have a choice,” said Menchú. “And we only have the word of one techno-cultist that this so-called Index won’t wipe your entire memory. We don’t know that it even works at all.”

“I’m pretty sure that mind-wiping someone would be considered both breaking a deal and offering violence against another member of the Market. Do you really think they’d risk getting evicted?”

“I’m sure their expulsion will be a great comfort to you after your mind has been destroyed by their infernal machine.”

“That’s the other thing. If this is all a ploy, what’s in my mind that they’re so interested in? Out of everyone here, why target me?”

“Your brother.”

“You know more about what’s going on with Perry than I do. Plus more secrets of the Society besides. Why haven’t they been eye-fucking you this whole time?”

Menchú didn’t even crack a smile. “Because if they’d approached me, I would have said no, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

“You think they targeted me because I’m the weak link.”

“I think they know what you want, and now they’re offering it to you. It’s what demons do—find your weakness and turn it against you.”

“You think Opie is a demon? Seriously?”

“I think something is powering the Index, and it isn’t love and light.” If possible, Menchú’s expression turned even more serious. “You haven’t been with us for long, but even so, these people would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to suck you dry of every drop of information you know about the Archives and the Society. You remember how Liam was possessed?”

Sal nodded.

“This wouldn’t be the first time techno-cultists tried to use the residue of a demon to access our secrets. And once they’ve touched you…Demons leave scars just like physical wounds. Break a bone once, you’re more likely to break it again in the same place.”

“So where are you broken?” Sal asked.

Menchú froze. “What do you mean?”

“You recruited me after I fought off a demon possessing my brother. Liam was taken over by something out of his computer, lost two years of his life, and now lives to fight the kinds of things that stole that time from him. I’m willing to bet that Asanti had some brush with the arcane that got her so curious about magic, and for some reason, Grace isn’t afraid of getting shot. So what happened to you?”

The silence sat heavily between them.

“Does it have to do with an angel?”

Menchú’s head shot up. “What did Asanti tell you?”

“Nothing. But you just did.”

Menchú seemed to deflate before her very eyes. Shrinking somehow, as though the clerical collar was just a costume, and he wasn’t a crusader saving the world from magic, demons, and things that lurk in the night, but merely a middle-aged man who was suddenly very, very tired.

Sal expected him to tell her that the discussion was over. Or that his past was none of her business. Or even to send her back to Rome. Instead, he said, “It was a long time ago. When I was still a parish priest in Guatemala.”

The parish consisted of a single village, tucked into a valley surrounded by as much farmland as the residents could cultivate before the terrain became too steep to support anything but virgin forest. The United States had been telling the world that Guatemala was a democracy for at least ten years, although what evidence it had to support that claim beyond a nominally elected government was dubious. Were mass executions and disappearances the hallmarks of a democracy? Menchú was pretty sure they weren’t. And he was dead certain that they shouldn’t be.

Still, there were a few signs that things were changing for the better, and maybe that was why he had not seen the disaster coming. Unknowing, perhaps he had let his guard down. Whatever the reason, the first Menchú knew of the impending disaster was a small fist banging on the door of his residence in the middle of the night.

Menchú had not been asleep and was at the door almost immediately. It was one of the boys from the village, an altar server no more than seven years old, fist already raised to knock again. “Father,” he said, “come quickly.”

Menchú read his expression in an instant. “What’s happened?” he asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer. Still, What’s happened? was a kinder question than Who died?

“The Army. They’ve surrounded us.”

Menchú did not ask further questions.

He followed the boy outside into the square. Soldiers were roaring into town now, making no attempt at stealth. Menchú couldn’t fathom how he hadn’t heard them coming. There was too much noise to pick out what individual men were saying, but their intent was clear. Every resident—about sixty men, women, and children—had been rousted from their beds and corralled into the main square. The man with captain’s braid on his shoulders paced back and forth. Behind him, a dozen men stood, their rifles still slung over their shoulders. For the moment.

Menchú didn’t fool himself that they were going to stay that way.

“Father,” a low voice called. Menchú turned, and his heart sank even further. Apparently the rebels hadn’t all made it back to their hidden camps in the mountains in time. And now here they were, guns at the ready, hiding in the shadows by the church.

Menchú paused, and Sal watched him with open concern. “The army just showed up to kill everyone, just like that?”

He shook his head. “There was an excuse. There always was. Harboring rebels who had refused to disarm. But effectively…yes. They showed up to kill everyone.”

“Why?”

“To prove that they still could.”

“And then the rebels found out, and surrounded the army?”

Menchú shrugged. “There weren’t enough of them for that. But it was enough for an effective ambush. With the element of surprise, they probably could have killed most of the soldiers. And then the government would have sent more to retaliate. Concentric circles of death all the way down.”

Sal wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed inadequate, but it was all she had.

“For years, I wondered if it was because of me. I had distinguished myself within the Church during the civil war. Conflict is fertile ground for demons, and I had made it clear that I would protect both sides from their influence, banishing them back where they came from as soon as they dared show themselves in my presence. I wondered if maybe…If someone high enough in the chain of command decided to take exception to that policy of neutrality, they might have made an example of my village in order to send a message.”

“The rebels couldn’t have been too happy that you were helping the army.”

“Not really. But they were more at risk from the demons than the government forces were. Doesn’t matter anyway. Eventually, I realized that trying to blame myself was just a form of self-aggrandizement. There was no way I made enough of a difference for either side to take me down so spectacularly.”

“You must have saved lives.”

“From demons, yes. But I couldn’t stop people from killing each other. And that’s what it looked like was going to happen again.”

They sat together in silence, until Sal asked, “What happened instead?”

Menchú sighed. “I stopped the massacre.”

Father Menchú steeled himself for the strong possibility of death. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that his collar would somehow protect him when the bullets started flying. For every man holding a gun who might hesitate to shoot a priest, there was another who would want to be sure that no official representative of the Church survived to tell the world what had happened in a small mountain village.

His only hope was to somehow convince the two armed groups bent on killing each other not to kill a cluster of innocent civilians in the process.

And then a hand caught his sleeve.

The boy was still standing beside him. Only now his eyes were featureless white, his skin glowed with an unearthly radiance, and his hair fluttered by his face, fanned by a breeze even though the air was perfectly still. He was the most beautiful thing Menchú had ever seen.

“What are you?” Menchú asked.

“If you try to talk to them, they’ll kill you.”

“Maybe not,” he said, then repeated, “What are you?”

“You know what I am.”

He did. At least, he hoped that he did. Menchú fell back a step, still cautious, but—for the first time that night—hopeful. “Can you stop this?”

The child nodded.

“Then why don’t you?”

“You have to ask.”

A part of Menchú’s mind, some deep instinct, told him to say no. It warned that there was a trap before him, and the only way to avoid it was to walk away. But hope was too strong. The hope that no one, including him, would have to die that night.

Menchú asked.

God help him. He asked.

“And?”

Menchú looked up from his clasped hands and realized he had been staring silently at them for some minutes.

“I asked the…thing…to protect the villagers from the army and from the rebels.”

“And?”

“It did.”

It was as though a madness swept through both armed groups simultaneously. Suddenly the army seemed able to see the rebels wherever they were hiding, and fired unerringly into the alleyways. The rebels fired back. The sound of gunfire and screams filled the air.

Instinctively, Menchú threw himself over the child-thing, shielding its tiny body with his own, covering his head and trying not to be noticed or caught in the crossfire. Only when the square once again fell silent did he finally dare to rise.

All around, the buildings were studded with bullet holes, and under the straining glow of the streetlights, the cobblestones ran slick with blood. But in the center of it all, not a single villager had been touched. In shock, Menchú looked down at the child. Its unearthly appearance was unchanged. But then it smiled, and Menchú’s blood ran cold. It was not the smile of the boy he knew, or of any child on earth. It was…wrong.

“Why are you smiling?” Menchú asked. Was this how God wrought His miracles?

The child’s smile grew. “Because what comes next is fun.”

Menchú stood there for the rest of the night. He found himself unable to move, speak, or intervene in any way as the demon who had possessed the boy tortured and killed every man, woman, and child in the village, there in the square in front of the church. At dawn, it turned to Menchú and slit its host’s throat.

Its last words were: “Let this be a lesson to you, Father.”

Sal flinched as Menchú gripped both of her hands in his. “I couldn’t protect them, but I will protect you. I won’t let you be brought down by the temptation of your hopes like I was.”

“But what about the rest of our people? How do we protect them?”

Menchú didn’t have an answer.

5.

On the floor of the Archives, Grace shuddered and convulsed. Asanti held the other woman’s head, making sure she didn’t choke on the bile she occasionally dredged up from her empty stomach.

Liam was doing the best of the three of them, and even he had emptied his stomach hours ago. Worse, the tone had grown so loud that it was impossible to hear each other, even if they shouted at the top of their lungs.

Liam left his computer where he had been trying and failing to find a way to block whatever was causing the effect and carried a pad of paper over to Asanti.

“No good,” he wrote.

Asanti sagged.

He flipped the page. “Your turn. I’ll sit with her.”

Asanti yielded her place on the floor beside Grace to Liam and stumbled off, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Liam hoped that the stacks would have more answers than his electronic resources. Given how his search had gone, that was a low bar. He really should find his tablet. That way he could work while he watched Grace. Why hadn’t he thought to do that earlier? Noise, lack of sleep, lack of food. It was making him stupid. Can’t afford that. Have to stay sharp…

With a mental wrench, Liam pulled himself out of his downward spiral. No time for self-flagellation. He could get his tablet in a minute. Just going to rest here for a bit first. Grace’s head was pillowed against his thigh. The fact that she would never have allowed such intimacy had she possessed even a shred of consciousness somehow made the whole situation even worse. She had always guarded her privacy, and Liam had respected that. Seeing her now, he wondered if he should have asked more questions. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

Just a minute more. Then he would get the tablet and come right back.

Just one more minute.

As soon as his head stopped spinning.

With the relentless noise and the pain it caused, Liam wouldn’t have thought sleep was possible, but he must have lost consciousness, because suddenly Asanti was shaking him awake.

The whine was gone. The wind was back. Grace was still unconscious. But Asanti positively glowed with a smile that lit her entire face.

“What happened?”

“When I found you passed out, I killed the magnetic field, hoping that it might stop the tone, even if the wind came back.”

“Congratulations. You’re two for two.”

“That’s not the best part.”

A flying book knocked Liam in the back of his head and sent his chin driving down into his chest. “Are you sure about that? Because this is just brilliant.”

“Liam.” Asanti’s eyes danced with triumph. “Look around you. The wind isn’t just picking up books at random.”

Blinking past the new pain in the back of his head, Liam tried to concentrate on the spinning storm around him. Asanti picked up a book that had fallen to the floor and another from a shelf.

“This is a seventeenth century grimoire," she said, gesturing to the book she’d lifted from the floor. “Only copy known to exist. This”—she gestured to the one she’d taken from its place on the shelf—“is a first edition Francis Bacon. Rare, not unique.” Then she took both books and flung them into the air.

Liam started. While he had been passed out, Asanti had clearly gone insane. “Did you just—?”

“Watch.”

Both books tumbled, pages fluttering, until they finally landed, open, on their backs.

“What am I watching?”

“The pages!”

Liam blinked, still not seeing it. The Bacon lay there, unmoving. The pages of the grimoire continued to flip in the wind.

“These books are the same size, with similar binding and weight paper. The wind is everywhere. Why aren’t the pages of the Bacon still moving?”

And now that she had said it, Liam saw it. “The wind only affects books that are unique to the Archives.”

Asanti nodded. “Yes. Now, if we can just figure out what that means—”

But Liam already knew. “What it means,” he said—speaking carefully, but with growing certainty—“is we’re being hacked.”

Finally, something he could work with.

At sunset on the third night of the Market, Sal arrived alone at Gutenberg Castle, where she was greeted by the disapproving frown of the Maitresse.

“Where is the priest?” she asked. “I hope he hasn’t decided to depart prematurely.”

Sal shook her head, fighting the feeling that she ought to bow or curtsy or something else that would probably just end up looking stupid. “He had an errand to run in town and was unavoidably detained. I’m expecting him soon.”

The Maitresse gave Sal a penetrating look that went a step beyond a standard “disapproving superior” glare and straight to “look right into your head" territory. Sal fought to keep her expression bland and concentrated on repeating an internal mantra of: I’m not lying to you. I’m not lying to you. I’m not…

Almost as though she really could read Sal’s thoughts, the Maitresse’s lips quirked upward.

“Very well, Bookburner. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Sal nodded to the Maitresse and proceeded to beat a retreat across the courtyard as quickly as she could without looking like she was fleeing for her life. She wasn’t sure she managed it. But she hadn’t lied. Menchú was running an errand in town. She was expecting him soon. She just had something to do before he got back.

The first night of the Market was for posturing. The second was for negotiations. The third was for deals. Over Sal’s head, but low enough that it couldn’t be seen outside the castle’s walls, a firework in the shape of a red dragon exploded silently. Sal didn’t give it a second glance. She had an appointment with the Index.

Opie grinned as she approached, noting that she was alone. “Baby Bookburner breaking the rules. Are you going to have to go to confession later?”

“Not a Catholic. Let’s get on with this.”

Opie opened the door and ushered her through with a mock bow. Sal stepped past him into the room full of fantastical computers, heartened to see that her suspicions were correct: bowing when you didn’t know what you were doing did look stupid. He seemed amused at her impatience as she waited for him to follow her inside.

“You’re awfully eager to give up a piece of your mind.”

Sal held his gaze, waiting for him to blink first. “I’ve seen some things since I took this job that I wouldn’t mind forgetting.”

Opie made a small, negating gesture. “The Index takes what the Index wants. We can’t control—”

“Cut the crap.”

Opie’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

“You were trying to stare through me from the first night of the Market. I think you found out that Mr. Norse had a grudge against the Society and offered to let him use the Index to find a weak spot in the Archives. Then, when everyone arrives at the Market and he attacks us—oh look—you just so happen to have the solution to our little problem, for the low-low price of a peek inside my head.”

Opie scoffed. “Which makes perfect sense, if everything we do somehow revolves around you.”

Sal shrugged. “Maybe you get the benefit of a happy coincidence, then. Bottom line, there’s something in my head that you want, and you’re not going to trust to random chance that this Index of yours is going to pull what you’re interested in.”

“And what would you know that would be that valuable to us?”

“I know what happened to my brother.”

In the silence that followed, Sal could hear the faint hum of computers, the ripple of the sea horses’ aquarium, and the rustle of night moths pollinating the flowers blooming on the moss computer’s keyboard.

“You have information I want; I have information you want. Let’s make a trade.”

Opie blinked. “How very…pragmatic.”

“I’m a practical person. Hell, we can dispense with this whole Index bullshit for all I care. You tell me, I tell you, we both go our separate ways.”

The obnoxious smile was back. “No deal. How would we know you weren’t lying?”

“How do I know your Index knows anything useful?”

“Given that I’m not the one with the friends under threat of death, I guess that’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

Sal made a show of scowling. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

“Temper temper, Baby Bookburner.”

“Friends dying. I didn’t sleep well last night. PMS. Take your pick. Plus, I think we both want this business concluded before Father Menchú gets back from his errand in Balzers.”

That, at least, got Opie moving. He walked over to a large black packing case, opened it, and removed a wooden box just large enough to hold a pair of shoes. He closed the case immediately after removing the box, and Sal caught a glimpse of flames, skittering legs, and a brief moaning sound. Oh yeah, this is a great idea.

The box remained connected to the packing case by glowing filaments wrapped in sinew-like tendrils that gave off a faint smell of burning meat. Remembering Scotland, Sal’s stomach gave a lurch, and she swallowed bile.

“That’s the Index?”

Opie nodded. “The box is the interface, the case is the processor, the server is…elsewhere.”

He clearly wanted her to ask where “elsewhere” might be, and so Sal declined to do so. It would only bring back the insufferable smirk. Also, she didn’t really care. Her job was finding the weird stuff. How it worked was Liam and Asanti’s department. Assuming they all lived that long.

“What do I do?”

Opie handed Sal a slip of paper and pointed to a small table in the corner where a stack of paper, quill, and inkwell sat waiting. “Write your question on the paper. Hold the paper in your fist, and put your hand in the box.” He paused, then added, smirk back in place, “Don’t be afraid. Fear is the mind-killer.”

Sal raised an eyebrow. “O…kay?”

Opie made a disgusted sound and muttered something under his breath before gesturing to the table. “Just write it down.”

Sal hesitated. “Does the Index read intent?”

“Huh?”

“How literal-minded is it? Can the Index figure out what I mean, or do I need to be careful not to make one of my wishes ‘Genie, make me a sandwich’?”

Opie shrugged. “The more specific your question, the more specific the answer.”

Well, that was helpful. With a sigh, Sal picked up the paper and quill. “This might take a minute.”

The smirk was back. “No hurry. No hurry at all.”

Ten minutes and a lot of blotting later, Sal clutched a folded piece of paper tightly in her clenched fist. Opie opened the box with a brass key that hung around his neck, and held it out for her. “Ready when you are.”

Sal hesitated. The wood looked old, but she wasn’t enough of an expert to tell whether it meant that the box itself was ancient, or that it had been made from repurposed boards. Repurposed from what? Charon’s rowboat? The Ark of the Covenant? Lumber planed from a section of the True Cross? Perry had been into woodworking for a while in Boy Scouts. Maybe he would have been able to tell by looking at the joinery.

Yes, think about Perry. And hope you’re still able to think about him after this is over.

Opie, for all his professed patience as she’d crafted her question, made a small “get on with it” gesture. There was a notch cut into one of the short sides of the box for her wrist. Once Sal put her hand in and Opie locked the lid, she’d be stuck until he decided to let her out. Or until she wrenched the box from him, ripped out the connection that tied it to the packing case, and went running through the Black Market with a magical wooden box permanently grafted to her arm. Sal eyed Opie, sizing him up. She could take him. Even one-handed.

Sal placed her hand in the box.

Opie slammed the lid shut. Sal’s hand felt cold, then hot, then like it was being stuck with a hundred needles. She flinched. Opie locked one hand around her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. “Don’t. Move.”

The pain faded, leaving Sal’s skin cool, but not as intensely cold as before. She felt a soft brush of fur across her knuckles. Then something wet and sticky slid across the base of her palm. Not a tongue. It can’t possibly be a tongue. Was not-a-tongue any better? No, definitely not. Sal shuddered, and suddenly the bones of her hand were on fire. She tried to open her hand, but her muscles weren’t listening to her commands, nerves too busy transmitting a constant stream of Pain! Pain! Pain! to carry any other instructions. Sal gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

Sal was back in her past, in a self-storage facility in New Jersey. Perry, or Perry plus a demon, floated in midair, surrounded by a pile of books, pages flipping madly. But it wasn’t the same. Because the Index was there too. Breathing down the back of her neck, breath hot and moist, like a wolf ready to snap its jaws through her spine. And when it did, it would take this moment from her forever. This was what the Index wanted. And it was hungry.

Trapped in her own memory, Sal reached for the Book of the Hand. Bare fingers inches from the cover. A hair’s-breadth away. She could feel the jaws closing, teeth piercing the skin of her neck, and with every force of her will that remained, Sal wrenched her mind to another memory. One much more recent.

She was in her room at the B&B with Menchú, on the phone with Liam. “They’re hacking the Archive,” he said. “Not the computers. The books. I’m sending a file to your phone. You need to memorize it.”

As the wolf’s teeth sank into her neck, Sal called up the file to her mind. It was a complex mathematical function represented as a single abstract image. Sal hadn’t slept at all, committing every twist and overlap to memory. It was amazing what you could do, if the incentive for success was strong enough.

According to Liam, the Index shouldn’t read the image as a threat. Because to Sal, it was only an image. She didn’t understand the math behind it, or the program behind the math. She was just carrying the candy coating, to trick the Index into swallowing the whole thing down.

Because even if Sal didn’t understand the meaning, it was there. Hidden and coded in every twist and turn and recursive loop. A tiny seed, planted in fertile ground.

Sal could hear shouting. Opie and others. She felt a pain like someone tearing the flesh from her hand, and then a sharper one as something hit her in the head. She inhaled to shout and choked on a lungful of smoke.

Sal coughed for moments, hours, years, until she managed to open her eyes. Apparently the thing that had hit her head was the floor, and she took in the room from her new low and cockeyed angle. Smoke poured from the crate that housed the Index. Her phone, tucked in her pocket, buzzed frantically. Sal crawled to a corner, completely ignored by the frantic techno-cultists who had flooded into the room since she’d closed her eyes.

Sal finally got her hands—hey, she had both hands again—around her buzzing phone. “It worked?”

Liam’s voice sounded more tired than she had ever heard it, but also relieved. “It worked.”

“Good.” Sal hung up. The Guardians were pouring in along with the Maitresse. And there was Mr. Norse, followed by Father Menchú, whose errand in town had been to keep the billionaire distracted until it was too late for him to stop Sal’s plan. A fact that Mr. Norse had realized too late. Sal decided that Menchú could handle him. And the Maitresse. And the Guardians. He was good with people. It was his job.

The Market Arcanum concluded without further incident. When dawn broke over the Alps, Sal watched the men in wolf-cloaks walk out of the castle and right back into the woods. The women in evening gowns pulled on cloaks and veils to hide their tattoos before alighting into their limousines. The techno-cultists had packed their computers into a white panel van and left as soon as it became clear that the Maitresse did not view the destruction of the Index as sufficient cause to evict Menchú and Sal from the Market. Mr. Norse departed rather more gracefully, although his last words were not exactly a comfort.

“Until next time, Bookburners.”

A shadow fell across Sal’s path as she and Menchú carried their bags to the rental car, and Sal looked up to see the Maitresse herself waiting for them. Even in daylight, and without her flanking Guardians, she radiated authority.

“It’s been quite an eventful few days for you.” Her eyes flicked to Sal. “I hope you’re able to get your house back in order after this unfortunate…disruption.”

“Repairs to the Archives are already underway,” said Menchú.

The Maitresse smiled. “That too.”

And without waiting for a reply, she turned and walked away, back up the road to the castle. Sal and Menchú stood together in silence, watching her go, until her steps carried her around a bend and out of sight.

Menchú broke their tableau first, heaving his case into the trunk of the car. “Come on, let’s go home.” Sal followed suit and slid into the front passenger seat beside him. For the hundredth time, she slid her hand into her pocket, fingers seeking the reassurance of the folded piece of paper she had put there, the only physical evidence that remained of her encounter with the techno-cultists.

It was the paper where she had written her question for the Index: What is Mr. Norse looking for?

It now bore only two words: Codex Umbra.

Hours later, when Sal and Menchú reached Rome, the Archives still looked like a bomb had hit them. A non-fiery, book-oriented bomb, sure, but a bomb nonetheless.

Asanti took a break from picking up the pieces of her library to hug them both. Sal felt a surge of relief as her arms went around the archivist. Sometimes you just had to touch someone to prove to yourself that they were still alive.

“Liam is glued to his computer,” Asanti told Sal when she asked about the others. “Grace went home to sleep.”

It had been a long three days for everyone, Sal supposed. Between being up all night for the Market, plus staying up for most of the days between, Sal felt like she hadn’t slept in a week. She’d dozed for a few hours on the train, but her sleep had been filled with dreams of wandering the corridors between compartments, looking for something. She certainly didn’t feel rested. Then again, she never had slept well away from her own bed.

Bed.

Liam.

Sal excused herself and went in search of their beleaguered tech expert. Time to prove to herself that he was still alive too.

She found him, as promised, hunched over his laptop, and lingered in the doorway, waiting for him to notice her. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat. Liam looked up.

“You saved the day,” said Sal. “Nice work.”

Liam shrugged off the compliment. “Not quick enough. Who knows what those techno-bastards found while they were flipping through the Archives? Or what they left behind.”

“Did you find any reference to the Codex Umbra?”

“Not even a description of what it might be. Which is what worries me.”

Sal sighed. “Take the win, then. We’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up, but at least we’re all okay, right?” She slid up behind him, letting her thumbs dig into the tense muscles of his shoulders. “Thanks to you.”

He shrugged her off. “Unless Mr. Norse managed to find and erase the information he was looking for. With all of the books the hack disturbed, it could take us centuries to find out what damage he did.”

Liam turned back to his computer. Sal blocked him by plopping down in his lap. “If it will take centuries anyway, it can wait until morning.”

“Sal, I’m too tired—” he began.

“And so am I. But I’ve spent the last three days afraid you were going to die, and I don’t want to be alone tonight. Besides, you look like hell. You’re going to have to sleep sometime; it might as well be with me.”

Liam gently put his hands on her waist and lifted her to her feet. “Okay,” he said. “But go ahead. I’ll let myself in later.”

Sal wanted to protest, but she was too tired. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

That night, Sal dreamed of wandering the streets of Rome, looking for that same thing she could not name. When she finally woke, hours past dawn, the other side of the bed was undisturbed.

Coda.

Menchú stayed in the Archives late into the night. The niche he had previously designated as his office had been completely destroyed by Mr. Norse’s hacking. His poor, long-suffering chair had lost a leg at some point, snapped off just below the seat. Menchú located the missing piece and was contemplating repairs when he felt Asanti staring at him.

“Did you tell her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Now she knows. But I don’t know that it’s made her a more cautious swimmer.”

Asanti made a noncommittal “hmm” noise.

Menchú quirked an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Did you ever consider that you learned the wrong lesson from your experience with the angel in Guatemala?”

“It tortured and murdered an entire village. It wasn’t an angel.”

Asanti shrugged. “You’ve read the Bible. God kills people all the time. Violence, disease, apocalyptic flood. Even Jesus had a temper.”

Menchú felt his own temper rising and made an effort to keep it in check. Asanti continued.

“You’d dealt with demons before. If you’d realized what the boy was immediately and banished him, or refused to make a deal, would the massacre still have happened?”

“If you’re trying to say that what I did didn’t make a difference, I assure you—”

“I’m saying that you knew demons were evil before that night. If that was the lesson you were supposed to learn, someone was being very redundant with your education.”

Menchú let out a long breath. He was too tired to have this discussion now. Possibly ever. “What’s your point, Asanti?”

“Demon, angel, or something else, from what you’ve told me, making a deal with that thing was the only possible way you could have prevented a massacre that night.”

Menchú gritted his teeth. “But I did, and it didn’t.”

“But what if that was the lesson?” Asanti gripped his sleeve, begging him with her eyes to listen and understand. “Next time, make a better deal.”

Menchú turned away. Asanti let go of his arm, and he heard her footsteps fading away, quickly muffled by the destruction around them. Her words lingered long after she had disappeared among the stacks.

Next time.