Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial) (17 page)

“Funny,” he said, but he didn’t laugh. Flood glanced
out the window, showing her a bit of his silhouette. He was barely visible in
the streetlight’s glow, and his aura was similarly hard to make out, but she
had known him immediately by his voice and the way he spoke to her.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” he said.

“I was busy. I have this second job, you know. I have
to do it well, so that no one will start wondering why I’m there.”

“When I call, you damn well better talk to me.”

“I just assumed you were calling to congratulate me on
the breakthrough in my investigation.”

“Don’t get smug, Wilkins. This just became a lot
bigger than us. I spent my Sunday in nonstop meetings with people who don’t
have the time to even hear your name.”

“Talking about Heartstoppers,
I assume.”

“Heartstoppers. Librarian panthers.
Assassins without fingerprints or identities who refuse to speak.”

“He was talkative enough when I captured him. Why
don’t you give me a shot at him?”

“That’s not going to happen. The fact is, we’re pulling you out.”

Joy’s mouth went dry. “You — you can’t do that. I’m here
to find Carla Drake.”

“You were here to get to the bottom of the demon
trafficking. Carla Drake might have been connected to that, we don’t know. But
it doesn’t really matter now. You’re going to develop a sick relative. I can
give you a week.”

“Sir, there’s something I need to show you.” Joy
pulled the anonymous note from her bag and handed it to Flood.

“What is this?”

“It arrived today in an anonymous PoofPost
package, along with a book of kids’ stories. Myths.”
Joy found the book in her bag and handed that over as well.

“Pull over,” Flood told the driver, and once they were
parked he turned on the overhead light. “‘Carla Drake Is Alive.’ You said this
came anonymously?”

“The sender’s information was obscured, but I pulled a
corporate account number off the slip. I’m going to look into that tomorrow.”

“PoofPost.” His tone had changed from annoyed to thoughtful. “Be
careful. I’ll talk to our task force, make sure you
won’t be stepping on any toes.” Flood opened up the book. “Hvenashawa? I’ve never heard of them.”

“Me neither.”

“I’ll ask around.”

“So…I’m staying?”

“I told you, I can give you a week. If you develop any
significant leads, we’ll pass them along. But by Monday you’ll be folded into
the Heartstopper task force.”

Joy gritted her teeth. There was too much going on
here for her to wrap it up in a week, but Flood clearly wasn’t interested in
hearing that from her.

“Are we done, sir?”

“I had to portal into Minneapolis and drive out here
for this. You’re coming in for a full debrief.”

“Sir, I have to attend a dinner party tonight. In fact
I’m late already.”

“A dinner party?” Flood sounded outraged.

“A faculty dinner party. It’s relevant, I assure you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Get out, then. You’ll come in tomorrow; we’ll contact
you about the portal. And answer your goddamned crystal next time, Agent.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get out.”

Joy
didn’t have many dresses, but she threw on a knee-length orchid number with
capped sleeves for the party. It was too warm for nylons,
or for much makeup either; she put on mascara and a bit of plum lipstick and
ran out the door.

The address Philip Fitzgerald had given her was close,
just three blocks west, and she decided to walk. She was wearing sandals, not
heels, and while Gooseberry Bluff was not so well lit as, say, Washington DC,
Joy did not feel unsafe. She wondered about her still-unseen security detail,
but she didn’t bother looking around. The bureau’s protection details were as
good as the Secret Service but far less visible. She told herself that the fact
that her detail had lost her on the way back from Wales was a fluke and there
was no reason to worry.

She continued telling herself this for three blocks.

The street Joy’s rental was on was mostly 1940s
bungalows, interspersed with newer construction of various types; the next
block over was occupied by an elementary school, and the block after that was
more ranch-style housing. On the whole it was a nice neighborhood, the houses
well kept, the lawns cut short, middle-class vehicles
in the driveways. Middle class in this area meant shiny pickup trucks more than
Volvos and Toyotas, but in many ways Gooseberry Bluff was like any prosperous
small town she had been in.

The third block over brought a reminder of how it was
different. Through a gap in the trees to the north shone the lights of the
United States penitentiary that stood a few miles away, at the northwest corner
of the town. Formerly part of the Minnesota state prison system, it had been
purchased by the US in the 1970s, when magical crime had reached its peak, and
it held some of the most infamous — and dangerous — magicians alive.

Joy paused for a moment to look at the high, barbed-wire-topped
walls of the facility, its security towers and searchlights, and the half mile
of earth and concrete that surrounded it, before continuing on to the address Fitzgerald
had given her.

Her destination turned out to be a three-story
apartment building called The McMonigal Arms,
according to the old stone sign out front. The sign stood opposite a green
bench. Beyond these the building was flanked by a rose bed on one side and a
flowering crabapple tree on the other.

A smallish man wearing a bow tie and a green smoking
jacket met her at the door to the building. His hair was thinning and red
almost to the point of matching his aura, which was orange. She recognized the
aura as that of one of the visitors she had had in her class this evening.

“Ms. Wilkins,” he said as he shook her hand. “My name
is Yves Deschamp, your host for the evening. Please
come in; everyone is eager to meet you.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Deschamp.”

“Please. The pleasure is mine.” He led her up three
steps to the level of the first-floor apartments, holding her hand up as if she
were some sort of dignitary. He walked with a cane, but quickly and with grace.

He paused at the door to the left-side apartment.
“Now,” he said, “I’m sure Philip has done his best to impress upon you the
deadly seriousness of our little group, and the others will spend the evening
scrutinizing you and trying to determine whether or not
you’re
serious enough to be a part of it. I wanted to take this
opportunity to tell you not to worry about them. We need new blood, as you’ll
see in a moment, and from all I’ve learned of you I think you’ll fit the bill
nicely. So for my sake, at least, try to relax and enjoy yourself tonight.”

“I will.” Joy couldn’t bear to tell this charming man
that his little speech had made her more anxious than before.

Yves swept the heavy wooden door open on a narrow but
gorgeous little parlor with built-in shelves at the corners, bas-relief carved
into the window frame, and plants hanging from tension poles at either side of
the window. A dining table that looked about as old as the building, and as carefully
maintained, was set with crystalware and china with
an elaborate gold-and-turquoise pattern around the rim. There were nine places
set at the table.

“Is that her?” Joy recognized Philip Fitzgerald’s
voice, and a moment later he appeared around the corner, followed by Ken Song
and four others — the rest of the delegation that had shown up in class.

Philip quickly introduced the others: Simone Deschamp (Yves’s sister, not his wife, she hastened to
explain), Bebe Stapleford, Cyril Lanfair,
and Abel Bouchard. Bouchard, an imposing man in a blue suit and a string tie,
said something to her about being “the token Native American of the group,”
even though there was nothing about him that struck Joy as distinctively Native
American.

Ken Song gave her a tight smile and shook her hand.
“Agent Wilkins,” he said. “Good evening.”

“Hello, Professor. Suddenly I don’t feel very
undercover.”

“There are no secrets here,” said Philip. “Come, let’s
sit. Would you care for some wine, or some of this delicious — what did you say
was in it, Bebe?”

“It’s a black cherry iced tea. You’ve had it before,
Philip.”

“The iced tea sounds delicious, thank you,” said Joy.
Before she knew what was happening, they had guided her to a seat beside Yves Deschamp, who sat at the head of the table. The others
filed into the kitchen or the sitting room and then returned bearing platters
and tureens and pitchers and bottles of white wine. It had the feel of a
practiced routine, a family tradition. Joy was having trouble seeing this group
as a potential group of kidnappers or smugglers. They quickly took their seats,
leaving the place at the other end of the table empty. Abel Bouchard sat to
Joy’s right.

The menu, once it was crowded onto the small table,
consisted of gazpacho with grilled shrimp skewers, grilled bell peppers, corn
bread, pork medallions with a berry sauce, and grilled portobello
mushrooms for the vegetarians. Joy noticed that Yves and Simone both served
themselves the mushrooms, although Abel and Philip took both.

“I’m a little confused,” Joy said. “Who actually lives
here?”

“This is my humble abode,” said Yves. “I own the
building, actually. Simone lives across the hall, and Cyril and Bebe each have one of the apartments upstairs.”

“I have a little place just west of town,” said Abel.
“I’m not quite the social butterfly that my colleagues are.”

“If I wanted social, I’d move into the Bayview,” said Bebe, and there
was general laughter.

“Bayview Senior Living,”
Abel told Joy. “It’s that high-rise down by the river. The place is a war zone.”

“Literally,” said Bebe, but
did not elaborate.

“We were discussing,” said Philip, “the nature of this
Larch fellow. You say he may have spent the majority of his life living as a
panther. Ken had the very interesting thought that perhaps he was
born
a panther.”

“That is interesting,” said Joy. “I hadn’t thought of
that. What makes you think that might be the case, Professor Song?”

Ken Song shrugged. Joy noticed that he was drinking
water, not wine, and that he wasn’t eating much. “The odd
fashion sense. His…courtship behavior, I suppose. He acted like someone
who had never been properly socialized, and if he was really a cat that might
explain it.”

“My cats are wonderfully behaved,” said Cyril Lanfair, whose aura was a contradictory mess of bright gold
splotched with muddy blues and greens. Joy read him as highly magico-spritually attuned, but with a tendency toward
jealousy and paranoia.

“Shut up about your cats, Cyril,” said Bebe. “I frankly don’t care whether Larch grew up as a cat
or a couch, I want to know how it is you managed to let him on campus, Philip.”

“Dear Bebe,” said Yves, “we
decided some time ago to focus our energies on monitoring the activity on
campus, not scrutinizing each and every individual who comes near. I myself was
on the hiring committee when Larch applied. He was eccentric, but I’ve not
known a librarian who was not that in some respect.”

“We are all emeriti of the school,” Abel told Joy in a
not-quite-whisper. “I still work in admissions — retirement doesn’t really suit
me. The others rotate serving on the hiring committee. And of course there are
other ways that we all keep our hands in.”

“So the purpose of this society is to…what? I don’t
really understand.”

“That’s because we haven’t told you yet,” said Bebe. Her aura was a deep, rich red, darkening almost to black in spots. “At least, I
hope you’ve kept some things close to the chest, Philip.”

Philip smiled. “They like to yell at me because they
forget that just because I’m the president at the school does not mean I’m in
charge here. We are a democracy, aren’t we?”

“More of an oligarchy, really,” said Ken.

“I was so sorry about Martin,” said Simone suddenly.
Her eyes shone as she spoke. “He and I…I knew him a long time ago. I trusted
him. I can’t help but feel that we…” Her voice broke, and she put her hand to
her mouth. Cyril and Ken, who sat to either side of her, tried to comfort her,
but she excused herself with a whisper and left the room.

“I’ll go,” Ken said after a moment, and followed her.

Joy swallowed a bite of pork — it was delicious — and
washed it down with a sip of tea. “Am I to understand that Martin knew about
this group?”

“Not the group,” said Yves. “Just that Simone was
here, and a friend of Philip’s, and that we were concerned that not everyone at
the FBMA could be trusted. I understand that there was rather a power struggle
over who was going to supervise the case. It’s lucky for us that Martin
prevailed. I believe that one reason you were chosen to come here was that you
were new and considered…uncorrupted, for want of a better term.”

Bebe made an exasperated noise. “Is she, though? What do
we know about her? She’s attractive, so of course you all want to trust her.
And I understand Simone’s reasons.” This last was said in a low and not
disrespectful tone. “But I would rather we had waited.”

“We’ve been waiting for, what, fifteen years? Isn’t
that the last time we brought new blood into this group?” Abel’s voice was not
loud, but there was emotion behind it. “Joy, we are the second generation of
this society, and I fear that our insistence upon secrecy has weakened us. We
are facing a crisis and the eight of us have become entrenched in our ways. We
have the same arguments every week. Every day, sometimes.
We cannot agree on how to move forward.”

As if on cue, Bebe and Cyril
both started talking at once, Abel arguing back while Yves begged for calm.
Across the table from Joy, Philip shoveled roasted red pepper into his mouth.
He saw her watching him and winked.