Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial) (23 page)

Two in the
morning. More insomnia. Tomorrow was going to
be a long day.

Joy spent the morning catching
up on the office hours that she had postponed from the day before. The
highlight was the three students in a row who hadn’t attended a single lecture
yet, each of whom was seeking individualized guidance on how to do the paper
and wanted her to tell them how they were doing in her class. Joy had
encountered this in her former life as an actual academic (as opposed to an
undercover law enforcement agent posing as one). There was a class of student
that treated the payment of tuition as an exchange for goods; they stopped by
once or twice during the semester to make sure that the instructors understood
that they expected to receive a good grade—not necessarily an A, but no lower
than a B minus—simply for existing.

Joy told all three of them the
same thing. “Write a good paper, start showing up for lectures, and you’ll
probably manage a C.” When they tried to argue she called for the next person
in line. By the third one she was fighting the urge to reach across the desk,
seize him by the collar, and ask him if he really thought that she cared about
his stepmother’s substance abuse problems when the entire universe was in
jeopardy.

To be fair, most of the
students had brought some real questions. The entitled trio
were younger students, kids with money who couldn’t get in to a better
school and yet still thought a community college was beneath them. Joy had
worked her ass off to get into college and then get through it. She didn’t like
these kids, and she didn’t very much care if she let them know it.

At a little after eleven Zelda
knocked on the door. “Hi!” she said. “If we’re still on for lunch, do you want
to head down together?”

“Sure,” said Joy. “Just let
me…I should pack up…” She sighed. “Forget it. I’m just leaving everything
here.”

Zelda smiled. “I’ve had those kind of days. I’ll drive, OK?”

“Sure,” Joy said again. She
looked around her desk for a minute without really seeing anything. Finally she
walked out of her office and locked the door behind her.

“We’re going to lunch, Andy,”
Zelda said. “Do you want us to bring anything back?”

Andy was wearing a vintage
green chiffon shirtwaist dress that set off his pale complexion and brought out
the hint of red in his hair. “I brought lunch, thanks,” he said. “You two have
fun!”

“Andy always looks so great,”
Zelda said as they walked down to the building’s atrium. “I wonder where she
gets her clothes?”

“Does Andy prefer ‘she’?” Joy
asked. “I’m a little confused about that.”

“I asked her once and she said
she didn’t care if we called her he or she or they, as
long as we didn’t call her ‘it.’ I just think ‘she’ is a better fit, I
suppose.”

It was raining lightly outside,
so they hurried to Zelda’s car, a tiny red hatchback that was at least fifteen
years old. It labored a bit before starting, but it was running smoothly by the
time Zelda pulled it out of the parking lot. Zelda turned down the loud country
music on her radio and turned on the windshield wipers.

“Sometimes I think Andy is more
feminine than I am,” she said, picking up the conversation. “And then I start
thinking, what does that even mean? Like, what is feminine when it’s applied to
someone who’s not a female? I don’t know. I guess I’m a little confused too.”

“I guess,” Joy said without
thinking. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m sorry, I think I
really need some food.”

“Right away, Professor.”

Joy chuckled. “Just an instructor, right now.”

“Oh, let me tell you, there’s a
whole world of difference between the two. I can afford to pay the minimum on
three
credit cards now! And when the
student evaluations come in, they read as extra sneery when they express their
disbelief at how I ever managed to reach the distinguished rank of professor.”

Joy laughed, but it quickly
turned into a yawn; she covered it and apologized. “I know it’s only been a
week and a half, but I feel like I haven’t slept in a month.”

“Food and
caffeine.” Zelda parked opposite the Mandrake, overlooking the pier.
“That’s my prescription. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

The Mandrake was even more
packed for lunch than it had been the night Joy had met Hector for drinks. The
hostess seated them at a tiny table near the window, on the tall bar stools
that always made Joy feel like a kid in a high chair. Zelda lagged behind,
speaking to someone she knew at one of the other tables, so Joy stared at the
menu, trying to decide if she wanted anything in particular or just a trough
full of whatever sort of food was on hand.

“Sorry,” Zelda said as she sat.
“One of my colleagues from Arthur Stag. What looks
good?”

“I don’t know,” said Joy. “Just
a burger, I guess. Are they good here?”

“I’ve never had anything here
that wasn’t good,” said Zelda. She scanned the menu and then set it down. “So. You went to the University of Kentucky?”

“I taught at Kentucky State
University. They’re often confused for each other.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“I’m from North Carolina,
originally. But I haven’t lived there since I was a teenager.”

“Oh.”

A waitress came and took their
orders. Joy decided not to get the burger after all, but a Caesar salad; the
beef would just make her more tired as she was digesting it. Why was she so
tired? Carla Drake. It occurred to Joy that Zelda’s and Carla’s offices had
been right next to each other, just like Zelda’s and Joy’s were. She wondered
if Zelda had ever invited Carla to lunch like this.

“How well did you know Carla
Drake?” she asked once the waitress had left.

Zelda shook her head. “Why do
you do that?”

“Do what?”

“I thought we could come here
and just chat, talk about ourselves. Be friendly. But you’re always asking
questions about the school, about the people that work there. It’s
off-putting.”

For a second Joy forgot that
she was an undercover agent, and she was just hurt. Zelda was right, in a
way—in ways she wasn’t even aware of. Joy did like Zelda, even if she wasn’t
entirely sure she could trust her. The lavender/valerian mix-up in the library
could easily have been sabotage. But when Joy did forget why she was here, she
thought of Zelda as the person she would most like for a friend.

“I don’t mean to do it,” she
said. “I’m sorry. I just think about her sometimes. I feel like I’m living her
life, sort of. It messes with my head a little bit.”

“Oh. I guess I understand
that.” Zelda squirmed in her seat. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.
How is it that you know Hector?”

Just like that, Joy was stuck
back in undercover mode. “I don’t, really. I met him here last week to talk
about having him do a guest lecture in my course.”

“Oh. Because on Sunday he said
he was meeting you at the library, and it sounded like it was important. He
seemed worried about it, actually. And then he ran in looking for you…it was
just odd.”

“Are you dating Hector?”

“I…I feel like you’re trying to
change the subject.”

Score one for the alchemy professor.
“That was just a follow-up meeting. I don’t know why he would have been
nervous.”

“You needed a follow-up about a
guest lecture?”

“Look, Zelda, whatever you
think is going on here…”

“Oh, don’t do that to me. Can’t
you just give me a straight answer? Do you have some kind of history with him?”

Joy’s jaw worked, as if just
moving her mouth would somehow knock the right words loose. She hadn’t
anticipated this—clearly Zelda was involved with Hector somehow, or she wanted
to be, and she thought Joy was an obstacle to that. Unless…unless she was using
this to pry information out of Joy.

Zelda stood. “I’ve changed my
mind,” she said. “I’m not hungry. Really nice chatting with
you, Joy. Thanks for being so forthcoming.”

“Zelda—”

“You don’t mind finding your
own way back to campus, do you?”

Zelda didn’t look at Joy as she
walked quickly out of the Mandrake.

Joy considered going after her,
but she had no idea what she could say. It was her fault for trying to make
friends on a job like this. She couldn’t be honest with Zelda until she could
trust her, and she couldn’t do that until she knew for sure who was involved in
Carla Drake’s disappearance, who was working for order, who
was part of the Thirteenth Rib…

She sat and ignored the stares
of the people around her. When the waitress came, she asked her to wrap up
Zelda’s lunch. She felt better after her salad, but still badly about Zelda.
And she was going to have to walk a couple of miles back up to the campus in
the rain.

She cast an elemental umbrella
around herself, but it wasn’t one of her better spells; she was still getting
wet. Her shoes were probably going to be a loss, but that seemed like the least
of her problems. What she had told Zelda was true: sometimes she did feel like
she was living Carla Drake’s life—alone, chasing secrets while trying to keep
her own, having no idea who to trust.

That line about Larch in the
folder nagged at her. Leaving aside the question of why Drake would even
consider trusting Larch, why would she need to? Unless…unless she was
considering hiding something in the library.

Something like
a manuscript.

“Shit.” Joy let the umbrella go
and broke into a run. She hoped she wasn’t already too late.

It took her seven minutes to
reach the campus. She was soaked, although probably more so from the water she
had splashed through than the rain that had actually fallen on her. Her hair
clung to her head like a helmet; she would have to go home and shower before
class tonight.

She needed to double-check the
notes Drake had scribbled on the folder. She hoped to smooth things over a
little with Zelda at the same time, but when she reached the offices she found
Andy there alone. Zelda’s office door was closed.

“Is…is she in there?” Joy
asked.

“No,” said Andy. “She did stop
by, but she left pretty quickly.” His (her? She should
really ask about it) tone suggested that Zelda’s irritation had been obvious.

“Mind if I borrow a marker?” Andy
handed her one, and Joy wrote Zelda’s name on the takeout box and put it in the
department refrigerator. Then she wrote a note and slipped it under Zelda’s
door before unlocking her own office. The manila folder was in her shoulder
bag; she pulled it out and looked at the notes again:

- “Great Man” theory - Carlyle

- Multiverse theory - James

- Boleskine - Victoria - Cefalù

- A Domesticated Beast?

- Can Larch be trusted??

“A domesticated beast,” she
said to herself. “Andy, who has keys to the library?”

“Greg,” Andy called. “The
cleanup crew, if they’re in there.”

She went to the doorway. “Are
any of the sorting spells still in place?”

Andy shrugged. “I really don’t
know. But I did hear that they managed to separate out the collections.”

“Can you call Greg and ask him
to meet me at the library?”

“OK.” Andy sounded dubious, but
picked up the phone as Joy left again, carrying the folder. Domesticated
beasts. Domesticated animals. Carlyle, James, Boleskine, Victoria, Cefalù…hm. Not all of
those things could be clues. Carlyle?

She needed a librarian.

The high glass walls of the
library had been papered over with black, and the sign in front read “N
O
A
DMITTANCE
.” No more warnings about
cats or feline allergies. Joy wondered what sort of animals they would bring in
to monitor the collection once the library was rebuilt. She had a vision of
enormous boa constrictors slithering along the tops of the shelves.

Greg arrived at the door a few
minutes after she did. She told him she had lost a ring inside, she had just
noticed it was missing, it had been a gift from her
great aunt. She was glad that Greg was not Gray. He put on a Serious Face and
told her not to drip on the books, but he unlocked the door and asked her to
shut it behind her.

There was someone inside
already, a youngish man with reddish hair and an orange aura. “Hi,” he said.

“Are you a librarian?” Joy
asked. The windows behind the young man had been covered with plywood, and the
room was much dimmer than the last time she had seen it. The light fixtures
overhead cast stark shadows over the empty shelving units.

“I…not yet.
I’m a student, from UI-Champaign? I needed a practicum, so they sent me up here
to salvage the collection.” He glanced behind her as if hoping for some sort of
backup. “The library’s not open.”

“I’m looking for a very
specific book. A book on domesticated animals, but I’m not sure of the title.
The author…I believe the author is a James Carlyle.”

“OK, uh…that’d probably be an
SF41 dot C…I have the esses all over here against the
wall. Let me see if it’s still vocally keyed.” He cleared his throat and raised
his arms in a pose that Joy found a little ridiculous. “Carlyle, James.
Subject: Domesticated animals.”

Nothing happened. Joy looked
down at the tightly stacked rows of books. “Is this it?” She reached for a
large green hardcover with the words
Guide
to British Domesticated Beasts
emblazoned across the cover. She picked it
up and paged through it, but found nothing unusual.

Maybe something more was
needed. A keyword? “Cefalù,” she said, and the green
cover disappeared and resolved itself into a stack of loose-leaf paper held
together with rubber bands.

“Hm,” said the library student.
“That doesn’t look it belongs here.”

“No,” Joy said, as she read the
title page.
A Domesticated Beast: How
Aleister Crowley Became Uncorrupted and Founded the Most Dangerous Agency on
Earth, the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs
, by Carla Drake.