Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial) (29 page)

“Locate Ingwiersen but don’t
engage, not yet. I’m sending in two conjure-and-capture teams, and I’ll be
there myself in a few minutes. We’ll have to evacuate.”

“If there’s time,” said Joy.
“Sir, this is big. You have to notify GUMP.”

“I know my job, Agent. You do
yours.” Flood disconnected. Joy swallowed her irritation and turned left around
the campus. The river, and the colossal bird wading in it,
were hidden from view behind the ridge. Traffic was racing past, but Joy
had no idea whether they were aware of what was happening or not.

“What is GUMP?” Lutrineas
asked.

“Global Union of Magical Police,”
Joy said. “Some things are too big for one jurisdiction. They’re a combination
of oversight, enforcement, and containment, basically.”

“Sounds very
orderly
,” said Lutrineas. “I thought you
were concerned about having all these people underfoot, and yet here you are
notifying them.”

“If I didn’t, they would find
out anyway, and no one would trust me,” said Joy. “I’m not exactly sure who I’m
working for right now, so I still have to keep everybody happy.”

“Are
you
happy?”

“Oh God,” she said. “I liked you
better when you were pretending to be Philip. Actually, you should probably
change back.”

Lutrineas’s long hair shimmered
and fell away to return to Philip Fitzgerald’s thinning mop. A deep growl
rattled the cab; in its wake, alarms went off all over the town. Prince Stolas
was unhappy about something.

“Do you have a plan?” Lutrineas
asked.

“I’m hoping Bebe will come up
with a plan,” Joy said. “What about you? Any experience with demons?”

“Not really, no.”

“But you’re a god, right?
Demons and gods must be related in some way.”

“I…I think I’m insulted,” said
Lutrineas-Philip. “Demons are like squatters from the lower planes. Gods are
the lords of creations. We
created
creation.”

“What did you ever create?”

“I thought you read a book
about me!”

“I mostly skimmed it.” Joy was
wishing that Abel’s truck had a siren on it; if there was ever a time she
needed to run a red light, this was it.

“I created an alphabet! I
taught mankind how to fish and cultivate wild rice!”

“That’s great,” said Joy. “Can
you teach me to hunt giant owl?”

“I don’t understand why you are
all assuming that Ingwiersen can’t handle this. Doesn’t she have all kinds of
military experience with demons?”

“I don’t think Ingwiersen is
thinking straight,” Joy said. “What she’s doing is illegal in so many ways that
I’m sure she thought she had to do it alone. She may think she can handle it,
but I think she could use some backup.”

“If my sister died, I’d have a
party.” Lutrineas shrugged at the look that Joy gave him. “I would. I’d be
shocked, of course. Gods are hard to kill. I’d even be ever so slightly sad.
But she’s really kind of a horrible person.”

“A control
freak?”

“You humans,” Lutrineas said as
the light changed. “You really do have a gift for understatement.”

Hector led Zelda out the front
door of his building and across the street toward the riverfront. There was a
steady stream of people running in the opposite direction. It occurred to him
that he was, in this case, one of those people who ran toward danger instead of
away from it. The realization didn’t make him feel brave so much as stupid.

He ran down the alley between
buildings to the back of the Mandrake. “Before I decided to go with the home
cooking option, I was considering taking you here for our date,” he told Zelda.
He knocked on the back door to the restaurant. Chuck had hired him to do
security for the place, and he often came by to chat and check on the wards.
Hector liked contracting for restaurants—he got a lot of free meals that way.

“You can tell me whether or not
I made the right choice,” he said, to fill the silence. Zelda raised an eyebrow
at him. Even with her mouth in a line and her hair matted down on one side,
Hector thought she looked amazing.
I have
really got it bad
, he thought.

One of the cooks opened the
door. “Oh, hey,” he said, recognizing Hector. “What’s up?”

“Is Chuck around?”

The cook opened the door wider
and spotted Zelda. “Hey,” he said again.

“Mind if we come in? I need to
talk to Chuck,” said Hector.

“We’re not really open or
whatever,” said the cook.

Hector stared. He wasn’t trying
to intimidate the man, he just had no idea what to say; he suspected that the
man was high.

The cook shrugged. “Whatever.”
He stood aside to let them in.

A few of the kitchen staff were
standing around the prep tables, calmly talking. To the left, Chuck’s office
was wide open but unoccupied.

“He went up front maybe ten
minutes ago,” said the cook. “If you see him, maybe ask him if we’re still open
or whatever.”

“You’re closed,” said Hector.
“You should start leading everyone out the back and up towards the campus.
Didn’t anyone tell you that there was a giant owl-demon out on the river?”

“Yeah, but, you know. We
weren’t really sure if it was a big deal or whatever.”

“It’s a big deal,” said Zelda.

“Oh, OK. But I don’t think we
should do that unless Chuck says it’s OK.”

“Chuck can blame me,” said
Hector. “Just do it.” He led Zelda through to the service area beyond the door.
Margaret May was standing there, talking to a black man wearing a yellow denim
jacket. He looked vaguely familiar. When they saw Hector and Zelda coming, the
man patted Margaret on the arm and went back into the restaurant.

“Professor?
What are you doing here? I mean, Professors.” Margaret picked up a pair of
menus. “You should probably have come to the front door. Except
not now. There’s something really bad happening out on the river.”

“That’s why we’re here,
Margaret. Is Chuck around? I need to get up on the roof.”

“Chuck went up on the roof
already. He locked the door. We’re not really sure if we should stay open. You
know about the giant owl? Is it safe?”

“Does it
look
safe?” Zelda asked.

“What Zel—what professor
Akbulut means is you should get the customers out of here. Lead them out
through the kitchen and get them to higher ground. Lead them up to the campus.”

“All right.”

“Wait…on second thought,
Margaret, you stay here.” Hector was remembering how effective Margaret’s antivermin ward had been. “I could use your help, if you
don’t mind. It’s…I can’t promise that it won’t be dangerous,” Hector said. “I could…do
you think it’s unethical of me to offer her extra credit?” he asked Zelda.

“Yes,” she said. “Margaret,
Professor Ay is going to put some emergency defenses around the town, and he’s
wondering if you will help him. It’s a bad idea and I recommend you say no.”

“It’s a simple inertial ward,”
Hector said. “You’ll be learning about them in a couple of weeks. We’ll do it
on the roof so we can visualize it better, but the demon is enclosed in a
summoning circle. If that breaks, we’ll leave immediately.”

“You’re a student,” Zelda said.
“This is not your responsibility. It’s not Professor Ay’s responsibility
either, but he’s got an inflated sense of his own importance and he’s trying to
impress me.”

“Ouch,” said Hector. “What do
you say, Margaret?”

“Um.”
Margaret looked back and forth between the two of them. “OK?”

“Good,” said Hector. “Chuck is
already up there?”

“Yeah.”
Margaret led them down the hall, past the restrooms, to a door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

Chuck had talked a lot at first
about opening the rooftop for dining, but the expense of cleaning it up and
reinforcing it to code seemed to have quashed that idea for the moment. It was
also a bit of a climb; two stories up a narrow staircase with a locked door at
the top.

Hector squeezed past Margaret
May and hammered on the door. “Chuck? It’s Hector, Chuck. What’s going on? Can
you open the door, please?”

If there was a response, it
might have been drowned out by a scream from Prince Stolas that shook the
entire building.

“Chuck?” Hector turned. “Does
anyone else have keys?”

“Um. I
do,” said Margaret May. “The lead waitress gave them to me, and I sort of
forgot to give them back. But I’m not sure we should—”

“I agree with Margaret,” said
Zelda. “We shouldn’t. You’re not Orville Shantz, Agent of GUMP. This isn’t a
comic book. We could all get killed.”

“Your objections are noted,”
said Hector, and he took the keys from Margaret. His ears burned as he fumbled
to find the right one. Zelda was certainly keeping her word and not being
helpful, but some of her commentary was beginning to grate. He didn’t think he
was Orville Shantz—although he did enjoy the films. They were totally
unrealistic, of course, but that was Hollywood.

“There.” He turned the key and
pushed the door open.

Hector had known Chuck for
about three years, since before he had left the college and opened the
Mandrake. He had worked with him on the Mandrake’s security and drunk beer with him a hundred times or more. Chuck worked in
culinary magic, of course, but Hector had never known him to be involved in any
other sort of magic.

Until now.

A casting circle of salt and
charcoal was laid out on the roof, with incense-filled braziers smoking at five
points. Iron demon canisters lined the inside of the circle, vibrating with
suppressed energy. In the center of the circle sat a cauldron—a vat,
really—into which Chuck was pouring something pink and white out of a plastic
bag. Whatever the mixture was, its odor was horrifying.

“Is that…is he cooking
something?” Margaret asked.

“That’s fat,” said Zelda. “That’s
human
fat. This is dark magic.”

“Don’t! Don’t come any closer!”
Chuck dropped the bag, clumps of congealed flesh still clinging to its inside.
“This isn’t—I can’t—I have to do this!”

“Jesus, Chuck.” Hector stepped
forward, gathering energy as he moved. “What the hell are you involved in?”

“This is a recipe for some kind
of massive attack spell,” said Zelda. “There are numbers written in the casting
circle, see?”

“Oh my God,” said Margaret May.
“Oh my God.”

“You don’t understand.” Chuck
stood for a moment with his hands outspread. He smiled at Hector. “I like you,
Hector. You always helped me out.”

“Chuck, just leave this, and
come talk to me.”

“I think…I think this is a
Heartstopper,” said Zelda. “He was getting ready to set off a Heartstopper.”

Chuck lowered his hands and ran
for the front of the building.

Hector chased him.

“Hector, no!” Zelda shouted.
“He’s going to jump!”

Hector knew that. How could he
not know that? But he couldn’t just let it happen. Running
toward instead of away, again. Chuck was a friend. Hector had always
thought so. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t allow it to happen.

He caught him, at the edge, and
for a moment he thought he could bring them both back. His feet scrambled to
stop their momentum, stepping on Chuck’s feet, pressing back against the roof
edge at his shins, reaching out with one hand—and then they swung forward into
nothing, the dark-blue sky and the angry owl above, the bare concrete below. He
heard Zelda’s wordless scream, and then the nothing was all he knew.

Joy turned off of Tenth Avenue
and onto Point Road, grasped her crystal with her right hand, and said, “Bebe
Stapleford.”

“Wilson? Is that you?”

“Goddammit, lady, I wasn’t
calling you,” said Joy, and disconnected. “When are they going to get rid of
the ghosts on the lines?” she shouted at Lutrineas, because he was there.

“I don’t know what you mean,”
he said.

“Never mind.”
She followed the road as it curved east and south, past an ancient sign that
read T
HE
P
OINT
—Y
OU CAN’T MISS IT
.
She grasped her crystal again. “Bebe Stapleford,” she said, but there was no
response. “Abel Bouchard.” Nothing. “Ken Song.” Nothing.

“What’s going on?” asked
Lutrineas.

“Maybe something’s blocking the
calls,” she said. “Yves Deschamp,” she said.

“This is Yves,” he said a
moment later.

“Yves, this is Joy; I’ve been
trying to reach Bebe. No answer from her or Abel or Ken.”

“We’ll check it out
immediately,” said Yves. “I’ll call you back.”

“Great.” She let go of the
crystal. “Had any ideas about demon handling? Can you change into a giant otter
or something?”

“You realize that there
is
such a thing as a giant otter, and they only run about five and a
half feet long.”

“Not interested,” said Joy.

“Perhaps you are interested in
the black car that has been following us since we turned onto this road,” said
Lutrineas.

Joy looked in the rearview and
saw a stretch limo with a Wisconsin license plate. She grasped her crystal and
said, “FBMA, Vehicle ID Division.”

Instead of an agency
switchboard, though, she was answered by a voice that was becoming rapidly
familiar. “Oh it’s you again, is it, young lady? You were very rude the last
time we spoke.”

An angry ghost was the last
thing she needed clogging up the lines. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m in the middle of
an emergency.”

“Yes, I see that now. But I
don’t think you realize that there’s an emergency behind you as well as in
front of you. I’m afraid that despite all our best efforts, there is a traitor
in the Thirteenth Rib.”

A ripple of fear played across
Joy’s neck. “Who are you?”

“You’re being rude again,” said
the ghost. “Introduce yourself first, and I’ll tell
you.”