Even Vampires Get the Blues (14 page)

“Eh?” I asked, confused, my attention divided
between making plans and watching Paen look out the window.

“A bird statue that everyone seems to want, a private investigator named Sam, a partner who was shot—doesn't that ring any bells with you?” Noelle asked.

“No,” Clare answered, frowning.

I smiled at Noelle, having watched more of a classic movie channel than my cousin. “Just call me Bogey.”

She laughed and wished us all luck, leaving with a little wave.

“Now what do we do?” Clare asked, looking from Paen to Finn to me.

I stifled a yawn. “I'll check the databases for any information on a man named Pilar, especially in relation to objets d'art. You can—”

“Go to bed,” Paen interrupted, finally turning away from the window. He picked up his coat, giving me a long look as he did so. “It's late. You're tired.”

“I'm not,” I started to protest, but stopped when Paen tipped my chin up so he could look deep in my eyes.

His thumb stroked over my cheek briefly. “Now there are dark circles under your eyes. You need to sleep before you try to do any more investigating.”

“Bed! What a wonderful idea. I wholeheartedly endorse it,” Clare said, pulling Finn backward into her room. “We can work in the morning. Or later in the morning, since it's morning now.”

“You're leaving?” I asked Paen, a little shaft of pain turning in my chest. “I won't deny I could do with a little rest, but I thought you . . . I thought we were going to . . .”

“Your flat is well warded, and Finn will protect
you both from anything that manages to get past them,” he answered, giving his brother a quick nod before the latter was hauled into Clare's room, the door slamming behind them.

“I don't need protecting by any man,” I said grumpily. I wanted to pretend it was because I was annoyed at all the distractions, but the truth was that I didn't want Paen to leave. There was something about him that felt so . . . right. Like we fit together seamlessly. “Besides, I think Finn's attention will be elsewhere.”

“Regardless, you need sleep, not sex.”

“Maybe I need both,” I said a bit tartishly, annoyed with his high-handed attitude.

He just gave me a look.

“Oh, all right, I admit I'm a little tired, but in defense I'd like to point out that the activities in which we were engaged ended up with me drifting off just as I've done every other time.”

“I'd only just started,” Paen said, looking annoyed as well. “I didn't have a proper chance.”

“Mmm. Well, guess the point is moot since you're ordering me to bed.” I started toward my bedroom, pausing to look back as he opened the front door. “Mind if I ask what you're going to be doing while the rest of us are sleeping?”

“Yes, I do,” he said, closing the door firmly behind him.

You rat fink
, I yelled at him, only just refraining from slamming my bedroom door.

He smiled. Right into my head. It was such a sweet, gentle brush against my mind, I thought for a moment that I'd imagined it.

“There you are. I wondered if you were going to show before noon.” I smiled at Clare as she bustled into the office, a fresh bouquet of mixed flowers in her hand.

“Of course I'm here! Where did you think I'd be?” She plucked out the remains of yesterday's mostly eaten bouquet and took the vase down the hall to the bathroom for fresh water.

“Well, given that you and Finn were at it all night, I'm surprised you're here at all,” I said when she returned.

“Hmph,” she snorted, plopping the fresh flowers in the vase. “You're just jealous because your boyfriend left you and mine didn't.”

“I don't have a boyfriend. Paen is not a boyfriend. He is a client. I admit we have a personal situation going on, but it's nothing permanent.”

“So you say. What have you been doing this morning, Miss Productive?”

I tossed a folder onto her desk, stretched, and looked out the window at a rare sunny May day.
“Quite a bit, actually. I ran out to Mr. Race's house first thing this morning to see what it knew about his manuscript, but came up empty there.”

“Was it like Finn's castle?” she asked, leafing through the pages of the report I'd typed up and printed.

“No, the house remembered a manuscript, but the memory was fuzzy, as if it was from a long time ago. The housekeeper let me look around, but there wasn't anything else to pick up. I did get the name of the appraisers who worked on Mr. Race's collection a few years ago. I was just about to drop by their offices and see if I couldn't wheedle a peek at their report on the manuscript, but if you don't have other plans, perhaps you could do that while I go talk to the local expert on mages.”

“Mages?” Clare's nose wrinkled as I scooped up my purse and jacket. “Why on earth do you want to talk to someone about mages?”

“Read the second report. While you've been romping away half the morning in bed with Finn, I found a morsel of information about the Jilin God statue. Turns out it's older than I thought—and has mystical origins. There are not a lot of details about it available—”

“You can say that again,” Clare interrupted. “I've researched that thing for three days now without finding so much as a solid description of it.”

“—but I did find an obscure reference to a mage who supposedly possessed it before it disappeared. It's not a big lead, but other than scrying, it's the only avenue I have to pursue right now.”

Her eyes got huge. “You're not going to scry, are you?”

“Stop looking so frightened. I told you I had it
under control,” I reassured her. “But just to make you rest easier, I'm going to have Jake with me when I try it. Just in case.”

“Oh, Sam, I wish you wouldn't—”

I let her work it out of her system (there's nothing quite as pathetic as a frustrated faery), but in the end, did what I had intended to do all along. I did admit there was some validity to her concerns, however, and swore to be careful and to not scry without a spotter. “Jake'll be there for me,” I told her as I was leaving.

“I just hope that's enough,” she said darkly.

I hurried down the stairs and out onto the street, stopping when Clare leaned out the window to bellow at me, “What about the statue? I thought we were going to look at it?”

“Later!” I waved frantically at her to hush up, glancing up and down the busy street. No one seemed to pay us any attention, but who knew what interested ears might have caught that?

The mage expert lived on Cockburn Street, in a very chic area full of cafés, exclusive shops, and snooty galleries. The apartments, like the other businesses, were housed in a connected line of grey stone, steep-gabled Victorian buildings. I located the correct apartment, pressed the appropriate buzzer, and gave my name. “Hi, I'm Samantha Cosse. I called earlier.”

“Ah, Miss Cosse, yes, of course I remember you.” The disembodied voice of a man came out with the tinny quality so peculiar to intercoms. “Please come up.”

I glanced at the sign reading
CASPAR GREEN
and noted the apartment number, opening the door when
it buzzed at me. Two minutes later I found myself in a sunny peach and cream sitting room, enjoying a brief burst of sunlight while sipping a cup of India tea and nibbling on a tart lemon cookie.

It was perfectly normal-looking, peaceful even, except for one thing—my elf warning system was going off like mad. Something was not right in this room. Something was definitely not right.

“How can I assist you?” Caspar asked, holding out his hands in a gesture of generosity.

I rubbed my arms, trying to quell the goose bumps that marched up and down my flesh. “Er . . . this is going to sound very rude, and I apologize in advance for that, but you don't happen to have anything demonic around, do you?”

“Demonic?” he asked, looking startled.

“Yes. Something that a demon has touched, maybe?” I suggested, looking around the flat. Nothing looked out of place—the sitting room was flooded with sunlight, the peach walls catching the light and turning it warm and soothing. Regardless of that, I felt chilled, as if the air was refrigerated. “Perhaps something that's been charged with a dark power?”

Caspar looked around as well. “I am a bit taken aback by that question. I have no demonic object, nor any object that has powers, dark or light.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you,” I said hurriedly. “It's just that something is pinging my Otherworld radar.”

His face, unremarkable except for a pair of extremely bushy black eyebrows, mirrored surprise. “Your Otherworld radar?”

“That's what I call it,” I said, smiling and trying to
analyze the feeling that something was wrong. “But I have to admit that sometimes it's a bit off.”

“Indeed,” he said politely, offering me the plate of cookies again. “How is it I can be of help to you?”

“I understand you have an academic interest in the history of mages,” I said, hastily swallowing a mouthful of cookie. Nothing makes quite such a dashing impression as spewing cookie crumbs all over the place. “I'm interested in the man who may be connected with a manuscript called the
Simia Gestor Coda.
Have you ever heard of him or it?”

Caspar sat back in a peach-colored chair, his brow furrowed and fingers steepled as he thought. “The
Simia Gestor Coda.
Hmm. The name is somewhat familiar, but not something I remember much . . . ah. Wait. I have it. The
Coda
concerns the origins of several races—Dark Ones, Fomhóire, and Ilargi are what I remember, but there may be more in the manuscript.”

I licked lemony powdered sugar off my lips as I pulled out my PDA, relieved that my long shot had turned out so well. “Fomhóire I've heard of—they are the Celtic branch of faeries, yes? But I don't think I've ever heard mention of Ilargi.”

Caspar waved an elegant hand at the plate of cookies. I shook my head, taking notes on my PDA as he spoke. “I believe the Fomhóire would be very surprised to find themselves called faeries, but that is neither here nor there. The Ilargi have Basque origins. They are reapers, of the moon clan.”

“Oh,” I said, a little chill going down my spine. Reapers I'd heard of from my Diviner studies—they are beings that light the way of the dead. Not
someone you want to hang around. “Do you happen to know who wrote the
Coda
? Thus far I haven't been able to find out any information regarding its author, or more than a vague skeleton of its history. I know it was connected with Marco Polo somehow, and it disappeared approximately three centuries ago, but that's about it.”

“I wish I could help you, but alas”—Caspar spread his hands again, showing me they were empty—“I know little more about it than you. I do not know who authored it, although I have heard the name of Samaria Magnus mentioned in connection with the
Coda.
”

“Samaria Magnus?” I asked, making a note of that name for further research. “A woman?”

“No, it was a false name, one taken to protect the identity of the individual from charges of heresy. No doubt his origins were in Samaria. Magnus was a common surname adopted by mages over the centuries.”

“Ah. That makes sense. So this Samaria Magnus wrote a manuscript about the origins of a bunch of different people, and then . . . what?”

“No one knows. Both Magnus and the
Coda
disappeared for several hundreds of years. The latter made an appearance in the late seventeenth century, when it was the cause of much infighting between the mages of the time. But it, too, slipped from view. Few know it ever existed, let alone know much about it. I'm afraid that is the extent of my knowledge about both the
Coda
and Samaria Magnus.”

“Well, I appreciate both,” I said, tucking away my PDA and taking a sip of tea before setting the delicate
china teacup on the table next to me. “There's not a lot to be found about it, but this should give me a little more to go on. Thank you so much for your time.”

“It is my pleasure,” Caspar said, escorting me to the door. “If I can assist you any further with mages, thirteenth century or otherwise, I am at your disposal.”

He made me an elegant bow, his smile lingering in my mind as I tromped down the stairs to the street, aware by the prickling of my back that something wasn't as it should be. It wasn't until I was on the bus, halfway to Diviners' House, that something occurred to me—at no point during our conversation did Caspar Green express the slightest bit of curiosity as to my interest in Samaria Magnus or the
Coda.

“What do you think that means?” I asked Jake a good forty minutes later, as we were on another bus, this one headed for Butterfly World, an insect zoo of sorts.

Jake looked pensive—not an unnatural state for a Diviner, but a stranger to his usually sunny countenance. “I'm not sure. It could be that he has no interest in the
Coda
or this mage, despite his academic studies.”

“Or it could be something he's not telling me,” I said. “My elf warning system was into the red zone while I was in his apartment.”

“Your elf warning system is notoriously unreliable,” he answered, giving me a look.

“It's not unreliable. Just a bit . . . touchy.”

“Touchy? Like the time you swore your room was haunted, and you conducted nightly séances to try to contact the haunting spirit?”

I looked out the window and tried my best to ignore him.

“You had everyone up for three nights in a row, convinced that your room contained a poor, lost spirit who was stuck in this dimension, unable to get to the next, isn't that right?”

It's amazing how hard it is to ignore someone sitting right next to you.

“You even demanded that Brother Immanuel conduct a ritual of purification in your room, in an attempt to help the spirit on its way.”

I gritted my teeth.

“And what was it that turned out to be inhabiting your room?” Jake asked, laughter rife in his voice.

I turned around just enough to glare at him. “You know full well it was a mouse, so stop smirking. I never said my elf sense was very highly attuned. I just said it's there, and it warns me about things.”

“Not always Otherworld things, though,” Jake pointed out gently.

I let that go, partly because he was doing me a favor in agreeing to monitor me while I scryed, but mostly because he was right.

“Tell me again why we're doing this at Butterfly World?” Jake asked as I paid our entrance fee (Diviners take a vow of poverty not to purify their souls, but to keep them from being tempted to divine locations of material goods that could make them impossibly wealthy). He looked with interest at the brochure that was given to us with our admittance tickets. “Will we have time to see the poison arrow frogs and the royal python?”

“If you're good, yes. And we're here because this
is the sunniest, warmest place in Edinburgh, thanks to their industrial-strength sunlamps. I think the jungle area is going to be our best bet,” I said, consulting the giant map posted at the entrance. “Hopefully we can find a quiet, out-of-the-way corner where no one will bother us.”

Jake followed docilely as we entered what looked like a huge, outsized greenhouse, happily perusing the informational pamphlet. “Did you know that the life span of your average butterfly is only a fortnight? There is one type, a zebra butterfly, that can live ten months, though.”

“Fascinating.” I paused for a moment to get my bearings, a little thrown by the mass of color flitting around. There must have been two or three hundred different types of butterflies—some brightly colored, others in camouflage, and all of them swooping around in a never-ending palette of color. The air was thick and humid, heavy with the scent of damp earth and sickly sweet flowers. I started sweating almost immediately. “Look, behind that clump of palmish whatever, next to the big machine. That looks like no one goes there.”

“Probably because it's off the pathway,” Jake remarked as I leaped over the low barrier intended to keep people out of the tropical foliage.