Spirited Legacy (Lost Library) (20 page)

“All right, Matylda. What do you think about this? The left, low stack is ‘no.’ The right, high stack is ‘yes.’ And we can try the open pages for spelling out answers.” Before Lizzie had finished explaining, the ring was resting on the ‘yes’ stack.

“Excellent.” Lizzie thought for a moment, then decided on some basic details first. “Are you here in this room when you’re not in the Library?”

Yes.

“Does it tire you to speak with me or to interact with people by moving objects?”

No. No. No.

Lizzie interrupted the tapping of the ring on the low stack by placing her cupped hand over it. “I got it. I’m sorry, Matylda. We thought you were leaving the Library because you were tired.”

The ring bumped up against her hand. Lizzie lifted her hand away.

No.

“Why are there no stories about you? Why didn’t you speak with anyone before?”

The ring moved back and forth between the two stacks, then went to the open book.

Lizzie realized it would be easier if she used yes and no questions. But in her enthusiasm for answers, she’d forgotten.

“Sorry. Did you try to speak with anyone before?”

Yes.

Interesting. There weren’t any stories that she could find about the house being haunted. “Did they understand?”

No.
The ring moved to the book and stopped with the plain band curved around an ‘m’ that was starting a sentence. G-I-K followed.

“Magic?”

No.

“Not magic?

Yes.

Lizzie was confused. If the word wasn’t magic, then—one possible meaning became clear.

“The people you tried to speak with were not magic-users?”

Yes. Yes.

“Oh, my. I can just imagine that.”

Yes. Yes.

Was that a little bit of humor showing through? Lizzie realized her candle was noticeably lower. She felt as though no time at all had passed, but this method of communication was very slow. John had to be worried. No, he’d be too pissed to be worried—and probably at her. She sighed. While technically this wasn’t her fault, she was starting to see a pattern.

“I think we need to hurry. They’ll be tearing the wall down soon, if we’re not careful.” She was concerned the men would act in haste, fearful she wasn’t safe. But the panic she’d felt earlier was almost completely gone, lost amidst the sadness she felt for Matylda and the challenge the unraveling of a tricky problem presented.

Lizzie considered her next question. She needed to focus more on the core questions of Sarah—and how to leave. “The books are what can help Sarah?”

Yes. Yes. Yes.
The ring tapped three times in quick succession.

“Can I bring the books out with me?”

Yes.
Then the ring moved away slowly.

Huh. I can but…? Lizzie thought.

“These are especially important books?”

Yes.
But again, the ring moved away.

Why would these particular books be here? Hidden so very well? Hidden from Worth and men like him, surely. But that was true of the whole Library. So maybe there was something else. Lizzie reached for the volume resting topmost on the right stack. As her hand touched it, she saw a thin volume in the other stack move—the book second from the top— and push out away from the stack. Lizzie slipped Matylda’s choice out of the stack.

She opened the book, trying to get a feel for it. She asked the book if it had a name, and, receiving no response, then asked about the content of the book. She received an unexpected response. Instead of a series of words, she experienced a wash of images in rapid succession. Finally, one word, overlaid with all of the emotion of a young, terrified adolescent girl—the caster who had recorded the images, Lizzie believed—Vampyr.

Lizzie placed the book back on the stack, but her hand didn’t leave the book and the images continued to replay over and over in her mind. She sank slowly to the floor, her knees finding the ground, and her butt coming to rest on her heels. The images the young caster had recorded were infinitely more terrifying than the corpse that rested less than three feet from Lizzie. Blood washed across the bodies of a family. Father, mother, an elderly woman, and a small girl of perhaps five or six years. The rough clothes they wore were from several centuries past and were ripped and fouled with blood. Not with the bright red blood of a movie set, but a crusted brown. Red-tinged where thicker, sticky pools had collected. Duller and darker, where the blood was thin and streaked.

The images in her mind were made more horrific by the layers of emotion wrapped around each picture. The love the young caster had felt for her slain family. The gripping terror evoked by the torn flesh of her father’s throat—a man she’d always believed powerful and capable of protecting her. The haunting guilt associated with the smallest form. Her baby sister, intended to accompany the caster on her market trip but left home at the last moment.

A sharp, stinging pain in Lizzie’s hand brought her back to the present. Glancing down, she saw a small scratch, angry red but only barely weeping blood, had appeared on her left hand. The beautiful sapphire ring was inches away. She let out a long slow breath and looked at the remaining stub of candle. How long had she been lost in those images?

“Thank you, Matylda. These books are dangerous in some way.” It wasn’t a question, but Matylda responded, nonetheless.

Yes.

“I’ll make sure everyone is warned. These are the books Worth was looking for?”

Lizzie waited. The ring didn’t move.

“Are you still here?”

Yes.

“Do you
know
if these are books Worth was searching for?”

No.

“I’d like to leave now, Matylda. Do I leave the same way I came?”

No.

Well, shit.
And Lizzie couldn’t think of a yes and no way to get instructions.
Crap.
Could Matylda get her back? “Do you know how I can leave?”

Yes.

Lizzie couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Okay, so there was just a communication problem. And not much candle left. Lizzie quickly checked the small desk for another.
Damn. Of course not.

The ring caught the candlelight briefly as it moved to the open book on the floor.

L-I-B-R-R-I

“Library?”

Yes.

S-E-E

Please let that mean what I think it does.

“Are you telling me to visualize the Library?”

Yes.

“Then will my being there again?”

Yes.

“But you won’t—” What exactly had Matylda done before? Comingled their magic? “—do whatever you did before? Because I think it was you who moved us here, right?”

No.

Lizzie frowned in confusion.

L-I-S-S-I

“Me?”

Yes.

If she tried and couldn’t fade at all—no problem. A long wait for a wrecking crew, but otherwise no problem. But if she tried, faded, and couldn’t come back—that was a horrific thought.

Lizzie’s breaths started to come more quickly. She could do this. She could. “I can’t do this.”

The ring nudged at the ring finger of her right hand. Lizzie smiled. She slipped it over her knuckle and firmly onto her finger. She couldn’t be sure what it meant, but she would take that as a showing of solidarity. Matylda was with her in this.

She pulled her fleece jacket over her head and wrapped up the seven books, creating a sling-type carrier. Then Lizzie twisted the ring so that she could feel the stones on the inside of her tightly clenched fist. Closing her eyes, she recreated an image of the Library. The three tables, angled to create a rough approximation of a triangle. Books strewn on the floor, mostly in stacks but not all. Wooden chairs scattered around the tables haphazardly. The remaining walls covered with neatly shelved books, floor to ceiling. John. The grumbling, low growl of dismay she’d heard as she’d left.

She was ready. She had a firm sense of place etched in her mind. She let out a slow, calm breath and released the magic she’d been pulling to the surface as she pictured her destination. Her last thought before she pushed—or, as Pilar had once explained it, applied her will—was of John, waiting for her to return.

She didn’t experience the sensation of drifting that she’d had the last time. She was with Matylda, the candle sputtering, about to go out. Then—she was with John near the base of the basement stairs. Previously, she’d drifted away and then when she was back it was like waking from a dream. Slowly becoming aware of her surroundings. But this time, it was as if she’d blinked, and when she opened her eyes, John was there. And with his arms around her, holding her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.

As soon as John had loosened his hold a bit, she said, “What the hell?” She blinked, looking around her at a room that was clearly not the Library. She’d overshot by a few hundred feet, if she had to guess.
Uh, oh.
More than twenty feet. Much more than twenty feet. They needed to reevaluate those security plans.

“How did I end up here?” Farther than Lachlan or Tavish thought it possible to fade?

Chapter 24

“I
think that’s my line,” John said. “As well as, where the hell have you been?” He pitched his voice low, almost whispering the words, trying to keep the rage that was so close to the surface from coloring his speech. “And are you all right?”

With the last question, he set her slightly away from him and gave her a thorough inspection. She
looked
unharmed. He made an effort to slow his pulse and calm his wolf.

Before Lizzie could respond to his question, Tavish, Lachlan, and Harrington poured through the door connecting the Library with the main basement room. Their faces displayed varying degrees of concern, Harrington clearly the most agitated. As he should be. Lizzie was his employee. He was her mentor. And he likely knew a good portion of the rage pouring off John just a few minutes earlier was directed at him.

John picked up Lizzie’s jacket from the floor. She’d dropped it as soon as she’d appeared—literally out of thin air—in front of him. Partially untying the bundle, he glanced inside. “This is what you were looking for?”

Lizzie looked uncertain. “Maybe.” She shook her head, like she was confused or shaking off something unpleasant. “Matylda certainly thinks so.”

“What did you find?” Harrington asked as he arrived on the heels of Lachlan and Tavish.

“Seven books stored in a small cell. Matylda thinks they’re particularly dangerous, so I have strict instructions to make sure they’re kept safe.”

Tavish asked, “From Matylda?”

“Yes. She communicates well enough if you give her an opportunity.” She turned to Harrington. “At least one is related to Sarah’s situation but I’m not sure how.” Lizzie’s brow furrowed in concentration, creating tiny wrinkles in her forehead that John wanted to smooth away.

“What do you know about Vampyr?” Lizzie asked.

Lizzie and he had joked a few times about what was out in the world. If there were Lycan and spell casters, then maybe there were other things that go bump in the night. Clearly, that was true. John eyed Lachlan and Tavish. He’d learned about a number of magic-user types with talents he’d never suspected, all within a matter of weeks. True, Lycan were notoriously self-interested and exclusionary, but it was still surprising his Pack had been so ignorant of the outside magical world. John was more progressive and interested in outsiders than many of his brethren, and he planned to yank the whole lot of them with him as he became more aware of other talents and other communities—assuming he survived whatever challenges were brewing. The IPPC, or organizations like it, were the future. But
vampires
? That had only ever been a joke between them.

As informed as Harrington could sometimes be about matters in the magic-using community, this smelled of ancient history to him. He glanced at the aged texts, then directed his statement to Lachlan. “Tell me Vampires are a myth.”

“What’s a myth? Are there inaccurate stories circulating both within and outside the magical community of blood-drinking creatures? I think you know there will always be such stories.” Lachlan hesitated briefly before delivering the bad news. “Sadly, there is some basis in fact.”

“I’m not sure what Vampyr have to do with this. The attack I saw was nothing like what happened to Sarah. There was blood, quite a lot of blood.” Lizzie shuddered suddenly, as if the words she’d spoken had just registered. She’d been cold since she’d arrived in the basement—easy enough to see from the goose bumps. But as he held her, it felt like her body temperature had just dropped three degrees.

After shoving against him as if she could steal his warmth, she returned to her main point. “But Matylda was quite insistent that the Vampyr book was important.”

“I’m not so sure,” Heike added. She’d been on the stairs, a tray in her hands, waiting to rejoin the group. At the sound of her voice, Lizzie jumped. John pulled her tighter against his side and rubbed her arm.

He looked at her closely, trying to decide if he should encourage her to head up to bed or if that would be a tactical error.

Before he could decide, she leaned in and said quietly, her voice barely a whisper, “I’m fine.”

Heike finished her descent down the stairs, pausing by Lizzie and muttering, “Sorry,” under her breath.

As she set the tray down, she said again, “I’m not so sure that the attacks were so different.” She glanced quickly at Lizzie. “Assuming what you read—”

Lizzie interrupted her. “Saw. The spell captured images, except for the word Vampyr.”

Heike looked intrigued, but she didn’t pursue it. “What you read was similar to popular culture stereotypes? The consumption of blood by a fanged creature?”

“It was more of a sense of the events. I only saw the aftermath. The little girl who recorded the images wasn’t there for the attack, and only recorded what she saw when she discovered the bodies.” Lizzie turned away from John to gather up her fleece, quickly pulling it over her head.

Harrington asked, “Can you describe the scene?”