Necromancing Nim (31 page)

“Let me guess,” he muttered. “My card’s expired.” He shoved the door open, standing aside to let the rest of us precede him. The smell of old paper, books and, well, college surrounded us as we went inside.

Not far inside the main library, our guides led us to another door that said Vampire Archive.

“In there,” said Tat Boy and pushed the door open.

Inside, the narrow, limited floor space was dominated by shelves of books and a line of card catalogs. There were also a couple of tables with computers, and sitting at one was, as promised, Roland.

The University of Illinois prides itself on its diversity. With an independent Department of Vampire Studies and extensive amenities for vampire students, we have become one of the most popular choices in the world for vampires seeking higher education.
—University of Illinois, new student guide.

Chapter Twenty

Roland was not pasty and bookish, as I’d expected, but was instead tall and buxom with long black hair. She wore jeans and a V-necked gray tee. Her hair hung straight and stylishly messy down onto her shoulders. Her skin was the rich, red-brown of freshly fired clay. She was drop-dead, want-to-choke-the-bitch-to-death gorgeous.

“Sebastian.” She bustled toward him, while Sebastian held a hand out and took Roland’s, shaking it firmly.

“Roland,” he said. “Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice.”

She grinned. “I’ve been working on this for you since the eighteen hundreds—I’d hardly call it short notice.” She had one of those strange, not-quite-identifiable accents that seemed fairly common among the vampire population. “Come on along with me, and we’ll talk. Barry, Mindy, you should head topside—it’s just about your bedtime.”

She waited until they had left, closing the door behind them, then perched on the edge of one of the tables, sobering. At her brief nod, Sebastian went straight to the question at hand. “The information you told me about. Do you have it?”

Her demeanor shifted to near-professional as she nodded crisply. “Yes. Not here, though. We have…other areas.” Her gaze slid briefly to me. “For safekeeping.”

Sebastian nodded. “Let’s go take a look, shall we?”

Roland finally spared me a glance. “The human?” she asked.

“Copacetic,” said Colin, leaving me once again to wonder what the hell that meant in vampire parlance. It seemed to satisfy Roland, though, because she nodded and gave me an almost apologetic grin.

“All right, then. Let’s boogie.”

Boogieing involved crowding into a tiny room off the archives that appeared to be some kind of incredibly cramped office. She closed the door and locked it behind us, making it even more cramped. Confused at first, I held back any sarcastic commentary until she unlocked a desk drawer, twisted something inside it, then walked through a now open and very narrow door in the wall into additional corridors beyond. Libraries with hidden doors and secret entrances. A bit cliché, I thought. Plus they could totally stand to make the door a little bigger. If I’d had childbearing hips, I would have been shit out of luck.

We trailed after Roland in a straggly line, moving farther back and down into another underground complex, too utilitarian to have originally been part of the library. They’d apparently adapted some part of the steam tunnels that wound under the entire campus to suit their purposes. I hoped they’d remembered to cut off the actual steam while they were at it. They probably had—vampires are touchy about their personal spaces, and as I understood it, the U of I had actually been partially and unofficially adapted for vampire use in the fifties, well before the vampires had come out. This section felt like it probably dated back at least that far. At least they hadn’t completely dispensed with the lighting. There were enough widely spaced bare bulbs in the ceiling that I could see fairly well. Probably to assist human servants who provided security during the day.

Colin grew progressively more displeased as we headed down the dark, metallic corridors. He glanced periodically at Sebastian, glowering. Sebastian ignored him studiously. I didn’t ask my boss what was wrong—if Colin had some kind of bug up his ass, he’d let us know what it was eventually.

“Are you sure all this is secure?” Colin finally said. I sighed. Colin just wanted to bitch, I was sure, and offending our new partner in crime when we were so close to our goal seemed like a bad idea.

But Roland only chuckled. She seemed remarkably good-natured. “We keep a staff of human servants for daytime protection. And these locations are locked down with other safeguards, as well, to keep unauthorized vampires out.” She shrugged. “As for the humans—it’s a college town. Liberal one at that. They leave us pretty much to ourselves as long as we’re not biting anybody.”

“They don’t even care about that if there’s consent,” I added. I remembered college, even though I hadn’t lasted very long there. Getting bitten by vamps was one of the more popular activities, right up there with getting drunk and getting high, and far more interesting than actual studying.

Colin made an approving face. “Are all college towns like that?”

Taken aback, Sebastian said, “Haven’t you ever been to Boulder?”

“They do that in Boulder?”

“What do they not do in Boulder?” Sebastian sounded amused. I shook my head, finding it hard to believe Colin hadn’t nipped a Colorado University co-ed at least once in his life.

“That’s the problem with Boulder,” Roland contributed. “They’re a little too out. Always trying to get the vampires to join in, have fun, mingle with the humans. Here they work pretty hard at being liberal, but when it comes down to it, they’re happy to let us stay underground.” She passed Colin a wink. “Trust me, college towns are the best.” Stopping, she gestured toward a tunnel leading off to the right and stepped aside for us to precede her.

Colin ground to a halt, any affability he’d demonstrated toward Roland draining away. “No way. You go first.”

Sebastian glared at him. “Colin, what the hell?”

“It could be a trap.”

Roland shook her head. “Just being polite.” Without further protest, she went down the corridor first, completely defusing Colin’s argument. We followed.

“You are just paranoid as all hell.” Sebastian sounded genuinely angry.

“Never hurts to be careful.”

I had to admit Colin had a point.

“Whatever.” Sebastian glowered almost as crankily as Colin could and proceeded to ignore the other vampire again.

Colin’s point was moot, though, as there was no trap. The corridor ended in a door marked “Stacks—Rare Books”, and Roland had to swipe a card through a reader to open the door.

“Shall I go first this time, too?” she said, sounding more amused than annoyed.

“Oh please,” Sebastian snapped and plowed past her into the room.

I hesitated, because this would have been the perfect time for it to actually be a trap and for Sebastian to catch on fire or be vaporized by sunlight or get decapitated by a huge, hidden scythe swinging out from behind the door or any number of interesting things that would kill a vampire. The room beyond was dark, and once Sebastian had gone in, I couldn’t see anything. And he remained silent. Roland made no move to follow him, standing insolently outside the door with her arms crossed over her chest.

I swear Colin was a half second away from inflicting bodily harm on Roland when Sebastian said from beyond the door, “Where’s the fucking light switch?”

“You asshole,” Colin shot back.

Roland chuckled. “Dude, you are fun to mess with.” She winked again at Colin, who gave her his best glare.

“Yeah, do it again, and you’ll find out.”

I rolled my eyes. Even I hadn’t found that comment scary. And at least Sebastian had been looking out for me by searching out a fucking light switch.

Roland just laughed again and stepped into the room. Light flared inside, leaving Sebastian blinking at the room’s contents. Colin and I joined him.

Predictably, the room was filled with shelves of books, manuscripts and scrolls. It smelled like old paper and WD-40. I wondered at the latter but decided I didn’t want to know.

“This is a lot of books,” Colin commented.

Roland puffed up proudly. Justifiably so, I thought. “It’s all the extant history of vampires we’ve been able to gather. We make electronic records, catalog everything, then distribute it to four other locations across the country, where they set up their own catalog and records and then send it overseas. The European, Asian and African libraries do the same for us. Though, as you know, we’ve had some difficulties with the group in Nepal.” Her mouth tightened. Whatever was up with the group in Nepal, she didn’t like it. “I’ve been able to enlist help from Dr. Blachek in Chicago as well. She really knows her stuff, for a human.”

“All this was written by vampires?” I asked.

“Not all of it. It’s history of vampires written by humans, as well. It’s amazing how much of it there is, but at the same time, it’s amazing there isn’t more, since vampires have been around since the beginning of time.”

“You have proof of that?” Colin’s voice was clipped. Great. He’d found something else to argue about. The origin of vampires had been debated in scholastic circles forever, as far as I knew. It was one of those topics you didn’t bring up at parties.

“Strong indications,” Roland answered, still obviously amused by Colin’s histrionics. I decided I liked her. “That’s not what we’re here for, though. Come on.”

We followed, trailing along like little kids or puppies while Roland continued her lecture. I could tell she was passionate about her work.

“We keep the more controversial stuff under lock and key, and we’re extra careful about how it’s redistributed. This piece you’re after, Bastian, has been under debate. I’m of the mind it should be widely distributed so the knowledge is out there and we can get that damn stone taken care of. Not all the librarians agree, though.” She paused, casting me a glance. “Especially the ones in Nepal, due to the influence of the Church.”

Ah, an interesting tidbit, probably not meant for human ears. I filed it away for future reference. It was amazing what I could dig up with a Google search. Regardless of whether the vamps wanted humans to know or not.

“Once we’re done, it won’t matter,” Colin said. “The stone will be gone.”

“What if there’s more than one?” Roland queried, one eyebrow quirking up.

Colin opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was fun seeing Colin get taken aback. “I’ve never heard anything about there being more than one.”

“There’s all kinds of shit in this library you’ve never heard of, sweetie.”

She stopped in front of another door in the rear section of the stacks and pulled a mundane ring of keys out of her pocket. “This came in through the library in Bombay, who said somebody in Tibet sent it over to them about three hundred years ago, and it sat in processing all that time.”

“Three hundred years of processing?” Colin protested.

Roland opened the door and pushed it open. “Things have been a little crazy in Tibet, or haven’t you noticed? Before that it was in…hmm…Alexandria, I think, and before that, rumor has it it was in Babylon.”

“How old is this stone anyway?” I asked as Roland led us through yet another room lined with shelves, after carefully closing and locking the door behind her.

“Nobody knows. Damn old, though. Anyway, Aurelius got wind you and Pieter were trying to dig up information, remembered seeing the tablets when he was in Bombay and started putting out feelers.”

I tensed at the mention of Pieter’s name. So did Sebastian. “Pieter knows it’s here?”

“God, no.” The words held a world of distaste. “I’ve been monitoring Aurelius—he’s on my ‘Must Watch Closely Because He is a Dick’ list. And Aurelius isn’t much into technology, so I intercepted his letters, got in, made a deal and got back out. Pieter was focused on finding you, Bastian.”

“Where’s Aurelius now?”

I wondered why Sebastian had asked the question until Roland’s answer came back with a twitchy smile.

“I buried him in Afghanistan. He might surface again in a few decades.”

A small silence fell, giving this tidbit the respect it deserved. After a moment, Sebastian cleared his throat.

“The data’s in good condition? Readable?”

“Yeah. We’re transcribing the tablets.” She stopped by a large metal cabinet and unlocked a drawer. It slid open ponderously, obviously filled with something heavy. “Here you go.”

Sebastian came forward to peer over the edge of the cabinet. I couldn’t help myself; I joined him in the peering.

Inside the drawer were two square pieces of clay enclosed in wooden frames. Covering the surfaces of both pieces was a series of odd, angular markings interspersed with small pictures that resembled simplified hieroglyphs. “That’s…what the hell is that?” I asked. It wasn’t cuneiform or any of the other odd alphabets I associated with ancient languages.

“It’s a vampiric version of ancient Mycenaean. We call it Linear V,” Sebastian answered. He leaned closer over the drawer, peering down at the red-brown tablets. “Can I make rubbings and take them back to the hotel room?”

“Rubbings, schmubbings,” Roland scoffed. “I’ve got computer scans and reconstructions all ready to go.” She opened another locked drawer in the desk behind her and withdrew a USB drive. “Take these. I’ve made backups.”