The Demon Lover (28 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

M
ouse or no mouse, waking up alone in a hotel room
on
Christmas morning was, I decided, the pits. Ralph’s company—he had taken to sleeping in the ice bucket with a shoeshine flannel for a blanket—just gave my solitude that little bit of Victorian piquancy needed to make my situation seem truly pathetic: like Cinderella who has only her little animal friends for company.

I ordered us a big room service breakfast, price be damned, to cheer myself up, and then I did what I’d been thinking I should do last night: I called my grandmother in Santa Fe. I got her voicemail. I wished her a merry Christmas and told her I’d thought of her last night at St. John the Divine. Then I hung up feeling that I’d done my duty without actually having to talk to her. Ten minutes later the phone rang.

“So you’re in town,” my grandmother said without a hello or “seasons’s greetings.” “Have you come to your senses and left that second-rate college?”

“No, Adelaide.” She had dispensed with me calling her
Grandma
when I was ten because she said it made her feel old. “I’m just in town for a few days …”

“Good,” she cut me off briskly. “So am I. I’m staying at my club. If you don’t have any other plans for the day we could have tea here.”

For a moment I considered telling her I was going to Annie’s. I hated admitting to her that I was friendless on Christmas Day, but then I realized that
she
was apparently alone and chided myself for my selfishness.

“I’d love to,” I told her.

“Come at one,” she answered crisply. “And remember, the Grove Club doesn’t allow jeans.”

I hung up, feeling like a sulky teenager who had to be reminded to dress properly for her college interviews and remembering why I always tried to keep my interactions with my grandmother brief. I’d meant it when I defended her to Annie last night—she wasn’t
that
bad. She could have sent me off to boarding school, but she’d opened her small, tidy two-bedroom apartment to me, giving up her study for me to use as a bedroom (although many of her books and papers remained stored in my closet), and dutifully oversaw my education until I went to college. It had been a little jarring when she retired to Santa Fe the same week I graduated from high school. It meant that I had to spend all my holidays either in the dorm or on a friend’s couch. But I couldn’t really blame her. At least she’d waited until I graduated high school to move. She’d been complaining about the New York winters and talking about retiring to Santa Fe, where she had a house she’d inherited from an aunt, for years. I was surprised that she’d come back to New York during the winter.

I dressed carefully in a wool skirt and cashmere sweater and put my hair up, recalling that Adelaide always commented on how long it was if I left it down. I left early, figuring the subways would run slowly on Christmas Day. I still had an hour to kill, though, when I reached Midtown. I walked along Fifth Avenue, looking at the Christmas windows at Lord & Taylor, recalling a Christmas my mother had taken me to see the windows.

“Look, fairies!” she had said, pointing to a flock of winged figures crafted out of silk and gauze hovering above a snow-covered diorama of Central Park. “If only they really looked like that.”

I’d always thought that she had meant “If only they really existed!” but now I wondered if my mother had known enough about fairies to know they weren’t quite so sweet and adorable. Diana Hart had said I had fairy blood, but from whom? My mother or my father? I supposed I could ask my grandmother, but how to pose such a question to Adelaide Danbury was unimaginable.

As I walked past the public library’s main branch I realized guiltily that there were other more pressing genealogical questions. I’d meant to use my time in the city to look up the descendants of Hiram Scudder and Abigail Fisk, but I’d been too caught up in my own breakup drama to make it here. Now it was too late. The library was obviously closed on Christmas Day … unless …

I dug into my wallet, pulled out the IMP card Liz Book had given me, and read the back.

ACCESS TO SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND EXCLUSIVE HOURS AT PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS.

Liz had said the main branch was a participating institution, but did I have to make an appointment? I really should get Liz Book to find my orientation packet and give me some hands-on training in casting spells. My knees were still stinging from the tumble I’d taken when I’d cast the wrong spell on the Solstice … but in the meantime, it couldn’t hurt to see if the card could get me in the library.

Feeling pretty foolish, I walked up the granite steps, past Patience and Fortitude, the twin lions, resplendent in their Christmas wreaths. When I got to the locked and gated doors I felt even more foolish. What had I thought? That I’d wave my membership card in front of the lock and the great brass doors would swing open?

I did notice, though, that etched amid the swirling acanthus filigree were two crescent moons facing away from each other, just like on the IMP card, which I still had in my hand. Feeling sillier than ever I swiped the card over the moons on the door.

Something clicked.

I stared at the door until another click startled me out of my surprise. I tried the handle. It didn’t move. But then, remembering how time sensitive the buzzer on my apartment door was I tried it again. As soon as I heard the click I pulled the door handle. The door opened.

I stood gaping at the open door for several moments until a voice called from inside.

“Are you coming in or not? You’re letting in a draft.”

I opened the heavy door and stepped into the great marble foyer. The giant marble candelabra and hanging lamps were unlit. The only light came from the clerestory arches. In one of the deepest shadows a slim young man muffled in a heavy wool coat and voluminous scarf sat on a folding chair. He had been reading a book with the aid of a clip-on book light but was now looking up at me, his bony hand reaching toward me.

“Card, please.”

I handed over my IMP card, hoping I wasn’t violating some academic protocol by barging into the library on Christmas Day. The young man held the card up to a weak ray of light and tilted it back and forth. The moons waxed full and waned to slim crescents on the plastic surface.

“Okay,” he said, getting to his feet with a sigh and a creak of bones. Although he couldn’t be more than thirty, his sandy hair was thinning on top and he acted like an old man—and dressed like one. Underneath the heavy tweed overcoat he wore a plaid vest with pocket watch and tie.

“Justin Plean,” he said, holding out a raw-boned hand. “Very Special Collections. What can I help you with today?”

“I’m trying to track down the descendants of two … um … 
persons.
”

“What sort of persons?”

“Um … I’m not sure … do you mean …?”

“Fairies, witches, demons, or miscellaneous?”

“Witches,” I replied, wondering what “miscellaneous” covered.

“Very good,” he replied, all business. “Come with me.”

He took off at a good clip that belied his antiquated clothing, his coattails flapping. I quickly saw why he was so abundantly clothed. The library was freezing.

“They don’t leave the heat on for you?” I asked when I caught up with him at the elevator.

“Budget cuts,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re lucky you found me here today. IMP can’t afford to pay overtime, but those of us who take the job seriously wouldn’t think of leaving the library unattended.”

“That’s very conscientious of you,” I remarked as we got into the elevator.

Justin Plean shrugged but looked pleased. “It’s my job. Do you need help with the genealogical records?”

“I probably will. I’ve never used them before.”

“They’re a little … 
tricky
,” he admitted. “You said you wanted to look up two witches? I’ll get you started on one and then see what I can find on the other.”

Delighted to find someone so helpful, I wrote down both names in a small notebook Justin took out of his coat pocket.

The door opened onto blackness. For a moment I had the dreadful thought that mild-mannered, bookish Justin Plean was a psychotic serial killer who’d lured me to the library’s basement to dismember me, but as he strode out the door motion detector lights flicked on revealing row upon row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves as far as the eye could see.

“Wow! Are all these about magic and witchcraft?”

Justin turned to flash me a grin. It made him look about twelve. “Cool, isn’t it? These are the grimoires”—he splayed his long fingers along a row of leatherbound books—“and these are bestiaries. The genealogy records are in the back bay.” He walked so quickly I had trouble keeping up with him. I would have loved to stop and explore, but I didn’t dare be late for tea with my grandmother.

Justin led me to a small carrel in a dusty corner lit by a flickering fluorescent lightbulb. He plucked a large book bound in a standard library binding off a shelf and handed it to me. “R through T of CROSBy, which stands for …”

“The Central Registry of Supernatural Beings,” I said quickly, proud to know
something
.

Justin gave me a rather condescending smile. “Just look up your Scudder. The most current descendants should be listed there. I’ll go looking for Abigail Fisk.”

I thanked him, sat down, and opened the book. Puffs of dust rose from its delicate, print-crammed pages. How new could it be? I wondered, peering at the miniscule type. Would it really have the latest descendants of Hiram Scudder?

But as I paged through to “S” I noticed that a more modern type alternated with the old-fashioned print. In fact, there were half a dozen different specimens of type in evidence. I guessed that each time the book was updated a different type was used. My eyes jumped over the uneven type until the lines on the page seemed to be vibrating in the flickering light. I could feel the muscles of my eye contracting and spasming with the effort. By the time I got to “Sc” my eyes stung.

Scales, Scanlon, Scarlett
, I read.

Scott, Scott, Scott
.

Scu …

My finger ran into a black ink splotch that swelled in my bleary vision.

Maybe I needed reading glasses, I thought, leaning back and closing my eyes for a moment.

When I opened them the splotch had grown six inches and sprouted legs.

I screamed and sprang back, knocking the chair to the floor.

The splotch quivered and launched itself through the air directly at my face. I screamed again and ducked. I heard a wet splat behind me and turned, hoping the thing was dead but the gelatinous mass was gathering itself for another leap. As it sprang I grabbed a book from the shelf next to me and swung it like a baseball bat. The splotch squelched like a rotten tomato, but I didn’t stop to see if it was dead. I ran, screaming for Justin Plean and pulling down books behind me to impede the splotch’s progress. I could hear it chittering wetly at my heels. Not dead. Desperately I tried to remember a spell that would be useful. The thing wasn’t attacking me from above, so that one wouldn’t work. There was one, I recalled, to prevent bedbugs but then this wasn’t a bedbug … or—gruesome thought!—what if it was? The city was supposedly overrun with them. What if this was a mutated magical version? Ugh! I recalled the spell as best as I could and turned around to face the creature … and wished I hadn’t. The splotch had ballooned to the size of an overweight pit bull and it had grown pincers. Horrified, I watched as it gathered itself for one more attack. I raised my hands to shield my face as much as possible and began to recite the spell, but before I could I heard someone else reciting the words:
“Pestis sprengja!”
Then I heard a shriek that sounded like something’s death throes. I lowered my hands and saw Justin Plean standing over a puddle of yellow ooze with an open book in his hands.

“What the hell was that?” I gasped, leaning against a shelf to steady my trembling legs.

Justin took out a handkerchief from his vest pocket and wiped yellow flecks from his glasses.

“A lacuna,” he said, his voice trembling. “A biblioparasite that nests in books and grows when it smells blood. Nasty things.” He closed the book in his hands and wiped its cover clean with his handkerchief. It was in a plain library binding like mine, but there were a dozen or so slips of paper sticking out marking pages.

“Geez, do you get a lot of them?”

Justin shook his head. “Almost never. We dust twice a year with repellant and check all new acquisitions for signs of contamination.” He slipped the spellbook in his pocket and looked at me. “Where did you find it?”

“In the book you gave me … under ‘S.’ I had just gotten to Scudder when I saw this … 
spot.
” I shuddered recalling that I had touched it. I wiped my hand against my skirt and noticed that I had yellow specks on my sweater.

Justin nodded. “I suspected as much. Someone planted the lacuna there, blotting out the Scudder lineage and discouraging anyone who tried to go looking for it. One of his descendants, I suspect, who doesn’t want to be connected to Hiram Scudder.”

“That could mean that Hiram Scudder was the witch responsible for the curse.”

“Maybe,” Justin said, removing his notebook from his pocket, “but I found out something interesting about Abigail Fisk’s descendants. One of them teaches at Fairwick.”