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“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 backbay.” 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 knowsomething.
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 directlyat 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.
