By mid-afternoon, the middle and inner libraries had been searched and time-recorded. Both doors were locked, magically as well as physically, when Angela's team got to them, but they showed signs of having been attacked on both levels. It disturbed her more than she liked to admit, to discover the thieves had locked up after themselves. Did they have that much confidence in hiding their tracks? Or had it been the plan all along to toss her through that painting into a world that would eat her alive?
The middle library had less mess to clean up. Whereas the outer library was missing four books, and all the books that had been found in the wake of the departing thieves had belonged on those shelves, the middle library was missing eight books. Maurice opened the door of the inner library, and the magic released its usual shower of sparks as the seals were broken.
"As far as I can tell," he reported, after backwinging to land on the top edge of the laptop that controlled Guber's security and tracking gizmos, "nobody got this door open. They tried, but maybe they were still working on it when we showed up, and they ran."
"That's what I think," Angela said. "But better safe than sorry."
Only after they searched the room, which seemed to be exactly the way she had left it, did she admit she feared she had been wrong in her assessment. And only to Maurice.
Guber's gizmos were able to go backwards in time almost an entire day, getting images of the intruders and then backtracking them to show how they had come into the shop. The entire time, they had worn their black clothes and masks.
Angela found it odd that the thieves bothered to wear masks at all, when all the other customers in the shop who encountered them didn't seem to see them, or at least didn't react to them wearing masks and looking like refugees from a bad Ninja movie.
"My guess is that they had talismans from someone with some magic, to make them invisible. But either the people providing the talismans weren't sure they would work," Lori said, when she came to look at what Guber had found, "or the thieves themselves didn't trust them to work. Maybe they didn't quite believe in magic to begin with."
"Just add it to the things we have to ask them when we find them," Harry said with a sigh. He groaned, but cracked a grin, when an enormous list appeared in green and blue sparkles in the air above the computers he and Guber had labored over. A notation to "interrogate the creeps" appeared in Guber's very distinctive scrawl before the list winked out.
Dawn took over then, printing out and making electronic copies of pictures of the stolen books, taken from the images Guber had harvested magically and stored in his computer. She double-checked the inventory, ridding from her list the books that were still on the shelves, leaving only the titles and images of the missing books. She called in Athena Longfellow, the local computer guru and Internet wizard, to begin a search for all the places where the thieves might go with their stolen books.
They could have been hired by someone to steal the books from Divine's, in which case there might be Internet records of conversations in chat rooms or messages left on Internet message boards. Or they might have stolen the books to sell them, not knowing how valuable they were and how much real magic they actually contained. In that case, they could be on a multitude of bulletin boards for magic-users or even rare book dealers.
"The thing is," Dawn explained, "everything is on the Internet. Stayn and I are searching for the rest of the Hunt on the Internet." She glanced at Stanzer and something flashed between them.
"What?" Angela demanded. "Have you had some success?"
"We've...made contact," Stanzer said. "We're doing some research and following up, but they contacted us through the web site Dawn designed."
"So if inter-dimensional royal exiles can use the Internet, why not magic saboteurs?" Dawn said.
Angela had to agree. She hoped Dawn would find all the books on the Internet, on sale by and to people who had no idea what those books contained and what they could do in the wrong hands. Sometimes ignorance was a safeguard. The alternative was that whoever took those books knew exactly what they wanted to do and how to use those books, which meant they would never appear anywhere, not even in a vague reference to books stolen from a curiosity shop in the middle of the night.
When she went to bed that night, after being awake for almost two days straight, Angela had vague, innocuous dreams, and found she was disappointed. Dreams were her torment, yes, but they were also her clues and answers.
And this battle was not over. She sensed it had barely begun.
* * * *
"Maurice." Asmondius Pickle--head of the Fae Disciplinary Council that had exiled him to Earth, to Neighborlee, to Divine's Emporium a year-and-half ago, shrunken, with wings--faded into view inside the Wishing Ball. "How are you, lad? Not getting itchy at this late date, are you?"
"Forget about me." Maurice snarled under his breath as his wings snapped into chop-and-liquefy speed. He clenched his fists and put all his control into calming them and folding them back out of the way. This was just another sign of how the pressure lately had messed him over. "It's Angela. I gotta know what's happening back home, and if it's coming after her."
"Coming after her?"
The Wishing Ball turned opaque, and then divided into two solid rainbow-swirled balls. One floated across the counter and over the edge, to drop to the floor and expand, while the other rainbow ball stayed in place and returned to normal Wishing Ball condition. The first expanded until Asmondius could step through it. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter.
"What has been going on back home?" He leaned over Maurice for three seconds, then sighed and snapped his fingers, and vanished in a shower of sparks, to reappear standing on the counter, eye-to-eye with Maurice. "That's better. What's this about something coming after Angela?"
"I figure, with all the fuss over Mellisande dying and the anti-hereditary royalty loonies running around, and a bunch of different ministries hunting for who poisoned the chocolate, and figuring it came from Earth and carob-tainted chocolate, and taking so long to let Epsi out of the holding tank to help hunt and... Well, maybe some of the real extreme morons want to cut off all ties with the Human world." Maurice shrugged. "Can't stand Fae politics. It's even worse than what the Humans are going through, and that's saying a lot."
"Hmm, yes, there's been some upheaval lately. Can't say I mind, actually. Helps us pinpoint the troublemakers, cut out the rotten elements before they infect the whole, that sort of thing. But I don't countenance our housecleaning spilling over and hurting our friends outside the Fae realms." He snapped his fingers and two easy chairs appeared, with an oval table between them, loaded with chocolate cookies and pitchers of hot chocolate.
Maurice whistled, impressed. This was obviously going to be a long conversation, and Asmondius knew enough to take his concerns seriously.
"Tell me what happened with Angela, first," Asmondius said, as they settled down in the chairs and poured their first cups. "She's been through enough down through the centuries, for our sake as well as her own sad history."
"She has a sad history? Like what?" Maurice sat up, nearly bobbling his cup before he took his first sip.
"Later, lad."
Maurice knew that frown meant business. Asmondius had been a family friend, and he had learned early to gauge the seriousness of the situation by the wrinkles on the elder statesman's forehead. Right now, he wagered he could scrub an entire football team's worth of socks on those ridges. Taking a deep breath, he gathered up his magic and shot it at the Wishing Ball.
Normally by this late in the evening, especially after all the work he had been doing, trying to help solve the mystery of the intruders and stolen books, he wouldn't have more than enough magic to turn on the protective net around the shop before he went to bed. However, the Wishing Ball was as aware as a centuries-old magical object could be, without having a trapped soul inside it, needing the kiss of a prince or princess to break the spell. The Wishing Ball cared about Angela as much as Maurice did--evidenced by its eager cooperation when he wanted to contact Asmondius for a serious conversation.
Now the Wishing Ball cooperated again, and the images of the night Angela was pushed through the painting flashed across its surface. Maurice nearly laughed aloud when the image split into four, showing different angles and vantage points in the shop, from late in the afternoon of the incident, up until he pulled Angela out of the painting and the intruders left the shop, using Holly to get through the magical protective net that tried to keep them inside. Obviously the net and the Wishing Ball had been conferring, and they had picked up some tricks from Guber's monitoring gizmo.
Even with the advantages of fast-forward and judicious editing--also borrowed from Guber's gizmo--it took nearly two hours to show everything to Asmondius. All the hot chocolate was gone, and he hadn't hesitated to snap his fingers and bring in the really strong stuff: jars of hot fudge sauce, and spoons to eat directly out of the warmed jars. Maurice appreciated that, but this sign of how seriously Asmondius took all of this put off his appetite.
"There are a number of Fae living in this town now, are there not?" Asmondius said, after the images faded from the Wishing Ball, and he had continued to sit staring at the darkened surface for another ten, fifteen minutes. He didn't even look into the jar of hot fudge as he scraped the sides and thoughtfully sucked the spoon clean.
"Yeah. Angeloria--she married a Changeling, Brick. He's still learning the tricks. Then there's Harry and his Halfling wife, Bethany. They're in town right now, but she has to leave soon for a movie she's starting. Then there's Guber and Epsi. They're working on solving the whole poisoned chocolate riddle. And there's the super-friends."
"The who?"
"No, they're on tour in..." Maurice grinned, not at all repentant at confusing Asmondius with his Human-cultural references. He had to be feeling better, to start making wisecracks again. "There are some kids in this town with powers. Not magic, actually. Angela calls some of them Guardians. There are dimensional gates here that aren't Fae and aren't magic. At least, not the kind of magic we know."
Quickly, he ran through the list of the not-quite-Human allies in Neighborlee, and their gifts. Lanie, who retained her telekinesis after she broke her back and landed in a wheelchair. She also sometimes had flashes of future events, and could tell if people lied to her if she touched them while they talked. Kurt had a gift for mechanical and electronic things. Felicity gave off EM bursts and had a talent for befriending--and calling, if necessary--every dog within an eighty-mile radius. These three had grown up together, foundlings dumped in the Neighborlee Children's Home.
Then there was Jane, Kurt's girlfriend, who had been called The Ghost in the last town she lived in. Her gift let her phase out so she was invisible and could walk through walls, and fly. Bethany, Harry's wife, was the daughter of another foundling with powers, who had been a Guardian working with Angela--and died years ago protecting the town from an inter-dimensional attack. On her father's side, Bethany had Fae blood. They were still trying to figure out exactly what that made her and what she could do, or should be able to do.
Then there were John Stanzer and Dawn Dover. They knew they came from another dimension or planet, and were looking for the rest of their friends, who they called the Hunt. They had trans-dimensional guardians called the Hounds of Hamin, which manifested as big black dogs with silver eyes, who could get really nasty when the children in their care were threatened.
"Think that's enough to protect Angela from whatever's going on?" Maurice asked, while watching Asmondius take notes on everything he had told him.
"We won't know until the time comes, will we?" he murmured, glancing over the tops of the thick horn-rimmed glasses that had settled on the tip of his nose when the big notepad and quill pen appeared.
"Considering you know a whole lot more about what's threatening her than I do--"
"No, lad. That's the problem. It could be Angela's curse and her ancient enemies have awakened. It could be, as you said, trans-dimensional invaders. They know Divine's Emporium holds together all the fraying strings of the... Well, let's call it the drawstring bag that keeps Otherness from popping through into the Human realms. There are many such spots throughout this world, and many Humans who have been recruited through the centuries to work with us and guard and hold everything together.
"The problem is that Earth is a nexus point. Many different dimensions and worlds converge here. Realities that even the Fae don't know about. It could be something even we can't see or touch or hear or smell, trying to come through here. Something is targeting Angela--or perhaps not Angela, but this house, this entire town.
"Neighborlee nearly drips with magic and alternative-magical energy. That makes it a tempting target. It could be something or someone very nasty, who merely wants to absorb all the power and potential that has been absorbed into the very fiber and foundation of Neighborlee. It or he or she or they couldn't care less about actually invading and dominating this world. That makes them even more dangerous than an enemy trying to take over, trying to use Neighborlee as a gatehouse to other dimensions."
"Why?"
"Do you care what damage you do to a bar of chocolate when you eat it?" Asmondius nodded slowly when Maurice swallowed down a surge of nausea at the mental image that provided. "At least with a magical despot, he wants to keep his new territory as much in one piece as possible, because he will need to use it in the future. Or in more mercenary terms, he wants to preserve as much profit as possible."
He sighed and put down the empty hot fudge jar. "Well, lad, I can't say I'm glad to have this to think about, but I am glad you were worried enough to consult me on this. We will put our heads together back home and see what we can do from our side of reality. You'll contact your friends and get to work on this?"
"You betcha."
A moment later, Asmondius vanished in a soft shower of green and blue sparks, taking everything with him except the plate of uneaten cookies and the fifth jar of untouched hot fudge sauce. Maurice smiled crookedly at that. Things had to be pretty serious for Asmondius to leave that for him. As in, provisions for a siege.
* * * *
Ethan Jarrod sat back in his creaking swivel chair and contemplated the notes haphazardly thumb-tacked to the big, slightly grimy blank wall on the opposite side of his narrow office. He half-closed his eyes and let the disparate bits and pieces of his current investigative job mix and mingle in his subconscious, waiting for a couple puzzle pieces to slip together, for that flash of insight to make sense of unrelated bits and pieces and solve the puzzle.
A house bathed in moonlight, with gables and towers and narrow windows and flickers of sparks dancing along the eaves, surrounded by trees...
Muffling a curse, he sat forward, opening his eyes and slamming his hands flat on his cluttered desk pad calendar. He reached for his cold mug of coffee. Why did those completely useless fragments of three nights of dreams keep intruding when he had work to do, important things to fill his mind?
They weren't memories. There was no gut reaction, no sense of recognition. Still, Ethan knew he would recognize the building again if he ever saw it in the light of day--and outside his dreams. Victorian, full of gingerbread trim, with gold and olive paint and a sign that read "Divine's Emporium." A sensation of warmth and welcome seemed to reach invisible arms, beckoning for him. He had awakened aching for something at least twice each night, but with no clues to help him remember what he had dreamed. Until now, when the fragments of his dream, like shards of glass, kept intruding into his work as a private investigator.
Too bad dreams never came true.
They used to, when he was a child. If he had ever been a child. What felt like centuries ago, he had thought he saw sparkling, winged creatures hovering at the edges of his vision. Sometimes he had heard them promising to help him and make all his wishes come true.
But there were some things even magical creatures couldn't handle. Hunger and loneliness and nightmares among them. Most of his past was darkness, his only memories ones of being alone and empty and hunting. It felt like lifetimes.
Ethan had learned to ignore the whispers of advice and promises. Longer ago than he could remember, the colors and sparkles faded to nothing. Like his dreams of being a knight and rescuing his ladylove from dark bondage.
Just like these bits of dream would fade, in time. That hurt, for the first time in years, but he was too busy for dreams.
Ethan retrieved the lost--things and people. To do that he had to pay triple attention to reality. He exhausted his imagination--to the point that when he did dream, it was always related to work, except for recently--to put together disparate, unrelated clues and pieces to form pictures that solved puzzles.
He was good at what he did. Talented. Legendary. Some people even dared to tell him he had a magic touch. Ethan met their smiles with a cold, stony glare and silence and waited for them to change the subject.
He shoved the dream out of his consciousness and focused on his work. Another pot of triple-strong coffee, a few hours of working on the Internet, asking odd questions of strange connections, and an incipient headache helped free him of the disturbing interior interruptions.
But the dream--of hidden passages and treasures, doors and windows that opened into other worlds, and toys that danced and played by themselves in the moonlight--didn't fade and leave him alone. Six more nights in a row, Ethan ran through the big old house-turned-curiosity-shop, exploring and feeling like he still believed in magic and fairies and happily-ever-after.
The seventh night, she came into the shop and welcomed him with a smile. He knew her as if they had always been together. She said nothing, but he knew her voice was low and rich, sweet as honey and cream. Her hair streamed down her back and over her shoulders, to her waist, in a waterfall of gold and faint streaks of strawberry where the sun hit it just right. Big blue eyes gleamed like jewels. Not that he paid much attention to her eyes r her hair. He stood still for what felt like hours, staring at her mouth, trying to remember what those raspberry-colored lips tasted like, felt like against his mouth.
Ethan woke up aching and hungry in body and soul. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn his heart ached, but he had put his heart away years ago. It was the only way to stay safe. And sane.
His last open case resolved itself the next morning. The philandering wife he was following got into a three-way catfight with the wife and the girlfriend of her current lover. All three women ended up in the hospital. It would take months to determine who to charge with assault and who was the real victim.
Ethan's client, the suspicious husband, did a complete turnaround and went into white knight mode to protect his wife and put all the blame on the other man. He paid for copies of all the records of the past three months of investigation and to have them wiped from Ethan's records, plus a bonus if Ethan laid low and pretended not to know what was going on if anyone came snooping. Plus another bonus promised if he needed to testify in court to turn his investigation into a defense.
Ethan took the money, promised to keep quiet and out of sight, and shook his head yet again at the obliviousness of some of his clients. Then he put it out of his mind. Long ago, he had come to terms with the ugly truth that he wouldn't be in business if people weren't self-blind, foolish, overly idealistic, greedy, proud, and made a regular habit of doing the opposite of common sense. He solved their problems, found their lost treasures and missing puzzle pieces, without passing judgment, without getting personal even as he got inside their minds and souls. He was the best, recommended in whispers and innuendos and business cards discretely passed along, because he knew how to investigate without anyone realizing what he was doing, or sometimes even who or what he was chasing. It was almost as if he had magic at his disposal, to hide his presence and blur his footprints.
But Ethan didn't believe in magic.
With this investigation wrapped up several days sooner than he anticipated, he was currently without anything to occupy his conscious thoughts. Not that he was worried. Work always seemed to find him as soon as he had more than half a day of idleness and freedom to relax, read a book, or pay attention to the rest of what the world had to offer. As if some power out there in the shadows wanted to make sure he didn't know what was going on in the world.
He briefly contemplated a change, looking for steady work as a freelancer for a corporation, such as an insurance agency. Perhaps offering his assistance to someone who wanted to make his name as the new Perry Mason.
Then John Stanzer called. Ethan had never heard of Stanzer, but there was something about the man's voice, the way he introduced himself and got right down to business, that appealed to him. He agreed to look over the materials before he took time to investigate the man. The job offered him, outwardly simple, sounded interesting. Old, rare books had been stolen and the owner suspected the thieves had taken them to use the contents of the books, rather than to sell them again and make a small fortune. Even more interesting, Stanzer insisted on sending the materials by courier rather than as an email attachment.
The courier delivered the package of photos the next morning. By then, Ethan had investigated John Stanzer, P.I. He had a good, solid reputation. Nothing flashy, no run-ins with the law--until last summer, when he got tangled with a federal investigation. He came out of that in good odor, with official thanks from the agents involved and a notation to contact Stanzer if anything with similar characteristics showed up again.
Ethan found it interesting that the records stating what those characteristics of the case were had been closed. It was interesting, and almost piqued his interest, because he had access to federal records and files that many people working for that agency couldn't get into. What had Stanzer been involved in, besides helping to take down a notorious crime figure? Other than that blip on the radar last summer, Stanzer worked quietly, with a reputation for being discrete and reliable, and refusing to take salacious cases. Ethan could respect a man like that. He had been like Stanzer once, trying to stay clean, honorable, helping only the helpless and downtrodden and abused.
But long ago--he wasn't sure how long ago it was now--he had developed a need for intricate, tangled, dark cases to keep his mind occupied. Every step into the darkness brought him a little more silence, a little more numbing. The light had color and movement and whispers. The light brought dreams that he couldn't remember when he woke, but his pillow was always damp with tears. Ethan chose to walk away from the questions that frustrated him, and sometimes laughed at the irony that he was afraid of his own mysteries.
So because John Stanzer was the kind of man he sometimes wished he had remained, and because mysterious, esoteric books were a welcome relief from the usual cast list of embezzlers and kidnappers, blackmailers, frauds, and adulterers, Ethan was ready to take the case. He had a momentary spring in his step as he signed for the package, gave the courier a tip, and walked back to his desk.
Neighborlee, Ohio? Where was that? Ethan frowned for a few moments at the return address on the label. He had been to every major city from New York to New Orleans, to Los Angeles and Anchorage, and to all the states in between. He had never heard of Neighborlee.
A chill he hadn't felt in years settled into his spine as he flipped through two atlases, then three road maps, then finally turned to the Internet. Why couldn't he find Neighborlee? Why was it suddenly so important to pinpoint the town's location? It wasn't like he would go there when he found the books. Stanzer had already said he would come pick them up.
Ethan sat back, feeling that chill embed itself more deeply and stretch out tentacles from his spine into his gut and his scalp, when his computer slowed down in the search for Neighborlee on the Internet. That didn't make sense. He had access to the fastest search engines available. Even search engines that the ordinary researcher didn't know existed. He should have his answers already on the screen in front of him, or the screen should give him a message that his request could not be answered, did he possibly mean something with a similar spelling?
The hourglass indicating "searching, please wait" kept turning over and over. He watched the indicator on his email box rack up three more items before the screen finally went white, then slowly scrolled down through his options.
Most of the offerings were online articles posted by the local newspaper, the Neighborlee Tattler. Well, that was a good sign. A place big enough to have its own newspaper wasn't a ghost town or an illusion or a fake name on a false address. Sitting back and going the roundabout path, ignoring the wild goose and creating his own chase, had always yielded more and better results than the standard investigative pattern. Ethan opened up the web site for the Neighborlee Tattler, and was pleased to see one offering on the front page was access to their archives. A little more information on John Stanzer would be helpful.
An hour later, he had found several pictures of Stanzer from local events. He was involved in the Neighborlee Children's Home as a big brother, as well as acting in dramatic productions at a local church. An article eight years old introduced him to the community when he opened up business there. Another article discussed his involvement with the local historical society when he bought and restored an old building and turned it into apartments in the middle of town.
"Well, well, you've had a few profitable years, haven't you?" Ethan murmured. He found it amusing that he hoped Stanzer had made his money by staying on the straight and narrow, instead of succumbing to the usual temptation that faced private investigators--profiting from the very crimes they were being paid to either prevent or solve.
When he had read everything he could find on Stanzer, Ethan gave himself half an hour to investigate the town, mostly through the newspaper's articles. He saved the Chamber of Commerce web site for last, because that was the face the local businesses and organizations wanted to present, which didn't necessarily mean it was the real, honest face of the town. Of course, that didn't meant it was a false face, either.
He skimmed over information on the local college, the sports and academic honors for the Neighborlee School District, the local Metroparks, and crime statistics. It wasn't exactly Mayberry, but Neighborlee came across as a quiet, friendly little town where people knew each other and ice cream trucks still patrolled the neighborhoods and children could walk to the playground in the evening without their parents worrying. The peacefulness of the town made Ethan wonder exactly why John Stanzer had set up shop as a P.I. there. Unless it was the fact that there were no private investigators there until he showed up.
Ethan clicked on the Chamber of Commerce site and scrolled down the index, waiting for any business names or organizations that caught his attention. His instincts were always reliable, picking up and focusing on things that didn't make sense until he started investigating. A shimmer of light, a sudden stream of dust motes in the sunlight, dragged his attention back to a button and a name--
His phone rang. Ethan snatched it up, his throat clenching in preparation for barking at whoever interrupted him.
No one there.
He put the receiver down slowly, wondering where that flash of fury had come from. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the monitor, and then at his inbox. Four more emails since he started reading about Neighborlee. He would give himself fifteen more minutes to soak up background before he opened Stanzer's packet. And then he'd check his email.
Another stream of dust motes drew his attention back to a button on the Chamber's web site. Ethan's hand trembled as he extended his finger to right-click the button. A whisper of high, childish, chiming laughter tickled his ears. He sat back, taking his hand off the mouse, and wiped both suddenly sweaty hands on the legs of his jeans. His office was on the eighth floor of the twenty-story office building and none of the businesses on his floor or the floors above or below him catered to children. So where had that laughter come from?