Ten minutes to closing, and Allen figured they would probably check the restrooms.
He’d spent the last hour scouting possibilities. Hiding in the reading room was his best option, since there was only one door between the reading room and the special collections, where they kept the handwritten manuscripts. At least, that’s where Allen hoped they would be.
The reading room: Six rows of five desks each. A service window at the far end of the room where patrons checked out reading material. Enormous Czech flags on poles stood in each corner of the room, and various framed maps and portraits hung on the walls. Allen stood with his hands clasped behind his back and pretended to examine one of the maps. The monastery had almost completely drained itself of tourists and other patrons. Soon they would shoo out the stragglers. There was only one other patron in the reading room-a middle-aged man with a sizable pile of books.
Come on, dude. They’re going to close soon.
Three minutes to closing, the man finally stood and began to gather the books. He took them to the window, and Allen held his breath, as he edged toward the corner of the room. The man at the window took the materials from the middle-aged patron, turned his back.
Now!
Allen leaped into the corner of the room, grabbed the corner of the big Czech flag, and spun twice, completely wrapping himself within the smooth fabric. He stood perfectly still next to the flagpole, only the bottoms of his shoes showing. Hopefully nobody would notice.
He stood there like a flag mummy, wrapped up, the fabric tight on his face. Within three minutes he was hot, and it was hard to breathe. Allen thought maybe the flag was some synthetic fabric that didn’t breathe well. Sweat fell from his neck and down his back, but he didn’t budge. He developed an itch at the very top of his ass-crack.
No. Put it out of your mind. Don’t move.
He finally heard footsteps, the jingle of keys. Allen held his breath. A bead of sweat trickled down his back. He wanted to swipe at it, squirm. The sound of a door opening. The lights went out. The door closed again, the sound of locks tumbling. Footsteps fading away.
Allen stood perfectly still another five minutes, then slowly unwrapped himself from the flag. The room was nearly pitch black, a feeble glow of light from beneath the door. He felt his way forward and tried to recall the layout of the place from the guidebook. The special treasure room was beyond the service window and down a short hall.
His knee smacked sharply into a desk, and Allen swallowed an expletive.
Any cartoon cat burglar would have invested in a flashlight. But Allen was a grad student specializing in the Brontës. How incredibly useless. He bumped his other knee into a different desk.
“Fuck!”
He clapped his hand over his mouth, held his breath, listening. No security guards. No blaring alarms.
This is stupid. He went to the wall, felt along until his hand passed over the light switch. He flipped it on. No windows. Nobody would see the light.
He went to the door next to the service window and tried the knob. Locked. He yanked on it, nudged his shoulder against the door experimentally. Very locked.
Okay. An experienced cat burglar would have had a flashlight and some tools. Maybe he could look around the room, find something to jimmy the lock. The hinges. Maybe he could knock them out somehow, take the whole door off. He was an intelligent guy. He just needed to figure this out. He glanced at the service window.
It was open.
He hopped up on the counter, swung his legs around, and dropped into the little room beyond.
A chair, a desk, a phone. A small TV with a cold-war antenna. Something that looked like a card catalog, but it was in Czech. Only one other door, so that had to be it. He tried the knob. Locked. No surprise.
He searched the desk, then the shelves. He ran his fingers along the ledge above the door and hit something metallic; he knocked it off, and it clanged on the tile. He got on his hands and knees, searching, crawling under the desk until he found it-a dull copper key.
Allen unlocked the door and entered a short hall. This cat burglar stuff was child’s play. He found another door, open this time. He pushed it open, and its hinges squealed with ancient rust. He entered. This time it was a little harder to find the light switch-a black push button installed sometime between Hitler and Khrushchev. He pushed it, and dim lightbulbs in wire cages overhead spread halfhearted illumination through the long room.
Imagine any old university library, with shelves floor to ceiling. Now imagine nobody had dusted the place since moveable type had been invented. Add a sort of musty basement smell. Now pile old papers on all these shelves. Label everything in Czech.
Might as well be looking for the fucking Holy Grail.
Okay. Where to start. Find a system. Maybe not the system, but something to get walking in the right direction. That was the key. Even the most half-assed library has some kind of order, even if it’s something that evolved by accident. He couldn’t read Czech, but names and dates would be recognizable. He picked up the first stack of papers he could reach.
They fell apart in his hands.
I hope that wasn’t important.
The conditions here were appalling. Allen considered his library experience quite good; he’d always admired the ones that had taken special care to restore and preserve their special collections. The items in here seemed to have been dumped in any old manner, happily forgotten. Allen supposed that since material in here dated back to before the first library in America had even been built, he could maybe cut them a little slack. Much of this material had been low priority during the Soviet occupation, and it was only in the past decade that professionals had begun to sort through it all.
Okay, find something less fragile. Get your bearings.
He scanned the shelves, found something bound in leather, lifted it carefully and opened it in the middle, to find pages filled with tiny, uneven scrawl. He presumed it was in Czech, but it might have been some other language. He searched for a date, turned each page with care. Finally he found it, at the top of a page-1897. He replaced the manuscript, continued a few paces down the aisle. He repeated the procedure, paged through eight manuscripts until he found the next date: 1765. Was he going in the right direction, or was it arbitrary? He checked two more manuscripts ten feet down the aisle-1760 and 1746. He jogged farther down. False starts ate away the time. So many manuscripts were illegible. Slowly he marched backward through the centuries.
1701.
1640.
1598.
He’d arrived. Could it really be this easy? Allen indeed had a knack for research, an almost preternatural talent most of his professors envied. His eyes seemed to gravitate to the right passage. An instinct for cross-referencing. Imagine a superhero whose mutant power was prying out a library’s secrets. Perhaps in his youth he’d been bitten by a radioactive librarian. That was Allen. He should have worn a cape.
He needed to give himself a ten-year margin of error in each direction. He sorted through the stacks, looking for anything in English. His heart leaped when he found something in his own language, and he rapidly consumed each line with his eyes until he discovered it was the log of a stained-glass-window maker who’d come to trade techniques with the glassblowers of Prague. He almost replaced the manuscript on the shelf, but some instinct urged him to keep reading. A clue. The window maker had been staying at Rudolph’s court. If this log had been among the materials transferred to the monastery from Prague Castle, then Allen might be close.
More manuscripts, accounting ledgers, private journals, letters. Very few manuscripts in English. His eyes blazed over words, phrases, diagrams, dates, a maddening blur of script. The dust sent him into fits of sneezing on multiple occasions. He wiped sweat from his brow, smearing himself with dust and grime.
Some luck! He found a number of manuscripts in English and pored over them.
… should get a new shipment of fruit as soon as…
… My Darling, how I miss you. I should be home in spring…
… Roderick’s experiments continue to worry me…
… The German ambassador was a delightful fellow, but his pig-faced wife…
Wait.
Allen backed up to the previous manuscript. The handwriting was ugly and slanted, just barely legible. He read with growing excitement. Yes! This was it, the alchemist’s journal. The diary of Edward Kelley. Allen Cabbot held it in his hands, the account of the alchemist who’d helped discover the philosopher’s stone. It had been here in the monastery the whole time, hidden for more than four centuries.
It had taken Allen just over three hours to find it.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Penny said. “We can’t just keep wandering aimlessly through Prague.”
They walked along one of the city’s small parks, their footfalls echoing along the cobblestones. The street was deserted.
“I thought he might go back to the Globe,” Amy said. “He can send email there. He hasn’t been in the city long enough to know any other places. And he didn’t go back to his dorm room.”
“He’s not that stupid,” Penny said. “Anyone looking for him will check the dorm. He knows that.”
“I’m out of ideas. If you’d just let me contact my people, they could help search for him. We have resources.”
“Not any more than you’ll let me contact Father Paul. We had a deal. Can’t you cast a spell to find him?”
Amy shook her head. “It’s not as easy as it sounds, you know? Casting a spell isn’t like wiggling my nose on Bewitched. I need materials, a safe and quiet place to cast. Witchcraft is a subtle and complex art.”
“I think Allen was right,” Penny said. “I don’t think you really have any powers at all.”
“Don’t start!”
Penny sighed. “Listen, I think I can do something that will help, but you’ve got to promise not to freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?”
Penny took Amy’s hand, led her behind a row of thick hedges, out of sight of the street or any houses. “Sometimes people freak out.”
“I’m in the Society,” Amy said. “Freaky stuff is my business.”
“Just don’t freak out.”
“Stop saying that!”
Penny began to unbutton her shirt. Amy raised an eyebrow. Penny took off the shirt, gooseflesh rising on her white skin. She reached back to unclasp her bra.
“Okay,” Amy said. “Now you’re freaking me out.”
“Just watch for anyone coming.” Penny took off the bra, her small, pert breasts bouncing into view. She bent, pushed her skirt down, kicked off her shoes.
“Is this a sex thing?” Amy asked. “Because I don’t go that way.”
“Last warning,” Penny said. “Don’t freak out.”
Jackson Fay emerged from the terminal with his carry-on bag slung over his shoulder. He immediately spotted the two girls waiting for him on the other side of customs.
He approached them, smiled. “Hello, Clover. Sam.”
“We got your message,” Clover said. “There’s a taxi waiting outside.”
“Well done,” he said. “I’ll have questions.”
“We’ll fill you in.”
Fay looked around. “Where’s Amy?”
“We had to scatter,” Clover told him. “We think she’s with Cabbot. She checked in to say she was safe but refused to give her whereabouts. She said the situation was awkward. It’s… suspicious.”
“Yes.” Fay scratched his chin, wondered what the girl could be up to, where she might be. He wasn’t in the mood for complications.
“We attempted a tracking spell,” Sam said, “but they must be blocking us somehow.”
Yeah, right.
“I’ll need a hotel,” Fay said. “Let’s go.”
Father Paul stood next to Finnegan. They looked down at Evergreen’s pale, lifeless body, the fleshy pink gash in his throat garish and horrible.
Father Paul sighed, stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “You got a light?”
“I don’t smoke,” Finnegan said.
“Really? Since when?”
“About a week. Ten days maybe. It’ll kill ya.”
“I’ll quit after this job.”
“You said that before.”
“Well, I’m saying it now.”
Finnegan nudged the body with his foot. “What about him?”
“If she doesn’t need Evergreen anymore, then she’s got her hooks into somebody else,” Father Paul said.
“The Cabbot boy?”
“What do you think?”
“Yeah.” Finnegan rubbed the stubble on his jaw. They both needed sleep. “And Penny wouldn’t say?”
“Poor girl’s in love.”
“Damn,” Finnegan said. “Maybe we can still get through this without love fucking it up.”
“From your lips to God’s ears, Father Finnegan.”
Back at the service window, Allen rifled the small desk, looking for what he needed. He wrapped the fragile manuscript in a triple layer of old newspapers and tied up the whole thing with brown twine. When he got someplace safe, he’d open it and take a closer look.
He climbed back through the window, went through the reading room, and let himself into the hallway beyond. He wove his way through back offices and storage rooms until he found the doorway out, an exit labeled in Czech, German, and English.
No alarms sounded. Nobody came after him.
Which way?
He headed up Petrin Hill. He remembered from the map in The Rogue’s Guide that numerous paths crisscrossed the hill. He could lose himself up there in case someone followed, emerge on the other side. Some paths were well lit, others not. The Rogue’s Guide had also mentioned the fact that hookers used the shrubbery as convenient hideaways for quickies. Interesting information but not particularly useful at the moment.
At first Allen stuck to the main path, which was well lit and smoothly paved. He kept heading up. He passed a young couple strolling arm in arm. Harmless, but they could still talk to the police. Have you seen a young man with a stolen alchemist diary? Which way did he go?
He turned onto a gravel path, narrow and dark, but still heading for the top of the hill. From there he could survey his surroundings and decide where to go next.
Next. Yes, that would be tricky. It was not safe to go back to his dorm; it had been foolish to go there the first time, in fact. Too easy for people to find him. And he didn’t relish returning to Penny’s apartment and having to explain why he’d gone off without her. There would be some hurt feelings there, but time to apologize later. Right now he needed a quiet place to examine Kelley’s journal. A well-lit desk and nobody trying to kidnap, seduce, or kill him.
And while seduction was admittedly the least appalling of the options, the sudden thought of Cassandra both terrified and excited Allen, sending conflicting sensations coursing through his body.
No. Don’t think about it.
He trudged up the path, gravel crunching. He panted with the exertion. Allen wasn’t in bad shape, but the hill went up and up. He’d left the well-lit path far behind now, and the darkness closed in on him. He stepped off the path a few times, had to reorient himself by moonlight.
Allen heard something and froze. Had he heard footsteps, or was it just himself he’d heard? His own panting was loud in his ears. Something rustled in the bushes far back down the path. Bird? Rabbit?
Vampire?
He began walking again, took another dozen steps and stopped. Okay, he definitely did hear something. Something too large to be a bird or rabbit rustled the bushes. Allen strained his ears, heard a sniffing sound, or maybe it was heavy breathing. There! A dark shape slunk from the bushes, pausing in the middle of the path. Allen’s heart picked up speed. He didn’t move, held his breath. Maybe it would go away.
It moved, turning toward him. Glowing eyes stabbed him from the darkness.
It came toward him.
“Fuck!”
Allen clutched the manuscript to his chest and ran.
He ran straight up the path at first, but when he heard the rapid footfalls behind him, he realized his pursuer would overtake him quickly. He took a sharp right turn into the woods, where he dodged among the trees and low branches, stumbling over roots. How did he think getting lost in the woods would help? A sort of strange clarity told him he was panicking. Branches slapped at his face, tugged at his clothing.
The thing plunged into the woods behind him, pulling closer.
Oh, God, I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to-
His feet flew along the easiest path, turning downhill. He stumbled, and his hands flew out to grab a tree trunk. The manuscript flew away.
“Shit!”
He didn’t pause, didn’t even think of stopping to pick it up. He ran so hard that he thought his heart would explode. Sweat drenched him.
A howl split the night-a single note, deep and clear, rising above the hill.
Allen went cold.
He entered a small clearing, knew he couldn’t run anymore. He would collapse any minute. He picked up a fallen branch and turned, backed up to the other side of the clearing, the branch held feebly in front of him.
Allen waited.
He saw the eyes first. It stepped into the clearing, moonlight giving it shape. An enormous dog. No. A wolf. Reddish-brown fur. Allen blinked. It was the same animal he’d seen so many months ago in the woods behind Professor Evergreen’s house.
That’s. Fucking. Impossible.
It took a step toward him, and Allen raised the branch.
The wolf threw its head back and howled again. Allen trembled. Allen waited to die as he imagined fangs tearing out his throat.
The wolf didn’t budge. A moment stretched. It howled again.
Allen sensed movement down the hill, heard somebody clumsily trudging through the bushes. Allen opened his mouth to yell for help, but his voice caught, fear choking him to silence.
The wolf howled again.
Distantly, a woman’s voice whined, “Okay. I heard you, for Christ’s sake. I’m coming.”
The wolf nodded its head, pawed at the air.
Bushes rustled to Allen’s left, startling him. A woman stumbled into the clearing.
Allen’s eyes popped. “Amy!”
Amy panted, held an armload of clothes. “Uphill? Is this revenge for dragging you up Zizkov?”
“Amy, stop. There’s a wolf.” He pointed with the branch.
“Yeah.” She plopped butt first onto the grass, still out of breath. “Try not to freak out.”
“What?”
Amy pointed at the wolf. “Look.”
The animal began to shake, going into rapid convulsions. It made pained sounds, whined and growled. Its back arched. Limbs began to stretch and elongate horribly, its muzzle distorting and flattening into a face.
Allen could not imagine a more horrifying sight than this creature melting and deforming, redefining itself, fur melting into flesh, this monster growing more familiar by the second. A scream. Human.
She lay momentarily in a fetal position, then stood on shaky legs, hands going to mussed hair.
“Penny,” breathed Allen. “Oh, my God.”
Allen’s world tilted dramatically. So many questions.
Penny stood naked, white and curved in the radiant moonlight.
Jackson Fay checked himself and the girls into a suite at the opulent Carlo IV hotel. He would plan his next move in comfort. He would need to locate Evergreen. He would need to determine if the man was a threat or not, prepare both defensive and offensive spells. Better to be over-prepared than under.
But at the moment, he was famished. Room service brought three carts of food and two chilled buckets of champagne. Fay had been embezzling from the Society for three years in preparation for his break with them.
Clover gulped a glass of champagne like it was ginger ale. “This beats the hell out of the service tunnels underneath Zizkov.”
Sam reached for a shrimp cocktail. “Yeah.”
“I could get used to this.” Clover stuck a cigarette into her mouth, flipped open her Zippo.
“Don’t smoke,” Fay said.
Clover froze, the flame halfway to her cigarette. “Sorry?”
“I don’t like the smell,” Fay said. “You have your own room. Smoke in there.”
She shrugged. “Right. Okay. I’ll suck a quick one. Back in a minute.” She went into her room and closed the door.
“She smokes too much.” Sam popped a shrimp into her mouth, chewed as she refilled her champagne glass. “Is there a spell for lung cancer?”
“Maybe we should discover one.” Fay sat back in his chair, looked at Sam. Long legs, tan. Athletic. Not very feminine in T-shirt, denim shorts, and hiking boots, but he could tell there was a good figure under there, and now that he’d eaten, Fay contemplated satisfying other needs.
He stood and plucked the rose from the vase on one of the serving trays. Classy place. Fay would never live in middle-class mediocrity again. He would always have just exactly whatever he wanted. This he vowed to himself.
Fay used the rose thorn to prick his finger, raising a drop of blood. He peeled off one of the rose petals, mashed it between his thumb and forefinger, then mixed the blood with it until it turned into a pink paste. Sam saw none of this as she hovered over a dish of caviar.
“Let me refill your glass.” Fay took it from her, slipped the paste into it, then poured champagne on top, muttering words under his breath. He handed it back to her. “Drink up.”
She smiled. “Thanks.” She sipped, smacked her lips.
Immediately her eyelids grew heavy and a dreamy smile spread across her face. She took a step closer to Fay, a soft purr coming out of her.
“I think you should take off your clothes,” Fay said.
She nodded, set her champagne glass aside. She pulled off her shirt, to reveal heavy breasts held back by a sports bra. She unclasped it, let them fall. Brown nipples poked out like pencil erasers.
“Very nice,” Fay whispered.
She smiled, unzipped her shorts and let them fall, stepped out of them and peeled her white cotton panties down over her hiking boots. Her pubic hair had been cut into a narrow line.
He cupped a breast, ran a thumb over a nipple. Sam gasped pleasure. He reached down to her seam, and she closed her eyes, moaned.
Fay thrilled at the moist warmth. Being the most powerful wizard on the planet was going to work out just fine.
Clover threw open a window, puffed the cigarette as she gazed upon Prague from her third-story window. Not a lot of traffic this time of night, but this part of the city never did shut down entirely. It was actually a pretty neat town, she thought. If she hadn’t been here on Society business, she would probably have found a number of ways to amuse herself. Maybe catch the night scene, scope out a few bands.
But then again, she wouldn’t have been here in the first place if it hadn’t been for the Society. She’d jumped at the opportunity. What in the hell would she have done with her life back in Evansville, Indiana? Jesus.
It was the Society that allowed her to go places, do things, be part of something. She couldn’t help thinking she’d bungled things with Allen Cabbot. She puffed, frowned, promised herself she’d do something to make up for it. Prove to Fay and the rest of the Council she wasn’t a fuckup.
Wouldn’t it be kick-ass to get promoted, learn some of the big spells, get in on the real secrets? Damn right. That would be cool.
She should probably get back to Fay. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. But the bed looked so comfortable. It would be easy just to fall into cool sheets, catch a few hours of shut-eye. She’d been awake nearly the entire time since fleeing Zizkov, only stealing a quick catnap here and there.
Clover went to the vanity mirror and looked closely at her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, and not the cool kind she did herself with makeup sometimes. Real dark circles. She thought her face suddenly looked ashen too. As a matter of fact, it was getting paler by the second, and wrinkles were forming. What the hell?
An old woman’s face replaced her own, emerged from the mirror.
“Motherfucker!” Clover stumbled back, fell onto the bed, and scooted back all the way to the headboard, her arms flung up to fend off the apparition.
“It’s me, Clover,” the old woman said. “Do not be alarmed.”
Clover blinked, looked more closely at the pale figure, who hovered, mostly transparent, the rest of the room visible behind her. Wait. Clover knew this lady. “Margaret?”
“Yes, child. Where are the others?”
“Sam is here,” Clover said. “We can’t find Amy. Where are you?”
“I’ve gone beyond,” Margaret said. “But I managed one last spell, something I set up ahead of time just in case. You must listen to me, Clover. Jackson Fay is a traitor. He has betrayed the Council. He murdered Blake and me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why else would I appear to you in this fashion?” asked the ghost. “Fay has betrayed us.”
“But he’s in the other room right now. With Sam.”
“Flee, child. Go while you can.”
“But Sam.”
The ghost began to fade. “I must warn others. My time is limited. It’s… difficult to judge time where I am. I think I’ve only been this way a few short hours, but another part of me feels as if I’ve always been here. So gray and silent. I must go.”
And she was gone.
Clover sat on the bed, stunned.
Sam. Clover could not-would not-leave without Sam. She went to her backpack to search for something she’d prepared several weeks ago, a spell she’d been afraid to try. Now was the time.
She found the plastic baggy, opened it, put the contents into her pocket. Ash. It seemed only like simple ash, but it had been prepared, with so many ingredients-herbs, a goat’s heart, and the crushed bones of a cripple. She’d had to do a little grave robbing for that one. It had all been mixed and blasted in an iron furnace. If she could catch Fay by surprise, fling it in his eyes and say the words-yes, it might work. He’d be paralyzed for several hours-or maybe only seconds. The old book hadn’t been clear. It was suicide to go against a wizard like Fay toe to toe, but that’s not what she had in mind. She just wanted to slow him down, give herself and Sam a chance to get the hell out of there.
She went to her bedroom door, put her ear against it but heard nothing. She turned the knob quietly and pushed the door open barely a sliver so she could take a peek.
She clapped her hand over her own mouth to stifle a surprised gasp.
Sam reclined naked on the couch, arms and legs spread, a clear invitation. Fay approached her. He was naked too, his erection pulsing at Sam, bobbing as he stepped closer to mount her.
Clover backed away from the door, searched the room with her eyes, and saw a large ceramic vase. She grabbed it, hit the door at full speed on the way into the next room. Fay looked up, startled, then backed away from Sam, his eyes momentarily showing surprise, then narrowing to anger. Clover raised the vase over her head with both hands, grunted, and heaved. It flew.
And cracked square against the center of Fay’s forehead, ceramic shards flying in every direction.
Fay cursed, stumbled back over a coffee table, and crashed into the room service carts. A tumult of dishes and silverware. Fay lay groaning, tangled in the tablecloth.
Clover was at Sam’s side in a second, grabbed her arm, yanked. “Come on!”
Sam only looked up at her, that dreamy expression on her face.
“Damn it!” Clover grabbed the closest ice bucket and dumped it on Sam’s head. “Snap out of it.”
Sam screamed, sputtered. “What the f-fuck?” She looked down, saw herself naked, and yelped.
Fay lurched to his feet, a gash on his forehead bleeding freely. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and glared rage at Clover. “Bitch!”
Clover shoved Sam. “Run!”
Sam jumped up from the couch, sprinted for the door.
“I don’t think so.” Lightning leaped from Fay’s outstretched fingertips, crackled and struck Sam in the back. She froze for a split-second as the entire room went white. Then she collapsed, eyes rolled back, mouth hanging open, smoke rising from her dead body.
“You son of a bitch.” Clover spun on Fay. She reached into her pocket, came out with a handful of ash, and flung it into his eyes, the long-memorized command words tumbling from her mouth.
Nothing happened.
Fay bent down, grabbed a napkin from the wrecked room service cart, and wiped the ash from his face. Then he began to laugh.
No. Clover shook her head, couldn’t believe it. I did everything right. I know I did. It should have worked.
“Surprised?” Fay asked. “Poor little girl can’t make her magic work.”
Tears welled in her eyes. No. There had been a mistake. This wasn’t right. Sam. Was Sam really dead?
Clover turned, ran for the door.
Fay cut her off, grabbed an arm, twisted it behind her back. Pain lanced up through her shoulder, and she went rigid. Suddenly there was a blade at her throat. She wept, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You spoiled the party,” Fay said. “Now, why would you do that?”
“I… I…” What could she say? Oh, Sam. Poor Sam.
“I would have let you join in,” Fay said. “Would that have been so bad? All I needed was a ride from the airport, and if you’re not going to provide me with any entertainment, then I’m afraid you’re no longer of any use, young lady.”
Clover drew a breath for a scream, but nobody ever heard it. Fay’s blade bit quick and deep.
Allen got on his hands and knees, and peered under a thorny bush. “I mean, Jesus. You know? What am I supposed to think? It’s like I don’t even know you.”
Penny followed behind him, still buttoning her shirt. “It’s not an easy thing to tell somebody, okay? I mean, hell, remember Jenny Mackenzie from Victorian lit last semester? She got the clap over the summer and still hasn’t told her boyfriend.”
“This is different.”
“Of course it’s different. It’s always different.”
“But you’re very very different.”
“You don’t have to treat me any different,” Penny insisted. “I don’t need your… your racism.”
“Racism? It’s not like you’re Chinese.”
“Animalism then,” Penny said. “Whatever.”
“I mean, you’re a… a-”
“Don’t say it!”
“Say what?”
“Werewolf,” Penny said. “We hate that word.”
Allen walked in a widening circle, bent over, scanning the ground. The first rays of dawn helped only a little. “What’s the right word?”
“Lycanthrope.”
“Lycan-what?”
“Lycanthropy is a disorder,” Penny said. “A rare virus in conjunction with an even rarer genetic predisposition. The Third Vatican Council ruled it as a medical condition. As opposed to the work of Satan.”
“I’ve never heard of a Third Vatican Council.”
“You’re not supposed to have.” Penny scanned the ground now too. “Where did you drop it?”
“I don’t know,” Allen said. “I was slightly terrified at the time.”
“Following your scent was the only way I could think to find you, and I can only do that in wolf form. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”
Allen sighed. “I just need to let this sink in. It’s been a strange couple of days.”
“For me too,” Penny said. “That’s not really how I wanted you to see me naked for the first time.”
“Over here!” Amy’s voice came from forty yards away, through more thick bushes.
Allen and Penny found Amy. She handed him the manuscript, still bound up with twine and newspaper. There were leaves in Amy’s hair, grass stains on her shorts.
“It seems okay.”
“Open it,” Penny said. “I want to see.”
“Not here.” Allen clutched the manuscript to his chest. “It’s too old.”
“I don’t even know what it is,” Penny said.
“I told you. It’s Edward Kelley’s diary. The alchemist.”
“Back to my apartment,” Penny said.
“No,” Amy said quickly. “They’ll think to look there.”
“I told you I didn’t tell Father Paul where we were,” Penny said.
“I don’t trust you.”
Penny sputtered. “You don’t… after I let you see me… Oh, my God. You suck.”
“I’m not saying your motives are bad,” Amy said. “I just won’t risk it.”
“Oh, you so very much suck.”
“I just need a table and someplace quiet,” Allen said. “Preferably not too crowded.”
“Like a library?” Amy said.
“Been there. Done that.”
“I know a place,” Penny said, “but it won’t be open yet.”
“Okay then,” Amy said. “Breakfast.”
They walked back through Mala Strana in no particular hurry. The city was waking, the morning cool and dewy. They circled Prague Castle on the north side, pausing to gander at the walls and towers.
“In there.” Allen tapped the Kelley diary. “That’s where he wrote it.”
They continued on, back through Letna Park. In the light of day it was pleasant, trees arching in a canopy over the path. Allen pictured himself here with Penny under other circumstances, walking hand in hand, on the way for a cup of coffee. Two healthy young people in an exotic foreign country. Why couldn’t it be that simple?
They reached the Holešovice suburb and found a hip little café that was just opening, serving eggs, toast, sausage heavy enough to sink a naval destroyer, and coffee so strong it could eat the paint off the wall.
“Push the dishes aside,” Penny said. “Let’s see the diary.”
Allen shook his head. “No way. Spill some of that coffee on it, and the whole thing will disintegrate.”
“I’m so curious, I can’t stand it,” she said. “How did you even know to look for it?”
Allen went a little pale remembering his encounter with Cassandra. He couldn’t quite bring himself to relate that experience to Penny just yet. Then he remembered there was something else he hadn’t told her.
“Penny, Professor Evergreen is dead.”
“What?”
Allen related the story to the girls, how he’d found the professor dead, the chunk bitten out of his throat.
“Oh, my God,” Penny whispered.
Amy said, “Good.”
Penny’s eyes went big. “Did you just say ‘good’?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean I hope he suffered or anything like that. It’s just good he’s out of the way. He was a traitor to the Society. We were all pretty worried he’d get a hold of the philosopher’s stone and do something really fucked up with it. His wife’s a vampire, you know.”
Penny sputtered coffee. “A what?”
“Vampire.”
“Unbelievable,” Penny said.
Amy pointed a finger at her. “You’re a werewolf.”
“Lycanthrope!”
Amy narrowed her eyes, turned back to Allen. “How did you know about the diary? How did you know to look in the monastery?”
Allen opened his mouth to tell them. Of course he would tell them. Time to come clean. These people were on his side. So why wouldn’t the words come out? He suddenly felt Cassandra’s cold touch and shivered. He realized with acute dread that whatever spell the vampire had put on him had not completely evaporated.
He held up his hand for the waitress. “Check, please.”
Penny said she’d found the place her first day, tired and jet lagged but too excited to sleep. She’d strolled the streets of Holešovice and stumbled upon the Veletrzni Palace-the Trade Fair Palace.
A gleaming example of modern architecture, the Trade Fair Palace housed Prague’s collection of twentieth-century art and was one of the main reasons tourists made it out to the suburb. The four floors of paintings and sculptures attracted groups of students on the weekends, but on an early weekday morning, the small café in the lobby was utterly deserted. All very modern, sharp angles and white plastic, metal chairs that looked uncomfortable but weren’t.
“They have a couple of Picassos here,” Penny said.
Allen held up his copy of The Rogue’s Guide. “This place isn’t even in here. All this book tells you is where to get drunk and laid.”
Penny laughed. “You’re not actually using that to get around Prague, are you? That was a gag gift.”
They picked the table farthest from the entrance, and Allen untied the twine, peeled away the newspaper.
Amy and Penny crowded in on either side of him.
“I can’t do this with you reading over my shoulder,” he said. “You’re making me anxious.”
“We’re curious too,” Penny said.
Amy crossed her arms. “Yeah.”
“Okay, just wait. Hold on.” Allen pointed at the café counter. “I need napkins and plastic coffee stirs.”
“One second.” Penny went to fetch them.
“I’ll bite,” Amy said. “Napkins and coffee stirs?”
“These old manuscripts damage easily.” Allen ran his hand lightly over the leather cover. “Watch and learn.”
Penny returned with the napkins and stirs, gave them to Allen.
“Okay.” Allen pointed to the chairs on the opposite side of the table. “Both of you sit over there.”
The girls looked at each other and frowned, but they took their seats without complaint.
Allen took the cracked and worn leather cover between thumb and forefinger, and opened the manuscript with utmost care. Edward Kelley’s erratic scrawl was faded but legible. Allen began to read, skimming, slowing down occasionally to determine if a particular passage was pertinent. He used the plastic coffee stirs like surgical instruments to carefully turn the pages, sneaking a stir under an edge, lifting it carefully, catching the page with the other stir and letting it down again delicately. When he came to some caked-on dust, he dabbed at it with one of the napkins.
“Are you going to read some of that to us?” Penny asked. “Or do we just sit here watching you turn those pages with plastic sticks?”
“It’s not all relevant, okay?” Allen gestured at the thick manuscript. “This thing looks like it covers months and months. Maybe more. Probably what we want is toward the end, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I have to go through all this, and I’m trying to do it fast, but I don’t know what I’m going to find or when.”
“Read us something,” Amy pleaded. “We can’t stand it.”
“Fine,” Allen said. “Here’s a sample.” He read the following passage out loud:
This serving maid is unquenchable. Last night she used her mouth on me in ways that surely are sins in the eyes of the Church. She begged me to return the favor. Unfortunately, I do not believe she had bathed in several days and-
“Never mind,” Penny said. “We’ll do it your way.” She nudged Amy. “You want some coffee?”
Amy grimaced. “No way. The last cup almost ate through my stomach. Some tea?”
“Be right back.” Penny left for the café counter.
Amy waited until Penny was out of earshot, then said, “You’re holding back something about the vampire.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I could tell. Back at breakfast.”
“No.”
“How did you know where to look for the diary?”
Allen hesitated. “Dr. Evergreen told me.”
“You said he was dead.”
“He… told me before he died.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Allen.”
“Okay, yes. It was Cassandra. She made me fetch the diary from the monastery.”
“She ‘made’ you?”
Allen sighed. “It’s sort of… complicated.”
“Allen, if she sent you for it, then she’ll want it. When night hits, she’ll come, and then we’ll have a vampire on our hands. The Society thought Evergreen had something bad planned for the philosopher’s stone, but it was Cassandra all along, wasn’t it? She needs it for something.”
“She didn’t tell me for what,” Allen said. “But I plan to find out. She may have sent me to find the diary, but I didn’t take it to her, did I? I’m going to get to the bottom of this, but I’ll need your help, okay? I just… I don’t want to say anything to Penny about Cassandra. It’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing? But why would-” Amy’s eyes went big, comprehension dawning in her expression. “Oh, my God. Did she do that vampire hypnotism thing on you? Did she seduce you?”
“Keep your voice down.” He felt himself turn red.
“She did, didn’t she?”
Allen saw Penny returning with tea and coffee. “Shush.”
“That’s hot,” Amy said.
Allen glared her into silence just as Penny sat down and passed a mug of tea to Amy.
“Did I miss anything?”
“Nope.” Allen kept his eyes fixed on the manuscript, deliberately not looking at either of the girls.
He focused on passages, trying to find something important. Kelley went on and on about life at the castle, lengthy tirades against somebody named Dee. He skipped ahead, feeling a little more urgency to get to the meat of the matter. Amy and Penny lapsed into a conversation about shoes, then poetry, then where Amy had attended college. Allen tuned them out, focusing on Kelley’s words.
At last he found something, but he reread it again to be sure.
Allen cleared his throat. “Ladies, I think you might want to hear this.”