“Regardless, Swift and I have to go. We are late for an appointment with a special contact concerning the case,” I said, yanking Swift to her feet with me. “We’ll get you an update first thing tomorrow morning, and it will be good news.” I shoved her toward the door and gave Bradley a thumbs up.

  “It damn well better be, Blackwell, or I’ll have your head stuffed and mounted on my desk!” Bradley shouted after us.

  Nineteen

  Dust. Old Paper. And bergamot. I breathed in the strangely pleasant combination of smells and followed Swift into Gresham Rare Books. The front desk was manned by an old woman who sat suspiciously still. I paused, considering whether I should check to see if she was still alive, but Swift yanked on my arm.

  “Stop gawking; we don’t have time,” she whispered.

  “I wasn’t gawking. She’s not even my type,” I insisted.

  “So what is your type? Young and busty?” Swift mocked.

  “Who are we meeting again?” I deflected. I did not want to go down that rabbit trail.

  The front of the store was dimly lit, with shelves of books neatly arranged. Swift walked past all that and pushed open the Employees Only door. We walked through and my jaw dropped.

  This was some kind of book mecca. The building stretched up at least eight stories high and was filled with a maze of books. In between the shelves, were stacks of even more books. A ladder rolled toward us, and a man with a shock of unruly white hair over bushy brows and thick glasses appeared.

  “Lexi?” His thin lips curled up into a smile I could only describe as fond. “Darling, it’s been over a month,” he said in a posh British accent. “I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me.”

  Swift grinned and hurried forward. He slid down the ladder, rather spry for someone who looked as old as he did, and caught her in a hug.

  “Professor Gresham,” Swift said, returning his hug with enthusiasm. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. Things have been a bit…unfortunate lately. I’m sure you heard.”

  He tilted his head in sympathy. “Of course, yes. Even I couldn’t miss that sort of news. Who is this with you?” Gresham asked, turning his owlish eyes to me.

  “Detective Blackwell, my new partner,” Swift said, her tone odd. Gresham tensed slightly, like my name meant something to him. Something unpleasant.

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Swift said, taking a step back. “We’re actually here on business. We have a case that has all the signs of a possession but without anything that would indicate a demon is involved.”

  “Every victim, so far, has been a supernatural as well, a vampire and a werewolf,” I added.

  “Non-demonic possession of supernaturals?” Gresham asked, his face splitting into a grin once again. “I have plenty of information on the subject. Just follow me.” He hurried into the stacks with Swift hot on his heels.

  I followed as well, but hung back. The man had seemed to recognize me, but since I had no idea who he was, the thought was unsettling. This store was unsettling as well. The amount of magic packed in here was strange. If it was just books, where was it all coming from? It wasn’t from the old guy.

  A strange thump startled me. I took a step back and looked down one of the aisles we had just passed. A book lay on the ground, but there was no one around. I crept toward it, my senses focused on spotting whoever had knocked it down, but other than Gresham and Swift, the place was silent.

  I stepped over the book and peered into the gap it had left. The shelf was solid behind it, so there was no way it was pushed through from the other side. Something nudged my foot and I bit down on a yelp as I jumped back, accidentally stomping on the book.

  It twitched and the pages fluttered…unhappily. I mentally slapped myself. Books didn’t have feelings. They were paper and ink, nothing else.

  The book sighed and flopped open. I crouched down, careful not to touch it, and read the entry. It was something about the formation of the Guild of the Mages, a supernatural council that once ruled over all mages. It now heavily influenced the combined human and supernatural governments.

  The book shimmied toward me. “You’re very pushy,” I said, picking it up with some trepidation. Nothing shocked me or leapt out at me. For whatever reason, the book just wanted to be read. Tucking my finger between the pages to save my spot, I closed the book and looked at the spine, it read: A History of Magic: Fifty-Ninth Edition.

  “There you are,” Gresham said from the end of the aisle. "I was momentarily concerned we had lost you.”

  “Sorry, it…fell,” I said, waving the book at him.

  “If you don’t mind coming with me, Lexi and I think we’ve found something important,” Gresham said, unconcerned with whatever the book had been doing.

  I met him at the end of the aisle and followed him further into the maze of books. He led me up one flight of stairs, then another. I hadn’t spent much time in libraries, much less a magical one.

  “How long have you known Swift?” I asked, unable to bring myself to call her Lexi. It felt affectionate after the way Gresham said it. I didn’t want anyone's mind to go down that line of thinking.

  “Since she was born I think,” he said. “I first remember her coming into the store regularly when she was around six or seven. She was a curious little thing, always asking questions and begging her parents for books.”

  “Were her parents book dealers or something?” I asked. Finally, someone with information I didn’t need a high-security clearance to probe for answers.

  “No, do you really not know? They’re—”

  “Professor!” Swift said, jogging toward us with a book in hand. “I think I’ve found our answer.”

  He hurried toward her, taking the book. I looked over his shoulder. The entry was on kitsune.

  “Kitsune? Do those even exist?” I asked, looking up at Swift.

  “Of course they do,” she said. “They’re not common, thankfully, but they’ve always been around. They are born with a single tail, gaining more through acts of heroism, or simply old age. They can possess a person, though they struggle to control them the purer their heart is.”

  “And they can possess a supernatural?” I asked.

  Swift nodded, a strand of her bright pink hair swinging over her eyes. “Look at the section on cravings,” she said, pointing at a paragraph on the right page.

  I skimmed the entry. Apparently, their victims often had strange cravings for red bean paste and onigiri. “That would explain the onigiri we found in the werewolf’s apartment and the vampire begging us for food,” I said. Thank Merlin, if this was what we were looking for, I was one step closer to solving the case and getting rid of this hideous pink hair.

  “The kitsune has a ball worn on a collar around its neck,” Swift said, pointing to the next passage. “If that ball is stolen, or the kitsune is tricked into giving it up, then whoever has the ball can control it.”

  “If one of Martina Bianchi’s rivals managed to do that, it could explain the murders,” I said, as I skimmed the rest of the page.

  “I’ll take this one,” Swift said. “And the other on Japanese mythology.”

  “Did you find the last one on the list?” Gresham asked.

  “No, and I’m also missing number six,” Swift said, pointing at a scrap of paper that Gresham must have hastily scrawled the list on.

  “That one should be up there,” Gresham said, pointing overhead. “I’ll find the other. It may have been put up on the wrong shelf.”

  Swift climbed back up the ladder searching for one book, while Gresham headed into the maze of bookshelves for another. I followed him, still needing an answer to my question.

  Once we were out of earshot, I jogged to catch up to Gresham. “It seemed like you recognized my name when Swift introduced me.”

  Gresham paused near the end of the row and squinted at a particularly faded book. He avoided my gaze and pulled a book from the shelf. “Hmm, I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, thumbing through a book with an absent air. “Ah, yes, this is the one.” He brushed past me and hurried back down the narrow aisle.

  I resisted the urge to kick the bookshelf and trailed after him. Somehow, Swift had warned him of telling me anything about her.

  When I got back to them, Swift had a stack of books. “Thanks again, Professor,” she said with a pleased smile. “This is exactly what we needed.”

  Gresham nodded and scooped up the books. “Follow me,” he said cheerfully.

  Swift was silent as we walked, lost in thought. We exited through the same Employees Only door into the store front. The old woman was still asleep, or dead, at the counter. She didn’t so much as twitch as Gresham slapped the books down and rang up the purchase for Swift. For some reason I had expected them to be free, but this wasn’t a library.

  “Are you buying that one as well?” Gresham asked, pointing at the book still in my hand.

  I looked down in surprise. I had forgotten I was even holding it. Maybe the book was enchanted with a little something I hadn’t noticed. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t normally absent-minded.

  “Oh, I wasn’t planning on it,” I said, frowning at the book. “It just fell off a shelf as I walked by, then flipped itself open when I went to put it up.”

  “Ah, yes,” Gresham said. “The store is enchanted to help you find the answers you most urgently need. If the book chose you, then you need it.”

  “Are you sure this is wise?” Swift asked Gresham quietly.

  “Of course it is. Knowledge is power, and the truth will set you free, or however it goes,” Gresham said, waving his hand at Swift dismissively. She eyed the book as if it might bite her, while he tapped at the old-fashioned till happily. “That’ll be two hundred fifty dollars, please.”

  I snapped my head up. “What? That’s ridiculous for a book.”

  Gresham pressed his thin lips together in disapproval. “Without the family and friends discount, it would be three hundred and eighty dollars,” he said, his accent making him appear every inch the disappointed professor.

  The book shivered, practically begging me to buy it. I sighed and dug my card out of my wallet, sliding it across the counter. “This book better be great,” I muttered.

  Twenty

  I groaned and rolled over, slapping off my alarm clock. It was 11:00 p.m. in Kichijoji, and that meant it was morning in Seattle. My schedule at IMIB consisted of “get your cases closed”, so I set my own hours. Unfortunately, that meant getting up in the middle of the night after four hours of sleep to go back to Seattle.

  I tapped the button that controlled the shades, and they rolled back from the glass windows that stretched the entire length of the studio apartment. I could have afforded a bigger place, but this unit had the best view. The lights of the sprawling city stretched into the distance. Tokyo was always bright, even at night.

  My feet padded soundlessly across the tatami mats as I walked over to the closet. My suits hung in a neat, black row. Directly underneath, my watches were laid out on a backlit shelf that lit up as I stopped in front of it. It was orderly, unlike the rest of my life.

  Even as tired as I was, I had slept fitfully. The strange inconsistencies in the case weighed on my mind. If someone had managed to steal a kitsune’s ball, how had they done it? They had to be insanely smart, or strong. But if they were strong, why not just rob the stores themselves? They had gone to a lot of trouble to rob these places, then they made it obvious that the people had been possessed by having them act completely out of character. I was sure the werewolf would have been forced to kill himself, as well, if Swift hadn’t done it while trying to stop him.

  I tugged on my suit jacket and stepped in front of the mirror to put on my tie. The damn thing always ended up crooked if I wasn’t watching as I tied it. I hated it and thought it was a liability during a fight, but IMIB required it for all officers. At least I didn’t have to wear a uniform.

  Paper crinkled behind me. I groaned in irritation. That book had been flipping itself open all night. Every time I shut it, it opened right back up. I thought whatever irritating magic had caused it to act up was connected to the bookstore, but either it was part of the book itself, or the spell somehow hadn’t been satisfied yet.

  It fluttered again when I turned to look at it as though it could sense me. Giving in, I walked over and picked it up. It was open to the same section I had read in the bookstore, but the pages were quivering in anticipation.

  I ran my finger down the crisp parchment and read the passage again. It droned on about the formation of the Mage's Guild and the families who had founded it: Larkspur, Zhang, and Weber. Blah, blah, blah...my finger paused on the page as I reread the next paragraph.

  The three Founding Families have split off over the years. Many descendants of the Larkspur family are still heavily involved in the guild; however, the most direct descendant would be Sir Malcolm Swift, the current Lord High Chancellor of Mages.

  I was an idiot. That was the only explanation. Swift was a fairly common name, but the top-secret files, the assassination attempts, and the weird lies should have triggered something in my mind to connect the dots.

  Lexi Swift was the daughter of one of the most powerful families in the entire world. And her parents were trying to kill her. But why? What could she have stolen that was so important?

  I lowered the book, but the pages flipped again. Irritated, I lifted it back up. The passage made my blood run cold.

  On May 9, 1880, the day the Mage’s War ended, esteemed magical researchers, Linda and Howard Blackwell, were tragically killed on the very same day. The nature of the incident sparked rumors and accusations of murder, but no clear suspect or motive has ever been discovered. Their sole heir, Logan Blackwell, has sworn to investigate their deaths on his own.

  Twenty-One

  My phone buzzed with yet another text from Swift, probably asking where I was again. I ignored it and knocked once on Chief Bradley’s door before opening it and walking inside without waiting for a response. Two detectives looked up from their conversation with the Chief. The surprise fell from their faces as soon as they saw who had interrupted their meeting.

  “Out,” I said, jabbing my thumb at the door.

  They sighed and stood, long used to my antics at this point. Chief Bradley simply leaned back in his chair and picked up his cup of coffee. I waited until they walked past and the door clicked shut behind me.

  “Swift. Daughter of the Lord Chancellor of the Mage’s Guild,” I said, my voice rising in volume with each word. “Care to explain how she ended up working for the IMIB? And as my partner?”

  “No,” Bradley said, lifting the cup to his mouth and taking a sip.

  I ground my teeth together in irritation. He knew way more than he was letting on, which seemed to be a trend. Everyone knew more about what was going on than I did lately. I didn’t like it. “Did you know her parents are trying to kill her?” I demanded.

  Bradley scoffed. “That sounds a bit far-fetched. I’m sure the Lord Chancellor has better things to do. Besides, the Mage’s Guild no longer carries out political assassinations. Everyone knows that.”

  Everyone knew the opposite, actually; it was just something you never said out loud. Bradley calmly looked at me over his cup, trying to communicate that very thing telepathically, judging by the twitching of his mustache.

  There were a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue, none of which I could ask here. Whatever was going on, Bradley knew about it and was involved somehow. I didn’t think he was trying to kill Swift, but he might be protecting her. The Chief wasn’t a saint, but he had been known to stick his neck out for people when he thought it was the right thing to do.

  I dragged my hand down my face. “You should have told me who she was from the start.”

  Bradley scoffed at me. “You do better when I let you figure it out on your own.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  “Means you have a problem with authority,” Bradley said, shaking his head with a smirk.

  That manipulative old badger. He had played me. I was pretty sure he had intended me to be an unofficial bodyguard for Swift, but he knew I’d have turned him down flat if he had ordered it.

  He stood and drained his cup of coffee, then walked toward me and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Now, I have another meeting. Don’t interrupt this one.” With a grip like iron, he steered me toward the door and shoved me out of his office.

  I straightened my jacket and started toward my office when I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. High-ranking officers in the Mage’s Guild were required to broadcast their magical signature. It was something of a warning, and a courtesy. It used to give criminals a head start, just to be fair.

  Pausing in front of my office door, I looked over my shoulder and saw a Magister, dressed in the traditional red robes, walking into Chief Bradley’s office. Where Magisters went, trouble followed. I frowned and pushed my door open.

  Swift sat stiffly in the chair farthest from the door, in the only spot in the office not visible through the large window.

  “They give you the creeps, too?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t her issue.

  “You could say that,” Swift said, pressing her lips together in a wan imitation of a smile.

  Swift yawned, covering her mouth primly. I stepped through the hole the vampire had punched in the side of the bank and scanned the area. There was no residual magic, so it was unlikely any spells were cast to aid the vampire when she robbed the bank.

  I turned back to ask Swift a question, but she was yawning again. “Merlin, just get some coffee. Did you not sleep at all last night?” I asked.

  “I was re-reading the case files and lost track of time,” she said, waving her hand at me dismissively. “Have you found anything new, or did you drag me out here for no reason?”

 

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