Library Cat Magical Mysteries Box Set (Books 1-3), page 13
“Oh yeah? And you’re the goody-two-shoes. So tell me, what non-salacious reason could there be?”
“She could be mentoring him—honestly.”
“Sure,” Lizzie said. “Mentoring him in the ways of love.”
“He’s a graduate student,” I said. “He could grade papers for her.”
“Yeah, looove papers,” Lizzie said in that same sing-songy voice.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“Because you’re a goody-two-shoes,” she insisted.
I wanted to plead my case, but as it was, I’d been drinking a lemon oozler and reading a comic book and wasn’t in much position to argue my savvy world-wise ways.
“I’m plenty adventurous,” I said.
“Prove it,” she said.
“I will,” I said. I was willing to put my money where my mouth was. In the last few days I’d committed breaking and entering, plus just a few minutes ago I’d snooped through the High Adept’s purse.
I was ready to smoke cigarettes and loiter underneath a No Loitering sign.
“Ask Rend Redclaw out on a date,” she said.
Oh. I hadn’t thought she’d expect me to actually prove it.
“Fine,” I said.
“You will?” Her face lit up.
“Sure,” I said. But I remembered how Professor Florian was still dead and I was still the number one suspect. I had a lot of potential suspects, but I didn’t have anything concrete on any of them. The only bit of evidence in the whole case was against me. “We’ll go on a date. Just you watch.”
Getting arrested and interrogated counts as a date. Right?
Chapter 20
The last time I had been at Magnus’s house, I’d made a solemn vow to turn my life around, to commit to magic practice and to never do anything sneaky or illegal ever again.
But with what Lizzie had said about Professor Violeta having black hair on the day of the murder, I had to get to the bottom of it. Even if Professor Violeta and Magnus hadn’t killed Professor Florian, I needed to know. I could at least stop obsessing over them if they were innocent.
“What’s your plan again?” Kong asked.
“Well,” I said.
“Please tell me you have a plan,” he said.
“I think if I can just talk to him,” I said, “I can feel him out.”
“You’ll use your superhuman powers to sense whether or not he’s telling the truth?”
“Something like that,” I said.
We walked down Canal Street and away from downtown. The streets get wider and houses start to spring up in the residential neighborhoods. By the time we got to Magnus’s street, there was a permanent sheen of sweat on my upper lip, but I was no closer to thinking of a legit plan. Unless you count knocking on his door and asking a bunch of point-blank questions as a plan.
When we approached the house, I could see two shadowy figures behind the drawn curtains. Looked like he had company. The sun was down behind the mountains and it was starting to cool down. Most people had their windows open to let in the fresh air. Magnus, however, was closed up with the curtains drawn.
“Is there an invisibility spell?” I asked Kong.
“Of course,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t recommend it performed by someone of your level.”
“Hey,” I said.
“The truth hurts,” he said. “Here. Consider this an early birthday present.” A soft glow lit up the end of his paw. He swiped it through the air, and all of a sudden I couldn’t see myself. I almost fell over, the feeling was so disorienting. You don’t realize how much you rely on visual cues for movement and motor skills.
“How long will this last?” I asked.
“Not long,” he said. “A few minutes, so don’t blow it.”
I tiptoed across the street and into Magnus’s front yard. It was landscaped nicely with river rocks and interesting succulents. My footsteps crunched on the rocks no matter how hard I tried to be careful. The small window over the kitchen sink was opened a few inches, so I stretched up as tall as possible to listen.
A man and a woman. I couldn’t be positive, but I thought it was Professor Violeta. The voice had that same annoying bossiness I remembered from the Spelling Bee rehearsal.
“We’re going to get caught,” Magnus said.
“Not if you shut up and listen,” the woman said.
Getting caught? The plot thickens.
I knew for sure there was a spell that amplified sound, and when I got home, you bet your fur I was going to practice it.
“You need to get rid of that right now,” Professor Violeta said.
“That’s not going to help. This whole thing’s a mess,” Magnus said.
“It will be fine. Better than fine. It will work out for both of us. Just listen.”
“Okay, what do you need me to do?” Magnus said. He sounded resigned, as if he’d given up the will to fight. Had Professor Violeta coerced him into killing Florian? Had she used her feminine wiles to seduce and control Magnus? Was the poor lad just now realizing he was in too deep?
“This part right here,” she said. “The object. It’s gotta go.”
“No,” Magnus said. “Listen. There was a dangling modifier. Direct objects go before the gerund noun.”
Gerund noun?
There was a terrible scree as the curtain rings scraped against the rod.
“What are you doing?” It was Professor Violeta.
“Pulling weeds?” I said. “I came to tell you that a new order of books came in today, many pertaining to underground medieval commerce with foreign supernatural factions. But then I noticed some clover and dandelions over here. What a blight on an otherwise pristine—”
My feet flew up off the ground as I was lifted into the air. It would have been a pleasant respite for the old joints if I hadn’t been convinced that I was about to die. Professor Violeta had her wand in one hand and a scowl fit to wither any clover or dandelion down to the roots. I flew in through the open window and tumbled onto the floor.
The aforementioned old joints did not appreciate it one bit. I was going to need an ice pack on my lumbar region tonight.
Assuming, of course, I was going to make it home to get the trusty ice pack out of the freezer and lay it out on my recliner.
“How much did you hear?” Magnus asked. He was pacing around the kitchen. He held a paper in his hand and was nervously folding it into smaller and smaller squares.
I remembered once in math class, there was a theorem, you can’t fold a sheet of paper more than eight times, no matter the size of the paper. The way Magnus was working on the sheet in his hand, it looked like he was trying to break that record.
“The part about getting caught and needing to get rid of something and then something about a past participle and a gerund?”
“She knows,” Magnus almost squealed. “What are we going to do?”
“Stay calm,” Professor Violeta said. “I don’t think her little pea brain even knows what a participle is. Do you?”
“Please, I don’t want to hear about your dangling modifiers,” I said. “You can dangle them wherever you want behind closed doors. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.” I looked down in supplication and noticed Magnus was wearing the shoes with the red splotch.
Professor Violeta and Magnus looked at each other, then started laughing.
“You think that we’re…?”
“That I would…?”
“With her?”
They both gave little mock-retching sounds of revulsion.
“You’re not, um, intimate?”
“Dear Lord, no,” Professor Violeta said. “No offense, Magnus, but you’re not my type.”
“None taken,” he said. “I’d rather take a vow of celibacy.”
Okay, so they weren’t romantically involved. But they still could have colluded to kill Professor Florian.
“But what about getting caught? Needing to get rid of something?” I said. “Were the two of you in cahoots to kill Florian? I know he stole your research, Magnus. And Professor Violeta, I know you wanted his job. Did you team up?”
My wand was in my purse, but it would offer little in the way of self-defense against a powerful witch like Professor Violeta. She’d hoisted me up into the air without breaking a sweat. Kong was lurking about somewhere, but I wasn’t altogether confident that he could get me out this time, now that Professor Violeta was on guard.
But I had to know. Too many things didn’t add up.
“No,” Magnus said.
“Not at all,” Professor Violeta said.
“What was that about getting caught?”
Violeta and Magnus looked at each other for a moment. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear. He whispered back. They had it out briefly then turned to me.
“I ghostwrite all her papers,” Magnus said. He unfolded the paper he’d been wringing and handed it to me. It was a page of a scholarly article, complete with editing marks in red pen.
“We’re consenting adults,” Violeta said. “And I pay him handsomely.”
“You write her papers?” I asked.
“Sure,” Magnus said. “I can’t publish on my own, at least not until the plagiarism accusations die down.”
“And I’m expected to publish frequently,” Professor Violeta said. “I find the whole thing tedious really, but it’s what I have to do to achieve my goal.”
“Which is?”
“Head of the Academy,” she said. “I’ll get the job too, mark my words, but not if I have to waste time writing about the price of a fifteenth-century barrel of lantern oil and tariffs against the vampire collective.”
I took a moment to consider that. It was all very plausible, very reasonable. Professor Violeta enjoyed the politics and power involved in the administration side of the Academy and held little love for arcane history. Magnus, on the other hand, loved researching the minutiae but was unjustly barred from publishing his findings. He was a purist. He would have preferred his name on the articles, but to him, the most important thing was getting his ideas out there—having other scholars read and discuss what he’d written.
“Okay,” I said. “Pretend I believe you.”
“Why do I care if you believe us or not?” Professor Violeta said.
“Hey, she can blow the lid off it,” Magnus said.
“Then explain why you had black hair on the day of the murder and were so eager to get it changed back.”
Professor Violeta looked honestly perplexed. “I tried dyeing it at home with a potion. It was a dreadful sight. I’m no old lady, but I’m too old for a head of jet-black hair.”
So she hadn’t heard that a woman with black hair had been seen disposing of evidence behind the Archives?
“What about that?” I asked Magnus. I pointed at the red spot on his shoe.
He pointed his toes down so he could get a better look. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” I asked. “It’s not blood?” I took the Proteator Denaturizer out of my bag and pointed it at his shoe. It made a loud ding as if I’d just gotten a question right on a quiz show. Then it flashed as it zapped the spot.
“Oh yeah, it is blood. But it’s not blood blood.”
“Either it’s blood or it’s not blood,” I said.
“It’s chicken blood. I didn’t bludgeon Professor Florian if that’s what you’re getting at.”
That was what I was getting at.
Kong jumped in through the window. “What?” Professor Violeta said.
“It’s the library cat,” Magnus said.
Kong sniffed at Magnus’s shoe. Then his little pink tongue snaked out and licked the spot, the rough keratinized papillae, as he called them, scraping against the shoe leather like wood against a sanding block.
“Can confirm,” Kong said. “Chicken blood.” He jumped back out the window, satisfied that his work was done.
“Told you,” Magnus said.
“Alright,” Professor Violeta said. “You’ve played your little Nancy Drew game. But it wasn’t us. Now we’ll forget about your trespassing if you forget about our ghostwriting arrangement.”
“Agreed,” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s just that everyone in town thinks it was me. I figure that—”
“If you find the real killer, you can clear your name, yes, how admirable,” Professor Violeta said. “Just remember, real life isn’t like your books. In real life, Nancy Drew would have been killed by book two.”
Chapter 21
It was a sobering, humiliating walk back to the Archives. It seemed like Professor Violeta and Magnus weren’t the killers—and I only had to horribly embarrass myself to figure it out. The only good thing to come of it was that since I knew Professor Violeta’s secret, she probably wouldn’t be trying to slash the library budget anytime soon.
That wasn’t much of a comfort, though, since I still didn’t know who killed Professor Florian, the Spelling Bee was still canceled, and the cursed book was still out in the world.
The fire at Saguaro Estates had turned out to be minor—no injuries and no major property damage—but I knew that the book wasn’t going to be destroyed so easily.
It’s what the heart desires, the book will charm, its cover a liar, do no harm. That’s what the folklore book said. Kong had interpreted that to mean it was disguised as a healing text. But what the heart desires and its cover a liar. Could it mean…?
If I was right, then our little town might be in more trouble than I thought.
In the comic book the Jibbleson sisters gave me, the arch-villain is Baron Von Alastair. He was drawn convincingly too, by a twisted hand with a ghoulish imagination. Dark hooded cloak, flaming eyeballs, yellow, brittle fingernails, a venomous, forked tongue. That was all well and good, but was it true? Was there really a dark wizard who’d stared into the Void Itself—and liked what he saw? Had he really sold his soul in exchange for limitless power?
Stranger things have happened. My friend Bobbi in Devil’s Orchard is out there fighting demons. So I could foil the plot of a dark wizard, right?
There’s hundreds of campfire stories and urban legends (thinly disguised cautionary tales, in my opinion) about witches and wizards who’ve communed with darkness in exchange for ultimate power. In those stories, the dark witches and wizards always pay the ultimate price for their hubris and ambition.
The amulet at my neck burned.
Was I the force of good? Was I going to mete out justice to the wizard who dared to fill the world with evil?
Or was I no better than him? Wielding an object of dark magic?
That’s something I didn’t want to think about. Not then… maybe not ever.
I unlocked the Archives and my blood froze. There were voices. Loud ones. A shrill cackle of triumph.
Hortensia?
I wasn’t sure I could fully trust her, but I also knew I had no choice. I edged into the library, cautious, yet also keenly aware that if Hortensia wanted to disarm me, she could do it. She was old and powerful—more magic power in one of her old fingernail clippings than I had in my whole body. I found the old lady sitting at a study table opposite Captain Ahab. Her bathrobe was draped around her shoulders and terrycloth slippers covered her feet. Wedged into her metallic hand were a few playing cards.
“Got you!” she cried. I stopped in my tracks and waited. Then I realized she wasn’t talking about me.
“Blast, ye rotten cheat!” Ahab cried. There was a terrible crash. I ran to the source--an overturned table, playing cards and dice littering the ground. “No way you got another Magic Sixteen. Not thrice in a row! Be using witchcraft!”
“Maybe I am,” Hortensia growled. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Foul creature, watch yer tongue or you’ll be walking the plank!”
They locked eyes for a long time, until they both burst out in laughter. “Francie, dear!” Hortensia said. “Have you met my new friend, Ahab?”
“I’ve had the pleasure,” I said.
“This be a fine old wench,” he said. “Sturdy and dependable with a voice unfriendly as the most frigid arctic squall!”
Great. Just what I needed. A fugitive Dark Witch teaming up with a monomaniacal fictional ghost. They’d take over the world before lunch.
“You escaped the fire?” I asked her.
“Whoopsie doodle,” Hortensia said. “Sorry about that one. Guess my magic’s a little rustier than I thought. I haven’t done anything more strenuous than an advenio spell in quite some time.”
“You burned the library down?” I asked.
“Not on purpose,” Hortensia said. She pointed her wand and all the playing cards swirled around the floor and gathered themselves up in a neat pile, all face down too. Pretty handy. Next, she flicked her wrist and gathered the dice and pegs. Looked like they’d been playing cribbage—and judging by the way Ahab had overturned the table, I can only imagine that Hortensia was winning.
“Did you destroy the book?” I asked. Was it too much to ask that I was able to pass the buck?
“You wish, toots,” she said. “Objects of the Void can only be destroyed in the Void.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said.
“Yar, I’ve stared into the Void, the fetid gaping maw of the devilfish Moby Dick. There be no light, no warmth, no escape from that fell abyss.”
“Wise man,” Hortensia said.
“How do we destroy it in the Void?” I asked. “Do we hike down to Mount Doom and throw it in the pits of the fire?”
“Hardly,” Hortensia said. “We have to open a portal—and let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart. Ahab’s not wrong.”
“Can you do it?” I asked her.
“Seeing as how I burned down the library trying to do a simple divination spell, I would say no.”
I remembered for the first time my theory about the book. She’d know if it was right or not.
“How much do you know about this book?” I asked.
“The book of death?” Hortensia said. “Not much. Except it was written by a man of bent mind and wicked purpose.”
