Play with Fire

chapter Twenty-Eight

QUINCEY MORRIS AND Libby Chastain sat in the back of a cab, both lost in thought. They’d left Robert Sutorius in his magic-proof house, still distraught but otherwise unharmed. Libby had offered to take him outside, where her magic worked, and cast a quick spell that would help him recover faster from the psychic damage he’d suffered. But Sutorius had said, “Haven’t you done enough, already? Just go. If you’re done with me, then just go.”

On the sidewalk in front of his house, Libby and Morris had thanked Ashley for her invaluable help in getting past Sutorius’s defenses. Each of them acknowledged, again, that they owed her a favor. It was understood that they would pay off the debt with anything that did not violate their own moral precepts, a stipulation that Ashley had found mildly amusing.

“It was fun, kids – let’s do it again sometime,” she’d said, and walked off to God knows where – although God might not have been the best person to ask.

At her condo, Libby made tea for both of them, adding to it a couple of herbs that, she said, “May be just what we need right now.” Morris wondered if witches ever dispensed Prozac, but kept the thought to himself.

Libby sipped some tea and said, “Another middle-man. That’s rather... disappointing.”

“But there’s no question that Sutorius was telling the truth,” he said.

She made a sour face. “No – no question at all.”

“Still, it would be good to know if this antiquarian book dealer has a web presence.” Morris knelt and retrieved his laptop from under Libby’s couch. He sat down, opened it, and began to search the web.

A few minutes later he said, “Here we go. Adelson’s Rare Books and Antiquities, Harvard Square, Cambridge Mass.”

“Does it show the store?” Libby asked.

“Yep.”

“Let me take a look, will you?”

Morris turned the computer so that Libby could see the screen. “Ground floor, facing the street,” she said, nodding. “That’s good.”

“Why ‘good?’” Morris asked her.

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I was remembering the last time we visited Cambridge, a couple of years ago.”

“Sidney Prendergast,” Morris said flatly. “The Kingsbury Building.”

“Exactly. We were investigating a black magician then, too. Remember? She burned the building out from under us – or tried to.”

“I’m not likely to forget that occasion,” Morris said. “If you hadn’t whipped up something that let us defy gravity for a few seconds...” He shook his head.

“What’s that got to do with this job, Libby? Christine Abernathy’s dead, damn her soul.”

She put a gentle hand on his arm. “Don’t. Please.”

“Don’t what – talk about Christine Abernathy?”

“No, I mean, don’t say what you did about her soul. Maybe it’s because my training taught me to abhor curses – not foul language, you understand, I mean real curses – but that kind of talk makes me uncomfortable.”

“Okay, I’ll be more careful in future. But why are we talking about her, anyway?”

“I’m just glad we won’t have to go high up in any office buildings in Cambridge this time out. Call it a feeling.”

Morris looked at her closely. “You’re not getting paranoid in your old age, are you Libby?”

“Old age? I’m four years younger than you are, Quincey Morris.”

“You know what I mean. We don’t even know for sure that we’re going up against a black magician.”

“Maybe, but from what we know about the Corpus Hermeticum, can you think of anyone else who’d want it? I don’t imagine Mister Adelson is looking to sell the thing to some rich Harvard kid.”

“No, if he sent an occult burglar after it specifically, he must’ve had a buyer lined up. He wouldn’t have paid Sutorius so much money otherwise. Did you hear what that guy charges?”

Libby nodded somberly. “Yes, I heard every word he said. Every single one that we wrung out of him.”

Morris slowly closed the lid of his computer, put it on Libby’s coffee table, and leaned back on the couch. He seemed to find his cuticles to be of great interest.

“You’re feeling shitty because of what we did to Sutorius.”

“Yes, I am. How are you feeling about it?” she snapped.

Morris was silent for a bit. “Not happy, that’s for sure. I sure as shit didn’t enjoy it, like Ashley did.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t be sitting here now,” she said. “I wouldn’t associate with someone like that.”

“Not even Ashley?”

It was Libby’s turn for silence. “Ashley’s different,” she said at last. “She can’t help what she is – but we can, you and I. We made the free choice to terrify that man within an inch of his life, with Ashley’s help.”

“Yeah, I know,” Morris said. “We did it for the same reason that millions of people do bad things every day – not that it’s an excuse. We told ourselves that the end justified the means.”

“And did it? Justify the means?”

“We won’t know that until we find out who wants that f*cking book, and why. It probably is a black magician – which is a good reason to find and stop him – or her. Whether that justifies – let alone excuses – what we did to Sutorius is something we’ll only know when it’s over. If then.”

They drank tea for a while. Then Libby said, “I’m pretty sure that black magic’s involved, and not just because it seems logical.”

Morris frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Something weird was going on while we were in that house – and I’m not talking about his anti-magic protection. This was something darker, more sinister. At one point, I felt something evil – not in the room with us, exactly, but close by, searching, trying to get at us. At the time, I thought it was just my conscience punishing me, but now I know better.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I was in such a blue funk on the way home, I didn’t even feel like telling you. But when we walked out of Sutorius’s house, Quincey, the air reeked of black magic. And I didn’t smell anything like it when we were going in.”

Morris thought about that. “You figure somebody made a move on us in Brooklyn, and the house stopped it?”

“That’s as good an explanation as any,” Libby said. “And I think we should prepare accordingly.”

“By doing what?”

“I think you should bring that knife of yours with you whenever you go out, and I’ll give you a couple of protective charms to carry.”

“Fine – thank you.”

“As for me, instead of my original plan for tonight, which involved consuming a large quantity of vodka, I’m going to spend some time putting together a few defensive spells that I can invoke very quickly, if I have to.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to.”

“It is, but worth the effort,” she said. “We had some good luck in Cambridge last time Quincey – that’s why we’re still alive. I’m not going to depend on luck anymore.”