Martin looked up when the bell over the door jingled, preparing to tell whoever it was that they were closed, then relaxed and smiled. “Hey, Tim.”
“Hey, Marto.” Tim closed the door and flipped the sign around without needing to be asked. “Jon around?”
“No, he and Melanie are up in Sheffield. She’s got family up there—her mother’s people—and one of them runs a cat rescue or breeding operation or something like that. She finally wore Gerry down on the idea of a shop cat and she asked Jon to come with her for a visit to help pick the perfect one. They’ve been there since Monday.”
Tim frowned. “And you…believe them?”
“No.” Martin sighed. “I almost would have preferred living in a universe where they didn’t get along. Instead we’ve got two of them. I figure as long as they don’t end up on the six o’clock news, we can call it a win.”
“What if they end up on the eleven o’clock news?”
“At least it’s less likely Elias will see it.”
Tim smiled, albeit a bit reluctantly. “That’s actually what I came to talk to you two about. Did he call you yet?”
Martin grimaced. He had, in fact, had a protracted and professional phone call with the director of the Magnus Institute that afternoon, whereupon he had prevailed upon Gerry to watch the shop for twenty minutes and gone to take a shower to get the oily feel off himself. “Yeah. I’m cleared to go back Monday. Jon is, too, I think, pending a release from his physical therapist, but depending on what he’s doing up in Sheffield, that might get pushed back a week or so.”
It had been almost two months since Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Institute. Two months of rebuilding and recovery and determinedly not talking about anything volatile. The Institute had—unexpectedly—been closed for a full week after the attack, and Tim and Sasha had used the time to help Gerry and Melanie haul the books formerly for sale at Pinhole Books out of storage while simultaneously keeping Jon and Martin from assisting with a combination of jokes and outright threats. Once the clothing shop that had previously been renting the space was gone, they’d been permitted to help with the sweeping, mopping, and window-washing, but it hadn’t been until Martin got a note from his physical therapist stating that he needed to do activities to strengthen his fine motor skills that he’d been allowed to help with assembling the bookshelves, although Tim had insisted on coming by after he got off work every day to help Gerry with the actual furniture-moving. Then had followed about a week’s worth of unpacking, organizing, and good-natured bickering as Melanie and Jon ganged up on Gerry over everything from the music they played while they were working to whether they should group the books together by genre or age or just put every single book in the place in alphabetical order or even organize them at all.
The newly rebranded shop had been open three weeks, and while so far it operated under much the same principles as Pinhole Books had—very little casual foot traffic and certain hours by appointment only—Martin had maintained most of his contacts in the rare and paranormal book world over the years, and most of them had at least been in touch. They even had a list of books and topics Diana had sent over that the Magnus Institute wanted to be notified about if they got in. They also had a section of ordinary secondhand books, not rare or specialized topics but the sorts of thing that would draw browsers—horror novels and fantasy and the like—that was already making a tidy sum. It was clear to Martin that the shop would be sustainable, enough to provide Melanie and Gerry with a steady income, anyway.
Martin and Jon had been prevailed upon to stay with Gerry in the rooms above the store while they recovered. Gerry’s logic was that both of them needed someone looking after them so that they didn’t push themselves too hard or exacerbate their injuries or do something incredibly stupid, and that Melanie was an enabler. Martin couldn’t actually find any fault in his argument, so after a bit of back and forth of the “I’ll do it if you will” variety, they’d made their temporary home there. It was probably going to be permanent for Martin, but he wasn’t committing to that just yet.
He loved his brother, but sometimes he needed space.
Tim snorted and looked around. “Honestly, I’m just glad the two of you had the shop to distract you. Especially Jon. He’s so damned impulsive sometimes, I don’t doubt for a minute that if he’d been sitting at home on his own, he’d have been back to the Institute way sooner than he should have.”
“You’ve been exploding with the need to talk to us about what’s going on, haven’t you?” Martin said with a teasing grin. Tim laughed but didn’t deny it. “I don’t need Beholding powers to figure that out. C’mon, help me finish closing up shop and I’ll make tea. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
It was the work of only a few minutes to get everything tidied up and locked down, and then Tim followed Martin up the narrow flight of steps to the residence part of the building. The people who’d been renting the storefront hadn’t touched this part, so the rooms were much the same as Martin remembered them from his childhood, just with less of the oppressive sense of foreboding from knowing that one of their mothers was probably lurking nearby. The walls needed a new coat of paint, but the wood floors shone and the windows were clear behind their dark red drapes. In the kitchen Martin led Tim to, the table had been scrubbed to nearly bone-whiteness and the counters gleamed. The fixtures were polished as if they were brand-new, every cabinet was neat and tidy, and the tea-towel looped over the handle of the oven was folded with geometric precision.
“Wow,” Tim said, looking around as he pulled out a chair. “You’ve been unbelievably bored with Jon and Melanie gone, haven’t you?”
Martin had to laugh. “Bored isn’t the word. Restless, maybe.”
Actually, the word was probably anxious, and that was the most polite one to use. Melanie likely would have said getting bad again, and she’d be right. Obsessive cleaning and tidying up was the—marginally at any rate—less harmful of his coping mechanisms. Martin couldn’t have even said what, exactly, he was anxious about, other than the general state of things. Maybe that was enough.
He set the kettle to heat and took two mugs out of the cupboard, paused, and took out a third. He was just pulling down the box of teabags when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. “Sorry, I meant to come help you lock up, but I—oh, hey, Tim.”
“Hey,” Tim said, sounding a bit flustered. Martin suppressed a smirk and turned around to see Tim leaning with a studied casualness against the cupboard and Gerry standing in the doorway with a delighted smile and something in his hands.
“It’s fine,” Martin assured him. “I was just making some tea…what’s that?”
“Finished the sign for the shop. What do you think?” Gerry turned around the square board and held it up. His smile never wavered, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—uncertainty, maybe fear.
Even Martin, who’d often sat while he was growing up and watched Gerry turn blank canvases into masterpieces, was impressed by this one. About a foot square, it depicted a full-blown white rose over two white buds, seemingly lying on an unseen surface, with a cinnamon stick broken over the top and sprinkling the powder over the roses. The whole image was surrounded by a ring of delicate purple flowers, their stems twined together. It was amazingly lifelike, even for Gerry.
“That’s wonderful,” he said, awed.
Tim tilted his head to one side, studying the flowers. “Is that heather?”
“Yeah. It means protection, sort of. It works—not well, but some. We used it a bit before we figured out the wards.” Gerry shrugged. “It might only mean something to us, but I thought it was a nice little fuck-you to the Fourteen.”
“I don’t get it,” Tim confessed.
Martin smiled. “Flower language. We had a book on it…actually, we still do, right? It’s around here somewhere. Anyway, according to this book—and a lot of books have different meanings for different flowers, it just depends on who you ask, but this one had the most common ones—white roses are for secrecy. So is a blooming rose over a pair of buds. And cinnamon means ‘power’.”
“Oh.” Tim’s eyes lit up. “That’s why you called the shop Cinnamon Rose Books. Because they’re books of secret power.”
“Exactly. And the heather keeps it contained.”
Gerry looked back and forth from Martin to Tim. “So the sign works?”
“Yeah, it’s perfect,” Tim assured him.
Martin wished he could take a picture of Gerry’s face, because it would be fodder for Melanie to tease him about for months. He’d have to settle for bringing it up when Melanie got back and seeing if they could still make him blush. “Tea’s up.”
Gerry set the sign to one side and came over to take his cup and Tim’s. “So what’s up? And does this have to do with the phone call you got earlier, Martin?”
Martin nodded and pulled out a chair. “Elias called. The doctors cleared me to return to work, so I’ll be heading back to the Institute on Monday. Jon, too, unless he and Melanie get arrested…doing whatever they’re doing in Sheffield.”
“They just went up to get a cat.”
“You actually believe that? This is Neenie we’re talking about. She’s probably using it as an excuse to look into something without telling us she’s looking into it, and she figures we won’t yell at her as much if she took Jon so she could pretend she’s using the buddy system instead of bringing along someone who’s going to encourage her rather than hold her back.” Martin paused, tea halfway to his lips. “I mean, yes, she’ll probably come back with a cat, too, but that’s definitely not why they went up there.”
Tim coughed into his hand. Martin was pretty sure it was to hide a laugh. “Out of curiosity, which one of them is older?”
“Jon, by about three weeks. Melanie’s birthday is the third of November.”
Gerry sighed. “At least one of them can call us if anything goes wrong. Neens knows we’ll drop everything and come up there if she needs us.”
“Which means she won’t ask,” Martin pointed out.
“True.” To Tim, Gerry added, “Both of my younger siblings are stubborn as hell about asking for things they need.”
Martin snorted. “Said the pot to the kettle.”
Gerry rolled his eyes and got up. “I’m going to go put this sign up. You two talk about whatever it is you need to talk about and fill me in later.” With that, he grabbed the painting and headed down the hall.
Tim raised an eyebrow at Martin. “He’s going out for a cigarette, isn’t he?”
“Probably. He usually does after he finishes a painting.” Martin sighed and took a sip of his tea. “He keeps saying he’s going to quit, but he’s been saying that pretty much since I was twelve, so I’m not holding out a lot of hope.”
“Isn’t he only a couple years older than you?”
“Yeah, we’ve had that conversation more than a few times, too.” Martin rubbed his collarbone reflexively. “Anyway. Do you want to fill me in now, or wait until Jon gets home?”
“Might as well fill you in now. From the sound of it, Jon might not even be back in London by Monday, let alone back at the Institute.” Tim leaned back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Right, what did Elias say when you talked to him? Other than that you can come back.”
“He asked how I was feeling,” Martin said slowly. “If I’d been following my doctor’s instructions. If I’d found somewhere to live yet. I told him I’ve been staying with Jon, which is at least sort of true. He said that ‘stretched the bounds of professionalism’ but that he understood under the circumstances, then asked how Jon was. He actually thanked me for looking after him. Then he apologized—which I don’t buy for a second—for ‘our needlessly antagonistic working relationship’ and said he’d like to discuss things further with us—meaning you, me, and Sasha—when I come back. Which is when he said he’d spoken to my physical therapist and I was cleared to come back in Monday.”
“Is that legal?”
“I did give the doctor permission to talk to him.” Martin shrugged at Tim’s incredulous stare. “He’s part of the Beholding, he probably has ways to Know that kind of thing anyway. I figure the easier I make it for him to have access to that sort of thing, the less likely he’ll be to want to use it. And if he thinks I’m being honest with him, however reluctantly, he won’t pry too much further.”
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“It’s how we’ve survived this long. Anyway, that was basically the whole conversation. How am I doing and he’ll see me Monday. Any idea what he wants to talk about?”
Tim shook his head. “No, but I’m guessing it’s not going to be something we’ll enjoy much. He came down this afternoon, right after lunch, to ask about the statements. We haven’t been recording any since you and Jon have been out, real or otherwise, but we’ve been doing a bit of research into some of them and there are one or two I’m pretty sure are going to have to go on the tape recorders. Mostly we’ve been trying to put the place back together, figuring out what’s too damaged to keep, that sort of thing. Sasha managed to salvage a couple of the statements that got…Corrupted…but we haven’t investigated those. Not for lack of trying on Sasha’s part, mind you, but…I dunno, I’m reluctant for us to do those on our own.” Martin nodded in understanding. “He wanted to know how much you’d told us about what was behind the statements. I thought about playing dumb, but then I started worrying you might get in trouble if Elias thought you hadn’t told us enough.”
Martin sighed. “I don’t think there was a right answer to that one, Tim.”
“Yeah, me either,” Tim admitted. “I went with the middle ground. Told him we’d talked a little, that you’d said there were…things out there, and that Jane Prentiss was part of a bigger picture, but that we’d decided to hold off on talking about it further until you and Jon were back to work. That seemed like it pleased him. He asked if we’d seen either of you since the attack—I said yes but didn’t elaborate—and he said the same thing he told you, that he wants to have a talk with the three of us when you get back to the office, sans Jon. Something about there being things we needed to know it was better he not be around for.”
Something cold settled in the pit of Martin’s stomach. “So he still wants to keep Jon ignorant. Or thinks he’s ignorant. That’s…good, actually, it means the wards are working, but…”
“But less good that he wants Jon ignorant,” Tim completed. Martin nodded. “That was my thinking, too. Sasha told Elias we didn’t know when either of you would be back and he told us not to worry, that he’d be getting in touch with you. Which, you know, did the opposite of not make us worry, but—”
“Par for the course with Elias.” Martin drummed his fingers on the sides of his mug for a moment. “But there’s been nothing…odd…going on?”
“No odder than usual.” Tim paused. “Wait. One thing. You know how the whole Institute was closed for a week? I was chatting with Rosie—she was asking about you, wanting to know if you were okay—and she said it was because Elias got hurt in the attack and needed the recovery time, so he just let it be closed while the cleaning crews and police and whatnot dealt with everything rather than making everyone work around them. I figured he got attacked by the worms—I mean, it would make sense, he was right in the middle of them. But I hadn’t seen him since he got back, and when he came down today, he was perfectly fine, except that he’s wearing an eyepatch.”
That was interesting. Martin raised his eyebrows. “Which eye? Right or left?”
“Left. Sasha made a comment after he left that Gerry must’ve hit harder than he thought.” Tim grinned at Martin. “Hey, maybe he reaped Elias’s eye.”
Martin laughed. “I doubt it. He gave us his statement a few days ago—I’ll bring the tape with me Monday, we’ll have to transcribe it if we’re going to add it to the Archives anyway—and he described what he…does.” His smile slipped slightly as it occurred to him that might be what Gerry was doing rather than smoking. “He’s…kind of at the ‘has to feed on fear to live’ stage of things. Basically he, um, drains something’s life-force through a particular body part and it kills them. I can’t think of anything directly fatal involving the eye.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s why Elias is still alive. Maybe that’s how we kill him, one body part at a time, like the Tin Man.” Tim ran a finger around the rim of his mug. “So—I mean, Gerry’s not going out and, like, pouncing random people on the streets, is he?”
“He says not. And I will say the vermin population around here has dropped dramatically in the last month.”
“I’d imagine. How many rat souls equal one human soul, do you think?” The serious expression on Tim’s face was at odds with the mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “Like, is it just a matter of scaling down for different body weights, or—”
“Unless someone is afraid of whether animals have souls, Tim, I don’t think that’s exactly in my purview,” Martin drawled.
Tim’s laugh was infectious. They were still snickering when Gerry came back into the room, clutching something and looking suspicious. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Always.” Martin gave Gerry a quick once-over. There was no lingering smell of cigarette smoke, however faint, but neither did he have the slight color and suggestion of plumpness that came to his face when he’d had a feed. Maybe he had actually just been hanging up the sign. “What’s that?”
Gerry smirked at him. It was a look Martin hadn’t seen too often, or at least not until recently. He didn’t know if it was just Gerry enjoying life a bit more now that he’d got a second chance at it or if it was an expression he was bringing out because of Tim. “So just as I was hanging up the sign, someone came up to the shop.”
“Oh, no,” Martin groaned.
Gerry ignored him. “I told him we were closed, and he seemed kind of upset—you know the type. I realized he was holding a book. He said he really wanted to sell it and would I be interested, would I reconsider?”
“And so you did,” Martin guessed.
“Well, I didn’t let him in, but I had a roll of bills in my pocket, so I took a look at it and bought it.”
Which meant it was almost certainly a Leitner, or the guy was a really good salesman. “Which one is it?”
Gerry held it out. “Dunno, but it’s got his label. You’re the expert, you tell me.”
“Do you actually know Leitner’s list?” Tim asked, sounding interested. “I thought that was just a cover.”
“It is, kind of. I don’t know exactly what books he had, but I told you, I’ve always been able to sense books of power.” Martin hesitantly reached for the book, on the grounds that it hadn’t killed Gerry from contact yet, so he stood a decent chance.
Surprisingly for a Leitner, it was a paperback, a cheap dime-store novel of the kind sold in airport gift shop. The cover showed a woman with long flowing dark hair and breasts nearly spilling out of a filmy lavender gown swooning in the arms of a shirtless man with wavy golden-brown hair and oiled muscles; a looping, elaborate silver script spelled out Let Me Sleep or Let Me Die. On the surface it appeared to be a fairly standard 1970s mass-produced bodice ripper.
“Hey, wait, I know that cover.” Tim reached for it; surprised, Martin let him have it, and he turned it over to read the summary. “Yeah, this was Piper McCollum’s last novel. It was kind of a sequel to The Insomniac’s Guide to Falling in Love, but it’s about Hannah’s sister Rowena and—hang on, this is missing the imprint.”
“Do I want to know why you’re so familiar with soppy romance novels?” Gerry asked with a raised eyebrow.
“My mum hosted a romance book club when I was growing up. I used to hide behind the couch to listen to them talk, because I kept hoping they’d talk about some of the things that confused me so I didn’t have to admit I was reading them while she was out of the house and didn’t understand why the women kept talking about how big the other people in the men’s clubs were.” Martin felt his face turn beet red as Gerry cracked up laughing; Tim grinned at them both, then continued, “They read a mix of new releases and older books from when they were younger, either that one of the members had loved or that none of them had read. I remember this one in particular because the, well, the B-plot, the stuff that was happening around the sex, was unusually dark, not just for a Piper McCollum but for romance books in general. She died right before it was published, which was the only reason it sold so well, I think. Also, there were rumors about it.”
“Rumors?” Martin said encouragingly. Hopefully Tim could tell him enough that he wouldn’t need to actually Look to tell which of the Fourteen had influenced this book.
Tim nodded, his expression going serious. “I didn’t hear about them until later, but I worked for the publishing company that had the rights to her works and my boss was a junior editor for that imprint when Sleep was published. She said Piper McCollum had always been the outgoing type, until she realized enough money from her first twelve books that she could buy her ‘dream home’ and moved to a little village up in Cornwall. That’s where she was when she was writing Sleep, and Louise—my boss—said it made her go strange.” He turned the book over again. “The Insomniac’s Guide to Falling in Love was Piper’s twelfth book, and it was a runaway hit, so Lou wasn’t surprised at first when she said she was writing a book that was related. She also wasn’t surprised when Rowena Spencer, sister to Hannah Spencer-Beaumont, turned out to have a more extreme version of her sister’s chronic insomnia, because romance was all pretty formulaic back then and you didn’t mess with what worked. What did surprise her was when Piper kept repeating, every time Lou called—that was her job, she was the only woman in the department at the time so the men stuck her with all the tasks they didn’t want, like calling the authors for updates on the manuscripts—that she hadn’t slept, that she couldn’t sleep, that he won’t let me sleep. When Lou got the manuscript, she called to tell Piper it had come, and Piper replied, ‘Now that every drop has been wrung from my veins, let me lay my head on his bosom and at last know which he will grant me.’”
A chill ran up Martin’s spine. “You’ve got a good memory, Tim.”
“It stuck with me. Especially because Lou told me she was the one to edit the novel, and—” Tim paused. “I don’t know how much you know about romance novels, but the thing is that in order to qualify under the genre, they have to end on an HEA—a Happy Ever After—or at least an HFN, a Happy For Now. Sleep didn’t, or at least the original manuscript didn’t. It ended with Rowena, having been awake for forty-five days solid weaving a tapestry that was a portrait of her lover, dying in his arms. And what chilled Lou was that that was Rowena’s last line—let me lay my head on your bosom and at last know which you will grant me. She went up to see Piper rather than call—she wanted to talk to her in person about changing that ending, because you really can’t publish a romance novel that ends like that—and got there just as the ambulance was leaving. There was a man standing there she swore looked like he’d stepped right off the cover of one of the novels they published, and when Lou asked what happened, she said he just smiled at her and said, ‘I let her die.’”
“I take it the book didn’t get published with her original ending.” Martin took the book back from Tim and turned it over. Reading even a few words could prove dangerous, but he was curious and knew Tim had to be too, and since he had more practice in not looking it was probably safer with him.
Tim shook his head. “Lou changed it so that what he granted her was the sleep she’d been craving, and also his hand in marriage. She also toned down some of the…darker elements of the plot, although she wouldn’t tell me what those were. She got a big bonus for it and it was what gave her the boost to start her climb up the industry ladder. But this copy…everything else is identical to the first edition printing, on the outside at least, but it’s missing the stamp of the romance imprint.”
“So you think it might be the original version. And that’s probably what makes it a book of power.” Gerry cocked his head at the book in Martin’s hand. “The End or the Spiral?”
“Could be the Web, too. The crux of the plot was that Fabian—Rowena’s lover—had promised her a cure for her condition, if the portrait was acceptable.” Tim’s eyes took on a vacant look. “I think Lou might’ve made a statement about it, actually. She’s the one who told me about the Magnus Institute when—never mind. We can look on Monday.”
“Yeah. Meanwhile…” Martin held the book in front of him and slid his glasses up, reaching for the Eye. It responded instantly, the familiar static filling his ears, and a moment later the words on the cover and the edges of the pages popped out with a bright purple glow. He let his glasses drop back onto his nose and blinked once; the static stopped abruptly. “You were right, Tim, it’s the Web.”
“Nice going,” Gerry complimented him. Tim’s ears turned red. He took the book from Martin. “Hey, want to help us get rid of it?”
“Absolutely,” Tim said after the briefest of pauses. Martin had a feeling that the idea of burning this one hurt Tim more than usual because of the connection to his old boss. “What do we need to do?”
Martin got up and headed for a cabinet that had probably originally been intended as a liquor cabinet but now held only a single stockpot, which resembled nothing so much as a cauldron. He handed it to Gerry, who set it on the table and asked Tim, “What’s your favorite sea shanty?”
“Sea shanty? Uh—the only one I really know is ‘Blow the Man Down,’” Tim said. “Why?”
Gerry shrugged. “That works. Right, let’s go.” He fished out his lighter—Martin was kind of surprised he still had the one Melanie had given him—and launched into the first verse of the song.
It felt…odd was the only word for it…to be singing with three voices but no Melanie, but it wasn’t like none of them had ever done this alone before. Tim caught on by the time they got to the third verse and Martin handed him the lighter, and he had a surprisingly good bass voice that rounded things out nicely. He even did a fancy twirl of the lighter before handing it back to Gerry, who was maybe just a tad overdramatic in flicking it on and touching it to the corner of the book.
Martin hadn’t burned anything in close to three years, so two things caught him off-guard and almost made him miss his next cue. Firstly, the book caught amazingly fast—it was nearly half-consumed in a matter of seconds, and while he knew it would burn until they were done singing, he hadn’t expected it to get that close to Gerry’s hand that fast. Secondly, the flames flashed purple, a purple that rapidly faded as the fire chewed through the book. He wasn’t even trying to Look, it just…presented itself, even with his glasses firmly in place.
He decided to keep that to himself for now.
As they finished the final chorus, Gerry let the last corner of the book fall into the cauldron, where it folded itself into ash, and shook out his hand. “Fuck, that’s hotter than I’m used to. Right—Tim, you staying for dinner? I’d kind of like you to stick around in case something comes after us for burning that book. I have a feeling we’re going to get a phone call tonight, too.”
Tim laughed. Martin did, too, but he had a nasty feeling Gerry was right.