Codex Born (40 page)

“Why go to the trouble of breaking into our archives and making a dryad if he already had wendigos?” That was Whitney again.

Gutenberg nodded at me. I grimaced and stepped into the center of the ring of libriomancers. “Five hundred years ago, some of the students of Bi Sheng were able to preserve their thoughts and memories in books. Their descendants have spent centuries protecting those books, and searching for a way to restore them. When Harrison hacked into my private notes, he found the answer. Not only does Lena recreate her physical body each time she leaves her tree, but earlier this year, we discovered she can do the same for another person.”

Everyone began talking at once. New comments and questions poured forth, one atop the next.

“That’s a hell of a magical kluge.”

“Can you change the body you create? Make it younger or thinner?”

“Or better looking? Especially for Bobby over there.”

“Bite me. What about cloning? If you had access to the mind, how many copies could you make?”

“Have you examined the body at the genetic level? Are they affected at all by their dryadic birth?”

“Do they have belly buttons?”

Lena turned to me and mouthed the word “libriomancers” while rolling her eyes. I gave her a sympathetic smile.

Gutenberg clapped his hands once. “August Harrison forced Ms. Greenwood to restore a woman named Bi Wei. In her time, Bi Wei would have been a rudimentary libriomancer of limited ability, but time in her book gave her a more direct connection to magic. She was a part of magic, able to manipulate it without books or other tools. While she appears to have retained this power, the greater danger is what else Lena brought forth. Bi Wei had been touched by what the followers of Bi Sheng call
duì. The Ghost Army.”

Maryelizabeth snorted. “Wendigos, insects, dead libriomancers…how many armies does this dude need?”

“Harrison doesn’t know about the Ghost Army,” I said. “They’re using him, not the other way around.”

“Why haven’t we heard any of this before?” asked John. The handle of his book wagon wagged back and forth like a scolding finger.

“Because libriomancers are utterly incapable of letting sleeping dragons lie,” Gutenberg said calmly. “The Ghost Army slumbered for centuries. I was aware of
something
that occasionally reached through to corrupt and consume whoever it touched, but such contacts were rare. I feared that too much poking and prodding would rouse it, so research into the Ghost Army has been restricted and carefully monitored.”

“Carefully?” Lena asked. “You assigned Isaac to study this thing.”

“Only when we realized it had begun to stir,” Gutenberg said sternly. “Isaac survived an encounter with these ghosts, an accomplishment limited to only a handful of Porters throughout the years.”

He raised his hands, forestalling further questions. “Isaac
was attacked when he channeled more magic than he could control. These ghosts strike when our barriers are weakest. They are awake, and they are watching. Use precision over power. Do not overextend yourselves.”

“How do we find them?” asked Whitney.

“Originally, I intended to use Ms. Warwick.” Gutenberg waved Toni forward.

“Worst assignment in years.” Toni grimaced. “If I can touch the corpses of the wendigos Harrison butchered, I’m pretty sure I can find him, or at least his pets.”

“And what do you intend to do about the war you’ll be starting with every werewolf in Michigan?” Jeff asked, his words a full octave lower than normal.

Toni looked from Gutenberg to Jeff. She was a good field agent, but occasionally neglected the research side of things. She clearly had no idea how close she was to starting a brawl in the middle of my library.

“Werewolves were originally scavengers,” I said. “They dug up graves to feed on corpses. They’ve spent centuries trying to distance themselves from that piece of their past, to the point where they’ll circle a half mile out of their way simply to avoid the smell of road kill. It’s almost a religious taboo. The wendigos are buried in a werewolf cemetery. Messing with their burial sites is a good way to get yourself torn apart.”

“But wendigos aren’t werewolves,” Toni protested.

“Which is why Jeff hasn’t tried to kill anyone yet,” Nidhi said.

Toni folded her arms and turned to Gutenberg. “You never mentioned that.” She sounded like a pissed-off parent.

Gutenberg studied Jeff, giving everyone just enough time to imagine how such a confrontation would play out. “Fortunately, we have a simpler option.” He took an old pulp novel by A. E. van Vogt from the closest stack of books. “Even unconscious, Guan Feng’s memories should guide us.”

“She doesn’t know where Harrison was going,” I protested.

“She said she didn’t know. Even if she told you the truth,
the brain retains much more information than it can consciously process or remember.” He skimmed the book and strode toward Guan Feng. As he bent over, golden tendrils flickered from his scalp, like an afterimage that faded when you tried to look at it directly.

I hadn’t read
Slan
since I was in middle school, so the details of the story and its rules for mind reading were vague. Gutenberg would be able to read Feng’s thoughts, but I didn’t think the process would hurt her.

“Feng flew to the U.S. six weeks ago,” Gutenberg said slowly. “The students of Bi Sheng are spread throughout the world. We face fewer than half of their total number.” He grabbed his gold pen and appeared to scribble a series of notes in the air. Magical note-taking so he would remember the locations of the rest?

“In the beginning, Harrison’s hope was infectious,” he continued. “He saw himself as a savior, and when he showed them a selection of documents he had taken from our computers, they saw salvation. As the weeks passed, he spent more and more time alone. When not locked in his cabin, he sent his insects to spy on Lena, watching through their eyes.

“Two weeks ago, Harrison left the camp. When he returned, he was quite drunk. He said the time for planning was past. In order to overpower Lena, he needed soldiers. If they wouldn’t help him to capture a wendigo, he would do it alone.”

“Two weeks?” Nidhi asked sharply. “Was this the twentieth?”

Gutenberg nodded.

“What happened July twentieth?” Lena asked.

“That was Victor Harrison’s birthday.”

“They tracked and killed the first wendigo the following morning,” Gutenberg said. “The body you investigated in Tamarack was the second murder.”

“Where did they go after they attacked Michilimackinac?” Toni’s impatience was palpable.

He raised a hand and stared at Guan Feng, as if he could dig out the truth with his eyes alone. “The tree he prepared for
Lena didn’t survive the restoration of Bi Wei. He needed a stronger oak for his new dryad, as well as additional soldiers to defend her.”

“Between Bi Wei and Deifilia, they could grow a new oak anywhere,” said Lena.

“But it was to be hidden. Protected.” Gutenberg blinked. “Harrison asked Deifilia whether her oak could survive underground.”

Without the sun…but how difficult would it be to conjure sunlight? Jeff carried the moon’s rays around in a rock. Bi Wei could provide whatever Deifilia’s tree needed. “They’re at the mine.”

Gutenberg nodded, the transparent tendrils on his scalp making him look like Medusa. “Isaac is correct.”

That would explain where the dragon had come from, and the mine employed more than enough healthy, strong people to build Harrison’s wendigo army.

“Find them.”

I turned to Lena. “Find what?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Nidhi?”

Nidhi’s brow creased. “What did you hear, Isaac?”

The room grew silent. My neck and cheeks warmed as I realized everyone had stopped to look at me. “I’m not sure.”

“Find
.”

Slowly, I stepped toward the edge of the library to look out at the sky. Despite the rising sun, stars burned clearly in the sky, stars which were completely wrong for this time of year. I searched until I spotted the constellation known as the Phoenix. “Oh, damn.”

Not too long ago, I would have tried to cover up what was happening. I would have blamed my confusion on the ringing in my ears from the explosion. But if I was seeing nonexistent stars, I was far too vulnerable. That didn’t make my next words any easier. “I need to stay behind.”

I tried to tell myself I wasn’t betraying Lena, Jeff…all of Copper River, really. If I was hearing voices, then the next spell
I cast could be enough to let the Army of Ghosts into my head. Trying to help could get everyone killed.

“Are you armed?” asked Pallas.

I showed her the shock-gun.

“Isaac.”

I clenched my fists and focused on my surroundings.

“Lena will remain here as well,” Gutenberg said.

“No, she won’t,” Lena shot back. “Nobody knows what Deifilia can do better than me.”

“Nor do we know what will happen if the two of you face one another.” He sounded deceptively calm. He reached out, fingers coming together as if he were snatching an invisible thread. As he did so, printed type seemed to crawl over his tan skin, the characters burrowing into his body too quickly for me to read.

Lena’s knees gave out.

Nidhi jumped to catch her. “What did you do?”