Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Read online

  Bookburners Season One: Volume 2: Copyright © 2016 text by Serial Box Publishing, LLC.

  All materials, including, without limitation, the characters, names, titles, and settings, are the exclusive property of Serial Box Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part, in any audio, electronic, mechanical, physical, or recording format. Originally published in the United States of America: 2015.

  For additional information and permission requests, write to the publisher at Serial Box Publishing 175 Varick St. 4th Fl, New York, NY, 10014.

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  ISBN: 978-1-68210-061-5

  This literary work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, incidents, and events are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Written by: Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery

  Cover Illustration by: Jeffrey Veregge

  Art Director: Charles Orr

  Lead Writer: Max Gladstone

  Editor: Marco Palmieri

  Producer: Julian Yap

  Bookburners original concept by Max Gladstone and Julian Yap

  Episode 9: Ancient Wonders

  Margaret Dunlap

  1.

  Inside a small monastery, somewhere near Borg-en-Bresse, France

  The village, two miles from the crumbling farmhouse and outbuildings (home to two monks, a donkey, and a truly staggering amount of cheese), had a name. But given Sal’s circumstances—back-to-back with Liam, fighting off shuffling, undead monks—she couldn’t be bothered to remember such an unimportant detail. Hell, she barely had breath to share important tactical updates with her comrades in the field. Vital information like:

  “Zombies? Seriously?!”

  Liam answered her between punches. “Animated remains, not zombies.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sal swung a long broom handle like it was a baseball bat and knocked out the knees of the decayed thing coming up on her. It fell to the floor and kept coming, crawling forward on its hands and stumps. Sal turned the push broom around and clubbed it on the head. The undead monk collapsed and went still. “They rose from the graveyard and only go down from a head shot. They’re zombies.”

  “Duck,” said Liam. Sal did, and Liam’s fist went flying over her head, right into the skull of a shambler. The cemetery near the monastery hadn’t been used in recent centuries and the brittle bones of the long-dead monk caved in around Liam’s fist, sending up a plume of moldy dust. The remains crumpled at Sal’s feet. “If these were zombies, do you think I’d be dumb enough to hit them with my bare hands?”

  “I don’t know. Apparently I don’t know you as well as I thought.”

  “Maybe if you had waited before you jumped my—”

  “Do not put your Catholic guilt on me—”

  A blast from the doorway left Sal’s ears ringing. A shotgun was really not designed to be used anywhere near enclosed spaces. On the other hand, it was an efficient zombie deterrent. Sal wondered where Grace had found it.

  “Work out your personal issues on your own time,” said Grace, leveling them both with a withering stare. “We’ve got another six incoming.”

  Unfortunately, lack of personal time was exactly the problem. Even the most amicable breakup required a certain amount of emotional negotiating, and Team Three had been lucky to put together twenty hours at a stretch between calls for the last two weeks. Mr. Norse had stepped up his search for the Codex Umbra and the Orb was going nuts. Which meant Sal and Liam had been spending their scant downtime eating, sleeping, tending to their wounds, and not working out their “personal issues.” If they’d had the time, they totally would have been acting like mature adults about the fact that they were no longer sleeping together, and not busily finding other ways to avoid each other. Totally.

  But since Sal and Liam were definitely not using work as a way to back-burner their feelings, the only silver lining to their current schedule was that the constant magical flare-ups probably meant that they were still on the trail of Mr. Norse and his goons in their pursuit of the Codex Umbra. Unfortunately, every lead Team Three had followed from the Orb so far had been a dead end. Or, rather, a previously pillaged end. And more often than not, the elusive billionaire left behind a little surprise to keep them occupied while he moved another step closer to the mysterious Codex. Asanti still wasn’t sure what exactly the book did, but it seemed a safe bet that anything a man like Mr. Norse wanted that badly wasn’t something he should be allowed to have.

  Which was why Sal, Liam, and Grace were currently holding the line against a horde of zombies/animated remains in an anteroom outside the monastery’s small archive of medieval manuscripts while, inside the archive, Asanti and Father Menchú searched for clues as to the location of the Codex. Sal’s ears had just stopped ringing when the second blast from Grace’s shotgun went off, taking Sal’s hearing and another two zombies with it. Out of ammo, Grace shifted her grip and commenced using the rifle stock as a club.

  Sal risked a glance behind her. There weren’t that many documents in the small archive. How much time did Menchú and Asanti need?

  “Is it a good sign that they’re still in there?” she asked no one in particular.

  “Probably not. If they’d found something, they’d be back,” said Liam.

  “Maybe they found more than they were expecting,” said Sal before she could stop herself. Disagreeing with Liam felt like a spinal reflex lately. “Or Asanti is milking it because she wants to stay in the field.”

  Grace and Liam both scoffed at that suggestion, which, Sal had to admit, was probably deserved. It wasn’t that Asanti wasn’t allowed to do field work. In terms of actual hierarchy, she was the head of Team Three, outranking even Menchú, and could go on any mission she pleased; she just usually chose to do her research under less hectic conditions. Unfortunately, she was the only one of them who could read Latin and Old French quickly enough to be useful when under assault from the undead.

  As though summoned by Sal’s question, Asanti and Menchú came barreling out of the archive into the small anteroom, empty-handed and followed by a plume of smoke.

  “It’s on fire?!”

  This time, Sal’s question had been honestly rhetorical, but Menchú answered it anyway.

  “Incendiary booby trap set on a locked chest; blew as soon as we got it open.”

  Taking a second glance, Sal noticed that Menchú’s beard was a bit shorter than it had been that morning, and smoking faintly. Both he and Asanti had burns on their hands.

  Asanti cursed. “Another present from Mr. Norse. I knew that chest looked more Flemish than French, but the period was right . . . right enough. Should have known it was bait. . . .”

  Grace swung the shotgun around and clubbed a zombie as Liam brought his fist crunching down on a final crumbling skull. “Time to leave?” Grace asked.

  Sal checked the monastery’s archive room. Old paper and older wood burned quickly, and flames were already licking at the back of the door as she hastily slammed it shut. “Past time,” she said.

  • • •

  Later, the team stood in the monastery’s farmyard, joined by the two monks and the donkey. All of them watched the outbuilding burn to the ground.

  “What happened?” asked one of the monks.

  Menchú’s expre
ssion was grave. “Unfortunately, there was a catastrophic reaction between underground cave gases and some of the mold from your cheese. You’ll have to go elsewhere until we can verify that the danger has passed.”

  The monk frowned. “But we thought we saw movement from the cemetery. . . .” A black van pulled up the drive toward them. Sal recognized Balloon and Stretch through the windshield.

  “These gentlemen will take care of you,” said Menchú. And with those words, their flimsy cover story was officially someone else’s problem. Sal might have worried about that, having seen Team Two’s methods in action before, but she was too damn tired. Less than an hour later, they were on a high-speed train, heading south toward the Italian border.

  • • •

  Team Three headquarters, inside Vatican City

  Too few hours of sleep later, Sal and the rest of the team gathered at Asanti’s desk, summoned by Monsignor Angiuli, their immediate overseer at the Vatican.

  “Another dead end?” he asked. He sounded frustrated.

  What does he have to be frustrated about? We’re the ones running all over Europe on a snipe hunt, thought Sal.

  “We did put down a magical manifestation and keep it from spreading, so not a total waste of time,” said Grace, expression blank.

  The Monsignor gave her an annoyed look. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  Menchú spoke before Grace could answer, or kick the monsignor in the head. “If this is a strategy meeting, we will need the insights of our entire team.”

  “Besides, something might need hitting,” Grace added.

  “Grace . . . ” Asanti gave her a quelling look. To the monsignor she said, “I thought you believed in a hands-off management style.”

  “I let you run your department as you see fit because you get results,” said the monsignor. “But you’ve been out on more calls in the last fortnight than you used to cover in a year.”

  “That’s not our fault,” said Menchú.

  “I know that, but it’s not only your team involved in this. When you call in support from One and Two, the other monsignors notice, and then Cardinal Varano notices. Soon, he’s going to ask questions, and when he does, I need to have answers.” He paused. “This isn’t just an effect of the rising magical tide, is it?”

  “No,” said Asanti.

  “Have you at least found out what this Codex Umbra does?”

  A heavy silence fell over the room.

  Monsignor Angiuli shook his head and sighed. “I’ll cover for you as far as I can. But if you don’t want a ton of cardinal landing on your heads, I suggest you get answers. Soon.”

  Sal waited until she heard the main door of the Archives close behind the monsignor before she asked, “How soon is soon?”

  Menchú and Asanti had a brief, silent conversation with their eyes, then Menchú answered, “If he sees fit to warn us about it, very soon.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Grace.

  Liam shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve been trying to hit every dead end on the continent. If we had better leads, we’d be on those instead.”

  “I’m not sure what we can do,” said Asanti. “Except keep working at it, and hope that we can eventually get ahead of Mr. Norse.”

  “You do realize that repeating the same exercise while expecting different results is the definition of insanity,” said Sal.

  “If you don’t have anything useful to contribute—” Liam began, but Father Menchú cut him off.

  “No, Sal’s right. We’ve been playing defense for weeks, following hot spots indicated by the Orb or clues that we pick up from locations that we found while following the Orb. We can’t get ahead of Norse if we keep following in his footsteps. It’s time to try something new.”

  “Like what?” asked Grace.

  Menchú took a deep breath. “Talk to the Pythia.”

  Sal was evidently the only one in the room who had no idea what that meant. From the explosion of verbal disbelief that followed Menchú’s announcement, her best guess was talking to the Pythia involved some kind of human sacrifice. The babble was so intense that Sal could catch only disconnected snatches:

  “The Pythia? As in the Pythia?”

  “You know how to reach her? And you never thought to mention this, over all these years?”

  “You want us to use magic to defeat Mr. Norse?”

  Menchú eventually waved everyone down. “Please. I will answer all of your questions. Just . . . one at a time.”

  Before anyone else could jump in, Sal raised her hand. Menchú looked at her, openly relieved.

  “Yes, Sal.”

  “What’s the Pythia?”

  “Not what,” said Grace. “Who.”

  Sal rolled her eyes at this oh-so-helpful clarification. “Okay. Fine. Who is—”

  Liam answered before she could repeat herself. “The Pythia, also known as the Oracle at Delphi. One of the most ancient channelers of magic on the planet. Very dangerous. And completely mad.”

  Sal whirled to look to Menchú. “Is that true?”

  He sighed. “The Oracle herself isn’t technically ancient. The high priestess of Apollo at Delphi has the gift of sight, not immortality, and I haven’t ever met her in person, so I can’t say for sure, but yes, according to most reports, sanity is an optional job requirement. However,” he continued, “she can see both the future and the past, and knows more about things that the world has forgotten than anyone else alive.”

  Sal took this all in. “Well, that could be useful.”

  “If you don’t mind consorting with witches,” muttered Liam.

  Menchú caught Liam’s eye. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”

  Liam glared. “The Pythia voluntarily allows herself to be possessed by what is either a demon or a pagan god. If we go to her, we might as well admit that all our talk about holding the line against magic doesn’t matter the minute we think a little woo-woo can get us through a tough spot.”

  Menchú didn’t blink. “Do you have another suggestion?”

  “Yeah, let Norse find the Codex first, then send in Team One with the napalm as soon as the Orb spikes over it.”

  “How many people die in the time it takes Team One to arrive? Or what if Mr. Norse’s plan isn’t something that can be solved by the copious application of high explosives?”

  “Napalm isn’t a high explosive,” said Liam.

  “How many people, Liam?”

  “How many people die following your plan?” Liam asked.

  As the silence stretched, Asanti cleared her throat. “I, for one, am more curious to know why, if you have a way of gaining access to the Oracle, we are only hearing about it now.”

  “I don’t have access to the Oracle.”

  “Then why are we even having this debate?” Liam burst out.

  Menchú’s expression turned grim. “I have a friend who owes me a favor.”

  Borg El Arab Airport, 40KM outside Alexandria, 8 hours later

  The flight landed at a gleaming glass-and-steel terminal that reminded Sal of connecting through Charlotte when she visited her parents, except that the proportion of Egyptians was rather higher than in North Carolina. Once the team was through customs and passport control, a man about Menchú’s age waved them over from the curb. He waited next to a van that read “Alexandria Tours Unlimited” on the door.

  Although, as they got closer, Sal couldn’t help notice that he didn’t exactly seem overjoyed to see them.

  The man greeted Menchú with a nod. “Arturo.”

  “Youssef.”

  And that was the end of the polite chitchat.

  The man opened the door to the van. Menchú entered. The rest of the team, perforce, followed.

  After driving in silence for several minutes, Menchú asked, almost casually, “How are Catherine and the kids?”

  The man did not soften. “They’re very well. Thank you.”

  “Good to hear.”

  Half an hour later, the
van pulled into an office park that, except for the Arabic script on the signage, possessed all the exoticism of suburban New Jersey.

  Asanti blinked. “Wait a second. Is this—?”

  “Yes,” said Menchú.

  Sal looked at Grace and Liam, who looked as confused as she felt. She waited, but neither of them asked the obvious follow-up. Once again, the new girl falls on the dumb question grenade. “And ‘this’ is what, exactly?” she asked.

  Menchú took pity on her. “My friend Youssef works as an archivist at the Library of Alexandria.”

  “The one that burned down thousands of years ago?”

  “It was a series of fires over many years,” said Youssef. “After the first one, we took precautions and moved to an alternate site.” If smug could radiate, Youssef was putting it out in waves. He turned to Menchú, “Considering how many popes ordered the later fires, I should call us even merely showing you the parking lot.”

  Menchú shrugged. “But imagine how much you’re going to enjoy holding a favor over my head for a change.”

  “Which is why I still take your calls.” And without another word, Youssef led the group across the parking lot and into one of the office buildings.

  Once inside the airy, greenery-filled atrium, they stopped at a security desk where a guard issued them visitor passes and swiped them through to a private elevator which required security codes from both Youssef and the guard before the doors would open. Inside the elevator, Sal noticed that it took Youssef swiping his identity card and entering yet another security code before they actually began to descend.

  “So,” said Sal, as they fell into silence yet again, “how did you two meet?”

  Youssef shrugged. “My wife is Catholic. I am a Copt. Arturo performed our wedding.”

  Liam shot Menchú a look. “You’re allowed to do that?”

  The priest shrugged. “They met at an interfaith conference in Cairo. Demons broke out; I got called to the scene. We were all locked in a room together, and I was pretty sure we were going to die. It seemed like the right thing to do.”