Sure, it had only happened once, back in eighty-nine. But I wasn’t taking any chances.
My companions had no such fears. Smudge returned to the dashboard and squeezed into the lower right corner of the windshield in order to better watch the thick steel cables as we passed. I wondered if he saw this as a kind of enormous metal web. Lena was smiling as she peered out at the water.
“Is it true there’s a colony of lake trolls living at the base of the bridge?” she asked.
“Not since seventy-one.” I peeked out at the blue water below, where Lake Huron met Lake Michigan. Whitecaps highlighted the waves.
“Tell me about Gutenberg.” Her calmness reminded me of Doctor Shah, and I wondered if this was a deliberate attempt to distract me. “If he drank from the Holy Grail, why can’t you do the same thing and become immortal, too?”
“He locked the book. Most holy books are locked, actually.” Given how violent humans could get over matters of religion, this was one of the few things almost every Porter agreed on. “Basically, he seals the text, preventing anyone from using its magic. Libriomancy works through the resonance among copies of a book. Locking one seals them all, and the original, locked copy goes to one of our archives.”
“Is it something they do often?”
“Often enough. It’s getting harder to keep up with new titles these days. Catalogers flag potentially dangerous books. Take David Brin’s Earth. He wrote about a microscopic black hole that fell into the planet’s core, threatening to devour the entire world. That black hole would be small enough to fit through the pages, meaning any fool kid with magical talent who didn’t know better…”
“Would it really destroy the Earth?”
“It’s tough to say. The amount of energy it would take to create a black hole, even a pinpoint one, is immense. It might just swallow the kid and pop back out of existence, but in theory, it could also become self-sustaining as it devoured more mass.” There were plans upon plans for such world-threatening eventualities, developed by Porter researchers. “We get review copies of every new book from the major publishers and most of the small presses. We usually catch and lock the troublesome ones before they’re released to the public, though Harry Potter gave us some trouble.”
J. K. Rowling had received a visit from Gutenberg himself, asking her to eliminate that damned time-turner from future books. Before I could say more, Smudge scrambled off of the dashboard and onto the steering wheel. Heat rippled from his back as he spun around to glare at the windshield.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lena.
The windshield began to fog over, gray wisps creeping inward from the edge. “Not now, dammit.”
We were more than halfway across, but that left another two miles to go. Keeping one white-knuckled hand on the wheel, I reached out to try to wipe the windshield clean. My efforts had no effect. This wasn’t frost; it was smoke, trapped within the windshield itself.
“Vampires?” Lena asked.
“Phone call.” I flipped on the emergency blinkers. The driver behind me honked the horn, making me jump. “The windshield is crystal, not glass.”
Smoke condensed into a young, translucent face with an arrogant smirk. I already knew who it was. Only one person could seize control of the car like that: the same person who had enchanted it to begin with.
“I’m in the middle of the goddamned Mackinac Bridge!” I shouted.
The image vanished, reappearing as a much smaller face in the rearview mirror. “Isaac, my friend. So glad to find you alive and well. I hear you’re having an interesting week.”
I kept my attention on the road. “Lena, meet Juan Ponce de Leon. Explorer, sorcerer, retired bounty hunter, ex-Porter, and all-around dick. His hobbies are magic, conquering native populations, and butting into people’s lives at the worst possible time.”
De Leon laughed. “Guilty on all counts, I’m afraid.” His black hair was cut stylishly short, and his tan skin was so flawless it made me wonder if he was wearing makeup.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“The same thing as you. To find out what happened to Master Gutenberg and his missing automatons.”
I feigned confusion. “Something happened to Gutenberg?”
Another laugh. “Banishment hasn’t blinded me to the world of magic, Isaac. And you’re far too young and inexperienced to play games with me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you stole from me.”
“It had been impounded for nine years!”
He frowned. The face in the mirror was a mere two inches high, but the annoyance of even a miniaturized Ponce de Leon was enough to send chills through my blood. “Do you realize how easy it would be for me to accelerate that car and strip off the traction spells, even from here?”
“Point taken.”
De Leon pursed his lips. “Do the Porters have any leads?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I had called Pallas again when we stopped for gas an hour ago. She hadn’t answered, but her voice mail message had said, “Isaac, check in and let us know what you find in East Lansing.” When Lena called the same number, she got a generic prompt to leave a message, so apparently Pallas was finding new ways to bypass whoever had hacked the Porters’ communications. Not what I had expected, but if she was giving me tacit permission to continue snooping, I wasn’t about to argue. “The vampires think Gutenberg is behind everything, that he’s working against them.”
“To what end?” De Leon steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “Johannes wouldn’t simply abandon the Porters. He’s invested too much. He’s very possessive of his creations.”
“Who else has the power to eliminate him and take control of his automatons?” I swallowed, then added, “Aside from yourself?”
He waved my accusation away. “I’ve tried to unravel the secrets of Johannes’ mechanical golems. I failed. Gutenberg hates them, you know. A passionate, burning hatred, but he needs them.”
“Could they have turned against him?” asked Lena.
De Leon blinked. “Interesting… but no, I don’t think so. Their loyalty to Gutenberg is enchanted into their very core.”
“I assume you’ve tried to find him?” I asked.
“Naturally. But my resources are limited. Ironic, isn’t it? If Johannes hadn’t banished me to Spain, cursing me to remain within her borders, I might be better prepared to help find him. I can confirm that he is alive, and that he is as human as ever. That’s all I know.”
Meaning if vampires were involved, they hadn’t turned Gutenberg yet. It was more than we’d known before. “If this explodes into all-out war between vampires and humans, what will you do? Whose side will you take?”
His lips quirked. “I suggest you find Gutenberg, and quickly.”
“The Porters are-”
“The Porters have their own problems to deal with.” He leaned closer, with that smile that could charm a rabid hippogriff. “You know how to reach me, Isaac. If this does mark the dissolution of Johannes’ little club, you’re going to need all the allies you can get.”
His visage dissolved into smoke before I could figure out the safest way to respond. Smudge kept low as he crept carefully back to his trivet on the dash.
Lena opened the window, venting the burnt-dust smell of frightened fire-spider. “Is he really who he claims to be?”
“Yep. He was an explorer in the service of the Spanish Empire.” I swerved past that damned station wagon and hit the gas, speeding down the highway. “That much the history books got right. But he was also a sorcerer. In 1521, he was shot in the thigh with a poisoned arrow. He sailed to Cuba, where he spent the next month using his magic to fight the poison. He created a potion, blending the juice of the manzanilla de la muerte with the waters of a magical spring.”