“Clever.” That would explain the blue-tinged skin and nails. “What does oxygen deprivation do to a creature so dependent on blood?”
“It tortures her,” Shah said flatly. “Imagine every muscle in your body cramping with superhuman strength, your skin cold and stiff as leather. Every cell starving.”
I knelt to examine the mechanism. A one-way valve was screwed onto the plate, which would prevent a vampire from going gaseous and forcing her way out through the air tank. “How did you capture her in the first place?”
“Not even vampires are invulnerable,” said Granach. “Strike hard enough, and most can be knocked unconscious, at least for a time.”
“Good to know. What else have you learned?”
Shah sagged into her chair. She seemed calm, but her knuckles were white as she clung to Lena’s hand. “Chesa’s mind isn’t her own.” She grabbed a notepad from the floor and flipped through the pages. “I’ve seen glimpses of what I believe to be Chesa herself, but they’re fleeting. Moments of fear and confusion, swiftly overpowered by the controlling mind. Minds, rather.”
“There’s more than one?” I asked.
“If Chesa were human, I’d probably diagnose her with some form of dissociative identity disorder. Her body language, her intonation, everything shifts at random. One moment she’s pacing like a tiger, looking out as if she can smell my blood even through the barrier. The next she’s rocking and banging her head against the wall, a violent self-stimming behavior that reminds me of severe autism. I’ve documented at least four distinct patterns of behavior and body language.”
I stared at Chesa, trying to fit the pieces together in my head. “What species is she?”
“Manananggal,” said Granach.
“Really?” I pressed against the door, my other concerns momentarily forgotten. “That would explain the blood at the waist, but what is she doing in Detroit?”
“What’s a manananggal?” asked Lena.
“A creature that originated in the Philippines,” I said. “Natural, not book-born. She’s not exactly a vampire, though she does feed on blood. And organs. And the occasional unborn child. At night they sprout wings, and the upper part of the torso separates from the lower, allowing her to fly and hunt.”
“Not in there,” said Granach. “We keep the air pressure too low.”
Chesa slammed her head against the door, making me jump. Smudge flared hot. I patted out the sparks on my jacket. “What have you tried to get her to talk?”
“Hypnotism had no effect,” Granach said sourly. “Nor did drugs or torture.”
“None of them affect whoever is controlling her.” I cupped my hands to the door, studying the gold irises that flexed around her cross-shaped pupils. “What about her blood? Can’t your readers sort through her thoughts?”
“We’ve tried. They followed her memories through the streets. She was attacked during the daytime. From the speed and power, we assume it was another vampire. There was pain, a falling sensation, and then… nothing. She has no recollection beyond that moment.”
“The one thing the murders have in common is rage,” said Doctor Shah. “Fury like that doesn’t come out of nowhere.”
“They hate us,” I agreed, remembering Ray’s apartment. “This is personal.” If Gutenberg was responsible, how long had this hatred been building beneath the surface, and how had he managed to hide it from those around him?
I knocked on the cell door. “Hi, there. Alice here says you have no memories, but I’m betting you remember me.”
Chesa sank back slowly. Her arms and shoulders shivered, reminding me of a bird ruffling her wings.
“Looking at the murders suggests we’re dealing with a serial killer,” Shah said. “A serial killer wants power. The thrill of playing God.”
“That could be any Porter,” I said dryly.
“Why do you think they keep me on staff?” she countered, matching my tone.
“Touche.” I reached deep into my pockets to grab a copy of Heart of Stone.
“You were searched,” Granach said darkly. The guard moved toward me, but she held up a hand. “How-”
“Do you want me to examine your prisoner, or do you want to stand here in front of the woman you kidnapped and argue about rule breaking?”
She scowled, but didn’t stop me from tugging a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from the pages. The nosepieces were warm, and sweat smeared the top of both lenses. I used my shirttail to wipe them clean, then slipped them on.
The tunnel dimmed further, but certain figures brightened. Lena appeared backlit, as if sunlight flickered just behind her body. The vampires glowed as well, a silvery light more reminiscent of the moon.
“You’re pushing too hard,” Doctor Shah warned. She was a faded shadow, utterly without magic save for the small burning light on her temple. “Have the voices returned?”
“Not yet,” I lied.
I glanced down. I would have expected Smudge to glow like fire, but his magic was different. A simple white light surrounded him like a comet, the tail extending toward me. I unhooked his cage and held it at arm’s length, using the cuff of the jacket to protect my fingers from the heat of the bars. No matter where I held him, the tail pointed to my chest.
How much of Smudge’s magic flowed through me? That connection would explain why he understood my plans so easily.
Lena was a product of libriomancy, too, and as I looked more closely, I saw flickers of white light stretching away from her. One led to Doctor Shah, while another, weaker thread connected her to me. A third extended through the wall at a slight upward angle. Perhaps that was her connection to the trees above, some lingering thread to the pine she had slept in last night, or to the branch she had grafted to my oak in Copper River.
I examined Chesa next. Unlike the rest of us, Chesa was surrounded by two competing magical auras. One was similar to Granach and Kyle. The other matched the white, comet-like light coming off of Smudge, complete with a faint tail pointing toward whoever was controlling her. “Which way is north?”
Granach pointed off to the left. My guess had been off by a good ninety degrees or so. I clipped the cage back onto my belt loop, then stuck singed fingers in my mouth. “What are you so worried about, Smudge? She’s not getting out of that cage, and nobody else is trying to kill us right this minute.” To the others, I said, “Our killer is west of here. Is there any way to take Chesa aboveground? I could triangulate a rough location.”
“It would be difficult,” said Granach. “What else can you see?”
“I’ve never used these glasses before, but the magic matches my own. I think this was done by a libriomancer.”
“We surmised as much.” Granach pressed a hand to the glass. “Can’t you conjure up a crystal ball or a magic mirror to show us the face of our enemy? Or summon a genie and wish that enemy into nothingness?”
“I could pull Aladdin’s lamp into our world, sure.” I continued to study the manananggal. What happened to Chesa’s organs when she separated her body to hunt, and how did they repair themselves afterward? The average human being had twenty-two feet of small intestine alone. If her magic could be duplicated by Porter surgeons to heal-
“The lamp,” Granach prodded.
“Sorry,” I said. “The lamp would fit through the book, but the transition from the fictional world would destroy the genie’s mind. On the bright side, I doubt we’d survive long enough to worry about a murderous libriomancer. As for mirrors and such, they come preprogrammed for another world. Take Tolkien’s palantir, for example.” I stared at their blank faces and sighed. “It’s a crystal ball. Didn’t you people at least see the movies?”
Doctor Shah cleared her throat.
“Right. The point is, I could use the palantir to try to find our enemy. Likely as not, it would show us the dark lord Sauron from Lord of the Rings. And if we’re really unlucky, Sauron would reach through that connection to attack or possess whoever looked upon him.”