Lupi 08 - Death Magic

French? Are you sure that’s enough coffee?”
    “Yes and yes. Do you have anything by Knoblauch or Czypsser?”
    “Just that treatise Armand wrote on Knoblauch, which, as I’m sure you know, is mostly hogwash. However, I’ve got a copy of Czypsser’s Ars Magicka that was supposedly made from the original . ”
    A thrill went through Cullen. “The entire thing?”
    “Alas, only fifty-two of what is reputed to have been eighty pages, and some of them are damaged.”
    Fifty-two pages. Fifty-two pages of one of the most sought-after grimoires in the world. Czypsser hadn’t been an adept, but he’d studied under one as a youth. Five years ago, Cullen had paid five thousand dollars for a blurred copy of two pages from Czypsser’s Ars Magicka .
    And Fagin was going to let him see fifty-two pages? Cullen twitched all over just thinking about it. “Do those pages include his list of elven runes?”
    “Oh, yes. Most of them are legible, and some have brief definitions or notes on congruencies. Do you read medieval German?”
    “No, but you do.”
    “I’m fairly fluent. That doesn’t look like enough coffee. I’ve been using at least twice as much.”
    “And drinking it?”
    “I take your point.”
     
     
    IT wasn’t the best coffee Cullen had ever had, but it wasn’t bad. He sipped from the mug Fagin had washed while they were waiting for the coffee to drip through its makeshift filter and nodded acceptance of Fagin’s grateful praise. Once the man paused Cullen said, “About that journal and the Czypsser manuscript . . .”
    “Oh, yes. The library’s right through here.” Fagin headed for a door on the far end of the kitchen.
    Cullen followed . . . and stepped into a room that bore no resemblance to the rest of the place.
    Large, airy, and orderly, it ran the length of the house. The floor was wood. An area rug marked a reading zone at the far end, where two comfortable armchairs and a square table invited you to sit and browse in front of a bow window. Cable lighting zigzagged over the entire ceiling, but it wasn’t needed now. In addition to the bow window, two tall windows interrupted the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the west wall.
    In the center of the room rested a huge, battered desk flanked by a pair of low bookcases. It held the usual sort of detritus, both electronic and traditional: computer, printer, calendar, a small scattering of papers. And at this end, a long library table held court. A single, half-empty packing box sat on it.
    There was even a card catalogue. An honest-to-God, old-fashioned wooden card catalog claimed pride of place in a section of wall clearly reserved for it. “Priorities,” Cullen murmured. “Yes. You’re a man after my own heart, Fagin.”
    Fagin beamed proudly at his domain. “I had the wall removed and the shelves added. It started out as a bedroom and dining room, you see. This suits me better.” He lumbered into motion. “I don’t have my entire collection in here, but I think I unpacked Papa Araignée’s journal. It should be in the Vodun section . . . ah, yes. Here it is.” He held out a tattered, leather-bound journal. “You can take it with you, if you like.”
    Cullen’s eyebrows lifted. That was an unusual degree of trust—but then, Fagin wasn’t a practitioner himself. He tucked the slim journal carefully inside his jacket. “Thank you. And the Ars Magicka ?”
    “You’re drooling.”
    “Hardly at all,” Cullen said repressively. “I have tremendous self-control.”
    Fagin chuckled. “The original is in my safety-deposit box back in Cambridge. I recently acquired a safety-deposit box here, but I haven’t made the trip to Cambridge to retrieve the items from my Cambridge box. But perhaps my translation will work better for you anyway, since you have some difficulty with medieval German.”
    “I’ve never seen anyone actually twinkle before, but damned if you aren’t doing it. An English translation, I take it?”
    “Of course.” Fagin headed for his desk. “It’s a work in progress, mind, not finished, but I have a decent rough draft you can see. I’ll burn you a disc so—”
    The front window shattered.
    Without blinking or thinking or any of the things there was no time for, Cullen flexed into a deep crouch. A shiny glass shower cascaded into the room. He sprang. A second projectile followed the first as he slammed into Fagin, grabbing him and twisting so momentum would spin them sideways as they fell— the