Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(44)
Author: Patricia Briggs

He led me to a small alcove where the books were all in locking barrister’s bookcases. "This is where I keep the more valuable stuff – signed books and older oddities." He pulled up a bench and climbed on it to unlock the topmost shelf, which was mostly empty – probably because it was difficult to reach.

He pulled out a book bound in pale leather and embossed in gold. "I don’t suppose you have fourteen hundred dollars you’d like to pay for this with?"

I swallowed. "Not at the moment – I might be able to scrape it up in a few days."

He shook his head as he handed the book down to me. "Don’t bother. Just take care of it and give it back when you’re finished. It’s been here for five or six years. I don’t expect that I’ll have a buyer for it this week."

I took it gingerly, not being used to handling books that were worth more than my car (not that that was saying very much). The title was embossed on front and spine: Magic Made.

"I’m loaning this to you," he said slowly, considering his words carefully, "because it talks a little about that walking stick…" He paused and added in a "pay attention to this part" voice, "And a few other interesting things."

If the walking stick had been stolen, maybe more things had disappeared, too. I clutched the book tighter.

"Zee is a friend of mine." He locked the bookcase again and then got off the bench and put it back where it had been. Then in an apparent non sequitur he said casually, "You know, of course, that there are things that we are forbidden to discuss. But I know that the story of the walking stick is in there. You might start with that story. I believe it is in Chapter Five."

"I understand." He was giving me all the help he could without breaking the rules.

He led the way back through the store. "Take care of that staff."

"I keep trying to give it back," I said.

He turned and walked backward a few steps, his eyes on the staff. "Do you now?" Then he gave a small laugh, shook his head, and continued to the front door. "Those old things sometimes have a mind of their own."

He opened the door for me and I hesitated on the threshold. If he hadn’t told me that he was part fae, I’d have thanked him. But acknowledging a debt to a fae could have unexpected consequences. Instead I took out one of the cards that Gabriel had printed up for me and gave it to him. "If you ever have trouble with your car, why don’t you stop by? I work mostly on German cars, but I can usually make the others purr pretty well, too."

He smiled. "I might do that. Good luck."

Samuel was gone when I got back, but he’d left a note to tell me he had gone to work – and there was food in the fridge.

I opened it and found a foil-covered glass pan with a couple of enchiladas in it. I ate dinner, fed Medea, then washed my hands and took the book into the living room to read.

I hadn’t expected a page that said, "This is who killed O’Donnell," but it might have been nice if each page of the six-hundred-page book hadn’t been covered with tiny, handwritten words in old faded ink. At least it was in English.

An hour and a half later I had to stop because my eyes wouldn’t focus anymore.

I’d turned to Chapter Five and gotten through maybe ten pages of the impossible text and three stories. The first story had been about the walking stick, a little more complete than the story I’d read off the Internet. It also had a detailed description of the stick. The author was obviously fae, which made it the first book I’d ever knowingly read from a fae viewpoint.

All of Chapter Five seemed to be about things like the walking stick: gifts of the fae. If O’Donnell had stolen the walking stick, maybe he’d stolen other things, too. Maybe the murderer had stolen them in return.

I took the book to the gun safe in my room and locked it in. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but a casual thief was a little less likely to run off with it.

I washed dishes and mused about the book. Not so much about the contents, but what Tad had been trying to tell me about it.

The man at the bookstore had told me that the fae treasure things like the walking stick, no matter how useless they are in our modern world.

I could see that. For a fae, having something that held the remnant of magic lost to them was power. And power in the fae world meant safety. If they had a record of all the fairy-magicked items, then the Gray Lords could keep track of them – and apportion them as they chose. But the fae are a secretive people. I just couldn’t see them making up a list of their items of power and handing it over.

I grew up in Montana, where an old, unregistered rifle was worth a lot more than a new gun whose ownership could be traced. Not that the gun owners in Montana are planning on committing crimes with their unregistered guns – they just don’t like the federal government knowing their every move.

So what if…what if O’Donnell stole several magic items and no one knew what they were, or maybe what all of them were. Then some fae figured out it was O’Donnell. Someone who had a nose like mine – or who saw him, or maybe tracked him back to his house. That fae could have killed O’Donnell to steal for himself the things O’Donnell had taken.

Maybe the murderer had timed it so Zee would be caught, knowing the Gray Lords would be happy to have a suspect wrapped up in a bow.

If I could find the killer and the things O’Donnell had stolen, I could hold those things hostage for Zee’s acquittal and safety.

I could see why a fae would want the walking stick, but what about O’Donnell? Maybe he hadn’t known exactly what it was? He’d had to have known something about it, or else why take it? Maybe he’d intended to sell it back to the fae. You’d think that anyone who’d been around them for very long would know better than to think you’d survive long selling back stolen items to the fae.

Of course, O’Donnell was dead, wasn’t he?

Someone knocked on my door – and I hadn’t heard anyone drive up. It might have been one of the werewolves, walking over from Adam’s house. I took a deep breath, but the door effectively blocked anything my nose might have told me.

I opened the door and Dr. Altman was standing on the porch. The seeing eye dog was gone – and there was no extra car in the driveway. Maybe she’d flown here.

"You’ve come for the walking stick?" I asked. "You’re welcome to it."

"May I come in?"

I hesitated. I was pretty sure the threshold thing only worked on vampires, but if not…

She smiled tightly and took a step forward until she was standing on the carpet.

"Fine," I said. "Come in." I got the old stick and handed it to her.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.