Vellum and Green Vitriol
Copyright © 2007, S. Y. Affolee
The First Conjuration
Seal V
The sun streaming through the living room woke me. Not to mention the atrocious singing coming from my kitchen. Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, I discovered only a cold cup of tea and a tweed jacket beside me.
Feeling a bit out of sorts, I stood up and headed to the kitchen. The grimoire I had lugged up to my flat the previous day was standing at my stove making scrambled eggs.
"Don't tell me. You're the Key to Cooking."
The singing stopped. He slightly turned his head. His longish dark hair was slick and curling from a recent shower, but stubble still shadowed his jaw. And there was a mean glint to his gray--almost colorless--eyes. "Do I look like Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management?"
"No. You look more like an overwrought tract of Byronic poetry. But if you burn those eggs, you'll give Mrs. Beeton a run for her money."
There was a particularly insulted clang of crockery as I stepped back out of the kitchen and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. About ten minutes afterwards, finally in some clean clothes, I went back into the kitchen to see him setting the table.
"Eat," he said as I sat down. He was frowning as he sat across from me and took a cup of coffee. "Because we're going to be leaving soon."
I paused with the fork halfway to my mouth. "Leaving? Soon? What exactly have you decided to do without my knowledge?"
"Bossy." His mouth twitched. Was the Key amused? "I haven't really decided on anything. But I assume we're leaving soon. Greenglass, is it?"
"The train," I said. "The Midland Express leaves Colchester for Greenglass every day at two in the afternoon. Since it is about nine now, that will give us a little time to pack and get to the station. Assuming, of course, your residence isn't all the way across town."
"It isn't far. I can call a cab."
"Fine. You can go and I suppose we could meet up at the station."
He set down his coffee. "Oh no, I'm not falling for that trick."
"What trick?"
"I bet there's an earlier train. You strike me as the type of person who'd leave without me."
"What you're really trying to say is that I'm the type of person who would break my word." I squinted at him for a moment. "You know, I could lie and say that I would never break my word, but it isn't true. I'd break my word, if it suits me."
"Ah, you're a sneaky woman after my own heart."
"You don't have a heart. You just look like you do. And I'm not precisely a woman."
"Well, you certainly look like one to me."
"It's just the clothes. You know as well as I do that books don't have gender."
"Now where's the fun in that?" He picked up his coffee again and took a sip while he watched me eat. "If we follow your logic, books aren't supposed to be having breakfast either. But here you are, slurping down my cooking that you must admit is not burned."
I glared at him as I swallowed. "Exactly what kind of Key are you anyway? The Key of Annoyance?"
Something dark green flickered across his eyes and then was gone. I almost thought I had imagined it. "I'm one of the Clavis Umbrium. Key of Shadows. There are four of us, the editions named after the elements. The last I've heard, Air was in Germany and Water was heading to the Americas. Earth has chosen to remain in book form, in a very private collection."
"You're Fire then." I drank some tea before saying, "Keys mostly contain spells that summon things. Is there a significance to why the editions are named after elements? You summon the element fire, don't you?"
"Actually, it's much worse than that, but that's neither here nor there."
"Neither here nor there?" I said in disbelief. "You summon demons, don't you?"
He put a hand to his chest. "I didn't say I was a good book."
"Objectively, there is no such thing as a good book," I pointed out. "Just books that people think are right."
* * *
"Did you put half your library in this suitcase?"
I snapped on my gloves before I opened the door to let him and my luggage out of my flat. "Stop whining. I just put in some necessities."
"Oh right. Necessities."
I ignored the sarcasm and locked the door behind me. The cab I had called would be here any minute. Besides, he had volunteered to carry my things. I wasn't going to get in the way of a masochist. "One can never be too prepared. Take for instance, the clothes iron."
"Clothes iron? What the bloody hell is a clothes iron doing in your baggage?"
"It just won't do to go about with a wardrobe full of wrinkles," I replied. "Besides, if a particularly amorous fool decides to invade your private room, you can always whack him on the head with it."
With a free hand, he rubbed his head at the thought. "You're not precisely a docile girl, are you?"
Before starting down the stairs, the door to the flat across the hall opened, revealing my neighbor Darla. This time, she was wearing a jaunty skirt under a navy blouse. It was her tennis outfit, I remembered. She smiled at me, but the stretch of her mouth became wider at the sight of Rhys.
"Why Ana, what a surprise. Are you going out? Why haven't I met your beau before? Please introduce us."
I couldn't help but make a face. "He's not my beau. He's just helping me carry my things down. Darla, this is Rhys Lattimore. Rhys, this is Darla St. Claire."
"How very nice to meet you, Mr. Lattimore."
"The pleasure is all mine," he purred. "Please call me Rhys."
I fought a snicker. And managed to win. "I won't be back for a little while, Darla," I said before she could say something to him. "I decided to take this vacation thing a little more seriously. I will be heading out to Greenglass for a bit of sight seeing."
"Oh, good for you, Ana. But isn't it getting a bit cold for sight seeing at this time of year?"
"I heard there were some museums there," I lied.
"I see. Well, as you can see, I'm not particularly dressed for the weather either."
I cocked my head, pretending to consider her outfit. "Tennis? In October?"
"Well, the evening with Gerald at the Gardens didn't go exactly as planned," Darla confessed. "So he decided to make it up to me by taking me to a squash match at the Piccadilly Conservatory this afternoon. I have heard that it is a greenhouse in there, so I want to be prepared."
"That does sound exciting," I said.
"I very much hope so." Darla waved and said her good-byes before heading back into her own apartment.
We headed down the stairs, thankfully not running into any more of the neighbors, before reaching outside. A black cab was already waiting at the curb, the driver--a whipcord lean man in a black uniform studded with brass buttons--standing beside the front passenger side smoking a cigarette. Once he spotted us, he flicked the cigarette to the ground and stubbed it with a heel. He opened the trunk without a word. When we were seated inside the cab and Rhys had given the directions to his own residence, the driver easily maneuvered the cab onto the street in silent efficiency.
"There are some museums in Greenglass," said Rhys, startling me from my contemplation with the passing scenery. "There's one on Roman antiquities beside the Greenglass Auction House."
"You've been to Greenglass before?"
"A few times, on business. I work for Hauntley's which has some dealings with the Greenglass Auction House."
"Hauntley's is the antiquities dealer in Colchester, isn't it?" I had heard my employer mention the name occasionally since they did sometimes deal with manuscripts. "Are you on vacation too?"
"Not exactly. I'm a bit of an appraiser and a consultant for Hauntley's so I often make my own hours. Going to Greenglass won't be such a hardship--it can be put under the heading of business."
The cab soon reached Rhys' address, a pale sky-blue townhouse in a well-tended neighborhood. Apparently, being an antiquities appraiser paid very well. I got out of the cab while Rhys paid the driver and carried my luggage again. He set it down just inside the front door of his residence as he headed to his rooms to pack his own things. He told me to "make myself comfortable" as I waited.
Whatever that meant, I wandered about in the front rooms which seemed fairly typical of a bachelor who spent little time in his own house--sparse. Past the front parlor was a sitting room that had been converted into a study. I examined the shelves to see if there were any titles I could recognize. There didn't seem to be any order to how the books were shelved. Latin histories and engineering manuals sat side-by-side with poetry and novels and...what was this?
I pulled out a slim volume that was more like a pamphlet. The cover was made of some sort of white hide which was streaked with a wine-colored stain. Dux Bestia. The Guide to Animals or Familiars. But before I could open the cover, the book grew quite warm in my hands. In fact, it just grew.
Startled, I dropped it. At my feet, the pamphlet morphed into something black and furry. Cool gray eyes with a hint of green blinked up at me.
Meow?
Good grief. What have I done now?
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