Even Vampires Get the Blues - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,49

of sunlight while sipping a cup of India tea and nibbling on a tart lemon cookie.

It was perfectly normal-looking, peaceful even, except for one thing - my elf warning system was going off like mad. Something was not right in this room. Something was definitely not right.

"How can I assist you?" Caspar asked, holding out his hands in a gesture of generosity.

I rubbed my arms, trying to quell the goose bumps that marched up and down my flesh. "Er... this is going to sound very rude, and I apologize in advance for that, but you don't happen to have anything demonic around, do you?"

"Demonic?" he asked, looking startled.

"Yes. Something that a demon has touched, maybe?" I suggested, looking around the flat. Nothing looked out of place - the sitting room was flooded with sunlight, the peach walls catching the light and turning it warm and soothing. Regardless of that, I felt chilled, as if the air was refrigerated. "Perhaps something that's been charged with a dark power?"

Caspar looked around as well. "I am a bit taken aback by that question. I have no demonic object, nor any object that has powers, dark or light."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you," I said hurriedly. "It's just that something is pinging my Otherworld radar."

His face, unremarkable except for a pair of extremely bushy black eyebrows, mirrored surprise. "Your Otherworld radar?"

"That's what I call it," I said, smiling and trying to analyze the feeling that something was wrong. "But I have to admit that sometimes it's a bit off."

"Indeed," he said politely, offering me the plate of cookies again. "How is it I can be of help to you?"

"I understand you have an academic interest in the history of mages," I said, hastily swallowing a mouthful of cookie. Nothing makes quite such a dashing impression as spewing cookie crumbs all over the place. "I'm interested in the man who may be connected with a manuscript called the Simla Gestor Coda. Have you ever heard of him or it?"

Caspar sat back in a peach-colored chair, his brow furrowed and fingers steepled as he thought. "The Simia Gestor Coda. Hmm. The name is somewhat familiar, but not something I remember much... ah. Wait. I have it. The Coda concerns the origins of several races - Dark Ones, Fomh贸ire, and Ilargi are what I remember, but there may be more in the manuscript."

I licked lemony powdered sugar off my lips as I pulled out my PDA, relieved that my long shot had turned out so well. "Fomh贸ire I've heard of - they are the Celtic branch of faeries, yes? But I don't think I've ever heard mention of Ilargi."

Caspar waved an elegant hand at the plate of cookies. I shook my head, taking notes on my PDA as he spoke. "I believe the Fomh贸ire would be very surprised to find themselves called faeries, but that is neither here nor there. The Ilargi have Basque origins. They are reapers, of the moon clan."

"Oh," I said, a little chill going down my spine. Reapers I'd heard of from my Diviner studies - they are beings that light the way of the dead. Not someone you want to hang around. "Do you happen to know who wrote the Coda? Thus far I haven't been able to find out any information regarding its author, or more than a vague skeleton of its history. I know it was connected with Marco Polo somehow, and it disappeared approximately three centuries ago, but that's about it."

"I wish I could help you, but alas" - Caspar spread his hands again, showing me they were empty - "I know little more about it than you. I do not know who authored it, although I have heard the name of Samaria Magnus mentioned in connection with the Coda."

"Samaria Magnus?" I asked, making a note of that name for further research. "A woman?"

"No, it was a false name, one taken to protect the identity of the individual from charges of heresy. No doubt his origins were in Samaria. Magnus was a common surname adopted by mages over the centuries."

"Ah. That makes sense. So this Samaria Magnus wrote a manuscript about the origins of a bunch of different people, and then... what?"

"No one knows. Both Magnus and the Coda disappeared for several hundreds of years. The latter made an appearance in the late seventeenth century, when it was the cause of much infighting between the mages of the time. But it, too, slipped from view. Few know