Grimoires and Where to Find Them by Raconteur, Honor (ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕

showed the signs of its age, as there was exposed piping overhead and brick on the far wall. Kind of an industrial look, and she’d embraced it with a metal desk and metal-framed chairs with cushy leather seats. Kinda cool, I had to admit.

Sitting in one of those chairs was a woman in her late fifties, hunched over and staring at her hands as if they held life’s source code. She looked frazzled, dark hair in a braid coming apart over one shoulder, and I would not have been surprised to find out she’d dressed in the dark. While fighting off monkey ninjas. The landlady of the apartment building, I assumed. She looked appropriately exhausted.

Indicating her with a wave of the hand, Captain Johnna introduced us. “This is Christina Orton. Miss Orton?”

Her head lifted slowly, as if she were coming out of whatever dark thoughts she was consumed by and only now realizing other people were in the room. She blinked at us owlishly, not entirely with it.

Johnna took a seat behind her desk, keeping her voice gentle. “Miss Orton, this is Detective Edwards. She’s the lead detective on your case.”

Uh. I am?

Orton turned and gave me a slight smile, and it looked so sad, I wanted to hug her. “Detective. Thank you for helping. I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”

Yeah, she looked really lost. I sat in the chair next to her, gently taking one hand and focusing on her. Trying to get her focused on me.

“Let me walk you through what is happening. Okay? Then I need to ask some questions, and we can figure out what to do from here.”

She nodded slowly. Seriously, she looked like a druggie coming down from a high.

I was really getting concerned, here. She had been at ground zero, after all. “Ma’am, have you been looked at by a healthcare professional?”

“Oh. Yes. They treated me and gave me a potion to take to purge…all that. They said it would take twenty-four hours before it all left my system.”

Ah. That would explain it. “But you’re clear to be out like this?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. But I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

No family, from the sound of it. And her friends were likely her neighbors. I saw the problem. “After we talk, I’ll help settle you into a hotel for the next week, okay?”

Her expression lifted a bit. “Oh. That would be nice. I could sleep.”

She so needed to sleep this off. I was perfectly good with this game plan.

“Yeah, you can. Let’s talk quick so you can do that. Now, right at this moment, we’ve got a team of people in the building trying to sort all of those grimoires. A royal mage, kingsmen, two magical examiners, and an expert on grimoires are all working in there. I don’t know how long it will take for them to get it cleared, but they’re working as fast as they can. Once they’re done, I’ll see about a remedial team going in after them and renovating the building so it’s back to normal.”

Her smile this time was genuine, and much happier. “Can you save my building, then? It’s not lost?”

“Ma’am, we’ll certainly try. Have you got insurance on the building?”

“I do. I’m not sure if it’ll cover this.”

“It’ll cover it,” I promised her firmly. “I will not let them finagle their way out of this. It might take some time, but you’ve got multiple experts trying to sort out this mess and make it safe for you to go home again.”

Tears burned in her eyes, and she gave a shaky nod. “I’m very grateful to them. When it first started, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

That was a good segue. I leapt on it. “When did it start? What was the first sign?”

“Well, I suppose in a way it first started about three months ago.” She paused and looked at me. “It’s probably been three months. I’d have to check my records. But that’s when that man came and asked to rent an apartment.”

I pulled my notebook out of my pocket, ready to jot things down. “What was his name?”

“Samuel…Samuel Laughlin.”

Not the name of our thief. Alias? Or a different person? “Can you describe him to me?”

“He’s soft-spoken, very polite. Not much taller than me, thin, with a charming smile. Human, with a sort of plain look to him, but not ugly.”

That helped but didn’t. “What’s his hair color? Skin color? Anything distinctive about him?”

“Brown hair…I think. His skin was a little tanned, but more on the pale side.” Her brow furrowed as she struggled to think. “I didn’t see anything different about him. He looked like a normal man.”

So nondescript that he didn’t really stick in the memory. Like our thief. Coincidence? Or was she having a hard time recalling because she was under the effects of a pretty serious magical cocktail right now? I’d definitely need to follow up and interview her again later, see if her story matched up.

“Okay, and this man, Laughlin, he came to you to rent an apartment three months ago. Did you see him often? Did he pay on time?”

“He always paid on time, once early by several days. I saw him perhaps two, three times a week, and at all hours of the day. He rarely stayed for long, as far as I could tell. And he was always bringing in a box, or a book, or something. And not taking much of anything back out. The first day he moved in, all I saw were bookcases coming up the stairs. I thought him a well-read gentleman and assumed that meant he’d be on the quieter side, not one to cause trouble. I was relieved.” She snorted in dark amusement. “More fool me.”

“Yeah…no way of predicting this kind of madness. Trust me. Okay, so you saw him, but he wasn’t doing anything to raise suspicions. So, what was your first clue something was going wrong?”

“It was the smell, I think.” She