“Yeah. Well, when it became obvious that magic was going to wreck the computer networks, people tried to preserve portions of the Internet. They took snapshots of their servers and sent the data to a central database at the Library of Congress. The project became known as the Library of Alexandria, because in ancient times Alexandria’s library was said to contain all human knowledge, before some jackass burned it to the ground. Since the tech is up, we’re going to dig through that database.”
“What are we digging for?”
“Facts. Let’s look at what we have. First, Raphael buys a highly contested building, leaving all other bidders in the dust. Then Raphael’s crew finds a secret vault that wasn’t in any of the documents they had. Someone went to Raphael’s site, attacked the shapeshifters guarding it, and opened the vault. Then they left the site, leaving most of the vault’s contents untouched. What does that tell you?”
Ascanio frowned. “It wasn’t random.”
“Right. There are easier places to rob and a guarded tunnel isn’t like a bank. It doesn’t automatically look like something valuable is hidden in it. Also a random robber would’ve emptied the vault.”
Ascanio looked at me. “So the thief had to know about the vault and what was in it.”
There was hope for him yet. “Exactly. We have two avenues of investigation: one, find out who knew about the vault and could’ve accessed it, and two?”
“Find out what they were after,” Ascanio said.
I smiled at him. “Good. We know that the building was owned by Jamar Groves. If the Blue Heron had a secret vault, Jamar had to know about it, because he was the one who had put it there. We know that Jamar Groves collected art and antiques. It’s logical to suppose that the secret vault contained Jamar’s personal stash. We also have the catalog of the vault’s contents, which I made at the scene. We’re going to search the archives for any mention of Jamar and his collection and compare it against the list of items in the vault.”
Ascanio arranged his pretty face into a martyred expression.
“The Central Library sits on the edge of Centennial Park,” I told him. Over the years the park had exploded in size, swallowing additional city blocks, and the library was one of its victims.
“So?” Ascanio asked.
“Centennial Park is owned by the witch covens. They provide security for the library, because it is a depository of knowledge.”
Ascanio came alive. “Female witches?”
“Most of them, yes. If you work hard, I’ll let you flirt.”
The teenage bouda grinned.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I told him. “The witch girls are pretty pragmatic.”
* * *
Ever since the Shift, the moment when our slow apocalypse in progress began, the plants had decided it was time to wage full-on assault on all things human. Magic fueled the tree growth, and Centennial Park was a shining example of that. In the decade since the Shift the park had tripled in size, taking over the neighboring city blocks. Once the Atlanta witch covens had purchased it from the city as their meeting place, the park had stopped expanding sideways, directing all of its growth upward instead. As we drove up, a dense wall of green greeted us, the tree trunks bound together with thorny vines, as if a three-hundred-year-old forest had somehow sprouted in the middle of the city.
The brown square building of the Central Library sat recessed in the green. A pair of massive ash trees hugged it on both sides, their branches and roots braiding together, sliding over the walls and sometimes through them, as if the library itself was some odd mushroom growing from their twin trunks. The trees sheltered the library and while its neighbors had long-ago fallen and crumbled, the library looked intact.
We parked in a large parking lot, which used to be Forsyth Street, and went to the doors. Inside, a young dark-haired girl, barely fifteen if that, stepped in our way. She carried a staff, wore jeans and a frilly white T-shirt, and the left side of her face sported a tattoo of some arcane symbols above her eyebrow and down over her cheekbone.
“Please surrender your weapons!” she chirped in a high voice and nodded at the cart full of plastic bins.
Ascanio’s eyes lit up.
I removed my Sig-Sauers and put them into a plastic bin. The two knives followed. I put my wolfsbane and a small flask of my silver powder into it.
“Thank you!” the witch said and looked at Ascanio.
The boy offered her his knife with a charming smile. “Hi! What’s your name?”
“My name is Put the Knife into the Bin, Please!”
Ascanio deposited the knife into the bin and followed me.