Grimoire Of The Lamb Part 1

Grimoire of the Lamb.

by Kevin Hearne.

People today think ancient Egypt was ineffably cool. I blame this misconception on hieroglyphics and (to a lesser extent) on the Bangles.

The truth is that the ancient Egyptians regarded most people as chattel for the ruling cla.s.s and practiced some of the blackest magic history has ever seen-or, rather, hasn't seen, because they were deadly serious about keeping their secrets. But they wrote such happy tomes as The Book of the Dead and ill.u.s.trated joyful kids' books like Little Scarab Shat Blood and Anubis Eats the Hearts of the Disobedient. I'm not kidding; I saw them before the Library of Alexandria was ruined by Emperor Aurelian.

I saw plenty at Alexandria in its heyday. In fact, I saw quite a few things I never should have seen, which is why I now avoid the country when I can. My logic, if it could be called that, suggests that if I never think about the country again, the old deities of Egypt will forget that I once snaffled their s.e.x rituals and necromantic tomes. Calls from Cairo, therefore, automatically excite more than their fair share of suspicion. When I picked up the phone in my shop and the voice in my ear identified himself as "Nkosi Elkhashab from Egypt," I toyed briefly with the idea of hanging up before he could even state his business.

The problem was this: Long ago-in what I suppose I must now call my "youth," even though I was already a couple of hundred years old at the time-I raided an extremely restricted section at Alexandria. It was at the behest of Ogma, one of the Tuatha De Danann, so to please that particular G.o.d I wound up vexing several others in the Egyptian pantheon. Not so much that they would take the trouble to hunt me down, but neither am I precisely welcome in their territory anymore. Bast, in particular, has several bones to pick with me, aside from the fact that I'm not a cat person. I have a book of hers-or, rather, a book that belonged to her cult-that contains some fairly lurid descriptions of her "mysteries." It is physical evidence of the old saying that there is more than one way to skin a cat: The parchment itself is made of catskin-a fine quality bordering on vellum-and the cover is a thicker, tanned catskin leather to protect the contents from minor water damage. I'd thwarted a couple of attempts by her agents to steal it back or a.s.sa.s.sinate me, but I could also say the same for most of my Egyptian collection. Almost all of it had been cursed or enchanted in some fas.h.i.+on and had given me more trouble than it was worth. I held on to it now just to be stubborn, to say "Neener neener!" to all those ancient mages and G.o.ds who thought they could scare a Druid into giving away his hard-earned (if ill-gotten) library. I tended to h.o.a.rd magical tomes the way dragons h.o.a.rded treasure-and protected them with the same ferocity.

Mr. Elkhashab, however, wanted what amounted to a cookbook. "If you are the rare-book dealer Atticus O'Sullivan ...?"

"I am."

"Then I am told you have a collection of extremely rare works from Egypt," he said, his voice rich with the lilt of an Arabic accent. I could easily speak Arabic with him, but it was better for now to let him a.s.sume I was an American and, therefore, statistically speaking, limited to English and two years of another language in high school.

"Are you from the Ministry of Antiquities?" I asked. These days, admitting you had old stuff from Egypt would earn you a visit from men with mirrored sungla.s.ses.

"No, Mr. O'Sullivan," he chuckled in surprise. "My relations.h.i.+p with them is rather strained. In any case, I doubt they even know of the existence of the particular work I'm looking for. Nor are they likely to care, since it has nothing to do with the pharaohs. It's simply a book written in Coptic, either first or perhaps second century, and it contains a collection of recipes for cooking lamb. Might you have anything remotely resembling such a book?"

I did indeed. Privately I called it the Grimoire of the Lamb, because it was otherwise unt.i.tled. It had somehow been shelved incongruously amongst some darker works at Alexandria-including Bast's catskin collection of s.e.xercises, which I now called Nice Kitty! This was the first time anyone had ever asked about the grimoire, however. The number of people who could speak Coptic today, including myself, was probably only a few hundred. I'd kept the book as a curiosity, but this man's inquiry raised a whole new line of questioning.

"I might," I said, and fished for more information. "Can you give me any more clues about what this might look like?"

"I have never seen it or read any descriptions of its physical appearance. But it was thought to have been in the Library of Alexandria at one time."

Affecting my best clueless-American tone, I said, "Didn't that burn down?"

"Yes, but the book I seek was removed prior to that."

"It's pretty old, then. Papyrus or parchment?"

"Parchment of unusual quality." He'd nailed it. What was his source?

"It's probably severely degraded by now; might be unreadable. Would that be a deal-breaker for you?"

"No, not at all, sir," he said.

I walked out from behind the tea station to the rare-book case on the north wall of my shop; the sale of something like this could ensure a profit for the year and maybe the next one as well, recession or no. Not that I couldn't afford to take a loss. The sale of rare books and antiquities was just one of many get-rich-slow schemes I'd come up with throughout my very long life. The slow part was living until pop culture aged long enough to take on the l.u.s.ter of dignity and the physical product deteriorated to the point where it could whisper of a halcyon epoch before the buyer's time.

My rare books were heavily secured for both the mundane and the magical world. I didn't need to unlock the bindings and disable the wards just to check on the grimoire-I could look through the bulletproof gla.s.s. It was still there, sitting amongst my Egyptian goodies.

"All right, I have it. Thirteen recipes for lamb."

"Excellent!" The excitement in his voice carried across the Atlantic very well. "How much? I can wire you the money immediately."

"No, you'll need to purchase it in person."

A pause on the other end of the line. "Can you not s.h.i.+p internationally?"

"I can, but I won't. This is a magical text. I don't trust them to the mail."

"Magical? It is an ancient cookbook."

I couldn't believe he was trying to play dumb now. I had that market cornered. "Mr. Elkhashab. Where did you hear of this book and where did you hear that I might have it?"

"Your store is world famous for antiquities," he said, not answering either question. "I'm simply contacting as many rare-book dealers as I can." I gave up trying to be patient. Normal customers don't look for ancient Coptic texts that should have been burned long ago.

"Please do not insult my intelligence. Earlier you said you had heard that I might have it. So you were either lying then or you are lying now. I do not need to sell this book, Mr. Elkhashab. I am quite content to keep it, because I think we both know it is the only copy in existence. If you wish to purchase it, you will need to make a trip to the United States and negotiate with me in person. I will not deal with representatives, lawyers, or even familiars."

He didn't splutter or feign ignorance of familiars. He merely said in a stiff voice, "It will take me some time to get there."

"I'll be here," I said, and then added, "Most likely," since I didn't know what kind of time he was talking about.

"Then I will see you soon," he said, and hung up. I promptly forgot about him and prepared a blend of Creativi-Tea, since I had some fantasy role-players coming in for their weekly dungeon crawl, and the DM always wanted a little something extra to keep him on top of his players. It was similar to Mental Acui-Tea, which was my most popular blend around midterms and finals. During those weeks, students from Arizona State would file into Third Eye Books and Herbs and buy plenty of sachets to get them through the week-their rationale being that one week of real studying would make up for a semester spent staring at the bottom of a red plastic kegger cup instead of their books. Word of my "sick tea"-where sick had somehow been transmogrified into a positive adjective rather than an indicator of disease-had spread throughout the Greek societies after it helped one frat member pa.s.s his finals. This testimonial, along with some others, had given my shop the nickname of "Sick Hippie's" amongst the wasted dude crowd, as in, "Bro, I need to pa.s.s or I'll be cut off from my trust fundage. Let's go get some tea at Sick Hippie's."

For the record: I am not a hippie. But I guess in today's world a knowledge of herbs and a counterculture vibe was enough to earn me the label.

I happily lost myself in the daily needs of the shop and thought nothing more of the Egyptian, until he walked in a week later.

When he crossed my threshold, I knew immediately, because the wards on my shop warned me that a magic user had entered my personal s.p.a.ce. That's about all they did, though; I hadn't set up anything to shut down Egyptian magic systems-the odds of having to deal with that in Arizona were pretty slim.

He was a middle-aged man with a lengthy but well-groomed beard; it was forked and fell below his sternum. He had wrapped the "tines" of the fork in strips of leather, allowing a puff of hair to explode out the ends. An unabashed unibrow protected deep-set eyes, which flicked about nervously. His hair was hidden underneath a rounded white brimless hat halfway between a skull cap and a fez, the sort commonly seen in North Africa. His kaftan and pants were similarly white, though the kaftan was embroidered with gold thread around the neck and the b.u.t.tons in the center, and also around the edges of his sleeves. It was a look, in other words, that suggested he was a devout Muslim. I suspected that was a convenient disguise for him, though, or he wouldn't be tripping my alarms as a magic user.

After a quick scan of the shop, during which he determined that I was the only employee currently working, he looked disappointed and approached me at the tea station. "Pardon me," he said in his accented English. "But I am looking for Mr. O'Sullivan."

"That's me." A twitch of the unibrow indicated his surprise. I look like I'm twenty-one and far too young to be an expert on anything, much less rare books. But he recovered quickly.

"Excellent! I am Nkosi Elkhashab. We spoke on the phone about the Coptic book full of lamb recipes."

"Ah, yes, I remember," I said. "I a.s.sume you wish to see it."

"Yes. If it is indeed the book I seek, I hope we can come to some profitable agreement." He was all smiles and charm.

"I'll be happy to show it to you," I said, "but after lunch." His face fell. "The book is not currently on-site," I lied, "but in a secure location. If you come back this afternoon, I will have it ready. Enjoy Tempe, in the meantime. Mill Avenue has many diverting places to shop and eat."

The unibrow dipped in the middle, signaling his displeasure, but it smoothed out as he realized that anger would do him no good under the circ.u.mstances.

He nodded curtly and said, "Until this afternoon, then."

I nodded back. "See you." I watched him leave and then picked up the phone to call one of my attorneys, Hal Hauk. As a lawyer, he had his hands in more than a few kinds of pies. As a werewolf, he had his paws in some additional pies made with supernatural ingredients. Some of them were shady. Seedy, even.

"Hey, Hal. It's Atticus. Need everything you can dig up on a character calling himself Nkosi Elkhashab out of Egypt.... As soon as possible.... Yep."

Hal would hire a private investigator and they'd do what they could from this end, then they'd hire someone in Cairo to find out more. In the meantime, I had my own methods of finding out the truth, and that's why I needed some time before I sat the grimoire down in front of this guy. He couldn't be simply a gourmet out to find a gastronomic miracle. Modern recipes for lamb have come a long way. Look at what those guys on the cooking shows can do with mint jellies and mango chutneys.

I closed up the shop a few minutes before noon and hopped on my bicycle for the short ride home to the Mitch.e.l.l Park neighborhood. I waved at the widow MacDonagh as I pa.s.sed; she was cradling a gla.s.s of Tullamore Dew and serenely perusing the pages of a gory British crime novel. She was a sweet lady from the old country for whom I occasionally did some yard work, and who always enjoyed hara.s.sing me.

"Ye should wear a helmet or some knee pads, ye know," she called from the porch. "It's dangerous to be that s.e.xy 'round here, heh heh."

At home, a couple of barks came from indoors: my Irish wolfhound announced that he was guarding the place before he realized it was me. Through the special binding I'd created between us years ago, I heard his thoughts in my head:

Sorry, Oberon, they're not going to get stoned on your tuna breath.

Sure. I opened three cans of tuna-two for Oberon and one for me-and mixed up a quick salad with some celery, chives, chopped grapes, and mayo. I slapped this mixture between fresh bread with some romaine lettuce and called it lunch. I took it with me into the garage, where I had a large iron trunk bound shut in several ways. Only one of them was a traditional, mundane padlock. It took me about ten minutes to unbind everything, but once the lid was free to lift up on its hinges, I extracted a scabbard with a very special sword inside.

It was Fragarach-absolutely no relation to Fraggle Rock-an ancient Fae sword that I had come by about as honestly as I'd come by the Grimoire of the Lamb. Since there were a couple of Irish G.o.ds who'd dearly like to have it back, I tended to s.h.i.+eld it in iron from divination and not play with it too much. For this occasion, it was worth the risk of revealing my hiding place. Fragarach's name in Irish means the Answerer, due to an enchantment on it that forces targeted dastardly types to answer questions truthfully. It would help me solve a mystery that had perplexed me for centuries.

I had the grimoire waiting on the counter for Mr. Elkhashab when he returned to the store. While the light of avarice blazed in his eyes as he flipped greedily through the pages "for appraisal," I brought out Fragrach from under the counter and spoke the words that would ensnare him.

"Freagroidh tu," I said, and the Egyptian wizard was abruptly caught in a hazy blue aura that would not let him move or speak untruths in answer to my questions.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Nkosi Elkhashab." So he hadn't been lying about that.

"What is your quest?"

"To find the lost book of Amun."

I would ask him more about that in a moment, but I couldn't resist completing the Monty Python line first: "What ... is your favorite color?"

"Red."

"Why do you wish to find this lost book?"

"The thirteen spells will restore Egypt to its rightful place as supreme among the world."

So it wasn't an ordinary cookbook after all. "You told me they were lamb recipes before. What are they really?"

"They are recipes to alter fate. Six recipes alter your destiny in different ways; seven alter the destinies of your enemies."

"Let me guess. The thirteenth recipe slays your enemy."

"Correct."

Well, I no longer had to wonder why this book was in the restricted section. "Why do all the recipes involve lamb?"

"None of them involve lamb."

That slowed me down. "Lamb is listed as the first ingredient in every recipe."

"No. The lamb is supposed to be sacrificed to Amun before you begin the recipe."

G.o.ds below! Blood sacrifice to kill your enemies or make yourself rich or whatever definitely cla.s.sified the grimoire as a book from the dark side. And this guy couldn't wait to get his hands on it.

"Where did you hear about this book?" I asked him.

"I used to work in the Ministry of Antiquities. We discovered some records at the Alexandria site some years ago, and I came across a reference to the work there. It made clear that the book had been removed before Aurelian. Its existence was confirmed in other work I recently discovered."

"How did you find out about the sacrificing of the lambs and everything?"

"It is described in the writings of Nebwenenef, Egypt's greatest sorcerer. He is the author of this grimoire."

I blinked, then swallowed. In the origin story of Druids that every archdruid taught his apprentices, Nebwenenef was the name of the sorcerer who'd killed the Saharan elemental five thousand years ago. But the grimoire was a first- or second-century work. How did he write it if he'd already been dead for three thousand years? "Where did you find these writings?"

"Underneath my home."

"It was buried?"

"Yes."

"Who else has seen these writings?"

"No one."

That was a small blessing, at least. "Do you know who I am?" I asked. This was a rather important question and not intended as a threat to him in any way. If he knew too much, I'd have to leave the area.

"You are Atticus O'Sullivan, rare-book dealer."

"That's all you know about me?"

"You clearly have some magical talent. I am not sure how much or of what kind."

Maybe not all was lost, then.

"How did you discover I might have a copy of this book?"

"I summoned an imp of the Fourth Circle of h.e.l.l. He told me."

Well, that would do it. And it also meant I was probably still safe here; the imp would have already traveled back to h.e.l.l without telling anybody else where or who I was, or this guy wouldn't be standing in front of me now. "So you dabble in all sorts of black magic, not simply the Egyptian sort?"

"Yes."

"And the imp told you what about me, exactly?"

"He said you possessed the lost book of Amun and thought it was a cookbook. He said your magic was probably earth-based."

Clever imp, leaving out the fact that I was a Druid. "What else did the imp say?"

"He said you have excellent defenses but cast few offensive spells, if any."

That was true enough. When I wished to give offense, I usually gave it with the blade of Fragarach.