Autumn Bones

Twenty-eight

At the beginning of the following week, Lee finally unveiled his database to me. Not only that, but he actually suppressed his paranoia and made the bold move of divulging his address and inviting me to his house. I’d half expected to find that he was living in his mother’s basement after all, but in fact he’d purchased a place of his own, a newish construction nestled in the woods across from the river on the west side of town.

There were a few items of geek-chic memorabilia on display, like a detailed replica of the Enterprise from Star Trek and a life-size copy of a British police box, which I knew just enough to identify as the TARDIS from Doctor Who, but not as many as I would have guessed, and he had a surprising number of pieces of Native American art from the Pacific Northwest, which fit well in the woodsy environs. I guess he’d become a bit of a collector in Seattle. Six years was a fair amount of time; Lee had probably developed facets I had yet to discover.

As for the database? It was awesome.

It didn’t look like a database. It looked like the interface for a video game, with extensive, colorful graphics and a Norse rune–inspired font that managed to be at once decorative and easy to read.

At the top of the page, there was an ornate scroll bearing the words The Pemkowet Ledger. Beneath it were avatars for every category of eldritch being, with fields to enter proper names, dates, location, description, strengths, weaknesses, transgressions, favors. There was an interactive map with links to the pinpointed entries. There was a calendar that automatically logged documented incidents in the past by date, as well as providing the ability to enter projected incidents in the future—like, say, the next satyr rutting cycle—complete with alerts to be sent via pop-up, e-mail, and text.

Using the phooka incident as an example, Lee showed me how it all worked. “See here, if someone was missing in the Columbine Creek area”—he hovered over that section of the map with his cursor—“it pops up. Or if you thought maybe there was something significant about the date, and you wanted to refer to previous years . . .” He clicked on the calendar, flipping backward through the months. “You can search by date or you can check it out this way, which is more visual. I thought that might be useful when looking for patterns.”

“Totally,” I said. “Did you program full-moon cycles into it?”

Lee shot me an offended look. “Of course. Now, if you know what you’re looking for, you can go directly to that entry.” He brought up the phooka’s listing. “Otherwise, you can search by keyword.” He clicked on a search box. “Abduction, missing person, victim’s name—anything you can think of. Everything’s linked and cross-referenced.”

“It’s amazing,” I said sincerely.

“Thank you.” He appeared mollified. “Up here, see where it says vault and penalty box?” He clicked on PENALTY BOX, where a red X appeared next to a link to the phooka’s entry. “Those aggregate entries from the favors and transgressions fields. So if you need to call in a favor in a hurry, maybe see at a glance who’s on the black list or who you’re in debt to, you can.”

“I would never even have thought of that,” I admitted. “Damn, Lee! You really are a genius.”

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled, getting up from his chair. “Go ahead, log in to the admin panel and take it for a test-drive.”

I spent half an hour playing with the database. It felt more like ten minutes. It was just so easy—easy to navigate, easy to enter data, easy to search. And frankly, the graphic element made it fun.

“You’ve got it, Daisy,” Lee said, returning from his kitchen to peer over my shoulder. “I did my best to make it idiot-proof.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No offense.” He proffered a bottle of what looked like iced tea, keeping another for himself. “Kombucha?”

“Sure.” I accepted it, twisted off the cap, and took a sip. I wasn’t about to tell him I had no idea what kombucha was. It must have been something else Lee got into in Seattle, since it hadn’t made inroads into southwestern Michigan yet. In case you’re wondering, it’s basically tea, only it’s fermented with a mass of yeast and bacteria. I looked it up later. For the record, it tastes like a lot like iced tea, only sort of fizzy and tart, and I’m glad I didn’t know more at the time. “So, hey! How come other developers don’t make software that looks this cool?”

Lee shrugged. “It’s not cost-effective in terms of R and D, not to mention the amount of memory and bandwidth it takes to run. But since that wasn’t really an issue, I approached this like I was designing a game. Database programmers usually don’t think like artists or storytellers. That’s the beauty of video games. They combine the best of all those elements.”

“Did you design the graphics yourself?” I asked him.

“No.” He took a swig of kombucha. “I used an illustrator I’ve worked with before. I didn’t tell him anything about the project,” he added. “I just sent him the specs. But if you need additional graphics, just let me know.”

“I will.” It occurred to me that between the designing and the outsourcing and the hosting, Lee really had invested a lot in this project. “You really went above and beyond, Lee. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, I promised,” he said. “And you delivered.”

“Just don’t ask again,” I said. “That’s not a favor I can grant twice. Hel’s tolerance only goes so far.”

Lee nodded. “Oh, believe me, I won’t. But . . .” Looking down, he fiddled with his bottle of kombucha. “There might be other ways I could help you, Daisy.”

“Oh, yeah?” I was skeptical but curious. “Like what? No offense.”

Lifting his head, he gave me a wry smile. “Fair enough. Can I show you something?”

“Sure.”

“Back in a sec.” Lee bounded out of the room on gangly limbs, returning a few minutes later wrapped in his black leather duster.

I did my best to raise one eyebrow at him, settled for two. “I thought we talked about this, Lee.”

“I know, I know. But there’s a reason for it this time.” Undoing the buttons, he opened his duster like a flasher to reveal a square white box strapped to his chest, then thumbed a switch on his belt. “Check it out.”

A blast of intensive white light blazed forth from the box, bright enough that I shielded my eyes involuntarily. “Gah!”

“It’s full-spectrum lighting!” Lee shouted, as though he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the light. Which didn’t make sense, but I totally got where he was coming from. “The kind therapists recommend for people with seasonal depression!” He switched it off. “Artificial sunlight, Daisy. Think about it! It’s a great weapon to use against vampires.”

Damn, that really was kind of brilliant. I couldn’t believe no one had thought of it before. Or maybe they had, but if so, I’d never heard about it. Or it didn’t work, which was also a distinct possibility.

“Have you field-tested it?” I asked Lee.

“Are you kidding?” He shot me an incredulous glance. “By myself? Hell, no. I thought maybe you could use it.”

I thought about it and shook my head. “I’m pretty sure that would be a violation of protocol.”

Lee looked confused. “What protocol?”

“Yeah, exactly.” I took a deep breath, exhaled. “See . . . it’s hard to explain, but there’s a set of understood rules that apply to the eldritch community. None of them are clear and some of them are arbitrary. It’s . . . complicated. But honoring them is part of maintaining Hel’s order, as is weighing them against what mundane law dictates. The House of Shadows is a sort of sovereign territory. Going in there armed with dauda-dagr means taking a firm stance in my role as Hel’s liaison. But if I were to go in armed with artificial sunlight . . .” I shook my head again. “That’s like a declaration of war. And there’s no war, Lee. All of us here in Pemkowet are doing our best to maintain a peaceful coexistence. And I’m doing my best to facilitate it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s still a great idea,” I said.

“Well, what about me?” he asked. “What if I wore it out on patrol with you sometime? I could be your backup. Would that be a violation of protocol?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress an involuntary smile. “Lee, I don’t want to imply that you watch too much TV, because that would totally be a pot-kettle situation, but I don’t patrol the town. That’s what the active-duty police officers do. I only get involved if there’s a reason for it.”

“Okay, now I feel like an idiot.” Lee slipped out of his duster, revealing the harness and battery pack that held the light box in place. “It’s just . . . growing up in Pemkowet, surrounded by the eldritch community, it’s like I’ve always been in it, but not entirely of it.” He unsnapped the buckle on the harness. “It’s always there, but you only ever catch sight of it in glimpses, out of the corner of your eye.”

“Hello?” I turned my hands palm up. “You went to high school with me.”

“Yeah, but you don’t count.” He backtracked. “I don’t mean that, I mean . . . you only ever showed your human side. Ahh . . . mostly. At least I had the impression that’s what you tried really hard to do.”

I shrugged. “It’s safer that way.”

Lee nodded. “Okay. All I’m saying is that since the other night when you took me to Little Niflheim, since I saw Hel herself, I feel like I’m of that world. And I like it. I don’t want to lose that feeling. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on your parade.”

“That’s okay.” He gave me another of those wry, genuine smiles. “I got a little carried away. So no patrolling the local graveyards, huh?”

“Nope.” I smiled back at him. “Most of what I have to deal with is capricious, chaotic, and unpredictable, although I’m hoping the database will help. When it comes to vampires, Lady Eris actually keeps her brood on a pretty tight leash. There hasn’t been a rogue vamp since years before I became Hel’s liaison. There was, um, a little misunderstanding out at the House of Shadows last week, but it’s been resolved. I don’t expect to be going back out there for a good long time.”

We talked for a while longer. Lee reminded me not to use free Wi-Fi to access the database, and I assured him that the guys from Comcast had gotten me hooked up with my very own Internet service two days ago. He offered to stop by and check it out just to make sure everything was secure, which I chalked up to his paranoid streak, but accepted anyway.

I thanked him again and left. Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to doing database entry. I’d probably change my tune after the first few hours, but at least Lee had managed to make the prospect of it fun, and the idea of having my very own digital ledger was empowering.

Unfortunately, that part where I’d said I didn’t expect to be going back to the House of Shadows for a good long time?

Turns out I was dead wrong.