“You’re going to tell me where to find Gutenberg and what the hell you are,” I said. Ted had been terrified of this thing. Why?

His eyes glowed like coals, making the black cross of his pupils appear even darker. “You’ll find out soon enough, Porter.”

The flames started inside of him. Fury changed to pain, then fear as smoke poured from his mouth and nose. He cried out as fire consumed his body. Moments later, Smudge and I were alone, staring down at a layer of black, oily ash.

I deactivated my blade. The handle slipped from my fingers to clank against the floor. I heard Lena call my name, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t move at all.

The vampire’s final taunt had been in Middle High German.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I WAS STILL standing there, staring at the blackened mess on the floor, when Lena arrived.

“You killed him.” Disapproval sharpened her words.

“I didn’t, actually. I cut off a few limbs, but that shouldn’t have been enough to destroy him.” I knelt and touched the ash. It had a thick, crunchy texture, like something you’d clean from your oven. “He burned up from the inside. Maybe to stop me from questioning him.”

“A vampire with a self-destruct button?”

“That’s what it looked like to me. Either he killed himself, or someone else did.” I wasn’t aware of any vampires who could spontaneously combust at will. I wiped my hand on the wall. “He knew my name.”

“If he was able to read Ray’s mind—”

“He didn’t try to read mine.” I hadn’t felt any of the telltale pains like I had with Deb back at the house.

Lena gestured to the pipe, which continued to hiss and spray hot steam into the tunnel. “We should get moving before someone comes to check on that.”

I pried myself away from the remains of our one lead and followed her back down the tunnel, filling her in on the details of the fight.

“Did you learn anything that could help us?” she asked.

I thought about his final words, spoken in Gutenberg’s native tongue. “Maybe.”

Lena had found some of the missing books from the archive. I counted a total of thirty, carelessly stuffed into a pair of plastic milk crates. Given the empty shelf I had seen, there should have been at least fifty.

Each of us picked up a crate. “If I can get onto the Porter database, I should be able to pull a list of which titles were shelved where and figure out what else he took.”

“What about the tunnel to the library?” Lena asked.