“If you remember,” Jane said, defensive, “Director Wesker saved us from the Sectarians. He’s the one who clocked Faisal Bane when we were cornered in my old office . . . with your own bat even.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m just going to blindly trust him.”

“And I’m not either,” Jane said, getting angry now. “But I do work for the man, and I have to take how he treats me at face value. So far he’s been nothing but kind, which is more than I can say about you lately.”

I felt slapped in the face by that. “Meaning what?”

“How’s Mina?” Jane asked with acid in her voice, and there we had it.

Now I felt slammed in the stomach, feeling shady once again for having to even deal with Mina. I wasn’t cheating on Jane with her, I reminded myself, but I still felt shady hiding our criminal past together.

“You said you were okay with her staying for a few days,” I said.

“Well, thanks to you getting all suspicious about me, I just became un-okay with Mina staying in your apartment,” Jane said. She stormed past me toward the gates. “I’ll be up at the front of the store. Try not to agitate the books, will you?”

“Wait,” I said. “How am I going to find what I need?”

“Find it yourself,” she said, and I watched as she walked out the gates toward the registers.

Maybe it had been a blessing when my powers used to be out of control. Sure, I couldn’t really stay with a woman too long because of my inability to harness my psychometry, but at least it kept me from having to deal with these petty jealousy issues that came with a long-term relationship. It was enough to drive me mad, but I pushed it from my mind as best I could.

I turned my attention to the Black Stacks and started walking up and down the aisles, gloves on and careful not to touch any of the books that might take offense. I didn’t want a repeat of the time Connor had had to rescue me from a rampaging shelving unit.

I needed something that might give me more information on Cleopatra’s Needle and what arcane purpose it served. After a few minutes of pacing the aisles, I found a stretch of books that was a section on local historical phenomena, and I perused the titles until I came across one that looked the most promising: The Rough Guide to Supernatural New York City.

I reached for it, then stopped myself before actually coming in contact with it. I looked up at the bookcase it sat in.

“Umm, hello,” I said, feeling somewhat foolish. “I don’t know if you’re friends with that other bookcase that had a gripe with me that other time I was here, but I was hoping to take one of the books off your shelves.”

The bookcase, as I expected, didn’t react.

“Okay,” I said. I raised my hand to the book. “Well, I promise I’ll read it right here and then return it in the same condition. No harm done. No need to attack me or anything like that.”

Still no reaction. With one hand I reached for the book and with the other, I thumbed off the leather safety strap on my bat holster. I grabbed the book and pulled it slowly from the shelf, ready to put it back at the slightest hint of movement on the part of the bookshelf.

I let out a sigh of relief when nothing happened.

“Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this particular bookcase was even like the other, more homicidal one, but it didn’t hurt to be polite anyway.

I sat down on the floor just as Jane had, put the book on my lap, and flipped it open.

Only to have it slam shut on both my hands. Well, it wasn’t a slamming shut so much as it was a biting down. With teeth. Hard. I let out a scream of pain and instantly reached for my bat, pulling it out by using the open palms of both hands. I had to push the button to telescope it out against my knee, but I was still screwed. In order to use the bat against the book, I needed to have one hand free to swipe at it. The pain in my fingers grew stronger, even through the gloves, but luckily there didn’t seem to be any blood seeping through the gloves.

I dropped the bat and started slamming the book against the floor. It didn’t release, but it did increase its pressure on my hands. My fingers were screaming with pain now. Movement at the end of the aisle struck panic into my heart. I prayed it wasn’t another bookcase coming to kill me. I looked up and saw Director Wesker running down the aisle toward me. It wasn’t a vision that inspired much relief.

He shouted something I stood no chance of understanding, and instantly the book let go and fell to the floor, harmless.

I flexed my hands, checking my purple little fingers for any breaks in the skin. Luckily there were none, but both hands now felt like they were asleep with pins and needles.

“What the hell was that?” I said, hissing with pain.

“That,” Wesker said with disdain in his voice, “would be just another reason green agents should never be left alone in the Black Stacks.”

“You left Jane back here,” I reminded him.

“While she may be new,” he said, “she’s a quick study, unlike some people. Besides, I wasn’t very far away. I would never leave her unattended back here.”

“I bet you wouldn’t.”

“Do I detect something accusatory in your voice, Agent Canderous?” he said. “If so, let’s hear it.”

“Funny,” I said, “I don’t hear you laughing it up and having a grand old time when it’s just you and me back here in the Stacks.”

“That’s because Jane doesn’t do ridiculous, dangerous things,” he said. He bent over and picked up the book, closing it and placing it back on the shelf. He pointed to the title on the spine on the book. “It’s called a ‘Rough Guide’ for a reason, nitwit.”

I left Tome, Sweet Tome in a state of complete frustration, without even saying good-bye to Jane. Empty-handed, I stormed out of the bookstore past her and headed back downtown to the Department. I had another option for answers. I’d seen him sitting in the Lovecraft Café a few hours ago.

Godfrey Candella was exactly where I had left him, with his head down in one of his notebooks, scribbling away.

“Busy day?” I asked. Godfrey finished the line he was writing before he looked up.

“Actually,” he said, pushing his horn-rims back into place on the bridge of his nose. “It’s a slow business day. I’m catching up on my records for the Gauntlet.”

“Slow day, huh? I wish someone had told me,” I said, and recounted the story of the dead jogger we’d found in the park as well as our failed chase after his ghost. When I was done, I pulled out the printouts of Cleopatra’s Needle and showed them to Godfrey. He looked through them carefully.

“We should bring these down to the Gauntlet,” he said, standing up. I didn’t move. “Have you ever been?”

I shook my head.

“Come with me,” he said. We headed back through the movie theater and straight to the D.E.A. offices. Past the cubicles and beyond the red velvet curtain that separated the front office from the back, he led me down a set of stairs that I had never noticed before. They went down forever and my knees actually started to hurt from the walk. At the bottom was an office door much older than the ones I was used to upstairs. Godfrey swiped a different colored keycard than the one I had against an electronic plate and the heavy door swung open. Immediately, a wave of musty air hit my face and I coughed.

“It’s a little bit stuffy down here,” he said, giving a small cough of his own, “but you get used to it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, but followed him anyway . . . down more stairs. These were far older than anything in the building above and were actually carved into the very rock itself. “We’re off the grid, aren’t we?”

Godfrey gave a little laugh. “Yes, I suppose so. The Gauntlet predates the construction of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs by a few hundred years or so.” He pointed up at a line of cables hanging from hooks along the chiseled ceiling. “We’ve slowly been bringing computers into the picture and backup systems for archiving purposes, but it will take years to deal with all the historical data. The team and I are up to the year 1820 right now. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin was a necromancer?”