The Unicorn lapped at the half-shattered walls, leaving long yellow hairs of the Lane moss in its wake. They glistened on the exposed metal framework of the magic-ravaged houses, feeding on iron and oozing corrosive slime, heralding the advance of the Unicorn. The Temple sat at the very end of the street running right next to the Unicorn, and the rabbis had warded it to allow safe access to the synagogue. Lampposts guarded the street, each decorated with mezuzot, small pewter cases engraved with the letter shin. Each mezuzah contained a parchment inscribed with holy verses from the Torah. The city council had been trying to contain Unicorn Lane for decades. It kept growing, expanding like a cancer, despite everything the city had thrown at it. Yet here, the rabbis quietly held it back without any fanfare or napalm.
“Who was this Elijah?” Curran asked.
“He was a small-time bricklayer down in Florida. He was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, so he did whatever came his way: fixed cars, performed small repairs, but mostly built houses. Something must’ve happened to him because he had a wife and a son at some point and was doing enough business to pay the bills, and then suddenly he just started drinking. And not just drinking, he drank himself into a stupor. Eventually his wife left him.”
“Great story,” Curran said.
“It gets better. Every weekend Elijah would take his paycheck, go down to the local pub, and do his best to drink himself to death. When he got drunk enough, he started raving. Sometimes he’d be spitting chunks of the Bible, word for word; sometimes he told these weird fables; sometimes it wasn’t even English. People pretty much dismissed him as a complete lunatic. One night a rabbi happened to be in a pub. He heard Elijah carry on and realized that he was listening to a section from Sefer ha-Kabod. It’s a twelfth-century text written by Eleazar of Worms, one of the most important Hebrew cabalists. Elijah was functionally illiterate. He could barely write his own name.”
Curran nodded. “It’s like a kid in kindergarten suddenly spouting the Iliad in ancient Greek.”
“Pretty much. So the rabbi stayed in town for a week and paid Elijah to ramble on, while he recorded him. At the end of the week, Elijah finished his last tirade and died.”
“From what?”
“Organ failure. He stopped breathing. There are about eighteen hours of tapes. Some of it was pure nonsense, and some of it was prophetic. In the recordings, there are about two hours of fables. Every fable is about Roland.”
Curran glanced at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you own a copy of this book?”
“That’s the best part of the story. You can’t transcribe the tapes. Every time you do it, the next magic wave wipes them out. People have tried to write them down and put them in lead boxes, even. Doesn’t work. Magic hits, the words disappear. Even copying the tapes doesn’t work every time. The Temple is the largest synagogue in the Southeast. If they don’t have a copy of the tapes, someone there must’ve heard them played.”
Curran peered through the windshield. “What the hell is that?”
I glanced straight ahead. A massive clay golem blocked the road. The top half of the golem was sculpted into a muscular human body, topped by the face of a male with a long beard. The bottom half was an enormous ram, complete with four hoofed feet and a tail. The golem brandished a tall metal spear. It looked frozen in midstep, the left foot raised off the ground, the spear swinging as if the golem had been making a turn.
“It’s one of the Temple’s guards. Please don’t knock it over. I’m on thin ice with the Temple as it is.”
Curran braked. The vehicle rolled to a slow stop. The golem didn’t move. The magic was down. Without it, the Temple protector was just a clay statue.
Curran shrugged. “I guess from here we go on foot.”
The Temple sat at the very end of the road, a solid red brick structure with a white colonnade, flanked by some utility buildings and a wall decorated with enough names of angels and magic symbols to make you dizzy. We crossed the yard and walked up the white stair to the reception area. The woman behind the receptionist’s desk saw me and paled. The mirror behind her offered me our reflection: we were both smeared with blood and dirt. A big red stain marked Curran’s sweatshirt over his chest—he had taken a bullet just under the clavicle. Lyc-V would heal the damage, but I’d had to pull the bullet out and the wound had bled after he put the sweatshirt on. My pale green turtleneck was splattered with something that looked suspiciously like someone’s brains, and a big print of a bloody hand marked my stomach, where someone’s fingers had clearly dragged over the fabric.
“The Beast Lord and Consort, to see Rabbi Peter,” Curran said.
The woman blinked a couple of times. “Will you wait?”
“Sure.”
Curran and I sat in the chairs. The receptionist spoke in a hushed voice into the phone and hung up.
Curran leaned to me. “You think she’s calling the cops?”
“I would.”
“Just letting you know, I’m not in the mood to be arrested and if they try it, they won’t like it.”
Why me?
I picked up a copy of a cookbook from the side table and flipped through it. Chocolate rugelach. Hmmm. Chocolate, sugar, almonds . . . Curran might like those.
“We sell those,” the receptionist said, her voice hesitant. “They are recipes from the congregation. Would you like to buy a copy?”
I looked at Curran. “Do you have any money?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. “How much are those?”
“Ten dollars.”
Curran flipped through the bills.
I leaned to him and whispered, “What are you doing?”
“Looking for one that’s not bloodstained. Here.” He pulled a ten-dollar bill out.
I offered it to the receptionist. She took the money carefully, as if it were hot, and gave me a small smile. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for the book.”
Curran glanced toward the hallway. Someone was coming. A moment later I heard it too, a quick patter of feet. Rabbi Peter emerged into the lobby. Tall and thin, with a receding hairline, a short, neatly trimmed beard, and wearing large glasses, Rabbi Peter should’ve looked like a college professor. But there was something in his eyes; they brimmed with curiosity and excitement, and instead of an aging academic, Rabbi Peter resembled an eager young student.
He saw us and paused.
We stood up.
Rabbi Peter cleared his throat. “Um . . . welcome! Welcome, of course, what can I do for, eh, you, Kate, and, eh . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know how I am supposed to address you.”
Curran’s eyes sparked. If he told the rabbi to call him Your Majesty, we could kiss cooperation with the Temple good-bye.
Curran opened his mouth.
I elbowed him in the side.
“Curran,” he said, exhaling. “Curran will do.”
“Wonderful.” The rabbi offered him his hand. Curran shook it, and then I did. “So what may I do for you?”
“Are you familiar with Elijah the Unbeliever?” I asked.
“Of course. Here, why don’t we go into my office. We’ll be much more comfortable there.”
We followed the rabbi down the hallway. Curran rubbed his side and gave me an evil look. I mouthed “Behave” at him. He rolled his eyes.
The rabbi led us into an office. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, bordering the single large window so tightly that it looked cut out of the thickness of books.
“Please sit down.” The rabbi took a seat behind his desk.
We landed in the two available chairs.
“Would you like anything, tea, water?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Coffee, black if you got it,” Curran said.
“Aha! I can do that.” The rabbi rose and took out two cups and a thermos from a cabinet. He unscrewed the cap, poured black brew into the cups, and offered one to Curran.