On his way into the bullpen, Nick caught up with Deputy Wu.
"All quiet on the home front?" he asked, fearing the worst.
"About as quiet as usual," Wu answered. "Say, Chief was asking if you and Hank have made any progress on the attack of the brain-eating worms."
Nick snorted, "Thanks for making it sound like a cheap horror movie!"
Wu shrugged, "Just trying to keep things real around here, y'know?"
Nick shook his head; things were a lot easier when he had a group, or even a renown Wesen to deal with; this time, not even the victims were Wesen, and no one had ever seen the culprit.
"We have a few leads," he told Wu, "but we're still trying to figure out how it all fits together. Once we get a pattern, we can figure out an MO and start compiling a list of suspects."
"Yeesh," Wu muttered, "tough break."
Nick plopped down at his desk, "Tell me about it," he moaned.
Hank approached with a coffee in each hand. He offered one to Nick.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Hank asked.
Nick shook his head. "Hardly; you?"
"Not a wink; I made the mistake of stopping by that Wesen comic book store you mentioned, just for a look at what we're dealing with." He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "Man, that thing is freaky! I kept seeing it every time I closed my eyes."
"I just can't figure out how it happens!" Nick cried. "We have a bookstore that seems to be ground zero, but both the owners are Genio Innocuo."
"And yet there have been no further cases since you asked them to close their doors," Hank pointed out.
"So the Kinderphantasie has to be connected there somehow," Nick proposed, "but how? I know for sure it isn't Steve, and he claimed that he hadn't seen a Kinderphantasie there; but sometimes Mariana is the only one in the shop. Maybe the Kinderphantasie visits and infects books when she is the only one there."
Hank pondered this. "That would explain why Steve is not infected," he noted, "since all the Kindly-monster would have to do is make sure the infected books are sold before Steve gets back."
Nick actually perked up at this. "Hank, that's the best theory I've heard all week. Let's check financials for New Renaissance and see if there are any fluctuations in book sales, particularly on the days we know that our victims were there." He opened a new window on the computer and began requesting bank files.
A while later, Nick closed the last file and shook his head.
"Well, that was a bust!" he grumbled.
The sales reports of the days they were looking for appeared no different than the other days.
Hank had even pursued the angle that perhaps there was a specific connection to the books themselves. Each book they had discovered with the victims so far had been of the Gothic genre: Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving were all Gothic authors. After the first few calls to other customers who had bought the same kinds of books (and, in the case of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, the same books), Hank had to conclude that this was a faulty lead as well.
Nick began pacing the floor. "There is no pattern in the kind of book, which book, the locations of the victims... nothing!"
Just then, his cellphone rang. Nick picked it up. "Burkhart."
"Hey Nick," Monroe greeted him, "have you found any good clues yet?"
"Not really," Nick admitted.
"Well," the Blutbad chuckled, "I might have something. You've heard of the Arabian Nights, haven't you?"
"Arabian Nights?" Nick echoed for Hank's benefit. "Yeah—wait, don't tell me Scheherazade was one!"
"Apparently so."
"But wasn't her objective not to get killed?"
"Or maybe it was control over the Sultan. The longer she kept telling her stories, the more the Bücherwurm could eat and eat—"
"Yeah, okay, I get the picture!" Nick was having memories of that first evening with Harper, and he didn't much appreciate it. "So Scheherazade—is this any indication of how a Kinderphantasie operates?"
"There must be one place that connects everyone, that people just keep coming back to."
"As a matter of fact," Nick admitted, "there's a bookstore on 23rd that seemed to be everyone's go-to place."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, but here's the catch: it's run by two Genio Innocuo."
"That's weird! And all the books came from there?"
"Yeah, except—" Nick checked the list. "Ah, at least one of the copies of the Poe stories came from Multnomah Library." He blinked and smacked himself on the forehead when he realized what he had just said. "A library! People have to return books as well as check them out, of course!"
"That sounds more than likely," Monroe agreed.
"Thanks, Monroe," Nick said, "I have to go return a book."
Nick was almost bursting with confidence as he pulled onto the Morrison Bridge. He'd get to the library, walk up to the front desk, and watch for any sign of a woge as he handed in one of the infected books. He glanced at it, sitting on the passenger seat in the brown envelope, so innocently. He wondered if more than one person could get a worm from reading the exact same book as a victim. Something about it made him not want to try. Something...
Nick squinted ahead. It looked like someone had pulled up onto the curb just before the Naito offramp. He pulled up behind it. The silver Buick was abandoned. Who would leave their car in the middle of a bridge? Nick looked around but saw no one. The cars continued to whiz past. He tried the doors; they were unlocked. Searching the glove compartment, he pulled out the registration.
"George Brinkley," he read, "Okay, George," Nick muttered to himself, "Where did you go?"
Nick was careful to stay on the narrow curb as he followed George's likely path down the bridge. He went twenty paces and saw a lone figure—braced outside the railing!
"George?" Nick called, running toward him. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Hank.
"Just listen," he barked, "I've got a jumper on the west side of the Morrison Bridge, just before the offramp. I need some backup now!"
As he got closer, Nick discovered that George seemed to be muttering something.
"Father...kids...no father...cast..."
"George?" he tried to soothe the agitated man, "I'm Nick Burkhart, I'm a detective and I'm here to help you." Recognition kicked in, and Nick knew that this was the same man he'd seen in New Renaissance just the day before!
"Gone! All gone—lost! Swept...flood tides...Abyss...lost shells—"
"George," Nick tried to reach for George's hand, but the man shied away and let go. He was weeping now. Nick at last heard sirens as his backup approached. "What is lost?" he asked.
George finally looked up at Nick. His eyes had that same emptiness that told Nick of the presence of a Bookworm. Slowly, George pulled his hands off the railing as Hank and Franco arrived—on the far side of the bridge.
"I'm lost!" George whispered frantically, letting go and leaning back over empty space.
"No!" Nick reached after him, but only managed to slow the man's descent. George hit the ground at the same time Franco and the cops arrived at that spot.
Franco called it in. "I need an ambulance on the Naito Parkway, northwest of the Morrison Bridge!"
Hank joined Nick as they walked together down to the parkway to control traffic and survey the scene. "So, another victim?"
Nick sighed, "Yep; only get this," he turned to face his partner. "That man," he pointed toward Brinkley, whom the police were trying to stabilize till the ambulance got there, "came into the store yesterday, and didn't buy the book."
Hank frowned. "Didn't?"
Nick shrugged, "I don't even think he cracked the spine before they refused to sell it to him."
"How do we know it's a Bookworm, then?"
"Hank," Nick huffed, "I saw it in his eyes! They were completely empty, like Joyce's had been. He's infected all right."
By now Nick and Hank had reached the group. George Brinkley was secured on the gurney, and the paramedics prepared to load him onto the ambulance.
Quickly, Nick palmed his vial of gedankewasser and popped the cork with his fingers. He surreptitiously splashed a small amount in George's right ear. Instantly, a bright foam appeared, and Nick was rewarded with the sight of a cloudy, lumpy liquid—almost like a large amount of pus—seeping from George's ear as they loaded the gurney.
Nick saw that Hank watched him the whole time.
"What's that?" Hank asked, pointing to the vial Nick slipped back into his pocket.
"A cure," Nick answered. "George is going to be fine. All the doctors will have to worry about is the injuries from his fall. Meanwhile," Nick mounted the ramp to return to his car. "I think I need to visit some old friends." He turned back to Hank, "Care to join me after you finish here?"
Hank nodded, "Will do."
Nick started the car and continued across the bridge, full of keen determination. He only hoped that his theory was correct, and he could catch the culprit in the act.