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“I didn’t expect to see you over here,” Ray says.

“It was the kitchen. All white bread and American cheese. These fuckers can do magic, but they’re afraid of spices,” says Carlos.

Since Vidocq took over the apartment, it’s always been full of moldering books and pamphlets, weird alchemical lab equipment, and cases full of potions and elixirs. Now that Allegra is gone, his tools have completely taken over the place. There’s hardly a table or countertop that isn’t stacked with books or stained by his noxious brews. The life of a bachelor alchemist, I guess.

Howard immediately heads for Vidocq’s books.

“Keep an eye on that guy,” I tell him. “He’s a necromancer, a liar, and a book burner.”

“Thank you. I will.”

On his way to intercept Howard, Vidocq runs right into Allegra. They back away, a little shy and awkward. I get the feeling that this is the first time she’s been to the apartment since she moved out.

“Pardonne,” he says.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s nice to see you. You’re looking well.”

“You too.”

Fuck me. In a minute they’re going to start talking about how nice the weather is. Almost every relationship in this room is broken or bruised in some way. Carlos and Ray are the only happy people, and they’re only here because I roped them into something I shouldn’t have.

When I look back at Allegra and Vidocq, she’s going over to check on Candy and he’s heading for Howard. Teen angst crisis averted.

Ray calls me to a side table. He’s leaning over an old book the size of a goddamn washing machine. On the page the book is open to is an enormous gruesomely detailed image of a flayed man. Someone has scribbled notes in Latin all over the page. I can’t read a word of it.

“You’re going to need a new coloring book. Someone finished this one.”

Ray flips the page and runs his fingers down a crowded panel of what looks like Cyrillic text.

“People call this the Flayed Man Codex. Sometimes the Flayed Bible,” he says. “It’s an amazing repository of ancient dark magic.”

“You think there’s something in there that can help me?”

“I don’t know. It’s a mix of languages. Between Vidocq and me we can read the French, Latin, and most of the German, but this section on death magic seems to be in Russian. We’re stuck.”

I look around the room and spot her.

“Brigitte, can you read Russian?”

“A bit,” she says. “Why?”

“We can’t tell if this borscht recipe says sour cream or marshmallows.”

She comes over and pushes me out of the way.

“You’re such a nuisance.”

Ray moves aside and Brigitte stares at the page for a minute, then looks at us.

“You’re both idiots,” she says. “It’s Ukrainian.”

“Can you read it?” says Ray.

“My mother is from Kiev. But this is an old dialect. I’m not sure I can make out all of it.”

“Why don’t we go over it together and see if anything sounds useful?”

“Is it to help Jimmy?”