The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar (Sam Quinn Book 1)

by Seana Kelly

  “I’m not trying to stir up trouble or anything, but I thought you had your own car.”

  Meg grinned, her eyes fierce. “I do, but I wanted to drive his. Now if we get attacked, it’s his car that gets trashed, not mine.”

  “Nice,” I said, shaking my head. It was, thankfully, a quiet ride downtown. Meg pulled into a private garage two blocks from the library and right into a reserved spot.

  “Do you live near here?” I hadn’t really pictured her as a downtown gal, but it was centrally located.

  “No. The man who reserved this space has paid through the end of the year. As he’s no longer among the living, it seemed like a waste not to use it.”

  Huh. “Good point, I guess.”

  She made an annoyed clicking sound. “He was a very bad man, Sam. We’re all—especially his wife—better off without him. Okay?”

  “Sure. I know it’s what you do. I wasn’t questioning you.” She was a Fury, a goddess of vengeance. Her job was to punish the evil.

  Wait.

  “Meg, do you know who’s trying to kill me, trapping me in these visions?”

  “Yes.”

  I stopped walking, feeling like I’d been sucker-punched. “You know and you didn’t tell me? You’re not wreaking your vengeance on them?”

  She strode back to me, anger lining her face. “I have been forbidden to interfere.”

  “Forbidden? By who?” Someone higher up the food chain than a goddess wanted me dead? I’m surprised I’d made it this long.

  “Whom, and I can’t tell you. Suffice to say, all of this is your destiny and I have been forbidden to alter it.” She turned and started back toward the library. “Come on. Let’s get you off the street.”

  It wasn’t that Meg and I were best friends, but she’d sat on my barstool a couple of times a week for years. We talked, shared bits of our lives. And if someone stepped out of a doorway right now and put a gun to my head, she wouldn’t stop them. I walked numbly behind her, unsure if I could still count her among my allies.

  The main library was a massive Beaux Arts style building of white granite that stood six stories high and took up a city block. It was located in the downtown area that held City Hall, the Supreme Court of California, the War Memorial Opera House, the Civic Auditorium, and Davies Symphony Hall. In these few blocks of downtown, giants lorded over the neighborhood.

  The library, though designed as though it were from a bygone age, was actually a recent addition. The old library had been damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That building had been renovated and later became the Asian Art Museum. So, while the exterior of the library was austere and in keeping with her far older sisters surrounding her, the interior of the library was quite modern.

  Meg opened the tall glass door and held it for me, avoiding my gaze. I stepped past her, into the atrium. It soared over a hundred feet, topped with a huge glass dome. Each floor opened on the atrium, with large banners hanging from railings. It was Hispanic Heritage month, so literary luminaries were highlighted. Gabriel García Márquez, Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Junot Díaz, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Cristina Henríquez and more stared down like gods watching mere mortals scurry beneath them.

  Pale stone walls and a glass ceiling, the architectural design gave the impression of airy openness. It was a temple to ideas, an equalizer, a repository of knowledge, free and available to all. I crossed the atrium, looking for a map. The café, an auditorium, and meeting rooms were on the lower level. Ule had asked me to meet him near the café so he could take me through an employee-only door that led down another flight of stairs.

  When Meg and I found the cafe, we discovered Ule sitting at a small table, sipping a bottle of water and people watching. As soon as he saw us, he leaped to his feet and hurried over.

  “Follow me.” He hustled across the floor and scanned the ID card that hung at his hip in front of a black panel by a door that read, ‘No Admittance.’ We shadowed him down a dark passage to a large cement room, Meg bringing up the rear. The walls were lined with glass-fronted cases filled with ancient tomes. In the center of the room was a small table and chair, facing the passage we’d just come through. A large, hardwired computer took up most of the table space.

  Ule gestured to the chair. “Sit. Already logged in. You may search.” He opened a corner cabinet, pulled out a step stool, stood on it, and then crouched down to perch and stare at me. Cool. This wouldn’t be at all awkward.

  “Well, as much fun as it sounds to stare at you, Sam, I think I’ll wait in the café. Where I can sit. And not stare at you.” Meg saluted no one in particular and headed back up the dark passage.

  As much as it hurt me to think it, I felt better once Meg had left. She knew. She knew who was trying to kill me and she’d said nothing. Yes, she’d been forbidden. But what if that person ordered her to kill me herself? Didn’t she have a say in all of this? She was thousands of years old, a goddess, for goodness’ sake.

  I dropped onto the wooden chair and tried to push Meg out of my thoughts. I had work to do. The screen was completely white with only a search bar at the top. That was it. No logo. No title. Zip. I thought a moment. What did I want to know first? I typed, ‘dead woman scars infinity.’

  A moment later articles popped up with some of my key words, but not all of them. To be on the safe side, I scanned dozens of entries, newspaper articles, police reports, folk tales, urban legends, academic journals. None of them fit. I changed the search terms to ‘wolf scar infinity,’ as that was the bare bones of what we had in common. The results were almost identical, except for a few police reports of wolves being found mauled in the northern U.S. and Canada. Again, nothing fit.

  I tried multiple combinations before I accepted that neither the police nor a journalist had ever found or heard about one of his victims. The supernatural community kept its own secrets. It wouldn’t do for human doctors and scientists to test our remains, so I supposed it made sense.

  Next, I researched wards. I may have inadvertently opened them during the Kraken vision, thereby allowing Clive and Dr. Underfoot in, but I had not altered my wards to admit wolves. I found quite a few articles on the theory of wards, on the types of spells necessary to create them, but little on the repair of them.

  Helena, my mother’s childhood friend who’d taken me in when I’d arrived bloody and broken seven years ago, had created all my wards for me. She’d tied them specifically to me, wanting them to respond only to me. Unfortunately, Helena was in Wales visiting her great aunt. She wasn’t due back for weeks. I needed to figure out what I could do now. Dave had said that demons could create wards, but only if a blood sacrifice was involved. As I wasn’t planning to kill anyone to protect myself, I went on to the next article.

  This one appeared to be scanned pages from an ancient spell book or journal. The handwriting was cramped and hard to read. I was going to skip it, but I’d seen the words ‘blood’ and ‘ward’ next to ‘fail.’

  I turned to an ever-staring Ule. “Can I print this out?”

  Quick nod.

  I hit print and heard the sheets sliding out of a printer somewhere behind me. Ule stepped off his stool, retrieved the sheets for me, and then returned to his perch.

  I borrowed Ule’s pen and started translating any words I could make out. Once I had those done, I used context clues to translate the words I was pretty sure of. Thirty minutes and a huge headache later, I’d pieced together a narrative written two hundred and forty years ago, although the incidents in the story appeared to have taken place long before this account was written. The story concerned a wicche worried for her newborn. Children had gone missing in the village and she feared for her daughter. Wards had been erected, sealing her tiny house in the woods.

  When the mother woke one morning, she found the crib empty and the wards destroyed. She searched everywhere for her child, but never found her. What she did find was a streak of dried blood on the windowsill.

  I look
ed down at the healing wound on my hand. Someone had expended an immense amount of psychic energy to plunge me into a vision, incapacitating me for an attack, and yet all they had done was cut my hand. Was this why?

  “My supervisor will be checking on me in approximately seventeen minutes. You need to go soon,” Ule said.

  I checked the time on my phone and nodded. “One more thing and then I’m out of here, okay?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  While I carried an extensive collection of books by and about supernaturals in the bookstore, I had next to none on werewolves. As I didn’t allow werewolves in my shop, it seemed pointless. That was what I told myself. The real reason was that I’d been denying a part of myself because it scared me.

  I dove back in, searching for the history of werewolves. There were too many results. I could read all night and not scratch the surface. Scanning the titles, I looked for something to jump out at me. And then it did. The name ‘Quinn’ scrolled by. I stopped and clicked on an article. I skimmed as quickly as possible, hitting the print button so I could read it in full later. It seemed to be a creation myth, detailing the birth of the first werewolf. A small village was being menaced by a pack of wolves. Sheep were stolen. Chickens were eaten. Even a horse had been attacked and eaten by the pack.

  When a baby had been carried away, the villagers were terrified enough to put aside one fear in order to slay a different one. They consulted a local Wise Woman. She told them to send a farmer named Alex Quinn out along the main road, east of town. She made a blessing—a spell, no doubt—and placed it in a leather pouch. She told the villagers that Quinn needed to wear it around his neck when he went out to confront the wolves. She told them that if Quinn did as she directed, the villagers would be safe.

  Quinn’s wife begged him not to go. His son begged to be allowed to fight with him. Quinn kissed his wife and son goodbye and strode down that dark, eastern road to meet his fate, hoping his sacrifice would, in fact, save his family and friends.

  When Quinn hit a fork in the road, he found the pack waiting. Pitchfork in hand, he planned to kill as many as he could before the breath left his body.

  “Now.”

  He turned to see the Wise Woman standing in the shadows watching. As one, the wolves descended on Quinn, tearing him apart.

  “Stop!” The Wise Woman’s voice rang out over the snarls of the wolves.

  Quinn cried out, his pain-wracked body bowing off the ground.

  “Wait, my children.”

  Quinn screamed in agony as bones broke and reformed, joints twisted, and his jaw elongated. Soon, though not soon for Quinn, a wolf stood where a man had fallen, intelligent eyes filled with hatred waited for the wicche’s command.

  Eleven

  Never Piss Off a Banshee

  When I got home, I read the articles I’d printed. They were fascinating and almost seemed linked. Was the baby stolen from his crib linked to the wolves menacing a village? I couldn’t find enough details to tell.

  Later, I stepped behind the bar to get myself a mug of tea. “Thanks for keeping an eye on things for me this afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” Dave grumbled.

  “How’s it going out here?”

  “How’s what going?” He put his book down on the bar, his expression blank.

  I gestured at the dozen or so patrons scattered around the bar, moonlight sparkling off the dark waves behind them.

  He shrugged, seemingly baffled by the question.

  I looked at all the empty glasses on the small, round tables. “You know you’re supposed to be checking on people, getting orders, delivering drinks. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar.”

  “No,” he scoffed. “That’s how you tend bar. I sit here and read. If they want something, they can walk up here and ask for it.”

  “Dave—”

  “Stop. You hired me to cook. Tending is bonus, so quit giving me shit about it.” He raised his voice to the bar in general. “You people are fine, right?”

  A small voice piped up from the corner. “Well, actually, I could use—”

  “See? They’re fine.” He picked up his book again.

  “Give me a minute. I’ll be back for orders,” I said to the room at large, holding up a finger.

  Dave yelped as I walked toward the bookstore. “Fuck! What was that for?”

  When I turned around, Clive was still sitting in his seat, watching Dave. Dave, however, was now on his feet, walking around the bar and collecting empties.

  Clive stood, his expression unreadable. “Sam, if I might have a word.” He walked toward the far end of the bar, and I changed direction to follow.

  He held the kitchen door open for me, looking gorgeous in a charcoal gray sweater that accentuated his broad shoulders. Waiting for me to pass, he followed me in. He pulled at his sleeve before looking at me. He did it thoughtlessly, stylishly, but Clive didn’t fidget. He was rarely, if ever, anything other than confident, controlled, and a little bored.

  He checked his watch. “I have an appointment. I need to get going, but I wanted to make sure you were all right. Any lasting effects from last night?”

  Oh. “No, I’m fine.” It was silly to feel disappointed. We weren’t friends. He’d just been forced to spend time with me lately because I seemed to have hit my expiration date.

  Nodding, he checked his watch again. “Good.” When he finally met my gaze, there was something there I couldn’t interpret.

  “Not to worry, no dates with demons tonight.” I smiled, but as he was no longer looking, I let it drop.

  “Probably for the best.” He nodded absently. “Dave informed me you’d been doing research today. Did you learn anything new?”

  “Some, yeah. I couldn’t find any reports on women—anyone—being painstakingly carved up, their bodies being dumped.”

  “The bodies may not have been discovered or left where they could be discovered.”

  “Exactly,” I sighed. “I also looked up wards. They’re tied to blood and my blood could have been taken when I was trapped in the rat vision. That might account for how wolves waltzed in today.”

  Clive took my hand and studied the healing wound, little more than a red line at this point.

  “And I rounded out my study session with the history of werewolves. I found a creation story naming a Quinn as the first wolf.” Shaking my head, I said, “I have no idea what to make of that. It was the only specific name used in the account. The wicche who’d cursed him was referred to as a Wise Woman.”

  Clive looked up from my hand, gave it a quick squeeze, and dropped it. “A wicche? The legend you read said a wicche was responsible for creating the first werewolf?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “But she wasn’t named… Interesting.”

  “It was just a folktale, Clive. It probably doesn’t signify anything.” His question about the wicche did have my thoughts swirling, though, imagining connections that probably didn’t exist.

  “And what are folktales but stories that have been passed down, generation to generation, while sitting by the fire? Embellishments here and there don’t change the core of the story. I’ll ask Russell to research the topic, as well.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Of course. Now, about the wolves this afternoon…” He let the comment hang. He was letting me decide how much I would tell him, how much further I would pull him into my problems. After a lifetime of holding others at bay, it was hard to open up.

  “She has my scar.” I needed someone to know.

  “Your scar?” His voice had softened, but I could read the confusion in his expression. My body was covered in scars. Which one?

  I pulled up my sleeve, just far enough for him to see the infinity symbol above my wrist.

  He took my hand gently in his, his thumb tracing over the scar. “Exactly like this?”

  I nodded. “Hers was in the same place. I saw it as they were carrying her out.” Reluctantly, I pulled my arm away. His t
ouch was comforting, but baring my scars always left me feeling sick to my stomach.

  “I think I know why there are so many wolves in the city all of a sudden. Randy said they found out I was alive and living here last week.”

  “Ah. One mystery solved.”

  “Marcus is dead,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Shrugging, I glanced back at Clive to find him watching me. “It’s not like I really knew him. It’s just—I don’t know—another link to family gone.”

  “Someone does seem to be trying very hard to isolate you.”

  I chuffed a derisive breath. “I do that just fine on my own. No help needed.”

  Clive sighed and then checked his watch once again. “I need to leave, but I wanted to make sure you stopped sending checks to the pack.”

  “If I owe—”

  “You don’t owe Marcus or the pack anything.” He leaned back, his hands gripping the countertop on either side of himself. “I’m the one who paid for the bar. Your checks have been coming to me through Marcus.” He took in my confusion and almost smiled. “What would you have said if I’d offered to loan you the money for your bar when we’d met?”

  “I...I would have...” What would I have done? I’d have said no. I never would have indebted myself to a man I barely knew. I wouldn’t have had the last seven years in my home. I should have been angry for being lied to, but there was no anger, only gratitude for my beautiful bookstore and bar, my sanctuary.

  Clive continued to argue a case he’d already won. “You would have refused. You were still dealing with the death of your mother, the attack in the woods. Marcus couldn’t be bothered to take you to a hospital or see to your wounds. He shipped you off to a new city to live with a woman you didn’t know.”

  “He said I couldn’t go to a normal hospital, that they’d do blood tests and know what had attacked me, know the kind of monster I’d become.” I’d arrived at Helena’s doorstep in the middle of the night, barely able to walk, blood seeping through hastily-wrapped bandages.