Dead To Me

by Anton Strout

  “Tome, Sweet Tome?” I offered.

  Connor nodded.

  I grabbed my retractable bat off my desk and slipped the handle of it into the loop on my belt. You never knew when you might need a good blunt instrument in a bookstore.

  8

  The Department of Extraordinary Affairs had its own stock of books regarding the paranormal, but there were plenty of dark and evil tomes that even we refused to keep on the premises. That meant that sometimes we were stuck having to go elsewhere for our supernatural information needs. Thus, Connor and I found a visit to Tome, Sweet Tome on the Upper West Side in order. It was Tamara’s neighborhood, and I dreaded running into her accidentally, but we had to hit Tome. Almost anything you could ever want on the subject on the dark arts, the gray arts, and even the off-white arts could be found somewhere on the dusty shelves of the nefarious bookstore. The two of us rode silently uptown in a cab. I thought about asking more questions about this missing brother of Connor’s to break the silence, but he was busy getting into character for our visit.

  Tome, Sweet Tome was famous in the heavy-duty, no-holds-barred world of serious arcane research, but surprisingly its collection of knowledge did not make the store itself a dangerous place. Its owner, Cyrus Mandalay, had never been robbed, mugged, harassed, or otherwise mistreated in all the years that the D.E.A. had dealt with the bookstore. At nearly six feet four inches and sporting a tribal tattoo down the entire left side of his face, Cyrus was an imposing-looking fellow. His pale skin was drawn tight over his angular features and he sported long black hair done up in dreads. Cyrus was definitely not the type of shopkeeper the average criminal would think of messing with, and he definitely didn’t fit the bookish stereotype one would normally be buying literature from, either.

  Connor and I pushed through the front door. A red-lettered sign hung just inside it that read:

  Please check all extra dimensional objects at the counter.

  All undead are subject to a $10.00 cleaning fee following use of the Reference Room.

  Shoplifters will be dispelled.

  Cyrus was busy ringing up a pretty young Goth and her grandmother, who were purchasing a deck of Tarot cards. He looked over at us from behind the counter, recognized Connor, and gave us a toothy smile than ran from ear to ear. Even a grin from Cyrus was enough to make me feel uncomfortable and I looked away. Connor, veteran that he was, looked at him unfazed.

  “Gentlemen!” Cyrus said with a pleasant ring. He looked around nervously before thanking the two customers. As he sent the girl, her new Tarot deck, and her grandmother on their way, he reached behind him and pulled a loop that hung from the ceiling. The door swung open for the two exiting customers, and the elderly woman gave a startled looked back at him. She hurried the young girl out the door.

  “Crone,” Cyrus said, the smile falling from his face.

  Everyone knew that Cyrus ran a bizarre shop, but something that garnered him favor in the Department was that, surprisingly, he was a great supporter of literacy. While his appearance tended to frighten off many timid book buyers, he worked hard to make the store accessible. He’d even added a “newbie” section for young people who might be interested in all types of arcane matter. An inviting little area just to the right of the entrance had been set aside for it—a room filled with happy pictures of cartoon witches generating rainbows. Zoo animal warlocks were painted there as well, producing flowers and bunnies from top hats. There was even a little wizard-robed turtle sporting a Daliesque mustache melting a watch with his magic wand.

  Cyrus flashed his toothy grin again—which simply made him look like he was guilty of something. God only knew what it was. “Que pasa?” he said. He placed his enormous hands on the counter and leaned forward, towering over us not only because of his natural height, but from the built-in rise behind the cash wrap. He laughed when he saw the white stripe in Connor’s hair. “Got skunked, eh?”

  Connor ignored the question and stepped forward, his confidence not wavering in the face of Cyrus’s imposing figure. “How’s it goin’, Cyrus?”

  I could hear a hint of I know something you don’t know behind it. I knew the routine, something so simple that even I could handle it given my limited amount of fieldwork at Connor’s side. It was time for a bit of the gently applied good cop/bad cop. They were roles that fit both of us surprisingly well—Connor, his seasoned badass attitude with the field experience to back it up, and my own role as, well…the gentle new kid on the block. Real acting stretch there, I know.

  Connor raised one eyebrow, looked slowly around the front of the shop, and said, “You keepin’ your nose clean?”

  “Cleaner than an elephant’s trunk, guys,” Cyrus answered, flashing his grin once again. This time I caught the full effect he had evidently been going for. His entire set of teeth was filed to finely sharpened points that reminded me of a shark. “I run a solid enterprise here. You gents know that.”

  What this massive wall of a man said rang of the truth, but Cyrus was also high on the creepy scale—maybe not as bad as Wesker, but definitely first runner-up. He made it hard to believe that whatever went on at Tome, Sweet Tome was on the up and up.

  “I hope so,” Connor said. He peered back into the darkened Stacks of the cavernous bookshop. I followed his lead, but from where we stood, it was near impossible to make out anyone or anything who might be lurking somewhere deep in the aisles…which was the whole idea behind the shop’s design, if I thought about it. This eclectic collection of grimoires dealt with everything—mysticism, shamanism, witchcraft, spellcraft, glamours, and other arcane matters. Those interested in such subjects probably fancied a little privacy, and the store’s layout reflected that sentiment. It was a maze of towering shelves and wild piles of books that stretched to the ceiling.

  “Thought we’d throw some business your way,” Connor continued. “We need some time in the Black Stacks, okay?”

  Cyrus gave a chuckle—jovial, but just evil sounding enough to send a shiver up my spine. “Don’t ask me if it’s okay, Connor. Ask the Black Stacks yourself. I am merely their proprietor. Don’t hold me responsible for what they will and won’t do.”

  Connor strode boldly up to the counter. He leaned in close to Cyrus, craning his neck upward to meet his eyes. “Well, then,” Connor said. There was piss and vinegar in his tone already. “As proprietor, you might want to consider exerting a little control over your merchandise. You start letting the Stacks run things, you might find yourself cleaning up a lot more than dust around this place.”

  “Whatever,” Cyrus said dismissively.

  Cyrus’s attitude toward wrongdoing reminded me of the people who’d led me down the wrong paths. He was imposing, but Connor’s lack of fear had bolstered something deep inside me, and whatever bullying charm Cyrus held over me broke with his flippant response. “Those books represent a hell of a lot of chaotic malevolence if left to their own devices,” I said, spurred on by my newfound bravado. “You think it’s simply a matter of magicians coming in here and taking advantage of the Stacks? It’s the other way around. Most of the poor saps who get wrapped up in the whole evil game are there because they were too stupid or too malleable, easily controlled by what’s contained in those very books! They were too stupid not to get used by the Stacks.”

  Our good cop/bad cop act had skipped straight ahead to bad cop/bad cop. That was what happened when one was new to fieldwork. I had tons of book knowledge with the occult, which made for great speeches, but I had little experience in dealing with it face to face. Still, verbally smacking down an occult book dealer alongside Connor was something I could check off my résumé of thrilling fieldwork. I wished Irene were here to hear how daring I sounded.

  “Relax,” Cyrus said, too calmly for my liking. “Everything is under control here.” His eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. Suddenly, I did feel an overwhelming desire to relax—and I knew he was up to something supernatural. There had been power in his words. Connor
’s grip tightened on my arm until the pain caused me to snap out of it. He forcefully pulled me out of Cyrus’s direct line of sight and stepped forward.

  “Good,” Connor said. “I don’t want—”

  “But understand this, gentlemen,” Cyrus interrupted. He seemed miffed that his little trick hadn’t held us in his sway. “You know and I know that a lot of the hoodoo-voodoo we deal with is even beyond our comprehension. Our mortal lives are nothing in the face of the unseen world, and what comprises the Black Stacks has a life all its own. Things are only as under control or out of control as they allow them to be. If you want to know the truth, or the truth as I believe it, I don’t think anyone can control what is in those books. And like I said, I am merely…a gatekeeper.”

  Gatekeeper. I noticed the pride in his voice as the word rolled off the tattooed man’s tongue. Anyone, not just a paranormal investigator, could see the man took his dangerous dealings seriously. He’d had his say.

  He reached beneath the counter and pulled out a ledger, picking up a pen at the same time.

  “Will that be cash or charge?” Cyrus purred out, slick as a cat.

  I couldn’t let my last few moments of righteous anger slip by as if they hadn’t happened. I was petty like that. I lashed out in the only way left to me.

  “Just put it on our tab…before we close your ass down,” I said. I wasn’t sure if we even had the power to do so, but even if it was an empty threat, it felt immensely satisfying.

  * * * *

  The path winding back to the sectioned-off area known as the Black Stacks wove throughout a lengthy portion of Tome, Sweet Tome’s main floor. Connor and I followed Cyrus carefully through the labyrinth like twists and turns that were mostly made up of musty stacks of ancient—possibly rotting—books. They were piled everywhere and threatened to tumble over at the slightest touch. I pulled up closer to Connor and whispered, “You ever knock over one of these precariously balanced piles?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” he said. “Come to think of it, I can’t recall a single stack of books falling over ever in Tome, Sweet Tome.”

  I stopped for a moment and placed both my hands against one of the more dangerous-looking towers of books, tempted to see what would happen if I gave it a little nudge, but Connor pulled my hands away.

  “I really don’t want to do the paperwork when you get buried in an avalanche of literature,” he said, pushing me in front of him.

  We quickened our pace to keep up with Cyrus, who had already reached the back of the store. The Black Stacks themselves were caged off from the main stock by tarnished copper bars that ran from floor to ceiling. Connor and I stood back as Cyrus made a few arcane gestures and spoke in a tongue I wasn’t familiar with.

  Cyrus moved aside and gestured for us to enter. “Good luck, gentlemen.”

  “Don’t wait around on our account, Cy,” Connor said and elbowed his way past him. “We’ll call if we need anything.”

  Cyrus chuckled at that. “I’ve got a first aid kit up front should anything…unfortunate happen,” he said as he wandered back to the front of the shop. “It’s at your disposal. For a nominal fee, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said and pushed my way past him also, but with less force than Connor.

  As I passed the threshold, the familiar smell of brimstone hit my nostrils. It was a tried-and-true stereotype, like cops in a donut shop, but brimstone always seemed to permeate the air anywhere the dark arts hung around in any great concentration. And let’s face it—the dark arts didn’t get more concentrated than here. The smell was still hard on the nose, though. “Well, that was unpleasant,” I muttered as I turned to Connor, who was already nose deep in a book. It didn’t surprise me one bit that he wasn’t wasting any time. We were on the clock back here in the Stacks, and ever since the Mayor’s Office had further cut funding to our already suffering Other Division, Connor had been paying strict attention to all our expenses. I, however, was wasting the departmental budget just standing there.

  “Is there anyplace specific I should be looking?” I asked, feeling guilty.

  Connor pulled down a sizable leather-bound book. I was surprised to realize it was one of the few I had heard of, the Dread Tome (also known among the arcane literati as Literaris Deus ex Negres) and he began flipping through it. “Just checking something here, kid. Go get me the Directory of the Dearly Departed. That’s the book we want. It’s about six rows back, four shelves in. Hopefully your little crush from back at the Lovecraft will be listed there.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I snipped back, surprised at my own reaction. “She’s…”

  Connor took his attention away from the book for a second to give me a look of amusement. “Well, that was a little defensive,” he said. “Got a little thing for Irene, kid?”

  I didn’t know what I felt for our newest case, but I wasn’t about to let Connor put me on the spot for it. “No…it’s just…”

  Connor slapped the tome shut. “It’s just what?” Connor demanded sternly, keeping his voice low enough so as not to attract Cyrus. “She’s dead, kid. She’s not like us anymore. Twenty-four hours ago, yes, she was just fine. Doing whatever a woman like her did. Having tea, perhaps hostilely taking over another company, doing the last few entries in a crossword puzzle…whatever her life entailed. But all that changed when she died, Simon. She’s gone now. If you have feelings for her, I’m sorry but you’re being naïve. You should have paid more attention during the Desensitizing Difficult Deaths seminar.”

  “They don’t teach that anymore,” I said peevishly. “All you get now is a pamphlet on it in your welcome kit.” I felt like some sort of necrophiliac pervert just thinking about Irene, ashamed that Connor had struck so close to a nerve I didn’t even realize I had.

  “Oh,” said Connor. “Look, let’s just focus on solving our first problem then: Who is she? You want to help her, you figure that out first, okay?”

  I nodded. I started walking farther back into the Stacks.

  “But I meant what I said, kid. Forget any foolish notions you’re entertaining. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

  Connor could save his warnings. My love life sucked enough as it stood. I had enough to contend with just deleting Tamara’s calls of rage off my answering machine. I still had no idea what I was going to do about her.

  When I found the Directory of the Dearly Departed, I pulled it from the shelf. It weighed a ton.

  “You’d better watch out down there,” Connor started. “Don’t forget to…”

  His words were drowned out by a sudden resounding roar that sprang up all around me. One second I was looking at what I thought was an ordinary bookcase—tall, ornate, carved from a thick, dark, polished wood. The next I was running from what was actually one pissed-off, bounding-with-great-agile-strides-toward-me kind of bookcase. I backed frantically down the row toward the junction and caught a glimpse of Connor running toward me, his face filled with panic and—I could have sworn—amusement.

  “Wrong way, kid!” he shouted. “Don’t stop, though!”

  The bookcase tore after me down the cramped aisles, spilling books to the floor as it went. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of Connor chasing it as it chased me. He struggled with the bag over his shoulder as he followed the renegade bookcase.

  The aisle before me came to an abrupt end so I juked left down another. The stomping bookcase followed suit, but now I had lost sight of Connor. I hoped he had a plan, because running didn’t seem to be doing much except tiring me out. I doubted, however, that the bookcase would get tired.

  “What the hell is that thing?” I shouted, nearly breathless. I hoped hearing my voice would help Connor get an idea where I was. I was lost in row after row of books.

  “Just keep moving!” Connor shouted back. I dashed by shelf after shelf. When I rounded the next corner, the tail end of my jacket snagged and I risked a glance back while I paused to tear myself free. The vicious-looking bookcase was hot in pursuit, its si
des expanding and contracting as if panting while it closed the distance. My coat came free with a panicked tug, and I returned to fleeing.

  “What is that thing?” I demanded again. My legs ached and I feared they would cramp up.

  “Explain…later,” Connor huffed, sounding closer. “Keep…running…”

  At the next intersection, I threw myself down an aisle on my right, but with horror, I realized that it continued on only a little farther before coming to a dead end. No side aisles, no turnoffs. Just ceiling-high shelves on all sides, not to mention the living, breathing one closing in fast behind me. Giving in to total panic, I found a burst of speed that only marathon runners and career criminals could dig deep for and sprinted forward until there was nowhere left to run. Winded, I staggered around in a circle to fully take in the oncoming bookcase. The books that miraculously remained on its shelves formed a menacing gap-toothed smile.

  This is not going to be pretty, I thought. In a last-ditch effort to save myself, I threw open my coat and pulled the retractable bat from its loop on my belt. It extended with a satisfying shhhhkkt, and I raised it into classic batter’s stance, prepared to swing. I might die a stupid death—death by library—but I was determined to go down swinging.

  As the bookcase thundered toward me, I spied a single arm popping over the top of it and then Connor’s head came into view. His face was contorted with the struggle of clambering up the backside of the unit. From atop the bookcase, he caught sight of me poised with my bat and smiled.

  Bless us, I thought, we’re going to Butch and Sundance this one. We’re both going to be terribly crushed by this bookcase, but we’re going out in a blaze of ridiculous glory.

  Connor reached into his bag, producing book after book as he slammed them onto the shelves from atop the charging bookcase. As each book hit the shelves, the case stumbled a little more unsteadily. With a great lurch to the left, the bookcase bounced off one side of the aisle like a pinball off a bumper and gave one final smash into the opposite side. It spun on one corner from sheer momentum and flipped over, pinning Connor underneath it as it crashed to the floor.