Phantom of the Library

by Lidiya Foxglove

“No way, it’s a focal point,” Billie said. “And it’s just such a great design element! This room is big enough to handle something that breaks up the space because you have so much open space otherwise.”

  “I have to agree with Billie! You can’t rid of the pure 1970s sexy curve of that fireplace,” I said. “It’s like a lava lamp and a cone incense burner and some kind of hippie clay oven had a baby and…”

  “And that’s a selling point?” Jake said. “Buyers actually have to live there.”

  “He’s right,” Jasper said. “Remember the wall you didn’t tear down in Lockwood House? Buyers want the space to be practical.”

  “Graham, what do you think?” Jake asked. “You seem like a practical guy.”

  “I’m not sure I want in the middle of this.”

  “He has carpet in his living room!” I cried. “His opinion is worthless!”

  “Gentlemen, if you tear down that fireplace I’ll have to kill you,” Byron said. “That fireplace is everything. So many parties centered around it. So many memories.”

  “You’re definitely just biased,” Jasper said.

  “Gaston, come in here!” Billie shouted. Gaston had just carried out some chairs. “You said you liked the fireplace, right?”

  “Oh? Yes. I do.”

  “See?” Billie said.

  “No three hundred year olds get a say either,” Jake said. “I don’t trust his opinion to be up to date.”

  “Anyway, I’m with Byron,” Billie said. “I’m gonna chain myself to that fireplace before I let you tear it down. I can just envision how great this place would look with a brass, wicker, bamboo kinda style. 70s bohemian but updated, very light…houseplants. A plant stand with cacti in that window.”

  “I am actually so into wicker right now,” I said. “Billie, have you seen Tom Atomic’s videos?”

  “Yeah, and in fact, I was thinking about his video on upholstering the second I saw that couch.”

  “Yesss…those yellow chairs he did were amazing. If we could get fabric like that…” Tom had this muted 60s yellow with a nice textural look.

  “Yellow’s my favorite color. He made me warm up to wood paneling, in small doses. Never thought that would happen. The house I grew up in had the ugliest damn wood paneling.”

  “Wicker? Wood paneling? I don’t trust anyone who calls himself ‘Tom Atomic’.” Jake scratched his head. “I’m not sure we should furnish the house in the first place. We let you do it with Greenwood Manor and we still don’t even have a buyer.”

  “Greenwood Manor is a complicated house. This house is easy. And it’s so on trend. The 70s is peaking right now,” Billie said. “And—oh shoot. They’re back home in Mississippi, but I actually have this whole batch of vintage needlepoints I was saving from the flea market. Maybe I could get my cousin to ship them to me.”

  Jake sighed. “All right, all right, the fireplace stays for now but I don’t want to hear about needlepoint. That’s a hill I’ll die on. I can tell you usually decorate for a certain client and that’s a stupid idea here. What about the kitchen? We agree that it needs to go.”

  “Yeah…it does,” I said. “I like the globe lights. Are we doing white?”

  “I would love to see a pale wood, Scandinavian-look,” Jasper said. “Based on what you’re talking about for the living room, the house will have a very warm, natural color palette. It would be on trend but also appeal to any nature witch, right? At least, any nature witch who wants to live in California.”

  “I like that,” I said. “Kind of upscale IKEA?”

  “I just want to learn to demo a wall,” Graham said. “You want that wall to come down between the two small bedrooms, right? Can I just take a sledgehammer and get to work or…”

  “If there isn’t any plumbing or electric or anything, sure.” I patted his arm. “Got a little anger to work out, there?”

  “If I see your cousin again I’m afraid I might just tear his head off,” Graham said. “If he doesn’t kill me first.”

  “You’re cute. Inspiring speeches one minute and demon rampage the next.”

  “I hope not.” Graham grimaced.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a demon rampage, when needed,” I said.

  “I’ve worked hard to control myself,” he muttered.

  “Did you have a bad temper as a kid?”

  “I felt generally out of control. I was always getting in trouble,” Graham said. “I was suspended at one point and almost had to repeat a grade…I never bring that shit up to anyone, but you might as well know now. I barely pulled it together in high school and I only got accepted to one college, but that was when I really started on a path to success.”

  Jake and Jasper were staying out of our conversation but Jake kept looking over.

  “When you started having lots of sex, probably,” Byron said.

  “That’s true. But—I hate the idea that I was always a slave to needing sex. That led me to so many shallow relationships. Does that ever end? If I want to be in a monogamous relationship with Helena, will that even work, or am I going to demand too much of her?”

  “It’s not always easy,” Byron said. “But as you age, you won’t crave the power as much. Even demons get old and tired eventually.”

  “Great news,” Graham said sarcastically.

  “Hey,” I said. “Just to make it clear, I’m standing right here, and I’m not worried about it. It’s hard to be a magical person in a human world, I’m sure. I can only imagine how out of place you must have felt sometimes, without even knowing why; I mean, damn, I felt out of place all the time and I did know why, but it still sucked. Neither of you can demand too much of me. I know how to say no, for one thing. But for the other thing, if it’s anything like last night…you won’t have to demand anything.” I patted Graham’s chest. Then I patted Byron’s too, because why not. It was going to be a long day keeping my hands off of them and I was already starting to fail.

  “Be careful, you might test me on that,” Graham said, as they both moved in a little closer.

  I saw the sparrow familiar staring at us from the rafters and I think that was the only thing that kept me from not tearing their clothes off again. Well, okay, plus Gaston and Billie nudging past us with a table.

  “Anyway…uh…” I clapped my hands. “How about we demo a wall? I can finish the wallpaper later.”

  “Probably a good use of our energy, for now,” Graham said, giving one of my braids a last flirtatious tug.

  Pretty soon we were both swinging sledgehammers and tearing out the wall between bedrooms. The house was full of noise and commotion of my favorite kind. With the space opened up in the bedroom and the ugly-ass old cabinets removed from the kitchen, plus that terrible orange carpet, Bel Tramonto already looked a million times better, although we were all still puzzling over the entrance way.

  It was such a rare treat for me to work on a mid-century modern, although sometimes I still caught myself getting wistful for the lost-in-time charm of a 19th century mansion with candlelight and fireplaces, graveyards and mysteries and the antique smell…well, I just wasn’t cut out to be a suburban witch, but at this moment in time, I was glad we weren’t alone in the woods.

  I mean, the old people were nosy, but at least their presence meant the council couldn’t just sneak in and murder us all unchallenged.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me, dear girl. I want to speak to you.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks as I was fetching a wheelbarrow out of the backyard. “Oh…hi, Zuzana.” I prayed Graham or Byron would come out here. They were better at talking to people.

  Isaac was a step behind her. “I just saw an eastern toad in your garden. It’s someone’s familiar. But I don’t think it’s your familiar.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re just not the toad familiar type,” he said. “And you’re not a Sinistral witch, either.”

  “I probably will be soon,” I said.

  “This is a Sinistral wizard
ing community,” Zuzana said. “But then, if you are indeed sleeping with two wolves and two demons, I suppose you are all but one of us.”

  “Indeed.” I was dying.

  “But who has the familiar?” Isaac asked.

  “It’s—um—”

  “Take your time,” he said. “Work out a good lie, we got all day.”

  “I’m not! She’s a rogue familiar that my familiar is helping out! She’s on the run from her wizard. Taking shelter here. Some wizards treat their familiars badly and that’s wrong.”

  “Of course it is very wrong,” Zuzana said. “But you do know that a wizard can call their familiar back at any moment, so there is nothing you can do to protect them?”

  “So I heard an interesting rumor,” Isaac said, “on the council news broadcast today, that the Ethereal and Sinistral councils are calling a intra-council meeting for the first time in over a hundred years. Have you heard that? I wonder why that is. Pretty interesting, isn’t it?”

  “Goodness,” I said, feeling a small prickle of horror although I knew that there would be consequences. “That must be something serious.”

  “Very serious,” Zuzana said. “And I hate to think why it would ever happen. But then, these are exceedingly strange times. I never thought I should live to see the faery realm open its gates, and yet it has and now we are at the beginning of an epoch. Stay safe, now.”

  “You too…”

  Hmm. I told the others, but there wasn’t much we could do. I checked the wizarding corners of the internet and saw some rumors flying on message boards, with the general assumption that the meeting might be a declaration of war against the faeries.

  Since my brother was allied with the faeries, that would be bad news for me too, but I had a feeling that wasn’t it.

  Demo day flew by, and then we all tore into two chickens Byron roasted that came out of Sam’s freezer. We had no side dishes but I don’t think the Sullivans minded a purely carnivorous feast, and I was hungry in a different way, wondering what the night would bring me.

  Is it bad if I start getting really turned on by the idea of bond mates now? I know the incubi are already hungry for more. Do I invite them all to sleep with me again? But we can’t do that every night or I’ll have nothing left to give to my work. So maybe I have to choose…or let them fight over me? Is that how it works? Then again, life is too short to worry about work…

  Byron and Graham had their sights on me already. Maybe I trade off? Do I take the lead or do they?

  Don’t make me have to call my brother and ask him…then again, it’s his wife I really should call, huh?

  I hadn’t been much of a sister-in-law because I felt awkward about the whole thing, and it was about time I got over myself.

  Jasper stepped into the hall. “I’m beating the crowd, Hel. Last night was good but…I’ve never had you all to myself. Neither has Jake, of course, so that’s why I have to get ahead of him.”

  A wide smile emerged before I could hide it. “You’re pretty good at sneaking in there, huh?”

  “He just keeps making the same mistake,” Jasper said. “He has a bigger mouth so he thinks he’s better with girls, too. But while he’s talking, I get past him. I think he’s out there right now bragging about our date with you while I just left the table like I had to hit the bathroom.”

  “I will admit…a night with just you sounds pretty nice.” My eyes followed his as he moved in, his hands circling my hips, and then his mouth claiming mine. He slipped his hands in the back pockets of my jeans and pulled me against him, and my hands matched his, wrapping around his tight ass. I dug my fingers into his skin and delighted in how hard those muscles were. I pressed my nose against his shirt, finding the scent of him under a layer of the stale cigarette smoke of that nasty carpet.

  “Jasper…I want you. I also want…”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “I want to be fair.”

  “I’m not flipping coins for you, Hel, you’re mine tonight. They can fight me.”

  His low, possessive voice melted my ears. “Okay…you win this round.”

  “They’re still talking out there,” he said. “Maybe they won’t even notice.”

  He picked me up and carried me off into the bedroom we’d just torn a wall out of. Two twin beds were still there pushed together, against the farthest wall, and he threw me down on it and locked both doors.

  I decided I was just going to go with it. Let ‘em fight over me. Why not? In my family it was always my mom’s job to wrangle everyone and keep the peace while my dad just took a backseat. I could do that here. Or I could just be their princess. They could figure out the when, where and who. I wasn’t inclined to say no to any of it once the day’s work was done.

  I tugged Jasper’s shirt off with the increasing eagerness of the day’s pent up tension, which was even more than I realized, like when you feel sort of hungry but as soon as you see food you’re starving instead. In moments he was inside me, taking me for a quick and dirty ride while our mouths locked and our hands clenched and teased. No one had even noticed yet, and within moments I was panting and coming, biting my lip hard to keep quiet. And when I started coming, he came too, with a low, dragging sigh of pleasure.

  Five minutes later I walked back to the dinner table like nothing had happened. Jasper came out a few moments behind me.

  “And the flood just scooped up that pig and stuck him right in the back of the pickup truck, and he kept on driving!” Billie was saying, in a story that sounded pretty improbable based on that sentence.

  Jake looked at me and gave me a sly smile. “Oh, I’ll get him for that,” he whispered to me.

  And then, a sudden flash and a boom of thunder over our heads was followed by a second. The power went out. And it started to rain on our furniture.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Helena

  “Oh, shit! I thought it didn’t rain in California!”

  “Sometimes it does.”

  “We have a couple of tarps in the van.”

  “Some of that stuff was cute!” Billie cried.

  We all ran outside…like lambs to the slaughter.

  This was no natural thunderstorm. As soon as we dashed to the street, we were met by a group of wizards. I didn’t recognize any of them, but as I felt the air crackle with magic, I realized they were Sinistrals. They wore simple uniforms of deep green, the color of the Sinistral council’s guard. While the front row faced us down, the back row was lifting their hands to the skies and whispering spells, summoning the wind, rain and lightning that tore at our hair and clothes.

  “Something is happening in the realms.” A handsome older warlock led the pack, a few subtle patches and medals on his green double breasted coat suggesting he was a seasoned member of the guard. “We traced the source to this spot. I want to see all of your hands in the air, no wands.”

  I held up my hands in front of my chest, and took a step closer, trying to keep things from getting too tense. “What is happening?”

  “Stay back,” he said.

  “She’s Ethereal,” another man said to him, the youngest warlock in the pack, a brawny, fraternity bro type. “Hey, is your name Nicolescu? You bear a certain resemblance to…”

  “I—”

  “Speak the truth only or I will remove your tongue,” the first man said.

  “My father is a Nicolescu,” I admitted. “But—”

  “This is a Sinistral neighborhood. Ethereal witches don’t belong here. You’re up to something. I can tell. And whatever it is, it’s upsetting the balance of the world.”

  “It’s to your benefit!” I said. “We want Sinistrals to have a chance to access good magic—ow!”

  He flicked his wand in the air, catching some of the lightning crackling in the air, and zapping me with it. The electric shock blasted me to the ground and left me feeling dazed, my nerves shocked by the brief but fierce pain of it. Seven people suddenly sprung from the grass and surrounded me in a circle—
the familiars in their human forms.

  The wizards and familiars immediately raced to confrontation, and dread swirled inside me as I watched the wizards dominate, blasting familiars back with little mercy, as if they were just expendable.

  Byron stepped in front of me and transformed fully into his god form. He spread his mismatched wings and the wizards all fell back a step with a gasp.

  “You sow pain and cruelty, and you have hurt my queen,” Byron said, sounding as godlike as I’d ever heard him, his voice low and regal enough to give the wizard guard pause. “I am Lord Abiron Adras’ei, protector of the Way of Paths. You probably don’t know my name, as it has been lost to history, and I was dead for hundreds of years, but I have risen from the dead and your world is going to change irrevocably. All magic is now free. You can tap into all channels. But I also have the power to block channels.” He moved his fingers like he was rapidly tracing out a pattern and the wizards shuddered. The thunderstorm started to die down almost immediately.

  “What is this? What are you doing?” the guard wizards asked.

  “I shut your pathway to Sinistral.”

  “Pathway…?” The wizards were trying to hang on to the storm. The lightning they had generated so rapidly had been giving them an easily accessible source of attack spells. But now whatever Byron had done was robbing them of their connection to the storm, and the charge in the air vanished as quickly as it appeared.

  “Ethereal magic brings order. Wyrd magic brings balance,” Byron said. “In this case, you forced a thunderstorm where there shouldn’t be one, and now you can’t hang onto it without chaos.”

  “Ugh!” The head warlock shook his wand, trying to get something from it. “Who are you? The Way of Paths? What is this?”

  “Yes,” Hepzibah called. “What is it? We’d all like to know.”

  Just as Byron had cowed the Sinistral guards, the old people were all getting themselves out of bed and wandering into the street in their variety of robes, kimono, smoking jackets, nightgowns and monogrammed pajamas.

  “The guard is here,” Isaac said. “What were you kids up to?”