by D. N. Hoxa
When the sound of something whooshing behind me reached my ears, I jumped back, sure there would be somebody there, but it wasn’t. Instead, another book had disappeared from its place.
And another slipped inside the shelf just below the first one.
A second later, another two from either side disappeared a couple feet ahead. Stunned, I followed the whooshing sound, watching book after book disappear without a trace. I even began to run, trying to see a title that might have what I was looking for, but it was no use. The Shade was too fast.
I reached the other side of the shelves, and it was all I could do not to scream in frustration. This was madness. I tried not to take it personally, but it was very personal. The Shade had had no complaints when Damian took those books off the shelves, and I was willing to bet it would have no trouble giving Malin what she wanted, either.
Out of spite, I reached for a book without even looking at the title, and tried to pull it out. It met resistance. The Shade was trying to pull it back.
Like hell.
I grabbed it with both my hands and I didn’t plan to let it go. But the pull was strong. I gritted my teeth, trying to get a better grip on the black leather cover. My fingers slipped, but I held on with everything I had. I put my foot against the shelf and pulled myself back with all my strength.
Just as I did, the pull stopped and the book came out of the shelf. I hit the floor on my ass, the book on my lap. The sound of the fall echoed in the silence. A second later, I looked up to see a woman looking down at me, brows narrowed, eyes full of suspicion.
I put on my best smile. “Hi.”
She shook her head and turned around to leave, disappearing from my sight.
“Get that, sucker,” I mumbled to the Shade and stood up with the book in my hand. The title wasn’t printed on the cover, only the spine: Peculiar Creatures And Popular Beliefs: A collection of short stories.
I opened the book and read the first page. Definitely not what I was looking for, but the Shade didn’t know that, did it? I turned the page and pretended to read through the first story. I kept my head down but looked across at the shelf, hoping to see something better. I turned the page again. No other books were disappearing, which I took to be a good sign.
Then, on the right of the shelf across from me, a title caught my eye: A Guide to the Secrets of the 15th Century. With the book in hand, I slowly moved toward the shelf, keeping my eyes on the page, not wanting to give the Shade any hints of what I was looking at.
When I was close enough, I moved as fast as my body let me. I put my hand over the Guide and pulled it fast, but the Shade already had its grip on it. Leaving the other book on the floor, I grabbed it with both my hands and pulled, harder than before. I wasn’t leaving here without finding out what the hell that amulet had done to me, damn it. Even if I had to use my magic to make the Shade back off, I wasn’t leaving.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to. I’d slipped my fingers into the hard cover of the book, and as soon as I did that, the Shade let it go. I was expecting it, so this time I didn’t fall on my ass. I held the book against my chest and waited a heartbeat, in case that woman wanted to come check on me again. She didn’t.
With a sigh, I put the old book back in place, and with the new one, I made my way to the reading tables.
Malin was nowhere to be seen, but that was okay. I sat at the same table I had with Damian two nights ago, which was a good distance from the rest of the people there, reading. There were another seven tables between us. None of them would be able to see, but just to make sure, I sat with my back to them.
The book was less than ten inches tall, but it was thick. The hardcovers were wrapped in what felt like satin to the touch, and the golden letters printed on it looked almost liquid. The book looked brand new—like it had never been touched before. I opened the first page and read the introduction. The book was exactly what the title suggested: things that weren’t common knowledge about the supernatural world in the 15th century.
Making myself comfortable on the chair, I began to read.
I watched the last man who’d been in the Library with us walk toward the door with his hands in his pockets. When he disappeared from my sight, I felt a hundred pounds lighter and pulled my arms from over the book. I’d had to make sure he wouldn’t be able to see what I was reading while he passed my by.
I’d had to do that five other times in the past three hours while the others had left. Now, it was just me and Malin, and she hadn’t made a single sound since she’d sat on the other side of the table with me, with seven different books in front of her.
I looked at my own book again and flinched. Once again, I didn’t know what to think. I read chapter twenty-three again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something.
According to this book, Level Fives were ordinary supernaturals who had acquired the highest level of magic known to mankind. There were very few of them in existence, and there was no record of anybody being born a Level Five. They all had gained that level with practice and time.
It was the only chapter in the whole book that mentioned them—in a story about a murderer and a thief. A werewolf who’d terrorized Europe for twelve years during the 15th century, by breaking into the estates of two hundred of the most powerful supernatural families, was confirmed to have been a Level Five supernatural even though he was never caught. The whole thing had caused a lot of panic within the supernatural community and the human world, too. The werewolf had apparently robbed and killed humans and supernaturals equally. The Guild had never found out who he was, and they’d never come even close to catching him, but a year after the werewolf had stopped robbing, they’d come out with a fake statement and said that the werewolf had been killed in a fight while he was attempting to escape from their officers. It was an attempt to calm the masses, and it had worked only because there was no record of the werewolf robbing or killing ever again after the year 1547.
At the end of the chapter, the book gave a very brief history and statistics about Level Fives. According to it, the first time a Level Five was recorded with the Guild was a witch in the year 1289. There had been seventy-one registered Level Fives of all supernatural species in the 15th century, a dramatic decrease from the previous century, when there had been a hundred and sixty-nine. But the book never called them Alpha Primes, which made me wonder. Had I heard the vampire doctor wrong?
No, he’d said Alpha Prime. I was sure of it. And Damian hadn’t corrected me, either.
I sighed and rested my forehead on the book. That was it—I was going to have no choice but to talk to Damian about it. It would be easy. All I had to do was swallow my pride, pretend he hadn’t lied to me, and just ask him the question.
We were going to be having dinner together, anyway. In my apartment. All alone. And we said that we were going to talk. I already had a lot of questions for him. One more wasn’t going to hurt anybody because, to be honest, trying to sneak up on the Shade and then fight it to get a freaking book off the shelf was very tiresome. And irritating.
“Would you look at that,” Malin whispered, making me raise my head again. “Necromancy wasn’t considered illegal until the early 1800s. They never told us that.”
“They never told us a lot of things.” Like the fact that there were Level Five supernaturals walking around freely a few centuries ago, yet I’d never heard the term before. All the Guild had taught us was that Level Four was the highest level that existed.
“I wonder if Robbie knows,” Malin continued.
“Have you talked to Robbie lately?” I asked. We’d already talked about this, and she’d done her best to convince me that he was a trustworthy guy. He’d promised her that night, when they’d returned to the City to grab a bite to eat together, that he wasn’t going to say anything to anyone, ever.
I just didn’t know the guy enough to trust his word.
“This morning, actually,” Malin said and shot a quick look at me before she returned to the b
ook.
“And?” she made me ask.
“And nothing.” She turned the page of her book, but I could tell she wasn’t reading anymore. “We’re just going to get together tonight for dinner and a movie.”
My jaw touched the desk. “You’re going out on another date with him?”
“It’s not another date! That night, we just grabbed something to eat to talk about…you know.” Oh, she looked like she was sitting on needles now.
“Does Jamie know?”
“Don’t you dare tell her,” Malin said. “If she knew, she’d make my life miserable.”
“Sure.” I pulled out my phone and texted Jamie.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, just checking the time.” The text to Jamie was sent.
“You texted her, didn’t you,” Malin said. “You bitch.”
“You’re going to tell her anyway.”
“But she—” She was cut off by the vibration of her phone. “It’s Jamie.”
I grinned. “Sorry, not sorry.”
She put the phone on silent and returned to her book, but I didn’t plan to let her read. Now that we were alone and we could actually talk, I was going to make her tell me everything.
“So you like him.”
“It’s not like that,” Malin said. She was lying through her teeth.
“Then what’s it like?”
“I just…I was very mean to him, Sin. In high school, when he received his first letter from the Guild, I was furious. I was jealous. I couldn’t be happy for him because I wanted to be him! I wanted to have my Talent and I wanted to work for the Guild, and I was a bitch. I treated him horribly.” Her eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head.
“C’mon, Mal. You were just kids. Worse—teenagers.”
“But that doesn’t make it okay,” she said, her brown eyes full of sadness. “He was my best friend, and I just cut him off, sent him to hell and didn’t even explain anything to him. And I want to say that I’m sorry because I am. I’m really, really sorry.”
I smiled. “So you do like him.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I thought Jamie was going to make me miserable.” Just as she said that, her phone vibrated again. Jamie wasn’t going to stop calling until she answered. For now, she put it on silent again.
“I’m not trying to make you miserable, I swear. You’re my best friend. I just want to know if you like a guy, you know? Well, I mean, I know you like him. You were making eyes at him all night at the tomb. It’s just exciting, that’s all.”
She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms in front of her. “What about you, little miss I-want-to-know-all-about-you?”
Shit. My smile fell. “What about me?”
“Damian Reed, that’s what. And don’t tell me nothing because I’m going to make your life more miserable than Jamie would if you were honest,” she said.
“It’s, um…it’s…” I sighed. “It’s complicated, Mal. I honestly have no idea what to tell you. I just know that he pisses me off regularly, and then I see him and I can’t seem to remember that I’m pissed off, and I…like talking to him, ya know? Even though he infuriates me.” Ugh, I wanted to hide behind my book and far away from her sneaky smile.
“So you like him, too.”
“Aha!” I said, pointing my finger at her. “You said too, which means you like Robbie!”
“Well, of course I do!” she said. “I’m going on a date with him, aren’t I?”
I grinned. “I’ve got a date, too.”
Her mouth fell open. “No!”
“Yes. When we catch that Helen chick, we’re going to have dinner. Well, I’m going to have dinner, and he’ll probably just drink wine.”
Even before I’d finished speaking, her phone was in her hands. And I knew exactly what she was doing.
“No, wait! C’mon, Mal, don’t tell Jamie!”
“An eye for an eye, bitch,” she said with a grin.
I guess I had that coming.
“So where are you going?”
I looked at the desk. “My apartment.”
“Your apartment?”
I only nodded.
“Somebody’s going to get laid!”
“Stop it!” I hissed. She didn’t need to shout it out, even though we were all alone.
“What are you wearing?”
“Just some jeans and a shirt.” It wasn’t going to be formal or anything.
Malin rolled her eyes. “I mean, underwear. Don’t you dare wear boxers, Sinea. I mean it—I’ll come to your apartment and burn them all.”
“What’s wrong with boxers?” They were comfortable. My phone vibrated. Jamie was calling. I ignored it as best I could.
“Too many things to count right now,” she said. “And don’t you dare wear jeans. It’s a dinner.”
“I’m not going to wear a dress.”
“Yes, you are. You are absolutely going to wear a dress.”
“But—”
“No buts. You wear a dress to a dinner, even in your own apartment,” she said, closing her book. “Besides, it’s much easier to get you out of a dress. Jeans make things unnecessarily complicated.”
Mortified, I hid my face behind my hands. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” My phone vibrated again. Jamie was still calling. If this conversation was so embarrassing with Malin, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like with Jamie. Luckily, I didn’t have to pick up my phone right away.
“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Malin said. “Tonight, I’m wearing a dress, too.” And when I looked at her, she winked. “All this talk has made me really hungry. Let’s go grab something to eat.”
We put the books back and walked out of the Shade Library.
Chapter Seventeen
That night, after we were done killing two maneaters who’d been digging in the small backyard of an apartment building until they got to the body of the dog who’d been buried in there just that morning, I actually went with the guys to the Shade to make the head deliveries. I’d been expecting Damian to pop up around me the entire five minutes it had taken us to do the killing, but for once, he hadn’t shown up.
It was good. That was what I’d wanted. I had no right to feel disappointed now, so I ignored my feelings until they rotted and burned in hell.
“We should get a drink,” Lucas said, checking the watch on his wrist. “I’ve got exactly forty minutes until Daisy gets home so let’s get going.”
Daisy was Lucas’s wife, as I’d recently found out. Also, she was pregnant, and Lucas went out of his way to make her very comfortable. It was so cute how excited he was.
Kit was not happy about that. In fact, he scratched the side of my neck a couple of times, just to spite me. As it was, I couldn’t even shout at the little fucker because we were supposed to be communicating with our minds. Still, he had no choice but to come with me, and that was punishment enough.
We went to a bar in the Shade close to Hellbeast Affairs. We sat outside even though the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold, but there were no free tables inside. The fence was right next to the main street, and it felt like we were sitting right in the middle of it. At least the beer was delicious.
“Are you going to tell us what the deal with Damian Reed is?” Kyle asked as soon as the waiter retreated.
“I was surprised he didn’t show up tonight, to be honest,” Carter said with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He’d been awfully quiet tonight, too, while we’d killed the maneaters.
“So, Sin? What’s the deal?” asked Lucas. Even Kit was suddenly uncomfortable. He climbed down my shoulder and sat on my lap, half hiding under the hem of my jacket.
“It’s personal,” I told them. “That’s all you’re going to get.”
“He’s got a thing for you, that’s no secret. C’mon, Sin. We already know the guy,” Kyle said, making my cheeks flush.
“You’ve heard of him. You don’t know him,” I said, then regretted it the next sec
ond. Where the hell did that come from? “Look, he’s helped me before, and now I’m helping him figure something out, that’s all.”
“I’ve helped him before, too, haven’t I?” Carter said, taking a swig of his beer while he looked at me, his eyes dark, full of something I couldn’t exactly understand. What the hell was he doing? “Does that mean he’s indebted to me now, too?”
“You’ve helped him?” Lucas asked. “How?”
“He’s just messing with you,” I said before Carter could answer, then widened my eyes at him.
“Yeah, I’m just messing with you,” Carter said.
“I just want to make sure we’re not getting in trouble here, okay? We’re already doing very well. Everybody’s impressed. We haven’t turned down a single call, and we’ve brought eight heads in,” Lucas said, pride gleaming in his eyes. “I think we can all agree that Damian Reed is dangerous. People know him, and if he shows up to kill maneaters every time we’re in the field, somebody’s bound to notice.”
Right. Of course he’d be worried about that.
“We’re not going to get in trouble. I already talked to him. He won’t be killing any more maneaters. Don’t worry about it,” I said, but the truth was, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Damian was…well, Damian.
“Are you sure about that, Sin? Are you sure that you’re not in trouble? Because we’re a team. What we do individually reflects on all of us,” Lucas said.
I almost rolled my eyes. “I’m not in trouble!” Why were we still talking about this? “I already told you, you don’t need to worry about him, okay? What I do with my private life is private.”
“Don’t go getting angry on us, Sin,” Carter said.
“I’m not angry.” I was, but I understood where they were coming from. I’d have been curious in their place, too.
“If you say so,” he said and clinked his bottle of beer to mine.
For the next half hour, we continued to talk about maneaters, training, the Guild—all things that I was interested in, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about what Damian had said. The full moon would be the next night, and he still hadn’t called to tell me where it was going to happen. That could only mean he didn’t know yet.
