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He shook his head. “No. Your notes can’t tell me who came into my library and harmed one of my employees.”
“Your employees? You didn’t pay them.”
He shrugged. “I realize that mentally, but emotionally, vampires are very possessive and territorial. Horace and Bert were under my protection, and someone violated that.”
“Like I’m under your protection?”
He inclined his head slightly. “You bring up a very valid point. If Horace can be killed, so can you. Would you like to rise a vampire?”
I blinked at him, horrified and stunned. “You wouldn’t dare raise me!”
“I would dare, quite serenely, which you seem to find distasteful, so I leave it to you to not get killed. If you feel in danger, for any reason, request my help, and I will give it to you.”
“At what price?”
He pursed his lips, studying me. “The price of my protection would be intelligently allowing yourself to be protected as well as spending your time in worthy pursuits such as studying ancient Persian with Miss Trombull, who is currently in my lab and could use assistance.”
I scowled at him. More blackmail. “You won’t tell me the price.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment before he said, in a low voice that went through me to my soul. “I told you, but you don’t believe me. It’s almost as if you’ve been bitten by a vampire before.”
My heart pounded faster and faster. Why did he smell so good to me? My fingers buzzed and the world narrowed until we were alone, my veins beating with a rush of blood, like it was flirting with him against my will. “My blood would be your price?” Why didn’t that sound so bad? It wasn’t being bitten that was the problem, it was waking up afterwards.
He shook his head, eyes drifting down to my mouth, and spoke in barely a murmur. “No. I don’t want your blood against your will; it sours it.”
Horace was dead, and here I was, getting sucked into his bewildering attractiveness, like a complete novice. I raised my chin and glared at him. “And if I offered you my blood willingly, you wouldn’t take it?” Of course he would, because he was a bloodthirsty monster, exactly like he said he was himself.
He turned and walked away, leaving me seething and flustered, with nothing but crayons to throw at him. I threw all of them in one pointless lob. They hit his head and shoulders, mussing his hair and scattering across the marble floor in a suddenly loud pattering while he stood, very still for a breathless moment when I was sure that he’d turn and rip my throat out for my insolence and stupidity, but then he kept walking, and I was out of crayons, but not out of frustration.
He couldn’t raise Horace without the man’s permission, but I couldn’t stop him. Wasn’t there legislation that I could call in? Horace had to have a lawyer, but killing vampires without reason was illegal, and Horace was probably half turned already after what the Scholar had done, so he’d have his way, because they couldn’t stop what he’d already started with his vicious and toothy stabbing into Horace’s poor freshly dead body. Besides which, we really did have to find out who had broken into my library and killed my boss, leaving him there for me to find, and that didn’t even mention Bert. Fine. Raising Horace as a vampire wasn’t without some merit, but it was still vile, as was the man himself, ‘the Scholar,’ whose scholarship seemed to begin and end with throwing money around and having flunkies to catch his falling bodies for him.
Did the texts about eternal fire really have anything to do with Horace’s murder, and was I being stupid for not giving him my notes? I tried to be careful not to write down anything that would implicate me, but when I was lost in my thoughts and translations, it was hard to be sure. Who was I supposed to trust? I couldn’t trust a vampire, not any vampire, but Michael Stead was at least trying to protect his ‘employees,’ so I guess that was something that I could appreciate.
The doors burst open and a group of EMT’s came in, taking in the scene, the fallen body of Bert, and the otherwise untouched library. There was no sign of Horace’s captivity. The Scholar was meticulous when it came to covering his tracks. How terrifying.
“His name is Bert Flaherty, and he’s the morning security guard. I came in a few minutes ago, and saw him like this, so I called, and I tried to do some healing, but I’m a librarian, not a healer.”
A woman probably fifteen years older than me ran her hand over his forehead, and a flash of golden light brought the runes I’d written to life. She was a healer, a good one too, probably better than Anna, although I’d never admit that she was anything other than brilliant if anyone asked.
“And a musician? You tried to use a maintenance spell on him.”
I nodded. “I tried. I am this sector’s maintenance musician, but I’m not as experienced at…”
“Naturally. You did well here. You can back away and leave things to the professionals. I’m sure the police will want to question you.”
They did. After a lot of thought, I decided not to mention Horace. My report would be a generic thing. I’d found Bert, called the ambulance, and then gone in to help him so I’d lost service and not been able to stay on the phone. Horace wouldn’t be an issue until he rose, and we had more information. If the person who had tortured him was in a position to check my reports, I’d look more like a common librarian the less I had to say about everything. I wasn’t even a common librarian, I was a librarian and musical maintenance part-timer. I was too busy to get into trouble with vampires and demons.
After hours of being interviewed, exhausted from my efforts to keep Bert alive with magic I had no idea how to wield, Jessica came over with a cup of steaming tea. “I talked to the officers, and it seems like you’re done for the day. Poor Bert, but he’s lucky that you were there to use your strangely adaptable magic to save him. You look rough. He’s going to be fine, so you don’t have to worry.”
“Has Horace come in?” I asked.
She shook her head and handed me the cup. “Not yet. I’m having the stacks searched as we speak. I hope that he wasn’t caught between an intruder and their target. Don’t look so anxious. I’m sure that we’ll find him, and he was more than capable of taking care of himself.” She patted my shoulder and walked a few steps away before she turned and smiled at me. “You should go home and get some rest. The library will be closed for the day, and you look too tired to do much good in the stacks.”
Clues. I could be combing the library for clues, but instead, I was telling the same unhelpful story over and over again. Maybe I should have told them about Horace, but…
I sighed and headed home with the weight of the world as dark as the clouds above my head.
Chapter
