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“When I saw you in my domain, I thought that perhaps you’d come charging down to rescue Horace, but you just wanted to use the elevator. When are you going to come charging down to rescue Horace?”
I poked at my cheek and came away with a streak of fresh blood. “I’m going to have to disinfect that. I’m not going to rescue someone who’s dead, particularly when you’re right. We do need to find out who killed him. Does he look like he’ll truly rise a vampire?”
He nodded soberly, still frowning.
“Good. I want to be there when you question him.”
“To make certain he is treated humanely?”
“To find out who killed him so that I can return the favor. Good afternoon, Mr. Stead,” I said, opening the gate and stepping out onto the floor that led to the library. I took Pansy back with a grunt and then stumbled back to the gate keeping out the underworld. I unlocked it with my spells and locked it behind me, even though I knew perfectly well that the vampire could dissolve himself through the gates if he felt like it.
“I will let you know when he is coherent,” he called after me. “Miss Morell, do take care,” he added, my name lingering on his lips.
I didn’t turn around and gaze at him through the gate like we were star-crossed lovers or something nonsensical like that. I had sleep to catch up on, laundry to do, and a murderer to hunt down and kill. Cross was right. No one could hunt down evil like I could.
Chapter
Nine
I’d lied about a lot of things, but the saddest lie I’d ever told was that I would sleep in my bed for a year. No, instead I was breaking into Horace’s office after I got rid of every trace of scent I might leave behind, naturally. There was some sleeping and soaking, but in the end, not nearly enough. Still, you could sleep when you were dead, at least that was the theory, but not if you were raised a vampire, because they never slept. What did the Scholar do while I was sleeping? What a miserably dull existence, unless he spent all his extra time studying dead languages and procuring rare books. Most vampires spent it obsessing about things they couldn’t have and killing those they envied. Vampires were extremely territorial and possessive, so the fact that the Scholar had allowed me to walk into his domain and back out again was an act of great self-mastery, unless he wasn’t actually stalking me. Pity he hadn’t insisted on walking me all the way to my apartment, so he could have carried Pansy.
Horace’s office was much more secure than I expected. I had access to every part of the library except for the rows of rooms in the back and side, where Jessica and the other official librarians had their offices.
It took me an hour to break through the spells and mundane locks, until finally, I opened his door without a creak. He kept his hinges well-oiled. I preferred creaky ones so you could hear someone opening the door. His office was large, opulent, with the enormous desk with stacks of papers over the surface and the fireplace behind it, with a smattering of fresh ashes. I went through the papers quickly, one stack correspondence regarding the acquirement of a rare tome discovered in a cache of treasure recently in Wales, another stack the health care benefits of new employees, and another stack reports of killings in the last thirty-five years with a certain MO that I was fairly familiar with, considering that it was mine.
It was possible that he’d known that I was the killer, but there wasn’t anything in those files linking me to those deaths. The report on the Square of Immolation was the largest file, even if there were no witnesses. No, there were two witnesses, myself, and the recently departed Music Master, but if Horace knew that, it wasn’t in the file.
My blood ran cold. Was it possible that the music master’s death had been arranged by someone who wanted to know more about the fire, about the assassin I used to be? There was no reason for the fires to be in the same stack as the other killings, was there? I went through the file and found a picture of a cage, metal curled and cracked from flames, but the lens zoomed in on the scratches in the metal, the marks of death, all the marks of death I’d tried to make, but couldn’t bring to life. Ah. That’s what tied all those deaths together.
It took me more time than I liked to break into the drawers on his desk, but I was rewarded when I found a stack of old letters, all from various persons or societies asking him about the fires. He’d kept so many of them, including one on the bottom that was short, a threat that was signed with a symbol that I’d been chasing my whole life.
I held that letter while I sank into his chair. That’s the mark that had been carved into my father’s chest when I found him dead, drained of his blood, the mark that I’d never seen since. It was ridiculous to think that something I’d been looking for would fall into my lap now, when I was so happy in my peaceful life, but if I hadn’t been motivated by Horace’s death, I was by this letter, this death threat, signed by the same symbol left on my father.
I read the letter a dozen more times, then took pictures of all of them, envelopes and contents. The Gray Society had issued its own request for information, but that was couched with concern, not death threats. I recognized a lot of the organizations, high-level government orders who wanted to know what had caused the fires, and Horace, being one of the few people in the city at the time, keeping the Library of Antiquities secure through all the chaos, it made sense that he would have known something. From the files of my killings, he’d known plenty, but had he answered any of those requests with what he knew?
What had he known? He’d known that time was of the essence, and he’d tried to get me to work with The Scholar several times. Cross had been the same, wanting me to run away with the vampire, however ridiculous that would be, and it wasn’t as though Cross had been serious about something he knew I wouldn’t ever do, but there was a reason he’d pushed me in that direction, as unlikely as it was. It seemed by this scant evidence that Horace had been protecting me for years as I steadily worked through texts on fire, never releasing those to the public until recently, when he’d given the list to the Scholar.
I didn’t need protection, not when I was entirely capable, but without it, I wouldn’t have lived such a nice, quiet life for so long. And now Horace was dead, and the Scholar was going to raise him as a vampire. How many memories would he have of his life, and why had Horace wanted me involved with the Scholar when it seemed like he was already stalking me, and everyone else who worked at ‘his’ library?
The doorknob to Horace’s office turned. I barely had a moment to put the letters back when Jessica opened the door, stepping in to stare at me, shock warring with anger that I only saw for a moment before it disappeared.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Looking for clues,” I answered, then nodded at the file about the assassins while my heart pounded and my mind raced. “He was working on the Square of Immolation mystery. Do you think that had something to do with his disappearance and the attack on Bert? Did you find what’s been taken?”
She sighed heavily and crossed her arms. “You can’t come in here any time you like, Libby. You’re not a real librarian hired by the board, just Horace’s pet…” She trailed off and her lip curled. “So, that’s how you got into his office when it’s been so difficult for everyone else. You were his personal friend.”
I stood up and went around the desk to face her. “What are you doing in his office, Jessica? You weren’t his personal friend as well, were you?”
She made a dismissive sound. “I’m looking for evidence of foul play. He’s missing. He shouldn’t be able to disappear like that without a trace. When Bert comes to, maybe he’ll tell us something.”
I gestured at the neat desk, filled with business as usual. “As far as I can tell, there’s no sign of anything out of the ordinary.” Another lie. That mark was anything other than ordinary.
“And you’d know,” she said, still sour about the possibility of me having a personal relationship with my boss.
“I have worked here with him longer than anyone else.” That mark. How could I find out more about it? I’d been obsessed with that mark for years and come up with nothing, and now, to have it dropped in my lap…
She smiled while her eyes narrowed. “That’s right, you have. How long have you worked here? The work files on you are remarkably scant.”
