“Hm?” He looked up from his tea. At the look on her face, he frowned. “Oh.”
“If you’re…every hero…”
Virtue took a deep breath, held it, and with the exhale, let out his words in a rush. “I should tell you about my twin.”
Tiltingher head away from the monster in front of her, Sasha brought the heavy book she was holding up between them, using the spine to smash him in the nose as hard as she could.
“Ow!”The man staggered away from her a few steps, holding his face. “No fair, using the scene break!”
“What?” He was a monsteranda psychopath. Fantastic. Just great. But her smacking him with the book had accomplished her goal, which was to get him to back off.
“Cheap shot.” He checked his fingers, as if looking for blood. He touched his nose again, checking a second time. “Couldn’t see it coming,” he muttered.
“If—if I’m inside a book, and you’re every villain—that means I’m insideeverybook?” She held the book up like she was going to smack him with it again, though she had a real suspicion it wasn’t going to work a second time.
Content that at least his nose wasn’t bleeding, he focused hisattention back on her. “Yes.” He gestured to the library around him. “Welcome to all of fiction itself. This, eh, dimension, if you will, consists purely of all the stories your kind has ever told. You can imagine how large andbizarreit grows, day by day.” He grinned wickedly.
She gripped the book harder. “I’d like to come down from whatever drugs that book was covered in.” She was tempted to squeeze her eyes shut or slap herself in the face to try to wake herself up, but she didn’t dare take her gaze off the guy in front of her. “Wakeup,Sasha. Wakeup.”
“You believe I’m a product of a bad trip?” He arched a thin black eyebrow. “I hate to disappoint you, but this is very real. And nothing is to be gained from refusing to play along now, is there? Either youarehigh, in which case, welcome to most Victorian literature, and if you aren’t—well, you’ll get nothing accomplished by sitting in the corner and weeping.”
Damn it, he was right. Playing along with her bad trip, if that’s what this was, didn’t hurt anything. “Fine. Let’s assume for a minute that this is real, because for now, it seems like I’m stuck here. Let’s also assume that you’re ‘every villain rolled into one.’ What do you want with me? Why did you drag me here?”
“That’s the spirit.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “But first, follow me.” Turning on his heel, he headed away from the dead-end aisle and disappeared around a corner, humming a tune to himself.
The guy was abrupt, to say the least. Should she stay where she was? Or follow him? If she wanted answers—and any hope of getting home—she supposed she had to follow him.
And if this was all just a product of her drug-addled mind? She had to admit he wasn’t too far off from all the extremely handsome villains she’d dreamt up over the course of her life. With a beleaguered sigh, she followed after him.
Turning the corner, she saw him disappear down another aisle. She had to jog to catch up with him. When she finally did, she sawhim browsing a section of books, tapping a finger on his chin thoughtfully, looking for something.
“Do you have a name?” She studied him curiously. The lighting cast him in sharp shadows, making him look evenmoreunsettling and eerie, not like he needed the help. She kept her distance, but she knew it wouldn’t save her if he put his mind to it.
“You may call me Vile.” He was clearly half paying attention to her, half still searching for the right book. “Though I know it sounds silly to your ears, it’s the best I’ve managed over the centuries for myself. Grown rather fond of it, I must say.”
“So you really aren’t human?” She suspected as much, but it was good to have it confirmed. “You’re more like a demig?—”
“Ah-hah! There it is.” Vile pulled a book from the shelf.
The floor opened up underneath her feet without warning.
The last thing she saw as she fell, screaming into the darkness, was his smiling face as he waved goodbye.
