Midnight's Emissary Page 11

  The two had met after I asked Caroline to do some research for me after he set me on the draugr’s path.

  “Move.”

  “She sounded like she was in trouble.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew what she sounded like. I had no time for this.

  “Move.”

  He ignored the command. “I can help. Let me come with you.”

  Not happening. He had shown a level of interest in my friend that I was not comfortable with. I wanted the two kept as far from each other as possible.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I shoved the bike forward a step. He threw his weight against the handle bars, and I was forced to awkwardly dig one foot in, trying not to lose ground. Straddling the bike made this back and forth awkward on my end. I did not see good things for me if we kept up this shoving match.

  “I can be an asset to you.”

  “How do you think you can do that? You have no powers.”

  “If someone would remove the cursed genie cuff, that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Push.

  “Like that’ll help. Your first move would be to kill me. You’ll either forget about or torture Caroline.”

  Shove.

  “Not true. I think Caroline has a brain in her head worth preserving. Unlike you.”

  He pushed the bike hard. I hopped back, trying to keep it from banging into me.

  “Not happening.”

  I shoved the front wheel into him.

  “I could be your backup.”

  “Again, you have no power. You’ll just be cannon fodder.”

  He and I reached an impasse. He glared at me over the bike’s handlebars.

  “It’ll take you at least twenty minutes to get there by bike.”

  This was true.

  He saw the acknowledgement on my face. He played his trump card. “I have a car.”

  “Let me put the bike away.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Ohio State University campus was a sprawling monstrosity that intertwined seamlessly with the city of Columbus. Although there is a campus district, it is only called that because it houses the majority of the buildings that make up OSU. Most of the students live on the edges in homes and apartments that were at times historic or falling apart. Sometimes both.

  In the center of it all is the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. The name was a mouthful but matched the intimidating four story beast made of glass and metal. Despite the huge size it wasn’t the only library on OSU, there were actually fifty four others, but it was the one that housed the rare book and manuscript collection, which is where I was willing to bet Caroline would be this late at night.

  I didn’t have a student ID to get in so I had to trail another student while silently castigating them for holding the door for me. It wasn’t safe behavior. It didn’t matter how updated your security protocols were if you’ve got people ignoring those protocols.

  He probably thought I was a decent looking woman with no signs of mental illness or inebriation. There was no way I could have anything up my sleeve, right?

  The bad guys know how people think. If you look like you belong, then you must belong. They use that kind of thinking to their advantage. Next thing you know you have a security breach at best. If you’re really unlucky, you’ve got a murder or something worse on your hands.

  The kid’s inattention worked to my advantage, and I was in too big a hurry to give him a lecture on safety. Not that he would have listened. Kids his age all thought the bad things happened to someone else. Never them.

  I headed for the escalators, the sorcerer tagging along at my heels. I took them two at a time until I got to the floor containing the archive section. My pace was fast, worry eating at me with every step. From Peter’s silence, I could tell some of my worry had infected him. Maybe he did care about Caroline. Just a little bit. I still wasn’t letting him around her if I could help it.

  The customer service desk was empty and banging on the little bell didn’t bring anyone running. Not even when the sorcerer pressed it and then kept right on pressing it, making an annoying cacophony.

  I hopped over the desk and peered into the back room. No one there. I was relieved to see no bodies on the floor, but it didn’t untie the knot that had taken up residence in my stomach.

  “No one is here. You can stop pushing the bell.”

  Peter held the bell down for another long moment.

  “You can keep pushing the bell, or we can try to find Caroline,” I said, showing my fangs.

  He was a distraction, and worse, he was wasting time that should be spent saving my friend. If he continued to waste my time, I was going to show him why vampires had fangs. He could be my first victim.

  My eyes darted to the veins in his neck. I licked my lips. Come to think of it, I was kind of hungry. Power rushed below the surface of his skin. I took a step toward him. Power that could be mine. It’d probably be a hundred, no a thousand times better than the bagged blood I normally survived on.

  He grabbed some papers and threw them at my face. I batted them away, losing sight of him.

  “Do you have control of yourself now?” his caustic voice asked.

  I blinked at the empty space in front of me and looked around. He stood by the open doors of the archive, more than ten feet away. How did he get over there so fast?

  “Are you coming?”

  Annoying little brat.

  I stalked towards him.

  “You really should get that hunger under control,” he said as I passed.

  “It is under control.”

  “Didn’t look like it to me.”

  I gave him a fake smile, one that was more of a grimace. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  I’d like to think I wouldn’t have snarfed him down like a chocolate shake, but stranger things have happened. It worried me that I’d been temporarily consumed by blood lust. I didn’t have the same excuse as other times this had happened. I’d drunk my morning supply of iron yesterday before turning in and gotten my dinner’s share when I woke up.

  If hunger wasn’t what sparked this episode, what was? And could I handle the answer?

  I didn’t want Liam and his merry band of psychos to be right. That I needed to be watched and monitored and controlled because I was a danger to all those around me. Not after fighting this hard for this long to stay free.

  It was an aberration, brought on by worry. I needed to shrug this off and focus on what was important. Caroline.

  The large, empty room was filled with stacks upon stacks of manuscripts, most of which were pretty old. Each had their own bin on the shelves and either lay flat in that bin or, for oversized papers, were rolled into a cylinder.

  The controlled environment kept the temperature cool in here with little humidity. The lights were lower intensity to protect the fragile paper and ink, so there were no windows and only a few desk lamps.

  It was easy to see at a glance that the room was empty. No sign of Caroline.

  “She should be here, right?” Peter asked. He looked as uncertain as I felt.

  I didn’t like this. She said the library. This was where she could normally be found.

  “Yes.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But I’d find out.

  I’d already tried calling her several times on the way over here, but Caroline hadn’t answered.

  I had so few friends in this world; I couldn’t afford to lose any of them.

  “Let’s check the rest of the library. Perhaps she’s studying or tutoring someone.”

  Caroline wasn’t much of a people person. I couldn’t imagine her signing up to tutor someone. She didn’t have the patience and her sarcasm would be more deconstructive rather than constructive.

  It was worth a shot. Especially since I didn’t want to consider something worse.

  The door to the archives slid shut.

  There was a sound. Slight, almost und
etectable to a human’s ears. But for a vampire it was as loud as a shout.

  I checked the area in my peripheral vision, seeing nothing. Keeping my motions as nonchalant as possible I turned toward the sorcerer, getting a look behind us. Then I acted like I was looking for the exit and turned in the opposite direction.

  Nothing.

  Movement, so small I thought I imagined it. Could just be a trick of the light.

  Something shifted in the shadows.

  We were being watched by someone who didn’t want to be detected. I was betting he or she was supernatural in nature given the way they’d wrapped those shadows around themselves.

  I nudged Peter and flicked my eyes to where I knew someone waited. He caught on quick and tilted his chin down once to indicate he saw.

  The watcher lurked behind the stacks closest to the exit. We’d have to pass him when we left. I’d planned to search more of this floor before heading to the next floor. Perhaps the watcher could help expedite my search.

  I tapped Peter on the shoulder, hoping he’d take it as a signal to follow my lead.

  “Guess she’s not here after all. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “I think you’re right. Yes, let’s try again tomorrow.”

  I paused, giving him a look with widened eyes that said ‘what the fuck?’

  He shrugged, looking sheepish. He’d sounded stiff as if he was reading lines in a book. I had totally misread his ability for subterfuge. That, or maybe he was so nervous that he wasn’t able to bring his normal talents to bear.

  Naw, not the sorcerer. He had to have encountered much more dangerous situations than this.

  Or maybe he knew something I didn’t.

  We headed to the exit. Just as we passed where I had first spied our peeping tom, I lunged into the shadows. My hand grabbed an arm and I yanked, dragging my watcher into the light.

  A hiss and yowl, like something a cat would make, assaulted my ears. I grabbed a wrist and then twisted and yanked, contorting the arm into an unnatural position behind the person.

  It was a man with short, yellow hair and slightly pointed ears.

  Go Army combatives training. I hadn’t been certain I remembered that move until muscle memory took over. I guess all that repetition paid off.

  “Who are you?” I yanked the arm I was holding higher.

  The man yowled again. Not a sound I’d heard a human ever make so he was definitely some type of spook.

  “Why were you watching us?” Peter no longer sounded like a teenager, rather his voice was that of someone much older. One used to interrogation and who had no problem doing what had to be done to get the information he needed.

  “Stop, please. I meant no harm.”

  I yanked the arm higher. “That’s what everybody says when they’re caught.”

  “Do you know who we are?” Peter asked, every inch the arrogant sorcerer I first met.

  “Yes. You’re the sorcerer. The one they call Barrett.”

  Peter’s eyebrow twitched but otherwise he gave no reaction. Barrett was technically his master and Peter was his apprentice before he became a fully-fledged sorcerer.

  “And her?” Peter indicated me.

  “The vampire. The one without a clan.”

  Peter’s face turned thoughtful. “Let him go.”

  Say what. I hadn’t caught him in a surprise attack to let him go so he could then kick my ass.

  “He’s weaker than us. He won’t try anything. Will you, sphinx?”

  “No. I won’t. I swear. Just let me go.”

  Peter leaned forward, thrusting his face close to the man’s. “She’s going to let you go, but you’re going to stick around to answer some questions. Otherwise, I’ll hunt you down and use you as ingredients in my spell work.”

  It was a good threat. One that had incentivized me to track down a deadly monster last year. One that I would face again if the sorcerer ever got free of the genie cuff I’d trapped him in.

  “I won’t run. I swear.”

  “Like I’d trust a sphinx’s promise,” the sorcerer sneered.

  Then why was I letting him go? If you couldn’t trust someone to answer a simple question, how were we going to trust that he had no plans to attack?

  Noticing my hesitation, the sorcerer shot me a look.

  I sighed and released the arm, shoving the sphinx away from me. Peter had done me the favor of trusting me when it came to catching our watcher. The least I could do was return the favor until it became evident that our interests didn’t align.

  The sphinx looked like a professor, or maybe a grad student, one with a fashion sense that was a few decades older than him. He wore wireframe glasses and his golden hair stuck up in tufts. He was dressed in khakis and a dress shirt with a plaid vest over it. His ears were barely pointed and were partially covered by his hair. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t so close, and he hadn’t been contorting to prevent his arm from breaking.

  He looked scared out of his mind.

  I hardened my resolve. If he had something to do with Caroline’s disappearance, I didn’t care how scared he looked. I’d make him tell me where she was. If he’d harmed her… Well, I had an extensive knowledge of torture techniques gleaned from years of reading and a friendship with an interrogator in the military, along with the will to use them.

  “What’s your name?” I repeated.

  “Demetri,” he said.

  Sounded Greek, which fit. If I remembered my high school English class, there were stories about the sphinx in both Greek and Egyptian mythology. The Greek version made the sphinx out to be treacherous and murderous. The story I could remember was about Oedipus Rex who became king after killing a sphinx who lured travelers and killed them when they couldn’t answer its riddles.

  The Egyptian’s cast the sphinx as a wise and benevolent guardian who protected the entrance of tombs and the like.

  These were just stories of course, and I was walking proof that the myths weren’t always true. I wasn’t a soulless killing machine, so I couldn’t assume the sphinx lived up to either version of its mythology.

  “Alright, Demetri, let’s try this again. Why were you watching us?”

  He looked hunted, his eyes shifted from left to right as if he was determining his best escape route.

  “Demetri.” My voice lowered to a threatening growl as I stepped closer. “You don’t want to test me right now. I can’t guarantee I’ll be as gentle as last time.”

  He slumped, the muscles in his body relaxing as if he realized how fruitless escape was. I didn’t drop my guard, afraid this might be a trick.

  “Now, why were you watching us?”

  He lifted his eyes to mine and for a moment it felt like I was falling as a voice muttered incomprehensibly next to my ear.

  I shook my head, shutting that voice out. I grabbed him by the collar, yanking him up to my face, and my exposed fangs. “Enough of that unless you want to be dinner. I’ve never had sphinx before. I might like it.”

  I was proud I didn’t lisp once. Or spit on him. Talking around extra-large teeth had been difficult at first but I’d gotten the hang of it after a while.

  “Please, not that. I’ll tell you but just don’t bite me.”

  My grip didn’t loosen, but I did draw back a little and close my mouth gently around the fangs. They were pointy, indenting my lower lip. Usually I retracted them if I wanted to close my mouth. Otherwise I risked poking a hole in my lip.

  “Hurry up. Our patience is growing thin,” Peter inserted. “Don’t try to draw either of us into a riddle again. You won’t like the consequences.”

  I gave him a wry glance. He quirked one corner of his mouth as if acknowledging the fact that he sounded like a B movie villain.

  “Ok. I wasn’t watching you. Not really.”

  “Then what were you doing, because it seemed awfully like watching to me,” I said.

  “I was hiding,” Demetri admitted. “I thought you were it a
nd I was your next victim.”

  “It?” How very descriptive. No wonder he thought we were it. Anybody could be it.

  He looked at the two of us, it just dawning that we had no idea what he was talking about.

  “You mean you haven’t heard? Everybody in the community is talking about it.”

  “Talking about what?” Peter snapped. His frustration echoed mine.

  “The creature. The one that has been paralyzing people all over town. When they finally wake up, they’re so convinced they need to be somewhere that they end up attacking anyone who gets in their way. Nobody has been able to find any of those who were able to run off after becoming unstuck. Whatever it was claimed three near here in the last week.”

  That sounded an awful lot like what happened to Rick in Dahlia’s storeroom.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  Demetri shook his head. “No one does. You can’t ask any of the victims because they just start howling and throwing themselves against things.”

  Shit. Peter and I shared a glance, for once on the same page. Neither of us liked an unknown spook running around town and using its mojo to paralyze and then summon its victims. It put our entire community at risk of discovery.

  Not to mention it’s easier to fight something when you know its weaknesses. In this topsy, turvy shadow world, the simple logic behind the laws of physics and the world didn’t always apply. For instance putting three bullet holes in Liam’s chest had only been a slight annoyance to him. He didn’t even break stride. There was a possibility that this thing wouldn’t be phased by normal weapons either.

  Seeing that the two of us were uneasy at his words, Demetri threw in some extra information, “It got my cousin last night. That’s why I’m here. To pick up his stuff.”

  Using the grip I had on his collar, I pushed him down the stacks. “Show me.”

  I wanted to see if he was telling the truth. If he was, there might be a clue if this thing had done something to Caroline.

  We didn’t have far to go. His cousin had worked at the customer service desk three rooms down from the archive room.

  Demetri held out a bag. “This is his book bag. I don’t think he had anything else.”

  I took the bag and upended it on the table. Peter picked up a notebook and paged through it. Demetri took a step back.