"Sure, um..."
He smiled warmly. "You have no clue how to use a card catalog."
"I haven't used one since high school, and even then I didn't know what I was doing. Mostly I just needed a place to hide my gum."
He shook his head. "You're not chewing any gum now, are you?"
"No."
He grinned. "Then come on."
At the card catalog, he patiently showed me how to search under "subject." I thanked him and he had just returned to his epic tome, when I heard footsteps approaching in the outer hallway.
From my position at the card catalog I had a view of the entrance into the Occult Reading Room. No one was there. Indeed, the footsteps seemed to be receding now, perhaps heading down a side aisle.
I debated following, but remembered the reading room would be closing in just a few minutes.
The creep in the bow tie had me on edge. Had he been the same tall man I had seen in Kingsley's building? I didn't know, but I could count on one hand the number of men I had seen wearing bow ties this last year. Hell, in the last five years.
And now I had seen two in one day.
Coincidence? I think not.
And, yes, I thought back to Fang's words: "There are no coincidences, Moon Dance."
Although my sixth sense was always a little sketchy during the day, I wasn't picking up on any danger. Still, I stepped briefly outside and scanned the hallway. No one there.
Back at the card catalog, I found the drawer labeled "Ma-Mi," and started flipping through the ancient cards, my sharp nails and heightened dexterity making it easy to whip through them rapidly.
My blurred fingers stopped on a name that I wasn't entirely prepared to see. In fact, I had already given up the search as a lost cause. But there, on the yellowed piece of paper, were the words: Archibald Maximus: My Life as a Mystic, Alchemist and Philosopher.
"Unbelievable," I whispered.
Dazed, I jotted down the Dewey Decimal Numbers and proceeded to hunt through the reading room. The energy in the Occult Reading Room, I noticed, was off. I wasn't sure why, truth be known, but I wondered if it had something to do with the room's darker contents. Indeed, as I read some of the spines of the books, I could see why:
A Compleat History of Magick, Amulets and Superstitions.
Vampires: Alive and Well and Living Among Us.
Magick in Theory and Practice.
Curse Tablets and Binding Spells.
Lycans: Our Wolf Brothers.
Additionally, there were countless books on alchemy, magic, demonology, divination, Satanism, freemasonry, Middle Eastern magical grimoires. Books on East Asian magical practices, Tibetan secret practices, books on the Tarot and raising the dead. Some of the books looked ancient, so old that I was afraid to touch them. Many of them were surrounded by a darkness visible to my eyes, similar to the darkness that had surrounded my son. Sometimes I heard whispering as I went down the aisles, as if I were not alone.
One book in particular radiated a blackness so dark that I gave it a wide berth. Even still, as I stepped past it, I heard whispering in my ear, "Sister, come to us..."
Sweet Jesus.
Shaking, I finally reached the aisle I wanted. Ignoring the slithering, psychic chattering that now seemed to come from everywhere, I quickly ran my pointed nail along the books' spines, praying like hell that the book I needed would be there.
Not this row. I scanned the next one and the next.
And there it was. I literally breathed a sigh of relief.
I carefully removed the narrow volume. The book was clearly ancient, bound in leather and written in what appeared to be vellum, sheep skin. The title was clear enough and written in modern English, which surprised me since the book was obviously bound centuries earlier.
But I didn't have time to think about it.
The young man behind the desk was now carefully stacking his books. As he turned away from me, I quickly slipped the narrow volume down the front of my jeans.
I made haste, exiting via a different route, ignoring the beseeching cries from some of the darker books. At the desk, the young man smiled and asked if I had found what I was looking for.
I said maybe, smiled, and exited the Occult Reading Room, noting for the first time that the aura around him was violet and utterly beautiful.
On the way out of the library, walking a little funny, I didn't see the man with the bow tie.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I was sitting by my son's side.
The sun was setting and I was feeling excited and nervous and guilty as hell. I thought back to my first few nights as a vampire, and I was certain that I wasn't aware that a drastic change had occurred. Not yet. It would take a few days.
Indeed, I just remember sleeping and healing, and it wasn't until a few days later, at home, that the cravings began. Cravings for the red stuff.
I looked down at my son. In a matter of days or hours or minutes - or perhaps it had already happened, he would go from being a sweet little boy, to an immortal with a hunger for blood and a penchant for turning into a little vampire bat. No doubt, a cute little vampire bat.
And be with you forever.
I heard the words again. And again. And again.
I suddenly had an image of me fighting traffic for an eternity, listening to infomercials for an eternity. An eternity of bad hair days, of showering and putting on deodorant. An eternity of drinking blood.
Mostly, though, an eternity alone.
I never feared death. Death was the natural order of things and I was always certain that there was something waiting for us beyond. If so, then why fear death?
But I would never discover what lay beyond, would I? I would never see the face of God. I would never sit across from Jesus or Buddha or Krishna. Instead, I would only sit across from a TV, or whatever passed for a TV in the far future, while yet another infomercial for yet another magic dishrag.
The medallion had been my answer, of course. It had been my way out of the immortality game. The immortality prison. My chance to escape an eternity of doldrums.
But not anymore.
The sun was setting. I knew this because I could feel some of the weight on my shoulders diminishing. Also, there was a small tingling that was beginning to creep up along my spine. A sort of awakening perhaps. An awakening to all that I could be. I ached for the sun to set. Longed for it to do so.
Hurry, dammit.
Next to me, my son stirred.
"Mommy?"
"Hi baby," I said.
"Mommy, I had a bad dream."
I had no doubt. "I know, honey. I know."
Chapter Twenty-eight
I stayed my son's side for many hours.
My ex-husband sent me a text, asking how our son was doing. I told him he was improving, and Danny sent a happy face and an "XO." As in hugs and kisses.