Damn psychic ability.
I clicked on, immediately regretting it because my sunscreen wasn't applied as thick as it should have been. Already I was feeling the first wave of some serious pain.
"Samantha Moon?" asked a pleasant young man.
"You got her," I said.
"You removed a book from our library the other day and we would like it returned."
"Who is this?"
"I'm with the university."
I frowned. "How did you know about the book? How did you know it was me?"
But he ignored my question and asked cheerily: "We would like our book back, Miss Moon."
I forgot about the heat, about the searing pain. "I don't have it anymore."
"I see," said the voice, somehow even more cheerily. "Then there will be a fine. We will need that taken care of immediately."
"A fine? How much?"
"I think you know the price, Miss Moon." And the moment he said that, the medallion in my chest pulsed with heat of its own. "I will be expecting you soon."
And he hung up.
Chapter Fifty-one
I was back at the university library, and this time I was certain a bastard in a bow tie wasn't following me.
Anthony wouldn't be released for another few hours and Tammy was with Mary Lou. Feeling an odd sense that I was either stepping into a trap, or into something extraordinary, I moved through the busy ground floor, and on an impulse I stopped at the main desk.
"Who works in the Occult Reading Room?" I asked the flirty young clerk.
"In the Occult Reading Room? No one. It's a self-service reading room. But I could help you if you - "
"Thank you," I said, and turned away. I headed over to the bank of elevators. In a daze, admittedly.
At the third floor, which was as empty as the first time I had been here, with my curiosity and wariness growing exponentially, I made my way down an empty aisle, stepping lightly over the dull acrylic flooring. With each step, my shoulder ached. My throat was still raw and red and for now I kept a scarf around it. The air conditioner hummed from seemingly everywhere.
At the end of the aisle I came to the far wall. Ahead of me was the opening to the Occult Reading Room. Would the same young man be there? The young man with the bright eyes and the slightly pointed beard, a young man I hadn't thought much about the first time I had seen him, but who was now very much the object of my attention.
Prepared for just about anything, I moved forward, all too aware that the medallion on my chest was growing warmer and warmer.
* * *
The same young man was there, and he was once again sitting behind what I had assumed was an employee desk, but was, in fact, just an oversized reading desk.
I sat cautiously opposite him, noting that my own inner alarm system was as quiet as could be. In fact, I even felt oddly at peace, perhaps for the first time in a long, long time.
"You don't really work here," I said, as I sat my purse on the floor next to me.
"Not officially," he said, dipping his head slightly, apologetically.
He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, perhaps even as young as twenty. He looked like a student, surely. Other than the bright twinkle in his eye and his pointy beard, he looked unremarkable.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Archibald Maximus, of course," he said. "You can just call me Max, though."
I stared at him a long time. His aura was violet. A beautiful violet unlike anything I had ever seen. "How old are you, Max?"
He gave me a half smile. "Does it matter?"
"I guess not," I said. I liked the way Max looked at me. He didn't stare rudely. In fact, he seemed to find great pleasure in looking at me, as if he were soaking me up, remembering my every detail. Normally, I don't like to draw attention to myself and I like to be ignored. But sometimes I make exceptions. "You're not a student here, are you?"
He smiled warmly. "No."
"And you're not twenty-something, either?"
"Let's just say no."
We looked at each other some more. I noticed now how perfectly groomed his beard was. I also noticed that his blue eyes were not really blue...holy hell, were they violet?
"I...I don't have your book," I said.
"I know."
"I don't know what happened to it."
"That's okay."
"Do I still owe a fine?"
His lips broke into a wide smile, his cheeks rising high enough that the fine point of his beard wasn't so fine.
"I don't think the library would appreciate me taking fines for books that don't officially exist."
"I don't understand."
"It's okay if you don't understand. There's lots I don't understand, too. That's half the fun: finding answers." He leaned forward a little and his gaze locked onto the area just beneath my throat, an area that was now throbbing with real warmth.
"Ah, I see you're wearing the medallion. Or, more accurately, it's wearing you."
Which should have been a highly unlikely statement, since the medallion was currently concealed beneath my shirt.
"I...was protecting it. I had no idea it would..."
"Attach itself to you?"
"Yes."
"Would you like for me to remove it?"
"Yes. But I had heard - "
"The seal was permanent?"
"Yes."
"Normally, yes. But I'm fairly familiar with it. Would you mind?" he asked.
I shook my head and he got up from behind the desk and stepped around to me.
"Just try to relax," he said.
He put his hands on my shoulders, which sent a shiver of warm energy through me, charging me from the inside. Next he moved his fingers around my throat and slipped them down inside my shirt.
I gasped and felt a different kind of thrill.
His searching hands found the medallion, where he rested the flat of his palms over it. There was no pain, just a sense of...release.
A moment later he removed his hands, and held up the gleaming medallion. He grinned.
I was relieved beyond words. There was hope again. There was hope my son could live a normal life.
"Now, Sam, what would you like to do with this?"
But I was having difficulty speaking. I was so afraid to have hope, so afraid to believe. I tried speaking again: "I had heard that the medallion..." but I couldn't get the words out.
"You had heard that it could reverse vampirism?"
"Yes," I said, but I was terrified to hear his answer. Oh, sweet Jesus. What if he couldn't do it? Or what if he said no? What would I do then?