Except he kept on blushing, his ears practically on fire, as he escaped back into the living room.
Next came Tammy. As with Anthony, I made her say thank you before I gave her the food. Except, of course, she stared at me with defiance for exactly two minutes before hunger finally got the better of her.
“Fine!” she said, louder than was necessary. “Thank you! But it’s your job to make us food, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s your job?” I asked.
She grinned at me before exiting the kitchen with her plate of food. “To eat it. Oh, and Tisha is not a friend. Trust me on this one, Mom. I’ve seen them smooching.” She made a kissing gesture that, quite honestly, I never wanted to see again.
A moment later, I heard her door slam shut, and I was left alone in the kitchen, with no food, and no real thanks.
Sigh.
Chapter Thirteen
“So, why do you oversee such a creepy library?” I asked Archibald Maximus, the young librarian with the ancient name.
As usual, Maximus was been nowhere to be found when I had first entered the Occult Reading Room at Cal State Fullerton. I had rung the little bell on the counter and, after a moment or two, out walked the young man wearing nondescript slacks and a black long-sleeved shirt. He was handsome in a nerdy way.
“Someone has to,” he answered. He stood on one side of the counter, his hands resting lightly on the counter itself.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that the knowledge in these books is not just for everyone.”
“Who then?”
“Those ready for such knowledge.”
“And you decide who’s ready?”
Archibald leaned back against the wall behind him and folded his arms over his chest Archibald didn’t have a lot of muscle tone. He had an average shape, perhaps even on the slender side. When he was done looking at me, and, probably, thinking about how to answer my question, he said, “I, and others like me, decide who may have access to such Reading Rooms. As for this particular collection, yes, I am the final gatekeeper.”
“And what if someone demanded to have a book?”
“That someone would have a hard time finding me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Look behind you, Sam.”
I did, just as a student walked past, a young girl looking forward, oblivious to us. It was rare enough to see any students on this floor as it was, let alone catching one just as she passed by. Still, one thing seemed apparent.
“She didn’t seem to notice us,” I said.
“And she wouldn’t, Sam.”
“I don’t understand. Are we invisible?”
“Not quite,” said the Librarian, and he cracked a rare smile. A nice smile, and one that suggested he had seen a lot...perhaps far more than I would ever realize. “To those who have not earned the right to use this room—or, more accurately, who are not ready for this room, it is, shall I say, not on their radar.”
“You mean they can’t see it?”
“In a way. They would have to be drawn to it by a very strong reason, but, even then, they would have no interest in it, and would continue on. It is similar to those who hear a great truth. If the listener is not ready for the truth, it will fall upon deaf ears.”
“But how was I ready to meet you?” I asked. “I mean, I’m no one.”
The Librarian looked at me with compassion. “I’ve been aware of you for some time, Samantha Moon. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before we met.”
“Geez. Who the heck are you?” I asked. Except I knew the answer to that. Archibald Maximus was, I knew, a great alchemist who had mastered life and death, albeit through alchemical means, rather than the alternative. The alternative being, of course, creatures like me.
“I’m not much different than you, Sam,” he said with a smile.
“Do you have a highly evolved demonic entity living within you, waiting and plotting to take over your life?”
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe we are a little different.”
He smiled. I wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Archibald was an immortal, and thus, his thoughts were closed from me, but, like the angel Ishmael, he seemed to have access to my own innermost thoughts...or perhaps he was an expert at body language, after all this time on Earth.
“But fear not, Samantha, for you are stronger than it.”
“I don’t feel stronger. I feel helpless.”
“You are far from helpless, child,” he said, and even though he looked years younger than me, his term of endearment touched me and I wanted to hug him tight and have him tell me everything was going to be okay. Whoever he was.
“Everything will be okay,” he said. “If you allow it.”
“Fine,” I said, wiping my eyes. “And where’s my hug?”
He came around the counter unhesitatingly, with open arms, and I slipped inside them easily and he hugged me tight and I felt his surprising strength and even his love—not a romantic love, and not necessarily a love just for me. His love seemed to radiate out, in a wide arc, encompassing, perhaps, the whole of mankind.
“Who are you?” I said again, into his shoulder.
He patted my own shoulder sweetly, as a father would. I wasn’t sure anyone had patted my shoulder in a long time. The gesture was so comforting that I didn’t want to let him go. It was, perhaps, the first time in many years that I truly felt safe.
“I am a friend,” he said into my ear.
Finally, I pulled away shyly, wiping my tears. “Thank you.”
He gave me such a warm smile that I nearly hugged him again. Finally, he said, “I assume, Sam, that you came here to talk.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath, getting a hold of myself. “No, I came for the hug.”
He laughed.
“Okay, and maybe one or two questions.”
He waited calmly. As he waited, I heard the familiar whisperings from deeper in the small reading room, a room that was crammed with every imaginable book on the occult and arcane, books on life and death and hidden histories, books on secret societies and black magic. Some books, I knew, opened doorways into other worlds, or worlds that were layered just over our own, worlds that sometimes crossed our path and interconnected. The whisperings, I suspected, were from these entities seeking entry into our world...and, I suspected, seeking willing hosts.
Like the creature within me.
She was a female, I’d come to discover. The sister to a powerful body-hopping demon that I had somehow managed to banish from an accursed family.