The Demon's Librarian

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Come on, Ryan. Use that tongue of yours for something constructive. What would Paul say? “I was just being cautious, not spying on you. You know all about being cautious, sweetheart. You played your cards so well Paul doubted you had anything to do with the missing books. You found Melwyn Evrard Halston’s library, didn’t you? And once you figured out what it was and that it was for real, you didn’t tell anyone. You just quietly went about making some ritual implements and went chasing after a fucking class-3 demon. That wasn’t very cautious, but females get a little impulsive, I’m told.” Whoops. That didn’t come out right. “Imagine you didn’t know about any of this. What would you have said if Paul came up to you and announced he was a demon hunter and suspected you of knowing about a cache? If you didn’t laugh at him you’d call the cops and have him hauled to the funny farm, if they could catch him. We had to be sure.” Not to mention the fact that killing that skornac’s made you a target. If we found you, the Inkani can find you too. If they find you you’re dead. And I’ll be damned before I let that happen. “You made a lot of noise and mess killing that thing, and you’ve attracted a lot of attention. Like it or not, you need me.”

  That gave her chin an even more defiant tilt. The ashen tone to her cheeks was going away, thank God, and he was beginning to recover from the feeling of being punched in the gut.

  Beginning to. Thinking of what the Inkani would do to her made the feeling threaten to come back. “I don’t need you,” she informed him haughtily. “I’m doing just fine on my own. And quit calling me that. You may address me as Ms. Barnes.”

  Keep dreaming, sweetheart. You’re only doing fine on your own because nobody’s found out about you yet. You’ve got some damn good protective coloration, but that won’t save you. “Look.” He had to work for an even tone. “You don’t understand what you’ve gotten into here. I got that thing away from your window and you helped me kill it. Good. We can make a good team. I have to find my Malik, and I’d hate it if the Inkani got their claws in you. I can teach you how to fight more effectively, and you can do me the honor of trusting me. I won’t ask where the goddamn books are.” Besides, if you join the Order, they’ll have it out of you sooner or later. You’re talented enough they’ll cut you some slack.

  Especially if Ryan explained it to them the right way. He couldn’t lie, but he could shine the most positive light on her actions.

  Christ, what are you contemplating? You’re can’t get emotionally involved with her. You’re a Drakul, and they won’t even let you do so much as sniff her hair. Keep yourself under control.

  Too goddamn late for that. He knew, with miserable certainty, that he had committed a grave sin and allowed himself to get attached. It would be deathly hard to fight his instincts and let her go into the Order, let her be whisked away, vanishing into the Malik. And if they guessed he’d gotten possessive over her . . .

  She again stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. He wanted a closer look at the gold flecks in her eyes, but didn’t dare move. “What’s Ankeny?”

  “Inkani,” he corrected automatically, hearing the strange accent in the word as if for the first time. “They’re the upper echelon of demons, the people that have made deals with them in return for privilege and power. The Order—the Malik and Drakulein—are the people that keep them in check, fight them off, and keep the rest of you skins from becoming slaves.”

  “Skins?” she whispered. At least there was no more of the get-out-of-my-house stuff. But she was alarmingly pale again, and he began to worry that he should have fed her before questioning her.

  “People with no sorcerous ability. Humans. The people we protect.” He was beginning to feel a little less woozy. If Paul was still alive, he was likely to stay that way, having found a good bolthole; if he wasn’t, there was nothing Ryan could do about it now. The Inkani were bad, but he’d fought them before, and with this little prize to bring back to the Malik he could probably escape a black mark on his record. He could handle this.

  Maybe. With a miracle or two he might even be able to pull this one off.

  “I’m a . . . a skin?” Her eyebrows drew together, and she put aside the jar of sparkling ointment, on a teetering stack of books. A few reference texts about old bookbinding, Carlyle’s The French Revolution, a few herbals, and a battered leatherbound Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in one package. Odd, but he’d come to expect that from her.

  “Not any more,” he said shortly. “Now you’re a Malik recruit. Congratulations.”

  She pushed the down comforter—dragged off her bed, he thought, seeing it was blue like the rest of her bedroom—away. The boxers rode up, exposing very interesting legs, sleek and smoothly muscled, the horrible scrape on her knee already looking much less serious. Her toenails were painted with crimson polish, and there was a smear of dried mud on her left ankle. Add to that her torn T-shirt, slipping down and showing a slice of her bruised shoulder as well as the top slope of a perky C-cup that most definitely wasn’t trapped in a bra, and he suddenly found it a little difficult to breathe. “That’s an honor I can do without,” she said, dryly, and he recognized the tone as “professional”.

  He knew enough from watching her to guess that meant trouble, especially with the way her shoulders went back and one eyebrow arched, the equivalent to a cobra’s hood spreading out or a mama bear’s warning growl. Uh-oh. “Look, sweetheart—”

  “I’ve had enough,” she interrupted, making it to her feet and wincing as more aches and pains became apparent. “I’m going to the bathroom and I’m going to get dressed. Then I’m going to have some breakfast. We’re even, you yourself said so. You can go looking for your friend and I’ll take care of my library. I don’t like being spied on, and if your friend Paul hadn’t been such an arrogant idiot he might have had better luck. He quit paying attention to me and spent his time flirting with my coworker and then proceeded to stand her up. I don’t think much of either of you. By the time I finish in the bathroom I expect you to be gone. Lock the door on your way out.”

  Goddamn it. What part of this do you not understand, woman? He made it to his feet in one swift motion, a little gratified when she flinched. I don’t like scaring you, but I will if I have to. “I am not going anywhere.” He folded his arms and glared at her. “You’re going to help me find my Malik, and I’m going to keep you alive long enough to figure out how to keep the Order from making a mess of your life. Because they will, sweetheart. You have no idea.”

  “I don’t think much of your Order and I think even less of you.” Her eyes lit up with what he recognized as incandescent fury. It made her even more beautiful, and he wondered how Paul could have ever thought her less than stunning. Or even been attracted to the sheela with this woman around. “Nobody tells me what to do, and nobody’s going to try to steal my library! Where were all the rest of you when I was taking care of it? I’ve done all the work and now you want to ride in and take the credit. No, thank you! Where was your goddamn Order when I was hunting down the—ulp!”

  He didn’t mean to, but he almost knocked her off her feet. His arm locked around her throat, not tight enough to cut off her air but tight enough to pull her back against him. She struggled and raked at his forearm with her short fingernails, also tried stamping on his foot. But there were advantages to being Drakul: enhanced strength wedded to quicker reflexes, reinforced bones and superior musculature. Besides, she’d taken a hell of a beating and was in no condition to fight him.

  Time to put this in terms you can understand. “I don’t want your goddamn library,” he said in her ear, getting a good lungful of her. She smelled, even after last night’s dip in alley water, of clean herbal shampoo and that maddeningly elusive warm, fresh golden scent that made it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. “As far as I’m concerned, the Order won’t hear about your books from me. You’re just talented enough to have picked up a lot of this as you go along. What I do want is to find my Malik and keep you alive
, sweetheart, and if you make it difficult for me, I’ll make it much more difficult for you. Trust me, you don’t want that. Since I’m prepared to play it nice and easy, I suggest you do the same.”

  She even tried to elbow him, but the fight gradually went out of her. She went limp. He could almost feel her vibrating with fury nevertheless. “Deal, Miss Barnes?” I kind of like this, having her struggle. She’s so damn bossy. But I like that about her too.

  One last frantic burst of effort, then she sagged exhausted against him again, and he had another problem—he was starting to respond. Starting to?

  No, he already had. His skin flushed with heat and the demon part of him—suspiciously quiet for too goddamn long—roared into life. He had to clamp down on his control, trained into him harshly the instant the Malik found him, and hope she didn’t notice that the man holding her still was not only shaking slightly and sweating, but also sporting a serious hard-on.

  Without a Malik around to remind him of his duty, he was about to get very attached to this bossy little librarian, and that wasn’t something the Order would look kindly on at all. If his instincts were triggered things could get messy indeed.

  If? It’s too goddamn late. I’m in too deep already, and this has barely gotten started. She’s mine. Nobody knows it yet, but she’s mine.

  “Bully,” she said harshly, and he hoped he wasn’t choking her. “You’re nothing but a big bully, and I hate bullies.”

  “You were pretty glad to see me last night. Do we have a deal, librarian?” If she moves, if she leans back or even tries to struggle . . . The world narrowed to a single thread, Ryan fighting to stay perfectly still, perfectly calm, controlled. I am Drakulein. I am of the Order of the Dragon. I do not force myself on women, nor do I hurt them. I am Drakul.

  The mantra helped, but only a little.

  “Fine.” Her voice broke. “Deal. Let go of me.”

  I don’t know if I can. But he did. As soon as her feet touched the floor she scrambled away from him, pausing at the edge of the living room, in her bedroom doorway. The bathroom had two doors, one to her room and one to the short hall leading to the kitchen, but she was probably instinctively retreating to the place where she slept. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said tonelessly, rubbing at her throat with gentle fingers.

  Though he knew he hadn’t come close to choking her, he still felt a sharp spear of that new, aching feeling. Guilt. “Don’t give me reason to.” He earned himself a glare that could shatter a clock face. “I’ll make you breakfast. How do you like your eggs?”

  “You leave my kitchen alone. I’ll make my own damn breakfast.” And with that, she vanished into her bedroom.

  Perfect. I managed to handle that in a spectacularly bad way. But she’s agreed, and she’s decent, so she’ll probably live up to it. That, however, was the least of his problems. He had to find his Malik and find out what the Inkani were up to. And then he had to figure out how to stay as close to her as possible, for as long as possible.

  I’m in trouble, and if the Order finds out I’ll never see her again. His throat went dry, and he retreated to the dining room, where he’d left his weapons and his bag. What am I thinking of? I’m contemplating something very dangerous. Let’s hope I come to my senses sometime soon.

  But he heard the shower gurgle into life, and his entire body seemed to vibrate with tension, kicking up a notch. It was too late. She’d triggered some of the worst and deepest instincts a Drakul had, and he was in the biggest mess of his life, without the faintest idea of how he’d gotten there.

  Five

  He didn’t listen to her, of course, and had a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast for her as soon as she appeared, showered, in clean clothes, and feeling marginally more able to handle the situation. He hadn’t done her toast right—Chess preferred it just lightly toasted, and he’d damn near burned it—but she was so hungry she didn’t care. He had even made coffee, and it was little consolation that he’d managed to do that right. The coffee alone was strong enough to eat a silver spoon.

  By the time she finished the first piece of toast—made tolerable by a liberal layer of strawberry jam and frequent gulps of coffee with cream—she was feeling much better. The ointment, reapplied after her shower, had worked its sorcery, and she was well on her way to simmering with fury. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning. If she was at work she would be shelving for a little bit before lunch. The rain had blown itself out, now the windows darkened when a cloud went over the sun and brightened when it came back out.

  “So the Malik are human, but they’ve got sorcerous talent. They’re like sorcerers. What are . . . Dragool?”

  “Drakul,” he corrected. Settled on the other side of her table, his black eyes focused on the wickedly-curved, sharp-looking knife he was oiling, he looked far more deadly than he had this morning. His profile was harsh, especially when he was concentrating, and he didn’t treat the knife with the same delicate care he’d used on her knee. Instead, his eyebrows were drawn together, and he looked almost distracted but still . . . well, lethal. Muscle moved in his arm as he lifted the knife, eyeing the blade critically, and her heart began to pound. He had a black bag with a flap and a shoulder strap; it seemed to hold a lot of odds and ends he probably needed for demon hunting, like her own bag. “Drakulein. The Order of the Dragon. In 1431 the original order—meant to fight against the infidel in Eastern Europe—was expanded. One of Sigismund of Luxembourg’s vassals was a Malik, a kind of medieval demon-hunter. He got a secret charter from Sigismund, who was King of Hungary. Then he started finding men with demon blood.”

  “Demon blood?” She almost forgot to eat, this was so interesting. But she was absolutely starving and took another bite of toast and contemplated more coffee. I have a big, tall demon hunter sitting at my kitchen table. Whoa. She was beginning to feel almost charitable toward him, despite him dangling her from her throat and spying on her.

  “Whether by rape, by trickery, or through bargaining, Others have been breeding with humans for a long time. Not all of them have tentacles or are foul-smelling dogs. Anyway, the children of those unions usually had lots of sorcerous talent and the changes in bone structure began at about that time, we think. We’re not sure. Sigismund’s vassal laid the foundation for the Order. When Sigismund died, the human Order of the Dragon—”

  “Wait a minute. Dracul.” She made the connection. The 1400s, Order of the Dragon, Eastern Europe. Oh my God. “You mean like Vlad Tepes? As in—”

  “He wasn’t one of ours. He was part of the human order, just a warlord in Wallachia.” But he looked pleased that she knew her history. He set the knife down, and his eyes settled on her. They were so dark, iris blending into pupil, it gave his gaze a piercing intensity she wasn’t sure she liked. “Anyway, that was the start of it. When Sigismund died, the human Order went into decline, but the Malik and Dracul . . . we stayed. We had to. Demons were everywhere, feeding on the chaos wars left behind, and we had a hard time clearing out territories so people could sleep at night without worrying about the sounds they heard outside. There were outbreaks, of course, but after 1607 we were largely in control of things. I’m Drakul, my father and mother both had demon blood. Gave me some trouble when I was young, I could do things ordinary kids couldn’t. I learned early and well to be circumspect; but my mom couldn’t handle the demon in me coming out. Neither could anyone else, and I got labeled a runaway and a juvenile delinquent.” His mouth turned down bitterly at both corners. “Then the Malik found me. I haven’t looked back since.”

  “So you’re . . . part . . . ” Her mouth was dry. She took a hurried gulp of coffee, scorching her tongue. Ouch. So that’s why he moves so fast and why my knife’s been acting funny. Why didn’t any of the books warn me about this? I thought he was human. Like me.

  “Part demon, lacking a soul. Scared of me yet?” He gave her a bright, sunny smile, the tips of his white teeth showing, his eyes cold and dark.

  Yes. Of co
urse I am. I saw you move last night. Too fast to be human, and you survived a five-story drop onto concrete. My God. “No. If you mess with my library, I’ll find some way to get rid of you.” She popped a piece of toast into her mouth, chewed, and took another drink of coffee. It was too hot, but she needed the caffeine. “So you lost the guy in tweed—Paul.”

  “Yeah. He didn’t meet me at the rendezvous, and didn’t meet your friend. That means something’s wrong. It’s not like Paul to miss a dinner date. He thinks he’s a goddamn Casanova.” He slid the knife back into its sheath and took something else out of his bag. It looked like a coil of copper wire. The shoulder of his T-shirt was still torn and crusted with dried blood, and her conscience suddenly gave a hard twinge.

  So he’d been watching her because he suspected her of having something to do with the disappearance. He’d still intervened, getting that thing away from her window. She’d been too exhausted to recognize the danger. He deserved a little slack, even if he had practically manhandled her in her own home. “Hey, take your shirt off.”

  That managed to get a reaction. He looked steadily at her, his jaw gone hard as stone and his eyes hard, closed-off, and almost feral.

  “I mean it,” she persisted. I’m offering you an olive branch, you bossy jerk. Take it, why don’t you? “I’ve got some T-shirts left from an ex-boyfriend. One of them will probably fit you. I’ll wash the one you’re wearing and put it in my mending. No reason for you to go around all bloody.”

  He still stared at her as if she’d just informed him there was something unspeakable in his cornflakes. Chess sighed. “Fine. Forget it. So you want me to help you find this guy Paul. All right. Where do we start?”

  “Nightfall.” He looked back down at the table. “If you’ve got an extra shirt, I’ll take it. I can mend this one, but it would be nice to have it washed.”