“Did you ever think that stealing time from your life might be affecting every muscle and organ in your body?”
I hadn’t, but it made sense. That question made me shut my mouth, but I still didn’t release my grasp.
“I have to find another way to remain strong. The same goes for Kendall. Did you see her this morning? She looked pale as well. She needs to feed on a regular basis. How can we help her? Tie up unwilling humans to a chair and set up an IV line?”
“Blood bags,” I said. “From the hospital or from the Red Cross or any other blood donation center.”
“How long can you keep that up? Are you going to steal a few dozen pints at a time and then rush off to another hospital the next day? News will hit and those places will begin to put tighter security measures in place.”
It disturbed me that I hadn’t thought that far ahead. A moment later, however, my concern drifted away as I felt the familiar easygoing result of touching Nolan. “But who cares, right? She’s the vampire, not me. It sucks though, doesn’t it? Ha, ha. No pun intended.” I drew closer to Nolan and lay my head on his arm. “Think about it. Everyone around me is some kind of paranormal creature, and who’s got to set things straight? Me! A witch who doesn’t know anything about anything when it comes to the supernatural! I barely know how to use my own powers. It’s pathetic! And I’m supposed to make a difference? Sometimes when we’re together, I’m afraid I’ll set you on fire. And it’s all your fault. Every time I’m near you, I get…I mean, you’re all…” I drew back and wrapped my free palm around his bicep. “God,” I said, squeezing it. “Do you feel these things?”
“Sure do,” he said, “since they belong to me.”
“You’re funny.” I clutched his right cheek with my thumb and index finger. “Your muscles are like iron. I mean, let’s be honest, that is so hot! I’m not gonna lie. Never been a liar, so why start now?” I pumped the muscle in my hand again, but his skin barely moved. “Damn! What do you feed these things?”
“Okay, I think we’re done,” Nolan said, removing my hands from his body.
My head lolled around on my neck as dizziness came over me.
He put an arm around me, while not using his fingers or hand, and pulled me close to keep my head from spinning.
“I feel kind of sick. Like I’m gonna…” I bolted away from the bench, hurried past the sidewalk, and vomited into the parking lot, frightening a pair of little children who scurried away from me and hurried toward their mother a few feet away.
“Disgusting,” the girl said.
“Awesome!” said her brother. He tried to stop and keep looking, but his mother pulled him toward the library.
Just the notion of throwing up again…made me lose the other half of my breakfast.” I plugged my hands onto my knees, tired and nauseous. I stood up and saw Nolan right beside me, but without the ability to touch me, he looked frustrated that he couldn’t comfort me.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” he said in a somber tone, “thanks to you.”
I nodded, took in some clean air, and said, “I need to visit the restroom.”
A few minutes later, after cleaning up in the library’s restroom, I stepped into the lobby. My stomach felt much better, and my headache began to clear. Moments ago, when we touched, it took me awhile before glee entered my demeanor. It meant that my body was beginning to develop a tolerance whenever Nolan and I touched, which allowed more time to pass before the symptoms started. And since that occurred, it made sense that I felt more queasy than in the past.
“How long had we touched?” I asked.
“A minute and a half,” Nolan said in a pained voice. “You just lost another…four and a half days.”
I disregarded the consequences of his statements. Instead, I scanned the lobby for anyone who might be looking for me: police officers, security guards, staff members on the lookout for anything unusual. But only a couple patrons milled about this area, while a handful of staff members sat or stood behind the desks, checking in materials or chatting while waiting for those who might need their assistance.
At a small, rectangular directional table, a security guard stood and chatted with an elderly staff member. He glanced up at me.
“Pretend not to notice,” said Nolan from the corner of his mouth.
I followed his advice by slanting my head in the other direction while using my peripheral vision to keep an eye on the guard. While we walked past the table, the guard watched me. “He wasn’t here last night,” I whispered, doing my best to speak without using my lips. “But he must have viewed the security footage from last night.” We continued through the hall and started up the steps.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“He recognized me.” When I turned the bend on the staircase, which angled in the opposite direction, I risked a glance back.
The security guard stood at the bottom of the staircase, watching me.
Nerves strained, pulse jumping, I appreciated that we were temporarily out of sight. “McClane is onto us!”
“Wait, who?”
“Die Hard. The cop. You’ve seen it, right? What guy hasn’t?”
“Oh, you mean Bruce Willis? But this guy’s a security guard. You saw a resemblance? Hmm. The guard was very overweight. When was Bruce Willis that heavy?”
We reached the second floor, and when he pivoted to the left, I followed. “I’m just saying, he’s onto us.”
“If he was really John McClane,” Nolan said, “we might as well turn ourselves in right now. Because that guard can handle a machine gun while running across glass. How could we fight someone like that?”
“Are you trying to distract me to settle my nerves?”
He grinned. “Is it working?”
I shook off the question without a response.
He pointed ahead. “It should be back here.”
I looked back at the stairwell and spotted the guard as he reached this floor. Then Nolan’s words bellowed in my mind: it should be back here. “Wait,” I said, nearly coming to a stop. Knowing that the guard scrutinized us, I continued onward, hoping my hesitation hadn’t registered with him. I fought an overpowering temptation to find out if the guard still tracked us, but with every passing second, I found my willpower weakening. “I thought you knew where Darius put the book?”
“Well,” I sort of saw him put it—”
“You didn’t see the exact spot?”
Nolan motioned up ahead. “Right over here.”
“Don’t point!” I said a little too loudly.
He spun around a bookshelf and scanned the non-fiction books at eye-level. “We’re getting close.”
“So is McClane,” I said.
The guard hastened in our direction, closing the thirty-foot gap between us. He removed the cell phone from his belt, but he didn’t attempt to speak into it.
“It’s right about…there!” Nolan jerked a finger at it. “Care to do the honors?”
I faced a shelving unit with row after row of books. I reached for it, but I saw movement from the corner of my eye, drawing my attention in that direction.
The guard stepped into our aisle, but he didn’t approach us. Instead, he examined us as though flipping through a Rolodex of faces in his mind, trying to determine our identity.
“Can I help you?” Nolan asked.
“I’m security here. What’s your name?”
“Nolan. Yours doesn’t happen to be…John McClane, does it?”
“Huh?” the guard asked.
My mouth went dry, and I couldn’t stop my fingers from quivering. My breath came short, and I felt an overpowering need to react. I tramped down on the desire to respond. Nevertheless, the shelves on either side of us began trembling, making the books rattle from side to side and forward and backward.
Nolan turned to me. “What the…Are you—”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.” Apparently,
my jittery nerves triggered the shelves on either side of us to shake. I tried to settle my uneasiness, but that only made me more nervous, which in turn, increased the pressure around us, causing the shelving units to rumble in place
Determined to get what I came for and leave, I reached for The Book of Souls, but with all the shaking, it tipped off the shelf and fell to the carpet alongside a dozen more books.
Then a couple more fell, followed by five more, and a dozen more. Since we were in the far corner, the clashing books might not arouse much suspicion from those who were on the other side of the floor, but there were so few patrons and staff on this level that if anyone stood in the stacks nearby me, they would undoubtedly hear the raucous. I scanned the area and, not seeing anyone hurrying to investigate the disturbance, released a sigh of relief. Nevertheless, on either side of me, hardcover books were still tipping off the shelving units, one row after another. Within seconds, dozens of books lay in the aisle.
On the outskirts of the aisle, the guard placed a hand on the shelving units to either side of him with a perplexed, haunted expression. A second later, he traced his gaze to mine as though finding the culprit who had caused the disruption. He stepped into the aisle and did his best to avoid the books on the ground, but since so many cluttered the floor, he shoved some with the tip of his shoes to clear space for his feet.
I looked at the books around me. How long would it take me to find The Book of Souls? Fearing that I might never find it, my chest grew tight.
“What’re you doing?” asked the guard. He looked uncertain whether he should continue walking or remain in place. He glanced around him with trepidation, most likely hoping the books would stop falling.
I felt likewise, but the more uncomfortable I felt, the more difficult it became to reign in my ability to manipulate the energy around me.
“I’ll handle him,” Nolan whispered. “You find the book.” He lifted his arms over his head like a shield as books bounced off his forearms, elbows, and hands. He took his time making his way to the other side to meet the guard.
If I tried to prevent one volume after another from falling, the pressure I’d place on myself might make things worse, so I cleared my mind and looked into the few dozen books that had fallen on top of The Book of Souls, got to the ground, and began pushing them aside in hopes of finding the book. Sure enough, the shelves no longer rumbled and the books no longer fell. All through the aisle, the books that had been set alongside the edge of each row were discombobulated.
Nolan reached the other side of the aisle, and while the security guard hadn’t yet said a word, he withdrew the wooden club from his belt, raised it over his head, and struck down toward Nolan’s head.
I didn’t recall seeing a baton attached to the belts of the guards from last night. Even more worrisome was encountering a security guard that struck an unarmed man who showed no predilection for danger.
Nolan deflected the club, wrapped his left arm behind the guard’s back, and cranked it counterclockwise. Cringing, the guard arched his back and stood on his tiptoes, his free hand waving in every direction. Nolan grabbed the stick. He glanced around and, most likely seeing no one focusing on them, rammed the baton into the man’s gut. The guard bent over, and Nolan covered the man’s mouth to prevent him from making a sound, while leading him in the other direction. From this vantage point, it looked like the guard had endured some sort of health-related injury, and Nolan was attending to him.
Now that Nolan had attended to the guard, who most likely was not a guard but sent by Darius to eliminate us, I glanced in every direction, hoping that no one had seen or heard the raucous. Two stacks to my right, I spotted movement. I drew myself up to get a look at the person walking by, only to find a woman in her early forties with dark, curly hair and an expressionless face void of makeup. A staff badge pressed against the fabric of woman’s dress.
I went to the floor and placed the majority of my weight on my left knee to avoid putting too much stress on my right kneecap. Despite that, I still felt a dull ache in my injured knee. I pushed aside one book after another, hoping to locate The Book of Souls.
A pale woman with thick pink hair the color and texture of cotton candy stood behind me. She nearly bumped her nose ring while adjusting her glasses and blinked rapidly as though trying to determine if dozens of books actually surrounded me. A circular staff badge identifying her as a librarian clung to her dress just above her left breast…and a tattoo of a red rose on her clavicle.
“How did this happen?” She examined the shelving units with a suspicious eye, shifting to both feet to stay nimble. She obviously presumed that the weight of the books had caused the books to tumble to the ground.
I tried to dig out the book out before the librarian demanded answers. Then again, she might dart away and return with a second security guard, which might take longer now that Nolan had already occupied one of them. Or she might hurry to a phone and call the cops, since the staff had dealt with a peculiar incident late last night.
To prevent her from seeking assistance, I placed a hand to my head. “I wasn’t looking, and I bumped into a shelf and knocked a bunch of books down.” That didn’t sound too convincing, so I added, “But then one hit me in the eye, and I couldn’t see, and…” I threw up my hands in frustration. “I accidentally bumped into the other shelf.” I shook my head in actual embarrassment, because I hadn’t intended to cause so much noise or damage.
Then I noticed something I should have recognized earlier: this librarian didn’t have dark, curly hair…like the staff member who I’d seen just moments before this woman had appeared. I recalled seeing only one woman walking in the vicinity. Since then, I hadn’t seen or heard any one else. So…who was this woman? Perhaps I’d imagined that she had dark hair because I’d been rushing to find The Book of Souls without encountering interference. Had I misidentified her? Maybe I’d only seen what I’d wanted to see, rather than what truly existed. That seemed the most logical explanation, so I worked on disregarding my confusion.
The librarian glared at me for a long moment, probably contemplating how she wanted to approach the situation.
Her expression looked out of place: as a customer service professional, she would no doubt want to help me, not chastise me. I decided to approach the situation from an angle that would be in both of our best interests. “Can you help me?”
Her cynical expression vanished, and a luminous smile appeared. “Of course.” She bent down, began scooping up books, and tucked them in the crook of her arm. “Are you okay?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” I resumed my search for The Book of Lost Souls. “I dropped a personal book as well, so if you happened to see it…” Then I remembered that the dark haired woman had a pale expression, which meant she hadn’t applied lipstick. Yet, this woman wore crimson lipstick. I stared at her for a moment, trying to determine how I could have misunderstood her appearance.
“You’re staring,” she said with an emotionless voice. Instead of looking disturbed by my uninhibited expression, she appeared concerned.
Rather than give the assumption that I distrusted her for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out, I redirected my attention to the dark leather-bound book in her hand.
“What kind of book is this?” she asked in a skeptical tone. She tried to open the book but failed to do so. “There’s no writing on the cover. How weird!” Eliciting a dubious expression, she looked at me for an explanation. “Is this yours?”
“It’s an old family heirloom.”
“Huh.” Grimacing, she waited for more information.
Once again, I thought it best to be honest. “Apparently, it’s precious.” I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “In my opinion, it’s just a worthless old book that takes up space, but Grams said it’s important, and since she passed a few days ago, I…” A wave of emotion came over me, and tears entered my eyes. I looked down, trying not to let her loss affect me at such a pivotal
moment.
“I’m so sorry,” the librarian whispered. She scrutinized the book as she held it out to me. “At least it’s not damaged.”
I accepted it with an appreciative nod and pressed it to my chest, unwilling to let it out of my grasp anytime soon.
“I can take it from here,” she said, directing her attention to the books on the ground.
“Thanks. Sorry about the mess.” I tried not to display the unease gripping every muscle in my body…that begged me to dart away as quickly as possible. But just before turning away from her, I saw her hair shimmer.
“What are you?” I asked, although I wished I’d said, “Who are you?” That one word made a world of difference because the woman behind me met my expression with snarling intensity. I mostly relied on my left thigh to stand up.
She cracked a smile. “Well, I’m not a librarian!” Her pink hair flickered into the dark curly tresses I thought I’d noticed earlier. “Does this look more familiar?”
I jolted upright. “You’re a shapeshifter!”
Her smile vanished. She fired off a right hook toward my face.
I slipped the attack and rammed a hammer-fist against her left cheek, sending her sideways. When she raised her head, I chopped her neck and followed that up with an elbow to the same spot, rendering her unconscious.
Only Darius could have called upon a shifter to watch over the library in the event I showed up hoping to find The Book of Souls. But knowing Darius, who seemed meticulous in the planning stage of any predicament, he wouldn’t have stopped at planting only one shifter at the library. He would have also added another creature to the premises in case I identified a shifter and recaptured the book.
That set my thoughts toward the security guard that Nolan had taken out of commission. Another possibility entered my mind. Darius might not have had the opportunity to place two shapeshifters on guard. After all, Zephora’s curse had just ended. It didn’t seem likely that Darius would have located two shapeshifters so quickly, only to contact them and set them on a mission to guard The Book of Souls. The shifters would have had to assault staff members on their way inside the building (or in the parking lot) and knock them unconscious so they couldn’t take their place. It seemed unlikely that the shifters had killed anyone considering that they would have had to store the bodies somewhere, and without knowing the building blueprints, the shifters wouldn’t have had time to put the bodies in a location where staff wouldn’t have had access to.
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