My eyes followed the length of chain as the other end disappeared into the earth.
“What is this?” No one was there to answer, but I knew they were all listening. Under the sea of grass and behind the veil concealing their forms, I knew they were all standing there, witnessing my epiphany as I realized they were the ones holding the other end.
They would never let me go.
I reached for the chain and tried to pull it from the earth. Each time I grabbed hold of the thin silver, it seemed to slip through my fingers as if I were grasping air.
I turned to look at my hands which had become inept tools of uselessness, but all I could see were the shiny black feathers of my wings.
TWELVE
When I got to the shop the next morning, Katie had already straightened the mess pile from the night before. It was inventory day, and that meant hours of plowing through the shelves and the endless task of recording book titles.
“You’re here early.” I picked up a book that was left on the end of the counter. “Fishing for a raise?”
“Ooh, do you think it’ll work?”
“I think you’ll have to sleep with the boss for that.”
“Yeah, well…” She trailed off and dropped the banter, not quite her usual witty self.
“What’s the matter, Katie? You’re awfully quiet this morning.”
She was holding back. I could feel it. After all we’d been through, it bothered me a little. I knew her biggest secret, and she knew most of mine. But something had her buttoned up tight today.
I glanced around the shop in preparation for our monumental task. When I looked back at Katie, I noticed her dreamy expression and the way she was twirling her fingertips along the edge of the book in her hand. She was completely distracted by a thought that put a coy smile on her face. Katie Bishop had the euphoric look of a woman who was sleeping with someone new.
“Anyone I know?” I casually asked.
She kept her eyes on the book in her hand and ignored my question.
“Come on, Katie. Tell Momma about your new toy.”
She exhaled the breath she was holding. “Well…he’s tall and very hot. That’s all I’m saying.”
Of course he was tall and hot. Katie was gorgeous. A little overboard with her piercings, but none of it could camouflage the goddess underneath her plaid miniskirt and weathered combat boots.
She had her own unique style, but sometimes I wondered if it was just her way of weeding out all the noise—the frat boys and all the other dicks trying to get into her pants. If you could see past the costume, you stood a chance of getting her attention.
“Fine. I’ll let it go—for now.”
We had the whole day to chat, so I decided to let the conversation happen organically. A few mindless hours of clipboards and scribbling down book titles, and we’d both be giving up secrets.
“Where’s Bear?”
“Who?”
“My kitty. His name is Bear. Where is he?”
“Ah, the kitten. I guess that means you got Daddy’s permission to keep him?”
“Daddy didn’t have a choice. If he said no, I was going to bring his home anyway.”
I headed for the back room to make sure he’d been properly cared for while I was away.
When I opened the door, I heard a tiny meow and felt the tug of a small claw at the bottom of my pants. I swooped him off my leg and held him up to my face. “Did you miss me, boo? Mommy missed you.” I planted a kiss on top of his head and inspected the room for food, water, and something that served as a litter box.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Katie snorted. “He’s getting the Lion King treatment. I think Apollo is getting attached, so you better get him out of here soon or he’s going to end up in someone else’s house.”
“He’s coming home with me today.” I put Bear back down and shut the door.
“So, where do we start?” I looked at the shelves on each side of the shop and wondered how three people could possibly drudge through the thousands of books crammed from floor to ceiling. Lucky for us we had a lot of copies—unusual for a used bookstore—which would make the job go a little faster.
Katie handed me a clipboard and a pen and pointed to the first aisle of the romance section. “I’ll start on that side and you can start on the other. We’ll chat our way around.”
“This is going to take days,” I groaned.
Apollo had failed to mention that inventory day actually meant inventory week. Katie had worked at Shakespeare’s Library for about a year. The gods must have been looking out for her, because she started a few days after inventory ended last year. This would be a first for both of us.
A few minutes into the mind-numbing task, I heard Katie’s clipboard hit the floor. “Oh, God. This one brings back memories. Have you read it?” She stuck the book through a gap in the shelf.
Savage Dance was written in bold gothic letters across the top. The woman on the cover was slumped in a man’s arms, and her long red dress plunged to the center of her breasts. He looked like he was planning to crawl inside of her.
“Can’t say that I have.”
The book disappeared back through the hole. “Hey, don’t judge. This was the book that introduced me to the fabulous world of soft porn.” She started flipping through the pages. “See, someone else liked it, too. All the best pages are dog-eared.”
“We’ll be here for a month if you don’t pick that clipboard back up,” I said.
She started reading one of those marked pages, and I got a visual of the fingers that had been on that book. “‘He hesitated, heightening her wild desire before he plunged into her soft, wet core, claiming her with the forceful strokes of his eager cock.’”
“Gross, Katie! Are you actually touching those pages?”
“‘She moaned as he held her in place to shove his cock deeper, stroking his tongue inside her mouth with each thrust.’”
“Jeez, would you stop!”
“Oh come on, Alex. This is good stuff. Nothing soft about it, though. Can’t wait to read hard,” she snorted.
“My, you’re in funny form today.”
“You know, Alex, the guy on the cover kind of looks like that boyfriend of yours.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I reminded her for the hundredth time.
“Yeah, right.”
We kept plowing through the shelves, picking through the endless mountain of books at a steady clip. Even so, it would take more than a week to get through them all.
“Isn’t there a more efficient way of doing this, Katie? I mean, this is the twenty-first century. There’s software that does this kind of stuff, you know.”
“Yeah, no shit. The owner is too cheap to invest in an inventory system, and why should he when he’s got cheap labor? I don’t think anyone has ever actually finished. Apollo says they just start at the opposite end of the store every year and work back around.”
“I like this place, Katie, but let’s just hope we’re both gone before next year’s inventory.”
It was midafternoon before we finished the romance section. We’d had few interruptions, and the laborious process had actually been a pleasant distraction from an otherwise boring day.
Katie finished the last book on her side and came around to work back-to-back with me on the metaphysics and occult aisle.
I picked up a copy of a book titled Here There Be Witches. “I know this book.” On the cover was the face of a jagged old witch with a tiny snake wrapped around her ring finger. “My mother had a copy. Used to scare the heck out of me until we read it together.” I tossed in on the floor. “It’s in the wrong sections. It’s really a children’s book.”
“You know, if you really delved into all the fairy tales we read to children, they’d scare the crap out of you,” Katie mused. “The old ones, anyway. The new ones are too PC.”
“Speaking of fairy tales, how’s that dragon of yours been lately? Charred anyone?”
“Now wh
o’s the funny one?”
“You know, you still haven’t told me about this new guy. Has he seen the dragon?”
“You’re asking me if my dragon likes to fuck?”
I shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but since you brought it up…”
“To be honest, I don’t know. But with this new guy—”
We both looked up as the door chimed. A short guy wearing a pair of dark sunglasses walked inside. He took a strategically placed step in each direction as he bobbed his head and scanned the room. His leather jacket squeaked when he moved, and his black shoes looked like they’d been polished with oil.
Satisfied with the surroundings, his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and looked at the two of us from across the room. His mouth moved and I thought he was going to speak, but it was just to resume chewing the gum he had tucked in his cheek.
“You Kelley?” he eventually asked.
Katie and I glanced at each other, and then looked back at the guy. “Who wants to know?” we both asked in Scorsese scripted unison.
He resumed that annoying bobbing of his head as he pursed his lips and reached for the door. He opened it, and the bob turned into a firm nod.
Demitri entered the shop and smiled at me like a lion greeting his dinner. The other guy looked like a child next to him. Demitri was twice his size, but their shoe size looked to be about the same. What is it about guys and their feet?
“Someone would like to have a word with you.” It was the first time I’d actually heard Demitri speak, and his voice matched his appearance perfectly.
Isabetta Falcone walked through the door and surveyed the room, much the same way as the short guy had. She had a relaxed stride and a half-cocked look on her face that made you wonder what was so amusing. The casual smile on her face radiated pure confidence, and the tailored pant suit she wore made me forget for a moment that she was second or third generation Staten Island “family.” Without the two men standing next to her, you’d think she was a socialite or a rich housewife slumming it from the Upper East Side.
Her eyes reached around the room one last time, stopping on Katie for a moment before continuing to me. “So, this is where you work.” She walked toward me, triggering the two leather-clad puppets to catch up.
I took a step back as she approached, the memory of her knee stroking mine sending a traitorous flutter around my gut. “What are you doing here?”
Her hazel eyes leveled on mine as the smell of Chanel emitted from her skin. I would have thought her more of a Giorgio BH girl. Isabetta could wear all the expensive suits she wanted and load up on the perfume, but she was what she was, and nothing could mask her affinity for bejeweled fingertips and a good catfight.
Her lips rose slightly as her gaze shifted to Katie. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Isabetta Falcone,” I nodded to my right, “Katie Bishop.”
Katie extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Isabetta took it, and I felt like karate chopping the shake. Apparently I was Isabetta’s type, but Katie was everyone’s type.
I got an image of the dragon in my head, and my concern for Katie disappeared. Go ahead, Isabetta. Try it.
Katie pulled away first, glancing at me for confirmation that she wasn’t imagining the vibe she was getting from Isabetta.
“Why are you here?” I asked again, providing needed interference between the two women.
“I thought I’d stop by and see how your trip to Cornell went.”
“Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with Greer?” It was his audience she’d requested, not mine. If she wanted an update on the meeting with Dr. David Oxford, she needed to pick up the phone and call Greer.
She huffed at my audacity. “Displaying those big balls of yours again. You remind me of…me.” Her eyes moved around the room again and stopped on a poster that read Life begins when you find your fit. She panned back to me and lost her smile. “Is this what you want out of life, Alex? Is this,” she waved her hand around the room, “your fit?”
“I’m sorry.” Katie slumped her shoulders and cocked her head to the side. “Did we forget to show you our fine collection of diamond-studded panties at the front counter?”
“Let it go, Katie,” I mumbled.
Isabetta ignored the remark because she was too fixated on my chest. Her eyes roamed over my blouse, and then her hand reached for the silver chain disappearing under it.
“Uh-uh. Hands off.” I caught her wrist before she could touch it.
She looked seriously pissed off by my lack of subservience, and then she grabbed my arm with her other hand and practically dragged me to the other side of the room. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll cooperate.” Her Staten Island was peeking through as she slipped into her own bad Scorsese part. “What happened with Oxford? Tell me!”
I yanked my arm out of her clingy little fingers. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll back off. I know what you’re doing. You think you can bypass the middleman and go straight to the source.” Why deal with Greer when all she needed was me, the amulet, and those non-existent glasses Dr. Oxford was working on? “Not going to happen, Isabetta. Greer and I are a team.”
It wasn’t that I felt an overwhelming sense of duty to bring Greer in on everything I did. We were partners, but no one made decisions for me. The truth was, Isabetta Falcone scared me. She didn’t have to be a Gambino or a Bonanno to break my legs, and her guys could do a lot of damage before a drop of blood was shed to turn the tables.
Isabetta suddenly looked a little less confident. The cocky smile on her face went flat as she stepped back a few feet.
“And here I thought we had a deal,” someone said from behind me.
I turned around, and the first thing that came into focus was the birthmark on Alasdair Templeton’s forehead. He was standing near the front door by himself. No backup, no guns; just a man in a well-tailored suit and a presence that demanded respect.
Isabetta was speechless. By the look on her face, it was from fear that she’d been caught red-handed trying to circumvent the man she was in cahoots with.
She glared at Demitri and the short guy, but they were already moving toward the other end of the room.
“I don’t pay you two to be pussies!” she snarled.
Demitri stepped forward first. “Mr. Templeton, we were—”
Alasdair Templeton put his hand in the air. “No, no,” he said. “We were doing just fine a moment ago. And then you had to go and ruin it by opening your mouth.”
He stared at Isabetta and her men for a few more uncomfortable seconds, and then he turned his attention back to me. He then looked at Katie and offered his hand. “Alasdair Templeton. And you are?”
She glanced at me before taking it. “Katie Bishop.”
He drew her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Katie,” he murmured. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, would you mind giving Alex and me a moment of privacy?” He looked at Isabetta and her men and silently told them to get the hell out. “We have family business to discuss.”
THIRTEEN
He hadn’t changed at all. The man I remembered seeing in my living room when I was a child was the same man from the photo in Arthur Richmond’s office. And he’d apparently discovered the fountain of youth. Other than a slight graying around the temples, he looked the same.
I’d never been this close to Alasdair Templeton before. As a child, I’d only seen him from the crack under my bedroom door. But it was the mark on his forehead that distinguished him from every other human being on the planet. Who else would have a mark in the shape of a candle flame perfectly centered just above their eyes?
“I’ve waited a long time to see you again,” he said. “Your entire family has been waiting for a very long time.”
“I guess that depends on your definition of family.”
A broad smile crossed his face. “Do you remember her? You were very
young when your mother died. Except for the eye color, you look just like her.”
He took a step closer and reached out his hand. When he opened it, a silver chain fell from his palm and dangled from his index finger. At the end of it was a small silver pendant in the shape of a bird. “It was Maeve’s. Now it belongs to you.”
“A raven. How original.”
He smiled at my sarcasm. “Oh, it’s so much more than that. And now,” he held it closer to me, “I’d like you to put it on.”
“And if I take it?”
He caught the pendant in his other hand and ran his thumb over the bird. “It isn’t a matter of if you take it—it’s a matter of when. You see, Alex, this is not a choice. Although, nothing would make me happier than you choosing to come back to your family willingly.”
“You do realize you can’t force me to do anything.”
His smile faded as an underlying emotion edged its way to the surface. I could feel him losing patience when I refused to cave to his absurd suggestion that I should just drop everything and come back to Ireland with him. Alasdair Templeton was the high priest of my mother’s former coven, but she chose to walk away when I was conceived, and that meant I walked away, too.
“Take the necklace!” he snapped, his temper flaring.
The raven swung like a pendulum from the force of his thrust. My impulse was to grab it, but my instincts told me that would be a mistake.
“No. And while you’re here, why don’t you give me an address so I can return the athame as well. I don’t want it either.”
I turned toward the back room to collect my kitten and let Katie know my conversation with Templeton was over. Something flew over my head, and the silver chain hung in the air like a carrot being dangled in front of a horse. The silver bird at the end of it swung back and forth like it had in Templeton’s hand. Then I realized it wasn’t swinging at all, it was trying to fly off the chain. It thrashed wildly, spreading its silver wings as black feathers sprouted from its sides and opened into giant fans that filled half the room. The wings lifted me off the ground and spun me into a dark cyclone. When it stopped, I was suspended in the black void with Templeton’s face all around me.
The Blood Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 2) Page 12