“Good afternoon,” she said in a pleasant voice. “Can I help you with something?” There, see? Nothing but business.
“I hope so,” the man said, his voice smooth and deep and touched with the hint of an accent. Russian, she thought, although from his looks she would have expected maybe Japanese or Chinese.
There were plenty of foreigners who did research at the Wilson Library, with its special collections covering such esoteric branches as the Ames Library of South Asia and the East Asian Library, both of which contained parts of her areas of expertise, as did the Bell Library, located on the fourth floor, which housed noncirculating rare books, maps, and manuscripts that documented trade and cross-cultural interaction throughout the world prior to around 1800. Maybe he was a professor she hadn’t met yet, or some kind of visiting expert. He certainly didn’t seem like a student, although these days, you never could tell. She thought he might be in his thirties, or possibly a youthful forty.
“I was told that you might be able to assist me with some research I am doing,” he said, bowing slightly with both hands in front of his chest. “I am afraid it is somewhat eclectic in nature, covering a wide range of obscure topics, but I will be happy to do the digging myself if you can simply point me in the right direction.”
Ciera tried to ignore the fact that something about the timbre of his voice sent a frisson of heat down her spine in a most disconcerting manner. “Some of our collections are only available by appointment,” she said in her best impersonal librarian tone, “but I’m sure we can help you find what you need. Can you give me some idea of the areas you were interested in?”
“I am looking for references to a particular obscure Mongolian shamaness named Iduyan and the sect of worshippers and disciples who followed her, as well as anything on modern shamanism in a fairly widespread area—Mongolia, Russia, and China, to start out with. In addition, I need any information there might be on the legend of Shangri-la or related lost cities.”
Ciera blinked. “That is a rather strange and eclectic set of search parameters. It might take some time to turn up anything useful, assuming there is anything to be found at all. Some of the items you are looking for might be in the East Asian collection, I suppose. Either way, most of the books and maps you’ll need can’t be taken out of the building, so I’m afraid you’ll have to do the bulk of your research here. But there are a number of spaces in the library where you can have relative privacy and quiet.”
The man nodded politely. “There are many worse places to spend one’s time,” he said softly. “I have been in most of them. I am certain it will be a pleasure to spend a portion of my days here.”
Another shiver fluttered down her spine and she reminded herself again that she wasn’t interested in men. Especially not mysterious men who had an aura of danger around them like this one did.
“I’ll write down a few books you can start with,” she said, pulling a pad out of the top drawer. These days most of the people she dealt with would whip out a tablet or a smartphone to take down the information, but somehow he didn’t strike her as the electronics type. “And I’ll compile a more detailed list over the next day or two. Can I get your name?”
“Gregori,” he said. “Gregori Sun.” That hint of an accent made the name seem exotic and foreign, although his English was flawless. Maybe a second-generation immigrant.
“Very good, Mr. Sun. I’m Ciera Evans. If I’m not here when you come back, I’ll leave a folder for you at the front desk. I hope you find everything you’re looking for.” She handed him the list, then turned purposefully back to her computer.
She barely heard him when he muttered, more to himself than to her, “I suspect that is very unlikely.”
• • •
SUN was so focused on his search, he barely noticed the librarian behind the desk, other than to note that she had seemingly taken the stereotype to heart, complete with drab, modest clothing, square black-rimmed glasses, and hair pulled tightly back into an unflattering bun. A pity, really, since she had the potential to be quite beautiful, but it was just as well, since he couldn’t afford distractions, even abstract ones. It was bad enough that he was already splitting his focus between his path to spiritual enlightenment and his search for his mother—which, admittedly, was at odds with his goal to detach from the world, but that was the way these things went.
With any luck, he would be spending all of his time at the library with his nose buried in obscure reference books and dusty maps, and any other distractions would be kept to a minimum. Especially oddly intriguing ones wearing glasses.
• • •
IRONICALLY, Sun probably wouldn’t even have recognized her when he saw her later that evening if it hadn’t been for those same glasses. The drab professional attire had been replaced by equally nondescript jeans and a black hoodie, and the dark hair was still pulled back, although this time into a tightly woven braid, from which tiny curls escaped at her nape and around the edges of her forehead. Only the glasses and the slightly prickly exterior remained the same.
Plus, of course, he hadn’t expected to run into her at the homeless shelter.
He’d been assigned by his teacher at the monastery to do his community service at a soup kitchen in downtown Minneapolis, one attached to a shelter that served many local homeless youths, along with a number of young mothers with children. He couldn’t say which population was more heartbreaking. Sun wasn’t sure if the volunteer work was intended to test a novice’s ability to be compassionate without becoming emotionally involved, but he could see how that would be a challenge for many.
For someone like Sun, who had lived more than a thousand years and watched countless shorter lives come and go, it was a little less challenging. He had had to learn to keep a certain distance long ago.
What he found so fascinating was that someone like this librarian seemed to have learned it too.
He studied her from across the room while listening with half his attention to the head of the shelter explaining how the food kitchen worked, and what Sun’s duties would be as a volunteer. Despite what he thought were attempts to blend into her surroundings, almost chameleonlike when he factored in her completely different appearance at the library that afternoon, she stood out like a peony among a field of daisies.
It wasn’t just her beauty, although that certainly drew the eye, no matter how much she tried to disguise it with plain clothing and lack of makeup. Wide lips and dark, slightly kinky hair spoke of an African-American contribution, while the high cheekbones and fine features suggested some Native roots. The light hazel eyes were probably Caucasian, but that tawny skin was a shade no white person ever achieved. Either way, no matter her origins, she was striking and unusual-looking, as though someone had taken the best parts of a varied gene pool and combined them into a rare and gorgeous creation.
One that she clearly made an effort to downplay, Sun thought, based on her attire and attitude. She seemed friendly enough as she dished some unidentified brownish mass onto the plates of those who paraded past her with their trays, and chatted lightly with the people standing beside her on the serving line. A restrained smile flickered over her lips from time to time, and she made a small boy laugh at some joke she’d told him. But Sun’s second sight, a dubious and erratic gift most likely left over from his massive dose of the Water of Life and Death, showed him her aura as a subdued dark silver glow that reminded him of nothing so much as a suit of armor. On the surface, she might seem as open as one of the books at her library, but the reality he saw was as closed down and defensive as a castle with its drawbridge up and its moat filled with alligators.
Intriguing.
None of his business, but intriguing nonetheless.
Eventually, the director of the shelter, a soft-spoken black man named Philip Roman with the muscular build and battered face of a former boxer, finished up his instructions and brought Gregori over to j
oin the others.
“Gregori, these are a few of our regular volunteers.” He pointed at a stocky woman in her fifties with short-cropped iron-gray hair and a tattoo of a broken chain wound around one wrist. “This is Elisabeth. She was one of our clients, once upon a time, went back to school, got her GED, and now she has a steady job and helps out here when she can. It’s good to have a success story, to show it can be done, you know.”
Elisabeth rolled her eyes, probably tired of being introduced as a shining example, but she gave Sun a cheerful enough grin anyway. “Welcome to the asylum, where most days it is impossible to tell the inmates from the guards. As long as you’re not afraid of hard work and the occasional knife fight, you’ll do just fine.”
Philip shook his head. “Elisabeth,” he scolded, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. “Try not to scare away our new volunteer. You know it is hard enough to find them in the first place.” He turned back to Gregori. “Elisabeth is exaggerating. We don’t allow weapons or fighting here, and for the most part, to be honest, the folks who come in don’t have energy to waste on making trouble. They just want food and maybe a warm bed for the night.”
He indicated the tall, skinny young man standing next to her, whose long, straggly ponytail and blond beard made him look like a California hippie who had somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up in chilly Minnesota by mistake. “This is Byron. He’s a student at the university who is studying sociology.”
“Extra credit, man,” Byron said with a brisk nod. “Plus, you know, it’s cool. Makes me feel a lot better about my crappy dorm room and all.” He held out one bony hand for Gregori to shake, wiping it off on the apron he wore first, in case the day’s meal was clinging to the plastic glove that enclosed it.
“And this is Ciera,” Philip continued. “She works at the university library.”
“I know,” Sun said, inclining a tiny bow in her direction. “I actually met Ms. Evans there earlier, when I went to do some research. She was kind enough to help me, although it is an unexpected pleasure to see her twice in one day.”
Ciera’s expression grew even more shuttered as she stared at him. “It’s quite the coincidence, all right.” Her full lips pressed together as she turned away to serve a group of teens wearing clothes almost identical to hers, but not as clean.
The odor of unwashed bodies warred temporarily with the aroma of overcooked institutional dinner and stewed vats of coffee, making Gregori long for the sparkling scent of the forests. Or at least the solitude of his barren room back at the monastery.
Still, this was what he’d signed on for. And at least he had a clean, warm place to go back to, which was more than most of these folks had. Not to mention the freedom to go elsewhere, if he decided he’d made the wrong choice.
“Very nice to meet you all,” he said. “I look forward to being of service.”
“Excellent,” Elisabeth said with another grin, this one wide enough to reveal a missing molar. “There’s a mountain of dishes in the kitchen, just waiting for someone brave enough to tackle them.” She waggled unkempt brows at him. “Think you’re up to the challenge?”
“I would have preferred the knife fight,” Gregori said with perfect honesty. “But I am certain I can manage the dishes almost as well.”
“A man of many talents,” Elisabeth said. “You’ll fit in just fine around here.” For a moment, Gregori thought he saw a ghostly image echoed behind her—a younger, thinner Elisabeth with the clothes of a well-to-do housewife and the expression of a woman imprisoned by a life that was slowly devouring her soul. Then it was gone, and only the solid, present-day woman remained.
“Indeed,” Sun said softly. “But am I one of the inmates or one of the guards?” Then he walked toward to kitchen to do battle with a stack of plates and his own demons.
CHAPTER 3
A few hours later, Sun was taking a couple of bags of garbage out to the Dumpster behind the shelter when he looked up to see a shadowy figure follow him out the back door. A plump brown rat scurried away into the night as he turned around, the drip, drip, drip of one leaking bag sounding loud in the otherwise quiet alley.
“Hello,” he said, tossing the black plastic bags effortlessly on top of the ones already teetering in an unsteady and odiferous mound. The new additions slithered wetly into place. “Were you looking for me?”
Ciera studied him for a moment before she spoke. Her posture was deliberately relaxed, but her clenched fists and tight jaw revealed some inner tension.
“Are you following me?” she asked, eyes boring into his. “Did he send you?”
Sun cocked an eyebrow. “If anything, it would seem that you are following me,” he said, indicating the Dumpster and the door. “And I do not know to which ‘he’ you are referring, but I assure you, the only one who sent me here was my teacher at the monastery.”
“Monastery?” Ciera blinked and shook her head, as if trying to adjust to a small but seismic change in the ground under her feet. “You’re a monk?”
Sun smothered a laugh at the dubious tone in her voice. Mikhail had used almost the exact same tone when Sun first informed his younger brother of his plans.
“Not as yet,” he explained. “I am studying at the Shira-in Shashin Buddhist monastery, spending a year there as a novice before formally embarking on the journey toward monkhood. But that is my intention, yes. One of the requirements of the program is to take part in some form of community service, so my teacher assigned me to work here at the shelter.” He gazed at her quizzically through the yellow glow of the halogen light above the back door. “If that is a problem for some reason, I could request a change of venue, I suspect. I had not intended to make you uncomfortable.”
“Oh,” she said. Even in the ghastly lighting, her beauty stood out like one clear chiming bell in a sea of discordant, off-key notes. Sun ignored it, although not without effort, and tried to focus on the woman herself. Something he had done had inadvertently alarmed her, and he hoped his current stillness would encourage her to see him as harmless. He was far from that, of course, but no danger to her in any case.
“I just thought . . . It was nothing,” she said. “A misunderstanding. Please, don’t go to any trouble on my account. Everything is fine.”
Somehow Sun doubted that, but as long as she had no issues with him, that was good enough for now. He put both hands in front of his chest and bent his head politely. “I am pleased to hear it,” he said. “I should get back to the kitchen, then.”
“Right. I need to get to work too.” Ciera nodded, and turned to go. As she walked through the door, Sun could have sworn he heard her mutter something that sounded like, “A monk. Damn, what a waste.”
He smiled into the darkness. It was a pity he hadn’t met her before everything changed. Such were the ironies of a whimsical universe.
• • •
SUN spent the rest of the evening washing the never-ending stream of plates and bowls and mugs and silverware and occasionally pitching in to do whatever else was needed. The work was not unpleasant, and he liked to be useful; all in all, he thought this assignment would suit him well enough.
The clientele of the food kitchen was an interesting mix. He had always found Humans intriguing, more so than either of his brothers, whose interests in those shorter-lived than themselves was generally limited to women (in Mikhail’s case) and drinking/brawling partners (in Alexei’s). Gregori himself had always enjoyed people-watching, and it turned out that this was the perfect place to observe the always-entertaining and occasionally baffling antics of the nonparanormal. Perversely, Gregori tended to be bored by those from the Otherworld, no matter how exotic they appeared to be on the outside. Humans were far more complex, perhaps because they had to cram so much living into so few years.
Many of those being served by the food kitchen were teens—mostly female, but some younger males as well. These, Elisabeth had expla
ined to him when she came back into the kitchen area to grab another pot of stew, were the core population served by the shelter next door as well. There were other places in the Twin Cities area for homeless people, but this one specialized in trying to work with the teens who often fell through the cracks in a system more suited for an older group.
As the evening wound down, Sun went out into the dining area to collect the last of the dishes sitting abandoned on the battered Formica tables, any uneaten remains having bonded inexorably to the plates they sat on like a kind of molecular art form for the culinarily challenged. As he circulated through the room, he overheard three girls talking together in hushed tones, their high-pitched voices rendering their whispers as loud as if they wore speakers pinned to their cheap dangling earrings.
“I swear, it’s true,” the one with the turquoise blue streak in her shaggy blond hair said. “Buzz told me, and he always knows what’s going on.”
“Buzz is called Buzz because he’s always high,” said her friend, curling a pierced lip. “He probably made it up. Or, you know, somebody just told him a bunch of lies.”
The third girl, a little older than the first two, with eyes that were much too ancient for someone of her years, shook her head. “Kelli is right,” she said. “I heard the story, too, and not from Buzz. From a couple of different people. It’s all over the streets.”
“Oh, please,” pierced-lip girl sneered. “You’re going to tell me you believe there is some kind of masked vigilante going around taking out drug dealers, pimps, and rapists in our part of town? Why would anyone bother? No one cares what happens to us.”
Kelli waved one dirty hand, its nails bitten down to the quick. “I’m telling you, it’s true. Like, last week, this guy supposedly attacked Big Mac Roberts, the one whose girls all somehow mysteriously walk into doors all the time, and, like, broke both his arms. Buzz told me whoever did it walked right past Big Mac’s guards and nobody saw a thing until they heard him screaming.”
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