by RJ Blain
“Who are you, what have you done with Beatrice, and so help me, if you’ve hurt her, I will destroy you.”
Beatrice snickered. “When you’re not pissing me off, you’re so much fun.”
“Well, if we didn’t have to play this damned game to fight for every improvement at my branch, I wouldn’t have to piss you off.”
“You’re not the first person who has told me this. Let’s get this out of the way so we can talk about the Godrin situation. How much do you want, why do you want it, and when do you want it?”
“Enough to renovate the completely empty floor we’re paying rent on, enough to convert the storage floor to more library space, enough to renovate the extra rooms on the third floor into a magazine archive for the politicians who are doing reputation checks, and enough to get a proper room for our microfilm archive. We’d also like to be able to fill those recently renovated rooms with a mix of fiction and non-fiction books. With most of our catalogue relating to the Met and other research material, I’d like to see the last empty floor converted completely to fiction books to draw in more people.”
“How many empty floors do you have over there?”
I considered. “I think two empty and one used as storage. We keep getting denied on the renovation costs because we’re a small branch. We’re paying for that space, so we should use it.”
“Can you open concept the fiction floor and use clever shelving strategies to separate the sections?”
“I see no reason why we can’t. We’ll want to include sitting spaces near the windows. Our patrons enjoy reading near the windows. The sedans we have weren’t that expensive, and they seem durable enough.” I regarded Beatrice through narrowed eyes. “How are you about to skunk me, woman?”
Beatrice snorted. “I’m not going to. I was told by my boss we should take advantage of your branch’s situation when word came down the wire about the murder. Since you’re the only staffer we have that can get away from the library right now, you get to make the renovation work. I was asked to question you about the abilities of everyone at your branch, however.”
“None of the staff I’ve met at the library, from the custodians, maintenance workers, and librarians, have the required magical aptitude rating to pull off that sort of murder. None of them are exsanguinators, either.”
Except me. That would be a problem. My wishful thinking of developing some other form of magic would need to become a reality in a hurry, especially if Bradley Hampton caught wind of me with his magic. I’d started out wanting to be a nurse, but when my magic had flared to life, I’d become as much of a blessing as a liability. By the time I’d been eligible to go to medical school, my parents had begun negotiations with the Hamptons, and I’d lived a dual life for a while.
If my damned magic had been something else, I would’ve gone in to become a nurse for trauma victims rather than try my hand at becoming a librarian.
“Exsanguination is a difficult talent to master,” Beatrice conceded. “I am under the impression you are born with the ability. We have been asked to do some research for law enforcement on the rarity of exsanguination talents, provide names of registered exsanguinators, and relinquish this list to the police and the FBI upon completion. Unfortunately, the list we have is rather short, and our best information is at your library.”
There was a reason for that, and I hadn’t been part of that reason. The blame went to Mickey, as he viewed researching magic as his purpose in life. Whenever Mickey got sent to acquisitions, he found some way to include new reference books on the various types of magic. Somehow, we’d developed an entire section dedicated to magical research, the best one in the entire city.
Mickey might become the literal death of me if one of those books happened to mention the former for life bodyguard of Bradley Hampton.
I really shouldn’t have kept my first name.
I sighed, leaned back in my seat, and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Meridian can probably handle the research. The spray from Senator Godrin’s death reached the reception desk, where Mickey was working. He does not handle blood well, so it’d be better off with one of the other librarians. You can probably call the library to make that request. Fortunately, the research material isn’t on the ground floor, and the windows are always closed.”
“The windows?” Beatrice asked.
“The spray reached the second floor.”
Her eyes widened. “Just how bad was it?”
“Pretty bad,” I admitted. “According to Meridian, there was severe skull trauma.”
“Skull trauma? But exsanguinators can’t break bones.”
Well, I could, but not in the way she thought. I certainly couldn’t pop someone’s skull like a grape. “Well, in any case, something killed Senator Godrin in a rather gruesome and flashy fashion, and according to Meridian, parts of his skull ended up across the street. His blood reached the street corner from the steps leading into the library.”
“That’s half a block away!”
“Yeah. I know.” Blood could spray a far distance, but when I’d worked to make blood spray as far as possible, it’d taken a ridiculous amount of concentration and effort. My six-story experiment with livestock had turned me into an exhausted mess, preventing me from being able to do my job. Bradley’s father hadn’t appreciated my less-than-useful state.
He definitely hadn’t appreciated his son dumping my semi-conscious body on the couch and pitching a fit because his need to know the full extent of my abilities had backfired. Not only had I been dumped on the couch, I’d stayed there for several days as a result.
Bradley hated when things messed up his schedule, and he hadn’t expected the experiment to wipe me out so much.
He hadn’t told me I shouldn’t push my luck, either.
When he’d pointed at a six-story window and told me to use that as my mark for testing my magic, I’d shrugged and done it because he expected me to succeed.
Like him, I hated failure.
My ability to walk attested to that.
“Could a telekinetic accomplish the same thing?” Beatrice asked.
Of the common magical types, a telekinetic could mimic other magics, including exsanguination. With their ability to move anything, blood wouldn’t pose a challenge to a high-rated adept. “With the right rating, I would presume so. Mickey’s the better person to ask about that.”
“My guess is that a telekinetic could destroy someone’s skull and make it look like an exsanguinator.” Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “I’ll make sure our report includes telekinetic abilities. Does your branch have any telekinetic users?”
I cringed, as Meridian and Vince had a strong enough telekinetic ability to manipulate liquids. As lying would make me a target, especially over something as easy to confirm as their magical aptitudes, I replied, “Yes, there are two.”
Beatrice cursed. “Is either one strong enough to break a skull and spray blood?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I hoped not. The last thing I needed was anyone at my branch being booked for murder. Attention would, inevitably, land on me, and when I killed someone, I did so without shame or hiding it. I’d reported my killings to the authorities as required, dealt with the questioning sessions, justified my actions, and walked away a little worse for wear and emotionally beaten from my choices.
Sometimes, reminding myself I only killed in defense of another helped, but only sometimes.
Maybe Bradley wouldn’t recognize me on the street after all. Time and death changed a woman, and I still struggled to recognize myself in the mirror most days.
I’d have to toe a lot of lines making sure my fellow librarians dodged accusation. Without classifying as a pure adept or mundane, they’d undergo even worse scrutiny than I had during a confession of killing someone while protecting Bradley. I’d accepted those deaths years ago, but I remembered.
Even when I’d flat-out told the police when, where, how, and why I’d killed my victims, I’d endured extens
ive questioning and interrogations while they determined if I had, in actuality, come to the defense of another. The law had always sided with me, but I couldn’t imagine the law treating my co-workers well when Senator Godrin’s killer remained a mystery.
The law would want to pin the killings on somebody.
Some librarian from a small branch made a good scapegoat.
Ugh.
“I don’t know, either,” Beatrice complained. “This is a mess. You’re the one person cleared from the branch because you don’t check even a single box for being a suspect, so that’s where we are. If the rest of the staff is under suspicion, you might really become the head librarian for a while until this matter is settled.”
I did not want to be the actual head librarian; being the head librarian involved a lot of schmoozing to the exact wrong people—people like Senator Godrin or Bradley Hampton. It was one thing to pass my ex-boss on the street, but I had no idea if I could play dumb enough to fool him if I had to talk to him directly. My old habits would inevitably surface. For all I knew, he believed I was still out west in the hospital.
The instant I became useful to him again, I assumed he would show up to make a mess of my new life. The murder of his friend might make me useful again faster—or turn me into the top suspect of a messy case.
No matter how I looked at my situation, I lost in some fashion or another.
“This is a mess, isn’t it? But I don’t understand why anyone at my branch would want to kill him or any of the senators. Our popularity with them helps keep us open.”
“I know. That’s what I told my boss right after we got the call about the killing. It makes no sense for any of you to want to kill the man—and if you had that sort of aptitude, why would you be working in a library?”
“Some of us do love books that much,” I replied with a delicate sniff. I’d been careful to avoid mentioning how much I enjoyed reading, but my personal library card saw a great deal of use, and anyone with access to the system would have a good idea of how I spent my evenings.
On average, I borrowed twenty books a week.
“Your entire branch is full of sneaky bookworms smart enough to avoid mentioning you’re sneaky bookworms. If we take our eyes off you for even twenty minutes, you’d all be reading instead of working.”
“And?”
“You do have to work.”
“Amazingly, we do manage to get all of our work done between reading sessions.”
“I don’t know how we managed to have an entire branch of bookworms,” Beatrice grumbled. “And you do get just enough work done between your reading sessions to stay out of trouble. Frankly, do any of you have time to plan a murder with how busy you are reading books, dusting books, or making sure nobody has done any damage to your precious books?”
“We’re librarians. We’re supposed to love books. And we even love helping our patrons find the right books. It just happens most of the patrons know what they’re looking for or are too prideful to ask for our help. It’s not our fault most of our patrons are politicians.”
“Thank you for attracting that lot to your branch.”
“So, about those renovation plans. Why don’t you tell me my budget so I can ask for ten grand extra, and then you’ll argue five, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
“Just for the renovation plans?”
“Let’s start with the renovation plans. The book acquisition budget will really depend on how the renovations go, unless someone has already decided how much we’re getting in acquisitions?”
Beatrice snagged a folder poised precariously on the corner of her desk and slapped it onto her keyboard, which made her computer squeal a complaint. She tapped the escape button with a huff and opened the file, pulling out a sheet of paper before offering it to me. “Here’s your summary sheet that the boss gave me.”
What was going on that the main branch had already prepared a budget summary for a project I hadn’t known I was starting on until a few hours ago? In truth, I’d bitched and complained about the empty, unused space often enough for it to become legendary, but I’d never expected anyone to act on it.
According to the sheet, Beatrice’s boss had lost his mind, he wanted to give my little branch a significant upgrade, and he wanted the building to be a New York Public Library jewel. With half a million dollars, we could do more than renovate the two empty floors.
We could give the entire library a facelift and have budget leftover to do some upgrades, replace Mickey’s battered desk, upgrade the sedans, and even buy new computers with the excess. Then, because they really loved us, a hundred thousand extra would fill our shelves with new fiction titles—and we would get an extra fifty thousand for non-fiction books.
“Okay. What’s the catch? Also, I need to request that ten thousand because your boss might be worried I’m not feeling well if I don’t. It’s a tradition, Beatrice.”
“I’m going to tell my boss to give you the ten grand only because you’re going to deal with the renovation work so we don’t have to.”
“This is a huge budget. Where did it come from?”
“A donor, who required it be spent on heritage branch sites. Your branch is the only heritage building we have in need of major renovation work. Opening new floors and adjusting how you store excess stock is the best use of the money. It just happens the timing worked out. I would have been calling you within a week about this anyway. But with the murder, well, there was no reason to delay. So, you’re suckering the boss out of ten grand extra to put up with your new job as a renovation manager for your branch.”
Yep, I’d been suckered, but I would like it. “I really like that donor right now.”
“We do, too. All the heritage sites are getting good acquisitions budgets because of that donor, but you’re getting the lion’s share of the renovation budget. We’re getting restoration work done on the main floor, the crown moldings, and the older shelves, and some of the other branches are getting patch work.”
“Am I going to even be a librarian for a while?”
“You’ll be expected to do some librarian duties, yes.”
“Well, that’s something. What’s the timeline on the new floors opening?”
“You have until the end of the year.”
While the open floors needed shelves and books, they didn’t need a huge amount of restoration work, and I’d be using the budget to give the place a facelift. With over half a year to work with, I could get a lot done without overspending, too. “Seriously, Beatrice. What’s the catch?”
She chuckled. “Beyond my boss breathing down your neck about every payment you want to make during the renovation work?”
“Yes, beyond that.”
“You’ll likely have to deal with the donor when the floors officially open, but that’s it.”
Ew. “I will do it for the sake of the library.”
“I figured you would. So, tell me everything you know about Senator Godrin’s death. We want to be prepared when the police come knocking at our door.”
I almost pitied Beatrice and the main branch. Should the police come knocking at their door, no amount of preparation would spare them from the scrutiny of law enforcement seeking the killers of a pure adept.
Four
I still liked fast cars.
I really needed to purchase a cell phone. I’d opted against getting one, not because of the money, but because it represented a lot of things I didn’t want in my life. When I’d worked as Bradley’s bodyguard, a cell phone had shackled me to my job. Every moment, waking or otherwise, I worked. My life hadn’t been my own, and I’d known that going into the contract. I’d agreed to it for a lot of reasons, but making certain my parents could retire and live long, happy lives had been my top motivation.
I wondered how they’d taken news of the crash.
I wondered if they even knew about the crash.
In the months following the accident, I’d taken care to keep from wondering what Bradley
had done after he’d walked away. I’d only cared he’d walked away, which he had. It’d been my first coherent question. It’d also been my last question about my boss and my former life.
Unless I could fully return to my work, which I couldn’t without a miracle, there was no point worrying about it. My parents were protected, and that was all I cared about.
The only thing my real rating was useful for was producing children, and I needed a man for that. Unless I developed some strong desire to locate a suitable man, I’d just wistfully think of having kids and leave my options open. Leaving my options open seemed silly to me, as while I could afford a child, I lacked the time to have one without a man around to pull his weight in the relationship.
As cell phones were easier than kids, I bit the bullet and headed to the nearest store to the main branch to get one. With no life and living as frugally as I could, I could afford any one in the store, even the ridiculous models Bradley favored. I’d always picked a lower-end phone, something functional, practical, and easy to replace if it were damaged in the line of duty.
Fuck practical.
I’d pull a Bradley and choose the kind of phone he’d like, something the me from the past would never do. She liked fast cars and doing her job well.
I still liked fast cars and doing my job well, but I’d changed.
I would indulge and pick a good phone. I’d get every bell and whistle I could get my hands on, because while I was a librarian, while I lived like I was poor, I could afford some luxuries, including a ridiculously expensive doodad I’d put in my pocket and use to play on the internet more than I’d make calls on it.
My boss and co-workers would love me, too. Nobody would have to come around my place and leave me letters if they wanted something—and I wouldn’t have to make the hike to work if I contracted some sort of plague, which I managed once every three or so months.
Stalking one of the staff, I pointed at the sort of phone Bradley would cart around with him and asked the teen, who likely barely squeaked over the age of employment, to show me the latest and greatest.