by Unknown
"Fifteen, twenty minutes, dear," the librarian said, looking a bit frazzled. "Sorry, we're behind today due to the dedication ceremony." She motioned at the workers setting up chairs.
"No problem."
Liz wandered through the library. It was kind of nice to get a bit of a breather after such a stressful week. She'd arrived in London excited to explore the city, but she'd spent the first few days getting all of her graduate classes scheduled and registered, and then they'd had to clean the lab for the beginning of the semester. There had been no time for sightseeing. And she loved visiting libraries. Especially here, in London! There must be a thousand old libraries to explore...
Liz walked up the stairs where there were a number of private collection rooms. Curious, she tried the door to one of them, but it was locked.
"Rats," she said. Antique books were so fun to flip through. Especially the old science texts, with their hand drawn illustrations of plants and dissected animals.
She noticed an open door at the end of the hallway, and she walked down to check it out. Poking her head inside, she was confronted with shelves upon shelves of old books. Though the room was not large, it was packed to the brim with...poetry, it looked like. Liz leaned over to see how far the shelves of books ran, and her heart jumped into her throat. She quickly ducked her head back out of sight.
There was a man. He was lying down on a couch in the back. Liz was about to leave when she heard him whisper a few words, and she peered back around the shelf.
He wasn't talking to her. No, he was—he was reading aloud. His lips moved only slightly, and Liz found herself leaning forward to hear what he was saying.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn.
Liz found herself holding her breath as she watched him. His body was splayed casually over the couch, and his profile was handsomely square. At least as far as Liz could see.
Stop being a creep, Liz, she told herself. She really should just say hello and introduce herself. Maybe he was an English major at the university. No, he looked old enough to be in grad school, at least. An adjunct professor? His dark hair fell slightly over his cheeks—he needed a shave. But damn, he was handsome. Way too handsome. Out of my league.
Before Liz could steel herself to say a word to him, she saw a tear run down his cheek. He was crying.
Oh, god. She was spying on someone while they cried. How utterly lame could she get? She wanted to go and hug him, comfort him, but instead she ducked her head back and let out a breath. Stepping backward, she accidentally knocked into a stack of books. Her hands stretched out but they fell through her fingers, the whole stack topping over in a loud crash of paper and dust. Ancient dust.
"What are you doing here?"
Liz looked up to see the man standing over her, frowning. He wasn't so cute now that he was angry. His eyes were dark, so black that the pupils were swallowed whole.
"I—I—"
"You knocked over the Browning collection," the man said.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt." Liz continued to pick up the books that she'd knocked over. He didn't make a move to help her at all. Instead, he leaned against the bookshelf, glaring. She could see the moist smear on his cheek from where he'd wiped away his tears, but the sorrow in his eyes had disappeared for good.
"Nobody is supposed to be in here," he said. His voice was irritated and smug, and any kind of attraction she'd had to him quickly evaporated.
"Then what are you doing here?" she asked, putting the last book back.
"Did you see the name on the plaque outside the door?" he asked.
"No."
"No?"
"No. Who reads plaques?" Liz shrugged.
Robb sighed and rolled his eyes. "What's the use of donating a ton of money? Nobody ever reads plaques."
Ah, a trust fund student. Sure, she'd knocked over some books. So what?
"The door was open. I was just curious."
"That's a dangerous thing." He stepped forward, and she got her first good look at him. He was wearing suit pants and a tie over a crisply pressed white shirt. His dry cleaning bill was probably half of her rent for the month. His cologne had a strange smell to it, something familiar that she couldn't put her finger on. And yes, he was handsome. Very handsome. Unfortunately, he was also very much an asshole.
"It's dangerous to be curious?" she asked.
"You heard what happened to the cat," he said, a slight sneer on his face.
"Poetry. Truly the most dangerous volumes of all the history of literature." The snarkiness slipped out of her before she could stuff it back in. Oh well.
"Some of these volumes are thousands of years old, you know," he said. "They're important. Unlike your curiosity."
Such an asshole. Liz decided right then and there that she didn't care how snarky she was to a rich, stuck-up grad school kid. She was in grad school here too, and she had just as much right to be in the library as he did. She put one hand on her hip.
"Well, I'm so glad your family donated them. It must make your thesis a little easier to defend with so many excellent primary sources right here for nobody to use except you."
"They're here for safekeeping, not so some clumsy girl can knock them on the floor."
"I said I was sorry!" Liz said, fuming. "I didn't mean to knock them over."
"Whatever. I don't have time for this." The man pulled out a key from his pocket and tossed the book he'd been reading back on the shelf. "I'm leaving now, which means you're leaving now."
"Fine," Liz said. "I don't have time for assholes." She stormed out of the room, not bothering to read the plaque on the wall outside. She had to get back to the lab. Why did cute guys always have to be such jerks?
CHAPTER THREE
Robb rested his arm on the shelf. The encounter with the girl had shaken him, and he didn't know why. The fiery way she'd shot insults at him, her bright green eyes, her American accent. Despite her clumsy mistake, he could tell that her beautiful face hid an intelligence behind them. He'd been taken aback by her sudden appearance, and he'd snapped at her before even thinking.
He regretted it immediately—as soon as he'd seen the hurt in her eyes. And just as immediately, the hurt he'd seen had been covered up by a hard shell of sarcasm, and she'd snapped right back at him. If it was any other girl, he would have forgotten her the second she left the room, if not before. But this one had thrown his words back at him, hadn't let him run all over her like the fawning women who would lick his shoes if he asked them to. That was why he'd been shaken by her—he simply wasn't used to having women stand up for themselves.
And, too, yes, there was a similarity that he could not dismiss. For when he had looked up from the poem, tears blurring his eyes, he had thought for an instant that it had been Eliza standing there in front of him.
A mere coincidence. He shook it off and headed downstairs where the library director was running around frantically as guests from the university sat down in their folding chairs. He looked around for the girl he'd berated, but she was nowhere to be seen. He felt oddly disappointed. For a moment, he'd hoped that she would see him on stage and he could get a second chance to make a good impression.
As he stepped up behind the podium and cleared his throat, he scanned the crowd again for the beautiful American girl with the dark hair and green eyes. Nothing. He fixed his eyes onto the second row of the audience and launched into his set speech.
"Welcome. I hope you're not tired of naming buildings after me yet," Robb said, to the chuckles of the crowd. "The new Chatham library wing is a dream that has been in the making for years now..."
He rambled on, listing names of important university figures by heart and thanking everyone from the architect to the architect's sister-in-law's pet poodle for being 'an integral part of the building process.' By the time he had
finished, his mouth ached from smiling, and he waved to polite applause. He'd done his job, and Gerry would be pleased that he had pulled off a building dedication without any drunken vomiting and with his pants still fully on.
"How responsible of me," Robb murmured, walking down the stairs as the crowd applauded him.
His thoughts went straight from there to the irresponsible, and while he mingled with the mob of important personages, his eyes were constantly searching for the girl with the green eyes. For whatever stupid reason, he couldn't get her out of his mind. He thought of calling in a favor and going to check the student photo register list, but then decided against it. If he was going to be irresponsible, he might as well be irresponsible with a girl whom he hadn't blatantly insulted. Even if she did look like Eliza.
Casually un-mingling himself from a group of donors, Robb pulled out his phone and checked through the rest of his agenda for the day. He had the chemistry lab check-in this afternoon, but before that he would have lunch with Thaddeus.
The air went cold, but Robb knew that the chill was all in his mind. He did not want to see the old vampire.
"Dr. Chatham." The voice was shrill, and Robb winced as he turned to see the frazzled librarian, now beaming, thrusting a book at his chest. "Would you sign your book? For my daughter?"
Robb clenched his fingers around the pen that she held out to him. His eyes fluttered up to the aisles as he put the pen to the page, hoping to see her. Eliza. Why not admit it? As beautiful as the girl was, he was hoping for another glance at the ghost of someone he'd left behind long ago. Her ghost made corporeal.
"Her name?" he asked.
"Betty. She wants to be a writer. When she's old enough, she'll be able to appreciate the advice you give in this book, I'm sure!"
Robb didn't know what the advice was that he'd given—his ghostwriter had penned the entire thing—but he signed the book anyway, the same way he always did. Betty, follow your dreams. He closed the cover before handing it back.
"Thank you so much. It means so much to me." The librarian's words were faint in Robb's ears as he walked off the stage and out the front doors of the library. He looked down the street and his breath caught in his throat. A little girl, a little girl with long dark hair, standing ten meters directly in front of him, staring with brilliant green eyes that took him back to a past he'd long since tried to forget.
The ring of his phone startled him, and he jumped, clutching at his pocket before raising his eyes to see that the girl, whoever she had been, was gone. Robb turned to scan the street and both sidewalks, but he didn't see anyone, at least neither version of his Eliza.
His car was parked where he'd left it, and he drove it off the sidewalk, the tires squealing as they hit the asphalt.
Thad was already waiting for him at the corner pub out in the exurbs of London they'd agreed to meet in. Thaddeus had a shock of gray hair on his head.
"Thaddeus. You're looking old," Robb said. It wasn't only the gray hair. The other man's lips were cracked, his skin tight and pale. He hadn't fed in a while, Robb guessed.
"Robb. Nice to see you're just as charming as usual."
"I save my charms for the ladies."
"So I've read." Thad held up the front page of the local tabloid and Robb squinted at the text. "Robb Chatham with a New Sweetheart...or TWO?" Under the screaming headline was a picture of him with two blonde beauties on his arm at a charity event. "You certainly haven't been keeping a low profile."
"That's a new accent, isn't it?" Robb asked, easing himself into the chair across from Thad. "American?"
"Who knows. I've been overseas for a while now." Thad snapped his fingers for the waitress, who came over with another pint to replace his empty glass.
America had never been Robb's favorite country. Everybody was too friendly, too personal. They invited themselves over into your life and didn't take no for an answer. It was very intrusive, and Robb had been happy to get back to London. At least in England all of the multi-millionaires were politely distant from each other.
He noticed Thad's arm hair was gray, too. Older than he'd ever let it get.
"You ought to move soon," Thad said. "I have an extra identity. You know, if you need it."
"Thanks, I don't think I will."
"You think you can't get hurt?" Thad's voice hissed like a serpent. There it was. Always hidden until the slightest pinprick sent him into a posturing stance.
"I'll let you creep around in the shadows." Robb leaned back in his chair. "I keep all of my secrets hidden in plain sight. That way nobody cares."
"Nobody cares about the girls you kill?"
"I don't kill them," Robb said, leaning over the table, his lips pressed firmly together.
"That's your first mistake," Thad said. "Leaving witnesses."
"They don't remember and they wouldn't notice if they did."
"They won't notice the marks?"
"You know how I do it," Robb said, waving Thad's concerns away. "Always from the back, and I don't take much. Barely a sip from each one. Heal them after, and you're good to move on to the next."
"Is that why you have so many girls?"
"No." The waitress came back with a caprese appetizer and martinis for both of them. Robb drank his in one swallow. Heat radiated into his face almost instantly, then began to fade. "I have so many girls because if I go on a second date, they always expect me to propose. "
Thad laughed. "None worth proposing to?"
Robb smiled wanly. "None yet."
"Still pining away for that little gypsy wench?"
Robb seethed in his chair. He was using all of his willpower to keep himself from leaning over and punching Thaddeus in his smug face. For all of his friendliness, Thad could be the most callous idiot. But Robb waved away the question, trying to keep his face serene.
"I'm not looking for a wife, Thad. And neither are you, from what I remember."
"What have you been up to? I haven't seen you in what, a decade now?"
"I'm taking over the university's chemistry lab here."
"Chemistry? You're not trying to—"
"I'm close, Thad. Closer than I've ever been. The curse that hangs over both our heads might be lifted.”
"That's what you said back in 1940."
"Have you been paying any attention to the news?" Robb asked derisively. "I mean besides tracking my personal exploits? Science has come a long way, you know."
"You're the brilliant one, not me. I'm damn well near illiterate," Thad said, smirking. "But don't you have a lab of your own? Why do you need the university?"
"Turns out they don't let just anyone buy a particle accelerator."
"Ah, that's a damned shame, isn't it?" Thad popped a slice of tomato into his mouth and bit down.
"I know, right? It's like they don't trust me with anything."
"The bastards."
Robb laughed. Despite everything, he'd forgotten how much he enjoyed Thad's company. It was a shame, really, that he was such a terrible monster. As if on cue, Thad's eyes narrowed into slits as he leaned forward.
"Robb, hey. Listen. I asked to meet because I need your help."
"Oh? What else is new?"
"I need another set of identity papers."
"How do you go through these so quickly? I've been Robert Chatham for going on a hundred years now."
"That's not fair. You've been Robert Chatham I, II, and III now. That counts as three."
"Still. Who wants to kill you now?"
The look on Thaddeus' face told Robb that he didn't want to know the answer to that question.
"Alright. I'll talk to my guy."
"I need them by the end of this week." Thaddeus's lips cracked as he pressed them together. Robb couldn't look away.
"I said I'll talk to my guy."
"And we need to fake my death. Could you..."
"What? What is this we? No. Thad, no. "
"Robb, come on." Thad tilted his head, wheedling.
"Yo
u can't just waltz in here and expect me to drop it all for you. This is my life. I'm established here."
"I'm not asking you to drop everything."
"I have things going on this week."
"What things?"
"Things." Robb flung his hands up over his head. "Things that are not helping you fake your death."
"Oh, really?"
"Really. My schedule is packed."
"Then unpack it. After all I've done for you..."
"Thad—"
"Robb. Here's the deal. All my cards on the table, okay? This is, like, life or death here. I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't desperate."
Robb believed him. The look in Thad's eyes was one of terror. Robb didn't know what could scare a half-century old vampire, and he didn't want to know.
"Fine," he said.
"Thank you."
"But you're gone after that."
"Gone. Sure. Thank you." Thad pressed his spotted hands together and smiled, the effort causing his mouth to stretch into a position that was more grimace than grin.
Robb searched through his mind. It had been a while since he'd had to fake a death. He'd have to get in touch with Doctor Vasin.
"Here." Thad pushed over a slip of paper. On it was written an address.
"That's the place I want to do it."
"This is outside London?" The address looked like another crummy exurb.
"Just outside of the city, there's a shitty fish and chips pub. We can do it in the forest just beyond that." Thad's eyes flashed with anxiety under wrinkled lids. "I'll rent a car. We can make it look like an accident, like I was drunk."
"Sure," Robb said.
"As soon as possible."
"Sure," Robb said.
Thad gripped his arm tightly. His strength was still there, though not at full power. He was an old vampire, older than Robb, and although he looked like shit, he hadn't weakened too badly. Hell, he might even beat Robb in a fight, if it came down to it. They'd sparred before, and Thad had always come out on top. The old man leaned forward across the table.