Maeve’s Book of Beasts

by Deborah Cooke

  Sylvia heard the sewing machine in 4B along with the quiet sound of an interview on the radio. Eliza was a textile artist and fan of NPR. Sylvia felt Celeste watching her through the peephole of her door at 4F and had no doubt that notes were being made on her activities. If there had ever been a murder at the house, Celeste would be the one with full records of comings and goings. Sylvia wondered if Celeste had fabricated a story about her noisy orgasm the night before and smiled with the certainty that there was no way her neighbor’s story came close to the truth.

  Sylvia sighed with relief when she reached her floor, not meaning to do so. It was a long climb, one that added to her desire to stay home.

  She supposed it would be a bad idea to stand up a coven of vampires.

  She sensed the difference as soon as she opened the door and paused on the threshold, looking. Someone had been in her apartment. Things weren’t moved very much but there was a scent in the air that hadn’t been there before.

  Was the intruder still there?

  Sylvia listened, but couldn’t hear a thing. She took a step inside, closed the door behind herself and leaned against it, looking. Then she flicked on the overhead light.

  Again, it seemed as if everything was as it should be.

  Then she noticed that the book she’d left on the couch was gone.

  She crossed the floor in a hurry, checking behind and beneath the couch. It was gone, and she knew she’d left it there. But the door had still been locked. She scanned the living room, seeking some sign of a break-in and spotted all of the other books neatly lined up on her kitchen counter. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw a man in her kitchen, watching her.

  Sebastian.

  He was leaning in the back corner, the darkest one, and absolutely motionless. His eyes could have been lit with blue fire and his lips were drawn to a thin line. He shouldn’t have been allowed to wear a leather jacket and jeans. He looked very James Dean but darker and more dangerous, not just because of his tight black T-shirt.

  “How did you get in here?” Her voice was breathless, the details of her dream flooding her thoughts with incredibly bad timing. She knew she was blushing and wished it would stop. She hoped he didn’t know anything about her dream, and told herself it was impossible that he could.

  Then he smiled so knowingly that she knew he did. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it does. I’d like to be sure no one else can break into my apartment.”

  “Then you should have better locks.”

  “Thank you very much for that advice.” She felt her eyes narrow. “So, you found the books, but not the book.”

  “I found a lot of cheap notebooks. I assume you have the book.”

  Sylvia put her hand in her pocket, resting it on top of the book.

  He gestured to the books on the counter. “What are these about?”

  “Decoys.” Sylvia approached the kitchen counter but Sebastian didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on her lips, which made her self-conscious—actually, remembering her dream and his role in it was what was making her self-conscious. She cleared her throat. “I bought a dozen of them this morning. One was stolen from me almost right away.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know. It was this morning, on my way to work. I kept it in my hand and put the real one in my purse.”

  “And the thief took the decoy?”

  Sylvia nodded. “He or she ran into the subway. I didn’t get a good look because it was crowded, but there was this little flash of light afterward.” She looked at Sebastian but he dropped his gaze, feeding her sense that he was hiding something from her.

  “Interesting.” He perched on the stool in the kitchen. “Someone who couldn’t tell the difference tried to retrieve the book.”

  “Who exactly can see the difference?”

  “Anyone who can see past the glamor placed on it.” He raised a hand. “The really interesting question is why you can do that.”

  “Can’t everyone?”

  “No. That would be the point of the glamor.”

  He was studying her so intently that Sylvia’s blush deepened. When had she last had such a gorgeous man in her apartment? She had no idea how to deal with this unfamiliar situation—much less with him.

  How did he remember her dream?

  Why was he back?

  What did he want?

  He turned to study the few potted herbs on her counter. They were half-dead and she wished she’d done something about them, even though she hadn’t been expecting company. “I’m supposed to escort you to Reliquary,” he said, as if he had heard the questions in her thoughts. “It’s not my best trait, following orders, and I’m not one to be inclined to take much responsibility for my actions, but you appear to be challenging expectations in more ways than one.”

  “Why doesn’t that sound like a good thing?”

  “It’s not. I like my pleasures uncomplicated. I like my life uncomplicated.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have given me the book.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what comes of following orders. Everything goes to shit.”

  Sylvia folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t think things are going to shit.”

  “Wait for it.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Ever since you gave me this book, things have been odd. I’ve been robbed. Twice. I’ve had vivid dreams.”

  He smiled.

  “Twice.”

  His smile faded abruptly. “What other dream did you have?”

  “I think I had a visitation of some kind. Someone called from the book, demanding its return.”

  He straightened, his apparent indifference dismissed. He was avidly interested now, his gaze unswerving and unblinking. “And?”

  “And Micah turned up at my job today to introduce himself.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You could see him?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Does that mean I’m going to die?”

  He waved a hand. “Of course you are. You’re mortal.”

  “I mean, soon.”

  “It’s all relative, isn’t it? If you lived to be a hundred, I’d think that was soon.”

  Sylvia sank down onto a stool. “You don’t screw around when someone asks you for the truth, do you?”

  Impatience flickered across his features. “I don’t screw around, period. I do what I want, when I want, where I want, with whom I want.”

  “Unless you’re doing what Micah tells you to do.”

  He winced. “Touché. Desperate times, etc. Shall we go?”

  “No. Not yet. The book is important. It’s filled with lists and maps. I want to know what it all means.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” he whispered.

  “I’m ready. Tell me the real risk. Am I going to die?”

  He raised a brow.

  Sylvia clarified, her tone impatient. “Am I going to die soon, in my terms, and because of the book?”

  “I’m not a fortuneteller.”

  “Tell me the risk. Don’t be evasive.”

  He crossed the room in that insanely quick way, suddenly appearing right in front of her. He bent down and Sylvia couldn’t look away from the intense blue of his eyes. His voice dropped to a seductive murmur, but his words weren’t seductive at all. “The real risk is that Maeve will find you and her book, that she will obliterate or maybe curse you to retrieve her property, and that then she will continue to exterminate all of the Others in the world.”

  “Why?” Sylvia whispered.

  “She considers only Fae and humans to be pure. All of the Others are half-breeds, by her accounting, part Fae and part human, and thus abominations.” He opened his hand, inviting her to answer. “And the title of the book is...?”

  “Her Book of Beasts.”

  “Beasts,” he agreed with a nod.

  “Why should I care about Others?”

  He tilted his head to stud
y her. “What makes you believe that she will stop once the half-breeds are gone? If she wants Fae to be ascendant or alone on this earth, then humans will be next. It’s an inevitable and logical progression.”

  Sylvia’s heart chilled. “You’re not fighting for humans. Not you.”

  “I am a little.” He smiled and bared his pointed teeth. “I do have appetites, after all.”

  Sylvia had to look away. “About last night...”

  “I wanted to know how much you knew about the book, but I was...distracted.” How could his voice be so low and so sultry? How could just his voice make her shivery and hot in all the places that counted?

  She would not think about his tongue and what it could do.

  “Is that typical?”

  “No. It’s been quite a while since I indulged other appetites.”

  “But you didn’t indulge yours last night.” She dared to look up at him, only to find that hunger in his eyes again.

  He smiled. “Oh, there was a certain satisfaction to be had in the proceedings.”

  “Were you really there? Or were you in my dream?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well, yes. I want to know if you broke into my apartment, or if you were vandalizing my mind...”

  “You invited me,” he said curtly. “I don’t know where that room is and I don’t know why you have a vision of us being there.”

  “Is it real?”

  “You tell me.”

  Sylvia exhaled. “This is all new to me.”

  “Don’t worry. You probably won’t have long to try to figure it out.”

  “Thank you very much.” She supposed it wasn’t a surprise that his answer was consistent with Micah’s. “So, what happens now?”

  “We go to Reliquary to confer.”

  “No, between you and me.”

  “It would be stupid for anything to happen between you and me,” he said so softly that Sylvia looked at him. There was a threat in his tone and in his posture. “You know what I am. You know what I need. You know that stories between your kind and my kind do not end well for the member of your kind.”

  “You don’t seem very scary right now.”

  “I have fed. The thirst is sated, for the moment, but it will return.” He opened his mouth, displaying his teeth to her a little, and waited until she shivered. “And when it returns, Sylvia Fontaine, if I am still commanded to guard you, you would be clever to ensure that you don’t tempt me in any way. I am volatile and impulsive when the thirst burns. The thirst compels me to actions that there is no time to regret.”

  “That must be inconvenient.”

  “It is the root of my current, very unsatisfactory, situation.” His eyes blazed. “Do not— I repeat—do not fuck with me.”

  Sylvia swallowed and eased a little further away. “You’re trying to scare me.”

  “I hope, for your sake, that I’m succeeding.” He leaned over the chair, bracing one hand on each arm and trapping her there. “If not, let me make myself perfectly clear. If you summon me again with a dream like the one you had last night, if you do it when the thirst is burning, I will eat more than you expect and you will never awaken again.”

  “Can’t you turn people to vampires?”

  He straightened and spun away. “Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it should be done.”

  “Have you ever turned anyone?”

  He glared at her, his eyes as cold as ice. “Never. And I never will.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because those a vampire turns are bound to him or her forevermore, and I want to be alone more than anything in the world.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my black heart is filled with hate.” His tone was mocking and she didn’t know if he was making fun of himself or her question.

  “But you’re allied with Micah.”

  “At this point in time, it’s the best way of looking out for number one. With any luck, that will not last.”

  “And so, the book must be defended and the enemy defeated.”

  “And they say humans are intellectually challenged.” This time, she had no doubt that he was mocking her and she braced herself for whatever he was going to say. “There is an alternative.” His voice was low and silky again, and she intuitively distrusted him.

  “Which is?”

  “The book can be reclaimed and your memory...deleted.”

  “Deleted? But Micah said there was no point...”

  “Because Micah has no understanding and less respect for magick. It could be done, but you would forget everything.” He shrugged. “It might not be enough, though.”

  “So I could give you the book, agree to have my memory wiped, but still be hunted down and killed by her.”

  “It would come as a surprise to you.”

  “No. Unequivocably no.” Sylvia stood up, shedding her cardigan and getting a leather jacket instead. She tugged on her boots then took the book out of the sweater pocket. She could feel Sebastian waiting and watching, and was keenly aware of his impatience. That made her impatient. He had to know that she couldn’t move in the blink of an eye. “Don’t you want to know what she said through the book last night?”

  “Of course.”

  “She demanded its return. She made threats.”

  “But she didn’t appear?”

  Sylvia shook her head and watched him consider that.

  “Interesting. So, she doesn’t know exactly where it is, but she’s trying to summon it.” Before Sylvia could ask for more detail, he moved to the patio door. “We have to go. Bring it.”

  “Not that way!”

  “This is the only way that I’ll go.”

  “I thought you were going to escort me on the street.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “I can’t climb across rooftops...”

  “Then you’ll have to rely upon my help.” The prospect seemed to amuse him.

  “You’ll probably drop me.”

  “You needn’t work so hard to tempt me.”

  Sylvia took a book from the counter, one that had been in the kitchen drawer, and gave it to him. “It’s your turn to be bait,” she said, her tone cross. “Don’t expect me to cry if you get hurt.”

  He chuckled, surprised into it. “I won’t. There is more to you than meets the eye.” He eased closer, his gaze dropping to her lips, and Sylvia held her breath, thinking he might give her a real kiss, one that she could compare to the dream one.

  Instead, his gaze fell to the book in her hand and he frowned. “I thought that one was the book,” he said softly.

  Sylvia lifted the book to study it, her heart sinking as she realized it was just a notebook. She looked at the notebook Sebastian held, then lunged for the counter and the books remaining there. She knew immediately but picked each one up and turned it over, just to be sure.

  “It’s gone,” she told him, horror in her tone.

  “Such an excellent custodian,” he muttered as her thoughts flew.

  “Caleb!” she whispered in realization.

  “What?”

  “The guy who moved into 2F this morning, with his dog, Loki. He bumped into me when I was coming home. My purse and tote bag spilled and the bag of peanuts he had broke. He picked up the books for me. He put one back in my purse and I thought it was the one that fell out of it.”

  “Fucking werewolves,” Sebastian snarled and spun, striding to the door to the terrace. “And he names his so-called dog Loki. How moronic is that?”

  “There’s nothing so-called about his dog. I heard it last night.”

  “But did you see it at the same time you could see him?”

  Sylvia blinked. “I heard them both.”

  Sebastian shook his head, apparently despairing of the feeble intellectual power of humans. His eyes were blazing when he met her gaze. “Are you coming or not?”

  “You said werewolves?”

  “I said werewolves. There is a werewolf living in
2F. Call him whatever you want. Call his so-called dog whatever you want, but I would suggest that invoking an old deity known for making trouble is a really bad idea.”

  “I guess it would be, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

  “What exactly will it take to convince you?”

  Sylvia smiled. “Point taken.” Her expression seemed to startle Sebastian, because he blinked and stared at her for a moment, then indicated the terrace again. “Are you coming tonight?”

  “Of course, I’m coming. I’m the one who knows where Caleb is.”

  She should have been getting used to that lightning quick movement, but Sylvia gasped when Sebastian was suddenly right before her again. His gaze bored into hers. “Where?” His voice was a low growl and it made her shiver.

  It also made her want to kiss him again.

  That had to be a bad idea.

  “He works at the circus.” Sylvia reached out and plucked the flyer that Caleb had given her earlier off the counter. “Here.”

  Six

  The Circus of Wonders apparently moved locations with some regularity. The flyer listed half a dozen locations with dates. Sylvia headed downstairs to get a cab to Tompkins Square Park, the current location, and Sebastian followed her with some reluctance.

  “I don’t like cabs,” he complained.

  “You don’t like much of anything,” she countered, which wasn’t exactly unfair.

  Someone moved behind the door of 4F and Sebastian glared at the door. “Not true. I like many things.”

  “Like?”

  “Pleasure. Books. Privacy.”

  Sylvia flicked a glance over her shoulder at him. “Should I be worried that we have that list in common?”

  “No, because another thing I don’t like is humans.”

  “Don’t put too much of a gloss on it,” Sylvia muttered.

  “Do you want me to lie to you?”

  “No, actually, I don’t. But you could try to be a little bit diplomatic.”

  “It’s a waste of time and energy. It’s much simpler just to say what you mean.” He ducked past her and opened the door to the front steps and she stopped to look at him in surprise.