I took a nervous breath. Nick's eyes were confused. Everyone in the I.S. knew how my dad had died. I appreciated Jenks not saying anything, just telling me that he would be there for me.
"Okay," I said as I took off my detecting amulet and hung it where Jenks could see it. I followed Nick in, ignoring the creepy sensation of my skin tingling. Whether they contained black arts or white, they were just books. The power came from using them.
The door squeaked shut, and Nick brushed past me, gesturing me to follow. I took off my disguise amulet and dropped it into my bag, then undid the bun my hair was in and shook it all out. Fluffing it, I felt half a century younger.
I glanced at the passing titles as I passed them, slowing as the aisle opened up to a good-sized room hidden from the hallway by racks' of books. There was an institutional-looking table and three mismatched swivel chairs that weren't even good enough for an intern's desk.
Nick strode unhesitatingly to the glass-door cabinet across the room. "Here, Rachel," he said as he pulled it open. "See if what you want is here." He turned, brushing the shock of black hair from his eyes. I blinked at the intent, sly look shadowing his long face.
"Thanks. This is great. I really appreciate it," I said as I dropped my bag on the table and came to stand beside him. Worry pinched me, and I pushed it aside. If the spell was too disgusting, I just wouldn't do it.
Carefully, I worked the oldest-looking book out. The binding had been torn off the spine, and I had to use two hands to manage the unwieldy tome. I set it at the corner of the table and dragged a chair up to it. It was as cold as a cave down here, and I was glad for my coat. The dry air smelled faintly like potato chips. Squelching my nervousness, I opened the book. The title page had been ripped out, too. Using a spell from a book with no name was disturbing. The index was intact, though, and my eyebrows rose. A spell to talk to ghosts? Cool...
"You aren't like most humans I've spent any time with," I said as I scanned the index.
"My mom was a single parent," he said. "She couldn't afford anything uptown and so was more inclined to let me play with witches and vampires than the kids of heroine addicts. The Hollows was the lesser of two evils." Nick had his hands in his back pockets and was rocking heel to toe as he read the titles of a row of books. "I grew up there. Went to Emerson."
I glanced at him, intrigued. Growing up in the Hollows would explain why he knew so much about Inderlanders. To survive, you had to. "You went to Inderland Hollows's high school?" I asked.
He jiggled the locked door of a tall free-standing closet. The wood looked red in the glow from the fluorescent lights. I wondered what was so dangerous that it had to be locked inside a closet, inside a locked vault, behind a locked door, at the bottom of a government building.
Picking at the heat-warped lock, Nick shrugged. "It was all right. The principal bent the rules for me after I got a concussion. They let me carry a silver dagger to get the Weres to back off, and rinsing my hair in holy water kept the living vamps from being too obnoxious. It didn't stop them, but the bad case of B.O. it gave me worked almost as well."
"Holy water, huh?" I said, deciding I'd stick with my lilac perfume rather than have a body odor that only vamps could smell.
"It was only the warlocks and witches that gave me trouble," he added as he gave up on the lock and sat in one of the chairs, his long legs straight out before him. I gave him a sideways smirk. I could well imagine the witches gave him trouble. "But the practical jokes stopped after I befriended the biggest, meanest, ugliest warlock in school." A faint smile played about his eyes, and he looked tired. "Turk. I did his homework for four years. He should have graduated a long time ago, and the teachers were glad to look the other way to get him out of the system. Because I didn't go whining to the principal all the time like the handful of other humans enrolled there, I was cool enough to hang with the Inderlanders. My friends took care of me, and I learned a lot I might not have."
"Like that you don't have to be afraid of a vamp," I said, thinking it was odd a human would know more about vamps than I did.
"Not at noon, anyway. But I'll feel better once I take a shower and get Ivy's smell off me. I didn't know that was her robe, earlier." He clumped over. "What are you looking for?"
"Not sure," I said, nervous as he peered over my shoulder. There had to be something I could use that wouldn't send me too far down the wrong side of the "Force." A nervous amusement flashed through me. You're not my father, Darth, and I'll never join you!
Nick's eyes began to water at the strength of my perfume, and he backed off. We had driven over with the windows down. Now I knew why he hadn't said anything about it.
"You haven't lived with Ivy very long, have you?" he asked. I looked up from the index, surprised, and his long face went slack. "I, uh, sorta got the idea that you and she weren't..."
I flushed, dropping my eyes. "We aren't," I said. "Not if we can help it. We're just roommates. I'm on the right side of the hall, she's on the left."
He hesitated. "Do you mind if I make a suggestion, then?"
Mystified, I stared at him, and he went to sit on the corner of the table. "You might want to try a perfume with a citrus base instead of a flower."
My eyes widened. This was not what I had been expecting, and my hand crept up to cover my neck where I had dumped a splash of that awful perfume. "Jenks helped me pick it out," I said in explanation. "He said it covered Ivy's smell pretty good."
"I'm sure it does." Nick winced apologetically. "But it has to be strong to work. The ones based on citrus neutralize a vamp's odor, not just cover it up."
"Oh..." I breathed, recalling Ivy's fondness for orange juice.
"A pixy's nose is good, but a vamp's is specialized. Go shopping with Ivy next time. She'll help you pick out something that works."
"I'll do that," I said, thinking I could have avoided offending everyone if I had just asked for her help the first time. Feeling stupid, I closed the unnamed book and rose to get another.
I pulled the next book off the shelf, tensing when it was heavier than I thought it should be. It hit the table with a thump and Nick cringed. "Sorry," I said, pushing the cover straight to hide that I had torn the rotting binding. Sitting down, I opened the book.
My heart gave a thump and I froze, feeling the hair on my neck stand on end. It wasn't my imagination. Worried, I looked up to see if Nick had noticed it, too. He was staring over my shoulder at one of the aisles the book racks made. The eerie feeling wasn't coming from the book. It was coming from behind me. Damn.
"Rachel!" came a tiny call from the hall. "Your amulet went red, but no one's out here!"
I shut the book and stood. There was a flickering in the air. My heart pounded when half a dozen books in the aisle pushed themselves to the back of the shelves. "Uh, Nick?" I questioned. "Is there a history of ghosts in the library?"
"Not that I know of."
Double damn. I moved to stand beside him. "Then what the hell is that?"
He gave me a wary look. "I don't know."
Jenks flitted in. "There's nothing in the hallway, Rache. You sure that charm you gave me is working?" he asked, and I pointed at the disturbance in the aisle.
"Holy crap!" he exclaimed, hovering between Nick and me as the air started to take on a more solid form. As one, the books slid back to the front of the shelves. That was even creepier.
The mist turned yellow, then became firm. My breath hissed in through my teeth. It was a dog. That is, if dogs can be as big as ponies and have canines longer than my hand and tiny horns coming out of their heads, then it was a dog. I backed up a step with Nick, and it tracked us. "Tell me this is the library's security system," I whispered.
"I don't know what it is." Nick was ashen-faced, his slow confidence shattered. The dog was between us and the door.
Saliva dripped from its jaw, and I swear it hissed when it hit the floor. Yellow smoke rose from the puddle. I could smell sulfur. What the devil was this thing? "Do you have anything in your purse for this?" Nick whispered, stiffening as the dog's ears pricked.
"Anything to stop a yellow dog from hell?" I asked. "No."
"If we show no fear, maybe it won't attack."
The dog opened its jaws and said, "Which one of you is Rachel Mariana Morgan?"