“No one experiments on us. No.” Minegold shook his head firmly, eyes suddenly a deep mulberry, face hostile. “I was subjected to my fair share of experiments back... long ago, so long it doesn’t need to be mentioned.” He turned away for a moment, and when he returned, his eyes were their normal hazel once again. “Jesse? Will you sit at the accursed box?”
Sophie blinked.Cursed boxes? What now?
Jesse merely laughed and powered on a huge, boxy computer in the corner. It was clearly from the early days of home computing.“You’re lucky I got that degree in computer systems. This thing would run like a snail with rheumatism if it weren’t for my upgrades. What do you want me to look up?”
“Fire beings. Spirits. Demons. Beings of the upper and lower realms.”
“Then what are the books for?” Sophie leaned against Jesse’s shoulder as he started typing something into an internet search engine.
“This web doesn’t know everything. Some knowledge is best kept hidden, lest it be abused. Jesse finds us the scraps, but we make the stew, eh?” Mr. Minegold smiled at her and put a pen and paper into her tentative hands.
“SOMETHING RARE. VERYrare.”
Sophie looked at her list. She’d never heard of half of the beings or creatures on it. Some words on her paper were not even in English.
“Not from around here.” Minegold and Jesse were experts in this. They spoke in choppy sentences but seemed to understand each other. They ran from shelf to shelf, muttering and writing,while she sat with her list, eyes blurring as she stared without blinking.
Mother.
The word came to her unbidden, just like the heat in her chest.
It was my mother, my birth mother, who was able to touch the flames, hold them in her hand. My father couldn’t. Vampires burn.
How then? How could they be together, if one would ignite the other?
“She couldn’t be on fire or too hot all the time. Vampires don’t handle flames and sunlight. It had to come and go, she could control it. So they could be together long enough to make me.” Sophie rolled the pen over the page. “Definitely female. Are any of these demons strictly male?” She held out her list.
Mr. Minegold looked over it. He and Jesse had been the ones telling her what to write, but now he appeared to slow down and study it. “Hmm. Hm.” He took a pen from behind his ear and made a half dozen sharp slashes. “You are very good at this. We narrowed it down quite a bit.”
“And- and you said it was something rare and uncommon, at least something that isn’t around here?” Sophie turned her eyes back to the map-lined wall. “Cross out anything common, anything local.” Another slash or two.
“Those are common, although not around here. Fire spirits or demons are not usually in this part of the world. Demons who like this region,” Mr. Minegold circled his hand over the jeweled pin in the map, “like darkness, cold, or water. Werewolves, vampires, succubi, witches, and certain fae.”
“Fairies are real?” Sophie’s butt hit the chair as her knees decided that was one too many impossible things for the day.
“Not like you picture them,” Jesse rubbed her back. “We don’t know that Sophie’s parents were from this part of the world.”
“But she was found here with her father— a vampire, one assumes, shortly after her birth.” Mr. Minegold’s lips twitched suddenly. “Perhaps she couldn’t survive for long here. Some of the fiery ones cannot.”
“Then why have me? Why risk it? She did die, at least that’s what my parents were told.”I want Mom and Daddy right now. I was always their wonderful miracle, their little princess. I don’t want to be the thing that killed my parents, that made them choose life for me or death for her.She hastily wiped at her eyes. “Dust,” she lied thickly.
“Babe. It may not have been anything like you’re imagining,” Jesse knelt in front of her, taking both of her hands and looking up at her.
“I’m imagining my mother died having me because she couldn’t live where she needed to be. Why would she do that?”
“Love.” Minegold’s voice was a whisper. His head was bent over something on the roll top desk in the corner. “Perhaps your father would not survive in her world. Perhaps she feared or could tell that you wouldn’t, either. To ensure the safety of your little ones, you will... you will willingly go to the grave in their place.” His hand gently closed the lid and whatever he had been gazing at was concealed. “Don’t think of her as anything more than a hero, dear girl.”
“I’ll try,” Sophie whispered.
“Pardon me, my dears. A fresh pot of tea. There is too much dust, as you said.” Mr. Minegold coughed and rubbed at his eyes as he hurriedly retreated from the room.
As he left, Jesse rose and pulled Sophie to her feet, leaning against him. “You told me once that you never wanted to find your birth parents. You had the best family.”
“I do! This isn’t about finding them. It’s about finding parts of me.” Sophie smiled tremulously at her boyfriend.
He didn’t smile back. His handsome face regarded her steadily, one hand coming up to cup her chin. “Can I be part of you?”
“What?” Sophie giggled in spite of the seriousness.
