I swore under my breath and closed the distance between us.
“Marvelous!” he crooned. “This is going to knock you on your heels!”
He kept an easy pace and seemed to have no problem threading through the crowd, space opening up as if people unconsciously knew he was coming and moved out of his way.
He said he’d been hunted. He’d said he was long-lived like Lula and me because he’d been attacked.
I didn’t know what had attacked him.
I didn’t know what he’d been changed into. Was he just a long-lived mortal? Or did he have some powers or abilities, like Lula, like me? Had he really been god-touched like I’d suspected?
Did that make him dangerous or just another bloke trying to make his way down the road?
If he carried a weapon, I couldn’t see it on him, and he was wearing close-cut clothes. Difficult to hide much more than a knife.
This could be a trap. My gut said whatever it was, it wasn’t on the up and up. But any magical book was rare, and if he’d found the one Cupid was looking for, it was worth following him and buying the thing off of him.
I’d call Lula, but my cell phone hadn’t made it out of the crash and we hadn’t replaced it yet. I could handle myself. Even with a sore ankle and aching head. Even if he was something not-quite-human, I knew how to hold my own.
I thought he was leading me down to the outer aisle, but he stopped and opened a door at the back of the room. “Short cut,” he said as we walked down a service hallway.
Back when this was an active railway station, this had been the way people who worked for the railway got from place to place. We passed doors that might be broom closets, a locker room, bathroom, and finally, a storage room.
Document boxes were stacked on shelves, and the shelves took up all the walls. Six small roll-top desks—the sort that should be in a library—filled the center space.
“Here,” he said, his voice warm with excitement. “I asked if I could store it here until the show was over. I didn’t dare leave it in my vehicle, and I wasn’t done shopping yet. Sit. Yes, right there is fine, fine.”
I didn’t want to sit, but he was already at the shelf opening the lids of several boxes. I dragged a chair away from a desk and positioned it so I could see him and the door we came through—the only entry or exit of the room.
“I know it’s here. Don’t worry. This is…Hold on, I think…They wrote my name on the box. How thoughtful.” He pushed the lid aside and carried the box to the desk nearest him. “I do hope you’ll be careful with this. And remember, I found it, but I’m willing to negotiate a price to get you started in the supernatural trade.”
He lifted a cloth-wrapped rectangular item out of the box. It appeared to be the size and shape of a book, but I didn’t feel any change in magic that indicated it was the book I wanted.
He closed the distance between us and placed the wrapped book on the desk to my left.
“Go ahead,” he said with birthday-party glee. “Open it. I can’t wait for you to see this.”
I flipped one edge of the cloth off to the right, the other edge off to the left.
Magic wasn’t any stronger, wasn’t any louder. I didn’t hear the universe singing.
But there was no doubt at all that the book was indeed the spell book of the gods.
CHAPTERTEN
“You can tell, can’t you?” Mad Mat asked. “It’s old—it’s obviously old. But the magic. You can see that it’s magic. Real as can be.”
It was more than magic, it was pages and pages of spells written by hundreds of gods. Experimental, one-of-a-kind spells. It was dangerous. It was powerful. I couldn’t believe he’d found it.
“Did you buy it here? That was fast.” I hadn’t touched it. I remembered the first time I touched it, I’d been in spirit form and it had knocked me on my ass.
“I had a lead. So I arrived last night and got in line before sunrise. Once I stepped into the building, I was drawn to it.” His voice went dreamy. “I could hear it calling me. Well, not with an actual voice. I believe in magic. I’m not experiencing auditory hallucinations.”
This was making his day, and he was bursting with pride. “Go on, Brogan. Go ahead. You can touch it.”
“Have you touched it?” I asked.
“You just saw me carry it over here. Weren’t you paying attention? I should have shown it to Lula instead. She’s here, isn’t she? She’d appreciate it. She’d believe it’s magic.”
