How big was this place? Never mind. I didn’t think my mind could handle the answer.
I tried to hand the book I’d been carrying to him. He waved me off and took a step back.
“What was the price you agreed to?” he asked.
“We didn’t,” I said. “He tried to tell me it was nothing and everything, but it sounded like it was too good to be true so I refused.”
Well that and he had seriously creeped me out by that point.
I tried to hand it back to the shop keeper again. He refused to take it, his old man face frowning at me.
“Keep it. You’ve already paid the price, and it wouldn’t stay with me anyway.”
My hands hung in the air, holding out the book, while I processed what he said.
“No, I haven’t paid anything or agreed to any payment.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been paid. Look, the price really is nothing.”
“And everything,” I protested. I remembered that part. It was the part that had tripped my internal alarms.
He waved my protest away. “That means nothing. No worries. The book is yours.”
“But I don’t want the damn book.”
“Too late now.” He waved his hand at the door to the human side. “Out you go.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t make me pay for something if I never agreed to the deal.” I’d learned this much from the sorcerer at least.
My phone rang before the shop keeper could respond. I glanced down and pulled it out of my pocket. It said ‘Hermes Calling.’
I looked up to find myself alone in the stacks of books. I spun around. Damn it, where’d he go?
The phone rang again.
I answered, “What?”
The person on the other end sucked in a breath. “Is that how you answer when representing the company?”
It is when they have possibly caused me to agree to a deal I had no intention of agreeing to.
“What do you want, Janice?”
“You know my name isn’t Janice,” Beatrix snapped.
I did, but she looked like a Janice so that’s what I called her. It didn’t hurt that I knew she hated it, which is why I did it.
“What do you want?”
“You need to come into the office.”
“It’s my night off. I have plans.” I glanced around the empty book cases. Or at least I had before the book keeper left me standing holding a book I didn’t pay for.
“Too bad. Jerry needs all hands on deck.”
“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
Even if my excursion hadn’t gone as planned, I still wanted the rest of the night to figure out what to do next.
