My body slammed into the balustrade. My knee cracked on the stair, and my heart hammered against my chest. I couldn’t see a thing in the gloom, but I knew I’d never heard that voice before. I felt along the wall until my fingers closed around the light switch. I flicked it on, illuminating a weedy man wearing a skintight pair of leggings and a green doublet. In his hands, he held what looked suspiciously like an…archery bow?
By Isis, not another one.
“My apologies, fair maiden.” The green-clad archer gave an apologetic bow. “I was attempting to lend my bow to solving your vermin problem, but my shot went a little wide.”
“Don’t listen to him.” A genteel voice with a faint Swiss accent snapped from behind me on the stairs. He’d be a perfectly benign figure if not for the sack over his shoulder that bore the distinct odor of grave-dirt and decay. “That rapscallion wasn’t aiming for a mouse. He intended to pierce my skull.”
“Upon my honor, ‘tis not true.” The archer looked shamefaced, but he drew another arrow and aimed his bow at my companion.
“Honor?” The man pushed past me on the stairs, dropping his disgusting sack onto the rug so he could pull on a white lab coat. “You’re an outlaw. What good is your honor?”
“It’s better than the honor of a crazed doctor,” the archer shot back. “At least I only steal from the rich to give to the poor. I saw you stealing from the graves of the innocent to create your aberration—”
“Gentlemen,please.” I held up my hands. “It’s too early in the morning for this, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. Victor, take your night’s findings down to the basement. I’ll call you when your coffee’s here. And you,” I nodded to the newcomer. “Tell me, although I think I already know, who are you?”
The archer puffed out his chest. “I’m called Robin of Sherwood. I command a band of merry men who steal from the rich to give to the poor, and protect the good people of Sherwood Forest from the tyranny of the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Robin.” I rubbed my eyes as a squiggle of orange danced across my vision. “Why did you shoot at Victor here?”
“Just look at him! Those beady eyes, that villainous mustache, that sack of pilfered body parts over his shoulder.”
I sighed again. I couldn’t argue with that logic.
“I resent that.” Victor rubbed his face. “This is a very stylish mustache.”
Robin peered around the shop. “I appear to have become drunk on ale and woken up in your strange abode. As I was hunting for my dinner, I noticed him leaving this building with that empty sack, so I followed him, thinking he might be an innocent peasant poaching to feed his family from the King’s Forest. Only instead of setting snares, he went to a burial ground and…” Robin shook his head. “I shall say no more. I will not subject such a fair maiden to a description of his depravity. He is a cox-comb of the first order, and I’ll—”
“Coffee!” Morrie called. The bell tinkled as the door swung shut.
“Coffee? Is that some kind of sorcery to banish this crooked-nosed nave?”
“Coffee is definitely sorcery, but of the most benevolent kind.” I threw my arm around Robin’s shoulders. “I have much to teach you. You’re a long way from Sherwood now, my friend.”
Morrie struggled past carrying two cardboard trays piled high with beverages. A stampede ensued as fictional characters appeared from every corner of the shop and rushed Morrie. Coffee wasn’t available to most of them in their books, and they seemed to have developed an addiction. Understandable.
“Okay, so I’ve got a tall, double-shot latte with cream and caramel drizzle for Socrates…” The philosopher grabbed the milky drink and slurped happily.
“And a triple-shot soy latte for the esteemed Dr. Frankenstein…” Victor accepted his takeaway cup and slouched off toward the cellar. He’d barely emerged from the gloom since arriving at Nevermore three days ago, except to make his midnight trips to the graveyard for reasons I preferred not to ask about. Next, Morrie handed me my drink and set Heathcliff’s on the desk for him.
The Headless Horseman hovered behind Robin, and Morrie shrugged as he handed him a cup. “I didn’t know what you wanted, mate, so I got you a long black.”
Our cranially-challenged friend inclined his stump toward the cup, straightened up, and poured the drink into the air where his head used to be. Coffee splashed into his neck cavity and disappeared into his spectral body. Morrie collapsed into his velvet chair and brought his own cup to his lips, while Robin swiped Heathcliff’s and sipped, his brown eyes widening with delight.
Our first customer of the day was Bernie, a pensioner from the same retirement village Mrs. Ellis now called home who came each week to browse the Erotica section. We had guys like Bernie in regularly – always men, always bearded, and always in outfits they assumed made them invisible but actually made them stand out a mile as the type of bloke who needed a weekly visit to an erotica bookshelf. Bernie started his search for scandalous reading material in the same place he always did – the railway section, where he removed the dust jacket from a book on GWR rolling stock and folded it over a collection of antiquarian lesbian lithographs. He then sat in the corner for an hour or so with his secret book. I was grateful I now couldn’t see across the room, because I didn’t know what he got up to over there, but he was quiet and never disturbed the other customers, and he always swapped the dust jackets back when he was done, so we let him be.
A group of Lycra-clad cyclists came in after Bernie. They headed straight for the ordinance map section, unfolded every map and spread them out over the table to plan their route, upturning the stuffed armadillo in the process. After a loud argument about B-roads, they left the shop, leaving me with the impossible task of refolding the maps while they spent a further twenty-minutes blocking the entrance while they fiddled with straps and helmets and drink bottles.
“This is Satan’s origami,” I muttered to Victor as he emerged from the cellar. “You’re good at stitching things back together. I’d appreciate a little help.”
“I can’t. I’m in the middle of a very precise operation. I only came upstairs to remind you about the plumbing.” Victor hiked up the hem of his trousers, and I saw that at least three inches of fabric were completely soaked. “It’s awfully difficult to focus on my work with the water level rising down there.”
“I’ll get to it, Victor. I promise.” He’d been bugging me about the leak in the basement ever since he’d arrived. I called Handy Andy, local village jack-of-all-trades, and he said he’d pop in to take a look when he had a chance, which by handyman standards meant I wouldn’t see him until next June. In a village like Argleton, you had to learn to go at a slower pace.
Heathcliff came downstairs after the cyclists left – a blessing, considering the insults he usually hurled at them. He took over counter duties (watching for shoplifters and glowering at anyone who looked like they wanted to haggle) so I could make a quick visit to the Occult room.
I entered the store room – aka, Morrie’s makeshift bedroom – and closed the door behind me. Heathcliff had placed strings of fairy lights along the shelves, which I clicked on to help me navigate the cramped space. I located the secret door to the occult books, which we had dubbed our ‘war room.’ On a blackboard attached to the wall, Quoth had written ‘earth boxes’ in big, loopy writing with glow-in-the-dark chalk so it stood out to me more than the normal stuff (although it did kind of look like toxic waste). Beneath were two columns – one for us and one for Sherlock down in London to tally the boxes of Transylvanian dirt we’d destroyed.
I made a mark under our column and leaned in close to count up the tallies. I counted three times, just in case I missed one. Sherlock had taken out fifteen around London and Dartmoor, where Grey Lachlan had several properties, and we’d found a further thirty-one scattered around Barsetshire and nearby Loamshire, where the rest of his property portfolio was located. I couldn’t believe Grey hadn’t thought we’d check his other properties after he caught us at one, but then he’d try to frame Morrie for murder in an elaborate setup just to remove who he perceived as his strongest adversary from the game. He wasn’t exactly going to make the Queen’s Honors list for intelligence.
