The tarot guide seemed irrelevant; Jack placed it back on the shelf after only a cursory flip through its pages. The book of hauntings was only marginally more helpful, detailing encounters with succubi—beautiful demons who stole the life forces from their victims, typically appearing in dreams.
Jack wasn’t fully convinced that this was what had attackedhim (a part of him thought that whatever it was probably more closely resembled a vampire) but he filed away the information anyway. Whatever happened to him was undeniably pleasurable, but Boris claimed that Jack bled profusely from his neck. Whichprobablymeant that he was bitten, even if he couldn’t remember it. And succubi weren’t known for biting.
Ignoring the librarian’s probing stare, he turned to the alien abduction book. While chronicles of bright lights and lost time were certainly interesting, it seemed the abductees didn’t suffer timeloops, just memory loss. Besides, there were no flashing lights over Hidden Cove, no strange entities other than the vampire.
After a long time wandering through the library, examining each shelf for anything that might be even the tiniest bit helpful and dodging the librarian, Jack admitted defeat. It was well after lunchtime. If he left now, he’d reach the house on Castle Drive by mid-afternoon.
Maybe there was something he hadn’t thought of. Some notion that his scribbled notes would trigger when Carla looked over them.
There was always hope, Jack told himself, even if it felt like a lie. Like something his grandmother would have told herself during the Great Depression. A sentiment she’d scoff at now that her sanity didn’t depend on delusion.
He passed the front doors, stepped onto the sidewalk, dodged a spotted banana peel, and nearly collided with a man in a sleek black suit.
“Oh, sorry,” Jack began, taking a step back. Then he realized who he was looking at.
Pale hair. Yellow eyes. A knowing smirk.
Jack staggered backwards, clutching the strap of his bag. “It’s you!”
An eyebrow quirked. “Is it?”
“You-you?—”
The man looked him up and down, a spark of amusement inhis eye, like Jack was no more notable than a terrier barking at his heels. “Ihave places to be. Goodbye!”
“Wait!” Jack choked, but he was already gone, quite literally vanishing between two elderly women carrying shopping bags. It was as if he’d turned to dust. There one moment, gone the next.
One of the women turned at the sound of Jack’s voice, shook her head, and hurried away without a word.
“Fuck,” Jack whispered.
CHAPTER
FORTY
Jack metCarla at the castle for lunch and broke the news.
“You saw him again and you didn’t even talk to him?” She demanded, hands on her hips. Her plate sat before her, untouched. Tomato goop bled from her sandwich, stained its way across the white plate.
“It wasn’t like he gave me a choice!” Jack protested, throwing his arms wide.
“You have tomakepeople listen to you, Jack! You have to be assertive!”
“He just disappeared! What was I supposed to do about that?”
“If you’d gotten his attention?—”
“He said he was busy!”
“That’s no excuse!”
“What was I supposed to do? Just turn into a bat and follow him?”
“I-No,” Carla sighed, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “Alright, alright, I get it. Fine. I can’t believe you saw him and barely spoke to him.”
“You can’t?” Jack raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t want to believe it, how about that?”
