I went down the hallway to the double front doors. I was generally fond of those old front doors with their stained-glass panels, but they made it very hard to see who was out there on the porch after dark. Assoon as I turned the knob, a gust of wind blew the door open so hard I gasped.
A man stood in the shadows on the porch, silhouetted by the streetlight at his back. With the porch lights off, I couldn’t see his face but could make the outline of his suit. Would they send a detective over to take an incident report on the theft of a single book? Well, it was a small town. Our police didn’t have much to do most days.
“Hello?” I said.
He didn’t respond.
“Hello?” I said again. “Are you here about the robbery?”
“It was a dark and stormy night,” the man finally said in a posh English accent I recognized instantly and would recognize in this world or any other.
He stumbled and caught himself on the banister. I rushed forward to help steady him before he fell. He clung to me, and I half dragged, half carried him into the house and propped him against the wall while I pushed the door shut.
Door shut and locked, I turned around, and there he was.
Tall. Black hair, wet and yet somehow still perfectly coiffed. Three-piece suit tailored to the nines.
Handsome. Far too handsome. Desperately handsome. Cary Grant’s eyes and Gary Cooper’s face handsome.
“Duke!”
—
My heart might’vestopped at the sight of him. It might’ve skipped a beat or two. Any cardiac event was possible when the Duke of Chicago walked, or in this case stumbled, into a room.
He put an arm around me, clinging to me as hard as I clung to him. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to steer him into the foyer and set him down on the staircase.
I knelt in front of him, checking for injuries. Head seemed fine. No fever. No cuts or bruises. But he was ice-cold to the touch.
“Duke? Are you all right? What were you doing out in the cold rain?”
His chocolate brown eyes fluttered open. He gazed around the roomas if seeing it for the first time. “I was a newborn vampire, weeping at the beauty of the night.”
“No, no, you weren’t, Duke. Listen to me. That’s Louis de Pointe du Lac fromInterview with the Vampire.You’re Duke, the Duke of Chicago. Do you remember?”
He blinked and looked around, brow furrowed.
“Midway upon the journey of our life / I found myself within a forest dark, / For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
“That’s theDivine Comedy.Are you in Hell?”
He blinked again, leaned close, and smiled at me drunkenly. “Never with you, darling. Never with you.”
Without warning, he slumped sideways, and I grabbed him and pushed him upright.
“Duke, listen, you’re having a massive traumatic displacement. Do you understand?”
He didn’t reply, nor could he. A “traumatic displacement” happens on rare occasions when a fictional character is wrenched too violently from their story and into the real world. I’ve been told characters who go through it find themselves lost in the woods, and everywhere they look, they see stories. This had never happened to Duke before and I wasn’t sure why it was happening now. Some rougher magic was at work than just my own.
“Duke, can you walk? I need to get you to the library.”
“Through the dark forest?”
“Yes, I’m right here. Even if you can’t see me, I’m right here.” We slowly made our way down the hall, Duke stumbling over his feet.
At the sound of Duke’s voice, Koshka ran to us.
“Big bad wolf,” Duke whispered.
