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I plant a kiss on her head and slip away, pulling a heavy black coat on, twitching the hood over my head.
If she wants books, she’ll have them.
After empowering Bellatrix with some of my senses (a fun little trick I learned while on the road in Eastern Europe during the 1890s, twice as hard now as the monster inside of me has grown hungrier, heavier, more painful to move) and double-checking the apartment was locked tight, I slipped into a night whirring with snow and wind.
I should’ve put on different shoes (heels don’t do well in blizzards, alas) but the shape of the chapel and the main academic quad quickly come into view. No one is out in this storm, thank goddess. I don’t want to be bothered. I lurch through the storm, muscling through the worst of the ravening pain drawing claws down behind my eyes.
All I have to do is sneak into the Rare Book Room, grab the diary Lacie was studying when she had to run off to class last week, and get out. What are the chances the entire collection is indeed ruined? Perhaps the leak only affected a few areas—and with luck, it won’t be the one Lacie’s work centers on.
I come to a stop at the hulking monolith of the library, flicking my eyes to the roped-off Rare Book Room entrance, trying to connect my thoughts. The main library doors have a slow stream of students trickling in and out. At this time of night, the library is usually shut tight, but it’s the reading period for undergraduate exams, so I’ll have to be careful, but I’m mostly sure they won’t have locked the Rare Book Room.
Edging around the rope barrier, my fingertips press on the motorized door handles. They swing open with a hiss, bringing the fusty smell of ink and human bodies swirling into the night. Score.
Without dropping my hood, I skirt the main desk, where one exhausted research librarian attempts to explain the intricacies of the Dewey Decimal System to a panicked-looking undergrad, around to a set of stairs that sink into the collections rooms. I’m willing to bet that, like most libraries, these places have a connected point of egress in case of fires, so you’re not stuck in any one location. Each step into the dark is the shatter of glass through my legs, each movement lancing through me. It’s in my brain. I stop hard on the concrete stairs and lean over the spiraling edge, gripping wrought iron as I shudder.
Getitoutgetitoutgetitout—
With a muffled groan, I strike the sides of my head with my palm; the spark of pain on my skin doesn’t hold a candle to the agony burying itself behind my eyes, getting deeper and deeper and deeper and—
I clench my teeth together so hard my jaw cracks, whipping my head to the side. I will stop this. My fingers scrabble into my ears, diving toward the pain that’s coalesced to a hard, scorching needle inside my skull. It crawls around inside of me, and I growl. I won’t let this happen. I have to stop this, I—
And then the pain relents, the frantic wriggling stilling. The burning ebbs, leaving a hollow sort of numbness in its place. Sobbing, I fall to my knees on the concrete, my body heaving as I vomit black bile.
Fuck.
I need to keep going. Levering myself to standing on the railing, I start to take careful steps into the underground again. I’ll do this for Lacie and then I’ll leave. But the attack has left me drained, my muscles no longer strong but shaky. I haven’t felt this way in hundreds of years. My body no longer my own. My thoughts no longer sharp but disconnected.
Once I hit the basement level, I force myself to run. Chasing back through the underground stacks, there are handwritten signs pointing to various topics. One reads RARE & UNUSUAL. I follow the breadcrumbs, listening to steps echoing above my head until I reach the end of the hall.
A dead end.
I turn, brow furrowing, nerves kicking to life inside of me. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been anxious, let alone in a library, but between the memory of pain in my skull and the odd serenity of this space, I’m rattled. It’s the same anxiety, that closed-in pressure, that I felt in the Div School basement. It sets my teeth on edge, turns me into little more than an animal. Unconsciously, I bare my teeth at the darkness eating away at every corner.
Settling myself, I gather my senses to a sharp point: there. Muffled voices.
Slipping off my heels and leaving them in a wet puddle, I pad barefooted down the dark aisle, the rows and rows of books pressing in. Inside, worlds I’ve never traveled within await, whispering siren songs. But not now. Not today, with Lacie curled up in my bed, distraught. Not when Preston hangs by a thread the vættir are eager to snip like scissor-happy Fates.
I come to an air-locked door, the voices coming into focus as I press my ear to the narrow gaps. Negative pressure, I note: air flows out, not in.
“… snooping around.”
“This was smart, closing off this space. I don’t like the looks of any of them.”
Even though I’ve only had a single conversation with the man, I know that voice. Whittaker. I can’t tell the other—but it’s not Dean Shea.
“Right, well, this might stymie her for a bit. Bit transparent, don’t you think? Looking up the undead in our own collection?” A stale laugh.
“It matters quite little,” Whittaker answers. “Once we hear from Shea that all’s well, we can reopen without the journal. The little ‘leak’ will be fixed in record time and with only a few notable tragedies.”
I snort quietly. As suspected: there wasn’t a leak. This is a direct response to what Lacie was reading. Of course they’d monitor her research—any university worth its salt would.
How perfect they think their plan is.
Whittaker’s muffled a moment. “… message. Fucking Quiggley. That asshole couldn’t keep it in his pants if he wore an extra three pairs.” A pause. “Said he woke up injured. With that woman he left with,” he sneers, voice dripping derision, “and this Lacie character? Do you know anything about that?”
“I told the librarians to notify me if she looked at the journal again. They should have sooner. We’ve lost precious time.”
“I told Shea he should’ve burned that thing ages ago. It’s a liability.”
