Page 42 of Thrall
She could feel the shift in the atmosphere as he rounded on her. That crackling summer storm feeling. But it no longer mattered to Lucy that she was talking to something several times older than electricity. She’d come here for an article. As far as she was concerned, she’d found something better.
“Even as you are now,” he said, his eyes unblinking, “you must be able to feel a fraction of what I am. Don’t you?”
Lucy’s grip slackened. This was instinct, too. She forced herself to ignore it. This was what Jillian had been preparing her for all her life, wasn’t it? To turn some unfortunate corner and find Death waiting there for her. She wondered if she’d live long enough to tell her mother that Death was a librarian.
Lucy took a breath, shifted her stance, and held on to his wrist, which looked deceptively thin and delicate in her own hands. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Though he wanted her to know that he could.
“Youarethe reference librarian, right?” she said. “I’m trying to look up an article. If you can help me find it, I won’t bother you anymore.”
There was no way to make that request sound casual. The vampire certainly didn’t seem to think it was. “We’ve got a lovely catalog you can browse,” he said. “Very intuitive search engine.”
“It wouldn’t load. So I came to ask you.” Lucy chose her next words carefully: Even if this vampire truly wasn’t dangerous, that didn’t mean telling him everything was wise. “Someone called into a campus radio station with what they claimed was Vanya’s full name. Ivan Volkov. If you don’t want to get involved, I can leave right now. No matter what happens to me, I won’t tell him that I saw you. But there are people who are helping me. Even if I don’t survive, I want to give them their best chance. I just want to see if this article tells me something they can use.”
The vampire’s cold, flat look shifted. “Someone called Pallas Radio. With his full name.”
Lucy tried not to look surprised. If she were a vampire on a college campus, she probably would have been very aware of the local vampire-hunting radio show, too. “That’s right.”
Another prickle of indignation made its way through the air. But at the very least, this time it didn’t seem to be directed at Lucy.
“The person who left the message,” he said. “Did his voice have the cadence of poetry?”
“I…don’t know that I could tell you what that sounds like,” Lucy said. But after a few more seconds of thought, she added, “I guess there was something a bit musical about it?”
“Of course,” the vampire said, matter-of-factly. “Right, then. You wait here a moment. I’ll just need to kill him.”
And with that, the vampire swung elegantly on his heel and made a beeline for the closed door at the back of the stacks. His long legs took him all the way across the room in just a few soundless strides.
Lucy faltered. It was probably best to do what he said. Waiting at the desk did seem like the safest bet. But there was a boldness coursing through her that she knew she couldn’t afford to lose. Maybe it was all the time with Natalie. She was getting pretty good at theyes, andmentality herself.
She took off following him across the library floor. As she slipped through the door at the back of the room, she caught sight of the nameplate nailed to it:
L. ROMAN
REFERENCE LIBRARIAN
L. Roman, who barely acknowledged her presence this time, reached over her to shut the door. And then he hissed, in the direction of the corner, “Hiro. Are you using fuckingcourt whispersat my place of employment?”
Lucy noticed only then that the office wasn’t empty. Curled up in an armchair in the corner, buried in a book despite the low light, was an East Asian man in a light blue button-down and loose, flowing slacks. He had a thick-knitted cardigan draped over the back of the chair, and his black hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck. He looked soft, approachable. But it didn’t take long for Lucy to guess why the storm-cloud sensation was even heavier here. She was no longer in the presence of just one vampire.
“Ourplace of employment,” Hiro said, as if by reflex. He lowered the book, his face slipping between pleasantness and confusion as he spotted Lucy. “Hello. Hi. Welcome to the reference floor. What court whispers?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said L. Roman, brushing his hand through his elegant hair. “Maybe something to do with your call to Pallas goddamned Radio?”
Hiro blinked, nonplussed in the face of L. Roman’s mounting rage. But as he looked back to Lucy, he sat up so quickly that his cardigan slipped to the floor.
“Oh my,” he said. “Caller number thirty-two?”
Lucy waved weakly. “Hi there.”
Hiro leapt from his chair to grasp one of her hands in both of his. “I am such a fan,” he said. “When you said, ‘Oh, I’m way ahead of you’? Chills, my dear, chills!”
L. Roman’s delicate hand landed hard against the wall. Lucy heard a distinctcrunch. “I thought we agreed—”
“Not to get involved with the radio children,” Hiro finished, almost dutifully. “But they were stuck. They needed a little push. How was I supposed to know she’d show up here? You’re the first one to say that the children don’t utilize their library resources enough.”
L. Roman looked as displeased as Lucy had ever seen anyone look. “You agreed to start wrapping up your affairs here.”
“Which I have been doing, as requested,” Hiro said. “But if we’re leaving anyway, why not give the radio children a helping hand on the way out?”
