I shouldn’t have gone with them. I thought I had the strength to resist, but my willpower was eroding more and more by the day. First Olivia, then Roth, and Olivia again. And in between all that was Gil, and Jackie, and Asher, and Damien, and even Timothy, for fuck’s sake. Everyone was a temptation to me, a Bloody Mary on legs. I needed to find a thrall, and fast.
No. I bit down on the sides of my cheeks. No. I was civilized, damn it. I didn’t need to slam someone against a wall, hiss in their face, then clamp at their neck like a lamprey. I counted the clicks of my boot heels against the cobblestones, praying for the rhythm of my steps to drown out the rhythm of Olivia’s honeyed blood. She was speaking animatedly to Asher, facing away from me, exposing her throat, the soft line of her jaw.
“Hold it together,” I mouthed to myself soundlessly. I felt at my pockets, searching for the business card that Vilmas had slipped me, ashamed that I would even consider. Drinking from another vampire’s thralls – especially a vampire I disliked – just felt pathetic. I didn’t want Vilmas’s sloppy seconds.
“Here we are,” Olivia announced, so suddenly that my feet stumbled to a stop. She pressed her fists into her hips, looking up proudly at a squat building that bore her name.
“Everett’s Exotica,” Asher read from a sign spelled out of polished bronze letters.
I peered through the darkened windows. “Huh. This doesn’t look like any old fruit shop to me.”
Olivia pressed her lips together guiltily, then sighed. “I confess. Peddling fresh produce is more my thing. I mainly have a couple of stalls that I put out front during the day. Timothy and I take turns watching them. Everyone likes the fruit. They really do.”
She extracted a keyring from a pocket, unlocking the front door. It swung open with a faint creak, and maybe a sigh. The air smelled musty. Ancient. Olivia swept into the store, disappearing into the darkness, but her voice carried towards the doorway, spilling sweetly out into the street, where Asher and I waited.
“This is what the family has always done, though. I’m not the biggest fan of it myself, but I maintain the place out of tradition. It’s expected of me. My family expects it, and in a way, so does the town.”
Lightbulbs clicked and hummed as they came alive, blazing in sequence from the very back of the store, all the way to the display windows. I gasped in surprise. Asher gasped in wonder.
I whistled, admiring the cabinets, the antiques, and the many, many books lining the many, many shelves.
“Definitely not a fruit shop at all.”
16
I ran a finger along the edge of a bookshelf, leaving a line in the dust. The place smelled like old paper, mothballs, mildew. Olivia cleared her throat, looking away, pretending that we weren’t all looking at her big, dirty secret.
“This is Everett’s Exotica. It’s not about exotic fruit. I’m sorry to disappoint. We’re more of a combination antique store and pawn shop, though in recent times I’ve come to think of it more as a storage unit. A very dusty one. Nobody really buys anything.”
I dusted my hands off, peering in
to an empty glass bell jar. “You don’t say.”
Olivia shrugged. “Posterity, really. It’s a museum of worthless curios, more than anything. All the old objects and artifacts and relics that my ancestors could never force on heirs and relatives.” She folded her arms, rolling her eyes away from an especially rickety-looking bookshelf. “You couldn’t give this stuff to charity, much less a lumberyard.”
I leaned against a cupboard and folded my arms, meaning to be seductive, until it shifted and squeaked across the floor. Asher snorted. I collected myself, straightening my posture and clearing my throat. The shop, at least, was big enough for us all to maintain distance. The blood thirst wasn’t quite so bad without her standing so close to me.
“You could always have an accident,” I said, rubbing my fingers together. “Electrical fire. Those tend to happen. Especially dangerous in places with lots and lots of flammable material. This whole place could go up in smoke.”
I grunted when Asher elbowed me in the ribs. He frowned disapprovingly. He didn’t like the idea of books on fire. Nerd.
Olivia grinned at me, shaking her head. Oh, she liked bad boys, it was easy to tell. “I would never, ever stoop to arson. That’s very naughty of you. I have to admit, as much as the Exotica is a burden, it’s too valuable. The place is steeped in memories, irreplaceable ones. Fragments of my family, in a way. It’s the same reason I’ve kept the Everett House so long, despite its state of disrepair.”
“We’ve been working on fixing it up,” I said. “Slowly but surely. Day at a time. Lots of sweaty manual labor.” I curled my bicep, which didn’t look very impressive since I was strapped into a leather jacket, but it did get Olivia to chuckle a little.
“You mean Gil and I do the cleanup work while you sleep the day away,” Asher muttered under his breath. He put on a smile, turning on the charm and setting his attention back on Olivia. “You were saying something about a book earlier? A journal, of your old ancestor Uriah.”
Her eyes went wide. “That’s right. One of the original founders of Silveropolis. There was such a rush when they discovered deposits in the mountains. Whole reason the town sprang up.”
She disappeared behind a bookshelf, sifting and rummaging for a brief moment before reemerging with a tome clutched to her chest. She pressed it into Asher’s hands.
“There. I entrust this to you. As I said, there are only a few copies in existence, and this is the only one I have.”
I peered over Asher’s shoulder, taking a closer look as he brushed a skein of cobwebs away from the cover. The Travels and Travails of Uriah Everett, it said, pressed into the deep red leather in flaking golden letters. Cute title. The book was one of those elaborate-looking ones, too, with the metal clasps and hinges, even a couple of ribbons for bookmarks.
Asher pressed the book to his chest, mirroring Olivia’s body language. Smart boy. “I’ll guard this with my life,” he said.
Olivia smiled, reassured. “I’ll take your word for it. Come, we should head back to the fruit stall. Your friend is still waiting, and I should help Timothy pack up.”