Beautiful Darkness(46)

“Not everyone.” I was out of ideas and explanations, but I knew where we could get some of both.

“You sure this is a good idea? What if Marian's not here?” Link was jumpy. The sight of Ridley hanging out with some kind of mutant Incubus wasn't bringing out the best in him. Not that he had anything to worry about. It was pretty clear who John Breed was after, and it wasn't Ridley.

I checked my cell. It was almost eleven. “It's a bank holiday in Gatlin. You know what that means. Marian should be in the Lunae Libri by now.” That's how it worked around here. Marian was the Gatlin County Head Librarian from nine in the morning until six at night every weekday. But on bank holidays, she was the Head Caster Librarian from nine at night until six in the morning. The Gatlin Library was closed, which meant the Caster Library was open. And the Lunae Libri had a door leading into the Tunnels.

I slammed the door of the Beater as Link pulled a Maglite out of his glove box. “I know, I know. The Gatlin Library's closed and the Caster Library's open all night long, on account a most a Marian's clients don't come around durin’ the day.” Link waved the flashlight across the building in front of us. A brass placard read DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. “Still, if my mom or Mrs. Asher or Mrs. Snow found out what was in the basement a their buildin’ …” He was holding the heavy metal flashlight like he was brandishing a weapon.

“You planning to take someone out with that thing?”

Link shrugged. “Never know what we're gonna find down there.”

I knew what he was thinking. Neither one of us had been back to the Lunae Libri since Lena's birthday. Our last visit had been more about danger than dictionaries.

Danger and death. We did something wrong that night, and some of it had happened right here. If I had gotten to Ravenwood earlier, if I had found The Book of Moons, if I could have helped Lena fight Sarafine — if we had done one thing differently, would Macon be alive right now?

We made our way around to the back of the old red brick building, in the moonlight. Link shined his flashlight on the grating near the ground, and I crouched down next to it. “Ready, man?”

The light was shaking in his hand. “Whenever you are.”

I reached through the familiar grating built into the back of the building. My hand disappeared, as always, into the illusionary entrance of the Lunae Libri. Nothing much in Gatlin was what it first appeared to be — at least not where Casters were concerned.

“I'm surprised that spell still works.” Link watched as I pulled my hand back out of the grate, as good as new.

“Lena told me it's not a hard one. Some kind of hiding spell Larkin Cast.”

“Ever wonder if it could be a trap?” The flashlight was shaking so badly, the light was barely shining on the grating.

“Only one way to find out.” I shut my eyes and stepped through. One minute I was standing in the overgrown bushes behind the DAR, and the next I was inside the stone stairwell leading down into the heart of the Lunae Libri. I shivered when I crossed the Charmed threshold into the library, but not because I felt anything supernatural. The shiver, the wrongness, came from not feeling anything different at all. Air was air on either side of the grate, even if it was pitch-black. I didn't feel magical right now, not anywhere in Gatlin or beneath it. I felt bruised and angry but hopeful. I had been convinced Lena had feelings for John. But if there was a possibility I was wrong — that John and Ridley were influencing her — it was worth being on the wrong side of the grate again.

Link stumbled through the doorway after me and dropped his flashlight. It clattered down the stairwell in front of us, and we stood in the dark, until the torches lining the steep passageway lit themselves one by one. “Sorry. That thing always throws me off.”

“Link, if you don't want to do this —” I couldn't see his face in the shadows.

It took a second before I heard his voice in the dark. “Of course I don't wanna do this, but I gotta do it. I mean, I'm not sayin’ Rid's the love a my life. She's not. That would be crazy. But what if Lena was tellin’ the truth, and Rid wants to change? What if Vampire Boy is doin’ somethin’ to her, too?” I doubted Ridley was under anyone's influence except her own. But I didn't say anything.

This wasn't just about Lena and me. Ridley was still under Link's skin, in a bad way. You don't want to fall in love with a Siren. Falling for a Caster was rough enough.

I followed him down into the flickering, torch-lit darkness of the world beneath our town. We left Gatlin for the Caster world, a place where anything could happen. I tried not to think back to a time when that was all I wanted.

Whenever I stepped through the stone archway bearing the carved words DOMUS LUNAE LIBRI, I was entering another world, a parallel universe. By now, some parts of the world were familiar — the smell of the mossy stone, the musky scent of parchment dating back to the Civil War and beyond, the smoke drifting up from the torches hovering near the carved ceilings. I could smell the damp walls, hear the occasional drip of underground water making its way down to the patterns in the stone floor. But there were other parts that would never be familiar. The darkness at the edges of the stacks, the sections of the library no Mortal had ever seen. I wondered how much my mother had seen.

We reached the base of the stairs.