Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(42)

The Bloody Bookshoppe, 8999 Trade Street.

There’d been a telephone number, but all he’d cared about were the hours of operation. Eight p.m. close was a winner for him.

And check it, they were keeping their promise to their customers. As he came up to the tiny storefront, light the color of a urine sample glowed in windows that were so dirty, it was like they had privacy curtains drawn. The door was inset and structural soundness was the only thing it had going in its favor, the dark paint thick and cracked, its chicken wire window hanging by a thread in its glazing.

When he gripped the knob, he wasn’t surprised something registered as sticky, and he thought of Syphon. His cousin hated sticky anything, unless it involved cinnamon rolls—which he refused to put into his body temple now that he was a food martyr.

As a corollary, his least favorite word was “moist.”

Pushing his way inside, Balz wiped his hand on the ass of his leathers as a little bell tinkled overhead. The smell was dust, mothballs, and atomized age, and talk about hoarding tendencies. The place was crammed with overstuffed, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, little handwritten tabs Scotch-taped to each shelf, the printing so wobbly, there was no telling what the labels said. A quick look around, and it was clear there was no rational plan to the aisles, to any of it, really, the layout obviously an iterative kind of thing, grown over time as the owner had continued buying, but not kept up with the selling side of the business.

“Welcome,” said an elderly voice from the back. “Come on in.”

And you don’t even know that you’re talking to Dracula, Balz said to himself.

It was always funny when humans tripped over their own fake mythology about vampires.

Moving in between the stacks, Balz had to turn sideways to accommodate his shoulders, and under the treads of his shitkickers, the floorboards creaked like there were no joists or supports under them. As his nose tickled, he sucked back a sneeze. After the amount of cocaine he’d done during the day, his septum couldn’t take any more deviation without blowing apart like a Christmas popper.

He was going to need a different upper, but that was a problem he had at least ten hours left to solve.

First things first.

As he rounded a particularly wide shelf that housed a matched set of black-and-gold volumes that seemed to number in the hundreds, he—

Froze.

Blinked a couple of times.

Couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

Against all reason and probability, it appeared as if Detective Erika Saunders of the Caldwell Police Department was standing at the check-out counter of the bookstore, talking to a man who was old enough to be considered a fossil. She was focused on the shop owner, but Balz would recognize that profile anywhere—and now she was turning her head to him.

As they locked eyes, she paled. Then she put her hand out to steady herself, patting around a pile of books on the counter, looking for purchase—and not the cash-in-exchange kind. She seemed like she was going to have another seizure.

On the far side of the old-fashioned cash register, the elderly man tilted his head, his loose skin shifting to one side as his features found a new equilibrium.

“Oh, you are friends, I see,” he murmured in that quavering voice. “How nice.”

“What are you doing here?” Erika asked.

“I’m looking for a book,” Balz replied. And wasn’t it a relief to be honest with her about something, anything.

“So is she.” The shop owner smiled and tugged at the sleeve of his patched-up cardigan with an arthritic claw. “Perhaps you are looking for the same book?”

Some instinct had Balz checking out the old guy again and all he got was the impression of tufted white hair growing from the eyebrows, the sideburns, the ears—then again, given the clutter of the shop, he wouldn’t have expected a fade and a set of manscaped arches and lobes on its owner. And how the poor guy managed to sell anything to anyone was a mystery. There were books all over the counter, and even more books in the back, an open door that led into a dim storeroom revealing stalagmites of tomes sprouting from the floor and heading for the ceiling.

“Allow me to answer your question, young lady.” The man smiled at Erika, his watery eyes as focused as Mr. Magoo without his Coke-bottle specs. “The book you speak of, the one I sold to Mr. Herbert Cambourg, came to me by chance. My best finds are always by luck, as if there is a channel of good fortune that brings them to me. In the case of Mr. Cambourg’s purchase, a man simply walked in off the street with the volume. He had no idea what he was holding in his hands and told me so quite plainly. He wanted a hundred dollars for it. I gave him the money without hesitation. I knew before even opening the cover that it was very old, very rare.”

There was a pause, as if Erika was hoping Balz would leave. Then she cleared her throat. “Did the man say where he got it from?”

“He told me he’d found the book in an alley, as if someone had thrown it away. Can you imagine?” The old man glanced at Balz. “Is this the reason you have come as well? The book you were looking for?”

As Balz’s instincts prickled, he looked past the shop owner again, to the darkened storage room.

“I’m afraid it’s rather a mess back there.” The old guy turned away from the register and creaked over to shut the door. “I’m going to get to cleaning it, however. Very soon.”