Araña left, her destination the witch’s house. A chill swept through her at the thought of facing the Wainwright matriarch again. There’d be a price to pay. And she feared it would be her very soul.
Eighteen
L’ANTIQUAIRE was a long, narrow building, the sole survivor in a block where bombs or munitions had destroyed its neighbors and human scavengers had plundered what remained. Small barred windows on either side of the front door were coated in grime that had probably built up in the centuries since The Last War.
A heavy steel door was the only opening set in the back of the building, the untrampled appearance of the vegetation creeping toward it making Tir think it was seldom used.
The remoteness of the shop’s location surprised him. He’d thought it would be in the center of town, closer to where guardsmen and police were headquartered and the wealthy walked the streets without fear of losing whatever riches they carried on their person.
Instead, L’Antiquaire was at the far edge of where humans without gifts had settled. It was one final residential neighborhood away from the border marking the remotest section of the gifted area, and relatively near to where the forest began.
Tir returned to the building’s front, wary, wondering again if this was a trap set for him by Rimmon and his daughter. Frustration and uneasiness seethed inside him. For all his dealings with humans, this world was unfamiliar to him, and without his memory he had only his instinct and his reason to guide him. And they urged caution.
Even in the days before the war and plague, the famines and droughts, and the emergence of the supernaturals, rare books were things to be killed for. And afterward, when humans burned them to stay warm or destroyed them because of what they contained, they’d become even more valuable.
It made no sense that a place like this—a shop where something as old and valuable as a tome bearing the stamp of the Knights Templar—would be located here. If Araña were with him—
Tir snarled, cutting off the thought. Already he was too deeply entangled in the silken webs of desire she’d spun around him. He was here and he would recover the book without her aid.
Still, he used caution in approaching the shop and stopped just beyond the doorway. The smell of books greeted him, musty and old, reminding him for a moment of the catacombs that had been his prison for centuries.
There were symbols carved into the door frame, generalized protections all the buildings in Oakland seemed to have and others that made him think of those he’d seen at the occult shop. Neither kind caused him concern. It was the glyphs interspersed among them that reached into his darkened memory, as if they’d prod him to—
He clenched his fists in frustration. The knowledge remained submerged, and the only way he would recover it was to step through the door, past the sigils, and gain possession of the book.
Tir reached with his mind for the emotions inside the shop and found awareness. Someone inside the building knew he was at the door, but they neither feared him entering nor anticipated it. If there was curiosity about his purpose or why he lingered beyond the heavily barred screen door, then it was buried in other thoughts.
Safe enough, Tir thought, glancing one last time at the glyphs stirring his memory before entering the building.
The musty, dry-parchment and old-book smell was magnified inside the crowded shop. The air was thick with it, yellowed by the diffuse light coming from lanterns holding spell flame instead of true fire.
There was little room for anything other than shelves. They reached from floor to ceiling, creating tiny aisleways that would slow down a man of his size and keep anyone larger from exploring the stacks altogether.
A heavy, battered wooden desk was the only furniture visible. It was pushed into a corner to the left of the doorway but seemed to serve only as a place for books waiting to be shelved. If there was a method governing how the books were organized, it wasn’t immediately obvious to Tir.
He expected the shopkeeper to emerge from the stacks, but when one didn’t, Tir chose the middle aisle and moved deeper into the bookstore. His shirt grew dusty as he brushed against the tomes on either side of him.
Unlike those in the occult shop, the books here were mundane and not magical. History and literature. Science and politics. Texts that might have been in any library or home in the days before The Last War.
He reached the end of the row of shelves to find the aisleway he’d been traveling along blocked by the beginning of another row. A narrow gap allowed him to step to the side and proceed forward, giving the shop the feel of a maze-like warren.
Tir frowned, as puzzled by the shop’s layout as he had been by its location. It seemed to invite theft—or worse.
He kept going and finally emerged from the tight confines of book-laden shelves, only to find even more books, though these were scattered on tables in an area set aside for restoration. An old man glanced up, his gray-green eyes faded with advanced age.
“What can I help you with?” he asked, the hand holding needle and thread pausing over the book he tended.
Tir moved to the table where the old man worked. Up close he seemed even more frail and defenseless. “I’ve come for a book that’s in your possession.”
“Do you need me to find it for you?”
It took effort for Tir to tamp down the wild surge of emotion. For centuries he’d dreamed of this moment. “If you could.”
The bookseller placed the needle and thread on the table and came around to stand next to Tir. “Describe it as best you can.”
“Easy enough. It bears the stamp of the Knights Templar on its cover.”
The bookseller startled, then shook his head. “I don’t know how you learned I was in possession of that particular tome, but I’m afraid it’s already been sold.”
Tir’s hands curled into fists. How could the book be gone when Saril had seen it only a short time ago and assured him before he left that she saw only the present with her gift?
“Who is the buyer?”
“Virgilio Cortez.”
“He’s here in Oakland?”
His question was met with a puzzled expression. “Virgilio rarely leaves Los Angeles.”
Sudden insight made Tir ask, “Has he taken possession of the book?”
“Not yet.”
Satisfaction purred through Tir, though he continued to be puzzled by the shopkeeper’s lack of concern for his own safety. “Then I will see the book.”
The old man shook his head. “That’s not possible. Virgilio is quite strict in his requirements. Items purchased for his private collection are taken out of circulation immediately. The only way I can allow you access is if he or his designated servant grants me permission to do it.”
Tir’s hand dropped to the knife strapped to his thigh, Araña’s words sliding through his mind. I don’t draw a weapon unless I’m prepared to use it.
“You will show me the book.”
He let the old man hear the promise of death in his voice. But some unexpected, foreign impulse made him add, “And I will protect you from the consequences of it.”
There was the briefest flickering of fear in the bookseller, as though his advanced age made the prospect of death’s embrace frightening only at the gateway of its claiming. Stooped shoulders straightened, a signal he intended to meet his fate bravely. “I can’t allow you to see it without Virgilio’s blessing.”
Tir pulled the knife from its sheath. Centuries of captivity darkened his mind, renewing the hatred in his soul and reminding him of his pledge to seek vengeance. He would do what was necessary in order to gain his freedom. Pain could make even the most devout of humans break.
The catacombs had once rung with their screams and tortured admissions of manufactured guilt. And he had offered this man a choice when he himself had never been offered one.