Dead to Me (11 page)
I nodded. I started walking farther back into the Stacks.
“But I meant what I said, kid. Forget any foolish notions you’re entertaining. You’ll only hurt yourself.”
Connor could save his warnings. My love life sucked enough as it stood. I had enough to contend with just deleting Tamara’s calls of rage off my answering machine. I still had no idea what I was going to do about her.
When I found theDirectory of the Dearly Departed , I pulled it from the shelf. It weighed a ton.
“You’d better watch out down there,” Connor started. “Don’t forget to…”
His words were drowned out by a sudden resounding roar that sprang up all around me. One second I was looking at what I thought was an ordinary bookcase—tall, ornate, carved from a thick, dark, polished wood. The next I was running from what was actually one pissed-off, bounding-with-great-agile-strides-toward-me kind of bookcase. I backed frantically down the row toward the junction and caught a glimpse of Connor running toward me, his face filled with panic and—I could have sworn—amusement.
“Wrong way, kid!” he shouted. “Don’t stop, though!”
The bookcase tore after me down the cramped aisles, spilling books to the floor as it went. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of Connor chasing it as it chased me. He struggled with the bag over his shoulder as he followed the renegade bookcase.
The aisle before me came to an abrupt end so I juked left down another. The stomping bookcase followed suit, but now I had lost sight of Connor. I hoped he had a plan, because running didn’t seem to be doing much except tiring me out. I doubted, however, that the bookcase would get tired.
“What thehell is that thing?” I shouted, nearly breathless. I hoped hearing my voice would help Connor get an idea where I was. I was lost in row after row of books.
“Just keep moving!” Connor shouted back. I dashed by shelf after shelf. When I rounded the next corner, the tail end of my jacket snagged and I risked a glance back while I paused to tear myself free. The vicious-looking bookcase was hot in pursuit, its sides expanding and contracting as if panting while it closed the distance. My coat came free with a panicked tug, and I returned to fleeing.
“Whatis that thing?” I demanded again. My legs ached and I feared they would cramp up.
“Explain…later,” Connor huffed, sounding closer. “Keep…running…”
At the next intersection, I threw myself down an aisle on my right, but with horror, I realized that it continued on only a little farther before coming to a dead end. No side aisles, no turnoffs. Just ceiling-high shelves on all sides, not to mention the living, breathing one closing in fast behind me. Giving in to total panic, I found a burst of speed that only marathon runners and career criminals could dig deep for and sprinted forward until there was nowhere left to run. Winded, I staggered around in a circle to fully take in the oncoming bookcase. The books that miraculously remained on its shelves formed a menacing gap-toothed smile.
This is not going to be pretty,I thought. In a last-ditch effort to save myself, I threw open my coat and pulled the retractable bat from its loop on my belt. It extended with a satisfyingshhhhkkt , and I raised it into classic batter’s stance, prepared to swing. I might die a stupid death—death by library—but I was determined to go down swinging.
As the bookcase thundered toward me, I spied a single arm popping over the top of it and then Connor’s head came into view. His face was contorted with the struggle of clambering up the backside of the unit. From atop the bookcase, he caught sight of me poised with my bat and smiled.
Bless us,I thought,we’re going to Butch and Sundance this one. We’re both going to be terribly crushed by this bookcase, but we’re going out in a blaze of ridiculous glory .
Connor reached into his bag, producing book after book as he slammed them onto the shelves from atop the charging bookcase. As each book hit the shelves, the case stumbled a little more unsteadily. With a great lurch to the left, the bookcase bounced off one side of the aisle like a pinball off a bumper and gave one final smash into the opposite side. It spun on one corner from sheer momentum and flipped over, pinning Connor underneath it as it crashed to the floor.
I rushed forward to Connor’s aide. He was completely buried under the still squirming piece of furniture.
“Are you all right?” I shouted into the mass of books and limbs.
“Of course I’m not all right,” Connor wheezed out testily from somewhere underneath the bookcase. “I’m stuck under an enchantedly pissed-off bookcase! Does that sound all right to you?”
“Right,” I said apologetically. I tentatively grabbed hold of one end of the bookcase and lifted it up the few inches that I could. “Sorry.”
The damn thing weighed a ton and was still thrashing around. Connor quickly slid himself out from underneath it and helped me lower it back to the ground.
“It’s okay, kid. It’s my fault,” Connor said, catching his breath and checking to make sure his ribs were intact. “I wasn’t thinking. I tried to warn you. I should have done it sooner.”
“What the hell is it?” I asked as I nudged it with my foot. It gave a sudden helpless thrash and I raised my bat again.
“The Department’s still not quite sure,” said Connor. He brushed himself off. “All I know is that we’re supposed to be extremely polite when asking for books from it. Since you didn’t know that, it attacked…”
“Because I didn’t ask nicely?!” I said. “How did…How did you…?”
“How did I stop it?” Connor stooped and picked up one of the books he had shelved on it. He flipped through it. “Anytime I come in here, I carry a ready supply of really dangerous material. Dangerous to these shelves anyway. Self-published poetry anthologies, vanity press publications, local writing contest winners. Some chick lit for good measure. Really God-awful stuff. The bookshelves can’t stomach them.”
It had stopped moving by this point, and I leaned closer. “Is it…dead?”
“Oh, heavens, no,” Connor said lightly as he gathered up his books. “We can’t put a dent in something like this, not really. We’ve tried before. Or the D.E.A. has. Long before my time. Best we can do is render it harmless for a little while. I imagine what it’ll experience is akin to a hangover more than anything.”
I looked around.
“The place is a mess!” I said. “Should we go tell Cyrus?”
“And run the risk of him charging us for damages?” Connor said. “I don’t think so. Besides, it’ll get up in a little while and make its way back into place, books and all. Cyrus will be none the wiser.”
Connor flipped over one of the books, scooped it up, and handed it to me. “Here you go.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s the book I sent you to look for,” Connor snapped. “Remember, kid? Geesh, maybe Ishould have let it crush you.”
“That’s not very nice,” I said, kicking the bookcase once before stepping past it.
“It’s better than being crushed to death,” Connor said dismissively.
I opened theDirectory of the Dearly Departed and flipped to the back, following Connor toward the door as I read. Beautifully cross-indexed, the directory provided a wealth of options that concerned hunting down sketchy information on the recently deceased. I could search by last name (I had no idea what Irene’s was), religious affiliation (no crosses or other indicative jewelry so a blank there as well), location of death (I assumed Manhattan but nothing more specific), known demonic forces responsible for possible demises (I ignored this as there were mostly corporations and politicians listed), and lastly the means of demise.
Without hesitation, I flipped to a section entitled “Death by Bookcase” to see what other unfortunates had met my (almost) fate. There was page after page of entries; the most recent listing read “Simon Canderous” and gave my address in SoHo below it. Before I could even call out to Connor, the words faded from the page. Now I knew how Ebenezer felt in that graveyard with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Thanks to Inspectre Quimbley’s questioning earlier, we had a possible lead from Irene—a flash of yellow. Not much to go on, but this being Manhattan, I immediately flipped to “Death by Taxi.” It looked like half the book was dedicated to such instances and the most recent page was filling up with new names and addresses at the speed of a stock ticker. I flipped through eleven pages of listings just from this morning until I came across the first listing for an Irene—a Manhattan address on the Upper West Side. As I wrote it down, I noticed her full name.
IreneBlatt.
Her name left a little to be desired. She had been so striking when I met her, so full of life and class, that I was sure that her name would be something exotic. I felt both relief and disappointment as I stared at the page.
Irene Blatt.
I rolled it around my mind, seeing if it would fall into place, and realized that it wouldn’t. I double-checked the listing. There was a brief description of her, right down to the clothes she wore and the deep blue eyes of hers that I had fallen into. There was no doubt that this Central Park West resident was indeed our Irene.
“Irene…Blatt,” I said out loud.
Connor turned and looked up from his book.
“I’m sorry, did you just burp? Blatt?” Connor said, his face curling up with distaste. “You must be joking.”
“Does IreneBlatt seem like something I’d joke about?” I asked.
“Actually,” Connor said with a chuckle, “joking would seem like theonly way to bring up the word ‘Blatt.’” He snappedThe Dread Tome shut and slipped it back onto one of the inanimate shelves. “Is the address listed?”
I nodded. A heavy, clattering thump came from far back in the Stacks and I jumped at the sound. I caught the slightest twitch from Connor as well.
“Someone’s waking up,” I said.
“Yep,” Connor said. He took the book from my hands and reshelved it as well. “Let’s not stick around here for Round Two, shall we?”
Another volley of noise came from behind us, and I looked up the aisle toward the gate. There was a lot of space for us to cover and a whole lot of side aisles for something to charge us. “Do you think it’s safe to leave?”
“I suppose,” answered Connor, sounding quite unsure. “But just in case, you might want to get your bat out again.”
9
I desperately wanted to head straight to Irene’s address, but Connor wouldn’t hear of it.
“Look, kid,” he said. “I don’t know what to expect when we get to her place, but I’m pretty sure we’re gonna need your psychometry in top form. I don’t want you walking in there unprepared or unable to deal with any surprises we might encounter. I don’t want you flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water from low blood sugar because you couldn’t control your powers. All right?”
I nodded. Even though I hated him for his clearheadedness, Connor was right.
We cabbed it from Tome, Sweet Tome down to the Twenties and over to Sixth Avenue before Connor got out and led us into a donut shop.
“Sugar yourself up, kid. We’ve got some tests to run.”
If I was going to expend my powers during some field training, I was going to need as much sugar as I could take, and after scarfing down three Boston kremes in a row, I felt bouncy. Connor had never been around someone who went hypoglycemic from using their powers, but he seemed to be getting a kick out of watching me all sugared up.
“You gonna be all right, kid?” he asked. “Do you need a special helmet or something so you don’t hurt yourself?”
I shook my head. We continued across the street, paid the two-dollar admission, and entered the ramshackle warehouse that played host to the Annex Antiques Fair. It was exceptionally warm outside for fall, but inside the market they were thankfully churning the air conditioning. It was a smart thing to do, really. Without controlling the climate inside, a lot of the antiques—especially the older furniture—would be at risk. I typically shied away from furniture when I wasn’t buying for myself. I liked to snag the more portable discoveries when I was trolling for antique finds.
Bare bulb fluorescents hung high overhead, their unflattering light washing everything a little too brightly. The floor of the open warehouse space divided into row after row of sheetrock stalls that each vendor had stuffed full of their wares.
“It’s like that warehouse at the end ofRaiders ,” I said as I looked down one of the never-ending aisles. “Think they have the Ark of the Covenant here?”
Connor ignored me, but I didn’t care. I was too busy taking it all in. This was the air that filled my lungs. Like the night market, this was its own type of holy ground—an enchanted place that whirled and swirled with rich fabrics and the light of a thousand lands reflected in almost every stall. It was living, always shifting, and sometimes dangerous. The world of secondhand goods was a dog-eat-dog world, gypsies and nomads fighting for every last sale.
I stopped to check the wares at one booth and noticed a young Asian woman approaching Connor. He had taken off his coat and was walking the aisles in tourist mode, and her “sucker radar” had picked up on his naiveté immediately. She swooped in, coming to rest on his arm like a falcon.
“Right this way,” she said with a flourish of Mandarin in her voice. It rang out like the soft tinkling of wind chimes. Connor smiled and turned to follow her as she kept talking. “I show you something nice. Something you give your girlfriend. She like earrings? We got many beautiful earrings here for her.”
I hurried over, waving at the woman. I grabbed her hands from Connor’s arm politely but firmly, and said, “No, thank you. He’s not interested.”
“Ohhh,” she said, with a knowing wink and a coy smile. “I see how it is. We have something nice he buy foryou then!”
“What?” I said and then it dawned on me—she thought we were a couple. I had to give her credit as a salesperson, though. Without any judgment call or even skipping a beat, she continued her sales pitch unfazed.
