“Coffee,” John said. “I still like the caffeine.”
“It spoils the taste!”
“Gives it that zip.” John smacked his lips.
“Why don’t you let me look through boxes?” Claire asked, desperately bringing herself back from the edge of whatever that was. The vampires were leading her through a maze of boxes and crates, all marked with red Xs and initials. “You’ve got to let humans do it, right? If you can’t read the book?”
“What makes you think you could read it, little one?” Angela asked. She had a buttery sort of accent, not quite California, not quite Midwest, not quite anything. Old. It sounded old. “Are you a scholar of languages, as well?”
“N-no, but I know what the symbol is that you’re looking for. I can recognize it.”
Angela reached down and drew her fingernails lightly over the skin of Claire’s inner arm, looking thoughtful.
“No, I don’t have the tattoo. But I’ve seen it.” She was absolutely shaking all over, terrified in a distant sort of way, but her brain was racing, looking for escape. “I can recognize it. You can’t, can you? You can’t even draw it.”
Angela’s fingernails dug in just a bit, in warning. “Don’t be smart, little girl. We’re not the kind of people you should mock.”
“I’m not mocking. You can’t see it. That’s why you haven’t found it. It’s not just that you can’t read it—right?”
Angela and John exchanged looks again, silent and meaningful. Claire swallowed hard, tried to think of anything that might be a good argument for keeping her unbitten (Maybe if I don’t drink any tea or coffee?) and spared a thought for just how pissed off Shane was going to be if she went and got herself killed. On campus. In the middle of the day.
The vampires turned a corner of boxes, and there, in an open space, was a door that didn’t lead out onto any stairwell she’d seen, an elevator with a DOWN button, a battered school-issue desk and chair, and…
“Professor Wilson?” she blurted. He looked up, blinking behind his glasses. He was her Classics of English Literature professor (Tuesdays and Thursdays at two) and although he was boring, he seemed to know his stuff. He was a faded-looking man, all grays—thin gray hair, faded gray eyes—with a tendency to dress in colors that bleached him out even more. Today it was a white shirt and gray jacket.
“Ah. You’re”—he snapped his fingers two or three times—“in my Intro to Shakespeare—”
“Classics of English Lit.”
“Right, exactly. They change the title occasionally, just to fool the students into taking it again. Neuberg, isn’t it?” Fright in his eyes. “You weren’t assigned here to help me, were you?”
“I—” Light dawned. Maybe letting mistaken impressions lie was a good idea right now. “Yes. I was. By…Miss Samson.” Miss Samson was the dragon lady of the English department; everyone knew that. Nobody questioned her. As excuses went, this one was thinner than paper, but it was all she had. “I was looking for you.”
“And the door was open?” John asked, looking down at her. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Professor Wilson, who wasn’t likely to hypnotize her into not lying.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “It was open.” The only good thing about the canister on her back was that at least it looked like something a college student might carry around, with soup or coffee or something in it. And it didn’t exactly look like something to break locks. By now, the liquid nitrogen in the lock would have sublimated into the air, and all evidence was gone.
She hoped.
“Well then,” Wilson said, and frowned at her, “better sit down and get to work, Neuberg. We have a lot to do. You know what you’re looking for?”
“Yes, sir.” John let go of her shoulder. After a reluctant second, Angela released her, too, and Claire went to the desk, dragged up a wooden chair, and carefully placed her backpack and canister on the floor.
“Coffee?” John asked hopefully.
“No, thank you,” she said politely, and pulled the first stacked volume toward her.
It was interesting work, which was weird, and the vampires became less and less frightening the more she was in their company. Angela was a fidgeter, always tapping her foot or restlessly braiding her hair or straightening stacks of books. The vampires seemed assigned only as observers; as Professor Wilson and Claire finished each mountain of books, they took them away, boxed them, and brought new volumes to check.
“Where do these come from?” Claire wondered out loud, and sneezed as she opened the cover of something called Land Register of Atascosa County, which was filled with antique, neat handwriting. Names, dates, measurements. Nothing like what they were looking for.
“Everywhere,” Professor Wilson said, and closed the book he’d flipped through. “Secondhand stores. Antique shops. Book dealers. They have a network around the world, and everything comes here for inspection. If it isn’t what they’re looking for, it goes out again. They even make a profit on it, I’m told.” He cleared his throat and held up the book he’d been looking at. “John? This one is a first-edition Lewis Carroll. I believe you should put it aside.”
John obligingly took it and set it in a pile that Claire thought was probably “rare and valuable.”
“How long have you been doing this, Professor?” she asked. He looked tired.
“Seven years,” he said. “Four hours a day. Someone will come in to relieve us soon.”
Us, meaning that she’d get to walk out. Well, that was nice. She’d been hoping that she might at least slip a note out with the professor, something along the lines of IF YOU FIND MY BODY, I WAS KILLED BY MISS PINK IN THE LIBRARY, but that sounded too much like something out of that board game her parents liked so much.
“No talking in class,” John said, and laughed. When he did, his fangs came down. His were longer than Brandon’s, and looked scarier, somehow. Claire gulped and focused on the book in front of her. The cover said Native Grains of the New World. A whole book about grain. Wow. She wondered how Professor Wilson had stayed sane all these years. Corn is a member of the grass family and is native to the American continents…. She flipped pages. More about corn. She didn’t know you could write so much about one plant.
Beside her, Professor Wilson swore softly under his breath, and she looked up, startled. His face had gone pale, except for two red spots high in his cheeks. He quickly faked a smile and held up a finger striped with red. “Paper cut,” he said. His voice sounded high and tight, and Claire followed his stare to see Angela and John moving closer, watching the professor’s finger with eerie concentration. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.” He groped in his pocket, came out with a handkerchief, and wrapped it around his bloodied finger. In trying to attend to that, he knocked the book he’d been reviewing to the floor. Claire automatically bent to pick it up, but Wilson’s foot hooked around it and scooted it out of her reach. He bent over and in the darkness under the desk…switched books.
Claire watched, openmouthed. What the hell was he doing? Before she could do anything stupid that might give him away, there was a ding from the elevator across the room, then the rumble of opening doors.
“Ah,” Wilson said with evident relief. “Time to go, then.” He reached down, picked up the hidden book, and slipped it into his leather satchel with such skill Claire wasn’t absolutely sure she’d seen it. “Come along, Neuberg.”
“Not her,” John said, smiling cheerfully. “She gets to stay after class.”
“But—” Claire bit her lip and made desperate eye contact with the professor, who frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sir, can’t I go with you? Please?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Come along, I said. Mr. Hargrove, if you don’t like it, please take it up with management. I have a class.”