The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,6
strolling through the winding bookcases did I find the sole occupant crouched down in one of the aisles. The librarian was in her early thirties, dressed in a navy cardigan and gray slacks. We were around the same age, though time had treated her like fine wine and me like milk left out in the sun. A braid of brown hair dropped down the length of her back, and her skin was freckled caramel. She saw me approach and smiled with lips you could throw to a drowning sailor.
“Well, you must be the Principal’s errand boy.” She stood up and we shook hands. Her fingers were long and thin and wrapped around mine entirely. They were fingers made for witchcraft.
“Fetch Phillips,” I said. “How do you know I’m not a patron?”
“I know a drinker when I see one. If the sun’s on the way down and there isn’t a glass in your hand, I’d bet good money that you’re on the job.”
The girl was double-smart: book and street. I thought all those flowers had been picked from this garden.
“This is one hell of a building. You been here long?”
“Ten years,” she said, letting her fingers slide from my wrist. “Through fire, Coda and Vampire.”
“Which was the worst?”
“You really want to know that, Soldier?” She gave me a look that was full of knowing but free from blame, then brushed past my shoulder and down the aisle. “It certainly wasn’t Ed. At first, I was just happy to have the company, but it didn’t take me long to realize how lucky I was that we’d crossed paths. The Professor is undoubtedly the most intelligent creature I’ve ever met. Come on. I’ll show you to his room.”
She led me through a narrow passage of books towards a ladder that rested against the back wall. It stretched up past the romance section to a hole in the roof.
“Go ahead.”
I placed my foot on the first rung, and the ladder shifted on the floorboards.
“You’re not coming?”
“Of course. But you’re wearing a jacket and I’m wearing tight trousers. I imagine a decent fellow would offer to lead the way.”
I nodded my head, grinned like an idiot and started the climb. The ladder gave a shake when she followed behind me.
“The old man climbed up here every day?” I asked.
“Not quickly, and not without groaning, but he always said the exercise did him good.”
I assisted the librarian off the ladder and on to a small landing. From there, I had the opportunity to admire the intricacy of the room’s design. Bookcases curved and flowed into every corner like the roots of an unruly tree. The filing system must have been a nightmare.
The Witch’s long fingers pushed open a door to reveal a large loft-space built above the ceiling. She ducked her head beneath the arch of the doorway and walked me into the sun-drenched room.
We paused, adjusting to the afternoon light that spilled in all around us. The sides of the room were more window than wall. Outside, the sky was cloudy but the reflected glare still burned my hungover eyes.
“Originally, this floor wasn’t here and the skylights flooded the entire building. It turned out that the sun was damaging the books so they built this platform to keep it out. When Edmund saw it, he asked if he could move in.”
“This is the home of a Vampire?”
The bedroom was a bright world without shadows. Spacious and circular with an extravagant bed in the center and low, wooden shelves on every wall.
“It’s the blood,” she said.
“What is?”
“In the old times, Edmund never could have stayed somewhere like this. But once things changed and the blood no longer nourished him, the sun also stopped having any effect. I think that’s why he liked this place so much. It made up for all those years in the dark.”
I took my time examining the room. The books on the shelves and by the bed were varied and in apparent chaos. Against one wall, an impressive wine rack gathered dust beside some empty bottles.
On one of the side-tables was his mail, opened but unsorted. The envelope on top was marked with a blue star inside a circle and the letters LOV: The League of Vampires. Inside was a mass-produced newsletter of obituaries, community catch-ups, items for sale and other mundanities.
“They come every week,” she said. “The remaining members of the League keep in touch, swap stories, try to be there for support. Edmund ignores most of them.”