Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove
Chapter One
Helena
“So, this is my new house.” Graham stepped out of the car looking stunned. “It feels strange to be given the house of a man I barely remember.”
“A midcentury modern. Wow! East coast wizards never have homes like this.”
We were in the most California place I could imagine, in a tiny town unmarked on maps called Avalon Wood. It was definitely a wizard town, the name hinting at magic while the town’s unincorporated, very low-key vibe definitely suggested they didn’t want any strangers poking around. We had passed through a 1920s-era downtown with several shops and cafes but none of them had signs. Any tourist who stumbled on this town would keep on going.
On a hillside rising just over the town was this neighborhood of large midcentury homes, clustered into a wizard community. It was getting into the holiday season, but flowers were still blooming in yards, citrus trees fruiting, spiny desert-y plants eternally green. Very different from Thanksgiving in the Hudson Valley where I’d grown up. The houses were all angles and glass, rock gardens, and ancient cars parked in driveways.
“Is that a ’57 Chevy next door? And whatever that is…” Graham held a hand to his eyes to shield the sun as he looked toward the next driveway down, which had a European sports car in the driveway with 1960s style. “Is this a car collectors’ community?”
“These are probably all the original owners,” I said. “Wizards live so long. They hate moving. They hate change. And they hate modern cars. So I bet almost everyone here is ninety to a hundred or else their kids inherited these houses and the cars too.”
“The original cars from when the neighborhood was built?” Graham said.
“Yes.”
“There’s something eerie about it,” he said. “I don’t think I want to live in a wizard retirement community.”
“Well, no one said you had to live here,” I said. “We’ll just search it and sell it. Byron’s body has to be here. I wonder where the graveyard is… Maybe you can find it since you’re so keen on digging up bodies.”
“I’m not keen, I’m just not scared of a pile of bones. He died forty years ago.”
Billie and Gaston pulled up behind us just then. The Sullivan brothers were farther back somewhere because Jasper was a slow-ass driver and they also seemed to get hungry more than Graham and I did. Billie, as a newly made vampire, and Gaston, as a very old vampire, naturally brought their food with them.
Billie jumped out of her truck, flip flops hitting the pavement, huge coffee in hand, and did a few stretches. Despite that I had always heard becoming a vampire was a traumatic experience, she seemed to be handling it pretty well. “Hel, did you see that there’s another house for sale on this street? And it’s real rundown. Boy, does it need help.”
“No! Where?”
“A few houses down!”
Graham dropped a hand on my head and stopped me from running. “You two are not buying another house. We’re not really here for houses, are we? We’re here to find the last piece of the map. You don’t even have money for another flip since Greenwood Manor hasn’t sold.”
“That’s not fair to say until we know what price the house is,” I said, but he wasn’t buying it. I glanced at Billie. At the least, we would go poke around the property later.
The Sullivan brothers arrived, completing our group.
Jasper and Jake got out and both kissed me on the cheek just to mess with me in front of Graham.
“Hey!”
“Well? You are our girlfriend, right?” Jake said. “You didn’t miss us on the road?”
“I wouldn’t miss you if you drove faster,” I muttered.
“That’s all Jasper.”
“I was doing eighty the whole way, I don’t know what you want,” Jasper said.
“When Helena took a turn behind the wheel of the BMW she went for it,” Graham said. “I’m surprised we didn’t get a ticket.”
“I just hit a hundred for a second on a very empty stretch of highway because I wanted to see how it felt,” I said defensively. “My truck doesn’t have that sort of mojo. But I got it out of my system.”
“It was a pretty sexy thing for my girlfriend to do,” Graham said, slipping an arm around my waist.
“What is this girlfriend business!? Now you’re all just trying to embarrass me!”
“I can’t let them have a monopoly on you,” Graham said. “We’ll probably get more competitive and aggressive as the days go on, I imagine, until you won’t have any