Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

“Fat fucking chance,” Olivia said, and Bobo nodded. They were far more media savvy than Joe. The tinkle of the bell over the door made them all turn in that direction.

To Olivia’s utter amazement (and from their faces, Bobo’s and Joe’s as well), the Rev walked into Midnight Pawn. And he was holding the hand of a little boy.

Olivia could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d seen the Rev in the pawnshop. The Rev’s orbit, besides a very rare shopping trip, included his home, the Wedding Chapel and Pet Cemetery, Home Cookin Restaurant… and nothing else, unless there was an extreme emergency.

Therefore, this was such an emergency.

And right after the door swung shut on the Rev and the little boy, it opened again to admit Fiji, who had a basket on her arm.

“Following the Yellow Brick Road, Feej?” Bobo asked. “Hi, Rev. Hi, young man.” He walked over to squat down in front of the boy.

Of course, Olivia thought, half-exasperated. He would love kids. “Rev,” she said. “What can we do for you?” She watched Fiji flow around the Rev and come to a stop close to the boy, look at him intently. She opened the basket and out jumped Mr. Snuggly.

Mr. Snuggly immediately went to the boy and stood at his feet, looking up. The boy had dark brown hair, long and tangled. He wore denim shorts and a Walking Dead T-shirt, which was an unusual choice for a child his apparent age. But what was that?

“Hail, little brother,” said Mr. Snuggly in his small shrill voice. With a movement too quick to track, the boy was on his knees in front of the cat, peering into his face. Suddenly, the boy smiled. It was bewitching. He looked up at Fiji, and Olivia could see that his eyes were pansy purple.

“Okay, I’m in love,” Fiji said cheerfully. “Hey, kid. I’m Fiji. This is Mr. Snuggly.”

“I’m Diederik,” the boy said.

“I’m Bobo.” Bobo extended his hand to the boy, who took it uncertainly. They shook, in an awkward way. Shaking didn’t seem to be a custom with which the boy was familiar. To Olivia’s surprise, Joe opened his arms and the boy stepped into them without hesitation. They hugged briefly, and the boy moved away.

“And I’m Olivia,” she said, taking a step forward.

He looked up at her, and Olivia had the sensation that she was being weighed and measured. He did not extend his hand, but he gave her a respectful nod. Olivia was quite content with that, even flattered. Then something happened to the boy’s face. His turned it up and rotated it as if he were following a scent.

“What’s that smell?” he asked the Rev.

The Rev bent over and whispered in the boy’s ear.

“Ahhhhh,” the boy said, as if a suspicion had been confirmed.

The Rev straightened and looked at all of them, in turn. “Diederik’s going to be staying with me for a while. His daddy’s got to do a few things.”

Olivia could think of at least five questions she wanted to ask, but this was the Reverend Emilio Sheehan, and he had many secrets. She knew she had better not ask any questions. It would be taken amiss. You didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the Rev.

“We’re glad to have you, young man,” Bobo said. “You’re welcome to come hang out with me here at the store any time, if the Rev has other stuff to do.”

“Or with me, at the Inquiring Mind,” Fiji said, as warm as melting butter.

“I can take you bow hunting,” Olivia offered stiffly. She liked the way the boy had known right away she deserved respect. Or at least I could comb your hair, she thought. Grooming was something else Olivia understood.

“Thanks,” the boy said, to all of them, and he seemed pleased, though his tone was noncommittal.

“In the meantime,” the Rev said, obviously coming to his main point, “what are all these people doing in town? The hotel was bad enough.” He’d taken off his dusty hat, and his thinning black hair was combed across his skull, damp with sweat.

“Sit down,” Bobo suggested. “I’ll tell you.” They all sat, except the boy, who didn’t seem much interested in what the adults were saying. He roamed around the shop making scarcely a sound, his big purple eyes taking in all the oddities and peculiarities around him, his mouth slightly open in wonder. Olivia remembered the first time she’d been in Midnight Pawn, and she could understand his fascination.

Four years ago. She’d been on her way to Dallas to get a flight to — where? Somewhere east. She’d completed a job east of Marthasville, an old rancher who wouldn’t sell his land to a man with a lot of money. She almost never left from the same airport she’d flown into, and never under the same name. That day, for the first time, she’d seen the exit for Midnight and Davy on the highway.

A town called Midnight. The name had caught her fancy.

She’d been in no hurry, so she’d taken the exit. And she’d seen the closed storefronts, but the pawnshop… stuck at a crossroad in what seemed like to her the middle of nowhere… had been fascinating.

She’d had to go in.

And she’d been captivated by the cases full of old things, mysterious things. The shelves had seemed crowded with objects she had to handle. She’d looked for a long time. When Bobo, the new proprietor, had told her gently that he needed to close for an hour to get his supper, she’d driven up to eat in Davy (not trusting the Home Cookin Restaurant, wisely, because then it had been run by an old couple who had never been able to cook as well as Madonna Reed). But after a hasty hamburger and tonic water in Davy, she’d found herself going back to the pawnshop, which was so much larger inside than it appeared to be on the outside. Since it was dark by then, she’d met Lemuel.

She had never met anyone like him before. She didn’t know how he’d felt about her that night, but she’d been drawn to him, powerfully. Olivia had been in the presence of hundreds of men who were better looking and richer and more powerful in a worldly way. And she’d known Lemuel for what he was immediately. But Lemuel… something in the age of him, the strength of him, the ruthlessness of him, drew her in.

That night, the little sign behind the cash register, which she hadn’t noticed at all during her earlier visit, suddenly seemed to leap out at her. APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS FOR RENT, with no other information. “It was waiting for the right person to read it,” Lemuel had said afterward, and Olivia believed that was so.

They hadn’t become lovers right away. They were both cautious people, even when biology and inclination were herding them in the same direction. It was like they took their honeymoon first, their time of learning each other, in a bubble large enough only for two.

Lost in remembering something rare, Olivia only came back to the pawnshop and the little boy when the Rev said, “When is Lem coming back, Olivia?” That was very direct, for the Rev.

Olivia said, “He’s taken those books and gone to consult friends of his. Right now he’s in New York.” She didn’t spell it out; the magic books, the ones Lemuel had been searching for in the pawnshop all those years, had been found by Bobo by sheer accident, and Lemuel was having a wonderful time looking through them. But some had been in a language so ancient Lemuel didn’t have a clue as to how to translate the text, so off he’d gone, the first time he’d left Midnight for any length of time in over a hundred years.

She hadn’t offered to go with him. He’d have asked her to go if he’d wanted her to, and though she’d hoped, and mentally shifted her obligations around just in case, he hadn’t mentioned it.

The Rev waited, expectant.

“I don’t know when he’ll return,” she said calmly. “When he’s done what he set out to do, I suppose.”