Lilith Saintcrow - The Demon's Librarian

Sharon's cheeks were pink with repressed laughter. Her eyes sparkled. “Looks like she's hobbling for the front door. Congratulations, Saint George."

Chess made a face at the computer screen, taking a deep calming breath. Sharon snickered and retreated, stepping through into the room behind the circulation desk. The room held a desk and a few filing cabinets as well as the carts of to-be-shelved and a cabinet of circulation-desk supplies, with a coffeemaker and a cabinet full of coffee, coffee filters, tea, and packets of sugar. Share was due for her afternoon cup of herbal tea, and Chess couldn't wait for her to finish. It would be lunchtime when Share finished making her tea, as always. A bacon cheeseburger with lots of drippy, melted cheese sounded good.

The library purred in its afternoon drowse. The smell of paper and quiet hum of computers mixed with the occasional page-turning and murmuring calm voices. One of the library volunteers, Antoine, pushed his cart into the Biography section, white hair gleaming under the lights. He was a retired naval officer, and a good library worker. Another volunteer, Grady, was over in the Fiction section, peering at Chess through his thick horn-rim glasses before he looked back down at his cart. If it wasn't for volunteers the whole place would sink like a ship. Of course, with the way the maintenance is going, it probably is going to sink like a ship. Right into the sewers. And the Head Librarian might go down with it.

Other than Antoine, Grady, and a few other volunteers, there weren't many people. There were a few teenagers, whether skipping school or off for the day, who knew? Of course, who would skip school in a library?

Well, other than me. I'm probably looking at some future class of library-science degree-holders. Yet more bodies to feed the maw of the library system, working for little pay and putting up with budget cuts and Pembrokes. “Lo I have slain dragons,” Chess muttered, leaning against the counter as she struggled with the temptation to open the book and lose herself in it. “And lo have I rescued maidens. But lo, oh lo, I can't for the life of me conquer all the idiocy in the world."

Something tingled against her nape, and she glanced up. Paranoid. I thought I'd start getting paranoid. Of course, the kind of things she'd been doing lately, including hunting down an octopus demon, were almost guaranteed to give one a fair dose of healthy paranoia as well as intuition. It was a side-effect often warned about in the books, a strengthening of the psychic muscles. As well as the inherent risk of thinking everyone was out to get you.

Of course, thinking everyone is out to get you is a good way to stay cautious and undiscovered. You are, after all, hunting demons, Chess.

Her eyes traveled along the familiar counter, down the long strip of polished hardwood floor leading to the steps and the high narrow foyer, the short blue carpet stretching away on either side into the stacks. Globe lights descended from the ceiling, there was a slice of rainy sunlight falling into the foyer. And someone was coming up the stairs, a sandy-haired man in a sports jacket and jeans, with a backpack. His hair glowed mellow under the lights as he mounted the steps. The steps were hard, having been remodeled more than once, and everyone's shoes made noise on them.

Everyone's, apparently, except his. He moved very quietly, striding along, looking around like he'd never been in a library before. Tall, nice wide shoulders under the jacket, a crisp, blue button-down shirt, and a pair of wire-rim glasses. Chess set Huckleberry Finn on the closest cart, sighing when she thought of the extra work it would take to actually walk over and shelve it, and turned back to the rest of the library to find that Mr. Maybe-Hunk had done a Speedy Gonzales and was now right in front of the desk.

Well, hello. What do we have here? Nice, slightly curly sandy-brown hair, check. Good cheekbones, dark eyes behind the wire-rims, a long nose, check. Shoulders nice and wide, waist nice and trim, a little over six feet tall, check. Clean-shaven, check.

Initial hypothesis verified. He was a hunk. He looked like every girl's wet dream of an English professor.

Of course, I'm not crazy about sport jackets. But I could make an exception for shoulders like that, I like a man who works out. Hel-lo stranger. Come to get your library card?

His eyes flicked over her, and Chess restrained the urge to push her shoulders back and raise her chin. She wore a perfectly respectable blue sweater over a white dress-up shirt and navy slacks today, along with pearl earrings. It wasn't dowdy—no daughter of Chess's mother would ever dare to be frumpy—but it wasn't exactly a cocktail dress either. The way he looked at her seemed to imply he found her a little less than professional.

"Welcome to the Jericho City Library.” Chess gave him a wide, bright smile. “May I help you?"

Then her right hip began to prickle.

He gave her a long, considering look, then answered the smile with one of his own. It was a white-toothed, fierce, supermodel-wide grin that actually pushed her back a step, the tingling against her hip intensifying as if she had the knife strapped under her slacks.

As a matter of fact, she did. Paranoid? Maybe. But facing down a tentacled demon that your entire upbringing says doesn't exist kind of makes you paranoid. Not to mention owning a knife that glows blue whenever anything demonic approaches. The knife was strapped against her hip, the bulge of the hilt hidden under the length of the sweater. And it had never, ever done this before.

"Hi there.” He had a nice voice, an even tenor, but those teeth were too white. “I'm looking for a copy of Delmonico's Demons and Hellspawn."

Her heart started to pound, her palms were getting slippery. “Really? Well, is it fiction or nonfiction?” It's nonfiction, and I don't think I'm going to take you down into the basement, sir. Who the hell are you?

He didn't seem to expect that. He blinked, and he didn't lean forward to rest his elbows on the counter. The rare person that didn't lean against Chess's counter was usually too short to reach it. Kids went to the checkout counter in the children's section unless they were lost or precocious.

Silence ticked through the library. Someone coughed over in Biography. Chess tried her best to look interested, disingenuous, and innocent all at once. She could almost feel her cheeks freeze in what Charlie called the Dealing-With-Idiots-Smile. It almost hurt. “Fiction, or nonfiction?” she asked again.

A thin trickle of sweat slid down her back. Please don't let me be sweating on my forehead, he can see that. I should have practiced this in front of the mirror. Having a mother who could almost freeze boiling water with a raised eyebrow was far from the worst training for something like this, but how could anyone have found out so soon? She should have practiced more.

Don't be an idiot, Chess. You're dealing with sorcery here. It stands to reason opening the door in the basement, making your tools, learning a few spells, and going out to kill demons is going to get you some damn attention. You screwed up somewhere. Or he's just fishing.

"Nonfiction,” he said, finally. His eyes moved over her face, an appraisal not nearly as hard to meet than Mom's eagle eyes. “Delmonico is the author.” He spelled, too. Nice of him.

She made her fingers work, woodenly. Tapped to the “author” field, put the name in. Hit the return key. “What's it about?” Tried to sound bright and interested. Her throat seemed coated with cotton fuzz.

"It's a study of the techniques and methods used in classifying and identifying demons,” he returned, with an absolutely straight face. His hands were under the edge of the counter, and her nape prickled again. So did her hip. And her stomach was leaping like Lassie on speed.