The only thing wrong with this library was that it had no electric plug-ins. The bathroom was a small closet off to the side, with a sink and an antique commode, but no mirror. And forget hot water. She suspected the plumbing in here used a well or something, since the water had a flat mineral taste different than city water. Just to be safe, she'd brought down water-purification pills and a rack of bottled water.

On the furthest table were beakers and pristine antique spirit lamps, racks for holding glass jars, candles, and other assorted objects. It had looked, when she'd first stumbled into the room, as if the owner had just stepped away for a moment, a book open on the table to the recipe for the salve, and a capped jar of the stuff next to it, amid a jumble of assorted minutiae. She'd cleaned everything up, over the six months of study, and wondered about the anonymous owner who wrote his small crab-cramped words in the diaries.

Now she knew.

A stack of towels and a spare pair of jeans, not to mention a dry shirt, worked wonders; keeping a spare set of clothes at work was second-nature to her. After boiling some water for tea with the same trick she'd used to convince Charlie, she went straight for the back wall, where on the third bookcase bottom shelf was a long row of antique composition books, each written in with a firm, clear hand. She'd only worked her way through three of them, they were closely written and hard to decipher as well as rambling, a nameless narrator that she now suspected was Melwyn Halston giving advice on the books in the library, shortcuts for killing or repelling demons, recipes, and other useful information.

She took the last book on the far right, gently, and carried it back to one of the tables. Hopped up on the varnished wood surface, sitting cross-legged and setting her tea mug aside. She sneezed, twice, lightly, and touched her hair, wrapped up in a towel. Yet more laundry. Nobody told me the cleanup is worse than the demon hunting itself.

She opened up the diary, flipping through it until she came to the blank pages at the back and then backing up a few more pages. Bingo. And I thought I was just being systematic when I started from the earliest ones. I should have started with the latest.

For there on the page, written in the spidery, clear, small hand of whoever had built this room, was the word Drakulein, repeated several times through the text. She paged back even further, found that the whole book had references to them salted through. The Inkani were also mentioned, and once or twice she saw the word Malik.

Perfect. She opened to the first page, settled down, and began to skim, paying special attention whenever the Drakul were mentioned. The Golden usually have one or two Drakul bodyguards. It's not as bad as it seems. I'll be careful, I just need you to understand a few things. Ryan's voice floated through her head.

I wonder if he's still back in my apartment. If he knows what's good for him, he is. She scanned a few more pages, came across a drawing of a human hand, beautifully executed, a man's hand with a heavy, square antique ring. The caption read, Samuel's hand.

She began to get the idea that Melwyn had been a little closer to Samuel than she'd suspected. A few passages were almost blushworthy in a repressed, Victorian fashion. And the drawings were something else. Looks like ol’ Mel had his artistic side freed. I've heard May-December relationships can do that. Her own sniggering giggle made her feel a little dirty.

Ryan had told her the truth. He just hadn't told her how serious the situation was. Once a Drakul got “attached” they didn't live without the object of their “affections.” Mel mentioned that same-sex pairings were rare; and he didn't have the angst she would have associated with a nineteenth-century homosexual relationship. Then again, if Mel was as old as Ryan said, he might have a whole different view of that sort of thing.

She also began to suspect that Ryan had deliberately not shown her just how strong and quick he really was. Some of the terms Melwyn used were thought-provoking, to say the least.

It was a constant battle for Mel to keep his “territory” clean of Inkani and other demons, and she had a hazy sense that he was talking about a much larger piece of land than just Jericho City. Then again, this was in the age of carriages and bad roads, distances might have seemed larger then. There were other Drakul, mostly identified with a first initial; Samuel was the only one who rated a whole name. And Melwyn constantly bemoaned the lack of “potentials” to help him out. Sam suspected that the Inkani had found some way of killing them before they “awakened,” but Mel pooh-poohed that idea, saying that people simply weren't as smart or as good as they used to be.

Melwyn, you sound like a cynic. And a grumpy old man.

By far the most interesting were the references scattered through the text to books she hadn't gotten around to yet. She found herself making a mental list and wishing she'd started with this particular diary first. That was the trouble with finding a library of antique sorcerous books, one never knew the right place to start.

She finished the tea and ended up lying on the table, wincing as she shifted and her body reminded her she'd put it through hell lately. I should go home. But this is so interesting. I suppose I could fit it in my purse, but I don't want to damage it and I don't want anyone knowing for sure where these books are. She yawned, stretching, her ribs protesting at the hard table. Need to find a way to smuggle a pillow in here. This is getting ridiculous.

Chess rolled over on her back, looking up at the vaulted ceiling. Her sock feet were a little chilled, but she'd long since grown used to the even sixty-five degrees down here. It was probably thanks to the stone walls that the temperature never wavered. Her hair was almost dry now, and she'd only sneezed twice. She reached up, touched her lips with her fingertips, felt Ryan's mouth on hers again. I'm not all animal, he'd said, with that bitter twist to his mouth. The unspoken attitude—that the Drakul were somehow second-class because they were part demon—got to her. Even Paul, who might have turned out to be decent, had acted like he had the right to boss Ryan around.

About the only person in this whole goddamn thing who understands anything is Ryan, she realized. He'd believed her when she'd denied knowing anything about Paul's disappearance, he'd fought a demon away from her window, been waiting in her apartment for her, worried sick. As men went, he wasn't half bad. And he was easy on the eyes, definitely. Nice shoulders. A good mouth, when it wasn't pulled tight with bitterness. Those black eyes.

From now on, it's your side I'm on. Trust me.

He'd been telling the truth all along, even if he hadn't told her everything. Of course, she wasn't guaranteed to react calmly to any of this.

Chess sighed and stretched, almost knocking over her empty tea mug. It took ten minutes to clean everything up, leaving the diary on the table nearest the door with all the other books she wanted to take a look at as soon as she had time. The lights dimmed as she made one more circuit of the room, checking for anything left out, a habit learned after years of working in a library. Everyone should be home by now, she felt as if she'd been down here for hours.

He's probably worried. No wonder he didn't want me to go to Charlie's last night. Maybe I should have stayed home. She shrugged back into her damp jacket, pulling it down over her purse. Carried the helmet to the door, stopped to glance one last time over her shoulder. Maybe I'll bring Ryan down here. He'll probably have a better idea of what to do with all these than I will. And he can probably tell me a better way of going about doing my research.