“Ah,” Cary said. Why the hell had Jaxer told her to get those? “I’m not sure I’m set up for something like that. I’m really new to all this.”

  “Don’t worry,” Renee said. “The paper will keep them sealed and safe. Just don’t unwrap them until you feel comfortable.” She winked and went back to getting all the books ready.

  Cary bit her lip, not sure if this was a good idea or not, but what the hell. She could always give the books to Jaxer to keep safe. He’d deserve that after sending her here to get them without warning her they might be dangerous.

  She pulled out her wallet to pay, but the sense of being watched made her pause and glance around again. No one seemed to be looking at her. Cary frowned. Maye it was one of the books? Now that she knew some of them were obviously more than just paper and ink, she supposed it was possible she’d just attracted the ire of one of the more malevolent works.

  Even the idea of that weirded her out. She faced the register again.

  Renee returned to the earlier conversation. “We have other ways to keep everyone here in line,” she said. She reached under the counter and pulled out a brown leather tote with The Bookstore stitched in white on the front. She held it up. “Bring this back the next time you come in and you get a ten percent discount.” She put the paper wrapped books inside. “There are spells around the store that help the more volatile shifters remain focused. Some scent and pheromone dampening things to keep the creatures that normally fight with each other from getting triggered. And of course, if anyone does get out of line, there are death spells—depending on what they do of course.” Renee was quick to say.

  As if Cary might be worried about the deaths spells getting some poor innocent monster.

  Actually, she was a little worried about that and was grateful for Renee’s clarification.

  “The threat of death, or in the case of some of the beings, banishment to realms they don’t want to be in, is enough to keep everyone cooperating. I think most of them like that this place is neutral and they’re safe here. It’s like a little bit of peace in an otherwise dangerous life for some people.”

  Her tone softened at that last in a way that made Cary think she might just be talking about herself. “I’m glad it’s safe here,” Cary said, meeting Renee’s gaze. “For everyone.”

  The clerk smiled and took Cary’s money.

  Just six months ago, Cary would have had a minor heart attack handing over that much cash for a stack of books. Her new job, for all its weirdness, sure did pay better than her last. Although, she suspected that was hazard-pay since the likelihood of her dying in this job was significantly greater than her likelihood of dying when she was just a vet tech.

  As she took her packages and receipt from Renee, she said, “I’ll need to come back since I’m not finished with my list.” She glanced around. “Will the store still be in the same place or…?” She let her question trail off mostly because she wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking.

  Renee came around the desk to walk her to the door. Pickles kept at her side as well. Cary realized after a few steps that with Renee on one side of her and Pickles on the other she no longer felt that weird sense of tension she’d been sensing at the register. Interesting.

  “Whenever you want to come back and visit, you’re welcome,” Renee said. “We’ll be right here.” She winked.

  Pickles woofed.

  “Well thank you,” Cary said to the basset. “And thank you,” she said to Renee. “For all your help. This has been a very illuminating shopping trip.”

  “Glad you got some of what you were looking for. We’ll see you soon.” She opened the door, and the chilly Portland breeze blew in, scented by the Willamette River a few blocks away.

  Cary shook her head. “How does it know to open in Portland?” she asked in a quite tone. “I mean, could I…get out somewhere else on accident?”

  “Nope. The door links your DNA signature to your location. You can only ever exit back to the place you entered.” She shrugged. “Keeps others from using the store as a shortcut to invading another realm. Remember to bring back the tote for a discount.”

  3

  Cary returned to The Bookstore three days later, her list in hand—with a few more books added because the standoff with the gnome the day before had left her confused. A gnome bad guy. Who knew?

  Obviously, she still had way too much to learn.

  To her delight, Pickles met her at the door.

  “Hey, girl.” Cary squatted down to doggie level to give the basset a scratch behind her ears.

  She should also pick up a book on foo lions, she decided. And maybe one on demon dogs, since she’d recently become the fur mommy to a demon puppy, who took the form of a golden Labrador and for the most part acted like an ordinary adorable, but mischievous, puppy. She kept forgetting Buck was a demon dog. Except when she accidentally used the word hellhound, which he hated. But still, she should learn more about his breed.

  “What do you think, Pickles?” Cary asked the basset hound. “Should I get some good doggie books while I’m here?”

  “Woof,” Pickles said.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Cary said, straightening. “But first, I’d better find that gnome book Jaxer suggested.” She glanced at Pickles, who was following her through the store. “Did you know gnomes could be bad guys and might try to throw sharp wooden stakes they produce out of thin air at you?”

  “Woof,” Pickles said, her tail wagging.

  “Of course you knew,” Cary said. “You live in a bookstore.”

  Pickles flopped onto the floor next to Cary’s feet when Cary stopped at a shelf. The basset’s jowls spread out onto the ground as she laid her head down, and her thick body seemed to flatten. She looked inordinately comfortable on the wooden floor. Cary grinned at her before turning her attention to the shelves.

  “Welcome back,” Renee greeted a few minutes later, stopping beside Cary to replace a book high on the shelf. “You didn’t get through all those books you just bought already, did you?”

  Cary snorted out a laugh. “It’s gonna take me years to read everything I need to read. No, I just thought I’d better get some more to add to the stack.”

  “Well I’m always happy to have a return customer,” Renee said. “Let me know if you need any help.”

  “Thanks.”

  Renee strolled away, her presence leaving a sense of calm in her wake. That was nice. Especially since there was a creature with yellow eyes studying the shelf next to Cary, and she was pretty sure that hairy person she could just see from the corner of her eye to the left was a Yeti.

  This was the wildest bookstore she’d ever been in.

  She could get used to it.

  With Pickles accompanying her through the store, Cary picked up another ten books. She eyed the stack and considered how much she didn’t know. She really wasn’t sure about this new job of hers. Most of the time, she felt totally inadequate to it. She was just an ordinary woman, and this job kept throwing her into a pretty extraordinary world that she knew next to nothing about.

  To shut down the feeling of overwhelm, she decided she’d better call it a day and headed toward the register, just as the store’s front door swung open. A huge man stepped through, maybe seven-foot tall, with heavy brows, a thick jaw line, and a nose that looked like it had seen better days. His dark hair was silky smooth and hung to his shoulders, practically glowing in the store’s overhead lighting. His hair was a weird contrast to the harder, rougher look of his face. The combination of that plus his height really made him stand out. Cary paused in mid-stride to gape at him.

  He narrowed light colored eyes and scanned the store. His lip lifted in a snarl when he looked at Cary. When he spotted Renee, he grinned.

  Cary’s spine tingled a warning. One she was starting to know well after four months of working as a Protector.

  She set her stack of books down on a nearby table and started moving closer to Renee, who was standing at the “Mystical Locations” shelf, helping another customer.

  Renee frowned at the newcomer’s grin and turned to face him. Her customer, a tall thin man with pointed ears like an elf, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, looked between Renee and the huge man, then started edging the opposite direction.

  In fact, everyone in the store seemed to have gone on full alert and were subtly ducking behind shelves and tucking into corners. From her peripheral vision, Cary even caught one woman fading into invisibility.

  Whoa. That was cool. She’d have to ask about that after she stopped the looming fight.

  While everyone else edged away, Cary snuck closer, trying to keep her movements slow so she didn’t call attention to herself. To her surprise—or maybe not given the basset’s real incarnation—Pickles edged along with her, keeping right next to Cary’s ankle, her movements surprisingly silent in the now very quiet store.

  Renee broke the silence first. “Nar’el. We’ve discussed this. I gave you a choice last time you were here. You chose to stay away.”

  “I lied,” he said, his voice a loud, booming echo.

  That voice fit his face, Cary thought. Not his hair, but definitely his face.

  “So I see,” Renee said and sighed.

  “You’re no longer fit for this job, Rye-Nee,” he said.

  Cary frowned at his pronunciation of Renee’s name.

  “Since it’s mine,” Renee said, “that’s not your call.” She stepped forward, toward Nar’el, and swept her hand from a position over her head all the way to the floor.

  A column of orange light dropped down and encompassed Nar’el. He snarled and pushed against it, but the wall of shimmering light held, keeping him captive.

  “Now,” Renee said, “I warned you that I would ban you permanently, and you didn’t heed me. That’s unacceptable.”

  “You’re letting humans in now,” the man snarled and glanced at Cary.

  Cary froze. What, her? Wait. She was somehow the cause of this?

  “We’ve always let humans in,” Renee said, sounding amused. “Wizards. Witches. Psychics. All sorts of humans come and go.”

  “But she’s ordinary. Mundane. Nothing that belongs in our haven. Our haven.” Nar’el pushed against the barrier again. A few sparks of light flared around his hand.

  “This has nothing to do with her,” Renee said. “She’s your excuse. You’ve always wanted my store and the knowledge here for yourself. You think the others will support you now.” She gestured to all the current customers hiding in corners and behind shelves, staying out of the way. “They won’t. This is my place. I keep it neutral. And I say who’s allowed. Not you.”

  “You can’t hold on to the store forever, Rye-Nee. The last owner fell. So will you.”

  “He retired and left me the place. I didn’t engage in a hostile takeover.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he? A rather permanent retirement.”

  “The only kind of retirement our kind gets,” Renee said, sounding both sad and resigned. “And since we’ve aired all this in front of all my customers, despite my efforts to keep it private so as not to embarrass you, I will finish with the fact that you don’t have the power to hold this store together or maintain control of all the diverse magics. That’s why Pat chose me.”

  “Paa-tra was an idiot,” the man snarled.

  “You think everyone who’s not you is an idiot, Neil.”

  “Don’t use that name,” he hissed.

  “Stop using my old name,” she countered. “Makes you sound ancient and out of touch.”

  Cary pressed her lips together to hide her grin because she didn’t want to draw their attention.

  Nar’el—Neil Cary thought with amusement—threw himself shoulder first against the column of light. He didn’t have much room to move so there wasn’t a lot of momentum in the act, but a wash of sparkles lit brightly around him as he slammed against the barrier. The column held.

  Cary frowned slightly at the containment light. It reminded her a little of those transporter beams from that science fiction show. Only it didn’t vanish. She’d better ask what that was when all this was done. Her bosses and Jaxer would expect her to know about this kind of spell eventually.

  If it was a spell. For all Cary knew, it was just some super high-tech security system made out of laser beams or something. Which would also be cool.

  She risked a glance down at Pickles as Renee tisked at Neil’s efforts to break the beam.

  Pickles was still on her feet, watching the exchange, but she didn’t seem particularly tense. It could be hard to tell with a basset hound. They looked pretty mellow and relaxed most of the time. But Pickles seemed unconcerned with Neil’s efforts to escape the containment beam. If the foo lion wasn’t worried, Cary figured she could relax too. Renee had this handled.

  Still. Those damned tingles continued to crawl along her spine, warning that her Protector magic was needed. A leftover of the adrenaline rush from when the standoff started, or a real warning? She was still too new to the feeling to be sure.

  Neil slammed against the column of light one more time.

  Renee crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Are you done yet?”

  Neil started to laugh. The sound made someone hiding behind the table closest to Cary gasped. A collective indrawn breath seemed to sweep through the store. Pickles came to full alert, her body stiffening, her tail pointing up and vibrating slightly, her nose straightening toward Neil.

  Cary looked around nervously. Uh, everyone else seemed to know something she didn’t. At a guess, she’d say Neil didn’t usually laugh.

  Renee narrowed her eyes at the man. “Time to go,” she said and lifted her arm.

  Before she could complete the gesture, Neil raised a hand and pressed it against the column of light.

  The column burst apart in a shattering of brightness sharp enough to cut.

  4

  Screams erupted around the store, melding with the sound of exploding glass and the stink of burnt ozone.

  Cary covered her eyes to shield them from the flare. When it faded, she blinked at the scene. Renee was on the ground at the base of the shelf behind her, blood—green blood!—dripping from her nose and a series of cuts across her arms. As if she’d actually been cut by the light from the column’s destruction.

  Cary rushed to her, getting between her and Neil. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Get out of the way,” Renee screamed, reaching out to shove Cary aside.

  Cary dropped to her knees and held her spot, despite Renee’s substantial push. “No, it’s okay. Take a few breaths. You’re hurt.” She had a feeling, under different circumstances, Renee could have tossed her aside easily.

  There was a collective gasp throughout the store again, and Cary saw some lights flaring around her from the corners of her eyes, but she kept her focus on Renee. “Can you move?” she asked. “How badly are you hurt?”

  She should have gotten between Neil and Renee earlier. Damn it. She’d waited too long, and Renee got hurt because of her hesitance. She’d be kicking herself for that later.

  Renee blinked at her. Another flare of blue-white light encompassed them but remained at a safe distance so they weren’t injured by it, whatever it was.

  Cary glanced over her shoulder to see a very angry looking Neil with his hand raised, palm facing them. She got a brief view of a circle of metal centered in his palm before light flared and barreled toward them. It slammed against her Protector magic and splintered around them harmlessly.

  Neil roared.

  Cary ignored him to concentrate on Renee. “Are you going into shock?” Cary asked. She held up her fingers. “How many am I hold up?”

  Renee frowned slightly and shook her head. Then her eyes widened. The stars in her dark irises flickered and sparkled like the flashes of a meteor shower.

  “Ah,” she said, her shoulders relaxing. “I hadn’t realized before but that makes perfect sense.”

  “What?” Cary asked.

  “You’re not a witch.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m not a witch.”

  Renee glanced around. “I’m not sure if anyone here will know what you are, but best keep it between us I think.”

  “Yeah, I was told that was…safer.”

  “Indeed,” Renee said. She glanced around Cary’s shoulder to where Neil was raging and still trying to kill them. “He’s stolen something he shouldn’t have,” Renee said. “That medallion in his palm. It’s too dangerous for someone like him.” She shook her head. “He’s going to kill himself.” Her smooth brow creased. “Oh hells, he might blow the whole place apart right along with him.”

  “Can you contain that explosion?” Cary asked. “Cause, I’m not sure I can. I’m pretty new to this. I think I can keep everyone here safe if I can get between him and the rest, but everyone is scattered and…”

  “And the store’s nature complicates things,” Renee finished for her. “Yes, it does.” She huffed. “Unfortunately, I can’t risk hitting him with either my powers or the stuff the store can do without risking blowing us all up. Damn it.”

  Panic started to creep through Cary’s chest. She looked around at all the scattered bookstore patrons and started motioning to them. “Get over here. Get behind me. Hurry.”

  Several people looked at each other frowning. A few hurried without question to stand next to Renee. Cary stepped a few feet in front of them, forcing the continued blasts of light energy from Neil’s hand backward. He shouted something in a language she didn’t know and tried to push forward.

  Cary narrowed her eyes against the glare, and focused on motioning more people behind her. She glanced back long enough to see Renee on her feet again, frantically gathering up her people into a loose group. A few hold outs refused to move, which made Cary’s panic spike. She couldn’t get to them without opening the people already under her protection to danger.

 

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