3. Barnaby

Chapter thre e

Barnaby

Oh, I can already tell the new tenant is going to be a severe pain in my ass. The words are written right there on the wall. First she wants furniture, which means opening up the storage room. Then what? A coffee maker? Mugs?

Humans need so many things, and it’s all going to cost me.

I should never have listed that stupid apartment. This is all Louise’s fault. My preference would have been to let the loft collect dust and cobwebs, but she’s right in that it’s valuable Main Street real estate.

“Someone should enjoy this place,” she’d said. “All that good light and a view of downtown? It’s a prime location.”

Now I’m going to be stuck with this demanding human for an entire month.

But then there’s the other thing. The fact that she smelled... absolutely, incredibly delectable. Like the fullest, sweetest fruit, and I have never, ever encountered someone who smelled that close to heaven.

The scent had floated over to me when she came inside and neared the desk. There are only a few smells in the world that trigger my taste buds, and at the very top of the list is human blood.

All humans, though, smell the same. Blood, blood, everywhere. Fresh blood fueling a beating heart is the most delicious of all the world’s delicacies. Nothing I tasted in my human life compares to the flavor, and I will spend the remainder of my eternity longing for it.

This woman’s blood, though, smells absolutely marvelous. It washed over me when she waltzed into my store, and my fangs extruded inside my mouth at just the hint of it beneath her skin. The promise of it had nearly overwhelmed me. I am only lucky that my true form cannot emerge during the day, or I might have simply changed there in front of her in my surprise.

I’m left wondering after she leaves why she smelled like succulent perfection. Why did this one woman trigger my hunger in a way no one has in all my life as a vampire?

As we head to the back of the bookstore, I take stock of her again. She has curly, fierce reddish-orange hair that makes it look like her head is on fire. Her eyes are hazel and shockingly large in her little freckled face. Unlike most young people I see, though, she’s dressed like a much older woman, with long pants, a baggy blouse, and a cardigan over the top that fully disguises the shape of her body .

The woman meekly follows along behind me as I stop at the old door at the rear of the shop and fish another key out of my pocket. I wish I had other options besides showing her this place, but unless I’m willing to mail out for a bunch of brand-new furniture, this is the only option.

I turn the key in the ancient lock and tug on the handle, but the door resists me. With another firm pull, though, it opens, and a cloud of dust hits us both in the face.

While the woman sneezes, I step inside the darkness and reach around for the light switch I know is on the wall. Finally I find it, and a big overhead light comes on, though the housing is completely covered in cobwebs.

“Whoa,” the tenant says.

I realize I don’t even know her name. Not that it matters.

I step into the room, which probably hasn’t seen a visitor in years now. It’s filled with my best antiques—a solid teak dresser, a Victorian vanity, even a four-poster bed that was imported from Germany a hundred years ago. It’s all immensely valuable, and I wouldn’t be here, showing her this, if it wasn’t my only option.

“Amazing,” she mutters behind me as she follows me in. “What is all this stuff?”

“My collection.” I stand up straight and survey everything here. There are at least two dining room tables to choose from, each with four matching chairs. There’s an art deco sofa with red upholstery that should work for her living room, as loath as I am to imagine her eating ice cream on it while she watches mindless television. “If you damage anything, you will be fully liable for paying the value. Out of pocket.”

She gapes at me. “But these are antiques!”

“Precisely. They are very valuable, and it would be costly to clean or repair any of these pieces.”

“Don’t you have, like, regular furniture?” she grumps. “I don’t need anything fancy.”

“These are the options. You can have this couch, or no couch.”

She opens her mouth like she’s going to snap back at me, but then stops and takes a long, deep breath. Then, she offers me a smile.

“Okay. I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”

Her smile is so wide that it shows off both rows of her teeth. Her eyes squeeze closed, pinching her rounded cheeks. It catches me utterly and completely off guard.

I should say something, but I find all the words have dried up in my mouth. I nod instead, trying to remember what on earth we were doing here in the first place.

“So do I just pick stuff out, or...?” The woman slides between two end tables, then sits down on the red sofa. “And how do we get it upstairs?”

Oh, right. There’s that.

Without answering, I walk around the edge of the room to the big garage door currently blocked off by bookshelves. I scoot one to the side, mindful of the feet, and then reach for the rope that opens and closes the door.

“Select the items you’d like to have, and I will call a friend to come carry them upstairs.” I know just who to ask.

The woman’s eyes get bigger, and that smile returns. “Wow, really? I can choose anything?” She stands up and surveys the entire space. Picking her way through shelves, she finds a flower-patterned armchair from 1965 and sits down on it, sending up a puff of dust.

I really should have all this stuff covered. Surely Rick will have some plastic sheeting.

“I’ll take this,” she says, rubbing the soft arm of the chair. Then she continues, clearing away cobwebs that get in her face. She pauses at a small breakfast table that dates back to the eighteenth century. “And this, too. With the two chairs.”

I just imagine her setting a wet glass of water on the ancient table and shudder all over.

“I will also give you coasters,” I add with a grumble.

I should have furnished the damned apartment myself. I would have used the most inexpensive items possible.

Live and learn, I suppose.

But I do find that I’m enjoying watching her explore my collection. She stops to appreciate all sorts of things—the elaborate engraving on the back of a dining room chair, a soft, velvet cushion on a sofa, the surprising shape of my grand piano. She sits on the bench but thankfully doesn’t open the fallboard, only pretending to play over the top of it instead.

Finally, she selects the red sofa, a low table to be used as a coffee table, a desk, and the breakfast set .

“That should be enough,” she says, wiping her hands together. “Wow. I can’t wait!”

I didn’t think this would get her quite so excited. I can only hope she takes good care of my collectibles in the meantime.

“Please note that you are monetarily liable for anything damaged during your stay,” I tell her in a stern tone.

She just smiles back at me. “You said that already.”

While she enjoys sitting on her new couch, I grumble and head out the door, bound for the hardware store. When I spot my friend Rick in the window, he waves me in.

“I need your help,” I say. “Something that’ll make good use of all those muscles of yours.”

He winks. “Sure thing.”

I explain about my new tenant, and he’s shocked that I’ll be giving her use of items from my collection. Unfortunately, I have no choice.

When Rick follows me inside, the woman gets to her feet and holds out her hand to him.

“I’m Maisie,” she says cheerily. He stares at her for a moment, rolls his eyes without answering, and starts picking up the sofa. She attempts to help, but he grunts in annoyance and waves her off, because it’s “easier to do myself.”

There’s a good reason we are friends—both of us are independent and self-reliant. Other people can’t be depended upon, anyway.

Maisie and I both wait until all the furniture is carried up the stairs, then I close the garage door. We stand on the sidewalk together, not speaking, until I let out a sigh.

“Anything else you need, Maisie ?” I can’t disguise the impatience in my tone, and the smile falls from her face.

“Oh. Nothing, I guess. Just the Wi-Fi password.”

I supply it, the name of one of my favorite Anne Hadron heroines, and then return to my bookstore without saying goodbye.

Thank goodness I can be done with this. Hopefully she doesn’t need anything else from me for the rest of her stay.

I really do not like how that smile of hers made me feel.

Maisie

It’s too bad the man who runs the bookstore dislikes me so much. I’d really hoped my new landlord could help me get my bearings here, but that won’t be the case.

It was rather surprising when he returned from his quest with a minotaur to carry all my new findings up to the apartment. I’ve never seen a minotaur in person, and the sheer size and volume of him boggled my mind.

But I keep puzzling over Barnaby, the one apparent human in a mostly monster town. Is he just a regular human guy with a truly terrible attitude ?

Though I’m exhausted from driving all day, I can’t rest while furniture sits in the middle of the living room, so I push each piece around until I find an arrangement I like. I place the sofa across from the television, the chair adjacent to it, with the little table with two chairs in the nook between the living room and the kitchen. It’s a tight fit, and all this gorgeous, mismatching furniture looks wildly out of place in the whitewashed apartment, but I like it.

Now that I’m sweating up a storm, I hop in the shower, which has mediocre water pressure and pretty ugly tile. Someone remodeled this place once upon a time, maybe only a few years ago, but they had very old-fashioned taste.

Finally I’m clean and dry, and after massaging some mousse through my hair, I head off to find dinner. From my window, I see a few storefronts that look like they could have food, so I slide on a pair of walking shoes and go hunting.

The diner is cute, though I’d say the mashed potatoes are a little undercooked. The waitress is a faun—I think?—with a uniform on top and furry legs from the waist down, wearing a name tag that says “Lerana.” Lerana is sweet to me as she takes my order, and there’s a slow-moving, small-town vibe about the diner that’s charming. I’m so used to the city, where everyone’s always going at a hectic pace and every restaurant is full of people. Tonight, though, there are only three other occupied tables, and my food is delivered within a few minutes.

Maybe I could get used to this. It’s not like I go out and enjoy the nightlife back home. I rarely leave the house except to get coffee, and then I spend the rest of the time in front of my computer doing what I love most.

I suppose I can do the same thing here just as well, without the chaos.

While I drink my ice water and finish my dinner, I puzzle over what comes next. What will I do with myself for four whole weeks if I can’t work on Swords of Malroth ?

Maybe I could go back to the game I started building a few years ago. I don’t have much in the way of art skills, so I’d started creating it as a pure text RPG.

Hmm. Maybe that’s what I should do. Take this moment of respite to work on something for myself and myself alone. I’ll need a little inspiration to get back into it, but I think I can manage that.

I head back to my apartment, feeling excited for the first time about this “vacation.” Maybe it’s the perfect chance to do something that would fuel me creatively. I’d thought about getting into writing or directing once upon a time, but it was just easier to get a job as a programmer.

Curiously, the light is still on inside Barnaby’s shop. BOOKSTORE is all that’s written across the window. I peer in on my way past, but there’s no one visible inside, so I go look at the store hours.

NOON TO 10 PM. Wow. Ten at night? I’ve never seen a brick-and-mortar business with hours like those.

I’m torn between going inside and heading back up to my room. I don’t want to invite another confrontation with the grumpy landlord, but maybe getting back into reading is just the thing I need to find the spark.

Besides, it’ll be a few hours before I’m even remotely ready for sleep, even after the long day I’ve had. My body is too accustomed to going to bed at two a.m.

Cautiously I push open the door to the bookstore, and the bells jingle overhead. I hear a groan from a back room.

“I’ll be right there,” Barnaby calls.

“That’s okay!” I yell back. “I’m just browsing.”

There comes another distinctive harrumph , but no one emerges.

Good. I can look around in peace for a while.

I scan the titles displayed in front of the counter, where there’s a hand-written sign that reads “Recommendations.” On the shelf is a history of metalworking, a biography of a long-dead scientist, and some historical novels by Anne Hadron. I’ve always suspected those books were a little highbrow for me as a girl who grew up reading sci-fi and fantasy, but maybe if I pick one up I can get an insight into the odd man who runs the bookstore. The Anne Hadron looks the least tedious of the bunch, so I choose one at random and put it on the counter.

Then I’m off again searching for what I really want, and eventually I find the fiction section. There’s a cover with a pair of swords on it and swooping lettering for the title, so I grab it and add it to my pile.

“Okay!” I call out again. “I’m ready.”

Grumbling follows, and a chair squeaks as it moves in the back room. Then Barnaby appears, and he doesn’t look all that pleased to see me.

“Hi!” I offer brightly. I’m going to kill this man with kindness. I’m going to murder him with it, until he can’t help but like me, at least a little. I need this to work between us for the next four weeks. “Can I buy these two books, please?”

I made sure to put the Anne Hadron on top, and he quirks an eyebrow at it.

“Have you read her before?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer reflexively, then cringe at myself. I just didn’t want him to think I was stupid. “But not much,” I add quickly. “This was on my Tbr.”

Barnaby stares at me with those penetrating, dark eyes of his. “Your what ?”

“Tbr. You know. To be read? The pile of books next to your bed that you always say you’re going to read but probably never get around to?”

His lip curls in disgust. “I take a book off the shelf when I plan to read it, and when it’s finished, I put it back,” he says as the cash register dings. “That will be thirty-two dollars.”

I pull out a credit card to pay, and with another sigh, he slides it through an ancient card terminal, and types in the total. After a few moments of awkward silence, it prints out a tiny receipt that I sign with a rather fancy-looking pen.

“Please do not take the pen when you go,” Barnaby says, as if people have tried to steal it before. After signing the receipt, I intentionally leave the dark red pen lying on top. He gently slides my books into a paper bag and hands it to me. The front of the bag also just says “BOOKSTORE.” I want to ask him what his store is really called, but I don’t want to sound like an idiot, so I thank him and head for the door.

“Thank you for your business,” Barnaby says as I open it. “I hope... you enjoy Anne’s book. That one is my favorite, I think.”

I pause halfway out into the street.

“That’s good to know,” I say. “I’ll make sure to talk to you about it when I’m finished.”

He’s silent, his face unreadable, and the pause drags on so long that I think our conversation might be over.

But just when I’m about to exit again, he says, “All right. I had a lot of thoughts about the ending.”

I flash him a sincere smile. “I look forward to it.”