“Perhaps a little bit of both, Sam,” added Max, picking up on my thoughts a little too easily. “She was, after all, once my mother.”

  We were both silent, and I honestly didn’t know what to say to the guy. That he’d had the world’s most dysfunctional childhood, I didn’t doubt. At what point she had quit being his mother and had taken on the role of Queen Bitch of Darkness, I didn’t know. Max had hinted at seeing terrible things—strange rituals, torture, human and animal sacrifices, and, I suspected, all manner of things that go bump in the night, including real demons and God knows what else these self-proclaimed highly evolved dark masters had summoned from, I imagined, Hell itself.

  An air conditioning unit clicked on inside the room, and I wondered who the hell had installed an AC unit in the Occult Reading Room. Max grinned, still following my thoughts. “It hasn’t always been the Occult Reading Room, Sam. It was once a special collections room for the university.”

  “So you hijacked it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “And put some sort of spell on it.”

  “You could say that, too.”

  He held my gaze, and I knew our connection was strong, and even though I couldn’t see a lick into his mind, I knew he was in mine now, probing deeply, I suspected. I supposed I could have told him to stop or thrown up one of my better walls or, well, kicked his loving ass. But I liked the Alchemist. A lot. Had things been different and Mad Max had been, say, a little less serious, I could have seen myself having a drink with him, or more. But I let that thought slip by, knowing that he had undoubtedly seen it.

  But the Alchemist had to know that he was kind of my hero, too. Not only had he saved Anthony from a life of vampirism, his advice in all things had saved my ass time and again. That his mother had been a dark master, well, was something else entirely. Max’s early career as an alchemist had taken a decidedly different course, one in which he had devoted his life to fighting the very darkness his mother represented. Fighting and, I suspected, winning. Indeed, Max had been instrumental in sealing his mother—and others like her—away. Removing them from the earth plane into something called The Void. I don’t usually use words like “earth plane,” but Max did. And he knew more about this stuff than anyone did. Even if he did only look twenty-two. Someday, I would ask him how he and others had defeated the dark masters.

  “Yes, a very active mind, indeed. And thank you. It’s always nice to be called a hero.”

  I shrugged and would have blushed, except blushing required movement of blood, the pumping of blood. My blood moved like molasses through my veins.

  “Very, very active,” murmured Max.

  I tried to quiet my mind, to give him better access. I trusted him. He was in there for a reason. Soon, I found myself looking deep into his bright blue eyes and I thought there was a small chance we had a moment; that was, until he blinked and cut our connection, and I realized that I was the only dope who’d had a moment. Or two.

  “The boy in your thoughts, the boy who is missing...”

  “Luke?”

  He nodded. “Yes, Luke. I see him there, but he’s faint, almost blurry. Is he...”

  I nodded, following his drift. “He’s a memory of a memory.”

  “Ah, that explains why I can’t connect his name and why he seems so phantasmagorical.”

  I nodded, impressed. “Phantasmagorical is my new word of the week. Hell, the year.”

  He smiled politely. Max wasn’t as silly as I sometimes thought he was. Or hoped he was. All it took was for me to remember he wasn’t a 22-year-old guy, but a 500-year-old man. I mentally walked Max through how I came across the memory of Luke, culled from the mind of Raul, the old Mexican brujo. A witch.

  “Raul is a good man. He’s one of us.”

  “Not to be rude, but he’s old,” I said. “And you look so young.”

  “Not all are alchemists, and not all choose to be immortal, Sam. It takes... great effort to do what I do.”

  “You mean, to stay young?”

  He nodded. “Indeed.”

  “You don’t sacrifice kittens and/or puppies, do you?”

  “No. But I do spend a considerable amount of time each day, sometimes hours, in deep meditation, silently reciting powerful and dangerous incantations.”

  “How dangerous?”

  “One mistake would be the end of me.”

  “Yikes.”

  “And not just the end of me, Sam. It would banish me to the same plane as the dark masters.”

  “I want to know more about that plane.”

  “Another day, Sam. When you are ready.”

  “Fine,” I said, a little miffed. I was a grown-ass woman. Who said I wasn’t ready?

  “Perhaps I misspoke, Sam. When I am ready, might be more accurate.”

  Okay, feathers officially unruffled. I said, “Well, a few memorized incantations seem a small price to pay to live forever.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know where he was going with it. “It limits you,” I said. “It binds you to your rituals or whatever you call it. Hard to be-bop around the globe when you are forced to spend a few hours a day in what I assume is isolation.”

  “You assume correctly.”

  “And you probably have your potions and crap everywhere. All bubbling and frothing.”

  “Not quite, but close. I do carry a travel bag of, as you say, potions and crap.” He nodded and winked.

  “And if I had to guess, I would say it all takes place back there,” I said, pointing down the dark hallway.

  “A good guess,” said the Librarian, this time offering me a grin. Then he smiled sadly and looked away. “It’s not easy being us.”

  “Being sexy? I agree.”

  He grinned again. “You and I and others like us defy natural laws. In doing so, there’s a price to pay, so to speak. With you, it’s the routine consumption of blood. With me, it’s spending hours in solitude each day, without fail.”

  “And if you did fail?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  I did, yes. Death and banishment. “I can see why you hang around this dusty old place. You need peace and quiet.”

  “Oh, I’m only here for a few hours a day, Sam. Often, I can be found elsewhere.”

  “I sense you are segueing into something.”

  “Your intuition is as strong as ever, Sam. Indeed, I also run a school of sorts.”

  “And what, pray tell, is a ‘school of sorts’?”

  “Myself and a few others like me teach the ways of alchemy.”

  “My God, so Hogwarts is real?”

  He smiled. “Close, but not quite. It is a school, yes, and we do teach the children a wide variety of subjects. But that’s where the similarities end. The kids we teach go on to become what we call Light Warriors.”

  I’d heard the term before. “Are we really having this conversation?”

  “We are, Sam. In a secret room here at Cal State Fullerton, surrounded by enough books to summon Voldemort back many times over.”

  “Geez, you’re good.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  “Fine,” I said. “So what, exactly, is a Light Warrior?”

  “We give balance to the world of darkness, Sam.”

  “I take it I’m no Light Warrior.”

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  “I’m trying not to take offense.”

  “Then let me put it this way: I consider you an ally.”

  I shrugged, but I was still kind of butt-hurt. “That’s good enough, I suppose.”

  “Remember, Sam, you are a vessel for the darkest of them all.”

  “I get it, I get it. Okay, so who selects the children?”

  “We don’t select them. They are born into this business, so to speak.”

  “What do you mean born...?” But my voice trailed off as I thought back to the memory Luke’s aura, as seen by Raul, and just recently by Maximus; in particular, the beautiful silver serpent.

  “Exactly, Sam. The boy, Luke, is marked.”

  “Marked for what?”

  “In his case, I fear, death. Had we gotten to him first, it might have been a different story.”

  “I really, really don’t understand.” And I was also feeling really, really sick to my stomach.

  “Luke, as you might have guessed, is from Hermes Trismegistus’s bloodline. As am I. As are you. As are all alchemists or potential alchemists. You, of course, were destined to be on a different path. A witchy path.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “A little angel told me.”

  “Ishmael?”

  Max nodded. “You have lived many lives, Samantha Moon. In each, you have gravitated toward the earth arts.”

  “Witchcraft.”

  He nodded. “Yes. This incarnation was to be different. In this current and, I regret to say, last incarnation, you were once again born into the great alchemist’s bloodline.”

  “I wasn’t always before?”

  He shook his head. “Occasionally, but your witchy talents were not quite ready yet, you could say. Your birth in this current and last incarnation is what truly interested the dark masters. Now, for the first time, they had a powerful witch born into an alchemical bloodline, and they were veritably licking their lips.”

  “So you’re saying I didn’t have a prayer.”

  “You had all the protection we could give you, Sam.”

  “We?”

  “Myself and others.”

  “Other Light Warriors?”

  He nodded. “And your guardian angel. His betrayal, you could say, came as quite a shock to myself and my fellow warriors.”

  My angel had done it out of love, he claimed. He had done it so that he would be released from his service to me. Until now, I had not known the depth of his betrayal. The bastard had really set me up.

  “Yes, Sam. It is true. Had I not put all my trust in him, you would, quite possibly, be one of us today.”

  “Or a witch.”

  “Or both.”

  I nodded. “Like Raul.”

  “Indeed. He is both brujo and a Light Warrior.”

  Max waited until most of this sank in. And, of course, he would know the moment it all sank in since the cute little bastard was right there inside my head with me. A moment or two later, he went on: “All those in the Hermetic bloodline boast the silver marker, available for all to see. At least all those with eyes to see. It is, unfortunately, our calling card.”

  “But I can’t see your aura.”

  “Indeed. Most immortals can’t see each other’s auras. Or read each other’s minds. I suspect it’s for self-preservation. Most of the dark masters were scheming against each other. Most have a built-in shield, so to speak. The moment I became an alchemical master, my own aura disappeared from the eyes of other immortals.”

  “You hid it.”

  “In a way, yes. Truth is, when one reaches the immortal status, there is no longer soul leakage.”

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “But accurate. When one becomes an immortal, one’s soul is forever sealed in one’s earthly vessel.”

  “Wait for it...” I said, and then mimicked my head exploding.

  He laughed, perhaps for the first time. Damn, it was a nice laugh. I said, “But you can read my mind. I can’t read yours or Kingsley’s or any other immortals’ mind.”

  “My ability to read minds is a gift, if you want to call it that, from my mother, who was and perhaps still is, the world’s greatest mind reader.”

  “Sweet mama, that explains a lot.”

  “It does.”

  “Okay, let’s put a pin in that,” I said.

  “Consider it pinned.”

  I nodded. “So those born with the Hermetic mark are, well, marked. By both good and evil forces?”

  “Indeed.”

  “So that would mean my own parents—”

  “Your mother, to be exact. And, yes, she was protected by one of us, too.”

  I gasped. “The cross she wears...” I don’t often see my mother, but she’s out there, living her mundane life in Las Vegas. Anyway, I had seen the same cross in every picture. I mean, in every freakin’ picture, from ages five and up.

  “Yes, Sam. One of my own talismans. It renders the silver serpent invisible. And, yes, she’s been wearing it ever since our first meeting when she was, I want to say, five years old.”

  “So you saved her life.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Was she a witch, too?”

  He shook his head. “No. And neither was she an ideal candidate for alchemy school.”

  I snorted. And then I laughed. Hard. Right there in the Occult Reading Room. The thought of my nagging but sweet mother, working secretly as a Light Warrior was just, well, too unreal. And too damn funny. Wait until Mary Lou heard this one.

  “Wait, my sister. Her opal ring—”

  The Librarian nodded. “Another talisman.”

  “Jesus, you’ve been here with us, all along.”

  “Yes, Sam.”

  “And my daughter?”

  “I have not approached your daughter. We figure she is well protected by you, at present. As is your son.”

  And as he spoke those words, he held my gaze, perhaps longer than he had intended to... or exactly as long as he had intended to. But the meaning was damn clear to me.

  “Oh no,” I said. “You can’t have him. Not yet, anyway.”

  “We don’t want him now, Sam, but Anthony would make a very, very fine Light Warrior.”

  I protested some more, shaking my head and mostly mumbling to myself, but I couldn’t deny the obvious: yeah, my son would, undoubtedly, make the best Light Warrior ever.

  “Can we change the subject?” I asked.

  “To whatever you want, Sam.”

  “Fine. Okay. Let me catch my breath. You know, so to speak.”

  “So to speak,” he repeated, nodding.

  “Okay, so if I was marked by the baddies from an early age, why did they wait so long to turn me?”

  “I imagine they waited for you to reach peak age.”

  “Peak age?”

  “The age my mother would have wanted to be alive again. An age when you were fully mature, and naturally at your strongest. Her own supernatural propensities would only make you stronger.”

  I found myself pacing the small area in front of the help desk. As I did so, I ignored the hissing from the books, the beckoning calls. There was something else pulling at me, something from my unconscious mind that was itching to rise to the surface. As I paced, Max continued, “Unfortunately, the young ones are an obvious target for the dark masters, too. Many do not make it to our schools. Many do not make it to their teens. Most perish, murdered, and often slowly.”

  Now, I was really sick. “What do you mean, slowly?”

  “Their blood is highly valued, Sam. The children are drained, usually of every drop. The blood of Hermes Trismegistus can increase a vampire’s power considerably, and often for quite a long time after.”

  “Then why drain them slowly? Why kill them at all?” My words were coming in short gasps. The thing that had lain hidden just below my subconscious was creeping up, as the pieces were falling into place.

  “Because most vampires are afraid of them. Afraid of what they will become. Afraid that other Light Warriors will come searching for them, and we have, when possible. Better to do away with them as soon as possible. That is, after capturing all their magically-enriched blood.”

  I pressed my cold palm against my cold forehead. I continued pacing, continued ignoring the increasingly urgent hissing from behind me.

  “Why do your books call to me?” I said irritably.

  “They call to her, Sam.”

  I nodded. I should have known that.

  “It is a rare day that I allow, pardon me, someone of your kind into this room. The books, and the demons sealed within, are many... and they are understandably excited.”

  I shook my head, ran my fingers through my hair. More pacing. My mind went back to Luke. “You say they are drained slowly. How slowly?”

  “The process, from what we understand, usually takes a week or more.”

  Which might explain why Johnny had shown up seven days after his disappearance, drained of all blood. Of course, he had also been partially consumed by, from all appearances, a lake monster. He could have bled out through his many gaping wounds... or he could have been bled out before.

  Jesus. I continued pacing.

  “Yes, the first boy,” said Max, clearly followed my train of thought. “His connection to Hermes was not as strong, the silver serpent merely a thread; indeed, he might not have made a very good alchemist, but a vampire wouldn’t have cared. To a vampire, the boy would still have been a prize. And two such boys in the same small city, almost unheard of.”

  “And why didn’t you get to them first?” I said, turning on the Librarian, who was watching me closely from behind the desk.

  “We were unaware of them, Sam. Some children slip through the system, so to speak. Those we find, we protect.”

  “Do all go to your school?”

  “Only those who have the most promise.”

  “And the others?”

  “We do what we can to protect them. Often for the rest of their lives. We give them talismans to conceal their true natures. We watch over them often. Of course, if your son or daughter chooses to join us, they won’t need such protection. They will be safe with us. Indeed, someday they will be providing the protection for others.”

  “And continuing the fight.”

  He bowed slightly, not taking his eyes off me. “The battle has been won, Sam. We see ourselves only as guardians.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  “Of course. Some enter our school at young ages. Some when they are nearing adulthood. We tailor their education and training for their needs and goals.”

  “Or your needs and goals.”

  He nodded once. “Maybe a little of both.”

  I resumed pacing. I could not wrap my brain around my kids going away to some secret school for alchemy training. I paused, hands on hips, took some deep breaths. “So more than likely—at this very minute—Luke is being drained dry by a vampire who knows what he is.”