Erika's Books (Urban Fantasy Pilot)

Hi folks! For those of you not on the discord, turns out the sick my friends gave me was COVID. Glad for vaccines, but it still KO'd me for a couple days. As a result, while I wrote a little yesterday, and will be writing more today, I've missed posts. Teeechnically I only promised 1 post between the 14th and 21st, but yeah not gonna use that excuse.

The next S&S post is half finished, and I can hopefully get SoW out tonight too. BUT. Until then and just in case, have a pilot for something else I am working on. Originally, I was gonna sit on this for longer, but I think it's pretty good and you folks deserve a content post. This will either sub in for S&S after V2 if it doesn't pick up when I advertise it, or show up in some form if I go to 1/week posting (per story) at year's end.

As one last thing: this is a pilot and subject to change details before or if it becomes a full story.

“It’s the night before Halloween!” I hissed into the receiver, struggling to keep my voice down. “You know I make most of my money tonight, and you’re asking me to close shop early?”

“I’m not asking you to close shop,” the voice on the other end replied with a pleading tone. “Don’t you have an assistant now?”

My sharp ears picked up murmuring, and I glanced around the store. Shelves full of used books were covered in a mix of Halloween decorations and very real cobwebs. A few people had turned to look my way. I gave them my best fanged smile, playing up my “costume” and leaning against the wall behind the register where Dave was working.

I twirled the cord of the old phone between two fingers. “…I do.” I lowered my voice even further. “But he’s not ready to help clients out with the restricted section yet.”

Dave heard me and muttered “whatever man” low enough that I shouldn’t have been able to hear.

“Erika, please—“

“And manyof my clients tonight and tomorrow purchase or sell books that belong there. They can’t on other nights, some of them.” I saw a young couple—two girls in matching werewolf costumes—approach the register carrying two older tomes and a relatively modern copy of “The Colours of Fae” by Hieronymus Carver. For a second, I wondered if they’d snuck into the restricted section, but I remembered the modern version was heavily redacted. I placed my hand over the receiver and tilted it away from my mouth. “Did you find everything alright?”

“We did!” the shorter of the two chirped, fake wolf ears bouncing. “This place is so cool! Most places put up Halloween decorations and stuff, but it feels, like, so much more here.”

“She means she likes your vampire costume,” the taller one said.

“Exactly!”

The voice on the other end pleaded again, and the desperation wore at my apathy. I could understand the words, but I pretended not to. Agent Malinda Hendricks could wait another minute if she was going to lose me a quarter of my whole year’s earnings. I liked Dave, and I reallydidn’t want to have to let go of the first good assistant I’d hired. First assistant, period, really, but he was competent. And his 1970’s hippie getup was really good.

“—and it’s just so cool that it’s, like, casual and also really reallooking. Your fangs don’t look fake, and the little points on your ears and your nails are just excellent.”

“Thanks!” I beamed, honestly happy for the compliment. “I put a lot of work into it.” Not in the way she thinks, though.

Dave started to ring them up, and I took my hand off the receiver the moment their attention turned away. “What are you paying?” I hissed quietly.

“Finally!” Hendricks huffed. “And I’m paying my usual rate.”

“Triple,” I said, looking out at the full bookstore and wincing. I knew already that I was probably going to get talked into whatever case this was, but that didn’t make it hurt less.

“Triple?!” The exclamation came after a sucked in breath and a substantive pause.

“You heard me.” Normally, I wouldn’t push—business was business and I could often barely afford to keep the lights on. So to speak, at least. But tonight? I needed this.

“Aren’t you broke?”

“You’re asking me to give up the only real money I make.”

“Double.”

I quirked an eyebrow. Double? Agent Hendricks never offered double. The Agency in general didn’t as a policy; I’d just been trying to get her off the line, or at least for her to feel bad. Double meant she was going out of pocket.

And that meant she had my full attention. “How many days’ work?”

“Tonight and tomorrow. I’ll pay a full day today. If it goes any longer, consider this job a full repayment of the favor you owe me.”

In the middle of some quick math in my head, I froze. She was going to call in that favor? In an instant, I went from frustrated to nervous. “What is this about, Malinda?”

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

I listened, taking a second to filter out the noise of the shoppers, waving to the nice couple on their way out into the dark of the young night. As the door slipped closed, I caught a pair of square taillights from a car parked out front, and the faint rumble of an idling V8. “Are you outside?”

“Yes. Please, Erika, it’s really serious. I’ll call in that favor you owe me right now if I need to.”

“No!” Several people jumped at my sudden shout and I hissed an apology at them, waving my hands in a frantic gesture. “Let me close up the back room and I’ll be right out.”

On the other end, Agent Hendricks let out a long sigh. “Thanks, Erika—you don’t know how much this means to me. Really, I don’t see why everyone still—”

“May I see the restricted section?” a customer interrupted.

Shoot. “Hendricks, can I—”

“I heard.” She sighed and practically heard her wry smile. “You need to go there to lock up anyway. Make it fast—I want to leave here five minutes ago.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right out.” I looked up at the customer as I spoke. They were a thin man, with sharp facial features, sallow skin, and… sharp teeth. A dark trenchcoat wrapped around them, grimy black at its edges. Not a vampire—I’d recognize that. Fey then, and probably winter court.

Fae always paid, though, even if the… currency was unusual. And on the off chance this individual was high up in the fae hierarchy, I wasn’t going to risk offending them.

So, I smiled wide at them, matching their many sharp teeth with my own fangs, extending them just a little. “Certainly. What may I call you?”

“Ah,” the fae tutted. “I do not know your name.”

“You may call me Erika,” I replied. Names had power, but just a first name wasn’t going to do him much good.

“And you may call me Mr. Winters.” The smile vanished, and they gestured to the rear of the store. “Shall we.”

I was right about the court—and maybe more. Or it’s all just a ruse.

“Certainly.” I hung the phone up, hoping that Agent Hendricks at least caught some of it—enough to know I was dealing with a customer outside the ordinary. Fae were certainly uncommon outside their own realm—particularly fae of this man’s stature. And as customers?

I hadn’t one this year, or the year before.

A true treat. Not that I would ever dare for one’s blood—I swore off hard drugs years ago.

“After this customer, I’ll need to be out the rest of the night.” I said to Dave as I walked past. “You think you can handle the normals?”

“Do I get paid extra?”

I thought about Agent Hendricks’s fee, and bit my lip. “Double.”

Dave’s brows shot up. “Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” I purred and led Mr. Winters—he was close to seven feet tall even mid-slouch, and thin as a rail—toward a hinged bookcase. No, it wasn’t a secret room—space was merely at a premium. Thankfully no one was browsing for pulp vampire romance novels. Lesbian ones, mostly. Trash, the lot of them, and I’d read them all just to be sure.

The case swung to the side revealing an old door with an older doorknob. My key clicked into the lock with ease. The next step was much harder, and a lot more important. Thankfully, I’d optimized my wards for speed and I was through in moments. “This way, please.”

The definitely-fae nodded eagerly.

“Let me know what book of mine interests you, and we will discuss a potential deal,” I said carefully. Treating with fae was always… trying at the best of times. Often, it didn’t help that they saw me as some rogue element long estranged. Something to be trapped. Right now I needed to be straightforward and clear, even if it meant losing a little profit.

“I already know,” the man said coldly.

Funny enough, I didn’t think his anger was directed at me. Or… anyone really? I couldn’t get a read on his emotions, and that bothered me. I closed the door with a soft click, leaving us in the dimness of the single lamp with its old, orange-tinted bulb. In here, I caught his scent more acutely: old snow and rotting pine needles.

The low light made the bluish tinge of his skin all the more pallid, though his face was away from me. Away and toward the case containing my rarest tomes. I bit my lip nervously, and slid to one side, allowing him to browse. My eyes roamed the other shelves in here, stacked about two-thirds full with tomes containing all kinds of arcane and occult knowledge. Things most people called “fantasy.” Things I once did, too—until I inherited this shop.

“Top row, one to the left of the middle.” His chill voice startled me, and my eyes shifted for a half-second, the room suddenly brighter than daylight.

I blinked, and they returned to their normal, gray-green hue. “Understood. Do you wish to look it over, determine its condition?”

“I do.”

“After you have observed its condition, and no more than ten—no, five—pages of its content, we will discuss payment.”

“I agree.”

The words snapped shut like a vise, and then the feeling was gone and my hand was over the lock. A quick flick dispelled yet more wards, and I opened the case. Let’s see, top row, one left from the middle. The shelf only had two rows, and it was organized just like the rest of the store. Well, not quite. It wasn’t undone by wandering hands and a willful misunderstanding of dewey decimal.

My eyes followed my hands, landing on a thin book with a cover of midnight blue. Specks of flaking leather dotted it like stars, and the spine bore no notation. A single finger brushed it, and I shivered in the cold. My heart beat—just once.

Lure of the Night by Myrthe Angenent.

The very book my sire—sun burn her soul—wrote concerning the nature of the night and the boons it granted as pertaining to vampires. Not just vampires either. Anything that gained power away from the sun—things that mortals often found irresistible. Things they’d romanticize and humanize. Hence the title.

Just like I had…

“Miss Erika?”

“Ah, yes, of course.” I pulled the finger-thin book out, deliberately looking away from the cover and her name embossed in silver script—coated so as not to tarnish, nor burn.

Even distracted as I was, I watched over his shoulder as the man, with slender, bony fingers, reverently opened the book. He glanced at one page, then another. His eyes lingered on the center pages—bible-thin and glossy—where the Night’s Arcana was.

The “Night’s Arcana.” A unifying theorem that she was ever fond of. It was… brilliant; flawed and misunderstood, but brilliant. And I hated her even more for that. This copy I’d only put out for sale as I hoped to be rid of it.

I never thought anyone would buy it—even if it was one of only two dozen ever printed, and on a Gutenberg press no less. Not the first iteration, but a later one. And now, well, I had a pit in my stomach, and the time since my last feeding started to gnaw at me weeks ahead of when it should have.

With a soft, decisive sound, Mr. Winters closed the book. “Marvelous,” he said with a smile full of tiny daggers that shone under dark, beady eyes. “What is your price?”

I gulped, then took a deep breath. He already knows I’m shaken. I’m not going to get the best deal. “Two thousand United States dollars.”

“Agreed.”

What?

Mr Winters smiled, and I shivered. “I assume paper money is amenable?”

“I, uh, yeah. I mean, yes, that would be amenable. That copy of Lure of the Nightin exchange for two thousand United States dollars, to be paid in authentic cash to me immediately.” I repeated it to be sure, and also because I couldn’t believe a fae would just agree to a deal. Then again, money wasn’t something that really made sense to them.

“Very well.” The man reached inside his trenchcoat, his hand moved around for a few moments, and I heard the rustling of bills against each other. Did he bring even more? Could I have gotten more?

No, Erika, be happy that he is pleased and you are not cursed or indentured.

After only a few seconds, he withdrew an envelope, aged and yellow. I took it and counted the bills inside. Fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills, and one five-hundred-dollar bill. The date on it said 1945, and none of the other bills were printed later than 1950. I didn’t ask to check if they were real; they would be as promised.

“This looks good.”

“Then our deal is complete.” The man slid the midnight blue book into his coat. “Pleasant hunting this Eve,” he intoned, with a shallow bow. I could hear the proper noun in “Eve;” he meant tomorrow night.

Numbly, I opened the door for him and let him out. Mr. Winters walked briskly out of my shop, narrowly avoiding bumping another costumed couple—these ones fake vampires with bulky plastic fangs. I wondered if I’d somehow made a mistake, and the bills felt heavy in my hand.

Just in case, I pocketed them. For a moment, I stood there, dumbfounded, and then I remembered to lock the door and rearm the wards. After sliding the bookcase full of junk reads back in place, I walked up to the counter and nodded at Dave. “Back room’s closed. Anyone has a major issue with that, take their name and note down a way to get in touch with them—no matter how insane it sounds—on a notecard. I’ll contact them as soon as possible. Tomorrow might even be an option depending on how tonight goes.”

“Double pay, right?”

“Yes, double pay.”

“Double overtime if I work late?”

“If there are customers and you feel up to it, sure. Just make sure the shop is closed before 2AM.” The witching hour started at 3AM, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Dave didn’t deserve to die—or worse.

“I can do that, man.” He pumped the hippie accent up a little bit, smiling under round, magenta lenses. “If I do overtime, can I get the week of the seventh off?”

I heard a car horn outside. Shit. “Yeah, sure. Paid and everything, but it’s coming out of your vacation.”

“Sweet.”

“I gotta run. Stay safe.”

Dave gave me a quizzical look as I bounded out the door. Outside, the sidewalk was slick from mist, and the air held the scent of rain. Not the petrichor of past showers, but the almost-metallic taste of an incoming storm. A nearly full moon hung overhead, visible through a gap in the clouds. The light lit up the street almost uncomfortably.

All that was ruined by the chatter and patter of Halloween crowds roaming through the streets of Undertown. Once part of the Seattle Underground, it’d been rebuilt and reworked into an area for trendy shopping with a performative element of history. All that was two blocks over—my place straddled the border with the international district, only a few blocks from the skyscrapers, but a world apart.

A small bookstore on a small street, packed into the bottom floor of a narrow brick building that was so old I almost doubted it had ever seen better days. Most of the time, the people outside shuffled by with hoods up and heads down. Bars covered the windows, and the inset door had a gate ready to be pulled across. Right now, the gate was covered in cartoon spiders and fake, soaked webbing.

I passed it by in a rush and jogged toward Hendricks’s car, cursing that I’d decided to wear heels to go with a pantsuit and bow tie. Truth be told, I loved heels, especially because the only real thing I missed from my life as a mortal—and my old body—was my height. I was still tall, but I didn’t have that sort of intimidationfactor from it—even in heels. That didn’t mean they were the right choice all the time.

Malinda Hendricks’s car was recognizable. A late seventies Olds Toronado, it was black with a crimson interior, and its hood was shaped like a coffin. She always joked that I should be driving it instead of her. Why that was, I didn’t understand.

It rode like my couch. Handled like it, too.

It was also huge in that sort of comically sad way that only malaise-era American cars were, and it took me longer than I’d like to run around to the passenger door, heave it open, and slide inside.

“Took you long enough,” Hendricks said, her voice anxious.

I could practically taste her anxiety—it bordered on fear. “Sorry. Important customer.”

“The tall, thin, shifty-lookin’ guy?” She put the car in gear and pulled away smoothly, the car bouncing like a waterbed.

“Yeah.” I took a look at Malinda. Her eyes had dark bags under them, but her shoulder-length brown hair was neatly tied in its usual ponytail. Her sharp jaw was set, hard, under a stern nose, and her pale brown eyes glanced from the road to me as the wipers squeaked across the windshield.

“He human?” she asked.

“Fae, I’m almost certain. Winter court if I had to guess.” I buckled myself and sat up straight, almost, but not quite matching Malinda’s height. To the average onlooker, I was the small, conventionally pretty one with long black hair, green eyes, and a cute nose.

Not that Agent Hendricks was a pushover, but we’d abused that fact on our other jobs together. There’d only been a few—it’d just been two years since… everything. But, those jobs had stuck out. And I owed her—bigtime.

Hendricks whistled, taking a corner at speed and waiting for the body roll to say anything. “The Agency should know about that.”

“And what would come about if they did? Restrictions for me? More problems?”

“I said should, not would.”

“Thanks, Malinda.”

She gave me a sidelong glance. “You know, some Agency folks are starting to warm up to you.”

“They are?”

“Yeah, fewer people talk about staking you out in the sun.”

I sunk down into my seat and glared at the faux-leather of the dashboard. There wasn’t a single crack—not even a speck of dust on it. “You know I deserve it.”

“You were forced to do what you did.”

“I likedit, Malinda.”

“She had your mind.”

I shuddered at the memory. “Can we… talk about the job instead?”

“Sure. Sorry, Erika.”

“Just… let’s move on. Okay? Where are we headed?”

“The morgue.”

“You’re inviting a vampire to a morgue?”

“Do you drink dead blood?”

“No, but people think we do.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

I turned my head and glared at her. It took Malinda a moment to feel my gaze on her, and when she turned her head, she frowned. “We’re just going to see one body.”

“You think they’re a vampire victim? I’ve heard nothing from the Family.”

“That’s good to know, but the case is… well, you’ll see.”

I waited for one block, until we stopped at a light. The red washed up over the waxed hood and across our faces. “The morgue’s five minutes away. You just gonna leave us in silence until then?”

Hendricks sighed. “No, I guess not. The victim’s had all their blood drained.”

“And they’re not a vamp victim? Look, the Family tolerates me. They’re not gonna tell me everything.”

“Let me finish. The blood’s all gone, but there’s not a scratch on him.”

My blood chilled. “That’s…”

“A bad thing, right?”

I nodded rapidly, mind trying to remember dusty old rituals best left forgotten. “Yeah, very.”

The light turned green and the toronado lurched forward, Malinda gripping the wheel with enough force that her knuckles were turning white.

I clicked my tongue. “I’ll have to see to know for sure—could be the coroner just missed the mark. Not all bites are on the neck—or even obvious.”

“You know they’re too good to miss a mark,” Malinda accused, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

The squeak of the wipers covered up my sigh. “New wipers?”

“Yeah.”

We stopped at the next light, and costumed people passed in front of the car in a multicolored stream. “Could be a human who knows magic. Doesn’t have to be something worse.”

“I’m worried it is.”

“Halloween?”

“Yeah.”

Malinda wasn’t the most talkative woman, but she was unusually terse tonight. As the crowd parted, a final masked duo jogging across right as the light flashed green, I put it together. “Someone you knew?”

“Yeah. Anders.”

Anders. The name rang a bell—a bright, young guy with a lot of covered up tattoos and a chipped front tooth. He’d been something lower in the agency, but I’d met him. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Hendricks snapped.

I winced. “I am—really!”

Malinda sighed. “I know, I’m just… sorry. Top brass thinks this is a vampire, open and shut. At least they say that, but they’ve got to know this isn’t right.”

“Are they okay with you pursuing this?”

“For now.”

“And if I get involved?”

“We’ll solve it by Monday.” So that’s a “don’t let them know you’re involved,” then. “Can you go out tomorrow during the day?”

I closed my eyes and tried to gauge how much life force I had in me. “I can, but I’ll need to... y'know.”

“That’s… fine.”

“I don’t kill people anymore.”

“Do they even know what’s happening?”

“Most do—I try to make sure of that.”

“And if you can’t?”

“Malinda please.”

Malinda sighed. “Sorry. I know you try.”

“Thanks.” I turned on the radio, watching the little needle move to the right as the dial turned. I stopped it on the local alternative station, turning it down low. “Did you just need me to verify it’s a vampire or not? There’s more isn’t there.”

“I’m… not sure. But I think there will be. And I already told you the agency doesn’t want me to pursue this.”

I laughed nervously. “Right, yeah.” I turned the music up a little louder.

“Could you turn that off?”

“You’re asking me—almost certainly—to fight someone or something. Let me have this.”

Malinda relaxed into the plush seat a little. “Fine. It’s only a few more blocks anyway.”