[Front Blurb] [Version History and Scanners' Notes]
CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
by Mercedes Lackey
A Tor Book
First edition: August 1990
Dedicated to
Melissa Ann Singer
For more reasons than I can count
ONE
Diana Tregarde sighed, propped her chin on her right hand, and leaned on the countertop. Of all the jobs I could have taken, working in an occult supply store is not one I'd have chosen on my own. I like my profile low, thank you very much. Too many people know I'm into the Craft as it is. This just boosts my visibility. She stared out the window and tried not to feel like some poor GI in a bunker, waiting for the next scream of "Incoming!"
I hate being exposed like this. But I owe Annie . . . She flexed her shoulders, forced herself to relax. Your paranoia is showing, Tregarde. There's no reason to be this gun-shy. It's not that bad. This isn't like the Bible Belt, where I'd get crosses burned on my lawn for being a witch. And most people I run into here are either gonna take me for a flake, or a phony. Besides, I've learned my lessons about staying invisible but doing my job. Nobody's going to have to show me again, especially not the hard way. She finally laughed at herself for being so nervous. After all, what could possibly happen to me two blocks off Forty-second Street?
Then again . . .
She sighed again. The noon rush was over at Bell, Book, and Candle; now—afternoon doldrums.
This is ridiculous; I'm letting this gloomy weather get to me. All is well. We made the rent at noon. Come three, it'll be profit. The turn her thoughts had taken reminded her of the morning rush, and she snorted, thinking what the reaction to most of the otherworldly types that frequented this occult emporium would be to the word "profit." A profit is not without honor, save when it's not in your pocket.
She yawned; stretched, looked at her watch. Still got a little time. At least the lull gives me a chance to think about that stupid almost-seduction scene in chapter four.
She mentally reshuffled palm trees, sand, moonlight, hero and heroine one more time, made some internal notes—then looked out the shop window and stifled another yawn.
I should never have let Morrie set up this category-romance deal. I'm just not the type to turn out marshmallow white-bread story sandwiches. I know I need the money, but—this heroine is such a ninny. The stuff they want me to do with her is bor-ing. And I don't need to be reminded about how awful the Apple is in the winter.
"Just follow the outline," says Morrie. "It'll be easy, no thinking, just writing," says Morrie. "Bubie, you can't lose," says Morrie. "You need the dough, they want the book. You got 'em by the, you should excuse me, short hairs—they need this book and you're the only writer I got or anybody else has got that isn't contracted up right now." Morrie, you shark, I'll get you for this. You owe me. I wanted to do another Regency. I wanted to have something with a little humor in it, and something like a bit of historical accuracy. Not Hollywood's idea of Caribbean pirates. You didn't tell me the editor with his ass on the line was your brother-in-law. You creep, you knew I was a pagan, you knew I wasn't gonna be doing Christmas stuff like everybody else you've got—or even Hanukkah stuff, you snake. You knew I'd have "free time." Gods, I'm gonna get you for this. "Limpid, heavenly-blue waters of the Bahamas, sparkling beneath the full moon, as she gazes adoringly [and mindlessly] into his ebon-dark eyes," phooey.
It all only made the filthy October weather and the drab New York street outside the shop seem bleaker and the possibility of making getting even with Morrie even more appealing.
I'll fix you, Morrie. I'm gonna write that honest-to-gods historical Blood and Roses and I'm gonna make you sell it. And read it, too. Gods forbid you should learn something from it. Give you something to read on your Las Vegas vacation next year.
"I need a vacation," she muttered, while the wind flung dirty bits of paper past the grimy window. Grimy despite the fact that she'd cleaned it once this week. "Gods above and below, I need a vacation."
After a moment of self-pity, she chuckled and shrugged to herself. "But I also need to pay my rent. Morrie was right about that, anyway. I can't quite make it on writing yet, and the reserve is getting lower than I like."
I should be thankful I've got an agent as good as Morrie. I should be grateful I've got an agent at all. If it hadn't been for Itzaak tangling with that dybbuk and me bailing him out with fairly light damage, he wouldn't have talked his good old uncle Morrie into taking me. She grinned a little. I'll never forget Morrie's face when he saw the bite mark on 'Zaak's thigh—and 'Zaak told him where it came from—and then told him where the dybbuk had been aiming in the first place . . .
. . . like, forget about "be fruitful and multiply."
The glass rattled in a gust, and a listless spatter of rain drooled across the black and gold lettering. Even the storm predicted for this afternoon couldn't get up the enthusiasm to do more than threaten.
She rubbed her eyes, and shifted her weight—and sent a little more energy into the shield around the shop. Umpty bizillion people in this city, and half of 'em unhappy at any one time. With weather like this, probably most of 'em unhappy. Yuck. Hell being an empath in the Big Apple. Hell being a big shiny target the way I am. Every time I do something arcane I feel like I've sent up a big neon sign—"GOOD EATS"—with an arrow pointing right down at me. "Hi, I'm the blue plate special. "Too damn many things I can't handle. Too damn many things I can take, but only if I get 'em from behind. She shook her head. I've got to snap out of this mood. I'm getting paranoid again. This is ridiculous. It's probably just because I'm tired.
After six hours behind the counter, her feet did hurt. She wasn't used to spending this much time on them.
And the thought of spending some time in someplace remote, isolated—and warm—
"Now if somebody would just give me enough money to pay for a vacation. And the rent. Now what's the odds I could find a sugar daddy . . . ?"
She laughed at herself. "Right, Tregarde. A sugar daddy and you. Sure. Being real bad at taking orders is the reason you don't have a mundane job. Oh well. I guess I'll have to settle for turning the heat up and putting the ocean record on when I get home."
Today had not been a good day to boost the mysterious and otherworldly atmosphere that Annie preferred to cultivate. "Mysterious and otherworldly" tended to be gloomy and chilly.
Not today. Di had turned on every lamp in the place, turned up the heat a little, and chosen cinnamon incense and spice candles and set them burning as soon as she opened. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath; it was as cozy in here as in a kitchen full of baking pies. Could be worse, could be worse. I sure can use the cash Annie's paying me. Gods, I hope the baby comes soon, though. I want to get this damned freebooter romance out of my hair. She tasted the cinnamon in the air, and thought about a hot cup of tea—
And looked up.
Looks like the afternoon rush just started.
Across the street she saw three people she knew so well she'd recognize them a mile away—and they were heading straight for the shop.
And in front of the shop was a young man with a notebook sticking out of his pocket and a peculiar look on his face. Curiosity and distaste.
Oh double hell. A re-port-er. Just in time for the afternoon rush.
The young man pushed the door open, and the string of bells over it jingled in the rush of cold, damp air. They chimed with a cheer Di could not force herself to emulate; the sour expression this lad wore did not bode well.
"May I help you?" she asked, making face and voice as neutral as possible.
He started; she could see the whole shop from where she was, but the arrangement and sheer volume of merchandise crowded into the tiny storefront tended to confuse the unwary—
She ran a practiced eye over him, as the bells on the door jingled again and Melani, Jorge, and Nita slipped in, heading straight for the "reserved" shelf and the books Annie ordered for her "regulars" in the back.
It isn't in yet, kids, but I'm glad you showed.
She watched the reporter carefully, keeping all her "feelers" tucked in, reading only body language. No use in advertising—and if he was marginally sensitive she might freak him.
Hmm. Caucasian, brown and brown. Um—twenty-five, tops. Gods. A "cub reporter." Betcha they sent him out to get him out of everyone's hair, after a silly-season fill story; he has visions of coming up with something weird enough that the wire services will pick it up. She gritted her teeth. Gods, give me patience, and give it to me now. Why can't I get more like that nice chick from the six o'clock news last week?
The classical station on the radio behind her finished baroque, and began modern, grating and interminable. Not my day, she concluded, and turned it down. The reporter looked for a path through the bookcases and standing racks of incense, notecards, and transparent "stained glass" window decals. He clutched his notebook to his chest possessively, and made his way toward the counter, emerging eventually from between two coatracks festooned with rainbow-colored "ritual robes," specifically made for the tourist trade.
Di smothered a grin at his grimace of distaste. The robes weren't real, and Annie was no dummy. Not with B, B, and C being just off Forty-second Street. The tourists and teenyboppers came looking for weird and outre, and she was perfectly happy to separate them from their money. These "magic robes" sold especially briskly just before Halloween and New Year's, and at twenty-five bucks a pop, the polyester horrors would buy a lot of diapers for Baby. And no one who patronized the shop for serious purposes minded—because Annie kept a stock of real robes, made by hand (and about as ornate as a monk's habit) in the back.
Di noticed empty hangers as he pushed past the rack, and made another mental note. Going to have to remind Annie to get Jillian to do another batch of red, black, and purple; we're low.
She knew before he even opened his mouth that this reporter was going to be one of the obnoxious ones.
"Are you Miz Sandstrom?" The very tone of his voice, strident and demanding, set her teeth on edge.
"She's on vacation," Di replied, polishing the counter with a piece of chamois and quietly signaling the trio at the back of the shop to stay out of the way for a minute. "I can probably help you."
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. His face fell, and he actually pouted. "I expected to talk to Miz Sandstrom. Give me her home address."
Without even a "please" attached. "I'm sorry," she said insincerely, wondering if he'd go away. "I can't give out that kind of information."
Because if I did, you'd print it, you little creep, and then Annie would have nuts trying to break her door down, to save her soul from the Devil.
He sulked, and glowered at her as if he blamed her personally for keeping him where he was, at the bottom of the journalistic pecking order. "My editor said she'd be here. My editor said to get an interview with a real witch."
As if Annie ran her life by the dictates of his editor. She smiled, a conciliatory, saccharin-dripping simper, and debated doing something to drive him off. But if I don't give him something to write about, he'll make up a story. Then may the gods help us. He'll be certain we're hiding something, and he'll have us sacrificing chickens and drinking acid-doctored blood cocktails at Friday night sit-down orgies. So she groveled a little, and batted her eyes, and said, in a confidential tone of voice—"But I'm a real witch."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "You are?" he asked, making no secret of his doubt.
"Uh-huh." She nodded vigorously.
"Well." He sulked a moment more, then said ungraciously, "I guess you'll do, then."
She caught Melani's eye and gave her the nod; the three of them swarmed the counter.
"Excuse me a minute—" she said. "Customers—"
Thank the gods for friends.
"What's up?" Jorge asked, making a big show of asking for some of the herb powders behind the counter.
"Reporter," she said sotto voce, and Melani grimaced. Di measured powdered dragon's blood into a plastic bag. These three were some of Annie's steadier customers—and if it weren't that they all had jobs, Annie would have asked one of them to mind the store for her instead of Di.
"Hey." Nita spoke up—a rarity. She usually let the other two do all the talking. "Tell you what—you bore him, and we'll carry him off, okay?"
"I love you," she said gratefully. "I go, I go—"
Di returned to the visitor and went fully into a character she'd created for moments like this one, the persona of "Gladys Eisendorf" (which was the name she gave him); the dullest human being on the face of the planet.
She gushed, she wheedled, she fluttered. She talked through her nose, so her voice was as whiny and grating as possible. She pitched it just on the bearable side of shrill. She giggled like a fool.
And she gave him nothing he wanted.
When he asked about Halloween ceremonies, she corrected him primly, like a schoolteacher. "It's Samhain," she said, deliberately mispronouncing it, then spelling it out for him. With a sanctimonious air she described a ceremony that made a Tupperware party seem licentious revelry by comparison. Before he could draw breath to ask another question, she proceeded to a tedious homily on Harmony, Peace and Love, and the Role of the Spirit in the Universe. It was a piece of tripe riddled with the clichés of every "The Universe is a friendly place, my child" type she'd ever had to put up with. And it was so boring that even had the young man possessed the temper and patience of Saint Francis he'd have thought longingly on satanic sacrifices before she was finished. With her as the starring attraction.
Both of these dissertations were punctuated by flirtatious asides and hungry looks—" I'm single, you know"—" If you'd like to come to the ritual, I'd be happy to vouch for you"—" We're allowed a guest, and I'm single, you know—"
It would have taken a stronger man than he was to shrug that blatant attack off.
He took notes—then pretended to take notes—and finally stopped even pretending, waiting with growing and visible desperation until she paused for a breath. He flipped the notebook closed, shoved it into his pocket, and spoke before she could get started again.
"Thank you, Miss—" He'd obviously forgotten her name, and hurried on so that she wouldn't notice the lapse. "Thank you very much, you've given me plenty of information. I'm sure I can do a terrific article from what you've given me. Of course, I can't promise that my editor will print it—"
She hid a grin. Weaseling out of it already, hm?
"—but you should know, middle-class values, bourgeois materialism, chauvinistic prejudices—"
You rattle that stuff off quite well, laddybuck. Covered the peace movement lately?
"—but of course I'll try, sympathetic exposure, put a word in the right places—"
He was babbling now, and backing away, carefully, as if he were afraid that if he turned his back on her she'd throw a net over him. She encouraged that belief.
"You don't have to go—" she cried faintly, flapping her hands frantically. "I have plenty of time. No one ever comes in here this time of day!"
"No! I mean—"
The trio, who had been awaiting this moment of retreat, swooped down on him.
And suddenly, with Nita, exotic, dark-eyed Nita, Nita the professional belly dancer, cooing at him, "witchcraft" became a lot more interesting. And the shop a lot less interesting. And the absent "Miz Sandstrom" a creature of no importance. She watched the transition with veiled amusement. Before thirty seconds had passed, the "terrible trio" had him neatly bedazzled and were luring him out the door; notebook, the shop, Annie, and "Gladys" forgotten.
When they passed out of sight, she leaned against the counter and wheezed, laughing too hard to get a full breath, tears coming to her eyes.
She'd managed to get herself under control when the bells jingled again, and a middle-aged couple who had tourist writ across their expressions in letters of flame crept in. By now the classical station, as if in apology for the first two pieces, was playing Dvorak's New World Symphony.
...
widez2