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Emma L Adams

Vampires & Verses: A Library Witch Mystery Book 10 (Paperback)

Vampires & Verses: A Library Witch Mystery Book 10 (Paperback)

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Book 10 of 15: A Library Witch Mystery

The summer carnival has arrived at Ivory Beach, and Rory and her magical family are ready to enjoy the festivities.

At least until a vampire shows up dead, a stake in his back, and a furious Evangeline sweeps in to take over the murder investigation. Edwin, head of the police, pleads with Rory to make her see reason, but the fearsome leader of the local vampires refuses to be taken for a fool. Regardless, the murder brings to mind Rory's terrifying induction to the magical world, and the group of deadly vampires set on getting their hands on the library's deepest secrets.

The recent death might have nothing to do with the Founders, but Rory refuses to take that chance. To protect her family and her newly turned vampire best friend Laney, she is determined to find answers.

Can Rory manage to cooperate with Evangeline and catch a killer, or will she find herself in an early grave?

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“You can only win one cuddly dragon! Only one!” My cousin Estelle’s voice drifted above the general chatter of the seafront as my two aunts and I made our way towards the pier. 

The summer carnival my cousin presided over had drawn quite the crowd, and the collective sound of laughter and shouting almost drowned out the patter of raindrops. The summer heat wave was officially over, but even the gloomy weather wasn’t enough to deter people from flocking to the pier, both from the town of Ivory Beach and from outside of it.

Crowds of academy students sat on the sandy slopes eating ice creams while families watched their kids ride the various attractions that filled every inch of the wooden pier that extended across the sand and into the sea. Running parallel to the beach were various stalls selling ice cream and snacks. I spotted Estelle’s curly red hair next to a stall that offered passers-by a shot at winning a cuddly toy dragon if they could successfully throw three balls into three baskets without using magic.

“Hey, Rory!” She waved at me, her expression cheery despite the rainwater dampening her red curls and running in rivulets down her face. Her silver-lined blue cloak was embossed with our family crest of an owl sitting atop a pair of crossed wands, an indication that the library was sponsoring this event. Since our family’s library was closed on Sundays, we’d all been looking forwards to helping Estelle with the grand opening, but an outbreak of book-wyrms in the history section this morning had meant Estelle had had to come to the pier alone while the rest of us dealt with the unwelcome infestation.

“Hey, Estelle.” I sidestepped a group of chattering tourists and joined her next to the display of cuddly dragons. “Good turnout. Looks like most of the town’s here.”

“Except the vampires,” said Estelle. “But that’s to be expected. It’s too bright and noisy for them.”

“That, and they sleep during the day.” My best friend, Laney, was the only inhabitant of the library who hadn’t come to join in the fun, though the sun was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds and the stiff breeze from the coast was doing its best to break the illusion that it was still summer. That was August in England for you.

Aunt Candace came bounding over, clutching a giant ice cream in her hand. “Your Reaper boyfriend isn’t here, either, Rory.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said. “He said his boss told him not to come, unless—”

“Unless someone dies,” finished Aunt Candace with her usual morbidity. “I bet the Grim Reaper is secretly a fan of carnival rides. He’ll show up after dark.”

“No, he won’t,” Aunt Adelaide told her sister. “The Reaper being absent means there’s no trouble, which is a good thing. No offence, Rory.”

“None taken.” I might be dating the town’s only Reaper apprentice, but that didn’t mean I was unaware that most people didn’t want to see an angel of death wandering around the summer carnival.

Aunt Candace tutted. She liked a little mayhem, especially when she wasn’t directly involved, but this event was Estelle’s pride and joy, and I didn’t want anything to ruin it. I’d already had to stop Cass from smuggling a pair of book-wyrms up to the Magical Creatures Division in the hopes of breeding her own colony.

“I wouldn’t speak too soon,” Cass now said from behind her mother, who’d dragged her out of the library under duress. Cass was tall and thin, like me, and she’d pulled her hood up over her red curls and buried her hands in her pockets. Coupled with her sour expression, she looked as out of place among the general cheeriness as the average Reaper.

Aunt Candace shot her a grin. “Why, do you think the vampires and Grim Reaper will both show up to the carnival after dark? That might be fun. Imagine if they both wanted to ride the carousel at the same time.”

Cass scowled and strode past without answering, her cloak billowing behind her. She had her own hang-ups concerning the vampires, though considering we had a vampire living in the library itself—two, in fact, if you counted the slumbering one in the basement—it was understandably hard to avoid them. Weirdly enough, Cass seemed to have grown less tolerant of our nocturnal guest the longer she stayed in the library, and she made no secret of the fact that she thought Laney ought to live with the other vampires instead. 

Never mind that it was partly our family’s fault that Laney had ended up in that state to begin with. Or mine, anyway, because I’d refused to surrender my dad’s journal to the group of vampires known as the Founders. That incident had led to my discovery of the hidden magical world my dad had once been a part of, and the Founders’ determination to seize the journal had led to my best friend being inducted into the paranormal world as well as becoming one of the living dead.

I’d also ended up in the unenviable position of owing a favour to Evangeline, the formidable and terrifying leader of the town’s vampires. Even Aunt Candace wouldn’t dare make jokes about her if she were present, though admittedly, the mental image of Evangeline bickering with the Grim Reaper over who was first in line to ride the carousel was kind of hilarious.

I didn’t need to encourage her, so I held my tongue and watched Aunt Candace make a beeline for the bumper cars. Upon spotting one that resembled a giant green dragon, she flagged down the pimply teenager in charge of the ride.

“Honestly.” Estelle ran to intercept her, but since Aunt Candace had already climbed into the bumper car, she and I had no choice but to watch. “She can’t drive, Rory. This is going to be a disaster.”

Sure enough, within a minute, Aunt Candace’s erratic driving had caused a pileup of no fewer than six cars stacked against the side of the racetrack.

“I can guess why she doesn’t have a driving licence,” I remarked to Estelle. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have told her we were coming. I assumed she’d want to avoid the crowds and say no.” 

“It’s fine,” Estelle said. “I’ve had to break up three duels over the bumper cars today already, so this is nothing. I’m starting to think I should have hired more staff. Or put a cap on attendees.”

“Hey, it’s all good publicity for the library.” 

At that moment, a commotion arose from farther down the pier, and the wail of a child hit my eardrums, followed by several adults shouting at one another. 

Estelle groaned. “Not again.”

“What’s going on?”

I hurried after her towards the carousel at the far end of the pier where a kid of around four or five had attached herself like a limpet to the side of a mechanical unicorn and refused to move.

“That kid has been on the ride literally all day,” she said in an undertone. “The parents keep buying more tickets. I’m surprised they haven’t run out of cash yet. Or maybe they have.”

By the looks of things, she’d guessed right, and the kid’s tantrum was due to her finally being hauled away. A frizzy-haired witch who was presumably the child’s mother was engaged in a shouting match with the terrified-looking elf in charge of the carousel. The ride had stopped in its tracks, and some of the other children were starting to raise a fuss too.  

Estelle walked over to them and spoke to the red-faced witch. They argued back and forth for a minute before Estelle returned to my side. “She seems to think the ride will wait for her to get some more cash before it starts again.”

“Doesn’t the ride only last a minute anyway?”

“Exactly.” She blew out a breath. “I told her that, and she told me I’d ruined her child’s day.”

“Unbelievable.” I took a step back as a hulking shifter came marching past and right up to the carousel, at which point the child detached herself from the unicorn and instead latched on to his arm. Was he the child’s father? I’d wager he was, though the red-haired witch promptly began yelling at him when he carried their kid away from the ride.

He ignored her shouting, though the child started wailing even louder when the ride started up again.

“We’d better go.” Estelle began to lead the way back to the bumper cars. “See what I mean about needing more staff?”

“You’d need one just to supervise Aunt Candace.” I watched her clamber out of the dragon-shaped bumper car and abandon it on the tracks, leaving a gaggle of disgruntled tourists behind her.

“That was fun,” she said, bounding over to us. “What shall I try next? Ah, there’s a carousel!”

“You’re too old,” I told her. 

“Everyone’s a child at heart,” she said. “Except possibly Cass.”

“Where is she?” While we’d been at the carousel, my cousin had slunk away, which was typical. Granted, Cass made the term ‘antisocial’ look like an understatement, but Aunt Adelaide had explicitly told her to stay out of the library.

“We’ll find her.” Estelle led the way off the pier, only to be forced to a halt by another commotion.

Next to the pier, the burly shifter who we’d assumed was the screaming kid’s father appeared to be having a tug-of-war with a stall owner over a giant stuffed red dragon. “That’s mine!” 

“Whoa.” Estelle hurried over to them. “What’s going on here?”

“He cheated!” protested the rat shifter behind the stall. “This is the fifth toy he’s won today. I’m going to run out of stock.”

Now that I looked, the stall did look a little sparse, with only three dragons hanging from its wooden frame. The rest were in the arms of the same kid who’d been clinging to the merry-go-round, whose mother was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m not cheating.” The large shifter refused to let go of his prize, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d rip the cuddly toy clean in two. Behind him, the child let out a wail. “Now look what you did. You made her cry.” 

Estelle swore under her breath and moved closer to them. “Put down the toy, both of you. Four stuffed dragons are more than enough for one person, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Estelle… be careful.” I looked for backup, but Aunt Candace had unhelpfully vanished. No doubt she’d moved to a safe distance to take notes while the shifter growled under his breath. He wasn’t going to shift into a wolf in public, was he?   

I reached into my pocket for my wand as the growl deepened—but it was the child who shifted into a wolf rather than her dad. The cherubic little girl became a fluffy ball of claws and teeth and leaped headfirst at the stall, grabbing for the stuffed dragon.

The rat shifter yelped and dove to the side to avoid being trampled, and the sound of splintering wood filled the air as the kid barrelled straight through the back of the stall—right over the edge of the street towards the beach below.

Estelle flicked her wand in the nick of time, stopping the small wolf shifter’s fall and then levitating her back to her father’s side.

“That was a close call.” Estelle lowered her wand as the young shifter’s feet touched the ground. “Please—be careful.”

The larger shifter glared at her. “That was your fault. Look how unsafe that is.” He gestured at the splintered remains of the stall and the stuffed dragons lying in the wreckage.

“Whoa.” I stepped in. “Estelle saved your kid from falling. Don’t blame her.”

The girl abruptly shifted back into a human and screamed at the top of her lungs. The noise drew the attention of the frizzy-haired witch from earlier, who promptly began shouting at the large shifter. At least they weren’t yelling at Estelle any longer, but the guy running the stall looked at the ruined pile of wooden planks in despair. Young werewolves looked more like cuddly puppies than the deadly giant killing machines their parents became, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t do any damage when they threw a tantrum.

“I’m sorry,” Estelle said to the rat shifter. “I’ll help you fix the damage, but I might have to wait until it’s quieter.”

“Thanks.” As the bickering pair and their wailing kid left the seafront behind, he gingerly picked up the cuddly dragon toy they’d dropped. “Those people are nothing but trouble. Who needs five of these things anyway?”

“It’s a substitute for terrible parenting,” said Aunt Candace, who’d materialised again with her pen and notebook in hand. Typical of her. She showed up whenever there was a crisis and then mysteriously disappeared whenever we needed her help.

“This isn’t funny, Aunt Candace,” said Estelle. “I feel sorry for their kid, really. Her parents aren’t together any longer but they both wanted to bring her to the carnival, so they’ve been trying to outdo one another all day.”

“I feel sorrier for anyone who has to listen to that abominable racket,” said Aunt Candace as the child began wailing again. “If you or Cass had done that as kids, I’d have locked you in the basement.”

“You spent all your time upstairs anyway,” Estelle said.

“Were you still living in the library when Estelle and Cass were kids?” I asked curiously.

“Obviously,” my aunt replied. “I let my sister and her husband deal with their tantrums.”

That figured. Not that I really blamed her. Cass was difficult enough to deal with as an adult, and frankly, I didn’t want to imagine her as a teenager. 

“Speaking of Cass,” I said, “where’s she gone? Not back to the library?”

“No clue.” Estelle moved to help the rat shifter pick up some of the broken planks of wood from the wreckage the rampaging shifter kid had caused. 

“Thanks,” he said to Estelle, picking up one of the remaining cuddly dragons. “I didn’t prepare for one person to try to win my entire stock.”

“I have some more in the library, don’t worry,” Estelle said. “I had an inkling they’d be popular, but maybe not that much.”

“Good.” He set about retrieving the buckets into which tourists had to throw the tennis balls in order to win a prize. “Blast. She knocked the tennis balls into the sea.”

I followed his gaze. Sure enough, the yellow tennis balls had been sent flying during the shifter’s rampage and were currently floating amid the waves that lapped around the pier.

“Anyone want to go for a swim?” Aunt Candace asked in a mischievous tone.

“No thanks.” I gave her a stern look. “You can always make yourself useful and get them out yourself.”

I pulled out my wand to retrieve them, only to take a surprised step back when the three tennis balls rose into the air before I could cast a spell. All three balls landed in the buckets at the same time, causing the rat shifter to do a double take.

“What…” He trailed off when Cass walked over, a smug smile on her face. 

“You’re welcome,” she called to us.

“Cass?” Estelle looked startled, too, most likely for the same reasons as me—namely, the rarity of her sister doing something nice for someone. “I wondered where you’d gone.”

“Thank you,” the rat shifter said to Cass. “I should give you a prize for that.” 

“No thanks,” was Cass’s response, signalling an end to her brief spell of goodwill.

“You don’t want a cuddly toy dragon, then?” I grinned in Cass’s direction. “Might be something for you to give your pet kelpie…”

“He’d eat it,” said Cass. “I don’t play silly games.”

“I do,” said Aunt Candace. “Can I have a go?”

Honestly. 

The bemused shifter handed over the tennis balls, and my aunt successfully launched one of them into the bucket and then did a celebratory dance. Cass rolled her eyes and walked away, while Aunt Candace swore when she missed the second target.

“You can have another go,” offered the rat shifter.

“Don’t encourage her,” I said. “We should go.”

Aunt Candace gave me a disgruntled look. “Spoilsport.”

“There aren’t many prizes left, and other people deserve a chance to win,” I pointed out. “Aunt Adelaide is probably looking for us too.”

Estelle nodded. “Yeah, I should keep watch to make sure that family of troublemakers doesn’t come back.”

“Come on.” I beckoned to a reluctant Aunt Candace, who shook her head at me.

“Why the rush to leave?” she asked. “Have a date, do you?”

“No, it’s raining, and we need to check the book-wyrms are definitely gone from the library—and stop Cass from smuggling any of them upstairs.” I added the last part in an undertone.

“Why not?” she queried. “It’d be a laugh.”

“No, it would not.” Book-wyrms bred like rabbits, as we’d discovered when we’d found the mess they’d made of the History Section, and if Cass adopted a pair, they’d take over the entire third floor by the week’s end. “Also, I thought you wanted me to help you with your research.”

Meaning she wanted to watch me translate my dad’s journal from the obscure code he’d written it in to plain English so she could swipe some ideas for her books. I figured she wouldn’t be able to resist that, and sure enough, Aunt Candace grinned. “Yes, I think you need to hurry up and find me some good material, wouldn’t you agree, Rory?”

“I think you need to exercise some patience.” I sometimes had regrets about giving her permission to use some details of my dad’s history in her novels because she insisted on hovering over my shoulder while I translated the code in which he’d written his journal entries and then got irritable when the passages turned out to concern laundry or train timetables instead of exciting adventures.

“Me? I have the patience of a saint.” She sauntered off, while I followed to make sure she didn’t go wandering off again. 

I found Aunt Adelaide near the road that led back to the library, along with a disgruntled-looking Cass. If I had to guess, my aunt had waylaid her youngest daughter on her way back to the library.

“Ready to head back?” she asked me. “We can always pay another visit after dark when it’s less crowded.”

“It’s never going to be less crowded,” Cass griped. “You don’t need to babysit me.”

“I need your help with wyrm-proofing the valuable books,” said Aunt Adelaide. “Only Estelle needs to supervise the carnival. The rest of you can be spared.”

Estelle was head of the library’s social events, so she’d taken on responsibility for the summer carnival as well as a series of events in the library itself for the local children who were at home for the summer holidays. Having an indoor option was a good move given that it had scarcely stopped raining since mid-July, but that made it even more essential that we evicted the library’s unwanted guests.

Honestly, I’d have rather helped with wyrm-proofing the cabinets than deal with my aunt trying to distract me while I translated my dad’s journal entries. At first, I’d been keen to translate every word to find out everything he’d wanted to keep from the Founders, but I hadn’t found another mention of them since the first adventure he’d recorded, in which he’d clashed with the vampires over his search for a particular rare book. Sometimes I wondered if the Founders wanted the journal solely so nobody else would be aware of those books’ existence at all, as they didn’t sound that valuable or dangerous.

Aunt Candace, of course, was endlessly fascinated and didn’t seem to care that the mere existence of the journal had been enough to land us on the Founders’ list of enemies. Mortimer Vale had been arrested, along with his close conspirators, but that didn’t mean the Founders were finished with me yet. 

Nor the other vampires—especially when I owed one of them a favour. Despite her manipulative nature, Evangeline wasn’t on the side of the Founders herself. She was entirely self-interested and notably interested in the journal herself, but that wasn’t the same as wanting me dead. Yet a familiar tension gripped my shoulders when I saw someone waiting next to the library’s doorstep and then relaxed when it became clear that it wasn’t a vampire. Not even close. 

Xavier, my boyfriend and the local apprentice Reaper, raised his head and smiled at me, which kicked off a flurry of warm tingles inside my chest. I smiled back as I approached him, ignoring Cass’s eye roll, while my family members entered the library ahead of us.

With one exception. When I saw Aunt Candace’s notebook and pen bouncing up and down in midair, I reached out a hand to swat them aside.

“What are you doing?” she protested.

“Stopping you from taking notes,” I said sternly. “I told you—Xavier and I have not given you permission to put our relationship into your list of book ideas.”

“Yet,” she said, but when I gave her a warning look, she relented, entering the library behind the others.

“I don’t mind her taking inspiration from us,” Xavier ventured.

“I think your boss would though.” Our relationship broke tradition and even skewed close to breaking the fundamental rules of the Reapers, as well, since they weren’t supposed to have relationships with humans. While Xavier and I had reached a mutual understanding with his boss, that didn’t mean the Grim Reaper wouldn’t stand in our way again if we crossed a line. 

“True.” He indicated the library. “Should we go in?”

“You’re not here on official Reaper business, are you?” I asked suspiciously. 

“No, of course not.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and kissed me. “I was going to come and meet you at the pier, but I saw how crowded it was out there and figured I was better off keeping my distance.”

“Wise idea.” I pushed open the door and walked with him into the library. “We can go back later when it’s quieter.”

“To the tunnel of love?” Sylvester cackled at us from the front desk, where he’d made himself at home in our absence. The large owl’s wings spread across the record book, and he swallowed the tail of what looked suspiciously like a book-wyrm.

“There isn’t one,” I said. “Have you been eating the wyrms?”

The owl belched in answer. Honestly. I wasn’t sure he needed to eat at all. He might look like an owl, but he was actually a genius loci, aka the sentient embodiment of the library itself, as well as a royal pain in the neck. 

“Hello, Xavier,” said Aunt Adelaide from the corridor leading to our family’s living quarters. “Will you be staying for dinner this time?”

“Only if everyone is on their best behaviour.” I gave a pointed look at Sylvester. “Human or otherwise.”

“Your wish is my command,” said Sylvester. “I think I will have a nap.”

Good. Sylvester and I had a complicated relationship. He liked to remind me that if not for him, the library wouldn’t even exist, to which I replied that the library would have no purpose without someone to run it. Meaning my family. I figured I was justified in, say, shutting him out of my room when Xavier and I wanted some quiet time together. Those moments were generally in short supply given how hectic my life was, but I was trying to see that as a good thing. I’d lived a predictable life once before, and I never wanted to go back to that again.

“I’d be delighted to stay,” Xavier answered my aunt.

Beaming, Aunt Adelaide ducked out of sight while Xavier took my hand. “Is that okay with you?”

“Sure.” My brain short-circuited as he pulled me in for a kiss. “Now… what was I saying again?”

“You weren’t.” He smiled against my lips. “Pity there isn’t a tunnel of love at the pier, really.”

I grinned back. “A Reaper and a human on the tunnel of love. What a visual.” 

“It’s not that unusual.”

True. My current life might be unconventional, but it was mine. I kissed him again. “You’re right. That’s enough talking.”

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