“What are you doing here?” Erika asked.
“I’m looking for a book,” Balz replied. And wasn’t it a relief to be honest with her about something, anything.
“So is she.” The shop owner smiled and tugged at the sleeve of his patched-up cardigan with an arthritic claw. “Perhaps you are looking for the same book?”
Some instinct had Balz checking out the old guy again and all he got was the impression of tufted white hair growing from the eyebrows, the sideburns, the ears—then again, given the clutter of the shop, he wouldn’t have expected a fade and a set of manscaped arches and lobes on its owner. And how the poor guy managed to sell anything to anyone was a mystery. There were books all over the counter, and even more books in the back, an open door that led into a dim storeroom revealing stalagmites of tomes sprouting from the floor and heading for the ceiling.
“Allow me to answer your question, young lady.” The man smiled at Erika, his watery eyes as focused as Mr. Magoo without his Coke-bottle specs. “The book you speak of, the one I sold to Mr. Herbert Cambourg, came to me by chance. My best finds are always by luck, as if there is a channel of good fortune that brings them to me. In the case of Mr. Cambourg’s purchase, a man simply walked in off the street with the volume. He had no idea what he was holding in his hands and told me so quite plainly. He wanted a hundred dollars for it. I gave him the money without hesitation. I knew before even opening the cover that it was very old, very rare.”
There was a pause, as if Erika was hoping Balz would leave. Then she cleared her throat. “Did the man say where he got it from?”
“He told me he’d found the book in an alley, as if someone had thrown it away. Can you imagine?” The old man glanced at Balz. “Is this the reason you have come as well? The book you were looking for?”
As Balz’s instincts prickled, he looked past the shop owner again, to the darkened storage room.
“I’m afraid it’s rather a mess back there.” The old guy turned away from the register and creaked over to shut the door. “I’m going to get to cleaning it, however. Very soon.”
As the shop owner returned, he linked his gnarled fingers and leaned into the chipped counter. At his elbow, a series of handwritten receipts had been stabbed onto a nail stand, and given the fine coating of dust over the flimsy slips, it seemed like they were a record from a year ago. A decade ago.
“What was the title,” Balz asked in a low voice. “Of this book.”
“It did not have one.”
“So what was the content?”
“It was in a language I do not speak.”
“But you paid a hundred dollars for the thing.”
The shop owner smiled, revealing a broken picket fence of stained teeth. “The inking was quite extraordinary.”
Erika spoke up. “All right, thanks for the—”
“You couldn’t read a single page,” Balz cut in, “but you knew to call a collector of gothic and ghoulish shit to buy it?”
“Why, yes.” The old man smiled again, as casual as anything in spite of the curse word used in his presence. “As soon as I held it in my hands, I knew it was perfect for Mr. Cambourg’s collection.”
With a frown, Erika stepped between the pair of them and put one of her arms out. Like she could sense the aggression. “That’s all I wanted to know—”
Balz took out his gun and pointed it over her shoulder at the old man’s head. “You’re full of shit.”
“What the hell are you doing,” she demanded.
As Erika tried to grab his arm, Balz shuffled her around behind him and held her in place. “We’re leaving—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you! What the—”
“Back in my day,” the shop owner said in a clipped voice, “men knew how to control their women. And people were not rude.”
That was when the shadow came out of nowhere. The damn thing popped up from the floor, or maybe it came around one of the shelves—but like that mattered? As Erika continued yelling at him and yanking at his hold on her, Balz swung his gun to the right. The entity was the size of a fighter, broad in the shoulders, narrow at the waist, thick in the leg, but it had no facial features and no true corporeality. Translucent, but capable of wielding weapons and throwing punches, Balz didn’t need to stare into any kind of eyes to know it was soulless, dangerous, and out for blood.
Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger three times in a row. The shadow was hit once, twice, three times in the chest, its dark cloud-body taking the bullets as if it were solid, an unholy screeching exploding into the air as it was driven back.