Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection by Faith Hunter

But it was Wednesday. And according to the library checkout timetable, which Alex had easily hacked, Nell Ingram always left the library at two p.m.
    I packed up and took off on Fang, most of my weapons left in the hotel room so I didn’t scare anyone. My cell was fully charged and I felt as though I was part of the world again. Being so cut off had been creepy. I had no idea when a cell phone had become part of my security blanket, along with the blades, stakes, and guns, but it had.
    ***
    Knox County’s main library library was called the Lawson-McGhee Public Library, located on the corner of West Church Avenue and Walnut Street, with a little public park behind it, and public parking close by, where I left Fang, two spaces down from Nell’s beat-up but scrupulously clean pickup truck, which I confirmed by her license plate number. Security was so much easier in the modern day, with access to so many public records protected by such poor security.
    I wandered around the block, scoping out the neighborhood, which had churches, public buildings, trees, and clean streets, and decided the location was pretty, even if the library itself wasn’t. The building looked like something out of the seventies, bulky and blocky. It was built of nondescript brown brick, had few windows, a few emergency exits that sounded an alarm when opened, and no security cameras on the exterior.
    As I approached the front entrance, I saw two homeless, bearded guys sitting on the front steps, being rousted by a cop. They needed showers and access to washing machines, but looked as though they preferred to sleep out under the night sky, weather permitting, or in a tent, rather than in a house. One of the guys had dozens of military patches on his old jacket, and the other had only one arm, no prosthesis, and stood with a hard lean to one side, as if he lived with pain.
    Just on the off chance that the men were really U.S. veterans, I gave them each a twenty to get a decent meal. Maybe they’d spend it on cheap wine, but how they used my gift wasn’t something I could control. Mostly I just wanted to say thank you for their service, and say it loud enough to remind the cop of that gift. When the homeless men took off, they were happy, the cop was thoughtful, and I was, well, I was still me, a two-souled Cherokee skinwalker who at least now had constant Internet access. But I was in a city I barely knew from previous security jobs, not well enough to rescue a kidnapped vamp. I had no backup, a thought that once would never have crossed my mind but now seemed acutely important. I liked working with the Youngers. I
missed
working with them, and hated that they were so far away.
    I felt the magic the moment I walked inside the library. It wasn’t powerful or deadly like the magic of Molly, my best friend and the mother of the aforementioned godchildren, or cold like most vamps’ magic. At first, this energy had no taste, no smell, and there was nothing I could see, unlike the glowing motes of witch power and the gray place of the change of my own magic. Yet I could sense it on the air, as if it danced across my skin, testing me, trying to get an impression of what I was. I stepped to the side of the entry and worked to exude calm as I studied the place, searching out the person who emitted the odd sensation, and trying to discern what I was really feeling.
    I drew on my Beast’s senses. She was awake, deep inside me, alert from the joy of riding Fang through the city. She loved riding a motorcycle, the wind in my/our face, the sights flashing by, the smells that reminded her of home, of the mountain world that we had left behind for the contract in NOLA. It had been supposed to be a short gig, but it had blossomed into a lot more. I opened my lips and drew in the air, the synesthesia-like feeling I rarely experienced reaching up and taking hold of me.
    The magic was faint, but not weak, a green-gold with an edge of smoky charcoal gray. It smelled like