Chapter 5 Helena
Awkward sauce at uncomfortable o’clock.
That was my thought as the elevator doors screech-slid open to reveal none other than Peter Winston, the library’s British archivist. The library’s hot British archivist.
Relief poured through me, though, at the sight of the red-clad pizza-delivery lady standing next to him toting a fragrant, insulated bag full of pies, her face half lost beneath the visor of her crimson ball cap.
Until she offered me a nod and a ruby-painted smile before abandoning me, heading down the hall.
Probably, if I had to guess, to deliver reward pizzas for the HR office.
The children’s department sometimes got parties, too. In lieu, of course, of raises.
Or upgrades.
Or general supplies.
Like glue sticks.
Oh well. So much for having a buffer.
I gritted a smile at Peter, who now stood alone inside the elevator, a stack of tomes tucked under one arm.
He maintained a stiff, close-lipped smile while he pressed the button to hold the door for me.
Then, gripping tighter the pumpkin-orange pastry box I held, I surged forward and onto the elevator. Because how much more awkward would it be if I rerouted to the stairs now? Something I should have done in the first place. Then again, chances were high that I could have run into him there, too.
A head taller than me with glasses, long dark hair worn in a low ponytail, a handsome, clean-shaven face, and a lean but muscular build, he had on his usual ensemble of slacks, black blazer, and white button-down.
Let’s just say he rocked the thirtysomething college professor look very well—blending chic geek with a touch of dark academia. Like if Dracula decided to teach at Oxford except less pale.
“Miss Hart,” he said, and my spirit sank with the cool and too-formal greeting.
Especially since it wasn’t so long ago that he’d called me “Leaflet,” a nickname I’d earned after getting caught in a breeze with a stack of newly printed flyers for the upcoming children’s programs. Peter had helped me collect them.
Right before our clandestine first kiss.
My cheeks burned, and I cleared my throat as I turned to face the doors, the soles of my flats scuffing on the flooring, the minor flag in my stride reminding me why I hadn’t taken the stairs.
I had two VIP-designated Halloween-themed cupcakes from Sugar Rush, the café down the street.
One had a chocolate-covered-strawberry witch’s hat; the other oozed cherry filling from vampire fang marks.
They were so precious, and I could not risk these getting smashed.
Aside from that, I was already running late to get to the Hideout to relieve Emily for her lunch since the eleven-thirty day care crowd had filed in late for storytime.
“Peter,” I said, returning his greeting with a nod as the mirrored doors of the ancient elevator squueeeeaked shut.
Their squeal seemed extra creaky today, as if they were cringing as hard as I was inside.
As if they knew Peter and I had been together for a few weeks and, during that time, found ourselves in a few compromising positions as well.
We’d broken up after discovering neither of us was prepared to leave our roles at the main branch of the Wyvern City Free Public Library.
Well, Peter had been the one to call it off back in July. Because, yeah, we worked together.
Maybe not in the same department, maybe not on the same floor, but I now had to admit he had a point when he’d brought up the possible… complications of dating a coworker.
The same enormous building could in fact seem awfully small in select situations. Like this one when my teeth might just crush themselves to powder.
I held my breath, willing the awkward to ebb away like ripples in a pond.
And why should this interaction be awkward? Just because our last one had ended in tears—mine—didn’t mean this one had to become a smoking tire fire.
“Headed back to the basement?” I asked him as the doors clunked together, sealing us in as they reflected our figures in the faintly gold-tinted glass.
Ugh. Why did we have to look so cute together?
“Going up, in fact,” he corrected, his London accent, along with that subtle hint of his sophisticated cologne, doing things to me the way it always did, tempting my brain out of the realm of work, cupcakes, storytime, and all things G-rated. “To the director’s office. Yourself?”
Wait. Up?
“Um, down, actually,” I said through a nervous laugh, stepping forward to panic-press the darkened “B is for ‘Basement’ ” button.
“To your neck of the woods. Or the Hideout at least. I’ve got to relieve Emily for lunch.
I wasn’t paying attention to the elevator light, though. Didn’t realize it was headed up.”
“Given that there’s only one lift in this archaic time capsule of a civic citadel, I don’t think it makes much difference.
Aside from that, the up and down lights just stopped being operational anyway.
A pity since we are rather not-for-profit, and the facilities budget has no doubt been relegated to triaging the repeated issues tied to this prestigious landmark’s prehistoric—not to mention precarious—plumbing. ”
Dagnabbit. This man’s vocabulary had me almost salivating.
Instead of asking him if he ate crossword puzzles for breakfast, I held my tongue and frowned down at the box in my hands, focusing hard on the café’s seasonal swirly-lettered and spiderweb-swathed logo as I tried not to wish that Peter and I could still work out. Or at least give it another go.
He’d said I’d have to, at the very least, transfer to another branch for him to even consider it. He couldn’t leave since there was only one set of archives after all.
Mom had really liked Peter. Which had given me high hopes.
Hopes that had apparently been too high.
“Now that the aroma of marinara and cheese has cleared the air,” he said, gesturing to the box I held, “I detect a hint of buttercream. Are you bribing someone with cake? Or perhaps just paying them off.”
“Cupcakes for Hunter and Emily,” I said. “It’s Hunter’s birthday. He turns eighteen.”
“Hunter,” said Peter. “That’s the lad with the boots.”
I smiled. “He dropped enough books in his first week to realize the wisdom of steel toes. Now they’ve become his signature.”
“I’m thinking of asking him for a bit of sorting help in the archives,” he said. “Do you think Rick would loan him out?”
“You could ask,” I offered. “If the task is solitary and secluded, well, that’s Hunter’s vibe.”
And of course, the moment I started to feel a bit easier and like I actually wouldn’t say something off-putting, cringey, or extra blurt-y, the elevator ground to a clunky halt.
“Cheers,” said Peter as he bolted for the doors even as they struggled to wind open. He slid between them, going sideways when the gap became wide enough—like Indiana Jones skirting a booby trap. Like he couldn’t wait to get away.
From me.
It was the kind of exodus that made me want to smell my pits.
Instead, as the doors closed again, I locked my jaw and tried to keep from recalling (and overanalyzing) everything I’d ever said to Peter Winston.
Maybe he’d thought the fairy lights in my room were weird. Maybe it was the fact that I’d worn rooster earrings for today’s barnyard storytime.
Could be the dad jokes…
No. If I had to guess, it was the Hi-C fruit punch I’d spilled on his dress shoes when we’d met at Taco Bell for an on-the-sly lunch that one time.
I sighed—loudly—as the elevator car started down, my face heating at the memory of Peter standing in a bright red pool of sticky juice.
Ca-clunk.
I yelped when the car jolted to a halt, the steady mechanical hum replaced by silence.
Followed by a far-off creaking—as the lights flickered.
“Oh no.” I shifted the bakery box to one hand as I hurried forward to press the buttons—all of them. They flickered like so many dazed eyes after a KO punch. “No, no, no, this is so not on my bingo card—ah!”
The lights failed. Darkness consumed me within the blink of an eye while an acrid burning aroma filtered into the car, chasing away the lingering ghost of Peter’s cologne.
“Noooo,” I squealed, free hand searching now for the emergency button—which I couldn’t find.
How many times had I been inside this stupid, cranky, crotchety relic of an elevator and never once bothered to locate that lifeline?
The lights flashed, this time revealing how I wasn’t alone anymore.
Backpedaling to one corner, which I smashed myself into, I screamed to find him now in the car with me.
He loomed in the flickering light like a living nightmare, dark robes spilling to the floor, skeletal hand gripping the staff of that grim scythe. Its curved blade gleamed sharp, a silver grimace in the fluttering dark.
Swirls of the smoke that, at the party, I’d mistaken for dry ice vapor wafted off him, charcoal wisps curling upward before misting away.
“Omigod, it’s you,” I rasped, my heart rapid-firing, my blood screaming in my veins, shooting primal panic into every inch of my trembling frame.
True to form, he didn’t answer, and he didn’t move. Not even when the car jolted hard and careened down a good five feet before jarring to a halt a second time.
Bracing myself by gripping the worn banister, I screamed again. This shout, short and sharp, started and stopped with the elevator. Still, I clutched the box of cupcakes in my free hand, its edges now crunched, the cargo within possibly crunched, too.
By all appearances, I was about to join the Crunched Cupcake Club.
He was death after all, wasn’t he? At least he was the collector of souls, as the book had said—something I’d assumed already.
Except, what was he doing?
The lights stabilized as, in a careless gesture, he tossed aside the scythe, which misted away to nothing. Then, fast as a darting shadow, he surged forward to tackle the closed doors, the sleeves of his ebony robes falling back to expose skeletal arms as he shoved bone fingers into the crack.
I gaped in horror and awe as he then began forcing the elevator doors open.
They fought him despite his determination, screeching like dueling dragons as he pulled.
Stunned, I could only marvel as his strength prevailed and, by inches, the groaning elevator’s doors started to open.
My attention shifted—caught by his reflection in the gold-tinted mirrors.
His arms.
Though the forearms of a skeleton worked to pry those doors apart, the mirror showed those of a man. A strong man, his skin covered with small black tattoos, each a different shape—none of which I could discern in the sputtering light.
The car jarred once more, though this time it—we—didn’t go anywhere.
From above, that ominous creaking grew loud again before devolving into a low whine: something trying—and failing—to hold on.
I clamped down harder on the box of cupcakes, my mouth falling open when that black mist wafting around him gathered to shove its way between the doors, too—working with those arms now to wrench them apart.
The mist lent enough extra oomph and the doors gave. They slid open, revealing how we were caught between floors. The top half of the doorway framed only the smooth concrete wall of the elevator shaft, while the bottom half opened to the ground floor, which waited below at a four-foot drop.
Those bony arms pinning the doors apart, the dark figure turned that hooded head my way, the blackness within concealing, as it had at the Halloween party, any hint of a face.
“Get out,” he commanded in a deep and caustic voice—one that was anything but human. Like that of an avenging angel mixed with one of those arcade “Game Over” guys, its soul-shaking tenor rattled my own bones and froze the blood in my veins.
I gulped, my face draining. My hammering heart stopped right then and there, too, stalled by that stare I couldn’t see, by that terrifying voice of literal doom.
At least until he jump-started the muscle again by speaking a second time.
“Now!”
I jolted forward. Because that voice. It wasn’t one that was meant to be argued with.
Hugging the bakery box like I still had hope of avoiding cupcake casualties, I made a run for that opening, streaming past him and straight through those wisps of smoke.
With as big a jump as I could muster, I leaped from the elevator.
Like the last time we’d been that close together, me and my otherworldly savior, I went sprawling onto another hard surface, my fall not at all cushioned by the cupcakes that I flattened with my impact—box and all.
Still better than my sharing in their fate.
Swiveling my head back and craning my neck, I only caught sight of the top of the elevator as it rushed out of sight, frayed cables singing as they snapped and wriggled in its wake.
Two seconds later, the elevator crashed into the basement with an earsplitting, floor-shaking cacophony of screeching metal, shattering glass, whipping cables, and crumbling mortar.