Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Saturday morning, Demetrius was up before Cody.
He started the coffee then attempted over-medium eggs, but he messed up the flip so he wound up making scrambled.
Cody shuffled up to the door between the kitchen and dining room, wearing only white boxer briefs that showed off his tanned skin.
He leaned in the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning.
Demetrius gave him a quick kiss, pausing to breathe in his musky scent before returning to the eggs.
“Thanks for making breakfast.”
Cody’s voice was deep, rough, and sexy as hell.
Demetrius wished they didn’t have jobs on the calendar so he could take Cody back to bed.
Other than the blowjobs a couple of nights before, it had been a while since they’d had sex.
Too often they were both exhausted at the end of the day from too many critter jobs. Or worse.
“You’re welcome. I’m going to stop by the library on the way to that groundhog job.”
“Good idea. Maybe Tracey’s been talking with Zenona.”
Demetrius felt a twinge low in his belly. He should have been stopping by to check in on Tracey more often. She’d lost someone, too, and more recently than Zenona.
They talked about the schedule as they ate, and the coffee helped Cody come a little more alive. When Demetrius carried the dishes to the kitchen, Cody called after him, “Leave it, I’ll clean up.”
Demetrius stood behind his chair, leaning down to put his arms around him. “You’re a prince.”
“Yeah? Want to see my scepter?”
“How about this evening?”
Cody turned his head. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Demetrius kissed him, their tongues circling, coffee-breath canceling each other out.
Cody was a little breathless when Demetrius broke their embrace. “You sure you need to leave right now?”
“Yeah, I do.” He laid a hand along Cody’s cheek, his scruff rasping against his palm. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Better. Thanks for talking.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll always talk with you, no matter what.”
Another brief kiss, and then Demetrius headed for the bathroom. After peeing and brushing his teeth, he grabbed his keys, phone and wallet and headed out the door. The air was heavy and damp, and sweat already prickled under his arms by the time he reached his truck.
When he entered the library, the AC washed over him, and he sighed.
Tracey was behind the main desk, turned in profile to him with her attention on a computer.
Demetrius took a moment to study her. Her hair had lost some of its luster and body, and she’d dropped enough weight for her clothes to hang loosely.
She glanced at Demetrius then did a double-take. Her expression was guardedly neutral as he approached the desk.
“Hi, Tracey.”
“Hello, Demetrius.”
“How are you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you here to ask about my welfare or some hideous new monster that’s crept into town?”
Heat flooded his face, and his stomach tightened. He couldn’t meet her gaze and dropped his eyes to the countertop. “Um, a bit of both.”
“I see. As you can tell by my appearance, I’m still grieving. Thanks for the invites to lunch and dinner. Oh, wait…”
He forced himself to look at her. “I’m sorry, Tracey. I’ve been a bad friend.”
“Well, thanks for saying that at least.” She slid off the padded stool and braced herself on the counter. “What do you need?”
“No, I don’t want to just gloss this over.” He glanced around and leaned in slightly, lowering his voice even more than usual inside the library. “Can we talk somewhere? And not about monsters or anything. About you and how you’re doing.”
She eyed him in silence a moment, then, with a sigh, turned away. “Come on around.”
Demetrius went behind the checkout desk, doing a sudden side-step to avoid running into Donald, an older man who was also a librarian.
Donald started slightly at finding Demetrius behind the desk, but once he’d recognized him, he waved him down the short hallway.
Following Tracey, Demetrius passed the small office assigned to her and the other library administrator, and the even tinier employee break room until they reached the secured door at the end of the hall.
This door led into the archive room, a climate-controlled space holding a wide variety of older, sometimes ancient, books about an equally diverse range of subjects, including monsters and the legends they inspired.
Tracey keyed a code into the number pad and the door opened.
Demetrius followed her inside and she closed the door behind them.
After running his gaze around the familiar rows of bookshelves, the small card catalog, and the rectangular table with four chairs, Demetrius faced her.
“So, tell me how you’ve been.”
“Pretty shitty, if you want to know the truth. And you?”
He made a face. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard. You lost two important people just a few months ago. And even through all of that, you were the driving force behind us stopping that witch-demon and saving the city.”
“Again,” she added.
Demetrius flashed a grin. “Right. Again.”
He pulled out a chair and sat at the table. After a beat of sullen silence, Tracey sat kitty corner opposite him.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he said. “I really do want to know.”
“It’s classic grief. I’m not sleeping. I have no appetite.” She held her arms out and smiled, but her eyes were flat and hard behind her glasses. “Great for getting the weight off, but, you know, that’s about it.”
“It must be really difficult to come into work.”
She turned her shining eyes away from him. “You could say that.”
“You and Heath met here, didn’t you?”
“We…” She choked up and had to clear her throat before she could continue.
“We did. Every stack I pull a book from, every time I walk into the break room, all of it makes me think of him. And even when I’m not here, I see the places we went, the chair he liked in my house, his side of the bed.
” She wiped her eyes and shook her head.
“Everything reminds me of him. I’ll have a few good days in a row, you know?
The loss is there, but not front and center.
But then something will trigger a memory, even something as simple as a commercial for the brand of beer he liked, and all of a sudden I’m bawling.
” She pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes.
After a moment, she let out a shuddering breath.
“And that’s not even touching on what I’m going through over losing Rita. ”
“I’m so sorry, Tracey. Grief is so pervasive and different for everyone. Have you been able to talk to anyone about this? Maybe a support group?”
“I’ve gone to a grief support group at Good Shepherd, but that can be hard to take. Sometimes being there stirs up more hurt than it heals. I’ve had to stop for a while.”
“What about other friends?”
“This might shock you, but I really don’t have that many.”
He hesitated, his cheeks burning as he shifted his weight in the chair. “What about Zenona?”
Tracey was staring at her hands clasped tight on the tabletop. “I text with her now and then, but we haven’t had a girl’s night out if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Right. But, well, maybe you should? She lost Michael in October, so the two of you might be able to support each other in ways the rest of us can’t.”
Her eyes were hard and icy when she lifted them to his. “So you won’t have to hear about it?”
“No! That’s not…I didn’t mean it that way.”
“It’s fine.” Tracey straightened her spine and wiped her cheeks dry, her expression cool. “What information do you need?”
“Tracey, I—”
“I really don’t have a lot of time, Demetrius. What do you need help with?”
Stomach shrinking to a cold, hard stone, Demetrius cleared his throat. “We’re not really sure. We dealt with a zombie out in Stone Hill a few nights ago. But there may be an increase in people receiving blood at Memorial. Have you heard anything?”
“Doesn’t Clarabell handle the monster chatter for you two?”
“She’s watching Discord and Reddit and other chat groups, but I wanted to see if you might have heard anything or had some ideas about it.”
“Ideas about it? Oh, I’ve got ideas about it. I was kidnapped by that monster vampire Xavier, too, you know.”
“Yes, I know that, of course—”
“That thing swooped down out of the sky and grabbed me. Bit me on the neck and took me to that awful basement. It wasn’t just your husband who suffered down there. It was me and Zenona and Lucia, too.”
A small flare of anger in the center of his chest sent a rush of warmth through him.
He pressed his hands flat to the table as he looked at her.
“I know that. And I know you’ve been through a lot, and I’m sorry we haven’t supported you as well as we should have.
But I’m trying to prevent what happened here back in October from happening again.
And to be able to do that, I could use your help.
” He pulled his hands back, dropping them into his lap.
His palms left damp tracks along the table. “All of us could, actually. Please.”
Tracey watched him in silence a moment. Then she gave a nod and stood up, pushing the chair in. “I’ll let you know if I hear or see anything.”
The spot in his chest cooled slightly, but the top of his head still felt warm. “Thank you.”
Without another word, she turned her back to him and left the room.
The groundhog job that afternoon did not go as smoothly as Demetrius had hoped.
The rodent had dug a burrow beneath his client’s garage with more exits than he’d anticipated.
One came up in the middle of her large screened off vegetable garden, under the leaves of a pumpkin vine, and close to some impressively tall tomato plants.