Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

33: {Matt}; through the agate

The bite on Matt's shoulder burned savagely. He did was he could to ignore the pain, stretching on his toes to reach a book encased in younger, darker leather than the others.

"She wants us to go through every book in this place? How the hell are we supposed to do that before Bronx kicks the bucket?"

"I told you," Alex said, "Ziya and Qamar are only sixteen, any kind of documents written about them won't look as old and worn as the others. Just keep digging out the newer ones."

"But the pages are blank in all of them," Aster sighed. Her long golden mane had slipped from its bun hours ago. She'd partly given up her search and started to stack books around her like a child's fort. "I hate to say it, but I think this is impossible."

"Have I taught you nothing, little one?" asked Devi, folding a journal over in her hands. "Nothing is impossible. But I think we'll need some help from the elements."

"A spell?" Sadie perked. "Are you talking about a spell?"

"Of course I'm talking about a spell." Devi struggled up from her criss-crossed position on the ground and gave her old back a good crack. "We're witches; if we were nuns, we'd look to God for answers, wouldn't we?"

Matt could practically envision the tail on Sadie, wagging like she'd just heard the word treat. "Can I help?"

"Can you help," Devi scoffed. "I won't be able to do it without you, dear. But we need peace and quiet."

"There's a study room over there," said Aster. "Should we?"

Devi heaved her bag over her shoulder. "We shall."

Sadie tiptoed after them and they slipped through a door in the corner of the library—the handle made of a glass, the image of a rose burned into the wood. Everything here was created by design. Even the skylight above was of hand-made glass. The kind blown by men, not machine. It cast an ever-moving swarm of ethereal light fragments on the rug below.

Matt felt useless standing there, staring all of the empty books he'd piled around him. He let his mind wander, and he hadn't realized how far until Alex said, "You're worried about Gannon?"

It was true; Gannon was a scary son of a bitch. Matt feared him more than he feared Rico and the angry bull had nearly taken his head off his neck last time they met.

"What's his deal?" Matt asked. "I get he's from the den and all, but what's with him and Bronx?"

And just why the hell had he woken to that pain in his shoulder when Gannon arrived?

"When he was sixteen, Quentin belonged to the rogues." Alex clamored up onto a lower shelf to reach a book too high up to contend with his height. He knocked it from its place and caught it just before it hit the ground. "They kind of create their own social hierarchy. Gannon was a big name in California back then. Leader of the rats. Quentin had no alpha when he came to the states. He just kind of fell into Gannon's hands from what I remember."

Matt shivered at the thought. He remembered the fight at the den, the hesitation in Quentin. The way Gannon made him look so small. Quentin had never been a menacing guy, but Matt hadn't ever seen him that helpless before. Even when he was pinned beneath the claws of a lich, Bronx at least put up a fight. Not with Gannon. With Gannon, he was nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," Alex said, aligning the books in a stack. "I don't want to talk about it. That's Quen's business."

Matt had no qualms with that. He didn't need Alex to tell him something he already knew.