Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [22]
The shop had well-worn hardwood floors, a broad-beamed ceiling, dusky-rose walls, and rows and rows of tall bookcases overflowing with volumes about all aspects of the occult. Some of the books were modern paperbacks, many were old hardback volumes that smelled musty, a few were rare leather-bound books of considerable value, and they were all printed in a wide variety of languages.
The bookstore had a small customer base and got some foot traffic from curious passersby, but it was basically just a modest beard for Max’s real work—protecting New York and its inhabitants from Evil—so he didn’t concentrate on increasing its revenue. Meanwhile, I didn’t know whether he had invested wisely over his long (very long) life or whether the Magnum Collegium, which had sent him here, paid him well. Either way, Max always seemed to have a healthy cash flow.
He thoughtfully kept a small refreshments station in the bookstore, stocked with coffee, tea, cookies, and snuff (yes, snuff) for his customers. It sat near a large, careworn walnut table with books, papers, an abacus, writing implements, and other paraphernalia on it. I was about to haul myself out of that chair—which was comfortable for sitting and reading, but which had not been designed for sleeping—and make a pot of coffee when Max ambled around the corner of a bookcase and greeted me. He was carrying a breakfast tray.
“Good morning! When Nelli and I came downstairs and found you here, sound asleep, I thought perhaps you would like some breakfast when you awoke. You looked rather, er . . .” His gaze moved briefly to the generous amount of cleavage exposed by my tight leopard-print top, shifted awkwardly to my short red skirt, and then moved to my hair—which was probably a rat’s nest by now. He frowned with concern. “Are you all right, Esther?”
“Coffee,” I said in a gravelly voice.
“Of course!” He set down the tray on the end table, within my reach. I saw that he had brought me mini-bagels, cream cheese, and orange juice as well as coffee.
“Thank you,” I said gratefully.
“Delighted!”
Dr. Maximillian Zadok (Oxford University, class of 1678) beamed at me as he sat in the chair near mine. He was a short, slightly chubby, white man with innocent blue eyes, longish white hair, and a tidy beard. Fluent in multiple languages, he spoke English with the faint trace of an accent, reflecting his origins in Eastern Europe centuries ago. Although he didn’t look a day over seventy, Max’s age was closer to three hundred fifty years. In his youth, while apprenticing to a master of alchemy, he had unwittingly drunk a potion that substantially slowed his aging process—a potion which neither he nor his colleagues had ever been able to reproduce. He wasn’t immortal, but he’d be around for a few more generations—unless the Big Apple finished him off sooner than that.
I used the little milk pitcher on the breakfast tray to pour some milk into the large mug of coffee, then lifted the mug gratefully to my lips and took a long, deep swallow. Luckily, it wasn’t too hot.
“I was working last night,” I began, aware of Max’s concerned and curious gaze, “and—”
“Working at . . . ?” He lifted his brows inquisitively, evidently realizing I wouldn’t have worn this outfit to wait tables at Bella Stella in Little Italy.
“The Dirty Thirty.”
“Ah!” His expression cleared as my physical appearance this morning began to make more sense. “This is the costume of the unfortunate woman whom you’re playing in the television drama?”
I nodded. “And I got, er, mugged.”
“Esther!”
“Purse gone, wallet gone, phone gone . . .” I sighed and ran a hand over my matted hair. “Hairbrush gone.” I took another swallow of coffee, hoping I would soon start feeling human. “Anyhow, after a pretty eventful evening”—including two gargoyles, a prison cell, my ex-would-be-boyfriend, and a severed hand, thanks—“I was in