One of his uncles was still snoring at a quarter to four in the afternoon, so Maddox borrowed his motorcycle to go into town. Woods Books on Elm. Time was left at the door as it should be inside any decent bookstore. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Maybe the visit provided another fracture in wartime routines which followed just about everyone home. The warlock still woke too early for his taste. Raised his hackles over minor things, like an unfamiliar but urgent shout in the marketplace. Preferred to sleep in a location hard rather than soft, and woke after a few hours to stare into the dark. Wondering if he was prepared for what might come next.
Everything was forgotten when he turned a corner down a narrow musty aisle lined with high shelves. Maddox saw a tiny figure with a stream of dark hair down the back and gravitated there like moving to a light at the end of the tunnel.
A Locke and a Keyes resided on opposing ends of a social spectrum in the Church of Dark. Lockes and Keyes weren’t made to fit together. He found the end of a long thick wave of black hair and pinched it between long fingers, brushing his thumb over the fanned ends. “Miss Locke. Shall I wait here until you need someone tall to reach a book for you? I’d like to make myself useful.”
She was awfully tiny. He knew she’d have a comment ready too.
@minilocke
