In less than 15 minutes, Eilidh Moss would be dead.

Again. It happened every morning and it was damned inconvenient when you were running the only bookstore in town that specialized in occult texts, grimoires, and supernatural self-help guides.

And it was more than inconvenient when your only employee was late. Again.

“Where the hell have you been? The whole point of having a daylighter is so that you’re here to do the tasks I can’t do when I’m…incapacitated.” Eilidh’s quick glance around eased her mind that there were only supernaturals in the store.

Apart from her human daylighter of course.

The redheaded young woman had the sense to lower her head and look abashed.

“I’m sorry, Eilidh, I was at Morgan’s and I had a bit of trouble getting away. She was telling me about the…”

“I don’t care what she was telling you about,” Eilidh’s hands were flying around wildly in sheer exasperation. “I’ve got 12 minutes, that’s all, and we have things to discuss. Come on.”

Eilidh led Miriam away from the door of the Quill & Query and closer to the counter where they could talk in privacy. Of course, privacy was a relative concept in Redbough. When your customers were vampires, werewolves and witches, your chances of being overhead were high.

“Now. I need you to shelve the books that arrived from Romania yesterday and for the love of all that is unholy make sure you do a prominent, and very large, display stating who donated the books. You know how he gets when he feels he’s being ignored.

I also need you to call the blood bank and have them deliver another 10 pints of type O. And make sure they’re all there before you sign for them. I still don’t know where that missing two pints went last month.

Also, after you’ve taken your lunch break…” That was when Eilidh lost her train of thought because a very rude witch was aheming behind her as if his life depended on it.

“Yes?” She gave the witch her most withering glare but it seemed to have no effect as he didn’t leave.

“Can you tell me please, does this edition include the chapter on maintaining ethical boundaries with egregores?”

The young man was holding up an ancient copy of A Beginners Guide to Elemental Magick by Dominic Talbot.

Eilidh really didn’t have time for this.

“Have you read the contents page? If it’s in the book, it will be in the contents page.”

To give him his due, the young witch remained polite and didn’t snap back or show any fear when he said “Well, I wanted to but the notice on the stand that says please don’t turn any pages of this ancient book before purchase, made me pause.”

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Eilidh chose to ignore the snigger that Miriam tried to hide behind her hand and said “Yes. Yes it does include the chapter on ethical boundaries with egregores. It also includes a chapter on how to not piss off a vampire. Now, will that be cash or charge?”

“Umm…Charge please. Redbough Express.”

Eilidh took his card and rung up the sale. She could probably have left it to Miriam to finish as she was cutting it so fine but she wanted to make sure this cheeky young man left the premises before she went upstairs to her apartment and left Miriam alone for the day.

But she just couldn’t help herself. “There’s also a chapter that offers a different view on water elementals that we currently use today. Now, when I say different, yes, its an older book so its an older method but I believe its one that new practitioners might find valuable as well.”

Now Miriam was aheming.

“Yes. Right. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

The young man shook his head, pocketed his card and headed out the door while Eilidh looked at her watch.

*****

“Okay. Follow me upstairs Miriam. I’m really cutting it fine now. Three minutes to sunrise.”

It wasn’t good business practice to leave the store unattended but the register was spelled so that it wouldn’t open for anyone without Eilidh’s explicit consent. A couple of minutes without someone behind the counter wouldn’t hurt, surely.

Eilidh hurled instructions at Miriam as she climbed the stairs to her luxury apartment. If she didn’t make it to her darkened bedroom in time, Miriam would have to drag her there. Eilidh wasn’t heavy but she was a dead weight when she was…well…dead. And Miriam was a tiny little thing.

“Miriam, you really can’t be this late again,” was the last thing she said before she collapsed on her bed and entered oblivion.

Miriam gently took Eilidh’s shoes off (not that there was any need to be gentle, Eilidh wasn’t going to wake up) and then placed the extra blanket over her. She smiled at her mistress before she turned and left the room.

*****

I’m going to interrupt our tale here to introduce myself. My name is Dottie Hitchcock. Dorothea if you want to be formal, but who does nowadays? I’ll be narrating this story in my official capacity as Historian to the Supernatural Races. My role is to document the loves, lives, and unlives of, not just the citizens of Redbough, but all the supernatural beings from all over the world.

The Arcane Guild has long hoped that one day, the supernatural races might be able to…um…come out…I think is the term the young ones use these days. They’ll be able to live openly and amicably amongst the humans. Well, some of them have hoped it. Some of them are dead against it, but disagreements are common with all politicians.

The Arcane Guild created the position of Historian so that our more important stories could be ready to provide evidence of the similarities between the supernaturals and the humans. As a way to bridge the gap. We try to only record the more interesting stories (we don’t want to bore you) but of course we can’t always control where a story is going to go.

The supernatural races have a bad reputation you know and I’m not sure they deserve it. There’s gooduns and baduns in all races, supernatural and human, but really, we’re all living creatures.

Not the vampires though. The vampires aren’t living. But you already know that.

I should mention that I’m human. The historian is always human, so as to be neutral because let me tell you, these supernaturals are a scrappy lot. Constantly fighting amongst themselves. Huh. Who does that remind you of?

Anyway, I won’t take up much more of your time. I just wanted to introduce myself in case you wondered who was telling this story. As to why this particular story needs to be told? I guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out.