"Are you trying to make me blush, Sam?"
Except he hadn't blushed, I noted. For all his cuteness and youth, the Alchemist was a bit of an enigma. He was, in essence, an immortal by choice. An immortal without the aid of a highly evolved dark master.
"I never said that, Sam," he said. "You assumed this."
I blinked. Outside, through the opaque glass window, I watched a student sashay by, her ponytail swinging back and forth, her backpack looking far lighter than any of mine ever had. I supposed many textbooks these days were available on Kindle.
I said, after processing his words, "You've been entrusted with a school to train Light Warriors. You watch over the world's most dangerous books. You fight the good fight. There's no way a highly evolved dark master is inside-" I stopped short.
He looked at me, waited again.
"It's not a dark master."
He raised his eyebrows.
I continued, "It's an angel."
"Very good, Sam. But I am not possessed. It is a mutual joining, if you will. He comes and goes as he sees fit, especially when I summon him."
"Is the angel with you now?" I asked.
"Yes, Sam."
"But why?"
"I find his presence... comforting."
I got his meaning. "You mean, comforting when you are meeting me?"
Archibald Maximus opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was, I think, the first time he had ever been at a loss for words. He tried again. "Sam, you are not like the other vampires."
"Because of your mom?"
"Yes, my mom, for one thing. And Elizabeth was not like other dark masters, either. She was particularly gifted in the dark arts, and particularly evil. Worse, she was manipulative and vengeful. Combine her temperament and abilities with your own inherent witchy talents-"
"I never developed my witchy talents-"
"Not in this life. But they are there, dormant."
"But I thought I lost my ability to perform witchcraft once I became a vampire."
"No, Sam. You only lost your place within the triad of your sisters."
"I can still practice witchcraft?"
"Oh, yes. You will find it comes easy to you, much as it did with Allison. But there is something else."
I waited, my mind reeling. Witchcraft? I'd never thought... I'd never dreamed...
"You met someone yesterday."
I blinked, snapped out of it. "I did, kind of. We shared a pen, you could say."
"You shared more than that."
"Because God is everywhere."
"Yes, Sam. But he shared something with you that is new information to me, too. I'm sorry if I am prying, but I can see it there, in your memory, plain as day."
I knew of that which he spoke. I waited.
"I will admit," he said, "that it never occurred to me that some of the vampires' talents come from their contained souls expressing themselves."
"Like a big-ass dragon just told me, you learn something new every day."
He was nodding. "This is big, Sam." The Librarian was pacing behind the help desk. I suppose I could also call him 'Headmaster' too. A man of many titles. "It means we have been giving the dark masters far too much credit. Note how they never corrected us. Not that they wanted us to believe in their power. But in fact, it was and is, your power all along."
"But they are responsible for some things."
"The dark things, Sam. The drinking of blood. The fear of light. The ugly nails."
"Hey."
"Sorry."
I said, "Everyone makes fun of the nails until they need their Amazon packages opened."
He laughed lightly. "I suspect-and I could be wrong-that some of their own particular talents leak through. My mother, for instance, was particularly gifted at mind reading, which is where my own skills come from."
"And Tammy's!"
"Yes, Sam. I suspect my mother's talents in this area have spilled over to me, and now to your daughter."
I shook my head. It made perfect sense now why only he and my daughter, as humans, could read my mind. The bitch was powerful.
"Very powerful, Sam."
"Wait. Then why doesn't her gift of mind reading spill over to me, too? Or more fully spill over to me? I mean, I'm good at it, but nothing like my daughter. Or you."
He thought about that. "I don't think she can control the spillover, Sam, or how one utilizes it. I suspect if you worked hard enough at telepathy, you would get better and better at it."
"But not as good as you and my daughter."
"Probably not, Sam. Some of us do seem to have a natural knack for it."
"Lucky you."
"Not necessarily. It's not easy hearing everything single thought, from every single creature, alive and dead, within many square miles."