Roommate from Hell, Julie Steimle [best classic books of all time TXT] 📗

Star wasn’t around when I returned with my textbooks. Neither was Lisa. When I went out again I went on foot and then took a bus, anything to keep from making the same mistake as I had that morning. That vampire was right. I didn’t know the history of that city. And like our small town, that city obviously had secrets I was unaware of, secrets that would probably be vital to my survival.
So, taking my first steps into changing that, I found myself on a street not far from one of the city’s parks looking at an address on the paper my former high school history teacher, Mr. McDillan, had given me. He had been my unofficial contact with the Supernatural Regulators Association back in my hometown. A former vampire hunter, he knew all sorts of weird men and women with links to magic and monster hunting. But now he had passed me on to someone else as he remained at Cliffcoast, guarding the locals from the vampires in the mountains. Long story.
It was a bookshop he had sent me to, a small one with a Victorian style facade. I peered into the glass of the front windows where on display were books on Tibetan Buddhism set right next to a copy of UFOlogy and a package of designer Tarot cards. In the center was a crystal ball set on red and black velvet.
Perfect. Another kook.
The place reminded me too much of Mr. McDillan’s house. I had snuck inside his home once to spy on him when another member of the SRA had come to our town. He had stuffed animals—the taxidermy kind, not the cute fuzzy pink ones Dawn owned—hanging from the ceiling.
Taking a breath, I grasped the door handle and stepped into the shop, a small brass bell jingling to herald my entrance. The open sign flopped against the glass when the door shut closed behind me. As I walked up the steps into the main part of the store gazing at the wall-to-wall shelves of old and new books, I heard imps of customers shouting out suggestions to shoplift though there was one real human conversation that shouted over them.
“…here for! If you can’t help me, who can?” The voice of one seemed familiar. Woman.
“Look. I only have one bottle left. I was saving it for a priority customer. But I suppose if you are willing to pay more for it I would be willing to part with it.” This voice was from a man, perhaps middle-aged, though I couldn’t tell because the two in the exchange were talking behind a large stack of books on a table, the store set out like a maze to guide customers past several expensive best sellers.
As I meandered through that maze, I listened to the imps and peered around at the titles on some of the books. There was one on mysticism in North America. Another about New Orleans Voodoo. I spotted an entire section boasting of Eastern religious texts, including the Ramayana and the Dao De Ching. There was also an entire section on Catholic mysticism and legends including those about demons. As I passed by my eye fell on a smaller section entirely devoted to Egyptology where I picked up one of the books with a colorful dustcover, and I read a few words on the first page.
Their conversation started up again about then.
“Here. And if the situation gets real bad, just call. I’ll have the SRA check it out.”
I stiffened. Then I turned.
Behind me, across the room, I saw a familiar red cut of hair on a girl who had to be Tabitha Raines. Facing her was the storekeeper, a man probably in his mid-to-late forties. He was smiling as his imps cackled over his extremely successful extortion of money from a paranoid customer.
Shaking my head, I walked over and stood right behind her. “He’s cheating you.”
Tabitha jumped, whipping around. Her eyes widened even as she flattened herself against the sales counter to get far away from me.
The man frowned, folding his arms across his chest as he looked at me. “This transaction is none of your concern.”
“Oh, I think it has everything to do with me.” I walked the rest of the way to the counter, Tabitha getting right out of the way like one of those keystone cops, backing up and tripping with stares of horror at me.
The shopkeeper turned his gaze on Tabitha as she nodded with bulging eyes to show that I was indeed her problem and backed up even farther. Then he stiffened.
However, I held out the paper Mr. McDillan said for me to give to shopkeeper upon my arrival. “I was told to meet with you. Are you Mr. Horwitz?”
He nodded, peering at me now with one eye still on Tabitha.
Tabitha raised her arm and pointed at me. “You…you…you…you can’t be here!”
I gave her a dry look as the shopkeeper took the paper from my fingers and read the contents of the note.
“It’s a free country,” I said.
Tabitha looked to the shopkeeper. “She’s…she’s the demon!”
He nodded again, folding the note up and looking at me once more. “As this note makes clear. I’ve been expecting you.”
I smiled.
“Expecting her?” Tabitha nearly exploded, hopping back even to the point that she climbed on the front of the counter to grab at Mr. Horwitz to drag him away from me. “You can’t be expecting her! She’s a bat-winged demon from hell! She’s already possessed a human family, and I need to find a cure for that poor girl before—”
“Dawn is not a poor girl,” I said, walking towards the actual door partition in the counter, lifting it up. The shopkeeper had already gestured for me follow him into the back room to talk in private. “And she’s not possessed. She’s just Goth.”
The shopkeeper paused, looking at me. “So, you really did stay with a human family this whole time?”
I rolled my eyes at him, glancing at the other store patrons. “Can we please keep this conversation private? It’s bad enough super psycho here believes I’m a demon.”
“But you are a demon,” he said.
I cast him a dirty look, mostly because of the effect his words had on Tabitha whom I had hoped I would have been able to at least convince she was just having a psychotic episode.
She gawked at him and then at me, then back at him again. “You know it?” Tabitha clenched her teeth, wrapping her fist around what weird thing she had just bought from him. I couldn’t tell if she was angrier at me, or him.
Mr. Horwitz nodded. “Of course. But you’d better put away all your spell stuff, little girl. This here is not a demon you can tangle with.”
He gestured for me to follow him once again. I just shrugged, giving Tabitha one last backward glance before the man and I both were inside that back room. He closed the door, and that was that.
Or so I thought. Her imps shouted for her to listen in, and stupidly she did. I could tell. Her heart was pounding so loud just outside the door.
With a huff to myself mostly, I turned back around immediately, listened to her heart to make sure her ear was next to the door. I raised my clenched fist, and Boom! I struck the door.
The storekeeper jumped then turned with an irritated glance at me, already on his way to a filing cabinet. He shook his head and pulled open a drawer.
I jerked the office door open. Tabitha was already on her rump when I glared at her. “Get lost! This is none of your business!”
Immediately I shut the door again, not quite slamming it.
I listened to make sure she had run off. Her heart was thundering with a more frightened rabbit speed this time. I heard it scurry as she too scrambled away from the other side of the door. Now that she was gone I felt more comfortable. However, it was clear it was too late to convince her that I wasn’t evil. And since it was clear she was convinced I was evil, my task now was to stop her from believing that Dawn was possessed so at least she would leave my sister alone.
The storekeeper shut the filing cabinet with a slight bang. I turned to see if he was being testy, but he just smirked at me, holding up a folder in his hands. He set that on the desk in front of him, gesturing for me to take a seat.
I walked over and took the only chair available, drawing it up to the desk. He took out a blank form from the folder then held it out. It looked like a job application.
“I got Brian’s email a month ago. He said you might possibly change your mind and go to Stanford. But uh…he seems to think that you are drawn to places of trouble.” He handed the paper to me. “Fill that out, and then I’ll ask you a series of questions. Understand?”
I plucked the paper from his fingers then took a pen from the cup on the desk. “Fine. Though I could have sworn the SRA had a website. Couldn’t we just log on?”
“So, you did your research.” Mr. Horwitz snickered, leaning back in his chair. “You’re the real thing, huh? This generation’s vimp. I got to admit, I expected you to be more, oh…”
Looking up from the paper, I waited for him to finish his sentence. He never did. I continued writing. It was asking for things like my educational history—standard application stuff.
“So. I hear the Order of Blood already approached you,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah. When I was fourteen. But you didn’t answer my first question. Why the paperwork if we can just log on?”
Sighing, Mr. Horwitz took his time before he responded, putting on a pondering expression. By the time he answered me I was already done filling out the top part. “Oh, this paperwork is for the police.”
I stopped writing. “The police?”
He nodded, watching my face.
“Why the police? I’m no criminal.” I braced my hands on the table, unable to continue with this unexpected thing hanging over my head.
He leaned over the desk and tapped the paper. “No. But you are a demon, and further, you are the second vimp to