Bloodstone

shoveled items back into her bag. Then she stopped and squinted up at Mab. She looked at me, then at Mab again. “Wait. Are you Vicky’s aunt? The one who taught her how to fight?”

“Yes,” I said. “This is my aunt Mab.”

“How do you do?” Mab said.

Tina stood, hauling the bag back onto her shoulder. She stared at Mab appraisingly. “So you must be, like, better than Vicky, right? At demon fighting? I mean, since you taught her and everything.”

Mab didn’t answer, but she favored Tina with her tiny, pursed-lip smile.

Clutching Russom’s, Tina said to Mab, “Would you teach me? Vicky’s all graduated and stuff, so you need a new apprentice, right? Plus my dad always said if you want something, you should go straight to the top.”

“Mab’s retired,” I said. “Anyway, she’s only in town for a few days before she goes back to Wales.”

“Oh. That’s another country, isn’t it?” Even Tina knew it was virtually impossible for zombies to get visas to travel internationally. It was due to fear of the plague. Although the possibility of contagion was long past, there was still widespread terror of the virus that had killed and reanimated two thousand Bostonians. Boston had no choice about its zombies, but nobody else wanted them.

Tina looked down at the book in her hands, as if trying to memorize its cover. When she held it out to me, she didn’t meet my eyes.

I reached out again to take Russom’s, but Mab stopped me, putting her hand on my arm. “We’re on an errand right now and can’t be lugging books about,” she said sharply. Tina stepped back as if slapped. “If you want to return my niece’s book, bring it to her apartment after you’ve finished school for the night.”

“But I don’t go to school anymore.”

“Did you earn your diploma?”

“No, but—”

“Then you have no business saying you’re done with school. Go to class. Learn something. And then return Russom’s in the morning on your way home.”

Never before had I seen Tina at a loss for words. She gaped at Mab, red eyes wide, mouth hanging open, and stunned into silence. She held Russom’s in front of her like a shield. Then she shut her mouth and gave a tiny nod.

“Tina,” I said, “if it’s easier, you can leave the book with Clyde. He’ll make sure I get it.”

“Not good enough.” Mab waved away the very idea. “We’ll expect to see you in the morning. Now, off you go to school.”

Tina turned and fled. But not, I noticed, in the direction of her school. She joined the flow of zombies pouring toward the starting point of the protest march.

I watched her go. WHAT THE HELL WAS THE QUESTION? bobbed through the crowd until she was out of sight.

“Mab,” I said, “I think you’ve just become the first mortal creature ever to terrify a zombie.”

“Nonsense. I merely made some suggestions about manners and the importance of education. Things she’d do well to consider.”

Tina, consider manners? That seemed about as likely as Commissioner Hampson stopping by Deadtown to link arms with protesters and lead the march. But I wasn’t going to ponder that now. I wanted to complete our errand and see Juliet.

CARLOS WASN’T IN, BUT HE’D LEFT AN ENVELOPE WITH MY name and the amount I owed penciled on the front. Mab’s eyes widened when she saw the figure, but I paid without telling her it was only half the total.

Outside, I gave Mab her card. She scrutinized it, and a most unladylike snort erupted from her. “Mabel!” she exclaimed, waving the card in my face. “He has me down as Mabel Vaughn.”

“That’s not such a bad thing, Mab. It puts a little bit of distance between you and your false identity.”

“Hmph.” Mab held the card as though it were a particularly slimy piece of garbage. “You won’t have to call me that, will you?”

“No. You only need to show the card when you pass through a checkpoint. Or if a cop asks for it. Most people never see it.”

“Good. Because I will not be referred to as ‘Aunt Mabel.’ ” She harrumphed again as she slid the card into her pocket. “Sounds like a Victorian charwoman.”

I laughed and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mab. Your secret is safe with me.”

MAB PASSED THROUGH THE CHECKPOINT OUT OF DEADTOWN like she’d lived in Designated Area 1 all her life. As we walked the half-block to Creature Comforts, I tried to prepare her for meeting Axel. “He’s obviously not human, but nobody knows what he is. And nobody likes to ask, either. Axel doesn’t say much, and his privacy is important to him. Like, really important.” We stopped in front of the door. “So if he won’t let you downstairs to see Juliet, please don’t take offense.”

I reached for the door handle, then paused. What would Mab see when I pulled it open and we went inside? A dingy dive bar with a surly bartender, most likely. That wasn’t an inaccurate assessment. But Creature Comforts was more than its appearance—at least, it was to me. It was like a second home, and I didn’t want Mab to judge it too harshly.

I opened the door and gestured Mab inside. I followed. The place was empty. No rowdy werewolves tonight; that was one good thing. Axel leaned on the bar and watched us approach. His small eyes glinted as he took in Mab.

“Axel, this is my aunt, Mab,” I said. “She’s come with me to see Juliet. I hope you won’t mind if she visits your guest room with me.”

Axel regarded Mab as if sizing her up—or thinking about having her as a snack. Mab appraised him just as coolly. For a minute, I thought we were headed for some kind of O.K. Corral showdown.

Then Mab stepped forward. She offered her hand and said something in a language I didn’t understand. It sounded a bit like German, although it wasn’t German.

A grin cracked Axel’s face. He shook Mab’s hand so vigorously it rattled my teeth where I stood beside them. He spoke in a rapid-fire barrage of words in the same language Mab had used. In two minutes, he said more to her than I’d heard him say in three years.

Mab laughed, and Axel laughed with her. He came out from behind the bar, bowed, and offered Mab his arm. The two of them chatted away like old friends as they walked back to the storeroom together. I followed, feeling like a third wheel.

In the storeroom, Axel was showing Mab how to open the secret door. She clapped her hands together, impressed, then tried it herself.

Axel walked over to me, chuckling. “Lovely lady, your aunt,” he said. He picked up a couple of cases of pretzels and, still laughing to himself, carried them into the bar.

Mab stood by the open door, smiling a private smile.

“What did you say to him?” I asked. “What language was that?”

“Trollsprak. It turns out Axel and I have some mutual acquaintances. I simply passed along news from the old country.”

“Axel is a troll?” I’d wondered for years what species Axel was. And Mab had figured it out at a glance.

“Yes, of course, a jotunn, one of the Old Norse giants.” She shook her head. “I must say I’m disappointed you never recognized him as such. But then, you were never a keen student of mythology. If it wasn’t a demon, it didn’t interest you.”

“Hey, I was focused.”

Her face softened. It may have looked about as soft as marble to anyone else, but I could tell the difference. “That you were, child.”

Mab moved aside so I could go first, and then she followed me down the stairs. As we reached the bottom, I half-expected my aunt to start conversing fluently in whatever dialect they spoke in fourteenth-century Verona, but