Page 35 of A Spark of Something (A Librarian’s Guide to Witchery #1)

W ith his hand on the door, Ollie looked to Noble and asked, “Ready for judgment?”

Noble snorted. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, holding it for Noble. Grabbing the man’s hand once inside, they walked together up the stairs.

Jahla’s brow rose on spotting them. “What was the point in driving yourselves if you came back together?” she drawled once they were near enough.

“Choices were made, okay!” he huffed.

“I can see that.” The woman snickered before saying firmly, “No sex in the library during operating hours.”

“It’s my library!?”

Like, if he wanted to have sex, he could! Ollie literally owned the building, and the land it sat on!

“No sex.”

Glaring, he tugged Noble along, grumbling, “You’d think I was just an employee with the way they all boss me around.”

“I have a feeling it would be best if I avoided pissing your people off.”

“Yep, probably would be. The whole bunch of them love to lecture.” Ollie shuddered.

Noble stretched his back with a groan. Un-aging he may be, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt after hunching over books for hours. While they’d paused their research at noon to eat, it had been a few hours since then, and was now nearing three.

Ollie sighed. “You should go. Clearly, we aren’t going to find anything besides back pain today. Also, I should probably get some work done.”

He smirked. “If you are sure?”

“I am.” Ollie stood.

When Noble went to gather the books on the table, the man said, “Leave it, I’ll have someone else deal with them.”

Noble faked a gasp. “Ollie Wisteria Cross, I’m surprised at you. Leaving books out!”

Ollie giggled. “Well, those books were useless to me, so now they have to suffer and wait until I send a library assistant to clean them up. Besides, generally for those who like to sit in the library and read, we actually prefer it if they either, one, leave the books on the tables, two, put them on one of the carts labeled book drop, or three, leave them at one of the resource desks. That way we can make a note of what people have pulled, and it also ensures everything is put back in the right place.”

“Makes sense.” Noble groaned as he stood. “Books, you are being abandoned.”

The man giggled again. Looping his arms through his, they walked together to the elevators, after a brief stop at the resource desk, at the front of the Rare Books section, to tell the librarian there about the books on the table.

They chatted about the play while they rode the elevator down. Stepping off it, Noble started to say, “I think?—”

“Noble!”

He froze, his words cutting off abruptly. It took everything in him to stop the smile from slipping off his face as his heart raced, first in panic, and then in fury.

Keeping his smile even, he didn’t flinch as he slowly turned around and spotted the man.

Dressed all in black with his short white-blond hair, bright-blue eyes, brilliant white smile, boxy jaw and five o’clock shadow, Mikael was looking the same as the last time he saw him, minus the black eye and bloody lip. Both courtesy of Noble’s fist at the time.

“Mikael, what are you doing here?” The question wasn’t friendly, his voice sounded overly sharp even to his own ears.

Ollie, who had turned with him, as their arms were linked, looked up with a small frown, likely at the odd tone Noble had never used around him.

“A…friend of yours?” The little witch glanced between him and Mikael as he approached.

“An unwilling acquaintance.”

Mikael laughed. “Ahh, Noble, always so cruel.”

“Just to you,” Noble sneered.

“And this is?” The bastard’s smile widened as he eyed Ollie.

“None of your business,” he ground out before his little witch had a chance to respond.

Ollie tensed in his hold, staring up at him in confusion.

Ignoring Mikael, he met the man’s confused gaze and forced his smile to relax. “I should go.”

“Right…” Ollie said slowly.

The other witch hunter snorted. “Don’t leave on my account. I’m just here to check out some books.” Mikael laughed. “Ah, but first, I need a library card. Can’t do that without it now, can I? You wouldn’t happen to know how I can get one, would you?”

Thankfully, Ollie didn’t respond.

Noble’s eyes narrowed on the man, letting the anger that had been building show for the first time.

“Right! I’ll just go ask the beautiful woman at the desk there, then.” Without saying anything else, the other hunter walked off.

Slipping his arm free of Ollie’s, he wound it around the man’s waist, pulling him quickly down the stairs. Taking a deep breath when they reached the bottom, he stopped and faced his little witch, and his questioning, concerned gaze.

“Noble…” Ollie hesitated as he pulled from his hold. He gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment, his hands twisting together, before asking, “Is something wrong with that man or…is it me?”

“Ollie, it will never be you.”

Noble was the one to hesitate now. How could he leave and tell him nothing? He couldn’t… He wouldn’t! No matter how much it would risk exposing him, Noble couldn’t leave without at least warning him.

Slowly placing his hands on Ollie’s shoulders, he leaned closer. “Please trust what I’m about to say.”

The man stared, his eyes widening slightly as he nodded.

“That man up there is dangerous. Do whatever you can to avoid being caught alone with him.”

Ollie’s eyes widened further, but he didn’t say anything.

“You know what… Why don’t you come with me until he?—”

“Noble, I’m not going to leave my library, with my people inside it, alone with someone dangerous,” his little witch stated firmly. The man gave him a small, tense smile. “I’m guessing he is related to a past client?”

“Pretty much.”

“Right! I’ll be careful.” Ollie leaned up and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Stop frowning, I’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with dangerous people before, and I have security here.”

He should tell him. Tell him everything. Ollie didn’t—no, couldn’t—understand, with the information he’d given him, that the only one in danger was him.

This was… Noble had done exactly what he hadn’t wanted to do. He’d endangered him. Noble knew this would happen. He knew, yet he still hadn’t stayed away.

Whatever happened next would be his fault. All it would take is a little digging…and?—

“Go, Noble, go. I’ll be fine, I promise.” Ollie laughed, lightly pushing him.

Swallowing hard, he cupped the man’s face and pressed a hard kiss to his lips, before pulling him into a quick but brief hug. “Please, take this seriously.”

“I am,” the man promised. “Go.”

Reluctantly, Noble left. Walking outside, he stared up at the bright sky and rubbed his face with a groan. “Fuck.”

Growling under his breath as his panic once again gave way to anger, he hurried to his truck. Barely stopping himself from losing it on his steering wheel, he left.

Noble had made it about a mile down the road, when he glanced back to switch lanes and found himself staring into reflective yellow eyes.

“Holy fuck!” he yelped as he jerked the wheel, and brought his truck to a screeching stop on the side of the road.

Grasping at his chest, his heart beating fiercely under his palm, he slowly peered back again. “Red, you scared the shit out of me.”

The familiar, who was sitting in his back seat, didn’t even blink. “How much did you just endanger Ollie?”

“I…”

“You knew a threat was coming. You told me that. Yet you also knew that you being near Ollie would bring it right to him, didn’t you?! You weren’t surprised by him being here, just by him being in the library.”

He remained quiet at the accusation. Or maybe it was just that he was too ashamed to admit the familiar was right.

“Answer me,” Red hissed. “How long did you stay near Ollie, knowing that your presence would put him in danger?!”

Noble took a deep breath. “A week and a half.”

The familiar let out a roar. The sound was not that of a small house cat, but of something much larger.

“This whole fucking time. You said you stayed because of a threat, but really you stayed because you are selfish!” Red spat out. “I should kill you.”

“I’d deserve it.”

His words hung there between them. Both were silent for a moment, before he couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you let me near him?”

The cat scoffed. “Stupid of me, really. But I thought, what better way to know when someone is coming for him, than by keeping a hunter nearby. I just didn’t expect that you would stupidly endanger him, knowing one was coming here to see YOU!”

He had told himself that it wouldn’t be forever, that he would walk away after a few more memories, before Ollie was put at risk…but Noble had been lying to himself. “You’re right, I stayed because I’m selfish.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. Selfishness is a trait of your kind,” Red said scornfully.

“That’s fair. I… You…need to keep Ollie away from Mikael Novak. At the very least, never leave him alone with the man. Hunters are all cruel, I won’t claim they aren’t, but Mikael is different. Most hunters do have a set of morals, even if I’d never claim them to be righteous or good. He has none. His reasons for doing this are not like everyone else’s. It’s not for revenge, or out of fear. Mikael is a witch hunter because it lets him kill.”

“And the way you acted just now, won’t that tell him something’s off?”

“No,” Noble said with a bitter laugh. “That is how I always act towards him. In fact, it was probably the most civil in-person conversation I’ve had with the bastard. But then it was the first one in public. Even when I was at my worst, I always felt like something was off about him. How he killed, the way he enjoyed it… It never felt right. That isn’t to say I didn’t, at times, enjoy what I was doing. Regardless, I’ve never hid my dislike of him.”

“Will he know the name Cross? It is a known family.”

Noble scoffed. “Red, you have some misconceptions about witch hunters. Most of us are just trained bloodhounds. I’m sure there are some who connect names and keep track, but most of us just wait for orders and do as we are told.”

“You mean, kill who you are told to kill.”

“Yes.” He answered even though it hadn’t been a question.

“But you don’t want to anymore?”

“You can only be blind for so long before all of the little things that you questioned become too much to ignore. Mikael just happens to be one of those little things. In fact,” Noble smiled slowly, “I misspoke about doing as we are told. The bloodhound part was correct, except we are rabid rather than well-trained. It’s actually rather common for us to off each other. And Mikael just gave me the perfect reason to kill him.”

“Did he?” Red asked, his voice empty of emotion.

“He stepped over the line into my private life. I have a hatred for people who stupidly step into my personal space. The organization knows of it well enough that me killing him won’t even raise a question. So, you keep Ollie away from him while I work on putting the bastard into the ground.”

“Why is he here?”

“You know why.”

“Who are you planning to kill, not so Noble Vincent?” the familiar chimed with a mocking laugh.

“I don’t know, but I won’t do it.”

“Do you have a choice?”

He sighed. “I don’t know that either.”

“You don’t know much, do you, Noble?”

“Not as much as I thought I did, and even less as the days pass by.”

Red let out a scornful sound, before the backseat side door opened and slammed shut. And then Noble was alone.

He took a deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds before letting it woosh out. “Nothing… I know nothing.”

Noble didn’t know what he was doing anymore, nor what he was going to do. No…that wasn’t right. He knew one thing… He was going to kill Mikael Novak.