Roommate from Hell by Julie Steimle (year 7 reading list TXT) 📕

come to this city. And the last one was brutal.”
I felt a little sick again. I didn’t like hearing about the former exploits of the last vimps. I knew they were all beasts of the most bloodthirsty nature, lovers of carnage. However, I started writing again. “I see. Well…in that case this can’t be avoided.”
But then I paused. That was what the vampire meant about the history of that city. The former vimp had been here. Only one vimp is born in this world every three hundred years. What were the chances of that vimp wreaking havoc in the city I would move to some day? Really.
He tapped the paper again.
I filled out the rest of it, including the section that asked for any dealings with users of black magic. I had to write down the incident with the witches kidnapping me three years ago, taking me to Middleton, Massachusetts to kill the Holy Seven, noting in thick lead that I did not fulfill their wishes. Then I looked at the last section.
The last part asked if I had any dealings with the SRA before. There I paused.
Mr. Horwitz tapped the paper again. “Finish it.”
I filled in the part about meeting Michael Toms as he was on the hunt for a demon in my hometown. I also noted that I knew Mr. Brian McDillan, the vampire hunter. There was one more incident I could have mentioned, but I didn’t want to put that down at all since I had attacked some SRA hunters that had tried to kill a friend of mine. I wasn’t sure how the police here would take that, especially if they really believed in demons.
“Done?” he asked.
I set my pencil down and shoved the paper over to him. He picked it up and read it silently until he got down to my supernatural history. There he eyed me.
“You were supposed to write the whole truth,” he said.
I cringed, bracing my hands on the chair. My ears grew hot from embarrassment.
With a smirk of pleasure at my reaction, he leaned forward, setting his elbows on the desk as his fingers interlaced. “You wrote about the witches, but you did not mention the werewolf.”
With a blink first, I then looked at him narrowly. “How did you know about—?”
“Brian gave me a full account of your history,” he said, his grin becoming one of those disgusting looks of smugness for catching me in a lie. “Just in case.”
Rolling my eyes, I slumped against the table. “Fine. I’ll put it in, but I’m not naming names. The SRA is vicious to werewolves.”
“So speaks the demon known as the slayer of men,” he replied.
Taking the paper back, I stuck my tongue out at him. With the pen I scrawled out in the simplest terms that I had a werewolf friend. No details.
“And the lower part too. How you got in the way of a hunt because of that werewolf,” the man added.
I lifted my eyes in a glare. “Are you trying to make me angry?”
“Are you attempting to lie to the police?” he retorted, though without any offense from my tone.
“Fine, but those hunters were on private property. What I did was justified.” Scratching out the last detail that I had a small scuffle with a few hunters in regards to my werewolf friend, noting that none of them were killed, though I skipped the part about three of them being badly wounded. I then finished up the document and shoved it back to him.
Mr. Horwitz took it up, scanned over it then nodded to me.
“Ok.”
He rose from his seat as he gestured to the center of the room.
“Now I need to take some pictures for the record. You have to put out a little and show them what you are made of.” The shopkeeper then walked over to the shelf to get his digital camera. I really didn’t like this whole thing, but Mr. McDillan had practically pounded it into my head after high school graduation that the SRA were much more aggressive in the outside world, and a lot of people could possibly get hurt in the crossfire if any one of them decided to hunt me, especially on campus. Registering at least kept up appearances. Mr. McDillan knew as well as I that no one could regulate me no matter how much they tried.
So I popped my little wings out from my back and removed my color contacts, then stretched my wings until they were at least a decent size as I held my contacts in my palm. My wings always got larger proportionate to the kind of flying I was to do.
“Wow!”
I turned to look at the storekeeper.
Mr. Horwitz had stopped near his desk with his camera in hand, staring at me. “I had no idea the wing thing was real. That girl really did see you fly off to go surfing. Didn’t she?”
With a groan, I rolled my eyes, yet nodded giving my wings a stretching flap that felt wonderful. “Though I don’t get how.”
He lifted up his camera, indicating for me to pose but not get cute about it. “She hears evil spirits. Especially all the wicked things they think about her.”
I blinked, extending the wings like hands. “Can she really see them?”
Mr. Horwitz nodded, holding his camera to look. “Only when they are near by. She says they are little devils.”
“Imps,” I said with a smirk and a nod. Then I snatched one from the air. It was his, one that had been shouting at him to try and get me drunk so I would sleep with him. His imps were pervy. I started to wonder at their fatness if he listened to them a lot.
Mr. Horwitz immediately went red when he heard the imp still shouting his dirty temptations out at him, though he also took a picture. I gave him a dry look before letting the screaming little winged critter go.
Still smirking, I turned so he could photograph my back. After I heard the camera beep, I drew in my wings again so that all that was left was the small set of wing-like birthmarks on my shoulder blades. I parted the hair to hang over the front of my shoulders to expose my back so he could take a picture of that too.
“You wouldn’t dare slip me a micky, would you?” I said. “Imps are troublemakers that feed off of mischief. Everyone has them.”
With a still abashed glance, Mr. Horwitz nodded, clapping the lens cap over the front of the camera. Then he tucked it back into his coat pocket.
That was it. We were done. I walked back to the desk and took my small backpack off of it to get out my contact lens things so I could clean them and put them back on. He watched me with a slight look of interest, also peeking at the sunglasses I used to wear all the time. I took those out also, since it was near noon and the sun would be high. As soon as my contacts were in I took out the small bottle of sun block, squirting a dollop into my palm.
“All this preparation, just to go outside?” he asked.
I cast him yet another smirk, smearing the greaseless sun block on my face first then my arms and shoulders. “The difficult life of a half vampire…. What to do?”
I could tell from his imps settling down that I had set up an intimidating rapport with this man just like I had Mr. McDillan. All that was left between us was business.
We walked to the door where he would let me out.
As I put my lotion away, I asked, “So, when should I expect a visit from the police?”
Mr. Horwitz nodded, his eyes examining me. “Expect them within this week. And believe me, you went through nothing today. The police here have a private vendetta with the last vimp. From one person who understands the extreme complications of the unseen world to another, I’d flee to Stanford if I were you.”
I opened the office door. “Well, you’re not me.”
“Clearly.”
He chuckled and then shook his head.
A sly curl on his lips returned to his face as I walked out into the main store again. His imps were already making naughty suggestions, ways to make me blush since it was obvious that the reports he had heard about me were all true. However, he held his tongue.
“Should I check in with you again?” I asked as I gave him a nod of thanks.
He shook his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Only if you need special help. Otherwise, it would be better that you don’t put yourself near an occult bookshop, if you get my meaning.”
I decided not to comment on that.
He watched me even as I weaved through the maze of book stacks to go outside. And as the door jingled and the open sign flopped against the glass once more, I heard his imps shout for him to say something dirty to me before I was gone. Happily, he never did.
The second I was on the street I kept an eye out for Tabitha. I didn’t see her until I got to the bus stop where she practically pounced on me, almost knocking me off the curb.
“Go back to Hell, demon!” I hadn’t heard her imps, which I took as a bad sign. They were looking peevish though, which I took as a good sign.
She held up a bigger cross than the last time. This time it was silver with some fancy filigree work. I wondered where she got the money to keep buying that stuff.
Reaching out, I grasped hold of that cross as I had that morning, pulling her closer. “Would you cut that out?”
Tugging to make me let go, Tabitha’s eyes flickered from the cross with dismay that it had not done a bit of good. “I could have sworn that…”
I let out a moan.
She tried to hold the cross up higher, muttering under her breath a church hymn.
“Give me a break.” I jerked the cross from her hands, dangling it out of her reach before tossing it over her head. “It’s just a piece of metal.”
Tabitha clenched her teeth, balling her hands into fists, then stomped back to retrieve it. The bus pulled up just then.