A Journey of Black and Red

At the northern end of town, hidden between a cattle feed shop and a small glassmaker, stands the Alexandria Shop of Books Rare and Precious for the Discerning Gentleman. I immediately notice two major issues.

The first, neither Urchin nor I are gentlemen.

Second, there is absolutely no way that twenty people would fit in there unless the building also sports an extensive underground network, a stupid idea this close to the Potomac.

Hypothetically, if a mage wanted to slay a vampire, an effective way would be to attract them into a closed environment then detonate it. It is how I would do it. At the same time, I was not baited nor do I have any reason to go there myself.

“Urchin, we will go down and ask some questions. If I tell you to start running, you do.”

“I understand, milady.”

I gather my dress and we drop down from a nearby roof, then cross the deserted street to the entrance of the store. The curtains are fully drawn and the door, locked tight. I easily perceive enchantments of warning and reinforcement engraved into the solid frame. Those are permanent works and not the shoddy labor of a caster who expects to up and leave at the first opportunity.

The perspective of some elaborate trap grows more unlikely by the minute. Only the most fanatical madmen would draw their enemies in the heart of their domain and destroy it around them. Satisfied, I do the most logical thing.

I bang on the door.

Urchin looks at me, askance, and I feel the need to explain.

“Lady Sephare bid us bring the mages to the negotiation table. There is no need for us to antagonize them if they bend willingly.”

“Are those men likely to accept her dominion?”

“Some will not, but some may, and it is them that will be of use in the coming years,” I reply as I keep smashing the wooden frame.

“I see,” Urchin replies thoughtfully.

A moment later, the curtains part and reveal a panicked young man hastily fixing a monocle on one of his pale blue eyes, growing it to comical proportions. He bites an already bloodied lip and comes to a decision, opening the door between us.

“We-we’re closed!”

“I am not here for the books,” I reply with a glacial tone.

I expected many reactions, and yet I still find myself surprised at the sheer, pure expression of orgasmic relief on the meek man’s face.

“Oh thank God, you are here to help? Right? Did someone get my message?”

A message?

Well, no reason to waste this opportunity. I give him my most genial smile and answer:

“Why yes, I am certainly here to help. Why don’t you let us in and tell us everything we need to know.”

“Of course, of course. Sorry.”

We follow the man, apparently a clerk if his sweaty clothes are any indication, to a short counter surrounded everywhere by bookshelves filled to the brim by tomes of all ages and sizes. The air smells stale, the stench of the man’s ripe sweat overloading the delicate scent of ageing paper. Powerful waves of magic surge from a massive cabinet placed against a wall on the right, the apparently unused space an anomaly in the otherwise cluttered store.

The clerk sits down heavily into a battered chair, sending a loaded pistol clattering on the ground. I note with interest that the seat is facing the aforementioned cabinet.

“Oh, where are my manners? My name is Eric Booth. And, er, who might you be?”

“My name is Ariane and this is my assistant, Urchin,” I reply with a light smile. I do not use Charm, as I do not think it necessary. This man is desperate. He wants us to be his saviors and his addled brain will naturally omit all the little details that should arouse his suspicion.

“No last name?”

“You should know better than to ask,” I chastise him with amusement, “All you need to know is that we are only called when the situation is urgent. Speaking of which…”

“Yes, yes, my apologies. It’s just… I was getting desperate. It has already been a day, you see.”

“Why not start from the beginning?”

“Right! Right, so, the head librarian gathered everyone for his experiment, right? That was three days ago. I don’t know much about what they were doing, only that it related to aligned spheres and some such, all hush hush spell thingies, right?”

Oh no, please no.

“So, I was there last night minding my own business when I heard a terrible sound, like breaking metal. It was coming from the portal! I was close at that time so I jumped up and went to open it.”

The first thing to do when magic acts erratically is to take cover and find protective equipment. This man is an absolute moron.

“So, I open it without worry and I hear the most horrendous screams! As if, er…”

“People were eaten alive?” I suggest helpfully.

“I guess? Hold on, you don’t think…?” the clerk replies fearfully.

“Please go on.”

Noticeably paler, the clerk continues with his recollection.

“I was looking down the stairs and then the lights started to flicker. Then after a while, I heard a noise, like something really heavy walking forward. I panicked and I closed the door and I’ve been waiting here ever since. I managed to get a kid to send a message to magister Schultz. He must have received it since you’re here.”

Urchin hides his mouth behind a sleeve and whispers in a voice that only I pick up.

“There is a Schultz who died yesterday. He is the talk of the city, on account of dying after the consumption of an excessive amount of aphrodisiacs. It could be the same person.”

I would not be surprised.

“I did not know what to do so I just took a pistol and waited in front of the door. I only left to go to the lavatories, make food, make tea and find the 1628 version of Don Quixote that had gone missing.”

The world is doomed.

“Thank God you’re here now!”

“Indeed,” I reply drily, “I would like to have a look at the library now.”

“But… you are not exactly armed?”

I take a long silver dagger from a sheath at my back and wave it under the clerk’s nose. Tonight, I am not wearing my armor but a light grey travelling dress plus hood, currently lowered. Urchin wears a black ensemble under his unfortunate beret.

The clerk swallows nervously before looking at my companion currently spinning my gift in the air. He then materializes two throwing knives from a side pocket and starts juggling.

“Right away then.”

While the man fumbles with a keychain, I open the cabinet out of curiosity.

Three empty ink pots and a crude drawing.

The Clerk rushes by me, closes the door, locks and unlocks it. Along the frame, metal decorations in curls and spikes glow gold before fading away. The magic pulses once, then fades back to normal.

Eric Booth pulls the door open, steps back and gestures wildly.

“Welcome, miss, to the Library of Alexandria.”

I walk forth, speechless. My hand caresses a marble wall engraved with images of scrolls and books. Monumental stairs descend onto a platform below, lit by shining blue orbs fixed on the walls by sconces of polished bronze. Their shimmering glow reflects in the odd square of golden sheaf discreetly integrated into nearby carvings.

With every step, the light shifts to focus on another detail, another scene. Here, the titan Prometheus grants fire to mankind, before being punished by an outraged Zeus. There, a Renaissance scholar dissects a man’s body before an assembly of his peers. Astronomers work side by side with dragons, mathematicians with sphinxes in an impossible festival of colors.

Runes in all shapes and sizes flash before my eyes, harmless yet distracting by their sheer number.

Still amazed, I finally attain the landing to find myself in a circular room. Filled bookshelves cover the walls. Two alcove doors lead left and right while right in front of us, glassless windows with a stone railing show similar openings in the distance as if we were part of a building around a circular inner court of massive proportion. I do not see the floor from where I stand.

This place…

IS AWESOME.

By the Watcher, I wish Torran were here to see this! Is this library as large as it looks? A hidden depository of magical knowledge exists here, below my feet! How I wish to explore it, plumb its occulted depths in the search of rare tomes and fantastic knowledge. I could spend years here, caressing those august spines and searching through ink of red and gold for that one pearl of wisdom, that one exquisite manuscript!

Excited, I pick a book at random, marvelling at the quality of the preserved leather cover. I turn it around to read the title.

“De Contemptis of Luve and Evill Wemen, cum commento.

Scottish Poetry as compiled by George Bannatyne, a merchant of Edinburgh.”

Hmm.

Well.

I mean.

It would be unfair of me to expect all of them to be life-changing masterpieces.

Aww, this just ruined the mood. Bah, never mind, I am here to purge and subjugate. I shall not let such trifling matters affect me. Really.

On a side note, I see no trace of eldritch invaders from another dimension just quite yet. There is however, a strange beastly musk in the air as well as the stench of stale blood and wastes, the source of which I promptly find. To the side of the room’s only desk, I find a ghastly pile of purple leavings.

“What is that?” Urchin the city boy asks with a mix of disgust and fascination.

“A massive pile of excrement,” I suggest helpfully.

He stares at me, askance, before coming to a revelation.

“Oh, I know this one! You just used a metaphor, right?”

“I’m afraid not.”

My fellow vampire appears troubled by the droppings. I suppose that both the size and the unusual color are a cause for worry. Ah, and speaking of the devil.

“Mr Booth, go back up the stairs please. Urchin, come here,” I order. The Vanheim vampire looks at me uncomprehending.

“Take out your dagger.”

He materializes it mechanically.

“If I do not miss my guess… Ah, indeed not,” I announce casually as heavy footsteps sound from a side corridor. Soon after, a head made of a large open maw surrounded by questing tendrils emerges from the door, sniffing the air with the power of a forge’s bellow.

“What the hell is that?” Urchin hisses, panicked.

“Tut tut, language,” I chastise him, “that is a Merghol mana hound and you’re going to kill it.”

Silence reigns as the creature steps in and turns towards us.

“I am?” Urchin squeaks.

In answer, I boot the vile creature back from whence it came as it jumps at us and then gently push Urchin forward.

“It shall be your first time facing an inhuman opponent. Enjoy the practice, and do your best!”

Thankfully the creature does not call for its brethren as it throws itself on Urchin with abandon. This specific hound looks like one of the middle-sized ones we faced near Marquette, with several physical differences that could be due to any number of factors. This creature’s skin is purple, it is shorter and stockier than the others and possibly stronger, though it lacks grace. I encourage Urchin as he does his best to fend the creature off.

“To the left. No, the other left.”

“Focus, Urchin, you’re faster than it.”

“Do not concern yourself with that knife, you can just fetch it back with your power.”

“Good one.”

“Stab under the maw to free yourself now!”

“That is fine Urchin, you don’t even need all those fingers. They will regrow!”

And finally, because I am losing patience and the smell of Eric Booth’s empty bowels are trying my patience.

“By the Watcher Urchin, are you a sheep or a vampire? It is Prey, pathetic and filthy. KILL IT. KILL IT NOW.”

With one last scream of rage and desperation, my subordinate jumps on the creature’s back and stabs its spine, flanks and neck repeatedly until the thing stops moving. Behind him, a rumble announces the arrival of some more of the pack. I suppose we were a bit noisy.

“I will be right back,” I declare.

I enter the corridor and find three hounds and, on the ground, an old splash of blood with bits of mangled fabric. I stab the first hound in the heart as it passes by, cleave through the second one’s neck and break the spine of the third just for variety’s sake. In this narrow corridor, they had to come after me one by one, making them easy targets.

I clean purple blood from my long dagger on a nearby tapestry depicting a man conversing with a devil, then return to my allies.

Urchin is on the ground, looking a bit blankly at the alien corpse before him. Booth is slowly stepping away from us and towards the entrance.

“That should be all for now. Urchin, stand up.”

The man obeys.

“And you Booth, come back here,” I order without even a bit of compulsion. The man is a wimp and a glorified doormat, used to taking orders without question.

“Give me the key,” I order, and extend a hand in which he places the golden and intricate object.

“What sort of mages are you?” He asks with a trembling voice.

“The sort that can defeat those creatures,” I reply.

He just accepts the explanation without complaint.

I do not understand why a secretive organization would not use their best agents to guard the gates. This level of oversight is beyond ridiculous, a sign of unwarranted confidence and a complete lack of common sense.

Now that I think about it, those morons apparently opened a portal and got eaten as a result so I should not expect too much.

All that knowledge and no brains.

Disappointing.

“Now, I need to check something. Wait here.”

I approach the window to the inner court and look out and down. Right above me, a ceiling imitating a night sky blocks the way up, indicating that we are on the topmost level of the library. Below, the structure continues over seven floors before ending on a large circular plaza of white and black tiles, over fifty paces across. In its center, an elevated platform of rose stone serves as a ritual locus. It also serves, for now, as a portal between dimensions.

A large crack in the very air tears the veil between realities in a show so strange that my mind revolts at the sight, my eyes slipping away from the rift. The edges of the opening glide senselessly inside of the circle, painting the room in ever-changing shapes of magenta. As I watch, another hound crashes in, then shakes its maw and bickers with one of its siblings already pacing the hall.

Creatures such as this one patrol the ground, sniffing at demolished furniture, pools of blood, and each other. Their grunts and huffs offer a disturbing counterpoint to the portal’s steady hum. Of the mages, very little remains, most of it smeared on the ground.

The runes of the portal flare wildly one after the other without apparent rule. Every five seconds or so, the rift rotates abruptly.

This spell is far from being stable and there is also a good chance that the Merghol hounds disrupt it by their very presence. They do feel queer, the aura around them empty and deleterious. If they truly are magical scramblers, I can already see a few problems looming.

Loth was unusually thorough when teaching me the art of magic despite my own inability to cast. He started out of affection, but the real cause of his seriousness is the perfectionism with which he approaches every aspect of his craft. Barring demanding circumstances, Loth will not start any work that isn’t worth being done perfectly.

One of the first lessons he taught me was the importance of safety. He would drill it into my mind until it became second nature. I still carry in my mind the lessons he shared.

“If it’s unstable, it’s gonny explode, and it’s gonny explode in yer face,” he would say.

And other pearls of wisdom.

“If it can splash on yer fingers it can splash in yer eyes, on yer feet, and on the neighbor’s dog.”

“Measure twice cast once.”

And finally, my favorite.

“It’s only when I’m elbow deep in quicksilver that my arse starts to itch.”

That last one I was thankfully spared due to my immortal nature. One must note that Loth had a vertical pole covered in dense boar hair specifically installed to remedy the situation. It pays to be prepared.

In any case, if he were here he would have some choice words about the situation. An experimental spell is fizzling quickly. An experimental spell that played with the very fabric of the world in a field of magic I am unfamiliar with for the simple reason that it did not exist two years ago.

I cannot even begin to consider what the worst case scenario is. We are in uncharted disaster territory.

The real question here is, do I cut and run? I could leave Alexandria to its fate. It would be the most reasonable action, at least in the short term. However, I dismiss this thought as soon as it comes to my mind, and I know why.

It is not duty, though duty plays a part.

To flee now is to give up on not just the task I was granted, but also on my alliance with Sephare and, possibly, even Constantine. Who would respect a vampire who had a chance to stop the cataclysm and turned tail instead? I would not. In managing our territories, we are expected to solve supernatural threats if only because we do not tolerate competition.

It is not greed either, though greed plays a part. I found a treasure trove and I resent the very thought of leaving it for alien beasts to despoil. Already, the signs of their presence in those halls of gold and marble fill my heart with cold anger. We stand in a hallowed place, a temple to knowledge and humanism. I will not part with it so easily, and yet, it is still not the true reason.

The real cause is, of course, pride.

Our greatest sin.

The ever-present cause for our demise.

I have been thinking about it.

I believe that in order to become a Lord, the Watcher’s influence is required. The mark of a Lord is the Magna Arqa, their strange power. When Lord Suarez demonstrated it against the Knight Squad, his eyes briefly flashed with the color of the vampire star.

I know that I am relying on a vague impression or rather a hunch when making this assumption. It matters not. Hunches are born from instinct and experience, neither of which have failed me when it came to understanding my own nature. That influence will not be bestowed upon the meek, the useless and the stupid.

Pride is simply at the heart of what we are. To deny it is to deny our nature. I cannot flee as surely as a fish cannot breathe air.

“Booth,” I ask, “where would the notes on this spell be kept?”

“The—the mage quarters on the fourth floor, I believe. All their laboratories are there.”

“Excellent. I will need those to close the portal safely. For now, we must prepare.”

“Milady?” Urchin asks with doubt in his eyes.

“We came equipped for a diplomatic mission. This is now an extermination mission, and I need my gear for that. We will return to base and fetch our weapons.”

Pride must be tempered with caution.

“You mean, a search and rescue mission, right?” our guide asks worriedly.

“Yes yes, Mr. Booth. A search and rescue mission,” I reply with rolling eyes. Perhaps I should have just bitten that idiot.

According to our guide, the Library consists of seven main floors and an archive under the central plaza, which contains advanced magical knowledge and tomes of forbidden lore. In other words, the good stuff. The Fourth floor is dedicated to offices, quarters and laboratories. Enough for twenty people to conduct their research comfortably. All of the rift’s preparatory work should be there.

Booth was quite helpful in describing the architecture of the library. I ended up biting him because I cannot take the risk that he would grow a spine as Urchin and I conduct our search. It would not do to solve the issue, only to return and find out he somehow sealed us in.

“Milady, I am scared.”

“Then don’t look down,” I reply drily. The stairs up and down are situated at either end of the circle and we would be guaranteed to get in combat with packs of the beast. Fighting now would be counterproductive. We need to close the portal first, then mop up.

And so, we climb down the face of the inner court, using our claws to prevent an untimely fall onto the plaza. Also onto said plaza’s fauna and strange magical phenomenon. Even now, the chaotic light coming from below casts strange shadows on the walls’ white stone.

Urchin slips. I dig one claw in the carved figure of a well-endowed nymph and grab my accomplice by the collar as he gasps. On the other side of the wall, a few huffs signify the presence of a hound. The creature is unimaginative, however, and after a few disappointed grunts, we hear it paddle away.

I shove Urchin against a column which he clings to like an oyster to a hull, then resume my descent. A few seconds of muttered curses after, Urchin follows suit.

Our climb ends without further incidents at the edge of the fourth floor. Looking over the railing, I immediately notice differences.

While other floors are densely packed labyrinths of bookshelves around small study rooms, this one is almost entirely open. The gap in front of us opens into a vast study room dotted with support pillars and luxurious desks, all of which stand abandoned. A few doors on the opposite walls probably lead to the offices Booth described.

Contrary to my expectations, the center path to the laboratories

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!