The Librarians

The worst thing Octavia could have imagined spending her weekend doing had come true.

It wasn't as if she were a party girl or anything. She didn't have a contact list full of other college students who thought whoever could throw a football the farthest or chug a beer the fastest were somehow the peak of the human species.

That didn't mean she enjoyed spending the weekend; she could be out at the arcade or watching movies with the two best friends she did have, but she was forced to volunteer at the local library.

Octavia sighed as she rifled through the dusty and ancient books. Please don't get her wrong, she enjoyed reading and was a decently studious student, or so she thought, but sorting books older than the building she was standing in wasn't her idea of a good time.

Give her a copy of Sandman Slim, or the Necroscope, and she could spend a good hour or two engrossed in the world of dried ink and soothing turning of pages.

She couldn't even pronounce half the titles of the golden-embossed, decaying leather works. That was if they were even written in some semblance of English.

When she was walking home yesterday, she shouldn't have stopped to speak with the kind old woman sitting outside the library. Maybe then she wouldn't have felt guilty listening to Ms. Green talk about her best friend who was going into her first round of chemo.

Octavia looked up, her brows raising, as the bell above the door chimed. No one had come in the past five hours she'd been here.

Hurrying over, careful not to topple any of the many towers of books littered throughout the mahogany bookcases, Octavia met the man at the main counter.

He was dressed in a perfectly pressed black suit. Not a seam or fold out of place. His black leather shoes shone with what she guessed was fresh wax, which, who even gets their shoes waxed anymore?

His long black hair was slicked back, looking like a lion's mane. With his contrasting pale skin and black suit, shirt, and hair, he looked like he had just stepped out of an old black and white movie. The black briefcase he carried only made him look even older.

"Are you the Librarian?" He asked, his voice a deep and smooth baritone, only reinforcing the picture of a Bond villain in her mind.

She hesitated for a second. "I am."

Ms. Green had said she would be a librarian for the day. Well, she had more specifically told her to handle anything that did not require her direct attention and to tell anyone to come back another day that did.

He smiled, his teeth perfectly white and straight, not like one of those realtors with teeth so white you could see a rainbow every time they smiled. Opening up his suitcase, he pulled out a large manila envelope easily four inches thick.

As Octavia wrapped her hands around it, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

"Please, do make sure to read it as soon as you can." He stressed, his fingers pressing to the bone. "I am counting on your ability to deliver before the next date."

Chills crawled up Octavia's spine as she stared into the man's black eyes. Her throat itched as she was assaulted with the smell of rotten eggs and something else she couldn't quite place.

Octavia nodded jerkily, her muscles fighting her every movement as he finally let go. Her heart pounded in her chest; her fingers pulsed with every beat.

When he pulled away and closed his briefcase, his smile was too wide, his lips pulled over his teeth. Teeth that she could have sworn were long and sharp.

"Do not make me do to you as I was forced to do to the others." With those heart-dropping words, he nodded, turned on his heel sharply, and left. The cheerful ringing of the bell above the heavy wood doors brought her back to reality.

Looking up at the old cuckoo clock, she gasped, her heart finally calming down.

Quickly, she grabbed her coat and computer bag from under the desk and ran to the doors. Flicking off the lights and plunging the suddenly eerie library into darkness, she hurriedly pushed open the door and barely managed to get the key in the lock with her shaking hands.

With a click, she yanked the keys out and began to jog down the street. The cool night air swept through her hair and calmed her jittering nerves. The street was quiet as she kept to the lights, avoiding the sides without. Every person she walked past, every honk, and every darkly lit stretch she had to cross made her tense, her mind flashing back to those black eyes and pale skin.

When she finally reached her small apartment building. A sigh escaped her as she entered the cracked and worn, graffiti-covered brick building. The familiar hum of the old heating system and smell of cigarette smoke and cheap carpet cleaners felt like armor in that moment.

It was only when she got to her apartment that she realized she still held the envelope for Ms. Green. Throwing off her coat and hanging up her computer bag on the rickety coatrack she had bought from the old man downstairs, she made her way to the couch and sat with the envelope in her hands.

She fought with herself for a moment as she stared at it. It wasn't hers to open; she shouldn't have even brought it home with her. But there was something about it, something that just wouldn't let her put it down.

Opening the envelope, she carefully slipped the book onto the table. Her head swam as she looked at the black, leather-bound tome. Beautiful golden filigree wound across its surface with equally stunning chains holding the cover closed.

Octavia ran her fingers across the dips and grooves across its surface. Her hands buzzed like she was holding onto an electric fence.

"Necromantia Daemonium." She spoke softly as her fingers brushed the glowing title. With a snap, the chains released, throwing open the book with a flash of bloody light.

She jumped as her door creaked open, the red light shining from the freely flipping pages bathing her apartment in its glow.

"Oh, Dearie." Ms. Green sighed with a smile, her eyes alight with more than just emotion. "I believe you have something of mine."