Path of the Vampire forum

There was a gasp, a slap, and a lingering sting in the palms of her hands before she knew what had happened. Her neck ached from the jolt it'd received when her cheek had slipped off her fist. Her glasses slid down the brim of her nose, and she squinted groggily over them, head tilted back ever so slightly as she eyed the door. Hadn't the belle just tinked? Could have sworn... Her slender fingers pushed her glasses habitually up the bridge of her nose lingering for a moment on the softened edges of the medical tape she'd wrapped around the middle to hold them together.

Dreaming again.

Her grey eyes shifted over the dusty shelves and poorly lit tables of the small book shop she worked in. The air smelled as it always did (old, exciting, cozy), and she couldn't hear anyone shuffling around in the second room. Rubbing her cheeks so that the bottoms of her lids pulled grossly away to reveal the red squishiness of her eyes S.J. decided she should make her usual cup of coffee. As she pulled the curtain of copper hair over one shoulder, the lanky twenty-something pushed her chair back and made for the small kitchenette at the back of the shop. The old place had been a small house once, but the owner had converted it years ago into a bookstore specializing in ancient texts, cultures, philosophies, and languages. It was the perfect place for a student of Archeology to spend her time. Plus there was endless coffee and cookies. No Wi-Fi.

Flicking the switch on the coffee maker she watched as the first few streams of delicious brown liquid fell into the pot. Five minutes to go. She shuffled back, sugar cookie stuffed in her front teeth as she leaned against the high wooden desk she perched at five nights a week. Books, papers, notebooks, and a few dusty items from the shelves around her were strewn over the top of it. She scanned her messy class notes, wondering how in the hell the girl next to her in Professor Miles' class managed to simultaneously write and organize her lecture notes into something useful. Finals. Her face scrunched. The past semester had not been going as easily as she'd thought it might, and she was feeling more than a little anxious when it came to her Anthropology final. Half a page down both of her cookies were gone, and the smell of coffee had finally made its way into the front room. As usual the shop was empty.

Once again she slipped into the back room, made herself a cup of black coffee, piled a small plate high with half a dozen cookies, and then settled in again. The leather chair creaked as she shifted, the dust floated around her head, the joints of the old place made their complaints, and her defeated sigh sank into the old pages around her.

Doc’s mood had been sour. He was trying to put himself into a better frame of mind. But it wasn't as easy as it sounded. He was sour. No, sour did not begin to describe the vicious feeling he felt. His patience was as thin as a spider’s thread. He had spent that last several hours writing up the loonies’ weekly reports. He didn’t know who he was more angry with, Cyril for firing his Psychologist, or the Ball and Chain for not making a ******* issue of being fired. The one time, it would be to his ******* benefit for the Ball and Chain to actually ***** and moan, it would have warned him of the potential catastrophe facing him. But did she? There were only so files he could do in one sitting without going mad.

Having had shelved the files for the time being, Doc had turned his attention to the trip to Vegas. He had promised Lizzie a Vegas trip, and he intended to make it … memorable. Due to the shortness of the time the only suitable solution was to book a suite. After some deliberation he had booked a two bedroom lakeview suite that had a view fountains of the lake. The two master bedrooms came with king beds, each with their own bath. It was pricey, but it was worth it. He figured the suite would be compensation after what he had planned. Which brought him to his next item of business. The tablet.

Elizabeth had given him a tablet that she had come across. It was written in a language he didn’t completely recognize. Some symbols reminded him of the symbols on the ritual altar. But for all Doc’s ability with studying, he really had no gift for languages, which meant he made a complete disaster of it. He had made arrangements with Marl to look at it. She owned the Occult Museum in Harper Rock. However, shortly after he had made that arrangement, he had come across Marl in the midst of a feral episode, attempting to feed on an unwilling girl that had been stupid enough to sleep in the park.

Who in their right mind, slept in the park, in a city.. Teeming with vampires? Who? Someone with no ******* sense of survival. No. ******* idiots, that is who slept in a vampire infested park. Doc should have let Marl have her. Then maybe Marl would have told him what the ******* tablet said. But no.. he had to be scrupulous.. And save the ******* human. And by doing that, he never saw Marl again. No Marl, and no translation. So his vile mood, had only slightly improved to ‘sour’.

After an hour of reading ******* useless Yelp reviews, Doc finally decided on the bookstore to try. It was an old school type book store. Not one of the new, fully integrated to technology types. It was located in a house that had been converted into retail space. Another hour later, after having fought what seemed to be the ‘War of the Roses’ over a parking slot. He was at last, finally.. able to hopefully speak to someone about a translation. He entered the bookstore, and was immediately disheartened. Instead of seeing an older well read, experienced book proprietor,.. He saw a female teen behind the register, munching loudly on cookies and slurping some beverage.

Oh. Joy.

The door opened and the belle tinked just as she dunked her cookie into her coffee. She dropped it in surprise, and stared at the crumbs in dismay. I love you, Jack. played in her head as she looked up over the top of her glasses. They had once again started an eternal journey down the bridge of her nose. Pushing them back up S.J. put on her automatic smile.

"Hello." She said sweetly though she didn't rise from her chair. She pushed her papers and books to the side, keeping her polite gaze on the customer before her. His face was in shadow as was usually the case thanks to an oddly placed light just near the entrance, but she liked to pretend she could see his face. Most people seemed to think she could, and she felt it helped negate any unwanted behavior. Hopefully.

Not surprisingly, but rather annoyingly, one of her books and several of her notes fell to the floor as she tried to organize without looking. The book slammed hard, no doubt stirring up a thin layer of dust as it landed, and her papers scattered. Some fell under desk, others somehow managed to glide with the grace of a professional ice skater under nearby book shelves.

"****." It slipped out with the BANG! of the book. "****, sorry." she tried to apologize for her language. She closed her eyes, annoyed at herself, opened them and stood. Looking respectfully ashamed at herself, cheeks a mild red, and an awkward smile on her face, S.J. gestured towards the bookshelves. "Is there anything specific I can help you find?" The words were casual. Sweet. Polite. Everything she wasn't feeling. She wrapped her sweater around herself and crossed her arms. The only non-inviting gesture she'd shown.

Barely resisting the urge to immediately turn around and leave, Doc pinched the bridge of his nose, and mentally counted. Perhaps she was a family member of the person who owned the shop. If so she may be able to tell him when the real proprietor would available. If she were not related, maybe she was that bookish child that grew up in the shadows of the book shelves. In that case, she could at least point him to the proper area to begin his own search.

Those were the thoughts that were going through his mind as he tried not to come across as irritated as he was. He was running for office. The last thing he needed was to piss off some liberal’s entitled spawn, that would then go around Harper Rock vilifying him. Just as he had calmed his countenance to one of civil affability, the teen spoke, and proceeded to spill everything that had been on the counter, on the floor in spectacular faction. Everything, apart from the food and register, was now splayed all about the floor in a chaotic circles of books, notes, and fliers, and the teen? She blithely ignored the mess, after an initial muttered expletive, and asked in a tone so sugary, that one could get cavities, if he needed help.

Stepping forward from the darkened doorway into the rather dim incandescent light, he studied her for a few minutes, before finally deigning to speak. It was going to be a wasted trip, it doubtful she could offer any insight, much less expertise in the matter he had wanted information on. She barely looked old enough to be out of braces. His upper lip curled in a disdainful manner that he was unaware of. It was born from the thoughts that nothing was ever ******* easy. It was always battle, or struggle, or something ******* obstacle that stood in his way. And so far, this foray proved to be just like everything else, a struggle. He linked his fingers together and rested them in front of him, as he stood watching her. Fine. Just get it over with. Then he could leave and write this whole day off as a ******* waste of his time.

“Would your…” It wasn’t exactly a ‘store’ or even a ‘shop’; “..establishment, have a section of reference materials? If so.. Dare I hold my breath to hope, that it would include books on ancient and.. or.. dead obsolete languages?” His voice was even and polite, but his face clearly showed he expected her to reply with an inane, ‘oh so sorry.. No we don’t’.

S.J.'s expression slipped from her control as the visitor entered her line of sight. Her eyes widened slightly, and one of her eyebrows rose above the other. Her mouth was neutral but hard. She wasn't sure at first, but as she heard his voice the recognition became immediately clear: Charles Nilson. Mayoral candidate. Though she didn't pay much attention to politics she did make a habit of keeping up to date on what was happening in Harper. At least once a week she'd seen his face and watched his conferences numerous times since September. A local celeb.

Blinking to clear her thoughts she smiled at him again and nodded. "Sure. Mostly we have dead languages and a small section on the extinct ones. I'll show you." She slipped from behind the desk, stepping over her mess, and started for a very small room towards the back of the house, just next to the kitchen. She assumed it had been an office space at some point. The books here ranged from old to new. Some were theoretical publications of the use of certain languages, and others were as close to "Latin for Dummies" as you could get without disturbing the class of the place. The Extinct Languages section took two shelves in its entirety, but each text was pretty informative of their histories. The rest of the room, filled with four floor to ceiling book shelves pressed against the walls, and one small table in the middle, was full of books on dead languages. They dated back to the earliest days of language its self and forward to some of the more recent languages that had died. They were organized as such, and she told him all of this as they entered, gesturing to the sections as she named them.

She was much more comfortable when she could divert attention away from herself, but either way she could talk about these books for hours should anyone ask her to. She loved them all, and her degree choice had often lead her into nearly every corner of the place for research. She ran her fingers through her hair as she spoke, pushing it away from her face in annoyance, and she easily selected a few general texts for him to look at. She placed them gently on the table and clicked on the small lamp sitting on the edge of it. "These should be helpful if you're unfamiliar with the origin of the language you're looking into. They should point you in the direction of its sub-catagory or at least the family it belongs to..." She looked pensive for a moment as she glanced over the shelves one more time.

"Otherwise, do you have any specific questions for me? I could get you some coffee or water if you'd like while you look around?"

He watched as her sugary voice and happy expression turned to one of barely disguised distaste. ****, she had recognized him, and probably wasn’t in his camp, for the upcoming election. He wanted to not even care, but he needed every vote he could get. So he had to play nice. This was yet another grand example of ‘nothing ever being easy’! Doc swallowed the caustic remark that was dying to trip off his tongue. What good would it do to alienate a voter? None. And if his luck held, as it had in all his other dealings with females, it would only end badly for him. Not her. So he bit his tongue.

It paid off. The frosty look was quickly replaced with a perfunctory smile, and polite ‘this way’ gesture. She led Doc through the rabbit warren of doors and rooms until they reached a room containing what he might seek. She pointed out several, what he classed as, beginner books while explaining that he would need to know the language family it belonged to before moving on to the more specific books.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he re-evaluated her. She wasn’t as young as he first presumed and her off hand remark about narrowing down or knowing the language family was his first step; told him one of two things. Either he wasn’t the first to come here with that request, or .. she knew more than he had first suspected. He decided to see which of the two she fell into. “I am not sure of the family. It appears to be a cross between a type of cuneiform and a type of hieroglyphics. I do know, that it is not Sumerian, Assyrian, or Babylonian, its closest resemblance is Semitic cuneiform. The hieroglyphics are not Egyptian or Mayan, yet they are in the style closest to the Mayan. Do you know which language that would be?”

S.J. stared at him for a long moment. She got the feeling he was testing her, and though she did not really care about his opinion of her, she did privatley enjoy showing off--just a little. She absorbed his information, thought on it, and then turned to the ancient texts section of the room. She was no expert, by any means, but she did know that each language he'd listed was old. Very old. She'd had the luck earlier this semester to come across a book that for this one moment, would make her look at least competent in something she only knew the surface of.

"Well," she said, 'from what I've read, the common link between the languages it's not would seem to be that they are branche of the Eastern Semitic languages. Excluding the Sumerian." She pulled down a thick, leather bound text and held it against her hip. "If you want to rule out other Eastern Semitic languages you could look at Eblaite or Akkadian." She pulled down two more smaller books and added them to the pile on her hip. Chewing on her bottom lip as a scholarly habit she grew pensive again. "Then again..." She slid to the left of the shelf, head bent back as she looked over its top shelves. "There's the possibility of it being of the Western Semitic branches, and those are quite numerous."

Turning to place the books she'd pulled for him on the table with the others, she smiled and shrugged. The book she'd used to complete a paper for her cultural studies class had contained a reference tree with a broad outline of the Semitic language and its branches. She'd referenced it so many times it was almost burned into her skull. Of course she'd have to look it over if he wanted to explore every branch, but at least she answered his question. "These should be a good start. If you have a picture I might be able to help out a little more, but I'm not really an expert on languages. " She looked at the stack she'd chosen for him. He had several hours of reading to do.

Doc hadn’t uttered a word, throughout her impromptu dissertation about the languages. She knew more than he had given her credit for. The languages she had mentioned, he was aware of them. He had rules them out as well. He didn’t mention them, because quite honestly, he didn’t expect her to know them. But she had known them, and had recognized they were within the family branches of the other languages he had mentioned. She had pulled out nine different volumes. That was at the very least, two weeks of reading, and even then he wasn’t assured that they would contain any useful information.

Looking resolved to the chore ahead of him, he slid his gaze back to the girl. “Fine. I will take them all.” He sounded less than thrilled. Between having to deal with the loonies at the Asylum, playing pretty for the cameras, and trying to spend time with the Spawns.. It was a given he would have nothing of any import to tell Lizzie. He had hoped to give her some sort of update on the tablet on the flight to Vegas. But it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.

Unless.

Unless he had a sample he could show her? Doc did have a sample. He had taken a rubbing of the tablet, before locking it in his safe. He didn’t want to take a chance on damaging the tablet. He had the rubbing with him, so that he could refer to it himself, if he needed. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out the folded rubbing. He held it in his hand, but didn’t offer it to her.

His voice lost any semblance of polite aloofness. It was serious and pointed. “I have an example. Yes. But I would need your name, and you assurance in writing that you would not disclose anything I show you, tell you, or give you, to anyone, without express permission from me, and my board of directors.” The folded example in his hand, “Do you agree to those terms?”

She eyed the piece of paper he'd taken from his pocket. The air around them had gone cold with the seriousness in his voice, and she felt a sudden weight on the conversation she didn't understand. Her heart had started to beat just a little faster, her breathing following , skin tingling with goosebumps. Something was up. She wanted to know. He was looking into old, secret languages. Secret pasts. Secrets. Her eyes moed from the paper to meet his gaze. It was sharp, piercing, and she almost looked away.

The silence that followed his proposal was, to be rather cliche, deafening. At least to her. Her ears were ringing with the absence of his voice. Adrenaline had, for some unknown reason (instinct maybe?) rushed through her system. This smelled of something. Something that would get her into trouble as these things usually did. She looked between his eyes and the paper, deliberating. How badly did she want it? Finals were coming up. She would have to dedicate free time to this. Did she have that free time? And anyway why so much secrecy?

"It's almost like you have something to hide, Mr. Nilson." She smiled softly as she said it, hoping to release tension, but also as a sort of preface to the rest of what she had to say. "Besides, as I said, I'm no expert. My thing is Archeology. I dig up old things and theorize what old people did with them...However, I do have an unhealthy interest in things that are...unknown." Her eyes met his. "I have more free time than you do, I'm sure. I have access to the books you see around you, not to mention the university library and the professors there as well..." She took a breath to steady herself.

"I'll sign whatever you want, Mr. Nilson, but I would like to offer you my time and efforts in exchange for a small fee." There, she'd said it. As curious as she was, she was also broke. Getting paid might validate what she would have done anyway--accept something that might be trouble. "Otherwise, to be perfectly honest sir, my just looking at a sample isn't going to get either of us anywhere."

She said he might have something to hide. She insinuated he was up to no good. He smiled. It was his typical closed lipped crooked smirk. If only she knew. Yes he had plenty to hide. Murders, bodies, stolen goods, but in this case he was innocent. Completely, irrevocably innocent. The humor was not lost on him. In fact it lifted the black cloud of crushing doom that seemed to follow him this evening.

Then she began to bargain with him. Well well well. This was getting interesting. Gone was cold impatient asshole, in its place the ‘slow, methodical, calculating Doc’, who took up her thrown down gauntlet. She admitted she wasn't an expert. But she also admitted she had an obsession. And through his dealings with the loonies at the Asylum, he knew people with obsessions rarely stopped pursuing the object of their desire.

So the question became, was she really that obsessed? Or was it said merely as an interlude to hopefully elicit money from him, because he was willing to purchase nine books on her say so? He knew he was taking a large risk. She could be useless or ever worse than useless. But he had plan B for that, if it came to it. So he was willing to play her game; only because he knew he could **** her up, far worse than she could **** him.

Holding up a finger, while holding the folded paper, he took out his phone with his other hand. Swiping the screen with his thumb, he he double tapped an icon on the screen. Then he held the phone to his ear. “Cyril. Good. I need a non-disclosure form. Email it please.” He paused as Cyril spoke.

Nodding as Doc answered, “Right. I understand this. Email me the non-disclosure.”

Sighing Doc listened and only, barely, resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “No.”

A pause, “No. Listen carefully to my words Cyril. Email me the non-disclosure form.”

Another long-suffering sigh. “There is a wi-fi printer at my location. Once you email the document.. I will be able to print it and sort it out.. On… my… own.”

Hanging up, he pocketed the cell and looked at the female bookstore attendant. “My apologies. My business manager likes to think he is my father.”

Doc backtracked to the area where he saw the printer. It wasn't a wi-fi enabled printer. He pulled out the phone again and waited. After what seemed an eternity; which is saying a lot, because vampires have extending lifespans; finally he got the email with the attached document. Looking around, he saw the computer. “May I have permission to access my email, through your system?’ And then as a follow up, “So I can print the non-disclosure form?... that is .. unless you have non-disclosure forms at your fingertips?”