by Arthur Slade
I was soon in an interior courtyard with a glassed-in roof and people reading books in what looked like an aquarium. Or a bookquarium. I tumbled through the first open doors I saw.
I was home! There was a library desk and there were two librarians behind it. One male. One female. And I was a stinking, horrid mess but I was also a bookworm. I wanted to hug them.
The female librarian said something to me in Swedish. She was a middle-aged white woman with dark hair. She was clearly stressed at my condition.
“I am here for sanctuary,” I said. I raised my hand in a sign of solidarity, making the handcuffs shake. “Tell the Returns. I claim sanctuary.”
I sounded bat-poop crazy. But Theressa, the leader of the Returns, had once told me any library was safe. Or was that my imagination?
The woman said something soothing in Swedish and her male coworker started to come around the corner of the desk. He didn’t look as calm as her.
“Sanctuary,” I said. “I want sanctuary. Do you know Theressa? My librarian card number is 121435. I’m friends with Agnes.”
The man began making slightly aggressive Swedish language noises and had his arms out as if he might grab me. He wasn’t a large specimen. A lifetime of lifting books hadn’t built his muscles.
“Does anyone speak English?” I shouted. My voice echoed in the library. Several patrons, who were watching me with a mix of consternation and pity on their faces, put up their hands.
“I do,” a redhead woman said.
“I do,” an old man offered.
“I do,” a blond mom with a baby carriage said.
Of course! I was reminded that other countries actually took the time to learn English. I was such a cultural boob sometimes.
“Any of the librarians?” I asked. “I need to talk to a librarian about sanctuary. I am one of you. I am one of you!”
A woman came out from behind a bookshelf. She was wearing a red matronly sweater and grey pants and her skin was dark enough for me to think she may be Indian. “Do you need help?” she said in perfect English.
“My library card number is 121435 for the University du Montreal and in the Megabiblioteca in Mexico City it is 1023156. Though I’m more than just a number!” I’m afraid I did sound like I was right on the edge of insanity.
“So you like libraries,” the woman said. “That is good. Good. Many people like libraries. May I ask that you please keep your voice down. People are trying to read.”
I guessed I’d been yelling. “I have come to talk to the Returns.”
“The Returns?” the woman asked, though there was more than a question in her voice. Perhaps just a hint of recognition.
“Yes, Theressa Dane is the metadata analyst. She’s one of them. She is!”
“Please keep your voice down. I am Sonya Svensson-Banerjee.”
“Nice to meet you.” I offered my dirty, messy hand and she shook it without making a face. Her hand was warm. And clean. “Do you know Theressa? And Agnes, too? I like Agnes. They’re from the Preservational Librarians Guild.” That seemed to light a lightbulb in her head. The male librarian had somehow moved closer behind me and I spun, raising a hand and showing my claws, but I still had the presence of mind to leave my fangs unbared.
Sonya made a motion and he backed away.
“Come with me, Amber,” she said. She turned without looking back. So I followed her around a corner and past several rows of bookshelves. “You’re safe here,” she said over her shoulder. “Safe. You don’t have to worry any further.”
A part of me relaxed. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear those words. She guided me through a set of glass doors and into an elevator. I leaned up against the side until I realized I was leaving a line of gunk on it.
“Oh, sorry,” I said.
Sonya waved her hand. “It happens all the time. We get all types in the library, Amber. Some more interesting than others.”
The elevator kept going down. Then the doors opened and I followed her across a hall into what must have been her office. It had teak furniture and two chairs. The coffee pot was bubbling. With a quick motion, she closed all the blinds.
I stood in the center, my head full of wooze. I suddenly realized she’d spoken my name when we first met. And again a few seconds earlier. But I hadn’t told her my name.
How the hell could she know it? I opened my mouth to ask that exact question, but she put up her hand to silence me.
“I’m a Fanger,” she said. “And it is such an honor to meet you, Amber Fang.”
10
Visiting Elysium
My eyes were big as ostrich eggs.
“You can trust me,” were the next words out of her mouth. “I am on your side.”
I have to say, I relaxed. A Fanger! I imagined Sonya and my other fans getting excited every time I took out a book. Maybe they had their own “Let’s Read What Amber is Reading” book club.
“Take a seat,” she said. I went toward an orange cloth-seated chair, but she directed me to her leather desk chair.
“It’s easier to clean,” she explained somewhat apologetically.
Which is when I got a whiff of myself. It was horrid. I’m talking London sewers horrid. Oh, matey! “I’m sorry,” I said. “I seem to be both bleeding and stinking the place out.”
“We all have our bad days,” she said, as if I’d forgotten to comb my hair. She took my hand in her warm hands and used a hairpin to unlock the handcuffs.
Umm, that’s not a trick they teach in any Librarian masters class. But I didn’t quite get my thoughts together enough to ask her where she’d picked up that skill.
She set the handcuffs on her desk. “Who is after you?”
“Assassins from ZARC. Men who are extremely well-trained. But I took out their drone so I don’t think they could track me. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost them.” I paused. “If I didn’t lose them and they followed me here do you…well…I mean, are you armed?”
She nodded. “We will handle it,” she said.
I don’t know why, but I got this image of an RPG launcher hidden in a cupboard under the front desk. Likely it was some sort of less lethal weapon that wouldn’t damage the books or patrons.
“Sonic devices?” I asked.
She gave me a quizzical glance. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, but just be assured you’re safe. You can stop hyperventilating.”
It took me a moment to realize she was right. I was mouth breathing like a pockmarked prom date. I did my best to channel my qi gong breathing and settled into the chair.
“Your English is perfect,” I said.
“I studied in Texas,” Sonya answered. “I seem to have lost my southern accent though, y’all.” She didn’t pause long enough for the joke to register. “Look, we’ll get you cleaned up and stitched up.” She lifted up her iPhone and tapped a few buttons. “We’re going to go down to the staff room where the showers are. I’ve had the hallways cleared of onlookers—you know how curious librarians can get. The fewer who know your actual identity the better.”
“That’s kind of you.” I was getting quite a bit more light-headed. I looked down at my leg and was pleased that not too much blood was leaking out. Though maybe the half-rotted food from the recycling bin had stuffed the wound. There was a horrible thought! The wound in my shoulder wasn’t bleeding at all. “I—I had a partner. He was in the building across from the bowling alley.”
“You were at a bowling alley?”
The way she said it made me wonder if I had been hallucinating the whole bowling experience. Then I remember smacking that man with a bowling ball. It’s an image I wouldn’t dream up. “Yes, I was in a bowling alley called Latitude Dude. The apartment was on the second floor. It was destroyed. There was an explosion.” Even as I explained the situation, it sounded hopeless. “He was…he is a good man. I wonder …”
“I’ll send someone over right away. What’s his name?”
“Dermot,” I said. I didn’t know if he
’d want outside people to know his name, but too late for that. I told her the exact address of our Airbnb and she sent a text on her phone. “It’s handled. We’ll find out everything possible.”
Then Sonya helped me out of the chair and, putting an arm under my good shoulder, guided me into the elevator and closed the doors. It went down. She smelled fresh and pine scented. “Can…can you contact the Returns?”
“They are not meant to be contacted. They just appear.”
The way she said it made me wonder if she was one.
“That’s not very helpful.”
“No. It isn’t in this case. But I will send a message to the powers that be,” she promised.
We were soon in a staffroom, and off to one side was a large washroom with concrete shower stalls. “Are you able to bathe yourself?” she asked.
“Yes. Yes.” I waved her away and closed the door. Then, using the wall to hold myself up, I made my way to the shower stall. I stripped out of my suit and examined the bullet wound in my lower shoulder. I was surprised at how little damage there was. Yes, the bullet tore flesh, but most bullets are designed to mushroom out and make a big mess. This one had gone right through me, catching the top part of my pectoral muscles (and missing bone, thankfully). I remembered Hallgerdur talking about the diamond-tipped bullets meant to lobotomize me. My guess is all those mercenaries had been packing them. Maybe that was why I still had a functioning shoulder. Timing was on my side too; one of the side effects of being so close to a feeding day was that I tended to heal faster. That was something I’d noticed in my teen years.
I cranked on the water, let it get nice and hot, then shoved myself under the spray. Soon my hair was wet, my muscles relaxing as the blood and garbage sluiced off of me. Using the soap felt like a holy ritual. There was even a shampoo called Såklart that was heavenly. I eventually felt like a vampire again. A clean one.
Then I just leaned against the stall and let the heat sink into my muscles. I couldn’t help but think of Dermot. I pictured his face and that somewhat chiselled jaw. He had a gentle manner, yet a hard interior when needed. Could he really be gone?
Logic told me he was dead. There wasn’t time for him to escape such a devastating blast. He was gone. He had to be. Those eyes. All of him. Gone.
I shed tears freely. The shower washed them away. The last time I’d wept that hard was a few days after Mom first vanished.
A knock on the door made me sniff in surprise. “Are you okay in there?” Sonya asked.
“Y-yes,” I said, surprised at how weak my voice sounded. “Yes. I’m fine. Fine. I’ll be out in a moment.”
I turned off the water, found a long white towel, and wrapped myself in it. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Sonya was standing there with a fresh change of clothes. “Several of my coworkers volunteered to help dress you—I mean give you clothes to dress in.” There were jeans and a gaudy, bright green sweater, underthings, and socks. Even a pair of running shoes.
“That many of you know who I am?”
She shrugged. “What can I say, word got around. And so many of us are Fangers. We don’t want to be Fangers-on, though.”
She laughed at her own pun and then turned away as I put on the underthings. When I was done she helped me bandage the bullet wound, which was now leaking a bit. She also dressed my leg. She didn’t flinch once. “Finally, I get to use my first aid,” she said. “Well, we saw a lot of bullet wounds in Texas.”
“Really?” I said.
“No. I’m playing to the stereotype. But it was one of the scenarios we practiced. So I am pleased to get to use that skill.”
In short order, I was patched up and dressed; she even handed me a hairbrush. I looked almost like it was just another day—no one would guess the crap ride I’d been through.
There was a knock on the staffroom door. “Enter,” Sonya said, and the male librarian I’d seen at the front door came in. He had a yellow racing-bike helmet on and was sweating. “What did you discover?” she asked.
He looked at me and back at her. “They were taking bodies out. In bags,” he said. So he did speak English. “There were several police cars and ambulances. There was very little left of the apartment. If your friend was in there, then he…” he trailed off.
“Did you see who was in the body bags?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Zipped up,” he said.
“Thank you, Matts,” Sonya said.
He gave me one more glance and looked like he would say something comforting, then turned away and left the room. I, of course, had hoped the news would be different. But Dermot had to be dead. I gritted my teeth.
Sonya patted my back. “If you want I can contact hospitals. And… and morgues.”
“No. I just need access to a computer terminal.”
“We have one down here.”
She led me to a laptop in the corner of the kitchen. I clicked around, then said, “Is there an easy way to visit the dark web?”
“Oh, easy.” Sonya reached over and typed in a few numbers and letters. The TOR browser popped up and I dived into the dark web. I went to a room that Dermot had created. He’d called it Elysium as some sort of clever reference to Greek mythology. The place where heroes go when they die—it didn’t sound so funny now. I clicked somewhat desperately on several documents and then found the chat room; there were no messages. He hadn’t tried to reach out.
He had to be dead.
“I have to get out of Sweden,” I said.
Sonya nodded. “That can be arranged.” Her phone buzzed and she looked at it. “We have had a message from The Returns. It reads: We cannot help AF further at this time. Our policy of non-interference disallows that. You have fulfilled your duties by bringing her back to health. You will follow the catch and release protocol.” Sonya didn’t read the message with any gusto.
“They are rather rigid about their policies,” I said.
“We librarians do love our policies.”
“Yes. And I suppose I understand. Libraries and librarians aren’t supposed to take sides.”
“No, we aren’t,” Sonya said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t point you in the right direction.”
She handed me a leather passport. It was Canadian and it had my photo in it.
“How did you put this together?”
“Let’s just say the Fangers have a few pictures of you. And my many classes in binding and copying have not gone to waste. I threw this together while you were showering.”
It was a perfect document. And she’d chosen the name Alice Cullen.
“You named me after a vampire in Twilight!” I nearly spat the words.
“Yes, I thought it was funny. It’s one of my favorite books.” My estimation of her was dropping by the moment. “A guilty pleasure,” she added, perhaps seeing the tinge of distaste on my face.
I was being stupid. Just because I looked down on a book didn’t mean another reader wouldn’t be able to find joy and maybe depth in it…or at least escape. Librarians are not supposed to be judgemental. “It’s a very clever choice,” I said without sarcasm. “Though next time a non-fictional, non-recognizable name might be better.”
“I should have thought of that.” She tapped her forehead. “Forgive me.”
“I’ll proudly carry it. Maybe being named after a vampire will bring good luck.”
Then I felt my pockets—there was nothing in them because, of course, only minutes before they’d belonged to someone else. “Ah, this may seem like an over-the-top request, but do you have a phone that is unlocked and untraceable? I realize the chances are slim. It’s just that it’s hard to—”
She put up her hand. “Here is my piece de resistance,” she said. “I had a feeling you’d need to communicate.” She brought a black phone out and my eyes grew wide. It was an ancient Blackberry—well, at least two years old. She was also holding a black set of wireless earbuds.
“I didn’t think anyone used a Blackberry anymore.”
/> “Oh, you’ll find this baby is one of a kind.”
It was like she was handing me Excalibur. I was surprised when I tapped the screen and a female voice said, “Hello, Amber.”
“Uh, hello,” I answered.
“I look forward to being at your service. I await your commands,” the phone said.
“Uh, is it AI?” I whispered.
“Not quite full AI, but you’ll find the phone very intuitive. It has our secret operating system on it: Athena.”
“The Greek goddess of wisdom, good choice.”
“She’s also the goddess of planning,” Sonya said, beginning to librarian-splain mythology. “And war. Our war is against lack of knowledge.”
“I’m with you there, sister.” There was a little keyboard at the bottom of the phone—old-fashioned tech melded to new tech. I liked that. “It looks great.”
“Thank you,” Athena said. “The black is slimming, right?”
I stared at the phone and laughed. “Well, she’s really something! And the phone is untraceable, I assume, and unhackable?”
“Neither the CIA nor the NSA could crack our ice.” Her voice reverberated with pride. “Or Anonymous for that matter.”
The CIA wasn’t known for being the best coders on the planet. Perhaps too much testosterone there to code properly. “I look forward to discovering its—uh, her—capabilities.” I put the phone in my pocket. “But, I do have to get out of Dodge, so to speak.”
”I’ll give you a ride to the airport. It’s in Stockholm, south of us.”
One elevator and a short walk down the street later and I was sitting in her car. It was electric—which didn’t surprise me at all. Being freshly washed and freshly dressed, I felt almost like I was a normal citizen going on a ride with a friend.
Except for my aching wounds.
The ride to the airport took around an hour. With the heat cranked up in the car I soon slept—blame it on complete exhaustion. When I opened my eyes again, Sonya was pulling up to the passenger departure area of Bromma airport.
She got out of the car and put out her hand to shake mine. To my complete surprise, I hugged her. I’m becoming a softie!