by Oxford, Rain
The Guardian's Grimoire
By Rain Oxford
The Guardian’s Grimoire © 2015 Rain Oxford
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Chapter 1
You’ve got to be kidding me…
I heard heavy breathing right behind me and didn’t dare turn to look. Once again, I ran with everything I had. My injured ankle made the agonizing exercise slower, but huge, snapping jaws was a fantastic motivator. The beast was barely jogging; he was toying with me.
It wasn’t long before I landed wrong on my uninjured ankle and hit the ground hard. Small, sharp rocks dug into my back, but I didn’t have the chance to get up before the beast had me pinned. I stared right into pure blood-red, globe eyes.
The creature had the general appearance of a huge wolf with matted black fur, and a flatter snout. Its ears were flat against its head in anger, but its snarl looked more like a grin than a scowl. The beast knew I was injured and out of strength.
Bloody dribble dripped from its mouth onto my shoulder and a large section of the skin went numb. Its saliva was venomous, probably a paralyzing agent. With a loud growl, the animal opened its mouth wide and---
“Mr. Carter! Do you plan on joining us today?” Mr. Luis’s voice woke me from my dream with all the subtlety of a hammer to glass. I blinked against the bright florescent lighting and tried to recall what I had just been dreaming.
“No, sir,” I answered. When he glared at me, I resisted the urge to shrug. “What was the question?”
“What were Freud’s shortcomings and achievements?”
“Freud’s psychoanalytical theory was shot down because it didn’t predict anything, his ideas were implausible, and they were invalidated. However, he drew attention to the unconscious, the struggle to cope with anxiety and sexuality, and the conflict of biological impulses and social control.”
“Very good. I should call on you more often.”
“Whatever you want, sir.” Whatever you command, Mr. Satan. My soul is yours for another… I checked my watch and groaned. Why the hell does time move backwards in this dungeon? This is purgatory, I swear.
Mr. Luis’s psychology class was a two-hour lecture that seemed to last four hours on the best of days and always smelled of metal and mold. The moldy smell was surely because Mr. Luis was at least three hundred years old and the metallic smell was from all the blood he drank between classes. The only window was small and high on the east wall, so by this time of day, it was gloomy at best. The buzzing lights would occasionally blink, giving everyone the feeling of being in a predictable horror movie.
Unless a question was being asked or answered, the classroom remained silent as the grave. The students soon began to prefer the silence, as the alternative was Mr. Luis’s meaningless ranting. His thick British accent, which was funny on the first day of school, very quickly became painful to listen to. My body reacted to it by freezing up and shivering uncontrollably. A poor young girl, Amy, was released from class after the first week because his voice made her faint. It didn’t help that he had been cussing her out in some foreign language for being a woman.
The most interesting distractions in the room were the stories and graffiti on the desks, which, as the semester progressed, involved fewer and fewer love notes and anime scribbles, and more and more homicidal depictions and plans. There were still some interesting experiment designs left over from when we studied antisocial personality disorder. We were obviously all responsible adults who were very dedicated to our studies.
I must have fallen back to sleep, because the next thing I knew, I was being shaken. I jerked up and found myself alone with my girlfriend. “Hey, Vi.”
“I got worried; thought maybe Dracula had finally got to you.”
I stood up and stretched. Vivian was twenty-three years old; a year older than me, and a couple inches shorter at five-eight. Her thick, dark red hair was long, straight, and silky. It made her soft, light green eyes look even softer and her porcelain, smooth skin look even more flawless. She had the tall, naturally thin body of a model and looked really good in the camouflage-patterned tank top she wore often, along with a denim jacket, blue jeans, and high-heeled boots.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
She sighed. “Yeah, if only I had time to eat,” she said. I grabbed my bag, put my arm around her shoulder, and we started walking out. “I have to get to the library before the freshmen crowd. Pick me up something, though. I’ll come over tonight and I’ll be hungry.”
Vivian was a surprise and all around treasure. She was beautiful, brilliant, and talented. Unlike most women who fit even one of those descriptions, she was also extremely kind, pretty humble, and very giving.
I nodded and we walked up to the campus’s grand waterfall, which was simple, very large, and loud. “I’ll be there.” I kissed her for a few seconds before she broke it with a smile. The waterfall’s flow was suddenly disturbed, but we both ignored it.
“Bye.” She walked off, pulling her jacket tighter. That thick jacket was the reason I hated winter. I walked slowly off to my apartment on campus.
I unlocked the door, closed it, and fell to the couch only two steps away. My apartment was a depressing representation of my minuscule paycheck. Who would’ve guessed that working at a fast-food restaurant wasn’t the best way to get rich?
I stretched my hand out in the dark for the remote. After failing to find it, I sighed and put my hands behind my head. The television switched on and I watched. It was the news. As I didn’t care much for horror shows, I sat up, grabbed the remote off the coffee table, and turned the channel to cartoons.
A large gray cat jumped up on the table and made a sound I recognized as a cry- more like a demand- for attention. “Hey, Dorian. How was the mate hunting?” I pet him and was rewarded with a half-hearted purr. “Vi’s coming over tonight, so handsome yourself up.” I stood up and went into the kitchen. A few seconds after I flipped the light switch, it flashed lazily on.
A mint green mini-fridge from the seventies hummed loudly beneath a precariously balanced ancient microwave. In the middle of the long counter across from it was a rusty metal, single-bowl sink. To one side of the sink was an electric skillet that worked at least half the time, and on the other side was an electric pot that worked almost a couple days a month.
I picked up Dorian’s metal food bowl and pulled his food out of the cabinet above the fridge. Normally, the temperamental beast was waiting impatiently when I got his food out, but when I filled his bowl and set it on the floor, he was nowhere to be seen. I went to the door and flipped on the living room light. Dorian was on the couch, hissing at the door with his back arched, his hair standing on ends, and his claws outstretched. “What’s wrong? Is it Mother? I don’t hear thunder or smell sulfur.”
The door creaked ominously and twilight spilled into the room, but nobody, no ghoul or person, stood at my apartment entrance. I stepped out cautiously.
My apartment complex was definitely safer than cheaper ones, since it was very close to the university. Living so close also meant that I didn’t need a car, which I couldn’t have afforded anyway. Thanks to my scholarships, secure job, and lack of any social life, I was one of the rare students who were completely debt free. Living on ramen
was worth the extra security, because I could walk out into the hallway or stand in my tiny lawn without being attacked or harassed. Being on the ground floor was definitely a bonus, since we had no elevator.
The wind howled and I was about to turn back when something caught my attention. A small, thin, black book lay innocently on the grass in front of my steps. It looked harmless, but I had the urge to run back inside and leave it. It was like in a horror movie where you know you’re in an evil place or that something evil is watching you. So, naturally, I picked it up.
It made my skin tingle, but not necessarily in a bad way. There was no writing or title on the black leather cover, which was flexible, yet not flimsy. The pages were unusually stiff and cold and most of them were blank. Only the first ten pages had anything on them, but it wasn’t a story or even a journal; instead they were filled with what appeared to be words. While some words were in familiar languages, most were incredibly bizarre. I closed the book, glanced around, and went back inside.
Dorian took off to my bedroom at a run as I came in. I didn’t want to bother him when he was being weird, so I just set the book on the bookshelf beside my small television. My empty stomach, now riddled with knots, growled and I grabbed my coat. I didn’t look back at the disturbing book, nor did I think to wonder why I kept it.
After a couple of days, I forgot about it completely.
* * *
Where do we go when we die? I was told that I would go to Heaven if I was good, but I always found the concept of an afterlife difficult. While I tried to always do what was right by never hurting anyone, never stealing, and lying only when necessary to spare a person’s feelings, such morals were subjective. It was entirely possible that my blatant sarcasm would earn me a place in Hell. Then again, if I couldn’t be sarcastic in Heaven, I didn’t belong there.
Unfortunately, very early on in my life, I realized that nothing particularly exciting would ever happen to me. At least, not for as long as I remained inside the moral boundaries I was taught. I woke up, went to school, went to work, and went to bed; there was nothing to look forward to in life.
* * *
“As the death toll rises, people are turning to self-protection. The crime rate is reaching its highest in a decade in Dallas. Although it is still being investigated, authorities believe that fires started at two police stations in both Dallas and Fort Worth are the result of arson. Two people were arrested after trying to rob a bank. However, they were too busy arguing to keep an eye on the witnesses… because they were not working together, they had just chosen the same bank. They also were at a disadvantage because the bank they were trying to rob was currently being investigated by six on-duty police officers.”
It wasn’t difficult not to snicker, though I would have any other day. I found it amusing if not hilarious when idiots get caught doing wrong because of stupid mistakes. This time, however, I wanted the TV off, or at least on mute.
My head throbbed with a dull pain that scrambled words into senseless pain. The cold laminate counter against my cheek felt good but didn’t quite make up for the wall of noise that pressed in, suffocating me. Feverish heat that made me both sweat and itch was horrible enough without my pounding heart, dehydration, and unbearable nausea. I wished I hadn’t sat so close to the TV, but there had been someone in my normal seat and I didn’t have the strength to move. It was a bad idea to go to the cafeteria when in my depleted condition, nevertheless I always found myself there anyway; my vampire of a psychology teacher wouldn’t search for me in such a public place.
“Hey.” I didn’t look at Vivian as she took a seat next to me. “Are you okay?” she asked. I pulled myself up into a sitting position and tried to give her a reassuring smile. The best I could do was glare at her before returning to my spot. “Oh, no, it’s three already? I have to go.” She jumped off her seat, checking her watch.
I wasn’t sure how I found the strength or balance to manage it, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist before she disappeared, then pulled her around to sit in my lap as I started to fumble with her watch. “It was daylight-savings time last night. You’re fine.” I fixed her watch and turned back to the table, forcing her out of my lap, then noticed she had a stack of files. “Working hard?”
“Yeah. Apparently some rich people moved in and started trouble, so the vampire had to step in and pick up the money.” Vivian was a lawyer’s assistant. “It’s not as bad as it will be soon, though.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?” I asked. She stared at me like I was being ridiculous, but I didn’t complain; as far as I knew, the Wernicke’s area of my brain was burned out so I had no idea what I was really saying.
“Well, with the wave of murders and crime coming closer, it’s only going to increase my workload.”
“What? What murders? What crime? What are we talking about?” Okay, so I was a little slow, but it had been a hard day. Mondays are grueling on a good day and after five hours of testing, bubble filling, and essay writing, there was little left in my head that wasn’t raw. Trying to carry on a conversation with Vivian when she was in her “working mode” was like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube with my eyes closed.
She sighed. “You’re impossible on Mondays. The news is talking about it nonstop. There’s been a sharp increase in deaths, and what’s more, it’s getting closer,” she said. I knew my expression was less than polite, but I didn’t have a lot of control over meaningless muscle functions like my face or mouth. “All the deaths are the same.”
“They are?” That didn’t sound right.
“Yeah. They’re all accidents.”
“Run it by me again how that makes them murders.” Again, I was a little slow, but Vivian was the kind of person who went on and on out of a conversation she had in her head. Unfortunately, I often didn’t know when she was or wasn’t doing that.
“The number of confirmed murders hasn’t changed much, and any positive correlation can be attributed to fear. That’s because everyone can see what’s happening. There’s been a huge increase in accidents involving everything from fires to collapsing buildings to massive traffic accidents. This isn’t a coincidence, it’s just untraceable. All the same, people are going to get blamed so money will be spilled. How was your test?”
It took a second to realize she’d changed the subject. “Which test?”
“All of them.”
“Well, my anatomy test was fine and then my psychology test was fine. My European/American history test was grueling. And by the time that was over, I could barely read the questions on my bio test.”
“What about your chemistry test?”
I checked my watch. “It’s not for another hour. I was trying to take a nap when you came in.”
“Don’t take a nap in the cafeteria. Go home, eat some bread, and get a coke.”
I tried to sit up and was rewarded with a new wave of nausea. “I’m not getting out of this seat. Do me a favor and bring me one of the tests.” She was already standing and trying to pull me up. Normally, I would have fought against her, but it wasn’t worth it.
I managed to grab my book bag before it was out of reach. She gave me a gentle kiss and pushed me away. Luckily, I made it home with just enough time to eat before I had to go to class. It didn’t bother me until much later what she had been saying about the accidents.
* * *
There was someone at the door. I looked at my alarm clock and jumped out of bed like it was on fire. It was seven in the evening and I was half an hour late for work. My habit of turning off the alarm in my sleep was going to get me fired for sure. I grabbed my pants, pulled them over my baggy black shorts, and was putting my shirt on as I got to the door. Trying to answer the door and dress while half asleep and late for work was a recipe for disaster. I mean, there were four holes in my shirt, so it was a hit-or-miss operation.
The knocking sounded light and unsure, thus I opened the door expecting some cute young girl. Instead, there stood a man.
He had shaggy, dark brown hair, no facial hair, and the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen. His skin had an ambiguous tone that made it difficult to determine his race, but I could guess he was in his early-to-mid thirties. He was about six-foot-two, a good five inches taller than me, and had an athletic build. All of that was hard to notice over his slick sense of style. The man wore a thick, light brown tunic with baggy black pants made of the same rough material and heavy-duty work boots. Strapped over his right shoulder and hanging at his waist on the left side was a thin, black, leather book bag. He was clearly a student at the college.
He gave me a tight, forced smile. “Hello, I’m Edward.”
Of course he was. His voice was startlingly gentle for his feral appearance, though it was rather deep, and his accent sounded almost Asian. There was enough self-confidence in his tone that felt like his gentle manner was a façade, as if he were trying to lure an unsuspecting animal.
“Good for you. I’m an atheist. No bibles today,” I said. His smile faltered with confusion and I got the idea that he might not have been selling bibles. I sighed. “What is it you want?”
“Just to meet my new neighbors.”
Did he say “meet,” or “eat”? Did it matter? This guy looked like a predator. Not the pedophile kind, more like a wolf in a sheep farm. Don’t mind me; I’m just reading the menu.
“Well, I’m late for work. Nice to meet you. See you around.” I tried to shut the door, but he stopped it. Edward no longer wore a forced smile and he wasn’t even looking at me. Despite that, his angry, excited glare made me shake. People usually didn’t do that to me, save for Mr. Luis. Then he turned his glare on me and his mien cooled… along with every organ in my body.
“I found you,” he said. My body shook violently. Nobody could sound that psychotic and not be about to eat me. At least he got me before Mr. Luis did.
I am not the sheep you are looking for. I was about to say something, probably unintelligible, when he pushed me aside and went to my bookshelf. I realized it had been the focus of his glare. He grabbed the little black book and started flipping through it, then paused in his inspection and frowned at me, puzzled.