Embarrassment 25: Library of Vampires

Kanon walked amongst the many isles of books, following the ghost of her father in silence. She could hardly see where she was going and allowed her father to lead the way. Somehow, he seemed to know where he was going. Kanon knew that ghosts existed and that a few vampires could communicate with the dead. After all, Boogy was no more than a ghost of serial killer that had been trapped inside the body of a doll. But Kanon had no idea how much a ghost knew. For all she knew, when her father died he learned everything.

Near the back of the library was a wall that had been painted with a design of a medieval countryside. It was very elegantly painted, showing a small city with a castle near a waterfall. In the foreground of the picture was a war going on with knights and horses charging into battle. It was at this painting that Kenta stopped and turned around to face his daughter. It didn't take her long to realize why. In the very center of the wall painting was a red light. Kanon had never seen this light before. It seemed to be caused by the moonlight from outside because when she stepped in front of the wall, her shadow blocked was cast on the wall and the light disappeared. She moved to the side and the wall glowed once again.

With a cautious hand, she reached out and touched the light. The moment she did, the light spread out in two directions. Like an invisible hand drawing on the wall, the light made the outline of a rectangle on the wall. Clearly a door. Kanon gave the wall a slight push and was surprised to find out that it swung open as if it were made of wood, not stone. There was a staircase going downward into darkness along with a breeze blowing in. It scared Kanon to death. She really didn't want to venture down there. But Kenta just started down the stairs.

"Hold on a second, Papa," Kanon whined. "I really don't want to go down there."

"Nothing is going to hurt you, Kanon," her father reassured.

"But I can't see anything."

Kenta sighed and walked back up to his daughter. "Would you like it if I held your hand?"

Kanon may not have been a little kid anymore but she was afraid. Kenta put out one hand for her to grab and she grabbed hold of it. It wasn't cold but comfortably warm. Not exactly what she expected a ghost's hand to feel like. And even when she got close to Kenta she could smell the aroma from his clothing. Everything that she had thought about ghosts had been wrong. In fact, she felt like her father was still alive and with her at this very moment. It made her feel warm inside.

She clung tightly to her father as they walked down the spiral staircase to a door at the bottom. There were words carved on the door that Kanon could not make out but she recognized the style from the Maaka's library. It must have been ancient vampiric writing. She reached out and opened the door. The room was as dark as a cave and Kanon couldn't make out anything at all. She wished that her vampire senses would kick in so that she could see. But she was only a half-vampire and her senses only awoke when she was near the people with the blood she liked. Right now, she was basically a human.

"This is useless," Kanon whined again. "I can't see anything at all."

"Take this then," a familiar voice said from just inches behind Kanon.

She was so scared that she almost screamed. She wheeled around to see a bright light shining in her eyes. The light was coming from a flashlight and it was bright enough that she couldn't tell who was holding it. But she knew the voice.

"Great Grandma?" Kanon asked.

"Who else?" Elda said, shoving the flashlight into Kanon's hands. "Do you really think you could leave home without me knowing?"

Kanon shined the light on her great grandma and realized that her aunt, Anju was standing right behind her with Boogy in her hands.

"God, Kanon," Boogy teased, stabbing his kitchen knife through the air. "You must really have a death wish."

"It wasn't very smart to leave the mansion, Little niece," Anju said in her monotone voice.

"How did you find a place like this on your own, Kanon," Elda asked, pushing past Kanon and looking around the library.

"Don't tell them about me," Kenta whispered in Kanon's ear before disappearing like a spirit in the wind.

"Just lucky, I guess," Kannon said, trying and failing horribly at lying.

"This is a very old library," Elda said, not even paying attention to her. "It looks like it hasn't been used in hundreds of years. This must have been a private library of a vampire clan that lived here before us. The human library was built right on top of it."

Kanon shined her light around the room. It was quite a small library, and looked more like a very big closet instead of a library. There were three walls that were covered with old wooden shelves, most of which had been broken by father time. There were quite a few books on the shelves and scattering the ground in small piles. In the center of the room was the remains of a rotted table and what looked like three chairs. There was a foul smell coming from the wood that Kanon didn't like to much. It seemed to bother Elda and Anju even more.

The last wall had another painting on it. It was what looked like a religious painting of a female god-like figure standing above a group of people. Kanon felt like she should know this woman from somewhere but that was just crazy.

"Kanon," Anju asked, "Why did you come here?"

"Well...uh...you see...I had this dream..." It was no use. Kanon couldn't come up with a good enough lie for what she was doing in a vampire library at the dead of night. She decided to tell the truth. "Somewhere in this library is a book that will tell me how to turn Mama into a real vampire. If Mama becomes a normal vampire she can live happily with the rest of us and I won't have to leave her by herself. Then we can all be happy."

She waited for either one of them to respond but both of them were silent. It was actually Boogy who broke the silence.

"Are you crazy, you dimwit. Do you honestly think that there could be a book in here that could turn Karin into a normal vampire."

"We've looked for a way to turn Karin into a real vampire before," Elda said softly. "When we found out that Karin no longer produced excess blood we tried thinking of ways to make her a normal vampire so that we wouldn't have to erase her memory of us. We searched everywhere for an answer but never found one. It's just not possible, Kanon."

Kanon wouldn't let her great grandma tell her this. There was no way that her own father would lie to her. Kenta obviously knew something that they didn't and Kanon knew in her heart that he was right. She was determined to prove that.

"I know that there is a way to make Mama a real vampire," Kanon replied. "I just know it. And the answer is in this library. I'm going to find it with or without you."

Anju looked hard at Kanon. "If you're really serious about this. I'll help you search for the book."

"Thank you, Anju," Kanon said happily, giving Anju a hug.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Yukio was searching around furiously for Kanon. Anju and Elda had closed the vampire door behind them and since Yukio was a human, he couldn't see the red light that came from the door.

"This is a load of bullshit," he yelled angrily. "Where the heck did she go. She couldn't have gotten out already."