11 SETTEMBRE 2000, 11:42
MILANO, ITALIA
BIBLIOTECA PUBBLICO DI MILANO
"All right," Rafael said. "Let's get started."
Alessandra and Sergio each gave him a short nod.
The previous night had been...crazy, to say the least. Alessandra didn't remember much from the way back; according to Rafael, she'd fallen asleep on Sergio as he was carrying her to the bar piggy-back style. She'd woken up inside the establishment, behind the bar counter. Sergio and Rafael had placed the Stone Mask back up on the wall, but it was now surrounded by a padlocked shield of plexiglass and a makeshift sign that said the following underneath, in both Italian and English:
AVVERTENZA: Non indossare questa maschera. Non sanguinare su questa maschera. Non siamo responsabili per eventuali incidenti associati a questa decorazione.
-Team di Gestione
WARNING: Do not wear this mask. Do not bleed on this mask. We are not responsible for any incidents associated with this decoration.
-Management Team
Lorenzo had given all three of them the rest of the night off after that.
Alessandra ended up crashing at Sergio's place in the Giambellino-Lorenteggio area for the night, during which time she'd learned that he and Rafael were flatmates. That had been fine with her, really; it wasn't like she had any family to go back to at the moment. Her parents were still out of town, and Marco...
She mentally kicked herself as thoughts of what had happened started to make their way into her mind. No matter how hard she tried to move forward, she knew that she'd been just as responsible as the ones who had shot them. Walls shot up as she fortified her mental fortress; she couldn't afford to look weak in front of the guys.
Has it really only been ten days? It feels like a lot longer.
Earlier that morning, the three had made the decision to do some research at the public library. Now, Alessandra lost herself in digging through vampire literature for anything useful. Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Vampyre by Polidori. The Giaour by Lord Byron. Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. The Barnabas Collins series. Et cetera.
"Hey, Alessandra."
The ginger looked up, seeing Sergio nearby. "Rafael and I also found stuff."
She nodded, closing her copy of Polidori's book. "Great. We can check them out whenever you two are ready."
Sergio nodded. Alessandra stood, gathering up her books. Rafael joined them, holding some DVDs and VHS tapes. Sergio also had a few books in his arms. Ones that looked suspiciously like-
"Vampire romance novels?" Alessandra deadpanned. "Really?"
Sergio shrugged. "These things might have useful stuff in them. The key word being 'might'." He performed air-quotes at the last word for emphasis.
"Whatever."
They walked downstairs to the front desk, each presenting their library cards. The middle-aged librarian scanned the books, raising an eyebrow. "Vampires, huh?"
Alessandra flashed a disarming smile. "Si. The boys and I made plans to binge-watch vampire flicks this weekend, and we wanted to be familiar with the lore so we could have somewhat of an intellectual debate afterwards."
The woman nodded slowly as she continued checking out their items. Alessandra sincerely hoped she bought that excuse; after all, she knew that people would think they were crazy if they suddenly went around saying that vampires were real.
"Items are due back on 25 September," she said, handing the bartenders their literature. The items had been placed in bags for easier transport. "Good luck with the monster movies."
"Grazie," Alessandra said, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. Good. She bought it after all.
The bartenders exited the building, walking towards the metro station. "I did not take you to be such a damn good liar," Sergio remarked.
Alessandra adjusted the grip on her book bag. "There's a lot you don't know about me."
Like how I practically signed my younger brother's death warrant.
Sergio shrugged. "Well, I'm interested in learning."
Alessandra raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"Oi, can you two save the flirting for when I'm not around?" Rafael asked, mock-exasperated.
"I wasn't flirting!" Sergio protested indignantly.
"Sure you weren't."
Alessandra rolled her eyes. "Idiots."
11 SETTEMBRE 2000, 18:39
MILANO, ITALIA
BIBLIOTECA PUBBLICO DI MILANO
"Any luck?" Abbacchio asked.
Fugo blinked. "Somebody checked out a lot of the pop culture vampire novels," he said. "But, I did find a section dedicated to the history of monster mythology."
Now that was interesting. "Is that so?" Abbacchio grinned. "Count me in."
Fugo raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think you were into horror stories."
Abbacchio shrugged, his smile fading. "Well, considering that half the time our lives are horror stories…"
"I get it," Fugo said hastily. "Come on. I'll show you where it is."
Abbacchio followed him to the proffered section on the third storey. There were a lot of books in that area, ranging from cryptozoology to faeries to demons and-
"Vampires," the ex-cop noted, coming across a book on the history of said monsters in literature.
Fugo pulled a face. "It had better not be about vampire erotica or some shit like that."
"I sincerely hope not," Abbacchio agreed, retrieving the book from its shelf. He glanced over at the younger gangster. "Remind me why we came here again and not to the library in the house?"
"Because there are more resources in a public library than there are over there," Fugo said firmly. "Books. Reference works. Online databases. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
"Gotcha."
It had only been the two of them who had travelled to the public library. Bucciarati had wanted to check out Milan's archaeological museum to see if there was anything that could explain the weird Stone Mask, and Mista and Narancia said something about looking for "the Reaper", whatever the hell that was. Probably a local urban legend or something like that. Fugo's injuries were still healing, but here he seemed to be less likely to beat the shit out of anyone who got on his nerves and run the risk of aggravating something. Which was another reason why Mista and Narancia did not accompany them on this particular trip.
Abbacchio glanced over at the younger gangster. "What is it that you remember about Sabbatini when she attacked you?"
"A lot," Fugo said, narrowing his eyes. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm just thinking, given what happened that might help us narrow down a few things. Especially since a lot of people have had very different interpretations about what vampires are. And you have more experience in that area than the rest of us."
Fugo nodded. "That's actually a very good point," he said thoughtfully, sitting down at a nearby desk. His brow furrowed. "Well, let's see." He held up his hand, starting to count off items on his fingers. "There were fangs." One. "Based on how she flung Bucciarati into that tree, she's got to be strong as fuck." Two. "Apparently she doesn't like sunlight." Three. "She's also very fast." Four. "And she shoots lasers out of her eyes." Five, though this was followed by a grimace.
Abbacchio's eyebrows shot up. "That's how she wounded you?"
"Yep." Fugo frowned. "Though, when I say lasers, I mean pressurised jets of liquid that look and feel like hot lasers."
"Damn."
The ginger continued: "She does suck blood out of people, but with her hands, not her fangs." Fugo started counting digits on the other hand, with one finger starting as six. "So, I'm pretty sure she doesn't bite people's necks." Seven. "And, I'm guessing she has heightened senses as well, since it's very unlikely she didn't have any clue that we were following her." Eight. "Plus, her body regenerates very quickly. Bullets didn't even slow her down, not even a headshot." Nine. His brow furrowed. "I think that's it?"
Abbacchio frowned. "That narrows things down significantly. Though...I haven't heard of any literature that mentions vampires shooting lasers out of their eyes."
Fugo shrugged. "Like I told Mista, pop culture can be a bunch of BS."
Abbacchio nodded, thumbing through his copy of a monster anthology. He skimmed the vampire section, finding only the stereotypical pop culture stuff and a few historical tidbits. Not that they were any useful-one stated that Dracula was very loosely based off of Vlad the Impaler, who was not even a vampire in the first place. There were a couple of others, but none that were really noteworthy.
"This is useless," he muttered, placing the anthology on a shelving cart.
An hour later, they still had nothing of use. The only thing either gangster managed to find was that authors had quite a few (sometimes vastly different) interpretations of vampires and vampirism in general. Even synopses of sci-fi and horror novels failed to yield the desired results. None of the texts Abbacchio skimmed through mentioned anything about a Stone Mask or superhuman creatures that could shoot liquid laser things out of their eyes.
Fugo slammed his book shut, groaning. "I give up."
Abbacchio let out a "mm" in agreement. He glanced up at a digital clock on the wall. "It's almost 20:00. Do you want to head back?"
The ginger nodded. "Can we stop for food first?"
Abbacchio considered this, hearing his stomach growl slightly at the mention of "food." "Screw it, why not?"
They put their books on the shelving cart-which was nearly full at this point-and took the lift back down to the ground floor. They exited the library, and Abbacchio felt the night breeze on his face.
"Any preferences on food?" he asked.
Fugo shrugged. "Whatever's edible is fine."
They got back into the SUV (Abbacchio stubbornly refused to call the vehicle by the name Mista had given it) and checked a city map for anywhere that sounded decent.
"There's a café about five kilometres away," the ex-cop remarked, pointing to the location on the map.
"Fine by me," Fugo responded.
Abbacchio nodded, starting the engine. "Let's hope Bucciarati had better luck than we did."