The headquarters of the Società were housed in a large building in an old neighborhood-- a large building, but not an enormous one; a nice building, but not a magnificent one. It was almost as though they were trying not to stand out. Of course, Dawn thought, that wasn't too unusual for a library of demonological texts.
She glanced at the building once more before taking a deep breath and going inside.
After the brilliance of the midday sun, the interior of the building was a dark and murky mystery. Dawn let the heavy door close behind her and stood next to it, blinking myopically into the room.
"Can I help you?" asked a woman's voice in Italian, and Dawn turned instinctively toward the sound.
"I'm here to apply for a library card," Dawn said in the same language. Her grasp of Italian was pretty good now --she'd always been good at languages, anyway-- but she'd practiced this phrase the night before for good measure. It was nice to be certain.
"A library card?" the woman repeated, and despite her practice Dawn worried that she'd used the wrong word.
"Erm, to access the books? To-- study?" Great, now she sounded like an illiterate American, exactly what she'd been trying to avoid.
"Well, certainly," the receptionist said with a frosty smile. "Just sign in here on the visitor's ledger, and go on upstairs. You will not require a permit to read the books."
Dawn smiled hesitantly and pulled the ledger toward her. What about the form she'd filled out? And the text she'd read, a fifteenth century book, had specifically mentioned elaborate screening processes. Times had changed since then, but what were the chances? She gave a mental shrug and wrote her name clearly on the line before her.
Looking up from the book, she could see a wide curving staircase rising to the second floor as though it was floating on air. She thanked the woman at the desk absently and began to climb, her feet sinking into the thick carpeting as she went.
The second and third floors were laid out in the shape of a doughnut -- shelves all around the outside held books, but the center was open to the huge atrium that soared from the ground floor up to a graceful dome painted in textured shades of blue. The carpet muffled the sound of footsteps, and the patrons knew better than to raise their voices. Outside, Rome was a bustling metropolis, but the noise of the city stayed outside the walls of the Società.
Dawn saw no signs to indicate which books were where, so she slowly walked through the shelves, examining the books and trying to figure out the organizational system. There were quite a few books on Roman and Italian history, many of them bound in ancient volumes that still managed to maintain their gilt lettering --and of course, there was not a speck of dust anywhere.
Dawn was impressed. It was extremely rare to find such old volumes in such good condition, especially in a location such as this, which had seen so much warfare and destruction. She picked up one especially venerable book and opened the cover reverently, gazing at the hand-illuminated pages, afraid to breathe. The work was so exquisite, it must've taken years to do… Standing there between two shelves, she lost herself in the text for a few moments. Slowly, she came back to herself. She was not here to admire ancient treatises on --she checked the cover-- the construction of underground sewer tunnels. She was here for one reason: demonographies.
She circled the second floor and then the third, making her way up and down each row and every aisle. Nothing. She didn't see one book about demons, or even magic, mysticism, sorcery, or the old gods. It was downright weird. Even the libraries in suburban Cleveland had books on folk superstitions and myth. And this was reputed to be the mother lode of supernatural research -- so why couldn't she find even a single volume?
Checking her watch, Dawn winced inwardly. Her date was in an hour and a half, on the other side of the city, and she still had to shower and change. For a minute she was tempted to just cancel, but then she remembered the way Connor's eyes lit up while they were talking, and the jolt of energy that had passed between them. With a reluctant look at the shelves, she set aside her questions about the Società and headed home.
..o0O0o..
Connor walked through the bustling crowds, his hands jammed deeply in the pockets of his freshly-ironed khakis. His muscles twitched, his fists clenched, and his head felt light: he was nervous. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so nervous before a date. There was just something about this girl…
He was a block away from the Spanish Steps, where they'd agreed to meet, when a colorful display caught his eye. Flowers of every variety, every type and size, were jammed into buckets and jars, all competing for his eye.
He looked them over, wondering. Would it be overkill to bring a girl flowers on a first date?
The man behind the buckets stepped forward, wearing an apron and a smile, and pointed eagerly to a dozen red roses. Connor shook his head quickly. Definitely overkill. The flower-seller changed his tactics, pointing to a basin full of bright yellow sunflowers.
"Three for five Euro," he said in heavily accented English.
Connor pictured himself handing the flowers to Dawn, pictured her smile. "What the hell," he said, digging some coins out of his pocket and handing them over. In exchange, the man gave him three large sunflowers, with the stems wrapped neatly in thick paper.
Connor felt a little self-conscious as he carried the huge flowers down the street. Schoolgirls giggled as they passed and old ladies pointed at him. Maybe the flowers were a bit much, he thought, but he couldn't shake the mental image of Dawn's smile at the sight of them. At least, he hoped that would be the response.
The cobblestone street he was on brought him to the top of the broad flight of marble stairs known as the Spanish Steps. As he began to descend the steps, he could see Dawn waiting at the bottom, the last rays of the summer sunset shining off of her hair. She was facing away from him, toward the Piazza and the huge fountain at its center, but as he approached, she turned and glanced up at him.
Her eyes went from his face to the huge yellow sunflowers he carried and then back to his face. Slowly, her mouth widened into a full-wattage smile that seemed to outshine everything else in the huge square. Connor nearly stumbled as he walked down the last few steps to the bottom where she stood.
"These are for you," he said unnecessarily, handing her the thick stems. As she reached out to take them, her fingers brushed his, and just as he had at the arena, Connor felt a jolt of energy pass between them.
If Dawn felt anything, she didn't show it -- but she didn't touch his hand again, either. She took the sunflowers in both hands and turned her face downward toward them.
"Thank you," she said, looking up at Connor briefly. "I love them."
Connor felt a little lightheaded, but at least he knew it hadn't been overkill.
..o0O0o..
Dawn smiled down at the flowers as they walked along. They were big and unwieldy, she didn't know what she would do with them when they got to the restaurant, and people were staring at her as she walked along with them. She loved them.
Connor led her to a tiny bistro on a side street a few blocks away. They were seated at a little round table outside the front door. The sun had set and the sky was a pale shade of purple, quickly fading to dark blue. At the curb, a streetlight sputtered on, lighting a faint corona around the bulb but not illuminating much of the street. Their table was lit by a little candle in a glass jar, and by the light that spilled from the restaurant's window. For the moment, they were the only people sitting in the little area on the edge of the sidewalk.
Dawn held the flowers on her lap for a minute, then grabbed a chair from a nearby table and pulled it up, setting the bouquet on it -- it just didn't seem right to put them on the floor.
She turned to Connor with a smile. "So," she said. "Tell me about yourself." Because she definitely wasn't telling him about her own self, at least not without some heavy editing and outright fabrication. "I'm actually five years old" was not what a guy wanted to hear on the first date.
A weird look crossed Connor's face, but it was gone so fast that Dawn thought she might've imagined it. After a second, he leaned back and started out with, "Well, I just finished my freshman year at Stanford, and Rome seemed like the place to be..."