Ghost Slayers

Chapter Nine

By Relm

"Wow that's an interesting story Miss Ul Copt." Zangulus commented as Filia told him the whole entire story including what Lina had told her about the vision.

"So yeah you can see why Lina wants us to do some readings." Filia stated once more as they walked closer to Zelgadis Greywars' office. She was going to say something more when her cell phone began ringing.

Many people in the library collectively shushed at Filia and gave her dirty looks.

"Eeep! Stupid phone, whose calling me?" Filia picked up her phone scolding. "Oh it's Lina. Why's she calling me for? Hello Lina?" Filia answered her phone whispering.

"You're in the library I guess, sorry. I'll try and make this quick. Zel here got a strange reaction when he got close to the library. He started to lose thermal energy and appeared to be in a lot of pain. Plus his hands started disappearing. My guess is that book might still be there and active. So be careful."

"Where are you now?"

"In the park. You guys should probably take the car and meet us here when you're done. I don't want to risk taking Zelgadis to the car again or leaving him alone."

"Okay but I'd better go."

"Yeah sure. If you see the book draw a picture of it, seeing how I doubt they will let you take pictures of a crime scene."

"Okay I will Lina. Bye."

"Bye Filia."

"Wow that's weird." Filia mumbled while hanging up her phone.

"What did Miss Lina want?'

"It seems that whatever might have caused Mr. Greywars to become what he is now might still be in his office and still active."

"But wouldn't we be getting readings out here then? And how does Miss Lina know this?"

"Mr. Greywars was having a strange reaction to the library. The closer he got the more his thermal levels dropped. Plus he appeared to be in pain and his hands were vanishing. Lina wants us to be careful and make any notes we can about the office. Especially if we find the book."

...

"Well Zel looks like it's just and me for a little while." Lina said pulling out a notepad and a pen from her pack. "If you're wondering I'm going to try and draw a picture of that book I saw in the vision. Of course I'm not much of an artist to begin with. Filia and Sylphiel are the artists of our group." Lina took a look at the picture she had drawn. It was crude at best but at least it had some of the basic parts of the book that Lina could remember.

Zelgadis looked over at Lina's drawing with curiosity. At first there was no real reaction from him. A few moments later he started to tense up and looked away. He seemed to shiver uncontrollably as he tried to calm himself.

This was unnoticed by Lina as she took a picture with her cell phone. "I'll send this to Sylphiel to look it up." Lina sent the picture on her phone to Sylphiel's cell. A moment later Lina then called Sylphiel.

"Hello?"

"Hi Sylphiel, it's Lina. I just sent you a pic of a sketch I did."

"Yeah. It's um… interesting."

"Oh shut up. Yeah it's no Picasso but who the hell cares. It's a just a quick sketch of something I saw in a vision."

"You've become physic now?"

Lina rolled her eyes. "No Sylphiel. When Zelgadis showed up at the apartment area he went right through me. When he did I had this strange vision. It seemed like what happened to Zelgadis in his last day as a normal living person. I saw him in his apartment and in his office. There was this book on his desk and I could see a red glowing aura coming from it that Zelgadis couldn't see or didn't notice. A hand emerged from the misty aura and grabbed Zelgadis and that's when the vision ended."

"Are you saying that this book is what caused Mr. Greywars' change?"

"Might very well be the case."

"So what it's a possessed book?"

"Well there are studies of exorcists in older times that used to expel spirits from people, homes and objects and force them into books. It's possible this could be a one of those books."

"I'm guessing you're wanting me to check up on the book using your drawing as a reference."

"Yeah. I asked Filia to draw a picture of it if she happens to find it. If she does it will be a lot better then I drew. But try and see what you can find out for now."

"Okay but you might want to send Filia that pic so that she has more a reference to go on when she looks in the office."

"Good idea Sylphiel. I'll let you get to work."

"Okay bye Lina."

"Bye Sylphiel." Lina hung up her phone and repeated the same process with Filia's cell. She waited for Filia to answer her phone.

"Hello?" Filia whispered.

"Still in the library huh?" Lina said smugly.

"Yes I would like you to stop constantly calling me! If my phone rings one more time I'm going to get thrown out of this place!" Filia hissed at her in a quiet tone.

"Then put your phone on vibrate. Anyway did you get the pic?"

"Yeah looks a lot like chicken scratch to me."

"It's a rough sketch you twit. Just try and use it as a reference for the book okay?"

"Alright fine. I'm going now. Bye."

"Bye." Lina hung up her phone and looked over at Zelgadis.

He sat with his back hunched towards the tree he was slumped against. It didn't seem as though he was in pain but he did appear to be exhausted. It seemed that just the act of breathing was taking all of his energy.

"Zelgadis are you okay?"

Zelgadis didn't answer Lina, not that he could anyway. But he didn't even try to acknowledge her. His eyes remained closed and breathing laboured.

"What's going on with you Zel?" Lina asked almost rhetorically. She went to get closer to him but he recoiled when the paper got near him.

"The picture? Is that what's bothering you?" Lina folded up the paper and put it in her pocket.

With the picture out of sight Zelgadis seemed to calm down and didn't seem as tired as he had been. He looked over at Lina and weakly smiled.

"That book must have done a real number on you. Just seeing a picture of it is affecting you. At least that shows that my picture wasn't totally inaccurate." Lina smiled at that.

...

The door to Zelgadis' office had a row of police tape scrawled across it. Even though they had no real evidence that this was the actual crime scene they still had the room sealed off. Which was irritating to the library as there were some books in the office that were old and belonged to the library and they couldn't touch them.

Zangulus opened the door and stepped under the tape. He motioned for Filia and Amelia to follow him.

The office itself was a jumbled of books, papers, files and a big desk with a computer on it. It was full of stuff and it was messy. But strangely enough with all the stuff crammed into the room it seemed to be an organized mess.

"Wow. There's sure a lot of stuff in here." Filia pointed out the very obvious. She could see why the police didn't believe there was any foul play in the room. Though it was messy, there wasn't any stuffed dumped on the floor. Had there been a struggle stuff would be everywhere.

"Where did Miss Lina say that book was supposed to be?" Amelia asked trying to look around without touching anyway.

"On the desk there." Filia motioned towards the desk as she pulled out her cell phone to look at the picture. "Take some reading while I look okay?"

"Okay." Amelia pulled out her scanner and started taking some readings.

Filia frowned as she tried to compare the picture to the books around her. The picture Lina drew wasn't the greatest so it was hard to pick out the book she drew for two reasons. One Filia couldn't move anything and the books were stacked and two because the drawing wasn't detailed enough looked like it could be just about any book on the desk. They seemed to be a collection of books all baring similar designs on their covers so there was no way to tell just which of these books it was. The main difference between these books was the fact that each book had a minor difference in the pattern and that they were all different colours. And since Lina's vision was in black and white she didn't tell Filia what colour the book had been. "Well this isn't any help. You getting anything Amelia?"

Amelia shook her head. "Nope not a thing. Maybe what caused Mr. Greywars to start hurting and losing his thermal energy isn't in this room. Are you having trouble finding the book?"

"Yeah. I'll still make a sketch of the books here. Maybe if I draw a couple Lina can tell us exactly which one it is." Filia got out her small sketch pad and started sketching.

Zangulus frowned. He had been told not to let them take any pictures. And even though they weren't doing that they were still making notes of the crime scene. 'Well the chief didn't say anything drawing.'

"I am allowed to draw aren't I Officer Zoana?" Filia stopped and gave a sideways glance at Zangulus.

"Drawing is fine. Though don't go advertising that you did it to anyone at the station."

"I won't."

"Good."

"What should we do after this? Call Miss Lina to give her an update?"

"Yeah that would probably be a good idea. I'm almost done. You know it might be a good idea to talk to some of the library staff to see if they recognize the books." Filia suggested.

"That is a good idea. Maybe they can tell us why there is a people killing book in their library." Amelia stated with a shiver.

"We have no proof that he was in fact killed, let alone by a book." Filia rolled her eyes at Amelia. "Okay I'm done. Let's go talk to the library staff again."