Chapter 40: The scriptures
Bianco's collection was extensive.
Books upon testimonies upon parchments upon scrolls upon legends upon flying papers upon essays from yesteryear, all centered on spectral events and knowledge – some of it was probably wrong, too, but what learning endeavor didn't have its failures? There was so much knowledge on the shelves running around the entire floor, Vlad didn't even know where to start.
Waiting would bring him nothing, of course, so he carefully took – the library had a sink right by the entrance, and by the look the librarian had sent him, you were strongly expected to wash and dry your hands before touching anything – an ancient tome from the nearest shelf and sat at a nearby desk to start his perusal somewhere.
Handwritten – it looked like a journal from the layout, no, a chronicle of verified and suspected ghost sightings. España 1346, Apariciones.
Vlad frowned. He could guess the meaning alright, but that was deduction, not him being suddenly able to read Spanish. There was no way he could go through the book that way...
It wasn't entirely unexpected, he realized: Bianco was Spanish, of course his collection wasn't made up of books written in English only. Didn't help his problem, though.
That said...
Vlad stood back up to go and look a second time at the shelf he'd taken the chronicle from. Either there would be a translation available, or he'd put it back and look for something else. This was a library for agents and other members of Bianco's organization – who, in the majority, had English as their maternal tongue. Translations weren't much of a stretch... Well. Vlad eyed the sprawling shelves and their overly numerous tenants: an endeavor to translate all this seemed a logical step to take, but actually doing it was another matter. It implied hundreds, thousands of hours of work.
The shelf he'd taken the tome from did, in fact, have a translation right next to its place – Vlad had overlooked it because of the simpler, blander binding: it looked like someone's thesis, printed and bound efficiently but as cheaply as possible.
A look through the nearest shelves, and many other translations littered the library. Not all the books and other testimonies had one, but he could see one on at least every shelf, more often two or three of those. It was, perhaps, a work in progress.
Vlad shook his head – caught Agent J's presence only a few feet away, waiting in silence, watching. The younger man couldn't shake the feeling that he might reveal something if he wasn't careful, that – even if the director hadn't intended it this way – this was all a trap waiting to happen. It made sense, of course, not to let the unaffiliated guest roam freely in their headquarters, but the consequence was that an agent now shadowed his every move.
For all that Vlad had been restricted to his bedroom – officially, at least – and constantly checked on by the nurses and doctors, he'd never truly felt under surveillance until now.
wondering in fear and apprehension
do they know don't they what did they see did he let anything slip
...The book. Spain 1346, Hauntings. That was what he'd stood up for. He'd keep the original at hand, just in case, but the point was to get something he could actually read.
Vlad took the bound translation – while ignoring, as much as possible, the pair of eyes stuck on him – and headed back to the seat he'd chosen.
On the way there, however, a glass dome in the next alley caught his eye and the whispering of hundreds of years blood stains on the pedestal dripping. The book it protected was small and unassuming if not for the unnatural aura of sacrifice. From afar, you could wonder why it was thus displayed.
blood dripping one drop after another
Vlad jerked around at the sight that no one else could see blood old ancient immemorial long gone and long forgotten, the smell of blood dripping hanging under his nose.
it didn't smell usually it was only a shadow of what had been lost not something pungent present impossible to ignore
He couldn't ask Agent J what was going on, because the agent most likely couldn't see the same thing he did – and because if Vlad was seeing this, then his eyes weren't blue anymore.
Spain 1346, Hauntings.
There was a book waiting for him – and after that hundreds, thousands more. If Vlad didn't lose too much time being sick, he might go through the library in, what, eight or nine years for a first read. It wasn't like he didn't have the time, honestly.
he was still so far from leaving the clinic
if
when
He didn't have to focus on the obviously occult book that drew out his ghostliness – no matter his own desires, such as staying discreet about the fact that he was a walking abomination – if he didn't want to.
not yet
but like everything in Vlad's illness agony death
the book kept dripping slowly inexorably drop after drop down and into death