Castlevania: Of Darkness and Light

The Librarian

Alucard was gone by the time I woke up. I knew he'd only recently left, the bed was still warm where he slept, and I felt the ghost of his arms  wrapped around me. I wasn't expecting him to be warm, I blushed, rubbing my arms when I noticed the markings on both sides coiling up to my shoulders. "You gotta be kidding me." I murmured in dread moving my arms around to better examine them. A stranger would've taken them for occultist tattoos, I wonder if Alucard knew what it meant.

I dressed myself and went to the kitchen. Alucard wasn't there, in his place was a note saying he'd gone to restock the freeze-box. Meaning he'd gone out hunting. "In this weather?" I look out the window at the grey mist and the pouring rain. I hoped vampires didn't get colds.

I spent the morning creating an elixir for colds in the hospital. Alucard was half human, and humans were susceptible to colds. "I'm no healer but this should help him if he returns sniffling, and I'll make a nice hot broth for both of us later." I told the tattered painting of Alucard's mother hanging on the wall. "I wish I got to know you. Alucard say's you were a kind soul." I smile. "I guess it runs in the family."

The scars prickled on my back along with the newfound markings on my arms. "I'm just a mystery wrapped in an enigma." I shrugged rubbing my arms. "Even to me." I put on the wool cloak, covering the markings and my own skin from the chill, and headed to the library.

The library was a cozy sanctuary by now, a perfect place to spend a rainy day. I knew its dark walls, warm, air and the smell of old books as a safe comforting place. I wanted to find a book about the mysterious markings on my arms, if it was related to my staff. A Bookkeeper whizzed passed me.

"Excuse me, can you help me find-?" It didn't stop at my request. "Hey wait!" I followed it as it zipped through the halls. "That's strange, they don't usually ignore me." Another one flew by, so did another, and another.

I gripped my staff and quickly followed. The Bookkeepers flocked like birds, completely ignoring me as I ran behind. My eyes darted at the shadowy figures, more curious than scared. I've never seen more than one at once before.

  It's like they're answering  a distant call. I stopped dead in my tracks when I entered a large dusty room where I first found the Enochian scrolls. The Bookkeepers circled around a robed night creature with an owl's face and talonlike hands. I instantly knew it was the type of night creature that was once human, a damned soul brought back from Hell by a Forgemaster's magic into a new body.

The staff glowed as I watched the night creature send out the Bookkeepers to their task. It jerked its head and looked me dead in the eyes. "Be at peace, I will not harm you." The night creature spoke in a thin voice that carried an ancient wisdom.

"Night creatures do nothing but harm." I pointed my staff feeling its power thrum.

"I am a different breed." The night creature backed away with genuine fear in its eyes. "Not a servant of Death." A Bookkeeper approached and whispered in its tufted ear, he murmured back and the spectral creature disappeared.

"You're in charge of the Bookkeepers." I lowered my staff.

"Yes." The creature responded in whistling voice. "They help me tend the library at my command."

"They do a good job of it." I remarked, hackles still raised. "Who are you?"

"I am the master of this library." The night creature introduced. "Keeper of the Books. My name was lost with my former life, I am simply known as the Librarian."

"Nice to meet you." I bravely approached. "I knew you were that type. I saw the remnants of humanity in your eyes, you were a person, perhaps not so long ago." The Librarian backed away, more afraid of me than I was of him. I lay the staff at my feet. "I won't hurt you, as long as you don't hurt me."