The SpellBinder's Grim Book Two: Incinerate

Ch 13

It was harder than he thought getting into the prison. He killed two men who were in the same cell together. He dragged the bodies into large, man-sized pipes that led to the sewage and pumped it into a manmade pool where all the feces went.

The guards assumed the men had escaped, putting out posters of sketches of the men with bounties on them. He spent his time down there in the pipes, carefully planning out a way to get inside the Vanity Library for three full days. He watched people go in and out of the Library, studying them- yet learning nothing. During those nights he could smell something- or someone who was familiar to him, yet strange and different.

And then he saw her as he was on top of a house while the people beneath him slept. She stood at the tree line next to a man he had never seen before. His eyes felt warm and suddenly he zoomed in on her like a magnifying glass, her body having spasms of electrical waves that he could see flickering in the night. Hers was different than the ones that he had seen in humans, He wished he had discovered this trick when he had met her at the burning house.

She was wearing odd clothing- the kind that you would see paupers wear- so different from her lovely dresses her mother had made her.

Her mother is dead. That is my fault.

But what was Emily doing here? And who was that man with her?

He leapt across roofs and crouched low, watching them. She looked at the man and pointed at the library- the same place he wanted to go. He thought that they must have had the same goal, eagerly jumping up and excited to try and reconnect with her. He thought briefly about her reaction the last time they had met and he regarded the man for a moment.

Emily motioned for someone to step out and when they did Caius snarled so loudly that neighbors turned on their lights and stuck out their heads.

Emily looked straight at him, Gregory hiding behind him. Caius roared at them, his breath looked like smoke in the cold night air. Both Emily and the man crouched, snarling at him, pacing back and forth as they changed into something Caius had never expected.

They were wolves but hunched oddly, their back legs slightly longer than their fronts. The silver one- Emily- stood up on two legs, ears laid back and her eyes fixated on him.

This was not the Emily he had seen a couple of nights ago. Yes, she hated him then, but how could he miss that heady scent of hers that carried in the wind?

Gregory stood behind her, smug as can be, smiling at him with new front teeth. Of all the people in the world why would she become so friendly with Gregory? An alarming bell suddenly sounded from the Library, the pounding rings sent Caius flying off the roof and onto his back on the ground. He could hear the high pitched howls, resonating off the walls of buildings, the bell chime thunderous over the shouts of people. Caius scrambled to his feet, face to face with a young boy, dirt on his face that turned sheet white at the site of him. Caius clamped his hands over his ears and jumped from roof to roof, noticing that Emily and her companion were long gone, leaving behind a scurrying fat man with a clear goal to get to the Library- the bell still vibrating his ear drums.

He let a snarl rip from his throat, the sound deaf in the air. With a final glance he looked at Gregory James- the man he had failed to kill- running into the safety of that treacherous Library.

***

"He got away! I will never catch him. He will never leave there." Emily ran her hands down her face and let out a muffled scream.

"He played on your emotions," Fredrick said blandly.

"If you had a chance to bring Aralena back, would you try? He promised-"