The End (One-Shots)

Sun and Stars

Pedantic. Dry. Insufferable. Turgid. And above all else, utterly useless. Sam tossed the aged tome onto the Library table with a flick of his wrist. Irritated, he flipped through the narrow drawer of index cards that sat in his lap until he found one that appeared promising. He snatched it up, then dug into the mounds of books he and Natalie had hauled up from the Archives.

"Sorry," she apologized as if she read his thoughts. "I'm guessing this isn't your typical Friday night."

Across the table, Natalie sat with her own books, Sumerian, Enochian, Latin, Irish, and Greek among the many languages on their open pages. None so far had proved worthwhile. And though she had a keen eye for particularly crucial passages of information, she researched at half Sam's speed for she required translation books for any language other than English. And Chinese, but she had sorted through those books in her first week at the Bunker.

"Sam?"

He shook his head with a hard squint. "What did you say? Sorry, I'm... my brain is fried."

"Tell me about it," Natalie groaned. "I apologized for bumming out your Friday night. This can't be your idea of fun."

"You know that's not true," Sam said as he flipped the pages of his book on Greek power rituals. "I did study law after all. That's... a lot of books."

"Yeah, in English," Natalie grumbled as she turned her book upside-down as if to improve her understanding of it.

Sam laughed at that as he said, "There was plenty of Latin I had to learn, too."

Natalie's frown of approval accompanied her nod. "True," she started as she scanned the table. "When did you learn Sumerian?"

"I didn't," Sam started, "I mean, I can read it. Sort of."

Natalie's narrowed stare sent a shiver along his spine. When her eyes dropped to an open book on the table, she pointed to it and asked, "Can you read that?"

Though confused, Sam hefted the heavy text and read aloud the passage at which she had pointed. Something about pieces of monster. And not just any monster. Beasts, specifically. Anything with a bite. The passage referred to canines and incisors for biting. And that those teeth held incredible magical properties of transformation. No. Not simple transformation. Ascension.

When he finished the passage, he set the book down and shrugged as he looked back up at Natalie. There he found her leaned into the table with wide eyes and red cheeks. The awkward stillness of the Bunker crept across Sam's shoulders and gooseflesh raced down his arms as she remained silent. "I uh..." he stuttered, "I might have gotten a few words wrong."

Without looking, Natalie pointed to another open book, though this one sat on the table right in front of her. "What about this one? It's Irish."

Intrigued, Sam pushed back from the table, the scrape of his chair on the wooden Library floor echoing through the room. He rounded the table to stand beside her, then leaned over her shoulder to get a closer look at the text. "Yeah, I think I can read that," he mused as he gripped the back of her chair. With his thumb parting the pages, he picked up the book and scanned the page, then began to read aloud again.

More details about pieces of monsters, of magical properties and rituals clued him in on Natalie's thought process. It wasn't monster lore she searched. It was occult magic. As Sam read on, he glanced at her, still seated at his elbow. That, he realized too late, had been a mistake. Natalie stared up at him, mouth agape and skin red from collar to hairline. Beneath her collar, Sam had a perfect view down her plunging neckline. His tongue tripped over a phrase—unicorn blood? Or leprechaun gold?— as he stuttered into silence. Why did she stare at him? Did she understand the text better when he read it to her? How? And why would that even be a thing? Natalie was perfectly capable of translating—