To Greet Death

Chapter 1

The library: morning

Jacob Stone and Ezekiel Jones, two of the four librarians, argue over the possibility of people randomly exploding.

"it doesn't exist" Jacob, an average height white man with a rough outer shell, states.

"yes it does" Jones, an Asian Australian and master thief, counters.

"no, it doesn't" he says again right before jenkins interjects.

"gentlemen!" The large gray haired man began with his thundering voice. "working on something rather sensitive, if you don't mind."

he then looks up at the two men leaning over the railing of the loft. He sighed and shook his head at the pair before going back to his work.

"sorry" they say in unison.

The two men made their way to the long stair case that led to the annex main floor. Together they descended the stairs continuing their argument.

"I'm telling you, yes, it does." Ezekiel said.

"don't be stupid, man people don't randomly explode. " Jacob said in an exploding manner.

"you mean like that?" Jones pointed out.

"sorry." Stone replied "spontaneous human combustion is a myth, okay? Reported cases are usually found to be accidental deaths caused by a fire nearby."

"usually, not always! Leave a little room for the unexplainable. "

Eve Baird, the Guardian of the Library and Cassandra Gillian, another librarian, enter the annex and Eve interjects.

"I don't like the unexplainable! Before we go running off to South Carolina, I want to look in these books and find out why our amateur golfer might have burst into flames." she said setting down a large stack of books on the long rectangular table in the middle of the room.

Cassandra turned around to face Jenkins. "Mr. Jenkins, got any ideas where we can start?"

He blew some air between his lips with a slight shake of his head.

Eve turning around to meet his gaze spoke again. "that's all you got?"

"there's no magical precedents for spontaneous human combustion. When it does happen, which is very rare, it's usually a quirk of science." Jenkins shrugged.

"if it's not magic-based, why would the clipping book alert us?" Eve questioned.

Ezekiel took this time to step in. "guess we'll have to go to Charleston and find out. "

Jacob followed Jones to the back door. A door that could take them to any place in the world as long as it had a door.

"Cass are you coming?" he asked

"yes! Uh, no.. " she said hesitantly "I mean, I'm gonna go talk to a friend of mine at the hospital I used to work at in New York -- Dr. Nassir. He did a research study on spontaneous human combustion. I'll see if he has anything for us." she lied knowing very well her reason for going to New York was to check on the growth of her tumor and how much time she had left.

"Great, " Eve piped up, "so Cassandra and I will head to New York and you guys can go to South Carolina."

"No. I should probably go on my own. He can be a little touchy." she said quickly

"Eve can't go anyway." a males voice said from behind them.

Flynn Carsen the head librarian walked into the room with a backpack on and a large book in his hand.