Armitage

Chapter 9 - The Chemist's Compound

At the sound of Sebastian’s voice Madeline spun in her chair, and when she saw the now all too familiar hooded figure standing not two feet by her side she recoiled in fright. Standing quickly, the book falling to the floor, Madeline almost tripped over herself as she tried to make good her escape. She prayed he would not follow her as she barrelled out through the curtain, hitting Zeb and falling backwards in her panic.

‘Woah there,’ said the shop owner, helping Madeline to her feet. ‘Where’s the fire?’

‘Let me go,’ stammered Madeline, still dizzy with fear. ‘He’s down there!’

‘Who, Sebastian? Yeah, I know.’

‘Sebastian? You know him?’ said Madeline, calming down somewhat.

‘Yeah, me and him go way back.’ Zeb smiled as Madeline gave him a questioning look. ‘Well, not that far back, I ain’t a vampire if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘But how can he…?’

‘Why not ask him?’ said Zeb, nodding towards the backroom curtain. Madeline looked back towards where she had just hurtled out of and started to feel a little bit embarrassed. The hooded figure, who she now knew to be called Sebastian, may have scared her half to death on several occasions but he had never once laid a finger on her, and considering he seemed to have been in the room with her the whole time she was reading the book he had ample opportunity to hurt her, but he didn’t. Collecting her thoughts she looked around the shop and realised that Mike was no longer there, and Zeb, noticing this smiled once again.

‘Don’t worry about Mike,’ he said as he walked over to the shop door. ‘I told him you’d be a while and he had a class to get to. I told him I’d walk you back to campus.’ Kneeling down at the foot of his front door he began sliding the locks in place, and standing up he saw Madeline’s concerned expression.

‘Look, Sebastian’s harmless,’ he said, returning to his counter. ‘He hangs out here sometimes because I know what he is, and he asked for my help in getting you down here.’

‘He did? How?’ asked Madeline.

‘He gave me his book. You see, I didn’t actually have it before be brought it to me, but he figured it could tell you what you needed to know better than him trying to get you to listen to him.’

‘He wrote it?’ asked Madeline.

‘Sure did,’ said Zeb.

‘So you’re saying it’s all true?’ asked Madeline, the disbelief rising in her voice.

‘Every word,’ said Sebastian, who had appeared in the backroom doorway. Madeline gasped in shock as she took in the sight of Sebastian, his hood pulled back, revealing a haggard and weathered face. His dark eyes sat heavy in his skull, sunken and weary, his cheeks pinched and angular, while the dishevelled mop of grey-flecked brown hair framed his haunted face like a washed out flame. As Madeline stared at him her fear began to be replaced by pity and sadness, his wretchedness obliterating any threat she thought he posed to her, and in a moment of what she hoped was not rash bravery she approached the broken man cautiously.

‘I’m sorry I ran from you,’ she said in a small voice.

‘It’s quite alright,’ said Sebastian, much clearer than Madeline had ever heard him speak before. ‘We have much to discuss.’ Sebastian looked to Zeb who was counting up his takings for the day.

‘Hey, feel free man,’ he said with a smile. ‘The backroom’s all yours.’

‘Shall we then?’ said Sebastian, holding the curtain for Madeline. Tentatively, she stepped once again into the backroom and sat down as Sebastian closed the curtain behind him.