Zoé is a young immortal. She is only 186 years old. Currently, she works in an incredible library of the occult, located in Budapest and curated by a very old immortal called Ikshan. Unfortunately, one day she stumbles upon a terrifying monster in a...
I pace my apartment for a solid part of the night, slaloming between piles of books, papers, and miscellaneous objects left in no particular order. I have three or four coffees, in three or four different cups, which all end in the cemetery of mugs that is my desk.
When I hear someone knocking on my door, I rush to open it.
"Hi, I'm so glad to see you," Ikshan says. "I was very worried."
Ikshan's tall body, wrapped in a humongous blue coat, an endless blue scarf, and a knitted blue beanie, hugs me, lifting me up from the floor.
"I'm fine." I pat their back awkwardly. And just before I'm going to gasp for air as my face is buried tightly against Ikshan's chest, they let me go. They remove all the winter clothing, leaving some snow on the floor, and put their suitcase away against the wall.
I lead Ikshan to my sofa in the living room, a random piece of furniture in the middle of a completely non-harmonized decoration. A lot of bookshelves, a lot of chairs, a lot of stuff on the chairs and the bookshelves. And two dying plants, desperately turning towards the window.
Ikshan scans the room and stops. "I know. It's a mess," I say.
They smile. "I didn't say anything."
"I can see your eyes."
They smile again wider. "I didn't say anything."
"Anyway. So. Big thing, heavy but looks like a dark mist, claws, sharp teeth. Rings a bell?"
"Not really, no. Can I see your wound?"
I show them my shoulder. There is still a dark system of thin lines coming from it, even if they are disappearing. Ikshan winces. "That's nasty. Magical wound indeed. Old power. It could have been a lot worse if the wound had been deeper."
I nod. Lucky me.
"It just appeared all of a sudden?" Ikshan asks.
"Well, I was in your office to drop off a box. I wanted some coffee before studying an artifact and then boom, it was there in the hallway."
"You didn't see anyone else, didn't hear chanting or anything like that?"
"No, nothing. Did something like that happen before?"
"Never. Well, once the library turned into a sound and light show but no monster, no."
"Because of a magical object?"
"Yeah. There are many powerful things in the library. Maybe one of those opened a portal or something. But why now?"
Magical object. Magi... oh. oh. I'm so stupid. "Crap! With everything I totally forgot about it but I found an artifact in the box I told you about. I couldn't decipher what was on it. That's what I wanted to study. That's it! It must be the thing!" I say standing up.
"What does it look like?"
"It's... oh, as a matter of fact, I still have it." And without even thinking, I take the golden piece of metal out of my pocket in a progressively slowing down gesture as I realize what I'm doing and as Ikshan's eyes widen. Crap. I froze, look at the object and drop it on the floor.
Ikshan takes my arm and screams. "Zoé, run!"
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