Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Chapter 10

Research is not what I imagine it would be. It is most definitely not sitting in a cozy chair and leafing through the pages of a book with the sound of the crackling fire the way I always imagined it.

It is the worst torture I had been through in my life and long afterlife. It is far worse than any pain because you know how to deal with pain but this irksome boredom is something else.

Reading books is a whole different matter, it is fun and enjoyable. However, researching something is in no way related to the pleasure of reading a book.

Doing research is a task invented by the devil himself to torture those who could endure any physical torment that could be brought upon them. The ones such as myself who know how to go past the pain and fight for freedom this way of entrapment is the worst punishment imaginable.

I want to find the answers, but going through book after book is draining my energy, especially having in mind that one book would reference the other, and then, when I finally find the referenced book, it would offer no answers.

It feels like I am chasing my tail. As if the books were purposefully made into labyrinths, to prevent any possibility of truly knowing anything about the Healers.

Why all the mystery?

There are so many beings on this planet, and yet none of them have so thoroughly tried to hide their existence. There must be a good reason for that. Well, I hope there is one or else all this trouble would be even more annoying.

Talking about annoying, Seymour doesn't seem to be in any way bothered by our fruitless search, although it has been going on for hours. It's as if he has found some way to block all the negative emotions that are swirling through my body right about now and focused all his energy on the search itself.

From time to time, he starts shuffling through the books in a burst of energy, as if the discovery was in his grasp only to settle down a few moments later upon discovering yet another dead end.

If I am being honest with myself, I thought that this part would be the easiest one. That we would just get in, find what we need, and get out. Yet, it turned out more challenging than the tasks we had to face to get in, which makes no sense to me.

Continuing like this is an impossibility for me because sooner or later, I will snap, and I don't want Seymour to pay the price now that we are finally on the way to becoming...well friends, I guess.

Luckily, just as I am about to lose my mind and fling the heavy books into the furthest corner of the room, I can sense someone approaching. My unmistakable sense of smell tells me it's Alarcos, and my rigid stance relaxes immediately.

I wasn't even aware of how tense I am in here with all those invisible vampires around us. It's comforting to have Alarcos with us, weirdly enough, I put a lot of trust in my ex's ex.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Alarcos asks Seymour the moment he approaches.

"Sure..." Seymour says.

It's clear that he is confused by the request, but there is something in Alarcos' voice that would make it difficult for anyone to refuse. I don't know the guy well, and yet, upon hearing the depth of pain in his voice, I would do anything in my power to help.

"You have great timing. I need to stretch my legs while the two of you chat." I say as I lift myself from the chair.

As vampires, we might not feel how uncomfortable the chairs are physically, but being psychologically cramped up in the world of research, I feel like stretching my legs would be the best thing possible.

"Thank you," Alarcos says earnestly, and I can't help but smile at him as I leave.

I don't remember the last time I did that. I guess I am changing, evolving. It feels nice, but also strange that it is so easy to make friends with someone I barely know.

In the past, I haven't made many friends, probably having in mind my horrible experience with the one person who turned me, whom I trusted completely, and whom I ended up murdering in cold blood.

I am not sure why I even decided to get involved in this whole mess. I should have left Tobias and Cecilia once I made sure they were safe. I should have gone off somewhere by myself. But I guess I have spent so much time alone that I seem to need others to feel like I belong somewhere like I am more than a mere vampire, danger to anything remotely human.

An idea strikes me so suddenly that I have no idea where it came from.

Maybe the healers weren't so different from me. Perhaps they had spent a lot of time hiding out and needed to find a way to connect.

What if all the dead ends we found in many different books were dead ends only to us? There could be hidden clues for other healers to find that we, as non-Healers, cannot perceive. Perhaps we should look at it all with the eyes of a Healer.

Without thinking too much about how much time had past since I left Seymour and Alarcos, I hurry back to share my idea with Seymour. Seeing things from a different perspective might help us unravel the truth.

"You never told me about your human family." I hear Seymour say.

"What was I supposed to tell you? That I saw my whole family being butchered by a bunch of vampires and that the only reason I survived was that I stank of death and decay? I don't like sharing painful memories." Alarcos says.

"Why share now?" Seymour asks.

"Because I think you can help. You have been a vampire for such a long time, and I think you can help me find the monster who slaughtered my family." Alarcos says.

"If you hadn't found anything in the books here, I doubt I can be of much help, but I am willing to help out in any way I can. I can see how important this is to you, and no matter what happened between us, if it's important to you, it's important to me. We don't have to be a couple for me to care." Seymour says.

I feel like I am intruding on a very private moment, and think they should have noticed my presence, but having in mind the emotional turmoil they might be going through, I am not surprised that they didn't. It sounds like Alarcos has a deeply personal reason to be here, and I feel sorry for him, that he had to endure something like that.

To prevent them from thinking that eavesdropping is my plan, I start making small sounds to announce my presence before it becomes even more awkward to appear.

"Sorry to interrupt, I got a great idea, and I didn't think, I just hurried here to check if I was right," I say.

"That's okay. We are finished for now." Alarcos says.

"Care to share the amazing idea?" He adds.

"You are staying to help?" I ask, surprised.

"Well, I finished what I had to do, so why not help you guys when I am already here with nothing to do?" He says.

"That's great!" I say, trying not to show that I know that his search has failed.

"I think that the Healers might have been lonely and thus communicated with each other in code through these books. After all, the books survive even after the ones who wrote them are long dead." I say.

"Oh, that's a good idea. I love deciphering codes and secret messages. I don't want to brag, but I am pretty good at it." Alarcos says.

"Let's get started, then!" I say with renewed enthusiasm.