Melabeth Forgive Me, For I Am Sin! (21 page)

She wanted me to send her on, “Sorry, I don’t know how. Even if I had the power, I don’t have the knowledge.”

Bow quickly resp
onded, “You do have the power and it is easy; all you have to do is kill me. Choke me to death, hit me with something, or stab me, whatever. You can touch me; you can destroy me.”

I had known that I could hurt Carrie, but I had never thought that I could kill her, and, if Bow was right, then all I had to do was kill her, and I could send her on her way. I didn’t want to kill her, not because I liked or cared for her so much that I couldn’t. I didn’t want to go against Nicks’ will; he was going to be mad enough about Jason.

I tried to say it softly without hurting her feelings, “Nope, can’t help you there, chick. If you want to die, get Nicks to do it.” Well, that wasn’t as nice as I meant to say it.

Bow’s face went all ugly; the violin turned to ash, and then reappeared on the table across the room. Bow disappeared into the wall across the room from me.

I was becoming more powerful all the time; when I had first met Carrie, she could disappear on me, and I couldn’t see her. I had come to notice that, when Carrie tried to do that, I could still see her outline; I also could feel her presence. Now that I think about it, some of my powers are very much like Necromancers. I couldn’t help but wonder, is Nicks a Necromancer? That didn’t add up; there was still more to this.

I walked back over to the table where Nicks had mixed and matched all these different bottles. Whatever was in these bottles was used to make me. I reached over and picked one up. It had strange markings on the label that I couldn’t read. I popped the top and took a timid smell.

The scent hit me all at once. It was blood, but unlike any blood I had ever smelled before. I screwed the top back on and tried the next bottle. It was blood as well, but, like the first bottle, there was something different about it, something foreign. I checked the next few bottles, and each was blood and each had some new scent that I had never encountered before.

I had an idea; one of those ideas that made me feel stupid, the kind of idea that made me wonder why I ha
dn’t thought of it before. Ever since I was turned into a vampire I had been thrust from one event to another. I had to rely on these other vampires to tell me how this new world works, but that had not been true when I was still alive.

When I was alive, if I wanted to learn something, I went to the library. It was like that recurring dream I had with me and my dad. I fixed his car by going to the library and learning from books. Of course I did all that so my dad would go to the grocery store. He never even went; as soon as I finished the car, he bragged on me, and then took off in it with his buddies. He was supposed to go get some groceries.  He came back the next day, no groceries, just drugs.

I had learned that if I need to know how to do something I could teach myself. And here I am, in a magic library, and somewhere there had to be an index that could show me the books with the answers. It was time to go exploring.

Where would you find the index cards in a place this big, or perhaps a librarian? I walked down one of the hallways from the room where I had met Bow. I came out into another small room, and, to my amazement, it was full of books.

I picked up an old book, and it wasn’t in English. I tossed the book across the room as I said to no one, "Great, I don’t even know where the English part of the library is, let alone where you would find ‘The Secrets of Melabeth’s Life’, Volume One."

"Sorry, but no book of that name can be found."

I froze at the sound of the new voice. I spun around looking for the owner of that voice but saw no one. As I looked around the room for the mysterious voice, I saw something I had not noticed when I first walked in.

Across the crowded room, there was another archway. There were books and shelves, tables and chairs all over the room; it had taken a second to take in the whole picture. Now that I had, the archway seemed to go outside. I slowly walked toward the opening. When I came through the archway, I emerged onto a balcony, and what lay before me made me rub my eyes.

I was standing on a balcony attached to what looked like a castle, and the castle sat upon a hill. Green grass and trees raced down the mountain side and down into a valley of grass. The sky had no clouds; it was pitch black and full of stars, yet it was bright as day.

What really made me shake my head is that… I wasn’t sure how to describe what I was seeing. It appeared to be people moving from here to there through the trees and across the valley. The people were all out of focus, so badly that you
couldn’t make them out at all. They didn’t look like ghosts to me; ghosts were never that out of focus.

As I looked over this scene, it became more and more alien to me. The trees were wrong somehow and the out of focus people looked as if they walked right through them.

I felt Bow come up from behind me; it was something that I was getting used to. Just like Carrie, I had a much better feel for ghosts now. Bow materialized right next to me. She stood there quietly looking over the balcony.

I broke the silence, “What am I seeing?”

Bow answered, “Death perhaps, not even Nicks can go there. This place stands guard between the world of the living and the dead. It is the door between life and death.”

“I knew this wasn’t a dream,” I was saying to myself.

Bow answered my statement, “Of course not.”

I lo
oked over at Bow and remembered the strange voice that I just heard. “Bow, did you just speak to me earlier when I asked for a book?”

Bow looked at me funny, “If you asked for a book, then the library would have answered you, I don’t know where any of the books are.”

I responded sarcastically, “Oh, the library answered me; what was I thinking… of course it did.”

Bow looked at me with a small grin, “Who else could it be? Let me guess; you don’t believe in magical talking castles.”

I realized how stupid I sounded, and then I realized how crazy all of this was. “So you’re telling me, that all I have to do is ask for a title of a book, and the castle will find it for me.”

Bow smiled as she said, “All you have to ask is for the subject matter and the castle will take you to your book. Good luck.” With that, she walked away and disappeared again.

I walked back into the room and decided to give it a try. “I would like a book about vampires and ghosts.”

At first nothing, then a woman's voice sweetly answered me. “Lower lever section 56473 shelf 12 Row 9B.”

What, that’s no help I thought. “Where is that?”

The voice answered me again, “Right this way.”

And with that a door opened in front of me. Of course there wasn’t a door there two seconds ago, but now there was. I really feel like I am in wonderland. I walked through the door and into pitch black. Across the empty space, I saw another door. This reminds me of the first time I came to the library, I had awakened in the black, and I had seen a door standing all by itself. This was the same thing. As I walked toward the door, I glanced behind me, and the door I had come through was gone.

When I entered the room, I knew where I was. I was really close to where Nicks hangs out; I had walked through this area before. The roof once again was stars and there were shelves of books everywhere. Before I had a chance to ask the library for more directions, a book slid off a shelf and onto the floor.

I walked over and picked it up. The book was called, ‘The Difference between Ghosts, Vampires and Ghouls’, by Erick Freyman. Well, it was a place to start, so I found a comfortable chair and began to read.

I only scanned through the book; I found it too boring to read. I did learn a few things from the book, and now I had some questions for Nicks as well.

I had one more idea, “Library please find me a pen and paper.”

A drawer to an old desk slid open. I walked over and was not surprised to find what I had just asked for. I drew a
couple of the symbols that I could remember from the bottles that I had found. “Library, please find me a book that can translate these symbols into English.”

The library once again gave a long bunch of numbers with a shelve location, but, once again, I asked for directions. It only took a few minutes to travel across the library to the book. The book was old, and it was falling apart. I had to be very careful with it as I took it over to a desk to take a closer look at it.

I opened it up and found it was full of translations from symbols I saw in English. It took me a little while to find one of the symbols that I had seen. The symbol stood for Fairy. Great, so, in short, Nicks had been mixing magical creatures of all kinds trying to create some sort of new thing. He had burned all his records; I wonder if he would remember what he had made me with.

I kind of felt a little sick as I walked away from the book. Maybe I don’t want to know everything. I never wanted to be a one of kind; I just wanted to be like everyone else. I headed to go see Nicks, and I couldn’t help but feel alone.

Nicks was hanging out in a new part of the library. It was nice with a lot of fireplaces and couches; now that I thought about it, that describes most of the library in one degree or another, and a roof of stars, so many more stars than I ever saw at night. It was like I was above the planet and atmosphere.

Nicks was reading when I walked up to him. I knew he knew I was here; he always did. He put a bookmark in his book and shut it. I spoke first, “So, how’s it going?”

Nicks stared at me for a minute and then answered me. “It's been better; what have you been up to?”

Crap, I was hoping he wouldn’t ask, “Nothing really. Same old thing really, you know.”

Nicks lifted one eyebrow, “Do I? Do I know?”

“Do you?” I nervously responded.

“Why don’t you sit down and tell me.” He said this as he gestured to an open seat next to him.

I sat down then decided I didn’t really want to talk about it. “You know it doesn’t really matter; I know you wouldn’t like it, and you know it too. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Nicks face was stern, but he didn’t sound mad, “Ok, since the killing of innocent people is not even worth talking about. What would you like to talk about?"

How did he know? The shame must have been all over my face because Nicks then added, “This bloodbath wasn’t your idea, was it? What I can’t understand is, why? Why would you go along with a plan that killed so many people? Is revenge so important to you?”

All I could squeak out was, “Yes.”

Nicks was quiet for a second, he said in a calm soft voice, “This must stop. There are other ways to get your justice; you can’t go into a strip club and kill the entire club and call it justice. Your war on The Order has been bloody and horrible. You need to figure out how to bring some peace into your life.”

I replied trying to hold the tears in, “I know... I will find peace, so enough.”

Nicks just shook his head, “Truly?”

My emotions were always so close to anger. I looked away from Nicks and stared into the fire. He didn’t interrupt me; he understood. I looked at him, “I will kill whoever I need to, to get back at the men who raped me and killed me. I’m sorry if you don’t understand.”

It almost sounded like Nicks was about to cry, “If I could only make you understand.”

I wanted to trust in him, but I have come across a lot of my own information. I figured it was time he filled in some blanks. “I would love to understand; let’s start out with why I drain life like a magic user collects manna. You know it’s no secret, as soon as I got to Vegas and I was near the dead spot, then I needed to feed like the rest of the vampires. And while you’re explaining that, you can tell me how I see ghosts. At first, I thought it was a vampire thing, but now I know it is not.”

Nicks stood up and started to pace, and, as he paced, he spoke. “You are right, you’re all grown up and ready for the truth. You won’t like it; first it’s not dead spots that you don’t pull power from. It’s one dead spot, the one in Vegas, the one the Necromancer should know better than to screw with, but I have heard they are planning on building a pyramid there.”

I watched Nicks pace and then informed him, “Your information is right. They break ground soon. They plan on having it open for business next year.”

“That is an unfortunate choice.”

I asked my original question, “Other dead places do not have magic or manna either. I thought I was pulling my power from manna?”

Nicks stopped pacing, looked at me, then he thoughtfully said, “No, I don’t believe so; I believe your power comes from death.”

I was taken aback. “What do you mean death? And what do you mean you don’t believe so, like you don’t know for sure, or you’re guessing?”

“Calm yourself,” Nicks urged, “Yes, you are right; when I made you, you became one of a kind. There is no way I could have foreseen all of what you can and cannot do. First, you will find that your power never comes to you during the day; I believe that you are draining spirits. That’s how you survived
fifteen years in the ground; the transformation took much longer then I could have imagined, but the only reason you survived it, is from power. A power that I had no idea you would have.”