Spellbound by Fate

At the Library

The rain was pouring down outside the city Library. It was a typical May day. A bit cool, but with the hope of warmth to come. Janice looked up from the cart of books in front of her and stared out the window. She sighed a little as she watched a tour group go by. The library had a reputation for its architecture and art. Tours came through regularly. None of them really cared about the library or were mesmerized by the number of books as she was when she first stepped into the library a few years ago. Most of them were just happy to have something to do that was free.

After the tour passed, Janice went back to what she was doing before sorting books and inadvertently staring at the man sitting at the table a few feet from her. The way he had looked at her when he first walked in gave her butterflies. The intensity of his gaze startled her, like he were going to devour her. She had run to the bathroom to get control of herself, but reemerged to put some books away, half hiding behind a shelf.

When Lyric had first entered the library, the most amazing smell accosted him. Honeysuckle and amber wafted faintly in the air. He stopped short with one word playing in his head. Mate. He didn’t know where the scent was coming from until a woman pushing a cart of books rounded the shelf. He gasped a little as she looked up right into his eyes. Her green eyes held his for a split second, and he knew she felt something, too. She put down the book she was holding and immediately left for the bathroom.

Lyric didn’t follow. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. Here now? And she’s human. This can’t be happening. Play it cool, Lyric, you still have work to do. She’s human; she doesn’t even know about a mate bond. You can ignore this.

Lyric ignored Janice and went about his work, although he immediately noticed when she reemerged. He had quite the stack of books on the table, and Janice noticed he seemed agitated about something. She wasn’t sure what could be so irritating in the books he was looking at. Maybe he was working on a research project and couldn’t find the information he was looking for.

She was interrupted from her reverie by a patron.

“Miss, can you help me? I’m looking for the section on British History,” said an older man who could have been a clone of Sean Connery. He didn’t have the accent to match the face though.

“Second floor the shelves at the end by the windows.”

“Thank you.”

Janice looked back at Lyric. He had his head on the table in defeat. She decided now would be a good time to offer assistance, although her nerves were on edge.

“Excuse me?” she said.

He lifted his head, and when their eyes met, Janice gasped a little. It was like staring into the soul of a person she had always known.

“Can I get any of these books out of your way?” She asked as naturally as possible, although her heart was beating wildly.

“No,” he said in a rude voice. “I need to go through them again.” He said angrily while raking his fingers through his bronze hair.

“Oh, my mistake, I thought you were taking a nap.” She responded sarcastically. She hated rude people. Especially those who had no reason to be.

She rolled her eyes and abruptly walked back to the desk.

Lyric wanted to grab her hand and never let go as the scent of honeysuckle intoxicated him, but he had to ignore the pull. She was human, and he was a lone wolf. He couldn’t provide her with anything. Being rude was the best thing for both of them.

A few more people came by to check out books, and Janice tried to avoid his gaze or even looking in his direction for the rest of the time.

An hour had passed, and he eventually got up to find more books. She didn’t know what the books were on, but her curiosity was piqued by how increasingly frustrated he was.

He finally stepped up to her desk. She looked up from the book she was checking in.

“Yes?” She asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I’m sorry for my rude behavior before,” he said with a half smile as if he was trying to put on the charm.

“And?” She asked as her eyebrows shot up.

“I need help. None of the books I'm looking through are helping my research, and I’m not very versed in using online tools.”

She half smiled in amusement, semi-rolled her eyes, and sighed, then said, “Come with me.”

He followed her over to the computer lab. She sat down at the computer and pulled up a chair for him.

“Ok, what are you looking for?” She asked as she got the database up and running.

“Vampire lore and myths.”

“Ok. Let's just start by typing in vampire. Are you looking for scholarly sources? What are you doing this for?”

“Um. What do you mean?” he asked.

“Is it for a research paper? Presentation? Or just because you’re interested?”

“Oh. Yes. um, a research paper.”

“Ok. So you probably want scholarly then. What exactly is your topic?”

“Well. Mostly how to kill vampires.”

“Ok.” Janice typed ‘vampires’ and ‘killing’ into the database. The search returned several articles.

“You act like this is totally normal. Looking up stuff on vampires, I mean.” He said.

“I’ve helped a lot of people and heard a lot of weird things. In fact, I probably have helped people get away with murder in the past under the guise of doing research for a forensics paper.”

He looked at the screen intently as she scrolled down.

“Well, here is one entitled “Slaying the beasts: werewolves, vampires and other myths.”

She clicked on it. “Is this good enough? Do you want me to leave you to it?”

“No. I would much prefer you stay, but if you’re busy.”

“Well, there’s always something to do, but I would much rather be looking up vampire lore than putting books away.”

He smiled, and her heart stuttered as she turned her attention back to the screen. He leaned in closer so he would be able to read the text as well, although being near her and her intoxicating scent was a good reason as well.

“Scholarly papers are really annoyingly drawn out, so let's see if we can find some keywords so we don’t have to read the entire thing to find anything.”

Janice did a find and search for the word killing in the text. There were several places.

“In the 16th century, people were very superstitious. If bad things happened to a family whose loved one died, the people of the town would dig up the corpse during the day and stake it through the heart. This is one of the most popular methods in pop culture to kill a vampire.” Lyric read out loud.

“No, that’s not quite what I’m looking for. Staking is too clichéd. I’m looking for something that maybe not everyone knows about.”

“Well, there is always sunlight and crosses.”

“Sunlight doesn’t work, and crosses have to be made of pure silver, and even then they only burn.”

“We are talking about mythical creatures, right?” Janice asked, thinking he was getting a little too into this paper he was writing.

“Oh, yes. Of course. I mean for the book I’m writing, that’s how it works.”

“I thought you were writing a research paper.”

“Well, yes. It’s actually a presentation on my books to get sponsorship.”

She didn’t really believe him, but there was no use in getting into all of that at the moment.

Janice eventually moved to the seat next to him and taught him how to search using keywords and how using “and” and “Or” and “Not” worked in a database. From the look of things, he was going to be here a while, and she had other things to do.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” she said. Before she could walk away, he grabbed her hand. The thrill that ran through her was like nothing she had experienced. He looked at her sincerely. “Thank you. My name is Lyric, by the way.”

“I’m Janice,” she said back, mesmerized by his gold eyes.

“Janice,” he repeated, liking the sound of it coming from his lips. He let go of her hand and watched her disappear with her book cart behind a shelf.