All right, I have successfully beat my inner editor into submission (let's just say it took two sporks and one hysterical muse), so here's the very beginning of my story.
Prologue
The librarian glanced up from her magazine, a look of intense annoyance twisting her weathered face. It was a hot August day, the kind of day when all she wanted to do was hide at her desk with the newest People magazine, and turn the fan up as high as it could go. Heat had melted her mascara and it was smeared all around her eyes, so that she looked like a wrinkly old panda. Consequentially, she was not in the best mood.
“Can I help you?” she asked, though the look on her face suggested that offering assistance of any kind was the last thing she wanted to do.
The boy leaning against her desk was surveying her with an arrogant look that was filled with contempt, almost as though he though he was better than her.
“I’m looking for a book,” the boy drawled. He paused, and then added with a smirk, “That is, if you aren’t too busy reading about Brad Pitt’s latest hair style to help me find it.”
The librarian fumed silently – she loved her People magazines – and decided to ignore that last comment. “What kind of book? Is it summer reading for school or something?”
“No, it’s not for school.” The kid sounded smugly amused, as though he had just referred to a private joke she could never understand.
“Okay…” She wondered what he could possibly be looking for. He looked more like the kind of kid who spent his free time burning books, not reading them. His black shirt and long black hair made him look like a rebel. A gold chain circled his neck. She wondered what hung on it. A cross? Doubtful. He didn’t exactly strike her as the religious type.
“Here’s the title, Mrs…” He squinted at her nametag. “Mrs. Goo… Mrs…Gau..”
“Mrs. Guardian,” she snapped. She snatched the piece of paper he offered out of his hand and peered at the spidery writing. “Call me,” she read slowly. “328-4 – ”
“Other side,” the boy said quickly. He tapped his fingers on her desk impatiently and glared suspiciously at a fat old man who had just waddled through the automatic doors.
What’s he so jumpy about? the librarian wondered, narrowing her eyes slightly.
Carefully, she turned the piece of paper over. “Oh,” she said with some surprise. “You want that book.” She sat there, stunned. No one had asked for that book for… well, ever. So why was this boy looking for it now? “I’m sorry, it’s back in my office at the moment.”
The boy just stood there, as though he were waiting for something.
“What?” the librarian snapped, annoyed.
“Well…” the boy gave her an odd look. “Aren’t you going to go get it, then?”
The librarian cast a considering look at her office door twenty feet away and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to get up. “Sorry. I’m on my break.” She pointedly picked up her magazine again and made a show of flipping through the glossy pages.
“So you won’t give it to me.” It was more of a statement than a question.
Mrs. Guardian, busy studying a picture of LL Cool J, ignored him.
The boy narrowed his eyes. “Fine. Then I’ll just stand here. Breathing.” He leaned forward uncomfortably close and began wheezing loudly. “In. Out. In. Ou – ”
“Fine!” Mrs. Guardian snapped, her eyes flashing with annoyance. “For Christ’s sake, be quiet already! I’ll get you the stupid book, if that’s what it takes to get you to leave!”
She slammed her magazine down and heaved herself to her feet. She was a fat old lady, with beady gray eyes and hair the color of slush. A long skirt and a drooping brown sweater were as much of a uniform as she would ever wear.
“I guess I’ll go get the book for you,” she told the boy, plainly irritated. Her eyes flickered to his hair. There was something strange about it; something peculiar about the way it fell into his face in dark coils that seemed almost alive. Also, it was almost too black. Maybe he dyed it?
“No, I’ll come,” he said quickly.
The librarian gave him a long look, suddenly suspicious. He seemed out of place among the towering bookshelves, and he was…. edgy. He vaguely reminded her of an alley cat, all tense and ready to pounce at any second. There was something predatory about him. A flicker of unease, a whisper of suspicion, crept into the librarian’s head.
“I suppose… if you want to,” she said uneasily, trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably. She tried to tell herself she was being silly. He was just a boy, after all. Nothing to be afraid of…And even if there was something off about him, so what? They were in a public library, for Christ’s sake! He couldn’t do anything here, not with a bunch of witnesses close by. In fact, there was a stooped little old lady in a red cardigan nearby, browsing through one of the shelves. Not that she would be much help if the boy attacked her…
Her thoughts still racing, the librarian turned and led the way into the cramped office behind the front desk. She was overly aware of his soft footsteps behind her, muffled in the thick beige carpet. He had a strange, prowling stride, like a tiger stalking his prey.
“What happened here?” The boy smirked as they stepped into the office.
His insolent gaze swept the mountain of papers strewn on the lopsided desk and the dusty file cabinets jammed up against all four walls. A heap of books was piled haphazardly on the floor, next to a dingy garbage can that was overflowing with balls of paper and several shriveled up bananas that had as many wrinkles as the librarian. A crooked picture frame hung on the wall over one of the filing cabinets, displaying a large picture of a sleek Siamese cat with a blue collar around its slim neck.
The librarian pointed to the books. “The one you want should be in there,” she lied, well aware that the book the boy wanted was actually stuffed into one of the filing cabinets. Her eyes darted around the room nervously and she began backing towards the door, groping behind her for the doorknob.
The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and bent over the pile.
As he bent over, the gold chain dangled off of his neck. It wasn’t decorated with a cross, as the librarian had first thought, but with something else – a clear glass capsule filled with a dark liquid. Ink.
Her heart began to beat faster, spluttering like a squirrel having a seizure. “What’s that?” she asked, as casually as she could. The sight of the capsule brought back a distant memory, a memory filled with fear and desperation. She had once known someone who had worn a chain, just like that... But no... It couldn’t be…
“This? It’s just a necklace,” the boy said evasively. He tucked the chain back under his shirt and bent over the books again. As he did, a strand of his hair seemed to twitch, like a worm after it's been chopped it in half.
There was a moment of silence, and then several things happened in very quick succession. Unsure of what else to do, the librarian grabbed a battered encyclopedia off her desk and flung it at the boy’s head. He dodged it with inhuman grace and laughed, a cold sound that scared Mrs. Guardian more than horror movies or screaming toddlers ever could.
“Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the boy said. His eyes were changing colors, flickering from blue to pitch black and back again. “Give me the book.”
The librarian backed away from the boy. Her hand closed around the cold doorknob. “Never.” The bold two syllables would have sounded defiant, except for the fact that fear made her choke on the word and it came out more like a strangled whisper.
The boy smiled, a cruel, sinister grin that reminded her of a deranged circus clown. “The hard way it is, then.”
His black hair began to writhe and twist on his head. For a moment the librarian thought snakes had sprouted from the boy’s scalp, but then she realized that his hair was melting. It oozed down his face and trickled down his arms in black rivers. Almost like… ink. It pooled at his feet in a black puddle, like a second shadow, then started snaking towards the librarian in dark tendrils.
Mrs. Guardian stopped breathing. How could she have been so stupid? Now that she thought about it, the boy’s real identity had been painfully obvious from the beginning.
“Ink Catcher,” she whispered hoarsely, her suspicions confirmed.
The two enemies stared at each other for a long moment, her eyes filled with fear, his black with menace and a tiny bit of smugness, and then the boy bowed with a cocky little flourish. "At your service.”
All criticism and comments welcome! My inner editor should be out of the hospital in a few days, but in the meantime, he'd appreciate it if you beat this story to death for him!
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