Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“W..well yes, but those were not written with ink, it was written with runed water. Right? It’s not the same thing, Leibe. Alaric used something different. Before, we were using ink. It was special invisible ink that he made. I..it was.. it was..” He trailed off and looked at the bookshelves in front of him. “It was the same thing, wasn’t it?” He looked up at me, his eyes swimming and pain evident on his face. He was realizing that he was part of this. Not the most current events that were plaguing us, but he was part of the same things that had been happening. He had been using the same methods as these people were using now.
“Yes, Dietrich, I think it is.” All I could do was reach out and grip his shoulder. He needed me at that moment. He needed me because the man that was his friend, might have been the cause of all of this. He might have turned into something that Dietrich couldn’t recognize as time went on.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that Alaric would do this. I can’t believe that he would create these monsters that are destroying our people.” That hurt was turning into anger now.
“You don’t know if he did it, or if a descendant of his did. Alaric was human, like you said. He died a long time ago. So, why would they just now start doing all of this? If he trained his children and grandchildren to be murderers, then why weren’t they killing our people with this mission two hundred years ago? Why weren’t they trying to wipe us out back then?” I didn’t want him to jump to conclusions. He needed to calm down and think about this as logically as he could. “There is a lot to look through here. We need to check for any information that we can find and see where these people went. They were here recently. I can tell by their scent. At the very most, they’ve been gone a week. And I doubt that it’s been more than two or three days if I’m being honest.”
“You’re right.” Dietrich turned away from me and looked at the room. “We have a lot to search through and not a lot of time to do it. We need to be thorough. We need to use all of our skills that we have available to us to check this room as thoroughly as possible. Let’s look for messages in the books first. There might be something left behind. We need to light a red candle to see them though.” He was looking around the room once again and stopped when he saw a trunk that was sitting in the middle of the room. “There.” He started to walk away which almost made me threaten him with the leash again, but then I saw that he wasn’t going far.
“What are you doing?”
“There should be candles in here. This is where Alaric kept them before. If they didn’t change anything, then this is where they still are.”
Dietrich dropped to his knees in front of the sturdy wooden chest. It had a lock and hinges that looked like they were made from pure silver. And they were still as shiny as if they were just made. I just noticed that there was not a single speck of dust in this whole room. It was literally as clean as possible.
“Here. The red candles. These were what Alaric and I used to read the messages. We will close the shutters to block the natural light and light the candles. That will reveal any messages in the books.”
“Alright, but if we look at them one at a time it will take us forever. I say that I speed this up a little. Come on, you light the candles, and I will close the shutters.” I started to move toward the windows without even waiting for a response from him. I heard the sound of a match and then the light flared behind me. I was too busy with the shutters though. I was looking at the windows and using my telekinesis to move them. Otherwise, I would have had to open each window individually. That would have taken forever.
“Are you ready?” I asked Dietrich as I stood in the middle of the room. Dietrich had lit four candles and they were making a square around us.
“Yes. I’m ready. Go ahead, Liebe.”
“Alright.”
With that, I started to make the books fly off of the shelves. One shelf at a time of course. They made a circle around the candles and the pages fluttered back and forth, allowing us to see if there were any hidden messages.
There were none. Not in that first group of books. There was a lot more to go though. Hundreds of more books to look through. Shelf after shelf, the books fluttered in a beautiful, yet disappointing display around the room. Book after book was scanned and no messages were visible inside of them.
I strained my eyes to look at each of the pages as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. They moved fast, but I was faster. I had not trained for this, but I was a diligent man, and I was not going to let this situation beat me. I was going to do my best here. Not just for me, but for Dietrich and Riviana as well. They needed me. They needed my help here. And I would always be there for the two of them. I wouldn’t fail. I wouldn’t give up.
Another shelf. And another. And another. Again and again I check the books and their pages. Dietrich at my side doing the same thing. His eyes opened wide and began to water with the strain of looking at page after page. Still though, I hadn’t seen one circled nor one written message on any of the pages. They just weren’t there. There was nothing at all for us to find in any of the books that we had already scanned.
****
Shawn
****
I was losing hope, but I kept going. I knew that we needed to check them all. I knew that if we gave up halfway through, we would always wonder if we missed something. Though it was hard. I could see the frustration on Dietrich’s face, a look that matched what I was feeling.
“Keep going, Shawn. We only have a few shelves left.” He was right about that. Three shelves of unchecked books. Three shelves of potential discovery and nearly guaranteed disappointment.
The next shelf fluttered before us, showing us their pristine pages with no added messages. Now the next to last shelf. Frustration. Anger. Thoughts of failing. All of those passed through my mind as I saw that these pages were just as blank.
“Dammit.” I heard Dietrich growl the word softly into the room. It was barely audible over the loud fluttering of the pages. It was almost like standing in the middle of a flock of birds. That was what it sounded like with the books moving.
…..
Finally, the last of the books were making their way off of the shelf. The newest set of disappointing bird books were flapping their way over to us. Around and around, they flew with nearly a single letter written in invisible ink. Around and around, they circled us like they were bullies on the playground that were making fun of us for being so gullible and stupid.
“Wait!” Dietrich shouted. It was so quiet in the room that his voice nearly scared me. I had to physically stop myself from jumping out of my skin at the moment. “There. Look!” He was pointing at a book that was close to the bottom of the group. It actually looked like it was the last one to come off of the shelf. Was this literally the last book in the room? And if it was, how did they know that it was going to be the last book? How did they know what order I would pull them in? Or was it just a coincidence?
“Grab it, Dietrich. Pull it away from the others so I can put them back.” He did as I told him to. Walking over to the books and taking it from the flying flock of pages and covers. Once he had the book, I sent the others back to the shelf, putting them back in the order that they came out in. And sure enough, the last place on the shelf was the one that was empty.
“What does it say?” I asked him as I hurried over to him. I saw that Dietrich had stepped near a candle and was holding the book up. It was turned to the last page and the words were written on the nearly blank sheet.
“How? How did they know?” He looked up as he handed the book to me. That was when I saw the words that were written there.
鈥榃elcome, King and King of Vampires. We welcome you to tour our home. I hope that it brings back memories for you, King Dietrich. Happy remembering and happy searching. We will be seeing you.’
“Dietrich? How did they know that we were coming? How did they know that it was going to be us here? Was there someone here today? Did someone leave this message today? Or was it left in advance?”
“I don’t have the answer to those questions, Liebe. I am sorry, but I don’t know what to say.” I saw that Dietrich was looking at the door that led to the rest of the house. “Something isn’t right here. Something is wrong.” He was repeating what was said outside. He was right though. Something was wrong here. Something was happening that we didn’t know how to explain.
“We need to search this place and get out. I don’t think that it’s safe. Let’s just find something that will point us in the right direction and then we will get out of here.” I could feel a slight amount of panic coursing through me. “Come on, let’s go.”
I took Dietrich’s hand and pulled him toward the door that led into the rest of the house. I took the book with me though, sliding it into the inside pocket of my jacket. I wanted to show the proof of what we had found.
“Wait a minute.” Dietrich said as he pulled away from me. He ran back toward the trunk that he had opened earlier. After a moment kneeling in front of it, he came away with a brown leather satchel and came back to where I stood.
“What is that for?” I asked him, curious about the reason why he needed that.
“I took some of the candles. This bag was something that Alaric used to use as well. We can put anything that we find inside of it.” He held it up and showed me the initials that were on the golden clasp, AJ.