He made a vow to himself, there sat on the library floor.
He'd do everything he could to protect his people's heritage, ensure the songs and stories that had been silenced lived on through him.
Cassidy sat down beside his arm, touched his arm.
"Darwin?" she said.
"You don't understand Cass.
You can't possibly."
A rogue tear streaked down his face.
"I always thought myself super-human, indestructible, but today...
I've never felt so vulnerable and alone."
"I'm here," she said, wrapping her arms round his and putting her head on his shoulder.
"You're not gonna get rid of me too easily."
He managed a stifled laugh.
"I know what it's like, though," she said eyes fixed on the gateway.
"Yeah?
How come?"
"I'm fallen.
Can't go back, can I?"
"So when you die?
When I die?"
"My soul will disappear like a handful of soil in the wind."
He too stared at the gateway, hypnotised by the swirling colours.
"The afterlife's for losers."
She looked up at him and gave a weak smile.
He smiled back, a moment of perfect serenity in a day where it felt that his life had been ripped from him.
He was glad she was there.
There was a noise.
They both flinched and turned their heads toward the library doors.
He wasn't imagining it then, Cassidy heard it too.
It sounded like a door.
Cassidy threw him a worried glance, and by way of return Darwin held a finger to his lips indicating for her to remain silent.
Slowly he rose to his feet, careful to not make a sound.
That was easier said than done when you had books all around you.
He didn't want so much as the sound of a page being turned.
After what had happened here he felt he was right in being cautious.
Now standing he walked quickly and carefully between the books scattered on the floor toward the door.
He sensed Cassidy trying to stand and waved a hand behind him for her to stay put.
It meant that if anyone came through those doors, she'd be the first thing they'd see, but there was nothing he could do about that.
If he could position himself by the door then he could hopefully get a jump on them before they could turn her to dust.
He'd only just reached the side of the door when it opened toward him, stopping him from getting a good look at whoever was the other side.
A glance through the crack by the hinges indicated a man dressed in a suit.
"Well hello," the man's voice said.
"And who are you?"
There'd not been time to brief Cassidy on what to do.
For God's sake, don't look at me and alert him to my presence
, he thought.
But Cassidy was a lot wiser than she often portrayed and just looked back at the man.
"Oh hello," she said.
"I'm Cassidy, and who might you be?"
"You can call me Mr East," the man said.
"What are you doing here?"
Cassidy held up a book.
Darwin noticed it was McFadden’s notebook.
"Reading," she said.
"On your own?"
Cassidy looked round the room, her eyes glancing over Darwin as if he wasn't even there.
"Yeah, why?" she asked.
"Is there someone else here?"
"There should be no-one in the building."
"You're here," she said defiantly.
"Or are you no-one?"
The man laughed.
"You could say that, Cassidy."
"Did you kill all the vampires?" she asked.
The question shocked Darwin.
What was she playing at?
Why not pretend to be homeless looking for some place to squat?
Why reveal you knew what was going on?
"No, I didn't Cassidy, but my colleague did," Mr East informed her.
"Why?"
she asked tilting her head on its side to look at him.
"They stole something from us."
"Us?"
"My colleague and I."
Whatever game Cassidy was playing, Darwin didn't like it.
But until Mr East took a step forward into the library, Darwin had no hope of tackling him from the opposite side of the door.
"And what did they steal from you?"
"You ask a lot of questions, Cassidy," Mr East replied.
Cassidy shrugged, the action causing her big glasses to slide down her nose.
"Guess I'm just an inquisitive type of girl," she said as she pushed them back up.
"Except you're not really a girl, are you, Cassidy?"
"No more than you're not a man,” she responded nonchalantly.
Mr East's eyes turned toward the notebook in Cassidy's hands.
"So you have it," he said.
"This?" she said, holding it up.
"Is that what this is all about?"
Mr East took a step forward out from the doorway and into the library.
Cassidy looked at him, her eyes ablaze.
"NOW DARWIN!" she shouted.
Darwin flung himself forward, colliding into the man with a rugby tackle.
Mr East swatted him away with his arm with such force that he flew across the room into a bookcase, his back splintering wood as he smashed into it, books flying out like newly released birds.
The force with which he hit the bookcase would have rendered any normal man unconscious, but he was half vampire, and one of the few vampire traits he'd inherited was their strength.
Mr East was already lunging at Cassidy but, gripping the notebook firmly, she zigzagged up between two bookcases like a squirrel and out of East’s reach.
Darwin had no time to assess whether he was hurt or not.
He let Blood Lust over take him and before he'd fully collapsed to the floor he was back up and across the room.
Mr East went to swat him again, but Darwin was ready this time, ducking under the arm, and then grabbing it. He twisted it behind the man's back and used it to ram East into the corner of a bookcase.
It toppled and started a domino effect as one fell into another into another, Cassidy now trying to outrun it as she half ran, half jumped along the top.
East twisted and in doing so managed to connect a punch to the side of Darwin's head.
Darwin released his hold and fell to his knees, grabbing at East's legs as he did so, bringing the suited man down with him.
A kick from East connected with Darwin's chin.
That one actually made him see stars, but that wasn't enough to stop him.
He was going rip that guy's fucking head off.
As East scrambled up to feet, Darwin was after him.
Darwin threw another punch, but East grabbed his arm, and going with the momentum, swung Darwin round and into one of the ornate pillars that lined the room.
East didn't wait for Darwin to recover and grabbed the back of Darwin's head and threw him across the room toward the gateway.
He landed just short in a pile of books, dazed and slightly confused.
"Run, Cassidy!" Darwin shouted, not knowing where she was, the room echoing with the crash of bookcases.
East was there, grabbing at Darwin's chin, lifting him off the ground, until only the tips of the half-vampire's feet touched the carpet of books below.
Darwin reached out and tried to claw at Mr East's face as he was carried toward the gateway.
If he went through that, he would burn.
No flesh could survive in the metaphysical realms.
He trashed out some more, unable to slow East down as he stepped slightly unbalanced over the books toward the gateway.
Darwin's thumb found an eye and he pushed, feeling the eyeball burst and ooze down his hand.
He'd expected East to scream, at least show some pain, but instead, the man just smiled at him, blood and fluid running down his cheek.
"What
the fuck
are you?"
Darwin questioned.
The gateway was now dangerously close.
It might just be his imagination but he thought he could feel heat coming off of it.
"You'll never find out," spat East.
"How well do vampires burn?"
Time seemed to stop for Darwin.
A moment of calm as he realised he was about to die.
Silence.
This was it, there was nothing more to do.
Nothing.
That's what he would become... another lost part of vampire history.
Sound flooded back in, he was back in the present.
"Burn on this, bozo!"
He turned his eyes to look, as a huge wooden shelf whooshed so close to his head that he felt the rush of wind as it passed.
It hit Mr East square on in the face, causing him to loose balance.
He released his grip on Darwin as he stumbled, Darwin dropping to the floor. Not wasting a second, Darwin rolled and twisted out of the way, a leg extending as he did so.
By the time he'd rolled round he was able to kick Mr East in the back of the knee. Mr East's leg collapsed under him and he toppled into the gateway.
There was a screech as he burst into flames, his body contorting, flaming tendrils of flesh reaching out of the gateway for grip and finding only loose books before they too tumbled into the gateway.
Darwin lay there, the gateway just inches from his face, watching as East's mass fell further and further from view, becoming less and less focused, from a dark silhouette, to a grey smudge, to nothing; just swirling yellow and orange flame.
"Darwin!"
Cassidy yelled.
He turned, the pain from the battle now hitting him all at once.
He'd been in fights before where Blood Lust had temporarily blocked out the pain, but never to agony like he felt now.
Cassidy was pointing to the books on the floor, set ablaze by Mr East's death throes.
What mess there was before had been compounded by the fight, and the fire was spreading rapidly.
All those books, all that heritage.
The vampires managed to save many books when they'd fled Hungary during the Second World War, and Darwin felt he needed to save as many as he could now.
"Help me," he said, gathering books in his arms.
No time to look, just grab what you can.
He realised as he said this he was crying.
"There's no time," Cassidy said, trying to haul him to his feet.
"We have to try," he wailed.
But he knew she was right.
They had to leave and had to leave now.
The room was already ablaze.
His heart sank as he let go of his books and took Cassidy's hand to yank him to his feet.
He'd failed his people.
He took one final look as they went out the door into the corridor.
Just a split second look at the place that had been his refuge.
The place where he could hide in the aisles between bookcases and those vampires that used to bully him and torture him couldn't find him... now gone.
He turned and ran.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Stepping Out
Maureen stepped out of the entrance of the Friary and was almost knocked over by a dwarf in a Guns ‘n’ Roses T-Shirt, listening to an iPod.
"Watch it!" he grumbled as he sidestepped her.
The Friary opened onto a rectangular plaza about the size of four football pitches.
Two identical huge Baroque buildings lined either side.
At the far side they met the remains of a building that looked like it was made entirely from crystal.
Water flowed from the top, through a series of gulleys and falls, causing a section of building to shimmer and glow with the colours of the rainbow.
She could see from the damage to other sections that once the water would have once run over the entirety of the building, collecting in the small moat that surrounded it.
What a sight that must have been.
However her attention was drawn to the centre of the plaza where a statue of what she assumed was a life-size sculpture of a dragon.
Wings folded back, it appeared to be hissing at some unseen foe, ready to strike.
Though just stone there was something incredibly lifelike about it.
She'd heard Ernest talk of it on one of his many visits.
"They say that whilst the dragon stands, New Salisbury will never fall," he'd told her.
"She's the guardian of our city."
Except she couldn't remember the dragon's name.
Sher-something.
Not Shergar, that was a race horse.
Sheila?
No that wasn't it either.
Don't be so scatty, Maureen
.
She knew the crystal building was elven, most likely one of the few buildings to survive when the dwarves took the city back during the war.
But the Baroque buildings, they were newer, built after the dwarves had gifted the city to the Humans and renamed it to New Salisbury.
However, she'd be darned if she could remember the name of the dragon and it bothered her.
She'd hoped there would be some sort of plaque with the name on as she walked past, but she couldn't see one, and there was no time to stop and sightsee.
She took the map out of her handbag and studied it, before heading down a passageway beside the crystal building.