Guardian Cats and the Lost Books of Alexandria

Chapter 56: The color of humans

Marco was outside Cicero’s chamber. This was the first time he’d ever seen it closed and he pawed and meowed at the door. He heard a man’s voice on the other side and smelled an unfamiliar, bitter smell.

After a bit, the librarian appeared. “Oh dear, this will never do, will it Marco? Cicero hates being locked in.” She opened the door and poked her head in briefly, “Professor, we’ll be closing in fifteen minutes. And, if you don’t mind, we like to keep the door open for our library cats.”

Miss Pinkley left and Marco scurried into the room. From behind the velvet chair he had a good view of the man. He blinked once, then again, but it didn’t change what he saw. Most humans came in shades of blue or green. This one was surrounded by a smoky haze and seemed to be talking to an even darker shapeless being.

Cicero walked over to sit beside him. In a tone heavy with regret, Cicero spoke. “Of all the stories, I have not told you the one I really should have. But it didn’t seem possible that this mad man would find me again. So far from home.”

Marco knew this was not the time to ask questions and was grateful that Cicero seemed anxious to explain.

“I am old and I fear I must pass my duties on to you while you are still a novice.” As usual, Cicero’s explanations raised more questions than answers. What do you mean? he wanted to ask. Who is this man and why is he such a strange color?

Cicero was talking, but Marco was being drawn in by the man’s chanting of words in a strange language.

Cicero scolded him. “Marco! Do not listen to his dark words. They will affect you in a bad way. It can take a great deal of force—to resist the darkness. Menacing words have their own power, whispering promises and pretending to be your friend. Remember when I was telling you about the power of an idea?”

With effort, Marco turned his head away from the man’s hypnotic presence towards Cicero. “Humans are their caretakers, but some ideas are born in a bad place, an unbalanced mind. Once implanted, they can fester and feed off old wounds. This dark creature before us—the Professor—has fed and nurtured a bad idea, untamed by the counsel of wiser men, and so it has become a monster.”

The Professor walked in a circle around the room, turning within his own shadow as he went, and followed by another one. He continued his incantations in an unctuous manner, like a man obsessed with his own importance.

“He is no longer even its caretaker but he has become its slave. The Book of Motion in the hands of such a madman! We must do everything necessary to prevent these two forces from coming together. The Book of Motion does not recognize the intentions of its possessor.”

The Professor extended one arm, tilting his head slightly, aligning his good eye to his pointed finger, as though looking through the site of a rifle. He turned in a 360-degree circle, his finger leaving a raven-colored trail, so that when he completed the turn, he was encircled by a dark ring.

When Cicero shivered, Marco shivered automatically. He tried to crouch closer to the floor in a futile attempt to avoid the wave of cold, dead air that filled the room.

But there was no avoiding the creature the Professor summoned with the final words of his incantation. “From your world into this world… Enter! Come now and make your presence known!”