The 13th Scholar

There Weren't Always Dragons in the Valley...

For the third time, Mr. Townsend crinkled the paper with a huff; what a headline. The rim of his glasses sat snugly upon the bridge of his nose, and yet Mr. Townsend seemed entirely annoyed; if the red-rimming around his eyelids was any sort of indicator. It was a strangely cool May, and he had tucked his sandy brown hair behind his earlobe; held back by what appeared to be a leather band, it swung in a low ponytail. Free of its binding, Joel Donovan Townsend's locks reached about his shoulders, but he rarely allowed any to see it this way. Not since she had disappeared.

"I can't believe he has the...audacity." murmured a red-faced woman. It was this maddening sort of speech that made him grind his teeth. All he wanted to do was get space away from the scrutiny. A moment's reprieve - just to read the morning headlines without feeling like a specimen beneath a hyper-zoomed-in microscope.

"Would you mind lowering your voices? It is a library, you know." came Joel's low reply. He hoped he didn't sound too harsh, but if being rude was needed he hadn't a problem doing so.

"Do you...do you still dabble in the occult?" Came the woman's hoarse whisper. Joel lowered the paper, his dark eyes steadying upon the woman's face with a narrowing aim.

"I never dabbled." He retorted.

"Well, what do you call it? Necromancy?" The woman insisted, her face contorting a bit to reveal her yellowish teeth and Joel pondered if she herself weren't possibly a ghoul or dead. If not for the stench of her breath, hot as it met with his face, he might have thought her to be yet another apparition. A low intake of breath, and Joel closed his eyes tightly. The sensation of chill bumps had already begun to slither out in claim of his flesh, and oh how it ached to draw forth the dark and tempting abilities that the overbearing woman before him taunted.

"If you could please retract that would be most excellent." Came Joel's low, hoarse reply.

"And, if I don't?" came her voice. Joel's lower lip quivered, and with a low chuckle, he suddenly allowed his eyes to flash open.

"I will be forced to become unpolite." Joel's eyes seemed to bore intensely into the woman's, and even as he shifted to smack the newspaper atop the table before him they never seemed to waver. He snorted, snapping his neck as he came to stand before her, "And, I really don't think that's something you wish to see, see."

Joel flexed his fingers at his sides then, and his leather gloves seemed to stretch and glint in the flickering fluorescent light. Quickly, Joel lifted one arm and extending a finger began to draw a sigil in what seemed to be thin air; electrical particles of bluish lightning suddenly shaped to form the intricate patterns of his commanding,

"Redi deceptionem; ego te ultra velatam larvam quam quaeris uti, dentes tui sanguine victimarum inficiuntur, et spiritus pestilentiae abundat."

Snap!

The sudden serpentine tendrils of lightning bolted forth from the direction of Joel's movements, and from the center of the sigillum came the whipping strike of punishment Joel had promised he'd deliver; the effect lashing out across the foul female's face and splitting her flesh in perfect divide; spatters of skin and sinew flung out all across Joel's tweed suit, and the aerosol spritz of blood came to mist across his face; sending a blurred red smear across his glasses just as Joel turned toward the beastly creature's companion.

Appeased, a smirk widened to capture Joel's lips as he reached for the wire brim of his glasses, and pulled a napkin from his pocket, leisurely proceeding to wipe the lenses as his eyes steadily drew the much more appealing woman in,

"So, wanna tell me what you are really here for, then, Cherie?"