The secondhand book business had never been booming, and with the current state of the printed word, that more than likely wasn't set to change anytime soon. Technology had taken over everything, phasing out physical books in favor of e-readers with no-glare screens and animations of pages being turned. It was cheap, and although it was convenient, Hannah Bosc was much more content to sit somewhere for hours with a book in her lap, take notes in the margins and dogear the pages when she was without a bookmark. She enjoyed breaking in a new spine and the way the pages of any book smelled and felt beneath her fingers. Chapter One had instilled that love in her, and she would always be grateful for what she had grown up alongside.

It was a particularly dreary day in fall, and the entire town was cast in a gloomy, gray, haze. The new autumn had brought nothing but rain for the last several days, and the temperature made Hannah long for a big cup of hot tea and a cozy sweater. Instead, she had been downstairs in the bookstore, helping a few customers here and there, but mostly reading herself behind the counter.

Today, the redhead was seated on the outside of the display window, taking in the natural light as she worked her way through Walden for the second time. Customers had been slow that day, but it was finally close to closing, just another hour and Hannah could lock the doors and take Simon upstairs for the night. She was looking forward to a night of Netflix and leftover Chinese takeout. She had been somewhat reclusive since her father's death, and holding herself up in the apartment seemed like a good remedy for grief, much to the dismay of her friends. However, Hannah insisted that she was fine, that she was just busy trying to keep the store on track and too tired to do much else. Avoidance had always been something she was particularly skilled with.

It was hard to ignore the irony of Walden and the importance of solitude, and Hannah found herself sighing as she turned the page, wondering if she had picked the wrong book to read for once. This contemplation didn't last very long as the bell on the door rang and an older man stepped in from the rain with a box tucked under his arm. Hannah jumped up from where she was sitting, laying her book face down before smiling at the man, “can I help you?”

Quite often, Chapter One was got new stock when people decided to do some spring cleaning, or when a loved one died and the family didn't want the books to go to waste. Hannah hoped this man was merely doing the former. He cleared his throat and returned her smile, looking tired and possibly a bit under the weather. His eyes were kind, though, a calming blue that went nicely with the five o'clock shadow along his jaw. “I have some books I'd like to sell,” he said, pulling open the flaps of the cardboard box.

“Great,” the redhead nodded and helped the man pull the books from the box. She looked over the stack, seeing a few copies of classics with alternate covers, a cook book or two and one that looked oddly out of place. It was bound in leather and the edge of each page was painted red. There was no title on the spine, and the writing on the inside looked to be in Latin. It was one of the more strange and eerie things that had been brought into the store before. “What is this?” she finally asked, willing to take it, but she was more curious than anything.

The man shook his head, suddenly looking sick. “I don't know,” he said, his voice grave. “Some kind of bible? I just want it gone. I—If it's not worth anything, you can just keep it. I don't want it at my house, and my mom's got no use for it now.”

Eyebrows raised, Hannah paused, turning the book over in her hand once more. She didn't know what was so off-putting about the book to cause such a reaction, but the stranger seemed to be scared of it. Books were harmless, and Hannah didn't think this ornate tome was any different from the hundreds of others that lined the hardwood shelves of the store—she would gladly take whatever this was off of the man's hands. “I'll give you twenty bucks for the box,” she offered, setting the book on top of the others as she opened the register to pull out a ten dollar bill and two fives for the man.

After the man took the money, he made his way to the door, but paused to look back. “Make sure that thing doesn't fall into the wrong hands,” he warned before making his leave.

Hannah made a face, creeped out by the whole encounter. It wasn't unheard of to get the oddball in the shop every so often, but nothing like that had ever happened. Simon's meow caught her attention, and the blue-eyed woman found herself smiling once more as she cooed at her cat and gave him a pet under the chin. “That was weird, huh?” she asked, rubbing her hands over the Tabby's ears and giving his head a kiss before coming out from behind the large, oak counter to lock the door. There was still some time left to the business day, but Hannah decided to close early and flipped the sign on the door. All that was left to do now was file the books.

Hauling the stack of books into her arms, Hannah quickly put most of them away. All Quiet On The Western Front found a new home, along with Moby Dick and The Joy of Cooking. Finally, all that was left in her hands was the leather-bound one with no title. She walked slowly through the rows of shelves, looking over the thin pages and trying her best to decipher the Latin written within. Quickly, it was becoming clear that this would be a fruitless task without the help of the internet and if that turned back no results, the book could at least serve as a conversation piece up at the register.

“Simon,” she called, clicking her tongue to draw out the cat. “Simon come on, upstairs.” Hannah was eager to find out anything about the book, but as she began to close the heavy cover, the pad of her index finger slid along the thin pages, their razor sharp edge cutting into her skin and Hannah hissed with sudden pain as the book fell to the floor. She cursed under her breath as she noticed the cut on her finger was deeper than she had originally thought, and a bit of her blood had dripped onto the cover of the book. Doing the unsanitary thing, she stuck her finger in her mouth, frowning at the coppery taste of her blood. There were band-aids upstairs in the medicine cabinet.

As soon as she touched the book, intending to pick it up from the floor and take it with her upstairs, the sound of shattering glass caused her to shriek. All of the lights in the shop had blown at once and at the back of the store, there was close to no light. Hannah could feel her heart racing in her chest, and although she wasn't one to believe in the supernatural or curses, the strange man's warning was echoing in her mind. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she peered out toward the front of the store where she saw a shadow moving between the shelves. It was too big to be Simon, and as far as Hannah knew, she was alone.

“...Hello?” she asked hesitantly. “Is anyone there?”

How does one explain what it’s like to be trapped inside the pages of a book for several centuries? Well, not much can be said, really. It’s blindingly dark, horribly cramped, and downright bloody boring. Or at least that’s what Dexteros always thought would be his answer if he were ever to be released (or escaped, but that was highly unlikely since he was sure he would have found a way to have done so by now) and asked that question. His only entertainment were his ceaseless thoughts and glorious imagination consisting mainly of the great revenge he’d take to get back at the wretched fool who put him in here in the first place, and quickly follow that up by making up all of the time he’d lost in the years that had passed.

Time. Dexteros laughed internally at the cursed word. He couldn’t really laugh out loud, since he was pretty sure he was more of a wisp of a soul than some actual physical being at the moment. Time had lost its meaning long, long ago when he couldn’t keep track of whether it was day or night, Monday or Saturday, spring or fall. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years—they all blurred together in an unending drone of . . . absolutely nothing. It was enough to drive him past the brink of madness, yet somehow he was fairly certain he was still sane. Perhaps he was gifted. After all, wouldn’t anyone else in his situation be long gone mentally speaking? Then again he did consider himself quite the exemplary devil when it came to sticky predicaments. He always found a way to keep himself three steps ahead of everyone and everything else.

Or he did, until he got just a tad too cocky and did the biggest fuck up he could have possibly managed. And now he was paying for it by spending eternity snared in the bastard’s book, with only the hope of some dim-witted human to be his ticket to freedom. Funny how something that sounded so ridiculously easy to make happen didn’t turn out to be so easy after all.

Which is why the event that was about to happen next would take him a good minute or so to fully process.

It felt like every ounce of his being was getting sucked through a pin-sized hole. The darkness that had cradled him for so long gradually began to recede, replaced by a growing light that was so bright Dexteros was blinded yet again, this time with an aching pain gnawing on his eyeballs and the center of his forehead. But then the pain and feeling of immobility lessened, the agonizing intensity of white light faded, and he realized with a sudden shock by utter demonic instinct that he was being released. A dark kind of joy flooded his veins and sent his blood boiling, and he pushed forward the rest of the way with a silent howl of victory escaping his mouth.

His heart thundering in his chest, Dexteros slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times, letting them adjust to the dim lighting of the room. He could feel worn wood beneath his fingertips and he looked down in surprise, seeing his hands splayed before him on the ground. It was then he registered that he was crouched there on his hands and knees, probably looking pathetic no doubt. He got to his feet immediately, amazed to find that he didn’t waver an inch. After all that time of existing only in essence he could still stand like he’d been doing it every day while trapped in that wretched book. Speaking of the book . . .

Just as he was about to grab the thing and burn it to ashes he heard a voice, tentative and soft. Feminine. With the slightest sliver of fear, maybe? He stood stock still with the exception of cocking his head to the side, trying to locate the source of the voice. Although it was rather dark it wasn’t even close to the darkness he’d been familiar with, and besides, he didn’t have the miserable eyesight humans had been granted with. It appeared that he was in what he guessed to be a large room, with several stands surrounding him in an orderly fashion. A fleeting glance told him the stands were shelves that were filled with books, and he wanted to snicker at the irony. But he kept silent and instead inhaled deeply, the human girl’s scent greeting him at once. Fresh, light, and mingled with the coppery tinge of blood—also fresh.

A malicious smirk formed on his lips and Dexteros glided forward, using the poor lighting to his advantage. It didn’t take him long to locate the girl, her scent guiding him most of the way until he spotted her bright hair through an opening between two bookshelves. Her back was to him, which was even more perfect. He continued forward and as he did so he organized his collage of shifting forms to a single one, so that when she did finally see him he’d look like a mostly ordinary human male—with the exception of his slightly elongated razor-sharp canines and black eyes.

Finally he reached her, standing just behind her, close enough to have their bodies touching if he shifted forward a couple more inches. His lips still curved faintly, Dexteros leaned down—way down, the silly little thing was so pathetically short—and put his lips a breadth away from her ear. “Boo.”

The sudden stillness of the shop was unsettling, and Hannah did her best to quiet her anxieties and slow the rapid beating of her heart in her chest. The young redhead was a fan of horror movies, but it was one thing to watch a group of campers get chased down by a hoard of zombies, or a family be terrorized by a demonic spirit in their attic, but this was real life and things like this weren't supposed to happen. It was too strange to ignore the way the lights had blown after she had cut herself on that book, and her wound was still fresh, still bleeding and stinging—a continuing reminder that something wasn't right.

Her call into the darkness had returned nothing, and Hannah swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. She could see another shadow, although this time she was sure that it was Simon. Clicking her tongue, Hannah called out to the cat, hoping he would come to her and they could run upstairs. There was still a part of her that hoped it was just a fuse, that she could call an electrician to come take a look at everything in the morning and everything would be fine.

If there was even going to be a morning.

Shaking her head, Hannah backed up toward the stairs, the old floorboards creaking beneath her feet. If this was anymore cliché, the red-haired girl would have laughed out loud, but she was slightly too petrified to actually make a joke. Suddenly, a streak of orange caught her eye and Simon ran between her legs, darting up the stairs. The tabby seemed startled, as if he too sensed something sinister in the normally calm and easy-going air of the shop. Pursing her lips, Hannah knew that she should have taken a cue from her cat, but she began to get the feeling that she wasn't alone. Standing still, she tilted her head, red curls brushing the tops of her shoulders as she listened closely for any sort of sound.

Then there was something, a smooth voice, almost jovial in her ear and a single word that made her gasp and instinctively, she jammed her elbow back into the stomach of whoever was behind her. Years ago, when she had just barely turned eighteen, her father had talked her into a self defense class. He had always been overprotective of her, ever since her mother died, and Hannah had decided to humor him. The class had been informative and obviously she still remembered a few things, like the location of the solar plexus...or rather, where it should have been; she couldn't help being so short.

After making contact, Hannah sprung forward and gracelessly tripped over her own feet and the book she had dropped to the floor moments before. She crawled forward before turning over and continued to scoot herself back until she could get a better look at the stranger who had invaded her store. What she saw made her pause, although her breathing was rapid as ever, nearly gasping as she studied the man. He looked human, aside from the blackness of his eyes and the elongated, fang-like canines.

On any other day, Hannah would have thought it was a costume, that Halloween had come early, but this was hardly ordinary. “Holy shit,” she breathed, slowly getting to her feet. She was still afraid, but now slightly curious. “What are you?” Hannah took a few steps closer, “who are you? How did you...get in?”

The door had been locked, Hannah had made sure to lock it behind the guy who brought in that strange book. She looked to the floor, it was still lying there, sullied with her drops of blood, but she easily picked it up and cradled it against her chest.