[ 2 ] Marthe

All Marthe wanted to do was buy a book.

Which she was able to do—she exited the bookstore with the novel in the bag she was holding, content. What she wasn’t hoping for was a random human to attack her.

Again.

As always.

Was she that recognizable? She thought putting on what those humans called makeup and fake glasses and all that jazz would do enough to disguise her. Maybe it was her eyes. Next time, she’d use colored contacts to disguise herself.

Either way, as she was trying to walk away from the bookstore in peace, she felt something pierce her from behind. The searing pain told her it was silver, and she whirled around to see an old man stabbing her with some sort of… silver… shard… thing.

He staggered backwards, pointing the mystery weapon at her, eyes wide. “You… you killed my…!” he choked out, charging at her.

What the hell. One point deducted from his side for assuming. She hadn’t killed a human in her life.

Were humans always this quick to assume, without even getting a good look at who they were accusing? This wasn’t the first time this’d happened to her. Even just a few days ago, someone had attacked her out of nowhere just like this. Man, that had been a time. But besides that, this has pretty much always been happening to her. Like—

Oh, wait, she was spacing out while this guy was totally gearing up to attack her. She blinked, her eyes refocusing just as he lunged at her.

She stepped out of his way and took several steps back, lifting both arms. It wasn’t in surrender, though.

She figured she might as well scare the dude off. Not the best idea to give any human the chance to follow her—if they discovered the portal between the vampire world and the human world, her race would be doomed. It was a miracle they didn’t even know their world existed yet.

After scanning her surroundings—there wasn’t much around other than lampposts and closed stores and cars, all which she’d feel bad about using, but it couldn’t be helped—she gestured to one of the lampposts in front of the man. It tore itself out of the ground, and she did the same to another one before telekinetically throwing them at him.

Well, not at him—more like in his general area. She wasn’t aiming to hurt him or anything. If he was just terrified enough, he’d leave her alone.

Now, here’s another thing she wasn’t hoping to happen tonight: a second person jumping into the fight.

The world hated her—or at least, the human world did—apparently, because a man appeared out of nowhere in front of the old guy and pointed what looked like a gun at the two pipes. With some unknown magical force, they were blasted back towards her. She leaped out of the way, yelping.

Typically the ones with the magical weapons were the vampire hunters, but in the brief moment she glanced at the man, she noticed something else: his outfit. Most of the time, the hunters she encountered wore white uniforms, but this guy was wearing black.

He was one of the more powerful hunters. A Rank A hunter.

Great, great, great. Might as well use her second power, then. She clapped her hands together and ran away, leaving a clone behind. The clone was as good as her—it could hold back the vampire hunter… hopefully? Long enough for her to reach the portal, anyway. The clone would last for half an hour before disappearing, so that was more than enough as long as it didn’t get killed.

She quickly turned around a corner, continuing to run. God, this was what she got for trying to buy a simple book from the human world? Not that this was anything new, but—

Wait. The book.

She froze, looking down at her hands. The bag was gone.

No. No! She must have dropped it sometime during the brief fight. There was no way she could go back to her world without bringing back what she came for. Tonight was supposed to be her first time buying one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s works, what the hell.

Whirling around, Marthe ran back to the site, prepared to face the advanced vampire hunter again. When she got there, though, he was gone. As was the old man.

And her clone.

And the bag with the book in it.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. This was it. She was going to die from pure despair. Where the hell was her book? What, did the vampire hunter randomly grab it and make her clone chase it? Come to think of it, her clone definitely would chase it—mainly because Marthe herself would chase it, too.

But still.

No, she had hope. Maybe she had just dropped the book… somewhere else. She ran back, retracing her path away from the site near the bookstore, trying to run but scan every inch of the area at the same time. No bag. No book. No hunter. No clone.

Suddenly, she felt something shoot into her back.

“Perish.”

Before she realized it, the vampire hunter had shot her from behind with his gun. She gasped, collapsing to the ground. No blood came out of her mouth, though. Or her back. Or anything.

The pain wore off, and she stood up, blinking. Ah, shit. Her clone. The vampire hunter must’ve run from the clone in an attempt to find the real her… only to run into the clone again. And kill it.

The part where she always had to feel the same pain as her own clone was downright annoying, but whatever. Shit. The clone was gone, and she knew the vampire hunter was around the corner, since she heard his voice. She had to turn back.

But the fucking book.

Still figuring the vampire hunter had it for whatever reason, she ran straight where she was certain he was, turning around the corner. He wasn’t there. But the bag with her book was there, lying on the ground.

Oh. Maybe the clone had been holding it...? That was strange. Where was the vampire hunter, then? She looked around, but there was no sign of him.

After a moment, she picked up the book and hurried off to the portal, hoping she’d successfully gotten the vampire hunter off her tail.

If there was anything Marthe hated, it was randomly getting attacked by humans.

And one of the reasons for that was Regis. “You got attacked in the human world? Again?” said the young man sitting across from her, banging his fist on their table. His long white hair jostled with the movement. They were in their favorite shop, Ciel Lumineux. They usually met here every other day.

“Oh, Marthe, when will you ever learn?” said the girl sitting next to him, Estelle, dramatically. She didn’t seem to actually care much, though, her gaze wandering as she played with a strand of light pink hair. “What were you up to in their world this time that got you into trouble?”

“Nothing,” Marthe said, crossing her arms. “I was just buying a book.”

Regis banged his fist on the table again. He really didn’t have a reason to at this point. “You and your books! When was the last time you went to the human world for one of those?”

Marthe hesitated. “Two days ago,” she answered quietly. And then she rose her voice: “But it was important! And I finished the books from two days ago, so tonight, I figured I could get another one.”

“Was today’s trip important?” Regis demanded, banging his fist yet again. Marthe felt like he was going to break the table.

“Yes. Very,” Marthe said, tapping her book, which rested on the surface. “Crime and Punishment. A classic piece of Russian literature.” She couldn’t help but gaze at the cover longingly—apparently Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a renowned Russian author, alongside a handful of others. Why wouldn’t she want to read one of his best works? She’d never read a piece of Russian literature at all before, in fact! This would be a great introduction to them! She blinked, realizing she had zoned out for a second too long, and looked back up at Regis. “You want me to delay buying this?”

“Why did she stare at it for so long just now?” Estelle whispered to Regis. “Also, which one is Russia again?”

Regis ignored her. “Marthe, you have to stop going to the human world. Completely.”

Marthe blinked, giving him a look. “What? Why?”

“Because it is ten times more dangerous there!” he shouted, banging his fist even harder now. Estelle flinched. “The humans want you dead, whereas the vampires here respect you. I cannot see why you would choose to go to such a world. It is illogical!”

“Not every vampire likes to respect the Rich Kids™, though,” Estelle whispered to him. “And Marthe isn’t very charismatic. So she’s not exactly the most popular...”

Regis ignored her again.

“But they have books!” Marthe said. “Human books. You can’t get them here.”

“Screw your books. Crime and Punishment and all the others are worthless.”

Marthe immediately banged her fist on the table twenty times harder than Regis had today. Estelle’s cup of tea nearly went flying, much to her dismay. “Apologize to Fyodor Dostoyevsky right now.”

Regis raised an eyebrow.

“And apologize to all the other authors you offended, too! Apologize to Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and Harper Lee and—”

“Marthe.”

“I SAID APOLOGIZE.” Marthe stood up abruptly, snatching her book from the table as if Regis would poison it just by sitting near it.

“I do not take back what I just said,” he stated calmly.

Clenching her fist, she spat, “Then you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Bye.” And with that, she stormed out of the shop.

Regis opened his mouth, then closed it, shaking his head in disappointment. “Storming out like that. I was going to tell her something, too—it would have been better if she were not to receive the news from her mother.”

“You shouldn’t’ve said that stuff. You know how she is with books,” Estelle scolded.

“Forget it, woman,” he said, shrugging as he stood up to take his leave, too.

To be fair, going back to the vampire world was just as annoying as venturing to the human world. And not just because of Regis. Also because of her home.

It wasn’t that bad, but she honestly had a hard time calling it a ‘home.’ It was far too spacious for her liking, and the walls were all a stiflingly bright shade of white. It had no character.

But if there was any part of the house that did, it was her room. Her own room was an entire mini-library, and she’d successfully covered all the blinding white with her bookcases.

Anyway, when she opened the gate and entered the house, the first thing she heard was her mother’s voice calling her from the living room. She went to go see what she wanted. The servant in the room slowly backed out.

“Marthe, there you are,” her mother said, looking up from literally nothing. “You’re late. I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah? What is it? I have reading to do,” Marthe said, leaning against the wall.

“When I came home today, I saw signs that someone had broken into your room through the window,” she said. “They didn’t take anything particularly important, but one of your books has gone missing. The Grimoire, was it?”

“W-What? No, it hasn’t.”

“Yes, it has.”

“N… No it…” She blinked, trailing off, her mouth opening and closing over and over as she tried to register what her mother just said. “What? Why would someone steal it? It’s literally just a novel.”

“Yes, but it’s also the reason we, ahem, lost a significant amount of money five years ago,” Marthe’s mom said, clearing her throat more loudly than necessary. “A vampire claimed to the public that it was a valuable book of spells and sold it to someone at a ridiculously high price, only for them to find out it was a simple novel.”

“Yes, Mom, I know what the Grimoire is. It was worth the cost! It was actually a really good novel—my favorite, in fact. What kind of scumbag would steal it?”

“I don’t know at all.” She sighed. “I just figured you’d want to know. It’s just a book, so law enforcement isn’t exactly going to be doing much about it. But you can look into it yourself if you want. I don’t know why the culprit wants that book, but if they thought they’d have to steal before even trying to consult us, it’s no good.”

“I don’t care about ‘no good,’ I want my book back,” Marthe said. “Ugh. Thanks for telling me, I guess.” She whirled around and hurried upstairs.

She stepped into her room. Every wall was lined with bookcases, all filled with dozens of vampire books and human books. A desk and a bed sat in the middle.

And the Grimoire was nowhere to be found.

Along with the glass case it was in. That totally protected it.

A wave of despair overcame her—one a lot worse than what she felt when she briefly lost Crime and Punishment. She didn’t know why she came to her room, expecting her to have hallucinated the conversation with her mother and to see the Grimoire, sitting on her desk in its beautiful glass case, reassuring her, ‘I’m still here, don’t worry!’

“I can’t believe this!” she yelled. “Who the fuck would even steal this it’s literally just a novel you can’t fool the vampire race twice everyone knows what the goddamn Grimoire is and yeah there’s only one copy of it in the world obviously but that doesn’t mea—”

“Madam?” said a voice from her doorway.

Marthe nearly jumped out of her skin, looking at the door. It was the servant. The human of the house. Liam.

When she didn’t say anything, he began, “Would you like some—”

“No!” Marthe screamed, slamming the door shut in his face. A few seconds later, she realized she probably shouldn’t have done that because a) only assholes slammed doors in other people’s faces and b) his life was kind of already sad enough as is, a servant whose purpose was to offer blood to a noble family in exchange for a place to live. She swung open the door again, blurting, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to yell at you like that I’m just very mad that my favorite book got stolen and I took it out on you when I shouldn’t have I’m so sorry and I really appreciate your offer even though I didn’t hear the rest of your sentence but no thank you I don’t need whatever you were going to offer me I’m fine.”

She opened her eyes. Liam wasn’t even there.

Great, she’d just spewed out an entire apology to fucking air. Whatever. Marthe closed the door again, softer this time, as if it would make up for ten seconds ago. She leaned against it, raking her hand through her hair and letting out a huge sigh.

What would she do now? She couldn’t find the culprit alone—she needed help. Definitely not Regis—he’d just deliver another long lecture about how this was why she shouldn’t be buying books, because they got her into situations like this. The bastard.

Maybe she could ask Estelle for help?

She looked up at the clock. It was still night, and it was going to be time for her to sleep, but fuck sleep.

“So, just a recap: somebody intruded in your mansion.”

“Yes.”

“And left with your Grimoire.”

“With my fucking Grimoire.”

“Gosh! Your life just takes one turn after another, doesn’t it?” Estelle said, laughing as she jumped off her bed. She really wasn’t helping. “Sorry, sorry, I’ve been laughing at your predicament all night. Don’t worry, making fun of the situation isn’t all I’ve been doing.” She cracked her knuckles. “I’ve been looking into a lot of things and thinking about this instead of sleep. Which you’ve been doing, too, but, like, I think I’ve come to a conclusion.”

“Thank God, because I haven’t gotten anywhere,” Marthe said, turning from Estelle’s desk to face her. “What do you think, then?”

“Well, first of all, you were right. You can’t fool the vampire race twice,” Estelle said very matter-of-factly, sitting back down and raising one finger. “But there’s another race you could fool. One that values magic even more than we do.”

Marthe blinked. “The humans? You’re saying the culprit stole the Grimoire so they could take it to the human world and take advantage of them instead?”

“Yup! I dunno if their plan is the same as the person who sold the Grimoire to you five years ago, but they’re doing something like that,” Estelle said. “Which means you’ll probably have to go back to the human world to find this vampire.”

“All the more reason not to tell Regis. But did you figure out who would do that?”

“Oh, come on. Isn’t it obvious? Only one person we know would want to mess with the humans like this.” She waved a hand at Marthe. “It’s—”