Amber wandered happily around the stacks at the back of the library, her left arm holding a few books, her right hand alternating between putting the books back onto the appropriate shelves and touching the white gold, book-shaped locket that now adorned her neck. She loved the Christmas gift from Marcus and she already had a picture of him inside of it, nestled along with the heart-shaped piece of amber that he had placed inside of it too.

She quietly hummed a soft romantic tune, one that Marcus had been teaching her to play on the piano and she smiled to herself as she remembered how last nights' teaching session had ended. So far, Marcus' worries that his being a vampire would cause them difficulties had amounted to nothing and Amber knew that she had never been happier. She still had to tell him about her parents and how she had come to be in Demaitre and she had decided that she had waited long enough for an opportune moment to arise and that she would tell him that night. He was meeting her after this Thursday evening shift, her first since Christmas, and they were going for a stroll so she had decided that she would tell him then. She also needed to tell him about the appearance of Emily, her best friend from New York, who had also tracked her down. Since she had found out what Marcus was, the threat of a stalker wasn't so worrying these days and she wondered if she could maybe begin to enjoy Emily's company once more.

Marcus had answered alot of her questions over the last month, but there always seemed to be things she still thought of that required an explanation. She wanted him to know everything about her too though and so, tonight was the night for telling her parents' story.

Rounding the end of the next stack, Amber reached up to put another book back in place, but paused as her eyes fell upon a figure in traditional Monks' robes. He stood halfway down the narrow aisle, his hood was up and his head was bowed and as Amber's mouth made a silent 'o' shape she wondered if she was seeing her first Ellis ghost. The older librarians had spoken of sightings of ghosts in the old building, but Amber had never quite believed them, but in light of her recent vampire discovery it was quite plausible that ghosts could be real too...nothing was too far fetched these days.

She turned to face the shelves, wondering if he would just pass her by, or hopefully just disappear in a puff of smoke.

'Good one Amber,' she chided herself silently. 'You're not remotely scared of an ancient vampire who could, in theory, kill you with not much more than a glance, but the sight of a ghost makes you quake at the knees...'

When the man suddenly spoke, Amber knew that had she been a cat, she would be anchored to the ceiling by her claws right at that moment.

Aleksandur had observed Amber for most of her shift, lurking in the shadows and making sure that she hadn't actually seen him until now and he watched through hooded eyes as she took in his attire with barely concealed surprise and just a hint of fear.

She was still as beautiful, if not more so, than he remembered and he lowered his eyes to the ground as she turned away from him, his sharpened hearing picking up the acceleration of her heartbeat. He had no wish to frighten her and so he took a small step backwards before raising his head, a smile that looked neither natural nor good on his rugged face as he looked at her.

Since he had arrived in Demaitre he had bided his time over approaching her, wanting to try and gather as much information as he could about the whereabouts of the cursed book, but the only knowledge he had gleaned thus far was that its new keeper could possibly be one called Miskal and that his and the books location was a closely guarded secret, one that few were willing to speak with him about and he now knew he could wait no longer to see Amber...and eventually Marcus.

"Forgive me Miss Morgan..." he began, watching, brow furrowed, as she almost leapt from her skin before he hastily carried on, "...but I need to speak with you on a rather urgent matter. Could you spare me a few moments of your time at the end of your evenings work?"

As he finished speaking he realised that she may need more than that to agree to speak with him and so he added,

"It is in connection with your mother."

Amber clutched the books that she held in her left arm to her chest, her fingers tightening on the one that she had been about to put back on the shelf so that she didn't drop it.

'Not a ghost then,' she swallowed hard, taking a moment to shove the book back into its place before she turned slowly back to face the stranger.

Her brown eyes were suspicious as she regarded him. She had tensed the moment he had mentioned her mother because no-one in Demaitre knew what had happened to her parents, she hadn't told a soul. How had he known where to find her? Who was he? How did he know her mother? He couldn't be the man who had killed her parents...could he?

He was Italian, his accent told her that much, but that still didn't explain anything, least of all why he was dressed as a Monk.

'Do monks even exist any more?' her thoughts wandered momentarily, her eyes widening a little as she took in his pale skin, his pained expression, the scar under his left eye...

She jumped as Susan, the other librarian working that evening, made the usual announcement over the tannoy system. "Please be aware that the library will be closing in ten minutes time, thank you."

Taking a step back, Amber murmured.

"I'm sorry, I have to get back to work and I have plans afterwards..." and with that she turned away from the monk, her aim to make it out of the stacks and back into the body of the library as quickly as possible.

As Amber whirled away from him, Aleksandur moved and blocked her path before she had even completed the turn, ignoring the look of surprise that he knew would appear upon her face.

"Miss Morgan, please...it is imperative that I speak with you."

His eyes implored her and he didn't want to have to force her to listen to him, that wasn't the way he wanted this to go. He needed her to hear him out, she had to understand about the book, about it's importance, about getting it back, keeping it safe and becoming its keeper...a role she should already have been playing out had it not been for her mother's insistence to keep the fact hidden from her. For not the first time Aleksandur had to bite down on his dislike of Amber's mother, God rest her soul, for her stupid decision to move the book away from him.

Focusing on Amber's face again he realised that he would have to give her more.

"I believe that I am right when I say that you are missing a book from your records since that strange incident here last year...a book entitled the Vox Cruor. It is this that I must speak with you about. That and a few other topics."

Just then, Susan made an appearance at his side, giving him the once over without even trying to conceal the action. Turning her attention away from him she said sourly,

"Amber, I'm leaving, George is hear to pick me up. You'll lock up won't you..." and with that, the stout librarian threw a set of keys in Amber's general direction and high-tailed it away.

For a moment Amber didn't register what Susan was saying. Her eyes were glued to the monk and she wondered how he knew about the missing book. She still hadn't told anyone that it was missing yet. She also wondered how he could have moved so quickly to block her path, unless he was also a...

'Or are you just being overly imaginative here?' she questioned herself, knowing that she could possibly have been mistaken about the speed in which he had come to be stood in front of her instead of halfway down the aisle behind her. 'You can't assume that everyone you meet is going to be a vampire just because they walk quicker than you do,' she chastised herself, trying to ignore her gut feeling on this one.

She just about managed to catch the keys that Susan threw her way, but in the process dropped the remaining books that she had been holding.

"Susan...wait! Susan....!" she called out as the other librarian stalked away.

Amber didn't want to be stuck in the library alone with this man...vampire...ghost...whatever he was, but, unfortunately, Susan appeared oblivious to her calls and continued on her way, her small heels clicking uncharacteristically loudly on the wooden flooring as she went and Amber frowned and looked back at the stranger.

"Um, would you like to sit down to talk?" she asked, trying to buy a little more time as she knew that Marcus was due to arrive any time to meet her. "I need to shut the doors...and you haven't even told me your name yet..." she added, hoping that if she was more friendly he would let her pass so that she could try to casually get closer to the exit.

With a touch of mind control, Aleksandur kept Susan walking away without looking back.

As Amber spoke, he bent to retrieve the books that she had dropped to the floor, keeping a hold of them as he straightened to make his reply.

"My name is Aleksandur De Luca...and I am happy to talk here," he said, handing her the books back. "Please, do not worry about us being disturbed..." he angled his head to one side and at the other end of the library, the large double doors swung shut and locked, the sound reverberating around the walls and high ceiling above them.

As the noise died away leaving a deafening silence between them, Aleksandur tried smiling at Amber again in an effort to ease the tension he sensed was rising within the young mortal.

After a few moments of silence, where he tried to think of the correct way to begin his tale, Aleksandur could not help himself from saying,

"You are like your mother, but please forgive me when I say that I believe you to be much more beautiful..." he looked down, realising that he may have been too forward. "About the book...and your mother," he stopped and looked to his left as he became aware of another non-mortal presence within the building.

Amber's nerves jangled when she heard the huge double doors slam shut, the sound echoing off the high walls and ceilings with a sort of finality that made her feel quite sick.

She was trapped, trapped with what she now definitely knew was another vampire, one who went with the name of Aleksandur.

When he tried smiling at her again, Amber felt no warmth or comfort from the attempt and she remained merely staring at him, frozen to the spot and not knowing what to expect.

She ignored his comment about her being more beautiful than her mother and he looked down, giving her the chance to glance behind herself even though she knew that if she tried to run, he would catch her before she had taken more than two steps...

As he began talking again, her head snapped back to the front and she frowned as he suddenly stopped and looked to his left as though he was hearing something that she wasn't.

"Look," she said after a moment, her voice sounding shaky despite her best efforts for it not to. "I don't know how you heard about what happened here last year...or how you knew my mother..." she stopped talking as she realised that the 'March Incident', of all things, was one of the topics that she had not yet brought up with Marcus and she wondered if there had been much more to what had gone on than she could ever have realised.

"...but..." she continued, "I don't know where the book is, or who took it...and I'm not really sure that I want to know how it was linked to my mom."

She swallowed hard as Aleksandur remained looking to his left with a rather displeased, but somewhat resigned look upon his face and she thought that she may have admitted to not knowing enough. 'What if he kills me now that he knows that I don't have the book?' She let her mind wander away with her again. Knowing that she didn't want to be Aleksandur's evening meal made her turn sharply with no thought to the move and though she wasn't surprised when a cold hand clamped around her upper arm she still let out a startled cry, the books that she had been holding thudding to the floor, forgotten as she tried to get Aleksandur's hand off of her arm.

"Wait..." he said in an effort to get her to remain quiet. "There is another...."

"Another what?" Amber replied, confusion marring her features as she looked up at him, her fingers still trying to prise his from her arm.

Aleksandur ignored her, but kept a tight hold on her arm. He knew that he was not the only immortal in the old library, but he was having trouble deciding if there were one or two others now and Amber's refusal to stay still was not helping.

"Quiet!" he hissed at her and immediately she froze, but with fear for he had not needed to resort to mind control.


{OOC : Modding with Alek's express permission :P}

Despite Amber's not so subtle prods that Marcus come to see her at work so she could introduce him to her coworkers, the vampire had done his best to avoid the library since the incident involving Miskal. To date, the closest he'd come to the building was to wait outside in his car until Amber had locked up, feeling mildly secure in the comfort of the Jaguar's tinted windows.

His hesitation to enter the grand old library was grounded entirely in the attack nearly a year ago. Though all physical evidence had been destroyed at the time, and all minds suitably altered, there was always the small risk of jarring a suppressed memory free if one of the staff happened to recognize him. He hadn't yet divulged these details to Amber, finding himself largely undecided as to how much she needed to know about the turmoil of the vampire world this early in their established relationship. When asked why he was tentative about stepping foot in the building, Marcus had come up with a myriad of excuses, most revolving around his embellished guilt for what Amber had witnessed between him and Nebti.

While he waited for her to emerge from the building, he sat with the small back windows down, allowing faint wisps of cool night air to circulate through the interior. His mind was wandering, touching on the events of that past March and on the continuing success of Miskal's evasion of capture. The only lead the Amman had been granted recently was a rather cryptic note from a source that Marcus didn't entirely trust—Quan Lei Shen, or more likely one of his various servants, had tacked a note on the statue that marked the Amman coven house. When opened, the elaborate golden calligraphy inside simply read, "There is something festering in my woods."

A loud bang from the direction of the library startled Marcus from his thoughts. A pile of snow lay freshly fallen across the top steps of the building's main entrance, knocked free from the eaves of the roof by the apparently forceful closure of the large wooden doors. Immediately suspicious, the Etruscan left his vehicle, uncaring at this point if it was stolen.

When he reached the doors, it was to find them locked, lending credit to his wariness. He loosed his mental shields enough to probe inside, and was immediately set on guard by what he found. Amber was still inside, and her thoughts were frenzied; more disturbing was the second mind, which pulsed with the cool detachment of the undead.

Marcus made short work of the locks, picking the mechanism with precise telekinesis and then pushing one heavy door open with little effort. His first fear was that the other vampire in the building was Miskal, but he abandoned that thought as he strode quickly toward the smell of mortal anxiety. This other mind radiated nothing of the primal and calculated madness that characterized Miskal's mental signature.

"Amber!" he called while there were still a few aisles of bookshelves between them. Politics, unfortunately, demanded that he not attack first and demand answers later. If this other vampire happened to be of another coven and simply looking for a meal, he couldn't hold it against them for not knowing that they were hunting the Amman Leader's romantic interest.

At the re-assuring sound of Marcus' voice, Amber just about managed to keep her relief at his timely arrival to herself as she glared at Aleksandur.

When she felt his cold grip loosen on her arm she yanked it free and rubbed at the soft skin absently.

"I don't think so..." she said to his demand that she be quiet. Turning her head defiantly, she called out, "I'm over here..." before turning her still wary eyes back onto the Monk. Her fear was slowly subsiding somewhat now that she knew that her better half was in close proximity, but she wasn't stupid enough not to realise that Aleksandur, if he so desired, could still cause her alot of harm. Vampires were sometimes a little too quick for her liking.

"Whatever it is that you feel you have to discuss with me...you can say it in front of us both," she said, knowing that there could be a risk of her parents' deaths being brought into the conversation, but that was a risk she was willing to take as Marcus knew that there were still things that they hadn't told one another and if he looked deep enough into her mind he would see that she had been going to tell him all about it...it wasn't something she had planned to keep from him forever.

Even though Amber had not stated the name of the vampire who had come to interrupt his first meeting with her, Aleksandur instinctively knew from the way her confidence had suddenly grown and from the sudden prescence of an immense power that it was Marcus who had entered the library.

Aleksandur knew that he shouldn't really have been surprised as from what he had seen thus far since his arrival in Demaitre, Amber spent all of her time spare time cosseted away with Marcus, but he had hoped to speak with her alone first, before he requested an audience with the Amman leader.

In the beginning he had put his reasons for wanting to see Amber first down to the fact that she was why the book had gone missing in the first place. She should have been aware of it all along, protecting it, as should Marcus, but he knew that deep down he had wanted to see her first because he wanted her to have met him, just once, before Marcus decided his fate for keeping such a dangerous secret from him.

Aleksandur looked at her through unreadable eyes as she told him that whatever he had to discuss with her, then he could say it in front of them both and he nodded once.

"As you wish."