Demons in the Library Read online

  A few moments later, the TV screen flickered into life. Brett pressed the pause button and told the others that they’d have to watch the recordings made on several different cameras in turn.

  “All this is footage taken in the last week,” he explained. “So if there’s anything to be seen, I’m sure we’ll spot it. I guess it will be quicker to look at the footage from each camera in turn.”

  Liberty felt her heart bumping uncomfortably in her rib cage as a jerky, grainy view of the library entrance came into view. She stole a look at Dirk. He too, was looking apprehensive, the light from the television reflecting off his glasses.

  After a few minutes of watching students stroll into the library, Liberty felt frustration rise.

  “How about fast-forwarding, Brett?” she suggested. She raised her eyebrows at Dirk, who nodded.

  It seemed like a long time later that Liberty spotted something unusual among the figures pushing through the turnstiles.

  “There!” she half-shouted.

  At the same time, Dirk leaned forward in his chair and said, “Uh…”

  “What? What?” Maxine wanted to know.

  Brett rewound.

  “There!” Liberty pointed at an unusually tall figure in a long trench coat.

  “That could be one of them,” said Dirk.

  “What?” Maxine asked again.

  “I don’t think we see what you’re seeing,” Prof T remarked.

  “You can’t see the tall guy in the coat?” Dirk asked.

  “I don’t see a tall guy,” Brett said.

  “Me neither. But hey, we should note the time and date of this,” Maxine said, nodding at the screen.

  “Yeah, of course. Shit,” Brett muttered, scrabbling in his bag. It was the first time Liberty had seen him look truly ruffled.

  It was Prof T, of course, who could offer paper and pen.

  “I’ll be the scribe, since you’re the technical crew,” said Maxine to Brett.

  Carefully, she noted the details. It had been 10.32am on Monday when the tall man had entered the library. Fast-forwarding the recording revealed that he had walked out again about three hours later, captured by the same camera.

  Next, it was the turn of Tuesday’s footage.

  “We should see your demon now,” Brett said, nodding towards Liberty.

  Feeling grateful for the whiskey as it stole through her bloodstream and detached her from reality a little, Liberty watched the jerky figures rushing over the screen.

  “There he is!” she yelled, pointing at another – or was it the same? – tall figure.

  “Yep, I see him,” said Dirk.

  “Wait, I see him too!” said Maxine.

  “Ah,” commented Prof Trelawney softly. “Good to know. They’re sometimes visible to all of us.”

  “He does look lizard-like,” said Brett. “But…”

  “But at the same time, not out of the ordinary,” Maxine agreed, noting the time and date once more. “I’m glad we can all see the hideous thing.”

  After replaying the footage a few times so they could all get a good look at the demon, Brett hit fast-forward again, but there was nothing noteworthy in that day’s footage.

  About an hour later, they had seen enough to establish that demons were visiting the library one at a time on a daily basis, mostly assuming an invisible form.

  “This is going to take a while to get through,” Liberty said, indicating the pile of CDs still to be viewed.

  “Nah, it should be quick,” Dirk corrected her. “The demons seem to arrive at the library at one of two times: 10.30 in the morning, or about six at night, so we can skip forward to those times on the other CDs.”

  “Oh, right, of course,” said Liberty, feeling stupid.

  Another hour’s viewing didn’t teach them much that was new, other than the demons were spending some time in the Economics section and the Agriculture section.

  “Predictable, perhaps,” said Prof T sagely. “They’re no doubt focusing on the economy of the area, and farming activities. I suspect that’s another indication that they’ve moved back here after a few centuries of being elsewhere.”

  “The ones who were visible took books out,” Dirk pointed out. “And the invisible ones simply read in the library itself, when no-one was around.”

  “Does anyone else ever look through this footage?” Liberty wanted to know.

  Brett shook his head. “Not as far as I know. There simply isn’t the time. I think the idea is that if there’s some disaster, the security guys or the police can check the footage. But otherwise – no. I think they even record over old footage.”

  “Well, I suppose everyone who comes in has to have a card,” said Dirk. “Hang on…”

  The others had the same thought at the same time.

  “I’ll check the records to see what details the demons gave on their cards,” said Brett. “But, y’know, Elmswood locals can apply for campus library cards. The demons could easily pretend to be ordinary citizens and supply a false name and address.”

  “Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t write ‘Abraxas Demon, Third Cave on the Left’,” Dirk muttered, making Liberty chortle.

  “Well, now we know a lot more than we knew before,” said Brett. “And I’m glad the rest of us got to see their human form. They’re much taller than the average person, so that makes it easier to spot them.”

  Liberty glanced over to see if Maxine agreed. But Maxine was fast asleep, her mouth open. Liberty shook her gently, hoping nobody else would notice. But her friend woke up with a gasp and a snuffle to find that everyone was staring at her with varying degrees of amusement.

  “Oh, great. I fell asleep, didn’t I?” she asked blearily.

  “Yes! Who knew demons were a cure for insomnia?” Liberty demanded, while Dirk snorted with laughter.

  “It was the whiskey,” Maxine told him. “Honestly. I’m not used to it.”

  “Time to go,” Liberty suggested. Brett and Dirk made agreeing noises. While the others got their things together, she had a word with Prof T.

  “Thanks for having us over again, Prof,” she said. “Do you think what we learned tonight was useful?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. Liberty saw that his eyes were shining with enthusiasm. “I think what we learned has been an enormous breakthrough. It’s so exciting, living in this age of technology. I’ve made careful notes of everything we saw tonight, and I think we – or some combination of us – need to do this once a week.”

  “You mean, we should meet and view footage every week?” asked Liberty, her heart sinking. Some part of her had hoped that the footage would prove, one way or the other, that authorities should be involved, meaning she could hand over responsibility to someone else and forget the fact that she ever laid eyes on a demon.

  “I think so,” said Prof T. Then, perhaps sensing her reluctance, he added, “If it suits everyone, of course. Perhaps you and Dirk could go through the camera footage by yourselves sometimes, or Dirk and Brett.”

  Liberty only nodded and smiled, then said goodbye.

  Meanwhile, the others had agreed they should all share a taxi to their respective homes. So there was no chance for Liberty to chat to Maxine, which she realized with some irritation she yearned to do, despite feeling worn out. Instead, she slumped in the corner, listening to her friend being teased by Dirk for falling asleep, and responding brightly.

  She wasn’t surprised to receive a text from Maxine ten minutes after arriving home.

  “Will u be ok tonight? Wow, Dirk is sooooo cute,” the latter had written.

  Too tired to reply at length, she simply tapped out, “Am ok, ta. Yes, Dirk is your type. Happy flirting!” before flopping into bed.

  The next morning, she thanked heavens for Prof Trelawney’s whiskey, because she’d slept dreamlessly for nine hours.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “So you really don’t mind if I flirt with your demon-buddy?” Maxine asked, digging into her pasta salad. She and Liberty
had arranged to meet for lunch in a sheltered spot near the Medical faculty, where Maxine was busy all day.

  Liberty snorted. “Demon-buddy! That’s a whole new category of relationship. No, I’m not bothered at all.” She meant it. She’d grown to trust and like Dirk more and more, but still found him annoying sometimes.

  “Oh good,” said Maxine. “What is that you’re eating?”

  “Cold veggie cottage pie,” Liberty said.

  “Shop bought?”

  “Naturally.”

  Maxine rolled her eyes. “You must come round for supper with me and Chloe. We’ll feed you healthy food.” Chloe was her roommate, whose dream was to be on MasterChef one day.

  Deciding not to bother defending her food, Liberty simply said, “That’d be great.”

  She could feel her friend’s eyes on her.

  “So, do you want to know what I think we should do, in the face of all this demon weirdness?” Maxine inquired.

  “What?”

  “Kick-boxing lessons.”

  There was a pause. Liberty considered the suggestion, head tilted to one side. Finally, she said, “Yeah.”

  “Really? Just like that?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve vaguely thought about it before. It’s a good idea.”

  Maxine put her fork down with a clatter. “I did not expect you to say yes. But that’s great! They’ve got beginners’ lessons on Mondays at 4pm. Can you make it?”

  “Today? Yip, can do. I’ll have to go to work at the pharmacy straight afterward, but it’s possible.”

  “Fantastic. We’ll get fit, we’ll get happy, we’ll learn to defend ourselves against… everything.”

  “Who’s not fit and happy?” Liberty asked indignantly.

  Maxine rolled her eyes. “Come on! We’re both stressed, you suffer from depression. And you keep bumping into Joel and Miss World…”

  Liberty grimaced. “That’s true. I saw them this morning. Miss World seemed to be wearing a fur coat.”

  “No!”

  “That’s what it looked like, anyway. And she and Joel had their arms draped around each other, as per usual… Yeah. Kick-boxing. Good idea.”

  At 4pm on the dot, the two women joined a small crowd in the sports hall. There, an instructor in her thirties introduced herself as Bridget, and led the class in a warm-up to music. Liberty pulled a face at Maxine at one point, when the intensity of the exercise increased. Soon, though, she was so busy learning her upper cuts from her jabs and punches that there was no time to communicate.

  When the class finished, Liberty had to wipe the sweat from her face.

  “You’ve gone red,” Maxine observed.

  “I know! You’re so lucky you’re black. I’m going to grow redder before I start cooling down,” Liberty said, taking deep breaths.

  “I can’t wait to go home for a shower.”

  “Well, I have to take my sweaty self to work now,” said Liberty, pulling a skirt over her leggings.

  “Eww.”

  “I know. Next time I think I’ll bring a complete change of clothing and run into a classroom to change.”

  “That shows how gross the showers are,” Maxine said. “We’d rather be sweaty, or change in a classroom, than use the showers here.”

  “That bad, is it?” asked Bridget, who’d overheard them.

  “Yeah,” Maxine nodded. “Really. Rather be sweaty.”

  Bridget laughed. “Okay, then!” She turned to pack up her things.

  “Wow, she has a strong body,” Liberty muttered to Maxine on their way out.

  “I know. She looks powerful, right? I want to look like that.”

  They headed outside into the cool evening air. Before Liberty headed off to work, she said, “Oh, Maxi, I was meant to tell you. Dirk and I are meeting on Thursday to view footage. Can you make Friday instead of Wednesday for the weekly meeting with the others?”

  “Yeah, that’s better for me than Wednesday. Lucky you, meeting with Dirk alone!”

  “Yes, yes,” said Liberty, rolling her eyes, then smiling wryly, “he’ll be at my flat if you want to ‘coincidentally’ pop in. Gotta run. See ya!” She hurried off, praying that her post-exercise flush would recede soon.

  Meanwhile, Maxine shouted after her, “So! Lucky!”

  As it turned out, Liberty was highly relieved to hear Maxine’s knock on her door that Thursday evening.

  “Hi! Come in,” she said, half-pulling her friend inside.

  “I was just passing by… Hey! Why are you man-handling me? Oh, hello Dirk,” Maxine said, sounding convincingly surprised to see Dirk sitting on Liberty’s couch.

  “Hi – she’s had a shock,” said Dirk, indicating Liberty. “So have I, actually.”

  “Why? What did you see this time?” Maxine was clearly only too pleased to sit next to Dirk and peer at the screen of his laptop.

  “The kettle boiled a minute ago. I’ll make tea for us,” said Liberty. The other two didn’t seem to hear her.

  The kitchenette was little more than part of the corridor that led around the corner from the living area to the front door. While she picked out mugs and retrieved milk from the fridge, she heard Dirk say to Maxine, “Well, the library cameras picked up something disturbing.”

  “You mean, apart from demons in trench-coats?”

  Dirk gave a “Huh!” of amusement. “Yes, apart from demons in trench-coats. Look here.”

  There was a pause, then Maxine said, “I can’t tell what’s happening there. Can you enlarge the… Oh, no.”

  Carrying mugs through to the lounge, Liberty was just in time to see Maxine clap her hand over her mouth as Dirk tapped on his keyboard.

  “He’s got a knife!” Maxine said to Liberty.

  “I know. Here’s your tea. Horrifying, right?”

  Liberty took another look at the image frozen on Dirk’s screen. It still made her shudder. One of the demons had obviously felt threatened when another library patron had approached him. The human – a woman, she and Dirk had guessed, though it wasn’t easy to see – appeared to speak briefly to the demon. At the same moment that the woman turned away from him to walk off in the opposite direction, the demon was slipping a knife from the left sleeve of his coat.

  “Luckily, we could zoom in on the knife because that side of his body was facing the camera,” Liberty pointed out. “We would’ve completely missed it, otherwise.”

  “I wonder what she said to him to make him react like that?” Maxine was fascinated.

  Obligingly, Dirk replayed the footage for her. “We guessed that it was something really innocuous. Look at their body language. You can imagine her saying something like, ‘Do you know where the Biology section is?’ But to the demon, she’s too close for comfort.”

  “Hey – I’ve just had a thought. He’s one of the visible demons. So why would he take out his knife when anyone might see him?” Maxine asked.

  “Ah, I forgot that invisibility was an option!” said Dirk, smacking his own forehead. “Maxine, if I rewind, you can tell us if he made himself visible from the time he was in the library, or not.”

  Ten minutes later, Liberty said, “Well, this demon is an anomaly. He’s the first one we’ve seen who starts off invisible, then becomes visible during his library visit.”

  “Wonder if that was intentional?” Dirk mused.

  “It’s not easy to see, but he does rear back when the woman first approaches him,” Maxine said. “I think he became visible without being conscious of it.”

  “That would explain the knife, maybe. He was startled,” Liberty guessed.

  Maxine groaned. “Oh, man! It’s not bad enough that there are demons wandering around campus; now we know there are demons with knives wandering around campus.”

  Dirk took his glasses off, polished them with his shirt, then put them back on. “What the hell are we meant to do about this?”

  Liberty shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Discuss it as a group tomorrow?” Maxine suggested.


  “Yeah. I guess we can’t do much more than that,” said Dirk.

  *

  The following night, the whole group gathered once more in Prof T’s house.

  Brett and Prof T looked grim after they received the latest news.

  “Well, we knew the demons weren’t hanging around to play Tiddly-Winks,” said Brett with a sigh, which struck the other students as comical enough to warrant a few guffaws.

  Even Prof T managed a wry smile. “I’ll pour,” he said. Again, no-one refused. He passed around the glasses, then poured a measure for each of his guests. As he did so, he said, “We need to put this in perspective. As Brett says, the demons alone are bad news. The fact that at least one is carrying a knife and seems quite prepared to use it – well, that’s alarming, but not earth-shattering. After all, there are probably one or two students on campus at any one time who are carrying weapons.”

  “True,” said Dirk. The others nodded, although Liberty couldn’t help thinking that students with pocketknives in their backpacks were not equivalent to demons carrying long knives.

  “I wonder if we need some kind of plan, though,” Brett started saying.

  Liberty didn’t hear the rest. She suddenly became aware that from several bags simultaneously came the sound of cell phones vibrating their message notifications. It had to be a message from the university – but at this time of day?

  Alarm prickling at the bag of her neck, vaguely aware that Maxine was saying something about it being time to alert the police, she slipped her phone out of its pocket in her backpack and took a look at the new message.

  “Guys!” Her shocked cry cut through the conversation. “There’s been some sort of violent incident in the library!”

  “Oh, no!” Prof T exclaimed. The others dived for their own phones to read for themselves.

  “This is bad,” said Maxine, having read the news. “And they expect us to keep away?” The university communication team, who had put the message out, had directed students to “leave the police to do their work”.

  “I think we need to go there,” said Dirk, getting to his feet.

  The others stood, too, grabbing belongings.