Wolf Knight

Wolf Knight by Nicholas J. Hale

“I don’t let people stand and read the merchandise all day, lady, but, for one as charming as you, I’ll let it go if you agree to go out with me.”
The red-headed young woman looked up from the half-burned volume of indefinite interest. She leaned over the counter seductively making sure to cover up the half-disgusted look in her eye. The pale, greasy store owner leaned over with a crooked smile that showed his discolored teeth past his badly matted goatee and mustache. His beady eyes appeared ten times too large for any human, but they looked at her hungrily hoping for a tempting offer.
“Josh” She whispered in the most seductive, soothing, and caring voice that ever came out of her mouth. “How many times do I have to say ‘no’ before you finally let it slip through your ears. And as for the ‘no sit and read’ policy, you know that doesn’t apply to either me or my employer. We have paid enough money for your overpriced books that we could own this store. But, if little ol’ me examining a potential buy is worth jeopardizing a nearly million dollar investment, then I won’t stand in your way. I’ll conclude my business and inform my employer that I will start searching for another source for his collection.”
“Hold it, Alexandria. You know that I am truly astounded by your attitude and intelligence. You can’t fault a man for trying to pursue such a ravaging creature such as yourself.”
“Josh, I appreciate the compliment. However, your remedial line is a little too internet and does not have enough true compaction. And, now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave. This is for the book.” She said as she laid a check down on the counter. The young woman flung her large saddle bag over her shoulder and walked out of the dusty antique store.
As she strode down the sidewalk, she looked as if she would be more comfortable in a rave than in this old time store in London. Her hair was flowing freely through the wind with her snug gothic clothes clinging to her, keeping equal stride with her high heel black leather boots. She hailed a taxi and was on her way.
A half hour later, Alexandria walked right up to the doors of a richly built double skyscraper in the heart of Greenwich. As she stepped through the large glass doors, a few bystanders openly stared at her. She disregarded them and moved on. She moved up to the main desk, shuffling through her bag ignoring what was going on around her. A young black man of average build in a security uniform stepped in front of her and blocked her way. He looked ex-military or possibly just a very serious, formal man. She stopped abruptly in front of him, without looking up at his stern expression, and pulled out a laminated I.D. badge with her face and name.
“Mrs. Sky, is it?”
“Let her go, Tim. She is a special employee.” An older man stepped out from behind the high countered desk and nodded toward the young woman. She glanced up at him and smiled, continuing on her way. “Easy, young buck. You try to get in her way, she’ll fix ya good.”
The younger security officer walked back over to his station and continued his business, glancing over his shoulder at the obvious out of place young woman.

Alexandria walked toward the elevator, stepping through the crowd that was exiting in a rush. She pulled out another card and inserted it into a card reader at the top of the keypad. The elevator closed and began to rise up through the levels. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened up to a large corridor of glass walled rooms. Several of the rooms were filled with volumes of books and miscellaneous parchments that looked as if they were over centuries old. She walked down the hallway and stepped up to a room on the left. Walking through the open door, she pulled her new purchase out of her bag and set it on the long glass table next to an impressive mountain of books already containing post-it notes throughout the pages. She set her bag in a nearby chair and sat down at the table.
She pulled open a drawer to remove a large fresh note pad and a pack of multi-colored pens. As she pulled her new text toward her, she pulled an audio recording device from a rack above her head. She turned it on as she opened the cover of her new find.
With a bright blue pen, she began to write on her fresh notepad with an eager hand.
“Okay, let’s get cracking. Subject appears over 100 or so years due to fading and stains. I’ll do a carbon dating to be certain. But, first glance, it looks a little to worn to be of any value. Moving on, binding seems to be made of tough leather skins and the language is definitely some form of German. I’ll begin the translation in the morning to try to specify the base term. Key phrases and names as of right now are: Nikolaus Van Stiewing, Postdam, Germany, and the folklore of that region.”
She cut off the recorder, stood up from her desk and walked over to her bag. She pulled out a small address book and returned to her desk. After she laid the small book on her desk, she moved over to a table opposite her and picked up a small tray that had a scalpel and tweezers and a rack of beakers. She carried the tray back over to the desk and then taking the tweezers and the scalpel pulled on the spine of the book to cut a small piece from the inside of the book spine. As she pushed the scalpel to slice a piece she heard the distinct sound of metal cutting metal.
“What the hell?” She began to scrape the metal slightly and then she could see clearly that it was in fact a metal object pressed and sealed into the spine of the book. “What the bloody hell are you?” She pulled for the recorder again and turned it on. “ I attempted to cut paper for carbon dating only to discover a metallic object sealed into the spine of the book. I’ll have to clear it with Mr. Lockheart to see if I can cut through the spine and find out what the object is. Further inspection shows that there is an imprint on the back cover and the front cover. I can’t tell if the symbols are identical or not.”
She got up from her desk and walked out of the room and across the hall to a room built like a laboratory with different colored chemicals and other instruments. She pulled an empty tray and placed four different chemicals on it and four plain clothes. She picked up the tray and walked back to her desk. She dampened a cloth with a clear pungent liquid and slowly wiped the front cover in a circular motion. With each stroke of her cloth, the symbol on the cover appeared more clearly. She continued until she could tell what it was.
“The symbol on the front appears to be two wolves or dogs circling a sphere of some sort. It could be the moon or the earth. There also appears to be a symbol in the middle of the sphere.” Alexandria reached for a large magnifier that is attached to her desk and began to look very closely at the symbol. “It appears to be a crown. The entirety of the symbol seems to be surrounded by a shield. What does this symbol stand for? And where is it used to this day?”
She began to wipe down the back inside cover with a different cloth dampened with a light blue liquid. As she was wiping the imprint in the same circular motion, she didn’t notice the approach of an older man.
“Alexandria, you have a new discovery for me?” he said as he walked in. He carried himself as if he was a man of natural stature and pride and spoke with a strong British accent.

“Mr. Lockhart, I didn’t see you there. Um... Yes I picked this up today. It is damaged but the part that is intact appears to be a journal of a Lycanthrope by the name of Nikolaus Van Stiewing. I dated the book it’s over a hundred years old and I discovered an odd object in the spine of the book and with you permission I wish to remove it?”
“Of course. Do you think that this could be the journal of a true werewolf?”
“Mr. Lockhart, I can’t say for certain. I still think I need to check and double check. But, first.” Alexandria picked up a scalpel and began to cut down the back of the spine of the book. When she finished she laid the scalpel back down and picked up two sets of tongs and used them to separate the spine where she cut through. As she separated the aged leather, she was surprised at what she was saw laying in the spine. Glued into the spine of the book was an old-fashioned key. “What the hell is that for?”
“I would say to open a lock.”said Mr. Lockhart with a little grin on his face.
“You know, sir, don’t take this as a insult but you can be a real smart ass.”
“Well, from anyone else, I would, but from you, Ms. Sky, I take it as the highest of compliments. Now, is there anything else that you need to examine before you fill me in on the details of this remarkable find or do I need to come back later?”
“Of course, I’ll explain. I found this book at Josh’s Ancient Text today. It appears to be a diary but the only problem is that it has been burned approximately a third of the way in. There is nothing past that. I can’t figure out what happened to the writer of this text. However...” Alexandria rose and moved over toward her bag. “...I had the paper and the cover tested. I am waiting for the results. I also found a imprint on the front cover. It appears to be two wolves circling a crescent moon with a crown in the center of it and it is completely surrounded by a shield. I already scanned it and I am waiting for the computer to see what matches it comes up with, if any. With any luck, we might actually have found the oldest known text dealing with the supernatural werewolves and vampires.”
“Or, even better, we might even find an actual werewolf or vampire.”
“Mr. Lockhart, I must apologize for this, but, once again, I must point out that if there were werewolves or vampires, wouldn’t there be some evidence that they truly existed?”
“My dear Alexandria, the dark world has been at this since the dawn of creation. They know how to cover their tracks better then anything else. In the old world, men didn’t care if someone was dead. But, now with news and police detectives, they need to cover their tracks by making the kills look like a mugging or a robbery. Even a missing persons, if they turned someone. But, they are careful in their dealings; never to let the world of men know of their existence.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then aren’t you taking a very big risk? I mean, if they cover their tracks, then won’t they come after you if you get too close? or, more importantly, won’t they come after me?”
“Alexandria, it’ll be okay. Unless we get in their way, they won’t know.”
“Okay. So, if there is such a thing, then you want me to close my eyes and hope they don’t notice me?”

“Alexandria, did anyone ever tell you that you have the uncanny ability to boil the most intellectual statement down to the most basic grunt? But, yes, I guess, that is the approach that I want you to take.” Mr. Lockhart, looking weary, walked over to a chair and sat down to rest his legs. She removed her bag from its place in the chair, sat down and propped her feet up on the glass-topped desk. With the ancient volume in her hand, she began to stare at the symbol with a type of longing in her eyes. That deep within her soul she wanted more than anything to find out that the writer of this ancient journal was a true werewolf. But, if Mr. Lockhart knew, he might watch her more closely or ask some questions that she couldn’t explain. Like that she knew in her heart that this journal was true and that there are werewolves in this world and, somehow in her dreams, she was connected to them. She knew it in her heart, but that was crazy. There were no such things as werewolves. There couldn’t be, could there?
“Well, Mr. Lockhart, it’s been a long day. It will take about four to six hours till the test results come back. The searches are complete; so, if you don’t mind, I’m going home and getting some rest.”
Alexandria placed the ancient volume in her bag and threw it over her shoulder on her way out of the door. Mr. Lockhart just looked at her as if he realized that he just won the lottery.
“Soon.” he whispered to himself as she made her way to the elevator.
Walking to the elevator, Alexandria realized that she wasn’t tired at all. It was just the fact that she had to get out of there. She had to go home and soon. Once inside the elevator, she began to press the ground floor rapidly hoping it would move faster. As the lift began to move slowly toward the main lobby, she checked her watch. She almost couldn’t believe that she had been up there for over four hours. The sun had set and the sky was covered with the usual smog-filled clouds. It was the expected weather in the fall. The weather was cold enough. Coal mining was at its highest; therefore, coal dust covered the sky. The night was as black as pitch. The stars and moon were covered up as if they were scared of the city. As Alexandria left the building, she looked around and began to flag down a cab. As she saw cabs pass her by, she just didn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop.
“Can I help you, miss?” Alexandria turned to see a young dark haired woman with an interesting accent.
“Um.. I don’t think so. They don’t seem to be stopping.”
“It is all in how you get there attention.”
The dark haired woman saw a cab drive down the road. She walked in the middle of the path of the car and stood there. The cab’s horn blared and screeched to a halt within inches of the woman.
“Ow, what the bloody hell do you think your doing?! Are you mad?! Have you lost your sodding mind?!” the driver screamed at her as he leaned out of the driver’s window.
“Go on and get in.” the woman said to Alexandria, completely ignoring the cabby.
Alexandria walked to the cab, staring at the dark haired woman and had a look of surprise on her face. The bulky man turned to Alexandria, with frustration clear on his face, as she got into the cab.
“Your friend’s gone off her bin, you know that, don’t you?”
“Actually I have no idea who she is. She just came out and told me that she would get me a cab.”
“Well, she’s still a bloody loon. Anyway, where to, miss?”
“Flat 35 on Winchester Ave.”
The dark-haired woman moved out of the cab’s direct path and strolled up to the side of the cab. Alexandria felt very nervous as the woman moved toward her, as if there was something completely unnatural about her. Something inside her was screaming at her to run away and quickly.
“I told you. All you had to do was get their attention.”
“Thank you, very much.” she replied quietly.

The woman stood and turned away and the cab pulled away, carrying Alexandria home. Alexandria turned to see if the dark woman was still standing there. She gazed at the woman, the distance between them increasing. Her last glance was of the woman walking into her employer’s building.
“Damn!”
“Miss?”
“Nothing. Just keep going.” Alexandria pulled out her bright pink and blue cell phone and dialed Mr. Lockhart’s office phone quickly. “Pick up. Pick up.”
With each ring, her heart fell deeper into a pit of despair. In her heart, she knew that woman was a vampire. But, that was impossible, there weren’t any vampires and even if there were, then why would they go after him? It’s not like they know what they have or what they were doing.
“Hello?” her heart leaped into her throat when she heard his voice. She knew she overreacted and that he was safe.
“Mr. Lockhart I just wanted to let you know that there was a woman entering the building. I had a funny feeling about her and she looked as if she was possibly on her way to your office.”
“Alexandria, calm down. If you’re afraid that she is here to harm me, then rest easy. Vampires can’t enter without an invitation by the one who lives here. And, besides, they don’t know of our plans. So stay calm. Now, good night and sleep easy.”
She realized that he was right. He would know the rules of these supernatural creatures. Hell, he spent most of his life trying to track them down. And as the next words came out of her mouth, she knew she would be able to sleep with ease. “Sorry, Mr. Lockhart. I didn’t mean to bother you. Good night.”
As she put up her phone, she felt a wave of relief go across her. However, she still had that nagging feeling that if she wasn’t going there to see Mr.Lockhart, then what? As she started to relax, the cab pulled up to her home.