[ WP ] Readers use the oddest things as bookmarks . You find just such an odd thing in a secondhand book , and ...

As Alia made her way through the crowded bookshelves of Gould ’ s Emporium, she inhaled deeply, its particular musk calming her. It was the scent of old paperbacks, two for the dollar; the perfume of aged tomes with cracked leather binding, “ one of a kind, ” the equally aged proprietor would say. Old textbooks caused shelves to sag under the weight of their combined knowledge; biographies of people once famous now piled in the corner gathering dust. 
 
 The shop was only small, though contained more books then Alia had ever seen in one place. The rows of shelves rose from the creaking floorboards to the chipped plaster ceiling, any natural light that made it through the grimy windows was quickly lost amongst the labyrinthine library. Rows of outdated incandescent lights hung from their wires, illuminating their small section of shelf. 
 
 At the end of one of the rows, an old bookshelf, unlike the rest, stood. The light above flickered temperamentally, briefly illuminating the intricate woodwork of the odd shelf. Even in while lit, the wood was almost black, the figured carved into its sides too hard to distinguish in the dim light. On this bookshelf lay only one book - an unremarkable book by the standards of Gould ’ s Emporium – leather bound, old parchment, no title on its cover. A single rune was embossed on the spine, though Alia didn ’ t recognise it. As she approached the bookshelf and it ’ s book, she felt a peculiar sense of unease, one she had never felt while in the walls of her beloved bookstore. She rebelled against the feeling, and curiosity drew her closer to the book. Her stack of books she had been looking at lay forgotten on another shelf as she picked up the strange book. It was heavier than it looked, the pages made of thick parchment. She opened it – a page had already been marked by the previous owner no doubt. The page was filled with handwritten passages in different languages: one was Latin, another Alia recognised as Greek, the rest remained a mystery to her. What struck her as even stranger was the object that had been used as a bookmark – it was a long, thin piece of metal marked with strange runes, like the one on the cover. The metal was so dark it was almost black and was shaped like a blade, though there was no clear indication as to which end was the hilt and which the blade. Studying the strange runes, she soon realised that a paragraph on the marked page was written entirely in the strange runes. Directly underneath, in Latin, was another paragraph, about the same length that Alia could only assume was a translation. She began to read aloud: “ Qui vult vocare diaboli... ” 
 She picked up the blade obscuring the rest of the line, accidently cutting herself on the cold razor. It seemed the blade was sharp along its entire edge. A single drop of blood fell onto the page as she continued reading. 
 The lights along the entire row of shelves began flickering, the Alia ’ s surroundings grew cold and dark. She looked up from the page, and realised she was not alone. 

