A special kind of shopping

Who: Dorian and Dylan
Where: Nevermore
When: Late morning

Dylan had put off his plans for as long as he could but even when he did finally set out, he still had a hangover and the snow was still there. He was from California and even if it wasn't always as sunny as people expected, he still wasn't used to things being this cold! He thought about not going but that would have been a wasted weekend; he had set Sunday aside for researching the new psychic abilities he was sure he had and with the werewolf attacks in the town, he felt like he needed to know about that sort of thing too. There had to be something in the lore to help the new changlings, it wasn't fair if hunters like his father were killing them for what they were when they never asked for it. There had to be something and he would be the one to find it!

Dylan was glad when he finally got to Nevermore. He had walked there from his house. At the time when he left, he had thought it was a good idea but by the time he got there, he had changed his mind. The bottom of his pants were wet and his fingers felt numb, even with the knitted gloves and the deep pockets of the oversized jacket he'd found in the back of his father's closet. He hadn't wanted to ask Nate to drive him, sure that his older brother probably had other plans or wanted to spend longer in bed sleeping off the effects of Kavin's party and he couldn't ask his dad. Frank hunted the supernatural, what if he figured out the reason his son was so fascinated in it was because he was one too?

Nevermore wasn't really what he had expected but then again, he hadn't given much thought to it really. He had seen the stand at the book faire and the guy was nice, it had been all he really needed to know. Plus it was warm! He pulled the door shut behind him and hugged the jacket tighter across his chest. Heat, heat was good and he hovered by the doorway until he could feel the warmth spreading back through his body. He hadn't even been sure if the store would be open but it was. There didn't seem to be any other customers though and he wondered if maybe it had only just opened or if it was a normal Sunday slowness.

When Dylan could feel the ends of his fingers again, he began to make his way through the store, to the counter. He had expected books but all of the different things caught his eyes too; Candles, and star charts and quills! Real ones with parchment, not just paper but the proper stuff like out of some medieval scene! He grinned as he thumbed across the ends then moved down, stopping in front of the tarot cards. He probably didn't have enough cash on him for a deck but he had been reading about them and the idea fascinated him. He picked up a packet and stared down at the pictures on the box. It was based around Greek mythology, something he knew very little about but he knew enough to know that the images were probably of Gods and Goddesses, Zues and Hades and whoever else there was. He was so caught up in looking that he didn't notice anybody approaching.

"Can I help you?" Dorian asked, stopping a few steps away with a cup of coffee in hand. Since the full moon, he'd been going about business as usual with the understanding that the store traffic might pick up a bit since the attacks. And if someone came in asking questions about werewolves, then more power to them. He'd done his part in thinning out the cursed wolves and planned to leave the rest alone, provided there were some. Dorian honestly hoped there were, which was a strange thought after what he had done. He knew it was right, though, and refused to second guess himself.

The sound of somebody behind him startled Dylan and he quickly set the cards back onto their shelf, perhaps a little too roughly. "Sorry," he said. His voice was rushed as he spun around on the heel of his sneaker but when he saw it was only the guy from the book faire, he relaxed a little. He might have only known Dorian for the few minutes they'd talked but he felt better about the guy than some other worker hovering around and finding ten new ways to ask can I help you? Once was enough but it was worse when they didn't actually know how to help even after you'd tried to explain it. At least Dorian hadn't been like that when they'd met last time.

Dylan turned back to make sure he'd put the packet of tarot cards in their correct spot before he looked at the man again. He studied him for a moment, taking his time to phrase his questions before he asked them. "Um, yeah, maybe. We met at the faire thing and you said if I stopped by then you might be able to help me look up other books about mind powers and, um..." He paused to step closer and leaned in as if it were a secret. "Psychic things, you know? And I need things on, uh, werewolves too. It's all for my dad, he's still writing a book about that stuff."

Dorian remembered him, especially when he brought up his dad again and the idea of doing research for a book. Unless his father was attempting to write a non-fiction werewolf book-- which generally meant the man didn't need written research-- then having factual information about werewolves was useless. Dorian played along, though, since the kid seemed so determined to keep up a facade. "Yeah, I've got 'em," Dorian said, gesturing for Dylan to follow him to the back of the store. There the shelves circled around a sitting area, with two small tables and chairs. "The books back here aren't for sale," Dorian explained, "but you can stay and read them, or I can check them out to you, like a library."

As he let Dylan look around, Dorian began pulling a few books off the book shelves, carefully selecting the ones that he felt might be most appropriate. "Werewolves and what kind of psychic things again?" he asked, looking over at Dylan. He remembered their conversation, just not the specifics.

Dylan followed after Dorian to the back of the store and his eyes scanned across the shelves. He always felt weird when he walked into book stores and found people gathered around and reading things they hadn't paid for so he didn't actually pick one up until the man said he could. He wandered his way down the shelves and chose one at random, a hardcover one that felt heavy and old in his hands. The cover didn't seem to give much away but he opened it somewhere in the middle, read a couple of sentences then skipped a bunch of pages to the next chapter.

The book seemed be about various European myths. His eyes skimmed across the page he had opened to, this page was about banshees. He frowned though, pausing on an artist's interpretation of one. He had seen it before but not in any sort of book. The banshee was an old woman who knelt by a lake in a forest of green. Her cloak and her greying hair obscured her face until it was nothing but shadows and the details of her hands, of the bloodied clothes she was washing, were nothing but a couple of brief pencil lines to imply the things she held. It wasn't exactly what Dylan had seen in his kitchen but it was impossibly close to the memory. He stared at the image he held in hands that felt weaker now. The knuckles clasped at the spine of the book so hard that they were probably white and he bit down hard onto his bottom lip. It was her, alright. It was his monster.

He snapped the book shut with his finger on the page and hurried over to where Dorian stood, adjusting at the different shelves. "Clairvoyance, I saw my brother in dreams before I met him." He answered Dorian's question without thinking but his mind wasn't on that anymore. He didn't even care about keeping the charade of his author father up either. Instead, he opened the book back to the page and held it in front of the shopkeeper. "This, I need this book." He pointed at the drawing of the hagged woman. "What is she? It says she's from Ireland but could they come here, like if the family was or something? It says she just warns families of someone dying but she could kill them too, right? If she wanted, she could do it."

It was far easier for Dorian to pull the right books now that he had something to work off of. In the moments between Dylan entering the store and Dorian showing him to the back, Dylan had apparently decided to let Dorian in on his secret, or else had slipped up without realizing it. Dorian didn't care; it just made his job easier. He'd rather not dance around the truth, even if he understood Dylan's need to keep his secret a secret. It just seemed stupid when Dorian knew he was being lied to. Kids didn't do research for their parent's upcoming novel, definitely not by running up to the nearest supernatural bookstore.

"You can rent it out, if you want," Dorian offered as he pulled the best book he could find on Clairvoyance. As Dylan's questions went on, Dorian stopped to examine the page, his eyes scanning over the information before he answered. This was the sort of thing he was familiar with, mostly due to the folklore being so commonly known. "She's a Banshee. A faerie that can be seen as an omen of death or a messenger from the underworld. Or the beyond. Or whatever you wanna call it. Banshee is the Irish name for her, but she wouldn't be restricted to Ireland. According to tradition, the banshee can only cry five major Irish families, but that's been extended over time. This form," Dorian said, pointing to the picture, "is called the bean-nighe, since she is washing the clothes of someone who is about to die."

Dorian decided not to say that seeing a banshee didn't relate to clairvoyance, since he had the idea that these were two unrelated interests. They were two different types of predictors, and one could see a banshee without any sort of psychic abilities whatsoever. "You can also read up on 'em here, if you want," Dorian said, setting the other book on the table. "I'll do my best to answer any questions." He'd be better with the psychic abilities, if only because he had one himself, but Irish folklore was always an interesting subject.

He'd done it. He was sure he'd found the creature that killed his mother. It had tortured her, ripped the flesh away and ate it but he was sure he'd found it. His memory of the late afternoon murder had become hazy as his mind tried to block it out and he couldn't remember if his monster wore a cloak or not but... Well, he was sure it was the same one. He hoped so anyway. Could those things on the page kill? He had to know.

"Do they do anything else? Like, she's washing bloody clothes so... What happened, did she kill the dude or what?" He looked up at Dorian and suddenly wasn't so sure if it was the same creature. The doubt clenched into a tight ball that squeezed in his stomach. He didn't want to be wrong about this. He wanted to find the creature so desperately, wanted to at least know what he was supposed to look for so he could get revenge. Frank would have teach him but he'd be ready to kill the bastard when he found it. Still, maybe this wasn't it. His monster had left his mother's torn and bloodied clothes and this one hadn't.

Dylan gave a small sigh and closed the book, his thumb marking the page anyway. "It's not it," he announced sadly. He looked up at Dorian and shook the hair out of his eyes. "I'm not even Irish at all."

"Um, well, it depends," Dorian said. "Are you asking about the legend or the real life application? As far as the legend goes, she's the omen, not the actual death wish. She predicts death, but she doesn't cause it. But if she were real," Dorian added, believing that she very well might be, "then she'd probably have free will as well. With that in mind, she could kill, but it wouldn't be dependent on what she is." That was how Dorian saw things, but he could always be wrong. Fae were fickle creatures in his experience and one of the least likely to do what was expected of them.

"You can rent the book anyways, if you're not sure it's what you're looking for," Dorian suggested. "Photocopy the pages you want, then return it." He didn't know what this all applied to, but it didn't sound good from what he was saying. If the boy thought he'd seen a banshee kill someone, well... Dorian really wasn't sure what to tell him. It wasn't like you could take something like that to the police, and Dorian suspected the banshee didn't give a shit if Dylan was Irish or not.

Dylan shook his head as he listened to what Dorian was saying. It was so close but it wasn't the right sort of creature. Now that he looked closer, the picture wasn't exactly as it was in his head and there were other signs it was probably the wrong monster. Even if it did have free will like Dorian suspected, anybody had the potential to kill. It took a cold-blooded monster to be able to peel and devour the flesh of a suburban mother who would never hurt anybody. That heartlessness would be clear too. People would know and it would be for sure, it wouldn't just be a 'maybe but I don't know' theory passed out as fact. He closed the book and handed it back to Dorian with another shake of his head. "No, it's okay. It's not the one I'm looking for. I'll just take the other books and something about werewolves too please."

Dorian nodded, taking the book back from Dylan. "You can rent out the books on psychics and clairvoyance for as long as you want, but I'm gonna need you to have the book on werewolves back by the end of the week," Dorian said. Werewolves were in high demand in Marquette and he could only imagine why. Anyone with a brain wanted to make sure they knew what they were dealing with. "Does that work for you?"

Dylan gave the shopkeeper a firm nod and smiled. "I'm a slow reader but I'll get my brother to read it to me or something." Or not, he didn't want Nate knowing what he was looking up. Sure he had said he had the same thing the night before but then he'd gotten weird about it and acted like he hadn't know what they'd talked about a moment later. He pushed the thought away and asked, "How much do I owe you?"

"That'll be twenty-five dollars then. Ten for those two, plus five for the werewolf, since the time is cut down," Dorian said. The books were worth far more than that, so it was an awesome deal. If Dylan had been looking to actually buy them, Dorian would have been impressed if he could afford one. "And can I get your name, address, and phone number here?" Dorian said, turning a book to face Dylan. "I won't be contacting you unless you don't bring the books back." At which point, Dorian would find him.

Dylan shoved his hand into his pocket to pull out the cash he'd borrowed from his dad that morning. He didn't have much but it was enough. He unfolded a couple of the notes and handed enough of them over to Dorian. "Most libraries don't make you pay," he joked but this wasn't like 'most' libraries. They wouldn't even carry this sort of thing so where else could he go? He headed back towards the counter and turned over one of the store's business cards, ready to write down his details. "It's cool though, got a pen?"

"Think of it like a video store then," Dorian smiled. Most libraries were supported by the city, or a university, or the public in some way. Dorian wasn't officially running a library, so he had to make money somehow. Plus, the books he had in his store had been hard to track down, rare books in small numbers, and he doubted there was a public library in the states that carried anything of that sort. "Here you go," Dorian said, handing him a pen as he jotted down which books Dylan was borrowing and when.

Dylan took the pen and wrote down his address and phone number. Although he tried to be neat about it, his version of 'neat' wasn't all that good. While it was readable and printed legibly enough, a couple of the letters on the street name were reversed around. Still, it was more readable than the quick text messages he usually fired off without reading back over them and checking to make sure they were okay. He handed the paper back to Dorian and reached out to carefully take the top book, the one about werewolves. He opened it up and looked at one of the very detailed artist's impressions of the beast. It was half a man with the legs still turned into a huge dog. He shivered a little, closed it, and added it back to the other books. "If you call and an old man answers, don't tell him what it's about. He'll just get mad." Nevermind that he'd said his dad was the one he was researching for, but Dylan never had been very good at lying. "You won't need to call though, I'll have them back in time. Thanks, man."

"Anytime," Dorian smiled. "Thanks for dropping by." It was nice to know that there was follow up from the people he'd met at the college book sale. He hadn't been all that sure it was worth his time, but it turned out a number of customers had heard of Nevermore from that event. Plus, the trouble with werewolves had more people interested in knowing what was out there, if someone had clued them in on what was really going on. He had to wonder how many more would be in asking for that book before the week was through.