“Alex!”

  A voice breaks into her subconscious, wrenching her from the little safe haven in her mind. A safe haven where Akio is still alive.

  She blinks to find Chris squatting at eye level, another quick scrutiny puts her at the exact same spot on the floor with Akio's head still cradled in her arms. She sees Akio's pale body and makes a little noise in her throat.

  “Alex!” Chris' hands on her shoulders shake her violently. She finally meets his eyes. “You gotta clean up. I left the kids in the car, couldn't bring them in to see this.” He carefully extricates Alex from the body, who seems to be more perfunctory than usual.

  “Akio's not alright.” Alex says completely zombified. Her body pliant as Chris pries her off the floor and heads her upstairs to her room. “I shouldn't leave him.” She protests weakly.

  “Hey.” Chris stops in front of her room door, and addresses her softly. “You'll get cleaned up first, I'll sort out the living room, and then you'll tell me every last detail of what happened, okay?”

  “Okay.” She agrees. Chris giving her shoulder one last squeeze, before heading back downstairs.

  Thud!

  The large tome lands on a rather expensive mahogany desk, scattering dust in the air.

  A coughing fit follows, a hand batting furiously at the thick dust cloud the thing seems to have generated.

  “You didn't think to clean it?” The owner of the hand growls.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  A scowling young man steps into the field of vision. Brunet, rugged but good looking. “Don't you dare give me grief, Viktor. You have no idea what I went through to track this thing down and get it.” The man complains.

  Viktor eyes the man with a particular viciousness before saying, “Stealing is your favorite past time. If you're not even good at that, why the hell do I keep you around?” He grabs for the tome, exerting an unnecessary amount of violence to simply flip through the pages.

  “Careful with that!” The brunet warns. “I had to off a guy for that fucking bible.”

  Viktor abandons his thorough examination to massage the growing headache in his temple. “You were asked to retrieve, Erik. How do you kill someone in a house you claim was empty?” Viktor asks exasperatingly.

  Erik shrugs, “They came home early.”

  Viktor casts his eyes heavenward, soliciting a higher power for strength, before returning to the tome.

  An ancient relic rumored to be the measuring stick for practicing Warlocks back in the day, and just the answer to his current dilemma. His Father had given his life in search of the damn thing, just like his father before him.

  Pity there would be no one of importance to celebrate his occultic takeover now that even his mother was dead.

  “--and then I find out that the car is registered to some old timer named Chris Jordan or something--” Erik rambles on.

  Viktor shakes his head in disappointment, wishing he could slit the idiot's throat and be done with it.

  “--some funny Japanese name, Akio I think--”

  That catches his attention. “What?” He asks.

  “The guy I shot? The girl in the house called him that. 'Akio'.” Erik says.

  Viktor closes his eyes in silent prayer to anything unoccupied at the moment capable of answering prayers, and he flips to the first page of the book, opening it to find the very same name scrawled in ancient ink on the page.

  He slams the tome shut, the sound causing Erik to flinch and begin a new barrage of complaints, Viktor types rapid fire on his phone.

  A couple of hectic seconds later the search results come up, and he thrusts the phone into Erik's view.

  “Please tell me this isn't who you shot?” He begs.

  Erik squints, before nodding, “Yea, that's exactly the dude!” He grabs the phone from Viktor and enlarges the photo next to it. “And this is the girl too.” He zooms in on a photo of Alex.

  Viktor stares slack jawed at the phone, then Erik, his face crumbling in regret, before finally steeling in anger. “I knew I should have fucking killed you when I had the chance.