4. Library Demon

            I parked my mother’s van in front of a Starbucks and tried to adopt my best ‘this isn’t actually my van’ face as I walked past a group of baristas on break smoking in the parking lot.  Unfortunately, this attempted façade ruined my ‘this isn’t actually my purse’ face, and the smoking servers eyed my laptop SATCHEL with distinct derision.  I scrubbed the blush from my face with the thought that they were just measly Starbucks employees then reapplied it when I saw the ‘Now Hiring’ sign on the front door and considered that I should probably take an application.

            But I didn’t.  Instead I did a bit of quick Nick recon, scouring the establishment to ensure that I looked more like a Coppola than anyone else in the place, and once satisfied, I made my way to the counter to order a cappuccino.  I’d like to call special attention to the fact that I did NOT put my bag down at a table, claiming it as my own before going to get a drink, and I’ll further clarify that my aversion to this order of events stems not from a fear of theft, but rather from an awareness of the rudeness of staking out space before you actually need it.  It’s the kind of thing Nicholas Cages do.  And the kind of thing I did before Daisy explained to me how rude it is.

            So I spent the next minute eying the corner table that would afford me the most privacy and the best view of the door, while crossing my fingers and hoping no one else took it.  When my drink arrived I hoisted it quickly and over-excessively (redundant, I know, but the foamy froth in cappuccinos makes them far lighter than they look, and the fact that my muscles can’t remember this makes it doubly embarrassing) spilling a bit of steaming steamed milk down my hand and yelping as I double-timed it to my table of choice, barely beating out some squirrelly Sorority girl who hadn’t ordered a drink yet. Win!

            I stared at the girl extra hard as she ordered – presumably a Kappaccino – just to be sure that she wasn’t too Cagey, then I gave an apologetic glance to the middle-aged mother of two (at least) shaking her head at me from in line behind the girl.  Then I buried my face in shame behind my laptop, and after a moment I decided that while I was there, I might as well set to doing what I had come here for in the first place.

            So I drank some coffee.  Which scalded my lip.  So to put that off, I figured I might as well do some research.

            It didn’t take long before I’d e-spiraled into a series of articles, all published through a Wikipedia-esque site called Hubworks, that essentially categorized ‘face-shifters’ – yes that was my first search keyword, but no it was not my last, and yes I jumped after typing in ‘switch faces’ and Nick pics came up – into three different groups.  I figured that even though the mall girl and traffic guy easily qualified as dickheads, it was safe to assume that they were not futuristic undercover agents from a Philip K. story.  And I found it even less likely that they were Tim Curry’s acting career.  This left only one other option.

            They were demons.  According to Hubworks.

            I know what you’re thinking.  I skipped a possibility.  What if Nicholas Cage actually has Mystique’s X-power?  Or what if Mystique uses Nicholas Cage as her default setting?  Just read that out loud and think about how ridiculous it sounds.  Because let’s be honest, sometimes movies do get the casting right.  If someone out there could constantly shift faces, but they wanted to have a default to go back to, they would probably settle on something like Jennifer Lawrence.

            Anyway, demons. 

OK, Hubworks, I believe it.  I’ve never been particularly religious, but lacking a better explanation, I suppose I can accept yours.  Now, what does that mean?  What are demons?  What do they do?  What do they want?  How can I kill them and/or persuade them to be nice to me?

            Well… Hubworks had answers:

            Demons are fallen angels, who now reside on Earth and attempt to sway the souls of men (and presumably women) towards evil in order to tip the global balance in favor of their dark lord Satan.  They manifest in the form of swirling gaseous clouds, large-dicked goat creatures, serpents or serpent-like mammals, whores, and of course seemingly everyday people with shifting faces.

            They are a human personification of an alien race that seeded our planet in the distant future and has since then been working backwards through time, and who appear in their distinctive red-skinned horned appearance because of human anticipations of the end-times that marked their arrival.

            They are really just normal people whose minds have become twisted by biological perversions and whose willpower is strong enough but rationale weak enough that they have since adopted the ability to physically manifest these psychological problems.  They believe that they are doing good in the Aristotelian sense, but because of their warped perception, most of their behavior operates directly in the face of conventional moral norms.

            They want to steal your soul, fuck your wife, sway you towards evil, drag you down into hell, lift you up into their ship, assume control of your body, fill you with dissatisfaction, eat your innards and paint their homes with your entrails, murder your pets, scare you into eventual suicide, recruit you to their demonic legion and imbue you with a sense of perpetual sexual insecurity, and allegedly they also want you to have a lot of fun.

            Which is to say, that no one seems to have a clear idea of what the fuck they are or what the fuck they want.  At least the internet doesn’t, but when does the internet ever have a clear stance on any confused issue?  Never.

            I did however notice an interesting trend.  Three of the articles I read were written by the same man (or by three men who all shared a name), but the three articles were wildly different in their explanations of demonic behavior and categorization.  Apparently one Daniel Tiernan personally witnessed a demon transform into a snake and crawl down Al Gore’s throat shortly before filming of An Inconvenient Truth.  A second investigated an archaeological dig and discovered that demons are all the result of Ancient Egyptian rituals and were released by tomb raiders to now roam the Earth as dangerous (and unsanitary) clouds of dust and ash – I’d have to check with Daisy about that one.  The third Daniel Tiernan was apparently consulted in his sleep by Satan himself and asked to join the ranks of demons (all of whom are human) who wage his unholy war on Earth.

            Daniel Tiernan was not to be trusted.  And neither was Heather Williams, who had both been warned by Jesus about the power of demons and been abducted by them into their floating space cave.  John Vicari’s considerably more academic recounting of no less than six diametrically opposed demonic explanations were equally incredible (in both senses of the word).

            This struck me as baffling.  I mean, the internet is almost always misleading, and often deliberately so, but for these people to write articles that directly contradicted themselves… it just didn’t make sense.  But then, neither did reverse turn signaling.  Or stealing un-activated gift cards.  Or matching the speed of a right-lane driver.  Or switching clothing on the hangers.  Why would people do such a thing?  Unless…

            They weren’t people.

            So, for the moment I figured I would assume that the authors were demons.  And if they were, it should certainly have been no surprise to me that the internet was rife with them.  Hell, at a few clicks of a button you can find Nicholas Cage ad infinitum.  Rule 35: If it exists, Nicholas Cage’s face has been photoshopped onto it.

            Would you go to a KKK meeting for a biased and helpful view of their true motives?  Unless you were Hunter S. Thompson, Timothy Treadwell, or apparently Daniel Tiernan, no… you wouldn’t.  So why trust this digital demon den for my face-shifting fact-finding?

            Thirty minutes and one paternal recommendation on research methods later, I was on my way to the library when I realized that I had no idea where a library is, because, who does these days?

            Not wanting to waste data, I pulled into another Starbucks and – I should explain: I cancelled our internet, without telling Daisy, in order to save money to buy her a necklace and/or American Eagle a new changing room mirror.  I figured I’d reactivate our service well before she got back – bought myself another cappuccino so that I wouldn’t look like one of those wi-fi moochers, then over-lifted it again, cappuccinos being the escalator endings of the drink world.  One minor steam-burn, a moment’s disappointment over the loss of a corner table, and several keyword searches later, and I was on my way to the library again, or rather, for the first time.

            The parking lot was nearly empty, so I pulled into the one spot that was entirely in the shadow of the giant stylus statue, which was apparently in desperate need of repair because it was perpetually leaking a spray of ink into the fountain where it was situated.  Barely passable as art, it did serve as a functional, albeit extremely specific parasol to protect my eyes from the blinding light of the setting sun as I got out of the car and approached this temple of books.

            A couple of teenagers cleared their throats as they acclimated to the normal volume world outside of the library, and I tried to do the reverse as I prepared to speak only in quiet, but it came out only as a slight gag.  If they noticed, they didn’t say anything, of if they did, I didn’t hear it.  Maybe they had just enough whisper left.

            The librarian was so comedically terrifying that it wasn’t even worth speculating that she might be one of the demons.  They – at least so far in my limited experience – tended to look relatively attractive, enticing, or at least normal, only to turn on you and become the Nicholas Cages they really were, or at least looked like sometimes to me.  But this lady was not that.  She looked like someone had stuck one of those bag-sealing vacuums into her and let it run for a few minutes.  Her skin was both clingy and saggy and perhaps was only there to hold on her bluish-gray hair, which was remarkably thick even though… oh, it’s a wig.

            She looked up at me with tired eyes from behind horn-rimmed glasses – would a demon really wear horn-rims? – and asked if she could help me, reminding me all the while of that secretary from Monsters Inc.

            “I think I’m beyond help,” I said.

            “The exit’s that way,” the words sounded like they were crawling out of an unmarked grave.  Once free, they no doubt fled the building, racing to follow her half-extended arm towards the exit.

            “Sorry,” I said, in typical Craig fashion, “I was wondering if you have anything on demons?”

            She raised her eyes, perhaps to block mine perfectly behind the horned rims, then pushed creakily back from the desk and stood up.  She rounded the desk, revealing a hunched frame that supported her head just a few inches below mine.  I reflected that if she stood up straight, she must have been about eight feet tall.

            “Follow me,” she said, and hobbled away towards the back of the book emporium.

            She raised her eyes at me again a few minutes later when I explained that I wasn’t after Dan Brown or Stephen King books.

“Do you have anything that’s more, you know, non-fiction?”

            “Demons are fiction,” she said.

            “Ok, but demonology is a real study, right?  There must be books on that.”

            “Follow me.”

            She briefly considered the computer on the counter before passing it and rolling back the top on an ancient Dewey decimal system card catalogue.  She used the lengthy nails that she had apparently evolved for just this purpose to flip through the cards before eventually pulling one out.  She eyed it.  Then me.  Then it.  Then me.

            “You go have a seat in the reading area,” she said, “I’ll bring you out the books.”  Bad grammar for a librarian.

            I was in the midst of reflecting that this library was eerily quiet, even more so than the traditional eerie quiet that libraries are supposed to display, when that quiet was fiercely penetrated by Aretha Franklin.

Spelling the word RESPECT loudly in a library is definitely ironic.

            “Hey Daisy, how are you?”

            “Not bad.  Why are you whispering?”

            “I’m in a library.  Doing some research.”

            “Sorry, I can barely hear you.  Did you say you’re in a library?”

            “Yeah, doing some research.”

            “Some research?  Research omelet…”

            “Did you say omelet?  Sorry, I’m… you don’t have to whisper too.  You’re not on speakerphone.”

            “Oh…”

            “Unless it’s for solidarity.  Anyway, what’s up?”

            “I just wanted to talk to you about, you know, life and stuff.”

            “That sounds awesome. Have you ever heard of Daniel Tiernan?”

            “No, Craig, I…”

            “No phone zone,” said a stack of books that had materialized over my shoulder but now quickly descended towards the desk, revealing the haggard face of the accordionic librarian behind it.

            “Sorry,” I said to the librarian. 

“Sorry,” I said to Daisy, “I’ll talk to…”

            “No phone zone,” she said again, pointing, as was her habit, to a sign that spelled out her message in Englishes, both olde and new.

            “…you later.” I said and hung up the phone before turning to look at the empty space where the librarian had just been.  I sighed in a whisper and redirected my attention to the stack of books.

            Their titles were promising, but their contents were ultimately underwhelming.  I was immediately struck by the same consistent lack of consistency that had marked the Hubworks articles and their online ilk.  All of my paradigms were being rocked.  Not only could the newer generation obey library rules, apparently physical books, and not just the internet, could be full of nonsensical lies.  I double-checked the spines to confirm that these books were indeed from the non-fiction section, and it was then that I noticed that several of the books had the same authors.  Among them: Daniel Tiernan and Heather Williams.  Curious.

            Then the lights went out.

            I checked my phone, despite being in the wrong zone and saw that it was 7:06 PM, a weird time for the library to close.

            The glow of a hexagonal stained glass window and half a dozen Exit signs prevented the expansive building from being pitch black, but the darkness was still unsettling.

            I stood and circled the table, looking down the aisles of books in the hopes that the librarian was nearby and that I hadn’t been mistakenly locked in this treasury of misinformation.  I considered calling out, but yelling in a library just felt unnatural and it didn’t seem like whispering would be particularly helpful.

            “Hello…”

            Not my voice.  Not the Librarian’s.  Adele!

            Just Daisy texting me ‘That was rude!’ with no idea how accurate her statement was.  But the librarian didn’t pop out of the stacks to remind me of the phony zoning regulations.  I decided it might be best if I just headed for one of the copious exits, and I had just started to do so when I glanced back at the stack of books on the table where I had been.  I reminded myself that I wasn’t one of those people who prematurely stake a claim at Starbucks.  I even bus my own table at Fast Food restaurants.  I’d be damned if I was going to start acting like a demon now.  Ironic phrasing, I know.

            Whatever, I could figure out where those books belonged and re-shelve them myself.

            It turned out that I was a little over-confident, and the duration of the Dewey decimal lesson that I had ignored back when they still taught that in school was roughly equal to the amount of time I spent looking for the spot where these fictional non-fiction books belonged.  But I did still remember my numbers pretty well, so it took me no time at all once I’d found the spot to refill the half a shelf they had occupied.

            As I slid the last book into place, I noticed something odd.  The book’s former neighbor had left a single page behind and it had been brushed to the back of the shelf.  I pulled it out, un-creased it carefully, as it appeared to be quite old, then I produced my cell phone and flipped on the flashlight app, as the aisle had somehow grown even eerier and darker.

            The page appeared to be from a book’s bibliography but all of the sources that it referred to were titled in Latin and consequently indecipherable but seemingly trustworthy.  And at the top of the page was the book’s title: Signs of the Scourge.  It’s a pity, I thought, that the rest of the book had gone missing, except wait… what’s that by my foot?

            I crouched and slid the rest of the book out from beneath the shelf where it had apparently fallen.  Or been kicked.  I flashlit the cover, which appeared to be made of leather and it struck me as something of a travesty that some library worker had stuck a sticker over its antique spine.  But then, this thing was hardly in collector condition.  The pages had all come loose from the binding, which explained how one had been left up top.

            I tucked the book, now re-acquainted with its severed page, under my arm and stood up, intent on finding the librarian and seeing if she would still allow me to check out the antique tome or if she could at least hold it for me until tomorrow.

            It didn’t take long to hunt her down.  As I swung my phone-light around to replace the now absent stained glass glow the narrow beam fell upon a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

            Her witch-like face grinned at me then rose out of my beam as she stood to her full height, a good (or very bad) foot taller than me.  I tilted the light up, and illuminated Nicholas Cage’s face, which grinned down at me and spoke.

            “No phone zone.”

            Then it pounced.