Chapter 0 - Ekaterina Pavelchenko

Someone was here.
They should not be.

It was the way Charlene Lam communicated with Ekaterina, a brilliant idea Charlene came up with: magnetic words stuck and rearranged on the whiteboard in the small study adjoining the larger library of rare and esoteric books Ekaterina maintained. The public section of the Lam Kung-Mei library was certainly open to the public every day, and even the restricted shelves were also open for browsing and use, though not for borrowing. Of course, Ekaterina had access past closing hours for her own work, she was in the midst of some deep research that had taken her weeks longer than she expected.

And she hadn’t heard from Charlene much during this stretch; her ex-assistant came and went as she pleased, within constraint. Tonight was the first message Ekaterina had read in days, whatever it meant.

Katerina was bringing a stack of lesser manuscripts down from her quarters when she found the message and frowned, *Cryptic as ever.* She thought looking at the words and wishing Charlene could just text her cellphone like a normal person. Kat placed the documents down on a table and rubbed her eyes before a thin smile spread across her lips.

She rearranged the plastic letters into s circle around the edge of the board and with a dry erase marker wrote, I moist miss you every moment of every day, in her elegant script. Frowning once more as her insides began to gurgle the desire for sustenance rising.

Katarina then began to look over the books in her section of the library, this was after all her part of the library. "Anything out of place my lovelies?" She mused mentally inventorying the stacks. Her moon silver eyes pulse rhythmically as she looks about with her heightened senses.

She clicked her nails as she surveyed the restricted section. She ought to brew up some coffee or maybe a pot of tea, that usually attracted one of the assistants above, perhaps they knew something and if not, it was breakfast time after all.

It was Charlene who convinced Kat (for that's what she called her) that they had first met many years ago, when she was an exchange student at Lviv University, covering Sino-Ukrainian comparative linguistics. Ekaterina remembered nothing of it, to Charlene's chagrin. They weren't lovers then, that came much later after Charlene had returned to Hong Kong. At first she had thought she was a forgotten chapter in Kat's student life, but then came to realise her amnesia, after which she was instrumental in helping Kat reconstruct some of the missing details.

Tragedy befell Charlene in the Hong Kong riots of 2019, caught in the protestor crackdown when the authorities laid siege to the Chinese University, committing her restless spirit to the corridors of the institution she worked at, with an orbit that kept her closest to where Ekaterina made her residence. This made Charlene intimately familiar with the premises, which saw thousands of students come and go every day, and at least hundreds that frequented the library wing of the annex. With that sort of human traffic, for her to suggest that someone out of the ordinary had visited the place would be a strange and uncommon occurrence.

Library usage was much quieter in the evening hours. Certain floors opened late, to cater to postgrad learners and those taking night classes. Ekaterina was spot on to assume that one of the librarians or assistants would indeed wander by sooner or later, they needed the caffeine fuel to give them their second wind for their night studies. For Ekaterina, they might just be breakfast.

Sure enough, the elevator at the end of the hallway dinged and its doors slid open.

Vitae begins to flow through Kat's body as the doors to the lift begin to open. She smiles feeling once more human as begins to fiddle with the dials on of the expensive coffee machine she'd imported from Europe. Glancing towards the doors she saw Jenny Lu step out with a stack of books on Shang Dynasty Bronze work, there had been vampires here back then, disorganized packs of Lasombra who hunted in the darkened streets of the first cities millennia before the fell to the Sabbat.

Jenny was a perfectly average specimen of a woman, perhaps a little on the short side with medium black hair, black trousers and a jade green blouse. She was pretty in a conventional sort of way but possessed a laugh and a smile that could turn heads.

"Jenny." Ekaterina said with a smile. Her Cantonese was good, not native good, but she got by and most found her Slavic inflections charming.

"I was just making myself a cappuccino, would you like some?" Kat's moonlight silver eyes began to pulse as the machine hissed and steamed. Come closer, Jenny you feel, light headed. She thought dominating the human's mind with a wave of thrall, Jenny blinked coming closer to Katerina. "Returning those books on Shang bronze work?" She asked with a smile the potent aroma of coffee beginning to infuse the air. "Did you learn anything exciting?"

Katerina had learned enough Chinese history to be a passable expert on many subjects though her main interest was focused on the first Emperor Chin, who she was fairly certain was either a vampire or a mage of great powers.

"Taotie masks originated from the Shang onwards!" Jenny enthused, "Did you know that the word means glutton? They represented ever-hungry, ever-devouring beasts. The masks were totemic -" The sparkle in her eyes came both from the mention of her research major, and also from the beverage offer, as Jenny approached where Ekaterina was standing near the coffee machine. But more so also from Jenny's coquettish admiration for Ekaterina's academic expertise. The table with the coffee wasn't the best spot though for her to do what she intended. Ekaterina was very familiar with how the sequence would play out, and moved with a well-practised subtlety on this: the proffering of the cup, followed by the beckoning towards a shelf of interest, for there were two of those exactly angled away from the corner ceiling camera that were necessities in the library.

Of course, she could lure her to cross the boundaries of her haven in the deeper recesses of the stacks, but that would violate all sorts of sanctuary borders she would prefer to maintain. A quick meal here would suffice, as it always did.

Katerina hated this part of being a vampire, in fact she rather wished she could skip the feeding off the blood of the living all together, it made her feel bad as it was making her feel better. Guilt she supposed, a sign that she still possessed a moral compass unlike so many others of her kind.

"I am more of a fan of the Shang bronzes with the big eyes and oversized ears but who doesn't love a good hungry monster?" Katerina says with a shrug and a smile thinking about the not entirely legitimate obtained one in her haven inside a glass case. "The Shang oracle bones are also fascinating, I mean assuming you can get past the whole human sacrifice on an industrial scale bit. Divining the future of an Empire is always a tricky thing. The Ancient Egyptians loved to interpret dreams and the like and to be honest, the idea of a half naked Greek woman dispensing prophesy has always felt more than a little sexy to me." Kat gives Jenny a wink.

She looks about taking a pretend sip on her fresh coffee, "Jenny, has anyone new been down here lately? I should like to speak with the guards at the desk, something feels off but I do not know what." Kat makes a sweeping gesture, "There are a lot of books and scrolls down here and I do not wish for someone to be walking off with something precious."

Undoubtedly it was the combination of the engaging topic of discussion between historians, especially one as knowledgeable as Kat, the olfactory trigger of the coffee aroma as a means of putting one at ease, and Katerina's own undeniable attractiveness, that made Jenny the research assistant linger to talk more, even without Katerina needing to resort to the allure of her mind-fogging influence. All she needed was to stand too close to Jenny when they browsed the shelf Kat was indicating to sink her teeth into the exposed part of the nape between blouse and tied up hair, making sure to catch the coffee cup in time.

"Oh I must have blanked out for a moment, completely lost track of what you were saying about the Delphic Oracle was it?" Jenny glanced down at the open book she was holding, which Kat had planted in her hand, puncture wound licked clean and closed. She could taste her spirit, her state of mind, how many hours since she last showered, the tinge of epinephrine in the blood. That wasn't just the hunger speaking to devour, if it were Kat wouldn't have stopped until she drank it all. It was the hunger savouring Jenny's individual decoction, fueling her own vampiric nature.

"I don't know, there were more than the usual visitors today I think, mid terms are around the corner. Still, not too many check out these stacks. Is something missing? We should report it, or at least check the return racks." Kat could tell Jenny was thinking hard about Kat's concern, pilferage with something a scholar would not countenance.

"Let is go and have chat with the guards shall we?" Ekaterina says taking the books from Jenny and placing them on her desk before handing the young woman a fresh coffee. Her vitae was delicious, filled with hope and nervous energy.

The thought of someone prowling about her stacks without permission was violating. No one came into her part of the library without permission slip from the head librarian and an intrusion would simply not do.

She put an arm around Jenny's waist and guided the young woman back to the lift looking about with suspicious eyes as she did so. Kat knew it was unlikely that Jenny would have noticed anyone but it didn't hurt to ask and heading upstairs would allow her to see if anything felt amiss in the more easily accessed parts of the main building.

"Hmmm? Oof I must've lost it for a moment there," Jenny's slurring was a little more on the goofy side, which produced a slight and surprisingly cute dimple on her soft left cheek, just above where Kat had bitten her. "I have what I was looking for, gonna go back upstairs now, thanks for the coffee!" she proclaimed unsteadily, but made no objection to Ekaterina saying she was going to accompany Jenny upstairs to speak with security. If Jenny were more clear headed at the moment she would have pondered why Ekaterina was being so insistent about trespassers to a public library, even if it were the restricted section. It was not as if Kat owned the property. But of course Jenny wouldn't know anything about the concept of a vampire's haven.

The building's levels were secured by an automated gantry system, designed to detect theft of books which were RFID tagged to set off an alarm if inappropriately removed. The library did not gatekeep very much the movement of users in and out of the building. Still the ground floor foyer was manned by a security desk, one desk-bound, and certainly unarmed guard on shift who smiled at students entering and exiting.

Ekaterina knew all the guards on shift; tonight was Kwan, a middle-aged, likeable sort of chap who surprisingly knew a lot more about books and academia than his position might entail.

"Mr. Kwan, darling." Ekaterina says with a smile and thickening up her accent a touch, "Lovely evening tonight is it not? No? I am curious, was anyone in the restricted section earlier today?" She makes a face, "Something smells funny down there, like cigarettes perhaps."

Most everyone on the main floor knows about the eccentric and attractive Ukrainian researcher who spends most of her time in the lower stacks. When she does put in an appearance she never fails to turn heads and start chins wagging.

Kat takes a moment to glance out the front doors towards the yard where the protesters were murdered not so very long ago.