DON'T PRAY TO ME

02 - Run

A/N - Ready to meet Slade? ;)

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If you look from the outside, Palmer Books & Prints looks like a "small vintage cafe," as Bilibee's song goes. A gilded sign. A shiny patinated door. Some ugly creepers exploded on walls with patches of exposed clay bricks. And some display pieces of parched, browned books behind the glass to remind you this is a book shop. Which it is. But is also not. The enchanted building hides behind its lackluster face a whole new microcosm of a magical and literary worlds combined. It's a world-renowned and cutthroat book market that serves the scholarly needs of the supernaturals. Books don't sell here by units or copies, they sell by pounds and kilos. Some sellers are publishers, but most of them are astute bookmen who have the knack to track down even the rarest books and put them up for sale with big red stickers slapped over the front covers. And as for the visitors, that ranges from resellers, bookshop owners, librarians, literary collectors, and sometimes an academic who is willing to go through the trouble of visiting this place for a pricey book to save some money.

For Rachel, this place is not worth the visit for just a handful of books. The long travel, the crowd, and more importantly the heated bargains. However, the market is indeed a sight to see. Designed by the architect Morissette Belui in early fifteenth century, the marketplace is a work of art in itself with its ceiling high stalls, intricately carved teak dividers and rails, and the golden inverted arches that adorn the beams of the spotless glass ceiling. Criss crossed sunlight shafts through the casements in the middle of the walls. And of course, the pièce de résistance - mountains of books. Literal mounds. More in numbers than the eyes can count, sculpting a landscape of their own. Looking precariously stacked, yet not one book falls out of its place. Each mound belongs to a seller whose stall with grid dividers enclose it. There's one large rectangular opening in the divider that faces the pathway where the potential buyers walk across with their heads sloped back, looking at each stall's book piles and sign and stock boards. Sometimes they will stop to see one of the salesmen put together a customer's order. It's like watching a "magic trick" as the humans say, to watch the salesmen pluck out a book from anywhere on the pile without causing even a little sway to the heaps.

The Erna Schola's librarian, Ms. Holly Willy, had already called her usual seller at the market and asked them to keep the books ready for her student to pick them up. When Rachel finds herself in the book market, standing before the shop Ms. Willy told her to get the books from, she's confused. Its facade is black. The door is as tall as the market's roof, making it look like it has no end at the top. There's a large dangling black and red signboard hanging from a horizontal bar. "Tepper Liber". The board is unevenly swinging back and forth as if it's experiencing an earthquake all by itself while everything else around it is dead still. Just to be sure, Rachel takes out the folded paper from her coat's pocket and takes a look. Tepper Liber. That's the name. She looks again at the black door, but more importantly she takes a look around her. Rachel is the only one looking like she has any business in this store and needs to go in. In all the other stalls people are going in and out constantly, sometimes even causing the doorway to block, whereas Rachel looks like she has been deserted in a dark, stormy island. This might not be a popular stall, or maybe highly exclusive, Rachel thinks. She tucks back in her hand to replace the paper into her pocket, and pushes open the door. It opens with an amazing ease.

Tepper Liber is a printing press. Which is not entirely surprising to find in this market. But there's no customer corner here. Which means they don't sell to visitors. However, that's not what Rachel finds to be the most strange. She swallows. Rachel forgot Ms. Willy is a Dhamen. So no wonder her school's librarian knows a printing press that is run by other Dhamenci. Shit. Rachel wishes Willy had mentioned it to her before sending her here. Without that forewarning Rachel is stumped now. Rachel has never even visited the Dhamenci wing of her school. She's not used to the presence of a Dhamen. Ms. Willy is the only one, a Rank-C Dhamen, Rachel has ever spoken to.