Lina had a strange sense of being watched as her and the others made their way over to the town library. Her eyes madly darted around to find the source of her uneasiness but found none. Everywhere she looked around her all she saw was the normal comings and goings of the townspeople. There didn't seem to be any malicious beings within at least a three-block radius. Everything was peaceful and normal in the quiet town.
Lina mentally scolded herself on her paranoia. Though it was true that she have a good reason to be a little jumpy, but it still annoyed her.
I doubt that crazed demon creature would attack us in a group, in the middle of a busy town street, in the broad daylight. So then why the hell am I so nervous?! Of course there is that that I have to worry about. Lina mentally cursed that thought. Not having her magic abilities around a time like this was both frustrating and dangerous. Just a few more days to go...
At the back of the group, Zelgadis smiled an evil little grin.
Xellos watched from his vantage point high a top a house rooftop in both curiosity and concern as the group trekked over to the library to meet Mr. Hender. He could distinctly detect Lina's uneasiness and paranoia. But that wasn't what worried him. What did was the strange odd things he was sensing from Zelgadis. It was both a combination of fear, confusion, anger, and resentment and evil sort of satisfaction. And the strangest part about the conflicting emotions was that thought very separated, they were all faint. Like as if Zelgadis himself was purposely making it harder for Xellos to sense his emotions.
Xellos wondered on what was the source of those random emotions. Resurfacing memories perhaps? Xellos wasn't sure. What he was sure about was that the look Zelgadis was giving Lina was strange and most out of character for Zelgadis. Usually the ex-chimera kept up a stony stoic expression of indifference. But the one he bore now was a combination of assorted things twisted in that seemingly evil stare. Of course Xellos rationalized that since Zelgadis was lacking his memory that it would be doubtful that he would retain any of his usual personality and behavioral quirks. But still, based on what Xellos observed of Zelgadis after he had came out of the machine with amnesia, even this seemed a little odd.
Now what could he have remembered that would change his personality so quickly? Xellos mused.
Zelgadis stared at the book in front of him with a bored expression. It was a very large book on ancient culture lore. A sea of words lay before him and he blindly stared at them without reading a word of it. Zelgadis' mind was elsewhere, plotting and planning. He gave a sideways glance to his right. His lips turned up slightly in an evil mischievous grin as his eyes fell upon the petite form of Lina Inverse.
Lina was totally unaware of what was going on around her. She was too absorbed with the pile of books that she had before her.
Zelgadis averted his eyes back to his book and idly turned another page in the attempt of pretending to read. He continued to mentally calculate the best options he had in front of him.
Xellos phased into the fair sized library, in the same room as everyone and took a seat next to Lina.
Lina who had been too preoccupied to notice, didn't say or do anything until a gloved hand reached for one of the books in front of her. Immediately she smashed the book in her hands on the offending glove.
Xellos recoiled his hand and gave Lina a hurt face. "Ne, Lina you're so mean."
"And what the hell are you doing here for?!" Lina demanded.
"Why do you always have to question me on where I choose to go?"
"I asked first."
"It's a secret."
Lina rolled her eyes at the expected answer. It was obvious that Xellos was going to be his usual difficult self and not give out any information, no matter how pointless the information was. But that wasn't going to stop Lina from trying. "Why were you reaching for one of my books for?"
"You never answered my question."
"Neither did you."
"I just wanted to see some of the things you were reading."
Lina regarded Xellos with suspicion, but then ignored him and went back to her reading. She didn't have time to deal with the bothersome trickster priest. There was other more trying things to worry about.
Xellos looked around the others in the room. To his left he saw Zelgadis brooding over a book he was reading. Amelia sat next to him on his left in a similar fashion. Sylphiel sat across from them taking notes as she read. And Gourry sitting next to her was busy sleeping on one of the books he had been looking at. Mr. Hender wasn't in the room. He was in another part of the library probably doing much of the same as everyone (minus Gourry).
It was then that Xellos noticed that they weren't the only ones using the library. There was a lanky, bird-faced guy with large owl rimmed glasses sitting by himself, far away in a corner. He seemed to have a stressed and worried expression on his face as he poured over nervously through his book on hand. It was obvious that either he was nervous from one of Lina's acts of violence or Lina had already said something to him prior. Oh well it was a public library after all so there would be others using it besides them. Though judging on how many people who have come by in the past week or two it was obvious that the library wasn't used often by the public.
Gourry occasionally mumbled in his sleep as everyone sat in the room reading. Other then that only the soft rustlings of turning pages were the only sounds in the silent room. A silence, which was broken by the sudden joyful cheer of Popo who had just appeared in the room.
"Pwadado!"
Everyone in the room collectively fell out of their chairs.
Popo glanced around at everyone in the room in curiosity. Then he shrugged it off and decided to float around the room to see what everyone was doing. Unfortunately for Popo, he decided to float over to the wrong person.
The guy in the corner glared at the floating spiky blue ball creature as it floated towards. The guy's reaction? He screamed and ran out of the library in a frantic manor.
"What was that about?" Mr. Hender asked coming into the room with a book and a mug of coffee in his hands.
Lina shrugged and Popo just floated around with an innocent but seemingly evil grin.
Mr. Hender raised an eyebrow at Popo. "Alright, what did Popo do?"
"Nothing. Maybe that guy has never seen a blue floating spiky thing before." Amelia suggested.
Popo snorted in discontent at being referred to as a thing.
"So has anyone gotten anywhere with the reading?" Mr. Hender asked while sitting down.
The room was silent. "Really? No one at all?" Mr. Hender prompted again, but still no one answered. Mr. Hender sighed. "This might sound unbelievable, but I did some checking on all the books we've gone through so far. And from what I can see, we've pretty much have gone through all the books in this library on the subject at hand."
"Oh come on there's got to be more then this." Lina exclaimed rolling her eyes.
"Well maybe there's a few that I don't know about, or some that might have been placed on wrong shelves by previous library visitors. But as you may have noticed, this library doesn't get that many visitors too often."
Everyone was silent for a little while.
"How is the library in the next town?" Amelia asked Mr. Hender.
"What do you mean Miss Amelia?"
"Well if we've try everything we can in this town, then why don't we go on to the next? Isn't that what Mister Zelgadis did anyway when he was searching for a cure? If one town didn't have anything that helped, then he just went on to the next town. Shouldn't we do that? Maybe the next town could have something that could help."
Lina and Mr. Hender exchanged worried looks. They both knew that finding a way to cure Zelgadis' amnesia could be something that they could find in another town. That wasn't the problem that was keeping Lina and the others there.
Before Lina or Mr. Hender could suggest a reason why they should still stay in town Zelgadis cut in. "Given what I have been through, I doubt it would be a good idea for me to go traveling so soon. I still haven't had a chance to completely regain all my strength yet. I'd prefer to stay in town for a little while longer till I've recovered a little more."
Lina almost sighed in relief. Good going Zel. "Yes I think it would be better to stay longer too."
Mr. Hender nodded with agreement and Amelia frowned. "I guess so... Hey what about that book I had before? You know the one I lost in the large pile when I um... broke that shelve?"
Now it was Mr. Hender's turn to frown. "Well after that incident I tried to look for that book with the description that you gave me. In fact that was what I was just doing before I came in here. But out of all those books I couldn't find the one that you had. It seems to have gone missing."
Lina mentally cursed. She had a pretty good idea on how that book was missing. "Have you checked everywhere in the room?"
"Yes and I made sure to go through each book to make sure that I didn't miss it, but the pile it should have been in was all cooking books. And it wasn't in the room at all."
"But how could it go missing? It should have been in the room!" Amelia protested.
"I don't know how it could have, but it did."
Amelia pouted.
"Oh that's too bad. And to think Amelia searched so hard for that book." Xellos stated in a mock apologetic tone.
Amelia glared at him and Xellos smiled and phased out of the library.
Lina's brow creased in thought. She knew Xellos had been acting strange lately but she hadn't really thought about it too hard lately. But now that she thought about it, a disturbing thought came to mind. I'm going to have to talk to Mr. Hender about that later.
Xellos phased out of the library and back onto the town streets. He had wanted to try and find the demon to see what he was up to. But for some strange reason Xellos was having trouble trying to find the demonic creature. Perhaps this might be one disadvantage to taking over this form, I lack my abilities to detect my former counterparts. But I guess considering all the advantages I do get it's not so bad. I never realized the fruitcake was able to do this much. If I had known before I would have taken over his body as soon as I was separated from the others. But this is bad if I can't find that bad tempered demon. Xellos phased about a couple of different places, but everywhere he looked he couldn't find him. You think being able to sense intense emotions that I would be able to find him with no problem. Xellos mused.
The case was Xellos wasn't sensing any strong waves of anger coming from anywhere. It boggled Xellos' mind. Where the hell is he?
Zelgadis grinned as he walked outside the town library. He had told everyone that he wanted to get some air. Lina had been reluctant to let him go, but he managed to convince her.
The town was busy as usual so Zelgadis walked over to a more secluded area. Once he was an area where he knew he could not been seen he disappeared and reappeared in another area.
Zelgadis almost gleefully laughed once he used this power. He had been totally unaware that he had this sort of power. But then again it wasn't without repercussions. Zelgadis felt a sudden wave of tiredness. His powers must be really taxing to use. I can't believe that he had no idea he had these powers this whole time. Zelgadis almost chuckled out loud, but he suppressed it. He didn't want to alert the monster in front of him that he was there. Zelgadis' grin turned evil.