In Re: Grimore

The monk, clothed in a huge brownish jump-suit type thing with a hood turned the registration book around and glanced at the page skimming over the information before he let the high society man in the business suit and the leather hat enter the monastery’s library.

"Now Mr. Mathius, how many times must I remind you this is official, and must be taken seriously?" The monk, Brother Thadaos, was not looking forward to humoring Richard D. Mathius, the son of a famous explorer and a mediocre author of unoriginal, unsound, excuses for horror tales. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Order of the Book’s monastery before writing any of his books. For the purpose of "research and inspiration" he claimed. Mostly he poked around in old records of the church and other things he had no business in. He was also a smartass.

Richard smiled big and leaned on his cane, even though he didn’t need it. The monks had to let him in, it was part of their religion. The monk, a hairless fellow going by the names of "Thad" or a variation there of took the painfully tacky feathered pen and started crossing out and correcting. While the monk was correcting Richard’s mistakes, Richard decided to let himself in. he strolled leisurely toward the gothic style hallway leading to the library the monk shouted and grabbed him by the back of his wool trench coat and yanked him back. Richard reluctantly stepped back a few paces.

"Your not supposed to go anywhere without accompaniment, we have…"

"yes, yes" Richard broke in, he had heard this speech to many times. Ad they would never say why this was. "then accompany me to the library." Richard swaggered a pace or two behind the angry monk, squinting in the darkness, usually he didn’t do this, but this visit would be different. Richard suddenly tossed a small bag into a dark corner of the hallway as they were rounding a corner, it made more sound than expected. The monk jumped and turned to give Richard a mean/quizzical look. Richard put on his best innocence face.

"Huh, dropped something" he slowly walked to the corner, left the object on the floor, and mimed putting the object back in his pocket. He stood up slowly, and smiled.

They walked the rest of the way to the reading room. Richard sat down in his normal desk and turned on the antique lamp. The monk looked at him sternly. Richard tried to look like he was listening.

"Remember, ask the assistants if you need anything, don’t going to the library yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah-blah-blah, Mr. Mathius, Blah. Blah, blah, blah, ‘blah blah’ blah, blah. Or you will be asked to leave and not return." The Monk walked away, leaving Richard in the hands of the library assistants. A few moments later a tall lanky bald monk wearing the same as all the other walked over.

"What can I get for you, sir?"

"ah yes" The waiter has arrived, Richard thought to himself, time for the entrée "I’d like Tomas Hobbe’s Leviathan. If you would, please" The monk went over to a large door, decorated with carvings persecutions and martyrs and took a oddly shaped key from his belt and opened the door. Excellent. Richard fished his cellular phone out of his pocket, he pushed the auto-dial button. It rang once, with lots of interference.

"Benny?" Richard

"yassar" came a deep, coarse voice obscured by static and distortion that sounded like someone dropped the cellphone in a possessed blender.

"Benny, go to the nearest gas station, fill the tank up, all the way, get back here, FAST. Park in front of the entrance and leave the engine on, in drive preferably"

"S’cuz me Sah, What you say?" Benny was both his bodyguard and Limo driver.

"Fill Tank!" Richard Richard tried to talk over the static while not yelling in the library. "Get back! Wait Ready to go!" He hung up. It was useless to try and talk over the static. Richard just hoped that Benny would understand or figure it out. Benny claimed to posses psychic abilities, but that usually manifested itself by giving Benny an excuse to beat the snot out of a bystander. Richard hoped Benny would be there, because he’d hate to die, because then, his ex-wife would get his money and his fathers inheritance and she didn’t deserve a cent, that whore. He glanced around. One other person, a heavyset man with a big mustache and a bowler hat wearing glasses. He peered into his watch, the reflecting backing of his Rolex showed two monks looking down at him from the second floor. Not good. He clicked on he desk lamp, the inside of this place was insanely dark, just as expected. The Library monk came back and gave Richard the book and told him that if he needed anything, ring the bell. The shiny polished hotel-style bell sat on the edge of the desk. In the reflection of the bell, he could see that there was only one monk watching him now. Still not good. Richard’s heart pounded, he looked at the open book not reading it wondering if this was a bad idea. Even if he did find it, he might die. But he was so close, 20 years spent looking and now he would just stop? He stared at the bronze eagle head that topped his cane while he though of that. If he walked away he would never forgive himself, but it was better than dying. Or is dying better than guilt? He looked at the reflection in the bell. The library monk was talking to the other one, looking at him.

"He is acting strange" The tall one said, who had gotten the book for him.

"That he is" The short one said, wearing Ben Franklin style Bifocals.

"What could it mean?"

"Nothing, or something"

Richard rang the bell. His hand was shaking from nervousness, that was not good, he couldn’t be that worried, could he? His mouth was dry, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Why was he getting panicky now? Of all times. The monk took his time to get down.

"Done already?" The monk questioned

"aahhh no" Richard hadn’t planned what to say yet. The truth would work. "I’m not…uh…feeling so, ugh, good, could I get a drink of water and…stuff?" He stumbled over his words. The monk recognized that Richard was having a problem, and didn’t want him to throw up in the library. The monk grabbed Richard by arm and dragged him through the big library door and toward another. Richard glanced down an isle of books and saw a door that seemed more ornate and heavy than the others. He only saw it for a second until the monk practically hurled him into a large over decorated bathroom.

"I will be waiting when you are done" the monk closed the door. Richard splashed himself with water and tried to pull himself together. He realized that he didn’t have his cane. Even though he didn’t need it, it was nice to have around. He splashed water on himself and regained his nerve. No sweat, he had been in worse situations than this. Well, no. He was an author, who was he kidding, but that wasn’t the attitude. No. He was the man. Now that was the attitude. He drank a cup of water, then another. Yes, this was it. He formulated his plan in his mind, took a deep breath and slung the door open, hitting the monk in the head. The monk grabbed his arm and dragged him back into the reading room. Richard set back down at the table

"I’m fine now," Richard proclaimed happily "oh and do you happen to have any books by a crazy Arab named Ahul Azil Amur?" The monk nearly swallowed his tongue Shock passes over his face. Perfect.

"What Did You Say?!"

"I said, do you have any of Voltaire’s original manuscripts?"

"That’s not what you said"

"Of course it is" Richard smiled

The monk went hurriedly through the door and went up to talk to the other one.

"Brother Qubeus! I think the man knows of the grimore!"

The location of it had been a carefully guarded secret for over 200 years, with one minor exception. Others existed, but this one was one of the rare ones, in fact it was the rarest. It was the last copy printed by the mad Dr. Renoir before he was sent to the guillotine in 1794, and it was printed in ink, with blood mixed in, and bound in human flesh and body parts. No one but the monks knew the Grimore Es Mortis, the ancient book of the dead, was in the library.

"No, he couldn’t, besides, if he does, he will be no trouble, he is a pampered writer…"

"Excuse me!" Richard said up to the monks, "this stuffed, um, whatever kind of bird this is, is fascinating" Richard pointed up at a stuffed own on a shelf. "Could you get it down so I could have a look at it?" The tall monk sighed and rolled his eyes, if nothing else, the man was bothersome.

A moment or two later the monk arrived with a metal ladder that looked really out of place in the ancient library. He opened in with a practiced movement, and climbed up. Richard walked over with his cane in hand and looked up at the monk. He reached for the keys, grabbed them and gave them a tug. They did not unattach from the monk. Richard’s heart skipped a beat as the monk looked down at him with an angry look.

"What do you want Now?" The monk said with utmost annoyance.

"I…uh…mean that one over there" Richard recovered and pointed at a very nice bald eagle. This time he had his knife in his hand when he reached up, and cut the cord the keys were on. He walked nonchalantly over to the door and stuck the key in and turned. He opened the door and the other monk shouted. The tall one on the ladder turned around and ran at Richard, who shut the door. The monk moved extraordinarily fast and hit the door terribly hard for such a skinny guy. Then he started pounding on it. Those were thick doors and the skinny guy was beating them really hard. The short, evil looking monk with the granny glasses from the second floor ran at Richard with a mean look on his face. Richard responded by wiping the look off his face by bringing the weighted eagle head of the cane upside the monk’s head like a baseball bat. The monk spun 360^o from the force of the blow. He didn’t fall. Richard brought the cane upside the monk’s head again. Knocking a noticeable dent. Unbelievably the monk stayed standing, and even more amazing, the guy leaped at Richard. Richard drove the end of the cane into the monk’s stomach and brought it up in an ark, turning the guys nose inside out. Surprisingly there was no blood. Richard brought the heavy bronze eagle down on the monk’s head and the monk finally dropped.

The monk uttered an inhuman moan and started to get up. He was on his hands and knees when Richard used his golf swing on him. Usually used for knocking golf balls a supernatural distance, it knocked the monk clean back to his feet. Richard turned the Swiss-made oak cane around and hammered the monk between his beady little eyes. The monk stayed down this time. Richard stared at the monk for a moment, contemplating the lack of blood in the vicinity. He poked the monk with his foot.

"Are you dead?"

"uuuuuuhhhhh" a moan foreign to humans vocal chords.He would feel that in the morning

"Alright"

No harm, no foul. Richard liberated the monks keys and placed them in his pocket.

Richard hurried off toward the place he saw the heavy door. After little searching he came to in, fumbled with the keys in the dark, and finally got the door open. Just inside there was a small circular antechamber, and right in front of him was a door of iron bars. And beyond that was a glass box containing a splotchy brown book, with what looked like a one of those things you get from a Halloween store, that looked like a face was coming out of it, stuck on the front. Jackpot.

"Hello, Ugly" Richard said out loud trying to lighten the mood. Richard pushed the outer door shut and started trying keys in the lock. He though to himself how lucky he was that his greed was overshadowing his fear. He heard shuffling outside the door. He started working harder and rewarded himself by dropping his keys. His hands were shaking. He noticed that there was a grating below him, and the keys had fallen through. They landed with a metallic plop a long way below, and it sounded like there was a little water down there as well. He tried to pull open the grate to possible retrieve the keys but to no avail. Then he realized that he had another set. He exhaled realizing that he had been holding his breath since he entered the room. He pulled the other set of keys and started over. He fumbled, and tried not to drop them, which made his hands shake more. He want one key at a time until he was nearly out of keys. He tried a few more keys on the gate before coming to the conclusion that these were not the right keys. Until he got to the last key. It worked. Richard took another breath. His second since entering. He walked over to the glass case. He put his hands on both sides of it and pulled. Didn’t budge. He took his cane and broke the glass.

His first though was that that was a bad idea. That book reeked like a dead thing.

"Phew!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of gloves. Put them on and picked up the book, holding it as far away from him as possible. Then the door opened behind him. The monk he had beat up was back.

"How’d you get in?!" Richard catechized, very surprised. He dropped the book.

"The door does not lock, only the second door locks, now open the gate and we can forget this ever happened."

"No" Are you kidding? He had just beat this guy to a pulp and it didn’t seem to hurt him. Normal people don’t get back up from a beating. Of course normal people didn’t own the book of the dead. No way he was letting get closer than he already was. The monk gave an exasperated sigh and shoved his head through the bars. They were smaller than his head, but he was coming through anyway. His face contorted and it squeezed through. The monk’s eyes bulged out, his jaw and teeth jutted out. He turned sideways and pulled the rest of his body though the grating.

"Consider your privileges to use this facility null and void" The monk came at Richard at a great speed, Richard turned around to get out of the way, but the monk got him around his neck. The monk growled at him, and he got ready to break Richards’s neck. Richard introduced the tip of his cane to the monk’s gut. A twist of the handle and Richard pulled a foot long blade from the cane. He brought this over his head and into the monk’s upper arm. Richard dropped to the ground and slammed the monk’s head into the pedestal the book was on. Richard swung behind the monk and grabbed him by his upper lip and back of his neck.

"Not so tough now are you?…huh?…ARE YOU? Ha-Ha!" Richard started pulling on the monk’s face. He pulled the upper lip toward the sky, the face stretched and pulled and with a sickening tearing sound, it loosened from what it was attached to. Richard pulled the man’s upper lip over the top of his head. Richard looked down at a slimy brown face with seven gray bloodshot eyes looking up at him. Richard heart stopped. Wait, why was he so afraid? He was the guy on top. He had the gray slime-ball excuse for a low budget horror film in a position where he could drive a big sharp knife through it.

"Can I get you some eye drops?" Richard remarked smugly. He slammed the demon’s head into the pedestal again. "Who are you?" he demanded from the beast.

"We are the protectors of the book. Humans are not ready for the awesome power of the book." The demon pushed backwards and attempted to shove Richard over. Richard braced his knee against the demon’s back and threw all his weight forward. The cane, which had been wedged between the monk and the wall, came though the other side along with a huge amount of slimy brown mess as it tore a hole through the demon. Richard retrieved the top part of the cane and plugged it back in the rest of the cane. That wasn’t so hard. The beast turned around, wearing the fake human face like a hood. Not only did it have seven eyes, it had 3 mouths, and a lot of nose holes. It gave Richard a killer look.

"Mankind cannot have the secrets! They are ours"

"Share and share alike" It wasn’t so hard to make wise cracks to a monster when it was bleeding profusely. Richard picked up the book with his gloved hand. With the demon in there, it really smelt foul. Richard unlocked the gate and closed it after he went through, pulling it closed with his cane. After he liberated the book, he would have completed what his father died for. And his grand-father. And according to the crazy fortuneteller that had shown up at his door on a regular basis for the past 20 years, he had just saved the world by recapturing the book. He smiled back at the monk-turned-demon, and dropped the keys down the grate before realizing that he would probably need them later, and the demon didn’t need the keys to get through the gate. Oh well. Richard walked out of the door and walked right into another monk hiding in the darkness.

"Sir you are not supposed to-" Richard cut him off by taking the ancient book of the dead, and smacking the monk upside the head with it. The monk stumbled back a few paces but didn’t fall. The whole monastery couldn’t be full of ugly demons, could it? Only one way to find out.

"Are you a normal human or can you take your face off" Richard shouted at the monk. The monk had the impression of the face on the book in his cheek.

"What?!"

"How many eyes do you have?"

"Ugh" The monk groaned in annoyance.

"C’mon man! I just beat your many-eyed friend in there to death"

"You cannot kill any of us, you are merely human, we are of the ancient race of the" the monk then made a sound like he was trying to inhale a garden hose and then made a phlegmy coughing sound "and we have been around since human first walked the earth. Who do you think you are to presume that you off all people, a spoiled writer can-" That was proof enough of the monks alienness. Richard slammed the sharp end of the bronze Eagle head into the side of the monk’s head. The monk had a bewildered look on his face as sticky brown sludge sprayed out of his head. Richard pulled it back and added a supplementary swing. It tore a very large hole in the beast’s head and brown muck sprayed out. It stank heavily and was very sticky and Richard was not in the least happy to know that it had a tendency to get everywhere. He was going to get his suit dry cleaned again, and the guys in the Laundromat hardly spoke English. Richard strode up the large door connecting the Library to the reading room and tied to open it. No dice, he needed keys, which he had cleverly dropped into the grating. He turned to his left. Stairs to the upper lever, where he could climb down or something. He dashed up the stairs and ran to the railing and stared down. The tall bald monk was sitting on a desk and staring at him quite miffed. Richard smile and waved.

"I found this book," he waved the Grimore ex Mortis in the air "It’s real nice, I’m going to check it out" A panicked look crossed the monks face. He stood on the desk, hunkered over and leaped at Richard in a very feral style. Richard yanked the large blade out of his cane and caught the tall monk in the air with it with an upward stroke. The demon monk’s oozy bug blood drenched him. Richard wiped monk off the front of his shirt and shoved the remains of the tall monk over the railing. The monk landed and splattered spraying a huge amount of sticky brown sludge everywhere. Richard ran over to the bookcase with the stuffed birds on it, jumped over the railing onto it, and leaped onto a desk that slid on the layer of nasty demon blood. Richard fell backward and landed painfully on his back. It knocked the breath out of him. The fat guy waddled up to him and stared down at him.

"Over the history of our existence, none has ever claimed a victory over us" the pudgy man started in a low guttural monotone. "Until this day, few have had the courage to battle us, and none have ever fought any of us and came out alive, you are truly a unique fighter. It is blah, blah, blah, blah" This monsters had a tendency to lecture on. Richard cane was just out his reach, and the book was a few feet away. The stuff on the desk had slid off and had scattered all over the floor. Richard grabbed the bell and slid it across the slime it banged on a desk, making a very noticeable bang. The fat man almost turned away, but instead kicked the cane farther away from Richard. Richard looked around frantically for a weapon of some sort. Lamp. He grabbed it and shoved it in the fat mans face, and turned it on, blinding the guy. Richard sprung to his feet. Grabbed his cane and yanked out the blade, the fat guy bulged and inflated. Richard took a step back. The fat guy exploded outwards and a monk demon-on-steriods-as-seen-by-an-ant-looking-through-a-magnifying-glass-as-seen-in-a-carnival-mirror unrolled itself and towered to the vaulted ceiling. Richard grabbed the book, turned and ran. The huge monster effortlessly followed him though the hallway out of the reading room, and yowled a cry for the monk/beast on the other end if the hallway.

"Thadeos, stop the human!"

"Yes father!" the other monk called out.

Richard ran into a dark corner, and picked up a small package he had thrown there when he arrived, just in case. He dropped the book. He opened the bag and withdrew a fragile glass orb padded by Styrofoam as the demons drew closer. His father insisted that little Richard go into the boy scouts, Richard hated it to death, but he learned one important thing. Always be prepared.

Richard took the glass orb and brought his hands together quickly and crushed the sphere and quickly dropped it. The glass cut and stuck in his hands. The small glass container held a devise that Richards father called a "Little Sun." When the glass outer layer was broke a small amount of sodium came in contact with the outside air, and burst into flames, lighting a fuse attached to a simple firework. But not any firework, it was a peanut-butter-cup shaped device that flashed with an extraordinary amount of luminosity. If one were to be staring right at it, they would be blinded. When it went off in the darkened monastery it seemed terribly bright. Richard was sprinting away from it and down the hallway toward the exit door when it went off. While the monk in his way was blinded he mowed him down with his cane. With the hallway lit he sprinted toward the exit. He skidded around his last corner and slingshot around the doorframe and half-ran-half-stumbled out the door and down the steps. Where was Benny? Richard felt panic rising in him as he tore down the steps, then he slammed hard into a cold, hard object. His cane skittered across the top of it and he and the book dropped to the ground, except he had the breath knocked out of him. The window rolled down on the unlighted limo.

"Wassap, sah? Why you in such a hurry?" Benny asked in the non-running limo. Richard groped with the door handle and jerked the door open.

"I…told…you…" Richard wheezed, exhausted and injured "Running…"

"I didn’t git that paht of da call, sah" Richard dragged himself into the limo

"Jus’… DRIVE MAN!" Richard ordered and Benny got the point. He cranked the car and stepped on the gas and the car fishtailed as it rocketed out of the driveway.

"You git what you wanted sah?" Richard laid on his back on the bench seat in the back huffing.

"Yea" Richard looked at the ugly, smelly book on the floor. "It wasn’t worth it though"

The 3 monks and the fat man looked at the cane left in the driveway.

"How did this happen?" The tall one asked

"I don’t know" the short one in the granny style glasses said.

"It will not happen again" the fat man commanded angrily

The monk called Thadeos looked at the cane. He walked over and picked it up. His eyesight was just now coming back.

"Let me see that" the tall one asked. Thadeos handed it over.

"This is a very nice cane" that tall one said as he pulled the top of the cane, pulling out the blade.

"Yes, very" said the short one, who was fine now.