Not Just Another Day by wayward_kitty
Smiths bookshop was a very popular place at even the lowest point of the trade year. The added bonus of a 25% off sale seemed to make the place absolutely irresistible, and people were packed tightly in the aisles.
A scarlet haired woman, in a short skirted, sleeveless black dress, knee high boots, and an undertakers hat, cursed under her breath as yet another of her fellow shoppers pushed past her. Yet again there was no apology, and that was what angered her far more than being shoved. Still shaking her head, she picked up the latest Anne Rice novel. No sooner had she started reading the back cover when she was practically thrown against the shelf. That's it, she thought, turning to face her assailant who, very surprisingly, was apologising profusely.
"Oh, geez, I'm sorry, I got shoved, then I ran into you, and, hey, are you okay?"
The woman couldn't help but smile at him. He was an older man in a red jumpsuit and matching red hat with a number 4 on it. A tag hung from the front pocket of his suit, and she figured he was a factory worker here trying to catch a good deal on his lunch break. "It's okay." She began to turn away when he touched her arm.
He withdrew his hand when she turned back again. "Could you help us out? My friend is looking for a, uh, book, and I don't know what all these say."
"Us?"
He looked around, then made an exadurated gesture towards another, younger, man, and a young woman. The man was in desperate need of some sun. His skin was so pale it was nearly white. He was dressed head to toe in black, and both his pants and tunic looked as if they had been very carefully handwoven. As he approached with the woman, the cloth took on various tones,
as if it had once been much brighter, but had been poorly dyed black.
His hair was done up very neatly with the majority of it piled atop his head in a bun, with a thick braid trailing down just past his shoulders. All in all he was a very impressive figure, with the interrupted line tattooed along his right cheek only adding to his appeal somehow.
The woman was equally impressive in a dappled salmon top and very short skirt that looked like layers of some sort of lizard skin, though the woman in black had never seen a lizard quite that color before. She wore a black belt, and had black wrist cuffs that extended over the backs of her hands, held in place by loops around each of her middle fingers.
Her hair was long and blonde, and her midriff was bare, revealing a tattoo of her own. She had the attention of every male she passed, and her smile gave away that she knew it, and, more importantly, that she was loving it.
The man in red looked at the woman he had run into to ensure she was still there. "Oh, I'm Stan."
"Uh, hi. kitty."
"kitty?"
"I'm kitty. That's my, uh, my name." This was bizarre, even for her. kitty's life was filled with peculiar things, but this was unlike any movie she had ever seen, or any book she had ever read. She could only stand in silence as Stan introduced the two new arrivals as Kai and Xev.
"So, uh, could you maybe help us out here?" Stan looked at kitty expectantly, but she was still staring at Kai, which made Stan roll his eyes. "Hey, kitty?"
"Huh?" kitty snapped out of her daze. "Sorry, it's just that you look kind of..." she hesitated. "Well, pale. Are you okay?"
"I am dead," the man in black, Kai, replied, his expression never changing.
kitty's gaze slowly drifted away as she processed those three words. "Okay. Um, I'm gonna go now."
"Wait!" Xev protested. "We are looking for books."
"You've come to the right place, then." kitty was still trying to leave, but the crowds made it impossible.
"We don't know *where* to look, though," Xev continued.
"We aren't dangerous or anything," Stan assured her, but then amended, "Well, okay Kai is, being an assassin and all, but..."
Not certain she had heard correctly, kitty stopped cold.
Though it should have strengthened her desire to escape, Stan's revelation caught kitty's full attention, and she faced the unusual trio once again. "You've killed people?"
"I have killed..."
"Yeah, yeah," Stan cut Kai off, not wanting to put kitty off again now that they had regained her attention. "Look, he's a dead former assassin, but his protoblood is going bad. Xev, well, we, want to keep him alive, so we're looking for something that will, you know, keep him alive."
"And you thought you'd find it in the bookshop?" kitty asked.
"Information can be located in books," Kai said, his tone implying she should have known that already.
"So I've heard. What's protoblood?"
"The stuff that keeps Kai alive," Xev said. Her brow knitted slightly. "Sort of."
"Okay, so Kai is an undead assassin, but the stuff that keeps him 'sort of' alive is expiring, so you have come to the bookshop for a book to tell you how to keep him going."
Xev smiled at kitty, nodding once. "Yes."
kitty burst out into a fit of laughter. "What planet are you from?"
"B3K. Stan is Austral B, and Kai is Brunnen G, from Brunnis 2 in the Light Universe."
kitty stopped laughing. The three people in front of her appeared to be very serious, and, though she didn't know why, she suddenly found herself believing them. Perhaps it was all the scifi she filled her brain with on a daily basis. It was crazy, sure, but then, kitty herself was drawn to abnormal like a moth drawn to the flame. "I don't know what people are capable of where you come from, but we can't bring the dead back to life here. The closest we've gotten is made up stories. There are no factual books that will reanimate the dead."
The smile on Xev's face vanished, and she looked unbearably distressed. "So what are we going to do?"
"There's nothing we *can* do, Xev," Stan answered. When Xev looked at him, wide eyed and on the verge of heartbreak, he sighed, giving in. "Where are the made up stories? Maybe there's something useful."
kitty found them several horror novels dealing with the undead, and Kai, the only one who seemed to be able to read, skimmed through the stack quickly at a table while Xev and Stan rifled through the bargain bin, looking at the books' covers.
Making a disgusted face, Stan tossed down a book with a very bland and boring jacket. "And you people really find these things entertaining?"
kitty glanced at the discarded book. "That's actually a really good one. You can never really judge a book by it's cover."
Xev held up a copy of the Kama Sutra with a very graphic cover design, looking at kitty with a hint of expectancy.
"Okay, maybe that one," kitty conceded as Kai rejoined them, having left all of the books on the table behind them. "Find what you were looking for?"
"No. These writings will not be useful, he replied.
"Then we will look somewhere else," Xev declared. "Thank you, anyway, kitty." She began to move through the crowd, growling at them to part the sea of bodies. Kai nodded in kitty's direction and followed after Xev. Stan lingered, eyeing kitty. "You know, if you aren't doing anything later, maybe we could, ah, get together and...you know." He gave her a grin he seemed to believe would entice her.
Knowing exactly what he meant, kitty blinked several times then told him, "Ah, no, I don't think so. You're not my type."
"I'm not?"
"Fraid not, Stan." kitty looked pointedly after Kai. "I have very specific tastes."
Again Stan rolled his eyes. "Figures," he muttered. "It's always the dead man." He bid her goodbye, then started off after the others.
kitty watched until the three of them had disappeared out the front door, and then headed for the checkout, pausing only to pick up the
copy of Frankenstein that Kai had thumbed through. Such a peculiar, all-be-it brief encounter was worthy of a small memento.
Standing in the long line for the checkout,
kitty smiled slightly to herself, hoping that the unlikely companions would eventually
find what it was they were looking for, though how they could possibly manage such a thing was anyone's guess.
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