Cold Tea and Old Books

Ivy crawled up the old bricks that made up the walls of the apartment complex. The ivy was eternal, no matter how many times the land owner came to deal with it, the spreading mess of shiny green leaves just came back. One of the occupants of the complex could actually have dealt with the ivy, leaving it no will to ever breach the unyielding ground year after year. The depressing air of Kole even carried to plants.

The single room apartment was bare, the walls were white, the furniture was a dreadfully drab grey color, and there were absolutely no decorations to speak of. It was also impeccably clean for a single man to be living in it. Then again, Kole was not actually a human man, not anymore, at least. The only color in the little kitchen came from the glowing wires of an electric stove that heated up a rather dull looking silver tea pot, and Tibias, dressed in his customary red vest and pinstripe slacks, standing impatiently next to the teapot waiting for it to whistle. Kole leaned against the barren countertop, his arms crossed and head tilted to the side, a habit that irritated Tibias to no end. Tibias could never actually make sense of the stance, because the blank look of absolute apathy did not actually detract from the sightly confused air that seems to go hand in hand with cocked heads.

"So what about this book then," Tibias questioned the taller man, turning away from the teapot, which was not showing any signs of heating the water anytime soon. Tibias had the faint impression that the chill that clung to Kole was preventing the temperature to raise beyond a "comfortable" sixty.

"Keera and Royal picked it up at the apartment when they went back for a final sweep," Kole stated, reaching past by Tibias and gently touching a fingertip to the teapot, which began to steam.

Tibias rolled his eyes at the unnecessary display of power and waited again for it to whistle. Once the water was poured into two mugs, one black and one a fading yellow each with a teabag and spoon, Tibias turned once again to Kole.

"It seems that Ms. Fortier either has connections within the council, or she is acquaintances with some very powerful people, at any rate." He said before handing the black mug to Kole, "Mr. Tarrent, do you really find it all that important to make sure everything you own is colorless?" he asked suddenly, the yellow mug actually belonged to Tibias, who left it at Kole's apartment because Kole only owned one for some inexplicable reason.

"Tibias, please try and stay on subject for more than a second," Kole said, ignoring the question entirely.

"It is on subject Mr. Tarrent," Tibias sighed, "What is different about this book than any other run of the mill demon summoning book we unfortunately come across?"

"Well, it seems to be written in the sixteenth century, judging on the text, and the woodcuts put it in to that time period also. I would expect the normal summonings and spells..." he trailed off, not knowing what Tibias was getting at.

"Yes, but did you not realize it is written in English? Old English is still English. Latin is usually the norm for Demonic books. Also, the binding is glued, not stitched." Tibias took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "It's either a reproduction, or a fake. A very good fake, but still a fake."