What? WHAT?

My mind goes blank. This . . . this mucky, heavy book is Shubbenyiddi? “I-Is this the actual . . .?”

“Yes.”

“But how is something so ancient just sitting here?”

“It is property of the Federation’s archives. The archives are stored here. As the guardian of High Society, I have direct access to the books.”

“Books?”

“Shubbenyiddi isn’t just one book.”

“It isn’t?”

“They are records. How can one book be enough?” Hyo grins.

“So the one that Ms Pink borrowed from Helene is just one of the books?”

“She doesn’t have the original.” Hyo’s grin widens. “It’s a copy.”

“A copy?”

“Yeah.”

“Are there many copies?”

Hyo shrugs. “Who knows how many illegal copies there are.”

“Illegal?”

“It’s illegal if you copy it without registering with the Federation.”

“So is Helene’s copy illegal too?”

Hyo laughs. “Likely. After living for a couple hundred years, you’d get tired of following the rules too.”

“How long have you lived? If you don’t mind answering.”

Hyo leans back with her elbows on the armrests and smiles. “How long do you think?”

“I’m really bad at guessing.”

“I’ll give you two tries.”

“Two hundred years?”

Hyo pulls a shocked expression. “Do I look at old?”

“One hundred years?”

With a shaking head, Hyo says, “Uh uh, wrong again. I’m a new recruit. You’re looking at fifty years of succubus-hood.”

“You’re a succubus too? Like Yuri.”

“Mhm.”

“Is that why you can talk to me in my head?”

Hyo’s grin is cheeky. “We can enter minds, dabble with dreams and control your desires, but I find it a whole lot more fun when I do it while the person is awake.”

“Is Yuri related to you?”

“Our vicists are twins. Cool, right?”

My eyes grow wide. “So Yuri is kind of like your sister? Oh my God.” A thought occurs to me just then. “Who are your vicists?”

“Trungt and Trungn. Twins. They’ve been around since forever.”

“I’ve not heard Ms Pink mention them before.”

“They’re in the mountains of Namve, staying away from all of this mess. They don’t like to hang out in the city. So when they come here, it must be for something very important.”

“Why did they turn you into a succubus?”

For once, there is no smile. “That’s not important.” Hyo pushes Shubbenyiddi to me and flips it open. “The Black Death,” she reads, finger moving down a series of inscriptions, “killed almost everyone in the towns and villages. I rode through fields of black and rot. I rode through a living nightmare.” Looking at me, Hyo says, “The recent mass murder turned the victims blue. But do you know what happened after one victim was zapped with an energy charge?”

I shake my head, not knowing how or why a victim was zapped in the first place.

“He turned black.”

My jaw falls open. “Black?”

“Do you know what that means?”

“It means . . . the Black Death was actually blue?”

“Yes. And?”

“And . . . something happened to turned everyone black.”

“So what does that mean?”

“That means . . . there was a lot of energy zapping them after they died?”

“Put two and two together. The records call it the Black Death. But what if they were not black at first? What if they were blue like the mass murder in Elv?”

“That would mean the Erika did not kill them. The Feds are wrong.” My spirits lift as realization dawns on me. “And if I’m really the Erika, it means I’m not dangerous!”

Hyo’s expression doesn’t agree with my last statement. “I don’t know about the ‘not dangerous’ part. It’s still an unknown.” Hyo points at the next page. “Fingers to toes, all were darkened. All was lost. But he is vanquished.”

“He? Who is he?”

“The records are vague here.”

I stare at Hyo for a bit, finding it fascinating that she can read the inscriptions. “How did you learn to read this language? And what is this language?”

“We call it Nomrom. It’s an ancient language. An ancient super taught me the language and I had to take a Nomrom test before I could become Madam Hyo,” said Hyo, weaving circles in the air with her hands while adding a weird accent to her title.

“But why?”

“As Madam Hyo, I am Keeper of Shubbenyiddi and other ancient books and things. I also have to deal with old, powerful supers who are very old-fashioned and still like to write in Nomrom because they think it’s superior.” Hyo rolls her eyes. “They are my favourite.”

I giggle a little. Hyo is funny. But giggles and funnies aside, I need to know more. “Does the record mention anything about the one who was responsible for the blue murders?”

Hyo leans back and presses her lips into a thin line. Is this an unpleasant topic to discuss?

“The record talks about some events that end in a sea of blue. It was when ancient vampires fought for territory and power. They took over lands where people lived and terrorized them with the blue corpses.”

“But I don’t understand the blue bit. Why do they turn blue?”

Hyo blows a sigh. “Ancient vampi