True Love's Kiss (A Slow Burn, Orc Romance)

CHAPTER XIII

VULTOG

When we re-entered the British Library Building, the security guard from before intercepted our field of orbit. His fat physique, imposing weight and threatening expression came with a clear warning: Rayna and I were unwelcome on the premises.

Masachi's finger did an unbothered twirl in the air, directing the guard to stand down. "Don't worry about them, Dave. They're with me."

Without argument, the guard nodded at Masachi and withdrew from the lobby, most likely returning to his original post in the depths of the Folklore and Fairytales exhibition. Pressing a finger to the device looped around his ear, he relayed a bunch of security code words into the mouthpiece.

Rayna and Juno exchanged a look, oozing with intrigue.

I conjured up a look of my own–a dirty one–and aimed it at the back of Masachi's impeccably shiny and well-groomed head.

My wishes for him to trip over accidently were in vain. Not only did he get us into the Library's esteemed Reading Rooms, but he seemingly had access to a private study area. Utterly enthralled, Juno made herself at home at the table, connecting her laptop to the wifi and spreading out her notebooks. All the while, Rayna admired the curve of the round room and the shelves of aging books climbing up the walls, as far as the human eye could see.

Masachi dragged over a flipboard, and turned over the gigantic pages to find a blank sheet for our group to use.

"What university are you studying at?" Rayna wondered.

"The London Institute of Literature and Culture," Masachi stated proudly.

"Wow," Rayna over-enthused. He was a student, not a deity. "A man of intellect."

"I like to think of myself as an all-rounder." Masachi turned up the heat of his advances to a temperature that made me boil in revulsion. "PhD can stand for things other than Doctorate of Philosophy..."

My mind crashed into the gutter, channeling human sexuality. Pretty Huge D...

Rayna responded with a teasing laugh.

I knocked impatiently on the wooden table, making Juno jump and breaking up Rayna and Masachi's...whatever it was. That was enough of that. "Let's get to work. These accounts won't read themselves."

All of us sat at the table, and gathered as much information as we could relating to Jack and the Beanstalk. Rayna was right. In order to go back home to Terraork, I had to go back to the very root of my problems: Jack's theft. There were clues that I hadn't previously considered, which potentially explained why he had targeted me.

Assigning himself the role of leader, Masachi uncapped a thick black marker pen and wrote our findings on the flipboard paper.

He listed the variations of Jack and the Beanstalk that contained similarities to our 'friend's' (my) version of the tale:

- Version where an old woman sold Jack beans

- Oldest version of the story - The Boy Who Stole the Ogre's Treasure

I suppressed the urge to point out that I was an orc, not an ogre.

"Just found something good..." Masachi looked up from his laptop, the blue light reflecting off his glasses. He paused, taking a break from his thorough browse of the remote digital library. "...there's a Jack and the Beanstalk variation in which an old woman tells Jack that the giant has property originally belonging to Jack's family. I'm assuming said property is the golden harp and goose."