-- A figure in the dark --

  Only grass and forest north of Sunnyvale, the drunkard had said. He knew better.

  There was Skyview Monastery, about a days travel north from Sunnyvale. And he was here now.

  He looked up the towering spire. It was fitting. Only one way up. Or ... only one way down, rather. Narrow, steep and dangerous. Easy to block. Easy to defend. The perfect place to contain a demon. Have a god bless the entrance gate and the demon could not even touch it. Have a god bless the stairs and she could never set a foot on them.

  But he could. He would carry her if he must.

  He had settled at the foot of the spire to rest from the travel and wait until the night could hide him from curious looks. Sun had set, the air become clear and crisp. More and more stars began to sparkle in the sky the darker the night became.

  He had food and water for two days, maybe three. Time enough to find out where they kept the demon? Maybe he could steal food, if he ran low. He didn't wish the demon anything bad, not really, but in a twisted sense he hoped the monks made her stay hell. The more she suffered there, the more willing she would be to come with him. Thankful, too. He needed her to be thankful to him.

  He looked up again, the silhouette of the monastery barely visible against the night sky. It was a holy place after all. Just the one to make a demon suffer. She would be thankful.

  He checked his dagger and the food supplies once again. Then the moon rose over the horizon. Barely enough light to let him see the stairs. Too little to be seen from above. Just as he needed.

  He set his foot on the first step and began to travel up.

  -- Lilith POV, Skyview Monastery Library --

  She had been scared when superior Martins had demanded that she must work in the library. His office had been full of holy books which all had tried to hurt her, even from the distance of their shelves. If the books in his office were this bad bad already, a whole library of holy books had to be just horrible.

  Superior Martins had actually made concessions when she pleaded to be spared from the holy books. Still required to work in the library, she was given a bit of a choice. She could ask for help if a book was too holy for her to handle it safely.

  That had been quite some relief. But it also tickled her sense of pride. She didn't really like to admit the holy books were stronger than her in some cases. She didn't want to be seen as weak, even that she had admitted to the weakness already. At least she wanted to show resilience when she actually did the work.

  So she had made the library her training ground. Superior Martins had told her that he thinks she was a lawful demon, and following or enforcing laws, regardless if good or evil, would make her stronger. Well, she wouldn't have known. But she was about to find out. In the library.

  The library had one big law. Each book had to be in the place where the catalog listed it, so that people could easily find the book. Simple, clear and sensible. Book has place. A well formed law in her opinion. So, if superior Martins was right that complying or enforcing laws made her stronger, her job in the library would do just that. Because her job was to collect scattered and returned books, look up where they belonged to and bring them there so people could easily find them again. Make everything follow the library law.

  There were a few other laws like being quiet, don't eat or drink in the library, but they all seemed secondary to her. They were not about the books themselves. She'd comply to and enforce them anyways while the was on library duty. Overall the library was a very lawful place which seemed to suit her.

  The interesting part in her training idea though was what the humans called "no pain no gain." A concept that she could understand as easily as the law of the library. And that's where the holy books came in. The exact ones that had hurt and scared her so much in first place.

  They hurt her if she tried to pick them up. Some even burned her. So, they were against her following the law, holy or not. The library law had been made by the monastery monks though, and was, well if not godly or holy, still held up very high. Furthermore it was a sensible, helpful law. It made the place work better. A library without order was useless.

  Now she tried to be lawful. Most gods liked it if people followed laws. Many gods handed out big lists of laws to follow. So maybe she could trick the holy books to stop hurting her even if she was a demon. Because if they hurt her, they were against the law of the library, against her bringing them to the place where they ought to be. That made them a little bit evil in her opinion. A little less dangerous to her.

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  So she had gotten used to handle the holy books, accepted the pain in hope it would eventually fade, because what she did was to make sure even these books followed the law of the library and were in their rightful places. Even the gods had to see that she did the right thing here. If people couldn't find the holy books because they were not in the right place, they were of no use to the gods.

  Now though she had a new problem. A different book. A prankster, it seemed. She didn't know how to handle it yet, but she was determined to find out.

  The book on the counter in front of her looked all innocent. Just a book. Admittedly old, classic quality. Leather bound sheets of paper. Still, just a book. Right? A brother had returned it to the library a little while ago and she was supposed to look up where it belonged and put it back in place so the next person would find it there.

  But the book did not let her.

  She lowered a claw slowly towards the book. So far it had always tried to escape her hands, left and right. If she pinned it right in the center, it would not know which way to go. Downwards was the counter top. No escape route.

  There was resistance in the air even that her claw was still some distance away from the book. She pushed down harder. The book trembled, but stayed in place. She leaned in to put more weight into her move, pressing the claw down with force. The book trembled harder and suddenly flitted to the left side, right from under her claw which promptly impaled the wooden counter top due to the sudden lack of resistance.

  She frowned, sighed and wiggled her hand to dig her claw out of the wood.

  Then she turned towards the elderly monk who was on library duty with her this afternoon, "Brother Sam, please can I have a moment of your time?"

  "What is it, Lilith? Another book that you can't touch?" She could not deduce if he ridiculed her or was empathetic. Or just neutral.

  She pointed to the book and explained, "Yes, but this one's complicated in a different way. The other difficult books try to hurt me, even burn me. They are brutes. This one's a prankster. Look!"

  She tried to snatch the book with her right hand. It escaped to the left.

  She tried to snatch the book with her left hand. It escaped to the right.

  She used both hands and the book slipped forward and out of her immediate reach.

  "See?"

  He leaned forward and picked it up without any issue, but didn't say anything yet.

  She pointed to the book in his hands with a midnight colored claw, "It also doesn't let me read the title. I can read other book titles just fine, even the holy ones which try to hurt me if I touch them. I can see there is some text on it, but I cannot read it. It blurs out each time I look at it."

  "Huh", was all the elderly monk managed to say.

  "Can you tell me the title?", she asked him after some seconds had passed, tail slowly swaying behind her.

  "It's about paladins. The path of purity", he explained.

  "Oh", it escaped her, "Paladins"

  Paladins were supposed to be everything she was not. Holy. Pure of heart. Loyal to the gods. Well, maybe, now that she was thinking about it, paladins were also supposed to be lawful. She was supposed to be lawful, just with laws of her choice which most likely were not the laws of a paladins choice. But the book was still trying to escape her. So being lawful didn't help the case.

  After a few more moments she was able to put her idea into words, "I think I can understand why it evades my touch so eagerly. While I like to say I'm less evil than many humans, I'm certainly not pure. The book is afraid that my touch will stain it. A paladin quite likely does not want to hold a book that has gone through the hands of a demon. So it avoids me."

  He looked at her, "Might be right. You know before you came here, it was all just words. Holy. Pure. We had to believe it. Then you came and told us which books were actually holy because they hurt you. And now you have found a book which is pure."

  "If the book runs away from Lilith, it must be pure", she commented with a sour expression, tail lightly coiled. "Well I'll admit it is at least a good indicator." Her tail relaxed again.

  She bowed towards the book and intoned with some insincere friendliness in her voice, "Good book!" and almost expected the book to growl at her.

  Brother Sam chuckled, "Alright, I'll bring it back to the shelf. Are there more books left to go through?"

  "Yes, about half a dozen more, but I think all mundane literature. Poetry, novels and such. Nothing I can't handle. Well, at least they let me read the titles", she replied.

  The other books were all easy as expected. Just books. Well behaved in her opinion.

  "Brother Sam, the books are all sorted up. If it's alright with you, I'll go to the kitchen now and see if I can help with preparations for the evening meal." She didn't exactly know where he was now, but no one else was in the library at the moment so she could speak loudly.

  "That's fine Lilith." His voice came from behind a distant shelf, calm and unhurried as usual, "I'll see you in the dining hall then."