Chapter One
The Vampire's Coffee Shop
In the Town of Featherkeep, a really small part of the greater Kingdom of Ariela, there is a coffee shop owned by a vampire. Like all vampires, the Owner had small, pointed ears, skin like the pale blue moon and a pair of long fangs hidden beneath his mouth. He also had features that people of Earth would call Asian, and that was because he was the descendant of immigrants from the Zhao Empire.
And he had a small stubble on his chin, which he left like that on purpose.
The Owner went by many names. To his customers, he was called, well, Owner. To his employees, he was Boss. But to one little lion cub, he was -
"Dad! I'm home! Oh! And your job interview's here!"
Speak of the devil, the Owner thought as the lion cub came tumbling inside. The Owner had been thinking of his son while standing behind the counter, polishing a white cup.
With a sigh, he told the lion cub crossly, "George, how many times did I tell you not to shout like that in the shop? You'll disturb the customers!"
The lion cub looked around.
"But there's no one in here but you, Dad," he pointed out.
The Owner scowled at him and muttered, "Wise guy."
He was about to resume cleaning the coffee cups when he suddenly realized something.
"Hm? Hey, George, what did you say just now?"
After leaping over the counter table behind his father's back, the lion cub was halfway into the back room when he heard his name called. He stuck his head out the door and replied, "Uh . . . your job interview's here. Look! There she is, that lady that looks all dressed up for work."
George, the lion cub, pointed towards the gangly girl sitting at a random table. She had paper-white skin, shoulder-length black hair, and looked to be in her late teens. Her small, brown eyes darted right and left, clearly confused.
The Owner gave the girl a glance before turning to speak to his son again. But George had already stomped up the stairs and slammed his room door shut.
Sighing again, the Owner shook his head and grumbled, "Really, that boy."
He gave the girl another quick glance before filling up a cup with coffee he had brewing in case any customers finally showed up. When he was done, he took the coffee over to the lady and set it on the table next to her.
The girl heard the soft clink of china, smelled the coffee's delicious scent and looked up.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. Her eyes were wide, as if she had seen a ghost. And she just ever slightly backed away. "Um . . . A-about that interview . . . I'm sorry, but . . ."
"I know," the Owner said. "Sorry my son suddenly dragged you in here. He must have seen the way you were dressed while lingering outside the shop and completely mistook you for my job interview, forgetting that the interview was actually supposed to be three days from now, and that it got cancelled just this morning. It's not much of an apology, but here's some coffee on the house. Help yourself to the cream and sugar."
The girl cast a suspicious look upon the cup of coffee and hesitantly reached out to pick it up.
"Thanks," she muttered before taking a ginger sip.
"Good, right?" said the Owner. "You won't find coffee as good as mine in any other place. I'm the owner of this coffee shop, by the way. And as you can see, I'm a vampire."
The girl suddenly coughed.
"You're a vampire!?" she exclaimed.
Put off, the Owner replied, "Yes. Is something wrong?"
Realizing how rude she was, the girl quickly shook her head, replied, "Nothing," and drank some more coffee. Something caught the Owner's eye as she raised the cup to her lips.
"You're not from here, are you?" he said. "And I don't mean just here in this town. You're from another world."
Thankfully, the girl didn't cough out the coffee like before, but she looked at the Owner, completely surprised.
"How did you . . . ?" she asked.
The Owner smiled and said, "How did I know? Well, for one thing, you acted like you've never seen a vampire before. We're not exactly a rare breed, even day walkers like myself. And for another, you don't see a wristwatch like that everyday."
He pointed at the nylon green band wrapped around the girl's wrist.
"If my memory's right, that's called a digital watch," he said, "a type of watch found only in a place called Earth. And Earth, I was told, only has humans living in it and people like vampires, elves and werebeasts only exist in storybooks."
"You sure know a lot about Earth," said the girl. "Does that mean you've been there?"
The Owner, however, shook his head and said, "No. I just heard about it. But from what I was told, it didn't sound like the kind of place that would take kindly to vampires. I don't know about other vampires, but I'd rather not risk getting staked in the heart by a bunch of biased savages. By the way, vampires aren't undead immortals like in your world's stories. A vampire would only end up like that if they became a lich, those magical zombies."
"You have zombies in this world!?"
"Only in magical places that're poorly looked after," said the Owner. "You shouldn't have to worry about zombies showing up here."
"Oh."
There was a moment of silence, and then the Owner spoke up again.
"If you don't mind, can I ask what happened?" he said. "How did you get to this world?"
The girl looked up at the Owner and then cast her gaze down to the coffee cup in her hand. After a short pause, she told the Owner her story.
While she was taking a walk through a park at night, there was a bright flash of light in her face. The next thing she knew, it was suddenly daytime and she was standing right outside of the shop in the middle of a cobblestone street full of old-fashioned brick buildings. And as if the sudden change from night to day wasn't startling enough, the girl was greeted with a sight straight out of a fantasy movie (whatever a movie was).
She spotted a trio of tiny people with dainty wings of light fly by her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed an old lady with one huge eye in the middle of her face happily chatting with a green lizardman with horns while behind them, a man with really, really long ears moved a potted plant into a flower shop. School children in black robes flew over the girl's head on broomsticks, while rainbow colored smoke billowed out of an open window of a building with a sign that said "Mike's Magic Store".
As she watched the colorful smoke drift up to the sky, a lion boy suddenly walked up to her and pulled her into a nearby coffee shop. The rest was history.
"I see," the Owner said. "That light showing up out of nowhere and suddenly teleporting to a strange place must have been startling. But lucky for you, if you're looking to go home, all you have to do is talk to the town guard."
The girl looked up from her coffee cup and said, "Go home?"
"Yes," said the Owner. "Go home, back to Earth. You want to go back to your own world, don't you? You're not the first Earthian to show up in this world. Plenty of people from your world have somehow slipped into this one through cracks in the so-called Wall Between Worlds, enough that we have schools teaching kids about the place."
"And those people managed to get back home?" the girl asked.
"With help from the government," the Owner replied. "Some expert in magic discovered a way to travel between worlds a long time ago, and the government uses that discovery to help people like yourself get home. Just go over to the nearest guardhouse or government office, and the people there will take care of the rest. So you don't have to worry about a thing. You can go home as soon as you want."
"Go home, huh?"
For some reason, the girl had a wry smile on her face as she muttered those words. She looked almost bitter. And then she said something that put a frown on the Owner's own face.
"Say, you said you had a job interview that got canceled," the girl said. "Does that mean you're still hiring?"
"You don't have to worry about paying your way home," the Owner said. "The government will be glad to help you for free, thanks to taxes."
But the girl shook her head, and the Owner realized something.
"You want to stay here?" The Owner could not hide his surprise. "I really think that's a bad idea. This world might seem fantastical to you, but it's not altogether kind. It'll definitely be hard for an otherworlder like you to live here. Heck, even people born in this world have a hard time living in it. Besides, don't you have family back on Earth? Or at least friends who are worried with you missing? Don't you want to see them again?"
But the girl shook her head and said, "I have no one like that."
At a loss for words, the Owner could only scratch the back of his head and sigh. It seemed like the girl had some kind of heavy backstory. Well, he had his suspicions when he saw that girl's bitter smile at the mention of the word, "home".
After a bit of thought, he finally spoke up.
"The pay's not that great," he said.
The girl looked up and blinked.
"What?" she said.
"You heard me," the Owner said. "I can't pay you much, but if you're still willing to work, I'll hire you. As for finding a place to stay, I know someone who might give you a room until you get on your feet. I can't make any promises though."
"Thank you!" the girl said. "Thank you so much!"
The girl beamed with gratitude, but the Owner wasn't about to just bask in it.
Keeping his face stern and indifferent, he said, "Don't thank me yet. I still have to report you to the town guard. This country's pretty easygoing, but it still has laws and things that need to be done in a certain way. For all I know, you could still get kicked out of this world. That's why, if you really want to stay, you better put a hundred percent into work that will, for sure, be a pain in the rear end."
The girl stopped to let the Owner's words sink in. His words had really put a damper on her spirits, but after a short pause, she took a deep breath and gave him a resolute nod.
"I understand," she said.
The Owner looked her in the eye and could not find a hint of wavering in her spirit. But still, he had to be careful, so he replied, "We'll see." And then he turned to walk back to the shop counter. There's a lot he'll have to do now that he has a new worker, and one with a whole bunch of problems.
Suddenly, he turned around. He had just reached the counter when he remembered something important.
"Hey." He called out to the girl. "I just realized I never got your name. Mind telling me?"
The girl looked up from her coffee, looked at the Owner and then replied, "It's Lau. Peggy Lau."
"Lau, huh?" said the Owner. "Sounds Zhaoese."
Peggy blinked and looked at the Owner curiously. "Zhaoese?"
"Oh, right, you wouldn't know," said the Owner. He looked up while stroking his chin thoughtfully. "I believe in your world, there is a country called China. Zhao is a country that's pretty much the same as China, except it is still under the control of an emperor. My ancestors also came from Zhao, but I barely speak a lick of the language. Any other questions?"
Peggy paused before answering.
"Yeah, just one more," she said. "What's this world called?"
The Owner looked at Peggy and replied, "You want to know the name of this world? It's Emeron."
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