Artbook Collection Novels & Stories

AXEL'S POV Dracula's war room was something pulled straight from a nightmare tactician's fever dream. The chamber was circular, vast, with walls covered in maps and charts and diagrams that seemed to shift and change when you weren't looking directly at them, like they had minds of their own. The ceiling disappeared into darkness so complete it felt like the void itself was watching us from above. And in the center of it all stood a massive three-dimensional projection—a holographic map of the entire Soul Recycle Program system, each world rendered in perfect detail, floating in space like miniature planets in a twisted solar system.

There were two other people in the whole space, both at the far end. Jonathan walked in without hesitation as I followed. Then he stopped in front of a display case near the back. Inside were maps...Old maps that were framed with hand-drawn details and names in script. They weren't geographic maps, but invented ones with cities that didn’t exist and imagined rivers. With mountains named after feelings. "This is a collection of cartographic fantasy art," Jonathan explained. "A private collector loaned it to the gallery for the month and I came here two weeks ago. I stood in front of this and thought about your twelve notebooks."

But this time, I was the one who created it. “You got this, Ma’am.” Rebecca nudged me with a big smile. “You make this happen.” This was real. This was my work. I smiled back at her. “We did this.” The presentation began as I stood backstage. My heart was pounding in sync with the upbeat music. The large screen behind the stage displayed a mesmerizing slideshow of the palette collections, each named after a renowned artist—Da Vinci’s Monalisa, Klimt’s The Kiss, Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. I also added some new additions to the collection, such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Monet’s Water Lilies, and Picasso’s Blue Period, to name a few.

He asked me. “I would like to go through both, but I promise to be quick,” I told him. Robert Oldwick showed me the new collections, but something inside of me knew that I hadn’t seen what I was looking for. “What about the old ones?” I asked him. “We have them catalogued now because most of them have been taken down,” he explained before showing me the collections in their computer. And that was when one of the artworks caught my eye…I had seen a replica of it in that art room I stumbled into in Steven Noble’s residence.

James found me near the catalogue table where Robert was signing copies, which hadn't been planned but which had started when someone asked and then became a steady line. "Good show," James said. "Very good." "She built something here." He looked around the room. "All of it. Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Chicago. The catalogue. Robert Chen getting his father seen properly." He paused. "She did that." "Yes." "With some help." "Minimal." "That's how the best help works." Toward the end of the evening Patricia found Elara and I near the entrance. "Three institutions have contacted me about the catalogue," she said. "The Vancouver Art Gallery, the Museum of Vancouver, and a university library in

The art museum, which has a collection comprising more than 15,000 works that document the various art movements of the twentieth century, is heaven for Elisha. It felt like she could spend hours just being there. "Sorry to have to bother you, Ma'am. Do you still want to be here?" Theo approached her after almost an hour and a half. Elisha was still enjoying Dufy's La Fee Electricite, a mural painting of 250 giant panels. "Should we head back to the hotel now?" Elisha asked. She couldn't hide the look of disappointment on her face. "I don't think I've seen everything in here yet."