The Knight of Pages

by Alexie Aaron

  Nash raised his hands and backed away from the bin.

  “What happened here?” Jones asked, stepping through the broken door.

  “Elma Kis happened. She’s upstairs with a gun. So far, she’s shot it four times. If this were a B western, and she was holding a six-shooter, she’d have two shots left.”

  “My 9mm Luger holds 15 rounds. She’s got Officer Molina’s service weapon too.”

  “So counting the bullets is futile,” Nash said, feeling stupid.

  “Who’s up there besides Kis?” Jones asked.

  “Clara Tyler, Wendell Baumbach, and my landlord Kalaraja Gupta.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “Clara has a baseball bat, Wendell’s been quoting books, and Kalaraja probably is skulking around.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Keeping her away from this.” Nash pointed to the book hanging on the pillar.

  It had a steady stream of blood oozing down from where the knife pierced the pages.

  “Is that blood?” Brenda asked.

  “DON’T TOUCH IT!” Nash said, running to intercept the officer.

  Brenda stopped.

  “I can’t explain it, but this book will change you, hurt you, and cause you to hurt us. Please,” begged Nash, “leave it be.”

  A shot rang out from upstairs.

  Jones nodded to Brenda. “Time to round up Annie Oakley before she kills someone.”

  ~

  Father Saul gazed down upon the monster. The man seemed to be in physical difficulty. A tinge of red bloomed on his shoulder, and the old man staggered backwards and sat down hard on the bed.

  “I expect the wound in his shoulder is possibly a tear in the fabric of the book. He will try to heal the book. Our hopes are that whomever is battling the book now continues their path of destruction,” Brother David prayed.

  “So you’re not going to treat Horace’s wounds?” Father Saul asked.

  “Are they his wounds or the wounds of the book? If he is one with the book, is he even here? If we treat his wounds, are we not helping the book?” Brother David asked.

  Father Saul didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t his milieu. The men and women of this place dealt with situations that weren’t learned in any seminary. The techniques for dealing with aberrations of nature were hard learned. The paranormal world was exactly that, a world. It was a world that bled into the lives of many innocent and not-so-innocent people. This monastery kept society safe from the monsters who were brought to them. There was no parole board here, no presidential pardons. The inmates of this place had used up any goodwill the outside world had.

  “Horace is experiencing real pain, but it isn’t pain of our making,” Brother David told Father Saul. “I suspect he will be experiencing many effects of his bad deeds. If you don’t have the stomach for it, I suggest you join Ms. Irving in the chapel.”

  “No, I promised her to see this through. She left expecting to meet a knight, if I heard her correctly.”

  “She is with the Knight of Memoirs. He is hoping to open her mind so she can take back her memories.”

  “They are horrible memories,” Father Saul said.

  “But they are hers, and they don’t belong in Horace’s horrible little book.”

  ~

  Kabir watched Marc. He seemed to be in a trance of some kind since Marianne connected with him.

  A beautiful dark-haired woman walked into Marc’s room, followed by a tall thin Korean man who wore odd eyewear. Both were wearing dark clothing. The woman reminded Kabir of Emma Peel from the old Avenger’s television series.

  “Hello, Kabir, my name is Natalie Boccasavia, and I’m the Queen of Books. It’s time you came with me and took back your memories.”

  “But what about Marc?”

  “Joon-ki, the Knight of Texts, will look after him.”

  Kabir stood up and put a hand on Marc. “They want me to leave. Is this what you want?”

  Marc opened his eyes and nodded his agreement.

  “Take care. If I’m not incarcerated, I’ll help you sort out your life,” Kabir promised.

  Marc nodded again and closed his eyes. As he closed them, he opened another eye in the bookstore. He grinned, recognizing the logo of Penguin books. He was surrounded by them. Marc wondered if this landing spot was more fated than luck.

  Kabir walked silently behind the woman. She stopped and ducked into a room, pulling him after her.

  “Be still,” she hissed.

  Kabir heard a pair of purposeful footsteps moving down the hall towards them. The brief spurt of radio transmissions identified them as either hospital security or policemen. Kabir figured out that, either way, they had finally come for him.

  After they passed the room, Natalie put a finger to her lips and a firm hand on his arm. She eased the door open and pulled Kabir after her as she walked swiftly down the corridor to the stairwell. They took the stairs with speed, and when they burst out into the night, Kabir released the breath he had been holding.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where we are needed.”

  “The bookshop?” he asked.

  “The bookshop,” she confirmed. “You have a part to play in this drama. You will see things you will not understand, but do not let them stop you from your task.”

  “I’ll will do my best.”

  Natalie looked at the man and saw the sorrow in his eyes. She put her hand under his chin as if he were a child. “You are the bravest of all the victims. You presented yourself to the police when you could have possibly gotten away with whatever your crime was. Why did you do this?”

  “I knew the blood wasn’t mine. I wanted to save whomever was bleeding.”

  “Because of this, Marc was saved, and we had solid information that Horace Baumbach was involved. Do not think because you may have had dark desires that you aren’t a good man. You have natural heroic instincts. I would be honored to have you serve the Scrolls.”

  Kabir straightened up. “If you still want me after prison, I’m all yours.”

  The Queen of Books smiled. “Time isn’t on our side. Let’s hurry.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Kalaraja moved quickly in and out of the stacks. He used his unnatural strength to move the shelves. Clara and Wendell did their best to distract Elma while he created his trap.

  “Wendell! Your mother would be ashamed to see you frolicking with that slut in the presence of literature,” Elma called out.

  “Evidently, you’ve never seen my mother’s collection of erotic Victorian literature,” Wendell said behind her.

  Elma spun around. He wasn’t there.

  “She wants grandchildren,” Clara said. “Who better than I?”

  “Never! No Secondhand Susie vermin!” Elma shouted and fired off in all four directions.

  Wendell had pushed Clara down to the floor, covering her with his body.

  Clara lifted an eyebrow. “If this is your idea of romance, your timing’s a bit off,” she whispered.

  Wendell glared at her. “I’m going to turn you over my knee if you don’t stop.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “You are trouble.”

  Clara smiled, letting him know that she wasn’t serious. The two crawled until they found cover in the next aisle. They sat, breathing hard, with their backs against the hobby books. They heard Elma pass by them and head into the romance section.

  “Time for us to get out of here. I think we’ve used up our luck,” Wendell said softly. “It’s been a pleasure playing hide-and-seek with you.”

  “No better playmate,” Clara said and got to her feet. She held out her hand, and Wendell took it. Clara helped him to his feet. He then took the lead and ventured out of the aisle, leading them to the stairs.

  Brenda drew back against the wall when she saw movement. When Wendell stepped out, followed by Clara, she resumed her stance.


  “She’s got an itchy trigger finger,” Clara said as they passed.

  “Where?”

  “She entered the romance section. Fourth aisle on the left. Or it was a few moments ago. Kalaraja has been rearranging things.”

  Wendell pulled Clara along. They passed Detective Jones on the stairs. Wendell let go of Clara once they were safely on the first floor. They saw Nash staring down into a large canvas bin.

  “What’s going on?” Clara said, lifting her bat.

  “I’m not sure,” Nash said. He looked at her. “Drop the bat, I don’t think a knuckleball is headed your way.”

  Wendell stared at the book that was pinned to the pillar. Another page was tearing. It fell from the book. Wendell reached out.

  “NO!” Nash shouted.

  Wendell backed away, stunned by the volume of voice Nash used.

  The page floated over.

  Clara and Nash moved away from the bin and watched as the page first settled on top of a few worn classics before it burrowed into the depths of the bin.

  Elma moved deeper into the stacks. She was momentarily stopped by her interest in a Nicholas Sparks book. It presented itself, sliding away from its brothers and sisters. Safe Haven trembled as if it were a sacrifice. Elma picked it up. The book fell open. Elma was intrigued by this. She put her gun away and read, “I’ve come to believe that in everyone’s life, there’s one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything.”

  “Listen to the book,” Kalaraja advised in his kindest voice. “You can fight Horace and turn your life around.”

  “Who’s this Horace? First Greene mentions him and now you.”

  “Horace is Wendell’s father and Catherine’s husband. He is an evil man who has created the book that has poisoned your soul.”

  “I’m Elma Kis. I am solely responsible for my own destiny,” Elma claimed.

  “Then why are you standing there dressed in a stolen police uniform hunting down Wendell and Clara?” Kalaraja asked.

  Elma couldn’t answer him. Instead she challenged, “Who are you? Why don’t you show yourself?”

  “I’m allergic to bullets,” Kalaraja said. “Take out your weapons, and put them on the floor.”

  “That would be foolish. How can I accomplish anything without a gun or two?”

  “I can think of an infinite number of things you can accomplish without a gun.”

  “I can’t stop Wendell from throwing his life away on that Secondhand Susie without killing her and then maybe him.”

  “Why do you call her Secondhand Susie? Her name is Clara.”

  “She’s just like that Marianne Irving. She was a nobody. Marianne came to book club with her secondhand books. You could smell the staleness when she flipped the pages. Wendell felt sorry for her and…”

  “Isn’t Wendell a bookdealer?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means he deals in secondhand books. Do you hate Wendell too?”

  “No, of course not. One has to make allowances for men.”

  “Do you love Wendell?”

  “No. I just don’t like it when he makes a fool of himself. Our book club must have a stalwart leader. One who appreciates my point of view.”

  “You’re full of yourself, Elma. Surrender your weapons, and leave the shop before you get hurt. The books don’t like you.”

  “These books don’t matter. I’m of a mind to burn the shop down after I kill the lovers.”

  “Lovers?”

  “Wendell and Clara.”

  “Oh, Elma, you have it all wrong. Wendell and Clara are friends. It’s Nash and Clara who are lovers.”

  “But I saw them with my own eyes. Wendell had his arm around her, and she was caressing his face.”

  “They were drawing you away from Horace’s book.”

  “But…”

  “They played you like a piano, each taking a line in a duet of deception.”

  Elma tossed the book in her hands. It’s fragile spine broke as it landed.

  There was a tremor moving through the stacks.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Kalaraja said.

  Brenda entered the fourth aisle. A few yards in, the aisle teed. She was presented with two choices:romance books that she had curled up with on many a rainy afternoon on the right, and romantic adventure sagas on the left. Brenda chose to go left. She slid off one of her flipflops and jammed the heel in between two books to hold it in Jones’s eyeline to tell him what direction she had gone.

  With her gun raised, she moved down the aisle. The books seemed to shiver as she walked by. Maybe the flooring wasn’t as secure as she thought. She heard a mumbling deeper into what now appeared to be a maze made up of bookshelves. She would need to use all of her senses to determine which was the right way to go each time a choice of direction was presented to her.

  “Nash, I could really use a drink,” Wendell admitted, showing the bookseller his shaking hands.

  “In the office,” Nash started.

  “Behind the Hemmingway,” Clara finished.

  Nash grinned. “She knows way too much about me.”

  “I assure you, I take my stalking seriously,” Clara said and jumped as a book shifted in the classics bin.

  Nash waited until Wendell left before taking Clara in his arms. “I find it funny that you’re up there dodging bullets without breaking a sweat and yet are frightened by a moving book.”

  “I have found out, much to my horror, that some books are just as dangerous as bullets.”

  “Fortunately, there aren’t many of them.”

  Clara looked over Nash’s shoulder. “What do we do about that book?”

  Nash turned around and saw that a black mold-like stain was creeping up and down the pillar.

  “Horace is reaching out. We have to get it out of this shop before he infects the other books.”

  “But we can’t touch it,” Clara said.

  “Let me,” Wendell said. “Maybe because I’m a blood relative it won’t affect me.” He drank deeply from the coffee cup he had poured a large measure of whiskey in. He set the cup on the counter.

  “No, Wendell,” Nash said. “Horace means to sacrifice you in order to become immortal. He may be able to do it through the book.”

  “I’ll do it,” Clara offered. “Just put me in a good mental hospital.”

  “How dark are your desires?” a handsome Indian gentleman asked from the door. He walked in followed by the Queen of Books. “Mine turned out to be far more depraved than I had ever imagined. Miss, you don’t want to have to live with that on your conscience.”

  “Kabir,” Nash said. “Two pages have been ripped from the book. They landed in there,” he said, pointing at the bin. “I suggest that you rip out your pages once you have the book in hand.”

  Kabir looked at Natalie, and she nodded. “Trust Nash, he has good instincts when it comes to these things.”

  “If I get violent, have the police kill me,” Kabir said.

  “My God, could it come to that?” Wendell asked. “We can’t ask you to do this.”

  “No, my good friend, you can’t ask, but I can volunteer,” Kabir said. He straightened his suit jacket.

  To Wendell, it looked like Kabir was preparing to die looking his best.

  To Clara, it looked like he was adjusting his armor. “He’s a knight,” she realized.

  Nash looked at the man who had spent most of his life in search of books to add to his collection. Maybe, along the way, he read a few and was influenced by their heroes of both sexes.

  Kabir walked over to the pillar. He pulled out the knife with one hand, steadying the book with the other. He handed the knife to Natalie and opened the book and flipped the pages. He tore out two pages with such vigor that it sounded like screams. He walked over and dropped the pages where Marc’s and Marianne’s had gone. The bin shook as the books accepted the sacrifice. The black stain th
at had moved away from the book disappeared, and the book trembled as if it had rebounded with the evil within.

  “I need to get the book to the lake and let the water destroy the paper, curl the leather, and weaken the threads. I’ll walk it as far out as I can. Then I’ll swim until I find the cold deep water. I will then dive down and settle it under the large mossy rocks, never to rise from the lake ever again,” Kabir said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Natalie said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You’re going nowhere,” Molina said, walking into the shop, aiming her gun at Kabir. She had three officers backing her up. “Kabir, I’m arresting you…”

  A terrific whistle followed by a gurgling sound not unlike a chuckle emanated from the Penguin Classics bin.

  Upstairs, Brenda stopped, worried about what she just heard. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t come up with the memory of where and when she had heard that sound before. She dismissed it and continued to move around the maze in search of Elma Kis.

  Detective Jones saw the flipflop and was standing, trying to decide if it was better to follow his officer and chance them both missing the subject or going in the opposite direction with the possibility of either getting in the crossfire or shooting his own officer in error, when the sound hit him.

  Elma, summoned by the book, ran through what was now a full maze, thanks to Kalaraja. She didn’t see the books shift as if speaking to the other books. A large tome fell from the top shelf, narrowly missing hitting Elma on the head. It did hit her shoulder, causing her to shriek in pain.

  Brenda heard Elma. She charged forward, confident she would find the woman after the next turn of the maze.

  Jones took the passage on the right. He thumbed off the safety as he raised his gun and moved forward. A few romance books from the 1950s swooned and fell off the shelves. The more recent books scoffed at the weaknesses written into the characters of the books. They would never swoon. They were strong and would overcome no matter the genre.