The Book of Lies

by Melissa McShane

  I slurped up a noodle. “I have no idea. Accords compliance, probably.”

  “Tell me that doesn’t fill you with dread,” Judy said.

  “It does. But I’m not admitting to anything, and if they do find out, I’ll defend myself. I know what the Accords has to say about my romantic situation.”

  “Really? What?”

  I ate another noodle. “It says ‘Don’t.’”

  “There has to be more detail than that,” Viv said.

  “All I know is it says specifically that romantic relationships are against the Accords. But it doesn’t say anything about close friendships, and I think those are at least as potentially problematic as romance. Mr. Briggs was killed because he wouldn’t falsify an augury for a friend, but he could just as easily have agreed to do it. If I have to, I’ll use that as my defense.”

  “Let’s just hope you don’t have to,” Viv said. “I don’t know, Hel. I’ve never met a man I was willing to risk everything for. I don’t know if you’re lucky or just insane.”

  “What about Jeremiah?” Judy said with a smirk.

  “What about him?”

  “Oh, Helena, she’s blushing.”

  “All right, so I like Jeremiah. But I don’t know him well yet at all.”

  “Did he kiss you yet?” I asked. “Oh, wow, you’re blushing harder. Who are you, and what have you done with the real Genevieve Haley?”

  “I don’t know!” Viv exclaimed. “I feel like I’m thirteen again and having my first crush. He’s just so different. It’s like we could talk for hours and I’d just learn more things I want to know about him. He’s not even my type!”

  “I think types are overrated,” Judy said. She took a drink of her Diet Coke and added, “They’re just a way to narrow the field. Sometimes you find someone you never would have thought to look for, and he’s the one.”

  “Says you,” said Viv. “Are you even dating? What’s your type?”

  “I’m currently unattached. And my type is Chris Hemsworth.”

  “He’s like five feet taller than you.”

  “So? Everyone’s taller than me. I might as well embrace it.”

  “Chris Hemsworth is pretty hot,” I said. “Not as hot as Malcolm.”

  “Says the loyal girlfriend,” Viv said.

  “No, I agree that Campbell’s hot, even though he gets on my nerves. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “So we just have to find a Chris Hemsworth look-alike for Judy, and we can all settle down into relationship bliss,” Viv said.

  “Actually, there was someone,” Judy said, a little too casually. “Someone who works for Father.”

  “There was? What do you mean ‘was’?” Viv said, leaning over eagerly.

  “She means she came to work here,” I said. “You’re not a custodian. You don’t have to worry about the Accords.”

  “Employees of Neutralities are still subject to the Accords. They’re maybe not as strict, but…I take my loyalties seriously. And I decided to call it off.”

  I felt like the biggest jerk in the universe. “Judy, I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t serious. There wasn’t time for it to be serious.” She wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes.

  “Then…all those times you warned me about Malcolm…Judy, I’m really sorry.”

  Judy shook her head. “You didn’t get how serious your rule breaking was at first,” she said. “And then…it was obvious what you had was more than a crush. So if you’re thinking I was resentful that you were doing what I wished I could do, stop. Yes, I wish I hadn’t had to break it off, but he wasn’t someone I cared enough about to risk my freedom or even my life for. And I never resented you.”

  I stabbed my chopsticks into what remained of the noodles and said, “The Accords—”

  “Govern our lives,” Judy said. “Don’t start thinking otherwise. They don’t change for people like us.”

  “Then who else should they change for?” Viv said. “It’s not just about the unfairness. If the Accords really do need to change, how is it right that they only change if the Board thinks they should?”

  “If they can be changed at a whim, they’re not powerful enough to bind us,” Judy said, “and they need to be powerful to keep the factions from tearing magery apart.”

  “That’s true,” I said, “but I wish I felt that the Board always has magery’s best interests at heart. They’re just nine people who have their own preferences and beliefs. Do you know Harrison was the only one who voted against keeping Abernathy’s here? And he probably only did that because he’s pals with Rebecca Greenough. So the same logic that convinced everyone else wasn’t enough to override his self-interest.”

  “How do you know it was Harrison?”

  “I don’t, exactly, but Mr. Ragsdale implied it strongly.” I let out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. Either they find out about me and Malcolm this afternoon, or they don’t, and there’s nothing I can do except keep my secrets as best I can and pray they aren’t omniscient.”

  Viv left after giving us both presents, me a turquoise sweater with a three-quarter-length sleeve, perfectly matching my favorite bracelet—“It’s not your color, but I’m never going to convince you of that,” she said—and Judy a vintage choker she put on immediately. A few more magi came in, not many, and by 1:30 I told Judy she should go home. She didn’t argue.

  Snow fell more heavily now, turning the world gray, and I sat on the stool and watched the flakes fall. I couldn’t remember the last time it had snowed this heavily in December, and I dreaded the moment I’d have to get out on the roads to go to my parents’ house. But it was hard to feel unhappy when the world was so beautiful. I checked the time. 1:45. Maybe I could close up early.

  The door swung open, setting the merry bells jingling. “This is a hard place to find,” Kevin said, brushing snow off his hat and coat.

  “What are you doing here? I was about to close up.”

  “Then I’m glad I made it. I wanted to see where you work.” Kevin took a few steps toward the nearest bookshelf. “I pictured something a little more magical.”

  “The magic is all hidden. If it looked magical, everyone would notice it.”

  “That makes sense. These books aren’t in any kind of order. Don’t you have anything by Stephen King?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Okay, so how does it work?”

  “Kevin—”

  “Come on, Helena, I just want to know more. That’s not against the rules, is it?”

  What was probably against the rules was telling a complete stranger the details of how Abernathy’s worked. At least when I’d revealed its secrets to my sister Cynthia, I’d known and (mostly) trusted her. Well, at the risk of being classist, what are the odds a bartender can afford an augury? As if I had any idea how much bartenders made. I might be making a huge mistake.

  “People write down questions,” I said. “The store won’t answer every question, like nothing beginning with ‘who?’”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. And it won’t help you commit a crime. But everything else, they give to me, and I go in there and find the book the store chooses to answer the question.”

  “So is it, like, a riddle? Or does the title answer the question?”

  “Neither. You’re supposed to study the book, and it reveals the answer.”

  “Are they expensive?”

  “They can be. Usually they’re around a thousand dollars.”

  Kevin whistled. “That’s a lot. But I guess if you’re predicting the future, it’s worth it.”

  “That’s how people feel about it, yes.”

  “So do an…an augury for me.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Kevin took a few steps closer to me. “Why not? I can pay, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I…don’t think I’m supposed to do it for someone who’s not a magus.” That wasn’t true. I just fe
lt uneasy, like I’d already told him too much.

  “Just once. Then I’ll leave. I won’t even come back, if that’s what you want. Though I’d like to see you again.”

  “I told you, I have a boyfriend.”

  “Not like that. You’re interesting and you’re part of an interesting world.”

  “I just don’t think I should.”

  “I won’t tell anyone. You won’t tell anyone.”

  “That wouldn’t make it right.”

  “Are you afraid the Board will find out? You think Stirlaugson will punish you? She doesn’t have to know.”

  “That’s not—” I stopped. “Where did you hear those names?”

  Kevin smiled at me, cocking his head to one side. “Now, what you should be asking yourself, Helena,” he said, “is, did I slip up, or did I say those words on purpose?”

  He took another step toward me. I stepped backward and bumped into the counter. My face and hands felt numb with fear. “Don’t come any closer,” I said, fumbling for my phone.

  “I’ll break your phone if you touch it,” Kevin said, smiling more broadly. Black streaks like ink in water swirled across his teeth, and when he blinked, his eyes were solid black. “I think you and I should talk, just the two of us. After all, I went to a lot of trouble to reach you.”

  I swallowed, and said, “What are you?”

  18

  Kevin’s mouth stretched wider, too wide for a human body. More black streaks swirled across his lips and gums. “You are clever,” he said. “‘What’ is the right question. I’m wearing poor Kevin like an ill-fitting suit, for one. For the rest—you tell me what I am.”

  I cast my mind back three days, to Claude’s abbreviated keynote address. “You’re an invader,” I whispered. “You’re one of the intelligent ones, the ones they tried to communicate with centuries ago.”

  The Kevin-thing applauded. “Obviously we don’t call ourselves invaders, but we’ll go with your terminology for now. Now, why do you think I’m here?”

  “You want to destroy the oracle.”

  It shook its head. “I could have done that when I first entered, if that’s all I wanted. This body is a good shield against Abernathy’s wards, lets me enter the store when I’d bounce right off them in my natural form. If I were to crawl out of my Kevin suit here, it would trigger the wards explosively, taking you and me and, unfortunately, the oracle with it. No, it’s not the oracle’s death I want. It’s you.”

  I slid sideways along the counter, trying to get away from the Kevin-thing. “Me? Why me?”

  “For that, I have to tell you a story. Do you mind?”

  I shook my head. Maybe if I could get behind the counter, I could pull my phone out without it noticing, and…do what? I couldn’t call someone without having to look at the screen. For the first time I missed the phone I’d had in middle school, with its raised buttons and complete lack of internet access.

  It saw me moving but did nothing to stop me. In fact, it smiled again, as if I were some kind of precocious pet. “This story begins several hundred years ago, when my people first entered your world. It’s a beautiful world, don’t you think? So rich in all kinds of life. Now, I don’t know what the Wardens have told you about us, but I guarantee you it’s wrong in at least one respect—we don’t want to drain your world of all its magic. That would make you useless to us. We just want to be able to share it. A few people, here and there, nothing really.”

  “Not to those people,” I said, and put myself behind the counter.

  “I like you, Helena. You’re spunky. Do people still use that word? I haven’t been in your world for many years, so I don’t know what the right terminology is. Kevin doesn’t seem to know it, so maybe it’s outdated.”

  “You know his thoughts? Is he…alive in there?”

  The Kevin-thing looked sorrowful. “I’m afraid not. There’s really only room for one person in these meat sacks you call bodies, and Kevin had to make way for me. But I get some of his memories—do you have any idea how much mental space he had devoted to mixed drinks? It’s really fascinating. Too bad the body starts to degrade over time. I enjoyed being a bartender for a while.”

  “When did you kill him? This morning?” The idea that I’d been talking to this…thing…the whole time I’d thought it was Kevin—it had kissed me—

  “No, it was Wednesday morning. Well before the wards sealed everyone in. Did you like my impression of a terrified young man, faced with horrible monsters?” A snarl crossed its face. “I should make you pay for what you did to my poor idiot cousins who never did a thing to hurt you.”

  “What?” I shouted. “They would have killed me!”

  It made a dismissive gesture, and I saw Kevin’s nail beds were black and oozing. “Technicalities. They’re hungry, they need magic to survive just like you do—would you deny them their natures?”

  “What do you mean, cousins? Aren’t you all the same?”

  “The…invaders…you Wardens fight are as close to being like me as a chimpanzee is to being like you. Which isn’t to say I feel loyalty toward them the way I do toward my own kind, but you’d fight to defend a chimpanzee that was about to be destroyed, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. If it were hurting someone, probably not.”

  “It’s irrelevant. The point is the story. Should I go on?”

  I nodded. My mouth was dry, my palms were itchy and sweaty, but the urge to know was more powerful.

  “As I said, we’re not interested in draining your world, all you humans, of your magic. But the Wardens, most of them, don’t want to compromise. They’d rather see your world die than coexist with us.”

  “Because you kill people to survive.” Then something struck me. “What do you mean, most of them?”

  “Very clever.” Its hands clapped again, slowly. “You’ve met a few of our allies. Thwarted a few of our allies. I’m sorry to say we did try to destroy the oracle once, with that origami illusion, but I promise you it was only a test—we wanted to see what kind of woman the new custodian was.”

  “But—we had proof Matt McKanley had a grudge against the oracle. He wasn’t one of your allies.”

  “He was, actually. It’s true he wanted revenge on the oracle, but we gave him the idea. It was unfortunate he had to die, but we couldn’t allow him to reveal the truth. You surprised us. We realized you were someone to watch, though we didn’t expect it would be you who discovered Mitch Hallstrom and stopped him harvesting sanguinis sapiens for his fellows.”

  “Hallstrom was one of you?” I remembered how he’d laid his hand across my belly and wanted to throw up.

  The Kevin-thing looked aghast. “Oh, no, we didn’t wear Hallstrom,” it said. “He was one of our human allies. We don’t like wasting your kind. And Hallstrom was rather stupid, and it’s unpleasant to take on a stupid human. All the memories are so dull. My point is, there are Wardens who’ve seen the light, so to speak, and we and they work together to bring this Long War to an end.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “What I said. I want an augury.”

  I shook my head vigorously. “No. No way in hell am I doing an augury for you.”

  “Why not? Don’t the Accords state you have to accept an augury request from anyone who can pay?”

  “The Accords don’t include you. They’re meant for fighting things like you.”

  “Ah, Helena. Sweet Helena. What makes you think you haven’t already given auguries for things like me?”

  It was like a brick to the face. “I,” I began, but couldn’t find words to finish. I’d had no clue Kevin wasn’t human anymore until the thing revealed itself. So much for my perceptiveness. “Well, I know now, and I’m refusing.”

  It stepped closer. I could smell its breath, hot and stinking of rotten flesh. “What if it’s an augury that benefits both of us?”

  “How?”

  “A simple question. ‘Who will win the Long War?’”

&n
bsp; “It won’t answer questions beginning with ‘who,’” I said, feeling bolstered by this little slip.

  “Interesting. What about, ‘What action will bring the Wardens success in the coming year?’”

  I swallowed and tried to close my nose against the stink. “That still benefits you. It will tell you what to do to stop that action. I’m not going to betray my friends by helping you.”

  “It’s not a betrayal. Helena, I wish I could convince you of my sincerity. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to work for the winning side. Because I promise you, we are winning. Your Wardens fight a losing battle against the small creatures you call invaders—there are millions of them, Helena, millions upon millions, all of them slavering to access your world even for a few minutes. We don’t have to attack you. We just have to wait.”

  “So what you want,” I said, “is for us to capitulate. You’ll take a few humans here and there, and the rest of us will be…what? Cattle?”

  “Hardly that. We consider human intellect a valuable resource. We’ve even been known to have friends among your kind.”

  I came out from around the counter. It felt like shelter, but really it was a trap. Could I make it to the front door? No, I’d have to run past the Kevin-thing, and it would catch me and probably kill me. The back door was farther away, but I knew the path through the bookcases, and I had a small chance going that way. The Kevin-thing smiled at me as I emerged. Probably it thought I’d given up. Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Who decides who lives and who dies?” I asked. “Is there a lottery? Or do you take only criminals?”

  The black eyes glistened. “That’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure anyone’s ever thought of that. Would that be acceptable to you? Let us rid you of your criminal element, and everyone else lives free and happy?”

  I shifted my stance, ready to run. “I’ve seen people killed by your kind,” I said. “It’s not a death I’d wish—”

  The door opened. The Kevin-thing half-turned in response. I almost ran. It was the perfect opportunity. But I couldn’t leave whoever this newcomer was alone with the monstrous creature.

  Instead, I shoved the Kevin-thing, hooking his ankle with my foot to make him lose his balance. Half-turned as he was, he went down hard. “Help me, he’s a—a robber!” I shouted, then felt like an idiot, because what I needed was to get it out of the store before it decided to leave Kevin’s body and make the whole place explode.