The white book’s unearthly hemisphere smashed into smithereens, its pieces flying off in all directions. The Gray Ones swarmed into the space it previously occupied, engulfing its only occupant as they tortuously pierced her body from every angle. This infernal inundation left the Portwood sergeant gasping for air as soon as her paralyzed muscles found strength again. She let go of the white book and the demons seized the ancient artifact. They pulled the female officer’s devastated body into the air, away from the house.
A satisfied Carl Bain looked around at his handiwork. The two kids still lay where they fell, obviously dead, but the Nigerian Sicarii Kabbalah slave spy no longer lay underneath the fallen cupboard. The man must have used unknown sorcery to disappear, the American hustler thought. “Oh well, who cares?” he concluded, heading for the front door like he owned the place.
Moments later, Kimberley found herself falling back to Earth after her tormentors left her body in droves. She crashed to the ground, stunned into silence by the excruciating pain.
Carl Bain appeared before her, the Booklords hovering above him at a reasonable distance. “Give me my package,” he snapped.
Kimberley pulled out the small cube from her jacket’s right pocket and handed it over. She had no more fight left in her.
“Now, for your punishment,” the American thug said gleefully.
He broke her legs and dislocated her knee joints, and she screamed until she lost her voice.
“That’s for Pripyat,” Carl Bain snarled. “And this…this is for wasting my time all these days!”
The human minion stepped back and let out a thunderous bolt of lightening at the injured woman.
Kimberley crossed both arms over her face. She remained in this defensive position until curiosity made her peep through her crossed arms.
At the forest trees swaying in the night breeze before her. At the twinkling stars dangling from the clear night sky high above her head.
At the white book lying on the ground in front of her.
This time she cried without losing her voice.
Chapter 23: Aiden
KPAKOL reappeared in the living room, confusion his best friend. What just happened? Where did those things come from? These were not the Gray Ones he’d been used to all these years. They were visibly more aggressive. More diabolical. He wondered whether he was wrong about returning the book to these demons. Perhaps he’d mistakenly identified them as the Gray Ones rather than the Black Ones. But, they looked and moved like the Gray Ones. They were just more vicious. More daring.
The African slave spy looked around at the chaos now the living room. Pools of ash littered everywhere, and a shattered glass-like material covered a considerable part of the sitting room’s floor. Kpakol did not know where the pools of ash came from, nor could he figure out what the bluish glassy material scattered everywhere was. What happened to his new friends?
“Kpakol, you’re alive!” Aiden whispered, rubbing his hands together as he emerged from the next room with Rachel. “We thought they took you away as well.”
“The man in black, who is he?” Kpakol began. “And what were those things?”
“The Gray Ones,” Rachel said. “I thought you knew.”
“Yes, they looked like the ones attacking me all these years,” Kpakol said, waving his hands around the room, “but I could be wrong after this.”
“No need for anything now,” Rachel said dejectedly. “They’ve taken the book and Kimberley with them.”
“Be strong, Rachel,” Aiden consoled her. “There’s still hope.”
“Which hope?” Rachel asked. “How do we save Kim and recover the book now?”
“At least, I have her cross, remember?” Aiden pointed out. “It shoos the demons away,” he explained to Kpakol’s inconvenient stare. “I think it fell from her pocket when they vanished with her.”
“And how will the cross help us get back the book, and…and find Kimberley, Mr. Hope?” Rachel wanted to know.
“I-eh,” Aiden stammered.
“Stop talking!” Rachel cried. “It’s useless and you know it. We’ve lost. They have the book, and Kimberley might well be dead right now.”
“Not true, Rachel,” Aiden said. “W-We still have the cross,” he stammered. He did not know what else to say.
Kpakol took the religious symbol from the boy and caressed it between his fingers. “A cross chases them away?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes,” Aiden said. “An ankh also does that.”
“I see,” Kpakol said, looking around while deep in thought. “So, where did the ash come from?” he asked Aiden.
“The Gray Ones leave their dead behind,” Rachel replied.
“And that’s the ash?”
The little girl nodded.
“What of…”
“The book’s magical shield,” Aiden cut in. “Protected Kimberley and the book. Looks like the man in black smashed it.”
“Who is that man?” Kpakol wanted to know. “He tried to kill me.”
“He does that every time we meet,” Rachel said. “Try to kill us, I mean.”
“He wasn’t that different back at Portwood,” Aiden reasoned. “Now he’s more than a monster.”
“The Booklords must be using this human,” Kpakol said. “Interesting.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. The slave spy fell short of her expectations when he opted to vanish in the heat of the Booklord’s attack. “How did you even disappear?” she asked the African.
“I still have a piece of the black book with me,” Kpakol said.
“The black book?” Rachel sounded confused. “You tore out a page of the black book? How?”
“Can’t he do that?” Aiden asked.
“Only if he was authorized to do so back at the Mine,” Rachel said. “Obviously, he wasn’t.”
“So what happened back at the Mine, Kpakol?” Aiden asked the former militant.
Kpakol seemed uncomfortable with the question. “I – eh…we…”
The kids waited for his answer.
“The slaves working for the Sicarii Kabbalah at the Mine decided to…to steal a page of the black book when it became obvious that…that the Romans or the Booklords might one day invade the Mine,” Kpakol explained. “We tore the page into pieces and shared it amongst ourselves. That’s how I escaped the Mine.” He displayed a piece of ordinary-looking paper.
“Okay,” Rachel said. “That explains a lot.” Names scribbled on the piece of paper covered its two faces.
“Anyway this paper could help us find and retrieve the black book?” Aiden asked Kpakol.
“I don’t think so,” Kpakol said. “I know no such spell.”
“What if we place it inside the white book and see what happens?” Aiden proposed. “When we find Kimberley and the white book, that is.”
Rachel started. “Did you hear that?” she asked the others.
“Someone just screamed outside,” Kpakol said, frowning.
“I know that voice anywhere,” Aiden said. “Kim.”
* * *
Kimberley stopped crying and tried to move. She could not do so since her legs were broken. She pulled herself up and stretched out a hand for the white book lying on the ground a few feet from her.
Black smoke exploded before her and cleared to reveal her tormentors. The man in black materialized amidst his unearthly allies.
Kimberley’s right arm touched the white book before her nemesis stepped on this arm, laughing. “Lemme go,” she pleaded, struggling to free her arm. “Please, let me go.”
“And why should I do that?” Carl Bain wondered. “I am winning, you know.” He pushed the Portwood sergeant to the ground with his other foot and allowed his infernal masters to pin her down while standing on both arms. “You know we made you demand that your friends return the book, right?”
Kimberley stared at the American thug. “H-How?” she wondered.
“My masters controlled your mind,” Carl Bain said. “Brillia
nt, right?”
No response.
“You don’t even know why we left you in a hurry before I could kill you.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Kimberley said. The demons holding her scorched her arms. The scenario reminded her of their attack in Germany. “W-What are you saying?”
“You formed the symbol with your arms before I could kill you,” Carl Bain said with a smile, noting the woman’s forlorn look. “Now, I must finish what I started.”
The Booklords’ human minion broke the Portwood officer’s arms and relished her resulting anguish expressed as unending screaming. “Now, you die,” he said, his eyes resting on his victim’s chest as he stepped backward to bring his hands together.
He vanished a second time with his demonic masters as Aiden, brandishing Kimberley’s cross, ran up to the female sergeant’s battered form with Rachel and Kpakol.
Kimberley fainted.
“She’s losing blood!” Aiden noted.
“Quick, hold hands,” Rachel urged him, touching Kimberley’s right hand.
Aiden took Kimberley’s left hand and Kpakol’s right hand; while Rachel flipped open the white book.
They all appeared in a blue hospital room, a peacefully sleeping Kimberley occupying the only bed in this room.
Kpakol looked at Aiden, and stared at the boy the next time he turned to look.
Aiden stared back. “What?”
“I’ve seen you before.”
“You said that before,” Aiden returned. “What’s new?”
“Now I know where I saw your face,” Kpakol said. “Back at the Mine, before the Romans invaded it.”
“What are you saying?” a confused Aiden asked the man.
“You could be a reincarnation of one of the two unique Bookbearers the Sicarii Kabbalah thought would one day have the ability to read out the entire Hebrew words Shurabi hid in the two books,” Kpakol said in one take, breathing in deeply afterwards.
Lost for words, Aiden turned to Rachel. This bombshell revelation meant the little girl did not just appear in Portland while running from the Gray Ones like she had told him and Kimberley.
Rachel gulped. “I can explain.”
* * *
Carl Bain relished what he had done to Kimberley. He hated the way his entertainment ended abruptly, but at least he retrieved his package and broke his archenemy’s legs and arms. Whatever happened to the white book was not….
The American hustler decided to think of something else owing to very obvious reasons.
‘All thoughts are porous,’ he heard in his head. He knew what conveyed this message to him, but he dared not turn to look lest he died at the spot.
The Gray Ones appeared around him, their shapes visible miles from where he sat waiting for them.
‘You’ve been a fool,’ he heard behind him, but remained immobile. ‘You could have killed her when you had the chance.’
“I guess it’s okay to say that since I wanted to see her suffer first,” Carl Bain snapped. “Why didn’t you kill her with your enormous power then?”
His head ached. He knew the punishment would come.
‘She was of no concern to us after helping us,’ the lead demon conveyed to him. ‘You want her dead, but we will allow this after we use her again.’
“This will not work next time,” Carl Bain reasoned. “We can never convince her the way we did this last time, unless you can make her do what she did again. As for me, I will surely kill her next time we meet.”
‘We can manipulate her again, so be ready to kill her when the time comes,’ the Booklord conveyed. ‘We have failed to control or kill the boy and the girl, so you must physically kill them next time, without your powers. The boy you must kill first, because he is very dangerous.’
“And what of the sick man?”
‘He is sick, but kill him too if you must live.’
“Yeah, I will do anything for you guys as long as I have retrieved my package,” Carl Bain said, feeling for his small package in his black coat’s inner pocket.
‘You fool,’ his senior master said. ‘What you are looking for is no longer with you. It fell off when you turned to flee from the boy’s symbol.’
Carl Bain couldn’t find his beloved package in his coat’s pocket.
His rage engulfed him.
* * *
The spotless blue room had many medical gadgets surrounding the only bed in it. Aiden turned to look at Kimberley as she slept on this bed. He wondered how he arrived at the fact that a doctor had earlier told him that she had suffered a mild concussion after a road traffic accident. Luckily for her, there were no broken bones.
The boy remembered something and rummaged through his pockets for it. He brought it out and peered at it for some time.
Rachel stared at the small box with him. “Is that?”
“Yeah, it is,” Aiden said, tucking the package into Kimberley’s pants’ right pocket. “I found it on the ground near Kim before we got here.”
“Found what?” Kpakol began.
“That man must have taken it before we reached Kim,” Rachel pointed out, ignoring the slave spy. “Wonder how he lost it again.”
“Lost what?” Kpakol asked her.
“Kimberley’s property,” Rachel replied without looking.
“He must have mistakenly dropped it when he fled my cross,” Aiden reasoned. “I’m glad I found it.”
“It only spells trouble for us,” Rachel said. “You could have left it there.”
“Not true. If I did that, we won’t have it with us when he comes back, and he would think that we’ve hidden it.”
“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “Guess you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right.”
Kpakol watched this drama with a smirk. He felt useless.
Aiden’s attention came back to the little girl in the room. “Okay Rachel,” he said. “I think you have some explaining to do.”
“Aiden, I’m so sorry,” Rachel began. “I just didn’t want to draw attention to you when we met, so I ignored you.”
“Draw attention to me?” Aiden asked her.
“I didn’t want the Gray Ones to suspect you,” Rachel said, “until you have stayed with me long enough for the white book to start protecting you.”
Aiden stared at her. “And what of Kim?”
“She happened to be there at the right time,” Rachel said, tears in her eyes. “Kim has been there for us, and we have failed her when she needed us the most.”
It all made sense now, Aiden thought. How he was able to handle the white book and support Rachel. This also meant that the Gray Ones must have discovered his importance in all this and he shivered at the thought. He turned to Kimberley and she woke up.
“Where am I?” the Portwood sergeant wondered, looking around her. She frowned when she saw the other three in the room. “Where are we?”
“Y-Your fractures have healed, Kim,” Rachel stammered. “It’s a miracle.”
“Fractures?” Kimberley frowned. “What are you saying?”
“You don’t know?” Aiden asked her.
“It could be the white book,” Kpakol said. “Maybe since she went through severe pain, she cannot remember what she underwent after her reincarnation.”
“Whatever,” Rachel said. “It saves us a lot of headache, though.”
“But you have to tell her what you told me, Rachel,” Aiden told the girl.
“Tell me what?” Kimberley started.
“We’ve to go now,” Rachel rather reminded everyone. “The Gray Ones are not that far behind us, and we will be ahead of them if we keep moving forward.”
“You can’t be saying that now,” Aiden began.
“But she’s right,” Kpakol said. “We can’t wait for those things to get here.”
“Okay.” Aiden sighed. He picked up a pen on the table beside the hospital bed and gave it to Rachel without a word.
The little girl pulled out the intravenous line on Kimber
ley’s left wrist.
“Yeow!” the female sergeant shouted, her hands trembling. “Why did you do that?”
“Don’t worry,” Aiden said, turning to Kpakol. “She’ll forget the pain after the time travel, right?”
“How can I forget the pain from broken legs?” Kimberley asked. “That fool must pay for what he did to me.”
“And she remembers,” Aiden said. “Guess we just needed to touch her.”
“We’ve left Nigeria, right?” Kimberley wanted to know.
“Yeah,” Aiden said. “We left after you tried out a particular theory and it…it failed.” Kpakol glared at him before holding his hand.
Rachel wrote her name in the book.
They all appeared in a forest wearing new attire. Kimberley had on a green shirt atop dark-green chinos pants and jungle boots. Aiden wore a brown khaki shirt on red chinos pants stuck into timberland boots, while Rachel had on a blue T-shirt atop black pants that cut off before black teenage boots shoed her feet. Kpakol’s dark-red clothes had pockets all over its pants.
“We should have remained at the hospital,” Aiden reasoned. “Let’s move on from this creepy place.”
“Let us rest here,” Kpakol said, pointing at a tired-looking Rachel. “Our Bookbearer is weak because of the load she bears whenever she transports all of us at once. She needs to rest a while.”
“No, I’m fine,” Rachel began and sat down on a wooden stump. She gave Aiden the white book.
Her companions sat down on stumps strewn around the area. There were a lot of tree stumps in this forest.
“Maybe someone else should carry the load a bit?” Aiden suggested.
“Of course, this is possible,” Kpakol said. “We will move faster, but we have to know those words hidden by Shurabi in order to move forward and you’re very important in this process,” he told Aiden.
“And how is that?” Kimberley wanted to know.
Rachel looked away and Aiden grinned. Kpakol faced the Portwood Police officer and sighed. “The boy is a reincarnation of a Bookbearer the Bookmakers thought would one day have the ability to read out the entire Hebrew words hidden in the two books.”
The White Book Page 29