Kimberley’s jaw dropped. “Holy!” she let out. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, Kim,” Aiden supported. “That’s why I can do many crazy things with her.” And he pointed at the strange little girl who’d started it all.
“How is this possible?” Kimberley demanded. She turned to Rachel, realization finally dawning on her. “You!” she snapped. “You’ve always lied to us! To me!”
“I was trying to protect him,” Rachel defended, pointing in Aiden’s direction. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you guys.”
“But I lost Jim due to this!” Kimberley exploded. “And every other person back at the station!”
“I am sorry, Kim,” Rachel begged. “I am so sorry.”
Chapter 24: Brazil
KIMBERLEY turned to Aiden. “This is all so confusing,” she said, holding her head with both hands. “I – I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Who would have known back at Portwood that the juvenile would have a bigger role to play in this crazy adventure?
“We can believe what we’re doing now, which is to establish the third book through the ritual,” Aiden said.
“We can do that after we find the black book,” Rachel said. “We need to know where we are first.”
“We’re in a rainforest,” Kimberley said.
“Isn’t that obvious?” Kpakol asked dryly. “Question is, where, exactly, are we?”
“Whole place has been on fire for some months now,” Kimberley explained instead. “People are saying that loggers, farmers and cattle ranchers are to blame for this, which will have an impact on the climate since this forest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen.”
“So sad,” Rachel said.
Nobody questioned Kimberley’s sudden expertise on climate change because nobody was surprised.
“Lemme guess, you’re an environmentalist now,” Aiden told the female cop.
“And we’re in the outskirts of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil,” she dryly replied. “Waiting for our Bookbearer to regain some strength.”
“Maybe if we have food?” Kpakol suggested.
“I just need to rest a while,” Rachel said.
“At least we now know who the real enemies are,” Aiden said, looking at Kimberley, who looked away. “Wonder if your theory is correct, Kpakol.”
“Which theory?” the slave spy asked him.
“That the Gray Ones will help us if the book is returned?” Aiden specified. He nodded towards the environmentalist sitting on a tree stump. “Remember she had a near-death experience while testing this theory?”
“Also remember that things might have been different if Rachel, who is a Bookmaker, had given the Booklords the book and not Kimberley, who is not a Bookmaker,” Kpakol said.
Aiden laughed. “Are you saying the Booklords were angry with the move so they reacted murderously with their human minion?”
“Well,” the slave spy began. “I just think that you guys have done many things to piss off those demons. Hence, I have come to the conclusion that it will not be easy to do what I have initially told you guys.”
Kimberley nodded in agreement. “You’re right,” she said, “though I wonder why the Booklords also attacked you.”
“Yes,” Kpakol said. “I was also surprised by their action since the Gray Ones have never shown any interest in killing me despite my ailment blocking their inability to do so all these years.”
“If the Booklords had wanted to kill you all these years, they would have created a human minion from the population to do so,” Aiden pointed out.
“Maybe they are trying to kill him because he now threatens their cause?” Rachel suggested.
“That makes sense,” Kimberley agreed.
Aiden opened the book and thoughtlessly flipped through its pages.
“Is it cold?” Kimberley wanted to know, remembering her experience back in Nigeria when she rebelled without cause.
“Nope,” Aiden replied. His eyes caught light on the book’s center page and this light went out as soon as he saw it. Speechless, he looked around at the others, their blank faces a sign that nobody noticed what had just happened. Now he turned back to the open volume on his laps. English words appeared across the two pages facing him. These words turned into a foreign language and disappeared.
דרכיםקדושותקדימהואחורה
“Sacred ways back and forth?” Aiden frowned. Could that be the Hebrew words hidden by Shurabi on the book? He saw through the book’s interior. A young boy stood with two other people on what appeared to be a mighty wall with intermediate towers. This boy held an open book and kept staring at it. Did Aiden just see something significant? “Did you guys see that?”
“See what?” Kimberley sat upright.
Aiden’s words tumbled out. “I think I just saw the black book…”
“Where?” Rachel stood up.
“I don’t know…”
“We need to know what you saw, my boy, in order to figure out where this place is,” Kpakol explained in earnest.
“I don’t know,” Aiden repeated. “Couldn’t get more details before it…it all disappeared.”
Rachel shook her fists in frustration and Kimberley looked away.
“Let’s hope you’ll see this vision again, my friend,” Kpakol said.
“Is that fire?” Kimberley asked no one in particular, pointing out a distant burning area of the forest.
“That doesn’t look natural,” Kpakol said. The fire burned like a wall with no space between burning trees. No escape gap. “That doesn’t look natural,” he repeated.
The others started drawing back.
“We should leave right now?” Aiden warned, opening the strange book. “The Booklords might be causing this.”
“Or it could just be a fire,” Kimberley countered, holding her head. “I still think we should return the book to the Gray Ones.”
Rachel started, looking around. Kpakol watched Kimberley closely.
“Are you okay, Kim?” Aiden wondered. For once, he thanked the white book for not giving the sergeant a gun this time around.
“What did I just say?” Kimberley asked herself.
“What almost killed you the last time?” a fuming Rachel snapped.
Kimberley almost responded, and then she changed her mind. “Aiden, you’re right,” she said. “We should leave right now.”
Carl Bain’s appearance threw everyone off guard. He grabbed the white book as it froze up and formed a dome around the humans.
The forest fire raced round the mysterious hemisphere and engulfed it as the Gray Ones materialized all around the book’s icy protector, howling and screeching as their infernal flames burned down trees and shrubs meant to oxygenate life.
Kimberley’s numb surprise did not stop her fear-stricken limbs from attacking the mad man who had broken her legs in Nigeria when she realized he could not move a muscle despite all his efforts. Her move encouraged the others to get out of their surprise mode and attack the human minion with their fists and legs, pummeling him from all sides as he just stood there holding up the white book.
Kpakol kicked the American hustler’s right knee repeatedly, hoping to break it, but the evil minion remained standing, like a statue. He looked around the dome for a sharp object or knife. He found nothing.
“Touch the book! Touch the book!” Kimberley yelled at Aiden. “Touch the book!” she urged Rachel, who moved to obey.
Carl Bain felt deadly cold creep into his heart while eating into his soul. This supernatural phenomenon numbed the pain coming from the kicks and jabs his attackers presently landed on him. He knew why he could not move at the moment. Seizing the book was a mistake. He could have killed the boy first.
“It’s too high, Kim!” Aiden cried, reaching out towards the white book on tiptoe. Kpakol lifted him up and Kimberley lifted Rachel up.
“No!” Carl Bain shouted, the enormity of what they wanted to do downing on him, but too late, th
e loud boom blew the dome and the Gray Ones away, smothering the fire since raging around the human figures now strewn around a cowering Carl Bain. Surprisingly, he still held up the white book.
But he no longer had his powers.
Kpakol got up and punched the strange man in the face.
Carl Bain blacked out.
“What did you do back there?” Kpakol demanded, turning to Kimberley. “I never saw anything like that, not even at the Mine.”
“Good to know,” the Portwood cop said. “The kids can push back our enemies when they touch the book together during an attack.”
“So I was right about you two,” the African slave spy told Rachel. “You two can help us end this.”
“That is exactly what we’re trying to do,” Rachel said, glad that recent events had convinced the African of the deceitful nature of the Gray Ones.
Carl Bain lifted his head and Kpakol knocked him out again.
“We should kill him this time,” Kimberley said.
“No,” Rachel said, frowning at the last speaker. “No more killings…let’s just go.”
“He’ll come after us again,” Kimberley told Rachel. “You know he’ll never stop until he gets what he wants and kills all of us.” She remembered the tiny silver box and searched for it in her pockets.
“Is that what he wants?” Kpakol wanted to know, staring at the small metallic cube in Kimberley’s right hand.
“That and the white book,” Aiden said.
“What is it?” the slave spy wondered.
“We still don’t know,” Kimberley said, holding up the solid miniature box. “Could be high tech.”
“Or could be just a small silver cube worth some money,” Kpakol said. “Doesn’t look high tech to me.”
“If it’s just silver, no need for him to come after us like he did,” Kimberley reasoned.
“Sure of that?” Aiden wondered, picking up the white book and opening it. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Maybe a reenactment of the vision he had witnessed a few minutes ago? He flipped through the book’s pages.
“What are you looking for?” Rachel asked him.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Anything helpful,” he added. “Like I saw some words when I opened the book’s middle pages a while back, but now I can’t see anything.”
They all turned to him.
“And which words did you see?” Kpakol asked.
Aiden frowned while trying to remember. “Sacred…ways back and…forth?” he said.
“Just that?” Rachel asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “What do they mean?”
“You sound disappointed,” Kimberley told Rachel.
“The words don’t mean much,” Kpakol said. “That is why I am also disappointed.”
“Why do you say that?” Kimberley probed. The African picked up a stick and wrote on the charred soil:
דרכיםקדושותקדימהואחורה
“And what is that?” Kimberley demanded.
“That is what I saw,” Aiden said. “Sacred ways back and forth.”
“How come you could read that?” Kimberley frowned.
“Most Bookmakers and Bookbearers can read it,” Kpakol said.
“In any language, though it usually appears in Hebrew,” Rachel added.
“And that’s Hebrew,” Kimberley concluded. Was it that obvious? “So, what do these words mean?”
“Back at the Mine, we thought they were part of a sentence,” Kpakol said.
“Like just a phrase?” the Portwood police officer asked him and he nodded.
“Sacred ways back refers to the other book, the black one,” Rachel said.
“And sacred ways forth means the white book?” Aiden inferred and the little girl nodded.
“The Bookmakers felt the complete sentence, when revealed by gifted ones, would hasten the creation of the third book by merging the two books in our possession at the time,” Kpakol said.
“Or cause the black book to appear before us right now and initiate the emergence of the third book,” Rachel said.
“Whew,” Aiden let out. “That’s a lot to take in.” Was he really a gifted one?
Firefighters appeared from the smoke still rising from the burnt wood all around the time-travelers.
“Surprise,” Kpakol said, looking around at the dozen men. “Have you guys been waiting to come out after the fire went out?”
“We’ve been fighting another fire a few kilometers near that hill,” one man said, pointing at a distant twirl of smoke.
“We heard the thunder clap,” another man said. “We thought it was an explosion and we got here as soon as we could.” He saw Carl Bain lying on the ground in the midst of the foreign tourists before him. “Is he okay?”
“Of course,” Kimberley said quickly. “We saved him from the fire.”
“What caused the blast?” another firefighter asked her, stepping forward with an oxygen apparatus. “Your friend must need air.”
“No,” Kimberley said before Kpakol nudged her. “Ok,” she added, glancing at Carl Bain lying on the ground before them. “Reviving him is our number one priority now.” She rolled her eyes.
The firefighter stepped forward with the oxygen apparatus and knelt beside Carl Bain. He placed the mask over the American hustler’s mouth and fiddled with the oxygen apparatus.
“We don’t need him awake,” Rachel whispered. “He could get his powers back.”
Aiden frowned. Of course, the little girl was right. Even the firefighters would be in danger if Carl Bain woke up with his powers intact.
“What can we do?” Kpakol whispered.
“We can leave now,” Kimberley whispered.
Aiden spotted an indelible marker pegged into the other’s shirt pocket. “I have an idea,” he said, reaching out for the pen.
“What for?” Kimberley asked him as he took the marker.
“Watch me,” Aiden said and knelt beside their human nemesis, opposite the fireman trying to revive this knocked-out minion of the Booklords.
“What are you doing?” the Brazilian asked him.
“A joke?” he pointed out, laughing. “My brother will know what I did when he wakes up, and boy, won’t he be mad?”
The fireman smiled at this explanation and told his colleagues about it in Spanish. Kimberley and her group gave Aiden’s story support by nodding at whatever the firefighter was saying whenever his colleagues looked in their direction.
Aiden continued with what he was doing. He soon got up and handed back the sharpie to Kimberley.
“And what did you do?” Rachel asked him in a whisper.
“I bought us some time,” Aiden mouthed.
“With a sharpie?” she asked him incredulously.
“Yeah?” he replied.
Carl Bain woke up and turned violent. Hitting the fireman who had revived him, he tore off the oxygen mask as the poor fellow he accosted crashed to the ground. The other firefighters rushed to contain him while Aiden and his colleagues quietly left the raucous scene.
“What exactly did you do?” Kimberley asked the boy as they made their way through the burnt forest.
Aiden laughed. “It will take some time before our friend realizes what I did,” he giggled. “I drew little crosses and ankhs on his left hand and arm.”
“Good idea,” Kpakol said.
“I also got this, Kim,” Aiden said, handing the Portwood sergeant a piece of paper.
“What is it?” Rachel wondered aloud.
“It’s the piece of the white book our friend used to follow us from Portwood,” Aiden giggled.
“To think it has been in his pocket all this time, even as he crossed many timelines,” a surprised Kpakol said.
“Do we need it?” Rachel asked. “We have the book itself.”
“Might be handy one day,” Aiden told her.
“Sure,” Kimberley said, taking the piece of paper.
Kpakol cleared his throat. “You must try to see thos
e hidden Hebrew words again,” he told Aiden. “I think that is the only way you could locate the other book.”
Aiden opened the white book and stared at its blank pages as he flipped through the volume. “Nothing here,” he quipped, frowning. “You think the Gray Ones will soon show up?”
“They won’t be coming anytime soon,” Kpakol said. “I think your defense of the book back there considerably weakened and confused them.”
“Exactly why they would want to kill us both as soon as possible,” Aiden said.
“Exactly why you should be focused on those words in the book right now,” Kimberley told him.
“I’m trying to,” Aiden replied, going back to the white book’s middle pages. “I don’t know why I’m not seeing anything.”
“Relax, it will come,” Rachel told him. “I know you’ll see it again.” She had never doubted him.
“We just need to move as far away from that crazy man as possible,” Kpakol said. The young boy called Aiden looked at him. “Yes,” he said. “Despite whatever you think you achieved with that marker.”
“Okay,” Aiden agreed, turning back to the open book he held in his hands. What he saw made him gasp.
“Have you seen something again?” Kpakol demanded and the boy nodded.
“I see the words again,” Aiden said. “Sacred ways back and forth, greed and misery….”
“Greed and misery what?” Rachel urged him.
“I can’t see the words anymore,” he replied. “They have all disappeared.”
“And you did not see the other book again?” Kpakol asked.
Aiden shook his head.
“Does it matter?” Kimberley asked.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” Rachel grumbled. “Some words are still missing.”
“Okay,” Kimberley said. “Now what?”
“Now we wait for those words to appear again,” Kpakol said, stopping in his tracks. “We must avoid human populations around here in order not to put more people in danger if the Booklords regain their strength, so we must wait right here in the forest.”
“Must we remain in the forest?” Aiden whined. “Another fire might break out.”
The White Book Page 30