The Demons of King Solomon

by Aaron J. French

  As Lizzie stood there, sweating and trying not to twitch with every camera flash or breathless request for her autograph, she longed to be anywhere else. The airless far side of the moon would be fine by her. The speaking tour had been grueling, but she had rebelled at extending it and wanted nothing more than to be in her own apartment, among her books and curios, with the doors locked and the phones turned off.

  She still had her tiny place in New Haven in easy bicycle distance to Yale. She could afford to move—she could buy a mini-mansion—but she liked the apartment. Maybe now more than ever, because it was the one thing untouched and unchanged by her celebrity. Two bedrooms, a nice kitchen, a snug living room, and bookshelves on all the walls. Each shelf was crammed with books, old and new, in forty languages. Lizzie could read some of all of them, too. Even though being a bit on the spectrum had given her OCD and other challenges, it had also bestowed bits of savantism. Her memory was astounding, and she had a talent for languages, for mathematics, and for puzzles. It was as if she had been genetically engineered to be a scholar of books and ancient—often dead—languages.

  There was no one at home waiting for her, but that was okay, too. Lizzie never had luck with either roommates or significant others. Her on-again-off-again relationships with Brad—an adjunct professor—and Carmilla—an art teacher—had both gotten weird. Neither liked being part of a celebrity couple. Both had left Lizzie.

  That was fine.

  She had plastic houseplants and her precious books waiting to welcome her.

  As the applause died down she turned and headed off stage, dealt with handshakes, endured an autograph session and cocktail party, drank too much, and fled at the absolute first opportunity. She went out a back door to find the hired car waiting with headlights on and motor running. It was a different car and driver than the one which had brought her, but that was okay. The driver was a big man in a dark suit and, she noticed at once, a Sikh’s precisely wrapped turban. He had a large dark beard and mustache threaded with gray and kind eyes.

  “There is hot tea in the back, Dr. Corbett,” he said. His accent, she noted, was Indian with a varnish of metropolitan Canada. Toronto, she thought.

  “Thank you, Mr…?”

  He smiled. “Singh.”

  “Of course,” she said automatically. Many Sikhs took the surname of Singh. It was not required, of course, and there were plenty of Sikhs with names like Batra, Dosanjh, Virdee and dozens of others. But nearly all of the Sikhs she’d met personally had been named Singh. He handed her a card as she got in and Lizzie took it, assuming it to be from the car service.

  It wasn’t until she was settled in and the vehicle was in motion that she glanced at the information on the card. It was not from a limo service. The name printed across the top was The Library of the Ten Gurus. The name printed below was Dr. Mahip Singh. There was a phone number with a Canadian prefix and an email address. Nothing else.

  She looked up quickly, suddenly afraid. “Wait! Stop. Who are you? What’s going on?”

  Dr. Singh swung the car in a big circle and drove away from the building she’d just left, but he did not head toward the exit. Instead he crunched across gravel and turned onto a service road on the university property, pulled up under the leaves of a massive old elm, and stopped. He switched the engine off and turned to face her.

  “I’m going to call the police,” Lizzie cried. She fished in her purse for her cell.

  “That is your prerogative, Dr. Corbett,” said the Sikh. “I will not stop you or interfere with you in any way except to ask for five minutes of your time.”

  She reached for the door handle, jerked it up and found the door unlocked. That fact, and the calmness in Singh’s voice, made her pause. If this was an abduction it was the politest one in history. Singh smiled at her. A calm, self-assured smile. There was no trace of malice or threat in his expression or in the tone of his voice.

  “Dr. Corbett, I have tried to get in touch for several weeks now, but your new celebrity has brought with it an army of gate keepers. >Agents, managers, event planners. I could get an audience with the Queen of England with less effort.”

  Her hand was still in her purse and Lizzie felt the raspy edge of a metal nail file. She clutched it and tensed, ready to whip it out and stab him if he even twitched. Where to stab? Eye? That was gross and she didn’t know if she could do it. Where else, though?

  “Why do you want to talk with me?” she demanded. “What’s this all about? And who the hell are you?”

  “I am, like you, a scholar. Your specialty is ancient languages. Mine is sacred texts.” He paused. “Very special sacred texts.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I, along with my colleagues, am engaged in a global project to locate and protect books of great religious significance and great spiritual power. Books which, should they fall into the wrong hands, or be mishandled, or in some cases be set free, could do untold harm.”

  Lizzie frowned. “That’s crazy.”

  “I assure you, Dr. Corbett, it is not. And if you can give me those five minutes I will explain.”

  Lizzie clutched the nail file, but she gave him those five minutes.

  And another ten minutes after that.

  Then they were in her hotel room, the nail file forgotten. Dr. Singh sat on the couch; Lizzie sat on the edge of her bed. They talked through the night.

  Next morning, she did not fly back to her apartment. Instead she abandoned that ticket and booked a new one for Toronto.

  7

  The Library of the Ten Gurus

  Toronto, Canada

  Seven Months Ago

  “Again,” he said.

  Lizzie Corbett lay sprawled on the floor, covered in sweat, blood trickling from one nostril, her body filled with pain.

  “I… can’t…” she wheezed.

  Dr. Mahip Singh squatted on his heels. He wore black sweatpants and a t-shirt with the symbol of a red book inside a white circle. The symbol of his organization. His feet were bare and he rested his forearms on his knees, hands loose and dangling. Despite the heat and the activity, his face was not flushed and his beard and turban were neat and perfect. Lizzie glared at him with as much energy as she could muster. The son-of-a-bitch wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, gasping like a boated trout.

  “The alternatives,” mused Singh mildly, “are less appealing.”

  He rose and offered her his hand. After a moment Lizzie took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. He never used that gesture as a trick to punch her or throw her back down to the mats. Singh wasn’t like that. No, he let her get herself set and balanced, and then he punched her and threw her to the mat.

  Every.

  Single.

  Damn.

  Time.

  While she was crawling to her feet again, Singh went to a rack on the wall of the big basement beneath the library, selected a hardwood club with a stout leather thong, weighed it in his hand and then tossed it to her. “That might help,” he suggested.

  Lizzie fumbled the catch, nearly dropped it and then held the club awkwardly. She was as unfamiliar with weapons—clubs, guns, knives—as she was with the karate, jujutsu, and kung-fu techniques she was struggling to learn. Since the night they met, Dr. Singh had been working very hard to both convince her that she needed to be able to protect herself, and that being able to do so was a likely outcome of the work they were going to do.

  She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Leggy, skinny, with her damp hair tied back in a sloppy pony tail. The sweats she wore were baggy and made her look like a gawky twelve-year-old instead of a grown woman.

  At first she hadn’t minded the twice daily sessions in hand-to-hand combat. She’d balked at the hours on the pistol range, though, until Singh pointed out that ISIL, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and professional tomb raiders would have no qualms about shooting her. Or beating her, stabbing her, raping her, and mu
rdering her. He offered to show her statistics on the treatment of women, particularly foreign women, and most particularly American women, at the hands of those kinds of men. He’d sent her links to horrific news stories and reports by humanitarian organizations. One of those stories was a firsthand account by a Red Cross nurse who went into a ‘comfort hotel’ after it had been liberated by Kurdish fighters. Sixty-seven girls and women, ranging in age from nine to thirty, had been in the hotel. It was estimated that each of them had been raped at least one hundred times. At least. The survivors were being treated for severe PTSD and there had been suicides among them. It was beyond horrible.

  As she looked at herself in the mirror, Lizzie tried not to put herself into the heads of those women. She knew she was no one’s idea of a fighter. She had never been in any conflict more violent than a shoving match over Legos when she was six, and she’d lost that tussle. She’d been sexually harassed—she was a woman on planet Earth after all—but never in a way that made her want to take a self-defense class or buy a handgun. Her neighborhood was safe and she had good locks on her doors, and she never went to the kinds of places where there was danger. And now she could hire a bodyguard to protect her 24/7. Maybe even a female bodyguard, because the alternative was conceding that she, a woman, needed a man to protect her.

  The club she held was a brutal weapon, but it looked ineffectual in her hand.

  She dropped it onto the mat.

  “Pick it up,” said Singh.

  “Why bother?”

  “Pick it up,” he repeated, “please.” Singh was nothing if not polite. He never raised his voice, never became impatient with her. At first Lizzie thought those were charming qualities. Now they irritated the living crap out of her.

  “What’s the damn point?” she snapped. “I can’t fight. I don’t want to fight. I won’t ever be able to fight, and all we’re accomplishing here is you beating the snot out of me. How is that helping? I thought we were going to save books and artifacts from destruction.”

  “We are.”

  “How? By pummeling me into a little pile of rubble?”

  He smiled. “That would not be the ideal outcome.”

  “Then go out and draft Milla Jovovich or Michelle Rodriguez. No, better yet, get that MMA fighter, Rhonda something or other. I bet they can kick all kinds of terrorist ass. I can’t.”

  “If I wanted someone who was merely tough,” he said, “I can make a list of a hundred world-class special operators. Women from Mossad, American Special Forces, Barrier, Rogue Team International, Arklight… there are plenty with whom it would be an honor to go into battle.”

  “Good, then go do that.”

  “None of them,” he said, “possess the unique skill set that you have.”

  “What? Top of my class at taking a beating? World’s biggest wimp? Girl punching bag?”

  His smile flickered. “First, Dr. Corbett, I would prefer that you do not speak of yourself in such a derogatory way. I respect you, and for you to insult yourself is also an insult to those who admire you.”

  That shut her up for a moment.

  “Second, given the choice of training a fighter to be a world-class scholar of obscure languages, word-based codes, and sacred texts or training said scholar in some useful self-defense moves, which—in your opinion—seems likely to be a better use of my time and resources?”

  Lizzie tapped the club lightly and nervously against her thigh for a moment. Then she cocked her head to one side and said, “You’re an expert fighter, right?”

  He gave a small shrug but made no comment. Always polite. She wanted to club him unconscious. If she could manage it.

  “Then why can’t we take it as read that you’ll be my bodyguard?”

  He looked amused. “And if I am shot? Or we are separated? Or if we are attacked by too many opponents for me to handle while also protecting you? No. Surely, doctor, you can see the logic, the benefits, the common sense of both of us being as capable as possible, in as many ways as possible.”

  “Nice speech, Yoda.”

  He showed a lot of teeth when he grinned. Very good, very white teeth. Very punchable teeth.

  Lizzie sighed. This was hardly the first time they’d had this discussion. It wasn’t the first time she’d lost this argument. Singh could clearly read her resignation and gave a single nod. His smile faded, though, to be replaced by a look of concern.

  “Sometimes the things we are asked to do in order to serve the greater good are not pleasant. Occasionally we are asked to do appalling things. I have done truly dreadful things over the years, Dr. Corbett. Memories of those things haunt me and, although I pray every day and try to live according to what I believe God expects of me, I do not know what my fate will be when I am called to judgment. However I would not undo any of what I have done, and I will not stray from the path I believe is the correct one, even if I means that I will do more and greater harm.”

  “I—”

  He held up a hand. “Please, allow me to finish.” He took a small step toward her. “When I approached you in Glasgow and told you about the work we do here at the Library of Ten Gurus, I did not exaggerate. If anything, I understated the importance of what we do. However, please accept me at face value for what I say now.”

  Lizzie tensed. He had already scared her half to death with his talk of the harm that might befall her and the wounds that could be inflicted on history, on world culture, if the books the Library was sworn to protect should be destroyed. Now there was a strange look in his dark eyes, and for a moment it seemed as if the lights down here in the gymnasium had begun to fade. Or, as if the shadows that huddled in the corners were consuming the light.

  “For you, books and the languages in which they are written are the magical underpinning of society. I agree with that, and it was such a belief that drew me into my profession. It is not, however, why I have taken on the great responsibilities necessary to the work of this Library. No. Dr. Corbett, I have become a specialist in my field, and there are very few of us who do this special kind of work.”

  She said nothing, listening, confused by what he was saying. Frightened by the look in his eyes.

  “Do you believe in magic?” he asked.

  “Magic…?” she echoed, half smiling, wondering if this subtle man was playing some kind of elaborate joke on her. He, however, did not return her smile. After a moment, Lizzie said, “What are you saying? What does magic have to do with saving books from ISIL and the Taliban?”

  He paused for a long time and the lights in his eyes seemed to grow stranger, like lightning on a midnight horizon.

  “Everything,” he said quietly.

  8

  The Library of the Ten Gurus

  Toronto, Canada

  Seven Months Ago

  “No,” growled Lizzie. “Uh-uh. No way.”

  They were seated cross-legged on two corners of one of the training mats, each of them with bottles of water, towels draped around their shoulders.

  “You don’t need to yell,” Singh said mildly.

  “Screw that,” she barked. “And screw you if all of this is part of some kind of right-wing religious weirdo cult.”

  “We’re not right wing.”

  “Oh, very funny. You know what I mean,” she snapped. “I came here from Scotland to be a part of something important. You sold me on the Library as some kind of commando version of UNESCO. Scholars and scientists going into the field to steal artifacts right out from under the nose of bozos from ISIL and the Taliban who want to destroy them. Saving whole ancient libraries, rescuing relics, that sort of thing. And, so far I’ve been okay with listening to some of the religious mumbo jumbo. You’re a Sikh, so I get that you are a person of faith. I’m not. You know I’m not. I’m a scientist, a philologist and a linguist. I’ve read too much history to believe in gods and monsters. Every religion that currently exists is built on the bones of something older, and you know that.”

  “Of course,” conceded Sin
gh, “but to a person of faith that means that religion is what has evolved through human intervention and invention, but the fact that it has persisted for so long is suggestive of a root cause.”

  She flapped a hand. “I don’t want to have this argument. It’s not what’s making me angry.”

  “You’re angry because I asked if you believe in magic and the elements of what some call the ‘larger world.’”

  “No, you told me that you do believe in magic and it’s pretty clear you expect me to believe in it, too.”

  “Well,” he said, “you have written three books on magic spells.”

  “They are books on the language of spells and how the meanings and procedures of spellcasting is changed when translated into different languages and influenced by changes in culture and religious practice. They are about language.”

  “They are about the language of magic.”

  “They’re academic works,” she countered. “They aren’t how-to manuals and please don’t tell me that after all this you’re naïve enough to think that’s what they were.”

  “Nevertheless,” he said, nearly smiling, “they are very instructive. Your attention to detail is commendable, and it’s fair to say that with your increased celebrity your previous works will be given the attention they deserve.”

  “Not interested in flattery,” she said. “We’re discussing the fact that you expect me to believe in the supernatural. Angels and demons, magic spells, all of that.”

  “All of that,” he said, nodding.

  “Well,” said Lizzie, “I don’t believe in it.”

  Singh raised his eyebrows. “In none of it? Just yesterday I saw you toss salt over your left shoulder after you spilled some at dinner. I’ve also seen you knock wood.”

  “Oh, please…”