by C. A. Pack
Johanna gave him a big smile. “Sooner is better.”
They walked together to the information desk, but their smiles faded when they saw the orb spinning wildly. The younger FBI agent smothered a smoldering paper on the reference desk.
“Oh my god, what did you do to it?” She spotted what looked like a fishing net lying on the floor.
“We tried to catch it in the net, and it went ballistic, rotating like that and throwing off sparks.”
She looked at Jackson. “Now what?”
“I’ll bet you anything that it’s being controlled by that thing I saw down in the basement,” he said excitedly.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
Mace pushed past the other agent. “What thing in the basement?”
“Some kind of really odd thing that I’ve never seen before.”
“Show us.” The FBI agents, followed by the cops and Dax, paraded down the stairs.
As soon as they were out of sight, Johanna looked up at the orb and said, “Illumination.” The spinning slowed, and the orb lowered. “This way.” She walked to the back door, and said, “Outside.” The orb slipped through the door and rose until it sparkled in the light of the sun.
In the basement, Jackson took officials to see an intricate piece of machinery made up of several brass and nickel rods connected to gears and a handle. A wax-coated tube covered one of the rods. An arm with a metal stylus swung freely from another. The contraption sat on a walnut box resting on a rusty, iron treadle frame, similar to the ones used on early sewing machines.
Mace’s voice echoed off the gray stone walls. “What the hell is that? You brought us down here to look at that piece of junk?”
“How am I supposed to know what it is? I’ve never seen anything like it before. What if it’s important?”
“It’s an old recording device,” Dax said, “used to capture the sound of music and voices on wax cylinders.”
“My great-grandfather used to have one of those,” a cop said, rubbing his finger over the brass gears. “My uncle made a mint selling it online.”
“Forget this,” Mace growled. “We’d better get back upstairs before that thing incinerates us all.”
***
While the men were downstairs, Johanna let herself back into the building and quietly closed the door. She retreated into the antechamber to await the agents’ return.
The FBI agents led the way up from the basement, but stopped short when they got to the reading room, causing the other officials to bump into them.
“What now?” Salisbury sighed.
“It’s gone,” Mace growled.
Jackson pushed past them. “Johanna,” he yelled.
She rushed out of the antechamber. “Did you find something?”
“No. It was some old recording device. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Where’s the orb?” Mace demanded.
Johanna looked up. “What did you do with it?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“We were downstairs. You were the one up here with it.”
“I ... I ... had to use the ... facilities.”
“The facilities? You didn’t see where it went?”
“No.” She circled around the information desk. She felt as nervous as her voice sounded, but not for the obvious reason. The big blue generator floated in the sun right outside one of the library windows. If she could see it, so could everyone else.
“Maybe it’s behind the stacks,” she said, trying to throw them off.
The men split up and searched the interior of the library. “Check downstairs,” Mace told Salisbury, “in case that thing followed us down and we missed it. I’ll check the back offices.” He headed toward the antechamber that Johanna had just vacated.
One of the cops searched the stacks to the left, while another searched the shelves on the right. Dax took the stairs to the second floor, while the police chief went out the front door to call for backup.
Johanna’s nerves stretched to their limit. They hadn’t taken any precautions with the books on the second level or in the antechamber. Those books were all enchanted, and she feared that Mace and Dax would either open a book, unleashing its power, or look out the window and see the orb floating behind the library.
She picked up the remote control for the backhoe and made sure she pushed the joystick in the process. The backhoe roared to life and rolled into the library. Even though Johanna had pressed the lever, the movement startled her and she dropped the controller. The joystick hit the floor, making the backhoe change direction. It headed straight for the stacks. “No!” Johanna screamed. She scooped up the controller, but it was too late. The backhoe slammed into a stack, causing it to tip over, and each bank of shelves tumbled into the one behind it, toppling them like dominoes. Books crashed everywhere.
The cop investigating that section had just rounded the corner of the last stack and wasn’t in direct range of being hit, but his color drained as he witnessed the chaos.
Jackson came running. “Johanna, are you all right?”
She nodded.
Dax rushed down from the second level, still holding one of the books he had found up there. He grabbed the controller away from her. “What are you, crazy?”
“I picked the controller up to put it by the backhoe. I accidentally dropped it, and the backhoe went berserk.”
Everyone reunited to inspect the damage.
Johanna caught Jackson’s eye and looked out the window. He followed her line of vision and returned her gaze with a half shrug.
Mace leaned over and picked up a few books. He placed them on the information desk, and as he turned away, his eyes came to rest on a blue blur on the other side of the window. “Outside.” He pointed. “I see it.”
He started for the front entrance, but Salisbury yelled, “Use the back door, it’s closer.”
Dax tossed the book he held on the floor as he ran after them. In an instant, an unshaven, ill-kempt man dressed in rumpled linen breeches and a checked shirt appeared. He stood outside an odd enclosure made up entirely of well-worn sea chests. The handsome trunks were reinforced with iron hardware and leather straps, and were stacked end to end to create a wall. The man stared at Johanna. “Do you speak English?”
Johanna ignored him. She turned toward the orb. “Delumination.” Then she nodded her head at Daniel Defoe’s most famous character, knowing the shipwrecked man’s look of relief would be short-lived. She grabbed the book off the floor and slammed it shut, hiding it in a drawer behind the information desk.
Outside, officers found nothing. “It must have been a trick of light. Or maybe an airplane passing by,” Salisbury said. “There’s nothing out here.”
Still, the FBI and the police spent another hour inspecting the back yard and the surrounding area before finally admitting the orb had disappeared.
Dax returned for the remote control and maneuvered the backhoe onto a flatbed truck that blocked the street.
“Where do you think it went?” one of the cops asked.
“Hopefully, back where it came from,” Mace answered.
They took one last look inside the library, but conceded the device had evaporated into thin air. The parade of government vehicles departed, and all the people who had gathered on the sidewalk hoping for a spectacle returned to their mundane lives.
Johanna secured the front door lock before plopping down on a sofa.
“Where do you think it went?” Jackson asked.
“Wherever it originally came from.”
“This may be off topic, but I have to ask—who was that grungy-looking guy with all the trunks?”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think the others did?”
“No. They were too focused on the orb.”
Johanna relaxed. “Robinson Crusoe.”
Jackson smirked. “Did he think you were there to rescue him?”
“We didn’t get that well-acquai
nted. I was too concerned about the orb.”
Jackson sat down next to her. “I sure hope its power cell had time to recharge.”
“Of course it did, can’t you tell?”
“No. How would I be able to tell?”
“Think about it.”
“I’d rather think about you.” He rubbed her arm and pointed out the goose bumps that puckered her skin. “I’m definitely having an effect on you.”
She laughed. “I hate to disappoint you, but I have goose bumps because I’m freezing. The orb obviously controls the air conditioning. Better luck next time.”
That was fine with Jackson. As long as there was a next time to look forward to, he was willing to keep trying.
—LOI—
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The exceptions to the preceding are President Harry and First Lady Bess Truman, Secret Service chief Frank Wilson, and actor Ethel Merman, who are historical figures. Their itineraries mentioned in this book are historically accurate. All other material is the product of the author’s imagination.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic, digital or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Published by Artiqua Press
www.ArtiquaPress.com
LIBRARY OF ILLUMINATION:
(Book Two)
THE ORB
Copyright © 2012 by C. A. Pack
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9835723-3-6
BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
The Library of Illumination
(Johanna’s Story)
The Library of Illumination:
Book Two
Doubloons
The Library of Illumination:
Book Three
The Orb
The Library of Illumination:
Book Four
Casanova
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support; my editor, Neil Hock; and the authors who have shared their knowledge and experience at various panels and workshops during International Thriller Writers’ annualCraftfest event. And special thanks to Dr. Claus Maywaldof the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany, for explaining some of the steps that would have gone into producing theGutenberg Bibleduring the 15th century.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. A. Pack is the author of Code Name: Evangeline and the Evangeline’s Ghost series, as well as the series of novelettes that make up The Library of Illumination. She is currently working onThe First Chronicles of Illumination,a novel length collection of the first five books.
Carol is an award-winning journalist, and former assignment manager/anchor atLI News Tonight in New York, and has worked as a news writer at WNBC-TV, and Cablevision’s News 12 Long Island.
A member of International ThrillerWriters, and Sisters in Crime, Carol is also a former president of the Press Club of Long Island. She lives in Westbury, NY, with her husband, a couple of picky parrots, and dozens of imaginary characters who are constantly demanding page space.