The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr #1)

by Nina Post

  She liked that motto. She wondered what the other mottos were. But she remembered a saying: ‘Fear not the enemy that attacks you, but rather the fake friend who hugs you.’ Real friends proved themselves over time. Maybe Michael had his own agenda for taking her to the hospital and getting her out of the trunk, but she didn’t have enough information yet.

  “How could the faction who believes I’m going to bring about these events possibly know what the events are, unless they translated the books?” Cate asked.

  “They don’t have the translations,” Michael said. “I don’t think anyone does. They take it on faith. But believe me, there are a lot of people who would kill for the translations. They would kill to see the books for themselves.”

  She checked their location. They were close to the airport. “What about GC? Are you trying to get the books translated?”

  “No, we don’t involve ourselves with the books. Some of us believe the oral account is more accurate and more credible than the books,” Michael added.

  “That’s impossible,” Cate said, skeptical that his group didn’t care about the Zaanics books. “There’s no way the scribe could have understood all of the events that appeared in the vision or repeated it faithfully. And if anyone down the line made a mistake, changes would be introduced. You’ve heard of the game Telephone, right? Whatever your group has must be a misinterpreted version that probably barely resembles the actual Zaanics books.”

  “DN believe they have Jean Dumont’s original notes,” he said. “It’s more like a journal.” Cate wondered where he was going with this. “Separate Truths created new interpretations based on a literal understanding of the oral account. We believe that DN’s account is the flawed one.”

  It was more than enough to learn about all of this. She didn’t want to get involved in their politics. “What is DN?”

  “Oh, pardon me. I should have been more clear. Dregutchoh Niijevec. Also known as the Little Book of Freedom.”

  Little Book. She thought about what Mort had said on Josephine. “Let me guess: they have some sort of miniature book?”

  “Yes.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “So you know about that?”

  “Were DN in Micronesia recently?”

  “Yes,” Michael said.

  “You said that Separate Truths look out for me. But they weren’t in Micronesia. Someone was shot. They died. Was that supposed to be me?”

  He grimaced. “Most likely, yes, it was supposed to be you. DN have some internal tension, or that’s what I hear. It’s possible that some of their members have gone rogue.”

  “Like a circus monkey?”

  He smiled, then sobered. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get someone there in time.”

  She was quiet. “Have you ever seen this miniature book?”

  He pulled into a drop-off area in front of her airline terminal and stopped. “Once. It’s beautiful. It has a leather binding with a silver-gilt crucifix and a brass clasp with engraved Zaanics glyphs.”

  “Enæyne,” she said under her breath, and slung her carry-on over her shoulder.

  He turned his head to look at her. “You didn’t know about any of this?”

  “Why would I know? It’s not like my family ever said anything about it.”

  “Really.” Michael seemed skeptical. He got out of the car then walked briskly around to her side in the back. She got out and closed the door behind her, making sure she had everything.

  “You’ll need to hurry.” He stuck out a hand. This time, she took it.

  “Did they know?” she asked him.

  “Your father knew.”

  “My father knew?”

  “Of course. The elder person who teaches the language would be aware of the factions.”

  Dazed, Cate dropped his hand, turned toward the automatic doors, then paused, looking back at Michael. “Thank you.”

  She walked toward the door then turned back again. “That woman who put me in her trunk — is she part of your faction?”

  “No, she’s in a different one. You have to go. As it is, you’ll barely make your flight.”

  One hour later, Benjamin arrived at SFO and sailed through TSA Pre-Check, inciting the peevish glances of shoeless travelers in long queues. He strode briskly over to the arrival and departure display to verify the gate number for his flight.

  His phone rang with a ringtone he recognized immediately, despite its rare occurrence — “The Imperial March,” also known as Darth Vader’s theme.

  “Gaelen Lyr,” he answered. “To what do I owe this singular honor?”

  “Benjamin Nightjar,” she said, taking her time with the syllables.

  They sounded like two opposing campaign strategists, he thought.

  “I’m calling about the book,” she said, in a tone that seemed polite but brought the image of a bull pawing the ground in a threat display.

  He chuckled. “What about the book? You didn’t open the first four seals, did you?”

  She ignored this. “I know that someone stole the original. My original.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Someone stole the original Zaanics book from me and switched it with a fake.” The amusement in her voice cloaked razor blade steel. “Don’t bother playing dumb, Nightjar.”

  “That’s extremely unlikely. No one knows that I gave you the first book. Who would be aware it even exists, let alone where to look for it? I can have an investigator come and do a forensic authentication, if that would appease you.”

  “Don’t get me wrong — it was well played, but I’m not too worried.”

  “You’re not worried about what?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

  “I don’t need book one anymore. The really good material is in books two and three. You’ve been stalling on getting me the second book, but I think I’ll just go take it for myself.”

  He put a hand over his heart and held the phone far from his ear for a moment. He took a breath then brought it back to his ear. “You’ll never find it.”

  Gaelen lowered her voice. “I have the entire Lyr Logistics empire at my disposal to help me get my hands on the rest of those books.”

  She hung up. Benjamin balled up his fists and paced in a tight circle, face flushing with heat. “Cassoulet!” he yelled, using Noah’s cursing style but elevating the volume so loudly that virtually every passenger and TSA employee at the security checkpoint turned and looked at him. He smiled and waved, hoping they would think he was a tyrant who demanded a particular dinner when he got home.

  He turned back to the display, nearly in a sweat, thankful he was a wearing a suit and tie, and that he had already passed through security.

  Chapter 20

  Eskişehir, Turkey — December 2013

  Eskişehir was a hidden gem, a university city in central Anatolia with cheerful public spaces and sculptures, and wide, tree-lined promenades along the river. It had great food and seemingly endless bookstores and cafes. Eskişehir was a renovated city, made new again. The city’s many charms made reentering a life she was never supposed to have in the first place very pleasant.

  The driver, who had worn a red shirt with a white tie and responded with “Blissful mountain” to her “Dark wood” at the airport, just as Michael Radin said, stopped the car in a narrow cobblestone street near the city center and in front of a small esnaf lokanta. Next door was a bookstore, and across the street there was a veterinarian’s office and another bookstore. She grabbed her bag and got out of the car.

  “Iyi günler,” the driver said.

  “Size de iyi günler,” she replied, and closed the door. The driver left.

  It was in the high forties and foggy. Cate had the address of the rental house in Visnelik, southwest of the city center, but it was early. She’d taken a red-eye flight and was hungry, so she stopped in the tradesman’s restaurant for a late breakfast. The staff greeted her warmly and she took a two-person table by the window. She ordered menemen, an egg dish with stew
ed tomatoes, onion, and peppers that came with fresh bread.

  After she ate her food, she topped off the meal with a cup of foam-topped Stygian coffee served az şekerli, the thixotropic liquid attenuating her fatigue like caffeinated lava. While she drank it, she looked through the news feeds on her phone and brought up a story about an upcoming diamond exhibition at a hotel in France. Something to consider. But instead of the buzzing energy she used to get, it just felt hollow, and that was more than a little unsettling. She was alone again, in the country she had gotten so comfortable in, yet felt herself drawing away from what she was most proud of.

  A young Turkish Van cat with a spotted head, white coat, and odd-colored eyes snuck out from the back, meowed at her, then brushed past her leg. Cate reached down and glided her fingers along its cashmere-like hair and up the bottlebrush tail.

  “They won’t just give up, Cate,” the woman’s words echoed in her mind. “They think you appeared in the original vision. Some of them believe you’re going to bring about the events in the book. This has all grown beyond my ability to protect you.”

  There was no good reason to believe that was her mother on the phone. Her mother was dead.

  Wasn’t she?

  Whoever that woman was, everything she said shook Cate up. What didn’t she know about her family? Was her trust in Benjamin misplaced, and what was he hiding from her? How many people knew about the Zaanics books — just a few, or many, many more than that? Who were the people watching her, threatening her, and what did they want?

  If she had to translate the books, did that mean she was a Lyr again, or one of the many outsiders? One of her ancestors had a vision he took seriously enough to help create a language to protect it. Her sister was trying to compromise something her ancestors had held sacred for centuries. When she thought of all of those things, she felt like a Lyr, for better or worse. The language was her responsibility now, and she would have to pursue any answers it could give her.

  Things would be easier if Noah were with her. Maybe her faith in him was misplaced, too, though she doubted it. But he was in San Francisco taking care of his father, and would have no way of figuring out where she went. If he called her cell, he’d find out the number was no longer in service. If he went to her hotel room, he’d find out that she checked out and left no forwarding instructions. If he contacted anyone other than Benjamin, he would find out they knew nothing about it. And if he contacted Benjamin, Noah still wouldn’t get anywhere.

  If she did contact him, it would put both of them at risk. The woman said to not tell anyone her location.

  The woman told her to sequester herself, to hide.

  But she was tired of hiding.

  Cate drank her second fill-up on the coffee plus some ice water. She stared at the thick layer of sediment at the bottom of her cup and considered asking the server if she knew kahve falı, the method of fortune-telling using coffee grounds. At this point, it could only help. Then, because it was winter and she was still hungry and wanted something else comforting, she ordered a dairy drink called sahlep for take-away.

  The bell on the door jingled as she left and started the walk to her rented house. The sahlep was rich and warm and silky-smooth. If she had to be anywhere else next winter, she’d take some orchid root powder with her and make it herself.

  A quarter of a mile closer, she turned off into a tiny residential street and called Argos. She would heed the woman’s warning for now, but saw no reason to apply it to the crew that she knew and trusted.

  “It’s me.”

  “Back in town, boss?” Argos’s West Virginia twang sounded hearty.

  “I just can’t keep away from this coffee.”

  “Stuff’s like alien technology. You doin’ all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Nah, you got the weary dismals. You think I don’t notice? I always notice. What’s got you down?”

  She liked Eskişehir, but her father was dead and there were radical VZ factions who wanted to kill her. “Just one of those days.” She paused a beat, deciding to not mention the exhibition, not yet. “I have a job for you. But it’s more of a personal favor.”

  “Whatcha got?”

  “I need to hide something that has very specific storage requirements,” she said. “Like a fragile museum piece. Can you do it?”

  “Hate to think I couldn’t. Any suggestions?”

  She thought about it for a few seconds. “Just think about the hardest scenario to steal something from, and design the hiding place around that.”

  “Topkapi!” he said and laughed. “Just kiddin’. You ever see that movie?”

  “What movie?”

  “Topkapi. Way before your time.”

  “No, I never saw it. Who’s in it?”

  “No idea,” he replied. “Didn’t like it one bit. But I’ll think on it. Now raise hell and put a prop under it!”

  The small and tidy two-story house was located in the quiet residential neighborhood of Visnelik. As Cate approached the door, she noticed a blue glass nazar boncuğu, an amulet in the form of an eye, mounted a few inches above the door knocker. She wondered if that always came with the house, or if whoever rented it for her thought she’d need it and had it installed prior to her arrival.

  The house was clean and furnished and had a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom and powder room, and a decent-sized kitchen. In the kitchen was an oven, a farmhouse sink, a microwave, and a window that overlooked a small expanse of grass, a line of trees, and another house with a garden. In the living room, sturdy wooden stairs led up to a loft with a full shelf of books and a big chair by a slanted window. Cate wondered again who had secured the house for her — the woman who called while she was in the Town Car? Benjamin? Why Eskişehir and not Istanbul, not that she was complaining?

  The tension left her shoulders as she looked over the inside of the house, but rushed back in when the knocker made a triple thud on the front door. A neighbor? She had only been there a few minutes, and owing to the age of the house, there was no peephole to enable a visual confirmation.

  Cate cracked open the door.

  Jake Dumont.

  She kept her arm behind the door to give the appearance that she might have a gun, or another suitable weapon. In a flash, she also made a mental list of the parts she’d need to install a security camera outside the door.

  “How did you find me?” Her neutral tone disguised her fear.

  “May I come in?”

  “No. How did you find me?”

  “Michael Radin,” he replied.

  “Who’s Michael Radin?” Cate feigned ignorance.

  He smiled. “I have answers.” He held up his hands. “I’m on your side.”

  Right. She would accept that at face value, of course.

  She looked behind him and saw his parked motorcycle.

  “No one else knows where you are, as far as I know,” he said. “I just want to talk. A few minutes?”

  “Give me your wallet. You’ll get it back when you leave.”

  Cocky grin. “That’s not very neighborly of you.”

  “You’re not my neighbor.” Oh crap, was he?

  He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, slowly, and held up his wallet. He was the only man she knew who wore jeans, she noted. Cate took his wallet and stepped back. As he passed her to enter the house, she caught a scent of saddle leather and bergamot. And black licorice.

  “How could you possibly know what sort of answers I’m looking for?” she asked, while he inspected everything in the living room.

  “Didn’t you pay attention last time? I know more than you realize about both families.” He flipped through her mother’s copy of Alice in Wonderland. “On the day Gregory Severn was blinded, his housekeeper, Capri, called someone to come help her with him.”

  “How did you know Severn was — ” Cate stopped, realizing something. “Capri called you, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. She called me, and I helped her. I
also helped Michael get you away from Erin Hornfel. Doesn’t that count for something, or should I have brought a casserole, too?”

  She took a few steps closer. “Erin Hornfel. That’s who put me in her trunk? Is she a member of DN?”

  He raised a brow, which pulled up the corner of his mouth with it. “You know about Dregutchoh Niijevec.”

  “Yes. Apparently they would prefer a world without me. Isn’t it incredible that a Lyr knows even one small thing?”

  He smirked and put down the book — carefully, she was pleased to see. “She’s not a member of DN. She’s part of Hævli Hætrisi.”

  Another one?

  At her expression, he said, “Oh, Michael didn’t mention HH?”

  “We were in a hurry.”

  “The Sacred Immortals — HH — believe the Zaanics books have only one true volume, and reject anything that purports to come from the other volumes. They want to get all of the books for themselves so they can determine which one to protect. And they keep to a strict lifestyle. Not for me.”

  “The books don’t belong to them.”

  “No, but they believe one of the books does. They would be more than happy to throw the other two books away.”

  “And do they want to kill me, too?”

  “They believe that everything to happen is predetermined. They’re not for or against killing you — whichever is predetermined.”

  As for how they knew what was predetermined and how that would affect their decision to kill her, she had no idea. “And the members of Hævli Hætrisi? Who are they?”

  “The Forger. There’s also Gudrun Gray. And more I don’t know.”

  “Wait — the forger,” she said. “Who’s that?”

  “A Swiss art forger. Keeps to himself.”

  “Oh, shit,” she whispered. The art forger that Argos chose was in one of the factions who are after her? Did that mean Argos knew about the factions? Was Argos in the same faction? Did Argos work for them? They sent the forger photos of the original book. They had him make a copy. Who knows how many more people he shared that copy with afterwards. But she was less worried about the forger than she was about her crew being connected to one of the factions. Argos and Vulcan swapped Gaelen’s original with the copy. What if they hadn’t? What if they took the original and gave Cate the copy, leaving the safe empty?