by Ted Dekker
“You woke us up?” Billy shouted, red-faced. “You meddling—!”
“What on earth?” Monique looked from one to the other. “We saved your lives, you ungrateful little beasts!”
“Where’s the blood?” Janae was by the counter, trembling like a drug addict, searching for the vial of Thomas’s blood. “Where is it?”
“Janae!”
She whirled to face Monique. “I was there, Mother. What have you hidden from me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell them who I am, Billos. Tell them!”
And he did, blinking. “She’s Jezreal, lover of Ba’al, who is also Billos of Southern. Me.”
Qurong grabbed the IV pole, jabbed the air as if it were a spear, and backed out the door. “Stay! Stay or I swear by Teeleh’s blood I will kill the first one who comes for me.”
Thomas walked toward him, unfazed. “Then kill me. And your way back home will die with me.”
The threat gave the diseased man some pause.
“Put the weapon down.”
“Tell me what’s happening to me. And by the gods, don’t tell me I’ve traveled to another world. No one’s heard of such a thing.”
“What would you like to hear? That this is a nightmare? That your greatest enemies, Eram and Ba’al, don’t really exist? That your daughter, Chelise, really isn’t your daughter?”
“Silence!”
“I’ve told you the truth and in time you will accept it. Now put the weapon down!”
But Qurong didn’t appear interested. “Enough magic. Wake me up or I swear I’ll kill you all in my dreams!”
“Who is this brute?” Janae demanded. “The old fool Qurong himself. You see, Mother”—she pointed at Qurong—“this is who I am. I belong in his world. Give me the blood, send me back, and kill my body here.”
“Stop this!” Monique’s face had gone white. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Janae; you can’t just die in one world and live in another!”
“We don’t need to die,” Billy said. They turned to him and saw that his eyes were glued to the books in Thomas’s hand. “Give us the books.”
But Thomas was more interested in Qurong at the moment. “Step back in here. Lower the weapon. Let’s be reasonable about this.” After a moment’s hesitation he added, “Please. My lord, please.”
The Scab leader said nothing, but he seemed to be considering a different course. Kara’s mind spun with the shocking reality of a very real future to which Thomas had gone and returned.
“He has the lost books, Janae,” Billy said, slipping from the gurney. To Thomas: “If you want to be reasonable, let us use them. You’ll be rid of us forever.”
“Qurong?” Thomas was still fixated on the leader, who finally drew a deep breath and set the pole down.
“Thank you.” Free of concern about Qurong, Thomas stared the redhead down. “You have no right to enter our world. We have one Ba’al, we hardly need another.”
“And you, Thomas Hunter, have no right to deny me anything. You’re here because of me.”
“Now you’re barking mad.”
“I was the first to write in a blank Book of History when they were discovered under the monastery in Paradise, Colorado. More important, I was the one who wrote into history the fact that you traveled to the other world. You went because of me.”
Thomas looked shell-shocked.
“You could even call me Father. Now be a good son and give me the books.”
“That’s not possible. I went long before the books were found in the Paradise monastery.”
“No, Thomas,” Kara said in an apologetic tone. “I mean, yes, you did go before, but the books reside outside of time. Whatever is written in the books is fact: past, present, and future. At least as far as we’ve been able to learn.”
He seemed to soak that in.
“So then, you’re the one who started all of this. Bill. You’ve been to the Black Forest?”
Billy shrugged. “All I can tell you is that I belong there. I have a purpose there.”
“And I have a purpose here,” Thomas said. “It does not include sending even more wickedness back to my world. I’m here to find a way for a land that’s lost all hope. Unless you have a message of profound hope, I doubt you qualify.”
“You don’t know us,” Janae said. She walked toward Thomas, wearing a faint smile of seduction. “Good or evil, it doesn’t matter. We belong there, Thomas. It’s Billy’s world as much as it’s yours. And now it’s mine.”
“Get back from him,” Monique snapped.
Janae had other things in mind. “Is that what you want, Thomas? You prefer the old mother over the daughter?”
“Back!” Monique grabbed Janae’s black dress between her shoulder blades and jerked her back as if she were a feather. She shoved her onto the gurney and aimed a long finger at her nose. “Sit!”
“You tell me to trust you, Thomas,” Qurong muttered, “but I’m telling you I can’t trust my own eyes. If the magic is in the books, then we should use them.”
Thomas backed away from them all, untying the rope that tethered the books to his arm. “Kara, if you don’t mind.”
She walked up to him and accepted the books.
“Step through the door.”
The isolation room was only twenty feet square, and the doorway was open, five feet beyond Thomas. Kara retreated from the room and faced them through the doorway.
“Monique, help Kara.”
“I—”
“Now! Please.”
She glanced at her daughter, who stood by the gurney, then hurried past Thomas, who had his eyes on Billy.
The redhead pieced it together first. “So what, you’re just going to lock—”
“No!” Janae threw herself forward, possessed by a desperation that was quite literally of another world.
But Thomas moved like a cat, slammed the door shut, and shoved the outside bolt down. That he’d had the presence of mind to notice the outside lock was testament to refined instincts, but the way he’d moved . . . Kara wasn’t sure it was entirely human. Long ago he’d displayed some astonishing fighting skills that he claimed to have learned from his dreams, but this speed and strength was new, maybe because he had lived it rather than dreamed it.
Janae slammed into the glass with little effect, mouth wide in a scream Kara could not hear. See, Janae had only gone to the other world in her dreams. As for Qurong . . . now, there was a man who must have the power of a bull in both realities.
Qurong peered out, mystified. This was undoubtedly the first time he’d seen such strong, clear glass.
“Is there any way out of the room?” Thomas demanded.
“You’re going to keep them locked up?”
“What would you have me do?”
Monique looked at the three, caged like animals. “I guess it’ll hold them until we figure something out.”
Thomas took the books from Kara. “Then let’s be rid of this place. I need space to think without monkeys peering at me. We don’t have much time.”
Kara felt a grin tug at her mouth. Thirty years had changed the way Thomas spoke, but he was the same brother. Thomas Hunter was most definitely back. And to her it was like the second coming.
24
“TEN YEARS,” Kara said. “So that would make you how old over there?”
“The same as I am here,” Thomas said, pacing beside the towering shelves of bound books in Monique’s library. “Forty-nine. Amazing.” He rubbed his face with his hand, a habit he’d developed—to check if his skin was turning Horde, Chelise used to joke.
“But it’s been thirty-six years since you left us. You were twenty-four at the time. You should be sixty, like me. Instead, you’re under fifty and you hardly look forty.”
“All I know is that I was twenty-four—or was it twenty-five?—when I first woke in the Black Forest, and nearly twenty-six years have passed since then.” He scanned the cei
ling. “Utterly amazing.”
They’d left the laboratory, taken an elevator to the ground level, and retreated to Monique’s library, issuing strict instructions to be left alone.
“A lot’s changed since you left us,” Monique said.
“It’s not the change. It’s being back in civilization. Elyon knows how much I love the desert, but this . . . this is fantastic.”
“So you’re married? In the desert?”
Thomas looked into her bright eyes, recalling what they’d shared. Was that only a dream? The relationship between the two worlds still confused him. What was less confusing was the fact that he was physically here, now. There was only one Thomas Hunter, and he stood in a city called Bangkok, looking at an older woman who, at sixty, was stunning.
“Married? Yes. Happily. No, happily is a silly word for it. My wife is the jewel of the desert, the light that guides my heart through the darkness when I grow tired of waiting for the end.”
Monique grinned. “Wow. Sounds like I missed out.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re married?”
“Once.”
“Janae’s father?”
“Yes. It was a torrid affair that lasted a year. His name was Philippe, and he raged into my life like a tornado when I was feeling sorry for my loss. I knew it was bad, but he gave me what I longed for and then disappeared. He knew about you, naturally. You were still quite famous then.”
Philippe. Thomas wondered what connection he had to the other world. They were all connected, it seemed. The only real question was, in what way? Albino, Horde, Eramite half-breed, Shataiki? Roush?
Kara walked up to him with a roll of gauze and some tape she’d grabbed on the way out of the lab. She took his hand and rubbed his skin, studying the cut on his palm. Then she wrapped his hand in the bandage.
Her hair smelled like soap. Perfume. Flowers. He still wore the Horde robe, which carried the faint odor of scabbing disease—to them he likely smelled like a skunk.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Kara said, tapping the bandage. She lifted misty eyes. “Really here.”
He slid his hand behind her neck, pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Trust me, to know that all of this exists . . . it certifies me sane. So many times I believed I might be losing my mind.”
“You’re here to stay?”
Her question took him off guard. He dropped his hand and walked away. “I was told to come, find a way, and return to the Circle. My son is lost without me. I don’t have much time.”
“So, how long?”
“He didn’t say. Quickly, that’s all. You don’t understand . . . there’s trouble brewing. My son has betrayed the Circle and joined Eram.” Saying it renewed his sense of urgency, never mind that it all sounded a bit preposterous. “I fear the worst. War. The unraveling of all good in the land.”
Kara studied him, eyes fixed. “Take me back with you.”
“Back? No, no.”
“Yes,” she said. “Take me back.”
“This world needs you!”
“This world needs Monique. I don’t have anyone left. Mom and Dad are long gone. I’ve been alone for thirty years.”
“You never married?”
“Never.”
He considered the notion.
“You can’t be serious about this,” Monique said, standing from her chair. She crossed to a bar and poured a drink from a bottle of amber liquid. “We don’t even know what the true connection between the worlds is. It’s far too dangerous.”
She was grasping.
“We do know!” Kara snapped. “It’s obvious.”
“Then tell us.”
“Thomas’s world is the future of this world, thousands of years from now, remade, a kind of new earth. The essentials of history are being replayed; everything spiritual here has become physical there. It’s like take two. Isn’t that what you said once, Thomas?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Monique said.
“In the other world, words become flesh through the Books of History. And vice versa: reality becomes words recorded in the same books. The spiritual has physical manifestation. When those books came into our reality, they still had the same power to turn words into flesh.” She motioned at the stack of four books on the desk where Thomas had laid them. “The books are the bridge between the worlds. Literally, a bridge.”
She’d put it so simply.
“And the blood?” Thomas asked. “My blood, Teeleh’s blood, Elyon’s blood. Why always blood?”
Kara joined Monique and poured a drink. “I don’t know. In both realities, blood is life. Disease here and evil there are both carried by blood. And they’re wiped out by blood. You’ll have to tell us the rest.”
The connections hadn’t escaped Thomas all these years, but he’d never put it so plainly in his head. “The red lakes,” he said.
“What lakes?”
“They came later. The lakes were turned red by Elyon’s blood. By drowning in them we stay free of the disease.”
“Drowning? Really drowning?”
“Yes, we die. But it’s life, really, because Elyon paid that price so we can escape it.”
“Price for what?”
“The cost of our embracing evil—death. Elyon cannot live with evil; it must die. Or so we say.”
“So it’s like a baptism?”
Thomas nodded. “Perhaps. Only Elyon knows the full extent of these connections.”
“Unfortunately, like you say, Elyon seems to have gone quiet,” Monique said. “In both realities. And you may have brought the worst to us.”
“How so?”
“Qurong.” Monique set down her glass and crossed to the window. “There’s another connection that I’d like to consider.”
“The Raison Strain?” Kara said. “You can’t think the scabbing disease is the same as the Raison Strain.”
Monique turned back. “Would it surprise you?”
The room fell silent, and Thomas began to feel oddly misplaced here in the world of medicine and machines. What if he couldn’t go back? He eyed the books, still bound and smeared with his and Qurong’s blood. What did he really know about the rules that guided these lost books?
“Please, Thomas.” He turned to Kara, who was watching him in earnest. “Take me with you.”
He felt his face slowly offer up a soft smile. “You never were one to capitulate, were you?”
But he couldn’t promise her anything, not without knowing more.
“I could never go,” Monique said in a thin voice cut by sorrow. She was staring out the window again, lost in thought. Thomas understood a small part of what she must be feeling.
She could never enter the world where Chelise lived. They both knew that Thomas had given his heart and soul to another woman who waited now, braving any danger for him.
The memory of Chelise rushing into Qurong’s underground library swallowed him for a moment, and he had to push back the compulsion to rush over to the books and use them again. While he stood in safety, Chelise was . . . was what?
See, that was just it. He wouldn’t put anything past his desert bride. Her spirit more often than not pulled her into the most dangerous path. She could be rushing toward Eram to retrieve Samuel or returning to the Circle to warn them. Assuming she’d escaped Qurongi City.
Meanwhile, he’d stumbled back into a love affair that had never quite died.
Monique turned. “But that’s my cross to bear. And to be honest, it’s not an impossibly heavy one.” She took one deep breath and let a smile toy with her mouth. “Although I must say, you do look like a scrumptious dessert. The desert air must agree with you.”
“It’s the fruit,” he said sheepishly, then realized that he might be coming off as pretentious. “And I’m younger. Honestly I was just thinking how beautiful you look.”
They stared at each other, and the air grew stuffy.
Monique rescued him. “This is rather awkwa
rd.” She crossed to him, kissed his cheek, then turned away. “The fact is, however fantastic this turn of events might seem to us, we all know that we’re playing a role on a grand stage that determines the lives of millions. I owe this world my work and my life. And Thomas”—she faced them both—“your world is waiting for you. So, what can we do to help you?”
There was still Kara, Thomas thought. Where did she belong?
He nodded. “I will always remember your graciousness.”
Monique dipped her head.
Thomas sighed. “As I said, what I know is this: One”—he stuck out a finger—“the Circle has been pulled apart by arguments in doctrine. We still hold to the same basic tenets, but now even those are being challenged. What was once sacred is slipping into obscurity. And the greatest of all guiding imperatives—that we love the Horde—has been abandoned by more than even I probably know.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kara said.
“How so?”
“You think this world is any different?”
Thomas hadn’t considered it; his mind was on the desert. He ran his fingers through his long locks of hair and continued.
“It’s as if another kind of disease, this forgetfulness, has been eating away at their hearts for years like a cancer. Now it’s too late to reverse it. We never used to live for the desert, because we knew that it was just a transition. A better world was just around the corner. We endured terrible persecution and death, driven by hope. But now that hope of a better world is losing its appeal. Forgotten.”
“Again, familiar.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“So you need what, Thomas?” Monique asked.
“A way for the Circle to fulfill its hope.”
They just looked at him.
“Maybe a few guns would do the trick.” Still those empty stares. “But I couldn’t, of course. I didn’t come for a way to kill.”
“And what else?” Monique pressed.
“Qurong. I brought the supreme commander of our greatest enemy in the hope of helping him put to rest the impossible stubbornness that’s badgered him all these years.”
“You shouldn’t have brought him,” she said.
“Why not?”