The Book of Secrets

by Melissa McShane

  A pile of wooden crates stacked haphazardly to chest height looked as if it might come down at any second. Brian crouched in front of it. “I see you,” he said, and held out his hand. “Come on, boy, let me help—”

  The crates exploded upward. Something big and black that gleamed sickeningly in the neon glow reared up, taller than Brian, taller than the second-story windows. Tentacles lashed out, wrapping Brian’s arms to his side, whipping around his throat and mouth. He lurched once, then the tentacles lifted him off his feet, thrashing with his desperate attempts to get free.

  I screamed. It was impossible to move; I was rooted to the ground as surely as if I’d been bound by those tentacles too. Instantly the thing’s attention was on me. I saw no eyes, no head, but I knew it was watching me. It dropped Brian, who hit the cracked asphalt with a terrible loose-limbed thump. Then the tentacles stretched out toward me, feeling their way as if the thing truly were blind. I screamed again and finally, finally turned to run.

  Black-clad figures pounded into the alley, streaming past me, jostling me as they ran. I turned around again, stunned, and saw them taking up positions between me and the tentacled thing. One of them raised a fat-barreled gun to his shoulder and fired what looked like a beanbag. It expanded into a fine mesh that covered the thing in a spider’s web of paint or white ink. The whimpering broke out again, only this time it was loud and piercing, the cry of something in terrible pain.

  Another of the figures stepped forward, extending a hand toward the thing palm-out as if in warning. A tentacle lashed out, wrapping itself around his wrist. “Don’t let it touch you!” I shouted, stupidly.

  The man ignored me. Steel flashed, and the now-severed tentacle fell away in two pieces. The man brought his knife around again and slashed at the thing’s center, the place where all the tentacles emerged. More tentacles lashed at him, but as quickly as they gripped him the knife severed them. It was like a fatal dance, and even as stunned as I was, part of me was impressed.

  Hands gripped my shoulders and spun me around. “You can see us,” the man said. His face was nearly as dark as his clothing, and he was only a few inches taller than me. I tried to wrench myself from his grasp, but he held me with no more difficulty than a man restraining a kitten.

  “Who are you? What is that thing?”

  The man looked past me. “We have a problem,” he said.

  I craned my head around to see the man with the knife sheathe his blade and kneel next to a pile of black, dismembered creature parts. “Not now,” he said, and I recognized the voice of Malcolm Campbell.

  I gasped. “What—”

  “Hel, where did you go?” Viv called out. My eyes met those of the man restraining me.

  “Quincy,” Campbell said, and a black-clad woman moved to the mouth of the alley. I saw her unroll a strip of paper she had looped around her wrist. I opened my mouth to call out to Viv and a firm hand went over my mouth. I tried again to get away from him, fighting with every ounce of strength I possessed, but it was useless.

  The woman shook the paper out a few times. It snapped in the cold air, cracking like a whip. Swiftly she slapped it against the nearest wall, smoothing it out. It stuck there as if glued. She laid her palm over it, and a flash of white light filled that end of the alley, then vanished. A second later, Viv and Shawn walked past, moving quickly and looking in all directions. “Helena?” Viv called out. Her voice was slightly muffled, as if she’d pulled her scarf over her face. Then they were gone.

  My captor’s grip loosened, though not enough for me to free myself. “What the hell was that all about?” I shouted.

  “Miss Davies,” Campbell said. He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was on a date, and Brian—” The air suddenly felt much colder. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s dead,” Campbell said.

  His words came to me echoing, from far away. “Dead?”

  “You can let her go, Tinsley.”

  I yanked myself free of my captor and turned to face Campbell. He had a welt across one cheekbone and his dark hair was mussed, and the same irrelevant part of me thought, He looks even better that way. “He can’t be dead,” I said.

  “Encounters with invaders are nearly always fatal, especially for the non-magical.” He extended a hand to me. “I’m sorry for your loss. Were you close?”

  I shook my head. “I only met him half an hour ago, but…” I took Campbell’s hand and let him draw me closer to where Brian lay, his body limp and his limbs tangled as if he’d fallen from a great height, dropped by some giant hand. His eyes were wide open in astonishment, and his mouth was blackened, like he’d eaten a lot of licorice. The comparison was too much, and I turned and vomited into the scattered crates. My throat and mouth burned with alcohol-tinged bile.

  Campbell helped me to my feet when I finished. I was shaking everywhere. “That was one of the invaders,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re not the fainting type,” Campbell said. “Yes, and our illusions will wear off soon, so we have to act quickly.”

  “We have to call 9-1-1,” I said, then felt stupid. “But how will they explain his body? It looks like he died of fright.”

  “That’s not too far off the mark. It’s not a pleasant death.” Campbell nodded at Quincy, who still had her hand on the strip of paper. “Illusion holding steady?”

  “Five minutes.”

  Campbell turned back to me. “I’m going to have to ask for your help,” he said.

  “She’s a civilian,” the man with the unusual gun said.

  “This is Abernathy’s new custodian. She’s one of us, more or less.” Campbell squeezed my hand, then released me. “You and the young man were mugged. He took your purse—here, give it to me. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s returned to you. Your date fought back and the mugger shot him, then ran away. Stick to that story, don’t embellish it, and you’ll be fine.”

  I nodded. The cold had made me so numb I couldn’t feel anything, not surprise or horror or even fear. “But he’s not shot.”

  Campbell drew a pistol from a holster strapped to his thigh. “He will be.” He nodded at Quincy. “You have that illusion ready?”

  Quincy closed her eyes and let out a long breath. The air beside her quivered, thickening like heat haze. Heat would have been welcome just then. I didn’t see anything else, but after a minute Campbell said, “Take a good look at him. You’ll need to be able to describe him.”

  “I don’t see anything but a sort of haze in the air.”

  Campbell gave me an intense, narrow-eyed look. “Strange. And you saw through our concealment. I’ll have to investigate that later. Very well. Your attacker was white, with dark hair and a scruffy beard. He wore a black knit cap and a trench coat. That’s all you remember.”

  I repeated the details back to him. “Miss Davies, I’m truly sorry you were mixed up in this,” Campbell said. He pointed the gun at Brian’s body, then squeezed off two shots. The explosive sound echoed in the alley, and I involuntarily covered my ears and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Campbell’s people were gone, and blood was trickling from two bullet wounds in Brian’s chest.

  That’s impossible, he’s already dead, his heart isn’t beating. I threw myself to my knees beside him. Campbell was wrong, Brian was still alive. He’d just shot a helpless man in the chest. For the second time in as many days I put my cheek to a dead man’s mouth, hoping to feel air sighing out. Nothing. I couldn’t understand how Brian could still be bleeding. I stripped off my coat and pressed it hard against his chest. “Help me!” I shouted. “Somebody help!”

  Running footsteps sounded behind me. “Helena, what happened?” Viv came to a stop next to me. “Are you all right?”

  “Mugger—call 9-1-1—he’s bleeding.” My breath was ragged as if I’d been running, and the cold air felt like a knife in my chest. I heard Shawn talking to someone, sounded like a 9-1-1 call, but it was so distant. Brian’s slack face, his… how o
dd, his mouth wasn’t black anymore… it all seemed impossible. Unreal. Two days ago, I’d been a total innocent, and now this mysterious war had reached out and touched me. Had killed someone I knew, however slightly. He’d wanted to be a teacher and now he was dead. I felt as if I should be crying, but my dry eyes ached from the numbness that filled me.

  Viv was saying something I couldn’t understand. I shook my head with no idea whether that was an appropriate response. “It was a mugger,” I said. “He took my purse, Brian stood up to him, and he shot him. Shot Brian.”

  Then there were sirens, and paramedics, and police officers. Someone took the coat out of my hands and moved me to stand by the wall. How long would they try to revive him? Wasn’t it obvious he was dead? I realized I had a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I didn’t remember taking it, but I huddled more closely into it. The noise, and the flashing lights, and the unrelenting cold had turned the whole thing into a nightmare, something I would surely wake from soon. I found myself remembering Campbell’s grip on my hand—his hand, that he’d then used to shoot Brian’s body. How many times had he seen this happen, that he could be so callous about it? I shivered, then couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Miss, could you step this way, please?”

  It was the police detective who’d arrived with her partner shortly after the uniformed cops had showed up to throw a barrier around the crime scene. I obediently followed her deeper into the alley, past where the tentacled horror—the invader—had attacked Brian. There was no sign of its dismembered body now.

  “I’m Detective Sutherland,” the woman said. She had dark skin and dark hair in hundreds of tiny braids bundled up at the base of her neck. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  I repeated Campbell’s story for her, resisting the urge to embellish. Detective Sutherland had a patient air about her, one that begged you to fill up the silence with more details. When I finished, she said, “Which way did the murderer run?”

  “Out the front of the alley. I didn’t see which way he turned.”

  “And Mr. Valley challenged him? Refused to give up his wallet?”

  It took me a moment to realize Mr. Valley was Brian. “Are you saying it’s his fault he got shot?”

  “I’m just trying to establish the facts, Miss Davies.” The slam of the ambulance door snapped me out of my stupor. I blinked at Sutherland, but she was writing something in a small brown notebook. “The fault is entirely the killer’s. You handed over your purse immediately?”

  “It didn’t have anything in it worth dying over. Some money, my credit card and driver’s license.”

  “We’ll search the area. Usually they dump what they can’t use. Did the killer say anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Any other threats. Anything to say he’d targeted the two of you on purpose.”

  “Nothing like that.”

  Sutherland closed her notebook with a snap. “We may have more questions for you later, but right now I think you should go home. You look like you’re in shock.”

  I picked my way past the crime scene investigators, going over the alley for forensic evidence. What would they make of what they found? Would the medical examiner find evidence that Brian was already dead when he was shot? I shivered again. What time was it? I realized my phone had been in my purse and hoped Campbell would return that too.

  “Helena, you look awful.” Viv wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. “Can you go home? They don’t want you to go to the station or anything?”

  “She said they’d have more questions later. Viv, let’s just go.”

  The ride in Viv’s ancient Econoline van was unexpectedly quiet. Normally the thing rattled and clunked loudly enough to drown out the noise of Viv’s drum kit, which was packed tightly in blankets but whose cases bumped the walls at every pothole. I curled into a ball on the passenger seat and stared sightlessly out the window. Brian was dead. I couldn’t stop seeing his look of utter surprise when the thing grabbed him, and how empty that look had been when he lay on the ground with two bullet holes in his chest. The numbness had passed, leaving me cold and achy all over.

  “You could have died,” Viv said. “Helena, it could have been you.”

  “I know,” I said. “I don’t know what to feel right now. Poor Brian.”

  “Shawn went to the hospital behind the ambulance, even though he… anyway, he wanted to be there when Brian’s parents arrived. It all happened so quickly, you know? We didn’t realize you weren’t with us, and then—I swear, Helena, we passed that alley and didn’t see anything. It was weird.”

  “We were… pretty far back.” The crates, exploding outward as the thing reared up from its hiding place—the stench of my vomit, puddling nearby—Brian’s dead face—I started shaking again, and this time tears leaked from my eyes.

  “Don’t cry, sweetie, don’t cry—it’s going to be all right.”

  I shook my head and wiped away tears. “I know. It’s not like I even knew him, right? But he was right there next to me, and…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. What would have happened if Brian hadn’t followed the “dog” into the alley? It finally occurred to me to wonder what Campbell’s group was doing there. Chasing after the invader? I wished I knew how to contact him. I had so many more questions than I’d had even this morning.

  The house was dark when Viv pulled into my parents’ driveway. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  “Call me in the morning, okay? I’m not kidding. If you don’t, I’ll show up at your store and make a fuss until you prove you’re all right.”

  Her swoop of hair obscured one eye, but what I could see of her face was serious. “I’ll call.”

  Viv waited until I had the front door open before driving away. I went to take off my coat and realized the paramedics, or someone, still had it, and I was still wrapped in the scratchy gray blanket. Well, it was ruined, wherever it was.

  I bundled the blanket in my arms and tiptoed to the stairs. Music and muffled conversation floated up the stairwell, telling me that at least one of my parents was still up, watching TV. There was no way to my bedroom except past the sectional and television, but I didn’t want to talk about my ordeal… except if I didn’t, I’d get an earful in the morning. I made my way down the stairs, trying not to think about Brian’s parents and the conversation they were no doubt having now.

  slept poorly, convinced there was an invader hiding in the shadows, waking just enough to feel paralyzed. When my alarm finally went off, I smacked the snooze button with the palm of my hand and lay staring at the ceiling. Its rough texture made curving lines I was long familiar with; I’d made pictures out of them since I was a kid. The sailing ship. The daisy in profile. The skull—I shuddered and looked away. I didn’t need any reminders of death.

  Jake was already gone when I went upstairs, but Mom had made chocolate chip pancakes with marionberry jam, and she stacked my plate high with them. Her sympathy made me irritable, which made me feel guilty. She was only trying to help. I just didn’t want to feel like a victim when I wasn’t the one who’d died.

  I had to wear my dress coat to work, which made me even more irritable, because it was a long black quilted thing with faux fur trim that made my face itch if I put the hood up. It made me look like I was going to a funeral. More reminders of death. Should I go to Brian’s funeral? What was the etiquette for the death of someone you barely knew who’d died right next to you? It was the kind of thing Viv would know.

  The bus ride felt longer than normal, the streets rougher than usual, something I noticed because I had to ride standing up due to crowding. Clinging to the hand loop, I stared at the back of the person next to me. He wore a dark blue denim jacket and workman’s boots. He was probably going to some job where he’d build things, or dig things up—something practical, anyway. Whereas I would fumble around inside a smelly bookstore, completely at a loss and pretending I k
new what I was doing. My third day on the job and I was still no closer to competence than when I’d walked in two days ago.

  It was nearly ten when I let myself in Abernathy’s front door. No one was waiting outside, for which I was grateful. I put my coat and purse in the office and picked up the list I’d made the day before. Wonderful. Not only couldn’t I mark anything off, I had to add things to the list, like getting into the wall safe. I scribbled a few notes to myself, then stood leaning against the desk, closed my eyes, and breathed in and out rhythmically for a minute. I’d committed to this job and I was damn well going to do it. And the first thing I would do today was start addressing those catalogues. It was a little thing, but it was under my control.

  I left the office door open while I removed catalogues from boxes and applied the labels, then put them back into the boxes. Then I had to take them out again to apply postage, which came out of a special machine on the edge of the desk. I hoped it was set to the right amount.

  I’d gone through one box and most of a second when I heard the door slam. I ran to the front and found Campbell loitering near the cash register. “Oh,” I said, “it’s you.” Gone was the black-clad gun-wielding man of the previous night. Campbell was once again dressed in an expensive suit and tie, his gold watch glinting at the edge of his left cuff. The welt had vanished. I felt a moment’s disappointment, though he looked almost as good as he had in the black fatigues.

  He smiled slightly. “I suppose it makes sense you wouldn’t be thrilled to see me. How are you?”

  “Fine. Still shaken. And full of questions.”

  “They can wait.” He extended a phone toward me. It looked like the phone he’d taken from me the night before, but black instead of white. “You put in a claim for a lost phone this morning and paid for a replacement. This phone already has your old number assigned to it. You also called your bank and credit card company to cancel your cards. Replacements are in the mail. The police will have found your purse and driver’s license early this morning and should call to let you know about it soon.” He handed me a wad of bills. “This is the cash that was in your wallet. Sorry about the inconvenience.”