I beeline to the back corner and grab The Book. I push down the powerful feeling of strength and resiliency before it can go to my head and open it. I take out my phone and open the camera app. I start flipping through The Book, taking a picture of each page. When I get to the end, I check the photos.
“Dammit,” I curse. Every single one is blurry to the point of being indiscernible.
I go back to the beginning and steady my phone far enough away to get the whole page, but close enough to catch all the detail. I tap on the screen to trigger the focus and then touch the shutter icon. I press on the thumbnail of the picture and it’s still blurry.
“Dammit!”
I slide my thumb across the screen of my phone changing it from photo to video. I steady my hand above The Book and touch “record”. I leave my hand hovering in the air, count to five and turn the page. I count to five again and end the recording. The video is just as blurry as the images.
I grab a different book from the shelves in front of me and take a few pictures and seconds of video just to check that there isn’t something wrong with my phone. Everything comes out completely clear, nothing out of focus even slightly.
There must be some charm or spell on The Book protecting it somehow. So short of taking it out of CCR3 and bringing it upstairs to photocopy it, or actually stealing it — which I haven’t completely ruled out — I’ll have to study these pages here in person.
The library closes today at eight, and I shouldn’t be expecting Sam for the rest of the day. I debate staying right there in CCR3 but if Jeff comes down to check on things or to ask me something, it would be better if I at least appeared to be doing the project he assigned to me.
I close The Book, pick up my phone and my lanyard, and go back to CCR1. I take the last book Sam was entering into the database back off the shelf and place in on the table next to the laptop. I arrange everything in a way that if Jeff opens the door, the computer will block The Book from view and it will look like I’m making another entry. I leave the door of CCR1 cracked slightly so I’ll be able to hear if anyone comes into the sub-basement.
The same lined notepad with Sam’s instructions is still next to the laptop so I flip to a fresh page and draw a line vertically down the center. I write Latin on top of the left column and English on the right. I open The Book and starting with the inscription inside the cover, I begin copying it out by hand.
I’ve written down the first few pages when a thought about today races through my head that I can’t seem to shake off. If the Victus were asking Jeff about who works here, then they somehow must have connected me to this place. If they’ve linked me to here, they know it’s because The Book is here. And if they know it’s here, it won’t be long until Darius is here too.
I check the time on my phone and do the closing-time math in my head. I have at minimum three more hours down here. I check what I’ve written down so far to make sure I haven’t misspelled any of the Latin or missed any words. I’m about to continue copying out The Book when I hear a click echo outside of CCR1.
I scramble to close The Book and put the notepad on top of it. I shift my stool over slightly so I’m in front of the laptop screen and slide on the white gloves, pretending to read over my entry. The door of CCR1 opens outward toward the hallway and drags over the thick carpet, making a swish sound.
“Alexa.”
I don’t need to turn to know who it is, but I turn around anyway and face my boss. “Hello, Jeff,” I say politely. “What can I do for you?”
“I think it’s something I might be able to do for you,” he answers.
“Oh?” I ask. I don’t like the sound of that.
“It seems that the two men that injured your friend Cali may be the same who were in the library this morning.”
“How do you know about that?” I ask.
My fight or flight sensors are sparking to life and I discretely edge my seat back closer to The Book.
“Matt,” Jeff answers. “He’s very upset by the whole thing. I find that I am also.”
I can’t shake the gut feeling that this could still be some sort of trap. My muscles tense ready to spring into action if necessary.
“If these men are one and the same, then they came in here asking some very... intruding questions about the female employees. Personal questions about their backgrounds, appearances, and ages.”
He pauses there and hesitates almost as if he doesn’t know exactly how to proceed. “I’m telling all of the people working today about this, both women and men, and I’ll be sending an email out about it so that everyone not here is aware. I refused to answer their questions, but based on the nature of them, I believe these two men may show up again.”
I don’t know exactly what to say, so I nod along with Jeff.
“I would like to ask you to do something,” he continues. I nod again.
“There is footage from this morning from the cameras upstairs. I don’t know for sure, but I hope there will be an image or two of the men that the police can use. I was wondering if you would bring a thumb drive with the video to the station.”
“Uhh, s-s-sure,” I stammer. “Of course. I can bring it on my way home later.”
I’m confused now. If Jeff is in cahoots with the two men, sending me to the police station with footage that could identify them doesn’t seem like a smart move. Unless they came here to tell him to hurry up and find The Book himself, and now he’s trying to get me out of the way. But if that’s the case, why assign me here in the first place? That suggests Jeff doesn’t know exactly who I am and is maybe just outsourcing the grunt work to find The Book. Of course, that’s assuming he actually is a Victus and knows all of this to begin with.
And if Jeff isn’t a Victus and has absolutely no idea about anything supernatural going on in his library, then he’s just a good guy who wouldn’t give out information without cause and wants two scummy men to be caught.
Of course, he could be the first option and is only pretending to be the second to escape suspicion.
My head is starting to hurt.
“There are only a couple hours left for the day anyway so I’d like you to go now,” Jeff says. The inkling of a trap creeps up in my mind again but is chased away as he adds, “I’ve asked Matt to go with you, and I’ll be telling everyone to leave in pairs or groups today.”
“Okay, I can do that,” I say. “I’m just about done with this entry, I’m just proofreading.”
“Very good,” Jeff answers. “When you are finished, you may find Matt and leave. I’ve already given him the thumb drive.”
“Okay, great,” I answer. I go to turn back to the computer but Jeff clears his throat. He must have more to say.
“Alexa,” he starts. “Since you and Sam have been doing such a great job and it’s moving along so well, I was hoping you’d be able to stay late tomorrow and Friday to get a couple more entries done? Sam will be here this weekend so you won’t be required to come, but do you think you’ll be able to stay the next two days?”
More time in here is exactly what I need right now. It solves that small hiccup of whether or not to steal The Book. Without sounding too eager about it, I answer with a good-natured, “Oh, no problem.”
“Good,” Jeff says. “Well, like I said, once you’re finished with that entry, you may go.”
“Thanks, Jeff.” He nods and leaves, pulling the door to CCR1 fully closed behind him.
I save and close the entry in the database before exiting out of the software program. I return the first edition to its shelf, and take off the white gloves.
I flip ahead in The Book until I see the word “Extensios” and write down everything I see with it. I may need to learn how to do that sooner than anything else. Once I finish copying what I believe is everything, I tear off the sheets of paper I used from the notepad and stuff them into my pocket. I scan CCR1 quickly making sure nothing is left behind before picking up The Book to return it to its current home.
I reluctantly put it back on the shelf in CCR3. If I linger down here, it may cause Jeff or Matt to come down to get me, inadvertently bringing direct attention to The Book. I’ll have all day tomorrow, I remind myself. I make sure the doors to cubes one and three are securely closed before I exit through the heavy sub-basement door.
● 35 ●
Darius
The incessant knocking on the door and the calls of his name rouse Darius from his Zen-like state. Demons don’t ever sleep, but the oldest ones have taught themselves a type of meditation that essentially allows them to shut down for short periods. Darius growls as his awareness languidly comes back to the world.
“Boss?” he hears through the door.
He shakes his head a few times to clear his vision. He’s in one of the rooms above the bar. The shades are drawn, preventing the day’s falling sunlight from entering. The single bulb in the ceiling throws out a dim light. The walls are stained yellow from decades of cigarette smoke, the wooden floor scratched and discolored from hundreds of shoes and spills.
He’s laying on a dingy full sized mattress propped up in the middle of the floor on the same kind of wooden palettes that litter the alleyway out back. Unwashed sheets are bunched up by his feet, his head is resting on a soiled pillow. The only other furniture in the room is a small, lopsided table with one chair shoved over in a corner. His jacket is draped over the back of the chair.
Darius sits up as the knock comes again.
“What!?” he yells. The door inches open and Viribus ducks his watermelon-sized head in.
“Sorry, boss,” he says in his deep baritone voice. “But I just got off the phone with Julius and he told me to tell you something.”
“About fucking time. What’d he say?” Darius rubs a hand up and down his face to clear his vision. He stands and motions for Viribus to fully enter the room.
“He and the guy you sent with him are in Portland, Oregon. They went to New Orleans and met up with Blue. He took them to the library, they spoke with the old man who remembered the girl. He told them about the library in Portland, so Julius—”
“I don’t want a history lesson Viribus,” Darius says, sternly cutting the giant off. “Just give me the bottom line: do they have her or not?”
“They don’t have her.” Darius starts to grumble but Viribus quickly continues, “But they are convinced that she’s in Portland.”
A look of curiosity momentarily breaks through the anger on Darius’s face. “Talk faster.”
“Julius is almost completely positive that they bumped into someone who was walking the dog.”
“The dog? What the hell are you talking about?”
“The dog. The dog, boss. The girl’s dog.”
Darius remains quiet, trying to understand what his Victus is talking about. Slowly, a millennia of memories sort through his head and a movie of that day five years ago plays in his mind. When he arrived, people began running all over the place. Darius freezes on a snapshot of the girl’s grandfather whisking her away quickly, a black dog practically glued to her leg.
“The black dog,” he says out loud.
“Right, boss,” Viribus says. “Julius thinks that it was either a dog walker or a friend, he’s definitely sure it’s not the girl — skin color wasn’t right. But someone was walking the dog and they bumped into her. A happy accident, he said. The dog immediately started growling and barking at Julius and the other guy.”
“Promising. When will Julius be back?”
“Tomorrow. They booked a flight for first thing in the morning,” Viribus answers. He’s standing straighter now, stretched to his full height at the demon’s positive reaction to what Julius has found out.
“Tomorrow. What day is it now?” Time doesn’t mean much to a demon unless he’s waiting on something important. Such as finding the girl who has the power to eradicate him from this world.
“It’s Wednesday evening, boss.”
“Good.”
Darius begins to pace around the small room making a mental list of what he’ll have to do to get to the girl now that he knows where she is. He walks over to his Victus and grabs him on the back of the neck. Darius pulls him down so that their foreheads touch.
“You did good, Viribus,” he says. He claps his hand on the back of the soldier’s head twice. “This is very good.”
Viribus sighs in relief before asking, “What do you need now, boss?”
“When Julius gets back, we have to facilitate the transition to Victus. We’ll need transport potions, six total. Three to get there and three to go the portal after. I want you to stay here Viribus.” The Titan-sized man’s face falls and his shoulders start to sag.
“Listen to me,” Darius continues. “Listen. You are my strongest Victus, and I will need you to help me open the portal fully. I can’t risk you getting lost. I don’t expect she’ll be able to put up much of a fight, but I won’t take that chance.”
Viribus nods obediently, but he’s not happy with being left behind. “Yes, boss,” he says begrudgingly.
“After Damon’s transition, I’ll need you to watch over me while I recover. You know that’s when I’m in my most vulnerable state. I don’t trust anyone else to do that.”
“Yes, boss,” Viribus says again, his pride re-inflating a bit.
Darius can see he’s placated the giant. He goes to the chair in the corner and puts on his jacket. He comes back over to his soldier and punches him on the shoulder.
“Let’s go downstairs and find some people to... celebrate this new turn of events with.”
A smile covers Darius’s face, but the joy that is there is tainted with the malicious intent behind his statement. He’s convinced that the girl is finally within his reach. He salivates at the thought of being rid of her and the maddening curse she represents.
A sneer graces Viribus’s face, he understands completely what the demon means. He takes a step to the side to allow Darius to exit the room first.
“Won’t be long now, Viribus,” Darius says walking down the narrow, dark hallway to the staircase that will bring them into the grimy kitchen of the bar. “Soon the real fun starts.”
● 36 ●
“Alexa”
After stopping at the police station, Matt and I grabbed a cab back to my apartment. I texted Mickey to let her know we were on our way so that we wouldn’t startle her or Cali. We got to my door at the same time as the delivery guy holding two pizza boxes. While Matt paid, I took the food and unlocked the door of my apartment.
I’m met by a black blur as Milo barrels into me, knocking me to the floor. Thankfully the pizzas land right side up and dinner isn’t ruined. He doesn’t squander a minute before hopping into my lap, whipping me with his tail, and slobbering all over my face.
“Okay, Milo,” I say trying to calm him down. I rub his ears and kiss him between his eyes.
“He’s kind of been like this all day,” Mickey tells me as she picks up the pizza boxes. “This is actually the first time he’s left Cali’s side.”
Cali wastes no time opening the boxes and taking out her preferred slice of black olive. “He even waited outside the bathroom door for me,” she says around a mouthful. “It ended up being a cute picture though.”
Mickey hands me her phone open to the picture she took. Milo is sitting in front of the closed bathroom door, his ears pricked and his eyes locked on the doorknob. Mickey swipes her finger across the screen and the next picture is of Milo in the same spot, door still closed, but his head is twisted back to face Mickey with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out.
I smile at the picture then go over to my roommate and give her a hug. She doesn’t hesitate to hug me back tightly. I hold her at arm’s length and look her in the eyes. We stare at each other a minute, and I rub her arm satisfied that she’s feeling okay. Matt hands me a plate with a piece of plain pizza and the four of us settle around the coffee table like we did four nights ago.
How much can change in jus
t a few days, I think. I slightly shake my head and ask, “Did everything go okay at the police station?”
Cali and Mickey begin to tell Matt and me how things went; that the artist was very personable and made them both feel very comfortable, how he and Cali discussed technique and talked shop when he finished, and how it turns out that the artist’s wife is a member at Mickey’s studio. Half of my mind is listening, the other half is planning out my day for tomorrow and Friday. I have a long night ahead of me — I want to translate as much of The Book as possible, starting with the part on Extensios.
I swallow the last bite of my slice and get up to get another. I ask if anyone wants more and Mickey and Cali both say yes. As I’m putting three pieces onto my plate, I feel Matt come up behind me and wrap his arms around my waist. He kisses the back of my neck and then rests his chin on my shoulder.
My Name Is Not Alexa Pearce Page 20