The Book of Peril

by Melissa McShane

  “I’ll assign you a bodyguard,” he said.

  “I don’t want a bodyguard.” Unless it’s you.

  “What you want is irrelevant. Whoever this is failed to kill you once and will almost certainly try again. I don’t want to find you again the way I did last night. You looked—” His lips compressed with anger, and he withdrew his hand from mine.

  “All right,” I said in a small voice.

  “Thank you for being reasonable. He’ll be discreet.” He stood and put his hand on the doorknob. “Chet will not try to contact you again. If he does, though, call me immediately.” He was gone before I could say What if the lovely Andria answers? Finally, a conversational excuse to ask about her, and I’d wasted it.

  The afternoon went by peacefully, or would have done if the false auguries hadn’t worked on my nerves like a fretsaw. Every time one went wrong, I wanted to scream and throw books and quit this job forever. It was like playing one of those wooden mazes with a steel ball, where you have to tilt the maze to guide the ball to the hole at the center, only in this maze there were fifteen other holes and half of them were invisible until the ball dropped through and went back to the start. If anyone else had come in, I wouldn’t have been able to keep from yelling at them. It seemed so unfair that outside the store, birds were singing and children were playing and teens were driving their parents’ cars too fast, all those wonderful things that went on without pause in the spring. You’d think something as momentous as the world’s greatest oracle misbehaving would leave some mark on the world. But no, everyone was completely ignorant.

  The door opened. “I’m only forgiving you because without you I have no one to go to the mall with,” Viv declared. “I’m also making allowances for how sexually frustrated you must be right now. Have you even slept with anyone in the last six months?”

  I burst into tears.

  “Hey, stop, Hel, I was kidding.” Viv put her arms around me and hugged me. I clutched her like a drowning woman and sobbed. “What happened?”

  “Nothing is going well, and Chet beat me up last night—”

  “What?”

  It felt like a dam bursting, all the terror of the attack combined with the frustration of dealing with the oracle and the stress of fighting with Viv sweeping me away on a river of tears. I cried, and Viv tried to soothe me, and in the back of my mind, a tiny sane voice whispered Hope nobody else comes in right now.

  When I eventually wound down, Viv made me sit in the rickety metal chair I still hadn’t gotten rid of and said, “Can you talk about it yet?”

  I nodded and wiped my eyes, feeling grateful I hadn’t put on any mascara that morning. My face must look awful. “Chet was waiting for me in the parking lot,” I said, and managed to tell her an abbreviated version of events that didn’t leave me shaking with memories of being punched and kicked. I drew a deep, shuddering breath, and added, “Malcolm took care of him.”

  “I should hope so. What did he do?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me the details. But he’s not dead.”

  “I’d kill him myself if he were here in front of me,” Viv declared.

  Her ferocity made me feel better. “I don’t—I think he was under the influence of an illusion.”

  “And that makes it better?”

  “No, just weird. Why would anyone want to make him think I was an attacker, or whatever Chet saw?”

  “I don’t care. What will you do if he shows up again?”

  “Malcolm thought he wouldn’t. I imagine he was pretty convincing about why.” I remembered the look on Malcolm’s face. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me. That should have made me feel better, but it only reminded me of Andria answering his phone.

  “I love your scary monster hunter. You were so lucky, Helena. I would never have thought of the thing with the keys.” Viv hugged me again, then stepped back. “Now, how can I help you?”

  “Viv, it’s not your job.”

  “No, but with Judy gone, I imagine you’re overwhelmed. Let me put those books away for you. Even I can understand Abernathy’s shelving system. Since there isn’t one.” She grinned and took the stack of books off the counter.

  Viv didn’t do much, but having her around cheered me like nothing else could. By six o’clock, I’d managed to finish all the day’s auguries and sort the payments for deposit the next morning. I locked up, and we crossed the street to Viv’s old Econoline van, which was noisy and had a terrible heating/cooling system, but was big enough to haul her drum kit when she needed to. Today, the echoing rear of it was empty, and I strapped in and said, “Where to?”

  “You can buy us dinner at the mall food court.” Viv revved the engine and pulled away from the curb. “But there was something I wanted to tell you. You were too overwrought earlier.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Hyperion. I think you should look into the ghost sightings.”

  I laughed. “That’s not in my job description. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s job description.”

  Viv didn’t laugh, and I realized she was serious. “I don’t think they’re ghosts,” she said. “I think it’s magic.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Why do you think it’s magic?”

  “The Hyperion is down the street from the diner, and Ruth used to come in sometimes on her lunch break. She told me about the weird stuff that was going on, and there was a lot of it. First, it was ordinary screw-ups, like food orders being wrong or rotten—”

  “Or half the laundry not coming back.”

  Viv nodded. “That too. But it started happening so often it wasn’t funny anymore, if it ever was. It reminded me of your trouble with the oracle, that constant stream of mistakes. Then the really weird stuff happened. The lights in certain rooms flickered even though nobody could find anything wrong with the wiring. The elevator would get stuck between floors two or three times a day. Guests reported shadows that looked like people where there wasn’t anyone to cast a shadow. And there was the whispering. Ruth heard that herself. She said it was like someone touching the back of your neck, it was that creepy.”

  “Okay, that sounds like a haunting, I guess. Or someone playing a sick joke.” I didn’t know which to hope for. It still didn’t feel like my business.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts. You know that. So I thought it might be someone wanting to clear out the Hyperion for his own purposes. Why couldn’t it be magic that did it?”

  “I could tell Lucia. Or Malcolm.”

  “And have them think I’m loony if it turns out to be nothing? You’ve got the ability to see through illusions. I can get us inside. Let’s check it out, and if I’m right, and there’s magic involved, then you can tell the terrifying Lucia.”

  Viv had no idea how terrifying Lucia could be if she was riled. “We could go to jail for trespassing.”

  “Not if we do it right. Look, I brought flashlights.” Viv pointed at the glove box.

  I rolled my eyes. “Is this a way to get me to forget about my troubles?”

  “Maybe. Is it working?”

  I opened the glove box and tested one of the flashlights. It was a bulky thing heavy enough to be a weapon if you needed one, and it barely fit inside the compartment. “Maybe.”

  “Then it’s settled. Food, and then misdemeanor trespassing. I like your job so much more than mine.”

  e kicked around the mall until eight-thirty, after sunset, then Viv drove us to the Hyperion, where we parked down the street and strolled back to “case the joint,” as Viv insisted on saying in her worst James Cagney impression. The Hyperion stood on the corner of two quiet streets, its flat and boring façade painted navy blue so it blended in with the overcast night sky. There were dozens of hotels like it in Portland, most of them little better than flophouses, but the Hyperion had aspersions to grandeur. The front doors had brass fittings and trim around their glass windows, which were boarded up, and a brass plaque bearing the hotel’s name was attached to the wall next to the doors. Someone had
looped a chain through the door handles, a big one with links the thickness of my thumb and a padlock as big as my palm.

  “We can’t go in that way,” Viv said.

  “You can’t pick the lock?”

  “It’s too noticeable. Someone standing in front of the door, messing with the chain—we clearly don’t have any business doing that. There might not be many people around, but I’m sure all of them will think something’s off about it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Find the back door.”

  There was a back door, or rather a side door, around the corner on a narrow side street. A parking structure with a sign saying SPECIAL HOTEL RATES $19 stood across from the hotel, and a little farther down was a tall brick warehouse with a few square windows looking out on the street. The side door of the Hyperion looked a lot like the rear entry to Abernathy’s, if wider: a steel door with a reinforced lock plate and steel doorknob. Viv stopped and looked around. “Okay, stand between me and the street. The main street, I mean.” She removed her lock picks from the pocket of her puffy orange vest. I turned my back on her and watched the street.

  A few cars drove past, but no one turned onto our street, which was one-way. Pedestrians in groups of two or three passed in both directions along the main street, none of them looking toward us. The smell of exhaust warred with the smell of promised rain in the air. I listened to the scratching, rattling sound of Viv’s lock picks and mentally urged her to hurry. Another, larger group passed, laughing and talking in loud voices. One of them glanced at me, and I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets, restraining the urge to wave as if this were all normal. Then they, too, were past. “Viv,” I said.

  “Be patient. This isn’t as easy as they make it look on TV.” I heard a click, and the sound of the knob turning. “Or maybe it is. Hurry.”

  I shut the door behind us, then flicked on my industrial-sized flashlight. Beside me, Viv did the same. Our intersecting beams played along the pale linoleum speckled with black dots that looked like dead insects. The walls were a flat, institutional white, interrupted by tan metal doors with silver kickplates screwed to their bottoms. I pushed the nearest one open and looked inside. A storeroom, filled with empty wire shelves. It smelled faintly of old lettuce. “What are we looking for?”

  “Something out of place. Wish we could turn on the lights and see which ones flicker.”

  We explored the back hallway with quick glances into all the rooms and found more storerooms, a kitchen, a still chilly walk-in freezer, and something that might have been a break room for the employees. Then we were through a swinging wooden door and in the lobby of the hotel. Light came through the cracks between the boarded-up front doors and the round window over them, and I turned off my flashlight. “We need to be careful in here.”

  Viv extinguished her own flashlight. “Let’s see what they left behind.”

  The cash register was gone, which made sense, but the old-fashioned pegboard still had almost all its keys. Viv took one off the board and examined it. “No electronic pass cards. These are for really simple locks. I should be able to pick them if they left the doors locked.”

  “Beats taking all the keys with us.” There was a row of shelves and drawers, all empty, below the counter, and a couple of paper clips deep in the corner by a chair where Ruth might once have sat. “They really cleaned the place out, didn’t they?”

  “I’m starting to think this was a waste of time. This doesn’t even feel creepy. I’d expected it to feel like The Shining, but it’s more like The Grand Budapest Hotel shot on a seriously low budget. In the dark.”

  “Did Ruth say where the weird stuff happened?”

  “Not all of it. The third floor hallway was where people saw shadows. And there was the elevator getting stuck.”

  “I’d rather not get stuck in an elevator when no one knows we’re in here, thanks. Besides, I’m sure they turned off the power.”

  We crossed the lobby to the stairs as far from the doors as we could manage. The carpet on the stairs was worn pale in the middle and slick underfoot. The stairs rose to a square landing and took a ninety-degree turn up to the second floor, which was a long hall with doors opening off it. The stairs continued up from where we stood. Now it did look a little like The Shining, which had scared me witless as a teen. I’d never entirely forgiven Viv for making me watch it.

  Viv put her hand on the nearest doorknob and turned. The door opened. I turned on my flashlight again and aimed it into the room so I wouldn’t have to look at the end of the hallway, where my imagination persisted in throwing up the image of creepy girls. “How much do we care about people seeing lights behind these windows?”

  “I think the drapes are closed.” Viv went into the room, completely unconcerned about anything that might be lurking within. “They are.” She flipped the switch on the wall, but nothing happened.

  The room had a single queen bed with no bedding and a dresser with a chipped top. Dust marked where a TV had stood atop the dresser. I knelt down and played the light across the floor beneath the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies. I sneezed and knelt upright. “Maybe we should look at the hall upstairs before we search all these empty rooms.”

  “Good idea.”

  We trekked up the stairs to the third floor, which looked the same as the second—long hall with doors opening off it, worn carpet down the center of the hall. Again cold, creepy dread touched the back of my neck. I made myself look at the far end of the hall. Nothing.

  Viv gasped and clutched my arm. “Did you see that?” she said, waving her flashlight ahead and to the left. “It moved.”

  “What moved?”

  “I don’t know. It looked like a rat.” Her flashlight beam shook. “I hate rats.”

  I pointed my light in that direction. “I don’t see anything—”

  “There.” Viv’s light started moving, following the path of something invisible to me. “It’s coming at us.” Her shrill voice built toward a shriek.

  “Viv, I don’t—” I grabbed her and made her look at me, shining my light upward on her face. “I don’t see anything. It’s an illusion. Calm down.”

  Viv tore away from me and backed against the wall. “You’re sure?”

  “I believe you saw something and I know I didn’t, so I’m sure. Something weird is going on here.” I followed the beam of light toward where Viv had first seen the “rat” and examined the walls. They were papered in ‘80s-era floral stripes, pink and blue and lavender, but I saw no holes, no gaps between the wall and the floor or the wall and the ceiling. “The problem is, if it’s like what’s happening to the oracle, the origami creating the illusion might be anywhere. It might not even be here.”

  “Something has to be here.” Viv shone her light at the end of the hall.

  “I don’t know if that’s true. But knowing there are illusions appearing here might give Olivia something to work from.”

  Viv said nothing. I glanced in her direction. She stood unmoving, her light still pointed at the blank end of the hall, her eyes wide and her mouth open in shock. “What’s wrong?”

  “Please tell me it’s not real,” she whispered.

  “What do you see?”

  “I don’t want to tell you. It’s awful. Just—”

  “There’s nothing there. Stop looking at it, Viv. Look at me.”

  Her face looked ghastly in the flashlight’s beam. “Promise?”

  “I promise. It’s an illusion.” I grabbed her and made her face me. “I’ll check it out.”

  I no longer felt scared. I felt furious. Furious, and in despair. Someone was behind these illusions, but what if it wasn’t the same person who’d planted the origami in my apartment? I walked over to the wall and examined it with my nose nearly touching the wallpaper. Even if it wasn’t the same person, whoever had set up these illusions had frightened a lot of people and forced a business to shut down, and he or she deserved to be punished.

  I stopped and knelt by the lef
t-hand corner of the wall. A patch of wallpaper near the floor looked discolored even in the light from the flashlight. I touched it, and it moved slightly. There was a seam there, only a few inches from the adjoining wall, and it looked loose. I used my nails to peel it away from the wall and found a fist-sized cubby like a mouse hole in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. A dark smell arose from it, mildew and rust and, faintly, the smell of rotten vegetables. “Come look at this. But don’t touch it,” I said.

  Inside lay another little origami sculpture identical to the one they’d found in my kitchen. “Is it magic?” Viv asked.

  “Yeah. And it can be dangerous. We need to get Olivia out here immediately.” I stood and pulled out my phone.

  “Wait.” Viv put her hand on my arm. “Someone’s coming.”

  We looked at each other, then dove for the nearest door and shut it behind us, holding it so it wouldn’t slam. Breathing heavily with fear, I turned off my flashlight and stood in the darkness. It might not be someone dangerous. It might be someone following up the same lead we were. But if it wasn’t, well, I was very aware of my total lack of magic, or of any conventional weapon. All I had was the flashlight, and I wasn’t sure how effective it would be.

  A bright light came on, lighting the space near our toes. Footsteps, muffled by the carpet, passed our door and stopped. I caught myself holding my breath and had to let it out slowly, all the while terrified that whoever it was could hear my heart beating like a timpani. Silence. I heard a tearing sound, like paper ripping, and my heart beat faster because I couldn’t remember pressing the paper back down over the mouse hole. He knew we were here. He was waiting for us to panic and give ourselves away. I fumbled for Viv’s hand in the darkness and held onto it, praying no new illusion would appear to frighten her.

  The silence stretched out for what felt like hours. Then the footsteps retreated. There was silence again. I let go of Viv’s hand. “What if he’s still there?” I whispered.

  “We can’t stay in this room forever.”

  “What do we do?”