Book of the Just

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  “He was killed when a bomb went off at his favorite bookstore. It killed eleven people.”

  Jack tried to shrug. “That’s life in the Middle East, I guess.”

  Mouse stepped back and started pacing the room. The Rabbi’s death a coincidence? Not likely. A dark suspicion wormed its way into her mind.

  “Who next then?” she muttered absently.

  “What?”

  “Give me another name.”

  “Dabir Al-Maslul.”

  “Muslim?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Good God, you people got a Catholic, a Jew, an Evangelical, and a Muslim to sit on the same council and agree?”

  “Not me. And they don’t always agree.” Jack pushed himself upright, brushing chips off his chest. “There’s a Hindu, too.”

  Mouse put her hand up. “Only when I ask. Where can I find the Muslim?”

  “Morocco. There’s a special library—”

  “The al-Qarawiyyin in the old medina of Fez. Yes, I know it.”

  And then she was gone.

  A couple of hours later, she was back.

  “He’s dead, too—choked on something.”

  Jack sat very still, staring at her, and then quietly said, “Swami Layak Chaudri. Anjar in Gujarat, India. The Hindu monastery.”

  Mouse disappeared.

  Jack was sitting in the same place when she came back.

  “Well, shit,” he said.

  Mouse stared at him, her arms crossed.

  “That just leaves the Bishop and the Reverend.” Jack’s fear was palpable—he reeked of it.

  “What’s going on, Jack?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were they all alive when you met with the Bishop last?”

  “As far as I know. He would’ve told me if he knew. He for sure thought the Rabbi was still alive, because he was planning to ask him for more of—”

  “My blood.”

  Jack nodded.

  “I already know where the Bishop is,” Mouse said, “so the last thing you can tell me is where to find the Reverend.” She took a step closer to him, her hand resting on the bone shard.

  “I can’t help you.” He sounded resigned. “Because I don’t know. But the Bishop might.”

  Mouse stood with her back against the brick wall of the same coffee shop where she’d abducted Jack Gray. Jack was sitting in a chair close to her. The wind was blowing his white hair across his mouth. He had his cell phone on the table in front of him. It buzzed.

  “He’s on his way,” Jack said over his shoulder to Mouse. The waiter brought Jack a cappuccino and a pastry.

  Mouse was listening for the Bishop. When she heard his heartbeat and hurried step, she sat down at the next table, her back to Jack and the oncoming Bishop. She didn’t want him to see her and bolt, and she wanted the added advantage of observing how he reacted to the questions she’d instructed Jack to ask.

  The Bishop pulled out the chair opposite Jack and sat down. Mouse could hear the nervous thrum of his heart even though his voice was steady.

  “Where have you been?” the Bishop asked.

  “Away.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere. Do you know about the Rabbi?”

  “Yes.”

  Mouse listened to the blood zoom through his veins. She didn’t need to hear the Bishop’s answer to Jack’s next question.

  “And the others?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Reverend’s doing?”

  “Of course.” Mouse heard a hiccup of fear in his heartbeat. The Bishop cleared his throat. “Have you come to kill me, Jack?”

  “What?”

  The Bishop leaned in against the table. “You disappeared. Maybe you decided it was in your best interest to switch allegiances again.”

  “The man left me in the damn desert to die. I would never—”

  “Then where have you been, Jack?”

  Mouse turned her chair around. “With me.”

  The Bishop jerked back in his seat, but it wasn’t shock that ran over his face like water. It was rage. Mouse knew it well. She imagined her face mirrored his own.

  “Where’s the Reverend?” she asked. Her fingers played along the smooth shard of bone at her hip. Her hand shook a little—but not with hesitancy this time. Mouse didn’t think she’d have any problem killing the Bishop. He’d been Angelo’s friend, a father figure, and he’d betrayed that trust.

  “Angelo’s dead because of you,” the Bishop said.

  Mouse leaned forward, her eyes sparking with hate. “You had a little something to do with that, too. It was you and your puppet here”—she put her hand on Jack’s shoulder, making him jump—“who tracked us down.”

  “He was working for the Reverend.”

  “The details don’t matter. You were all looking for us—your whole damn army. It doesn’t matter who found us. You set the wolves to hunt us, and it was your Novus Rishi who cornered us, your Reverend who gave the order to shoot.”

  “The Reverend said . . . ” The Bishop pressed his hand against his mouth.

  Mouse thought he was about to get sick, but he slammed his fist against the table instead and his other hand shot out, grabbing her around the wrist. “Tell me the truth. If you ever loved him, tell me the—” His voice broke.

  Mouse was studying his face. “What did the Reverend tell you?” she asked, though she was beginning to figure it out on her own.

  “He said you called demons up from the sand. His men opened fire on them. He said you—”

  She snatched her hand free. “You thought I did it?”

  “The Reverend said you used Angelo as a shield, that you were trying to save yourself. He said he saw the bullets tear through Angelo and then you, and then the demons took you. He said there wasn’t even anything of my Angelo left to bury.”

  “I never knew you were a fool,” Mouse spat. “But I guess it was easier to believe that I was responsible than admitting that your own man had—”

  “The Reverend is not my man.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the politics of your little band of Armageddon warriors, Your Excellency.”

  “You’re telling me that the Reverend ordered—”

  “Take the girl down. The priest doesn’t matter. Kill him.” The muscles in her face twitched with rage even as she recited the words.

  The Bishop’s face went stone still as the truth set in.

  Mouse couldn’t tell if it was anger or grief or guilt that stole the Bishop’s words. It all looked the same to her now. “It’s my turn to ask the questions,” she said. “I’ll know if you’re lying, so don’t.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You should be. I grew up in the Middle Ages. I’ve seen torture your pretty little civilized mind can’t possibly imagine. I’m eager to see how quickly you break.”

  “What would our Angelo think about that?”

  Mouse’s jaw clenched and released, the only sign that the Bishop’s salvo had hit its mark. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Today is about vengeance.”

  He leaned heavily back in his chair. “Then we want the same thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you’re going to kill me. I don’t care.” His hands balled into fists against the arms of his chair. “This charlatan has stolen my life’s work, the army I built, my Novus Rishi. And he has taken my son from me—” He choked on the last words.

  Mouse would let herself feel no sympathy for him. “Angelo was never your son, old man.”

  He snapped his eyes up to meet hers. “Think what you want. Kill me in whatever gruesome way you want. I have surely earned it. But make me one promise—I want to see the Reverend suffer and die first.”

  Mouse had never thought to find a kindred spirit in the Bishop. “I’ll bring you the Reverend’s head on a platter,” she said. “And then I’ll coat it in your blood when I slit your throat.” She eased back in the chair. “Now tell me where to f
ind him and what it is he wants.”

  “I would think the last was obvious—he wants you.” The Bishop leaned forward against the table. “How did you get away, but Angelo—”

  Mouse turned to look out across the street. “My father came.”

  “For you. But not for Angelo?” There was an impossible hope in his voice.

  They sat in silence for several minutes.

  “It wasn’t my choice,” she finally said.

  The Bishop wiped the tears from his face. “Did the Reverend see your father?”

  “How would I know? I was dead. Does it matter?”

  Surprisingly, it was Jack who answered. “Very much.”

  “Why?” Mouse asked.

  “Because he won’t stop. Unless he thinks you were eaten by those things out there and that you’re really dead and gone, he won’t stop hunting you. The Reverend gets what he wants. Always.”

  “I’ve had plenty of experience disappointing narcissistic, ambitious old men.” She nodded at the Bishop. “What makes your Reverend any different than this Bishop? He wanted me, too.”

  “I’m not insane,” the Bishop answered.

  But Jack was shaking his head. “The Reverend’s not crazy either. He’s ruthless, but he’s also careful, calculated. He knows how to play the game well. He says the right things to the right people to get what he wants—fundamentalist religion, forced morality, white nationalism—but I don’t think he believes any of it. He believes in his own superiority, plain and simple. That’s what makes him different.

  “The Bishop and the Rabbi, they were fighting for something—a cause, for God, for good against evil. But the Reverend? He’s just fighting for himself.” Jack picked at a crumb on the table. “It’s his wife, Kitty, who’s the fervent one. She believes she has a mandate from God to wipe out evil on the Earth. Her fanaticism feeds into the Reverend’s thirst for absolute power. They both want to tear it all down, destroy the world as we know it, because Kitty believes God will rebuild it in the way she imagines, prim and proper, and the Reverend believes he will be the last man standing to rule over it all.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Jack?” Mouse asked.

  “You said to give you answers only when you asked for them. You didn’t ask.” He was more than a little smug.

  Mouse stared at him until the smirk slipped from his face, and then she turned to the Bishop. “Why aren’t you dead like all your council buddies?”

  “I knew what was coming.” The Bishop shifted in his seat. “Jack came to me after Australia, told me what the Reverend had done. I knew he’d move to take the Novus Rishi sooner or later.”

  “But you didn’t warn the others? Your friends?” It was more accusation than question.

  “I couldn’t without risking exposure. I needed time to prepare.”

  “There’s that Christian altruism I’ve come to count on,” Mouse said bitterly.

  The Bishop shrugged. “I confess I expected he’d try blackmail or subterfuge first, but he went for the quickest and quietest path—a little poison here, an explosion there. He wiped them all out within a day. Everyone except me.”

  “The shock and awe wouldn’t be the Reverend,” Jack countered. “That’d be Kitty. She really likes the stories about God using his almighty power to strike down the enemies of his people. Her personal favorite is the one about Elisha getting teased by a group of kids. You know, the one where God sends two bears to rip the children apart?” Jack blew out a soft whistle. “She loved to tell that one to kids’ groups. Part of her anti-bullying campaign.”

  Mouse silently added another name to her list—the Bishop, the Reverend, and now Kitty Ayres. She still hadn’t decided what to do about Jack. But she was tired of talking. The more time she spent with the Bishop, the louder his grief called to her own. It spread like a contagion, and she needed to stay ahead of it to keep her edge.

  “None of this matters,” she said. “Just tell me where to find the Reverend.”

  “I don’t know where he is now—he’s been in hiding since he killed the council,” the Bishop said. “But I can figure out where he’ll be next.”

  “How? Your toy army has been taken away from you.”

  “Not all of it. That’s why I couldn’t take the risk to warn the others. I needed to pull my most valuable resources off the field, hold them in reserve until—”

  “Until the Reverend’s arrogance and appetites inevitably lead him into a more vulnerable position,” Jack said, and then answered the question in Mouse’s eyes. “His empire’s built on appearances—public piety, charm, conspicuous wealth, power. He has to be seen in order to maintain that image. He can only hide for so long.”

  Mouse lowered her chin to her hand. “So we wait until he comes out of hiding.”

  “And then you kill him,” the Bishop said.

  “And then I kill you.” She smiled. “Until then, you text Jack every day with updates.”

  “Wait, where am I going to be?” Jack asked.

  “You have an apartment around here somewhere, right? I’ll walk you home. Then I can pop in whenever to check on you, and see what the Bishop’s had to say.” She let her eyes give him the unspoken warning—if he ran, he died.

  Jack looked down at his hands and then back up. “I want to go with you.”

  “What?” the Bishop and Mouse asked at the same time.

  There was a new hardness to Jack’s voice when he said, “I want to be there when you go for the Reverend.”

  “You can’t come home with me.”

  “Then take me back to where you were keeping me. Only let me get some fresh clothes and a toothbrush and maybe a book or two—I’m going nuts shut up in there by myself.”

  “Suit yourself, Jack.” The metal legs of Mouse’s chair scraped the sidewalk as she pushed back and stood. She paused and looked down at the Bishop. “You betray me, old man, and I’ll be on your doorstep.” She glanced over his shoulder toward the Vatican. “And anyone and anything you ever cared about will be nothing but ashes when I’m done.”

  The Bishop stood slowly. “The only thing I care about now is seeing the Reverend dead.” He turned and walked back toward his Holy City.

  Jack and Mouse headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

  “Can we get some fruit somewhere?” Jack asked.

  Mouse left Jack in her father’s house, content with his fresh supplies and solitude. Snow was falling heavily when she got back to the chalet at Innsbruck.

  Luc had just woken and was playing with Mine out in the snow, the puppy a fluff of black against the downy white. Mouse watched through the window. The kettle she’d put on for her tea began to whistle. She lifted it from the stove, but the squeal continued.

  She turned toward the window. Luc was screaming, his high, childish voice pitched with something terrible. Mouse dropped the kettle and ran into the backyard to find him standing over Mine. She was too still, and as Mouse ran up to them, she saw the puppy’s eyes open and fixed, snowflakes falling into them.

  Luc threw himself, sobbing, against Mouse as she knelt to lay her hand on the little dog. She heard her father’s steps on the patio behind them.

  “What happened, Luc?” Mouse asked, though she already suspected.

  “She was pulling on my coat,” he said through his tears. “I told her to stop, but she didn’t.” Another sob shuddered through him. “I got mad. And I screamed at her to stop, and I was so mad at her, and I felt that hot thing inside—do you know?” He lifted his head from her shoulder, his eyes full of heartbreak and shame. For the first time in months, something loosened inside Mouse.

  She pulled his head toward her and kissed him on the cheek and wrapped her arms gently around him. “I know, Luc. I know that feeling, too.” She ran her hands through his snow-covered hair.

  “And then she . . . stopped.” It came out as a whimper.

  “I am so sorry, sweetheart.”

  “But I didn’t really mean for it to
happen, Mouse. I love her so much. What’s wrong with me?” Luc went limp in her arms, sobbing again.

  Mouse held him tight. “There is nothing wrong with you.” Her throat burned with the words that she had heard so many times from Father Lucas. Words she did not believe. Words she so desperately wanted her little brother to believe. “You just made a mistake. You and me, we have gifts, right?” He nodded his head against her chest. “That makes us special. But it also means we have to be extra careful.” She swallowed against the wave of grief surging in her chest. “We have to control our tempers.”

  “How?”

  “Look up. Do you see the snow?”

  He nodded.

  “When you feel yourself getting angry, right at the start, find something like the snow that you can count.” She could almost feel the weight of Father Lucas’s hand on her shoulder as she echoed his gentle teachings. “Once you start counting, it makes it harder for that hot feeling inside to get so big that it makes you do something you don’t want to do. I’ll teach you, okay?” The sting of her hypocrisy burned.

  “You promise?” Luc asked.

  “I promise.”

  “Mouse? Can I make her live again?”

  “Do you think that’s any more right than making her die?”

  Luc put his little hand against the still puppy, his fingers sinking into the tufts of fur. After several silent moments, he finally shook his head and said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think I should make her do anything just because I want it. I think I should just love her. And I do, Mouse. I do love her. I just wish she wasn’t dead.” He buried his head in her shoulder again, sobbing.

  While Luc was talking, their father made his way across the yard to them. He bent now toward the puppy and whispered, “Live.” The ball of fur quivered and then stood. “There, Luc. Aren’t you happy? She’s yours again, just like you wanted.”

  Luc pulled away from Mouse and put his hand out. The puppy whimpered and cowered.

  “She’s afraid of me,” he said, his voice shaking. His father took a step back, and Mine wagged her tail and jumped in Luc’s lap, licking his face.

  Luc looked over at Mouse, confused, not sure what to do.

  “She’s giving you a gift, Luc. She forgives you. It’s okay to accept it and to forgive yourself. It’s called mercy. She’s doing it because she loves you.”