Book of the Just

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  She sat up, frantic, a fresh wave of panic about Luc flooding her mouth with bitter adrenaline. The lights flared again, and Mouse, blinking and half blind, looked up to the ceiling. It was also covered in spells. She saw a small rectangular door to the side of the light. If she could find a way up, maybe she could force the door open, but it was too high to jump. Her eyes moved from the door toward the wall.

  And in that moment, she found her answer to why the spells were working against her. Her stone angel, a christening gift from Father Lucas, dangled on a rope from the high ceiling. Swaying gently like a hovering emissary from God, it taunted Mouse. Sections of the wings had been scraped or chiseled, exposing new stone beneath and leaving wide, white, gaping streaks where Mouse knew there had once been blood.

  She dragged herself over to the wall and licked the nearest letter of a spell. Clary sage and clove oils—and a trace of blood. Her own.

  Mouse looked back up at the angel. It wasn’t hers anymore. She had given it to Angelo when she’d left to face her father at Megiddo. Now she wished she hadn’t. Better yet, she wished she’d left the thing to burn in her house in Nashville.

  The angel proved her father right. This cell had been meticulously prepared for Mouse by someone who knew her well, and only one person alive could make such a claim. Angelo. He had the knowledge of the spell work. He had the angel. He knew about Luc. And he had been with the Reverend and Kitty.

  Mouse felt fissures spread out inside her as if she were a pane of glass breaking. Her heart, so sure that such a betrayal was impossible, could not silence what her mind knew to be the truth. In the past, such a wound would’ve sent her seeking some dark escape, like a river to carry her away. But not this time. She had Luc to think about.

  “So be it,” Mouse said, her mind already adapting to the new rules and crafting a plan on how to get out—and what she would do when she did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mouse held herself perfectly still in the dark so the motion-detector light wouldn’t turn on. She breathed against two charred pieces of what was left of her cloak, the smell of burned fabric stinging her nose.

  “Be one,” she said on her breath, so softly her own acute hearing barely captured the sound. She felt the silky cloth slide over her palm, tickling the delicate skin, knitting itself together. When it stilled, she moved quickly, the light glaring as she snatched up a dozen more pieces and then settled again at the end of the room, her back to the ceiling door. She slowed her breathing and waited.

  The light shut off. As soon as the blanket of darkness descended, Mouse went to work again, not wanting anyone who might be watching from above to see what she was doing. It was tedious—she could only use a sliver of power, more like a mirage than anything real. At first, she had tried a single, forceful command to bind the ruins of her cloak. As with her attempts to escape, the power had ricocheted off the spells on the walls and scattered the pieces of black cloth into the air like a murder of displaced crows. Little by little, Mouse had gathered them together. Breath by breath, she had made them whole once more. They would not make a full cloak—too much had turned to ash—but she would have enough. Just a few more pieces, a few more exhaled commands.

  Mouse kept a clock ticking in her head while she worked, literally counting seconds. It had been about two hours since she’d regained consciousness, but she had no idea how long she had been in the cell before that, how long it had been since she and Luc had been taken. Her mind wanted to fill her with all the things that might have been done to her little brother in that time, but she built a wall against them. The spells in the cell seemed to feed off her power when she fueled it with anger or fear, amplifying it and turning it against her, but when the power was soft and her mind at peace, she could use it in small portions. She had to silence her wrath and sorrow. Harder still, she had to leash her panic. She needed the focus and patience of a Norbertine monk.

  As always, when Mouse was in need, Father Lucas came to her, even now after she had turned her back on him.

  In her memory, she saw herself picking up grains of rice he had scattered in the Mary Garden—a practice in controlling her anger. The cell blurred into the trellised garden walls, covered with pink climbing roses and morning glories. Mouse breathed out the stench of her own sweat and urine and stale air and breathed in the sweet aroma of hollyhocks and rosemary. She shut out the droning hum of silence and frantic racing of her heart and let Father Lucas’s voice fill her ears. His gentle voice had once given her the strength to pinch her fingers around the next grain and the next. Often, he had read from the Psalms, but they weren’t the words she needed tonight.

  Help me, Father, Mouse said silently.

  And the words from another book came to her, a book he’d brought from one of his many trips abroad—The Conference of the Birds, a book of Muslim wisdom written by the sage Attar. Unlike the books that normally drew Father Lucas out on such quests, this one was not a treasure of spells or apocryphal knowledge. This one was about hope in the darkness. A primer to prepare Mouse for what Father Lucas, with terrible foresight, knew would be a long life of struggle.

  She heard his voice now as clearly as she had back then.

  As soon as you set your foot in the first valley, that of the search, thousands of difficulties will assail you unceasingly at every stage. Every moment, you will have to go through a hundred tests.

  Father Lucas’s reading filled Mouse’s mind as she scrambled to collect the last scraps of cloth, her eyes shut tight against the blinding light.

  You will have to remain for several years in the valley, and advance with great patience and perseverance.

  “I will, Father.”

  In the falling darkness, she breathed into her palm once more, and the cloak was finished, mended enough to do its work. Mouse pulled it over her shoulders, the seared fabric shimmering under the sudden glare of harsh light as it dangled over the tatters of her tuxedo, down to her waist.

  To use the cloak, she needed to summon more than a breath full of power, and though the magic would be funneled into the cloak and not directly against the spells that jailed her, she felt sure a broad release of her power would still be turned against her. This locked door needed finesse, not a battering ram.

  She found what she was looking for in a corner of the cell—a containment spell that crossed from one wall to the other and stretched down onto the floor, about two feet long and wide. It was one of many containment spells around the room, but she didn’t need to worry about those. She just needed one spell, one keyhole, and the patience to work the lock.

  Mouse had seen spells undone before. In an ancient church in Onstad, Norway, she had watched her own spells unravel, dehydrated from heat billowing out of the Devil’s Bible. Angelo had been there, too, but Mouse scrubbed her memory free of him, erased him before the pain of his betrayal could suck her under. She’d think about him later. Now was about Luc.

  She needed to focus on how the heat of the Devil’s Bible had undone her spells. The heat came from the power in the book—her father’s power. But it was her power, too. If she could use it to peel up this containment spell, it would give her enough opening for a way out.

  She folded her legs under her and bent her head toward the corner, using her body once again to shield what she was doing from anyone who might be watching overhead. She siphoned the power coursing through her body, pulling it all into her hands, her long fingers caressing the wall, tracing the symbol—a simple design of the Chi Rho, an ancient monogram for Christ, with the marks of Alpha and Omega on either side.

  The layering of her power over the spell had to be delicate and gentle, and she had to hold her fear and anger in abeyance. If she tried to force it, to hurry it in her panic over what might be happening to Luc . . .

  Mouse gasped as she yanked her hand back, her fingers blistered and red. She took in slow, deep breaths. She called up images of Luc again, but happy ones, real ones, not imagined horrors. She wove them wit
h Father Lucas’s voice and the poet Attar’s story of a man journeying through the Valley of Love.

  He must not for a moment think of consequences.

  She lifted her trembling hand once more to the rust-colored Alpha to the right of the Chi Rho on the wall. She held her fingers, spread wide, hovering over the symbol, so close but not touching. She saw Luc and Mercy playing tug-of-war in the backyard.

  He must be ready and willing to fling a hundred worlds into the fire, knowing neither faith nor infidelity, neither doubt nor belief.

  Mouse moved her left hand over the Omega, her skin sizzling as the power leaked out, slowly burning her and the blood on the wall. She saw Luc’s face lit up with a smile, whipped cream on his nose and his mouth framed with the leftovers of his first hot chocolate.

  In this road, there is no difference between good and evil.

  She opened her eyes to see the blood-spell under her hands curl away from the wall and float up on the heated air. Alpha and Omega were gone. She moved her hands to each side of the Chi, a great X crossing the stem of the Rho. She saw Luc cuddled beside her as she read to him before bed.

  Here neither good nor evil exists.

  Her fingers were so swollen with blisters she could not bend them. She laid her hands on the lower part of what was left of the spell, the stem of the Rho, which looked like a stretched-out P and curled down to the floor. She could not stop the tears of pain rolling down her face, but she filled her mind with Luc curled up on his side asleep, his hand still wrapped around hers.

  Love transcends both.

  She was fading, losing consciousness. She slid her hands to the last of the symbol. She could smell her burning flesh.

  And heard Luc’s voice, whispering, “I love you, Mouse.”

  She sank to the floor, pressing her forehead into the concrete, her lips clamped between her teeth to keep from screaming, her burned hands held up and away from her though even the touch of the air was agony. Mouse reached out with her senses and felt an openness where the spell had once been and was no more—like a fresh breeze coming through an open window.

  “Thank you,” she said to Father Lucas.

  She let her hope drive out her pain and lay still to let the light die one final time. As the darkness painted the floor, Mouse curled under her cloak and dove into the spell-less section of the wall. She wasn’t thinking of a place to be transported. She was where she wanted to be. She just wanted to be outside, not in.

  She felt her body slip over into the between space her father had taught her to travel, but this time it was more like standing still with everything moving around her, rather than her launching out into the current and being whisked away. She was no longer in the cell, but she could feel something pressing against her on either side. She imagined herself going up, and suddenly she was—up and surrounded by open air. Slowly Mouse became aware of the sharpness of the cold seeping up though the melted holes in the soles of her boots. She also felt her power surge, finally free of the suffocating spells, dancing and ready.

  The sky was clear, stars out. A low stone building stood before her. She walked around the corner and saw a door. She kicked it open and searched the single, long room in an instant with her unnatural senses, but there was no one here. A lamp at the back lit up a metal table covered with bottles and bowls. Mouse’s nostrils flared: anise, frankincense, pine . . . clove and clary sage, just like the spells in her cell. She crossed to the table in long, bold strides. With a glance, she scanned the disheveled debris for anything of Luc’s, any clue about where he might be. There was nothing, but as she started to pivot back toward the door, she saw the quartered circle on the floor. In the center was a seared piece of pajama decorated with a dog holding a candy cane in its mouth.

  Lifting her charred hands out beside her, Mouse dropped to the floor next to the circle and licked the brownish residue—oils and blood, this time Luc’s.

  Her mind gave her the answer before she even asked how. Jack Gray was the only person who would’ve had access to anything belonging to Luc. It must have been something she’d left at her father’s place where she’d imprisoned Jack. A white flame of hatred flared in her chest, along with the heaviness of guilt.

  Love transcends both. Father Lucas’s voice anchored her again. She didn’t have time for hatred or guilt right now. She needed to find Luc.

  “Burn,” she said, wincing as she laid her hand on the threshold of the door. “Burn hot!”

  She didn’t look back as the instant wave of heat lifted her hair and the acrid odor of scorched wood stung her nose. She knew there would be nothing left, not of the building or of anything inside. No stone angel. No residue of blood. Nothing but useless ash.

  Mouse kept her eyes on the next target—it looked more like a castle than a home. She saw fifteen armed guards standing sentry along the back and nearest corner of the house. And they saw her. But she didn’t care. She’d seen castles and armies before. They hadn’t stopped her then. They wouldn’t stop her now.

  They all deserved to die for what they’d done. But even as her tongue curled around the words of command, a little voice somewhere in the back of her mind whispered: Love and discipline have brought you this far. Not hate. Not vengeance. Love transcends. It didn’t sound like Father Lucas this time—it sounded like her own voice, clean and bright, like when she’d been a girl and a young woman in love and a mother.

  As she took off running up the path toward the guards, Mouse made a small, tight gesture with her hand, like she was unscrewing a bottle. “Blow,” she said. All at once, driving winds whipped up the snow and ice like a white tornado with Mouse at the epicenter. The guards couldn’t see; some lost their footing in the fierce winds and undulating snow. Others were pulling back toward the far corner of the house, trying to use the stone walls as cover while they shot at her. But Mouse had seen the shattered window at the back of the house and made for it.

  “Down,” she commanded the wind. The torrent of ice and snow collapsed on the men, half burying them. As Mouse stepped through the broken window, she reached back and laid her burned hands against the drifted snow. “Freeze.”

  The fluffy softness constricted into a compact, ice-hard surface and branched out from the window into the yard like a tidal wave. Many of the men were trapped in it. Some were screaming. Mouse turned away from them and closed her eyes, searching for Luc’s bright, little glow, but she couldn’t find it anywhere in the house. Maybe Kitty’s spell masked it.

  Mouse walked through the den, breathing deeply and filtering the smells. Blood—lots of it. She didn’t have to look at the body on the floor by the side of the couch to know Jack Gray was dead. There was someone else’s blood, too, but she didn’t know whose. It wasn’t Luc’s, and that was all that mattered. She pushed away the sharp odor of blood and focused on the other smells—the Reverend and Kitty, just as they’d been at the ballet earlier, smothered with luxury perfume, high-end cigars, and dry-cleaning chemicals. She smelled the familiar scents of Bishop Sebastian . . . and Angelo. A wave of despair crashed against her, but she would not bend. And then she found what she was hoping for—the honey-vanilla of Luc’s shampoo mixed with a touch of Mercy. He’d been here.

  She paused at the threshold between the den and the foyer, where a grand staircase wound around to the upper floors. She cocked her head, listening. Her ears picked up the Reverend first because she knew him best. He was upstairs to her left. He was ranting about something on the television. Kitty called out from another room near the Reverend, telling him she was almost ready. A handful of other people Mouse didn’t know—servants or guards—were scattered through the house, but several were clustered outside, just a few feet away from her on the other side of the door. She’d try there first, and then move up to Kitty’s room.

  The nails in the soles of Mouse’s boots, exposed from the melted rubber, clanged against the stone floor of the foyer. She flung open the front door. A dozen faces looked back at her from the gravel courtya
rd in front of the house. They were standing around a line of three black SUVs. A couple of men were lifting what looked like an old wooden trunk into the back of the lead car.

  Mouse could smell him, could smell the happiness of the bath he’d had before The Nutcracker, could smell the fear from where he’d wet himself and the saltiness of his tears. And blood—she could smell Luc’s blood coming from that trunk.

  She fought back a flash of rage and a powerful wish to command them all to drop dead.

  “Love transcends both,” she whispered to herself as she stepped out onto the landing and dropped to a crouch, her blistered, melted hand slamming against the stone as all the eyes of the people watched her. She funneled the full force of the power coursing through her down into the ground.

  “Shake,” she commanded.

  The ground erupted. Gravel rained up as the driveway rolled like a wave. The centuries-old stone squealed as the mortar was ground to dust and poured out over the castle façade. The cars shook violently, the glass in their windows shattering. The people in the courtyard fell back, tumbling to the ground, and then took off, half running, half falling away from the castle, away from Mouse.

  All but one. One of the guards who had been loading the trunk, which now rested on the ground, crouched beside it, his gun pointed at Mouse. She took a step forward. The man’s finger hovered over the trigger. A huge piece of stone fell from somewhere high up on the castle, crashing down into the courtyard, spraying stone shrapnel against the cars.

  Mouse could hear Luc crying. She looked at the man with the gun. “I can kill you with a word. But I don’t want to.” She took another step forward. She would not be stopped from saving Luc, no matter what she had to do.

  “I want my brother,” she said. “He’s in that box. I can hear him crying. Can you?” She stood over the man now, looking down on him, watching his face soften with compassion, her own face wet with tears. “He’s just a little boy.”