The Book of Betrayal

by Melissa McShane

  “Sure, he’s right here.”

  A fumbling sound, then Jeremiah said, “Helena?”

  “Are you all right? I mean, she didn’t rough you up or anything?”

  “If by ‘she’ you mean Lucia, no. I think she came completely alone to our meeting, though probably armed. Just between us, I can admit she terrifies me, and I’ve faced invaders the size of half a city block. But she was remarkably civil. Probably because she was prepared to kill me if I moved wrong.”

  “She’s not that bloodthirsty.”

  “For all she knew, I was a dangerous rogue magus, and killing me would save lives.”

  “You’re far too reasonable for a man in your position.”

  “Well…the truth is, I had instructions from my former ‘masters’ to assassinate her.”

  “Jeremiah!” For a moment, my heart raced, terrified that I’d betrayed Lucia to her death.

  “Instructions I never had any intention of carrying out, Helena. I think my being open with her about it made her inclined to trust me. She actually laughed about it. It was chilling.”

  “She would. Are you…glad, now, that you didn’t run?”

  “I am. I just regret involving Viv.”

  “I don’t!” Viv called out.

  “She shouldn’t have to be trapped here with me, but I’m afraid as soon as my status is revealed to my former allies, she’ll be in danger. Some of them would have no trouble hurting her just as revenge, not even to force me to act.”

  “Viv is fiercely loyal. I guarantee you she doesn’t see this as a hardship.”

  “I don’t know if Lucia realizes how much of my motivation to help the Wardens stems from a desire to keep Viv protected. And I don’t know if our relationship will survive enforced confinement together.”

  I laughed at the rueful tone of his voice. “Viv’s creative. She’ll keep you both occupied.”

  “That sentence fills me with dread. Here, talk to her again. And…thank you.”

  “Hey, I heard a rumor, something the Wardens who brought us here were talking about,” Viv said. “Something about some kind of rites, and Campbell undergoing them. Were they talking about Malcolm?”

  “Viv, remember Jeremiah doesn’t know the truth about us.”

  “I know, I’m not pushing for details, I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything.”

  “Malcolm’s going to undergo the rites to replace his aegis so he can be a magus again.” Such a simple sentence, but it left me feeling dizzy, as if there weren’t enough oxygen in the air.

  Viv gasped. “I thought no one—”

  “There’s a new procedure. It’s still very dangerous.”

  “Helena—” There was a long pause, and I could picture her peeking over her shoulder to see if Jeremiah was listening. “When?”

  “Saturday afternoon.”

  “That’s a long time to wait.”

  “It’s actually the shortest time they could manage it.”

  “I see. I hope everything goes well.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well.” Viv sounded suddenly more chipper. “I have to go, but I’ll call you again tomorrow. I’ll go crazy if I have to stay indoors for too long, even if it is for my safety.”

  “Just don’t be that girl in the movies who eludes her Secret Service protection so she can go dancing, and then the serial killer gets her.”

  Viv snorted derisively. “As if.”

  16

  Saturday morning I dressed in a pleated skirt of warm red and brown plaid, a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, and a fitted vest that matched the skirt. I buttoned the vest feeling like I was armoring up for battle, though I wasn’t the one facing death today. Malcolm and I had spent the previous evening together, not making love, just holding each other and talking quietly about everything but the Damerel rites, and I’d managed to forget about them for a few hours. Now I faced my reflection and practiced a smile. When had I started needing to practice those?

  In the kitchen, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I set down my hairbrush and trudged down the hall to pick it up. A squishy infant face beamed out at me when I turned on the display. ISABELLA SAYS MAKE A SMILEY FACE AUNT HELENA, my sister Cynthia’s text read, and I smiled at my niece, a real smile that felt natural and good. I texted back I REALLY NEEDED THAT TODAY THANKS and put my phone in my pocket. I couldn’t help Malcolm by being miserable. Couldn’t help him at all, really, but I could keep him in my heart today and offer up what prayers I knew how to utter. I straightened my lapels, let out a deep breath, and went downstairs to open the store.

  The first two Nicolliens through the door were having a conversation that immediately expanded to include me. “You’re his friend,” the woman said, “why couldn’t you talk him out of it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I hate Campbell, but now there’s this shadow cabal running around, we can’t afford to lose any more Wardens,” the man said. “He’s out of his mind to even think of it.”

  “He knows it’s dangerous, but the reward is worth the risk,” I said, feeling vaguely proud of myself for coming up with such a neat catchphrase on the fly. Probably I’d read it somewhere I’d forgotten now. “I’m sure Mr. Wallach knows what he’s doing.”

  The two Nicolliens looked at each other. “It’s possible you’re not familiar with some of Crazy Wallach’s earlier plans,” the man said. “He tried to breed houseflies with cameras so he could get mobile observational units, I think was what he called them. Damnedest thing I ever saw. They were the size of ponies and kept running into walls.”

  “And sticking their proboscises into other people’s drinks,” the woman said.

  “But at least he succeeded,” I said.

  They both shrugged, and the woman handed over her augury slip.

  I tried not to think of houseflies the size of ponies as I wandered the oracle looking for her book. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t something Wallach had intended, but breeding insects with inanimate objects ought to be impossible, and Wallach had accomplished that. Malcolm had sounded confident about the new alloy aegis—though I wasn’t sure how much of that had been trying to reassure me. But reassurance or no, I trusted Malcolm not to lie to me about anything, particularly anything this important.

  The blue glow appeared in the distance, and I strode faster. I could focus on trying to beat my record for number of auguries in an hour—that would give me something else to think about. I removed the book from the shelf and flipped to the title page. A Charmed Life, by Liza Campbell. Only $750, of which I would earn enough to buy lunch. That was another fun, distracting thing I could do—count up how much my one percent of the augury price came to over the course of a day.

  The woman’s companion had a request as well. I glanced over the crowd, which was medium-sized and less frightened-sounding than it had been the past five days. Of course, most of them were carrying on conversations about Malcolm, but I shut my ears to that and hurried back into the oracle. This time it was Braving It, by James Campbell, $475. It looked interesting—something about a father and his daughter having an Alaskan adventure. I made a mental note to look it up at the library.

  I sidestepped having a conversation with the next customer and hurried back into the oracle. If I was going to beat my record, I didn’t have time to chat. $500, The Power of Myth, Joseph…Campbell. I stared at the title page for a few seconds. That was weird. I closed the book and examined the spine and cover. The author’s name—I vaguely remembered the book from somewhere—was embossed on both. Puzzling.

  I handed the book over to its recipient and said to Judy, “Would you do me a favor? Get a piece of paper and write the authors of the books we sell this morning. I know we don’t usually keep that information.”

  Judy raised an eyebrow, but tore a page from the back of the ledger—it was looking pretty ratty from the number of times we’d done that—and wrote Joseph Campbell at the top of it. I took the next slip and hurried away, thinking I was bein
g stupid. This was just coincidence.

  The next book, glowing blue, was Joker One. Author, Donovan Campbell.

  Judy wrote the author on her page, then gave me a puzzled look. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. The two before those were also Campbells.”

  “It has to be coincidence.” Judy pointed at the stacks with her pen. “Try again.”

  A Nun on the Bus. Simone Campbell

  Pathways to Bliss. Joseph Campbell again—or was it a different one?

  The Iron Lady. John Campbell.

  Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores. Jen Campbell.

  “It’s no coincidence,” I said, ignoring the waiting Warden who was waving his augury slip in my directions. “Every augury this morning!”

  “So what does it mean?” Judy ran the pen across the page, making dark lines under each Campbell. “The oracle’s trying to talk to you.”

  “I just don’t understand what it’s saying.” With all the Wardens in the store, I couldn’t talk openly about Malcolm, but I was increasingly unnerved by the repetition of his name.

  “Do it again. Maybe it will get clearer. Or maybe we should be examining the titles, as well.”

  I snatched up the augury slip, making a face at the impatient man. “You do that. I’ll hurry back.”

  The new augury was just around the corner, ready to hand. Winners and How They Succeed, by—I dropped the book in my astonishment. Alastair Campbell. Malcolm’s father’s name. I was pretty sure Mr. Campbell had never written a book, but even so—I swept the book up and ran out of the oracle, thrusting it at Judy. “Look at that one,” I demanded. “Look at it!”

  “I’m looking,” Judy said, scribbling out a hasty receipt and shoving it and the book at the Nicollien. “Helena, this is creepy.”

  “But I don’t know what it means,” I wailed, drawing the attention of the nearest Wardens. “What does it want me to do?”

  “You have to keep going. I still don’t see a pattern in the titles.”

  I grabbed an augury slip at random, ignoring the startled protest of the person next in line, and hurried into the oracle. The blue-limned book was on the shelf immediately opposite me, as if the oracle, tired of my fumbling, had put it where even I couldn’t miss it. Gingerly, I slid it off the shelf, feeling the electric tingle of a live augury. The cover was stark black, like a book missing its dust jacket, and I opened the cover and turned a few pages.

  Hear Me, the title read. By Malcolm Campbell.

  I screamed, turned, and ran out of the stacks, feeling as if something were chasing me. “I have to go,” I told Judy.

  “Go? Go where?”

  “To the Gunther Node. Everyone, I’m sorry, but Abernathy’s is closing early today.”

  A displeased murmur went up. “I know, but this is a…a custodian emergency. Please hang on to your augury slips, and come back on Monday, where you’ll receive a discount as an apology for making you come twice.” Do you hear that? Don’t make me eat my words.

  Judy was scribbling the final man’s receipt. “Stop grousing and go already,” she called out, handing the receipt and the book to the man and shutting the ledger. “Let’s get locked up so we can go.”

  “We? I don’t think it meant you to come.” I shut the door behind the last protesting customer and vehemently turned the dead bolt. “I think I should write a note so people will know why we’re closed.”

  “Make it quick. And I’m coming with you,” Judy said, “because it’s almost 11:30, and you will never make it in time with the way you drive.”

  I stopped writing on another sheet of paper from the ledger and hugged Judy hard. “Thank you for not arguing with me.”

  “What’s to argue about? I have no idea what you intend to do.”

  “Neither do I,” I said, “but I’ve got about forty-five minutes to figure it out.”

  We flew along the freeway in my car with me resolutely keeping my eyes forward. Knowing just how fast Judy was going wouldn’t make me happier. “I think Malcolm needs me somehow,” I said. “I think that’s what the oracle was trying to tell me. I hope that’s what the oracle was trying to tell me.”

  “But how can you possibly help him without standing up and shouting your secret to the world?” Judy said.

  “I don’t know.” I was beginning to have a feeling, though, and it filled me with anxious dread. Everything we’d discussed Wednesday night still made sense. Revealing our secret wouldn’t make Malcolm more likely to survive, and if he, God forbid, died during the Damerel rites, I’d have given it away for nothing. I couldn’t help him by telling the truth.

  Unless I could.

  Breaking the Accords hadn’t bothered me at all at first, back when I’d been so blithely assured I could find a loophole. But the longer we’d gone in our secret relationship, the worse I’d felt. Not because I felt bad about breaking the rules, because I thought they were stupid rules that deserved to be broken, but because the rules shouldn’t exist at all. They were unjust and unfair and I had no idea how many other people, innocent people, had suffered because of them. So maybe…I leaned my head against the cold glass of the window. I didn’t want to reveal the truth. The consequences were too harsh. But what if it was what the oracle wanted?

  Judy took the freeway exit at speed and came to a screeching halt at the stoplight at the end of the ramp. “Come on, come on,” she chanted, “change, change.”

  “How much of a hurry are we in?”

  “Don’t know. He said ‘afternoon,’ right? Well, it’s officially been afternoon for thirteen minutes, and at this point we have to—” She floored the gas pedal, and my poor car jerked forward—“assume we might already be too late.”

  I gripped the door handle tighter. “If the oracle had been clearer—”

  “Or if we’d been smarter.”

  “I like my version better. It removes culpability from us.”

  “Let’s hope we’re on time. Who knows what the oracle might think if it went to all the trouble to warn you, and you were too late?” Judy rounded the turn onto the long, nearly-abandoned road that led to the entrance to the Gunther Node.

  “Oh, great, Judy, thanks tons for giving me something else to worry about.”

  Judy grinned, a manic expression completely at odds with her demure pantsuit. “Is it working?”

  “...Actually, yes.”

  “Then you’re welcome.” She skidded to a halt, spraying gravel everywhere, and we leaped from the car and scrambled across the concrete to the teleportation circle. I stood inside, jigging in my impatience, while Judy spoke to someone on the phone. It was taking far too long. Why did we have to go through this every time? Couldn’t they just issue us a pass or something?

  Finally, Judy hung up the handset with some force and ran toward me. “I lied,” she said. “I told them Lucia summoned us.”

  The world blinked, and we were in the vast concrete chamber. “I guess you were believable,” I said. “Now what?”

  Judy took a few steps and collared a black-jumpsuited figure. “The Damerel rites,” she said. “Where do we go?”

  “Are you supposed to be present?” the tech said. He had a flat face with a very snub nose and a suspicious air.

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Would I be asking directions if I wasn’t?”

  The tech looked briefly confused. “Lucia summoned us,” I said.

  “I don’t—”

  “The custodian doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” Judy said.

  The man’s indecision briefly deepened, then he said, “Through the blue door and down the hall to elevator D, press the button for the lowest floor. Hey, if you were summoned, shouldn’t you already know this?”

  “Thanks,” I said, and Judy and I took off running. “That was close.”

  “Notice I didn’t say which custodian,” Judy said.

  We darted around a couple of people pushing what looked like a mining cart full of purple glowing ore, and it had just register
ed with me that that was probably sanguinis sapiens in unprocessed form when we reached the blue door. It was actually a big opening, with a frame painted royal blue, and two stripes, one blue, one purple, snaking down the center of its floor. It was busier than the main chamber had been, and we had to dart and twist past people who weren’t at all inclined to give way. It slowed us to a walk, making me want to scream with frustration. None of them sensed the urgency of our mission at all. I got stuck walking behind a couple of really big men who were strolling along like they’d been issued extra buckets of time at the company store and were using it all at once, until finally Judy grabbed my hand and shoved past them.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re too nice,” she said. “I say that as a friend.”

  “No, it’s true. It’s a flaw.”

  We reached the elevator bank and located elevator D. There were a handful of people already standing in front of it, awaiting its arrival. “It’s not too late,” I said.

  “Not too late.”

  “And it will be obvious what the oracle meant once we get there.”

  “Obvious.”

  The elevator door slid open, and I grabbed Judy’s hand so we wouldn’t be separated in the flood of people who emerged. It reminded me of the New York City subway, not that I’d ever been to New York City, but this was like what you saw in movies—fifty people trying to get off, another fifty trying to force their way on while the first fifty were exiting. This was no time for politeness.

  “Out of my way!” I shouted, and shoved forward, weaving and dodging my way through the crowd. Judy’s hand slipped, and then it was gone, but I didn’t have time to worry about her, I had to get on that elevator. Someone stepped on my foot, and I cried out and kicked the offender, who swore at me. As if I cared at all about that.

  I wedged myself into the crowd and made it in with just seconds to spare before the doors slid shut again. Shoving some more, I managed to push the button for the bottom floor, which appeared to be number 1. Then I tried to take a deep, relaxing breath, but the elevator was too crowded. It smelled, not just of a few dozen bodies crammed together in a small space, but of musty, unused air that had been locked up for far too long. The lights were dim, possibly because they were blocked by so many of those bodies, but it felt to me like it was light that had been seen by too many eyes over the years and was now worn-out, yellowish-orange and faded.