"Bold for a woman standing in my house," Karas said.
"Take your hand off of him!" Silvie shouted.
Miranda continued, drawing her hand along his shoulder as she walked past. "She was very specific," she said. "According to Darsal, the presence of four books in this reality makes the final three visible. I"m a.s.suming that to now be the case. But she also said that if the four books are brought, they can open a gateway back into the other reality. Now, you understand my reluctance to just hand over that kind of power to anyone."
"We are Johnis, Silvie, and Karas!" Johnis said. "What else do you need?"
"The books," Miranda said. "Show me the other three books, and convince me you have a plan to recover the final three, and I"ll give you the fourth. I a.s.sure you it"s only a matter of precaution."
Miranda might have stumbled onto Darsal"s book, but she was still a seductive tramp, and the faster they satisfied her curiosity and got rid of her, the better, Silvie thought.
"Fine. Show her the books, Karas."
Johnis nodded.
Karas eyed the woman cautiously, then retreated into her mansion, to the vault that she"d shown them earlier.
Miranda leaned up against the railing and smoked another cigarette. She stared at the mansion, ignoring them as if they didn"t exist.
"I don"t trust her," Silvie whispered.
"Think about it; she"s playing her cards right."
"What do you mean, *right ? She"s a tramp!"
"Please, Silvie, she"s sitting on what she now knows is a very powerful book. She"s testing us, playing the tramp, throwing us off center."
"To what end? That"s ridiculous."
"People reveal their true character when they"re off center. You have to at least admire her tactics."
"Bah! I don"t buy it."
Karas glided toward them, holding the wooden box. "Where is your book?" she asked.
"Show me," Miranda said, stepping up to the table.
"Are we complete imbeciles?" Johnis said. "Prove that you have the blue book."
Miranda eyed him. Smiled. She reached into her purse, pulled out an object bound in aging white cloth, and set it on the table.
Johnis unwrapped the blue Book of History and set it down gingerly. It could be a fake, but if so, it was a perfect replica. Silvie didn"t think there was a way to prove the authenticity of the book without actually using it.
"Looks real."
"Of course it"s real," Miranda said. "Now yours."
Johnis nodded.
Karas pulled the black, the brown, and the green Books of History out and laid them next to each other on the gla.s.s table. They stared at them in silence.
"So a" Miranda finally said. "Tell me how you"re planning to find the other three."
"You think it"s wise to discuss that in front of her?" Silvie demanded.
"Discuss what?" Johnis said. "We don"t even have a plan. Admittedly, she"s come off like a rude tramp." He turned to her and shrugged. "Sorry, but it"s true." Back to Silvie, "But that doesn"t make her wrong."
What could she say to that?
"I don"t like her att.i.tude," Karas said.
"She brought us the blue book," Johnis said. "You don"t have to like her att.i.tude. Or her hairstyle or the way she"s dressed, for that matter. She makes a point. What is our next move?"
Karas sighed. "The subject of my dreams for ten years. I only know details of the mission from what Darsal shared on Other Earth, and she wasn"t the most forthcoming, being so consumed with Billos. But I"ve also pieced together a few details from the people in Paradise, Colorado, that might help us."
"Such as?"
She sat. "I told you about the simulation called Paradise earlier, the one we entered by touching the cover of the book with blood."
"Yes."
"I dug up everything I could get my hands on about Paradise, Colorado, and I found more. It seems to be some kind of epicenter for the books, not only in the simulation, but also in reality."
"Darsal mentioned Paradise," Miranda said. "Only to say that it was the first place she searched before going to Turkey."
"And?"
"Nothing. A small town that refuses to grow up," she said."
"Maybe there"s a reason it refuses to grow up. Follow me here. We know that Thomas Hunter spared this world from impending disaster in 2010, roughly twenty-three years ago, right?"
"Right," Johnis said, though he couldn"t possibly know this level of detail. "As you say." Better.
"What very few know is that an incident occurred in Paradise eleven years latera"the year 2021. An experiment in a monastery dubbed *Project Showdown," in which thirty-six children were raised in a kind of utopian environment, spared from evil. But the whole thing went terribly wrong."
"How does this fit into the seven missing books?" Johnis asked.
"It"s rumored that the children in the monastery had access to magical books"a"she looked at Mirandaa""from Turkey."
"The Books of History?"
"I think Thomas Hunter brought some Books of History into this reality," Karas said. "And among them were the books we seek."
"In Paradise?"
"It"s a starting point," Karas said. "Think about it, the history of the world rests in the hands of the choices we make. My own history changed when I chose to bathe in the lake water. It"s the will of men that Teeleh seeks. Paradise is made or corrupted depending on the choices of children and the evil character they shudder to think about. A priest gone bad: Marsuvees Black."
"So the quest for the books was always about saving this place, not the forests?" Silvie asked.
"Perhaps. And maybe Paradise is the epicenter. Paradise, perfection. In our history there is a number that represents perfection."
"Seven," Miranda said.
Karas nodded. "The seven lost books." She shrugged. "It"s a thought anyway."
Silvie was still stuck on the suggestion that their entire mission was about saving this reality rather than saving the forests from the Horde.
"If the mission has always been about this reality," Johnis said, tracking with her, "then who is the Dark One? This *Black" character?"
"That"s the question, isn"t it?"
Crickets chirped in the darkness.
"So," Miranda said, and they all looked at her. "You"ll take up your search in this town of yoursa"Paradise, Colorado." The moon was high now, and the woman"s face was pale by its light. As were her arms and hands, Silvie saw. She was a curator, who rarely saw the light of day.
Karas shook her head. "Actually, no. Not the town. I"ve scoured it high and low, and the monastery is gone. I"m more interested in the history of the books that destroyed Paradise." Her eyes settled on Miranda. "And those books came from Turkey." "Oh?"
"But that"s enough. We"ve said enough for you to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we are who we say we are and are committed to finding the books. You can leave this book with us."
"Yes, of course. But first, Darsal insisted that I tell the chosen one something. That would be Johnis."
"We"re all chosen," Silvie snapped.
"Johnis. She was quite specific. Come."
Johnis stood still, clearly unsure about the way she"d ordered him.
"Don"t be afraid. Come here."
He walked up to her tentatively.
Silvie saw her move a split second before the weapon was in Miranda"s hand. She whipped a gun hidden in her loose slacks like a striking snake and leveled it at his head.
"Can the chosen one dodge bullets?" Miranda asked sweetly. "I don"t think so. No one moves, or he dies."
A dull thumping beat at the air then swelled to a pounding that buffeted the night.
Miranda smiled. "We"re going to find out just how much power these books have. If Darsal was right, the world as we know it is about to change."
A helicopter rose over the edge of the poola"how it had remained undetected or from where ir had come, Silvie didn"t know, but she could see that Karas was dumbfounded.
Two warriors in black hung from either door, their weapons trained on Silvie and Karas. The flying beetle hovered ten feet from Miranda, who smiled gently.
"Do something, Silvie. Let me send at least one of you to join Darsal." And Silvie knew she would at the slightest excuse.
Miranda walked to the table, scooped up all of the books except the one she"d brought, and stepped back, maintaining her sights on Johnis.
"You can keep that blue book; it"s worthless. Into the bird, baby." She waved the gun at the helicopter. "Now!"
Silvie knew she had to do something. But it was all happening too quickly, and she half-expected Karas to stop the tramp! Silvie stood rooted to the ground, her mind blank. Johnis stared, pleading for her to save him.
"Teeleh"s lair," he said.
Miranda lowered her gun a few inches and pulled the trigger. A projectile tugged at Johnis"s jeans, but he did not move, did not even flinch. Blood seeped from the superficial wound.
"Go on, Silvie," Miranda sneered. "Go for one of those knives in your pocket. Move, Johnis, or I go higher."
"Teeleh"s lair, Silvie," he said. "Tell Karas everya""
"Silence!"
Johnis turned and walked to the helicopter.
Silvie took a step forward, her heart hammering, ready to throw herself at the woman backing to the bird.
"No, Silvie," Karas said. "Not now."
"No, Silvie," Miranda cried over the slicing blades. "Not now, not ever." She slid into the cabin, and the aircraft rose. It chopped higher into the night sky and faded into the darkness, leaving them speechless.
"We"ve lost the books," Karas said.
Silvie whirled on the young girl who"d grown up overnight. "The books? You have all the power in the world, and you let this tramp into your house to take Johnis?"
"Easy a"
"How dare you?" she screamed, trembling from head to foot. "How dare you let them take him? He"s all I have!"
"Your emotions, Silvie." Karas walked up to her. "Please, I"m sorry a"
Silvie felt her hand move before she could stop herself. Felt the sting of her palm as it struck the older girl"s cheek.
For a moment they stared at each other, Silvie breathing steadily through her rage, Karas standing white with a red cheek.
Karas stepped forward, opening her arms.
I"ve lost him, Silvie thought. I"ve lost Johnis a"
Then she dropped her head onto Karas"s shoulder and began to weep.
hoever Miranda Card was, she seemed to have adequate resources at her disposal, Johnis thought. He doubted any average human in the Histories had access to helicopters and jets like the one he"d been hustled into.
The two a.s.sistants that worked for the woman had strapped a muzzle over his mouth, fixed a blindfold on his head, clamped shackles on his hands and feet, and shoved him into the dark compartment in which he now lay. The whole abduction, from the time they"d left the ground at Karas"s home to the time they"d switched over to the jet and taken to the air once again, had been a half hour at most. No sign of Miranda Card.
Johnis lay on his side, telling himself to remain calm. His nerves were sending fear through his systema"more than he was accustomed to. He kept telling himself it was the air here, as Karas had said. He"d faced the Shataiki and felt less fear.
Then again, maybe he had reason to feel more fear now than when he"d faced Teeleh. He was in the belly of a flying beast far above the ground, being flown to the far reaches of an earth stuck in the Histories, far from anything remotely familiar to him.
And if that wasn"t enough cause for alarm, there was the fact that they"d managed to hand all four books over to an enemy about whom they knew next to nothing other than her clear intent to use the books for harm. It had to be the doing of Alucard. He"d killed Darsal and then corrupted the woman who"d taken her book.