20

PICTURE THIS

As soon as our phones were working again, I found several missed calls, voice messages, and texts from Sig, none of which said anything different. She hadn’t liked it when we got cut off, and the messages were sort of the cell phone equivalent of someone mashing an elevator button several times to make things go faster. She called me again while I was still listening to one of the voice messages. The conversation was pretty focused on essentials, with the end result being that Kevin dropped Kasia and I off at my car. Choo was parked behind it in a new van, a blue family job with more seating and less storage, sitting quietly behind the steering wheel in the dark. No lights, no music, no cell phone, no AC running, just Choo sitting there with a rolled-down window.

That didn’t seem like a good sign. Me being me, I approached Choo cautiously. We were beneath an overhead bypass that spiraled above on a curving bridge supported by huge, thick columns of stone. I had parked my car there because the area was blocked from view and only accessible by a relatively low-use utility road.

“I hear you got attacked by birds,” Choo greeted me.

“We did,” I agreed. “That’s why you shouldn’t be sitting here in the dark all alone. Why aren’t you meeting up with Sig and Molly already?”

“We got to talk,” Choo said.

“Okay.”

He’d apparently been waiting to say something, but now that it was time, Choo hesitated. His elbow was resting on the window frame, and he tapped the top of the van with the palm of his hand absentmindedly before finally saying, “Most of my life, I’ve been doing stupid things because I was pushing back against something.”

So, we were taking the long way around. “Me too.”

“My momma was a college professor, and she wanted me to be her showpiece. She wanted me to get straight As and learn to talk her talk and wear nice clothes and be refined so she could show me off to her friends. Or at least it felt that way at the time. Felt like she was trying to get me killed in high school.”

Kasia wasn’t much for the scenic route. “Do we really have time for this?”

“I know this guy,” I told her. “He wouldn’t be taking so long if it wasn’t hard to say, and he wouldn’t be saying something hard if it wasn’t important, and it’ll go a lot faster if we don’t interrupt.” Only I didn’t use quite that many words. I boiled all of that down to “Fuck off, Morticia.”

“Perhaps you and Sigourney do belong together.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.

Getting started had been hard enough; Choo didn’t let himself get sidetracked. “And the boys I hung out with wanted me to thug it up. I joined the army to get away from all of ’em, but the army wanted to tell me who I was too.”

He waited for me to say something, so I did. “That’s kind of their job.”

“Maybe so, but even my wife expected me to be all kinds of things that didn’t come natural,” Choo said. “She had all these ideas of what a husband was supposed to be, and it didn’t feel like me. I didn’t handle it right.”

I waited. I feel qualified to talk about some things. Marriage isn’t one of them.

“Then one day, a ghost tried to tell me who I was worse than anybody ever did,” Choo went on. “It took me right over and made me into something I wasn’t. You want to talk about not being right with Jesus? That thing messed me up. I’m still not all the way right.”

I was listening, but I was starting to agree with Kasia just a little. “I know most of this already. I don’t understand where you’re going with it, Choo.”

His answering smile wasn’t amused. “I got into this business to show somebody something. Not sure who anymore. The universe, maybe.”

“So, it was about control,” I said.

“That’s exactly it,” he said. “I can’t stand the idea of something sneaking up on me while I’m trying to do whatever it is normal people do again. But that thing with Simon back at that restaurant. This not telling us what’s going on …” He stopped cold and tried to rephrase something or reexamine something. I’m not sure if he did or not. “The lady there said the knights will kill me if I try to walk away from this thing now. But I can’t work like this.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe we can make Simon understand that.”

We arrived at a small stone Catholic church somewhere between Omni Court and New City Gardens, carrying eleven large pizzas between us. “Sanctified ground doesn’t give you any problems?” I asked Kasia.

“It makes my ass twitch a little,” she allowed.

Catholic churches have the same effect on me, but that’s probably because Father Eric used to paddle us with a cricket bat. He’d brought it and a low tolerance for sarcasm straight from the old country.

There were a number of parishioners praying in the sanctuary even at eight o’clock. They all looked like normal working-class people, though maybe averaging a bit younger and fitter than I’d have expected, and if some of them weren’t hiding knives and handguns under their clothes, I’m a disco diva. The altar boys there probably lit the candles with a flamethrower. I don’t even want to think about what kind of armament the person hiding quietly in the small upper loft was aiming at us.

The priest who greeted us, Father Mendez, was trim and greying, and when he shook my hand, his palm felt like sandstone. Once we were out of the sanctuary, he took us to the basement where a knight made me set the pizza boxes on a table and open them one by one while his guard dog sniffed around them. We kept our weapons this time, but Father Mendez took a small needle and pricked my finger and held it until a small drop of blood welled up.

“That’s an awful lot of pizza,” the priest commented while he repeated the procedure with Kasia and Choo.

“I’m thinking of giving confession,” I said. “It could take a while.”

“It probably would.” Father Mendez’s smile and eyes were both hard, but he led us to where the others were waiting. The good father stayed on the balls of his feet the whole time, his hands loosely curled. I got the impression those hands were never very far away from being fists. Mendez had probably been a combat priest when he was younger, one of the specialists the Order trains up to accompany strike teams for exorcisms and blessings and wardings and such. Maybe he’d even been a paladin.

We went through a kitchen area and a gathering hall, past a honeycomb of very small rooms with wooden chairs and old-school blackboards rather than the large rooms of modern churches, the kind that can be sectioned off by rolling partitions and have aluminum folding chairs and rolling plastic whiteboards. Eventually, we wound up in an office that was a little larger and better furnished than I’d expected to find in a humble parish. The carpeting was a rich, thick red, and the oak furniture was stained a brown that looked natural. The icons were real gold, and I think the Italian-style paintings were really Italian too. One of the paintings was covered, a fact that I registered immediately but didn’t comment on.

I also registered that Simon wasn’t in the room. Sig and Molly were there, but the man waiting with them was pale-skinned and tall, at least six foot four, with straw-colored hair that had been cut conservatively to make him look like a young stockbroker or lawyer trying to be an older stockbroker or lawyer. His suit had been cut to achieve a similar effect. Basically, he looked like he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a steel rod up his ass. The only thing awkward about him was his gangliness, which was more a result of his long limbs than a lack of coordination. It made him look ostrichlike, and the impression wasn’t helped by the way his blue eyes focused completely on whatever caught his attention, his head moving with precise movements to track us as we came in.

“This is Woodrow Keeley.” Sig’s voice had a wry quality to it that suggested I was in for a treat.

I smiled at her. I couldn’t help it. “Does this mean Simon isn’t asking us to the prom?”

Keeley came over and offered me a hand, and, what the hell, I went ahead and took it. His handshake was crisp and formal. He shook hands with Choo too, but apparently, he and Kasia had met. “Mr. Travers is busy, as you well might imagine, given the grave nature of our current situation. Mr. Travers is grateful to you for suggesting that we focus more of our resources on individuals who went to Randy Prutko’s high school, but rest assured, no one is going to be seeing the turcopolier in the near future unless there’s a fire, famine, or flood.”

I had to play back key words just to understand what he’d said. Was this guy for real? Choo apparently wondered that as well. “Fire, famine, and flood, huh? You forgot plague.”

“I was being alliterative,” Keeley responded stiffly. Ivy League school and wanted everyone to know it, I decided.

“You could just say fucking plague,” I pointed out.

“My vocabulary and my resourcefulness are not so limited that I need to resort to crudity for clarification,” he said. “For example, I could express my dissatisfaction with this conversation by just not having it any longer.”

“I actually use crudity for emphasis and its cathartic effects,” I said. “However, if it will expedite matters, I shall endeavor to formalize our discourse henceforth. I take it you are Simon’s …” A lot of options came to mind, but most of them didn’t go with the formal tone I was adopting. Stooge. Flunky. Lackey. Evil henchman. Apprentice. Suckass. Drone. Proxy. Protégé. Mini-me. Bath attendant. Minion. Finger puppet. Next funeral card …

“I am someone Mr. Travers trusts to deal with you. I am fully conversant with the background of the Book of Am, if that is your concern.”

“Oh. Good.” We walked around Keeley and took our pizzas to the large desk. I had to smile again. Sig was sitting in the big swiveling command chair at the center. She had probably claimed it just to piss Big Bird off.

I pulled a chair up close to her. Sig isn’t much for public displays of affection, but she looked at me like something suddenly seemed right again, and it hit some chord deep inside me that I still wasn’t used to handling. It made me feel exposed, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing if other people hadn’t been in the room. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Let’s try to stop an apocalypse,” I said. “Take two.”

Keeley decided to remain standing. Squabbling over his chair probably would have been undignified, and he wasn’t going to drag up a seat like some peasant, so he went for maintaining a superior altitude to go with his superior attitude. “Is all of that for you? Mr. Travers had some food prepared.”

“We’re good.” Sig quickly cleared a large space on the desk for the pizza boxes and identified an anchovy pizza garnished with basil leaves, onions, and shiitake mushrooms. The place I’d gotten the pies from had advertised things like smoked mozzarella cheese and olive oil, maybe to justify their prices. It’s one of the things I do like about New York City. Natives take their pizza seriously.

“You have to get used to watching them gorge themselves,” Molly told Keeley, taking a slice of pizza covered with black olives and peppers for herself. “Their bodies burn more calories than ours do.”

“Yeah,” Choo muttered. He didn’t sound happy about it. He hadn’t said much since the overpass.

“If you want to get down to business, don’t let this stop you,” I said. “Start with this Book of Am that Simon neglected to tell us about.”

“Whose secrecy Mr. Travers prudently chose to maintain,” he corrected.

“Sure.” I knew Simon really was busy, but I could see why he didn’t want to have this conversation in person. Simon was probably the kind of guy who had his secretary cancel dates for him.

“Perhaps you should tell me what you know in order to save time?” Keeley suggested. “And I can fill in the blanks rather than reiterate.”

“Perhaps I could introduce my foot to your ass,” Choo replied.

Okay, that wasn’t good. Choo was mad, hell, I was mad, but there were still lines to be respected. I had contemplated killing Simon or kicking his ass many times, but in all our interactions, I had never once threatened to do it. That’s the sort of thing better done than said with truly dangerous people, and no matter how this Woodrow Keeley talked, any guy that Simon trusted could probably kill a man with a soft pretzel. Keeley’s eyes went cold, Sig’s eyes flared hot, and Choo’s mouth stayed open, but before any of them could say or do something that would have been a lit match in a meth lab, Molly spoke up. “I think what Choo means is, you just want us to tell you what we know so that you won’t have to worry about being caught if you lie or skip over stuff.” She turned to Choo. “Is that right?”

“It’ll do.”

Keeley gave them both a tight smile. “Exactly.”

Well, balls get you points sometimes. The tension went down a few notches, and Keeley refocused on me. I doubt he had any illusions about me being the leader of my group, but he probably assumed I would understand where he was coming from better because of our common background. “Mr. Travers is not going to apologize. He came to the same conclusions about this man you’re calling Reader X that you did, but keeping the Book of Am a secret is incredibly important. He gave everyone, not just you, everyone, enough information to go after the right people with the right questions. No more than that. You would have done the same.”

“I’m not so sure I would have,” I said.

“Might I point out that you are not telling everyone everything either?” Keeley said with that strange politeness that is really condescension. “Such as who told you about the Book of Am? Somehow, you have gotten Kasia to keep quiet on that particular subject too.”

“The difference is,” I said, “I’m upfront about what I will and won’t talk about. I’m trying to work with you as best I can. Your boss is trying to make me work for him.”

Keeley acted like he was brushing that aside. He wasn’t. “This is another reason Mr. Travers isn’t here. We are in a crisis situation, and he doesn’t have time to waste on finger-pointing and recriminations. Rule by committee is a fantasy. There has to be a chain of command.”

Unexpectedly, it was Kasia who objected. “I agree. And if the first knight who interviewed Randy Prutko’s grandfather had asked about Randy’s football team, maybe your and Simon’s minds would have gone down the same path ours did when you read the report later. But that would have been later, and you are reading a lot of reports while trying to deal with an escalating situation. There has to be a chain of command, but the one at the top has to delegate, too.”

“Besides, how are knights supposed to ask the right questions when they don’t have all the facts?” I asked. “If you wrote down the one hundred most important questions to ask a murder suspect, would the name of his high school football team be one of them? There’s too little time and too much data to collect to screw around like this.”

“Mr. Travers would do the same thing again,” Keeley insisted. “He weighed the risks and tried to wrap the situation up quickly. He used himself as bait and tried to get the School of Night to attack him so that we could capture some of them, and it worked. He tried to enlist you so that Miss Norresdotter could cut some corners by talking to the dead, and it worked. Not telling people more than they need to know is standard procedure.”

Sig put down her food, just for a moment. It’s hard to be taken seriously behind a slice of pizza. “But the attack was made by mercenaries, and I came up with nada.”

“Which is why it is called a calculated risk, not a calculated sure thing.” Keeley almost lost his pretense of cool for a second. “That is why I have been sent to refocus your efforts when there are a thousand other things I need to be doing as well.”

So, basically, Simon had taken two big swings and missed, and he couldn’t afford to strike out. If I was reading the situation correctly—which was still a big if—Simon did need help, and knowing about the Book of Am let us in a very small circle, a circle that Simon wanted to make use of and keep tabs on at the same time. But he also knew that someone needed to finesse things personally because of the way he’d handled the situation, and that was one task he was willing to delegate.

“If only you had some flying monkeys,” I said.

“This is more important than any of us. Argue later. Contribute now.”

“Tell us more about this Book of Am,” I repeated, “and we’ll refocus.”

Keeley obliged. “It sounds as if you know most of it. John Dee wrote a book intended to trigger a new age where magic could thrive openly. Most of the mythology around Enochian sigils—those are supposed to be fragments of angel language, if you don’t know—is a byproduct of other works that Dee was writing at the time. Our organization tried to put a stop to the School of Night discreetly back in the sixteenth century, and we thought that we did. The book disappeared after we arranged for Dee to be imprisoned by the Church, and when it resurfaced, we took the book into our possession and tried to keep its existence a secret.”

“But the Templars’ central archives were compromised about half a year ago,” Sig pressed. “Did someone steal this book?”

Keeley began monitoring his words more carefully. “Not … precisely. We believe one of the false Templars who infiltrated the archives smuggled part of the book out the only way she could—by memorizing it a page at a time.”

“She?” Molly echoed.

Keeley was still addressing me. Maybe he was sexist. Maybe he was knightist. Maybe he just didn’t want to get whiplash. “You killed her later, Mr. Charming. She was one of the chanters you shot when you caught the cultists trying to break into the central vault.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I protested. “Those chanters weren’t even the highest-ranked infiltrators there. And those guys weren’t after a book … they were after the Sword of Truth. And why wasn’t this book in the final vault with the Sword of Truth, if it’s so dangerous?”

“The book was in the final vault,” Keeley said. “It never left. And the infiltrator never got in.”

This time, we all let our silence speak for us.

Keeley coughed. “Perhaps it will be easier if I just show you.”

“The last time I heard that, we got attacked by a giant floating eyeball.”

Keeley started walking to the painting that had been covered. “Do you wish to hear the whole story or not?”

“Fine,” I said. “But if a giant nose materializes out of nowhere and starts blowing acid snot on us, I’m done.”

Keeley winced, perhaps at the undignified nature of my words, but all he said was “No one but Mr. Charming and I should get too close to this painting. Our geas will protect us from being affected by it against our will. The rest of you might wish to stand back behind Miss Newman.”

No one moved except Choo, who stood so far back behind Molly that he actually left the room. He closed the door behind him on the way out without a word.

Keeley looked at the door.

“He’s waiting outside,” Sig said confidently. “Choo has some poltergeist issues. Go ahead.”

“Ah. That gives me an idea on how to illustrate my point.” Keeley took a world almanac off one of the shelves built into the walls, opened the door Choo had just gone through, and tossed the book down the hallway before closing the door again. Then he went up to the painting and pulled the cover cloth off. Revealed was an exact portrait of the room we were in. Including little figures of us. All of us. I got up and went to examine the painting more closely, and the painted version of me moved forward.

I waved my palm over the painting experimentally. The pigments swirled slightly, and the painted version of my palm waved back at me.

“We used to keep this painting in a hall in the archives,” Keeley said. “Anyone who is not protected by our geas or some other kind of ward will find themselves drawn toward it, and then their minds will be drawn into it. The Loremaster used it to trap would-be thieves.”

That wasn’t quite … I turned toward Keeley. “But the false knights weren’t protected by a geas, and they were running around the archives.”

“You are absolutely correct,” Keeley said. “And this is what happened to one of them one day. Catch me.”

Keeley fainted. I watched his body collapse to the floor with a heavy thud. His head bounced on the thick red carpet.

“John,” Molly reprimanded.

“Oops,” I said.

Sig, smiling wryly, pointed at the painting. “I think he saw that.”

I looked at the painting, and the figure of Keeley in the portrait was no longer mirroring the physical Keeley. It was staring at me with a distinct attitude of angry disapproval. I gave the figure a small shrug, and it turned its back on me and walked toward the painted version of the same door that Choo had exited through. The painted Keeley opened the painted door, and there was a painted version of Choo standing motionless with its back to us, its painted hands in its painted pockets. I turned, half-expecting to see the real door opening, the real Choo standing there. But the real door was still closed.

When I turned back to the picture, the painted Keeley walked out through the painted door and closed it behind him. The painted Keeley was gone. A few seconds later, the painted door opened again and the painted Keeley came back with a painted book and got larger as he walked toward me. He held the book up so that I could see that it was a painted version of the almanac Keeley had thrown out into the hallway. He flipped the book open so that I could see that the tiny little painted pages had tinier little painted words. When I nodded, the painted version of Keeley fell to the floor. At my feet, the flesh-and-blood Keeley opened his eyes. “At some future date, assuming we all survive the current crisis, you are going to pay for that.”

Letting Keeley fall hadn’t just been an immature gesture. Simon had sprung stuff on us without warning so that we would react instinctively and do what he told us to do instead of arguing or questioning. If that approach kept working for the knights, the practice would become a habit. I was illustrating a point. But what I said was “What did any of that have to do with the Book of Am being copied?”

“We didn’t know that the painting could duplicate any building it was in past the doors,” Keeley said. “We think the infiltrator was pulled inside the painting, and while she was trying to find a way out, she went through that door and started exploring a painted representation of the entire central archives.”

Simon always said “I” when he spoke for the knights. Keeley said “we.” I wasn’t sure why that was important, but it seemed worth noting.

Molly asked the next question while I draped the cloth back over the painting and Sig went to get Choo. He came back in, carrying the almanac. Something occurred to me too late; I peeked under the cloth, but the painted version of the almanac that had been on the floor was now in the painted Choo’s hand. “Are you saying this person found a painted version of the Book of Am? Duplicated down to the print in the pages?”

“We believe so,” Keeley said. “That is why she had to memorize it a page at a time. Nothing physical from our world can enter that painting, and nothing in that painting can physically cross over to our world. But information can be transferred.”

“But if what you say is true, why weren’t the painted vaults locked just like the real ones?” I asked. “And why did the painting let this woman back out, much less come and go as she pleased?”

“We’re not certain. It may be that the painting just found a way to make trouble in a building full of people who were immune to its compulsions. Or it may be that the painting was co-opted. The Book of Am is one of the most powerful artifacts ever created, and it might be sentient. When Dee wrote that damnable book, we don’t know if he created a series of magical system commands or a magical form of artificial intelligence.”

“What do you know?” I asked.

Keeley grunted as if a tiny fist had punched him in the solar plexus. “We know the Book of Am is terrifying. The thoughts bristling around between its covers are like hungry snakes. As soon as one lets any part of them into their skull, the snakes begin eating. And the book does not depend entirely on being read to be interactive.”

“Are you saying the book could have taken control of the painting when the painting duplicated its words?” Molly asked.

Keeley nodded. “The Book of Am wants to be read. That’s why we’re not keeping this painting in the archives any longer.”

Apparently, Choo was caught up enough to reenter the conversation. “Why not just destroy the thing?”

“Because it is thaumaturgic magic,” Keeley said. “We’re not sure what would happen to the world the picture was mirroring when we did. We’re not sure what would happen if we destroyed a book harnessing the power to manipulate atoms, either.”

“Even if you are right about all of this, how did you figure out which infiltrator was responsible?” Kasia wanted to know.

“While we were investigating the background of the false Templars, we found a secret account the woman was using on the dark web. As far as we can tell, the School of Night didn’t even know she was trying to duplicate the Book of Am. She was a peon, but she was an ambitious peon, and she knew her masters would try to take everything over if she told them what she was doing. And before you ask, I don’t know if the book was influencing her or if she just had her own agenda. It looks like the only person she confided in was a secret lover. The individual you are calling Reader X.”

“So, the reason the School of Night is sniffing around Simon is because they want to find this Book of Am 2.0 too,” I said. “Any powerful magical artifact related to John Dee, this School of Night would be all over it.”

“Yes,” Keeley said.

“And the School of Night isn’t responsible for these magical transformations,” I went on. “Though they might want to control them.”

The condescension became a little less subtle. “Are you going somewhere with this, or are we just summarizing?”

“Those ravens that were following us and then attacked us weren’t any kind of shapechangers I’ve seen before … They were more like these magical transformations that have been happening than those mercenaries that attacked us at the restaurant.”

Keeley had apparently already thought this through. “Yes. That wasn’t the School of Night attacking you. That was Reader X, or perhaps the Book of Am itself. It does beg the question of which one is calling the shots, doesn’t it?”

Sig had gone off on her own train of thought. “You said this Reader X was a secret lover. How secret?”

There was a stack of folders on the desk, in front of Sig because she’d taken the seat Keeley had planned to use. He leaned forward and selected one of them, then set the folder more evenly in the center of the desk. “So secret that all we know is that he’s male and was using a variety of computers and burner phones in New York City. There’s a printout of the text conversations from the woman’s last burner phone in here. Even though some of the texts are very intimate, the two are very careful not to use any names or specific locations.”

“If she was one of the infiltrators, she was trained to be a double agent from birth,” I said.

“She was,” Keeley agreed. “And she probably knew the School of Night would have killed her and the lover if they knew such a potential security risk existed.”

It was a lot to take in. “But you think our Reader X was keeping or copying the manuscript of a new Book of Am for his lover?”

“We do.”

“Did I kill this lover before or after she was finished copying the book?” I asked.

“Before.” Keeley didn’t sound like that was a guess. “We suspect Reader X has started reading the manuscript his lover sent him and is trying to finish writing the book on his own. Or possibly the Book of Am has taken hold of him and is forcing him to do it.”

“But you’re sure the book wasn’t finished,” Choo said.

“Unless the lover’s last texts were lying, yes. I’m not sure we would be here if the book had been finished. Or at least not this version of us.”

“Maybe that’s why this Reader X’s imagination started out playing a much more direct role in the transformations than Dee ever intended,” I suggested. “With more modern-day versions of the old magical stories. He’s got more input than he was supposed to have. He’s not just reading more and more of the book. He’s adding to it.”

Sig took that and went with it. “So, Reader X is probably a cunning man. A very powerful one.”

“If he wasn’t before he started reading the book, he is now.” Keeley’s expression was troubled. I thought it was just an appropriate reflection of the conversation, but then I realized that he was staring at an open pizza box with an element of longing.

“Go ahead and have a slice,” I invited.

Keeley looked at me uncertainly for the first time since I’d met him.

“It’s not going to hurt you.” I felt a bit like a drug pusher. “Your dog’s already sniffed the boxes for poisons or bombs.”

“Dog,” Keeley corrected absently. I don’t think he could help himself. But he unbent enough to take a slice. Maybe the stick up his ass was fiberglass.

Keeley hadn’t heard the contraction when I said “Dog’s” and thought I meant dog plural instead of singular dog has. It was no big deal, but something was … Wait a minute. The place only had one guard dog? There were two different canine scents in the building, and both of them were fairly fresh, too. The two scents were very similar, but I had just assumed that both dogs had come from the same litter. “You mean only one dog on duty, right? Not just one dog?”

Keeley frowned. “I mean this place only has one guard dog assigned to it. It lives here. Father Mendez tells laypeople it’s his pet.”

“For how long?”

The frown got deeper. “For years, at least. What is this about?”

Kasia’s sense of smell was almost as sharp as mine. “There are at least two dog smells in this church. And the beast that sniffed us does not smell like whatever dog has been in this office recently.”