Thomas entered through the library door with the unhurried calmness typical of a hunter. The passing years had not only treated him well physically, but also graced his character with patience, a highly advantageous trait for any heartless psychopath to have. He walked slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, unconcerned by how far away his target would be able to get with the head start he enjoyed. He was dressed in a refreshing all-white suit with matching hat and shoes. The lone color contrast in his eye-pleasing ensemble was a black tie.
The echo of his footsteps resounded through the library, now deserted after being evacuated by the police once they established that the information provided by the director was accurate. He walked down a wide aisle lined with bookshelves and neared the spot where the police were speaking with Mark. He stopped, grabbed a book that protruded from the rest and read the title:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
"Sir, the library is closed to the public," a policeman said to him with a surprised look on his face.
Without paying much attention to him, Thomas continued talking.
"I always believed that when a moment like this arrived, I would choose a book with a spiritual theme; and here I find myself with some adventure stories for children instead. Ironic, isn't it?"
"Sir, I have to ask you to come back later to pick up your book. Right now, we're in the middle of an investigation and you can't remain here."
"I know, I know," he replied, still looking at the book. "I only need to when that damn priest went away and which way he was headed. Nothing more."
Mark nervously rose from his chair and one police officer moved his hand on top of the pistol in his belt.
"Don't move," ordered the officer closest to Thomas.
Thomas raised his hands.
"It would be much easier if you just gave me the information and I'll go on my way."
The two agents in the back headed towards him, intending to handcuff him.
"I assure you that is not a good idea," Thomas said.
He let the book fall to the floor and, taking full advantage of the lapse in concentration caused by the momentary distraction when the book landed, pulled out a pistol with a silencer and fired four times. One bullet for each officer, who collapsed like so many slabs of meat.
"Fair warning," he said and made the sign of the cross.
He bent down and picked up the book, unfolded one of the pages and put it back where it was before.
"I want to see where the priest lived. Because he did live here, right?"
Mark only nodded, too overcome by fear to speak.
"Well, what are we waiting for?"
Mark led him to the boiler room without having any idea of what to do to get away from Thomas. He was too nervous to think clearly, the ideas kept piling up on top of each other, his forehead and armpits were soaked in sweat and he gazed vacantly off into space.
"I recognize the smell. The priest has been playing with the material the book describes. Surely you have no idea what he was cooking up down here in the basement all these years, right?" said Thomas, slapping Mark in the face so he would snap out of his trance.
"No... no..." he seemed to wake up from a light sleep.
"Look, you had the man who deciphered the Voynich Manuscript living right under your nose without knowing it. I find that very ironic, the greatest knowledge and wisdom of the ages hidden away underneath a library, and no one had access to it."
"The Voynich Manuscript? You mean the book that could never be deciphered?"
"One and the same," responded Thomas, traces of a faint smile forming in the corners of his mouth.
"It really has been deciphered?"
"By him and the people that I work for. The thing is that my people don't have any interest in sharing its contents."
"What does it talk about?"
"Oh! Important things, I guess. The origin of life, universal medicine, how to create energy, where we come from. But my bosses don't want to scare the people with new theories. They only wish to protect them from themselves."
"I understand," whispered Mark.
"You understand nothing!" Thomas shouted, grabbing him beneath the chin. "Now tell me when they left and where they've gone."
The pain prevented Mark from speaking clearly.
"They went away over two hours ago," he mumbled.
“You gave them a little bit of a time cushion to get away," Thomas said, calmer now as he loosened his grip. "That shows you are a good friend, although it didn't stop you from covering your ass by alerting the police. A good person and egotistical. It couldn't be any other way; the love of your own self again prevails over the love of their fellow humans. Do you comprehend now why that book is no good for the vast majority of us?"
Thomas sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette.
"Pure poison, these things," he said, puffing hard on it. "Tell me something... how many species do you know of that are so obsessed with self-destruction? Twenty? Four? ...Maybe just one?
"That's your excuse? You believe you are a purifier?"
"Ha, ha, ha! No, no... far from it. I'm just a killer at the service of the powerful men who pay me, although I have to admit I have a score to settle with the priest that goes back a long time. This job is more personal than I would like."
Thomas took a deep drag on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke in satisfaction.
"Now tell me, where have they gone?"
"That, I don't know. The only thing they wanted was to get away from here and take the corpse they had robbed with them."
"I believe you, I believe you. Describe the condition of the corpse to me."
Mark appeared reluctant to speak.
"Come on," Thomas smiled, "now that we're becoming such good friends, you wouldn't want me to have to get the answers by beating them out of you, would you?"
"No, no...no, of course not," Mark stammered.
"Then talk."
"The body was wrapped in plastic wrap like a mummy.
"And you saw some kind of crystal container, like a fishbowl or a big glass?
"Yes, I saw one."
"It was giving off heat, right? A kind of heat that's hard to describe?"
Mark remembered the sensation he felt when he approached it, and nodded his head.
"You're okay, I like you," Thomas assured him. "If you tell me what kind of car they went away in and the license plate number, I won't kill you."
"I don't think I can speak," the librarian declared.
"Very well."
Without thinking twice, Thomas grabbed a plate from on top of the table and smashed it into Mark's mouth, breaking several teeth and cutting his lips. Blood streamed from the librarian's nose. Immediately afterwards, Thomas produced a small notebook and pen from his pocket and offered them to Mark.
"Since you’ve decided not to speak, I guess it'll be better if you just write it down for me. Or do you prefer that I start cutting off your fingers so you won't be able to hold the pen?
Mark immediately took the notebook and pen, wrote down what Thomas wanted to know and returned them.
"That's better. That's the way I like it."
And as he soon as he finished the sentence, he pulled out his pistol.
"But you said you wouldn't kill me!"
The silencer muffled the two shots to the heart and a final coup de grace to the forehead.
"I lied," said Thomas.