Book of Names

by Slater, David Michael

  “Oh, my god, Dex!” someone whispered right in his ear.

  Daphna!

  Daphna almost fainted when she saw her brother in this—thing. She fumbled with the straps while swords clashed all around her, praying none of them found her. Dex’s head was free! Next she worked on his arms and legs. When he was loose, she set to freeing the man in the other chair, whoever he was. They had to get out of there before they were killed. It was a bloodbath!

  “Nora!” Dex cried, leaping up, wincing at the pain in his tongue and jaw. He looked to shake her into awareness, but saw her eyes were open, and that she was looking fearfully around the room. Dex did as well, realizing that it had gone quiet. Daphna was just realizing the same thing.

  A few men in black lay in puddles of blood, but the rest were simply not there anymore. A dozen or so Blue Masks lay dead around the room as well. The others were back in their chairs, sitting upright and motionless, as if nothing had happened at all.

  With no warning, the rabbi reached down and pulled a sword out of the body of a Blue Mask. He cried out, charging the throne.

  Red Mask moved only his hand.

  And then the rabbi was gone.

  “And now,” Red Mask said, pointing his dagger directly at the horrified twins. “Your turn.”

  “No!” Nora cried.

  Red Mask set the edge of the blade on the book and slid it slowly across the page.

  CHAPTER 39

  dripping daggers

  The remaining Blue Masks suddenly leapt back to their feet, drawing their swords again. Red Mask lifted his dagger and turned his attention to the doorway. Dex spun round to see what everyone was reacting to.

  Five people were walking into the chamber, three women and two men. They weren’t masked or in black. Rather, they wore slacks and sweaters. They were all dusting their shoulders.

  “The Colors!” Daphna cried. She didn’t know what else to call them. They were all there, all but Mr. Brown. The group was unarmed, but looked supremely unafraid.

  “We have no conflict with you,” Ms. White announced. “We are here for the twins.”

  Daphna almost cried out for them to take The Book of the Living, but she resisted. They probably just wanted to get them to safety first.

  The Blue Masks were moving slowly forward, but Red Mask put up a hand to stay them.

  “There is no need for further violence,” Ms. Gold declared, looking round. Then to Red Mask she added, “You have your prize.”

  “But—!” Daphna said. But nothing more. She understood they were only there for her and Dex. Mr. Brown had sent them.

  “Indeed I do,” said Red Mask in his metal voice. “And who might you be?”

  “We are none of your concern,” said Ms. Green.

  “Is that a fact?” Red Mask looked down into The Book of the Living, placing the edge of his dagger back down on the page.

  Daphna cringed, expecting the group to start vanishing one by one, but Red Mask did not scrape off a name. Rather, he only stared at the page. After what seemed like forever, he looked up and scanned all five of the Colors’ faces, then looked back down again.

  The Colors simply stood and waited.

  Red Mask continued staring. He stared so long that the twins had time to look at each other.

  Finally, he looked up again and said, in a voice that sounded mostly amused, “Your names do not appear. How remarkable. But you’ll find we’re not entirely surprised.”

  Again, the twins looked at each other.

  “Who are they?” Dex whispered. It seemed absurd that this mild-mannered bunch of professor-types, weirdly tall as they were, could threaten a room full of men with swords—not to mention The Book of the Living—but he was long past judging books by their covers.

  “Mr. G’s bosses,” Daphna whispered, “the ones looking for the Golden book—it’s called The Book of Creation.”

  “But who are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Kill them,” Red Mask said.

  The five Colors, standing in the center of the chamber, turned to face the Blue Masks, who approached them now from three sides with swords drawn. The Colors did not draw back in the least, nor show the slightest trace of fear.

  The twins drew back. Dexter pulled Nora with him. She was once again completely absent to the proceedings.

  “I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re dealing with here,” said Ms. White, turning back toward the throne. “It would be best for you to let us take the twins. Otherwise,” she added, “very soon there may be no one for you to rule.”

  “We have no interest in harming you,” added Mr. Black.

  Red Mask nodded, after which all the Blue Masks set their swords on the floor.

  Dex and Daphna exchanged hopeful glances now. Were they surrendering? But then the Blue Masks reached under their robes and pulled out daggers like the one their leader held, but theirs all dripped with some kind of liquid.

  “Darkness,” Ms. White told Red Mask, “is descending, as you surely—”

  One of the Blue Masks leapt at her. She made no effort to evade him or the dripping dagger he plunged into her heart.

  Ms. White fell to her knees, clutching at the dagger’s handle, her face contorted with shock. She screamed something like, “Keres!”

  There was a burst of light, and then she was gone.

  Daphna’s eyes went wide. The air smelled like—tarragon.

  This was clearly not what the Colors expected. Appalled, the twins watched the others leap away, though leap scarcely described their movement. They leapt completely over the Blue Masks, as if thrown by trampolines. Ms. Green landed on the wall, then ran across it toward the doorway, hissing. She bared a mouthful of frightening teeth and attacked the guard who was blocking the exit by simply driving him into the floor. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s bones were crushed, but she’d fallen on his dagger. There was another scream and another burst of light.

  Ms. Green was gone now, too.

  What followed was awful to behold. Ms. Gold, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Black attacked the Blue Masks with a feral rage, snarling and spitting like wild animals, leaping to avoid daggers and crushing any body part they could get hold of. They got hold off many, snapping necks and spines like twigs. But in the scrum, Ms. Gold and Mr. Grey were both stabbed. With two bursts of light, they were gone.

  The twins looked around for Mr. Black. He was on the floor, face down next to the podium, writhing in pain. There was only one Blue Mask left alive, and he stood over the body.

  “Let him go!” Daphna cried. “We’ll stay with you! Let him go!”

  “I scraped him,” the last Blue Mask panted, holding his dripping dagger up.

  “Show us his back,” Red Mask said, still ensconced on his throne. He seemed not to have moved at all.

  The Blue Mask leaned down, but Mr. Black suddenly jumped to his feet and crushed his throat. But the scrape had been enough.

  There was one last burst of light.

  CHAPTER 40

  the mask

  “I would like to know what else you’ve learned about this book,” Red Mask said in his horrid android voice. He had still not moved, and he sounded not the least bit put out by the fact that the chamber was now empty but for the four of them and a few dead bodies. “If you can provide me with information I deem valuable,” he said, “I will consider letting you live.”

  “You don’t want to erase us,” Dexter warned. “Trust me. We go, you go. Everyone goes.”

  Evidently unimpressed, Red Mask turned his attention to Nora. “You, girl,” he said, “may leave. Tell your father his worst fears have come to fruition. Tell him to spread the word.”

  “We’re not lying,” Daphna put in. Her heart was threatening to implode in her chest. “It’s a long story. Our ribs—there were thirty—”

  “Go!” Red Mask ordered Nora. “Right now!”

  Nora did not go. Dexter assumed she hadn’t heard, that she still wasn’t mentally
present, but he saw now that her eyes were open and clear. She was staring directly at Red Mask.

  With no warning, she began walking toward the throne.

  “Nora, don’t!” Dex cried, but she ignored him.

  “What’s she doing?” Daphna whispered.

  “I’m warning you,” Red Mask hissed. He set his dagger on the page.

  But Nora did not stop approaching.

  “I’M WARNING YOU!”

  “Nora!” the twins both cried.

  She was right in front of Red Mask now, but rather than scrape her name off the page, he clutched the book to his chest as if to prevent her from taking it away from him. Dex and Daphna looked on, confused and afraid.

  Instead of reaching for the book, Nora reached for the red mask and simply pulled it off its owner’s face.

  CHAPTER 41

  the classic deception (part ii)

  The twins could not believe their eyes.

  “Why, Daddy?” Nora pled. “Why?”

  The pastor’s face, at first horrified, twisted up.

  “I tried to spare you this!” Jons cried. He shoved Nora back, but wailed in pain as he did so.

  “His back!” Dexter cried. “That’s why he never got up!” Finally over the shock, he ran to help. Daphna was right behind him.

  Jons had the book open on his lap again, but before he could get the blade to the page, Nora lunged at him and grabbed his arm.

  The injured pastor cried out in pain as he struggled with his daughter.

  “Damn you!” Jons roared.

  Nora wrenched his arm off the book, but he wrenched it back.

  Dex and Daphna reached the throne, but before they could decide how to help, the pastor’s arm, with Nora still gripping it, swept crazily over the page.

  An instant later, both Nora and her father were gone.

  CHAPTER 42

  of course

  “Noooo!” Dex wailed, spinning round, scanning the room as if Nora had suddenly decided to play hide-and-seek among the corpses on the floor. “Please, no!”

  “Oh, God, Dex,” Daphna said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! But wait! It sounded like Mr. Brown thought if we wrote someone’s name back in, we might be able to bring them back!”

  Dexter snatched up The Book of the Living, which was sitting harmlessly on the throne.

  “Let’s do it then!” he cried. But now he was running around, unsure of where to go or what exactly to do.

  “But wait!” Daphna said again, stopping him when he came back to the throne. “We need to talk this through.” She took the book and opened it between them. “It’s okay,” she promised. “We have ten days to figure out how to do it right. Everything’s going to be okay. And if we can’t figure it out, that will be okay, too, because we’re going to find The Book of Creation—It can do anything! Anything! It’s going to fix everything—for everybody.”

  Yes, Dex thought, looking at the names rising and sinking on the page like slow breaths, they’d be swift, but not hasty. They’d do it right. Everything was going to be okay. Nora was going to be okay.

  “Well, well, well,” someone said.

  Jolted, Daphna dropped the book.

  “We meet, as they say, once again.”

  The twins spun round to face the exit. The Secret Keeper stood on the fallen door. He was, of course, pointing a gun at them.

  CHAPTER 43

  reunion (part i)

  “This is The Book of the Living,” Dex said, snatching the book up from the floor. He grabbed the pastor’s dagger, too. “Your name is here,” he added. “I’ll scrape it off if you don’t put down that gun.”

  “You’ve been looking for a way to Heaven,” Daphna added. “We’re going to send you there if you don’t put the gun on the floor and back away. Do it now!”

  “The Book of the Living?” the Secret Keeper replied, quickly surveying the macabre scene in the chamber. “So that’s what they found.” Then he looked pointedly back at Daphna and said, “Swords make much less noise, but I’d trust this old man’s ability to pull the trigger before your brother can manage to erase me. I understand you have some vision problems, Dexter? Look at him squinting at the thing like it’s a mile away. Shall we have a test?”

  Daphna knew it would be no contest. And so did Dex. He looked up at the Secret Keeper.

  “Close the book,” the man ordered, taking a few steps into the chamber. “Now.”

  Sighing bitterly, Dex closed it.

  “Good. Very good. Now put it down.”

  Reluctantly, Dex set the book down on the throne.

  “Now, you back away.”

  When the twins did as they were told, the Secret Keeper approached the throne. Rather than pick the book up, he flipped it open with his gun. A quick glance at the exposed pages was enough to make his pupils dilate. He flipped it closed again.

  “What will you do with it?” Daphna asked. “Kill more people?”

  The Secret Keeper regarded Daphna a moment, then said, “You misunderstand my job completely.”

  “Is that so?” Daphna sneered. She wanted to make him talk so she could think of how to get the book away from him. She knew Dexter was thinking about it, too, though he was just staring at the book.

  “My job is to help people believe,” the Secret Keeper explained. “I seek any and all avenues toward that end. This book,” he added, pointing the gun at it for a moment, “this book that contains life itself—God has delivered it to us so that we can at last enforce His will on Earth.”

  “But he didn’t deliver it to you!” Daphna cried. “And that’s exactly what He doesn’t want!”

  “Than why, my child, do I have it?”

  Daphna couldn’t think of a response to that.

  Dexter could.

  “You don’t!” he suddenly cried, leaping forward, swinging the dagger he never put down. But he did not leap at the Secret Keeper, who was consequently more surprised than defensive. Before he could properly react, Dexter had driven the blade deep into The Book of the Living.

  Black ink gushed like blood from the pages and cascaded down the front of the throne.

  “No!” the Secret Keeper cried. “You fool!” He rushed to the book.

  Dex and Daphna sprinted for the door. Bullets whizzed past their heads as they scrambled out of the chamber and down the hall.

  “What are you doing?” Dex cried. Daphna was hunched over, scrutinizing the floor as she ran.

  “Dirt!” she explained, suddenly turning left into a dimly lit passageway. “The Colors were wiping it off their clothes!”

  Dex followed as Daphna led them down several narrow hallways and into and out of a series of storage rooms. She finally stopped in an entirely unfinished space. The walls were stone. The floor was dirt.

  “There!” Daphna cried. On the far wall was the mouth of a tunnel, ringed with large rocks.

  They could still hear the Secret Keeper howling as they rushed into it.

  CHAPTER 44

  one more thing

  As Daphna had been hoping, scooters were lined up against the tunnel wall.

  “Yes!” Dex said, grabbing one. He rolled it into the light coming from the museum. The Secret Keeper was raging from not too far away, looking for them.

  “The names are gone!” he roared. “You’ve destroyed it!”

  “Let’s go!” Dex was already on the scooter.

  Bang! A bullet hit the wall behind the twins, showering them with dirt and debris.

  Daphna leapt on the deck behind her brother, who had it running.

  “That way!” she cried.

  Dexter hit the gas, and they lurched forward.

  Bang! Another bullet whizzed by in the dark. They took a slow turn, then another, so the next bullet came nowhere near them.

  “You cannot hope to hide from me!” the Secret Keeper wailed. “You cannot possibly hope—!” But his voice was already fading.

  Dex took a few more slow turns, drove for a while down a long straightawa
y, then turned again a number of times. Daphna strained her ears. It didn’t sound like another motor had started up. It seemed the Secret Keeper wasn’t going to try to drive a scooter. Just in case, they drove on a while longer until Daphna felt there was no chance he could have followed them even if he’d tried.

  “Pull over!” she whispered loudly into Dex’s ear. He did, and the two of them stepped off the scooter.

  The twins looked up and down the tunnel they were in. It was deserted. They cut the engine but left the headlight on.

  “Dex,” Daphna said.

  “I couldn’t let him have it. He’d’ve been worse than the Masons. We’ll just find the Golden book and fix everything. Like you said.”

  Daphna shook her head, amazed. “I’m—I’m just—I’m not sure I could’ve—How did you know that would work? Stabbing it, I mean?”

  “I didn’t,” Dex admitted. “But it seemed kind of like it was breathing when I looked at it. Then he said it contained life, so I just kind of—I don’t know, to tell you the truth.”

  “Oh,” Daphna said, a bit alarmed. “But what if killing it killed everyone in it?”

  “Ah,” Dexter said back, now a bit alarmed, himself. “That would have been bad. I didn’t think of that.”

  Daphna sighed. She almost laughed. But she didn’t.

  “Heaven!” Dex cried. “Did you go?”

  “Mr. Brown—” Daphna told him, returning to the many crises still at hand, “He’s with those—Mr. G’s group—He’s their leader, I guess. I thought they were regular people! He had a doctor kill Quinn, just for a few moments—We were just down the street—to send him to Purgatory, the realm between this world and Heaven. That’s where he said he thinks the Golden book—The Book of Creation—is hidden. I was going to do it, but Quinn—He—he went to Heaven, but he’s in a coma now. They came to the museum to find us so they could try again with one of us!”