Book of Secrets
Page 26
"What?" I shouted. "Don't any of you guys go to the movies? You're supposed to explain all of this stuff before you kill the hero!"
A man in a blue pinstripe suit stepped forward from the back of the group, one of the ones who'd been at the auction. He was the one I recognized from the business pages, and now I remembered who he was. Billionaire entrepreneur and industrialist, second only to Gates and Jobs as one of the most influential figures in the world of computers. What was the name of the company he ran, again?
"We are the secret lords of the earth," he started, in the voice I remembered from the television spots. The company name started with an L. "We are the keepers of the hidden ways, who rule the rest of mankind from the shadows. We are the trunk from which branched the Freemasons, the Golden Dawn, the masters of Thule who became the Nazis, and every other society of secret mankind has known. We are the bearers of the torch, and the followers of the Lightbringer, the sacred cult of…"
"Lucetech!" I said out loud, snapping my fingers, the name finally coming to me.
The guy in the blue pinstripe suit stumbled for a moment, losing his place in his speech.
"Um, yes," he finally answered. "I was about to say the Cult of Lucetius, but Lucetech is one of our legitimate faces of business."
"Not so legitimate that it doesn't stoop to paying three-time losers like Marconi in cash and then killing him when he loses the goods, though, eh?" I jibed.
"This is pointless," Rahab shouted, gesturing with his pistol. "The secrets of the silver disk are ours by birthright, and no one but us will have them."
"The book itself is the lost history of our order," shouted back the blue pinstripe suit, "and the Sefer Raziel our key to absolute power. We have searched for it too many centuries to give it up now!"
Tensions were rising, and there was a symphony of hammers being pulled back and clips being slammed into place. This was not turning out quite as I'd hoped.
"No, I think not," said a familiar voice behind me, and everyone froze like a statue. I turned in my seat, and saw a tall man in a trench coat, with a wide black hat shading his face. I followed him with my gaze as he walked around the bench and in the midst of the firing range, and realized that no one else had budged an inch. They were literally frozen in place.
"You are all disappointments to me, to be honest," the man said, turning from the bigwigs of Lucetius to the jihad-happy Children of Dawn. "None of you are what I had hoped. To think of the potential wasted, the good you might have done."
The man raised his hand and snapped his fingers, and the pistols and guns disappeared in a flash. He snapped them again, and the two groups, now disarmed, were again free to move. None of them, though, seemed able to speak.
He turned to me, taking his hat from his head, and smiled.
"You'll forgive me these little dramatic flourishes, Mr. Finch," he said, "but I find that I have become rather melodramatic in my old age."
I knew him at once. I'd just spent countless centuries with him in the vision of the disk and talked to his image for some time after that. He was the original, the Messenger of Secrets. He was Raziel.
The Children of Dawn were getting nervous, but acting outraged to hide it. The Lucetius folks on the other side were just baffled, but doing a pretty good impression of furious all on their own. Me, I was just bewildered.
"The usefulness of the key to secrets has passed, I'm afraid," he said, addressing me. "In the dawn of man's history it served its purpose, but at this stage of development man cannot help but find ways to pervert any tool that comes into his hands, turning it to selfish ends. Men no longer need crutches, I would think, their free will inborn now as a result of the good works of those well meaning past generations. We could put it to a test, though. Yes, a test would suit perfectly."
He been talking so casually, calmly pacing back and forth, that I had almost forgotten the serious mess I'd very nearly found myself buried under. The silently mouthed protests of the groups to the left and right told me they weren't too happy with the way things were shaping up, but their inability to do anything about it meant I wasn't too worried.
It had been quiet for sometime when I realized that Raziel, the angel in the trench coat, was standing patiently in front of me, as though waiting for me to speak.
"Um, okay?" I said weakly.
"Excellent," the angel answered, gripping his hat with both hands. "Then the test is this: To whom, Spencer Finch, will you give the book? Or will you keep it for yourself?"
I looked at him blankly for a long while, then looked first to the group of businessmen and politicians to my left, then to the group of near immortal beings to my right, and finally to the Sears bag sitting heavily on my lap.
I thought about it for a long while and couldn't come up with an answer.
"You know," I finally said, my hands resting on the shopping bag, "this thing seemed to be more trouble than its worth. These jokers…" I waved an arm at the two groups, "are just looking out for themselves, and there's every chance that whoever doesn't get it is going to come gunning for me. Hell, whoever gets it is probably going to come gunning for me, just for the sake of form. And if I keep it… well, I've taken that E-ticket ride once, thank you very much, and that was enough for me. Any other secrets or mysteries in my life can stay mysterious for all I care."
I stood up, the shopping bag gripped tight.
"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Raziel Angel Guy, I'd rather give it back to you. It is kinda yours after all, isn't it?"
The Lucetius folks and the Children of Dawn were none too pleased to hear that. A couple of them, tired of playing the silent majority, decided to make their point physically, and rushed towards me, bloody murder in their eyes. The angel just snapped his fingers again, shrugging at me apologetically for the excess, and everyone was frozen again in their spots.
"You would give it to me?" Raziel asked, looking at me and ignoring the silent screams of the groups to either side. "And sacrifice the possibility for untold knowledge, or for undreamt power or wealth? I'm sure if you were to keep it, there are many who would pay well to touch that disk just once, just for an instant."
"Yeah," I said, "but I guess that's a risk I'll have to take. Hell, it's only money."
Raziel nodded slowly, and walking forward carefully took the shopping bag from my hands. He opened it up and, reaching in, pulled out the book for everyone to see.
"This," he said, "is mine." He waved a hand over the silver disk, which popped out of the leather cover and into his hand without ever crossing through the intervening space. The cover was left smooth and unmarred, as though it had always looked that way.
Like a stage magician, Raziel waved the hand holding the silver disk once, and when the hand came to rest the disk was gone. Sent back, I guessed, to the Otherworld, or to the Void, or wherever.
"This," Raziel continued, holding up the book itself, "is yours, I should think." He handed it back to me.
"What?" I said. "Why?"
"Because only your family has continued the work begun by the sons of the first man, generations ago. Only your family, your forebears and their forebears before them have continued to struggle against oppression in all its forms, and to work towards the free and untainted existence of their fellow man."
"The Black Hand," I whispered.
"Yes," Raziel answered, nodding. "Unlike these sad dregs," he waved a hand at those to either side, "your family, with no hope of personal gain, not even knowing the true heritage of their calling, has struggled century after century for their brothers. Even you, in your way, continued the struggle."
"Um, wow," I said, back in high school cheerleader mode, unable to form a complete sentence.
"Keep the book," Raziel continued, "and these will not harm you." He waved his arm, and the two groups disappeared, like their pistols had just a few moments ago. "They are back in their appointed places and will not trouble you again. Keep the book, and honor the memory of your forebears."
Raziel put the hat back on his head and turned to walk away.
"Someday," he said, as an afterthought, "you will have to come and see my home, come and see the Otherworld. I've brought others of your kind there over the generations, children in distress, lost souls with nowhere else to turn. Most choose eventually to return here, to your world, but some have stayed on and made their homes there. In your search for a better world, I think you would be strengthened to see that one does exist, at least somewhere."
"Um, okay," I answered, giving a foolish little wave. I felt as though I'd just been invited over for dinner by Elvis Presley, or maybe Gandhi, and wasn't quite sure how to respond.
"I'll leave you now," Raziel finished, "as I can see you're much in need of rest. But as I told you last week, I am most sorry to hear of your loss. My condolences."
With that he turned, took three steps away, and disappeared.
I was left standing in the Alamo Plaza, the sun beginning to set, the secret history of humanity clutched to my chest and an idiotic expression on my face.
Dazed as I was, I managed to make it back to the rental car, something so mundane that after the events of the past few hours it seemed extraordinarily normal in comparison. I carefully placed the book into the cardboard box of my grandfather's things and drove away.
On my way out of town, I stopped by the house on Crescent Row to see Maria. She was happy to see me, and I was just glad to see someone familiar and sane. We shared a small meal together in the kitchen, talking nonstop about the past, about me and my brother, about the years we spent in the house, and about my grandfather. We talked quite a bit about my grandfather, what the last few years had been like for him, how they had changed him in quiet little ways, and how he had finally gone to his rest. He had died quietly, Maria told me, fully dressed in suit and tie and sitting in his chair in the study, as though he was ready to go out for the night. He had faced death ready and willing, she said, all of his affairs in order, all of his things packed and organized.
She asked me about the two things I'd received from him, the box and the case. She'd had no idea what was in them, just that they were treasured by the old man, and that his final wish was that I have them. I think Maria was more than a little disappointed that I hadn't made the funeral, but she didn't mention it, and when I finally apologized, awkwardly and sincere, her eyes brimmed with tears and she hugged me until I almost passed out from lack of breath.
I told her a little about the cardboard box and its content, leaving out the more confusing details, and all of the craziness of the past few days. Maria had always been a strong woman, and still was, but the chances that she'd believe anything I had to tell her about what I'd learned were nil, and I didn't want her thinking the old man had gone crazy, or that I had lost my mind on drugs.
The wooden case, I told her, I had been unable to open, as I had received it locked and without the key. Maria jumped from her chair immediately and, waving me to follow, raced through the house to the study. I trailed along behind, taking in the smells of the old house, pausing only at the door to the study.
It was exactly as I'd remembered from all those years before. The papers were gone now and the books all up on the shelves, but the prints and paintings still hung the walls and the leather chair still sat behind the huge wooden desk, just as the old man had left it.
Maria was behind the desk, rummaging in the drawers, but I found I was reluctant to enter the room. It felt as though I'd be stepping on someone's grave to do so, tampering with the dead. I hung back at the door, waiting for her to finish.
She came up smiling, a small iron key in her hand, and bounced back to where I stood. Of course, I realized, the old man would always have kept a spare.
Finally, it was time for Maria to go of to bed and time for me to head back home. We said our tearful goodbye at the back door, Maria making me promise to visit again, and I answered with all sincerity that I would as soon as I could. I got back in the car and drove the hour north to home.
Back in Austin I found things just as I'd left them a few days before. Hot, dark, and empty of food. I left the cardboard box with the book and my grandfather's things by the door, tossed my suitcase over onto the couch, and headed for the kitchen. There, on the table where I'd left it, was the wooden case, the other half of my inheritance, the remainder of my grandfather's life's work. Pulling the iron key from my pocket, I sat down at the table and pulled the case over in front of me.
The key turned easily in the lock, oiled to perfection, which hardly surprised me. My grandfather always insisted everything in the house be in perfect working order, no matter how old. Or how young, for that matter, considering how he had worked my brother and me. But that was long ago, and all sins forgotten.
I hesitated before opening the case, wondering what might be inside and almost afraid to find out. Finally, curiosity got the better of me, and I carefully lifted the lid up.
There, in precisely shaped indentions on black velvet, sat twin .45 Colt automatics, with a small envelope resting on top. The pistols, like the lock, looked oiled and flawless, as new as they'd looked fifty years before. Fifty years before, I realized, when my grandfather had used them, fighting crime and injustice under the hood of the Black Hand. It was all true, every word of it.
With shaking hands, I lifted up the envelope and managed to get it open. There was a single sheet of parchment paper inside, the close lines of my grandfather's hand filling one page.
To my beloved grandson, Spencer Tracy Finch,
These were to have been my gift to you on the occasion of your graduation from high school and entry into the world of adults. I had anticipated, and hoped, that you would choose to follow in my footsteps, and in the footsteps of my ancestors, and take up the mantle of the Black Hand. If you have opened this article prior to your other inheritance, the contents of that box should adequately explain what I mean, and what significance that name has had for our family.
I have said that I had hoped you would follow in my footsteps, and I am a foolish enough old man that when you chose your own road in life I allowed myself to feel slighted by it. To feel that you had somehow betrayed me. I apologize for that, and regret now that we have not been closer over the years. However, I have always kept a watchful eye on your progress, both those years you spent with the thief in Louisiana (whom I know all too well; ask him about San Francisco in the Spring of 1949), and your later efforts as a journalist throughout these United States. I want you to know that I could not have been prouder of you, even had you taken on the mantle I wore so many years ago. Through your actions, by following the path of your choosing, you have proven to me that you are upholding, in your own way, the high ideals to which our family has always dedicated itself, and that the Taylor family line is proudly carried forward in you.
I regret, my grandson, that I am not able to tell you these things myself, but I am an old man, too set in my ways, and not long for this world. I will be gone by the time you read these words, so I ask only this. Continue to strive, always strive, for what is good and best, and remember me.
Yours, Richmond Taylor, the Black Hand
It was some time later that I put the paper down, and sometime after that when I climbed out of the chair and crossed the room. My most cherished angers, my long-held petty grievances, had all been taken from me, and in their place was an overwhelming feeling of loss. And, inexplicably, of satisfaction and accomplishment. I was confused, but then realized that for the first time in a long time, if not ever, I was proud of myself. The validation from my grandfather I had never thought I wanted or needed, when finally given, suddenly put my whole life in another perspective.
I stood thinking for a long while, standing still in the kitchen, before I went back to the living room to get the cardboard box. Returning to the kitchen, I laid out the book I had been given by the angel, and the papers of my grandfat
her, and started to work.
I turned to the blank pages in the back of the book, where the last member of the Cult of the Lightbringer had left off, before the book had been lost to pirates and found by my seafaring greatgrandmother many times removed. The history of the Order of the Black Hand ended there, and that's where I would begin. The papers and articles I would staple in as I went.
I picked up my pen, and wrote, "My brother and I once met at a bar…"
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Perhaps more than any of my other books, this one in particular would not have been possible without the love, support, and encouragement of my wife, partner, and friend, Allison Baker.
I am also endlessly grateful to Mark Finn, Matthew Sturges, and Bill Willingham, who helped bring this story into focus.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR