The Book of All Things

by David Michael Slater

  “Really?” Durante asked. “Telepathy?” He thought a moment.

  “No,” he concluded, “Identity Diffusion.” Then he said, “Anyway, you’ll probably never know what your sister did.”

  Dex didn’t understand, but only for a moment. Durante clicked a button, after which the air coming through the floor of the display case suddenly ceased to flow.

  CHAPTER 21

  soon

  Evelyn released Daphna. Her mother was there now, too. The women Daphna loved most in the world turned her toward the lives outside the light.

  Daphna didn’t want to see anything, but she saw crowds on the streets of some city in a virtual riot—Seattle? There were police barricades holding people back at one large building. Guns were being aimed at it, a reproduction of a medieval castle it seemed. Daphna had seen it somewhere before, on television maybe. Men on the walls were aiming guns at the men with guns on the street. It was all so stupid, so pointless. None of it concerned her in the least. Like all things, this nonsense would pass.

  Daphna tried to turn away, but her mothers would not let her.

  Her view passed directly through the castle walls, then through the castle floor. She was looking at a dismal basement of some kind, walled in with metal. The floor was strewn with red velvet ropes, like stripes of spilled blood.

  Daphna tried again to turn away. Again she was prevented.

  Then she saw, at the end of the strange room, a bank of computers. There was a large man standing next to them. Virgil Durante.

  She did not care.

  The billionaire seemed to be waiting. He was standing still, looking at something in a glass case. She saw the case. A body was lying in it.

  It was Dexter. He was struggling to breathe.

  You’ll be home soon, she thought.

  CHAPTER 22

  once and for all

  Dexter gasped for breath—it happened so quickly—but he heard his sister’s voice. You’ll be home soon, it said.

  But the living light he’d been swathed in had faded entirely now. He did not want to die.

  Daphna! he thought. Daphna! The talisman—the third talisman is here!

  Daphna heard her brother. She felt for him, but she was anxious for them to be together again. They would be with people who loved them. Forever. They would be free from the wickedness of the world, once and for all.

  CHAPTER 23

  some kind of incredible storm

  Dex knew his life was ebbing away.

  “I see,” he heard Durante say. “Hold your positions. Go to night vision. I’ll pull it up.”

  On his back, Dex turned to the screen. It seemed to have gone black, but perhaps his vision was fading out. Durante clicked a button and the sound came on.

  “Bats!” a reporter cried. “And now it’s gone totally dark! Some kind of incredible storm!” Her voice was hardly audible over deafening winds, and then it was lost completely to the crowd, which began to scream under the pall of a sudden, evil night.

  And then the shooting began.

  CHAPTER 24

  eyes

  As a little girl, Daphna could fend off her nighttime fears with the simple act of pulling her blanket up over her head in bed. The best she could manage now was to clap hands over her eyes. She would leave them there forever if need be. They couldn’t make her look.

  For a moment, Daphna saw nothing.

  But in that nothing, she saw it. She saw it in the darkness behind her hands, in the darkness behind her eyes—in the darkness that shrouded her secret soul.

  The Eye.

  She saw the Eye, the great, eternal Eye.

  Daphna lowered her hands, opened her eyes, and dove out of the light.

  CHAPTER 25

  a magician’s assistant

  “Dex!”

  Dexter heard his sister’s voice. He’d joined her at last. His burdens were finally set down. Things would be okay now. They’d be perfect now. He’d be perfect now.

  “Dex!”

  No, Daphna was there, in the case. She had the Aleph open and was trying to pull him into the light, but she had no strength. She collapsed next to him. The Aleph fell from her hand.

  There was a hiss and Dexter, whether he wanted to or not, sucked in a great gulp of air.

  “Events, as the say,” Durante said, “are coming to a head.”

  Daphna managed to look up at Virgil Durante. He was standing directly in front of the case staring at the Aleph.

  “I want the portal,” he said, seemingly unperturbed by the sound of gunfire coming from the screen. “Right now,” he snapped.

  Durante stepped forward, but then stopped. “What kind of breach?” he shouted. He turned and rushed back to his computers.

  Dexter, revived, sat up. He already had some seeds out of his pocket and began to put them into Daphna’s mouth. She chewed and swallowed slowly.

  “The pipes?” Durante hollered. He was frantically hitting buttons “They couldn’t possibly get in that way!”

  The electricity flickered, then went out.

  The air stopped again.

  “Hold on everyone,” Durante ordered. “We knew they’d cut the power.” A moment later, before the twins could properly panic, emergency generators kicked in. Everything lit up again. Air flowed.

  An ominous creaking and rumbling suddenly sounded from the pipes overhead. Durante and twins scanned them, trying to locate the source. But the sound seemed to be traveling.

  A skinny pipe snapped and started to spray water in all directions. Another followed, then several more.

  “It’s Lilit!” Dex shouted.

  Daphna, back to life, was trying again to drag her brother into the light.

  “Oh, no,” she said, finally seeing the shackle.

  Durante worked his panels quickly and the water turned off.

  “They’re attacking our plumbing,” he said. “Useless, and not entirely unexpected.”

  Another ominous creek sounded. One of the largest pipes jolted severely.

  A smell began to permeate the room, a pestilential smell.

  “It’s Lilit!” Dex wailed.

  “I think not,” Durante replied. “But just in case—” He stomped his right boot down hard on its heel and there was a click. Out from the toe shot the tip of a blade.

  No, not a blade—the talisman! That’s why he wasn’t afraid of luring Lilit here!

  Durante looked up at the sudden sound of metal tearing from metal. The smaller pipes were bursting all over the ceiling now. The largest one was shaking drastically right above him. He turned and grabbed the Book of Maps, but no sooner did he have it, a gaping hole appeared over his head. The mountain of a man was paralyzed as he watched it expand. He didn’t move a muscle, even when, in a blast of fetid mist and foaming water, a gargantuan beast descended from the pipe, a massive white snake with red eyes aflame, its maw stretched wide.

  Durante screamed.

  The twins screamed.

  The thing fell on the billionaire like a bag swept down over a magician’s assistant.

  The man was simply gone.

  CHAPTER 26

  gripping

  Suddenly freezing in their cage, Dexter and Daphna sat stupefied by what they’d just seen. The snake was grotesquely transparent—thousands of interlaced veins and arteries stood out crimson and blue below its skin like blood running through rivulets under ice. It crashed to the floor, smashing half of Durante’s workstation with its tail. The thing had to be at least twenty-five feet long and as wide around as a redwood tree.

  It rose up and turned its head side to side, scanning slowly. Then it slithered over directly in front of the twins and proceeded to probe them with its blood-red eyes.

  The thing that spoke to Eve in Eden was there, examining Dexter and Daphna Wax.

  Daphna grabbed the chain fastened to her brother’s ankle and began jerking at it wildly. Whatever peace had been afforded her in the light stood no chance against this thing. Her aura was gon
e. Terror was all she knew.

  “Go!” Dex screamed. “Just go!”

  “No!”

  The snake leaned its head slowly in toward the glass. It opened its mouth as if to speak, but then its head suddenly snapped back. Its eyes rolled revoltingly far back into its head as something punctured its throat, something metal, from the inside.

  The talisman!

  Blood sprayed the glass in front of the twins’ faces. They watched it bubble and drip.

  Durante had somehow kicked the snake. Dex and Daphna thought they heard his last gurgling howl as it crashed over backwards onto the floor.

  “Yes!” the twins cried, comprehending at last what had happened. They hugged.

  There was tapping on the glass.

  The twins let go and looked.

  Lilit was standing there, right in front of the blood-dripping glass, which seemed to be buckling. He was robed in white. His head was dipped slightly, but he was looking forward, revealing only the white slits of his eyes under his white hood.

  The sound of gunfire suddenly grew much louder, and it was obvious why. It wasn’t coming from the video screen, which revealed squadrons of armed police storming the castle.

  Lilit did not seem concerned. He pushed the hood down, letting free the swarming serpents of snow-white hair around his perfect, pale face, which was spattered with blood. There, sticking directly out of his throat, was Durante’s talisman. Lilit simply pulled it out and cast it aside, where it glowed red, then disintegrated. The wound was gone when the twins looked back.

  Dex turned to his sister, nearly faint with fear. She was on her knees, shaking uncontrollably. Behind her back she held a talisman—the third talisman? Daphna was gripping it so hard her hand was bleeding.

  You got it! Dex thought. How? But then he knew. You took it from Azir! When he looked into the Aleph! Daphna didn’t respond, but he thought to her again anyway. One more will kill it! Wait ‘till you’re sure!

  The glass was turning blurry, and now it simply fell away, liquefied.

  Lilit stood facing them, its eyes honed in on the little book now in Daphna’s other shaking hand. Then he looked at the trees bearing books on their T-shirts. He grinned, exposing those hellish teeth, and then he laughed that hellish laugh.

  There was a movement too swift for the twins to see, but suddenly the thing had them each by the hair. But Lilit did not pull them out of the case. Instead it seemed to be feeling for a better grip on their skulls. Perhaps it saw the shackle. The sensation of his hands and nails on their scalps was appalling. They were like acid, or dry ice.

  “Now!” Dex screamed.

  But at that moment, there was an explosion. Curling strips of steel burst from the far wall where the entrance had been. Now there was a smoking hole there.

  “Freeze!” a voice boomed through the chamber. Then, “My God! What is that?”

  Lilit had spun round, and now, somehow, he was the snake again, gigantic and looming in the smoke. The onrushing assault team stopped dead in its tracks.

  “How?” Dex screamed.

  But Daphna didn’t wait to wonder. With her bloody hand, she leaned out of the display case and jammed her talisman directly into the snake’s back.

  That scream again.

  That scream they heard in their bookshop, and in that cave, a blood-curdling, demonic shriek that seemed liable to liquefy their minds.

  The snake slammed to the floor on its face, hissing and screaming, thrashing in pain. The assault team dove for cover to avoid being crushed by the flailing monster. Dex and Daphna got a glimpse of the talisman glowing in the serpent’s back before it dissolved.

  “Freeze!” someone yelled again.

  “Dex, look!”

  The snake was gone. There was the sound of flapping, and then a blast of foul black wind passed through the hole in the wall.

  And then it was quiet.

  “It’s not dead!” Daphna cried. “Durante’s talisman didn’t work!”

  “Freeze!” came a voice one more time, now very close.

  The twins turned to see no less than fifty armed men. Every one was aiming a gun at them.

  “Okay!” a voice called out. “Okay!” It was Dr. Fludd. “I’ll take it from here!”

  CHAPTER 27

  more problems

  Daphna stuffed the Aleph into her pocket and climbed out of the case. A second later, something slammed her to the ground, which was slicked with water.

  Stunned and winded from landing on her back, Daphna opened her eyes. She could scarcely believe them. It was Dexter. The moment his shackle had been cut, he’d jumped her.

  Never, in all their years of mutual loathing, had either one laid so much as a finger on the other. Dex was on his knees over Daphna now, spitting and sputtering. “You were going to let me die!” he screamed. He raised a hand—a fist—but a man in riot gear grabbed it and ripped him off his sister.

  Daphna scrambled to her feet, blind with rage. She flew at her brother, who was now fully restrained. There was no thought, only bloodthirsty, animal frenzy. But when she had the chance to throw a wild punch to the side of his face, she didn’t take it. She couldn’t strike another human being. She was pulled away before she got the chance to reconsider.

  “Stop this at once!” Dr. Fludd roared. Both twins were held fast by strong arms. “Great,” she sighed. “This is all I need right now. We’ll take them out separately, I guess.”

  “No!” Daphna cried, panting wildly. Her hip felt bruised. Her hand was bleeding. She was trying not to throw up. “No!” she repeated. “We’re sorry. We fight a lot. It’s okay. Tell them it’s okay, Dexter.”

  Dex, still recovering his wind, nodded, though he would not meet his sister’s eyes. A crippling guilt fell on him like an anvil. He was going to punch his sister. In the face. “It’s okay,” he said. “No big deal.”

  Dr. Fludd seemed skeptical.

  “Fine,” she said. “But any more problems, and we’ll do this another way.”

  “No more problems,” Daphna promised. “It’s over.”

  “Follow me,” Dr. Fludd ordered, and the twins obeyed. Without looking at one another, they walked through the crowd of soldiers, most of whom were trying to figure out how the snake had somehow vanished into the large broken pipe. It was still leaking, but slowly now.

  The trio reached the spiraling stone stairs and followed them up and out of the castle’s basement. Then Dex and Daphna followed Dr. Fludd’s clicking heels through the museum to some kind of service entrance. The door led to an empty back street where an ambulance sat, idling.

  Dr. Fludd opened the rear doors and helped the twins climb in, after which she did the same. The siren was turned on, and they sped away via some route evidently cleared ahead of time.

  The first thing Dr. Fludd did was clean and wrap Daphna’s lacerated hand. Her remarkable sable hair was up in a bun, which gave her a warden-ish look. She didn’t speak the whole time, and neither did the twins, both of whom were trying to wipe the last fifteen minutes from their memories, while at the same time trying to understand why Durante’s talisman didn’t work and what that meant. Lilit could still manifest its male form, and there was no defense against him left. Maybe Durante had a phony talisman?

  “Thank you,” Dr. Fludd said when she finished. She looked at both Dexter and Daphna, who looked confused. “Thank you for cooperating,” she clarified. “You don’t know what this means to me. Please,” she said, “can you tell me what you know about how this started? Perhaps you think this is all somehow your fault. But we’re way past that now. I just need to know how Evelyn Idun got infected. I know I can develop a permanent cure if I can just learn how this all started.” She was trying to sound calm, but the desperation in her voice was plain as day.

  Neither twin spoke. The city whizzing by outside was the only sound.

  “Perhaps you think no one will believe you,” Dr. Fludd pressed. “Daphna, at your house, you said something, I think, about Lilit. Is th
ere any chance you were talking about Lilith, the little known character from the Garden of Eden story? Adam’s first—”

  “Yes!” Daphna cried. She couldn’t hold back any more. She had to tell someone the truth, even if it resulted in the usual unmitigated disaster.

  But Dr. Fludd started talking before she could open the floodgates. “We’ve made many attempts to research your family,” she said. “You have a very mysterious background. Was your father, perhaps, part of some kind of special religious group that liked to stay secret?”

  Dex and Daphna looked at each other. They couldn’t communicate by thought, but the look was enough. Dr. Fludd thought they might be cult members, or brainwashed drones.

  “No,” they both said.

  “You don’t believe in religious stories?” Daphna asked. “You used to study religion, didn’t you?”

  A pained look crossed Dr. Fludd’s face. “I believe,” she said, “that religious stories are of enormous importance to the world. Myths are the science of their time.”

  “Then—”

  “I also believe that the science of our time will one day explain them all.”

  So there was no point in telling the truth. Dr. Fludd would just try to interpret their ravings in rational terms.

  “Can you tell me why you mentioned Lilith, Daphna?”

  “No reason,” Daphna said, looking down, trying to control the urge to tell the whole story anyway. “I was reading about her, how she’s connected to diseases and things like that. I just got carried away.”

  “That’s all?

  “Yes, that’s all.”