Book of the Just

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  Mouse had never seen this mask, but she knew it all the same. Angelo had seen it in his dream. It was the mask she’d worn as she joined her father, who was doing terrible things to the people in the dream. But Angelo had been there in the dream, too.

  Mouse no longer cared about dreams or visions—they were all lies. Angelo was dead. And it was she, not her father, who meant to exact a terrible vengeance. She bent and picked up Ngara’s gift. This mask was terrifying. It might be helpful with Jack.

  “I made it for you. You are kurdaitcha now.” The old woman sank back onto her pillow, her energy spent. “Put it on.”

  Mouse slid the mask over her face. It fit perfectly.

  “Vengeance seeker. You have the bone still?”

  Mouse laid her hand against the bone shard at her thigh.

  “Do you know how to use it?”

  “Stab it in and yank it out.”

  Ngara shook her head. “It has the power of the old ones. Point it at those who have wronged you, and the bone will do the work.” Ngara closed her eyes. “Go be kurdaitcha.” Mouse walked out into the night, but she heard the old woman add, “Then you can be Mouse again.”

  Mouse stopped, her head half turned back and disfigured by the mask, her cloak swept out beside her. “Mouse is gone,” she whispered.

  But as she pulled the cloak around her again, she caught Ngara’s last words. “What is coming will come. You cannot run away from it.”

  Mouse went looking for the Bishop first. He and his Novus Rishi bore as much responsibility for what had happened at Lake Disappointment as anyone. She meant to kill them all, but she would save the Bishop for next to last. The penultimate. She wanted him to know she was coming for him. She wanted him to be afraid. The only person she wanted to be more afraid was the Reverend. He would be the last. Mouse meant to savor him.

  As she expected, the Bishop was still at the Vatican, but the nearly three years since she’d seen him last had not been kind. He looked old and broken. Night after night, she stalked him. He was always alone, walking the streets of Rome with his head down.

  She thought she’d have to wait weeks, maybe even months, before the Bishop led her to Jack’s mentor, the Rabbi. Mouse planned to use him to find Jack. But it was only her eighth night of hunting when the Bishop exited the offices at the back of the Vatican around nine to get dinner, as he had every night since Mouse had been watching him. Except this time, he was dressed in street clothes. His gray slacks and jacket and sweater vest put Mouse on edge—he looked like a ghost of himself, unfamiliar and strange, but he blended well with the rest of the Roman crowd. She wondered if that was the point, for the Bishop to be anonymous, unrecognizable. The thrill of expectation ran over Mouse’s skin.

  Something different was happening tonight.

  She followed him to a little coffee shop nearby. He sat at an outside table at the far end of the walk behind a row of parked scooters along the side of the street. A waiter approached and took his order. There were a few other groups at tables along the walk but none near the Bishop. A black Vespa zoomed past where Mouse stood in the dark of a tree in the green space across from and a little behind the coffee shop. The Vespa pulled a U-turn in front of oncoming traffic and zipped into an empty parking spot. A car horn blared.

  The rider, a tall man dressed in black, swung his leg over the Vespa and then reached up to take off his helmet. A wash of white hair cascaded down his shoulders.

  Jack Gray.

  Mouse moved a little farther back against the tree. This was unexpected.

  “You have anything?” the Bishop asked as Jack sat down opposite him.

  Jack shook his head but saved his explanation until after the waiter gave the Bishop his espresso and went back into the café. “There wasn’t enough blood left for a real spell,” Jack said softly. Mouse cocked her head, straining to hear with her unnatural senses. “And that was the last of it.”

  “We’ll have to find more, then.”

  “What’s the point? We’ve been looking for almost a year without a single sign from the locator spell. Because she’s dead!” A couple farther up the sidewalk turned to look as he raised his voice. He leaned toward the Bishop, now whispering. “She’s dead. They both are.”

  “She doesn’t die.”

  “I saw the gunfire. And the demons. No one could live through that.”

  “No one human.” The Bishop’s voice was heavy with grief.

  Jack took out a leather pouch and slid it across the table toward the Bishop. “Well, I’m done.”

  “What’s this?” The Bishop tugged at the pouch string and slid his thumb and forefinger into the opening. He pulled out a small sliver of stone covered with a painted eye.

  Mouse sucked in a breath at the tickle of power emanating from it. She had watched the portrait shard disappear in the swirl of salt and sand and had assumed that it had been consumed by the lake as the demons came and went. But Jack must have gone back for it. As the Bishop turned the stone, Mouse’s painted eye looked up at the hanging lights overhead. Jack sat back in his chair, his heart skipping.

  “If you find more of her blood, you’ll need this to power the spell.” Jack reached forward and pushed the Bishop’s hand down so the stone disappeared back into the pouch. “But you’re going to want to keep it sealed up when you’re not using it.”

  “Why?”

  “It messes with your head. But there’s salt in the pouch that—”

  “A protection spell, to counter the dark power? You are clever, Dr. Gray.”

  “The locator spell is on a piece of paper in the pouch, too. I’m sure you know how it works. Now, if you’ll just give me my money, I’ll let you get back to—”

  “No.”

  Jack leaned back, sighing. “Come on, old man. This is pointless. She’s dead. And I’m done with all this dark shit. I want a simple life, someplace sunny where I can forget what I’ve seen.”

  The Bishop took a sip of his espresso. Mouse braced herself against a press of memories: sitting across from Angelo while he did the same thing, making his espresso last until just the right moment, the final sip perfectly warm. She gripped the vengeance mask dangling from her fingers.

  “I thought she was dead once before.” The Bishop paused, and Mouse could see his jaw clench. He set his cup down on the table. “But Angelo taught me to have more faith.”

  “Well, I’m not a man of faith.”

  “You are also not a man with many resources.”

  “Which is why you need to give me my money.”

  “Let me see if I can find another sample of her blood. And we will try one more time, Dr. Gray.” The Bishop pushed the pouch back across the table.

  Jack just looked at it.

  “I can make it very much worth your while,” the Bishop said.

  “Not if the Reverend’s looking for her, too.”

  “I do not believe he is a man of faith, either, Dr. Gray. He seemed very angry at how things turned out at Lake Disappointment, very much like a man who had lost a highly coveted treasure. He thinks she’s gone.” The Bishop took out some cash and put it on the table beside his empty cup. “He blames you for that loss.”

  Jack pressed his lips together in a hard line, but his shoulders sagged. He knew he was beat. “So what do you want me to do now?”

  “Wait. I will see if I can find another sample.” He pushed back from the table and stood up. “I’ll be in touch in a couple of weeks. Goodnight, Dr. Gray.”

  The Bishop’s phone rang out as he walked away, a metallic crooning of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me.” Jack watched the old man cross the street, snatched the bag from the table, and then got up, moving back toward his Vespa.

  Mouse had crossed the street, too, and waited in the shadows against the building beyond the café lights, her cloak draped around her. She slipped the vengeance mask over her head and then took a single step forward. “Hello, Jack.”

  He spun around at his name, his eyes widening a
s he stared at the monstrous face. He jerked toward the Vespa, but Mouse had anticipated his move. She twisted her leg around his shin and yanked back, sending him down to the pavement as she grabbed his forearm with one hand and wrapped her cloak around him with the other.

  Mouse had only ever traveled through the dark planes alone. She’d underestimated the additional energy it would take to transport another person. She landed hard on the white marble floor of her room in her father’s abandoned house. Jack crumpled under his weight, and Mouse staggered backward into the wall.

  When Jack looked up through the curtain of hair hanging in his face, he screamed and scrambled back, banging into the table. He reached up and grabbed the corner, pulling himself up and twisting toward the door, already half running. Urine trickled in a thin line behind him.

  Mouse laughed. “Bathroom’s first door on the left.”

  He yanked open the door of Mouse’s room and ran out into the hall, trying to get away from her. He tried door after door, their metal handles slamming into the stone walls as he flung each one open only to find empty rooms with no windows and no way out. Mouse patiently followed him, her cloak skimming the glossy floors. She was still laughing at his panic, taking joy from his suffering as she thought of Angelo bleeding out in the salty soil at Lake Disappointment.

  Jack made his way through the labyrinthine house until he came to the family room. Mouse had prepared the place for him. Her father had cleared out most of the furnishings when they’d relocated to Austria, but Mouse had kept a couch and table, a lamp, a trashcan, and some stocked supplies. Jack ran to the other side of the couch, crouching as he tried to hide.

  Mouse’s boots clacked against the stone floor as she came near him.

  “Please, please, don’t . . .” he begged.

  Mouse let her laughter die away. She lowered herself onto the couch and crossed her legs. Jack folded in on himself, weeping.

  “Welcome to Hell, Jack.”

  He lifted his head to look at her, his face twisted in fear. “What are you?”

  Mouse knew she could make it quick for him—command him to give her the answers she needed and then kill him. But the new Mouse, abandoning the light and listening to the seductive call of her dark rage, wanted to see him suffer more than she wanted information. He deserved to suffer.

  His heart was beating so fast it was almost one long, continuous rushing. His pupils were dilated, and the stench of adrenaline and his soiled clothes saturated the air. Mouse had never seen someone die of fright. She watched him for a few more minutes, her head cocked in curiosity, and then she pulled the mask off. She needed Jack alive—for the moment.

  “Calm down or you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

  Jack sat up, his eyes moving from her shaved head down to her cold eyes. He shook his head. “You.” Disbelief mingled with fear on Jack’s face. “You’re dead.”

  “Not so much.” She reached around Jack to lay the mask on the table. She smirked when he flinched. “Stop crying and take a tissue.” She nodded to the box beside the mask on the table behind him. He reached his arm over his shoulder groping for it, but he wouldn’t take his eyes off Mouse.

  “For God’s sake, Jack!” She snaked her arm past his head, grabbed the tissues, and crammed them into his lap.

  Jack wiped at his face and nose. “The Bishop said—”

  “Yeah, he knows a thing or two. You’ve been looking for me?”

  “The Bishop wants—”

  Mouse’s arm shot forward again, this time grabbing the back of Jack’s head, twisting it toward the table and slamming it down on the stone surface. The bone and cartilage in his nose cracked and popped. Blood poured down his chin. It happened so fast that he didn’t have time to cry out.

  “Does it look like I care what the Bishop wants, Jack? We’re talking about what I want now.”

  Jack’s hands cradled his broken nose, blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Take another tissue and clean yourself up. I need you to tell me some things.” She waited as he wiped the blood from his face, then she picked up a couple of the used tissues and twisted them. “Here.” She jammed the tissue up his nostrils. “It’ll stop the bleeding and stabilize the bone,” she said, almost as if she couldn’t help it.

  Jack looked up at her, confused, like a lost boy. “What do you want?”

  Mouse leaned back on the couch. “I’m looking for someone, too. Well, some ones. And you seem to be good at finding things. It’s your knack, Jack.” She grinned.

  “I didn’t know what was going to happen when I found you. I swear, if I had, I wouldn’t—”

  “We’ll talk about all that later. I promise. But what I want to know right now is where I can find the men who were in the desert.”

  Jack sagged against the couch. “I can tell you where they came from, but I don’t know if they’re still there.”

  “That’ll do for now.”

  “There’s a compound out in Texas, a few miles outside of a ghost town called Rosenfeld. It’s one of the places where the Reverend trains his men.”

  “Heavily guarded?”

  “Probably, but I’ve never been there.” He pushed at one of the tissues hanging out of his nose.

  Mouse slapped her hands against her thighs and stood up. “Thank you, Jack.”

  “I can go now?”

  “No. I think you have more things to tell me. But I’m going to let you take care of your nose and get some rest.” She bent close to his head as he bowed it. “I’ve left you some food over there,” she pointed to boxes along the wall. “And bottled water. You’re free to explore, but as you saw, there’s nothing here. There’s no way out. Except me.”

  “When will you come back?”

  She chewed at her lip. “Not sure. I’ve got a bit more hunting to do.”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mouse shed her cloak in the shadowy light of her bedroom in the chalet at Innsbruck. As it slid from her shoulders, the façade of bitter braggadocio she’d put on for Jack also slipped away, leaving her face blank once more, her eyes cold and dead. She hung Ngara’s mask on a peg on the wall, unsheathed the bone shard strapped to her thigh, and took off the black clothes. She stood naked in the empty room, staring into the silent dark, waiting for instinct to tell her what to do next.

  After several minutes, she turned and picked up an old T-shirt from the foot of the bed. She pulled it over her head and climbed under the covers. The shirt had been Angelo’s. It didn’t smell like him anymore. She ran the worn fabric between her fingers as she listened to the soft sounds of her brother breathing in his room down the hall. Her father was pacing downstairs.

  In a few hours, it would be the middle of the night in Texas, and she would don the mask and cloak and bone once more and become the master hunter. But this was the moment of real danger for Mouse—the quiet of night when her mind was vulnerable and something still soft came creeping into her consciousness. She rolled over on her side and curled into a ball and imagined laying brick on brick as she walled up that softness and smothered it with her will.

  “Mouse?”

  She shot upright. She hadn’t heard him coming.

  “What’s wrong, Luc?”

  He’d been crying. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Just a dream?” Mouse had crafted protection spells around the border of Luc’s room, remembering her own childhood full of nightmares, real with demons who came in the dead of night to play their terrifying games. She would not let her little brother be tormented so.

  “I was falling.”

  “I see.”

  “And I—” He hid his face in his hands, crying again.

  “It’s okay, Luc. I know.” She’d already smelled the sharp twang of urine.

  “But I’m too big to do that.”

  “No one’s too big to get scared, and your body just did what’s natural when a
person gets scared. Okay?”

  He’d already stopped crying.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up and then you can sleep in here with me.”

  He smiled as she took his hand and led him to the bathroom.

  A few minutes later, he was curled against Mouse and sound asleep. He smelled like lavender soap and clean linen. His mouth hung open a little and his hand rested under his chin. As he sighed in his sleep, Mouse felt the soft thing tug at her once more. She tried to summon the discipline to shove it back into the dark, but she couldn’t, not while she was nestled against the rhythmic rise and fall of Luc’s chest, his rapid heartbeat fluttering so close it danced with her own.

  “I can’t play right now, Luc, I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “I want you to stay. I want you to play.” He stood at the threshold of her door, the smells of biscuits and bacon wafting in behind him.

  “Go eat your breakfast. I’ll be back soon, and we can play then.”

  “Not unless you tell me where you’re going, and why you’re wearing that mask. I don’t like it.”

  “I’m . . . playing a game with someone.”

  “You’re lying.” His head was cocked to the side.

  “Not exactly. It’s a very grown-up game, and I can’t explain it to you.”

  “Is it fun?”

  “No.” She bent her head and slipped the mask into place.

  “Then why do you play?”

  “Because I have to.”

  “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Neither do you.”

  “I don’t like playing the game, Luc, but I very much want to win it.” In her mind, she flipped through the images of the men responsible for Angelo’s death.

  “Will you win?”

  “I don’t know.” Her hand shook as she strapped the bone shard to her thigh.