by Tobias Wade
“You crazy? Of course she does,” Jordan snaps. “This isn’t the time for therapy and coddling. Marque is dead. Ender is dead. There are fucking demons—”
“Stop and think what you’re saying,” Dantes interrupts. “She just lost both her parents. She’s a refugee. She’s been through enough without—”
“Oh boo-fucking-hoo,” Jordan again. “Poor American girl dealing with the same shit as the rest of the world. Well, tell you what, sweetheart. You can play the victim and write about it on your blog, or you can help us put an end to this thing for good.”
“Shut your mouth, private.”
“That’s the other thing. You were sergeant while Ender was—”
“I think I know where Henry is going,” Jessica says, struggling to speak in an even tone. Both men fall immediately silent. “He was talking about the Codex Gigas, remember? What if he used his wish to get that?”
“In the National Library of Sweden, right?” Dantes says. “Would the wish make the book magically appear, or would it simply give him the power to go and steal it?”
“Jacques is still in France, right?” Jordan asks. “He could go check it out.”
“And get himself killed in the process,” Dantes says. “We can’t fight these things. Not like we know how to.”
“You saying that just because you couldn’t kill one? I’d have taken its head clean off, then we’ll see—”
“You’d be dead before you even—”
“Can you two please stop arguing?” Jessica interrupts. Another heavy silence, broken only by rhythm of the road and the tick of the turn signal. Jordan is exiting the highway.
“He was a good man,” Jordan says at last. “Both of them were.”
“You probably knew my dad better than I did,” Jessica sighs. “Even when he was home, it felt like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was always just restlessly waiting to be on his next mission.”
“Really?” Dantes asks. “I would have guessed the opposite. He always seemed eager to see you and your mother again. He carried a picture of you everywhere.”
“The one with you and your track team,” Jordan confirms. “Always propped it up against his canteen and put it next to his sleeping bag. He never mentioned your back though… shame about that.”
“I guess he didn’t really belong anywhere then.” Jessica’s voice dies down to a whisper. “Must be where I inherited it from.”
“Learned maybe. Can’t inherit something from—”
“Shut up, Jordan,” Dantes cuts him off.
“What, you starting something again?”
“Can’t inherit something from what?” Jessica asks.
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” Dantes dismisses.
“Shit, he never told her?” Jordan asks. “Well, I don’t think he cares anymore and she deserves to know.”
“Stay out of it. It’s none of your business.”
“I deserve to know what? Tell me!” Jessica insists. Jordan raises his eyebrows at Dantes, who shakes his head. “Look at me and say it!” Jessica’s voice cracks from the strain. “I don’t have a family or a home. I can’t even walk. I’m trusting you two with my life right now. And I can help you—but not unless you can trust me too.”
Jessica spots a sign for the airport, but she’s too focused on the mystery to pay it much attention.
“You’re right. She’s right,” Dantes blurts out. “Ender isn’t your father. Mackenzie isn’t your mother.”
“What…?”
“He found you, and he brought you home,” Dantes says. “You were still a baby—it was before I’d joined the squad, but he told me about it once.”
“What do you mean, found me? Like adopted? Or just out in the woods somewhere—”
“More like that, actually. The way he told it, you were just floating in a life raft—”
“Like Moses?”
“— off the Icelandic coast.”
“Like Iceland Moses?”
“Something like that,” Dantes says. “It was after a skirmish with some cocaine smugglers. He figured you belonged to one of them.”
“So he just scooped me up and stole me?” After the initial shock, Jessica is surprised to find how calmly she is taking the news. How did it affect the rest of the insanity that happened tonight? She can’t process it all yet.
“The smugglers didn’t survive,” Jordan says. “It was the best thing for you. Hey kid—you got any ID on you?”
“Yeah my driver’s license,” Jessica says, patting her pocket and feeling her wallet. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to Sweden to get to the book first. You in?”
“No, it’s not obvious, because that’s a stupid plan,” she says. “It’s a real book in a real language. It’s been completely translated. If there’s something important in there, then it’s not something we can figure out.”
“Well, at least we can keep it out of Henry’s hands until we figure out what’s really in there.”
“All the other wishes were more impossible than this, and they came true. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to stop that from happening,” Jessica says. “I have a better idea. Let’s go to Iceland.”
“Look, I’m glad you found out where you came from and everything—” Jordan starts.
“It’s not about that. Marapoza is there—one of the temples like Azgangi.”
“How do you know about—” Dantes cuts himself short after a severe and irritated glare from Jessica.
“My dad—Ender—whatever he is now—he told me that was where the last intact temple is. If the demons are worshiping The Beast and want to call it into the world, then that’s where it’s going to happen. We may not be able to kill demons, but if you boys know how to get some explosives, then at least we can stop that from happening.”
Dantes gives a low whistle. “So you really can help.”
“Not so fast,” Jordan says. “The demon told you this. It could be a trap.”
“I was in his house holding the damn seed. I was already in a trap. Why would he need to plan another one on the other side of the world? When he told me about the temple, he thought I was going to join them.”
“I’m with Jessica on this,” Dantes says. “Jacques will keep an eye on the book if we ask him. We should investigate this temple.”
“Is that an order, Sergeant?” Jordan asks.
“It’s a request. From one friend to another.” Jordan grins. “That’s too bad. I always was better at turning down orders. Iceland it is then.”
10
“How about that sweater with the towers on it?” Dantes asks. He starts pushing Jessica’s new wheelchair she received at the airport, but a heavy glare from her makes him relinquish his grip. He lifts his hands into the air to mime a surrender, but it does nothing to lessen the intensity of her scrutiny. She continues to propel herself through the airport gift store to collect travel supplies.
“I wish we’d had time for me to go home and pack,” she responds, absentmindedly flipping through the meager clothing rack. A second later it dawns on her: of course, that’s right. She doesn’t have a home anymore. That thought will take some getting used to.
“Hurry up, will you?” Jordan calls. “This isn’t a fashion show.” He’s standing outside the store, impatiently studying the digital travel schedules.
“Get four or five. I’ve got cash,” Dantes says, indiscriminately grabbing a folded stack of T-shirts. Jessica’s cold, deadpan face makes him fumble.
“What? They’re fine. They’re functional.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Her voice matches her face. Dantes looks desperately to Jordan, then back at Jessica, not quite able to meet her steady eyes. He swallows hard.
“Um, I think you’d look good in—”
She snatches the pile of clothes and drops them in her lap. “If I knew I was going to Hell I would have brought something more appropriate,” she says, sliding her chair to the cashier. �
��Black lace, maybe.”
There’s a certain satisfaction in watching Dantes swallow again.
“One minute,” the cashier says, holding up a hand. “Can’t get my damn computer on.”
“How long do we have?” Dantes calls to Jordan.
“Don’t know. Screens gone back.”
The rippling murmur of frustration spreads. Jessica pushes her chair to the edge of the store where she sees the monitors in the airport terminal going black. Flight status screens—announcement boards—even the personal laptops of passengers waiting for their flight. One by one, then seating groups and whole gates going dark at once like an invisible wave tearing through the airport.
The collective outcry from the crowd subtly shifts from disbelief, to anger, a feeling only intensified once the screens begin to flicker back to life.
“The Beast Is Coming. Jessica saw it first on the travel schedule, but within seconds it’s everywhere. The words are written on every screen, looking more as though they’ve been messily carved with a knife than typed. Jordan reaches up and touches the board in something between reverence and terror.”
“The Beast is coming.” Every overhead speaker, every laptop, every headphone, a surreal impossibility leaving the audience speechless. There are a few gasps, but it’s primarily silence that dominates the huge airport terminal. No one is shaken more than Jessica though.
“That’s Ender’s voice—” Dantes begins, cut off as the speakers crackle into violent feedback. Earsplitting volume, an electrical storm which ravages the senses of everyone in the building. The next silence is immediately broken by wailing children and the terrified screams of those who fell to their knees, hands clasped over their ears.
“I have seen him with my own eyes,” Ender’s voice. “For man has slept while an angel wakes, for his secrets kept, for the word he breaks, for the tears he’s wept, his reckless hate, we heralds of The Beast begin our wait. Scream with me, children. Scream until he wakes.”
Jessica feels Dantes' hand clasp her shoulder—a vain attempt at comfort. She doesn’t react to the pressure or take her eyes off the words carved into the overhead screen. The letters have begun to bleed, great slow globules dripping directly from the screens onto the floor below.
“The Beast wills the demon seeds be planted—to unleash me, first of his shepherds of fear. My raw skin against the elements, the strain of my muscles coiling beneath me, the flesh and blood of my design: it is glory to walk beneath this mortal mask.
“My heart is fire, my mind is clear, my spirit is the roaring sea. Has this poet written so to name my first breath of life? For no heart has burned to match the crescendo of my inferno, nor born witness to a mind so keen as to pierce the veil between life and death.”
“What do we do?” Jordan hisses, turning helplessly on the spot. Dantes shrugs helplessly, his whole body rigid.
“So the pen of man strikes feeble against the oblivion he is suspended within, for his power is limited to the imperfect conceptions of an imperfect vessel. Rejoice with me however, for when the divine spirit grows within the divine flesh, even the mortal shall bear witness to his glory.”
“He makes the thing sound like a God,” Dantes grunts. “Why would he be telling us this?”
“I do not come to you in warning,” Ender’s voice. “Your false prophets have already led you astray and divided you against such heedings.
“I do not beseech you change your ways or absolve your sins. There is no dawn so bright as to banish the coming night.
“I speak to you now for one purpose only: to nurture that precious fear which calls our master to us. You feel it already, although you have yet to name its source. Every night you start awake without knowing why, every flickering of a trepidatious heart, every sourceless dread which haunts your mind—did you think you were the only one to sense his innominate call?
“Failing to find reason for your constant terror, you pushed it back into the depth of your mind and implore yourself to forget. A bad dream from childhood that you never dared breathe aloud. A suffocated aspiration in your youth. The steady acceptance that no matter how loudly you shout or brightly you burn, your life will never amount to more than dust floating through a sunbeam.
“And again and again each new terror is buried atop the old, until the twisted knot inside you drags your soul to a preternatural rest. While once your mind was free and curious, now every sound grates against your vulnerable nerves and you cannot meet the eye of your fellow man without doubting both him and yourself.
“That is why I am here. To force you to acknowledge the nameless terror inside you, and to source it to the coming Beast. He is no God nor Devil, but both were born out of fear of him. You will not find him in the darkness between stars or the splintered vaults of heaven, for he has slept outside of time until the alignment of his greater plan bids him wake. But he sleeps no longer, and I am proof of that.
“The first demon seed is ripe within me. My brothers are waking as I speak, and together we join our voices in the hosanna of your despair. Pray with me, children, until with one voice our screams form chorus to bid him rise in answer.
“This is my gift to you, Jessica, my darling child. This is the world you deserve. The time of The Beast has begun. ”
The speech ends with a final burst of feedback, even louder than the first. The sound is so piercing it’s almost as if it originates inside the brain and echoes outward. Two seconds pass—tears are in Jessica’s eyes as she digs her fingers into her ears. Five seconds—she finds herself screaming at the top of her lungs just to compete with the sound, yet unable to even hear herself over the noise. Ten seconds—then the feedback is gone, and only the screams remain: the chorus of a depraved Hallelujah.
11
Over five thousand miles away, Elijah Sörensen has just arrived in Stockholm, Sweden where the International Antiquarian Book Fair is currently in progress. Cases of illuminated manuscripts, first editions of classical masterpieces, and of course the omnipresent odor of old leather and paper.
Yes there are similar book fairs held all over the world, but this one is singular because of the invaluable artifact he is carrying in his possession: a lost page from “The Codex Gigas.”
You can imagine Elijah’s excitement when he stumbled upon one of the pages unceremoniously hung in a pawn shop adjacent to a used microwave and a dollhouse. The owner didn’t have the faintest idea what it was, but he said he was happy to get rid of it because of the oppressive atmosphere which seemed to plague the artifact.
“Makes the whole place feel like a graveyard,” he told Elijah. “Beautiful on the surface, but you can’t enjoy it proper on account of what’s underneath.”
The moment Elijah touched the page, he understood what that meant. It was as though the lights in the shop dimmed, although he could still see with perfect clarity. It is difficult to describe, but imagine shutting off the lights the same instant you developed the ability to see in the dark. Elijah attributed this to nothing more than a fanciful imagination born from those old legends, however, and he didn’t let it disturb his alacrity at such a valuable discovery.
The Latin text is indecipherable to him, but Elijah assumes it will pique the interest of those who specialize in that sort of thing at the ongoing book fair. He brought his prize inside and quickly found a vendor willing to exhibit the page for close to a million Swedish Krona (around $110,000 USD) in exchange for a healthy commission. The page wasn’t on display for more than five minutes before a small crowd had already begun to form.
“I’ll take it for $100,000 US,” an elderly man says. He isn’t so much wearing spectacles as they were wearing him; Elijah can barely even see his face through the massive lenses.
“$110,000,” from a woman wearing so many furs that it wouldn’t be surprising if she started howling.
“Don’t sell it yet—wait for the representative from the National Library,” from a third, rushing off through the fair to find him.
Elijah readily obliges, his mind already tracing a hundred ways to spend his sudden good fortune. Just quitting his teaching job and having time to work on his book burns most prominently in his mind. He braces himself for the expected fussy old librarian who will doubtlessly try and convince him to donate his find, but Elijah doesn’t shy away from the growing number of bids. Anyone who can wade through a throng of howling children in a classroom, he muses, can surely endure the tame badgering of this formal assembly.
It takes a moment of staring before Elijah recognizes the approaching tall man in a suit to be the foretold librarian. His keen blue eyes, long blond ponytail, and hard uncompromising jaw does not fit the stereotypical profile.
“$200,000 US as a final sale,” are the first words out of his mouth. The bubbling requests around them immediately falter to a hushed murmur. The librarian runs his fingers expertly over the vellum page as though caressing a loved one.
“$250,000, and you do not consider other bids,” the bespectacled man chirps. Elijah can’t very well ask if anyone could beat the number with that stipulation, so he simply raises an eyebrow and waits to see if someone would continue to bid on their own. How is he going to tell the school that they’re going to need a new fourth grade teacher in the middle of a semester? Perhaps balloons should be involved.
The librarian pulls out his phone and begins to text, his bony fingers dancing urgently like a practiced pianist. The phone slides deftly back into a pocket as he puts his arm around Elijah’s shoulders in camaraderie—or at least that’s how he no doubt intended it to seem. The gesture feels more like a car salesman trying to change one’s mind from a minivan to a sports car.
“200 is more than fair, and it would be a national travesty not to have this be reattached to the book it was stolen from.”
He is trying to subtly steer Elijah away from the other bidders, but Elijah holds his ground. “I’m sorry, but if that other gentleman is the leading bid—”
