I had vegetarian burritos ready to bake when Rachel got home at 6:15. She came into our office to drop off her laptop, kick off her shoes, unbuttoned her blouse and kiss me, in that order. “Crack any cases, Sherlock?”
“Not yet. Did you cure anyone’s neuroses?”
“Had a few good sessions. What’s that?” She pointed a finger.
I had the book from Hartwell on the corner of my desk. “That’s the book they were reading last night. A bunch of quotes and stories and—what?” Rachel was staring at the cover.
“I don’t know.” Rachel’s psychic. She can pick up magic and supernatural whispers. She leaned over and placed her fingers on the cover, her head cocked, as if listening for something far away.
Then the book erupted into flame.
Rachel jerked her fingers away with a yelp. Orange fire leaped up from the book, stabbing at the air. I stared for a moment, confused, then kicked my garbage can over to the corner of the desk and shoved the burning book into it. The heat burned my arm as I grabbed the beer I’d opened just a few minutes before and poured it over the flames. Then I reached for the water bottle Laurie had given me at Hartwell’s house and started dumping what was left of that into the can as Rachel ran for the kitchen.
I nudged the can away from my desk as Rachel came back with the fire extinguisher in the kitchen. “How does this work again?” she muttered, but she managed to pull out the pin and then blast at the flames until they drowned in the white spray.
I took a deep breath. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” She put the extinguisher down. The office smelled like stale beer, chemicals, and smoke. I opened a window. “What the hell was that?”
She looked down into the garbage can and sighed. “I don’t know. There was something there, in that book—something that didn’t want me looking at it, or seeing into it. But I didn’t get a chance to figure it out. It just went whoosh.”
I bit my lip. “This was supposed to be a simple cheating spouse case. Damn it. I should have been an accountant.”
“Then you’d probably have demons haunting your spreadsheets.” She picked up the extinguisher. “When’s dinner?”
“Fifteen minutes.” I bent down to search the can for the book, and pulled out what was left of it—scorched cover, burnt pages, dripping with a combination of smells. “I’ll dump this down the chute.”
Rachel backed away. “Maybe keep it. In something safe. I’m going to change.”
I put the wet pages in three plastic bags and stashed it in a plastic sandwich container. After dinner I went into my office. It still smelled, so I pulled a small desk fan out of a drawer to blow away what was left of the stench. Then I checked some notes.
Last year I met a woman named Sydney Josondra at a library called the Bibliotheca Davonia north of the city. The library specialized in the occult, and I thought she might have some insight onto the kind of inspirational book that would burst into flame spontaneously. I found her number, left a message, and went to go watch Resident Alien with Rachel.
Halfway through the second episode my phone buzzed. Sydney. “Sorry.” I got up as Rachel paused the show, irritated. “This shouldn’t take long. —Hello, Sydney, thanks for calling me back so soon.” I headed into the office.
“Oh, I was just finishing up some work here and thought I’d call you before going home.” She’s an older woman, in a wheelchair, sharp and knowledgeable about all kinds of volumes of forgotten and potentially dangerous lore.
“I appreciate it. It’s about a book I had that suddenly burst into flames.”
She laughed. “That’s never happened here, but I have heard of incidents like that. What book?”
“Unleash the Power Beneath, by , uh, Nicholas Newman,” I told her. “Published by Hartwell Publishing. It’s a sort of inspirational book, with quotes and poems and stuff.”
“And how did it happen to explode?”
“My wife was touching it. She’s psychic. It just went, well, exploded on us. We put it out fast.”
“That’s good. Let me see . . . Yes. Here’s someone. Milan Powell. They collect books of magic and spells. Some spells aren’t obvious, you know. They’re hidden inside other words. Here’s their number. They, uh, go by ‘they’, just so you know.”
I took it down. “Thanks, Sydney. How’s everything at the library?”
She laughed. “Books never die. I’ll always be here. Good night, Tom.”
“Good night.” We hung up. I went back out to the living room, hoping I hadn’t missed anything important on the show. Rachel hates bringing me up to speed.
Jayne Furier called me the next morning as I was turning on my computer. “He’s about the same, maybe a little worse,” she told me, her voice raspy as if she hadn’t gotten much sleep. “He came out of it for a few minutes last night, but he didn’t say anything that made sense. It sounded like, like, ‘Rylah,” or ‘Reelya’ or something, and then he just went back into the coma.” She sniffled. “Did you find out anything?”
I told her about driving out to Hartwell and meeting Sam. “Do you know a man named Randy Jarvis? He said that’s who got your husband involved in the group.”
“Randy . . . yeah. He was a dentist, too. Then he started selling real estate. I haven’t heard from him in years, it’s kind of surprising. He never mentioned hearing from him.”
“Do you have his number, or his email?”
“I think so, just a minute—yeah, here it is.” She read me a phone number. “I think it‘s his personal cell number. He’s divorced, and we fell out of touch. At least I thought we did.”
“I’ll call him, if that’s all right. I should also tell you about something strange that happened after I met with Hartwell.” I told her about the fiery book.
“Oh my God. What does it mean? Is it—did he plant a bomb or something?”
“I don’t think so.” I hesitated. How to put this? I’m a magnet for the paranormal? “I think this may have a supernatural cause. There was something about that book that wasn’t quite right.”
“Supernatural . . .” Her voice faded. I waited for her to ask if I was crazy. Finally she said, “That makes as much sense as anything, I guess. Honestly, in that video, it looks like he’s possessed, doesn’t he?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Look, I’m going to talk to someone who might know more about the book. I’ll let you know what I find out. Let me know if anything changes.”
Rachel came into the office as we hung up, carrying her coffee in her Wonder Woman mug. When’s at home she does paperwork and a little graphic design for some of the clients she had before becoming a therapist. “Anything explode yet?”
“The day is young. We’ll see.” I found Milan Powell’s number.
They sounded young and energetic. “Yes! I love to talk about books! Can you bring out what’s left of it?”
“Uh. I think so. When can I see you?”
“Any time, I’m free until three or so. Then I see my shrink.” They gave me an Oak Park address.
I agreed to see her in two hours. When I hung up Rachel was staring at me. “Who was that?”
“Milan Powell. Occult book expert, supposedly. I’m going to ask them about the book from Hartwell.”
“Them? He has a friend?”
“Non-binary, I guess. I’ll have to watch my pronouns.”
She turned to her computer. “Good luck.”
I checked out Randy Jarvis. He had an office in Hartwell, and I added his address into my GPS. Then I did some paperwork of my own for an hour, then left to drive out to Oak Park.
Milan Powell was in their 30s, with short blond hair and an angular face, in shorts and a fuzzy pink sweater, barefoot. “Hi, Tom!” They held out both arms as if expecting a hug. We shook hands, and they led me inside.
Milan brought me coffee, and we sat in a small living room without a TV but with bookcases on every wall, from carpet to ceiling, and thick vines dangling like snakes from three pots hanging from hooks overhead.
I opened the plastic box and showed her what was left of the book. Milan squinted through the plastic. “What was it called?”
“Unleash the Power Beneath,” I told her. “Nicholas Newman.”
“Ah, Nicholas Newman.” They turned to a bookcase and, without looking for more than three seconds, pulled out a thick leatherbound volume. “Let me see, let me see . . .” Milan flipped through the pages. “Nikolai Nemtsev. Russian mystic. Died in 1899. Published six books of poetry and related material under different names. Let’s see.”
They walked up and down the bookcases for a lot longer this time, finally stopping and sliding one slim volume out from between two heavier books. “This is one of his.”
Arise from the Depths, was the title. “Find the Strength to Burst from your Chains,” came beneath. The author was Nick Nemours.
“Who was this guy?” I didn’t touch the book.
“He called himself a philosopher and a poet. He was also an alcoholic and drug addict who spent years in prison in Russia, then went to England for a while and ended up dying of liver cancer.” They shrugged. “That’s the official story. He was in an insane asylum when he died, raving about demons and the antichrist. And his books—well . . .”
They opened it to the first page and read the quote:
Begin with the beginning. Seek what is fine. Discard the rest.
Milan tightened their lips. “What that really means, is ‘The world began in darkness. Live in the darkness. Destroy the light.’”
“How do you see that?” I peered at the page.
“It’s a message underneath the words. Look at it once and it’s silent. You have to keep going back to it, time after time, to bring it out. Or you have to know how to spot it, like I do.” They grinned. “Years of reading this stuff. I have to be careful now.”
Milan turned the page. This one had a short tale:
A young man went to a wise old monk seeking wisdom. “Master, what must I do to become as wise as you?”
The monk said, “Find the tallest tree in the forest. Climb to the top. Come back and tell me what you see.”
So the young man walked in the forest for days until he found the tallest tree. Climbing it was difficult, but he finally made it to the top.
When he returned to the old monk, he said, “Master, I saw past the borders of our land, and over the clouds, and beyond the edge of the world. I saw that I am just a speck in the vastness of the universe, no bigger and no smaller than anyone else.”
The monk smiled. “You have seen much. Go and seek more, and never stop. That is the path to wisdom.”
Milan sipped some tea from a cup on the edge of the table. “What that’s saying is, ‘There was a young man, he climbed a tree, and saw that his life was meaningless, nothing. He fell from the tree, and as he was dying there, the monk found him and said, ‘There is no knowledge, there is no hope. You have lived for nothing. Only Hell remains.’ And he spits on the kid before he dies.”
“Wow.” I looked at the words on the page. “That’s pretty bleak.”
“Everyone sees a slightly different version, but that’s the main point.” They skipped a few pages. “Here’s where it gets good—or bad.”
Seek only to serve. Look for what the universe wills for you, and follow it gladly.
Milan sighed. “That means, ‘You shall suffer until the end of time, and welcome the agony that comes eternally.”
“Yikes.” I rubbed my forehead. “The whole book is like that?”
“Yeah.” They turned pages rapidly until she got to the end.
Embrace the power you have and use it to bring others into the circle.
“I won’t read that out loud.” They closed the book. “It could—conceivably—summon a demon. It’s basically, ‘Come worship me and help me bring enslave the world in my power.’”
“So he hoped people would read this and become possessed?” I sipped my coffee. Hazelnut. It tasted good.
“Reading it out loud, over and over, is supposed to help the demon come and find you. Following your voice from Hell, or wherever.” They went back to the first big book and scanned the page. “It says here he wrote at least 20 of them and tried to sell them or give them away to libraries, churches, whatever. Most of them have been destroyed, so the rest are hard to find. I’m lucky.” Milan smirked, tapping the book with a finger. “The one you said, Unleash the Power Beneath? That’s the hardest to find.”
“So if one person reading that book could summon a demon—” I thought back to the other night. “What would happen if, say, 20 people were reading the book together?
Their eyes sharpened, as if they heard something threatening from far away. “Is that—is someone doing that?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
Milan shook their head. “That would be—bad.”
I was afraid of that. I took one last look at the ruined book I’d brought. “I guess I’d better get rid of that.”
“You should burn it. I mean, I’m against burning books in general, but—” They shrugged. “Some need fire.”
“Yeah.” I stood up. “Thanks for your time. Should I—” I reached into my pants for my wallet, but they shook their head.
“No, that’s fine. I love to talk about my books.” We shook hands again. “Call me if you need anything else.”
“I will.”
No comments:
Post a Comment