Chaos. Part 13

"She's after the same thing we are now: the final three books."

"Which became accessible when Johnis crossed over with the fourth book."

"Right, we've been over this." Karas stood and walked up to the railing. "Teeleh's lair a it's the key to the location, Silvie. Something he told you that no one else could know."

"I told you. He described it to me in the desert on the way to the Horde City. And from what I can remember, it's exactly the same as Alucard's lair except a"

Silvie's heart stopped. She jumped to her feet.

"What?" Karas asked.

"The poem! He said there was a poem on the wall. I don't remember anything in Alucard's lair. That's what was unique about Teeleh's lair. He must have been trying to direct me to the poem without tipping off Miranda!"

Karas hurried over, her eyes wide. "What poem?"

"Something about a sinner, a saint, and a showdown." She blinked. "*Welcome to Paradise."'

"It said that? *Welcome to Paradise'?"

"Yes."

"Yes, okay, yes. So what doesa""

And then Karas got it.

"Paradise. The epicenter of this showdown between saint and sinner, good and evil. You're saying that there is a lair in Paradise."

*"Welcome to Paradise,'" Silvie repeated.

"The monastery was destroyed. Flattened. I've been there. Nothing but a cabin."

"But were you looking for Teeleh's lair? Johnis must have a"

Her voice trailed off.

Karas stared at her in silence, piecing together what she'd just learned with what she already knew.

She suddenly rushed toward the house. "Get the jet up!" she cried to one of her servants inside.

Silvie hurried behind. "To where?"

"Paradise, Colorado."

lucard's tongue licked at the mucus on his fingers. He stared at Johnis like a mad doctor who'd trapped a monkey on which to run his forbidden experiments.

"The beast from h.e.l.l," Johnis said. Although he meant it as an accusation, his voice came out strained.

"I have waited for this day." Alucard walked to the table, his talons clicking on the stone floor. He reached out and touched the prize Miranda had delivered.

"Four is a far cry from seven," Johnis said.

"That's where you're wrong, my friend. Finding the last three will be a simple matter now. They may be the prize locked away for centuries, but I now have the key." He faced Johnis, his lips twisted. "Surely you know where the other three are."

Johnis had his ideas, to which he'd tried to alert Silvie. But he knew more than Alucard could possibly know.

"There are only a few lairs in this reality. For all we know, the last three books are hidden here, in this very library." His eyes ran over the bookcases. Johnis wasn't positive that the books were in a lair, but they seemed to favor lairs on Other Earth.

After two thousand years, Alucard wasn't in a rush to tear the place apart, Johnis realized. If the last three books were in one of the lairs, he wasn't in any danger of someone else finding them before he did. Except for Silvie and Karas.

A chuckle echoed softly around the room. Alucard walked around him, moving easily, inspecting. "You're wondering why I didn't just kill all three of you? Are you really so foolish?"

The stench of the beast's flesh so close was enough to make Johnis temper his breathing.

"Tell him, Miranda."

"We can kill them at any time. Why would we eliminate something that could still be useful?" She spoke as if she were a disinterested peer to the Shataiki, not his servant.

How so? Johnis wanted to ask. But he already knew. They'd taken him in the event they needed leverage. "What makes you think Silvie and Karas won't find the books before you do?"

"Let them. It is now only a matter of time. Hours, days, it makes no difference to me." Alucard breathed heavily and continued in a soft voice that trembled with each word. "My time has come."

The worms overhead moved through their own muck, agitated.

"We have waited so long. Unlike you humans, Shataiki ate born of the hive lord, the equivalent of your queen bee, only male. All we need now are the females."

Johnis shuddered. These worms were Alucard's offspring, trapped larvae, waiting for a female to somehow make them Shataiki. Or was Alucard the female? Either way, with the four books, Alucard could return to the Black Forest and bring back what he needed to turn these larvae into Shataiki. And what would happen to this world if thousands of Shataiki were set free?

"You a you can't do that."

"And now that you know how your little quest is going to end, I can kill you." Alucard's long, sharp talon reached around Johnis's neck from behind and drew a thin line over his exposed skin. One jerk and his head would be parted from his body. Was the beast's need to see the chosen one dead greater than his need for any leverage Johnis might give him?

Johnis didn't want to find out.

The talon bit into his skin. "Are you ready to die, chosen one?"

"You can't." He looked at Miranda's dark stare. "You don't have four of the books."

The talon at his neck hesitated.

"Don't be a fool," Miranda said.

"Am I the fool? Do you think we are that stupid?"

A tick bothered Miranda's cheek.

"You have four books on the table," Johnis said. "Three of them are genuine. One of them is a fake."

THE JET STREAKED FOR THE SKY, AND SILVIE GRIPPED THE armrests, her knuckles white. But once again, the flying tube of steel hung in the air as comfortably as any bird she'd seen.

She slowly released her grip. "What if we're wrong?"

"We're not," Karas said. "The books are in Teeleh's lair, wherever that is. I'm willing to stake my life on it."

"It's his life you're staking. What's all this numbers business?"

"Six of the books went missing. The number of evil, perfection divided. Three are now missing: the number that Teeleh aspires to becomea"perfection. Follow?"

"Not really,"

"Then never mind for now. The point is, the three missing books are almost certainly hidden in the heart of darkness. Teeleh's lair."

"But what makes you think there aren't other *hearts of darkness' here in the Histories? Why tie it directly to Teeleh?"

"Because you said it yourself, *Welcome to Paradise.' Because the books came from our world when Thomas Hunter crossed over. They would naturally find a place consistent with that worlda" Teeleh's lair."

"Three books in our world; three here," Silvie said, as if it now all made perfect sense to her. "Six missing books. Evil. Perfection defiled. And if we're wrong about the lair being in Paradise?"

Karas frowned. "Then we hope Johnis has something up his sleeve besides a little extra strength."

"HE'S LYING," MIRANDA SNAPPED.

Johnis allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. "Now who's the fool?"

Alucard whipped around him and leaped to the table, where he landed on his hind legs with enough force to send a vibration through the floor. He fanned the books across the table with a flip of his wrist. "Show me!"

Miranda was already hovering over the books, the silver knife in her hand. She shoved the blue book to the side and pulled the brown book closera"sliced her finger.

Holding her eyes on Johnis, she planted her finger on the brown book's cover.

She vanished in a wink of light into this simulation they talked about, modeled after Paradise. Everyone wants a piece of Paradise.

The brown book lay still, smudged with Miranda's blood. Alucard stood by the table, breathing steadily. The worms squirmed slowly above. Johnis stood in his shackles.

A silent flash of light appeared over the book, and Miranda stood next to the table again, wearing a smirk. "Works for me."

She pushed the brown book aside and pressed her finger against the green one.

Again, a wink of light swallowed her.

Alucard grunted.

The woman reappeared. Still smiling.

"The black one," the Shataiki growled.

Miranda brushed the green book aside and pulled the black one closer. She shoved her finger against the cover.

Nothing happened.

"Cut yourself!" Alucard said.

Her finger was no longer bleeding. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the silver knife they evidently kept for this very purpose and cut her skin again. Red blood seeped from the fresh wound.

She smashed it against the cover.

But Miranda did not vanish. What Karas had told him was true: shed made a duplicate book and hidden the original. Today her effort paid off.

Alucard snarled and rushed the ten feet to Johnis. His claw squeezed around Johnis's neck. Unable to breathe, much less scream, Johnis could only clench his eyes against the pain.

"Where is the fourth book?"

The beasts breath was hot and wet.

"Give me the book!"

"Killing him won't help us!" Miranda said. "Let him go."

Alucard held him for another five seconds, then relaxed his grip. He backhanded Johnis with enough force to throw him backward several feet.

He landed on his side, struggling for breath.

"Where is it?" Alucard repeated.

He would die before he told them. Now it was only about stalling to give Silvie more time. Johnis coughed. Blood wet the stone by his hand. Alucard had damaged his throat. He lay on the dungeon floor, broken.

Hopelessness came, like an avalanche in the night, thundering down on him from overhead. He was going to fail. This beast was far too powerful to stop!

There was only one play left for him.

"He doesn't know," Alucard said. "Kill him."

"No," Johnis gasped. "I do know!"

Miranda stooped beside him and traced his cheek with her knife. "Of course you know. Karas would tell the chosen one. You know. And we know where Silvie is headed. We don't need her; Karas will suffice. One word and Silvie will die."

"Don't a You can't harm her!"

"This is a waste of time," Alucard snarled. "Lock this useless slab of meat up. Cut off his leg and show it to her. If she still doesn't cooperate, kill her and work on the little runt."

"No, I can take you to the book."

"Or lead me astray." Miranda's knife lingered just beneath his jaw. "To buy your little lover more time?"

It occurred to Johnis that Miranda always spoke as if it was she, not Alucard, who should be dealt with here. As if she, not the beast, held the true power in the room. At least in her mind.

"Just tell me," she said.

"I can't. But I can take you. If you don't get the book, kill me. But leave Silvie. You have me! What can you gain by taking her now?"