By the time I finished the book, including the few notations about me, my training, and Benedict’s plans for me, I had raged many times. In the end, I felt numb and empty. Not only had I been duped, I was complicit. Rather than being a force for the Light, I had advanced the reach of the Dark.
The City of the Illuminati sat on top of a small mountain in a forest in the northern part of the United States. Only one road led to it, and no one except those deeply immersed in the lore of the Illuminati knew it was there.
A month after I killed William Strickland, I walked into Master Benedict’s office and placed the small crystal ball on his desk.
“This is the weapon Strickland created,” I said. “It sees through mendacity, and only truth can be seen if you look through it. The ultimate lie detector spell. If I look through it at a person who is not healthy, it shows his disease. It discloses the lies of politicians, clergy, and used-car salesmen. If I use it to read a book, it tells me what is fact and what is fiction. A very, very dangerous weapon.”
Without another word, I turned and walked out of his office. I continued out of the palace at the center of the City, through the streets, and out the gate in the outer wall. All I took with me was a small backpack with water, some food, some money, and a large black-and-gold book. My weapons I left at the gate, for I had no desire to continue the life I had led. The path of the Illuminati was mine no longer.
I walked for an hour, and then the earthquake started. I turned and looked back at the shining City of the Illuminati on the top of the mountain behind me. The light fluctuated and the City shook. A haze passed over the sun, turning it red. The rumbling grew in volume until it sounded like a freight train only a few feet away.
I stood, stunned, staring at the City, unable to move.
The City exploding caught me off guard, and a minute later the shock wave knocked me off my feet. The City was on fire. It burned for hours, well into the night, but never spread past the outer wall. The City sat at the junction of two major ley lines, and those rivers of magic fueled the flames. I watched it, my emotions a confused jumble.
Many of the people who died that night had been kind to me. Yes, they had lied to me and manipulated me, but I couldn’t help but feel that some of them had loved me in their own way. I grieved for the thousands of souls consumed in those flames. Everyone I knew was dead. But I also grieved for my own soul, shattered beyond any hope of redemption, or at least that’s how I felt at the time.
In the morning, there was no trace of the City. I climbed back up the mountain and found nothing to indicate it had ever existed. Not a brick, not even a speck of ash. The only home I could remember, the place where I grew up, was gone. The mountain looked as though it had never been touched. The road I had traveled the day before was also gone. A game trail going in the same direction as the road was the only break in the virgin forest. I realized I was alone in the world, and a wave of emptiness and regret washed through me.
I knew my blackened soul should have perished with all the others, but I was too much of a coward. I wanted to live, but I didn’t know why, or what I would do. I didn’t know where to go, but only that I had to get far away from that place. There were still Illuminati loose in the world. If they ever found me, ever found out what I had done, they would hunt me down and slaughter me. And if anyone ever suspected I had the book, nowhere would be safe for me.
For the book contained the secrets of the Illuminati—all of them. Their rituals, their spells, the locations of their treasure. Someone could reconstitute their evil using that book. I had tried to burn it, and it wouldn’t burn. I could bury it, but if anyone found it and could read it, then the Illuminati might rise again. I couldn’t let that happen.
I turned down the game trail and followed it for three days until I came to a little-used road. I followed that road for another three days before I came to a small town.
A bus came through that evening, and I took it going west.
Chapter 2
The bus dropped me off a little before midnight, and the station was almost deserted. A single ticket window had a light, but no one was behind the counter. Two or three people slept in chairs. It was impossible to tell whether they were waiting for a bus or were homeless and wanting a little warmth. I pulled a city map from a stand and turned toward the exit.
There wasn’t a person in sight on the street. Yellow streetlights reflected off the wet pavement, but no lights showed in the windows of the surrounding buildings.
I studied the map. The two most notable features were the ocean on the west and the river bisecting the city into northern and southern portions, with a dozen bridges spanning the divide. To the north, the city was bounded by foothills that I knew turned into tall, white-topped mountains, but I couldn’t see that in the dark. The bus station was in the southwestern part of the city, in a warehouse district.
According to the map, a two-block walk should take me to a main street running from east to west, and I hoped there would be some cheap hotels somewhere around there. It was probably too much to wish for, but I thought it also would be nice if the area had an all-night diner. It had been a long time since breakfast.
I had traveled over three thousand miles in less than two weeks, ending up two thousand miles from where I started. When I left the City of the Illuminati, I was dressed in Hunter’s garb—skintight, all-black ballistic cloth. The first city I arrived in, I bought a suitcase and some other clothing at a thrift shop before taking another bus out of town.
I had done my best to obscure my trail, going west to Kansas City, then south to Dallas, then northwest to Westport. No one knew where I was, and no one had any reason to connect me to that part of the country, let alone to Westport. I knew no one there, and I had never been there before.
During my trip across the country, I had constantly looked over my shoulder, afraid that someone would recognize me. My guilt weighed heavily, not only for my treachery against the Illuminati but also for all the murders I had committed. Before I read the book, those had never bothered me, but now faces haunted my sleep.
Normally, I paid attention to my surroundings, but bone-tired and relieved to finally reach my destination, I didn’t realize I had company before he grabbed me. With one hand over my mouth and his other arm around my chest, he dragged me backward into an alley. His face loomed over me, his fangs barely visible in the gloom as he lowered his face toward mine.
His expression changed to one of shock as he flew across the alley and slammed against a wall. The bricks cracked, as did his bones, and his body slumped in a heap in the filthy muck on the pavement.
I was acutely aware that he could identify me if he ever saw me again. That thought sent a wave of panic through me. If even a rumor of my magical skill reached the Illuminati, it might trigger their curiosity. I pointed at the vampire’s head and said a Word. His skull soundlessly exploded.
Clutching my handbag, I picked up the small suitcase I dropped when he grabbed me and hurried away. I cast a protective shield around myself, then ventured out of the alley, hoping that no one had seen me kill the vampire. I hurried away, my stomach turning flip-flops from the adrenaline roaring through my system. Even though I was the only person on the street, it felt as though a thousand eyes were watching me.
The map turned out to be accurate, and the street I sought was far more alive than I had hoped—a couple of motels, a movie theater, a sex shop, half a dozen bars, and lots of bright lights. A couple of the bars were obviously strip joints, but even those looked fairly clean and not too sleazy. There were people out on the street, and not all of them appeared to be hookers or their customers. For a red-light district, it was one of the nicest and most respectable I thought I’d ever seen. I still wasn’t inclined to try the nearest motel that advertised rooms by the hour.
The sex shop, strip bars and hookers were all to my right. To my left, the bars looked more like regular establishments with a mixed-gender clientele. I could see skyscrapers in the distance, maybe a couple of miles away, and I knew from my map that beyond downtown was the harbor. I took a deep breath and walked left.
The bars definitely started looking more respectable the farther I walked, including a couple of nightclubs with valet parking. After a while, the sign for another hotel appeared. I didn’t see any restaurants still open, but as I crossed the street to the hotel, I saw a sign on a place a few buildings down a side alley. Rosie O’Grady’s Bar and Grill. Hoping their kitchen was still open, I walked on past the Huntsman Hotel and pushed on the door. As I did so, I saw a small hand-lettered sign that read, “Bartender wanted. Inquire within.”
A tingle passed through me as I stepped over the threshold, but before I could react, I was inside. I found myself in a typical Irish pub with subdued lighting, dark wood, exposed beams, a long bar backed by an impressive array of bottles, and a limited set of taps. The place was larger than it looked on the outside, with at least fifty tables in the main room. About half of the tables were occupied, and off in one corner, several people were throwing darts. Near the dart players, a couple of guys were shooting pool on one of the two tables. Past the pool tables, a smaller room had a flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. The smell of food made my mouth water.
The bartender waved at me. “Seat yourself,” he said. He was a large man, bald on top, with mutton-chop sideburns, wearing a white shirt and an unbuttoned dark vest showing a prodigious stomach. He looked like he had stepped out of Central Casting.
Making my way to a table by the wall, I sat down and a waitress appeared. She was in her late forties, medium height, and a bit overweight, with dark blonde hair falling out of a bun.
“What will ye have?” she asked in an Irish accent, slapping a menu down in front of me.
I glanced at the menu and saw the beer list in one corner. Less than a dozen choices, and all of them Irish.
“A Smithwick’s, please.”
“I think we still have some of the salmon that’s on special,” she said, and turned away to head for the bar.
I looked around. It was after midnight, and several people were eating. The food looked good. When she came back with my beer and a glass of water, I asked, “Are you still serving the full menu?”