His dad told Calvin it was one of Mommy’s “bad days.” The doctors had a name for it, too. Bipolar.
When Calvin was seven, his mom called home with a cheery slur in her voice (the demon loved a good drink) to proudly tell him she had carved Calvin’s initials in her arm. When Calvin was eight and she was in a drunken rage, she took the family dog to the pound and “accidentally” had him put down. The demon liked laughs.
But none of those nights prepared Calvin for this one.
Fresh from his bath, with his white blond hair still soaking wet and dangling over the birthmark near his left eye, nine-year-old Calvin sat in his room, bearing down on his paper with an orange Crayola, while his parents shouted in the kitchen.
Tonight, the demon was back.
“Rosalie, put it down!” his father growled.
Crash.
“Get away from me, Lloyd!” his mother howled. Clang.
His father grunted. “That’s it—you’re done!” he screamed back.
“You’re done!”
Cling. Clang. Cling.
Calvin twisted the doorknob, ran for the kitchen, and froze as he turned the corner. All the kitchen’s lower drawers were open and empty, their contents—pans, pot lids—scattered across the floor. In the corner, the fridge was open, too—and picked just as clean. Jars of ketchup, soda, and spaghetti sauce were still spinning on the floor. In the center of the kitchen, his six-foot-two-inch dad was bent forward in pain as Mom brandished a fat white jar of mayonnaise, ready to smash her husband in the head.
“Mom?” Calvin said in a small voice.
His mother wheeled around, off balance. The jar fell from her grip. Calvin saw it plummet. As it hit the floor and exploded, there was a low, thick pooomp, sending a mushroom cloud of mayo spraying across the floor. Calvin’s mother never flinched.
“You always root against me!” she seethed at her nine-year-old boy with her dark, alligator green eyes.
“Maniac!” his dad erupted, and with one brutal shove pummeled his wife squarely in the chest.
“Mom!” Calvin shouted.
The blow hit her like a baseball bat, sending her stumbling backward.
“Mom, look out for—”
Her heel hit the mayonnaise at full speed and she flipped backward like a seesaw. If Lloyd hadn’t been so big or so enraged . . . if he hadn’t blown up with such a fierce physical outburst . . . he might not have shoved her so hard. But he did. And as she fell backward, still looking at Calvin, she had no idea that the back of her neck was headed straight toward the lower kitchen drawer that was still wide open.
Calvin tried to run forward but could scarcely lift his arms and legs.
In mid-air, his mother was turned toward him, her alligator eyes still burning through him. There was no mistaking her final thought. She wasn’t scared. Or even in pain. She was angry. At him. The white blond, wet-haired boy who caused her to drop the mayo and . . . from that day forward, in his nine-year-old mind . . . the person who caused her to fall.
“Mom!”
She was falling. Falling. Then—
The sound was unforgettable.
“Rosie!” his father screamed, leaping forward and scooping her head toward his chest. Her arms rag-dolled across the mayonnaise-smeared floor.
“Calvin, don’t you look!” Lloyd cried. The tears were running down his twisted Irish nose. “Close your eyes! Don’t you look!”
But Calvin looked. He wanted to cry, but nothing came. He wanted to run but couldn’t move. As he stood frozen, a stream of urine ran down his right leg.
Most lives crumble over time. Cal Harper’s crumbled in one crashing fall. But nineteen years later, thanks to a single call on his radio, he’d begin his quest through history and finally have a chance to put his life together.
1
Nineteen years later
Hong Kong
Good girl—such a good girl,” Ellis said, down on one knee as his dog snatched the beef treat from his open palm. With a bite and a gulp, the treat was gone, and Ellis Belasco, with his sleek copper red hair, smiled proudly and added a strong authoritative pat to the back of his smoky brown pet’s neck. As the trainer said, attack dogs had to be rewarded.
“P-Please . . . my leg . . . he chewed my leg!” the thin Chinese man whined as he crawled across the worn beige carpet toward the hotel room door.
“To be clear, she chewed your Achilles’ tendon,” Ellis said, calmly standing up and brushing back his long European-style haircut—he was always meticulous—to reveal amber eyes framed by striking, lush eyebrows that almost merged on the bridge of his nose. Because of his rosy coloring, his cheeks were always flushed, as were his full lips, which he licked as he stared down at a small tattoo between his thumb and pointer finger.
His birthright was healing nicely.
For the past two months, Ellis had been tracking the ancient book from collector to collector—from the doctor in China whose death gave it away, to Zhao, the shipper, who schemed to deliver it elsewhere. Every culture called it by a different name, but Ellis knew the truth.
“I know you have it,” Ellis said. “I’d like the Book of Lies now.”
From the corner of the bed, Ellis reached for his small gray pistol.
“Nonono . . . you can’t— My fiancée— We just got engaged!” the young dockworker begged, scrambling on his one good knee as his other leg left a smear of blood across the carpet.
Ellis pressed the barrel of his gun against the man’s throat. It was vital he hit the jugular. But he knew he would. That was the advantage of having God on your side. “I paid what you asked me, Zhao,” Ellis said calmly. “But it makes me sad that someone else clearly paid you more.”
“I swear—the book—I told you where it’s going!” Zhao screamed, his eyes rolling toward the pistol as Ellis glanced out the hotel window, into the dim alley. The view was awful—nothing more than a blank brick wall. But that was why Ellis had Zhao meet him here. No view, no witnesses.
With a squeeze, Ellis shot him in the throat.
There was no bang, just a pneumatic hiss. Zhao jerked slightly, and his eyes blinked open. . . . “Ai! Ai, that—! What was that?” he stuttered as a drop of blood bubbled from his neck.
The military called them “jet injectors.” Since World War I, they had been used to vaccinate soldiers quickly and easily. There was no needle. The burst of air was so strong, it drilled through the skin with nothing more than a disposable air cartridge and the one-use red nozzle that looked like a thimble with a tiny hole. All you’d feel was the snap of a rubber band, and the vaccine was in your blood. For Ellis, it was a bit overdramatic, but if he was to find the Book that had been taken from him . . . that had been taken from his family . . . He knew every war had rules. His great-grandfather left him this gun—or the plans for this gun, at least—for a reason. It took time and patience to build it from scratch. Ellis had plenty of both.
“Forty . . . thirty-nine . . . thirty-eight . . .” Ellis began to count, peeking under the wrist of his starched shirt and checking his new Ulysse Nardin watch.
“Wait . . . ! The shot—! What’d you put in me!?” Zhao screamed, gripping the side of his neck.
“. . . thirty-seven . . . thirty-six . . . thirty-five . . .” Ellis said, his voice as serene as ever. “My family first encountered it in Belgium. Conium maculatum. Hemlock.”