Book of Secrets (33 page)

  "The Black Hand," I whispered.

  "Yes," Raziel answered, nodding. "Unlike these sad dregs," he waved a hand at those to either side, "your family, with no hope of personal gain, not even knowing the true heritage of their calling, has struggled century after century for their brothers. Even you, in your way, continued the struggle."

  "Um, wow," I said, back in high school cheerleader mode, unable to form a complete sentence.

  "Keep the book," Raziel continued, "and these will not harm you." He waved his arm, and the two groups disappeared, like their pistols had just a few moments ago. "They are back in their appointed places and will not trouble you again. Keep the book, and honor the memory of your forebears."

  I nodded mutely, taking the book from him and clutching it to my chest.

  Raziel put the hat back on his head and turned to walk away.

  "Someday," he said, as an afterthought, "you will have to come and see my home, come and see the Otherworld. I've brought others of your kind there over the generations, children in distress, lost souls with nowhere else to turn. Most choose eventually to return here, to your world, but some have stayed on and made their homes there. In your search for a better world, I think you would be strengthened to see that one does exist, at least somewhere."

  "Um, okay," I answered, giving a foolish little wave. I felt as though I'd just been invited over for dinner by Elvis Presley, or maybe Gandhi, and wasn't quite sure how to respond.

  "I'll leave you now," Raziel finished, "as I can see you're much in need of rest. But as I told you last week, I am most sorry to hear of your loss. My condolences."

  With that he turned, took three steps away, and disappeared.

  I was left standing in the Alamo Plaza, the sun beginning to set, the secret history of humanity clutched to my chest and an idiotic expression on my face.

Dazed as I was, I managed to make it back to the rental car, something so mundane that after the events of the past few hours it seemed extraordinarily normal in comparison. I carefully placed the book into the cardboard box of my grandfather's things and drove away.

  On my way out of town, I stopped by the house on Crescent Row to see Maria. She was happy to see me, and I was just glad to see someone familiar and sane. We shared a small meal together in the kitchen, talking nonstop about the past, about me and my brother, about the years we spent in the house, and about my grandfather. We talked quite a bit about my grandfather, what the last few years had been like for him, how they had changed him in quiet little ways, and how he had finally gone to his rest. He had died quietly, Maria told me, fully dressed in suit and tie and sitting in his chair in the study, as though he was ready to go out for the night. He had faced death ready and willing, she said, all of his affairs in order, all of his things packed and organized.

  She asked me about the two things I'd received from him, the box and the case. She'd had no idea what was in them, just that they were treasured by the old man, and that his final wish was that I have them. I think Maria was more than a little disappointed that I hadn't made the funeral, but she didn't mention it, and when I finally apologized, awkwardly and sincere, her eyes brimmed with tears and she hugged me until I almost passed out from lack of breath.

  I told her a little about the cardboard box and its content, leaving out the more confusing details, and all of the craziness of the past few days. Maria had always been a strong woman, and still was, but the chances that she'd believe anything I had to tell her about what I'd learned were nil, and I didn't want her thinking the old man had gone crazy, or that I had lost my mind on drugs.

  The wooden case, I told her, I had been unable to open, as I had received it locked and without the key. Maria jumped from her chair immediately and, waving me to follow, raced through the house to the study. I trailed along behind, taking in the smells of the old house, pausing only at the door to the study.

  It was exactly as I'd remembered from all those years before. The papers were gone now and the books all up on the shelves, but the prints and paintings still hung the walls and the leather chair still sat behind the huge wooden desk, just as the old man had left it.

  Maria was behind the desk, rummaging in the drawers, but I found I was reluctant to enter the room. It felt as though I'd be stepping on someone's grave to do so, tampering with the dead. I hung back at the door, waiting for her to finish.

  She came up smiling, a small iron key in her hand, and bounced back to where I stood. Of course, I realized, the old man would always have kept a spare.

  Finally, it was time for Maria to go of to bed and time for me to head back home. We said our tearful goodbye at the back door, Maria making me promise to visit again, and I answered with all sincerity that I would as soon as I could. I got back in the car and drove the hour north to home.

  Back in Austin I found things just as I'd left them a few days before. Hot, dark, and empty of food. I left the cardboard box with the book and my grandfather's things by the door, tossed my suitcase over onto the couch, and headed for the kitchen. There, on the table where I'd left it, was the wooden case, the other half of my inheritance, the remainder of my grandfather's life's work. Pulling the iron key from my pocket, I sat down at the table and pulled the case over in front of me.

  The key turned easily in the lock, oiled to perfection, which hardly surprised me. My grandfather always insisted everything in the house be in perfect working order, no matter how old. Or how young, for that matter, considering how he had worked my brother and me. But that was long ago, and all sins forgotten.

  I hesitated before opening the case, wondering what might be inside and almost afraid to find out. Finally, curiosity got the better of me, and I carefully lifted the lid up.

  There, in precisely shaped indentions on black velvet, sat twin .45 Colt automatics, with a small envelope resting on top. The pistols, like the lock, looked oiled and flawless, as new as they'd looked fifty years before. Fifty years before, I realized, when my grandfather had used them, fighting crime and injustice under the hood of the Black Hand. It was all true, every word of it.

  With shaking hands, I lifted up the envelope and managed to get it open. There was a single sheet of parchment paper inside, the close lines of my grandfather's hand filling one page.

It was some time later that I put the paper down, and sometime after that when I climbed out of the chair and crossed the room. My most cherished angers, my long-held petty grievances, had all been taken from me, and in their place was an overwhelming feeling of loss. And, inexplicably, of satisfaction and accomplishment. I was confused, but then realized that for the first time in a long time, if not ever, I was proud of myself. The validation from my grandfather I had never thought I wanted or needed, when finally given, suddenly put my whole life in another perspective.

  I stood thinking for a long while, standing still in the kitchen, before I went back to the living room to get the cardboard box. Returning to the kitchen, I laid out the book I had been given by the angel, and the papers of my grandfather, and started to work.

  I turned to the blank pages in the back of the book, where the last member of the Cult of the Lightbringer had left off, before the book had been lost to pirates and found by my seafaring greatgrandmother many times removed. The history of the Order of the Black Hand ended there, and that's where I would begin. The papers and articles I would staple in as I went.

  I picked up my pen, and wrote, "
My brother and I
once met at a bar
…"

Perhaps more than any of my other books, this one in particular would not have been possible without the love, support, and encouragement of my wife, partner, and friend, Allison Baker.

  I am also endlessly grateful to Mark Finn, Matthew Sturges, and Bill Willingham, who helped bring this story into focus.

Chris Roberson's books include the novels
Here,
There & Everywhere, The Voyage of Night Shining
White, Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, Set the Seas on
Fire, End of the Century, Iron Jaw and Hummingbird,
The Dragon's Nine Sons
and
Three Unbroken
, and the comicbook mini-series
Cinderella: From Fabletown
With Love
. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as
Asimov's Science Fiction, PostScripts,
and
Subterranean
. Along with his business partner and spouse Allison Baker, he is the publisher of MonkeyBrain Books, an independent publishing house specializing in genre fiction and non-fiction genre studies.

  He has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award four times – twice for publishing, and once each for writing and editing – twice a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and three times for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Short Form (winning in 2004 with his story "O One").

  More recently Chris has been writing the acclaimed comic book,
I Zombie
. He lives, with wife and daughter, in Austin, Texas. Read more of his work or just find out what he thinks at
chrisroberson.net.

Readers of my previous novels may recall that I am the type of person who feels cheated when "The End" are the last words in a book, and who never buys a DVD if the "Special Features" are nothing more than theatrical trailers. While I feel that stories should explain themselves, I nevertheless like a little extra material to explore when I finish the story itself, a bit of behind-the-scenes business that I can dig into after the credits roll.

With that in mind, I offer the following notes.

A somewhat different version of this novel was originally published under the title V
oices of Thunder
in a print-on-demand edition by Clockwork Storybook, a short-lived writers' collective in Texas. The present volume represents the author's preferred text.

Like my novel
End of the Century
, with which it shares more than a few points of connection, this story is one that lived in my head for years. The earliest notes on the characters and ideas can be found in notebooks dating back more than twenty years, to when I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin. I tinkered with the various pieces for years, and by the spring of 1993 I had figured out the basic plot, worked up the back-stories of the various characters, and sketched in the rough outline of the secret history of the world that Spencer's searches would gradually reveal. I did research for the next year or two, filling notebook after notebook with entries on secret societies, mythologies, and other historical minutiae.

  By the time I turned twenty-five in 1995, I had the whole story mapped out. But while I had the
plot
figured out, I didn't yet have the structure. But more importantly, I knew I wasn't yet a good enough writer to tell the story I wanted to tell. I started writing the novel at least a half-dozen times, but each time was defeated by it.

  By the decade's end I was
almost
ready. As part of the Clockwork Storybook writers' group, I had the constant encouragement (and more importantly, criticism) of the other members – Mark Finn, Matthew Sturges and Bill Willingham – to help me improve my craft. And inspired by Michael Moorcock's
Fabulous Harbours
, I'd finally worked out the structure that the story demanded.

  The version of the story that was published as
Voices of Thunder
was not a first draft – or even a fifteenth – but still in many ways I consider it an unfinished work, bread that wasn't yet fully baked. After a brief life as a print-on-demand edition (that sold only a handful of copies), I continued to tinker with the manuscript, revising it again and again over the years since. The end result is the present volume, now rechristened
Book of Secrets
– perhaps ironically, the title I'd originally given the story back in 1993, which is only fitting, as this is the story that I set out to tell, all those years ago.