Disclaimer: see verse 1.

The Everblack Bible

Verse 2

Old Friends and Sudden Storms

By Random1377

Alice rubbed her backside with a pained expression, giving the forest green motorcar a dark look as she climbed out of its sparse interior and dropped to the ground by its side.  "We should have walked," she lamented grimly, accepting her bible from Yuri as he climbed out after her.  "Why is it that traveling with her always feels more like sticking your tongue out at an angry bull?"

"I heard that," Margarete said cheerfully, "Hey, don't I always get us where we're going in one piece?"

Yuri made a face.  "More or less," he muttered, "but I can't say the same for the vehicles you choose."

Margarete looked hurt.  "How can you say that?" she pouted, patting the car's fender – and catching it as it detached and headed earthward.  "I leave things in the same condition I found them!"

"Can you find something that's not about to fall apart next time, then?" Yuri grumbled, trying to work a kink out of his neck.  "Lord," he sighed, "at least we weren't in the air this time."

"How long are you going to hold that against me?!" Margarete complained, slamming the car door three times before it stuck.  "You're going to hurt my feelings, sonny boy."

"Nice car!  Can we ride in it!?"

The trio looked up as a quartet of children rushed up to them.  "Hey kids," Margarete called, ruffling the hair of the youngest boy… and putting her hand discretely on the pocket containing her wallet.

Or rather, the pocket that should have contained it.

"Gotcha!" the boy cried gleefully, handing the wallet out to her.  "You guys are too easy!!"

"Settle down, Josh," the tallest boy muttered, "you're embarrassing us."

"Hey Halley," Yuri nodded, holding his hand out to the boy, "you all look like you're doing ok.  Business picking up?  …so to speak?"

"I sent you a letter," Halley Iasant sighed, clasping Yuri's hand in his and pumping it up and down with a bit too much enthusiasm, "didn't you get it?"

Yuri frowned, then brightened.  "Oh yeah!  Now I remember."

Margarete rolled her eyes as the young man reached into his pocket and produced a battered – and clearly unopened – envelope, the postmark on it dating back three weeks.  "Remind me not to write you any love letters," she muttered.

"Hey!" Alice exclaimed, "This is addressed to me too!  Why didn't you tell me??"

Yuri shrugged, looking wholly embarrassed.  "Forgot," he grumbled, "hey – I've got a lot on my mind!"

"Well, whatever," Halley grunted, "might as well just tell you, since you're here – but first things first," he lowered his voice and leaned closer to Yuri, "got some visitors a few nights ago, you know what I mean?"

"So it wasn't a dream," Alice breathed, "Is your mother ok?  I saw her, trying to call out to me, and, and – there was something behind her!  It was huge, and its teeth, and she-"

"Calm down," Halley hissed as several passersby stopped to glance at her, "you're making a scene… she's ok, but you guys should come to the hideout right now."

Alice blushed and quickly nodded, falling in step as Halley led them through London's streets, bringing them to a stop outside an old, rather rundown looking house.  Although, she noticed suddenly, it was not quite as rundown as it used to be.

"Wow," she exclaimed, "you guys have really fixed the place up!"

Halley beamed.  "Three months is a long time," he said with some satisfaction, "not too bad for a handful of kids, huh?"

Yuri nodded approvingly.  "New shutters, new windows, did some painting – and you've even got some grass coming up in that messed up lot!  Nice."

Halley grabbed his arm as he started for the back of the house.  "We can use the door now," he said dryly, jerking a thumb at the front as the other three children laughed out loud, "but Mom said she wanted to see Alice alone – if you guys showed up."  He shook his head ruefully.  "She's so funny sometimes – like she wants to pretend we're normal or something… but I knew that she knew you were coming, I don't know why she wanted to hide it from me."

"Mothers are like that," Alice laughed, "I'm sure she didn't want to worry you, especially after…" her laughter faded, "after the attack."

Halley snorted.  "Compared to some of the stuff we faced, it was nothing," he said boldly, "just… it was a good thing I was with her, you know?"

Alice patted his shoulder.  "You're a good boy," she said warmly.

A bright blush lit Halley's cheeks.  "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, "get in there."

**

Koudelka paced back and forth, her long black dress swishing as she clasped her hands behind her back.  I knew it was a matter of time, she thought grimly, four, they sent!  It must be him – it can only be him.

She sighed, coming to a stop in front of one of the room's big bay windows.  "Raining," she mused softly, "it wasn't raining a minute ago."  Her eyes drifted closed as she recited, "'Sudden storms, like sudden love affairs, are the most destructive.'"

"Koudelka?"

Her eyes opened at the tentative call.  I suppose we shall see just how destructive this storm is, she thought wearily.  "Come in."

Alice made her way into the room, frowning at the dark window behind the other woman.  "It wasn't raining a minute ago," she murmured, feeling a bit at a loss for words.

Koudelka smiled reassuringly.  "I was just thinking the same thing," she said smoothly, trying to allay the girl's nervousness.  "Are you well?"

"I'm fine," Alice said slowly, "but… are you?"

"I am," Koudelka nodded, "I had a little disagreement with a few… unsavory creatures a few nights back, but I think you know that, don't you?"

"You were trying to reach me," Alice said, relief flooding her as she saw that the other woman really was alright, "I couldn't hear you very well, though… I'm sorry."

Koudelka waved a hand.  "No need for apologies," she said lightly, "someone was shielding me, trying to keep me from making contact with you."

"So you knew you were going to be attacked?" Alice breathed, amazed at the other woman's calm.

"Actually, no," Koudleka chuckled, "they caught me off guard, you see, and in my panic, I cried out, remembering your kindness and willingness to help."  She sighed.  "The person that sent them must have known of my powers, though, as I felt as if my cry was passing through a heavy veil."

 "How did you beat them?" Alice wondered, glancing around the room and sucking in a deep breath as she noticed several gouges and a long burn on one wall.

"You've noticed," Koudelka said gravely, "yes, it happened right here.  I was reading some old gardening pamphlets, if you can believe that, when the door burst open and they came in."  Her eyes grew hazy.  "I was cornered, and outnumbered… and the leader of the creature's towered over me, saying, 'give us the bible, witch.'"

"The bible?" Alice asked, understanding immediately that there was more here than met the eye.

"Yes," Koudelka nodded, "but not the one you're thinking of."  She raised her hands quickly.  "I'll get to that.  Anyway, by this time I had gathered my wits and was ready to fight, but you don't just attack straight on when you're outnumbered, so I was just thinking up a way to stall them and figure out my strategy when Halley came up the stairs."  She chuckled weakly.  "He's… quite impressive, as I'm sure you know, and he did not stop to ask the creatures who sent them, he simply attacked.  They didn't have a chance."

"So you didn't get a chance to find out who sent them," Alice said quietly.

"No, but whoever it was had a great deal of power," Koudelka said slowly, "Not many men can bind the will of a creature as strong as a Doomhound, and there is only one bible I know of that would be of enough interest to draw the attention of someone that powerful… the Everblack Bible."

Alice frowned.  "The Everblack Bible," she repeated, wetting her lips and taking a deep breath to admit her ignorance.

"You've never heard of it," Koudelka said dryly, forestalling her admission, "don't worry, not many have.  But it is really quite the little tome."  She lowered her voice.  "And the only person I know of with the power and desire to find it goes by the name of David Jones."

"Jones," Alice mused, "I don't think I've ever heard of him, either."

"Not surprising," Koudelka nodded, "he tries to keep a low profile – but I think we should concentrate on finding the Bible and destroying it.  If we can do that, I don't think Jones will be too keen on bothering us… that bible is his passion."

"But, why would a Holy Bible be that dangerous?" Alice wondered curiously, "I've heard of some scholars that have more than a quarter of the Bible memorized – down to the passage and verse – so is there something about how it's written, or what it's written on?"

"Oh the word 'bible' just means a book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion," Koudelka said quickly, "this isn't a Christian bible by any means."

"So what religion is it for?" Alice asked uncertainly.  "Is it another of Bacon's one-hundred artifacts – like the Float?"

Koudelka pursed her lips.  "I… I don't know," she admitted, "all I know is that it radiates a powerful, murky aura – like a deep, cloudy pool of water, hiding its contents in mystery and shadow.  And before you ask, no, I do not believe that the bible itself is inherently evil, but it is a very powerful relic that could easily cause a great deal of harm if it finds its way into Jones's hands."

"Hmm," Alice hummed thoughtfully, "how will I know it when I find it?"

"You'll know it," Koudelka said gravely, "if you find it, you won't have any doubt in your mind."

"How are you so sure?"

Koudelka sighed.  "Because I've seen it myself," she said reluctantly, "while I was traveling the country after leaving Nemeton, I happened to stumble on it with my traveling companion."  She rubbed her eyes and looked out the window.  "It's a pure black book, about the size of a regular bible. It has no markings – at least, none I could see.  My companion, a man named Fletcher, said he could see a faint emblem on the cover, but for the life of me, I could not see it…"  She rested her forehead on the windowpane, her fingertips tracing a line of rain from the top to the bottom.  "Maybe if I had, I could have saved him."

"What happened?" Alice asked softly.

Koudelka continued to trace the patterns of rain on the window in silence for a moment before answering, "It consumed him."

"What??"

"I did some research on it after the accident," Koudelka mused, completely oblivious to Alice's outburst, "and of the five people I met that had actually heard of it, none had ever seen it, so they could only give me bits of information."  She wet her lips, her tone giving Alice an oddly cold sensation – as if the older woman was no longer in the room with her, but had stepped back into the past.  "They told me that only the purest, or most tainted, of spirits can tap the Everblack Bible's secrets.  To everyone else's eyes, it appears as nothing but a collection of pure black pages bound in leather of darkest pitch.  Nothing more, nothing less.  But to those few select individuals, it is a source of unrivaled power – not godhood, but close enough to it that it has sent a great number of power-mad souls in search of its dark spine."

Alice considered this for a moment, feeling sick to her stomach as she spoke the words she knew she must.  "When you said it consumed Fletcher… what did you mean?"  She smiled weakly as Koudelka's eyes locked with hers, a clear look of reluctance on her face.  "I don't really want to know," Alice said honestly, "but if I do find it, I think it's important that I understand what I'm facing."

"Right," Koudelka nodded slowly.  "Well, when we found it, we had been traveling together for about three months, just going from town to town in search of anything interesting or out of the ordinary, and we had grown very… comfortable," she shrugged awkwardly, "we were not lovers or anything like that, but it was not from lack of attraction or mutual interest… it was more an unspoken agreement that this was not the right time."  She shook herself.  "Anyway, we found it on a pedestal in a church down the Themes by about seventy miles – barely a stone's throw from here, really – and Fletcher immediately grew excited.  'Look at the sigil on the cover!' he exclaimed, seizing the thing even as I cried out for him to stop, warning him that we had no way of knowing what it was." 

Koudelka shivered, rubbing her upper arms and forcing herself to continue as Alice waited patiently.  "'Nonsense!' he replied, running his hands over the thing with a brilliant smile, 'I know exactly what this is – and by God, I can see something in it!'  Well, at that time I had no idea why this should be a cause for celebration, and as it was getting on towards night, I begged him to look at it another time… but it was too late."

"Go on," Alice urged as she lapsed into silence, "did it possess him, or-"

"No," Koudelka cut in sadly, "when I said that it consumed him, I meant that literally.  One minute he was laughing and smiling, telling me that this would let him – let us – do anything we wanted… and the next," she swallowed hard, "the next, he was gone."

"Gone?" Alice breathed.

"Yes," Koudelka sighed.  "I was looking right at him, and then… I was looking at the church's far wall, because Fletcher was no longer there.  I searched for him – for months and months I asked everyone in all the neighboring towns if they knew anything about the church or the bible, but since it vanished with him, I could not show anyone, and no one seemed to know a thing about the empty church, other than the fact that it had been abandoned as long as anyone could remember."  She gazed out the window with an intent look on her face.  "There's one thing I've always wanted to know, though…" she whispered.

Alice waited for a minute, then murmured, "What?"

When Koudelka raised her eyes, Alice was shocked by the depth of sadness in them.  "What's bothered me most since I started looking into it – and since I stopped – was this: if it can only be read by the purest or most tainted of souls… which was Fletcher?"

Silence reigned as Alice found that she had no reply.

Continued…

Author's note: the definition of the word 'bible' was taken directly off of www.dictionary.com, so don't go calling me a heathen!  I get enough of that from my family. :P Also,  I chose Jones as the name of the villain only because the other villain names (Bacon, Simon, etc) were so commonplace, not because I have anything against people named Jones. ^_~

Pre-reading assistance on this chapter was by Aegis, again… cuz she's the bestest bestest bestest. ^_^

Feedback is always welcome at random1377@yahoo.com