The Devil’s Favourite Book

“Your name?” The librarian asks as she takes out the visitor register.

I lift my hood. “Morana Churchill.”

The woman raises her eyebrows and props her glasses on her long nose.

“Purpose of visit?”

“Membership.”

She looks up. “The Literary club?”

“Yes.”

She nods and hands me a QR code. “That’ll be five hundred.”

I hand her five hundred dollars, grab the membership card and leave. The fluorescent gleam of the light bulb has been giving me a headache for the last fifteen minutes.

I walk down the vivid halls of the library until I reach the dark brown, wooden door as Alanna had explained.

I take a good look at the door and notice the engraving at the bottom,

INTRI PE RISCUL TAU.

I switch on my comms as I stand before the door, trying to decode it.

“Sienna one, you there?” I whisper, placing the device carefully in my left ear and covering it with my hair.

“Copy. At your service, Black cat.” She says in her husky voice.

“There’s an engraving at the bottom of the door.”

“What does it say?”

“Not sure. I think it’s in Romanian, but I’m unsure what it means.”

“The glasses.”

“What?”

“The sunglasses I gave you. Wear them.”

“To a reader’s club, Alanna?”

“No, you idiot. They have in-built scanners. I’ve connected it to my laptop. Once you wear them, I’ll be able to see what you’re seeing.”

“Alright.”

Quickly, I put the sunglasses on.

“Intri pe riscul tau.” She reads it out.

“Whatever you’re doing, please do it quickly, if anyone sees me standing outside a reader’s club wearing sunglasses and checking out a door, they’re gonna think I’m mad.”

“I think it’s-” Her voice breaks.

Silence.

“Hello?”

“-Risk.”

“Huh?”

“Enter-”

“Alanna,” I say. “Your voice is breaking.”

“-own risk.”

Footsteps and voices echo in the hall.

“Alanna, are you there? Somebody’s approaching. Over.”

“I said-”

The voices are closer now.

“Alanna, do you copy?”

Closer.

I switch stations. “Sienna 2, this is black cat. Do you copy?”

“Sienna 2 reporting to black cat. Copy, ma’am.”

“Roger that. Tell Alanna I’m entering. Over.”

“Copy.”

I take off the sunglasses and enter the room.

“…And so Chloe is reported dead. Two months later, they find her remains and the forensics declare that her cause of death was strangulation.”

Everybody applauds.

“Alright, I’m back. Crappy network, over,” Alanna’s voice chimes in through my comms.

“Stay quiet until I tell you not to.” I whisper.

“Roger that.”

I scan the room and everyone’s faces.

“Okayyyy, who’s the next volunteer?” A blonde woman – presumably the host – says.

“I volunteer,” comes a voice.

“Alright, Maxine. Step up and story time.” Everyone laughs.

Maxine, a short, blue-eyed brunette, walks over to the center of the crowd.

“Okay, so I recently finished the book, Blood and Lies by my favorite author, Lena McKinnie, and the story is about a girl who goes missing for ten days and then over a period of seven months, different parts of her body are discovered across the country. The story revolves around…”

I zone out and scan the crowd once more.

I put on my sunglasses.

“Sienna one, black cat reporting.”

“Copy that.” Alanna says in a breathy tone.

“I need you to give me information about the people I look at. I’ll describe them, so just zoom into the visuals when I do so. Over.”

“Roger that.”

I shift my focus from Maxine speaking to a tall curly-haired guy in the crowd.

“Tall guy, brunette. Curly hair.”

“Ibrahim Romanov, literature student. No suspicious activity. He’s clear.”

I divert my attention to the host. “The blondie. Next to Maxine.”

“Elena Winston. Economics major, part time play school teacher. She-”

I grunt. “Boring. Next.”

“Who?”

Observing each and every individual, my eyes land on a particular one.

“Black hair, green eyes. Should be tall if she stands up.”

I hear a few keys clacking before she finally says, “Tatiana Russo.”

“She’s a puppet arts major. Not much about her, except for the fact that she’s 5’9 and could probably beat your-”

“She’s a puppet arts major?”

“Weird, I know.”

Very weird. I’ve done enough cases in the last ten years of my life to know that it’s not a very popular subject to major in.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, her dad owns a vineyard.”

I nod, expecting more.

“Mom?”

“Mmhm. Died four years ago in a drunk driving accident.”

Loophole.

“Tell me about the accident.”

“You don’t know about this?” Alanna scoffs.

“No, that’s why I’m asking.”

“It happened in North Carolina. Around seven people in a truck – all of them were drunk and Mrs Russo just happened to be crossing the road. The truck was coming at high speed and – yeah, that’s it.”

“Seven people.”

“Yep.”

“You’re missing it.”

“What?”

“How many dead bodies were found over the last two years in North Carolina?”

“Seven.”

“Exactly.”

“It doesn’t have to be- Oh, lord, Morana. They could be different people-”

The lights go off.

“What the hell?” Elena’s stern voice screams.

“Somebody get the bloody lights back on!”

The lights start flashing. Only, it’s not the original champagne color it was. It’s red now.

“Sienna one, if you copy, tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Copy that. It’s a blackout. All throughout. My laptop’s down, too.”

Bloody hell.

Somebody’s shadow emerges.

It’s a hooded figure.

All the screaming stops.

And suddenly, all the bits and pieces of Alanna’s translation falls into place.

Intri pe riscul tau.

Enter at your own risk.

 

— The End —