The Library of Shadows

30

With difficulty Jon turned his head towards Remer. He could see the gun in his hand, and Remer's lips were parted in a smile of white teeth and red blood. Jon turned his attention to Katherina and saw the fear in her eyes.

He was still holding the book in his hand, and with one last effort he focused his gaze on the words on the page and read as loudly as he could. Even though he didn't have the strength to charge what he was reading, the reaction from Remer was instantaneous. He took a step back and put up one arm to shield himself.

'Now!' shouted Jon to Katherina, and she leaped away from him, heading for the open doorway where Remer couldn't see her. There she hesitated for a second and turned to look at Jon, but he nodded urgently. She didn't move.

'Run!' he yelled with as much anger as he could muster.

Katherina looked terrified, but she pulled herself together and ran, vanishing from his field of vision.

With relief Jon let go of the book, which fell to the floor with a thud. He sank back with a smile on his lips and closed his eyes. He heard a great deal of noise all around him. People were running and speaking excitedly. Someone was whimpering; it sounded like Pau. Jon hoped that it was Pau.

The smell in the room reminded him of his activation at Libri di Luca. There was the same stench of burnt wood and plastic, the same feeling of electricity in the air, and he had a metallic taste in his mouth. The exhaustion he felt was also like before, a penetrating fatigue that made it impossible for him to move unless he gave it his full attention.

One thing that was not the same, however, was the way the reading had progressed. He had been completely out of it during the activation. It was like a blackout, and he had been unaware of anything happening around him.

The test of his powers in the cell room was totally different.

At first he hadn't noticed anything unusual. Since he'd been holding the book at arm's length, his distance from the text was further than he would have liked, and he had to squint a bit to be able to read it. The headache from the blow to his head hadn't helped matters, and he had stammered his way through the first pages. Gradually it got easier, and his reading became more flowing and coherent until he noticed the now familiar sense of control.

Jon had read four or five pages ofFrankenstein without making any major deviations. He just worked his way into the rhythm, which allowed him to orient himself in the space, the text and the energy. He held back a bit, like a runner before the decisive final sprint, tensing his powers like muscles preparing to take off.

When the section began about the revolt of the villagers and the monster's desperation, Jon whirled himself into the story and the images rose up to meet him with clear, sharp colours and distinct outlines. Instead of his surroundings suddenly disappearing, as if someone had pressed a button, there was a much softer transition, like in the fadeout of a film. Objects in his vicinity became part of the stage-set in the story – in this way the chair in front of him became the plank bed on which Dr Frankenstein constructed his monster, and the figures observing him through the glass turned into swaying trees outside the castle windows.

After that Jon turned up the effects. The images acquired a sharp, insistent light, as if they were overexposed. The emotions in the story were so strong that they seemed solid and present, like minor characters in their own right. He enhanced the horror in the scenes, as well as the hopelessness of the monster and the inhuman bloodthirstiness of the masses. The images were almost lifted out of their setting; only the pure feelings on the faces cut kaleidoscopically through the light in an increasing fluctuation of images. He sped things up even more, so the images now appeared as a whirlwind in which faces and scenes became deformed, drawn further into the spiralling movement. The colours flipped polarity, so that the figures appeared like a negative. The characters' teeth, now showing black in their garish grimaces, burned holes right through the images. The white pupils of their eyes gleamed brightly enough to leave after-images on the retina as they swirled around in the maelstrom. Jon made one last effort and threw himself into the cyclone of images.

To his surprise it was utterly dark and very quiet.

'Congratulations, Campelli.'

Remer's voice brought Jon back to the reality of the cell room. Slowly he opened his eyes and peered at Remer, who stood a few metres away. Blood was trickling out of small cuts on his face and one cheek was black with soot.

'You're the new record holder,' he went on, looking around the room. 'At a price, you might say, but very convincing.'

'Katherina?' Jon asked hoarsely.

'Don't worry, she won't get far,' said Remer.

Jon smiled. That must mean she'd at least made it out of the building. Suddenly his own situation was no longer important, and he had a sense of being invincible.

'So, what's my score?'

Remer laughed. 'We don't know the actual number. You went way off the scale. No one has ever done that before.'

'I'm glad I was able to contribute to the entertainment,' said Jon. 'Can I go now?'

Remer laughed again. 'But you've only just arrived,' he said. His smile disappeared, and his grey eyes stared at Jon with a mixture of watchfulness and anticipation.

'We've been looking for someone like you, Campelli. You're the one who's going to take us to the next level.'

Jon shook his head. 'You're crazy. I'm never going to help you.'

'Don't be so sure about that,' said Remer. 'I'm convinced that you'll see things differently once you get a chance to hear what we have to offer.'

Jon snorted.

'And there are always other methods,' Remer went on. 'Methods that don't necessarily involve your girlfriend, should she manage to elude us after all.' He sighed. 'But don't force us to resort to that. The best solution would be for you to join us of your own free will.'

There was something disturbing about the way Remer presented his threats. He wasn't physically menacing or aggressive; instead, he gave the impression of being slightly aggrieved.

'I'm going to have to disappoint you,' said Jon. 'That's never going to happen.' Whatever Remer had up his sleeve, Jon would not give in to the man who was behind the murders of his parents.

Remer turned to yell something out of the door. Then he took a step closer to Jon.

'You're tired, Campelli,' he said indulgently. 'After you get some sleep, you'll see things in a different light. Just wait and see.'

A tall man with dark hair and an enormous jaw came through the door. He handed an object to Remer, who nodded towards Jon's free arm. The man went over to the chair and grabbed Jon's arm before he could move it, pressing it against the armrest with an iron grip. The object in Remer's hand was a syringe, and slowly he approached Jon to inject it into the arm that was still bound.

'You just need to get some rest,' Remer repeated with a smile.

Jon tried to fight it, but he could no longer stay awake.

He hadn't dreamed about his mother, Marianne, since he was a child. Back then the dreams were always about loss. She would be on board a train he just missed, or she would fall into a deep ravine before he could do anything to prevent it. Jon was always alone with her in his dreams, which always ended with her leaving him in some way, most often for good. He'd had some of these dreams before she died, rather like a premonition, and for a long time he'd believed that his dreams had caused her death. Even though he usually awoke in deep despair, Jon later had a sense that the dreams were actually helping him come to grips with his loss, as if they had worn off the edges of his grief. Finally the nightmares disappeared completely, and he hadn't dreamed about his mother since.

All of a sudden she was there, together with Luca. It looked like a birthday scene – Jon's birthday. The table was set for a proper children's party with a paper tablecloth, flags and balloons, but there were so many candles on the cake, more than he could either count or blow out. After he tried and tried to put them out, his happy parents took pity on him and handed him a big present. It was wrapped in blue paper with silver ribbon, but he didn't hesitate to tear off the wrapping. Underneath was a layer of red paper, and under that a yellow layer. It went on like this for a long time, and Jon got more and more frustrated, ripping the paper with ever increasing ferocity while the enthusiasm of Marianne and Luca never waned, as if he were just about to reach the goal. At the very moment when he was about to give up, he reached the innermost layer. He was surrounded by heaps of torn wrappings, and his parents had disappeared in the masses of paper. He could still hear their cries of encouragement if he listened hard, but it sounded as if an eiderdown quilt were covering them. By this time the present had shrunk considerably, and when he removed the last layer of wrapping paper, he was holding a book in his hands.

It wasDon Quixote.

He had other dreams, but they were disjointed and vague. Several times he saw himself lying in a hospital bed, tended to by a shifting gallery of people. Sometimes it was Katherina, other times Iversen, Remer or people he didn't know at all. In one dream he was diving without any equipment and the water pressure threatened to crush his skull the further down he went, until he lost consciousness in his dream and sank like a rock.

When Jon finally awoke, he knew at once he wasn't dreaming. Even though he found himself in a hospital bed, just like in his dreams, the pain in his throat convinced him he was wide awake. He was terribly thirsty, and his tongue felt rough and much bigger than normal. When he turned his head, he caught sight of a small bedside table with a glass of water on top. But when he tried to reach for it, his movement was stopped by a strap; his body was in restraints. Both his wrists were fastened with leather straps to the metal frame of the bed.

Jon studied his shackles with dismay, as if he might be able to loosen them by sheer force of will, but they were properly secured and refused to yield, no matter how much he tugged at them. He let his gaze slide further up his arm, stopping at the inside of his elbow. On his right arm he saw five puncture marks from syringes. When he examined his left arm, he found seven more.

How long had he been out?

He felt both tired and rested, and when he lowered his head to touch his chin to his chest, he noticed that he was newly shaven.

The room he was in didn't provide many clues either. Aside from the bed and table, there were no other furnishings. There was plenty of space, for at least three more beds, but the room was almost bare, which was further emphasized by the white walls and reddish marble floor. Fluttering in front of a window furthest away from his bed was a white curtain that reached from floor to ceiling; and bright sunlight was trying to force its way through the fabric. Even though the window was open and he was covered only by a thin white sheet, Jon felt surprisingly warm.

The only door in the room was in the wall across from the foot of his bed. A peephole cast an accusatory eye at him from the door, which had no handle on the inside. Judging by the rivets, the door was made of metal.

For a moment it occurred to Jon that he'd been committed to an insane asylum and that the events of the past weeks were all hallucinations. That seemed in many ways a better explanation than what he'd been through, but the illusion was abruptly shattered when the door opened and Remer came in.

'Campelli,' cried Remer with a smile. 'Good to see you awake for a change.'

Jon tried to answer but couldn't get a word to cross his dry lips. Remer noticed his difficulty and went over to the bedside table to pick up the glass and offer Jon a drink. Even though the water was lukewarm, Jon accepted it gratefully and emptied the whole glass. Then he let his head drop back on the pillow and set about studying Remer. Something was different. The wounds on his face had healed, and his complexion had a completely different hue from the last time they'd met. The suit he was wearing was light-coloured, loose-fitting summer attire.

'How long have I been out?' Jon finally asked.

Remer shrugged.

'Three or four days,' he replied.

Jon shook his head. That didn't seem right to him. The sunlight, the heat, Remer's clothes. The twelve needle marks on his arms told him nothing. He had no idea what they had given him or how long an effect each injection might have had.

Remer smiled at his confusion and went over to the open door, calling something into the next room in a language that sounded to Jon like Turkish or Arabic.

'How are you feeling?' asked Remer when he returned to the bed. 'Are you in any pain? Do you have a headache?'

Jon shook his head. His back ached, and he was still slightly drowsy, but after several days in bed that was probably to be expected. And he had no intention of showing any sign of weakness to Remer.

'Were the injections really necessary?' he asked, nodding at the marks on his left arm.

'I'm afraid so,' said Remer. 'We thought it would be the safest way to move you.'

He was interrupted by a woman with a dark complexion wearing a white lab coat. Without hesitation she came through the door carrying another glass of water. She didn't look at Jon as she set the glass on the bedside table, turned and left the room. As she passed, Remer said something to her, but the words were incomprehensible to Jon.

'As I was saying,' Remer went on, throwing out his hands. 'It was better for you to be unconscious during the trip. We couldn't have you creating a scene along the way, now could we?' He laughed. 'Look on the positive side. You avoided all the queues, the waiting time and the luggage problems.'

Jon studied him carefully. Even though Remer was blatantly enjoying himself, there was nothing to indicate that he was lying.

'Where exactly am I?' asked Jon.