The Devil's Third by Ford Rebekkah

Author:Ford, Rebekkah [Ford, Rebekkah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ford Publishing
Published: 2013-11-12T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nathan

I fell in step with Ameerah. We crossed the half empty parking lot to a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Beads of early morning dew clung to the shiny black paint, making me wonder how long Ameerah had been lurking around the hospital. She pulled keys out of her pocket and pushed a button. A clicking noise resounded inside the vehicle. I quickly scanned the area for intruding eyes. A red Ford Focus pulled into a parking space, and a petite blonde emerged wearing blue scrubs. Other vehicles were filing in. The morning shift was arriving and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Ameerah opened the door and disappeared from my sight. I followed suit, sinking into the soft leather seat. In no time, we were exiting the hospital grounds, turning off of Exchange street toward twentieth. Trees towered above houses built in the early 1900s, shedding their crimson and gold leaves around the spacious properties. The early morning sun poked through the gray clouds, highlighting the brilliant foliage scattered on patches of bare earth.

Without taking her eyes off the road, Ameerah reached between our seats to the back, producing a pale yellow, leathery book with brass clasps holding down leather straps. She tossed it to my lap. “It’s a grimoire,” she said, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

I picked it up and ran my fingers over the strange cover. I found it odd there was nothing written on it. I turned it over. There were no words or pictures on the back as well. The spine was even blank. There were dark brown wrinkles, bunched on the bottom and fanning out on the top of the cover. I examined it some more and realized on close observation it resembled The Tree of Life. I pointed to the image. “Is this The Tree of--”

“Life,” Ameerah said, her smirk crossing her face now. “Yes, and it’s bound in human flesh.”

I raised my eyebrows, knowing back in the seventeenth century there were people who practiced binding books in tanned, human skin, called anthropodermic biblipedy–an exercise I found quite gruesome. In all my travels, I’d heard stories of these books, but never encountered one until now.

Ameerah reached to brush her fingertips on the spine. “I take it you don’t possess one of these macabre artifacts?”

“No, but I’ve heard tales of them,” I answered, wondering who was the poor bastard this skin belonged to.

“You do have a grimoire, right?”

“Of course. I have several.” I unlatched the book and opened it. A gasp of air blew into my face, assailing my senses with a musty, sour odor. I wrinkled my nose at the foul stench, my mind pulling up an image of a putrefying, gaping wound.

“The smell will subside in a minute,” Ameerah said, slowing behind a flatbed trailer piled with logs. She leaned to her left to see if she could pass him. “Dammit. I can’t see around him.” She released an annoyed sigh and sat back.

I focused my attention back on the grimoire, not bothering to ask her why we were on a back country road or where we were headed.

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