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“We kill her,” Drummond said. “We commit to that, or we don’t even start. Because there is no point. No halfways. We do it properly, and only then will we be free. Only then will all of this”—he gestured at the people around them—“be safe.”
“I’m down with that,” Lund said. “Kill her.”
Izzy looked at Lund in surprise, her face creased with conflict. Then she looked at Cassie.
“Cassie?” she asked.
And Cassie nodded, not moving her eyes from the horizon. “Yeah,” she said. “We do it properly.”
Izzy nodded reluctantly. “Okay,” she said.
“Good,” Drummond said. He waited for a few minutes, letting the decision settle, and then he said, “Let’s get started, then, shall we?”
The Plan, Part One—Azaki’s Story
Antofagasta, several months earlier
Not for the first time in his life, Azaki was feeling like shit. The illusion in the desert had been as much for him as it had been for the old woman. He’d felt like he’d defrauded her somehow, offering her something she desired, something she had needed, that he knew he was never going to be able to give her. The things he did just to find special books were starting to weigh upon him.
“Beer, please,” he said, as he reached the bar. The bartender nodded at him and pulled out a bottle from the fridge behind the counter. Azaki charged it to the room and settled on a stool. The bar wasn’t busy, just enough people to generate sufficient background noise to be pleasant. “To Miss Pacheo,” he said to himself, tapping the air with the top of the bottle before taking a swig.
He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going, but he couldn’t stop. He was scared, he knew. Scared of the woman. She was killing people like him and taking their books. He had heard of her, through acquaintances, other book hunters he met in bars. They told stories of the massacre at Washington Square Park in New York, other book owners disappearing. What sort of person could do that so ruthlessly? What sort of person wanted all the books?
Azaki just wanted to find one more book. He’d sell it through theBookseller and take his millions and go hide somewhere. Get away from it all.
He sipped more of his beer, looking at his own face in the mirror behind the bar.
Of course, he had a book that he could sell. His own book.
He shook his head at his own reflection:Don’t even think it.
The Book of Illusion was his. He wouldn’t sell it. Not ever.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and saw Lund in the mirror, towering over him.
“I thought you were going to the room,” Azaki said, without turning around.
He liked Lund. The man was quiet, low maintenance. He was the perfect bodyguard. But Azaki didn’t need him sitting on his arm all night.
A woman’s voice answered: “He’s a different Lund.”
He turned around and saw a pretty blond woman standing next to Lund. And then he saw that Lund looked different. A change of clothes, his hair longer.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Best we talk somewhere more private,” the woman said.
Azaki looked at Lund and the big man nodded.
They moved to a table in the corner of the room, away from anyone else.
“So what’s going on?” Azaki asked.
The woman withdrew a book from her pocket and placed it on the table. For a moment Azaki wondered if Lund had found a book, and his heart leapt at the possibility of escape. But he realized almost immediately that he was wrong.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s that?”
“You need to listen to her,” Lund said.
