A Book of Vengeance

Mui returns to Confrere Preparatory Academy and is determined to decipher more of the riddles in the mysterious book.

She struggles with the idea of keeping the book a secret from the Bibliokeepers, the ones responsible for creating it. Their help could unearth more truths about Mui’s family, specifically the father she’s never met.

Little does Mui know deadly forces are attacking the Bibliokeepers, putting their survival and knowledge at stake. To make matters worse, a dark enemy has surfaced. Will he put an end to Mui and her mother?

A Book of Vengeance is the second installment in this gripping thriller series. You can’t help but root for the assassin’s daughter.

Marek Janecka drained the last of the pilsner from the pint glass before slamming it down on the table. The glass shattered, cutting him in the process. “Hey! Another!” he shouted before pressing a wad of napkins into his palm.

Janecka had been gulping pints most of the night. He hunched, head hung low while he scratched at the scruffy whiskers on his chin. Occasionally he’d glance up and mumble-shout something to a person walking by, but mostly he kept his gaze on his beer. He’d been a frequent face at the pub ever since he’d learned of the mysterious deaths of his friends Juli Thorton and Palmer Covington.

Like Thorton and Covington, Janecka was a member of the Bibliokeepers, a secret society that maintained and transferred highly sensitive information through couriers, or in plain speak, books. Bibliokeepers had cultivated a way to hide information in an ordinary book using symbolism.

A server placed a fresh pint of beer down on the table and cleaned up the broken glass.

“Next time move faster,” Janecka snapped. “Can’t you see I’m thirsty?”

Other keepers had died over the years, but their deaths were never attributed to the work they did. But Janecka didn’t think that was the case with Thorton and Covington. Thorton had been found in her apartment hanging from her neck. Covington had been burnt to a crisp in an apartment fire. Their deaths were ruled as an unfortunate suicide and accident by the authorities, but the truth was, they were both murdered.

In the months following their deaths, Janecka increased his time in the pub rehashing the facts. He always arrived at 7 p.m. and took residence at the same single-person table in the corner. For dinner, he’d order either the special of the night or the goulash, along with the first of many pints. The owners and the regulars thought nothing of him at first. A few weeks in, they’d begun to notice some oddities—like how Janecka talked to himself. But as with anything, time normalized it and they chalked it up to him being a quirky loner, nothing more.

That night at the pub was the same as always. He sipped his beer, his lips moving every so often as he conversed with himself. They were killed. There’s no denying that. So am I to just sit back and relax? How do I know someone won’t come after me?

Night after night, the same questions consumed him. He had also made so many calls to fellow keeper Renna Grigsby that she stopped answering them.

“The person who hired Juli to put the information into a courier most likely had stolen it and was later caught and compromised,” Renna had told Janecka. “The rightful owners of that information then tracked her down and not only recovered it, but also killed her to ensure she didn’t speak. Sadly, they took things one step further, and eliminated people who had close contact with her. That included her assistant and Palmer. This had nothing to do with us being keepers. This was about recovering stolen information.”

Janecka gulped half his beer. He held a different view of what had happened. He believed that during the course of the so-called information recovery, Thorton’s status as a keeper was revealed. And now the owners of that stolen information sought payback: putting an end to all keepers. 

They found out what Juli did and connected her to Palmer. It’s only a matter of time before they connect those two to the rest of us.

The dangers of being a keeper had never been hidden from the members. They knew the risks. The most important safeguard a keeper had was anonymity. Hiding in plain sight was how they survived: Janecka was a university professor in Bratislava, Thorton a historian at the New York Public Library, and Covington a San Francisco bookstore owner. 

The fact that Thorton and Covington had died within weeks of each other furthered Janecka’s theory: Someone had discovered the identities of the Bibliokeepers.

“That is simply not true,” Renna had told Janecka during one of his first calls months ago. “If it were true, then I should have also met the same fate as Palmer. We’re both in San Francisco.”

“I am not a young man,” Janecka said, ignoring the geographical argument Renna had just made. “I don’t need the headache of looking over my shoulder every single minute of the day.”

“Look, Marek, now is not the time to suddenly realize the risks associated with what we do. And as far as I know, it’s been years since you even worked on a courier.”

“It was a personal decision to cut back on my involvement.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about. You weren’t involved with Palmer and anything he might have been working on, and you admitted that you and Juli had grown apart and hardly spoke. If what you’re suggesting is that someone is after the members of our organization, and I’m not saying that there is, but if there were—you would be the last person anyone would come looking for.”

Janecka glanced at the clock on the pub wall. It was nearing midnight and his glass was empty again. He thought about having another pint. He had no appointments in the morning, so the following day was business as usual: sleeping until noon. 

The bleeding on his hand had stopped but the wound still throbbed. He relented and paid his tab. On the way out he grabbed his coat off a rack near the entrance. He’d forgotten his gloves that day and quickly shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.

As he stepped outside, a rush of cold air swept across his face. He looked up and down the empty street. At that time of night, most of the residents were tucked away in their homes.

On the walk home, Janecka always stuck to the well-lit areas. His apartment was a twenty-minute walk from the pub. He never strayed from the familiar route. It was the safest and most direct.

During those twenty minutes, Janecka looked over his shoulder and repeatedly checked his cell phone for battery life just in case. He never scuffed his shoes, always careful to lift his feet to avoid attracting unnecessary attention.

He’d removed his keys a good twenty yards from his building so he could easily slip through the front door—no fumbling. Janecka looked over his shoulder once more before reaching the entrance. He always did, just in case someone suddenly appeared. Occasionally someone did. In those rare instances, Janecka would simply continue walking. When it was clear, he’d circle back.

He was alone and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was cold out and all he wanted was to be back in his warm apartment.

Into the keyhole the key went, a quick turn, a push of the glass door and he was safely inside the building. He walked straight toward the elevator; it was on the ground level. Perfect. I don’t have to wait.

He hit the button for his floor and then turned to face the front of the elevator. The doors took a beat to close, long enough that Janecka saw the man outside the entrance door pointing at him through the glass.