Hookah (Insanity Book 4) Read online

“My time and strength are devoted to the people who seek peace in this world,” she follows. “I may give advice, be resourceful, but I’m not going to be part of the Wonderland War when it begins. My real war is to avoid war.”

  I am disappointed. I was hoping she’d help, instead of me having to deal with the Pillar’s devious ways—he isn’t one of the good guys. I am not sure whose side he is on.

  “At least bless us with a name instead of the Impossible Six.” I let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

  “It’s already been picked,” she says. “The Inklings.”

  “Already been picked?”

  “There was a prophecy in Wonderland: that Alice will return and put an end to Black Chess. Of course, we’re not going to argue whether you’re her or not again.”

  “A prophecy.” I wonder if that’s why the Pillar found me. “Inklings?”

  “It’s named after a meeting place. A bar known as the Bird, previously known as the Eagle and Child. It’s near Oxford University. It’s a special place. Great people who stood in the face of evil before you attended it regularly.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Of course.” She finally smiles. “J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, who wrote the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia.”

  I tilt my head.

  Fabiola senses my confusion. “The Inklings was the name of an elite writers group who met at the bar. Lewis Carroll spent most of his time there, almost a century before Tolkien and C. S. Lewis came, when it wasn’t a bar yet. It’s said they found some of his diaries in there. It was why they attended regularly in the first place.”

  “Pardon me, but the connection escapes me, Fabiola. Those writers knew about...?”

  “The Wonderland Wars,” Fabiola says. “What did you think those epic fantasies, the Lord of the Rings and Narnia, were about?”

  No words come out of my mouth. I’m starting to realize how Wonderland is connected to everything.

  “They were meant to inspire generations and educate them about the idea of good and evil in this world.” Fabiola stops to make sure I am following. “They were discreetly using literature to prepare generations for the Wonderland Wars.”

  Chapter 3

  The Eagle and Bird Bar, Oxford

  The chauffeur watched the Pillar knock his cane on the floor for the hundredth time.

  His employer had been sitting alone in this old bar for some time, staring at a golden key in his hand. Rarely had the chauffeur seen the Pillar so gloomy, not the flamboyant and out-of-this-world man he usually was.

  The Pillar had just bought this old bar. For over half a million pounds.

  The chauffeur wondered if he’d spent that money to tap a cane and stare at a key. Why this bar? There were dozens of old historical bars in Oxford, many of them truly profitable.

  The chauffeur wondered if the Pillar had heard of the new Wonderland Monster calling himself Lewis Carroll yet.

  Would he be just sitting here if he had?

  The Pillar didn’t look like he wanted to talk to anyone.

  “So should I employ someone to run this place?” the chauffeur hissed.

  “No need,” the Pillar answered, eyes still on the key. “Alice will run the place herself soon. I’m anxious to see if she’d serve good tea like the Hatter back in Wonderland.”

  “Alice?”

  “Well, let’s say she’s about to finally pick up her team and oppose Black Chess.” The Pillar tucked the key next to his watch inside his breast pocket. He tapped his pocket gently with his white-gloved hand. “The first real step into the War.”

  “So it’s really happening?”

  “Wars are inevitable, my lousy driver.” The Pillar stood up and elegantly flipped his cane. “Victories aren’t.”

  “Wars like these?” The chauffeur turned on the TV. The six o’clock news was covering the incident with the creepy Lewis Carroll look-a-like claiming he’d spread an incurable plague to the world.

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” the Pillar said. “I hope you didn’t smoke any of those toy hookahs yourself.”

  “Not at all, Professor. I’m not into puffing bubbles,” the chauffeur prided himself. “But if I may ask: is the plague real?”

  “Looks too real, in fact.”

  The chauffeur wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “Get my plane ready,” the Pillar said, slowly easing into a better mood.

  “That plane is in the Vatican. You just let Alice use it this morning.”

  “Not that plane.” The Pillar knocked his cane against the floor.

  The chauffeur swallowed hard. “You mean the War Plane?”

  The Pillar nodded, momentarily closing his eyes. “In fact, I want all my planes ready and handy. The choppers, too. Don’t forget the guns.”

  They hadn’t used the planes since the Pillar went on a rampage, killing twelve people some time ago. “Where are we going, Professor?”

  “We’re going to pay a visit to darkness itself,” the Pillar said, diverting his focus on the broadcasting news. “Welcome home Lewis Carroll. It’s been some time.”

  Chapter 4

  The Eagle and Bird Bar, Oxford

  An hour after the Pillar left

  I received the Pillar’s call a few hours ago while I was still in the Vatican. He’d given me the address to the Inklings bar with the location of its key in a Tiger Lily pot beside the door.

  I picked up the key and entered the place. On the table, there was a contract in my name. The Pillar bought me the headquarters of my Inklings gathering place.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to look at the historical signatures of the likes of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis on the walls. I was stopped, and shocked, by the news about the Lewis Carroll man on TV

  Now I am standing, staring at the TV in awkward awe.

  Is this for real?

  The man in the news looks just like the Lewis Carroll I saw through the Tom Tower and Einstein’s Blackboard.

  Lewis Carroll is a Wonderland Monster?

  “This can’t be,” I say to emptiness.

  “I thought so, too.” The Pillar’s chauffeur appears out of nowhere. “But whoever he is, you need to look at this.”

  He points at the BBC’s world coverage of what looks like people coughing red bubbles all over the world.

  The BBC says that doctors haven’t found a medical explanation for it. Nothing in the hookahs shows a hostile infection of any sort. Still, it’s spreading fast, and they’re worried it’ll lead to a disaster in a few hours.

  “The Pillar assured me this is the beginning of an unimaginable plague,” the chauffeur says.

  “People coughing red bubbles. What kind of plague is that?”

  “The Pillar said you’d say that, so he recorded this little video for you.” He shows me a YouTube video on his phone.

  “Think about it, Alice. Have you ever seen anyone cough bubbles, let alone red? Do as my chauffeur tells you.” The Pillar drags from his hookah. “Ah, and don’t forget to sign the contract. Congrats, you own a bar now. At least you have a job, in case you lose your career as a magnificent lunatic patient in the asylum.”

  The video ends.

  I look at the contract, not sure if I should accept a half a million pound gift. I tell myself Fabiola would accept it; the Inklings is part of the prophecy.

  I sign both the Pillar’s and my copy, not reading through.

  As I hand it back to the chauffeur, I glimpse a condition in the contract written at the bottom of the page:

  The two parties who share the Inklings Bar are bound by the agreement in this contract for an unknown time. The contract is automatically cancelled once Alice saves the world from every last Wonderland Monster.

  “Would you kindly seal the envelope?” the chauffeur suggests. “The Pillar demanded you seal his copy yourself so I don’t peek into it.”

  “Trust issues?” I roll my eyes, both at the request and the lines in the contract, then lick
the envelope to seal it.

  But it’s a short roll of eyes, and a shorter lick, only half way through. I find myself swirling down to the floor like a dying flower.

  The envelope’s tip contains some kind of sedative. The Pillar’s drugged me again.

  Chapter 5

  Pillar’s Plane,

  Somewhere next to a mushroom cloud

  I wake up to the suffocating and blurry waves of hookah smoke.

  Coughing, I part the drapes of smoking curtains and feel my way through this delirium. At the end of the maze, I come to find the Pillar sitting on his favorite couch, dragging and puffing while fiddling with his hookah’s hose.

  “I thought I’d bring the couch with me,” he says. “What’s a man without his favorite couch?”

  Instead of screaming and pulling hair, I look around and figure out where I am. I may have been a fool for licking the envelope, but I can still tell I’m inside a plane.

  An air bump shakes the flight momentarily. I grab for the nearest seat but end up slumping next to the Pillar on the couch.

  He doesn’t lose balance. “Never understood what an air bump is,” he says. “I mean, could we have bumped into a giant mushroom cloud up here?”

  “Not funny,” I adjust myself on the couch, and now the flight is normal again.

  “Want to see what’s really not funny?” He clicks on the TV. “We have a new Wonderland Monster.”

  I am watching the same news I saw in the Inklings, only things are getting worse now. People don’t just cough red bubbles. They’re starting to get edgy after it, looking rather mean, like they’re about to hurt one another.

  “Who is this Wonderland Monster, really?” I ask. “The Cheshire?”

  “The Cheshire can’t possess any of the main Wonderlanders, in case you didn’t notice.” The Pillar sets the hookah aside and waves off some smoke. “But you’re also right.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The man is Lewis Carroll.”

  “That can’t be. Lewis isn’t a monster. He is the one who locked the monsters in Wonderland.”

  “I guess he forgot to lock himself in, too. Or, how about he just made you believe he isn’t a monster in the Tom Tower?” The Pillar’s face is unreadable. Is he telling the truth? “The man was nuts. Migraines and split personality. He was schizophrenic. Left handed and unable to hear with his right ear. It all happened particularly after the events of the Circus. He lost his grip on reality when he relied on drugs to ease his mind from the trauma.”

  “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

  “I didn’t believe I’d ever grow up and become old when I was a kid, either,” he says.” I mean, why would God do this to me? I was having a great time being small and unnoticed, doing whatever I wanted.”

  Like usual, I pass on commenting. “So Lewis was really using drugs?”

  “Drugs were still legal until the middle of the 19th century.” He pulls out an 80’s cassette player and squeezes a tape inside.

  “Really?” I can’t understand how. Things like this, and the Circus, make me look at humanity from a new and different perspective. How could drugs have been legal only a century and a half ago?

  “In the eyes of society, and himself, Lewis wasn’t doing anything wrong at the time.” He pushes the sticky button. Melodies of White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane blast out of the worn-out cassette player. The Pillar begins his Caucus Race dance. “A lot of writers, including Charles Dickens, took those legal drugs at the time. Makes you wonder if he could have produced his masterpieces without them.” He winks. “But all geniuses have a vice, don’t they?” He points at his hookah. “Besides, really, read that Alice in Wonderland book again. It’s full of hallucinations and madness. Maybe the dude was a little tipsy when wrote it.”

  I’m not fond of him talking about Lewis like that, but I need to hear more first.

  “Lewis had issues, so what?” The Pillar shakes his shoulders. “We just don’t like to talk about them, so we continue living in our la-la world.” He stretches his arms sideways and imitates a bird’s wings while half-circling in place. “My moves are getting better.”

  “I want to know all you know about Lewis.” I feel offended, suddenly realizing how much I love Lewis.

  “The world is falling apart, Alice.” He points at the TV. “Look at those angry faces walking around. Lewis Carroll told the press it would take three days to end the world, so I assume the symptoms will worsen at rocket speed.” He pulls out an oversized clock from behind his bag and tucks it in my lap. “The clock is ticking. We don’t have time. We need to find a cure for the plague. Listen. Tick. Tock.”

  I put the clock away. It’s not even working. “So Lewis Carroll was behind manufacturing the Hookahs of Hearts all over the world, hiding behind that Dodo Company? I thought it was Black Chess.”

  “It’s not,” the Pillar says. “Which is why it’s intriguingly puzzling.” The Pillar fetches something else from behind the couch. “But we’re minutes...I mean seconds away from finding out.” He pulls out two parachutes and throws one at me, as if I’m expected to be an expert with it. “I hope you know how to use a parachute because this plane is going to explode...”

  “What?”

  “Dress up, and prepare to fly, Alice. It’s not that different from falling into a rabbit hole.” He straps on his parachute and checks his pocket watch. “All we have is about...let’s say thirty seconds before this plane explodes?”

  Chapter 6

  “Why will the plane explode?”

  The Pillar doesn’t answer me, tightening the straps of his parachute and putting on his goggles. “Do I look good?”

  Even if I was planning to keep cool, I can’t. Kneeling down, I pick up the parachute and try to put it on. I have never worn one before.

  “Excellent.” He is already strapped into his, looking ready. The White Rabbit song in the background is driving me crazy.

  I am not sure I am doing this right. I keep strapping whatever I find around me. Is this supposed to be like this, or is it supposed to be upside down?

  “Here.” He throws my umbrella toward me. I hardly catch it as I am still strapping my parachute. “You’ll need this fantabulous weapon of yours down there.”

  “Where are we going?” The words sputter out of my lips. I’m almost done with strapping. Who in their right mind ties themselves up in a parachute not knowing how to land it?

  “You,” the Pillar addresses his chauffeur flying the plane. “You’re good with dying for the cause, right?”

  The back of my head hurts when I hear this. The chauffeur is going to stay in the plane when it explodes?

  “The men down below have to think we have no one to pick us up, you understand?” the Pillar tells his chauffeur.

  True, I understand nothing, but I’ve finally managed to put my parachute on.

  “Ten seconds.” The Pillar raises his voice as the plane’s rear door opens, a swirl of wind kickboxing against my body. “So here is the thing,” he shouts. “Lewis Carroll’s plague is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had a few science labs check it. They didn’t find anything wrong with the hookahs. My guess is that it’s a hallucinogenic. Some substance that drives you mad when you smell it.”

  I am not sure if I can hear the rest. It’s not that the air plastering my face but that my heart is racing when I see how far below the earth is.

  “Five seconds,” the Pillar continues. “The only ones I know who have the power to create this are ex-Wondelranders who live among us. Those Wonderlanders are the lowest scum of the world. They’d kill you only to take a selfie of your blood on their faces and send it to your mom so they could laugh at the horrified expression on her face. Understand?”

  “Shouldn’t we jump already?” I shout, hardly interested in what he says.

  “Trust me, jumping is the least of your worries. Those men below could eat us for dessert. So you have to think about it. If you can’t do it, you can simply stay here and
explode with my chauffeur.”

  “Fabulous choices.” I am so ready to jump, although I don’t know how. What the heck is wrong with me? “If you keep babbling, I’m jumping before you.”

  The Pillar smiles. “Wait, don’t jump without this.” He hands over a pair of cool black goggles. “Here is a tip.” He struggles shouting against the wind. “Always look cool on your way down the rabbit hole. Never do it Elvis style.”

  “You mean because he was found dead with his head in the toilet?”

  “Nah.” The Pillar adjusts his goggles. “Because he died with his ass out at the world.”

  Chapter 7

  Midair

  Have you ever jumped out of a plane in a parachute, down to meet up with people who’d take selfies of your blood on their faces for breakfast?

  I am doing it right now. And guess what, it’s nighttime, so not only am I free-falling, but I am also doing it in the dark. That’s what I call a bonus.

  Throwing away the Pillar’s goggles, I hear the plane explode in midair above me.

  Oh my god, this is for real!

  “I’ve always wanted to blow up my employees,” the Pillar shouts all the way down. I am not sure how I can hear him. “But you’ll be fine. Just pull the red lever when I tell you to.”

  In spite of all the madness, I feel unexpectedly fine up here in the air. Fine is an understatement. I feel euphoric. I want to feel like this every day. It’s ridiculous how much I am enjoying this, although I may get face-palmed by the earth in a few seconds.

  Mary Ann, also known as Alice Wonder, 19 years old, dead and gone. I imagine the scripture on my grave says. But who cares? She was mad anyways.

  Suddenly I realize that the madness hasn’t started yet. Not at all.

  Down below, I can see something glittering. The vast land where we’re landing is nothing but an endless field of ridiculously over-sized mushrooms.

  Big mushrooms growing everywhere, whitening up the black of the night.

  “Now!” the Pillar yells. “Pull the lever.”