Hookah (Insanity Book 4) by Cameron Jace

me what this means. I try to explain while listening to the Pillar continue his education. Then one of the kids asks the Pillar, “Did the Nazca have planes?”
    “Smart kiddo,” the Pillar says. “No, they didn’t—or so we think. And although the lines shouldn’t necessarily be seen from planes—they can be seen from surrounding foothills, too—it still poses the bigger question...”
    I cut in and say, “Why were they created and for whom?

Chapter 42
    Nazca Desert, Peru
    “I t’s a complicated question with a complicated answer,” the Pillar replies. “In short, we have no idea what the Nazca desert was really meant to be. We just stare at it like primitive monkeys and try to make sense of it. Photographing it, analyzing, and puking theories. Just like Wonderland. It has secrets of its own.”
    “So why are we here, then?”
    “The Executioner told us the meeting took place in the Dodo, right?”
    “Yes?” I grimace. “I don’t see the connection, other than that it’s the same name of the company that manufactured the hookah.”
    “I am beginning to see the whole picture now. But before I tell you about the connection, I need to make sure you know all about the Dodo,” the Pillar says. “Not the one we’re looking for but the one in the Alice in Wonderland book.”
    “What about him? I thought he was a silly lovable character, although I never understood the significance of his appearance.”
    “The Dodo is Lewis Carroll’s alter ego,” the Pillar says. “You remember his real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, right?”
    I nod. Of course I remember.
    “So Lewis used to stutter a lot—I’ll get into why he did later. Usually when he tried to say his name was Dodgson, he’d stutter and say Do-Do-Dodgson. Get it?”
    “Do-Do,” I repeat the words. “The Dodo. That’s where it came from?”
    “Exactly. Except that this is the kind of stuff historians will tell you,” the Pillar says. “I’m not saying he didn’t pick the name to reflect on his stuttering. But that wasn’t just it.”
    “There is a bigger picture?”
    “There is always a bigger picture if you open your eyes. The dodo is also an extinct bird. And it couldn’t fly. There are only records of it, and some claim they see it every now and then, but without concrete evidence.”
    “Are you saying Lewis was pointing to the bird, too? Why? I don’t see a connection.”
    “Of course you see a connection, an immense one, for that matter.” The Pillar points downward, right underneath the chopper.
    I look, but it takes me a moment to see it.
    Don’t get me wrong. It’s huge. Immense, like he said. But that’s the reason I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing at first.
    But now I do. There is no question about it. One of Nazca Lines is of a Dodo. And I am staring at it right now.

Chapter 43
    St Peter’s, The Vatican
    T he White Queen couldn’t believe her eyes.
    Standing at the basilica’s entrance, the world in front of her had slipped into chaos. It had begun a few hours back after Alice left yesterday. A few tourists began shouting and fighting with one another. But it wasn’t much. The police took care of the matter immediately.
    And then last night the news of the plague had spread everywhere in Italy. Rome in particular had spiraled into a mad hole of swearing and kicking, something its people were naturally attracted to.
    Then the madness escalated at the speed of light.
    People everywhere were simply trying to hurt others. You couldn’t really make out what the fighting was about, since it was usually caught in its last stages, where fighters uttered no coherent sentences.
    It reminded Fabiola of all the wars in the history of the world. Wars that last as long as thirty years, if not more. At some point in, you’d ask either side what they were fighting for, and you could not get an answer. Because none of them remembered what had started this.
    This was what the Vatican was turning into. The world was