Prophecy. An ARKANE thriller. (Book 2) (12 page)

She tried to push past him but he grabbed her arm. She struggled and he pushed her towards the bed, backhanding her so she fell, clutching her stinging face.

“How dare you touch me?” Maria shouted.

Harghada laughed.
 

“You are nothing Doctor. Remember that. Now, I want to get on with this experiment and you will be my subject.”

Maria ran for the door. He caught her and hit her again with an open hand. He forced her back to the bed and pressed her face down into the pillow until she stopped screaming. Her struggles grew weaker. He let her go on the edge of unconsciousness and she gasped for breath, struggling to draw air into her lungs. Weakened, she felt him tie her hands and feet to the bed. He stuffed a sterile dressing into her mouth.

“That will keep you quiet. Now, where is that LSD?”

Maria watched in horror as he rifled through the drug cabinet. She was desperate to stop him but unable to move. She moaned against the gag, fighting against the bonds.
 

“Here it is. I knew you’d be arrogant enough to keep some. Hard to resist the inexplicable, isn’t it.”

He filled a syringe and advanced on her.
 

“Just relax, Doctor. This is the culmination of your research after all. You will finally get to experience the rush. You will see God.”

He pushed the needle into her arm and she began to feel its effects almost immediately. He put the headset over her ears again. Her fear sank away as the colors in the room grew more intense. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him go to the booth and switch on the machine. She heard rushing in her ears, a waterfall of sound and she relaxed into the noise. Her eyes closed involuntarily and she began to sense a Being in the room with her, a presence that calmed and soothed. Her scientist’s mind was still a little alert and part of her knew this was the effect of the stimulation of her temporal lobe, the interaction of the drug and the binaural suggestion. But a primal part of her just wanted to be lost in the experience. The Being was speaking now, commanding and she had to obey. Was this how the others felt as they slipped under? The waterfall grew louder and her own thoughts were lost in the rush.

*****

Harghada watched as Maria twitched and then went still, her face transfigured with wonder. A part of him was desperate to see these visions for himself, but then he didn’t believe in any kind of God. However, it would be interesting to know what he would see under the spell of the beats. Would it be the demons of hell or just an expanse of emptiness?
 

He untied Maria from the bed and took the makeshift gag from her mouth. She would be no trouble now, not if her research was truly as transformative as she believed. He touched the gun in its holster under his arm. If this didn’t work, there were other ways of dealing with her but he needed to have proof to show Milan for the next phase. Would the suggestion he planted take hold? If it did, they could release her research with the knowledge that destruction could be taken to the masses.
 

Maria suddenly sat up on the bed and he stepped away from her, giving her space. Her eyes were open but staring past him, her mouth moving in a trance-like mantra. She removed the headphones and stood, her prayers only whispers now, the words all jumbled together. But she was smiling, a beatific vision transforming her face to that of a much younger woman.
 

Harghada followed her out of the treatment room and back to her office where Maria knelt by the large picture window, rocking backwards and forwards in worship. He stood behind her, his gun ready in case she came out of the trance. Her words ran together, faster and faster as she rocked, and then suddenly she stopped. She was silent and still for a moment, and then she spoke clearly.
 

“I will obey.”
 

Her words shocked Harghada, even though it was as she had promised. He watched as she lifted a heavy paperweight from her desk, a chunk of vermilion crystal, and threw it at the large glass window. It bounced off the safety glass. She picked it up again and went to the window, banging it over and over again.
 

“I. Will. Obey,” she said between smashes onto the glass. Harghada could see it would take time to get through the glass with that rock and she would exhaust herself. What if she came out of the trance in the meantime? He made a decision and slipped the gun into her other hand and then retreated around the far side of the desk. Her fingers tightened as she seemed to realize what she held. For a moment, Harghada thought he had made a terrible mistake, as she raised the gun in his direction.
 

At the last moment, she swung round and shot double-tap into the window, which splintered and cracked. She shot again, emptying the gun and a large hole was blown out into the grey Paris sky. From the twenty-first floor, there were views all the way to the Seine. Harghada pulled the security alarm for the sake of appearance, for it had to look as if he had tried to stop her. Maria stepped over the glass to the window, dropped the gun and just walked out. No final words, no look back, no hesitation. Harghada was amazed at the result, for the research truly worked and Milan was going to love the elegant solution. The wind whistled in through the gap as the security team burst through from the main stairwell. Harghada smiled inwardly. The delivery mechanism worked, now they just needed the message.
 

ARKANE, Trafalgar Square, London. 12.30pm

Elias Marietti rested his head in his hands, fingers massaging his temples as another starburst of pain rocketed through his brain. The call from the Vatican had set off a migraine that had been lurking in the background for days, waiting for him to lower his guard. The Devil’s Bible was under threat and the Cardinal had been adamant that they must locate and secure it before dark forces could wield its power. How he longed to go back out in the field himself instead of being stuck here in the public offices of ARKANE. He looked out of the tall window towards Trafalgar Square. He felt like one of the great lions trapped in bronze at the base of Nelson’s Column, old fighters reined in to provide an illusion of strength to the Empire. It felt as if the days were getting shorter and time was speeding up. Events were escalating throughout the globe and he could feel the vibrations of those who sought to remove him from this position. He knew too much, and yet they couldn’t act, because they knew what he could do to them.

Marietti thought back to when he had been young, so focused on what he could achieve for the glory of God and the Church. Over time he had become disillusioned with the way the Church hid the secrets that he investigated. Of course, if people knew that supernatural happenings were so commonplace, how would the Church keep so much power? If people knew the secrets he kept, why would they blindly follow a tradition that encouraged middlemen between individuals and the world of consciousness that awaited them. Marietti felt the pull of the secrets that lay down in the Vaults. Some called to him in the night, their power earthed in the protected tomb. I must ask Martin to add further precautions to the access sequence, he thought, for I will need protection from myself soon enough.
 

He looked up at the painting newly installed in his office and for a moment lost himself in its depths. It was Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, a painting he had coveted for many years and had finally managed to borrow for a time. It depicted the crucified Jesus suspended above a lake dotted with fishermen, a swirling cloudy sky and gusts whipping across the waters. The perspective looked down from the top of Christ’s head giving the viewer a sense of being in space, as if God looked down over quiet waters. It was also a bloodless crucifixion, with no instruments of torture to be seen. Marietti found a transient peace in the image, as if all was right with heaven. Although he felt supernatural forces arrayed on both sides, for a moment, there was stillness and he considered it a perk of the job to be able to have such magnificent paintings in his sanctuary.
 

There was a knock at the door.
 

“Enter,” he called, snapping himself back into officious mode as Jake Timber and Morgan Sierra stepped through the door, summoned by his urgent calls. He stood to greet them.
 

“Welcome Morgan, I’m so glad you’ve decided to join us.” Marietti extended his hand. Her handshake was firm and she met his eyes with an unflinching gaze.
 

“Thank you, Director. I’m looking forward to starting work on this new case.”

“Jake.”
 

“Sir.”
 

The men acknowledged each other with an easy familiarity.
 

“That’s a Dali,” Morgan said. She raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed with the Director’s choice of artwork.
 

“On loan for only a few weeks before it’s returned to Glasgow.”

“It’s gorgeous.”
 

Marietti smiled. He could see her wondering what other treasures he had.

“I know you’ll enjoy working here, Morgan. Now, to business. Cardinal Brazza called from the Vatican. The Capela dos Ossos in Evora, Portugal has been ransacked and one of the priests tortured and murdered.”

“What was taken?” Jake asked.
 

“Nothing,” Marietti replied. “That’s the problem. We think they’re after the Devil’s Bible, and if so, I’m certain Thanatos is behind it.”

Morgan looked confused. “I thought the Devil’s Bible was held at the National Library in Sweden.”

“That’s where you should think it is, but the Capela was only one of its other rumored resting places,” Marietti picked up his tablet computer and flicked to the ARKANE search engine, calling up the records for the Devil’s Bible. The screen on the wall came alive with the image of a huge book bound with wooden boards and metal clasps.
 

“It’s the biggest medieval manuscript in the world, also known as the Codas Gigas,” Marietti explained. “Its real power lies in the words within. The legend behind it says that a monk broke his vows and was sentenced to be walled up alive. To save himself, he promised that he would complete a book containing all human knowledge in just one night. In the early hours of the morning, when it became clear he could not complete the task, he called on Lucifer to help him in exchange for his soul. When the abbot came the next morning, the book was finished, but along with the Biblical verses were inscribed curses, spells and images of demonic figures.”

“Why would Thanatos want it?” Jake asked. “And what’s this got to do with the prophecy?”

Marietti sighed. The sins of the fathers revisited on this generation indeed, he thought.
 

“The Devil’s Bible in the Swedish library isn’t the real one,” he said, with a sigh. “It’s a fake that has been used to keep the real secrets of the Bible from scholars and the inevitable crazies who flock to see it. If you know where to look, the trail points to the Capela dos Ossos as the real hiding place, but it’s not there either.”

“So what’s in the authentic Devil’s Bible to make someone want it so much?” Morgan asked, leaning forward in her seat. Marietti flicked the tablet screen and entered his password to access the secret archives of the ARKANE database. The image that came onto the screen was a beautifully rendered illustration of the pale horse of the apocalypse rearing up, its rider a hooded skeleton. Under the horse’s hooves were trampled bodies of the dead. Around the illustration were faint words but the scale meant they could not be made out.
 

“The pale horse again,” Jake said. “But what’s the big deal? What power can words from an ancient manuscript have in the twenty-first century?”

Marietti stood and walked towards the Dali painting.
 

“The power of these words cannot be underestimated Jake. When the Devil’s Bible was rediscovered in the Czech Republic it was taken to the Vatican. During the investigation, the words from these pages were spoken aloud.”

“What happened?” Morgan asked.
 

“We only know the aftermath, but it is written that the monk who read the words tore apart his colleagues with bare hands and teeth. It was as if he was possessed with an incredible strength and a lust for blood. He became the wild beast of the prophecy and the bodies of the others were as this image, trampled underfoot as if by rampaging horses.”

Jake shook his head.
 

“You’re saying that this is some kind of curse? That the speaker goes berserk in the classic sense of the warrior crazed with bloodlust in the heat of battle? I’ve seen some crazy things but - ”

“What happened to the Bible after that?” Morgan asked, cutting off Jake’s tirade.
 

“A careful copy was made, omitting the final pages and also the curses written throughout the book. Other, more simple phrases were included about exorcism and demons, enough to keep people interested but nothing that could harm anyone. The faintly comical painting of the Devil was added as a way to ensure the book stayed known as the Devil’s Bible and the Vatican hid the real book deep in its archives, an uncategorized manuscript amongst thousands of others. Only a few men knew of it, those who could be trusted to keep it hidden.”

“So what triggered the attack in Portugal?” Jake asked.
 

“During the dark days of the Second World War, the Vatican contained some who were sympathetic to the Nazi cause and Hitler had a team dedicated to seeking powerful occult objects. The Devil’s Bible was on their list, although even they didn’t know what it truly represented. The Vatican vaults were considered too dangerous for many of the objects at that time and the most powerful were smuggled out. We have some here in the crypt, but the Devil’s Bible was taken to a secret location. Official records say it lies at the Capela dos Ossos so clearly someone has accessed those records and wants the Bible.” Marietti paced the room, his face lined with worry. “Truly this object has terrifying power, whether you believe it could be real or not. I know of men who were changed by those events and wrote personal accounts of their experiences. They understood the power of evil and spent the rest of their lives on their knees every night asking for deliverance. I trust the words they wrote were truth, so you must retrieve the Devil’s Bible. It isn’t safe out there. We must bring it back immediately.”