The Sixth Key (43 page)

‘I conjure thee by the . . . ineffable . . .
ah you devil – let go of me! By the name of God . . .’ Grassaud said,
between gasps, ‘Alpha, Omega . . . AGLA . . . AGLA!’

The gallery erupted. Dogs snarled and people
gestured and cried out. Some were objecting to the treatment meted out to old
Grassaud while others were defending the old woman. These disagreements now
escalated into pandemonium, replete with insults and blows. To Rahn it
resembled a bar brawl. Crowley struggled to bring his face close to Grassaud’s
and then bit the old man on the nose, so that Grassaud yelled and dropped to
the ground, moaning and whimpering and holding his nose with one hand while the
other pointed at Crowley. ‘You will pay for this!’

Crowley pointed at the old man and Grassaud
began to choke, or so it seemed, from whatever power Crowley had called forth
to assail him.

In the middle of the fracas, the madame cried
out, ‘Amor Satanas nos coniungat, sua potencia nos dirigat, sua misericordia
nos coniunctos misericorditer nos custodiat!’ She made a sign on her forehead
with her bloodied finger and, ignoring the chaos around her, lifted her right
hand and seemed about to trace the sign in the air when there was a sudden
collective wheeze. All argument paused. The crowd drew back and Madame
Dénarnaud was left with her arm in mid-air, breathless, dishevelled and once
more deprived of her moment. ‘What now?’ she said.

The agent of this second interruption walked
into the circle surrounded by men at arms. The man was small. He wore a
crumpled suit and an old Panama hat. Rahn couldn’t see his face but he would
have recognised that hat anywhere. It was Professor Moriarty, or rather, the
fake Inspecteur Beliere! There was a murmuring of voices. Uncertainty reigned
and people moved away.

The moment Crowley realised who it was, he
picked up his skirts and melted into the receding crowd. Madame Dénarnaud was
now alone, with only the whimpering Grassaud at her feet for company.

‘Did you think you could get away with this?’
came the man’s unmistakeable voice.

Madame Dénarnaud was suddenly at a loss for
words. She was an old woman again and not a priestess of Sorat.

‘This is not authorised,’ he said, as if he
were chastising a foolish child. ‘All of you!’ He looked about. ‘You should be
ashamed! You are all here illegally!’

Taking a hold of herself and harnessing her
melodramatic powers, Dénarnaud shouted, ‘I do not need your authority and I
care nothing for legalities!’

The man ignored her histrionics. He lit a
cigarette, shook the match out and threw it into the pentagram. ‘This place is
surrounded and I demand that you give me the book!’

‘No! You will never take it from me!’ She
snatched the blue book away from the fire then, and held it to her bosom.

‘I won’t ask again!’ the fake Inspecteur
Beliere warned.

‘Why should I give it to you?’

‘Because you are not authorised to have it.’

‘Who says so?’

‘I say so.’

‘And who are you? I don’t recognise you!’

He aimed the gun up at her head. ‘Your
recognition makes no difference to me.’

She smiled, and lifted the book imperiously
over the fire. ‘Perhaps this will make a difference to you!’

The fake Beliere stepped into the circle of
protection and wiped the line that marked the pentagram with one shoe,
rendering it powerless. ‘You will die,’ he said.

Her face was all rancour and her hand moved
the book over the fire. ‘I don’t need this any more. I have the sign –
it’s in my head! The key to commanding Sorat, the greatest and most powerful
demon the world has ever seen, is mine! If you kill me, I will die knowing it
and you will have nothing!’

‘You are being foolish – do you know who
I am?’

‘I don’t care who you are!’

‘Have you heard of the Black Lodge – the
invisibles?’

There was a shiver of whispers.

She faltered, but only for a moment. ‘This is
an unpleasant fiction created by men to amuse themselves.’

‘It is a reality,’ he said flatly.

‘Then if it does exist, I believe the Black
Lodge will welcome this convocation.’

Rahn could see her hesitate. Despite her
defiance she was erring on the side of caution.

The fake inspector casually smoked his
cigarette, his gun pointing at her head. ‘You are not only an impetuous woman,
but also a misinformed one. Satan is not expected until seventy-four years from
now.’ His voice was conciliatory, paternal. ‘The arrival of the vessel of Sorat
will announce the dawn of a new age – a New Jerusalem. Time will begin
again and it will be measured by His coming as a turning point. His time will
be announced by cataclysms, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and
social unrest, because he will rise up from the centre of the Earth, on His own
behalf, and not at the behest of an old woman!’

‘No!’ She held her chin up. ‘Hitler is
destined to be the embodiment of Sorat!’

‘Hitler is not the Dark Messiah. He is only
the tool of Lucifer. The full power of Sorat would kill him!’

She frowned, but her resolve had weakened. She
looked to be standing on uneven ground.

‘Only an incarnation of Satan could bear the
full power of the dark sun’s maleficence and he will not come until the year
2012! Now hand me the book, if you don’t mind!’

‘What will you do with it?’

‘It is ours for safekeeping.’

‘And I?’

‘You will be bound to that little hovel at
Rennes-le-Château,’ he said. ‘As punishment.’

Her hand moved, unbidden, away from the fire.
She looked down at it in horror. She was being manipulated against her will.
‘No!’ she cried.

Rahn could not let them have the book, but
what could he do? At that moment fate decided that question because the
Countess P’s clock struck twelve. The noise of it broke into the silence like a
horn blast. Its chime echoed from the stony walls and cowled heads turned this
way and that to look for its source. Rahn did the only thing he could do then,
being the inept hero that he was. He stood and threw the clock as hard as he
could, aiming it at the madame. It hit her and the shock caused her to drop the
book, and once again it landed close to the great fire.

The fake inspector leapt forward to grab it.
At the same time the old woman let go an ungodly scream and lunged with an
unexpected fierceness, colliding with him and causing him to lose his balance
so that he fell backwards into the flames. He caught alight immediately. He
dropped the book into the blaze as he tried to get up, yelling and screaming
and flapping his flaming arms in a directionless, terrified panic of anguish
and pain, before falling again. His men at arms rushed to him, trying to pull
him from the flames, but it was too late. There arose a cacophony of
disapprobation and surprise and finally of terror and of disgust, and the
gathering dissolved in all directions.

Rahn saw Eva get up but he hesitated, drawn by
the horror of the spectacle. She nudged him with her shoe, breaking the spell,
and in a moment he was following her through the passage, running, stumbling,
falling, ascending, turning and ascending again. It seemed like an eternity
before they reached the grilled door, out of breath and weary. Behind them,
they heard the growls of the rabid dogs drawing nearer. There was no time to
pause. Rahn followed Eva out of the grotto of Mary Magdalene and closed the
gate. Eva stumbled and nearly fell but he caught her by the arm. There was a
flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder as they clambered through the
turmoil of leaves and dirt and branches that the wind had whipped up. He felt
like a child again, running with lightning through the forests near his home.
But once more, he didn’t sense the sovereign protection of Michael the dragon
slayer, the feeling that good always triumphs over evil, and he wondered, as he
ran with his heart in his throat, how he had ever imagined that Hell could lead
to Heaven.

‘They’re coming!’ Eva said, beside him.

The dogs of the Underworld were not far
behind; they would soon be at their heels.

‘Don’t look back!’ Rahn shouted.

When they got to the Peugeot it was locked and
it took a precious moment for Deodat to recognise their panic and to open the
door. Rahn threw Eva in first, following her into the back seat and closing the
door seconds before the hounds were at the car. Rahn climbed into the front
seat and turned the ignition with a trembling hand. It wouldn’t start. He tried
again. Black figures were moving in the night towards them. The dogs threw
themselves against the car with such fury that he heard the dinting of metal.
He tried again and the car grumbled to life.

He backed out of the hiding spot and skidded
off onto the narrow road, leaving behind the pursuing hounds and whatever else
might be chasing them. Almost on cue, icy rain poured down in great sheets,
lightning flashed again and thunder rumbled, as if Hell had broken loose.

They arrived at the village of
Rennes-les-Bains and, following Deodat’s directions, they crossed the
rain-slashed street and made their way over the footbridge that spanned the
River Sals. Beneath them the river rushed, swollen and tortured. Deodat led
them to a house near Place des Deux owned by an old and trusted friend.

Gaspar welcomed them without fanfare or
question. He was a tall, thick-set man of about fifty, a veteran of the last
war, and Rahn immediately felt safe in his company. Once inside, in the light,
Gaspar took in their appearance but he didn’t look particularly perturbed. He
was obviously not the sort of man for effusive gestures. He said, ‘I guess
you’ll be wanting a coffee?’

Rahn was shown to the bathroom and stood at
the mirror staring at his unrecognisable reflection: his bloodshot eyes looked
out from red-rimmed sockets; under the left one a gash had crusted over; above
the right eye there was a sizeable bruise; he touched his swollen split lip and
winced. He removed his fedora. Under it, his hair was filthy, in fact all his
clothes were soiled beyond recognition. He filled the dirty sink with water and
took the half-used cake of soap in his hands and began to wash.

He dressed in some spare clothes that Gaspar
had given him and looked at himself in the mirror again. The shirt and jacket
were too big and emphasised the lean, hungry look he’d developed these last
days. But there was more to it. He felt like he had passed through some
terrible illness that had left him inexorably changed, both physically and
mentally. With those events at the hermitage locked behind his eyes, he went to
the small room at the back of the house where Deodat lay. He tried to put on a
brave face but Deodat looked terrible.

He found a seat near the bed. ‘I’m sorry about
all this, Deodat.’

‘Don’t speak nonsense! I’ve had the time of my
life,’ he said. A coughing fit took hold of him and it was a time before he
could speak again. ‘Tell me everything.’

‘It was the fake Beliere!’ Rahn said. ‘As it
turns out, he was Professor Moriarty, after a fashion – the organiser of
half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected.’

‘I see,’ Deodat said, frowning.

Rahn recounted the events from the time he
left the car to his return.

‘So, Madame Dénarnaud was there, at the centre
of it all, a popess, what nonsense! And Grassaud belongs to AGLA – the
Catholic Mafia?’ Deodat marvelled. ‘And you say there was a battle of wills
between them? My Lord, she drank blood!’

‘I think it was the blood of that Englishman
who tried to burn us at the Maison de Cros. But before she could make the sign
of Sorat, Professor Moriarty came in and everyone scattered. He works for the
Black Lodge – this sounds like the Cénacle you mentioned.’

Deodat sat up excitedly. ‘The invisibles?
Yes!’

‘Oh! You were right, Deodat, it is a nest of
vipers!’

‘Fascinating!’ he exclaimed. He was weak but
it didn’t prevent him from enjoying the moment. ‘So, the madame took it upon
herself to make Hitler the vessel for the demon of the sun! But you say the
vessel is yet to come?’

‘Yes, the year 2012 apparently, according to
Professor Moriarty . . . He said it was going to be the turning point in time.’

‘Diabolically ingenious!’

‘But as we heard, before that they will need a
reordered Europe, which they expect this coming war will create.’

‘Yes. Don’t let this buffoonery fool you,
Rahn, there is real danger still looming ahead. The Countess P’s clock may have
saved the day, but Madame Dénarnaud still has the sign, even if it is only in
her head. Did you see it, Rahn?’

‘No, the old woman never made it. But there’s
something else bothering me now. Earlier when you said something about chess
and being in two places at once, what did you mean?’

Deodat nodded, frowning. ‘Yes, it is this: I
think that perhaps old Cros has had the last laugh, after all. At least I’d
like to think so.’

Rahn creased his brow. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, it’s just an old man’s hope that—’
But another bout of coughing prevented him from finishing. When he got his
breath back he looked at Rahn with eyes that were losing their hold on
consciousness. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to need a few days in bed, then I will be
as good as new.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be safe with Gaspar. I’ll
lay low for a while. I am a magistrate, after all.’ His words were slurring.
‘There’s not much they can do to me without raising a few eyebrows. At any
rate, I didn’t see anything and there is no longer any evidence, is there?
Everything is burnt. It’s all gone! All gone. The orders would have covered
their tracks, you can be certain of it.’ He faltered. ‘I guess there is nothing
left for the police. The old maison was empty – arson – who knows
who did it? Listen, Rahn. Come close.’

Rahn leant in.

‘Just remember what I said.’ He closed his
eyes. ‘One can’t be in two places at the same time . . . Two places, Rahn. Go
to Eva . . .’ And like that, mid-sentence, he fell asleep.

Rahn found Eva in the kitchen, sipping a
coffee. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, or perhaps the most
cunning at making herself seem so – he couldn’t tell.

‘So, how is he?’ she said.

‘He’ll be alright, I think.’ He sat down
opposite.

‘And you? Are you alright?’

‘I don’t know how I feel,’ Rahn said
truthfully. ‘At least it wasn’t all for nothing, I suppose. We did prevent the
Lodges from getting the Apocalypse. My only regret is in losing the treasure of
the Cathars. Perhaps I was never destined to see it. Madame Dénarnaud is now
the only one who has seen the key, the sign of Sorat. She said it was in the
shape of a two-horned beast.’

‘Yes, it is, but not the way you think.’ She
set down her cup to look at him.

He blinked. ‘How do you know?’

She smiled a little. ‘Some years ago a
scientist, a woman actually, discovered that men are born with something women
don’t have, they call it the Y chromosome. One day scientists will know how to
distort this chromosome. They will add something to it, so that it resembles
the sign of Sorat.’

‘What? I don’t understand.’

‘This
is how it will look.’ She drew the sign on Gaston’s dusty kitchen tabletop.

‘The addition of the barb at the bottom of the
Y will bring about a race of men who will be carriers of evil – vessels
for the forces of six-six-six. You see, it isn’t God who is found in the
details, it is Satan.’

Rahn sat back a little numbly. He remembered
Himmler’s words in the crypt at Wewelsburg, about a program for children
– Lebensborn, he had called it.

‘In the future,’ Eva continued,
‘it will be a gift of grace to be born a woman, because a woman does not carry
that chromosome and cannot be manipulated in this way to become a vessel of
evil. These are the truths of the future that will begin with the year 2012. By
then you will return again.’

‘Return?’

Her deep eyes met his. At this point it may
have been fatigue or that knock on the head, or those things she had said, but
before his gaze her face seemed to change: one moment she was the evening star,
the next she was Demeter, the mother of nature; she was the lady who stole into
the heart of every troubadour; the ideal woman; the good, beautiful and true in
the soul of every poet. She was Dante’s Beatrice, Petrarch’s Laura, Louise
Brooks and Irene Adler. All women in one! When her face paused in its
transformations, he realised with a sense of wonder and awe that he was gazing
at a countenance he had seen only in his dreams. He may not be wise but
something told him that he had been in the company of Wisdom all along.

Her gaze shifted to her coffee and the world
returned to what it had been.

‘Who are you?’ he said to her.

Her eyes fell on his again, brown and liquid
and tranquil. ‘Who do you think I am?’

‘Like everything else in this strange script,
the writer has certainly created an enigma in your character, Mademoiselle
Fleury.’

There was the slightest trace of a smile. ‘You
can call me the guardian of the Cathar treasure, if you like. I think Poussin
managed a very good classical likeness of me.’ She stood to go. ‘One day, when
you have time, you must go to Venice and when you get there, don’t forget to
look for the Leoncetophaline.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll find it in the cemetery Island of the
Dead, the island of San Michele. You see, Deodat was right – a man can’t
be in two places at once.’ She walked to the door.

‘Mademoiselle! Surely you’re not going to
leave without an explanation?’

She turned around. ‘Since the beginning of
time initiates have known about seven mysteries, seven keys.’

‘Seven keys?’

‘Yes, the key in the Apocalypse of Saint John,
the sign of Sorat, was the Sixth Key. It was the key to the bottomless pit held
in the hand of the angel in the Apocalypse.’

This struck Rahn. He recalled the poster of
Dürer’s woodcut in Pierre Plantard’s apartment.

‘The Seventh Key,’ she continued, ‘is, in
fact, the most important of all, Otto. Cros knew he had to guard it with his
life. To find it you will have to go to Venice. Don’t worry, I will see you
there.’

He had a last impression of that beautiful,
haunted face, those fathomless eyes, and the calm mouth and then, she was gone.