Apocalypsis 1.07 Vision (3 page)

LV

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

May 15, 2011 11:04:33 GMT+01:00

Re: Status

Master!

P.A. is awake and alert; his vitals are stable. Remains uncooperative, though, when it comes to questions about the relic, and the surveillance camera showed that he refused his medication after my visit.

Requesting further instructions.

May the light speed you.

Creutzfeldt

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

May 15, 2011 11:32:01 GMT+01:00

Re: RE: Status

Preliminary treatment plan for P.A.: soft approach.

Issue in P. has been resolved. Expect my arrival tonight.

S.

May 15, 2011, Ile de Cuivre, Mediterranean Sea

T
he sky outside his window was still shining, unwavering and blue, when they came into his little room to get him. Dr. Creutzfeldt, as unwavering and mild as the sky outside, appeared with two male nurses in white outfits.

»Would you please stand up, Peter!«

Peter did not budge. »Why?«

Instead of giving him an answer, the two strong male nurses lifted him out of bed and dropped him onto his feet. Peter tried to fight back but the men were holding him with well practiced grips of steel.

»Where are you taking me?«

»To your treatment.«

He began to panic. With all his strength and despair, he squirmed and writhed in the grasp of the two men.

»Don’t worry, Peter. It won’t hurt,« Dr. Creutzfeldt said, as he walked ahead. »You are just making it unnecessarily hard on yourself.«

They led him through the long corridor that he could still remember. The same corridor, the same doors.

»What time is it?«

No answer.

»How many other patients do you have here?«

»Right now, it is just you and Mister Kelly.«

They were leading him down the same stairs that he had taken the night before. When they reached the ground level of the building, they took him into a medical examination room with a chair in the middle. Without waiting for a command, the two male nurses pushed him into the chair and strapped him down. Dr. Creutzfeldt filled up a syringe.

The panicky feeling that it would all soon be over.

»Please, don’t!« Peter gasped. »Please.«

Creutzfeldt stepped closer. »Just a little prick, Peter, and you will feel much better. Try to relax.«

Peter stared at the syringe in Creutzfeldt’s hand. The doctor tapped a few times on Peter’s forearm and then he injected the needle with routine precision. Peter gave a moan and waited for the agony to hit. He saw that Creutzfeldt removed the needle from his skin and then he began to smile at him, mildly.

»How are you feeling?«

Peter was frantically trying to swallow down his panic. Something hot was crawling through his veins. It began to percolate through his body, creeping further and further like a snake searching for prey, until it had taken full possession of his entire self.

And then, all of a sudden, everything became easy and light. Peter felt a pleasant warmth in his body. The panic and the itching dropped off him like powdered sugar from a cake.

Madeira cake. Poppy seed cake. Nut cake. Chocolate cake with vanilla pudding and sour cherries. Apple turnover. Yum, yum, yum.

»How do you feel right now?«

Marzipan cake. Vanilla crescents.

»Good.«

»What are you thinking about right now?«

»Cake.«

»Cake! That’s good. Do you like to eat cake, Peter?«

»Yes.«

»Did your mother bake cakes for you?«

»Yes.«

Suddenly, everything was easy. Simple questions, simple answers. The truth was a little word, very easy to say. A key fitting perfectly into its lock. The solution to the equation. The awakening after a gruesome nightmare.

»How lovely! Imagine cakes. What is your favorite cake?«

The truth was a friendly smile. The truth was:

»Carrot cake.«

»That sounds terrific. With the tiny red marzipan carrots on top, right?«

»Yes.«

»Imagine, it is your birthday, Peter. It is your ninth birthday.« Creutzfeldt’s voice was far, far away.

Where is he?

»Can you picture it, Peter?«

»Yes.«

»It is summer. It is warm. A perfect day. The perfect day to celebrate your birthday. The whole world is crinkling and rustling, waiting to be discovered and unwrapped by you. Your mother has set the table in the garden. No plastic dishes but the good china because you are nine now and no longer a little child. And in the center of the table sits the carrot cake that you wanted to have. You are so looking forward to eating it. Imagine the carrot cake, Peter, juicy and still a little bit warm. You can barely wait to dip the first piece into your hot chocolate. But you wait. You wait for the friends that you have invited. This is your day, Peter. You are nine years old and the world is a huge adventure. There! Your mother is calling you. She is in the house and she wants you to come inside. The Pope has just arrived and he has brought you a gift. As he does every year. But today is your ninth birthday and so he has brought you a very special gift. You know that. You run back into the house but you cannot find the Pope. Where is he? You start searching for him. You search and search and search. Where do you find him?«

Sat and slept, sat and slept
…

The truth was a calm river gurgling through a shadowy forest. Trout glistening in the sunlight. Shimmering leaves sprinkled with sunrays. The truth was like light. One could simply walk through it and shine.

»In the library.«

»Yes, in the library. That is where he is hiding. He wanted to make it a little bit exciting for you. He wraps you in his arms and he laughs. Now he is telling you that he has hidden your present somewhere in the library. You just need to find it. Start searching, Peter. Go, find your gift. Where is it?«

Little rabbit, are you ill, why can’t you jump up the hill?

»On the shelf.«

»Of course. On the shelf. Where exactly on the shelf?«

»Inside the wall behind the photo.«

»And there you finally find it: your gift. It is a huge box wrapped in white paper and a yellow ribbon, which is tied in a bow that looks like a cross. Your birthday present from the Pope. Hold it in your hands. How does it feel?«

»Light.«

»Yes, of course, it is light. You shake the box a bit. What do you hear?«

»Clattering.«

»It is clattering. But now, you can no longer contain your curiosity. You tear off the yellow ribbon and the white paper. You open the box. Open the box, Peter. Did you open the box?«

»Yes.«

»Tell me what you see inside the box, Peter. What is the gift the Pope gave you?«

The truth. The truth was a gift. The truth was as light as falling blossoms. The truth simply followed the laws of gravity. The lie, however, was a rock, endlessly heavy and as hard as crystal. Every time he tried to lift it, his arms shattered like thin glass vials. But the truth… one could catch the truth. One could puff it up in the air. It was so light. So easy.

»What do you see, Peter? Tell me what you see. It is so easy. You want to tell me. It will be our little secret. What is inside the box?«

»Parch… ments.«

»What kind of parchments? Describe them to me.«

The rock. Peter tried to lift it. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted to chase after the falling blossoms, so badly. But a voice that was coming to him from far, far away whispered into his mind that he had to lift the rock. At any cost. The rock.

»I cannot… read them. They are just… old parchments.«

Somewhere behind him, he heard footsteps shuffling on the stone floor. Suddenly, Creutzfeldt’s voice was close again, very close, as he began to whisper into his ear.

»But there is more inside the box. There is the thing that clattered. What is it? Tell me what it is. I will not take it away from you, I promise.«

The truth was a February garden filled with blossoming almond trees. The truth was honey dissolving in hot milk. The truth was a June night. The truth was a whispered promise.

What did you just say?

»Very good, Peter. Just beautiful how you described this blue amulet. I can almost see it before my eyes. And the symbol, too. Your drawing is very precise. Very good. A really beautiful gift. Now go back into the garden. Quickly! In the meantime, your friends have arrived. They are already sitting at the table. All your friends. The Pope is also sitting there. Don Luigi sits next to him. But who else is sitting at the table? Who is now holding the amulet?«

The lie was a rock, too heavy to be lifted. A root, too strong to be pulled out. A sky, too high to be ripped apart. But this was exactly the reason why one had to try. Over and over again.

»Nobody.«

»Nobody? No, Peter. Someone else is sitting there; I can clearly see it. Who is sitting there?«

The warmth subsided. The rock became a little lighter.

»Nobody.«

But then there was this little needle prick and again, the warmth flushed through his body, and the rock crystallized into a monstrous boulder resting in soggy earth. Heavy. Endlessly heavy. Time and again he broke his thin match like arms as he tried to lift the rock. Time and again.

»Who else is sitting there, Peter? It is very easy.«

»Ellen.«

»Of course. But Ellen is sitting at the other end of the table. Someone is sitting between her and Don Luigi. Who is it?«

The lie was a raging demon ready to devour him. He was already devoured.

»Peter? Don’t make it so hard on yourself. Who else is sitting there? Who has the amulet?«

»Maria.«

LVI

May 15, 2011, Montpellier

H
ail! Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, O most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy towards us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus. O clement! O loving! O sweet Virgin Mary!«

Maria ended her third rosary as usual with the
Salve Regina
, and already she felt more stable and less lost than before. The recitation of the 150 Hail Marys of the full rosary gave her strength, keeping her inner self from falling apart and her dark thoughts at bay. The almost mechanical praying of the Psalter of Mary, each one followed by a meditation on another mystery, translated her from this world and wrapped her in a protective cloak against hopelessness and loneliness. And rarely had there been a time in her life when she had felt as lost and lonely as she had felt since saying goodbye to Peter last night. She was overcome by a strange trepidation that robbed her of sleep, shaking her soul at the fine line between her two identities: Maria the nun and Maria the human being. A human being of flesh and blood and unfulfilled desires. A woman who was as susceptible to the tides of her emotions as any other human being. But for a nun who lived her faith, emotions were one thing and desires were another. The solemn vows that she had once taken from the bottom of her heart protected her from the desires of the flesh, blending both Marias into an indivisible entity. However, last night a small gap had formed between these two Marias, a fine hairline crack exuding the scent of an aftershave, the warmth of a hand and certain desires and images that she could not allow. When she thought back to the last week, it all started to come back, all the terrible and mysterious things that had happened. Days filled with death and imminent doom. And yet at the same time, one of the most wonderful weeks of her life. Maria began to feel shame and guilt as she admitted this to herself.

How much she had enjoyed these days with Peter!

How free she had felt! Free and complete.

And beautiful.

When had she last felt like this? Maria lay undressed on the bed of her small hotel room in Montpellier, trying to remember. She was still holding the rosary in her hand, letting it rest calm and heavy on her belly. Silently she watched her belly rise and fall with every breath. Through a gap in the curtains, she could see a slice of the sky. Images of her childhood flashed before her eyes. A garden. Her mother’s laugh. Her father’s hands as he played the piano. Her dismay and the realization that he could no longer be with her. The anger at seeing him but not being able to hug him. The exuberance she felt when she and her mother rode their bikes together. Then Richard, her first boyfriend. His face next to hers as he was sleeping. Later on: the silence of the convent. The beaming smile on Grace’s face because her family had taken her back. The grief on the face of an adolescent LRA rebel. The sight of a straying hyena. The confidence that she found in prayer.

Suffering and happiness, always so close together. God’s wonderful and mysterious plan. The secret of life and faith: trust in God.

But this was the problem: she had lost her unconditional trust when Peter flew away last night. She tried to picture the copper island. She tried to imagine how Peter had landed there with his parachute. But the images remained hazy, as if shrouded by fog. Why hadn’t she tried to stop him making this insane attempt? It was possible that he was dead, that he had crashed or drowned, or that they had caught and tortured him, and perhaps she would never find out about it. At the thought that she might never see Peter again, she felt another wave of shame and guilt sweep over her. Not so much because she feared for Peter’s life, but because her own life seemed so endlessly empty if Peter was really dead.

With a painful sigh, Maria sat up. It was pointless to spend the entire day lying on the bed, waiting. Completely and utterly pointless. Worrying about Peter would drive her mad, even if she continued to pray her rosary. For a brief moment, Maria considered calling Don Luigi, but then she thought better of it. Too risky, too futile. At this point, neither Don Luigi nor anyone else could help Peter. One could only pray and hope. Hope that praying would help. Faith.

Maria remembered reading reports about tests that had been conducted at the renowned Princeton University, where already Albert Einstein had taught. A study group by the name of PEAR had used scientific and experimental methods to examine the long-distance capacity of the human consciousness and also of prayers on human beings and machines. The measurements revealed significant differences as to the well-being of the individuals who had been prayed for by others.

Although Maria did not need any scientific proof to be convinced of the power of prayer, she regarded the results as a silent triumph of faith.

And she knew that her faith would be strong, strong enough to save Peter’s life.

Filled with determination, she rose from her bed and got dressed. She wanted to do something, anything that could further Peter’s investigations. For Peter would come back. She was absolutely sure of that. He. Would. Come. Back. To her.

Maria drew the curtains open, letting light, life, and fresh air into the room. Go! But where to start? She was ready for action as she stood, thinking, in the middle of the small hotel room. Then she reached into the pocket of her raincoat and pulled out the only tangible clue that she had at this point: the amulet.

Since they had found the relic in the papal apartment, she had not looked at it again, not in detail. She had simply been too scared of this mysterious and occult item, which seemed to her like the gate into a darkness that might open at any time if one looked at it too closely.

Now, as she dared to give it a closer inspection, she saw how beautiful it was. The craftsmanship was stunning. It did not weigh much and it fitted easily into her hand and flattered her skin as she swayed it to and fro. The evenly crafted pearls of the necklace clicked softly. What a blue! Dove-cobalt-violet blue. The blue of the pearls and the medallion reminded Maria of the precious tanzanite that a vendor in Gulu had once offered to her.

Maria carried the amulet to the window. However, in the midday light, the tanzanite blue color of the amulet changed into a milky azure blue. As if it were imitating the color of the sky. Never before in her life had Maria seen such a blue. The pearls were too light to be made of stone. Nor were they made of painted wood. What kind of material was this? Maria assumed that the thread on which the pearls were strung was made of silk. Then again, it seemed doubtful that silk was durable enough to stand the test of centuries. Perhaps the pearls had been restrung over the years to replace the thread.

The craftsmanship of the amulet was also exceptional; the lines of the engraved copper and light symbol were so precise that they might have been made by a laser. The same applied to the strange characters that framed the symbol and adorned the sides of the medallion. The hieroglyph on the back looked much more uneven and seemed to have been added later. As if the unknown Egyptian artist had been in a great rush to avert a curse.

But Maria decided not to allow the amulet to frighten her again, and so she continued her examination.

»Talk to me!« she said, whispering to the amulet. »What are you?«

But the amulet kept silent, softly glinting in the midday sun. Maria placed the relic on the bed next to the rosary. And it was only at this moment that she noticed the obvious. Maria let out a bewildered cry when she recognized the remarkable resemblance between the amulet and the rosary. On the white sheet, the two items looked like siblings that had been reunited after a long separation. Two pearl string necklaces, one ending in a cross, the other in the circular medallion. Even the size of the pearls was identical. Which had to be a coincidence, as there were many different kinds of rosaries.

Quickly, Maria counted the number of pearls on the amulet. Fifty-four. Five less than in a rosary. Why fifty-four? Had the other pearls been lost over the centuries or was it that the number of pearls bore no significance? The latter was something that Maria could not believe. All of a sudden, she was convinced that there was nothing coincidental about this amulet. Whatever meaning it had, the creator of this object seemed to have known exactly what he was doing. So why fifty-four? Maria remembered what Don Luigi had once said about the fact that demons and the Templars had a penchant for numerology, and so she calculated the digit sum of fifty-four. It was nine, of all numbers, it was the number of the Knights Templar. A coincidence? Maria brushed the thought aside. Fifty-four pearls. In contrast to a rosary, the amulet was missing the larger beads for the Lord’s Prayers. Fifty-four equally sized pearls. Again, Maria was astounded how equally and evenly sized they were, and she would have placed any bet that they even weighed the same, down to the microgram. The amulet radiated symmetry and strictness, rhythm and homogeneity. And yet it also exuded mild superiority. It was like…

»… a prayer!« Maria called out in bewilderment. Now she understood that five pearls more or less did not make any difference. One could pray the amulet like a rosary. It seemed virtually to expect it.

Maria took a deep breath and thought about whether she should really do it. Praying the rosary with some mysterious occult item in her hand appeared highly blasphemous to her. Then again, they had found the amulet in the Pope’s apartment. And if it was really true, if the amulet was a gate to hell, then nothing would be better suited to keep this gate shut than prayers.

Maria took the amulet, collected herself for a moment, and then kneeled down in front of the bed. She was holding the blue relic like her rosary in both hands. Where she usually started with the cross, she now started with the medallion and prayed the Apostles’ Creed.

I believe in God,

the Father Almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ,

His only Son, our Lord;

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty;

from thence He shall come

to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Holy Catholic Church,

the communion of Saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body

and life everlasting.

Amen.

Then Maria took the first pearl in her hand and prayed the first Hail Mary.

»Hail Mary, full of grace.

Our Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,

whom you, Blessed Virgin, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.«

She prayed bead after bead, three times the entire necklace. And she ended each
Hail Mary
by adding one of the mysteries of Christ’s life:

The visitation of Mary to Saint Elizabeth.

The Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

Finding Jesus in the Temple.

The Joyful Mysteries, the Luminous Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries and the Glorious Mysteries. Maria prayed with the fervor of a true believer, with the love of a nun for Jesus Christ, and with the despair of a woman who feared for the life of her beloved.

As she was reciting the same words, time and again, the words dropping from her mouth like pearls, Maria’s consciousness dissolved and with it all feelings of despair and loneliness. With every bead she prayed, she moved closer to God.

And then she had a vision.

Except for bad dreams, she had never had a vision; yet she knew immediately what was happening to her. She was shocked and intrigued at the same time, as she continued to pray the beads of the amulet while the images rose and faded.

She saw the hills of Jerusalem under the yellowish haze of a midsummer evening. Sweltering heat bore down on the palace of Herod Antipas, Solomon’s Temple, and Golgotha, the place of the skull. A man in Roman dress was standing on one of the terraces of the palace. The setting sun, smeared red onto the sky, was burning a hole into his head. He was suffering from bad migraines, again, and he was filled with disgust as he looked down on this city that he hated so much but couldn’t escape. His dogs were restless and began to snarl when the guards led in the man they called Jesus of Nazareth, who was said to perform miracles. At Passover, the man had celebrated a triumphant entry into the city to raise the people against the Emperor and the Pharisees. This was, at least, what the indictment said. Pontius Pilate heard the footsteps of the guards and accused behind him and he turned around slowly, very slowly, trying not to further provoke the demon in his head. Through his sore eyes, Maria looked into the beaten and dirty face of the man to whom she had devoted her life. She could see the mortal fear in his eyes. And something else that she could not define. Pontius Pilate wanted to get the matter over with as quickly as possible so that he could return to the cool and protective darkness of his rooms. But as he looked into the face of the man named Jesus, the migraine demon fell off him like a dead crow dropping from a tree, and suddenly he felt light again like the child who had once enjoyed the almond trees in his father’s garden.

Maria would have loved to dwell on the image and get to the bottom of the secret of the man of Nazareth, but the image began to fade and new images began to flash before her eyes, in quick succession. The Pyramids of Giza. The Great Pyramid was still under construction. Thousands of workers moved immense blocks of stone over interior ramps. Then Maria saw a naked man. He was chewing chalk and spitting shapes and symbols onto the walls of a cave. The image disappeared when the man suddenly looked at her, terrified. The moon aligned itself in front of the sun and cut off its light. She saw the dome of the heavens, with the firmament of the stars strung like pearls on an endless knotted thread. Maria stood alone on a high plateau. At her feet, soldiers in suits of armor were racing their horses through a desert of black sand. They were wearing white mantles with the Maltese cross. One of them was holding a small item, hugging it close to his body. But before Maria could tell what the item was, this image faded too and she saw a long line of animals streaming towards a huge wooden ship. Maria saw a city that was being built in the plain between two rivers. She knew the name of this city and she saw it grow and rise and be consumed by fire and hatred until nothing was left but dust and ruins. Not even the memory that it had ever existed. Maria could physically feel the hatred that destroyed this city and she could feel the pain of the thousands upon thousands of people. The pain and the sorrow kept growing and growing, sweeping around the world like a storm. A world of never-ending pain and sorrow. Maria saw ruins in the black desert and she saw a man kill a woman in the most gruesome of ways. And this man was Peter.