Apocalypsis 1.07 Vision (4 page)

Maria was squirming and wailing in front of the bed, but she kept praying, bead by bead. Pearl by pearl, she saw things rise and fall. She saw women giving birth to children who grew under their bosoms into adults, and she saw old people dying. The women cried but they continued to give birth to child after child after child. Pearl by pearl. Maria saw little Grace with a Kalashnikov in her hands. Shooting her parents dead while the men standing around her just laughed. Maria saw her own parents making love. She saw her own beginning. She saw the medieval city of Paris, a dilapidated quarter by the river Seine, and the house of a scribe, and in the house was an alchemical laboratory where a man with a leather cap on his head was trying to fire up an oven. Soldiers stormed his house, ransacked the laboratory, and confiscated his parchments. The only thing they did not find was the book that the man with the leather cap had been able to hide under the floorboards. Maria recognized the symbol of the amulet on the cover. She flew away with the wind and saw an English scholar at the court of Queen Elizabeth I sitting with his assistant at a table engraved with pentagrams and mysterious characters. The two men were muttering words in an incomprehensible language and the characters on the table began to shine. Maria saw the plague victims of Venice and heard their desperate screams. Maria heard so much. She heard the gleeful gurgling of millions and millions of babies. She heard the death throes of millions of people, the cacophony of the last words they stammered as they expired. In a single moan, Maria heard the voices of all the people who had ever walked on the face of this earth. Maria saw a solar eclipse and then she saw the apocalypse in the folios of a medieval artist from Bamberg. She recognized the Seven Bowls of Wrath and she heard the voice of the Whore of Babylon, and it was the voice of a man, whispering obscene and blasphemous things into her ears. Then she saw a cardinal in an airport terminal. He was washing his hands, for his hands were covered with blood. And as the cardinal turned around, Maria could see that his face had the features of the Great Whore, and in his hands he was holding the Seven Bowls of Wrath that would bring misery and devastation to the world. And the number of the Beast was not 666 but 306.

As she was praying bead by bead, Maria saw horrible and mysterious things flash before her eyes. She saw kingdoms and peoples rise and fall. The sun rose and set again, and it all happened at the speed of light. Storms and seasons whirled across the earth; centuries went by in a single breath. Maria saw births and deaths, wars and brief moments of happiness. The only thing that she did not see was God. God was hiding. Or he was simply no longer in the picture of this dreadful chaos.

Maria saw inconceivable things and things that were beyond human comprehension. And behind all this, something was lurking, something abysmally evil that was feeding on the fear and the pain of the world like a parasite on its host, and it became clear to her that this nameless parasite would suck out the world, voraciously and recklessly, leaving its dried-up remains to the great oblivion.

Down to the last pearl. There was no God to put a stop to it. No hope.

Maria’s heart was aching so badly that she cried as she prayed the last bead of the necklace. And when she opened her mouth to say the »Salve Regina,« there was suddenly a voice speaking to her, soft and reassuring like a beloved memory.

»Have no fear, Maria.«

Maria lifted her head and saw the Holy Virgin. She was standing in front of her by the window, beautiful and surrounded by a dazzling glow, draped in a plain gray robe and a veil. The Holy Virgin stretched out her hand towards her.

»What are you afraid of?«

»I am afraid of the pain and suffering that I saw,« Maria whispered. »Of the evil.«

»Have no fear. You need to have faith. The pain and the evil are just the world exhaling. They are an essential part of life.«

»It will destroy us all,« Maria cried. »Where is God?«

»God is the inhaling, Maria. You cannot search for Him. God wants to be found. Like you. You need to inhale and exhale. You need to believe. Have no fear.«

»But I do have fear,« Maria screamed out in despair. »I am terribly frightened!«

Maria felt the hand of the Holy Mother of God touching her gently, stroking her hair.

»Have no fear, Maria. Be strong. Breathe. Live. Find.«

The Holy Virgin bestowed a last smile upon her, and then she left Maria kneeling in front of her bed, crying and desperate. It took Maria a while to come back to herself and when she did she saw that the sun was still shining outside. In front of the little hotel, a car horn was honking. There was the ringing laugh of a woman. A dog was barking. Someone was shouting something in French. An amiable and clueless world.

Maria looked at the alarm clock next to her bed. Less than an hour had passed. With the survival instinct of someone who was drowning, Maria clutched the edge of her bed and struggled to her feet. After drinking a whole bottle of water, she began to feel a little bit better. She was still holding the amulet in her hands. Now she knew what it was capable of and she knew what she had to do.

Breathe. Live. Find.

But more than anything else, she had to get out of this room. Immediately. Because there was one thing that she suddenly knew. With the certainty of an animal that can sense a firestorm long before the first smoke becomes visible, she knew that she would be in the greatest of danger if she stayed. For death was already on his way to get her.