The Paradise Prophecy (46 page)

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Authors: Robert Browne

BOOK: The Paradise Prophecy
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“Careful,” Grant said. “Remember the curse.”
Batty nodded. “You two might want to close your eyes.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Grant didn’t hesitate, but Callahan shook her head. “I’m good for now.”
Shutting the casket lid, LaLaurie took the Milton manuscript out of the book bag and laid it atop the casket, opening it to the last chapter. Then, as Callahan trained her flashlight beam on it, he untied the string around the roll of pages.
“You’d better close them now,” he said.
Callahan nodded, and keeping the flashlight steady, she closed her eyes and listened as he flattened the pages out next to the manuscript. She knew he was checking to see if they lined up.
But then he went still. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“The pages...”
“
What?
What about them?”
LaLaurie paused. Then he said, “They’re completely blank.”
44
 
I
don’t fucking believe this,” Callahan said.
Both she and Grant had their eyes open now and were staring at the pages in shock. And they were definitely blank.
Grant said, “This is what I’ve been guarding for fifteen years?”
Callahan turned to him. “No, you were guarding somebody else’s casket, remember? And it looks like someone slipped in here and switched out the pages.”
Grant looked resentful. “They’d have to get past me and a double-locked metal door to do it. And I can assure you, Agent Callahan, this didn’t happen on my watch.”
“So you’re here twenty-four/seven?”
“Well, no, of course not, but—”
“They weren’t switched out,” Batty said. He had carefully lined up the pages next to the manuscript and the edges matched. He had no doubt in his mind that these were genuine.
“So what are you suggesting?” Grant said. “That this is some sort of cruel hoax? That our first guardian made the whole story up?”
Batty didn’t respond. He was thinking back to his vision, to what the poet had told him.
I had several sheets of paper in front of me, my finger etching itself into them as if controlled by another being.
His
finger
, not a pen. Etching itself into the pages.
Then a thought occurred to Batty. “What have you been told about these?” he asked Grant.
“Certainly not that they’re blank.”
“You’ve spoken to the angel Michael, I assume?”
“He doesn’t ring me up every day, but I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t recruited me.”
“And he said nothing about this?”
“It’s my understanding he can’t read the pages himself. None of the angels can. They need humans to translate. In fact, I’d say they seem to need us for quite a
few
things.”
Batty nodded, his mind still clicking away. “Both Ozan and Gabriela were trying to decode Milton’s verse in Book Eleven. Except they had the
wrong
Book Eleven. Were you told at any time that the pages were encrypted?”
“Yes,” Grant said. “But I’m not sure
why
. It’s just a story that’s been handed down through the generations of guardians.”
“Then maybe that’s what we have here. Encrypted pages.”
“What are you thinking?” Callahan asked. “Invisible ink?”
Batty shook his head. “Invisible ink wasn’t invented until the nineteenth century, by a guy named Henry Wellcome.”
“Is there a bottom to that well of information you draw from?”
“I hope not,” Batty said. Then he reached for the book bag and brought out the copy of
Steganographia
. “You remember what I said this book was really about?”
“Of course. Steganography, cryptology.”
“That’s what the experts discovered when they broke the code and I’m sure that’s what Ozan was using it for. But the thing that frightened Trithemius’s friends and convinced them he was an occultist is that on its surface it’s a treatise on how to pass secret messages through spiritual entities.”
“Right. But that was just a cover story. Trithemius said so himself.”
“But what if he was lying to protect his reputation? What if he really
was
an occultist, and these really are recipes for communicating through spirits?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she said. “Slow down a little.”
“In my vision, Milton told me he was visited by another being in the middle of the night. That it forced him to etch these pages with his finger. He was blind, so he couldn’t know that the pages were blank. But they were clearly a message from a spirit.” He picked up the copy of
Steganographia
. “So what if we were to use one of Trithemius’s incantations to decode that message?”
Callahan thought about this. “I think you might be on to something.”
“I hope so.”
He placed the book next to the blank pages and cracked it open. It had been a while since he’d studied the thing with any depth, and as he stared at the words, he wasn’t sure which incantation to choose. Remembering what had happened to Rebecca, he didn’t want to summon up the wrong spirit.
He read through them all carefully, then finally found one that seemed most appropriate. A simple, straightforward summoning.
“All right,” he said, “Keep your fingers crossed.”
Both Grant and Callahan stepped back slightly is if they were afraid they might get in his way. He quickly scanned the page in front of him, committed the incantation to memory, then touched the stack of blank pages and closed his eyes.
Then he said, “
O magne spiritus
,
si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis
.
O magne spiritus
,
si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis
.
O magne spiritus
,
si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis
.”
For a moment nothing happened and Batty was afraid it hadn’t worked. Then he felt heat in his hand and his fingers began to tremble. He half expected them to take a life of their own and begin writing across the page. Instead, the pages themselves began to glow, infused in a warm yellow light.
Grant and Callahan stepped back even farther, shielding their eyes, as the glow grew stronger, then a fountain of light rose toward the ceiling, illuminating the entire room, a shimmering image appearing at its center.
Batty didn’t back up. Didn’t move. Didn’t shield his eyes.
His gaze was transfixed on that image, and a strange feeling welled up inside him. A feeling of warmth. Not
physical
warmth, but a sense of emotional fulfillment that enveloped him like a loving embrace.
The embrace of a mother and child.
A father and son.
A wife and her husband.
Then the image in the light began to take on form and substance and Batty’s chest seized up, tears springing to his eyes. His mouth dropped open and he wanted to say something, wanted desperately to form words, but there were no adequate words for what he now saw.
The image smiled, and the warmth inside him doubled. Quadrupled. He was weak with it. Drunk with it. And not just his fingers were trembling, but his entire body.
“Hello, Batty,” she said, in that subtle Louisiana drawl.
It was Rebecca.
 
 
B
ecky,” he croaked.
He hadn’t called her that since she died. Not even in his mind. Couldn’t bring himself to use the name she had introduced herself with, all those years ago on the steps of Nassau Hall.
But now she was here and it just seemed right. She was his Becky, and he wanted to spring forward and pull her into his arms. But he knew she was only an apparition, impossible to hold.
“How is this happening?” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m here, Batty. With you.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Your time in the otherworld was too short. You may have learned many things, but there is so much more to know. It’s a vast place, filled with wonder and miracles.”
“All I saw was darkness. And I couldn’t find any miracles. I couldn’t find you.”
“But you did,” she said. “You didn’t know it at the time, but you did.”
His eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”
“You know that piece of the otherworld you thought you brought back with you? That was part of me. Part of my soul. I’m always with you, Batty. I always will be.”
Tears welled up in Batty’s eyes again. “But I thought ... Belial...”
“Belial destroyed my human form, but one of the incantations you spoke before I succumbed managed to protect me from her, from taking my soul as her own.” Becky paused. “But she knows I’m with you, Batty, and she knows my song. That’s why you must always be vigilant.”
Batty said nothing. He didn’t know
what
to say. To know that Rebecca had been with him all this time, had seen what he’d done with Belial in his bed, had watched him drink himself into oblivion time after time, fighting in bars, embarrassing himself at the college. He suddenly felt ashamed.
“Don’t fret, Batty. You’re human, just as I once was. We make mistakes. We learn from them and we move on. We’ve been on our own for so long, left to face heartbreak that’s almost impossible to bear. Left to deal with the darker angels—not only from the otherworld and beyond, but the darker angels inside us. That pull at our hearts and prod our psyches. It’s a miracle that we’ve survived this long. But that’s what it means to be human, Batty. That spirit of survival. The need to create and procreate and love and be loved.” She paused again, smiling. “Yet despite your failings, here you are. And that’s why he chose you. You’ve seen the darkness, but your soul—our soul—remains untainted.”
“Who?” Batty said. “Who chose me?”
“Michael, of course. He came to me, shortly after you left the otherworld. Belial is his sister and he could feel you through her. He knew of the coming tetrad. The coming struggle. And he wanted me to bring you this message.”
“Wait a minute,” Batty said. “He
knew
I’d be here?”
“Nothing is certain, but many things can be predicted. And hoped for.”
“But what does he want from me?”
“He wants you to free her. To free the sacred traveler. To release her from her human bonds and give mankind the chance it deserves. To let her be a message to God.”
“But ... how?”
“The pages will tell you,” Rebecca said. “But you must not fail, Batty. If the dark angels manage to corrupt her soul before you have a chance to free her, all will be lost, the seven gates will open and Lucifer instead will be freed, to rule the earth forever.”
Batty felt sick. How could he be responsible for something like that? He was barely responsible for himself. He couldn’t even keep Rebecca from being taken from him.
“This has to be a mistake.”
“Not a mistake,” she said. “But it won’t easy for you. You will be tested. But remember that I’ll be with you. Always. If you feel your resolve faltering, just call to me and I’ll listen.”
Becky’s image began to shimmer now, starting to blur.
“Wait,” he said. “Don’t go.”
“It’s time, my love. The message has been given. You have difficult choices ahead of you. Just remember to heed the pages. They will tell you what you must do.”
Her image continued to shimmer and blur, then finally faded away.
Then the glowing light was gone, the room once again dark except for the beams of their flashlights.
Batty took his flashlight from the casket lid and shone it down on the pages. They were no longer blank, but what he saw surprised him.
Not poetry, as he had expected. No final verses to
Paradise Lost.
But seven carefully rendered illustrations—much like the Gustave Doré etching in Gabriela’s apartment—black-and-white drawings of a world gone mad, ravaged by pain, people struggling, fighting, killing. And in each new drawing a huge full moon hung high above them, each one farther along in the progression of a lunar eclipse.
But it was the seventh drawing that told the tale.
A story of two opposing outcomes.
On the right side of the page was a ravaged world, barren and lifeless, a dark-winged Satan hovering above it. On the left side was a lush, verdant paradise with rolling hills and fruit-bearing trees, a great warrior angel looking down upon it.
And at the center, kneeling beneath the moon in full eclipse, was a small figure, a dagger held in her right hand, aimed directly at her throat. Her left hand was held palm outward, as if in oath, toward a man wielding a sword.

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