The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2)

by Dominic Selwood

  It suddenly all became clear, and he knew how he could do what the Holy Mother had asked.

  The rest would make history.

  He draped the prayer shawl about his shoulders, and looked around the donjon critically, ensuring everything was in its place. This was to be a night unlike any other, and everything had to be right.

  The world would remember tonight.

  Satisfied with his preparations, he strode across to the far wall, and stepped through the doorway onto the platform suspended over the bailey.

  As he emerged, the view took his breath away.

  He was high on the wall of the donjon, looking down over the courtyard far below.

  At the far end of the bailey, the Skoptsy were gazing up at him – their hooded faces thrown into sharply contrasting pools of light and shade by the flaming torches running the length of the top of the courtyard walls.

  He saw again in his mind the image of the Blessed Mother.

  This was what she wanted.

  His heart swelled with pride.

  And she had chosen him to achieve it, giving him riches and power – not for him, but to make it all possible.

  He ran his eyes over the one hundred and forty-four Skoptsy below.

  He did not have to count them. He knew they would all be there.

  They all wanted this.

  They had never said it to him. Perhaps they did not even realize that it was what they craved.

  But he knew it was their innermost desire.

  He had been sent to guide them, and the Holy Mother was showing him the way.

  She wanted to be reunited with her children.

  He smiled at them as they looked up expectantly, then held up his hands, and began.

  “We are Urha – the Way.” His voice rang out clearly in the still summer evening. “We are the Elect, honoured to carry the torch of the Sheliahin, which we bear with awe and humility.”

  He gazed around. “Faith has built many fine temples down the ages. Yet none is as great as this hallowed place. These stone blocks were fashioned by the hands of holy martyrs, who laid each one in the unshakeable knowledge that their labours would one day be rewarded with crowns of heavenly gold.”

  He paused, before resuming more sombrely. “The builders of this place look down on us now, and they bless us as we prepare to reconsecrate their chapel of grace.”

  He clapped once, and the children with the silver spheres filed solemnly out of the bailey’s north doorway.

  Chapter 65

  Château de Montségur

  Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées

  The Republic of France

  AVA HAD HER head bent low, listening to Durov’s homily. His voice was commanding, and seemed to float down onto the crowd assembled in the bailey. It had the same slightly detached and mildly hypnotic effect she had noticed during his speech at the Russian embassy, except this time there was an excitement she had not heard before.

  “The Katharoi – the pure ones – offer us a burning example of faith. They did not dwell as fully in the Meshiha as we do, but they understood many things that are only known to the Elect.”

  Ava was listening intently.

  “When ready, each of them undertook the consolamentum – the great consoling. Thenceforward, they vowed perpetual celibacy. Like us, they knew that the act of sex cuts mankind off from God. Every instance of fornication kills our divine spirit a little more, until we are empty shells, no longer in God’s image – merely animals.”

  He glared down at the audience.

  “They also understood that only the Spirit is pure. They saw something evil in Yahweh of the Old Testament – the Hebrew god of conquest and pillage. For them he was the wicked Demiurge. The world and everything in it was his foul creation, and people were his lustful servants. Yet the Cathars were blessed with the knowledge that the Meshiha had spoken of a different God – the Trinity – a fountainhead of justice, love, and light. And they were forever grateful that inside each of them resided a spark – a soul – a sliver of that divine light. They understood the eternal conflict between their spiritual essence and their base matter. As do we.”

  It was the usual cult formula – the saved and the lost, the blessed and the damned. Us and them.

  But it was powerful. And Ava could see that the Skoptsy around her were soaking up his every word.

  “By the consolamentum ceremony, the ordinary Cathar became a Perfect. And here, tonight, we shall follow in their noble footsteps. We, too, shall be Perfected. We shall say with them: Benedicite. Parcite nobis.5”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ava caught sight of movement over by the north door.

  As she watched, the children filed in again, bearing the silver spheres in front of them.

  They approached the crowd, and untwisted small caps, revealing that the spheres had openings.

  “And did all drink the same spiritual drink,” Durov intoned, as the children passed the silver decanters to the crowd. “For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ,” Durov recited, as the crowd began to drink deeply from the spheres. “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.”

  Each member of the Skoptsy took a deep draught, then passed it on.

  He indicated the vast death-mask of the Turin Shroud, “Like the Meshiha, we must take the cup that is offered to us, if we desire truly to live.”

  In no time, the silver spheres were circulating freely among the crowd.

  “This is the divine plan,” he continued. “Today is Saint John’s day – and there is no more fitting time for it to come to pass.”

  He disappeared through the doorway, then returned a few moments later, dragging something behind him, dropping it at his feet.

  As it moved slightly, Ava realized it was a person that Durov was pulling by the hair.

  “Babylon was ever the Anti-Christ.” His tone was now darker. “Never more so than since deceiving the nations from its nest in Rome. Here,” he took firm hold of more of the person’s hair, “here is the abomination.”

  As he yanked the hair upwards and backwards with a flourish, Ava froze as she found herself looking at Mary’s battered and bloodied face.

  Durov was still quoting from scripture, but Ava was barely listening as a white-hot anger began rising in her.

  His voice floated over the crowd. “I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”

  Ferguson was staring at Mary, his face ashen.

  “Christ,” he whispered, taking a step forwards.

  Ava grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back.

  “You’ll be lynched,” she whispered, lowering her head again to obscure her face.

  She gripped his shoulder tighter, sensing him struggle to restrain himself. “We need to be clever,” she urged. “There must be a hundred and fifty of them.”

  From Ferguson’s left, someone tapped him on the arm.

  He turned slowly, his eyes narrowing.

  The man was proffering one of the silver spheres.

  Ferguson took it, then raised it to his lips.

  With a rush of panic, Ava jabbed her heel hard into the top of his foot.

  He held the sphere to his lips for a moment longer, then lowered it.

  “If Durov wants people to drink, it’s got to be a bad idea,” she whispered.

  Ferguson wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “I worked that one out,” he replied, passing the sphere to the person behind him.

  “It’s wine,” he whis
pered to Ava, tasting his lips, “with something else in it.”

  As he was speaking, a light misty drizzle started to fall.

  Grateful for her hood, Ava focused back on Durov, and realized something was not right.

  It took her brain a moment to work it out.

  It was not raining on Durov or around the platform.

  As the mist formed droplets on her face, it started to trickle down her skin.

  She looked around, and saw that the flaming torches mounted along the top of the walls also seemed unaffected.

  Ferguson had noticed where she was looking.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, holding out his hands to catch the fine droplets.

  Ava was squinting at the wall, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the torches.

  Suddenly, she saw it – a thin grey tube tacked to the wall about a yard under the base of the torches.

  “There,” she pointed. “A hose.”

  Some of the liquid trickled onto her lips, and she suddenly realized with horror what it was, and what Durov was planning.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped. “It’s petrol.”

  Chapter 66

  Château de Montségur

  Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées

  The Republic of France

  ABOVE THEM, DUROV disappeared into the keep, and re-emerged a moment later. He paused, then surveyed the Skoptsy, his eyes bright.

  Ava peered up at him, and her heart started beating faster as she caught sight of the thick roll of papyrus in his hand.

  She heard Jennings’s voice in her head.

  “Durov’s far cleverer than you. Then again, he knows what he’s looking for. You see, he knows that the prize is one of the original letters of the Apocalypse.”

  She peered through the mist of petrol at the roll of skins.

  Could it really be an original Apocalypse letter?

  It was too far away for her to make out any details.

  Could one of the copies have survived all these years, or was it just a cheap stage prop?

  Durov had proved himself to be many things. He was undoubtedly clever and resourceful. He had solved the same clues she had.

  The vellum fragment had said PARSEMA.

  He scattered.

  Had Durov really found one of the scattered letters?

  Up on the platform, Durov was addressing the crowd again.

  “For two thousand years, we have waited for the Second Coming of the Meshiha.” His face was shining as he held the roll out in front of him.

  “And here is the map, dreamed in a cave on the island of Patmos – the holy vision of Yohanan the fisherman: the beloved disciple, leader of the Way, and sacred apostle of the true believers.”

  He held it up above his head. “And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth.” He stared about, his eyes widening. “The time has come for the Elect to take their rightful seats around the throne.”

  He returned into the donjon.

  Ava took the opportunity to look about surreptitiously, and was struck by how the robed figures around had become noticeably less animated. Their eyes had dulled, and a number were looking unstable on their feet.

  A moment later, Durov remerged, without the roll, but with something else in his hand.

  On either side of the doorway, the television screens displaying the icon of Our Lady of Philermos dissolved to black, then came to life again with blurry green images.

  Ava recognized that look.

  It was a feed from a night vision camera.

  Both screens showed the identical image of a long military vehicle in a desert. The camera was around twenty-five yards from it, and each screen showed the same timestamp in its bottom left-hand corner.

  It was one hour ahead of France.

  Ava went cold.

  So was Israel.

  “Fire is divine. Fire is love. God is fire.” Durov’s voice was rising in volume and intensity. “Since time immemorial, fire has been the purifying force through which base substances have been refined. When King Solomon’s Temple was ready, fire came down from heaven, and the Lord filled the house.”

  He reached down and grabbed Mary’s hair again.

  “But what is bliss for the martyrs is hell for the damned.” His voice became more strained, as a rage began to take hold. “While we enter the kingdom, the harlots of false faith will be consumed by the flames of everlasting torment.”

  He started raising Mary up by her hair. “Babylon the great is fallen. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”

  Ava could see the pain on Mary’s face as Durov tried to pull her up off her knees.

  His voice was now screeching across the courtyard. “These shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”

  Without warning, he let go of her, and she slumped heavily to the floor beside him.

  He opened his arms wide in triumph to embrace the crowd. “And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. Benedicite. Parcite nobis.”

  “I’ve seen enough.” Ferguson turned away in disgust. “Let’s end this.”

  Chapter 67

  West Syrian Desert

  The Syrian Arab Republic

  A MOMENT EARLIER, inside the MLRS, the encrypted line on the secure satellite radio link had crackled into life.

  The soldier at the fire control panel had listened carefully to the voice in his headphones, repeating back the string of letters and numbers being dictated, then typed them directly into the keyboard in front of him.

  When he was done, he reached for the small sealed plastic cylinder hanging on a chain around his neck, and cracked it open, pulling out a slip of black card with a twelve-digit alphanumeric sequence.

  He typed the code into the fire control computer, and – after a moment’s pause – the MLRS’s remote weapon guidance and international linkup went live.

  There was nothing more for him to do, except watch the target coordinates appearing on the screen as they were entered from a terminal nearly two thousand miles away.

  When complete, the numbers melted from the screen, and the targeting map appeared, plotting the trajectory of each rocket to its destination.

  They were all clustered on one small area.

  Al-Mazzeh district, western Damascus.

  The soldier knew it well from briefings.

  It was the most upmarket area of the city – home to international businesses, embassies, the university, and a population of several hundred thousand people.

  It was also the location of the government’s principal military airport, the base of the elite Republican Guard, and – overlooking it all – the President of Syria’s headquarters and palace.

  Chapter 68

  Château de Montségur

  Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées

  The Republic of France

  AVA LED THE way out of the bailey’s northern doorway, then began running around towards the donjon.

  As she and Ferguson sprinted towards where Durov was holding Mary, the surrounding peaks melted into the night sky under the stars. On any other evening it would have been spectacular. But it was treacherous running in the dark. The narrow mountaintop path was uneven, and dotted with clumps of wild grass and loose lumps of rock and masonry. To their right, the mountainside fell away sharply.

  Arriving at the castle’s north-western corner, Ava stopped and tucked herself against the wall. Conscious of every passing second, she motioned for Ferguson to fall in beside her as she looked across towards the entrance into the donjon.

  It was exactly as it had been earlier that afternoon, with the old makeshift wooden staircase leading up into the keep. The only difference was that now the building materials and sacks had been removed, and there was a white-robed figure with a
shotgun standing guard at the bottom of the steps.

  Ava stepped round the corner, and indicated with her fingers for Ferguson to follow in ten seconds.

  Bracing herself, she strode directly towards the guard, keeping her head low, and shielding her face.

  As she approached, the man raised his arms and levelled the shotgun directly at her.

  She pulled her hood back and approached the guard, as if on official business, making sure she stopped on the far side of him.

  The guard turned to face her and, right on cue, Ferguson launched himself at the man from behind, throwing a heavy circular punch to the guard’s temple.

  As the violence of the blow transferred to the soft matter of the guard’s brain, the sensitive tissue crashed into the inside wall of his skull, and he blacked out instantly, dropping to the floor.

  Ava bent down and removed his belt. Then, together with Ferguson, she dragged the unconscious man to the staircase, before hooking his arms around the wooden post of the banister rail, and lashing them together with the belt.

  Once satisfied the coast was clear, Ava was the first onto the donjon’s rickety wooden stairs. She took them two at a time, quickly arriving at the walkway that led directly into the stone keep.

  Ferguson was right behind her.

  Up ahead, inside, the scene was lit with yet more torches, which cast a macabre dancing light around the crumbling fortification.

  Without pausing, Ava entered the ancient fortification, noting that the old walkway was supported on tall wooden stilts rising high above the stone floor below. In front of her, the planks continued for several yards, then met another walkway crossing the width of the keep, forming a T-shape of gangways, seemingly floating in mid-air.

  Directly ahead, the Skoptsy had built an additional shallow flight of steps leading up to a new platform, which entirely filled the farther side of the donjon.

  On it, to the left, was a table draped in purple. To the right was the MLRS remote command unit, which had been plugged into the battery pack and the large satellite radio. Above the hardware, mounted on the wall, was a small flat-screen monitor showing the same night vision image as the two large flat screens on the outside of the donjon.