by Lazlo Ferran
“Do you think this has anything to do with the book?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But in any case I’m linked with the book, so yet again I’m going to be in the sights of the Gendarmes.”
“Why is it so important to find the meaning of this poem?”
“It’s all I have to go on. The poem was encoded in the chapter on Ordo Lupus and I believe it’s a clue, something important.” I decided to take a risk. “I believe there is some kind of secret weapon or knowledge that could help fight or defend against the thinG that does those murders. I don’t know what that is but I think the poem is a clue to its whereabouts. I think I have to find it before these things or this thing, finds it.”
“Ah yes. I have heard of this magic object. Do you really believe it exists?”
“I don’t know Georgina. I really don’t. Sometimes the whole thing sounds crazy to me. But I was standing right there when Annie was dragged away. Whatever took her was bigger and stronger than anything else I have ever experienced. It wasn’t human.” I knew my voice was getting louder as my emotions were getting the better of me. I felt a mixture of anger and frustration, and my voice sounded sharper than I intended.
“Sorry. Well it’s too dangerous for you to go but I can go. I am a regular so they won’t suspect me. And if I go now perhaps I will be there before the Gendarmes know that is where they should be looking.”
“Alright. I will walk with you some of the way. I need to go for a walk but I’ll come back here and wait for you. I’m worried now that the staff will give me away. Don’t tell anybody about me. Okay?”
“Of course not!”
We left together and took the back streets towards the Richelieu Library. We both had dressed down to become less conspicuous and Georgina wore a simple cardigan over a white blouse and a black knee-length skirt. Her jet-black hair shimmered when she stepped from shadows into the harsh direct sunlight.
“Your hair almost looks blue-black.”
“My mother was Italian.”
“Ah.”
“You know Georgina, you still haven’t really told me who these priests are, like Pastor Michel. Do they have a name and do you think they could have murdered Barton-Brown?”
“I am not really sure. They are very shady. In my father’s notes, he refers to a Council of Bishops and he wrote that he believed Pastor Michel and many hundreds of others defer to them.”
“Defer? You mean he said they didn’t report to the Council?”
“No he was very clear about that. I suspect it is to avoid any documentary evidence against their actions.”
“Does the council have a name?”
“Well my father refers to them as the ‘Concilium Putus Visum’.”
“What does that mean?”
“Roughly it translates as the Council of Pure Vision or possible Pure Light. I just call them the Jackals.”
I laughed. “The CPV”
She laughed too. “Yes. The CPV.”
We reached an intersection and Georgina stopped. “The library is just over the street. See you later.” She leaned forward and kissed me. Then she snapped on a pair of tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which she took from her handbag. I smiled. “I don’t need them,” she said. “They deter young hopefuls.”
Chapter Six
1689, 459, 389, 1347, 766, 3418, 4825
“It must be nearly noon now. I’m still leaning against the sarcophagus in the Secret Chapel. My nervousness is increasing and it’s all I can do to hold steady the wad of divorce papers in my shaking hands. I will force myself to concentrate on the final part of Rose’s note to me. ‘On a practical note, I want to keep the house in Nevers; you rarely come there any more anyway and Edward still feels that it is his home. I also need some kind of allowance. You are a relatively wealthy man now and I did give up my career aspirations to bring up the children. I won’t impose on you more than that though. I only need some stability while I find my feet again. Anything else, such as photos or furniture or any other possessions please don’t hesitate to contact me, for the moment through the solicitors, but perhaps later we will be able to talk on the phone. Rose.’ I turn the sheet over but the other side is blank. I had received the divorce papers on the same day I left Nevers for Paris. I still didn’t know, then, the location of the Cathedral where the Secret Crypt was hidden but I was close.”
Back in the hotel, I couldn’t settle. All sorts of questions were crowding my mind. I tried to read one of the books I had brought:
‘A Guide to Interpreting Medieval Literature’ by C. D. Bosely, but every time I reached the bottom of a page, I would have to read it again because I hadn’t taken anything in. I put it down and stared out of the slightly dirty window. Some heavy clouds were forming over Paris and it looked like it might rain. It would be welcome, because the only air-conditioning in the room, an old fan, was struggling to keep me cool. I gave some attention to some of the questions in my head. Georgina was a mystery to me. As I walked back to the hotel I had glanced down at my old trousers, admittedly now held up with a proper belt, bulging around my middle-age paunch and wondered why she was interested in me. But then again I had learned in life not to question too much when things go right, and God knows most things were not going right at the moment. Originally she said she had some information for me, and yet I was still unsure if she had given me this information. Every time I had tried to make certain she had, she seemed to side-track me with another tidbit of information.
What worried me the most was the death of Barton-Brown. Did this mean, since I knew some secrets from the ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’, that I was also a target for the killer or killers?
Finally, were the CPV behind the killing? I needed more information and I didn’t know where to get it. I was also uncomfortably aware of time passing, although I didn’t know why. In desperation I took out ‘A History of the Supernatural and Mythical Beasts and Customs of Central and Southern Europe’ by Edgar de Boulon, the book my grandfather gave me, and searched for any signs of secret writing or marks anywhere in the book. My grandfather seemed to know what he was doing, and I thought maybe he had left a clue for me. I held the pages over a powerful light bulb, and up to the sunlight, but I could find nothing.
Georgina returned at about six, out of breath and looking very flustered. She flung her handbag on the bed. “I was followed nearly all the way home by the Jackals and the Gendarmes! I lost them I think, but only a few blocks from here. It’s not safe here anymore. We need to go to my sister’s. Tonight!”
“Okay. Calm down. We will go. Did you find anything?”
“Not on your poem no. Nothing on Le Pilon. But there is a book, an English book, an Encyclopedia of French Medieval History held at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. It’s a very comprehensive book I am told. There might be something in the index. I will go tomorrow,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Tomorrow is Sunday baby.”
“Oh sheet!”
“Don’t worry.” I put my hands on her shoulders and gently massaged them.
She took my hand and looked up at me. “I’m sorry.” I leaned down and kissed her soft red lips. She pulled away.
“There are some things I need to tell you. Time is getting short. I was not sure at first but now I have found out that in fact your friend Mr Barton-Brown was garroted and not really strangled. Garroting is a favourite method of killing by the Jackals. I think it was them.”
“Oh, now you tell me!”
“Well, I wasn’t sure. They usually do the garroting with rosaries.”
“And the other things?”
“They will have to wait until we reach my sister’s flat. Come on, we must pack.”
While I finished stuffing everything that I could in my bag, and piling the new clothes on top, Georgina called room-service and ordered a taxi. We walked to the taxi separately, the distance between the hotel doors and the taxi being only a few feet, so it was unlikely anybody would have time to r
eact if they were watching. As we sped through the glittering, bustling streets of Paris, Georgina’s hand lay on my knee, but she didn’t say a word. She had the taxi driver drop us a few blocks from our destination, and then we crisscrossed from one street to another, in a circling approach to the flat. Finally we were inside and Georgina let out a big sigh. It was a few moments before she flicked on the lights.
Once I had unpacked and she had fixed us some coffee, she seemed to calm right down. It was as if the polished glass and leather of the modern apartment really suited her temperament. Rather than sit beside me, she pulled a polished steel chair out from under a small table, turned it towards me and sat on it, cross-legged, with the coffee cup resting on her knee.
“There is something that has been bothering me all day and I have to talk to you about it. Really, this is the thing I wanted to tell you in the first place, but you haven’t been completely open with me, so I held back.”
I was a little surprised. “Haven’t I? Go on.”
“I think I know what you saw when your daughter was taken.”
“You know about that?”
“Yes. I know quite a lot more about you than you think. I made it my business to find out.”
Of course I was flattered and didn’t want to ask why, in case it was some reason other than that she was fascinated by me.
“What you saw or probably sensed, since it is not properly visible, was some kind of giant serpent, possibly with wings.”
I was shocked. Georgina seemed to know for certain the one thing I had been trying for years to prove. I looked at her quite differently, and she smiled back.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“Do you… Do you know what they are?”
“The snakes? Yes I do. Or at least I can tell you what my father wrote.” She disappeared into the bedroom for a moment where there was a bookcase, and returned with a small black notebook. She found a page and started reading. “‘I found a passage in a very old manuscript which I believe reveals the origins of the evil Serpents.’ Paraphrasing, it basically says that there are these winged snakes who are demons and they are fighting winged wolves who are actually also fallen angels, but who are trying to get back to heaven by killing the snakes. God gave them the form of wolves so they would be different from the snakes. There are also some kind of magic weapons, but so far I have not been able to find out what they are or where they are.”
“I knew some of that but some of it is new. Thanks baby, for telling me.”
“Wait. There is a note scrawled after this which says that the snakes only appear for periods of one lunar year at a time.”
“Yes I knew that, although I didn’t know it had to be a lunar year. Is there a difference… these days?”
“Yes. A lunar year is 354.3 days. I have been thinking. When was the first murder recently; was it that of your daughter?”
“Annie. Her name was Annie. I’m not sure. I think it must be the first.”
“What was the date?”
“The newspaper article was on the 23rd August, and I think the murder was three days before, so that would be the 20 August. I’m not good on dates…”
“I thought it would be something like that. Let me work it out. That means the end of the lunar year – the time when the snakes will disappear for another sixty years – is Wednesday. That’s not much time if you want to find it.”
“Yes. Yes, I see what you mean although to be honest I hadn’t been trying to find the serpent, just the weapon.”
Georgina commenced cleaning the flat, which hadn’t been done since we left the previous day. She seemed a bit self-absorbed, and I guessed it might be something I had said. But I was absorbed myself, trying to fit the new information with what I already knew and work out what it all meant. I found myself sketching timelines on a rough outline of France which I had drawn on a piece of paper.
“I am just going out for some groceries. Do you need anything?”
“Some Ouzo, or cans of beer, would be nice.”
“You and your Ouzo. I will see what I can find. What do want to eat tonight? Is spaghetti bolognaise alright? I am a rubbish cook but I can make an okay bolognaise. My mum taught me.”
“That’s fine.” I heard the door open. “Take care.”
“I will.”
I continued to think about the serpents and started to pace the room while I was thinking. I wandered into the bedroom, glancing at the books on the shelf to see if any of them could be helpful. I saw the little black notebook which Georgina had replaced, and the brown leather scrap book but I left them alone. My curiosity about their contents was almost overwhelming but I didn’t want to violate Georgina’s trust by snooping. I saw a copy of the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’, translated by Montague Summers. What caught my eye was that she had been reading this book in the library when I first met her, but that had been a different copy. I pulled it off the shelf by its spine and flicked through it. It was well thumbed, more so than the other books, which bothered me. There were several other occult books next to it, but nothing that could be of use to me right now. I made myself another coffee, not being able to find tea-bags, and swore at myself for not suggesting tea when Georgina had asked if I had wanted anything.
The spaghetti bolognaise was passable. It could have done with less bay-leaves and more garlic but I didn’t criticise Georgina’s effort. There was a bold red wine to accompany it and she had lit some candles. It was very romantic and I touched her hand as it lay on the table in front of me. She pulled it back.
“That ring. It obviously has some great sentimental value for you.” I was pointing to a bronze or copper ring in the form of a tight coil on the second finger of her left hand. On the evening I had met her at the Café, most of her jewellery had been dress-jewellery but this had stood out as something more personal.
“Oh. That? Yes it is personal. It was a long time ago.” Her eyes avoided mine. I knew then that I had done something, or said something wrong. I thought I knew what it was.
“You are still upset that I didn’t tell you all I knew about the serpents.”
“Well. It shows you don’t trust me!”
“No. It’s not that exactly, although I had only just met you. I am just so used to people thinking I am nuts when I tell them, actually I have only told two people, my wife and a friend called Henry, and neither believed me.”
“Oh! You should have trusted me. That’s all!”
“Well I do. How could I not after what we have been through? Sorry if I was a little insensitive earlier. I was just so absorbed, I mean involved in the information you had given me.” I had learned that ‘sorry’ was always a good word to use when you were out of favour with a woman, especially if you hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I am just so scared! That’s all” She laid her hand on top of mine. I took it and kissed it. She looked into my eyes and I could see more than vulnerability there.
“Let me wash up.” I started carrying dishes to the sink, but she took hold of my arm. I looked at her and put down the dishes and held her waist to kiss her.
“Do you really trust me?” she asked. “Sometimes I think you just think of me as a scared little girl.”
“No. You are more to me than that.”
“Really?” Her sudden neediness was driving me wild with desire. I felt myself harden and pushed her against the table. She pulled herself up to sit on it. She had a long black summer-dress on, and I pulled it up past her waist to reveal white panties. I wanted to tear off all her clothes. “Go on, then,” she said. “It’s only a cheap dress.”
I reached inside the low neck-line of the dress and ripped it apart, revealing a lacy white bra, which I quickly ripped from her full breasts, which hung loose as she panted, leaning forward to ease herself, one leg at a time out of her panties. I was fully hard now and undid my belt and button, letting my trousers fall to my knees and she pulled down my underpants, taking my hardness in her hands. “Go on then,” s
he said.
We made love long and hard on the table top, me on top, her panting like a panther in season, both of us sweating to the conclusion of our spiritual joining.
“Does that feel good to you baby?” she said stroking my face afterwards, as I lay on top of her. I was exhausted.
We both showered and when I came out Georgina was standing by the phone, smiling at me. She seemed incredibly tense though, as she paced up and down for the next hour, picking up books and turning on and off the television.
“Wait!” I said when the news came on. I watched it for anything about the Barton-Brown murder but there was nothing.
“Let’s go out!” Georgina said. “It’s too early to go to bed and I don’t want to stay in, this evening.”
“But I thought you were scared of the Jackals?”
“They don’t usually operate much at night. They are scared of demons.”
“Okay. Where shall we go?”
“How about the Eiffel Tower? It is open late tonight and the view at night is so pretty.”
“Yes. Alright. That would be nice.”
“Bring a coat,” she said, grabbing the afghan coat I had first seen her in. “It might be cool up there.”
In the taxi we ordered, Georgina seemed to get even tenser as we drove to the Tower. “What’s wrong?” I asked squeezing her shoulder.
“Oh. I guess things are getting to me. Don’t worry about me.”
At night the stairs on the Tower are closed off as a safety precaution, so we waited in the queue for the lift. As we clattered up for what seemed like miles, I was reminded of the old lifts of large shops in London, which had dark metal cages, when I was a boy.
As we went higher, my stomach started to turn at the dizzying sight of the ground, far below. Georgina laughed at me. Once, I glanced at her and she seemed focused on the face of a man on the far side of the lift. I thought to ask if she knew him, but then she looked at me and smiled.