by R. Twine
‘You know, Miriam, only the chosen ones have the idea of how the worlds are interconnected with each other. People have always believed in the existence of Dark Forces; therefore I set myself a goal to find out if there is something that genuinely exists or if it’s just a myth passed down from one generation to another. This research became my life's purpose.’
‘Are you connected with the parallel world personally, Mister Brinstein? Have you ever seen the Prince of Darkness in person or any of his servants? Or is your analysis only based on the study of ancient literature which has influenced you so much that you have come to believe in the very same myth?’ I asked.
‘No need to rush things, sweet young lady’, said Phil with a hint of irony in his voice. ‘I understand your curiosity perfectly well… Well, I’m at a loss for an answer… I can neither confirm nor deny it. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’ he offered.
‘I’d rather have coffee than tea,’ I said in reply.
Phil left the room, and I snatched the opportunity to have a closer look at everything that surrounded me. The room was big; it was lined with expensive kinds of wood and had ceilings of about four meters high. Bookshelves covered three walls completely. “God, how many of them there are here!’’ I thought, astonished, marveling at leather bindings of incunabula (7) and palaeotypes (8). The fourth wall was occupied by a window with heavy green curtains. I came up to it and took a peep outside: three pairs of eyes were staring at me through the windowpanes. The Dobermans wouldn’t bark – they were sitting calmly, silently staring, studying me. Spooked, I cringed involuntarily.
‘Here’s your coffee, Miriam,’ I heard the host’s voice coming from behind me. ‘You see, my doggies wouldn’t even bark, it means they took an immediate liking to you. They have a perfect instinct for people,’ he said, laughing.
‘Thanks’.
‘Not at all. Take a seat, please,’ he said, pointing at the black leather armchair. It stood in front of a big oaken table heaped up with dozens of books with markers in them – apparently Mister Brinstein was reading all of them simultaneously.
‘You have such a huge number of books! It must have taken many years to read all this. This is the first time that I have seen so many books on the subject I take a great interest in’, I said with admiration.
‘Right you are, young lady – it took a lot of time and effort to gather all this in one place. These books describe the origin of Satan: they hold different theories but eventually they all boil down to the fact that he is the most powerful Heavenly Angel made personally by the Creator; he is famous for his sharp intellect and explosive temperament. Satanail always stood out amongst the rest of the angels; it was he who was the might and the pillar of Heaven. And it is for a reason that the scripture says Michael the Archangel couldn’t defeat him and had to turn to the Father for help. It took the concerted effort of all the Kingdom of Heaven to throw him out and close its gates behind him. Satanail may have instigated a riot intentionally in order to leave the Heavenly Abode and create his own kingdom later in time – who knows? Maybe, he devised a plan to have man expelled from Eden in order to enslave mankind in the future?’ Phil kept asking; he was a mysterious man who spent all his life searching for the truth.
‘Whatever did he need it for?’
‘Human souls are immortal, they are capable of materializing just the way that demons are…’ he replied.
‘In fact, this is why I turned to you, Phil, so that you could explain to me as best you could why everything that is happening to me happens at all,’ I said.
‘I’m all ears,’ he said, looking at me with his attentive gaze, prepared not to miss a word of what I was going to tell him.
And I told him everything – from the beginning to the end, from my childhood up to now. Phil was listening quietly, his face showing no emotion at all.
‘Soon the Threads of Light will be weaved into my body in order to protect me from Satanail’s encroachments,’ I said, completing my story.
Silence hung in the room. The ray of sunlight streaming through the window separated us. Through the finest particles of dust dancing in the air I could see Phil thoughtfully fumbling with his pencil and nodding his head as if agreeing with his own thoughts.
‘I had been working as a psychiatrist in one of the private clinics before taking up demonological research,’ he finally said, ‘and I heard a lot of interesting things there, oftentimes the product of a damaged mind. But your story is so unlike anything I’d ever heard before that I trust every word you say.’
‘Believe me, I wouldn’t fly to the opposite side of America only to tell you a made-up story,’ I said.
‘I trust you,’ he said again.
‘Well, what do you say? Where are the phenomena in my life coming from? And what do I have to expect from such visits later on?’ I asked. ‘How long is all this going to drag on?’
‘I wouldn’t like to mislead you but I’m afraid – if my assumptions are correct – there isn’t the slightest chance that all this is going to end for you sooner, or later,’ Phil replied.
‘You mean to say I’m going to live with it for the rest of my life?’
‘Yes. Wherever you might be, Satanail will be following you. But I can assume that the Guardians and the Archangel himself will finally decide to stand by you. I’m sure you really are the very same first woman everybody calls Eve. The one seduced by Satanail and the one who, having ended up on Earth, seduced Satanail in her turn and gave birth to his first-born, Cain, conceived during their affair. It was this son who inherited from the Prince of Darkness the gene of destruction. And Cain passed this gene on to his descendants. That’s when the line of dark instincts awoke in man,’ Phil explained and then said unexpectedly: ‘Let’s now have a look at one very valuable relic – I was unable to determine in what century it was written. Maybe this manuscript will help us find out what you’re so curious about…’
Phil got up and went to the bookshelves. He took one of the tomes down and pressed the button hidden behind it. The shelves parted, revealing a secret passageway.
‘Follow me, Miriam, if you please,’ called Phil. ‘This is where I keep my treasure – my most precious manuscripts.’
I followed him into a small room, and the shelves closed again behind my back.
‘So you are hiding your books, aren’t you?’ I enquired. ‘Are you really afraid someone may want to encroach upon them in some way or another?’
‘My dear Miriam, there’s always some kind of danger existing in this world. My library is worth millions of dollars, but it also contains some copies which are truly priceless exemplars. My house is equipped with an alarm system, and in case of a robbery the police will be here in a matter of minutes, but one can never be too cautious. My house is fully equipped with the most up to date security system!’ Phil said proudly.
He fished out a key from his pocket and unlocked the strong box built into the wall. The little door opened, and the demonologist rolled the shelf out of the box, on which lay a huge ancient book with a metal binding. It was bedecked with sophisticated inlays made of jewels. Phil carefully opened the tome and began slowly turning its pages while peering into the text.
‘Look, Miriam. Here’s the copy of one of the most famous and mysterious books of all times and nations; it is called The Book of Shadows! The Prince of Darkness wrote it with his own hand; it holds many secrets, and is considered to be the mirror reflection of The Book of Lives guarded by the Archangel himself.’
‘What do you mean – “mirror reflection?” What precisely is the difference between these two books?’
‘There’s no simple answer to your question,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘Unlike you, Miriam, I’ve never seen The Book of Lives in my life. This is the most mysterious book in the whole Universe! It’s unique; it contains the past, the present and the future of the entire cosmic space… It contains everything…’
I was taking in every word Brinstein said: this que
er man inspired me with boundless confidence and respect.
‘The Book of Shadows contains what Satanail himself already knows. Few are those to whom it reveals its secrets, and few are the secrets it reveals… Besides, the book has its peculiarities: in particular, you have to beware of its blank pages. These pages tell about the unavoidable things man is going to face but is unlikely to know anything about!’ he said, putting the glasses again on his nose and peering into the pages in an apparent search for something.
‘You were telling me something about your family heirloom ring…’ he murmured, pointing his finger at the page. ‘Look at this! The ring you’re wearing looks much like this one!’ Phil added triumphantly and began reading aloud from the book: “The jewel Satanail had knocked out of the Archangel’s helmet belongs to the woman whose soul belongs to these two most powerful angels… She alone is capable of holding a real sway over them…’’
“… Holding a real sway over the two angels,” I said again to myself. And Phil went on reading:
“By tempting his first human victim, Satanail himself falls into the trap of human emotions. His first affection for the woman created by the Creator urged him to understand what the soul in love is going through. It was the first time he had experienced the feeling man himself experienced at a later point in time. At first Satanail needed her flesh but it was her soul he began to require later on….”
Brinstein went silent; then he took off his spectacles, wiped them thoroughly and explained.
‘Satanail came to realize that the human soul is immortal and decided to preserve the seed of life taken from the first humans in order to create a new civilization similar to this one if mankind perishes.’
‘So it appears that – sooner or later – mankind will become extinct?’
‘It does appear so, Miriam. Probably, Satanail only regards man as some kind of a transitional stage on the path towards his own civilization.’
‘Does it mean he foresaw the Flood?’ I asked.
‘Surely, he did, that was why he kept the seed of life alive.’
‘But Noah survived and this seed turned out to be unnecessary,’ I went on, developing the idea.
‘That’s the problem. There are two theories in this regard. The first one holds that God-fearing Noah gave his descendants life and along with life came the gene of destruction he had gotten from his ancestors. This gene was able to manifest itself for the second time in human beings born after the Flood. And once it manifested itself, this gene grew even stronger. And here’s the second theory: supposedly, Noah didn’t pass on the destructive gene to his descendants, but Satanail is alert – he created people who resembled Noah’s descendants. These Satanail-created human beings wedged themselves into Noah’s descendants mixing with them; that’s where the division of people into good and evil ones comes from…’ Phil paused for quite a while. ‘Suppose the second theory is correct. Then it gives me the shivers to even think what the future holds in store for all people…’
‘But these are just theories,’ I said. ‘And we will never know the truth.’
As its pages were being turned, The Book of Shadows was breathing like a man does. It carried the weight of all human fates. But I had the sensation of someone else being present in the secret room besides the two of us.
‘Michael the Archangel knows about Satanail’s actions and intentions and, being incapable of destroying his powerful adversary, he comes out with the pact and makes him an offer to sign it. But, as far as I can judge, Satanail doesn’t always observe this pact,’ said Phil.
‘It’s highly likely that the Archangel’s victory over Satanail is just a façade, which brings us to the conclusion that the Prince of Darkness is important to Heaven and thus cannot be destroyed as the sworn enemy of Heaven and mankind. And the human soul cannot be destroyed either!’ I added. ‘It turns out that we are doomed to wage an endless invisible war! Humankind has been fighting its own flaws since it first appeared on Earth. We’ve been fighting the part of us we’d inherited from Satanail! Maybe the new civilization that’s going to replace ours will be more perfect, who knows?… And it may well happen that just the reverse will be the case!’
‘You have to admit we are just toys in the hands of the most powerful upon whom our lives totally depend,’ Phil said. ‘Woman is more susceptible, and that was why Satanail made use of her. He always made use of the weaker ones.’
‘I cannot agree with this,’ I objected. ‘He often tamed the spirit of strong people by breaking their will. But some turned out bold enough to defy him; I guess those were the people Satanail himself admired. But whatever does he want from me?’
‘It is the offspring that he wants from you, Miriam… It is through them that Satanail intends to rid the human soul of the Creator’s influence.’ Phil went on developing the idea. ‘He wants descendants in which his genes will prevail. He needs the army of men imbued with his essence so that they can destroy their counterparts possessing the divine essence of the Creator. There’s only one thing that makes me feel optimistic: up until now Satanail has been unsuccessful in carrying out his plans. Man proved to be too sophisticated to be easily controlled. And the angels, too, were not just sitting with their wings folded doing nothing…’ The demonologist smiled slightly – and quickly became serious again. ‘Remember, Miriam: Satanail is, like us, God’s creation. Nothing happens by chance, everything’s predetermined. Few are the instances in which man is capable of changing the course of events. Some call the Creator to help them with this; some turn to the Prince of Darkness, there are some who turn to both of them.’
‘How complicated everything is, really…’ I said.
‘Miriam, the thought alone of your being, in the flesh, the first woman Satanail had possessed and the mother of his son scares me a lot. He came to know your flesh and now he’ll go to great lengths to keep you in his web. Your relationship with him is very dangerous; you are walking on a razor’s edge which – sooner or later – is going to inflict a lethal wound upon you. The only thing we can hope for is that your soul will not end up in his hands. Hoping for the best is all we can do. The Heavens aren’t always willing to interfere with the course of events…’ said Phil shaking his head slowly.
‘It looks like a bad dream,’ I said, intervening. ‘This parallel life of mine keeps on troubling me! I don’t know what to expect from it anymore.’
‘I understand you perfectly well,’ said Phil and started looking for something in the book again. ‘A terrible fate awaits those rejected by the book. It doesn’t favor everybody…My father once said something about the legend surrounding the copy of The Book of Shadows. The legend claimed that, supposedly, a hairy hand appeared from the book and dragged inside it the one who dared to open the book.’ Phil took his eyes from the book for a moment and gave me a look. ‘That was Satanail’s hand. They say The Prince of Darkness himself can step out of it, and so can his demons and spirits,’ he said and dipped into his search again. ‘In fact, there are quite a few weird and horrible stories associated with this book,’ said Phil, carefully turning its pages.
The air in the room grew hot and stuffy; I felt big beads of sweat forming on my back.
‘Apart from my copy, there are two more,’ Phil went on. ‘And, quite naturally, there’s an original book which is most likely kept by Satanail.’
‘Do you know all the secrets?’ I asked.
‘Certainly not, Miriam. A lot of things are hidden from me,’ Phil replied. ‘Well, here’s your painting with a little angel in it who holds a bunch of black flowers,’ Phil said, brightening up. The angel in the book was completely identical to mine and looked as alive as mine did. ‘He’s a guide to The Dark World. Here’s what the book says: “I’m guiding to the unknown world the ones marked with my seal. I’m the invisible door between the human soul and the Kingdom to which many souls inevitably descend. By the will of my Master, I’m entitled to let the chosen souls in and never let them out. I’m the harbinger,
”’ Phil read aloud and explained. ‘This little angel is Satanail’s servant; your mother painted this picture under the influence of dark forces having thus opened the door into the other world for you, Miriam. Have a look.’
‘Yes, I do recognize the painting; I inherited it from my mother and have been keeping it by my side almost all this time,’ I confirmed, pointing my finger at the page in the book. ‘It means my parents’ death wasn’t just an accident.’
‘I’ve already told you, Miriam, I don’t believe in incidents and coincidences,’ said Phil. ‘You like the picture and this is the proof there’s a strong bond between you and the Black Angel. Incidentally, here’s the page with your future offspring in it!’
‘But this page is the last one, there’s nothing following it!’ I exclaimed, horrified.
‘Guessing is all we can do, Miriam,’ Phil said. Suddenly he shuddered, and a horrible grimace contorted his face. This went on for a fraction of a second, then he quickly pulled himself together and said in a whisper. ‘The first-ever blood of Eve mixed with Adam’s blood hides the secret of propagation. This mix kept by Satanail has a divine essence in it. Here everything is crystal clear, as is the case with the second vial. But the third vial is far more mysterious: the mixture of Eve’s virgin blood with Satanail’s seed can yield an unpredictable result. The would-be resultant hybrid may acquire immortality and the Fallen Angel’s genes. One cannot guarantee that the reestablished human being will be more perfect than previously. This creature can easily become a ruthless and invincible killing machine no one will ever be able to destroy. But things may take another turn: the new mankind may acquire a full balance, becoming perfect and will get rid of Satanail by using his own force against him, the force hidden in human beings since the day they were born… But nobody can tell for sure.’
‘Can it be that Heaven just made up its mind to watch man evolve further while letting Satanail stay in close proximity to it?’ I asked. ‘Or, perhaps, Heaven wants to get rid of the powerful Angel by our hand?’