by Lazlo Ferran
***
We talked excitedly as we drove. Henry told me that the first paragraph had given him a possible explanation for the phases of strange deaths, from crushing, every sixty years.
“It says something about the heartbeat of God.”
“Yes. Go on!”
“Well, it says the victims of these demons called Warg are usually, but not always, crushed, and that they are summoned by the Devil.” He looked at my face for a reaction.
“Well none of that is really surprising, although it is a bit vague and par for the course for 13th Century superstition, don’t you think?”
“Yes but the really good bit is this. It says, and I am not sure of this so I need to get home and check my Latin, it says that the serpents appear as if from water in the air! I feel sure that the next paragraph will reveal more. I caught a few words but that André fellow took it back from me before I could really see anything much.”
We argued about what this might mean for a while, and after stopping for petrol, perhaps two hours later, I could bare it no longer.
“I really need to know what it says. Let’s stop now and read it. I can’t wait.” I pulled the car over at the next entrance to a field, and we stopped right in front of the old wooden gate. The sun was lowering in the West, although it was still early and a cloud, like a bloody gash, stretched across the sky just above the horizon. I opened the boot, passed the case to Henry, and then paced up and down in the early evening while Henry read the pages of ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’.
“It says here something about an order called – Ordo Lupus. Yes. Notice that it distinguished between wolf and warg. Did you also notice how it said serpents earlier when talking about the water in the air?”
“No, I don’t read Latin, remember?”
“Yes, sorry. It also mentions something about a counter-brotherhood of some sort, and a Catholic priesthood who were violently opposed to both, believing them both heretical. There is something else about some kind of potent symbol or something but I cannot really make much of it.”
“Tantalising but it doesn’t really help us very much. I guess that’s just what he wanted, the old scoundrel. Did you notice he wasn’t even blind?”
“Oh yes. It’s just a ruse, so that he can watch us better. I have seen other dealers do all sorts of strange things to get an edge. Didn’t you feel me kick you under the table?”
“Don’t you think it’s an awfully big coincidence that this one page just happens to have information about the Warg, the one thing I am most interested in? How did he know that?”
“Yes, it is too much for a coincidence, but you haven’t noticed the most significant thing about recent events at all, have you?”
“Haven’t I? What’s that?”
“Well it’s so obvious I am not surprised you haven’t seen it.”
He was being coy so I walked over to the driver’s side door and stuck my head in. Henry looked at me sheepishly.
“Go on.”
“Well I don’t like to point this out to you really because I know how you are suffering inside. At least I think I know. I haven’t lost a child myself, both of mine are grown up and married, but I lost many friends during the war and I am sure your suffering is worse.” He chose his words carefully and I was touched.
“Henry. Just say it. Right now I badly need to understand things – understand just something. Anything to make sense of all this.”
“Alright, dear boy. Well, what struck me was that this serpent targeted your daughter at all. I mean, why you? You say you can sense evil and I believe you. From what you say, your grandfather had connections to this society, Ordo Lupus, who seem to be opposed to these Warg. So why somebody close to you?”
“Yes. Yes, I never thought of that. I see what you mean. Perhaps that means something?” My heart lifted just a little, at the thought, for the first time since starting down this mysterious road to explain Annie’s death. At the same time, a cold thrill ran down my spine. What was I dealing with here? Was a demon actually baiting me?
“Henry. You’re a genius! Now let’s get home and have some of that excellent sherry of yours.” The countryside in the dimming light suddenly seemed threatening.
Henry, even with the aid of his Latin reference books, could deduce no more from the four pages of ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’, but he received an invitation for me to view the whole book seven days later.
Henry telephoned the evening before the meeting was to take place. “I have some bad news dear boy. The meeting has been cancelled. Mr Kalmus has sold to somebody else.”
“Somebody else! Well, who?”
“I don’t know yet. I am trying to find out.”
“Why the hell did he sell? I don’t get it. Why offer it to us and then just sell.” Shit! I wondered if I could sue for breach of contract. The viewing had been part of the deal, hadn’t it? But then how do you sue someone working on the black market?
“Hi, Henry. What have you found out?” I was answering an answer-phone message from Henry a few months later.
“Well, I never did find out who the buyer actually was, but a friend has told me something very interesting. Apparently the Bibliothèque Nationale now has a copy. Now I know they didn’t have a copy a few years ago but I don’t know how recently they acquired it. They have kept very quiet about it and considering that most experts think there are only three copies in existence and possibly just the one, it is most unusual.”
“So is it possible to see it?”
“Well yes apparently it is. It’s held at the François-Mitterrand Library in Paris. You have to go there and see it.”
***
If you want to discuss vampires, werewolves or any other aspect of lycanthropy and shape-shifters, join my Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate group on Facebook: https://on.fb.me/16gSExG