The Paradise Prophecy

by Robert Browne

  She nodded. Paused. “I have word from one of my drudges that someone we both know and love made a bit of a fuss today.”

  “Who?”

  “My dear brother. And he took a few of my darlings in the process.”

  “Really,” Beel said dryly. “And I should care why?”

  “Because the fuss was over a fifteen-year-old girl. He seemed very concerned about her.” She paused. “Too concerned.”

  Beel took a drag off the cigarette. This was interesting. “Who is this girl?”

  “All I have is a first name. And my drudge tells me she’s quite a looker. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had a chance to get up close and personal myself. I’ve been a bit busy.”

  “This could be nothing. Your brother’s interest in the creature could be purely predatory.”

  “Come on, Beelzebub”-she always used his given name-“you know him almost better than I do. He made up his mind about these things a long time ago, and I doubt he’ll ever change it.”

  Beel shook his head. “He’s no more a saint than the rest of us. This fable these moronic creatures have built around him is pathetic.”

  “True, but he’s just arrogant enough to believe it, and I’m told he came out of nowhere today, so I can only assume he’s been watching this girl. And that speaks volumes.”

  “We’ve been through this before,” Beel said.

  “But what if he’s right this time? What if this girl really is the Telum?”

  Beel wanted more than anything to believe it, but he wasn’t so sure. Belial’s brother had always played his cards very close to the vest, and there was no telling what he was up to. And as much as Beel would like it to, none of this meant that their former colleague had actually found what they’d all sought for so long. He could merely be trying to distract them, in anticipation of the coming moon.

  Besides, identifying the Telum was only half the battle. They needed to find the key to releasing it, as well. And wasn’t that the whole point of going after Custodes Sacri?

  “Beelzebub?”

  Beel shook himself from his reverie and looked at her. “Moloch and Mammon tell me you visited them in Amsterdam. That must have been pleasant.”

  She shrugged. “Mammon’s the same as ever. He’s predicting a massive collapse on Wall Street, and Moloch’s still playing soldier, working tirelessly to get their weapons and drudges in place.”

  “But will it be enough?” Beel asked. “The eclipse is only days away.”

  “All the more reason to pursue this girl.”

  “And what about Custodes Sacri? If she really is the Telum, we need that key to seal the deal. Or unseal it, in this case.”

  “Unfortunately, I’ve hit a bit of a dead end. The one the Brazilian told me about has gone into hiding.”

  “Then find him,” Beel barked. “You wanted the lead on this, so get me some fucking results.”

  She stiffened. “This isn’t just about you, Beelzebub. We all have a stake in this race.”

  Beel knew she was right, and he didn’t like letting his temper get away from him. But they had come so close so many times before, only to see their hard work undone by some foolish mistake or some petty dispute.

  He thought about all the infighting, the backbiting, the conniving, the fractured alliances, the wars . . .

  And where had any of it gotten them?

  “Apologies, my dear. I’ve just been waiting so long for this, I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever see it done.”

  “We will,” she said. “I promise. But while I’m busy hunting down Custodes Sacri, I need you to keep an eye on my brother and the girl. I’ve already instructed Zack to make contact again and wait for our orders.”

  “I do so hope you’re right about her.”

  Belial stepped toward him now, pressing herself up against him.

  “Don’t fret, Beelzebub. If all goes well, the Master will rise again, and bring the full wrath of Abyssus along with him.” She kissed his cheek, lingering there for a moment. “A posse ad esse.”

  Then she was gone.

  BOOK VI

  Traveling with the Mr. and Mrs.

  On they move

  Indissolubly firm; nor obvious Hill

  Nor streit’ning Vale, nor Wood, nor Stream devides

  Thir perfect ranks

  -Paradise Lost, 1667 ed., VI:68-71

  24

  ISTANBUL, TURKEY

  Batty and Rebecca had come to Istanbul early in their marriage, when their interest in ancient history and biblical lore was in its prime. They had decided against the usual tours and had instead wandered the city on foot, soaking in its atmosphere-the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people.

  Once hailed the New Rome, Istanbul was a city of hills with a vast and varied narrative. Straddling both the European and Asian continents, it had been the center of the Roman, Latin and Byzantine Empires, and had seen the fall of Constantine Palaeologos during a fierce battle against the Ottomans.

  A descendant of Constantine the Great-the first Christian Roman emperor-Palaeologos was said to have been rescued on the battlefield by an angel and was awaiting resurrection to this very day.

  Batty wasn’t holding his breath.

  Like its culture, Istanbul was a mix of old and new, traditional and modern. Ancient mosques and synagogues and cathedrals adorned traffic-choked streets full of towering high-rises. Although its government was secular, the place breathed Old World spirituality, a feeling that was helped considerably by the call for prayer that blasted over loudspeakers at regular intervals throughout the day.

  As he walked from the hotel toward Taksim Square, Batty remembered Rebecca’s joy in immersing herself in the local culture. She had always embraced life with the unfettered enthusiasm of a child, and it was difficult to walk these streets without missing her.

  Traveling with Callahan was a different story altogether.

  “So here’s the drill,” she’d said to him as they boarded the plane in Sao Paulo. “We’re Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Broussard from Baton Rouge, taking our first trip to the Middle East.”

  “Why the subterfuge?” he’d asked.

  “There’s so much tension in that area right now that we don’t have much of a choice. My people tell me that not only can we expect zero cooperation from the Istanbul police, the government of Turkey doesn’t want us there at all. Fortunately, the country’s still cleared for tourists.”

  Batty knew Callahan didn’t want him here. She was obviously someone who was used to working alone. But whoever was pulling her strings had insisted he go with her, and it wasn’t hard to deduce that she was unhappy about it.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” she’d told him as they settled into their seats. “You’re part of this assignment for one reason only, Professor-gathering and providing information. You have a unique insight into this stuff and as certifiable as you might be, we’d be stupid not to take advantage of that.”

  “Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”

  “I sat in that bar and listened to your story, and I’m truly sorry about what happened to your wife, but I live by the credo that seeing is believing, and until I actually see something to convince me otherwise, I’m continuing this case on the assumption that what we’re dealing with here is a very clever, very sophisticated and very troubled serial killer.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “I’ll be the first to admit it.”

  After arriving at their hotel, Batty had watched as Callahan used a program on her cell phone to forge credentials for the Istanbul police department. In the photo she wore a scarf and looked very much like an Istanbul native. But then Istanbul was a mix of Turks, Kurds, Jews, Georgians, and just about everything in between, so that probably wasn’t saying much. The ID was written in Turkish, but he doubted it had her name on it.

  “So who’s this?” he had asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “The new forensics tech at the Istanbul Crime Lab. I want t
o get a look at the remains.”

  “And what will I be doing while you’re having all this fun?”

  “I already told you. Gathering and providing information.”

  “Oh? What do you have in mind?”

  “You’re going sightseeing,” she said.

  So here Batty was, crossing through Taksim Square on the way to the Garanti Auction House, where Koray Ozan’s body had been found the previous evening. His task was to determine the exact location of the crime scene, and because Callahan was unable to secure blueprints of the building, she’d told him to check for entry points and potential security threats, then report back to her.

  “What do you plan to do? Break in to the place?”

  “I need access to that crime scene. And unless you’ve managed to get clearance from the local police, I don’t see any other way.”

  “Seems pretty risky to me. The building’s bound to be wired up tight.”

  “Let me worry about that part,” she said. “Your job is to observe only. Don’t get anxious and start sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You get yourself arrested, you’re on your own.”

  The auction house was located a block north of the square and Batty didn’t need a street address to find it. There were still several polis cars parked out front, uniformed officers milling about.

  The building was large, rectangular and starkly modern, with a broad set of steps leading up to the entrance. Above the sliding glass doors was a huge red banner, written in both Turkish and English, announcing a special black-tie charity auction set for eight P.M. that night.

  House officials had closed the place immediately after the discovery of Ozan’s body, but the Hurriyet Daily News had reported that the auction would go on as scheduled. The exhibition room had been reopened this morning in order to display the pieces that were to be sold that night.

  As Batty stood on the sidewalk out front, he felt a touch of trepidation, which wasn’t surprising considering what had happened inside. Overcome by a sudden reluctance to enter the building, he glanced around and noticed a tea shop on the opposite side of the street.

  He crossed to it, found a table outside, and a moment later a waitress came out to take his order. “Yes?”

  She was a petite, attractive woman in her early twenties. Her name tag read AJDA.

  “Black tea,” he told her. “Extra sweet.”

  She forced a smile, nodded, went back inside.

  It was only then that Batty sensed something odd about the woman. He wasn’t sure what had stirred this feeling. There was no hint of sulfur in the air, although it could have been masked by her perfume or the smells of the city. Maybe it was that forced smile she’d given him or the strangely hollow quality to her eyes.

  Or maybe he was just too paranoid for his own good.

  As he waited for his order, he sat back in his chair and tried to relax, staring out at the auction house, knowing that his task was really nothing more than an exercise in redundancy. He didn’t need to see the crime scene to know exactly what had happened here.

  All he had to do was close his eyes.

  It took Callahan all of fifteen minutes to find Ozan’s remains.

  The hardest part had been getting past the security checkpoint in the police department lobby, thanks to an overeager newbie who’d had to consult three different supervisors before letting her through.

  In the end, the freshly minted ID and Callahan’s flawless Turkish had done the trick, and she took an elevator up to the forensics wing, where the antiquities dealer’s body was being stored for examination.

  It frustrated Callahan that she had to go to these lengths just to get a look at the victim. Section had a contact inside the department, but he’d developed a case of nerves and had told them his ability to assist them would be severely limited. So Callahan was on her own and flying blind.

  But then flying blind seemed to be her standard operating procedure these days. Section had tasked her to find out if these two deaths were truly related, but she still had no idea why.

  Was it possible they believed there was a paranormal component to all of this? Was it possible that out of all the experts they could have paired her with, they’d offered up LaLaurie precisely because of his back story? And could this be why they’d insisted he accompany her to Istanbul?

  These questions had been plaguing her ever since he’d told her about his wife. And Section’s failure to fully disclose what they knew about him concerned her. She’d seen them do a lot of questionable things in her time, but forgoing a deep background check was not one of them, and it annoyed her to think that they didn’t trust her.

  She could only imagine what they’d do if they knew about her sleep irregularities and that episode back in Paradise City. They’d no doubt pull her from the field and eliminate her.

  Section wasn’t known for its sentimentality.

  She didn’t suppose their trust in her would be bolstered by her decision to send LaLaurie into the wild. But Callahan felt it was justified. Except for the two whiskeys he’d had in the hotel bar, he seemed to have gotten a handle on his drinking-had twice turned down the opportunity to indulge on the plane-and since Callahan didn’t have the help of any local operatives, she figured she might as well put him to work. He wasn’t a pro, but a little reconnaissance mission shouldn’t get him into too much trouble, as long as he stuck to protocol.

  The elevator dropped her off on the fourth floor. A sign on the wall indicated that the forensics wing was to her left down a bustling hallway, and she located the autopsy room without much effort.

  It was small and busy, five exam tables laid out in a way that made the most economical use of the space allotted, while giving each of the lab techs room to move. Three of them were working right now, cutting into flesh, weighing organs, preparing slides for further examination as they dictated into microphones mounted above each of their tables.

  Callahan found a rack of lab coats near the door and slipped one on, clipping her ID badge to the pocket. She went from table to table, nodding hello to the techs, carefully checking the bodies as she progressed. But none of them were Ozan.

  There was a window to her right, a room full of lab equipment beyond it. She crossed to the door, stepped inside, and her gaze went immediately to a nearby counter, where the charred remains of a body lay atop a white towel.

  Bingo.

  Section had been right to be concerned. If these remains were any indication, the case did look as if it were related to the Sao Paulo death. The body was in almost exactly the same state as Gabriela Zuada’s.

  Callahan wouldn’t know for sure until she got a look at the actual crime scene, but she doubted this was a coincidence.

  There was a camera mounted on a stand next to the towel. One of the remains-a blackened femur-had been laid out on a rectangular platform, waiting to be photographed. Next to this was a computer terminal, showing a photo array, various parts of the body already catalogued and added to the police file.

  Callahan reached into a pocket and brought out an SD memory card. Slipping it into a slot in the computer, she initiated a download and waited as the file’s contents ticked off, photo by photo, document by document.

  It was about halfway finished when a voice behind her said in Turkish, “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

  Callahan turned with a start and saw a mousy-looking guy in a lab coat glowering at her.

  As Batty sipped his tea, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the waitress wasn’t quite right, and he knew he was starting to obsess.

  Being sober definitely had its downside.

  He had no doubt that hundreds, even thousands, of waitresses in this city would stir up the exact same feeling-along with cab drivers, cops, doctors, construction workers, secretaries and everything in between. But that didn’t make it any easier for him.

  They were out there in force. Always had been. A battalion of compromised souls, willing to do whatever
they were told in the name of their keeper. Yet despite his uneasiness, he knew that obsessing over it wouldn’t do him a lick of good.

  Knowing that this waitress was only a stone’s throw from the auction house, however, led him to believe that she might be involved in a little gathering and providing of her own. And if that was true, she could well be directly connected to whatever dark entity had attacked and killed Ozan. And Gabriela Zuada.

  And Rebecca.

  Finishing up his tea, he set the glass on its saucer, then rose and dropped a few coins on the table.

  Enough stalling. Time to do what he came here for.

  Crossing the street, he moved past the polis cars and milling cops and headed up the steps to the auction house entrance. The glass doors slid open as he approached, and the moment he stepped inside he felt it-

  – The lingering residue of death.

  There was a reception desk out front, a smartly dressed but somber-looking woman sitting behind it, undoubtedly still feeling the sting of their loss.

  To her right was the exhibition room, the glass cases along its walls holding various antiques, artifacts and ancient statuary. Oil paintings hung above them in ornate frames-Baroque, Byzantine, High Renaissance. Heavenly landscapes full of winged cherubs stood in stark contrast to the more violent works, including one that depicted the beheading of Holofernes by the widow Judith.

  The sight of her sword cutting into his neck made Batty shudder.

  To his left was a set of open double doors, leading to the auction room itself, where several rows of chairs faced a podium and display table. Farther left was an elevator, a uniformed security guard standing next to it, and beyond him was a carpeted stairwell that led into the bowels of the building, another guard blocking passage to it.

  Batty glanced at the directory on the wall between them. Also written in Turkish and English, it indicated that the building’s offices and archives were located down those stairs.

  According to Callahan’s intelligence brief, this was where Ozan’s body had been discovered, in a seldom-used archive room. But Batty didn’t need a sign to tell him this. He could feel it rolling up toward him from that stairwell, a relentless, screaming brutality that was difficult to ignore.