The Paradise Prophecy

by Robert Browne

“Professor, over here.”

  He found her at a bookshelf against the far wall. She had already put the faux book panel aside-a phony fourteen volume collection on neopaganism and witchcraft-to reveal a locked wooden compartment.

  Batty tried the key in the lock-a perfect fit.

  He turned it, felt the mechanism give, then pulled the compartment door open to reveal a large rectangular wall safe, complete with LED readout and electronic keypad.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Relax,” Callahan said. “Despite appearances, these things are cake to get into.”

  Pulling her purse from her arm, she rooted around inside until she found a small nylon tool case, then unzipped it and removed a miniature screwdriver. Moving up to the safe, she unscrewed a rectangular nameplate just below the keypad and set it aside.

  Behind it was a lock cylinder. “This is the bypass lock,” she said. “In case you forget your key code.”

  Returning the screwdriver to its case, she reached into her purse again and brought out a ring of what looked like keys, but were less defined.

  She held one up. “Jigger key,” she told him. “They’re old school, but they work.”

  “You’re like a Boy Scout,” he said. “Only a lot better looking.”

  She arched a brow at him. “Careful, Professor. I wasn’t kidding about killing a man with one hand.”

  “I’ve already come to the conclusion you’re never kidding.”

  “Glad we have an understanding.”

  She inserted the key into the lock and jiggled it, but nothing happened. Choosing another key, she tried again-and again got nothing. The third and fourth keys wouldn’t fit and the fifth one was a bust as well.

  One last key.

  She slipped it into the lock, gave it a jiggle, and Batty could tell by the look on her face that she’d done it. Not quite a smile, but a very faint smirk. As she turned the key, the electronic mechanism thunked and the LED readout flashed O-P-E-N.

  “Impressive,” he said.

  “Not really,” she told him, pulling the safe door open. “But let’s hope it was worth it.”

  There was only one item inside: a moldering old leather-bound manuscript.

  Batty gingerly removed it, staring in surprise at the thin leather strap wrapped around it, a familiar-looking Saint Christopher medallion glinting in the light.

  Callahan was staring at it, too. “Custodes Sacri. I guess there’s no question now.”

  Batty said nothing, his attention drawn to the manuscript itself and the initials J. M. discreetly etched into the bottom right corner of the cover. Feeling his heart kick up, he quickly removed the strap and flipped the manuscript open to reveal gray, aging pages-handwritten pages, in a faded violet scrawl.

  “Holy Christ,” he muttered. “This can’t be right. The only known copy is a transcription. A printer’s draft. And only thirty-three pages survived.”

  “Thirty-three pages of what?”

  Her question was just a buzz in Batty’s head. “This looks like the entire manuscript, for God’s sakes, just as he dictated it. Where the hell did Ozan find this? It has to be another fake.”

  “What does?” Callahan asked. “What is it?”

  Batty’s eyes were transfixed on its carefully bound pages. If it was a fake, it was exquisitely rendered.

  His hands trembled as he turned back to the first page and stared at its title. Then he looked up at Callahan, feeling an unbridled giddiness overtake him, as if he were an archaeologist who had just stumbled upon the lost city of the Incas.

  “For the last time, Professor, what the hell is that?”

  Batty tried to control the tremor in his voice. “It’s John Milton’s original draft of Paradise Lost.”

  27

  Spotting a leather book bag amidst the clutter on the worktable, Batty quickly moved to it and snatched it up. He dumped its contents onto the table-sunglasses, car keys and an iPad-then slid the Milton manuscript inside.

  “What are you doing?” Callahan asked.

  “Not leaving this here, that’s for sure.”

  Ozan had apparently been planning to work from the original, and Batty wanted to examine it more closely. If it was genuine, maybe he’d find something that hadn’t made it to the printing press. A line of verse or a stanza that might help him figure out what Ozan and Gabriela had been looking for.

  He gathered up the notepad and the copy of Steganographia and shoved them into the bag, then reconsidered the iPad and added it to the mix. There might be something useful on it.

  “We need to get back to the hotel so I can sit down with this stuff.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, Professor, but there are a few people out there looking for us right now. How do you propose we do that?”

  “This is a smugglers’ tunnel, remember? What do you bet there’s another way out?”

  Callahan seemed to like that idea. “Not bad, Mr. Broussard. You just earned yourself some brownie points.”

  “Why, thank you, dear. Does that mean I’ll be sleeping in a nice warm bed tonight instead of the sofa?”

  She smiled. “You pick the hospital, I’ll be happy to put you there.”

  As they geared up to go, Callahan was thinking she was the one who needed a hospital bed.

  Putting aside LaLaurie’s mind meld-the effects of which were still lingering-she was completely, utterly and irrevocably exhausted. She’d managed a few hours’ sleep on the plane. Enough to recharge the batteries a bit. But the day’s events were weighing on her now and her body kept screaming for her to just lie down already. And the thought of getting out of this place, back to the comfort of their hotel room, was uppermost in her mind.

  She waited as LaLaurie slung the book bag over his shoulder, then followed him out of Ozan’s library into what turned out to be a labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels, designed, she supposed, to discourage any interlopers who managed to discover the place. They turned left, then right, went down steps through archways, then turned right, left, right again . . . And after several minutes of this Callahan had to admit that she was completely lost.

  Which annoyed her no end. She could field strip and reassemble a SIG Sauer P226 with her eyes closed, but couldn’t navigate a network of smugglers’ tunnels?

  Pathetic.

  The good professor, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly where he was going. And after their little trip to Ozan-land, Callahan had pretty much given up on trying to talk herself out of what she now knew in her bones to be true. She might be reluctant to admit it to La Laurie, but he didn’t need to convince her of anything anymore.

  What happened to Ozan was not even close to what anyone would classify as normal. And judging by Gabriela’s phone message, she’d gone through the exact same thing. Which meant that the Satan-worshipping wack-job theory that Callahan had been clinging to for so long had gone straight out the window.

  Bottom line, she owed LaLaurie-and Lieutenant Martinez, for that matter-a profound apology.

  Whatever they were dealing with here, it had the ability to get inside your head and drive you bat-fucking insane.

  And the idea of that chilled Callahan to the marrow.

  Batty felt sure it would be just a few more turns, another set of steps, and they’d emerge somewhere on the streets of Istanbul.

  He couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to give this manuscript a closer look. He could almost feel it vibrating inside the book bag, as if it were alive. Which lent some credence to Milton’s claim that the words on its pages were divinely inspired.

  But as he turned a corner, he suddenly stopped.

  Callahan said, “What the hell are you-”

  He held up a hand, silencing her.

  Ahead, one of the light fixtures was broken, plunging the far end of the tunnel in darkness, and he sensed that someone was waiting there, in the shadows.

  He could feel the heat. The hunger.

  Keeping his voice low, he said to Callahan,
“Don’t move.”

  She squinted toward the darkness, whispered, “You see something up there?”

  “The waitress from the tea shop across the street.”

  Callahan paused, as if waiting for a punch line. Then she said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I wish I were. She waited on me when I stopped there this afternoon.”

  “What-you forgot to leave a tip?”

  “Actually, I gave her a pretty generous one, but I don’t think that matters much right now. If I’m right about her, and I’m pretty sure I am, she could rip us both apart in about thirty seconds flat.”

  Callahan considered this a moment. “Normally, I’d ask you to explain a statement like that, but I think I’m gonna take your word for it. What do you suggest we do?”

  “Stay very still,” Batty told her. “Believe it or not, she needs an invitation to attack. A sign of aggression.”

  “Ooookay . . . This is probably a stupid question, but how the hell do you know all this?”

  “I thought we already established that. I read a lot of books.”

  She looked at him. “You ever considered fiction?”

  “Never go near it,” he said.

  The shadows stirred ahead and Batty had a feeling their movement through the tunnels alone had probably been aggressive enough to pose a threat. Or maybe he’d already managed that back at the tea shop.

  Whatever the case, it was already too late.

  The shadows shifted and Ajda stepped forward into the light-not a drudge, as he had hoped, but a full-fledged, shape-shifting, throat-ripping sycophant.

  And that was far, far worse than any drudge could ever aspire to be.

  Worse still, she had shifted already, looking more animal than human. Freddy Krueger’s long-lost daughter with a loving spoonful of junkyard rat thrown in, complete with bared teeth, sharpened nails and phosphorescent green eyes. Feral didn’t even come close to describing this thing.

  Batty felt Callahan sway beside him, and he knew that any doubts she’d had about otherworldly phenomenon had just been swallowed whole by the Goddess of Chew-on-This-Motherfucker.

  She was tough-probably one of the toughest people he’d ever met, man or woman-but there was nothing in her playbook that could have prepared her for something like this.

  “I think I’m about to be sick,” she gasped.

  And as the beast let out a long, low growl, Batty said, “I’ve only got one word of advice for you.”

  “Which is?”

  “Run.”

  Callahan didn’t need to be told twice.

  Without a word, she wheeled around and took off through the tunnel like a triathlete at the starting gun.

  Running barefoot on stone with your purse tucked under one arm and your dress hitched up around your waist probably wasn’t the most graceful way to make an escape, but she figured she’d save the performance evaluation for later and concentrate on staying alive.

  LaLaurie was right beside her, breathing hard, and she could hear that thing-whatever the fuck it was-only feet behind them, skittering across the tunnel floor like something from a Kafkaesque nightmare, hissing as it ran.

  The tunnel curved ahead, and Callahan leaned forward, picking up speed. But as she moved into the curve, the hissing got louder and more sustained. She heard a flurry of movement behind her, then the thing screeched and LaLaurie grunted and went down hard.

  Stopping in her tracks, Callahan spun around and saw him thrashing on the ground, the thing pinning him down like a cat with a hamster, its lips drawn back, exposing sharp, spiky teeth. Then it went directly for his throat.

  Sweet holy Jesus.

  LaLaurie grunted again, trying to block it, only to get a forearm full of teeth for his trouble. To his credit, he didn’t scream, but Callahan knew she couldn’t stand here and watch this fucking thing rip him to shreds. Yanking the hairspray canister from her purse, she leapt forward, spraying what was left of the stuff directly in the thing’s face.

  It screeched and fell back, but it didn’t go down. Not even close. In fact, the assault only seemed to piss it off even more and now it was looking at Callahan, growling and hissing at her, getting ready to pounce.

  But she didn’t give it the chance. She knew she could hurt it, so the trick was to strike fast and keep it off balance.

  Hitching up her gown again, she turned sideways and kicked, nailing it in the side of the head, wishing she still had her heels on, maybe drive a five-inch spike right into one of those baleful green eyes. The thing screeched a second time and went flying, slamming into the tunnel wall. Maybe it had the advantage of nails and teeth and agility, but despite its immunity to her magic hairspray, it didn’t seem any stronger than your average everyday tea slinger.

  And that made Callahan feel very confident, indeed.

  Stepping forward now, she promptly got to work.

  Batty clamped his arm, trying to stem the bleeding as he scrambled out of the way and watched Callahan in motion, a blur of kicks and spins and punches, and it was obvious she knew exactly what she was doing. It was, he thought, quite an amazing thing to see, and he knew that somewhere deep inside that rodent brain, little Ajda was wondering who the hell this crazy bitch was.

  Callahan was relentless. Didn’t pause, didn’t slow down, didn’t even seem to take a breath as she continued her assault, driving the beast down, every attempt at an attack countered by a solid, bone-jangling blow.

  Then the beast was lying on the floor, hunkered up in the fetal position, bleeding, whimpering softly, as Callahan stood over it with her fists clenched, trying to catch her breath.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered, staring down at the thing as if seeing it for the first time.

  But Batty knew what was happening. Still clutching his arm, feeling blood pool up in the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket, he climbed to his feet and stood next to Callahan, watching as the thing on the floor shifted again, morphing from beast to human before their eyes.

  Then Ajda looked up at them, her face battered, her mouth twisted in fear and pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please kill me.”

  Batty crouched beside her. “Nobody’s killing anyone. Who’s your significant?”

  “… Please . . .”

  He leaned in close. “Who turned you? Who’s your significant?”

  “I just want to die,” she moaned. “I just want to . . .”

  The sharp smell of sulfur filled Batty’s nostrils, and he knew what was coming. The girl moaned and he grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look at him.

  “Who’s your fucking significant? ”

  But it was too late. Jumping to his feet, he grabbed Callahan by the shoulders and pulled her away as Ajda began to spasm uncontrollably, crying out in agony.

  Callahan’s eyes went wide. “What the hell is wrong with her?”

  “Just stay back. There’s nothing we can do.”

  The spasms were so bad now, it looked as if Ajda might come apart. Instead, a dagger appeared in her hand, and she reached high in the air before plunging it into her breast. She sighed, and then burst into flames, releasing a long, high, animal wail as her entire body was consumed by fire. Then she imploded into a ball of black dust that disintegrated before their eyes, leaving nothing behind.

  No flesh. No bones. No sign that Ajda had ever been there at all. Not even a scorch mark.

  “Jesus,” Callahan muttered.

  Batty turned to her. “I guess that pretty much clears up any doubts you may have had.”

  28

  What are we doing here?” Callahan said. “Don’t you think you should get that arm checked out?”

  She looked a bit shell-shocked, but seemed to have recovered from their adventure in the tunnels. Maybe beating the crap out of a raging sycophant had been therapeutic-although Batty didn’t think a lifetime of therapy would get the image of Ajda out of his head.

  He had taken his jacket off and wrappe
d his forearm with it. The wounds were throbbing, but it didn’t seem to be bleeding much now.

  They stood in an alley adjacent to the tea shop, where Batty had found a door he assumed led to the kitchen. Across the street, a fire truck and several polis cars were parked in front of the auction house, the crowd of attendees still standing out front in their formal wear. He and Callahan had emerged from the tunnels in another alley, three blocks away, but Batty had insisted they double back.

  He rattled the doorknob. “Can you pick this lock?”

  “Look,” Callahan said. “Do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “When I ask you a direct question, can you show me the courtesy of giving me a direct answer?”

  He gestured to the door. “What about my question?”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “You answer mine, I’ll answer yours. See how that works? As it is, you’re about a half-dozen behind, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d get straight to the point for once.”

  Maybe she hadn’t recovered, after all. She seemed a little touchier than usual.

  “All right,” he said, “fair enough. You want to know why we’re here?” She nodded, and he gestured toward the auction house. “Like I told you, that thing you beat the hell out of back there-and I mean that literally, not figuratively-was a waitress at this shop. And when she waited on me this afternoon, I knew there was something off about her.”

  “Gee, you think?”

  “She was what they call a sycophant,” Batty said. “A human who’s been turned.”

  “Turned by what?”

  “What else? An angel. A dark one. They get inside your head, play with your emotions, your desires, your fears, but rather than dust you like Gabriela and Ozan and Rebecca, they turn you into one of their slaves.”

  “I think I need to sit down.”

  “You asked,” Batty said with a shrug.

  Callahan sighed. “So what else do I need to know?”

  “Interaction with angels is tricky. They exist in a different realm than we do. And in order to work in our world, they need surrogates. Those surrogates come in three forms: skins, sycophants and drudges.”