The Paradise Prophecy

by Robert Browne

  “Which are?”

  “A skin is a physical host. People who have given the angels permission to use their bodies in exchange for a reward of some kind. It doesn’t matter what that reward is, because it’s rarely granted. It’s just a trick they use to get what they want, and when they’re done with the body, it’s discarded and the soul that occupied it is obliterated.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  “Exactly,” Batty said. “Drudges and sycophants, on the other hand, are basically lackeys. A drudge is exactly what it sounds like. A menial laborer who doesn’t have much brain power and does a lot of the heavy lifting. Think riots at ball games or soldiers run amuck or mindless news anchors, doing whatever their significant tells them to do.”

  “Significant?”

  “The angel who turned them. You want me to keep going?”

  “By all means. What’s another nightmare or two?”

  “Then you’ve got your sycophants,” he said. “Like Ajda. When they’re turned, their significant infuses them with a little piece of the otherworld, turning them into what you saw in that tunnel. Kind of a super-lackey who’s been given some independence. But they don’t tend to reveal themselves like that unless they’re threatened somehow.”

  “So we were a threat because we’re running around in Ozan’s basement?”

  “Maybe,” Batty said. “But Ajda targeted me in that tunnel, so I have a feeling I’m the one she was worried about. I think it started when I sat down and ordered that cup of tea.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out. So can you pick this lock or not?”

  Without hesitating, Callahan brought up her foot and kicked the door open, splintering wood, shattering the lock. “How’s that?”

  Batty gaped at her, then shot a glance toward the auction house, hoping she hadn’t attracted any undue attention. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  She waved him past her and Batty stepped into the teahouse kitchen, which wasn’t much more than a stove and a couple of countertops. They moved together through a doorway into the main parlor, which was dotted with chairs and small rectangular tables.

  He felt the energy immediately. Knew that his instincts had been right.

  “This is where the turning began,” he said, then moved to the center of the room. Crouching down, he put his hand to the floor and closed his eyes. It took very little to call up the vision. A dark wind rose, began swirling around him, and he saw two figures on the floor, in this very spot-

  – Two women, half naked, writhing in ecstasy, and one of them was clearly Ajda.

  Then Batty found himself inside Ajda’s mind, which was a swirl of confusion. She felt both exhilarated and afraid, but most of all free. This was something she had never experienced before and it was wonderful. She wanted more. As much as she could get.

  But the face of the woman who was doing this to her-the dark angel’s face-eluded Batty. Was nothing more than a blur. He knew from experience that his vision was limited to the amount of energy he could draw from the room, and even though it was strong, he wasn’t sure there was enough here to bring that face into focus.

  But he had to try.

  Narrowing his concentration, he zeroed in on the other woman. Ajda’s significant. His own energy, his physical energy, started to drain away, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to sustain this for long or he’d wind up in that hospital bed Callahan had threatened him with.

  But he didn’t give up. Concentrated even harder.

  The lens he was peering through began to turn and shift, the dark angel’s face slowly taking shape, coming into focus. And when it finally did, it was like a knee to the balls. Batty felt the wind go out of him as bile began to rise in his throat.

  It was the redhead.

  The woman from Bayou Bill’s.

  The woman who had shared his bed and his body and had rarely left his mind since the night they spent together.

  She stared up at him, smiling, and all at once it came to him. That elusive thought he’d tried to grab hold of when he’d told Callahan about Ozan’s involvement with Custodes Sacri. He remembered lying in bed with the redhead, the two of them talking through the night-about politics and history and spirituality and God knows what else. But the one thing he now remembered more clearly than ever, was that he’d told her about Ozan. About the necklace, and his phone conversation with the collector.

  About Custodes Sacri.

  Which meant only one thing.

  He had started this. He was the reason Ozan was dead. He was the reason Gabriela had followed. This bitch, this dark fucking angel, had destroyed them without mercy-

  – just as she had surely destroyed Rebecca.

  Looking into that smiling face, he wanted to reach out and rip her head off, send her straight back to hell. He cursed himself for letting her deceive him. Letting her seduce him. And he cursed her for coming into their house in Ithaca and taking the only woman he’d ever loved away from him.

  Tearing himself from the vision, Batty collapsed to the floor, so drained of strength he could barely move.

  He looked up at Callahan.

  “Get me out of here,” he croaked. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

  29

  SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

  Belial was in bed with Jose de Souza’s girlfriend when she heard it.

  She’d been enjoying the sensation of the girl’s tongue-what was her name again?-as it rolled across her belly and up toward her breasts. De Souza himself was sitting in a nearby chair, watching them with great interest, showing that blackened tooth of his that he seemed so proud of.

  Belial closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of the warm wet tongue against her flesh. She hadn’t yet made up her mind about turning these two, although de Souza and his band of midgets would be quite an asset on the night of the fourth moon. But de Souza didn’t strike her as someone who needed to be turned. Not immediately, at least. He was self-motivated. A homeschooled convert.

  A fan.

  And having someone like him on your side without having to sacrifice his intellect-which the turning always managed to blunt-was a very tempting proposition indeed.

  But then she knew all about such temptations, didn’t she?

  Belial had returned to Sao Paulo after one of her contacts with the local police had told her that a woman from Manessa was snooping around the crime scene, prying into the singer’s death.

  While this hadn’t concerned her much, she was curious. So she had come back to Sao Paulo and discovered that the woman in question had now moved on to Esau. And this she found doubly curious, since she’d recently taken a trip there herself.

  Was this woman’s interest in the singer, and now, obviously, the antiquities dealer, purely professional? A connecting of the dots?

  Or was she Custodes Sacri?

  While retracing the woman’s steps here in the city, Belial had found herself in the Favela Paraisopolis, with all of its glorious depravity (which was ironic considering what this place had once been), only to be introduced to its self-appointed king, a smart but overeager little rodent with a provocative, cocoa-skinned girlfriend.

  The night had gotten predictable after that.

  This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was a distraction when the clock was ticking and she had work to do. Beelzebub’s anger for her failure to locate the remaining members of her wayward brother’s army was not misplaced, but it wasn’t as if she’d abandoned the project. Her children were always out there working for her. Staying alert.

  And what was the harm in a few stolen moments with a goldentongued goddess? Surely Belial was allowed some pleasure . . .

  But then, out of the blue, just as the girl was placing her lips on a hardened nipple and drawing it into her mouth-

  – Belial heard it. The sound she so hated. The unmistakable scream of a soul turning to dust.

  A so
ul that belonged to her.

  She stiffened suddenly and shoved the goddess aside, pulling herself to the edge of the bed.

  “Is something wrong?” de Souza asked, looking fearful. “Did she hurt you?”

  The room was dark except for a few candles burning on the shelf above them, and Belial was glad for that, because she didn’t want these humans to see her face. Unlike her brother, who wasn’t afraid to show his torment (should the occasion arise), Belial preferred to keep her pain private.

  And the loss of a soul was always painful.

  For her, at least.

  Especially since this wasn’t the first one she’d lost today. Her brother had seen to that.

  “It’s nothing,” she said to de Souza. “I’m bored, is all. It’s time for me to go.”

  At moments like this the other clan leaders-Beelzebub, Mammon and Moloch-seemed to take as much pride in their ability to remain stoic as de Souza took in his enameled tooth. But for Belial, a loss was a loss. Each soul gone was a missing piece, a hole in the fabric she had spent so many centuries weaving.

  These were not mere possessions to her. They were her children.

  And to lose one always saddened her.

  As she pulled her clothes on, de Souza leaned forward in his chair, an intense, concerned look on his face. “Are you sure you won’t stay? We have so much to talk about.”

  The thought was absurd. “Like what, for instance?”

  “The coming days, for one. We need to know how to prepare.”

  Belial looked at him and almost laughed. It was amusing how naive these self-absorbed converts could be. Did he really think he could prepare for what was to come?

  Even she wasn’t sure what to expect.

  “Watch the moon,” she said flatly. “Then do what comes naturally.”

  The second jolt came less than hour later. Belial had pinpointed her loss to Ajda, the young waitress she had met in Esau, and she knew this wasn’t a coincidence. The woman she’d been told about was involved somehow. She was sure of it.

  Ajda must have sensed something wrong about this woman and had foolishly taken matters into her own hands. And now that Ajda was gone, the hole in the fabric seemed larger than ever.

  She’d been one of Belial’s favorites.

  So Belial had decided to stop wasting time and go to Esau immediately. Not to confront, but to observe. If a strategy wasn’t working, you changed it, and confrontation had so far produced very little. And even if this woman did not turn out to be a member of Custodes Sacri, she could still prove useful.

  But as she was preparing to leave, Belial felt a sudden jolt of pain in her chest. Someone pulling at her, trying to suck her out of her skin and into the swirling darkness of the otherworld.

  When she realized who it was, she didn’t resist. Let herself go.

  How could she not?

  She had invested a lot of time and energy into this man. He was a laggard and a drunk, yes, but from the first moment she saw him-long before he’d taken that path-she had found herself inexplicably drawn to him.

  His wit. His intellect. The complexity of thought. The ability to see what others couldn’t.

  She remembered what Moloch had said to her that night in the tea shop. “It’s quite obvious you have a soft spot for this pathetic creature.”

  Moloch was a self-important dunderhead, but what he’d said was true. She did have a soft spot. And her decision not to turn the laggard had less to do with strategy-as in de Souza’s case-and everything to do with . . .

  Dare she say it?

  Her feelings.

  Just as she had no control over the sadness that overcame her whenever she lost a soul, she couldn’t help how she felt about this man. A frame of mind that was both troubling and dangerous. She knew she should have turned him immediately, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to even try. Couldn’t bear the thought of losing the qualities that made him who he was.

  And after their glorious night together-a moment she had delayed for two long years-she had worked very hard to forget about him. Had distracted herself with the flesh of others in hopes that her thoughts of that night would soon fade away.

  She had not returned to his home. Had not returned to his bed. And had almost convinced herself that he was no longer important to her.

  Yet here he was now, pulling at her. Floating before her in the ether. Summoning up the lingering remains of that night in the tea shop with Ajda.

  And this part puzzled her.

  Was he there right now? In the tea shop?

  Had he gone to Esau?

  Before she could weigh the gravity of this turn of events, she saw him crouched near the floor, his face coming into sharp focus, and she could see that he wasn’t happy. Far from it.

  There was hate in those eyes. Fury.

  And she knew with sudden certainty that-true to his intellect-he was now fully aware of who she really was and what she had done to that useless bag of bones, that supercilious whore he had called a wife.

  And for the first time in as long as she could remember-

  – Belial was heartbroken.

  30

  ISTANBUL, TURKEY

  After the fifth shot of whiskey, Batty still wasn’t properly anesthetized, but he was getting there. He’d brought the bottle to their hotel room and planned to finish it off before the night was over.

  He was slumped on a couch near a window that overlooked the city, his forearm bandaged, the Milton manuscript lying on the cushion next to him. But he hadn’t cracked it open yet. His excitement over it had waned. Died, actually. He was too busy getting drunk.

  And thinking about the redhead.

  He cursed himself for not recognizing what she was the moment he’d taken her into his bed. But then the smell of the swamp had been high that night, hadn’t it? And the temptation strong.

  But that was no excuse. No matter what desperate rationalization he might come up with, the end result was always the same.

  He had slept with the creature who had killed his wife.

  He’d had intimate relations with the dark angel-the fucking demon, all right?-who came into his home, burrowed her way into Rebecca’s mind and drove the woman he loved to destruction-all the while using his voice to spew her venom.

  His voice.

  Yet despite knowing this, and despite his utter contempt for the creature, Batty’s yearning for her-that animal instinct-had not gone away. Seeing her on that floor with Ajda had stirred a desire in him he could barely suppress.

  And that made him sick to his stomach.

  Hence, the bottle of whiskey.

  “You ready to talk about it yet?”

  Callahan sat in her armchair, Ozan’s iPad in her lap, the copy of Steganographia and Ozan’s notes on the table next to her. With Batty about as useful as a flashlight without batteries, she’d taken possession of it all and had spent the last couple hours working away, scribbling notes, checking references, consulting the Internet, texting messages . . . He had no idea what she was up to, but she was certainly keeping busy.

  He, on the other hand, was merely passing time between shots.

  He remembered that Ajda had targeted him specifically in that tunnel. Was it possible she had smelled the redhead on him? Was that why he was a threat? Had she attacked out of jealousy, of all things?

  “Earth to LaLaurie.”

  He blinked. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Just answer one question. All this stuff you’ve been spouting about angels and drudges and sycophants-it didn’t come from just books, did it?”

  He looked at her. Realized he had involuntarily started rubbing the scar on his left wrist, as if he’d known what she was about to ask.

  “No,” he said.

  She set her phone and the iPad aside, giving him her full attention now. “Look. You don’t have to tell me about this if you don’t want to. I haven’t exactly been the most receptive human being on the planet.” She gestured to th
e bottle. “But it looks to me like you’re on the train to oblivion, and by all rights, I should be in the seat right next to you. Call me selfish, but I’d rather that didn’t happen.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “It does to me,” she said. “I watched my father nearly drink himself to death right before he put a bullet in his head. And I’d just as soon not see that happen again.”

  Batty didn’t often do this without permission, but she’d opened a small window and he took a moment to peek inside her mind. There was a lot of childhood anguish in there, and he knew she usually kept that window sealed tight.

  “I’m not going to burden you with any details,” he told her. “We’ll save that for another day. Let’s just say that most of what I know about this subject came my way because of two things: my curse and my stupidity.”

  “I’m gonna need a little more than that.”

  “The curse I was born with,” he said. “This thing my mother called The Vision . . .” He raised his hands now, showing her his wrists. “And my stupidity.”

  “I assume you did that after your wife was killed?”

  “After what I’d seen in our bedroom I thought I knew exactly where she was headed, and I was foolish enough to think I could go after her. And when I cut my wrists, I was swept away to a place I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

  Truth be told, his memory of that journey had faded over the last two years, becoming little more than a vague horror in a corner of his mind, like the murky remnants of a nightmare. But he’d come away from the place with its culture and its history imprinted on his brain, like data etched onto a microchip.

  And knowledge like that wasn’t easy to forget.

  “I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this,” Callahan said, “but are you saying hell actually exists?”

  “Hell, Lazaa, Tartarus, Kalichi-every religion has a name for it, and believe me, you don’t want to go there if you can help it. I only had a small taste of it, and that was more than enough. And I’m pretty sure I brought a little piece of it back with me.”