The Paradise Prophecy

by Robert Browne

  Their fight was brief, but vicious, ending with one woman dead, and the other practically foaming at the mouth, victim of a rage and frustration so virulent that it spread like a contaminant. And the next thing everyone knew, there were people fighting everywhere, taking it into the streets.

  But, again, that was just a rumor. The truth is, anything could have set it off.

  In an interview on the evening news, one man said it was all the fault of our Godless society. That it was the goddamn atheists and the homos and them terrorist camel jockeys who had brought this down upon us, with their craven depravity and their hatred for their fellow man. As far as he was concerned, every last one of them should be publicly executed, used as examples for the rest of the heathens. Get Jesus or get bent.

  Later that day he was shot dead by his wife, who claimed he’d been abusing her for twenty-five years.

  It took a few hours for the mayhem to spread to other cities, but spread it did. Political protests, impromptu strikes, small skirmishes that seemed to escalate for no reason other than that people were either scared or fed up. Tired of living in a world that provided them no hope.

  Or just plain tired of living.

  It was as if humankind had finally given in to its baser instincts and started listening to that little cartoon devil on its shoulder, damn the consequences.

  And as things got worse, the faithful sent up their prayers, asking for protection and guidance.

  Unfortunately, no one seemed to be listening.

  The three dark angels watched it all from the boardroom of L4, which stood high above the Strip-one of the many branches they maintained around the world. The creation of a security company had been Moloch’s idea-

  – L4 or Lucifer’s Four-

  – which was about the extent of his creativity.

  Moloch, the Lord of War-who was currently calling himself Vogler-stared at the street below, shaking his head in contempt. “Seed the crowd with few drudges and the lemmings follow. It’s amazing how predictable these creatures are.”

  “Be thankful for that,” Mammon said. “As you well know, it hasn’t always been this easy.”

  In this world, Mammon-the Lord of Greed-used his human name Radek.

  They all preferred to use human names when dealing with humans.

  All but Belial, that is.

  They’d often told her that the goal was to blend in, which could hardly be accomplished with names so familiar to so many, thanks in large part to the poet, who had stolen their story. But Belial possessed an immeasurable amount of arrogance. Had chosen to inhabit this earth as a woman, of all things, so that told you all you needed to know about her.

  Jonathan Beel, or Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, said, “Don’t start celebrating quite yet. The moon is two days away, and while your efforts have been admirable, they’re no guarantee of success.”

  “Always the naysayer, eh, Beelzebub?”

  “Need I remind you of our record of failures? No matter what we throw at these creatures, no matter how we might tempt them, they always manage to survive.”

  “Not this time,” Mammon said. “Moloch and I have planted these seeds all over the globe. What we’re witnessing here is only the beginning.”

  “We shall see.”

  “The point-as I seem to have to keep reminding you-is that this world has never been so corrupt, never been so full of weak-willed mortals who blame one another for their failures. I can’t remember a time when I’ve seen so many so willing to exploit the pain of others or kill over petty differences, or claim to worship their so-called father as they wallow in their own hypocrisy. We’ve harnessed enough tainted souls to do exactly what we need to do.”

  “Nice speech,” Beelzebub said. “But it doesn’t change anything. Without the power of the Telum, we could well fall short.”

  Mammon laughed, his voice laced with derision. “A few moments ago you were braying about Belial’s claim she may have found the sacred traveler. What happened to all that confidence? “

  “The Telum is only half the battle, and you know it.”

  “You surprise me, Beelzebub. For someone who’s so anxious to see the Master released from his cage, you seem awfully dependent on this fairy tale. Here Moloch and I give you concrete results, and Belial is still wasting her time with Michael’s little fan club, looking for something that may not even exist.”

  “She found the girl, didn’t she?”

  “Her brother found the girl, and she’s childish enough to think that actually means something. But Michael’s irrelevancy on this planet has never been so clearly defined.”

  “I happen to agree with her,” Beelzebub said.

  Mammon shook his head in disgust. “Miraculous weapons, singing souls … you two are as gullible as those fools who think the one we put on the cross was some kind of-”

  “Enough,” Moloch said, moving toward them. “You two fight like schoolchildren. I thought we were past all of this nonsense.”

  “I simply don’t like the idea of all of our hard work being discounted in favor of something that has yet to be proven,” Mammon said.

  “No one is discounting anything,” Moloch told him. “But Beelzebub is right. Let’s not be so arrogant to believe that the game has already been won. Telum or no Telum, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

  “Hear, hear,” Beelzebub said.

  “So why don’t we save the celebration for a night when we can all drink a toast with Lucifer?”

  The other two nodded, then all three raised their hands.

  “A posse ad esse.”

  40

  CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

  Seven missing pages.

  The key to the Telum. The sacred traveler.

  In order to protect her, the guardians had to protect her secret-a secret that had been removed from the Codex Gigas centuries ago, only to fall into the hands of Galileo Galilei-if Brother Philip was to be believed.

  The curse on those pages had driven Galileo blind. And Milton after him.

  But if Milton had burned them for fear of what they might do, then how and why had they wound up in the manuscript for Paradise Lost?

  And, for that matter, who or what exactly was the sacred traveler?

  A wandering soul, Philip had said, but what was her purpose? It sounded as if Michael was the one in charge of finding her, but once he did, what did that mean?

  Was she a weapon of some kind?

  Two many questions, Batty thought. Too many unanswered fucking questions.

  And with the fourth moon of the tetrad coming, what were the chances of answering those questions before it was too late? What were the chances of finding those pages-the key to whatever Michael was looking for-before the gates of hell sprang open and all of humanity was destroyed?

  It wasn’t looking good.

  It was looking even worse when they got back to the heart of Chiang Mai.

  The streets were filled with angry protestors, police in riot gear trying to control the crowd with fire hoses and batons. But the police seemed overwhelmed, and it looked as if the crowd was winning.

  “Jesus,” Callahan said. “It’s already started. Just like Philip warned us. It happened so fast.”

  “He said it would.”

  They found refuge in a bookstore, several blocks away from the action. The place was practically deserted, and the guy behind the register looked visibly nervous, as if he’d be all too happy to close up and get to the safety of his home.

  The few customers who were in here didn’t seem to be all that interested in the books surrounding them. They huddled together on the sofa and chairs at the center of the room, fugitives from the chaos.

  Batty and Callahan found a grouping of chairs in back and as they settled in, Callahan reached for her cell phone. “I need to call Section again. Get them to listen to me.”

  “If they didn’t listen before, I doubt they’ll listen now. For whatever reason, they’re letting us handle this on our
own. But where do we take it from here? We’re running out of guardians.”

  “London,” Callahan said. “That’s all we’ve got left.”

  “London was a pretty big place the last time I looked.”

  “We start with Ozan’s e-mail. Go to the Internet cafe where it was downloaded, then work from there. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Batty didn’t have much faith in locating whoever had received the e-mail, but they had to try. Still, he wondered if there was another way to ferret out the truth about all this. There had to be some way to…

  Then it struck Batty.

  The Vision. Maybe he could use The Vision.

  One thing he’d learned over the years was that his vision worked best when there was a lingering darkness in the room. That it was strongest when he encountered death or pain or destruction of some kind. So it didn’t immediately occur to him to try to use it on something good.

  Something divine.

  Reaching into the book bag, he took out the Milton manuscript. He’d already discovered on the plane that it truly was inspired by God, but he’d never thought to try to tap into its energy.

  “What are you doing?” Callahan asked.

  “Looking for the missing pages.”

  “What?”

  Batty opened the book and quickly flipped to the last page. He stared at the imperfect binding, the faintly ragged edges where the seven pages had been removed. If they’d been torn out after Milton died, then the history here was centuries old, and it wouldn’t be easy to grab hold of. He’d have to concentrate harder than he’d ever concentrated before, and there was no telling what it would do to him.

  Bracing himself, he took a deep breath, then put his palm against those edges and closed his eyes.

  But nothing happened.

  He stopped. Centered himself. Tried again.

  Concentrate, Batty. Concentrate.

  He wasn’t getting anything.

  Desperate, he grabbed the Saint Christopher medal and hung it around his neck.

  He turned back to the manuscript. And then he felt it. Heat radiating up his arm and into his brain. The medal had been the key. And instead of the usual dark tunnel, he was assaulted by an explosion of light, like fireworks inside his head. Then the light seemed to consume him, to suck him in-

  – and he was gone.

  When he opened his eyes he was standing. But as he realized this, he wasn’t quite sure where. All he saw was a wash of colors, vibrant blues and greens and yellows so bright that they hurt to look at.

  He squinted against them, willing them to come into focus, shielding his eyes with a cupped hand as they slowly adjusted to the light. And then he saw before him a place more beautiful than any he could ever have imagined.

  Rolling hills. Blue, cloudless sky. Fields of yellow flowers so far and so wide they seemed to go on forever. And trees. Trees bearing flawless fruit-reminding him, oddly enough, of the bowl of plastic apples and pears on his mother’s dining table.

  This world vibrated against him, seeping into his skin, releasing some kind of drug into his system, a drug that produced a pleasure so intense that he wondered if he could remain standing.

  “This is the world as it could have been,” a voice behind him said. Male. British. Refined.

  Batty turned and saw a shimmering, ghostlike image walking toward him, moving with a graceful fluidity. And as the image came into focus, he saw that the man wore his hair long, in a style from another time, his suit and collar from another century.

  His eyes clouded over by cataracts.

  The man-who Batty now knew was the poet-turned to the tree beside him and plucked a bright red pomegranate. “But because of the frailty of mankind,” he continued, “our world will soon be this.”

  He bit into the fruit and the moment he did, the tree beside him caught fire and began to melt. Batty turned and saw that all the trees were on fire, their fruit withering. Then the sky darkened, the flowers beneath it wilting and dying as the hills grew barren. And soon everything around him was the color of slate, as a dark, cold wind kicked up and blew through him, rattling his soul.

  Within seconds he was caught in the center of a black tornado, a cacophony of sounds rising in his mind as the wind whirled around him growing tighter and denser with each revolution. Batty opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out, as the tornado gathered speed, the growing darkness threatening to swallow him whole…

  Then abruptly it was gone.

  He stood on a hilltop overlooking a small, crumbling villa, the poet beside him. Below, a young man exited the front door, moved quickly across the courtyard and mounted a horse.

  “When he first told me about the Devil’s Bible,” the poet said, “I thought poor Galileo has lost his senses. A dark, pernicious toxicant seemed to have spread throughout that place, making it impossible for me to breathe.”

  The young man rode his horse to the front gates, signaling for the guard to open it.

  “The astronomer had wanted to use me as his eyes, now that his own were gone. He had thought I would understand, but I saw him only as a feeble old man whose wild imagination had taken possession of him.”

  A flash of light assaulted Batty’s eyes, and when it cleared, they were standing in a study lined with bookshelves, the young man-slightly older now-sitting at a writing desk, hard at work with pen and paper.

  “Shortly after his death, I made only mention of that meeting, unable to tell the world that one of our most cherished minds had grown feeble in his last years.”

  Again the light assaulted Batty, then they were standing in a room lit by candlelight, several men-including the poet-sitting around a table, deep in conversation.

  “But imagine my surprise, when shortly after the end of the Thirty Years’ War, I got word that the Swedish army had plundered the treasures of Rudolf the Second, and had brought back with them the very book the astronomer had spoken of-the Codex Gigas. The Devil’s Bible.”

  Now Batty had a bird’s-eye view of a grand parlor surrounded by books, and at its center a large glass case containing an enormous tome. It lay open at a page that featured an elaborate, multicolored portrait of a demon with horns, and the poet stood with another man, staring at it in awe.

  “Within a year, I found myself in Stockholm, where the book was on display at the Swedish Royal Library. The curator not only confirmed the tale of its creation, but that seven pages were indeed missing, just as the astronomer had told me.”

  Light flashed and they were once again standing over the field of yellow flowers, the poet’s blank gaze fixed on Batty.

  “I soon became obsessed with finding those pages, wanting to know what secret they held. The astronomer’s estate had no knowledge of them, so I prepared to travel to Rome, to the private archive where he claimed to have viewed them. But before I left, I received correspondence that the collection they were part of had been sold to an antiquities dealer in London. They had been close to me all along.”

  The poet paused, reflecting for a moment, then said, “The antiquities dealer had since died, and the collections he had most recently obtained were languishing in a vault beneath his shop in London while his children quarreled over his estate.”

  The light once again flashed and now Batty found himself in a small cluttered vault, the room lit only by flickering lamplight. The poet sat a table, carefully removing several enormous sheets of parchment from an equally large portfolio. His hands were shaking, and Batty strained to see what was on those pages, but they wouldn’t come into focus.

  “I cannot explain to you what I felt at the moment I saw them. Joy, elation-yes-but also a power, a power so overwhelming that they seemed to draw me in, to wrap themselves around me in a loving embrace, and I knew I was in the power of God. These were His pages that He had once hidden in that enormous book forged by the Devil.”

  But now the poet began rubbing his eyes, moving the lamp closer. “The astronomer had warned me that only those whose motives
are pure can read the pages without fear of the curse, but I had foolishly ignored him, believing his blindness to have been caused by the constant use of his telescope. I was wrong, however, and within minutes my vision began to blur.”

  Batty saw the poet on the street now, the portfolio tucked under his arm as he stumbled toward a horse and carriage.

  “But I had seen enough to know that what was on those pages was an ancient prophecy, the key to a miraculous duality of power, a power so rich that should it fall into the wrong hands, all of humankind could be in danger. That the gates of the bottomless pit-of the Abaddon itself-would be opened, spewing forth all the horrors of Pandemonium and beyond.”

  Suddenly Batty was looking down at a view of a city ravaged by war, cracks opening up in the earth between the buildings, spraying molten lava into the air.

  Now the poet was back in his study, surrounded by flickering candles; his eyes clouded over, his hands extended, palms outward, as his lips moved in silent prayer.

  “But what frightened me most of all was my sudden desire to invoke that power myself, under the grace of God, even though I knew that such an invocation would be impossible without its source. The sacred traveler. So I began searching for that source, and soon found myself consumed by the black arts, in hopes that I might hear the song of a wandering soul.

  “The astronomer had told me of the coming eclipse, and I knew that if I could free that soul during the darkness of the fourth moon, I could deliver to the world a new paradise, and I alone would be the ruler of that paradise, the new creator.

  “But in a moment of clarity I came to realize that what I was seeking was a product of my own false pride and my selfish desire to control my world. That what I was trying to do could only end in disaster. So in a moment of strength, I destroyed the pages.”

  The poet now stood before a fireplace, tossing the portfolio into the roaring fire. The light of the fire flared, and Batty and the poet were once against standing on the hillside, beneath a cloudless blue sky.

  Batty finally found his voice. “But that wasn’t the end of it.”