The Paradise Prophecy

by Robert Browne

  There was a smell down here that was hard to miss. A mustiness. And beneath this, faint but unmistakable, the scent of rotting corpses. Callahan had no idea how fresh some of these bodies were-she didn’t figure this place had hosted anyone new in quite some time-but the smell was there and she recognized it immediately.

  Either that, or she had an amazing imagination.

  Grant moved to a stone casket in the center of the room. “This is the one,” he said. “John Milton.”

  LaLaurie nodded and crossed to it, pressing a hand against it, trying to suck up its energy. Callahan half expected the lid to crack open on him, letting loose a vampire or some other deadly creature.

  But nothing happened, and LaLaurie opened his eyes, shook his head.

  “You’re wrong,” he told Grant.

  Grant’s eyes widened slightly. The most emotion Callahan had seen in him so far. “How can that be? This is the one I’ve been guarding for the last fifteen years.”

  “Well, I hate to break it to you, Jim, but you’ve been guarding the wrong coffin.”

  LaLaurie looked down the row, and over the next several minutes, moved from coffin to coffin, pressing his hand against them, coming away from each one looking a little less whole, and she knew this process was taking its toll on him.

  Grant was scratching his head. “I can’t believe we got it wrong. All this time and we got it wrong.”

  “Maybe you didn’t pick up the phone often enough,” Callahan said.

  By the time he’d finished touching every coffin in the room, LaLaurie looked a bit green under the gills. And he still hadn’t found what they were looking for.

  He turned to Grant. “I assume you have a pauper’s vault?”

  “Pauper’s vault?” Grant said. “I hardly think Milton would be-”

  “Maybe one of the previous guardians thought it was prudent to hide him where someone would be less likely to look.”

  Grant nodded and pointed his flashlight beam toward the back of the room. There was a wooden door there, and he motioned for them to follow. They moved with him and he pulled the door open to reveal another set of steps leading to a subbasement, Callahan again reminded of the auction house.

  These steps, however, were old and rickety and creaked so loudly as they descended them that she was sure they were going to wake someone up.

  When they got to the bottom they found a smaller, narrower room, no caskets in the center. Instead the walls were lined with cubbyholes holding cheap wooden boxes, most of them falling apart, arm and leg and foot bones protruding through the cracks.

  There was one that didn’t belong here, however. An actual casket stuffed into a dark corner, weathered by age, but clearly out of place.

  LaLaurie glanced at Grant and Callahan, then moved to it and pressed his palm against the lid. He closed his eyes, but didn’t keep them closed long.

  “This is it,” he said. “John Milton.”

  “You’re sure?” Grant asked.

  “No doubt whatsoever.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” Callahan said. She stuck her flashlight under her arm and reached for the lid, pushing it open, not at all surprised when they found yet another skull and a set of bones, these mostly intact. The clothing that had covered them was long gone.

  It suddenly occurred to her that this is how we wind up.

  All of us.

  Some leave behind a legacy, as Milton had, a piece of themselves that will be remembered for centuries to come. But most of us die in obscurity. A pile of bones that lay forgotten in some grave, our lives no more important to the world at large than the quarter-inch column of ink that announces our departure from it.

  One day we’re here, then we’re gone. And unless you get lucky, a couple hundred years later nobody knows who the hell you were.

  She shone her flashlight inside. Some of the coffin lining was still intact, but no sign of any pages in sight.

  “Check under the bones,” LaLaurie said.

  Callahan looked at him. “You first.”

  He frowned at her, then reached inside, shoving his hands beneath the body and patting the tattered lining there. She could tell by his expression that he wasn’t having any luck.

  Then she noticed something-on the right side of the casket where the lining was torn. She shone her light directly on it for a better look, and saw a tiny seam in the wood.

  Another hidden door?

  Reaching over, she tore the lining away to reveal a narrow oblong panel. Digging her nails into the seam, she pried the lid back and found a hollowed-out space behind it, a burlap bag stuffed inside.

  She looked up at LaLaurie, saw the excitement on his face and gestured to the bag. “Be my guest.”

  With shaky hands, he took it out, untied a leather string at the top, then reached inside and pulled out a familiar-looking Saint Christopher medal. Custodes Sacri. He handed it to Callahan, then reached inside again and this time pulled out a roll of time-worn pages, bound by another leather string.

  “Careful,” Grant said. “Remember the curse.”

  Batty nodded. “You two might want to close your eyes.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  Grant didn’t hesitate, but Callahan shook her head. “I’m good for now.”

  Shutting the casket lid, LaLaurie took the Milton manuscript out of the book bag and laid it atop the casket, opening it to the last chapter. Then, as Callahan trained her flashlight beam on it, he untied the string around the roll of pages.

  “You’d better close them now,” he said.

  Callahan nodded, and keeping the flashlight steady, she closed her eyes and listened as he flattened the pages out next to the manuscript. She knew he was checking to see if they lined up.

  But then he went still. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “The pages…”

  “What? What about them?”

  LaLaurie paused. Then he said, “They’re completely blank.”

  44

  I don’t fucking believe this,” Callahan said.

  Both she and Grant had their eyes open now and were staring at the pages in shock. And they were definitely blank.

  Grant said, “This is what I’ve been guarding for fifteen years?”

  Callahan turned to him. “No, you were guarding somebody else’s casket, remember? And it looks like someone slipped in here and switched out the pages.”

  Grant looked resentful. “They’d have to get past me and a double-locked metal door to do it. And I can assure you, Agent Callahan, this didn’t happen on my watch.”

  “So you’re here twenty-four/seven?”

  “Well, no, of course not, but-”

  “They weren’t switched out,” Batty said. He had carefully lined up the pages next to the manuscript and the edges matched. He had no doubt in his mind that these were genuine.

  “So what are you suggesting?” Grant said. “That this is some sort of cruel hoax? That our first guardian made the whole story up?”

  Batty didn’t respond. He was thinking back to his vision, to what the poet had told him.

  I had several sheets of paper in front of me, my finger etching itself into them as if controlled by another being.

  His finger, not a pen. Etching itself into the pages.

  Then a thought occurred to Batty. “What have you been told about these?” he asked Grant.

  “Certainly not that they’re blank.”

  “You’ve spoken to the angel Michael, I assume?”

  “He doesn’t ring me up every day, but I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t recruited me.”

  “And he said nothing about this?”

  “It’s my understanding he can’t read the pages himself. None of the angels can. They need humans to translate. In fact, I’d say they seem to need us for quite a few things.”

  Batty nodded, his mind still clicking away. “Both Ozan and Gabriela were t
rying to decode Milton’s verse in Book Eleven. Except they had the wrong Book Eleven. Were you told at any time that the pages were encrypted?”

  “Yes,” Grant said. “But I’m not sure why. It’s just a story that’s been handed down through the generations of guardians.”

  “Then maybe that’s what we have here. Encrypted pages.”

  “What are you thinking?” Callahan asked. “Invisible ink?”

  Batty shook his head. “Invisible ink wasn’t invented until the nineteenth century, by a guy named Henry Wellcome.”

  “Is there a bottom to that well of information you draw from?”

  “I hope not,” Batty said. Then he reached for the book bag and brought out the copy of Steganographia. “You remember what I said this book was really about?”

  “Of course. Steganography, cryptology.”

  “That’s what the experts discovered when they broke the code and I’m sure that’s what Ozan was using it for. But the thing that frightened Trithemius’s friends and convinced them he was an occultist is that on its surface it’s a treatise on how to pass secret messages through spiritual entities.”

  “Right. But that was just a cover story. Trithemius said so himself.”

  “But what if he was lying to protect his reputation? What if he really was an occultist, and these really are recipes for communicating through spirits?”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she said. “Slow down a little.”

  “In my vision, Milton told me he was visited by another being in the middle of the night. That it forced him to etch these pages with his finger. He was blind, so he couldn’t know that the pages were blank. But they were clearly a message from a spirit.” He picked up the copy of Steganographia. “So what if we were to use one of Trithemius’s incantations to decode that message?”

  Callahan thought about this. “I think you might be on to something.”

  “I hope so.”

  He placed the book next to the blank pages and cracked it open. It had been a while since he’d studied the thing with any depth, and as he stared at the words, he wasn’t sure which incantation to choose. Remembering what had happened to Rebecca, he didn’t want to summon up the wrong spirit.

  He read through them all carefully, then finally found one that seemed most appropriate. A simple, straightforward summoning.

  “All right,” he said, “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Both Grant and Callahan stepped back slightly is if they were afraid they might get in his way. He quickly scanned the page in front of him, committed the incantation to memory, then touched the stack of blank pages and closed his eyes.

  Then he said, “O magne spiritus, si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis. O magne spiritus, si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis. O magne spiritus, si placet, mecum communica nuntium his in paginis.”

  For a moment nothing happened and Batty was afraid it hadn’t worked. Then he felt heat in his hand and his fingers began to tremble. He half expected them to take a life of their own and begin writing across the page. Instead, the pages themselves began to glow, infused in a warm yellow light.

  Grant and Callahan stepped back even farther, shielding their eyes, as the glow grew stronger, then a fountain of light rose toward the ceiling, illuminating the entire room, a shimmering image appearing at its center.

  Batty didn’t back up. Didn’t move. Didn’t shield his eyes.

  His gaze was transfixed on that image, and a strange feeling welled up inside him. A feeling of warmth. Not physical warmth, but a sense of emotional fulfillment that enveloped him like a loving embrace.

  The embrace of a mother and child.

  A father and son.

  A wife and her husband.

  Then the image in the light began to take on form and substance and Batty’s chest seized up, tears springing to his eyes. His mouth dropped open and he wanted to say something, wanted desperately to form words, but there were no adequate words for what he now saw.

  The image smiled, and the warmth inside him doubled. Quadrupled. He was weak with it. Drunk with it. And not just his fingers were trembling, but his entire body.

  “Hello, Batty,” she said, in that subtle Louisiana drawl.

  It was Rebecca.

  "Becky,” he croaked.

  He hadn’t called her that since she died. Not even in his mind. Couldn’t bring himself to use the name she had introduced herself with, all those years ago on the steps of Nassau Hall.

  But now she was here and it just seemed right. She was his Becky, and he wanted to spring forward and pull her into his arms. But he knew she was only an apparition, impossible to hold.

  “How is this happening?” he said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here, Batty. With you.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “Your time in the otherworld was too short. You may have learned many things, but there is so much more to know. It’s a vast place, filled with wonder and miracles.”

  “All I saw was darkness. And I couldn’t find any miracles. I couldn’t find you.”

  “But you did,” she said. “You didn’t know it at the time, but you did.”

  His eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

  “You know that piece of the otherworld you thought you brought back with you? That was part of me. Part of my soul. I’m always with you, Batty. I always will be.”

  Tears welled up in Batty’s eyes again. “But I thought … Belial…”

  “Belial destroyed my human form, but one of the incantations you spoke before I succumbed managed to protect me from her, from taking my soul as her own.” Becky paused. “But she knows I’m with you, Batty, and she knows my song. That’s why you must always be vigilant.”

  Batty said nothing. He didn’t know what to say. To know that Rebecca had been with him all this time, had seen what he’d done with Belial in his bed, had watched him drink himself into oblivion time after time, fighting in bars, embarrassing himself at the college. He suddenly felt ashamed.

  “Don’t fret, Batty. You’re human, just as I once was. We make mistakes. We learn from them and we move on. We’ve been on our own for so long, left to face heartbreak that’s almost impossible to bear. Left to deal with the darker angels-not only from the otherworld and beyond, but the darker angels inside us. That pull at our hearts and prod our psyches. It’s a miracle that we’ve survived this long. But that’s what it means to be human, Batty. That spirit of survival. The need to create and procreate and love and be loved.” She paused again, smiling. “Yet despite your failings, here you are. And that’s why he chose you. You’ve seen the darkness, but your soul-our soul-remains untainted.”

  “Who?” Batty said. “Who chose me?”

  “Michael, of course. He came to me, shortly after you left the otherworld. Belial is his sister and he could feel you through her. He knew of the coming tetrad. The coming struggle. And he wanted me to bring you this message.”

  “Wait a minute,” Batty said. “He knew I’d be here?”

  “Nothing is certain, but many things can be predicted. And hoped for.”

  “But what does he want from me?”

  “He wants you to free her. To free the sacred traveler. To release her from her human bonds and give mankind the chance it deserves. To let her be a message to God.”

  “But … how?”

  “The pages will tell you,” Rebecca said. “But you must not fail, Batty. If the dark angels manage to corrupt her soul before you have a chance to free her, all will be lost, the seven gates will open and Lucifer instead will be freed, to rule the earth forever.”

  Batty felt sick. How could he be responsible for something like that? He was barely responsible for himself. He couldn’t even keep Rebecca from being taken from him.

  “This has to be a mistake.”

  “Not a mistake,” she said. “But it won’t easy for you. You will be tested. But remember that I’ll be with you. Always. If you feel your
resolve faltering, just call to me and I’ll listen.”

  Becky’s image began to shimmer now, starting to blur.

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t go.”

  “It’s time, my love. The message has been given. You have difficult choices ahead of you. Just remember to heed the pages. They will tell you what you must do.”

  Her image continued to shimmer and blur, then finally faded away.

  Then the glowing light was gone, the room once again dark except for the beams of their flashlights.

  Batty took his flashlight from the casket lid and shone it down on the pages. They were no longer blank, but what he saw surprised him.

  Not poetry, as he had expected. No final verses to Paradise Lost. But seven carefully rendered illustrations-much like the Gustave Dore etching in Gabriela’s apartment-black-and-white drawings of a world gone mad, ravaged by pain, people struggling, fighting, killing. And in each new drawing a huge full moon hung high above them, each one farther along in the progression of a lunar eclipse.

  But it was the seventh drawing that told the tale.

  A story of two opposing outcomes.

  On the right side of the page was a ravaged world, barren and lifeless, a dark-winged Satan hovering above it. On the left side was a lush, verdant paradise with rolling hills and fruit-bearing trees, a great warrior angel looking down upon it.

  And at the center, kneeling beneath the moon in full eclipse, was a small figure, a dagger held in her right hand, aimed directly at her throat. Her left hand was held palm outward, as if in oath, toward a man wielding a sword.

  Below them, a sacred incantation was written in bold black ink-Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest.

  What is opened cannot be closed.

  But it was the figure of the man with the sword that told Batty what he was expected to do, reminding him of the painting he saw in Istanbul, of the widow Judith attacking Holofernes. Reminding him of Saint Christopher’s selfless martyrdom.

  The man with the sword was cutting off her head.