The Sixth Key

by Adriana Koulias

  Deodat looked at Rahn. ‘Now, my point is, it doesn’t really matter how it’s spelt, whether sator or sorat, or taros or rotas, or any combination of those letters – they will always add up to six-six-six.’

  ‘Burn my beard!’ La Dame said, sitting forward and thrusting his head between them.

  ‘The number of the Beast of the Apocalypse of Saint John?’ Rahn said, incredulous.

  ‘The number is all that is given in the Apocalypse,’ Deodat said, ‘and in a veiled way it indicates the name, Sorat.’

  ‘Sorat?’ Rahn said.

  ‘Six-six-six is both the name and the seal of the sun demon Sorat, but not the sign – this is important. Grimoires are all about using spirits, demons and the like, to do the bidding of the living, but to control these beings one needs three things: a name, a seal and a sign – all three. If one of these three components is missing, the magician doesn’t have full command over a demon or entity. Now, in the same way there is a Holy Trinity, there is also a Satanic one, a trinity of imperfect beings that is represented by six plus six plus six. It’s not six hundred and sixty-six as many believe. The Antichrist is not just one being – that is a misconception – it is a collective of beings that work under the demon of the sun, Sorat. I think Le Serpent Rouge is able to summon this trinity of evil but not the demon Sorat. Monti quite rightly guessed that all grimoires are missing the most powerful key – the sign that summons Sorat. From the moment I saw that Monti had connected Le Serpent Rouge to the treasure of the Cathars, I had a sense that the missing key he was talking about was given in the original Apocalypse of Saint John. We had always said that the Apocalypse was part of that treasure, and now I feel sure of it. Imagine what this sign of Sorat could do in the hands of certain men? Do you see now why Cros had inscribed the sign of the Lamb of Christ into his tabernacle? He put it there to protect the sacrament from unholy forces, because the sign of the lamb repels the sign of Sorat – the demon of the black sun.’

  ‘The black sun?’ Rahn was in shock, remembering Wewelsburg. He was thinking the connections through out loud: ‘The swastika is the symbol of the black sun – that’s common knowledge among the SS. You know, I myself heard Hitler say to a group of the most senior SS dignitaries, his inner circle, something to the effect, that “all Germans must sacrifice their goodness, even their connection to Christ”. I had a sense that there was something evil about Himmler and Hitler, but I mostly thought they were just madmen – I couldn’t have been more wrong! This whole Nazi business is clearly part of an intelligent design to bring the German people under the worship of the black sun, under the worship of Sorat.’

  ‘Sorat will bring about Apocalypse, Rahn, the end of the world, Armageddon! Yes,’ Deodat confirmed. ‘Hitler knew enough to reverse the swastika, transforming the ancient sun symbol into a symbol of evil. That is why you were sent here, Rahn – not to find Le Serpent Rouge, Hitler no doubt already has that; you were sent here to fetch the key. They need that key if Hitler is to invoke Sorat. Now you see the gravity of this entire affair? And soon we will know what JCKAL has to do with it . . . at Bugarach.

  ‘Bugarach? Is that the sixth church?’ Rahn said.

  ‘Time will tell.’

  When they arrived back at Bugarach church, Rahn parked the car behind some trees, feeling forlorn. He chose the same spot he had used two nights before and turned off the engine. The town lay dormant under a sky scattered with fast-moving clouds revealing behind them a tangle of stars. A thought occurred to Rahn and he turned to look at Deodat. ‘What did you call that creature on the Countess P’s clock?’

  ‘A Leoncetophaline,’ Deodat said.

  ‘You said it was Hermetic, or Mithraic, right?’

  ‘Yes, and it also represents the rogue sign, the thirteenth sign of the zodiac. The sign by which—’ He looked at Rahn in the darkness and Rahn could just see the outline of his face. ‘Ophiucus . . . it has two snakes winding around its body and in one hand it holds – a key! A key to the Underworld! A key to the forces of a living death . . . and a dead life . . . to Saturn forces – forces of the bottomless pit!’ he said.

  ‘Will someone let me in on what in God’s name you’re talking about?’ La Dame said, from the back seat. His voice sounded anxious. He kept looking from this side to that.

  ‘Are you expecting someone, La Dame?’ Rahn said.

  La Dame answered, ‘I reserve the right to be moderately concerned for our safety. Have you still got that hunting gun, Deodat?’

  ‘Actually I dropped it in the forest after I shot those men.’

  But Rahn wasn’t listening, his mind turned to a question that was bothering him. ‘Deodat, what was that engraving on the clock, do you remember it? You know, I think the countess was leaving me a clue! Don’t forget, she also died of a stroke on the same day as Saunière and Marie Blanchefort. Three people dying of strokes and all of them on the seventeenth of January, the date that Verger was sentenced; and it’s also the same date in Monti’s notebook. Don’t forget that date marks the feast day of Saint Sulpice, and Saint Sulpice in Paris is the headquarters of AA, Association Angelica. I’m beginning to think, Deodat, that the Countess P was somehow mixed up in all this.’

  Deodat was silent in the darkness. When he spoke his voice was grave. ‘Rahn, I think you’re right, and I can make sense of that riddle now. This is a tomb that has no body in it . . . this is a body that has no tomb around it . . . but body and tomb are the same.

  ‘This is a tomb that has no body in it – means the tomb is the corpse; after death the corpse has no spirit body in it. It is therefore a tomb without a spirit body. Now, a body that has no tomb around it – means the spirit body is free of the corpse and therefore has no tomb around it. But in certain cases the corpse and the spirit body remain united, even beyond the grave. In this case body and tomb, spirit and corpse, are one, do you see?’

  ‘You mean, like a living death?’ Rahn said.

  ‘Yes, Rahn! In fact I’ll wager that what we are dealing with here is a kind of suicide circle, wherein those who choose to die give over their spirits to the members of these groups as a form of immortality, but they may not know that this immortality is a sentence to Hell because those who run these groups are seeking to use them for the benefit of Sorat – the sun demon. That is the point! That would explain Saunière’s sudden obsession with death and the penitents, and their cult of the dead, in which the sacrament that is administered to the dying is desecrated, mixed with excrement, to create a species of control after death.’

  ‘I had a feeling that Cros had scratched the sign of the lamb in the tabernacle to protect his own sacrament!’ Rahn said. ‘Perhaps that’s why he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was going to be buried, because he was concerned they would somehow snatch his immortal soul.’

  ‘Perhaps, but in order to invoke Sorat these groups need the sign, which they don’t have – the key missing from Le Serpent Rouge. So now we know what Hitler wants with the key and what the penitents want with the key, and perhaps also what this AA, and anyone else who is after it, are seeking – they are seeking to invoke Sorat, to bring about the end of the world so that they can install a New Jerusalem – a new world order that is to their liking. And we, my dear friends, are about to stop them, because the crucial ingredient, I believe, is in that church.’

  ‘What makes you think Cros would hide it there? Wouldn’t that be too obvious?’ La Dame said, in the back.

  ‘That’s exactly why it’s suspect!’ Deodat said, with an emotion close to glee. ‘And we are going to find it by using your Vigenère Square, Rahn. You are going to decipher JCKAL using Sorat as the master word.’

  ‘So you think Cros wasn’t intending to be buried with the treasure at all, and that the clues to the treasure’s whereabouts are on the list – as I surmised?’

  ‘Exactly so. Let’s go, what are we waiting for?’

  Inside the church, Rahn followed Deodat and La Dame to the altar like a lamb going to the slau
ghter. Once more, he wondered why in God’s name he had answered that telegram in Berlin. Deodat was excited at the prospect of discovering the key, that much he could see, but for his part he wasn’t relishing it, nor was he relishing the potential consequences of having it. Then again, perhaps it had always been his destiny to find it? If it was his destiny, he wondered how he would ever atone for it if his actions should lead somehow to an Armageddon of biblical proportions? But as Deodat had already pointed out, he was chin deep in responsibility. Feeling grim, he looked about with a creeping sense that he was being watched. Perhaps it was the Devil himself around the corner waiting to snatch away his soul?

  At the altar his hands were shaking so much he could hardly hold the pencil, and his eyes were finding it difficult to focus. He gave them a rub and wrote down the cipher and the master word and deciphered each letter using the square.

  He came to his solution while La Dame held a candle close:

  ‘My God!’ Rahn said, looking at his own handiwork. ‘Rotas is the encrypted word! We seem to be going round in circles. Literally.’

  ‘Rotas!’ Deodat said, ecstatically. ‘Yes, you are right! We have been going around in circles, like a wheel! Running around looking for something we could have known at the beginning. Rotas, arepo, tenet, opera, sorat! When Cros gave us sator, he must have intended to give us rotas.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ La Dame said.

  ‘Because rotas is the wheel in the tarot, the wheel of fortune – the tenth card. Now we see it: six parchments, six priests and six churches. Six plus six plus six. Cros was the sixth priest, and this was the sixth church. Let’s see if I’m right.’ Deodat went to the stained-glass window in the side chapel.

  Rahn followed Deodat, taking a candle from the altar with him.

  ‘Don’t look at the window, Rahn, look instead at the altar beneath it. What do you see?’

  Rahn noticed something very obvious and yes, the obvious was the most deceptive! Here, beneath the rotas window, there sat, innocently, a book bound in blue leather.

  44

  Unbrotherly Quarrels

  ‘How now, traitor!’ exclaimed Don Quixote.

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Perhaps Rahn had never expected to see the Cathar treasure in his lifetime, and this is what made him hesitate. After all, one could argue that to have one’s dream come true might be a curse in itself. However, his hesitation was more to do with that part of him, a significant part, that didn’t want to know the key – the part that wanted to leave the Devil in his place.

  Deodat must have guessed his thoughts because he took the book in his hands and looked at Rahn gravely. ‘To know the secret or the formula of God is to be God, and to know the secret or the formula of the Devil is to be the Devil. But to wish to be at the same time God and Devil is to absorb into one’s self the two most strained contrary forces. I believe that in this book we shall find the sign of Sorat, which can make one both a god and a devil.’

  Deodat had just begun to open the book when La Dame called out.

  ‘Rahn!’

  ‘Not now, La Dame!’ he said, annoyed.

  ‘Rahn, turn around!’

  ‘What in the devil’s the matter, La Dame?’ Deodat said, and then: ‘Put that down!’

  When Rahn turned he saw his friend standing in the near darkness pointing a gun at them. The hangdog grin on his face made him look rather ridiculous but he held the gun as if he knew how to use it. This was a side of La Dame that Rahn had never seen before.

  La Dame shrugged. ‘Sorry, old boy, but you’re going to have to hand it over to me.’

  ‘What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?’ Rahn said, pushing his fedora up over his forehead a little so he could see better in the dim light. He was still holding the candle in his hand and the wax was dripping onto the stone floor at his feet.

  La Dame nodded as if to confirm the incredulous thought that was passing through Rahn’s mind.

  Rahn said, ‘Don’t tell me you’re involved in all this?’

  A frown crossed the landscape of his bearded face. ‘I’m sorry, Rahn, really, I am.’

  ‘But why?’ Rahn moved forward. ‘Who are you working for?’

  ‘Don’t try anything funny or I’ll shoot you, and Deodat, too, for that matter,’ he said, not sounding very convincing. ‘Pass it over.’

  Rahn couldn’t believe it. ‘What are you doing with that gun? You couldn’t use it if your life depended on it!’

  ‘Give me that book, Deodat. I’m warning you!’

  With La Dame’s attention turned to Deodat, Rahn realised he was in striking distance. He had to do something, but what? All he had was the candle in his hand. He needed to make La Dame drop his gun, so he did the most unexpected thing he could think of – he thrust the candle he was holding straight into La Dame’s face.

  La Dame flailed, trying to deflect it, but the flame caught on his beard and there was the smell of burning hair. The diversion created, Rahn went in for the kill. He struck a punch that grazed La Dame’s left eye and hit the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Oh!’ His friend staggered back, one hand holding his nose, the other still holding the gun. Shock gave way to anger and he lunged at Rahn.

  There was a struggle. Rahn left behind him any memory of their friendship, their hours of drinking, laughing, commiserating, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, their potholing days and many adventures. He made himself blind to everything except the other man’s struggle to point the gun closer and closer to his brow.

  ‘Stop it, La Dame, for God’s sake!’ Rahn yelled at him.

  ‘No! You burnt my beard!’

  La Dame’s cut eye was red and in it Rahn saw frenzy. His swollen nose was growing black, there was blood on his scorched beard and on his suit and he was breathing hard, gritting his teeth. Rahn managed to push the hand holding the gun away and caught a glimpse of Deodat coming from behind. He manoeuvred La Dame into position and then pulled at what was left of his beard with such fierceness that La Dame cried out in pain and turned his head slightly, enough for him not to notice Deodat approaching with a crucifix that he had taken from the altar and which he now brought down squarely over the hand holding the gun.

  The gun fell to the floor with a clatter and Rahn took it up and gave it to Deodat. It was over. La Dame was now sitting on the floor panting and assessing his various injuries. Rahn’s knees gave way then and he found himself sitting opposite La Dame.

  ‘You’ve burnt my beard! You don’t understand!’

  ‘It serves you right for saying “burn my beard” all the time – it’s what gave me the idea!’

  ‘And I think I’ve lost a tooth,’ he said, horrified, spitting out more blood.

  ‘You were always a stupid bastard,’ Rahn said, his anger waning. ‘I should have listened to Deodat.’

  ‘And I think you’ve broken my nose too! You didn’t have to hit me so hard! There is an explanation!’

  ‘I should have hit you harder! I don’t want your explanations!’

  ‘Oh God, it hurts!’

  ‘You’re not cut out for this, La Dame,’ Deodat said, with no pity in his voice. ‘You didn’t even load the gun.’

  ‘I know,’ La Dame said miserably. He looked like he was about to weep but instead he found a handkerchief in one of his pockets and proceeded to wipe the blood away.

  ‘What in the devil?’ Deodat cried.

  ‘I’ll be taking that book now, if you don’t mind.’

  All three men looked into the darkness from which emerged the shape of someone else holding a gun! Rahn recognised him – it was that ordinary-looking man: ordinary height, ordinary weight and ordinary face. It was the man he thought was following him in Paris; the man in the café and the man who had been standing outside his hotel. Behind him now, unfortunately, there also stood two men who looked like prize-fighters.

  ‘I promise you, my gun is loaded, and I am a very good shot, unlike our brother,’ he said, indicating
La Dame.

  ‘Brother?’ Rahn said to him.

  ‘No time for pleasant chatter. I want you to stand up slowly and throw the gun over there.’

  Rahn did as he was told.

  ‘What are you going to do with us?’ Deodat said.

  ‘We’re going somewhere a little warmer!’

  ‘I demand to know where we’re going!’ Rahn said, knowing full well that he was in no position to demand anything.

  ‘Why, Monsieur Rahn, you are going to Hell . . .’

  45

  In the Heat of the Moment

  ‘Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire.’

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Rahn and the others were bundled uncomfortably into the back seat of the black Citroën, a gun pointing in their faces. When they reached their destination, the Maison de Cros, the three of them were marched at gunpoint into the house. It was deserted, every room was littered from the ransacking two nights before and moreover, there was the all-pervading stench of death. The stench only grew in intensity the closer they came to the wine cellar where Deodat had been detained, and where the body of the real Inspecteur Beliere remained, hanging from the rafters.

  ‘What are you doing?’ La Dame said anxious, surprised. ‘This isn’t what we planned. I was supposed to bring it to you. You’d better speak to your superiors! Is this the way to treat a brother?’

  The man looked on, impassively, aiming the gun at La Dame.

  ‘You’re more stupid than we anticipated. This was always going to be the end. Didn’t you realise that, Professor La Dame? Besides, you were never really a brother. You were, let us say, nothing more than a provisional guest. And now you’ve worn out your welcome!’