The Devil's Bible

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  “Humans aren’t ants, Angelo, and if they are, there shouldn’t be blundering giants walking among them.”

  “That’s God’s purview, not yours.”

  “The consequences are mine, so I have to be careful about where I walk and who I walk with, especially if—”

  “It’s my choice to be with you, Mouse.”

  “Is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you here because you want to be with me or because you think it’s part of God’s plan for you?”

  He snapped his head toward her, mouth open and ready to spit some angry missive, but instead he jerked toward the window again, jaw clenched. After a while, he lowered his seat back.

  “I’m going to get some sleep.” He flung his arm over his face.

  Mouse drove until Karlstad, wrestling with her choices and his.

  “What are we doing?” Angelo asked when Mouse pulled the car over. He didn’t sound like he’d been asleep.

  “We need gas. And you need to drive. I can’t see the road anymore. Not enough sleep.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they switched seats.

  “Oslo.”

  “Then?”

  “A train to Onstad.”

  “What’s in Onstad?”

  “A church.”

  “A place to hide?”

  She nodded and then laid her head back and closed her eyes. “This one is special, though. I think it will help me when I open the book.”

  “We, Mouse. When we open the book.”

  Her stomach twisted as she thought about what might happen. While she was driving, she had built lists in her mind of all the possible protections she could use at the church. She felt sure her father would have built his own spells inside the Devil’s Bible to guard the last bit of his game. They would get triggered as soon as she pulled the first word of the binding spell out of the text. What Mouse didn’t know is what manner of creature her father would call up in his defense. Or how or when the creatures would be summoned. How much time would she have? Then there was the malevolence of the Devil’s Bible itself, which would start to work against them the moment the book was opened. There was no way to prepare for all of that, but she had to try—even though she had a sick feeling that, despite her best efforts, eventually her protective spells would all fail under the onslaught of evil. Mouse sighed.

  “I thought you were going to sleep,” he said softly. “You worried?”

  Her laugh was dry, strained. “Yes.”

  “Not just about what’s coming.”

  “No.”

  “Me?”

  “I don’t know where we stand,” she said simply.

  “I’m a jerk. And I’m sorry I came after you so hard.”

  She turned to look at him. “You were right.”

  “Maybe, but I shouldn’t have said any of that the way I did.” He looked over at her and smiled. “And you were right, too.”

  “About?”

  “Choices. I’ve been blaming you for shutting me out. Not letting me make my own choices. But you’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever made a decision for myself.” He blew his breath in frustration. “I just let things happen to me—Hampstead, seminary. My whole damn life.” He squinted at the road. “Even jumping into the Thames wasn’t a choice. It’s a passive way to kill yourself—to let the river take you.”

  “It’s what life taught you with that car wreck and whatever pulled you from the river. You weren’t in control. Fate was. God was.”

  “No. I have to claim this, Mouse. It’s my fault. I don’t want to live someone else’s life. I want my own.”

  At Oslo, they boarded the Bergen Mountain Railway for the first leg of the trip to Onstad. Showers, a change of clothes, hot coffee, and food lifted their spirits, but Mouse felt coiled, poised for another attack and trying to run through scenarios of what might happen when they reached the church. With every click on the track, she felt them rushing headlong toward the impossible.

  Angelo seemed to be somewhere else entirely. In the dining car, she caught him staring at her several times like he had something to say, but he always looked away. She wondered if he was having second thoughts.

  When they went back to their berth, the beds had been made, but as tired as they were, neither of them was ready to sleep.

  “Anything we need to prepare for?” Angelo asked as he sat next to her on the lower bunk, his thigh pushing against hers.

  “Not really. The church, the spells, the book.” She paused, finding it difficult to concentrate with him touching her. “I have the paper with the rest of the spell in my bag. I think that’s it. Except luck.” Her voice was soft with longing, and the obviousness of it embarrassed her.

  She started to turn her head away, but his hand was on her cheek, turning her toward him. He leaned in and kissed her gently. Mouse’s breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding.

  “Stop,” she breathed, hating herself for it. “Just . . . just wait a minute.”

  Mouse tried to catch her breath and held her hand lightly against his chest, keeping him at a safer distance. She felt his heart thumping fast and hard. She nearly lost her resolve at the joy of knowing he wanted her, too. But she remembered the kiss in the club at Stockholm. His body had wanted hers then, that was clear, but he had pulled away. He had made a decision, and Mouse meant to help him keep it. “You don’t want this,” she said.

  He smiled and cocked his head. “I very much do, Mouse.”

  As he said her name, her body sent a tingle slowly up her spine and into her throat.

  “What about your vows?”

  “I haven’t taken vows.” He moved his hand up her arm and played his fingers lightly along the skin on the underside of her forearm, lingering at the crease of her elbow. “I’ve made my choice, Mouse. I want you.”

  As he closed his mouth on hers again, her body screamed its seven hundred years of want, but she didn’t deserve this joy.

  “Please, I can’t . . . I can’t breathe.” Her lips moved against his as she spoke; she lowered her head searching for a moment to clear her mind, and she saw the purpled gash on his forearm where it lay against her butchered wrists.

  “No, Angelo.” Mouse tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go. “God’s a better choice.”

  “I don’t think it’s an either/or situation.” He smiled down at her.

  “No.” Her voice was thick with pain now—pain for all she wanted and all she was giving up. “You don’t know me.”

  “Mouse, I know you better than I’ve known any person in my life. I’m woven into you. And you’re in me.” He leaned his head against hers.

  “No. You don’t know . . . what I am.” What she needed to tell him burned her throat.

  “Yes, I do.” He breathed into her hair. “I know who your father is,” Angelo whispered. “The Morning Star, Angel of Light, the Fallen One, Serpent, Satan.” His words sounded like seductions, and his mouth tickled her ear. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  She had known that this moment would come, either as a result of her own confession or through Angelo’s cleverness. She had seen him putting the pieces together. She was glad he had figured it out before she had to tell him. But she had always imagined that the revelation would be charged with guilt on her end, accusation on Angelo’s, and fear for both of them. She had never thought the moment would be quiet or that she could feel so sad and so relieved at the same time.

  Her confession was now unnecessary, but his words had been too soft, too poetic. She wanted the truth out there simple and bare, so she said it herself. “Angelo, I’m not human.”

  “Not completely, and I think we’ve covered that already. But what you are does not have to define who you are.”

  “It’s not that simple, Angelo. You see what my life is—running, hiding, lying. Anyone near me is in danger. Always. And if you . . . if you were to be near me and he were to—” Her words came now as sobs. “Angelo,
I would give him anything to keep you safe. Anything.” The words got lost in her gasps for air. He wrapped his arms around her.

  “Hush, Mouse.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head and held her until she stopped crying, but she still wouldn’t look up.

  There was a new resolve in her voice. “You think I’m like you, but I’m not.” She caught a breath between words to keep herself talking, to say the words she’d never spoken aloud.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can see your soul when I close my eyes.” She did it as she spoke. “You’re full of light.” She let the wonderment of what she saw fill her voice.

  “How do you know it’s a soul you see?”

  “I just know. But I—”

  “You what?”

  “I’m empty, dark.” She opened her eyes, unaware that she had turned her face to him.

  “Maybe you just can’t see your own.” He traced a pattern on the palm of her hand.

  Mouse tried to breathe, the weight of her confession and the nearness of him pressing against her chest. “It makes sense that I wouldn’t have a soul, Angelo. I’m not a child of God.”

  “Says who?” He whispered the words as he leaned down to her neck, his lips gently brushing the skin where her blood danced. “You’re part human aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you have a soul. And I’ve seen it.” He pulled back and looked at her.

  Mouse asked the question with her eyes.

  “In your willingness to die rather than be used by your father. That’s a soul’s struggle.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “And it’s in the pictures I took of you at Monster Park. I saw it in you. You lit up from inside.”

  He bent and kissed her cheek, tasted the salt from her tears. He bent lower and found her lips salty, too. Mouse’s body responded to him immediately, and she let her legs slide away from her chest so he could move closer to her and put his arms on either side of her, encasing her.

  He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her down so that she lay beside him on the bed. He slid the collar of her shirt down her shoulder, kissed the soft skin along its ridge, and then moved his hand underneath the back of her shirt, caressing the smooth skin in the small of her back. Her hand slid up into his hair at the back of his neck as her body turned toward him; his lips pressed harder, his mouth open and hungry for her.

  The thrill of being touched so tenderly after so long played along her skin, every dip and curve of her answering as his fingers moved. He hesitated, unsure in the newness of learning her body, unsure of how to please her. He fought to control his urgency until he felt her own. And then they lost themselves in each other.

  Later, Angelo hummed a little Italian lullaby for her. She fell asleep on his chest, and, for the first time in nearly seven hundred years, her sleep was dreamless.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  They rode in an open coach for the final train to Flåm. Anxiety ate at both of them. Angelo picked at his nails until Mouse took his hand in hers and rested it on her thigh. Their entwined fingers reminded her of what he said about being woven into her life. As beautiful as the idea was, Mouse kept thinking it also meant that if she got ripped apart, so did he. As she stared out the dark window, she saw no lights, not even in the deep dips of the valleys. There were no signs of life.

  “Come on, let’s talk about something,” Angelo said. “Tell me how you know about this place.”

  “1349.”

  “Why do I know that date?”

  “The Black Death.” She shuddered. “I travelled across Europe after I left Bohemia and ended up in Norway. Then it hit. I was a healer, so people came to me for help, but I couldn’t do anything except offer a little comfort and stay to bury them. Then I had to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “I never got sick. And people were already on edge about why God had sent the plague. It seemed clear to them what I was.”

  “A witch?”

  She nodded. “Sometimes. Or a demon. Always an abomination.” As she said it, she moved her hands like mock claws at him and smiled, but the fun didn’t last long. She laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Until I went to Onstad.”

  “What was different there?”

  “They thought I was an angel.”

  The digital clock in the rental car flashed 2:40 A.M. when Angelo turned the ignition and then pulled onto the small, curvy lane. Only fifteen minutes later, he parked the car behind an old shed at the bottom of the hill beneath the Onstad Stave Church. Mouse grabbed her backpack, and Angelo heaved the case from the car’s trunk.

  As they crested the hill, Angelo caught a glimpse of the church for the first time. Softly lit by the moon, the building looked as if it belonged to some forgotten age. The sharp peaks of the roof and the richness of the wood held a mystic primitivism that seemed out of place in a world of automobiles and cell phones.

  “It’s beautiful.” The artist in Angelo appreciated the lines and proportions of the architecture.

  “It’s old. This one, built in 1150, stands on ruins of others built long before, some connected as much to Norse mythology as to Christianity.” The historian in Mouse longed to share the stories of what had been and who had built it, but they didn’t have time for stories or for art.

  They approached a small door near the corner of the back wall. It was locked.

  “Any spells for this?” Angelo whispered.

  “The only spells I know are for protection and exorcism. Nothing for breaking and entering. You?” She smiled at him, trying to move past her fear and enjoy what might be their last moments together.

  “Well, I watched The Exorcist once.”

  “Don’t they teach you boys anything in seminary anymore?” She pulled a credit card from her wallet and began working at the lock. She chuckled as the door slipped open. When they stepped inside the dark building, Angelo knelt and made the sign of the cross. Mouse closed her eyes and used her heightened senses to search for any sign of a guard, but there was no one in the church.

  “This is the nave. We need to go right, toward the north end of the church,” she said, lifting her end of the case as Angelo led them with the flashlight. They paused at the choir section and put the case down in the aisle near one of the staves.

  “Give me a second.” Mouse headed toward the presbytery, mentally feeling for something. She hesitated when she neared the altar. The ghosts of the bloated and blackened dead—mothers and fathers and their children—crowded her and made it difficult to think.

  “What are you looking for?” Angelo asked.

  “Old, sacred places like this have concentrations of power where rituals have been performed for hundreds of years.”

  “This one doesn’t?”

  “It does, I just can’t find it. I felt it when I was here before, but I never really looked for the source. It was simply part of the place. Normally, in a church, it’s at the altar, but I can’t feel it here.” She walked slowly past the staves and carved capitals toward the wall of the ancient church until she found what she was looking for a few feet in front of the huge doors of the north portal.

  “Here.” She knelt in awe as she felt the power of the place pulsing below the wood floor. “Can you feel it?”

  Angelo laid his hand on the floor beside hers. “I feel something.”

  He swung the light up to the door panels. A marriage of the Norse Ragnarok and the Christian battle of Armageddon played out in the carvings—a first and last battle of evil and good. A large serpent coiled around the doors and curled upward. A four-legged creature that was supposed to be Christ’s lion or the Norse Nidhogg, or both, swallowed the end of the snake at the bottom of the panel. For centuries, people had used these doors as the backdrop for sacrifice, prayer, christening, funeral, wedding. The lingering power of those moments would now serve Mouse in yet another ritual.

  “This will be our center.” She stood at a point about four feet from the doo
r panels. She pulled the razor blade out of Angelo’s backpack and started rolling up her right sleeve.

  “Where’s the salt?” Angelo asked.

  “The salt works as a conduit, remember? But the spell is stronger if I build it with just blood.”

  “I have some to spare,” he said as he lifted his wrist toward her.

  “Thanks, but this one has to be all me. The nature of my blood makes the spell stronger.” She saw the question in his eyes. “Because I’m—”

  “Special,” Angelo said as he nodded grimly.

  Mouse swallowed against the knot in her throat as the words of Father Lucas came suddenly to her mind: Ah, my little Mouse, you are a very special girl, did you know? She was six and full of faith that God had made her special to do good in the world.

  “If you are with me, I will try,” she whispered now to herself. A tiny prayer for the only Father in heaven she thought would hear her.

  She made the sign of the cross and then opened the vein in the bend of her right elbow and let the blood run down her arm into her cupped palm. She formed a circle of blood on the floor, keeping the church’s point of power at the center. Once the circle was complete, she quartered it with another line of her blood. But Mouse knew they would need more than a single spell if she was right about the protections her father had likely embedded in the Devil’s Bible. She walked to the center of the circle and, despite Angelo’s hiss of disapproval, she opened the other vein at her left elbow. Using the center of the circle she’d just made, Mouse formed a pentagram with the flow of blood from both hands, mouthing the words of her second spell of protection. And, at the last, she took one step forward into the south spoke of the pentagram and made the sign of the fish and then repeated it on the other side.

  She clenched her fists. Blood oozed through the creases of her fingers as she stepped toward Angelo and sat down hard on the floor at his feet. He pressed rolled gauze in the crooks of her arms and shoved a cracker in her mouth, hoping it would return some color to her face, but, impatient to be done, Mouse stood up quickly.