by D B Nielsen
My heart began to beat wildly.
The distance from where I stood at the end of the staircase to the doors of the drawing room was not so great but, in my mind, it seemed to stretch for miles. I could have turned away then and there, not bothering to continue. I had every reason to avoid that room. Yet, in a moment, I had clambered over fallen beams to make my way to its massive doorframe where the brass handles had melted away under the intense heat of the blaze. Placing my hand on the burnt oak, I gave a strong shove. My hand came away blackened by smut, and I fancied I could still feel the heat of the fire retained within the woodgrain.
There was nothing left. No ghosts here, except the ones in my mind.
The room was a blackened husk. Glassless window frames, timber beams, exposed floor joists met my eye. Only the great stone fireplace remained. The portal had vanished along with the floorboards, the planks devoured by the firestorm.
I felt slightly foolish. There was nothing for me here.
About to turn around and leave Satis House for good this time, I felt a sensation, the liquid movement of shadow.
I paused, swallowing, and noted my raised heartbeat. I looked again.
But it was nothing.
Sighing in relief, I tilted my head to the side.
There it was again! A ripple of silvery light against the blackened walls. Had something shifted in the arrangement of rubble?
Staring hard, I scanned the dilapidated room from corner to corner.
That’s when I saw it. Glowing, phosphorescent letters written on the wall.
“Beware belladonna. Mark the angel’s gift of grace.”
I felt ill and elated all at once. He had left behind a message for me to find, knowing that I would return.
Sage would tell me later that one of the properties of phosphorous was that it glowed in the dark, like invisible ink reacting to a counteragent, and so would reveal what Finn had written on the wall. But right at the moment, feeling light-headed and sick and relieved all at once, all I could think of was that it wasn’t over. Not between him and me.
I picked my way back across the entrance hall. My mind was buzzing. Mark the angel’s gift of grace ... the gift of grace ... the angel ... grace.
The staircase was the only way I would be able to get to the enormous stained glass window. I wondered if it would still take my weight – probably not – but I was foolishly tempted to try. A broad sweep upwards, the handrail and balustrades no longer pulsed with the faint, disturbing miasma of unwholesome energy.
As I tested the tread of each stair beneath my feet before shifting my weight, moving warily up the stairwell, I reached out to steady myself, resting my hand lightly on the carved banister. Beneath my palm, the wood of the banister prickled with a strange heat.
Knowledge tingled up my spine.
The markings carved into the handrail flared silver-violet under my fingertips. Purged by the conflagration, they were mystically renewed and released. Responding to my touch, the patterns unveiled their hidden truth. Like flame put to a narrow trough filled with oil, the light raced in a straight line up the handrail. Quickened, its silvery-violet burst of energy brightened, until the banister was a lighted ridge which flared and sparkled, alive with a brilliance too vibrant to behold.
My vision, now refined, sensed the moment when the silvery spark leapt from the banister like a lightning bolt towards the stained glass window, just as the sunlight responded in a burst of colour, vibrant and alive. The sun’s life-giving presence emanated a blessing of balanced energies, precisely attuned to the universe. That such energy could exist in divine creation and not annihilate every living thing, scorching out humanity, destroying the world, posed a challenge beyond my mortal understanding. Instead, the exchange between flesh and light was a meeting of twin souls, twin selves, forming a hybrid spirit that was now conjoined in partnership. Sweet music, like a trumpet being blown in exaltation, sounded in my mind, clear and joyful. In a shimmering moment of alignment, the energies held within the universe flowed, imprinting themselves within my consciousness.
I received the gift of grace from the angel.
Symbols appeared upon the unfurled scroll depicted on the stained glass window; a stream of silver-violet markings that were being transcribed with faithful clarity from the original palimpsest which I no longer had in my possession. Words were written in flowing, flaring light, in a language outside ordinary understanding.
The language was a mathematical system, the dimensions hallowed, revealing a mysterious astrology that was sacred and only handed down to initiates. This system was for the sole use of the Wise Ones, the guardians of tradition. It was closed to others; only passed on to the elect through the ancient ways. The transcript contained an intimidating complexity of silvery symbols that provided an initiation to the mysteries which had been given to the first Adam, as ordained by the Creator. I did not doubt, did not question. I became the conduit through which the Scroll was gifted to the world.
My heart continued its frenzied beating.
As the last symbol was transcribed upon the unfurled scroll depicted on the stained glass window, there was a sound like a thousand fragile crystals shattering. The stained glass fissured, a spider web of cracks radiating out from a pinpoint of raw energy where the angel’s hand held the scroll, as if a bullet had passed through it. Coloured glass shards exploded in slow motion. A deluge of slivered glass cascaded down upon the ground in a kaleidoscope of colour, a reflective rainbow waterfall, surging across the charred floor.
Throwing up my hands in front of my face to protect myself in automatic reaction, my heart plummeted and I let loose a loud wail.
The Scroll! Lost again!
When the tinkling sounds had finally stopped, I looked up to see the damage. Like a bucketful of Lego bricks that had been poured out by a wilful child, there was a welter of broken stained glass littering the floor.
My heart was breaking too. My lungs felt tight in my chest, as if they were again burning from lack of oxygen, as they were on the night of the fire.
I tried to control my pain, inhaling deeply.
Staring up at the empty window frame, I could now see the sunlight pouring through unhindered. Where it touched the coloured shards below, they sparkled and twinkled, throwing off a myriad of colours from across the spectrum that danced in liquid light upon the blackened walls and floors, reminding me of the reflections cast within an indoor pool house.
Tears ran unheeded down my face. I felt as gutted as Satis House.
A dark blur swooped past my vision from the upper level, managing a sheer drop from the upper landing as it dove through the cavity in the roof where the open sky was visible. With a screech and rustle of wings, Kemwer landed in front of me, perching himself on the newel post.
We faced each other, girl and bird, his unblinking black stare unnerving to look at for long. As if to say he tolerated or was bored of my presence, he turned his head away in disdain, facing the empty window frame.
But if it were not for the Peregrine Falcon, I would not have seen it, half-buried as it was. Beyond Kemwer’s charcoal-grey feathers, a flap of paper gently rustled in the breeze.
Easing past the Peregrine Falcon, I bent from the waist, leaning slightly sideways and away from the bird, as I reached for the flap of paper buried under the glass. Gingerly pulling it out from under the debris, my head, which had at first felt heavy, now was growing light. I felt a rush of vertigo as I became fixed on this object. Mesmerised, I tugged gently and the debris gave way, the mysterious script slowly becoming visible.
The document tingled beneath my touch, as if it had a conscious awareness and was claiming me as its rightful recipient. The flesh and the Word were one. The palimpsest had been pared back to reveal its original layer; its sacred language of mathematical astrology and cosmology. Though it no longer was encased within a glass vessel, the angel’s unfurled scroll had been transcribed onto paper. I inspected it as though it were a jewel – as, i
ndeed, it was.
The words caught on paper were now crowding my mind; a din in the ear that drowned out the beating of my wild heart. All the other sounds of spring beyond the broken window were becoming dulled, as my eyes absorbed the sacred language. My head felt heavy and tight, my ears pounding with the rush of blood to my brain. I might have believed that I was dreaming, but I knew for certain that I was not.
Finn was right. There were many ways of seeing. And believing.
I might have stood in the burnt out husk of Satis House forever, if it were not for Kemwer startling me as he launched himself through the broken window and out into the clear, spring air.
Shaking out the Scroll for any loose slivers of glass, I began to roll it into a cylinder until I realised there was something else printed on its reverse side. Gently, turning it over, I sucked in a deep breath in shock.
Bewildered, I recollected catching a brief glimpse of this drawing before, as Finn had ushered me from Satis House. It was on that cold, wet winter’s day when I had my accident. Whilst I had been warming myself in the drawing room, Finn had sat across from me sketching. The image had been only half-complete.
Now my likeness was revealed in full, eyes staring back at me with a knowing, secretive look. It was my face. And it had been sketched with passion and precision onto the other side of the Scroll.
Something possessed me in that moment. And I gave a climactic shout of exultation. My jubilant shout was no competition for the Grigori’s shout of anger and pain. It did not seem to shake the universe. But I sensed it. Of course, there was no one to hear me, but I felt it all the same – a release of the tension, anger, and grief that had been building within me over the last few weeks.
Making my way out into the glare of northern hemisphere sunlight, I stood surveying my domain, hand wrapped tightly around the Scroll, as if this time I never meant to let it out of my sight. The land sloped gently down and away from the derelict, burnt-out estate, broken only by the building in the foreground.
The old barn had survived the inferno, perhaps because it was set back from the house, and now its doors were open wide to the afternoon sun. I didn’t remember them being left that way on the night of the fire. The Rephaim had left in haste, the portal had vanished behind Finn, and I wondered if the vintage Bentley was also gone. Curious, I felt compelled to investigate.
I approached the barn cautiously, as instinct now told me to be wary. I was no longer the same girl of several weeks before who would have rushed headlong into danger. I had learnt my lesson. And so, now, I was careful to heed that inner voice that warned me to watch out.
Inside the barn it was dark. Like phantoms, the dust motes floated in the sunlight as its rays rippled across the floor of the barn. The Bentley was gone. The space, where it had stood, now empty. Continuing further into the barn, I experienced a strange frisson of déjà vu. The atmosphere was charged, and the air dank with the inherent smell of soot and ash. But my laughter filled all the space in the barn as it rang out loud and clear.
Twenty minutes later, I was winging my way down the dirt road, the sun’s rays dazzling in front of me, the Scroll safely tucked away inside my jacket. The sky was resplendently blue, the air sweet-smelling and fresh with the scents of spring. I felt a powerful energy surge through me that I couldn’t put a name to, like a light had been ignited, but it invigorated me and I felt gloriously alive.
Pausing at the crossway, the road expanded before me in all directions. The choice was mine. My life was my own.
Above me, I heard the wild cry of a raptor and saw that Kemwer was shadowing me, riding the currents of the wind. Opening the throttle, the Ducati’s Testastretta 11° engine let out a loud roar to match the falcon, like an animal that would never be fully tamed. And I realised that I had no business riding the Ducati if I was going to be fainthearted. I had somehow inherited two wild beauties, but innately knew that, with the proper respect and treatment, they would learn to respond to me, to respect me, just like I was finding a new respect for providence. I had been told that ‘“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. Now I knew it to be true.
I settled my weight as I sat astride the motorcycle and considered the route ahead. There were many possibilities.
Gunning the Ducati, I let it have its head as I turned down the winding country lanes, the wind at my back, urging me on. Feeling a newfound sense of liberation, I embraced the ministrations of the season of spring, its rebirth and renewal, as it spread its tender influence upon the world, and pointed the Ducati towards the direction of the Manor House...
...and the known and unknowable future.
WANT MORE?
SWORD: Part One of the Keepers of Genesis Series continues the story...
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About the Author
DB Nielsen was born in British Hong Kong and immigrated to Australia in childhood. DB likes to travel the world with family; dividing time between residing in Sydney and visits to the cathedrals, crypts and museums the world over, doing research for new projects. The author is a university lecturer in Linguistics and Semiotics, and continues to teach English Literature and Language whilst writing. DB’s passion is for throwing elaborate dinners and themed parties (such as medieval banquets), and reading anything and everything. DB’s dream project is to do a series of book tours in the Champagne region of France.
DB Nielsen loves to hear from readers. You can contact the author through www.dbnielsen.com, facebook page db_nielsen.author or Twitter @db_nielsen
Also by the Author
Keepers of Genesis Series
SEED: Part One
SEED: Part Two
SCROLL: Part One
SCROLL: Part Two
SWORD: Part One
SWORD: Part Two
STONE: Part One
STONE: Part Two
Hallowed Eve
Christmas Seasonings
Praise for Keepers of Genesis Series
‘Reading this book is a sensory experience. You feel you are experiencing the action along with the characters. I wanted to keep turning the pages and yet, I did not want this masterpiece to end. What an amazing tale! Wonderful. Cannot wait for the next.’
Renita D’Silva author of The Forgotten Daughter
and A Mother’s Secret
Nielsen's beautiful, lyrical writing and descriptions were just as wonderful in this book as in the first, and the pace of the plot, was, if possible, even faster than Seed. This is a real rollercoaster ride of a novel that you just CAN. NOT. PUT. DOWN.
H. Chim
‘AT LAST! TWO STRONG FEMAIL PROTAGONISTS! Saffron in particular is just so refreshing to read, as within these books, time and time again, we see that Saffron and Sage show us all that there can be exciting and action packed books with the main focus being on strong women’
R. Palmer-Willmot
Acknowledgements
As always, to the many archaeologists, historians and curators whose preservation of artefacts, artworks and monuments has made my digging into the past much easier, I owe a special thank you. Any mistakes within these pages remain, unfortunately, my own.
I would like to give special thanks and credit to the deceased R. Campbell Thompson whose translations and transliterations of cuneiform texts from Babylonian tablets have permitted the ancient ‘voices’ heard by Saffron to be an accurate record of the incantations of Assyrian demonology.
I would also like to pay respect and give thanks to the Aboriginal tribes of Australia whose Dreaming brought Saffro
n wisdom and spiritual enlightenment.
Big thanks to all my friends and fans for becoming my ‘beta group’ – with particular thanks to Cindy, Qim, Chris, Timothy and Hannah – once again, emotionally and editorially your support has been invaluable. And to the lovely and talented female writers, Renita D’Silva and Adina West, a heartfelt thank you for all the nice things you’ve done in support of the KEEPERS OF GENESIS series.
To the #IndieBooksBeSeen movement, a special acknowledgement (especially to @MarkTheShaw and the various booktubers and my wonderfully talented fellow writers) for the amazing support given to Indie authors and books.
My gratitude and appreciation to Lorella Belli for the insightful advice and collaborative effort to get this series published, many kindnesses, legal and administrative wrangling, and for loving my novels almost as much as I do. I can’t thank you enough – but I’ll keep trying.
Thank you to all the book bloggers, booktubers, Facebook friends and Twitter followers for being there for me, encouraging me, and helping me to envision this world and these characters. I hope the quest has become as real for you as for me, and that you’re enjoying living it with Sage and Saffron.
Lastly, but most of all, thanks and love to my family for all their support, continual encouragement and commitment to the dream – in particular to Alain for his act of faith and tireless enthusiasm and endless promotion (for all the above and everything else besides).
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