However, just then another message arrived. He struggled to hold in an expletive.
Do not seek help. Only you can find her.
It was immediately followed by another.
Follow the black raven.
A few seconds later, the messages were gone.
Follow the black raven … What? Do not seek help? Find her? Judith? What did she have to do with it?
The phone vibrated again. It was a link this time. He clicked on it. A digital clock appeared on his screen. The time on it was counting down.
17:08:22 – 17:08:21 – 17:08:20 …
He stared at the screen, transfixed.
The starting time was displayed in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Two o’clock in the afternoon.
Almost seven hours had gone already.
THE FIRST VISION
And behold, I saw a young man standing on the bow, with his arms wide like a bird. He gazes up to the heavens but his eyes are closed. He is short, his nose is long, and despite his youth, his head is already bald. He has a friendly appearance. The play of shadows and light on his face changes his countenance from man to angel and back again.
And the prow cuts through the clear blue water, rising out of the sea on the crest of a wave and coming back down with a crash, splashing wild, white foam. But the young man does not lose his balance. He stands there as steady as a statue, like a man with a mission. He pays no attention to his surroundings. Neither to the green coast that they steadily sail past, away in the distance on the portside, nor to the dolphins who swim alongside the ship. They arc gracefully out of the water, pausing for a moment as though hanging between heaven and earth before diving back down.
And then suddenly he opens his eyes and it is as though he sees me, looks right through me. As though he wants to tell me: I know you, I know who you are. His intense, fiery gaze burns right through my soul, disregarding all barriers, all appearances, all ostentation. My mask falls away and there I stand – naked. You know who I am, he says wordlessly. I will show you the way. Follow me. Salvation is at hand.
And behold, evening comes and the young man takes a hunk of bread and a small, earthenware amphora from his knapsack. He goes over to the ship’s starboard side. He raises the bread up to the setting sun with both hands and murmurs a prayer. Then he does the same with the amphora. He breaks the bread and eats it thoughtfully. He takes a drink from the jug and the wine trickles out of the corner of his mouth and into his beard. Then he seeks out a quiet place on the deck to which he can retreat. He lays his head on his knapsack, and before long, he is fast asleep.
And behold, the ship docks at a port. The marble on the temples glitters in the sun, and he can already see the great theatre and the hippodrome from the quayside. The young man picks up his travelling bag. It does not appear to contain many possessions. Without looking around or greeting anyone, he walks down the gangplank and into the town to find a bed for the night.
And the next day, he rises before the light of dawn and goes on his way. He has joined a group of travellers and pays the leader to protect him. They will travel only by daylight and stay on the great road that leads to Jerusalem, sixty miles away. He speaks to no one on the way, and when the group rests, he does not join them, but sits alone to eat his bread and drink his water.
And after three days, they enter the eternal city. They see the temple in the distance, shimmering in the sun. Many of the travellers fall to their knees, some raise their hands to the heavens and weep. But not he. He walks on, leaving the group behind him.
And he walks through the narrow streets of the city. He does not know them, but he knows they will be his home from now on. He knows where he must go, he has memorised the way. People try to stop him. Traders hold up bolts of cloth to him, invite him to taste the fruit from their stalls, extol the qualities of their pottery. Women with heavily made-up faces tug at his sleeve and ask him to join them … The city air is thick with the odour of charred flesh from the ceaseless burning of offerings in the temple. Beggars cling to him, faces disfigured, hands missing, legs deformed, dragging themselves over the ground. But he does not allow any of it to distract him. His eyes are fixed on a point in the distance.
And behold, he arrives in the tanners’ district. Their bloody hides stink as they hang drying in the sun. Defiled by so much blood, this is the neighbourhood that is shunned by the Jews. But this is where the young man will stay, where he will practise his craft. His sewing tools, a gift from his father, are in his knapsack. He will live here for two years, far from home. He must spread his wings and go out into the world. That is his task.
He stops at a large, green door. The heavy iron knocker is shaped like a bull. He holds it in his hand and waits, as though he is unsure what to do, but then he knocks three times. The sound echoes in the hallway. He hears footsteps approaching. The door opens and an old man appears, tall, with a full grey beard and hair clipped short. The young man falls to his knees. The old man puts his right hand on his head as a blessing.
‘Pater,’ the young man says. Father.
‘My son, welcome,’ the old man answers. The young man stands up and they embrace each other like brothers.
And behold, just before he enters, the young man turns around unexpectedly and looks at me for the last time. He moves his lips, but no sound leaves them. I hear his words in my heart:
I am a Raven.
8
NYMPHUS
BRIDEGROOM
Friday 20 March, 8:00pm
‘Father.’
The young man knelt with one knee on the rough stone floor and bowed his head.
The old man put his hand on the young man’s hair and let it rest there.
‘Get up now,’ he said.
The young man stood up, but kept his head bowed, his eyes fixed on the floor.
‘May I ask you something?’
‘You may.’
The young man paused. ‘Are we doing the right thing?’
‘Look at me.’ The man looked at him earnestly, like a parent trying to discern whether their child is challenging him or sincerely wants an honest answer. He sighed. ‘Listen …’ he said, considering his words carefully. ‘I cannot expect any of you to have the insight that I have, but the hour has come, the time is now. We discussed it in our meeting this morning … I explained it to all of you.’
‘But …’
‘Enough!’ he shouted.
This show of temper was so startling that the young man’s face and neck burned with shame.
‘I’m sorry, Father. I don’t doubt you … You know I’ve always been faithful to you.’
‘There now, all is well,’ the man said unctuously, as though he was calming a frightened dog. ‘This day was always going to come, sooner or later,’ he explained serenely. ‘It’s up to us now. We decide what will be revealed and when. I have chosen someone. You know that. I’m certain that if he shows himself to be worthy …’
‘I am sorry, Father, for doubting you.’
‘Doubt is not such a terrible thing. Even Thomas doubted … But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. Have faith. You are forgiven.’
‘Thank you.’ The young man seemed to be reassured.
‘You know our history,’ the man said in a lecturing tone. ‘We’ve endured much worse than this in the past and we’re still here. We’ve survived because we live in truth. We serve something greater than ourselves, greater than we can comprehend. And our reward will also be great, an eternal reward … We are storing up treasures in heaven. Where they cannot be damaged by moths or rust, nor be stolen by thieves. And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Our Lord, who sees what is done in secret, will reward us. Remember that well.’
He ended his sermon with a smile and a fatherly pat on the young man’s arm.
The young man bowed his head again, as a sign of respect. ‘It’s not that I doubted you,
but—’
‘All is well, my son, all is well,’ the man reassured him again. ‘Have faith in me, as I have faith in him. We must be steadfast if we are to do his will and receive what he has promised. So, let us do this well, let us not give up, and soon, when the time comes we will reap the rewards.’
‘The hour has come.’
‘Indeed, the hour has come.’
The old man stood up. They left the small room and went into the sparsely furnished kitchen, where a door led directly to a garden.
The young man picked up a coat from a kitchen chair and put it on. ‘I’m going home. You know where I am if you need me,’ he said as he left.
The old man locked the door behind him, then poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly. Afterwards, he went upstairs to a spartan study. It contained only a rough wooden table, a chair, a single bed and a shelf filled with books.
He sat at the table and let his mind drift back to a time twenty years ago, when he was forty years old. Forty was a good, symbolic age. Forty was a number for tests and trials: the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert; the forty days that Moses spent on Mount Sinai before he received the tablets with the Ten Commandments; the forty days and nights that Jesus fasted before he was visited by the devil.
Not long after he had arrived in Leiden as a priest, he had become the head of a group of young, Catholic men who made it their purpose to fight against superstition and idolatry in all their forms. Their enemies were not the Christians who had left the warm bosom of the mother church – to a certain extent, that battle had already been fought – but the psychics, the mediums, the diviners, the tarot readers. They saw it as their duty to fight against these false prophets who led people away from the only path to salvation: Christ. Only he was the Way the Truth and the Life. They used their chicanery to steer their customers, those poor sheep, straight onto the road that eventually led to hell.
The man and his group infiltrated all the paranormal and spiritual fairs that took place in and around Leiden. They went to every big event where the likes of Rasti Rostelli, charlatans in their eyes, came to demonstrate their skills. They sometimes even went to lectures where practices like meditation and yoga were shown in a positive light. They adhered to the Christian laws much more closely than their peers, and they were committed followers of the traditions of their ancestors.
They stood outside venues and handed out leaflets, trying to convince people not to go in. Occasionally there would be a confrontation with the organisers, or with one of the mediums who was performing. Even within his own church, there were many who did not understand why they had taken on this battle and believed that people should be left in peace to make their own choices. He preached sermons that warned that their struggle was not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That they must therefore put on the armour of God so that they could resist and be prepared to stand firm.
They targeted the Theosophical Society too, the International Study Centre for Independent Search for Truth or ISIS – an acronym that spelled the name of an Egyptian fertility goddess – who held monthly lectures on subjects like reincarnation, homeopathy, and the cosmos. Soon, the ‘Knights of Christ’, as the group had been christened, were guaranteed to turn up at every lecture. Most people tolerated the young men’s presence but chose to ignore them. However, some attendees would engage them in discussion. The priest would clash violently with Ane, the ISIS chairman, who had once had the entire group removed by the police when these discussions became too heated. Two police vans had been needed to transport them to the police station on a charge of disorderly conduct. They had felt like modern-day martyrs in the back of the vans; they were suffering in Jesus’ name, after all. Eventually, the threat of a restraining order convinced them to set their fight against ISIS aside.
He welcomed the opportunity to take a break from their activities. He had been plagued by epileptic fits since his early youth and they could be especially intense whenever he allowed himself to become too agitated. His fellow knights had had to prevent him from swallowing his tongue on numerous occasions when he had fallen to the ground with his mouth foaming and his whole body shaking with violent convulsions. They had panicked at first but after a few episodes they knew what they had to do. His epilepsy had even become a way of measuring the importance of each event: if its theme stirred up so much anger and frustration in the priest that it brought on a fit, then it must be of great consequence.
But now he had found a new target.
9
Friday 20 March, 8:30pm
‘This is very strange,’ Janna said, her austere face looking sterner than ever. She also seemed to be even more stooped than usual, as though she was standing in a room with a low ceiling and was afraid to bump her head. ‘Very strange,’ she said again, more to herself than to Peter.
Twenty minutes had passed since the police had called Peter. The officer who had made the call had contacted the main police station several times, but when it had become clear that Peter hadn’t presented himself there, a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
After the emergency services operator had hung up on Janna the first time, she had called again and been able to convince them of the gravity of the situation. This wasn’t just another Arnold Van Tiegem vanishing act that would resolve itself in a day or two. Eventually Janna and Daniël had been persuaded not to take action themselves, but to wait for the imminent arrival of a police car.
When the police had arrived, Daniël and Janna had given them a brief report of everything that had happened since Peter and Arnold had gone into the tunnel. It would have been impossible to accuse the police of acting in haste; when Janna and Daniël had finished speaking, the officers had tucked away their notebooks and then stood shuffling their feet.
‘What now?’ Daniël had eventually asked.
‘Let’s …’ one of the officers had said uncertainly. ‘Let’s call for backup.’
Not long after he’d made the call, two more officers, an older man and a younger woman, had arrived in another police car. They had taken two lighting units from the back seat, small silver-coloured cases that were protected with an armour of metalwork. They had switched on the lamps and shone two powerful beams into the tunnel.
The two officers who had arrived first had decided to stay above ground. The two new arrivals had gone into the tunnel with Daniël and Janna.
Once they were underground, the improved lighting allowed them to really see how impressive the tunnel’s construction was.
Even the two police officers were impressed. The female officer whistled in amazement. ‘This is quite bizarre, isn’t it, right under the city?’ she asked. Her radio crackled slightly and then grew silent about ten metres into the tunnel.
‘Nothing can happen to us here, right?’ her colleague asked nobody in particular. It wasn’t clear if it was a casual observation or an attempt to quell his own fear.
When they reached the point where the tunnel split, they turned right then quickly hit the dead end and went back the other way.
The officers held the lamps in front of them and swept them from left to right over the ground and above their heads. The tunnel appeared to be solidly built, like a well-maintained wine cellar in a big castle.
‘By the way,’ the older officer said, standing still, ‘the young man who was found in the tunnel this afternoon … he’s escaped.’
‘What?’ Janna exclaimed.
Daniël clenched his fist, like a sports fan watching his team miss a huge opportunity.
‘Yes, escaped,’ the officer said again, as though it was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘He just got up and walked away. The stupid thing is he was so covered in blood that we didn’t get a chance to take any photos of him. His interview was planned for tomorrow, assuming he’d come round by then. But, there you go. Things don�
��t always go the way you plan them.’
‘The mystery deepens …’ Janna whispered to Daniël.
‘Whereabouts do you reckon we are now?’ the female officer asked. She took out her mobile phone, then immediately put it away again. ‘I thought as much. No coverage down here. I thought we might be able to look at a map …’
‘I think,’ her colleague said, ‘I think that we’re somewhere past the Hooglandse Kerk, under the Hooglandsekerkgracht, but …’ He stood still. ‘That’s odd.’
Daniël and Janna stood next to the officers so that they could see what he was looking at.
He took a few steps forward and swung the lamp back and forth. Now they could all see that the tunnel didn’t go any further.
‘But how is that possible?’ Janna said, raising her hands in disbelief like a bad amateur actress.
The younger police officer crouched down to examine the wall more closely. Then she pointed the lamp at the wall as she slowly stood up.
‘I don’t know what you’re searching for, Indiana Jones,’ her colleague said, ‘but I think moving walls and secret passages are more of a Hollywood thing.’
‘This whole tunnel is a Hollywood thing,’ his colleague replied curtly, not taking her eyes off the wall. She studied the point where the wall and the ceiling met, then crouched down to look at the other corner.
‘Nothing unusual here,’ she said, finally.
The older officer turned to Janna and Daniël. ‘Ladies and gentleman, whichever way you look at it, what we have here is a mystery.’
They nodded in agreement.
‘We need more equipment.’
‘A GeoSeeker,’ Daniël said.
The man grunted in a way that was entirely open to interpretation.
‘We’re definitely under the Lutheran church,’ said Daniël.
‘Could I have that lamp for a second?’ Janna asked the female officer, who passed it straight over to her.
Janna moved the lamp back and forth over the ground with a broad, systematic sweeping motion, as though she was clipping a lawn with a strimmer.
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