“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.
45
LaLaurie stumbled slightly and fell back. Callahan and Grant quickly stepped forward, grabbing his arms, holding him upright.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He looked at her. “You didn’t see it?”
She hadn’t seen much of anything. “A bright light, that’s about it. I covered my eyes for a couple seconds, then it went away. Next thing I know you’re about to collapse.”
He turned to Grant, but Grant just shook his head.
Callahan gestured to the pages. “They’re still blank. What happened?”
“Blank?” LaLaurie said. “You don’t see the drawings? The incantation?”
“All I see is a stack of really old paper.”
LaLaurie pulled away from them now and turned again to Grant. “I need to speak to Michael. I can’t do what he wants me to. Do you have a way to contact…”
He stopped suddenly, glancing around the crypt, then turned to the casket and quickly gathered up the manuscript and the pages. “We have to get out of here.”
“Why?” Callahan said. “What’s going-”
A rat skittered across the casket. Callahan jumped back, and something squished underfoot, squealing in pain. She whipped the flashlight beam downward, shining it on the floor.
More rats, maybe four or five. And as she swept the light around the crypt, she saw that the walls were moving-still more rats crawling out of the darkness, their tiny feral eyes squinting back at her.
Callahan had never had a problem with rodents. One or two on their own was fine. But this many of the hideous little creatures was just too much to take.
They started swarming toward her. One tried to sneak up her pant leg and she yelped and kicked out, flinging it aside. LaLaurie and Grant were kicking, too, shaking them off their feet.
Callahan watched in horror as more rats skittered toward them. Then the walls of the crypt began to shake, and one of the wooden coffins cracked open. A bony arm fell out, and Callahan may have been imagining this, but the fucking thing looked alive.
Then more rats began to crawl up her legs, two, then three, now four…
Grant grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the stairs, pointing the way with his flashlight, LaLaurie trailing behind them.
The steps were teeming with rodents now. Moving together, the three started kicking and stepping, working their way upward, the rats squealing and peeping and hissing, clinging to their pants as they moved. Several more were crawling up the walls beside them.
Suddenly one leapt onto Callahan’s head, trying to burrow into her hair. She smacked it with her flashlight, but it didn’t shake loose. She hit it again, then again, the thing squalling louder with each blow, until it finally gave up and fell to the stairs.
Reaching the top, Grant and Callahan dove through the doorway into the main vault, LaLaurie stumbling in after them, slapping a rat from his book bag. They were about to start back toward the ossuary when a sea of the little bastards skittered toward them like a hideous black wave.
Grant spun, shining his flashlight toward the back of the vault. There was a door back there.
“Come on,” he shouted. “Come on!”
They all moved together, kicking their way toward the door, then Grant flung it open to reveal another set of steps that led toward yet another door above. Grant gestured Callahan ahead of him, and they took them two at a time.
She was almost to the top when, behind her, LaLaurie yelped and fell. Within seconds, the rats were swarming up and over him.
As he flailed, trying to fling them off, Grant turned and got him by the collar, yanking him toward the top of the stairs. As they drew closer, Callahan grabbed a sleeve and pulled, swinging her flashlight mercilessly, feeling tiny bones crunch beneath its weight.
When they got LaLaurie to the top, she threw the door open, feeling the sweet night air rush in, then they pulled him out onto the church lawn.
Swatting the last of the rats away, Grant slammed the door shut, then helped Callahan pull LaLaurie to the center of the yard.