Apocalypsis 1.08 Seth (3 page)

LX

May 15, 2011, Ile de Cuivre, Mediterranean Sea

L
ittle rabbit in the hole, sat and slept, sat and slept… Little rabbit, are you ill, why can’t you jump up the hill?

»You’re running out of time, Micama.
He
is on his way.
Wearily Electors
. He is already here. Kill me and I will show you the way off this island.«

»I cannot do that.«

»You have to, Peter. If you ever want to leave this island alive. Oanio yore vohima. And it is not just you who will die. Many people will die. The world will end unless you save it.«

»I cannot do it.«

»Oh yes, you can. Deep inside, you actually want to do it, Micama. You have always been dreaming about it. Uirequo ope copehanu. Just look at me! It is so easy to kill me.«

Kelly came closer and closer. Peter backed away from him and took a good look at the emaciated maniac who was smeared with his own feces. For the last year he had been wishing nothing more than to see him dead but now, all he could feel for him was disgust. Kelly was already dead.

»Tell me where this escape route is and I will get us both out of here.«

»Niiso, Peter Adam! Od vabezodire cameliaxa, fair little flower. The reaper whets his knife so that it will cut much better. That’s how it works. You have to kill me.«

Kelly was gasping and making smacking noises with his mouth. Peter thought for a while. He cast his mind back to that day in Kunduz and saw the dead body of the man he had shot. On that day, many years ago, he had vowed never to kill again. The itch returned. The itch that had tormented him since he had awoken on this island. It was worse than ever before and he understood that the itching was a sign.

That Kelly was right.

»Okay,« Peter finally said. »I will kill you. So, where is this escape route?«

»Swear it to me, Micama!«

»That is not necessary. I will kill you, Kelly.«

»Swear it to me!«

»Okay then, I swear.«

Kelly seemed relieved. Almost euphoric. He was so happy that he jumped to his feet and started hopping grotesquely through the cell. Peter grabbed him and held him tightly.

»And now you will tell me how I can get out of here.«

Kelly made a loud smacking sound, as if he were testing his memory in his mouth. Then he moved very close to Peter and whispered into Peter’s ear.

»There is an ancient sewage tunnel. It is located tolahame caosago homida. Under the hall with the Sigillum Dei. Very old shaft. Nobody knows about it. Just me and the Ooaona.« He giggled. »I am an Ooaona. I crawl around the
Tabula Santa
. I sniff the salt in the air. I find the shaft. Very old Darisapa, very narrow, very deep.«

»Where does it lead?«

»Into the depths, Peter! Berinu orocahe. Into the great darkness. Into the ocean. Into the big, big ocean, Peter!«

Peter got nauseous. Narrowness, darkness, water. The demons of his nightmares. The three things he feared more than anything else in this world. He could feel the panic rise in his chest.

»Are you absolutely sure, Kelly, that this is the only way out? Is there no alternative?«

»No, Peter, this is the way. The path you have to take. This is the cup from which you have to drink. Hoathahe Saitan!«

Kelly giggled again, hoarsely. »So kill me now. You swore it to me.«

»No, Kelly, before I kill you I want to see this shaft. When I am sure that you did not lie to me, I will kill you.«

Kelly uttered a furious and whimpering cry and began to squirm and writhe on the floor. »You are a crook and a cheat,« he hissed. »Nonuci dasontif Babaje! You shall be damned.«

Peter grabbed Kelly again and hit him in the face. Kelly howled like a beaten dog.

»Why are you doing this, Micama?«

»Stop playing insane, Kelly. I will kill you but before I do, there are a few things you need to tell me.«

»But I am insane, Peter. Completely dooainu!«

Kelly wanted to wiggle his way out of Peter’s grip but Peter held him in an iron grasp.

»Who are these ›light-bearers‹? What do they want? Answer my questions, Kelly, or I will forget what I swore to you.«

Kelly kept twisting and turning and spat into Peter’s face. »You will not do that! Casaremanu hoel-qo!«

»Oh yes I will, Kelly. I will just leave you here and they will continue to do with you what they have been doing with you the whole time. It will never end. You will not be allowed to die.«

Kelly let out a scream. But then he calmed down again and knelt on the floor in front of Peter, looking into his eyes. In spite of the darkness in the cell, Peter saw Kelly’s eyes brighten.

»Hoathahe Saitan! Perhaps I underestimated you, Peter.« Suddenly his voice sounded completely normal. »You want to know who the Bearers of the Light are? But you know it already, Peter. You’ve known it for a long time. You just forgot. Like so many other things. You also forgot that you are a murderer. You murdered Ellen and many other people.«

Peter punched him again. Harder than before. Once. Twice. He punched Kelly in the face and yelled at him.

»That is not true! That is not true, you lousy jerk.«

»Yes, kill me, Micama, kill me now!« Kelly fell back into babbling insanities. »Hoathahe Saitan!«

Peter let go of Kelly. Grim images rose before him, images of Ellen’s dead body and of a man and a woman standing in a long corridor, calling something out to him. They told him to hurry up.

»You are ilasa, Peter. Cursed. Hoathahe Saitan! You will die if you don’t flee.«

»Shut your trap!« Peter moaned, as he pressed his hands against his temples.

Sat and slept, sat and slept…

And then, another thought hit him, as clearly as a light in the night.

You are losing your mind, provided you haven’t lost it already. Accept it. You. Are. Losing. Your. Mind. Now.

»No!« Peter screamed to shake off the nightmarish images. He gasped for air as he looked over to Kelly, who was gazing at him with a compassionate look on his face while kneading the scar of his mutilated ear.

»How does it feel, Peter?« Kelly asked in an interested tone, seemingly lucid again. »When you get your migraine attacks and see these things that look so familiar to you, as if you had seen them before? When you hear a foreign language and can suddenly understand it? Do you really believe that these are just regular déjà vu experiences?« Kelly laughed. »They are memories, Peter. Don’t shut them down.«

»What do you know about me?« Peter gasped.

»I know so much, Peter. Don’t forget that I can talk to angels. Hoathahe Saitan! Ask your parents, Peter.«

»My parents are dead!«

»Oh, that’s right, of course. Forgive me for being so impious.«

»Who are these Bearers of the Light?«

»A powerful brotherhood. Zodi od Zodameranu. They are searching for the Big Secret. They are already very close.«

»Which secret? The Treasure of the Templars?«

»Oh, the Treasure of the Templars! Yes, exactly, that is what I am talking about. But what is the treasure? The treasure, the treasure, the treasure. Everybody is searching for it, but nobody knows what it is. Nobody has it. Hoathahe Saitan! The number shows the way. 306, the number of the Apocalypse. After the inquiry into the Order of the Temple, the Templars scattered to the four winds and took with them the Big Secret. But it took them only a few years to regroup. They did it clandestinely and split into two groups. The Avignon group continued to pursue in secret the original goals of the Knights Templar. The other group, however, that called itself the Light-Bearers and convened on a cursed island in the Venetian Lagoon, where plague victims had been taken during the epidemic, this group was seeking revenge. They wanted to take revenge for the destruction of their order. Revenge on the world and on the Church that had betrayed them. They also call themselves the Sons of Seth, who was the son of Adam. Or the Egyptian deity of destruction; whatever you prefer. In any case, whoever was their leader over the past centuries bore this name: Seth. And 306 is his number. 306, you know what this number means in the Kabbalah, don’t you?«

Kelly wrote a Hebrew word into the dirt of the floor.

»This means Heress!« he hissed. »Destruction. Hoathahe Saitan! Because the Bearers of the Light believe in the Gospel of the Egyptians and in the Apocalypse of Adam. But the 306 also has another meaning.«

Kelly scratched another Hebrew word into the dirt.

»This means Dwasch – honey. Do you see it now, Micama? Do you recognize the truth? It is both: bitterness and sweetness. Hell and paradise. Pain and lust. The beginning and the end.«

»Kelly, that sounds totally insane. This so-called Apocalypse of Adam is an esoteric fairy tale.«

»Believe what you want, Peter, or don’t believe. In any case, the Templars were now two separate groups. Both orders became very powerful. And over the centuries, they engaged in an acrimonious war over the Big Secret. Because this secret was lost during the destruction of the Knights Templar. Only one thing is known…«

Kelly drew a symbol into the dirt on the floor. A symbol which consisted of multiple crossing lines, small circles, and small diamonds that had become all too familiar to Peter:

»The cursed symbol,« Kelly said, spitting on the floor. »The symbol is the key. Don’t forget that, Peter: the symbol is the key. Three zero six equals nine. There are nine keys in this world. Nine keys scattered to the four winds together with the Templars. But the key with this symbol holds them all together. This is the key that the Light-Bearers are searching for. And the angels in Hell have shown me where they can find it. That you have it, Peter. You and your little girlfriend.«

»So that is what you do downstairs in the hall; you talk to angels?«

»Oh yes, I do. Even though the term ›angels‹ might be misleading. The creatures with whom I am making contact are… how can I put this… more on the unfriendly side. Despite the fact that the Sigillum Dei is protecting me, the encounters are always extremely torturous. Endlessly agonizing. Oh, this horrible, horrible language! Ohyo! ohyo! noibe Ohyo! I wish I had never discovered it. Let me die, Peter! Give me the gift of death.«

The language!

»Which language is it, Kelly?«

»Don’t play the fool, Peter. I have long seen that you remember the language. Hoathahe Saitan! Do you remember? Enochian? The language of angels and demons.«

He is right, and you know it! Sat and slept…

Peter tried to collect his thoughts. With bare feet, he stepped into the splinters of his memories and all he could feel was pain. The pain of being torn from something he loved. The pain of no longer being complete. He could not deny that this Enochian language seemed kind of familiar to him. Strangely enough, he could even understand parts of it.

But why? When did you learn this language?

»Tell me the truth, Kelly! Who killed Ellen?«

Kelly wiped the blood from the corners of his mouth. »The truth?« he said. »How can you expect to see the truth if you are not even willing to remember? The Bearers of the Light are frantically searching for the nine seals to create a new world order. That is the truth.«