The Paradise Prophecy (36 page)

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Authors: Robert Browne

BOOK: The Paradise Prophecy
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Sleep, my angel. Sleep. I’m here with you. I always will be. So let yourself go and sleep.
Yes, she thought. Sleep.
Maybe she could manage it after all.
The moment she thought this, all of her cares began to melt away, like magic. Sleep was now a real possibility, an all-
consuming
possibility, and the temptation was too great to resist. Her anxiety would no longer be an issue. The tremors would stop. The world along with them. Everything would be better if she just let it take her.
Sleep, my darling.
And before Callahan knew it, sweet, blissful darkness wrapped itself around her . . . and swept her away.
 
 
T
hree minutes before the nosedive, Batty pulled the Milton manuscript from his book bag, finally ready to look at it.
It was a work of beauty. The worn leather cover. The time-aged pages. The fading ink. The flawless blank verse. Over ten thousand words. Words that had meant so much to him for so many years. Words that Milton claimed had come from God himself.
So was it possible that there was something in this draft that would open the door for them?
Batty supposed he should feel guilty for stealing it from a dead man, but he didn’t. If it wasn’t a fake—and he instinctively believed it wasn’t—then it deserved to be in a museum somewhere, to be shared with the world, not locked up in a private library.
The most commonly seen version of
Paradise Lost
, the one taught in schools and found in the bookstores, was twelve chapters long. The twelve-chapter version had first been published the year Milton died, but that wasn’t his original intent. The first incarnation of the poem, published several years earlier, had contained only
ten
chapters. But at the request of his publisher, Milton had divided chapters seven and ten and added short summaries to all twelve for the more poetry-challenged readers in the crowd.
The version Batty now held in his hands, dictated to Milton’s daughter, held the original ten chapters, and several of its pages showed additions and corrections, and marks in the margins.
Maybe this was where the secret lay.
But in leafing through it, his mind nearly frozen with awe, Batty frowned as he came to the end of the last chapter—Book X. Something looked off here. A subtle but unmistakable anomaly in the binding. And on closer inspection, he saw what may well have been
torn
edges, as if several pages had been removed.
Could he be mistaken?
He didn’t think so.
So was this
Ozan’s
doing?
When he read through it, however, there seemed to be nothing amiss. The verses flowed just as they should, from Michael’s revelation of the future to Adam and Eve’s departure from Paradise.
Then the missing pages. If he wasn’t imagining things.
So what had been removed?
He was pondering the significance of this when the jet suddenly bucked, a violent jolt of turbulence that dropped them several feet, leaving Batty’s stomach behind in the process. He quickly set the manuscript onto the table beside him and tightened his seat belt.
Outside his window, a storm was brewing, threatening to make the previous bit of turbulence seem like child’s play.
He glanced over at Callahan, but she was asleep. Lucky her. Then the plane buckled again and Batty grabbed his armrests, wishing to hell he had a parachute strapped to his back, because this wasn’t looking good.
Suddenly aware of the smell of sulfur, he glanced again at Callahan, surprised to find her fully awake now and looking right back at him. Her gaze was unsettling in its directness.
“What’s the matter, Sebastian? You afraid of a little turbulence?”
Her eyes didn’t flinch, and that gaze was mesmerizing.
“You shouldn’t be afraid, darling. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’d
never
let anything happen to you. You mean too much to me.”
Darling?
What the hell was going on with her? Batty tried to look away, but he couldn’t. His eyeballs seemed frozen. His head wouldn’t move.
Callahan unbuckled her seat belt now. “It hurt me to see you so angry, Sebastian. To see that hate in your eyes. You don’t really hate me, do you? I only did what had to be done.”
And all at once Batty realized that this wasn’t Callahan at all.
This was the redhead.
She got to her feet and crossed the aisle toward him. “After all, it wasn’t my fault, was it?
Rebecca
was the one who invited me into your home.
Rebecca
was the one who called. All I did was answer. So if you have to blame someone, don’t blame me. Blame her.”
Smiling now, she stood over him and began unbuttoning her shirt. “Besides, she could never give you a night like I did. She would never surrender herself, let you use her body the way I let you use mine.”
The jet bucked wildly, but she barely seemed to notice, sidestepping only slightly as she dropped her shirt to the floor. “It’s yours for the taking, my darling. Touch me anywhere you want.”
Batty’s mind was racing. He again tried to look away but he couldn’t. Her gaze was too hard to resist. And now she was moving forward, straddling him, reaching her hands back to unhook her bra.
“Tell me you want me, Sebastian. I’m yours for the taking.”
The engines began to scream, and the jet tilted into a dive, but suddenly Batty didn’t care. He just wanted to lose himself in Callahan’s gaze, to feel her flesh in his hands . . .
“Show me how much you want me, my darling. Feel me.
Taste
me. Put your lips on me. Let me feel your tongue.”
A rush of pleasure washed through Batty’s body and he still couldn’t look away. And then, to his utter surprise, he saw Rebecca’s face, smiling down at him, speaking in that subtle Louisiana drawl, “Show me how much you want me, Batty.”
Then she leaned toward him, her tongue creasing his lips as she brushed her hand against his crotch, her fingers finding him, kneading him.
He couldn’t believe it was her. Two long years without her, and now here she was, alive and vibrant, working her fingers until he grew hard against them.
Then the jet bucked again, knocking them sideways, and Rebecca reached out to steady herself. Her hand touched the Milton manuscript and she hissed, jerking it away.
Batty felt as if he’d been slapped in the face.
He blinked and looked at her, abruptly coming to his senses. And he was once again looking at Callahan’s face.
But in that moment, he saw what truly lay behind her eyes:
The mind of a beast. A hideous, feral beast.
Thrusting his arms out, he shoved her away, knocking her backwards into the aisle as the jet continued its rapid dive.
She hissed at him and pulled herself upright, starting to rise as—
—Batty flung his seat belt off and sprang from his seat, knocking her back down, sending her sprawling, shouting, “Callahan! Wake up!”
But she couldn’t hear him, didn’t respond, again getting to her feet, coming toward him with her teeth bared, her face curled up in a snarl. “You’re fucking
mine
, you little insect.”
Batty started to back away, glancing around him, trying to think what he could use to fight her off. But there was nothing.
Then his gaze shifted to the manuscript and he remembered how she had reacted when she’d touched it. It suddenly occurred to him that if it truly
was
the original manuscript, and it truly
was
the divine word of God . . .
Scooping it up off the table, he got it between both hands, and as Callahan advanced, he shoved it toward her, pressing it against her breasts. She howled as if it burned, her eyes filling with agony as she stumbled back.
And now she was
really
mad.
With a deep, animal growl, she surged forward again, coming at Batty at full speed. He threw his hands up, holding the book out, and she slammed into it, howling as it touched her flesh. They crashed into the aisle and Batty scrambled, getting on top of her, keeping the book pressed against her chest.
“Wake up!” he shouted.
She continued to howl and hiss and moan, writhing beneath him, the whites of her eyes turning red, as if the blood vessels were starting to burst. She hammered at him with her fists, landing several solid blows to his ribs—
—but Batty didn’t let up. Kept the manuscript in place.
“Wake up, Callahan!
Wake the fuck up!
”
Then suddenly her eyes went blank and she stopped. Her arms fell to her sides and she was still.
Then the jet leveled off, steadying itself, the storm now behind them.
Batty pulled the manuscript from Callahan’s breasts, and stared down at her half-naked form, relieved, but barely able to catch his breath.
Then Callahan blinked, the life coming back into her eyes.
And when she realized Batty was straddling her, she glanced down at her exposed body, then back up at him in horror and said, “What the
fuck
?”
34
 
CHIANG MAI, THAILAND
 
T
he place Brother Philip called home was the only Christian monastery in Chiang Mai.
Callahan hadn’t spent a lot of time here and was frankly surprised that in a country that was overwhelmingly Buddhist, there were any Christian churches at all.
As usual, LaLaurie was all too happy to educate her.
“The Portuguese brought Christianity to Siam in the sixteenth century,” he said.
They were riding through town in back of a
tuk tuk
, a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw. Their driver wore ear buds and seemed intent on killing someone as he blasted through the crowded streets.
“King Narai let the Roman Catholics in because he was curious about them and the world they’d come from. Unfortunately, that curiosity wasn’t shared by everyone in government and when Narai died, the Europeans were either killed or kicked out.”
“Isn’t that always the way?”
“Then around the late seventeen hundreds Taksin let some French missionaries come in, followed by the Baptists and the Presbyterians in the early part of the next century. They’ve never been more than a blip on the radar compared to the Buddhists, but they’ve made their mark.”
As he spoke, there was a bit of a twinkle in LaLaurie’s eyes, which annoyed Callahan no end. She knew what he was thinking whenever he looked at her now. She barely remembered anything that had happened on that plane, had just wanted to push past it and do her job. But she couldn’t.
When she’d come to, with LaLaurie straddling her—vague images of their encounter dancing through the cobwebs in her brain—the thought that she hadn’t been in complete control of her body had scared the crap out of her.
But that was something she could cope with. LaLaurie had assured her that even though she’d somehow given permission for that thing to use her, no permanent damage had been done. He’d managed to drive the invader away before it could get a lasting hold on her and suck out her soul.
Which was all well and good, she thought, but what bothered her most of all was one small, niggling detail—
—LaLaurie had seen her naked.
The feeling was irrational. Crazy. She knew that. She’d never been particularly modest. But the way LaLaurie kept looking at her now, she couldn’t help but feel violated.
“There are a lot of expats and tourists in Thailand,” he went on, “so you’ll still find a number of churches, and several Christian hospitals in the country that—”
“Eyes up here,” Callahan told him, touching her nose.
“What?”
“You’re talking to
me
, Professor, not my bra.”
LaLaurie gave her a slow smile. “Are you still stuck on that? Trust me, Callahan, I’m not fourteen anymore. Although I do have to admit—”
“Stop right there,” she said. “If you value your life, just stop.”
 
 
T
he monastery was not quite what Callahan had expected. It looked like any of the wood and terra-cotta structures you’d find in the neighborhoods of Chiang Mai, only on a larger scale, with multiple stories and a stone fence surrounding it.
When Callahan thought monastery, however, she imagined a massive compound with a church and housing for dozens of monks. But this place barely had room for a chapel and maybe twelve or so residences.
A bit of a letdown.
“Brother Philip is no longer here,” the monk at the front door told them. He was a Frenchman, and Callahan knew that most of the monks were not Thai natives. “He left two days ago.”

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