The Sixth Key (38 page)

‘I’m not surprised,’ Deodat said.

‘What did you mean by “Fleury”?’ Rahn looked
at him, feeling a wave of vertigo and a sudden reviving of that bee in his ear.

‘I found out from Beliere – or whatever
his name is – that she is a direct relative of Gabriele Fleury, daughter
of Marie de Nègre Hautpoul-Blanchefort! Marie Blanchefort had three daughters:
Elisabeth, Gabriele and Mary. From what you say, she chose to leave her
inheritance in the hands of Abbé Bigou instead. The mademoiselle is after what
she feels is rightfully hers – the treasure of the Cathars.’ He paused.
‘Now I think she’s realised that she is in way over her head and, if she’s
smart, she’ll keep driving all the way to Italy.’

‘And we were almost close,’ La Dame said,
wistfully.

‘Oh that’s right, you’re here,’ Deodat
bemoaned, turning to him.

‘It’s a pleasure to see you too, Deodat,’ La
Dame said. ‘So, what now?’

‘Well,’ Rahn said, ‘the parchment clue in this
church is missing, so, unless we can figure out what JCKAL means, we have
nothing to go on. Besides, you’re alive, Deodat, and now the imperative to find
the treasure is no longer there.’

‘What nonsense!’ Deodat retorted.

‘But we’ve hit a dead end!’ Rahn countered.

‘Have we? I don’t believe so . . .’ Deodat
said, happily, looking like the cat that swallowed the goldfish. ‘I think you
were right about the list, ingeniously right. Think for a moment. There are
five churches on the list; why is that, when there should be six?’

Rahn looked at Deodat’s darkly lit face.
‘Because Cros hadn’t found the parchment at Saint-Just-et-le-Bézu!’

‘Exactly so! Let’s go over it: Cros knew of
the parchment at Rennes-le-Château and I think this Abbé Gélis you mentioned
must have found the parchment hidden in this church and he either sold it or
gave it to Cros. And I don’t think Cros gave it to the Bishop of Carcassonne; I
feel certain of that. He kept it and made it his life’s task to find the rest
of the parchments. That would explain his obsession with puzzles. Now, the
original parchment, he knew, was at Rennes-le-Château, that’s one church; there
was the parchment he didn’t find at Saint-Justet-le-Bézu, that’s the second
church; this was the third church, Coustassa; so that leaves three more. Each
parchment led to another. But here’s the interesting part – years ago,
Cros and I had a discussion on the tarot; remember I mentioned that to you
before, Rahn? He was looking for information regarding the pope card. I
remember it because it was so unusual. I gave him Éliphas Levi’s book and he
kept it for months. This is connected to it – I’m certain of it.’

‘How?’

‘Well, in my estimation, the family Perillos
chose a circle of churches that were close enough for the priests to know one
another, then they created an elaborate cipher and the master word to solving
it was hidden in a painting by Poussin. The first church, Saunière’s church,
contained the original parchment given to Bigou by Marie de
Hautpoul-Blanchefort on her deathbed. This parchment revealed the second church
in which a second parchment revealed the third church and so on. Ingenious really!
And if the chain was broken, it could be picked up at another point along the
line, simply by understanding the rule.’

‘What rule?’

‘In every case the parchment was hidden in a
church in which there could be found some connection, even if slight, to the tarot.
Rennes-le-Château has its devil, the fifteenth card; Saint-Just-et-le-Bézu its
goddess, the twenty-first card; and this church, Coustassa, has two pillars on
either side of the altar, which to me signifies Joachim and Boaz, the second
card. And I realise only now why Cros wanted Éliphas Levi’s book. I believe
that something in the parchment in this church must have led to the church at
Rennes-les-Bains.’

‘Why Rennes-les-Bains?’ La Dame asked.

‘Rennes-les-Bains has a painting depicting a
pope straight out of the tarot, which signifies the fifth card.’

‘Madame Dénarnaud also mentioned the tarot!’
Rahn said. A thought occurred to him. ‘What about Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet?’

‘The hermitage, Rahn; it signifies the ninth
card – the hermit.’

‘So, all the churches are on the list except
for Saint-Just-et-le-Bézu, because Cros had never had the first parchment that
led to it?’ La Dame said.

‘Yes, even you, La Dame, could figure that
out!’

‘But you’ve said nothing about that other
church – Espéraza,’ La Dame pointed out.

‘I don’t think that was one of the churches,’
Deodat said to him.

‘What do you mean?’ Rahn said.

‘I believe Cros may have thought it was one of
them, but in the end, he realised it wasn’t.’

Rahn shook his head. ‘How on Earth do you know
that?’

‘I’ll have to tell you how I came to my
conclusion on our way.’

‘On our way to where?’ La Dame lamented.

‘Get in the Citroën, it’s over there –
tempus fugit, tempus
fugit!’

En route, Deodat told Rahn and La Dame of his
discovery. Rahn drove the Citroën through the falling sleet, listening to
Deodat. The night was dark and the road ahead was wet and barely lit by the
headlamps.

‘I have to start at the beginning. Yesterday
morning, before Beliere came calling, and even before I had called the Paris
judiciaire, I kept thinking there was something we had missed on the list . . .
something obvious and yet elusive. I kept looking at it and eventually I
figured out the same thing you did, Rahn: the initials were incorrect. When I
put them together, I came to the same word . . . JCKAL. Now I can tell you what
JCKAL has to do with it, but before I do so, I’ll begin by explaining how I
came to my conclusion. It’s quite complicated and I can’t prove it, not until
we get to the church at Bugarach.’

Rahn could hear La Dame sighing in the back
and striking a match to light his Cuban. ‘My mind boggles,’ he said.

‘Well, La Dame, this should be right up your
street, considering it’s all about numbers. In fact it has to do with
gematria.’

‘Gematria! I know it: the study of numbers in
connection with letters? Hebrew, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, you are good for something
besides womanising and chalking in cave markings.’

‘Are you never going to let me forget that?’
La Dame said, sounding dejected.

‘Never. Now, as I was saying, in the Hebrew
mystical tradition, gematria is the secret of numbers. A text can be discovered
through its connection to numbers because each letter has a numerical value,
and the combination of letters has an esoteric significance. Now, in the wine
cellar I had time to think about the word that Cros gave us – sator. In
Hebrew, sator is made up of these letters: samech, which is sixty; vau, which
is six; resh, which is two hundred; and tau, which is four hundred.’

Deodat looked at Rahn. ‘Now, my point is, it
doesn’t really matter how it’s spelt, whether sator or sorat, or taros or
rotas, or any combination of those letters – they will always add up to
six-six-six.’

‘Burn my beard!’ La Dame said, sitting forward
and thrusting his head between them.

‘The number of the Beast of the Apocalypse of
Saint John?’ Rahn said, incredulous.

‘The number is all that is given in the Apocalypse,’
Deodat said, ‘and in a veiled way it indicates the name, Sorat.’

‘Sorat?’ Rahn said.

‘Six-six-six is both the name and the seal of
the sun demon Sorat, but not the sign – this is important. Grimoires are
all about using spirits, demons and the like, to do the bidding of the living,
but to control these beings one needs three things: a name, a seal and a sign
– all three. If one of these three components is missing, the magician
doesn’t have full command over a demon or entity. Now, in the same way there is
a Holy Trinity, there is also a Satanic one, a trinity of imperfect beings that
is represented by six plus six plus six. It’s not six hundred and sixty-six as
many believe. The Antichrist is not just one being – that is a
misconception – it is a collective of beings that work under the demon of
the sun, Sorat. I think Le Serpent Rouge is able to summon this trinity of evil
but not the demon Sorat. Monti quite rightly guessed that all grimoires are
missing the most powerful key – the sign that summons Sorat. From the
moment I saw that Monti had connected Le Serpent Rouge to the treasure of the
Cathars, I had a sense that the missing key he was talking about was given in
the original Apocalypse of Saint John. We had always said that the Apocalypse
was part of that treasure, and now I feel sure of it. Imagine what this sign of
Sorat could do in the hands of certain men? Do you see now why Cros had
inscribed the sign of the Lamb of Christ into his tabernacle? He put it there
to protect the sacrament from unholy forces, because the sign of the lamb
repels the sign of Sorat – the demon of the black sun.’

‘The black sun?’ Rahn was in shock,
remembering Wewelsburg. He was thinking the connections through out loud: ‘The
swastika is the symbol of the black sun – that’s common knowledge among
the SS. You know, I myself heard Hitler say to a group of the most senior SS
dignitaries, his inner circle, something to the effect, that “all Germans must
sacrifice their goodness, even their connection to Christ”. I had a sense that
there was something evil about Himmler and Hitler, but I mostly thought they
were just madmen – I couldn’t have been more wrong! This whole Nazi
business is clearly part of an intelligent design to bring the German people
under the worship of the black sun, under the worship of Sorat.’

‘Sorat will bring about Apocalypse, Rahn, the
end of the world, Armageddon! Yes,’ Deodat confirmed. ‘Hitler knew enough to
reverse the swastika, transforming the ancient sun symbol into a symbol of
evil. That is why you were sent here, Rahn – not to find Le Serpent Rouge,
Hitler no doubt already has that; you were sent here to fetch the key. They
need that key if Hitler is to invoke Sorat. Now you see the gravity of this
entire affair? And soon we will know what JCKAL has to do with it . . . at
Bugarach.

‘Bugarach? Is that the sixth church?’ Rahn
said.

‘Time will tell.’

When they arrived back at Bugarach church,
Rahn parked the car behind some trees, feeling forlorn. He chose the same spot
he had used two nights before and turned off the engine. The town lay dormant
under a sky scattered with fast-moving clouds revealing behind them a tangle of
stars. A thought occurred to Rahn and he turned to look at Deodat. ‘What did
you call that creature on the Countess P’s clock?’

‘A Leoncetophaline,’ Deodat said.

‘You said it was Hermetic, or Mithraic,
right?’

‘Yes, and it also represents the rogue sign,
the thirteenth sign of the zodiac. The sign by which—’ He looked at Rahn
in the darkness and Rahn could just see the outline of his face. ‘Ophiucus . .
. it has two snakes winding around its body and in one hand it holds – a
key! A key to the Underworld! A key to the forces of a living death . . . and a
dead life . . . to Saturn forces – forces of the bottomless pit!’ he
said.

‘Will someone let me in on what in God’s name
you’re talking about?’ La Dame said, from the back seat. His voice sounded
anxious. He kept looking from this side to that.

‘Are you expecting someone, La Dame?’ Rahn
said.

La Dame answered, ‘I reserve the right to be
moderately concerned for our safety. Have you still got that hunting gun,
Deodat?’

‘Actually I dropped it in the forest after I
shot those men.’

But Rahn wasn’t listening, his mind turned to
a question that was bothering him. ‘Deodat, what was that engraving on the
clock, do you remember it? You know, I think the countess was leaving me a clue!
Don’t forget, she also died of a stroke on the same day as Saunière and Marie
Blanchefort. Three people dying of strokes and all of them on the seventeenth
of January, the date that Verger was sentenced; and it’s also the same date in
Monti’s notebook. Don’t forget that date marks the feast day of Saint Sulpice,
and Saint Sulpice in Paris is the headquarters of AA, Association Angelica. I’m
beginning to think, Deodat, that the Countess P was somehow mixed up in all
this.’

Deodat was silent in the darkness. When he
spoke his voice was grave. ‘Rahn, I think you’re right, and I can make sense of
that riddle now. This is a tomb that has no body in it . . . this is a body
that has no tomb around it . . . but body and tomb are the same.

‘This is a tomb that has no body in it –
means the tomb is the corpse; after death the corpse has no spirit body in it.
It is therefore a tomb without a spirit body. Now, a body that has no tomb
around it – means the spirit body is free of the corpse and therefore has
no tomb around it. But in certain cases the corpse and the spirit body remain
united, even beyond the grave. In this case body and tomb, spirit and corpse,
are one, do you see?’

‘You mean, like a living death?’ Rahn said.

‘Yes, Rahn! In fact I’ll wager that what we are
dealing with here is a kind of suicide circle, wherein those who choose to die
give over their spirits to the members of these groups as a form of
immortality, but they may not know that this immortality is a sentence to Hell
because those who run these groups are seeking to use them for the benefit of
Sorat – the sun demon. That is the point! That would explain Saunière’s
sudden obsession with death and the penitents, and their cult of the dead, in
which the sacrament that is administered to the dying is desecrated, mixed with
excrement, to create a species of control after death.’

‘I had a feeling that Cros had scratched the
sign of the lamb in the tabernacle to protect his own sacrament!’ Rahn said.
‘Perhaps that’s why he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was going to be
buried, because he was concerned they would somehow snatch his immortal soul.’

‘Perhaps, but in order to invoke Sorat these
groups need the sign, which they don’t have – the key missing from Le
Serpent Rouge. So now we know what Hitler wants with the key and what the
penitents want with the key, and perhaps also what this AA, and anyone else who
is after it, are seeking – they are seeking to invoke Sorat, to bring
about the end of the world so that they can install a New Jerusalem – a
new world order that is to their liking. And we, my dear friends, are about to
stop them, because the crucial ingredient, I believe, is in that church.’

‘What makes you think Cros would hide it
there? Wouldn’t that be too obvious?’ La Dame said, in the back.

‘That’s exactly why it’s suspect!’ Deodat
said, with an emotion close to glee. ‘And we are going to find it by using your
Vigenère Square, Rahn. You are going to decipher JCKAL using Sorat as the
master word.’

‘So you think Cros wasn’t intending to be
buried with the treasure at all, and that the clues to the treasure’s
whereabouts are on the list – as I surmised?’

‘Exactly so. Let’s go, what are we waiting
for?’

Inside the church, Rahn followed Deodat and La
Dame to the altar like a lamb going to the slaughter. Once more, he wondered
why in God’s name he had answered that telegram in Berlin. Deodat was excited
at the prospect of discovering the key, that much he could see, but for his
part he wasn’t relishing it, nor was he relishing the potential consequences of
having it. Then again, perhaps it had always been his destiny to find it? If it
was his destiny, he wondered how he would ever atone for it if his actions
should lead somehow to an Armageddon of biblical proportions? But as Deodat had
already pointed out, he was chin deep in responsibility. Feeling grim, he
looked about with a creeping sense that he was being watched. Perhaps it was
the Devil himself around the corner waiting to snatch away his soul?

At the altar his hands were shaking so much he
could hardly hold the pencil, and his eyes were finding it difficult to focus.
He gave them a rub and wrote down the cipher and the master word and deciphered
each letter using the square.

He came
to his solution while La Dame held a candle close:

‘My God!’ Rahn said, looking at his own handiwork. ‘Rotas is the
encrypted word! We seem to be going round in circles. Literally.’

‘Rotas!’ Deodat said, ecstatically. ‘Yes, you
are right! We have been going around in circles, like a wheel! Running around
looking for something we could have known at the beginning. Rotas, arepo,
tenet, opera, sorat! When Cros gave us sator, he must have intended to give us
rotas.’

‘Why do you say that?’ La Dame said.

‘Because rotas is the wheel in the tarot, the
wheel of fortune
– the tenth card. Now we see it: six
parchments, six priests and six churches. Six plus six plus six. Cros was the
sixth priest, and this was the sixth church. Let’s see if I’m right.’ Deodat
went to the stained-glass window in the side chapel.

Rahn followed Deodat, taking a candle from the
altar with him.

‘Don’t look at the window, Rahn, look instead
at the altar beneath it. What do you see?’

Rahn noticed something very obvious and yes,
the obvious was the most deceptive! Here, beneath the rotas window, there sat,
innocently, a book bound in blue leather.