Apocalypsis 1.09 Wearily Electors (4 page)

LXVIII

May 16, 2011, Cologne

T
he western part of Germany was in the grip of a fierce storm, which was unusual for this time of year. Trees were snapped like matches and freshly sown spring flowers were wrenched from front yards. On its approach, the Cessna Citation got caught between two cold fronts and was tossed around violently. Yet the pilot landed the plane safely on Runway 14R at Cologne/Bonn Airport. Again, there were no problems during the checks in the General Aviation Terminal, which was separate from the Main Terminal. A young Japanese man in a dark suit, who introduced himself as Akiro, was expecting Peter and Maria and led them to a rental car, which was waiting in front of the building.

»You know the way?« he asked.

The way. Didn’t you lose it a long time ago?

»Of course.« Peter hesitated. There was something that he had to know.

»May I ask you a question, Akiro?«

»Please, go ahead.«

»Haruki, the man who gave his life for me in Montpellier…«

»Sir, you don’t have to feel guilty about that,« Akiro said in a stiff voice. »It’s our job.«

»Do you happen to know whether he has a family?«

»None of us has a family.«

»What will happen with his body?«

»His remains are already on their way to Japan. The company made all the necessary arrangements.«

The company.

Peter could guess which company Akiro was talking about, but the question that remained was why Nakashima Industries had an interest in saving his life. And what his connection was to a resigned Pope, to Don Luigi, and to Maria who had lied to him. But these were only the most insignificant of all the many questions that Peter asked himself while he drove to a small house in Cologne’s Königsforst district, where he finally hoped to get some answers. About himself. About his nightmares. About Nikolas. About his parents.

Yes, he knew the way. At least this way. He knew where he had to leave the freeway and at which intersections he had to turn off. He could even remember where all the speed traps were. In passing, he showed Maria his old school and all the many little places that were charged with memories of a happy time in his life. The old ice cream parlor. The bus stop, where he had kissed Sandra Hirschfeld. The phone box behind which he had hidden from Christoph Nieven. Maria was so delighted that she clapped her hands together. After a thirty-minute drive, they arrived in front of the familiar house at the end of a cul-de-sac, half-hidden behind trees on the edge of a forest. Peter knew where to park. And he knew that there was a tree, less than sixty feet into the forest, a tree with a mark that a thirteen-year-old boy had carved into the trunk. He knew that something was buried under this tree, something that contained everything that the thirteen-year-old had wanted to get rid of: his childhood and his nightmares. He knew that it had been to no avail. That he had to dig his childhood out again. Provided it was still there.

Peter drove one more time around the block to make sure that his parents’ house was not being watched by the police, but he did not see anything suspicious.

No matter what, you don’t have any other choice.

His mother opened the front door before he could ring the bell.

»Peter!« She flung her arms around his neck and, as usual, she had to stand on her toes to hug him. Lutz Adam, his father, appeared at the door, wearing his ancient wine-red sweater, and embraced him affectionately.

»I would like you to meet Sister Maria,« Peter said and pulled Maria closer. »She… is helping me with my research.«

He knew that his mother could tell right away that he was lying. He also knew that there was something else that his mother could tell from just one look at his face. She gave him a strange glance, and then she grabbed Maria’s hand and pulled her into the house.

»Welcome, Maria! You must be hungry.«

»I am starving!«

His father was still standing in the doorway and looking at him. »They are searching for you. They want you for murder. The police have already been here.«

»Are they watching the house?«

His father shook his head.

»I am not a murderer, Dad. I will explain everything to you.«

His father nodded. But instead of letting his son into the house, Lutz Adam handed him a shovel. »First, you should dig it out. That’s why you are here, right?«

Peter nodded uneasily. »How do you…?«

»I always knew this day would come,« his father replied. »Do you remember where it is?«

»I think so.«

Peter took the shovel and walked into the forest. After a while, he returned with an old and faded Tupperware container.

Peter opened the small plastic box on his parents’ dining table. His father, his mother and Maria watched as he carefully placed different items next to each other on the table: two colorful figures made from fired modeling clay that resembled each other like twins and were holding hands. A folded drawing that showed a demonic face, which was surrounded by symbols that had become frighteningly familiar to him. A plastic scarab beetle from the flea market with the TET hieroglyph on the back. A stuffed toy rabbit, small and tattered.

Little rabbit in the hole.

Exactly as Kelly had said. The little plastic box was whispering the answers, he just had to listen and take one crucial step. Peter grabbed his old toy rabbit. Flunky the rabbit. He smelled stale and musty and had long since lost his color. One of his ears had burst open and the stuffing was bulging out.

Sweet little Flunky!

Peter looked at his parents. »You have always told me that the rabbit was the only thing I had on me after the accident.«

»That’s what the sisters in the orphanage had told us,« his father confirmed.

Peter looked at the small rabbit that had been his best friend for so many years, his guardian in the darkness of the night, his totem figure, his last connection to his biological parents, his one and only and everything. He twisted and turned the little toy animal in his hands until he detected the thin seam. Peter took a deep breath.

You have always known it, all these years.

»Forgive me, Flunky.«

Filled with determination, he placed the little rabbit on the table, took his pocketknife, and cut into the old fabric on the back of the toy.

His mother cried out in horror. »What are you doing, Peter?«

But nothing could deter him. With the careful precision of a surgeon, Peter ran his fingers through the stuffing.

And then he found it: a small and closed plastic tube, barely larger than a four-year-old’s pinky. Something was inside the tube. Peter removed the cap and pulled out a very thin piece of paper, no bigger than a handkerchief, which had been folded and rolled up. The sheet was filled with tiny and extremely neat handwriting. A letter, over thirty years old. A letter from his mother.

Dear Peter,

When you find this letter, I will be long dead. I pray that you were able to forget; that you had a wonderful childhood and turned into a man who has a fulfilling career, a wife, and perhaps children. I pray that you are happy. That you will never find this letter. But if you find it, you are in the greatest danger.

I don’t have much time left. Your father and I have to flee but I fear that it is already too late. This is why I cannot explain it all to you. I can only send you this warning through the decades.

Flee, Peter! Immediately! Save your life, cover all your tracks, and save yourself and those you love! Beware of a man who calls himself Seth or Aleister Crowley. He wants to kill you. Beware of Room 306. Beware of the Temple of Equinox. Beware of the symbol of the light – you know which one I mean. Beware of Edward Kelly. But first and foremost, beware of your brother Nikolas. Yes, Peter, you have a brother; he is your twin. But he has long been under the influence of Seth. Seth needed one of you; for what exactly, we don’t know. We just hope that we will at least be able to save you.

They are calling themselves the light-bearers. Your father and I also belonged to them. Seth wants to fulfill Malachy’s Prophecy and carry on the legacy of Madame Blavatsky. Your father and I prevented him from getting his hands on a terrible alchemical formula. But we don’t know how long it will hold him up. For as long as the seals are safe, there is hope. Save your life, Peter. Don’t trust anybody because the light-bearers are everywhere. If you need help, get in touch with Franz Laurenz; he is a pastor in Duisburg and he knows everything.

With all my love,

your mother

When he finished reading the letter, he glanced up at his parents, who looked on anxiously, expecting the worst. He handed them the letter.

Time for explanations. Elke and Lutz Adam listened quietly to what their son had to say and they didn’t interrupt him once, which was contrary to their usual style, as he began to tell them what he had experienced and seen during the last weeks. Only the pain that washed over their faces revealed to Peter what he was doing to them. It was already getting dark outside when he ended.

»What do you plan to do?« his father asked him in a low voice.

»I don’t know. Do I have a choice anymore?«

Lutz Adam exchanged a look with his wife.

»We love you, Peter. We cannot bear the idea of something happening to you. But you never paid much attention to our worries, even when you were still a little boy. You always put yourself in harm’s way and, somehow, you always came through. So it looks as if you were kind of…«

He hesitated.

»Chosen,« Peter’s mother added, whispering.

Her husband nodded. »And this means that you probably don’t have a choice. You are an intelligent man, you have military training, and you still have a score to settle with these Light-Bearers. Whoever this Seth may be, kick his ass. Bring this matter to an end, pull the plug, clean house.«

Peter looked at his father. He had never heard him speak that way. His father, the peace activist. His father, the constant complainer, the man who had often seemed so weak to him in his wine-red sweater with his pamphlets and leaflets and petitions.

»Unfortunately, there is more,« Peter said with a gloomy expression on his face. »You are no longer safe here. If the Light-Bearers cannot find me, they will attack you. You have to get out of here. As soon as possible.«

It took a moment before his father understood. »What is going on in your mind?« he started ranting. »This is our home! The hell we’ll let some sect chase us out of here.«

Peter moaned. »I am sorry,« he said. »But your lives are in danger.«

»Where are we supposed to go?« his mother asked in a soft voice.

Peter kept silent. He did not know the answer either.

»As far away as possible,« Maria said. »That would be the best. Perhaps you have a place in your mind that you always wanted to visit. Everything will be taken care of.«

»I will not leave here,« Peter’s father said brusquely. »Under no circumstances!«

Maria turned to Peter. »Could you leave us alone for a minute?«

»Why?

»Please, Peter!«

With a sigh, Peter rose from his chair. One hour later, when Maria called him back into the living room, his parents were sitting next to each other on the sofa, pale but composed. And they were holding hands. An unusual scene.

»New Zealand,« Peter’s father said in a rough voice. »A little farm, some sheep, nothing extravagant.«

»New Zealand?« Peter was flabbergasted. »Sheep? You?«

»Actually, it has always been our dream,« Peter’s mother said. »Do you remember that we took that trip to New Zealand four years ago? We loved it there.« She turned to Maria. »Are you sure this is possible?«

»I think so,« Maria replied.

Peter could not get rid of the lump in his throat.

»What did you tell them?« he asked Maria.

»The truth. It will only be temporary. Until the danger is over.«

»And the house and everything?«

»Don’t worry about that. Once it’s all over, they will be able to return.«

Peter was shaken. »I never wanted this to happen,« he said. »Just because I had a fucking vision and because some maniacs are fighting a battle against the Church… it is not your fault!«

»Neither is it yours,« his mother said and wrapped him in her arms. »When it’s all over, you will come and visit us in New Zealand. And perhaps you will bring Maria along with you.«

Peter’s parents showed Maria to the small guest room under the roof and then they excused themselves for the night. Peter did what he had always done and moved into the small summer house that he had claimed for himself when he was sixteen years old. Finally alone, his self-control tore apart like thin paper.

Edward Kelly. John Dee. Aleister Crowley. Madame Blavatsky. Malachy. Bernard of Clairvaux. Thoth. Hermes Trismegistus. Manetho. Nicolas Flamel. Seth. Nikolas. The Bearers of the Light. Hoathahe Saitan!

The names of evil. The names of death. A mountain of names, dirt, filth and death was bearing down on his shoulders, taking his breath away. Peter tensed up and started crying. He curled up on his small bed and whimpered at his despair, at all these names, at the memories, and at his feeling of guilt. He cursed this God, who was playing such a dark and eerie game with him, who was sending him visions and death, and who had taken his brother away from him only to send him back to him as a killer. Who had taken Ellen from him and who would now, for the second time in his life, take his parents away from him. Peter was gasping in rage and pain as he writhed on the floor of the small summer house. And he made a decision: that he would have the last laugh, not God. That he was not willing to keep playing by His rules. That he would get his life back.

He had just sat up again when there was a soft knock at the door.

Maria!

»May I come in?«

She was standing outside, in the garden, a shadow in the night, clad in a pair of his mother’s pajamas. In the dim light of the house, she appeared almost transparent, so small and vulnerable. She was holding the amulet in her hand. Peter resisted the impulse to wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against his body.