Mike Jones - Infernus

“Maybe it is interesting,” she said. Now that he knew a great deal about the book, she felt she could convey to him the most open, and weariest of looks, without being misunderstood. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a small bottle that rattled when she opened the cap, and dropped a pill into her palm. She swallowed it without asking for water. “This ‘book’ has made me so vulnerable, that I’m sure if we wouldn’t just do better without it ever having been found in the first place.”

“If,” he emphasized meaningfully, “you did discover it, and it wasn’t the other way around, I mean, think about it; haven’t you been more instrumental than all the others. Well, except for the person who wrote it in the first place, I mean. You and I are part of the final stage. We are seemingly working very hard to get it published. How do you know that we are not as much a part of this integral puzzle as all the rest?” He stopped, realizing how far he’d gone. “I’m sorry. I know how this probably sounds.”

“Well, I doubt it, but I know what you mean. The dark brotherhood disagrees with me. They feel that it was destiny, as you say. They have made sure that I cannot lose. If no publisher releases it, they say they would make me filthy rich forever — out of gratitude, you understand.”

“Hunh?”

“In their minds it was meant for me to find it, to translate it, to be contacted by them, to want to give them the book. You see, to them, this filth is their first truly holy book. I was told that my name will go down in their history books forever. Anyone harming me will feel the full intercontinental wrath of their assassins. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Fascinating!” he said, his eyes aglow.

“But what can protect me against my destiny? I’ve found myself in the book, you know. Don’t ask, I won’t tell you where. I pray you do not find yourself inside the book. Do yourself a favor, and don’t read it any more than you have. It’s a grave responsibility. That part is my private part of Hell. I told the dark brotherhood about my dreams.” She laughed a little kind of insane laugh. “They rejoiced. They said it guarantees my place in eternity. I actually hate them for saying that.”

There was silence between them for a minute, while demons walked over their graves.

“And you say, in your cover letter, that it took how long?”

A brief ache passed through her blond brow. “I’ve spent the last five years carefully, painfully translating the copious text.”

“But you said the text was Koine Greek. The ease of this -”

“It was very like Greek. I found that the Greek was almost like an evolved language that would have been used hundreds of years from now, maybe. Yet, still Koine, or common Greek.”

“Is there any proof of the existence of the two physicians mentioned in the manuscript?”

“I have discovered,” she began saying, as she looked through his tall windows, “much about them. They both attended the same medical schools. The short dark one did seem, according to those who went to school with him, to have an unreasonable sense of competition with the other. And, according to those who knew one or the other, or both, the tall muscular man was completely unaware of the other’s jealousy. That may have been part of the problem, as you have read. I tracked their last known location to the same hospital in Brussels.”

“And?”

“Their history ends there. We know that the short dark one followed the other one there for professional reasons, but neither one was ever heard from again.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely! The entire hospital caved in on itself; it crumpled into a great cavern that either opened up beneath it or was always there, waiting to consume whatever was built above it.”

“You never speak their names, do you? I noticed in your cover letter that you didn’t use both of their names in the book. Only one man’s name is used in the book. You -”

She looked through him. “That’s my business. When you’ve lived with this as long as I have, you may not be as eager to say either of their names.” She pointed at the box. “Maybe no one’s name ever again. A personal friend — a therapist — says I have become ‘acutely vulnerable’ to certain sounds, feelings, things; certainly cruel movies and the like, in her words. I agree with her.”

“You’re also sure about the dates recorded here?” he asked, again tapping the top of the manuscript box.

“Yes, the collapse of the hospital is a well-documented event — 1987.”

“Doctor Begels, it is impossible that ancient volumes could witness… ” he stopped suddenly, light dawning on his long, unhandsome face. “Did you say you had the manuscript carbon-dated?”

“Yes. I’ve had them inspected also, very trustworthy people in England, who have looked at the paper, the ink, everything. They believe them to be authentic. I reacted like you, at first. I was so disgustingly intrigued with the contents that I hadn’t thought to have them dated. As a last resort, at my father’s prompting, I took them to the experts in England. Nothing can prove them to be anything but three-thousand-year-old volumes. Which is why I have suggested the whole affair be published as fiction. You will agree that even as fiction, it is a little on the unusual side.”

“Yes, a little.”

“The original leather-bound volumes I have permanently entrusted to the group I have mentioned, the dark brotherhood. They are eternally safe. I did this for several reasons. In their original state they are unedited, and for that reason they must never see the dark of day, or be published. They are also extremely ancient, which, as you stated, is impossible.”

“To say the least!” he fumbled. “We will definitely hawk them off as fiction, to avoid any awkward misunderstandings.”

“All the work was done on my laptop. I’m hinting, that once I did all the editing (with many suggestions by the dark brotherhood), I threw the edited stuff into the electronic trash bin and scattered it into cyberspace. Never to be recovered. Yes, later I erased and reformatted my hard drive. In a way, I wish it hadn’t been I who found them. Thankfully, you will never know the effect of poring over documents such as these. For example, I had to decode most sections (that I have been promised will never be published) that use the most unrestrained, hideous names for all races of people. Not words you might hear anywhere, my friend — the vilest names. By a process of elimination, I was able to tell which phrases belonged to which race, or group.” She paused, and caught her breath. “Five years, exposed to that.” She pointed to the box.

Early morning sunlight glittered through the dewy window and danced lightly across the forest green blotter on the desk. No light can touch that book , she thought, and then her mind laughed. And maybe laughed again, but she stopped it.

“Yes,” he said, “you have excluded much text here.”

She laughed aloud. “It is best.” She smiled wearily. “Are you familiar with what is known as The Apocalypse According to John?”

“Of course,” he replied.

“In the Apocalypse According to John, also known as The Book of Revelation, there is mentioned in the first verse of the thirteenth chapter that there is a beast coming out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads.”

“Alright, I’ll take your word for it, having never read it,” he said as he unconsciously steepled his index fingers again, safe in the protective church of his mind.

“It also states that on each of the Beast’s heads there is a blasphemous name.”

“And,” he smiled like the Cheshire cat, “your point being?”