The Sixth Key(137)

‘You saw the manuscript, didn’t you? It is the original Apocalypse of Saint John isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t have time to open it.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Rahn felt like throwing his hands up in the air.

‘We have to assume, for the time being, that it is what we think it is.’

Rahn was so exhausted he didn’t know when he fell asleep, or how long it took for them to reach the turn-off to the hermitage. He woke, perhaps sensing the sudden stillness, with his feet numb and his mouth tasting like charcoal. He sat up. Eva was staring straight ahead.

‘Do you know what tonight is?’ she said, buttoning up her coat, getting ready for a battle, looking practical and cool.

‘Tonight?’ Rahn said.

‘Remember what Madame Corfu told us at Rennes-le-Château two nights ago, when she recounted Gélis’s horrific murder over dinner? Remember what the Serbians said?’

He could hear the gorges below, water rumbling over the rocks. The moon was edging the clouds, filling the world with phantoms, spectres and demons disguised as rocks, trees and bushes.

‘Today is All Saints’ Day and tomorrow will be The Day of the Dead,’ she said. ‘Tonight is the cusp. This night, forty-one years ago, Gélis was murdered.’

‘You mean, at midnight?’ Rahn said.

She nodded.

Rahn allowed a smile to steal over his face. The creator of this script had thought of everything except for his choice of leading man! He took one look in the rear-view mirror and inspected his red eyes and his split lip. La Dame was wrong about him – he wasn’t leading man material. He badly needed a brandy and his hands were shaking. Perhaps Pabst would one day make a film about such a man as he might have been, a wise-cracking, hairy-chested archaeologist – a larger-than-life Grail hunter who wore an ironic smile on his face, a tropical helmet on his head and a pistol on his belt. He sighed. It was a ludicrous thought. Now another thought occurred to him. Perhaps he had died at Wewelsburg; perhaps those shots had killed him and he was now in some hellish version of a story by Edgar Allan Poe? A story in which the hero is trapped in Purgatory and doesn’t realise he’s dead. Where he is made to live and relive Hell, over and over again, like the legend of Judas – stuck on that island where every day is Good Friday.

‘The hour before midnight is used for good, the half-hour after is reserved for evil,’ Eva said, cutting through his thoughts.

‘How do you know these things?’ Rahn asked her, amazed.

‘I’m the personification of wisdom.’ She smiled sadly. ‘So few men are truly wise.’

‘But the Cathars were perfect,’ he gave back.

‘Ah, but who in this world can truly say they are perfect?’

He sat stock-still. Where had he heard this before?

‘When is midnight?’ he asked.

‘Soon,’ she said. ‘We have to go.’

‘I won’t go with you,’ Deodat said, with disappointment in his voice. ‘I’m not feeling myself. It’s my heart, I think. Madame Sabine may have been right after all – I’m just an old fool trying to relive my youth.’

‘You just need some rest, Deodat.’ Rahn soothed.

‘We won’t be long. Lock the doors and stay out of sight,’ Eva said, perfectly in control.

‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do, both of you?’ He asked.

Rahn chewed on the inside of his mouth. He couldn’t think. ‘I don’t know, we’ll improvise.’

‘Listen,’ Deodat said. ‘You’re not on a movie set now. This is real. When evil wills are brought into communion   in a circle, such a circle can be made stronger than the world. Don’t let them use the key. Whatever you do, don’t let them use it!’

‘We have to hurry, it’s nearly time!’ Eva said.

Rahn had an idea; he reached into the back of the Peugeot looking for his bag. It was still there. He took out the Countess P’s grotesque clock and put it under his arm.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ Deodat said.

‘It’s the only weapon we’ve got and it’s heavy enough to hurt. After all, I don’t have a candlestick,’ he said, looking at Eva.

Her smile in return was wry.

They got out of the car and Rahn braced himself against the squall’s cold teeth. ‘So what do you propose, Dorothy? Should we trespass on the party, click our ruby shoes, demand the manuscript from the Wizard of Oz and then make our merry way back to Kansas before supper?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, flatly.

‘Haven’t you heard of the Wizard of Oz? Louise Brooks was from Kansas, you see . . .’