In the middle of the fracas, the madame cried out, ‘Amor Satanas nos coniungat, sua potencia nos dirigat, sua misericordia nos coniunctos misericorditer nos custodiat!’ She made a sign on her forehead with her bloodied finger and, ignoring the chaos around her, lifted her right hand and seemed about to trace the sign in the air when there was a sudden collective wheeze. All argument paused. The crowd drew back and Madame Dénarnaud was left with her arm in mid-air, breathless, dishevelled and once more deprived of her moment. ‘What now?’ she said.
The agent of this second interruption walked into the circle surrounded by men at arms. The man was small. He wore a crumpled suit and an old Panama hat. Rahn couldn’t see his face but he would have recognised that hat anywhere. It was Professor Moriarty, or rather, the fake Inspecteur Beliere! There was a murmuring of voices. Uncertainty reigned and people moved away.
The moment Crowley realised who it was, he picked up his skirts and melted into the receding crowd. Madame Dénarnaud was now alone, with only the whimpering Grassaud at her feet for company.
‘Did you think you could get away with this?’ came the man’s unmistakeable voice.
Madame Dénarnaud was suddenly at a loss for words. She was an old woman again and not a priestess of Sorat.
‘This is not authorised,’ he said, as if he were chastising a foolish child. ‘All of you!’ He looked about. ‘You should be ashamed! You are all here illegally!’
Taking a hold of herself and harnessing her melodramatic powers, Dénarnaud shouted, ‘I do not need your authority and I care nothing for legalities!’
The man ignored her histrionics. He lit a cigarette, shook the match out and threw it into the pentagram. ‘This place is surrounded and I demand that you give me the book!’
‘No! You will never take it from me!’ She snatched the blue book away from the fire then, and held it to her bosom.
‘I won’t ask again!’ the fake Inspecteur Beliere warned.
‘Why should I give it to you?’
‘Because you are not authorised to have it.’
‘Who says so?’
‘I say so.’
‘And who are you? I don’t recognise you!’
He aimed the gun up at her head. ‘Your recognition makes no difference to me.’
She smiled, and lifted the book imperiously over the fire. ‘Perhaps this will make a difference to you!’
The fake Beliere stepped into the circle of protection and wiped the line that marked the pentagram with one shoe, rendering it powerless. ‘You will die,’ he said.
Her face was all rancour and her hand moved the book over the fire. ‘I don’t need this any more. I have the sign – it’s in my head! The key to commanding Sorat, the greatest and most powerful demon the world has ever seen, is mine! If you kill me, I will die knowing it and you will have nothing!’
‘You are being foolish – do you know who I am?’
‘I don’t care who you are!’
‘Have you heard of the Black Lodge – the invisibles?’
There was a shiver of whispers.
She faltered, but only for a moment. ‘This is an unpleasant fiction created by men to amuse themselves.’
‘It is a reality,’ he said flatly.
‘Then if it does exist, I believe the Black Lodge will welcome this convocation.’
Rahn could see her hesitate. Despite her defiance she was erring on the side of caution.
The fake inspector casually smoked his cigarette, his gun pointing at her head. ‘You are not only an impetuous woman, but also a misinformed one. Satan is not expected until seventy-four years from now.’ His voice was conciliatory, paternal. ‘The arrival of the vessel of Sorat will announce the dawn of a new age – a New Jerusalem. Time will begin again and it will be measured by His coming as a turning point. His time will be announced by cataclysms, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and social unrest, because he will rise up from the centre of the Earth, on His own behalf, and not at the behest of an old woman!’
‘No!’ She held her chin up. ‘Hitler is destined to be the embodiment of Sorat!’
‘Hitler is not the Dark Messiah. He is only the tool of Lucifer. The full power of Sorat would kill him!’
She frowned, but her resolve had weakened. She looked to be standing on uneven ground.
‘Only an incarnation of Satan could bear the full power of the dark sun’s maleficence and he will not come until the year 2012! Now hand me the book, if you don’t mind!’
‘What will you do with it?’
‘It is ours for safekeeping.’
‘And I?’
‘You will be bound to that little hovel at Rennes-le-Château,’ he said. ‘As punishment.’