Scroll- Part One

by D B Nielsen

  ‘So that means that one of us is going to get wet,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘Could this get any worse?’

  Gabriel looked directly at me. ‘It’s booby trapped.’

  I groaned dramatically. ‘Great. It just got worse.’

  ‘The turnstile operates the sluice gates which, as the fountain is being emptied, reveals a narrow passage in the wall,’ he declared, his voice hollow in the tunnel, ‘but we must move quickly as the passage will begin to flood, the fountain refilling, if we do not immediately call the dead.’

  Through damp tendrils of chestnut hair now plastered over my face and eyes, I glared at Gabriel. ‘And exactly how do we do that?’

  ‘Through the vibrations of sound,’ Gabriel replied. ‘Deep within the passage are an array of instruments, we must choose the right one to call the dead.’

  ‘Which instrument is the right one?’ I asked, bewildered, looking across the pool of water as if I could divine the truth from where we stood.

  Gabriel heaved an ominous sigh and shrugged. ‘Je sais pas.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Confronting him, I demanded, ‘What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you said that you were the basta–, I mean, person who designed this maze?’

  ‘Non, non, non,’ he exclaimed, shaking his water-slicked wheat blond head in negation, ‘What I said was that I designed the “chamber of horrors”. I did not, however, design the rest of the maze. That would have been another “sadist”, one of my brothers.’

  Gabriel quickly explained that no single member of the brotherhood held the entire knowledge of the underground system as that was considered far too dangerous. The knowledge was instead shared amongst those who served as Knights Templar when the Paris Temple became the major Templar base. This prevented infiltration by the enemy.

  When, on the infamous Friday the Thirteenth of October, 1307, Pope Clement V’s secret sealed orders were opened simultaneously by his soldiers all across Europe and the dawn raids began, the few Anakim serving as Templars used the underground system to flee arrest in Paris.

  The dawn raids went like clockwork. The Pope’s agents arrested five thousand Templars in France, including the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, on trumped-up charges of heresy, devil worship, sodomy, homosexuality, blasphemy and denying Christ. The Knights Templar were captured, tortured and executed. If it were not for the few Nephilim who escaped, along with the many brave Templars who gave their lives freely to protect the Nephilim, the Keeper of the Seed would have died.

  My expression turned grim.

  ‘Fine,’ I said tightly, after Gabriel had finished his explanation, ‘If you don’t know what instrument to use, then do you at least know what happens when we call the dead? Presuming we make the right choice, of course.’

  ‘Bien sûr,’ Gabriel repeated, briskly standing upright, ‘When we call the dead, the dead will answer.’

  I ground my teeth in frustration, thinking of any number of obscenities to use in that moment. But Gabriel’s next action left me speechless.

  He began to disrobe in front of me.

  Beginning with his tuxedo jacket which he discarded on the ground, uncaring now of the dirt and grime, Gabriel coolly unbuttoned his Mandarin-collar dress shirt, his movements graceful and smooth, shrugging it from his shoulders to reveal his lean, taut physique. No merchant banker I knew of looked like this! Not an ounce of fat but all hard muscles rippled under unblemished, pale skin. Shirtless, his pants riding low on his hips, showing the deep indentations above his hipbones, he reached to undo the button and zipper of his trousers.

  I gulped, dropping my eyes, feeling suddenly flushed.

  ‘Wh-wha-what are you doing?’ I yelped, flustered, my tongue stumbling over the words.

  ‘Tiens! I am getting undressed, of course. As you have pointed out, one of us is going to get wet. And that means me.’ His silver-grey eyes were lidded, thoughtful. ‘But I do not have to go swimming with my clothes on.’

  I raked my still-damp hair out of my eyes, raising them briefly to glance at him again before dropping them back down to focus on my water-stained boots. I don’t know why his near-naked state embarrassed me – I had seen hundreds of near-naked guys at the beach, from life-guards to surfers. I knew lots of fit, drool-worthy guys. I’d even dated a few of them. More than a few. But Gabriel was a most impressive specimen of manhood.

  ‘Why does it have to be you? Why can’t I do it?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘The turnstile will be too heavy for you to turn, especially under water,’ he pointed out. ‘It is better I do it. You, ma petit puce, will have to call the dead.’

  It took a moment for his words to register.

  Turning pale, I wailed, ‘Me? Why do I have to call the dead?’

  Gabriel took hold of my shoulders, forcing me to look him in the eye. ‘I cannot perform both tasks. Understand this, the Catacombs are a test and only those who are worthy will pass.’

  I looked back out at the underwater tomb and nodded. This was no time to be a chicken.

  Then an absurd idea occurred to me.

  Concentrating hard on the pool of water in front of me, I said forcefully, pausing in between the incantations, ‘Defodio ... Deprimo ... Descendo.’ When none of these seemed to work, I wracked my brain for others. ‘Alohomora ... Specialis Revelio–’

  Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Euf, what are you doing?’

  Shrugging my shoulders, I accidentally looked back up at him and, seeing him sporting only cotton boxer shorts, flitted my gaze away again – though not before I managed to see that they were Armani.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied as nonchalantly as possible under the circumstances, feeling sex-starved all of a sudden, ‘It was just a long shot. It worked for Harry and Hermione, so I thought maybe...’

  My voice trailed off as, beside me, Gabriel’s shoulders began to shake. And then his rich, melodious laugh rang out.

  ‘Saffron, this is not Harry Potter,’ Gabriel chided, ‘There is real evil in the world – evil that such puny, make-believe words cannot overpower. Besides, you do not have a wand.’ His voice gentled as he made this last statement, humouring me, though he did not attempt to suppress his amusement.

  Rolling my eyes at him, I remained silent. He could laugh all he wanted; at least I was trying to get us out of this horrible situation.

  I went back to contemplating the underground pool. The reflection of the water glimmered across the ceiling of the chamber like a silvery moon.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Gabriel announced, moving closer to the edge.

  As Gabriel readied himself to dive in, I moved well back from the edge of the pool, not wishing to get splashed.

  Staring at his smooth back, golden skin taut over shoulder blades and hard muscle, a sudden thought occurred to me, leading me to ask, ‘Gabriel, what colour wings do you have? Are they white like St. John’s, or black like Louis’? Or are they white with black spots or something, seeing that you’re a good guy but the son of a fallen angel and all that?’

  Gabriel turned back to glare at me, silvery-grey eyes flashing warning, clearly outraged. ‘I am Nephilim, Saffron. I am not a Dalmatian.’

  His expression was delicious. I couldn’t help myself. I giggled.

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ I amended quickly, but couldn’t help adding, ‘Dalmatians are just so adorable ... Really elegant creatures ... Regal almost. And they’re loyal and active and exuberant...’

  Gabriel broke into a grin. It was a decidedly unsettling grin – less a display of amusement than the flash of a blade being unsheathed.

  ‘You know,’ he said, stalking slowly towards me, ‘that mouth of yours will get you into a lot of trouble. It is most dangerous to bait a Nephilim.’

  And in that moment I was reminded of the dashing, rakish Captain Jack Sparrow with the mocking twinkle in Gabriel’s seductive silver-grey eyes, before he seized my waist and pulled me forward into an embrace.

  While a moment before I was freezing,
now I was perspiring, as I was pressed up against his naked chest. Even through layers of winter clothing, I felt hot and ruffled. He bent to kiss me, cupping my face with his free hand. Our lips touched, lightly at first – the merest whisper as his practised lips flitted over mine causing my heartbeat to run riot – then with slightly more pressure as he deepened the kiss.

  And then it was over as quickly as it had begun.

  He released me, his silver-grey eyes still taunting. His tone light-hearted, he said, ‘That was for luck, ma mignonne’, before he gave a mocking salute and, turning, executed a perfectly graceful swan-dive into the crystal clear waters of the subterranean tomb.

  I stood, thunderstruck, realising as I watched Gabriel’s head break the calm surface of the water as he gathered breath before diving below again, that I was the only party affected by that kiss.

  I couldn’t explain my own state of confusion – nor my attraction to two different guys. Of course, they were both devastatingly handsome. Seductively so. Yet they were as different as fire and ice. But I had little time to reflect further on my predicament.

  At that moment, beneath us, in the Catacombs’ cavernous subterranean vault, wheels and gears sprang to life like the inner workings of a mechanical, wind-up wristwatch. The sluice gates rose slowly as Gabriel pushed round the turnstile; the metal plates sliding into the grooves in the side of the curved wall, allowing the groundwater to flow under. The gap widened until the water was flowing freely outward, draining from the subterranean chamber, channelled towards the Seine.

  I didn’t realise how deep the subterranean pool extended below; it was amazingly deceptive. Looking down the sixty foot drop almost gave me vertigo. I now realised that Gabriel was being kind when he said that the turnstile was too heavy for me to push – I wouldn’t have been able to hold my breath that long underwater, let alone open the sluice gates, and he knew it.

  As the watery tomb slowly drained, Gabriel’s lean, muscular form was revealed. But now I saw clearly that behind where Gabriel rotated the turnstile on its circular platform, situated in the centre of the curved wall was a dark, narrow tunnel. The passage could be reached with some difficulty by crossing the threadlike stone bridge that connected it to the steep steps at my feet. I felt a cold sweat break out across my forehead as I looked across at Gabriel for assistance. Water poured over his head and shoulders as the waters subsided, until he was standing waist-deep in the luminescent crystal clear pool. But still he kept pushing the turnstile to empty the remaining groundwater.

  A tightness gripped my throat as I realised I alone would have to venture out onto the narrow bridge and, without falling off it, make my way across to the distant passage. This was easier said than done. The stone bridge was slick like glass. The wet, dark stones, covered in patches of some sort of lime-green fungus, would make the going tougher. And if I slipped off, there was no way I would be able to climb back up.

  Well, so much for our agreement! It seemed that this was the “next time” Gabriel expected me to do something completely impossible, something superhuman ... but it didn’t look like he’d be carrying me.

  My blood was thrumming through my veins as I took a deep breath and began to descend the steep steps. The wet stones were, as I suspected, dreadfully slippery. Polished to a smooth, hard finish over time from the flow of the water, they were like the granite countertop of the kitchen at the Manor House. I was careful where I placed my boot, fearing my foot would shoot out from under me and that I would lose my balance and end up in the water with Gabriel. As a result, I made slow progress, inching my way across.

  Halfway across the causeway, Gabriel called out to me loudly, causing me to wobble precariously, startled. ‘Saffron, hurry! Vite! Vite! Go! Go! Go!’

  Looking briefly down after having corrected my stance, I could now see how shallow the water had become, only reaching up to his calves, almost as if Gabriel was standing in a deep puddle.

  I swallowed the bile of fear that rose in my throat and clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering. The bridge on which I walked had narrowed to less than a metre across and I felt sick just thinking about what would happen if I fell.

  There had to be a better way!

  Space loomed out on either side of the stone bridge, but I centred myself and, pretending that I was standing on my surfboard, I began to move, just like I’d seen the professional surfers do when they cross-stepped to ride the nose of their longboard. I aligned myself and took another deep breath. Transferring my weight onto my front foot, I lifted my back foot and crossed it over the other so I was standing with my legs crossed, then picking up my back foot swung it round till I was standing normally again. I continued to do this, picking up speed and agility like a graceful feline, until I was practically running the length of the bridge.

  Yes! Yes! Yes! Gnarly dude! Take that Stephanie Gilmore!

  My pulse was a staccato rhythm, tripping rapidly, and I felt elated when my boot finally touched the edge of the passage.

  But then my spirits plummeted. There was nothing but darkness beyond.

  I stood a moment in silence. Time and the inky blackness pressing down upon me. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realised that I was standing at the base of a rough-hewn stone staircase that spiralled upward. Feeling around the edges of the masonry, I discovered a recessed finger-hold that was discretely crafted to act as a banister of sorts. Running my fingers along its edge to keep my balance and help guide my steps, I ascended the stairwell.

  The air grew thinner. But the steps in front of me grew clearer. Though my line of sight was limited by the curve of the staircase, the last step rounded into view, illuminated by the flickering sunset blaze of firelight. Holding my breath, I inched forward. It took me several seconds to process what I was seeing before me.

  It was a grotto; a coarse chamber that appeared to have been hollowed within the limestone quarry. In the middle of the grotto was a blazing fire in a bowl – a sepulchral lamp holding an eternal flame – which seemed to create a draught, circulating the air in the passage, perhaps so that the miners could breathe.

  The grotto was lined with seven skeletons, standing upright as if in vertical coffins. And before each of these skeletons, mounted on a pedestal, was an instrument made of human bone.

  Filthy, wet and shivering from both the chill air and my own perspiration, I stepped out of the stairwell.

  I moved past the first skeleton with its trumpet made out of a thigh bone. The trumpet was decorated with a metal casing covered in turquoise stones and tightly bound with leather. It was beautiful in a macabre way.

  The next instrument was a bone flute, elaborately engraved with markings. And following this, a harp made from breast bone and what looked like human hair of the same amber hue as the flames.

  I lingered.

  The heat emanating from the fire warmed my ice-cold skin and I longed to simply stand in front of it until I felt human again.

  ‘SAFFRON!’ The heavy thud of footsteps sounded upon the stairwell and I knew that Gabriel was urging me to hurry.

  My brain leapt into action.

  Quickly assessing the various macabre instruments laid out before me, I felt the first faint wisps of possibility and hope materialising. Even so, I might have been more cautious had not the stark moment of mortality brought with it the desperation of our circumstances.

  In one fluid motion I reached out and, swinging my arm downward, beat my hand upon the stretched leather of the bone drum to call the dead, just as Gabriel burst forth into the grotto, half dressed and swearing. The instant my hand made contact with the drum skin, the drum gave off a low pitched tone that resonated loudly through the grotto and, simultaneously, from the parted jaw bones of the bleached-white skeleton an eerie whispering issued forth. Stale air rushed out from its hollow eye sockets and nose cavity and through the yellowed lower teeth of its mandible producing a sound between a hiss and a whistle.

  And then the skeleton moved towards me.

/>   That’s when I lost it.

  I gave a shriek which drowned out all other sound and ducked behind Gabriel for protection, clutching at his hard pecs and hiding my face in between his shoulder blades, uncaring that the damp shirt clung to his torso like a second skin and his hair was dripping wet – dripping down his neck and onto me.

  I clung to him as if my life depended on it – which, I was certain, it did.

  I was trembling so badly, my teeth chattering loudly, that at first I didn’t notice Gabriel’s shoulders shaking in reaction.

  ‘Mon petit chou,’ he sounded amused, ‘It is only a skeleton, not a zombie.’

  I had to stand up on tiptoes to peek over Gabriel’s right shoulder. Where the skeleton had been positioned, a concealed doorway had swung open with noiseless precision. The dead had truly spoken – the tone of the drum vibrating in the grotto had triggered a mechanism, stirring the air in the chamber beyond, which had passed through air holes in the wall and out of the skeleton’s skull, simultaneously revealing our exit from the Catacombs.

  I gave a grim sigh, releasing my grip from Gabriel’s upper arms.

  ‘Please tell me we’re almost there,’ I pleaded, feeling both embarrassed and exhausted.

  ‘Bah, I’m afraid not,’ Gabriel replied, and my hopes sank in response. ‘We are not almost there; our destination is just beyond that door.’

  I felt like killing him for teasing me.

  With all the dignity I could muster, I stepped around him and proceeded through the open doorway and into the archaeological Crypt beneath the parvis of Paris’ famous Notre-Dame Cathedral, amazed that we had finally made it out of the underground system. I emerged from the ancient Catacombs into the low-lit medieval ruins, confronting the unknown.

  And before me was the Seed.

  The artefact was cleverly tucked into a niche in the crumbling stone wall of the Crypt, looking as if it had been there for centuries. Under normal circumstances I may not even have recognised it, ignoring it in my ignorance. But the luminous glow emanating from it exerted a magnetic pull over me.