In the Shadows of Fate

by Rick Jurewicz

  "Umm...no. I was just curious if you were enrolled here," she said, again giving a slight glance at Jake, then quickly shifting her eyes back to her computer screen.

  "Ah. I see," said Miranda coolly. "No, we are not students here. We are friends of a friend of Dr. Vikhrov, and we thought we would stop in and say hello."

  "Okay," replied the girl, who stayed focused on the computer screen and no longer looked up at Miranda.

  "Dr. Vikhrov still does have an office located on floor B-1 of this building. But he is only teaching one class this semester, and it's a Friday morning class in the McCoy Liberal Arts Building."

  "Does he have office hours?" asked Miranda.

  "Only by appointment, according to what it says in the notes here," said the girl. "But you are welcome to leave your name and number here, and I can make sure it goes into his mail box."

  Miranda thought for a moment. "B-1...is that the basement?"

  "Yes," replied the girl. "There are two sublevels, B-1 and B-2."

  Miranda smiled a forced smile once more at the girl.

  "Thank you. I'll just slide something under his door. Where are the stairs?"

  The girl frowned and pointed down the main hall. "Just follow the hall to the end, and stairs will be on the left. There is no elevator to the basement except a freight one."

  "I think we can manage a few stairs. What is the office number?"

  "B121," replied the girl. The two young women held each others gaze for only a moment before the younger blonde girl looked away suddenly as if she had been distracted by something that came up on her computer screen. Miranda just turned and walked on past Jake out of the office, and Jake narrowed his eyes as she walked by. He looked to the girl behind the desk.

  "Thank you for your help," he said with a smile. The girl only briefly looked up and gave him a quick, awkward smile, and went back to her screen.

  Jake caught up with Miranda, who was already several strides down the hall. She seemed focused on only what she was doing, like a soldier on a mission, so Jake didn't even bother to ask what the hostility was all about back in the office.

  Down two short flights of stairs and they were on B-1, looking for Dr. Vikhrov's office. The hall was quiet, and as they counted the numbers down, they noticed they were approaching one office door, the only one on the entire floor, that was wide open. They could see that the office was B121, and Jake held up his arm to Miranda and leaned into her.

  "Just wait...let me check it out," he whispered to her, and Miranda nodded back to him.

  Jake stepped very quietly, one foot after the other, to just before the entrance to the office door. Miranda watched from a few feet behind Jake, and gripped the Spyderco knife in her hand inside of her right jacket pocket. Jake peeked cautiously around the door frame and let out a sudden, startled scream and jumped backwards at once, losing his footing and landing on his backside in the middle of the empty hallway.

  Miranda responded by pulling the knife from her pocket while jumping backwards herself. It took her a moment to realize that an equally startled sound came from inside of the office. She stood still for a moment, looking down at Jake while a man stepped out slowly from the office doorway with his hands raised in front of him. The man stood at about 5-foot-9, with thin, grey hair on the top and bushier, thicker hair on the sides with a grey mustache to match. He wore a light-grey tweed sports coat and a green sweater vest beneath, with matching grey slacks. The man looked down at Jake on the floor, who looked back in bewilderment back at him. He then turned to Miranda, who had tucked the knife back into her pocket out of the man's sight.

  "Dr. Vikhrov?" asked Miranda, studying the man before her.

  "Yes," said the man in his pronounced Russian accent. He took his right hand down from his 'I surrender' stance and extended it to Miranda. "And you are?"

  Miranda snapped out of her embarrassed gaze and stepped forward and took Dr. Vikhrov's hand as Jake pulled himself to his feet by their side.

  "I'm so sorry we startled you, Dr. Vikhrov. My name is Miranda...Gale. This is my friend, Jake Hunter."

  Dr. Vikhrov smiled politely back to them. "You'll have to excuse me as well. It's not too often others venture down here. I thought I heard someone coming down the hall, and then there was silence, so I was hesitant to stick my head out and look around." He looked to Jake, who clumsily grinned back at him.

  "So, what can I help you with? Please, come in. You'll have to excuse the clutter. It is rare I take meetings with students in my office any more. I don't recognize you from my class. Are you students here?"

  Miranda and Jake sat down across the desk from Dr. Vikhrov, who took his seat in the tall leather chair facing them.

  "No, we aren't," said Miranda. "I am a student at South Central Michigan College."

  "South Central? Really? Well, what brings you all the way out here, and into the dungeons of our fine school?"

  "You were recommended to me by a Dr. Carlyle at South Central."

  "Richard? Richard Carlyle? Well, that is a name I haven't heard in a long time now. How is he?"

  "Honestly, I have never met Dr. Carlyle. My roommate is a student in his Modern Perspectives of Ancient Religious Practices class."

  "I see...well, you have my curiosity. You were recommended to me by a man you have never met who teaches a class you are not taking...regarding what? Richard Carlyle is a very knowledgeable and qualified educator. What could I help you with that he could not?"

  Miranda unzipped her laptop case and pulled the manila folder from inside and handed it across the desk to Dr. Vikhrov. Jake sat silently by her side. This was in her court, and he was there for support in whatever way she needed. Dr. Vikhrov took the folder and opened it wide, revealing all of the pages of parchment within.

  Dr. Vikhrov's first response was the narrowing of his eyes. Then, Miranda noticed his hands tremble ever so slightly as he set the folder down flat upon his desk. His eyes shot up quickly to Miranda for a brief moment before he grabbed a pair of reading glasses sitting upon the desk to his left. He put the glasses on and very carefully picked up the first page in the folder and stared at it with a look that neither Miranda nor Jake could make a proper assessment of. The several seconds that went by seemed like centuries to Miranda before Dr. Vikhrov finally spoke again.

  "My God," he almost whispered, still peering down at the parchment in his hands. He looked directly at Miranda's face, and she could almost feel a chill run down the back of her neck. "Where in heaven did you get this?"

  "I guess you could say that I inherited it. It was passed down in my family. I am the last in the family line, as far as I know," Miranda told him.

  "Does anyone else know about this?" Dr. Vikhrov asked.

  Jake and Miranda looked at each other momentarily, and then back at Vikhrov.

  "My roommate, who I sent it to so she could show Dr. Carlyle, and Dr. Carlyle himself. But he didn't know what it was. That was why he referred us to you."

  "So, you have no idea what this is either?" Dr. Vikhrov asked.

  "We were hoping that you could enlighten us on that," said Miranda.

  Dr. Vikhrov placed the parchment on the desk beside the other sheets still lying in the folder. He sat back in his chair, almost as if he was coming to grips with some uncomfortable truth, and having some difficulty trying to grasp a hold on the situation himself.

  "I have, for many years, studied all manner of documents similar to these. The textures. The smells. The overall composition of papyrus and parchments dating back thousands of years. Over time, you get a feel for it. You know it like you know the spices of your favorite recipes, and the savory, hidden subtle elements of a fine wine. Without proper scientific testing, you cannot get a truly accurate date, but to the trained researcher, certain facts are more than obvious. I would venture to guess that these documents, which are astonishingly in exceptional condition, especially given the fact that there is no indication that they have been kept in an airtight environment,
are almost 2,000 years old.”

  Jake's jaw dropped. Miranda had no immediate reaction. She was still waiting for the real definitive answer. What is so important in these documents worth dying - or killing - for?

  Dr. Vikhrov leaned forward again, his excitement starting to become more evident.

  "The script," he pointed to on the top page, "It has been commonly misrepresented as a broken or erroneous form of Hebrew, but it is in fact more appropriately an altered version of a kind of writing called Enochian script, which is sometimes referred to as 'angelic' script. It was believed that this was the language that was spoken by God when he created the Heavens and the Earth, and was the language of the angels as spoken to by God."

  Dr. Vikhrov looked up at Miranda, who was still expressionless. "But I am getting the feeling, Miss Gale, that I am not yet telling you anything that you haven't already figured out for yourself. Am I correct?"

  Jake looked at Miranda with a questionable gaze, quickly realizing there was still more that Miranda had not shared with him. She looked at him for only a moment; he lowered his face down toward his chest, and did not look back up at her. She understood how he felt, but she couldn't concern herself with that now, as cold as that might seem. She needed to find out what she had come here for.

  "Can you translate it? Can you find out what it actually is?" Miranda asked Dr. Vikhrov.

  "I already have, actually," he stated.

  "You haven't even looked at the entire manuscript yet," she said.

  "Oh, but I have. Many years ago. I have seen these all before, rewritten and copied, many times. I believe that I myself have done the most accurate of translations, but many of them are similar."

  Miranda sunk in her chair. She felt suddenly empty. If there was nothing new or unknown about the contents of these pages, how could they have been the reason her family had died?

  "So, these parchments...there is nothing special about them, besides being really old? Everyone knows what's on them?" asked Jake, who saw Miranda's growing disappointment start to pull her down.

  "Well, everyone is not quite accurate," said Dr. Vikhrov. "These particular documents, and the history that surrounds them, have been a particular interest to me. More of an obsessive hobby, actually. What is contained in these documents, and the authenticity of the text, has been the subject of scholarly debate for more than 1,000 years. The text itself has been accepted anecdotally for centuries, but not by serious scholars of biblical history. The only proof in existence to the source of the text lies on this desk in front of us now. In this moment right now, Miss Gale, you have brought me confirmation of the authenticity of that which I have been researching and seeking for the better part of my life!"

  Miranda sat up straight again, and felt like her blood might start to boil. It was not in anger, but in anticipation of that which she could hold back no longer.

  "Dr. Vikhrov," she said calmly, restraining the absence of her patience. "What is this document? What is written on the pages?"

  "This, Miss Gale, is the Caducus Oraclum, also commonly referred to as the lost Gospel of Lucifer, The Fallen Star of the Morning."

  CHAPTER 12

  "The Gospel of Lucifer?" asked Jake, bewildered. "I don't know a whole lot about things in the Bible, but isn't Lucifer the Devil?"

  "Well, yes and no. There have been over the centuries many different theories about this. The name Lucifer had been first mentioned, but not greatly elaborated on, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 14, verse 12. ‘How art thou fallen, O' Lucifer, son of the morning! How thou art now cut down to the very ground, thou who once laid low the nations; for thou said in thine heart; I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the far side of the north'."

  "Many biblical scholars believe that the name of Lucifer was translated in error, meant to be that of a 'shining star' in the most derogatory sense. A play of words, so to speak, regarding how Satan saw himself as his own bright beacon of glory. It wasn't until much later, in the 1300s A.D., that the name Lucifer became popularly synonymous with that of what we know as 'the Devil' in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy."

  "So then, what is this? What is the Gospel of Lucifer?" asked Miranda.

  "The Gospel of Lucifer is an ancient manuscript that supposedly tells Lucifer's side of the story regarding his fall and imprisonment in Hell. To really understand the depth of what is written in these pages, you should know the history as to why and how the original documents became lost, which may shed clues as to how they came into your possession."

  "Go on, please," said Miranda, waiting intently for him to continue.

  "The Holy Bible, which I am sure you are aware, is primarily in two books, the Old Testament, and the New Testament. Both testaments are made up of several smaller books, and depending upon which particular faith you follow, whether it be Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant, the Old Testament, for instance, will be composed of different books and different numbers of books. The Jewish version of the Old Testament contains only 24 books, while the Catholic version contains 46 books. Depending upon which faith, certain books are accepted as Biblical canon, or rule of law."

  "Alright. So where does this book fit into it all?" asked Jake.

  "The books contained in the many different forms and versions of the Holy Bible are not the only biblical texts in existence. There are several different books that, depending upon the given source material and content, have never made the cut as one of the canonical scriptures of the Bible. You've heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls?"

  "Yes," Miranda replied.

  "They were 972 biblical texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 that made up much of what is known as the Hebrew Bible. This was not the first time that such a discovery was made since the birth of Jesus Christ. What I am going to tell you now is what is considered more the stuff of myth and legend in the circles of the scholarly elite in these fields.

  "It was rumored that around the year 542 A.D. in the area known as Samaria in Palestine, which was also known as the burial place of John the Baptist, there was a discovery of roughly 500 documents, both of religious and secular nature in a cave deep within the mountainous region. Most of the known documents were thought to be written both during the time of Christ by witnesses other than those accepted by the Holy Church, and by several others who gave accounts in the years following His death of the state of the regions he had traveled. This document stood out from the others, due to the writing style used that had never been seen before, at least in this form. There were no clues as to its author, or how it came to be with the documents it had been found with. The Church was very insistent that all discovered documents of that time period, and especially anything to do with Jesus Christ, were to be immediately turned over to the Church for examination and review. Those who discovered this treasure trove of documents were greatly rewarded for their find, and equally for their silence as to the existence of the documents and the location as to where they had been found, a place which had come to be called, for reasons unknown, 'Cadere Gladii'. Translated from Latin, it means 'Fall of the Sword'.

  "Now came the part of the story that came in some circles to be called the 'Tale of Two Cardinals'. The documents were analyzed and archived in the Church libraries, and remained entombed there for the better part of 30 years. The Italian Cardinal Abatescianni, acting on his own for what he felt was the good of the Church and the sanctity of Holy Scripture, proposed to the Pope that the non-canonical text be destroyed at once. Opposing this act was the French Cardinal Daviau, who believed that all documents held by the Church held significance, from both a religious and historical perspective. While the Pope decided to take the matter into consideration, Cardinal Abatescianni proceeded with a plan to destroy the documents without consent from the Holy Father. Upon discovery of the Italian cardinal's plan, Cardinal Daviau conceived of his own plan for the greater good and, with a small group of priests believing a
s he did, took the documents from the Church archives and fled. Cardinal Daviau and those first few priests became the first of a long line of an order of people dedicated to the protection and preservation of documents that had religious significance and historical fact that may be threatened by those who feared their existence. ‘Afin de Sainteté', it came to be called by the French cardinal. The Order of Sanctity. They were the caretakers and protectors of these texts for centuries. It is rumored that the Order still exists today.”

  "Would members of the Order use violence to protect the documents?" Jake asked.

  "I would guess it was not the preferred method they would choose, but if push came to shove, who knows? What the real talent was behind the Order was secrecy. At the height of the Order’s network, there were several families throughout Europe that protected different parts of the documents, and copies were created and interjected into society at different times through the past 1,500 years. That is how the Caducus Oraclum got out, although the Church denied any authenticity of it or any other documents discovered at 'Cadere Gladii'.

  "So where are the rest of the documents? Is it possible that my family was one of the caretakers of the Order of Sanctity?" Miranda asked.

  "Yes...and no, Miss Gale," said Dr. Vikhrov.

  "Please, call me Miranda," she stated, starting to feel less comfortable with the name she chose for her own anonymity.

  "Okay, Miranda. In the late 1660s, John Milton published "Paradise Lost", depicting the story of Lucifer's fall from the grace of Heaven after his rebellion against God. It was believed that Milton was in fact a member of the Order of Sanctity, and used some of what he learned in this Lucifer text to weave his story, although much of his tale strays from that which the text tells us. After that, the story takes a dramatic turn. It appears that not all of the original text of the Gospel of Lucifer had been copied and released into the rest of the world. A final segment in the last pages had been omitted from the released copies. The rumors that surfaced spoke of a prophecy of some sort relating to the fallen angel. In fact, that is where this document's original and true name comes from. 'Caducus Oraclum' translates from Latin to the English 'Prophecy of the Fallen'.