THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1)

by Duncan Simpson

  ‘Many people believe in the power of written or spoken words. The symbols tattooed on Nathan Vittori’s body are very unusual.’

  ‘Unusual? In what way?’

  ‘They’re Aramaic: the language spoken by Christ.’

  ‘What do they say?’ asked Milton.

  ‘You need to understand that seals of this type are always inscribed with words specific to their purpose. It’s a prayer to God, asking for protection against a specific evil force.’ Blake paused.

  ‘What evil force?’

  ‘A specific demon stalking the earth.’

  ‘Right,’ Milton’s voice sounded incredulous. ‘And this demon … does it have a name?’

  ‘Yes … Mastema.’

  Chapter 42

  Blake waited for the Filipina nurse to finish her usual checks of Sarah’s ventilator. After diligently adding another column of small ticks to the bottom of the patient chart, she smiled her goodbye and quickly left the hospital room. As the door clicked shut, Blake walked over to the chart at the end of Sarah’s bed and started to idly thumb through its pages.

  Blake had tried to sleep on the train back from Cambridge, but his swirling thoughts wouldn’t let him settle. The Drakon had struck again: another person brutally murdered, all because of some dusty exhibits that once belonged to a scientist who had been dead for nearly 300 years. All roads led back to the Drakon: Nomsa’s killing, Sarah’s coma, the four Newton robberies, and the dead bodies that lay in their wake. Whilst his mind drifted in and out of semi-consciousness and his head tapped gently against the window of the railway carriage, something had become sealed deep in his being, as if the darkness shrouding his life had become illuminated by the possibility of nailing the Drakon for good.

  An announcement on the hospital’s public address system caused Blake to return Sarah’s patient chart to the hanger at the foot of her bed. Before sitting down, he took a small bottle from his pocket: the bottle of nail varnish that Nomsa bought Sarah the day of the hit and run, and the same one that had dropped out from the packing case a couple of days before. Blake pushed his chair next to his daughter’s bed and strained to unscrew the top of the bottle. Finally, it gave way. The smell of solvent vapours quickly filled his nostrils.

  He placed the nail varnish bottle carefully down on the side of the bed, leant over, and brought Sarah’s hand close to his chest. Though the room temperature was stiflingly warm, Sarah’s fingers felt cold, like the surface of a marble statue. Gently he tried to spread out his daughter’s contorted fingers on the white cotton sheets of the bed, but as soon as he removed the slight pressure of his hand, they quickly returned to their original twisted configuration. Unperturbed, he dipped the thin brush into the bottle and, after wiping away the excess liquid, began to paint Sarah’s little finger. Tiny flecks of silver glitter suspended within the bright blue lacquer sparkled under the strong ceiling lights of the hospital room. Once Blake had finished with the little finger, he repositioned the angle of Sarah’s hand on the bed and moved onto the next. Minutes later, all of Sarah’s finger nails were painted in electric blue.

  There you go, my darling, just a year late.

  Blake moved in his chair and felt something hard dig into his back. Shifting his weight to the side, he tried to locate the offending article in his jacket hung over the back of the chair. He quickly found the object and, after slipping it out of the police evidence bag, placed it next to the bottle of nail varnish at the edge of Sarah’s bed. Blake studied Newton’s pocket watch sitting proudly like a silver egg on a nest of white cotton hospital sheets.

  After several moments, he picked up the smooth pebble-like object and placed it in his open hand. Somehow its dimensions fitted perfectly into the curve of his palm as if had been designed specifically for that purpose. Turning the pocket watch over onto its reverse side, he traced a slow line around its perimeter with his fingertip and felt the raised lettering that he had discovered during his interview of Sabatini and Jenkins. What did Sabatini say about the three tiny inscriptions? References to Bible verses that, according to Sabatini, Father Vittori had become obsessed with.

  Blake recalled Sabatini’s look when she had offered up this piece of information. The muscles of her face had turned rigid, her features frozen in an expression of deep concern. Blake leant forward and reached out to the wooden cabinet at the head of the bed. He opened its simple drawer to locate the Gideon Bible that he had placed there before. He removed it from the drawer and opened it on his lap. Next he retrieved a pen from his jacket.

  Using the blank inside cover of the bible as notepaper, Blake copied down the three tiny symbols inscribed on the outer perimeter of the timepiece: D7.25, D12.7 and R12.14. Keeping one finger inside the front cover of the bible, he quickly flicked through the pages until he found the first reference.

  Daniel 7:25. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.

  He read the verse and then reread it, pausing on each small section, searching for meaning within its words. Flicking back to the text as he did so, Blake faithfully transcribed the verse onto the inside front cover with his pen. The next reference, chapter 12, verse 7, was located just two pages further along in the bible. By the time he had transcribed the second reference from the book of Daniel onto the inside front cover, a pattern had become visible.

  Daniel 12:7. The man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, lifted his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and I heard him swear who lives forever, saying ‘It will be for a time, times and half a time …’

  Quickly, his fingers pulled at the thin pages to find the third reference located in Revelation, the final apocalyptic book of the Bible.

  Revelation 12:14. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time out of the serpent’s reach.

  As Blake read out each verse in turn, the pattern screamed off the page.

  A time, times and half a time. What the hell did that mean? Why would Newton have commissioned someone to engrave these particular verses onto his pocket watch?

  As Blake stared at the impenetrable scriptures, his fingers ran over the thin furrows made by his pen tip on the soft cardboard cover of the bible. He searched his mind for inspiration, but nothing came. After five minutes of trying to find a way into the hidden meaning of the verses, he abandoned the endeavour, stood up and walked over to window. Before long he was pacing around Sarah’s bed. After several circumnavigations, he stopped. Standing perfectly still in the middle of the room, Blake started repeating the phrase common to all three verses over and over again like a mantra. A time, times and half a time. A time, times and half a time. A time, times and half a time …

  Blake’s eyes widened. He scooped up the pocket watch from the bed and started to examine the winder at the top of the timepiece. Pinching the winder stem between his thumb and forefinger, he gently pulled the crown several millimetres upwards, releasing the winding mechanism with a click and resetting both hands of the clock to the twelve o’clock position. Could this be the meaning? Blake carefully wound the stem through one full rotation, its completion marked by the sound of a click originating deep within the mechanism. He looked at the open white face and saw that its thin black hands were now displaying one o’clock exactly. Okay, that’s a time, and now for the times. He inhaled deeply and held his breath as he rotated the winder stem through two full revolutions. As before, the full extent of the movement was pronounced with a clear click just as the minute hand reached the vertical position. The dial now displayed a time of three o’clock precisely. And now for half a time. Keeping the face of the pocket watch in view, Blake now rotated the winder stem through a half a turn. As the delicate minute hand greeted
the Roman numeral number six at the bottom of the face, some internal mechanism released, causing the back case of the watch to spring open. Startled by the unexpected movement, Blake nearly lost grip on the pocket watch, his shaking hand dislodging something from inside the timepiece.

  He watched in slow motion as a square piece of folded paper fell onto Sarah’s bed like a leaf falling from a tree.

  Chapter 43

  The cavernous space echoed to the sounds of straining ropes and a body moving quickly through the air. Like a self-propelled pendulum, the man on the trapeze increased his momentum with every swing until his body was raised high above the step-off board. The wires supporting the trapeze rig strained under the weight of fifteen stones of bone and muscle pulling against it. As the man reached the bottom of the arc, he kicked his legs forward and injected even more speed into the long sweep of the trapeze. Again his body passed the step-off board, the sinews in his forearms relaxing momentarily before gravity once again pulled him downwards. At the bottom of the swing, Denic kicked his legs forward and let go of the bar. Grabbing his knees with his hands, he executed a tight somersault before landing perfectly on the net.

  The old Shoreditch Electric Light Station had been designed to generate electricity for the needs of the local community. Powered by the burning of local refuse, its turbines had turned from 1896 until its demise in the second half of the twentieth century. The large industrial halls that had once housed the power plant’s generation and combustion equipment had stood derelict for more than forty years until they had been saved and converted into one of the best circus schools in Europe. The full-size trapeze rig occupied one end of the vast generating hall.

  Denic grabbed hold of the edge of the safety net and dismounted the apparatus. Crossland was waiting for him next to his blue kitbag.

  ‘You should try it, Max. It would do wonders for your back,’ said Denic. Crossland had sustained a compression fracture during a low-altitude drop over Baghdad, and from time to time it burned like a shrapnel wound.

  ‘Sarge, I came as fast as I could. We’ve got some serious trouble. I guess you haven’t seen the Drakon’s latest message?’ Denic’s face turned serious as he shook open the neatly folded towel lying between the worn leather handles of his kitbag.

  ‘The Drakon? What’s going on?’ He patted his brow, but as soon as the towel left his forehead a new constellation of sweat droplets had appeared.

  ‘If we fuck this up, we’re going to end up with a bullet in our heads. You saw what happened to Vinka. Fuck!’

  Without saying another word, Crossland handed over his secure satellite phone and watched his comrade study the message displayed on the screen.

  URGENT!

  JOB INCOMPLETE!

  The priest switched the pocket watch with a fake. Get the original. Currently in possession of Dr Vincent Blake; address to be sent separately. The pocket watch is likely to be returned to the police within the next 24 hours. Locate it immediately.

  NO LOOSE ENDS!

  Drakon

  Chapter 44

  Mary’s eyes were shut and her eyeballs moved rapidly beneath her eyelids, as if she were caught in a dream. The source of the line of dark energy travelling from the church stationed at the riverbank was now directly under her feet. Feeling the loose sand shifting in the Thames tide, she tried to steady herself by shifting her stance. For a second she couldn’t move, as the mud under the thin layer of surface sand was sucking her down and refusing to submit to her movements. She began to rock from side to side, pulling her legs upwards as if marching on the spot. With each stride she was able to move a little more, until eventually she broke the vacuum and freed her legs. Squatting ankle-deep in the freezing water, Mary clawed at the area around her submerged feet, transforming the once-clear water into a cloud of brown sediment. She made a long sweep under the water with her right arm and then stopped. The dark silt oozed through Mary’s frozen fingers as the morning tide of the Thames exerted its irresistible pull back out to sea. Despite being numbed by the cold, she could feel something hard scraping against her fingernails. Her eyes opened wide as if startled from her dream, and she shouted back to the black dog lying patiently on the wharf steps. The dog rose to its feet in anticipation of something about to happen. Another slight swell and then the waters surrounding her feet were quickly drawn away.

  First, the outline of a rectangular block of stone became visible through the cloud of silt, followed by several lines of lettering. Mary stopped moving her hands and allowed the sediment to clear. Gradually, the black words of an inscription became clear:

  ‘And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’ Revelation 12:9.

  From the shore Mary’s screams were clearly audible against the lapping sound of the water and the frenzied barks of the black dog nearby. Another swell of water and the inscription disappeared once again under a cloud of black sediment.

  It took several minutes for Mary to drag herself up the mud bank to the steps leading to the wharf. During that time, a pretty Indian girl about seven years old had squeezed herself next to the black dog on the third step of the jetty. She was insulated from the cold wind by a thick coat, jeans and a pair of dark brown boots, and she began to whisper to the animal as she slowly stroked its long matted hair. Mary strained a smile at the young girl and beckoned her to join her on the lowest step. The child accepted the invitation and shuffled her bottom down the stairs.

  ‘Is this your dog?’ the girl asked, her wide eyes forming perfect black circles against the whites of her eye.

  ‘The dog has no owner,’ Mary replied in a gentle voice. ‘We have been best friends for a very long time.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ The girl thought carefully about what Mary had said and then tightened her scarf around neck.

  ‘Have you been paddling?’

  Mary nodded and pulled on the sheepskin gloves that she kept in the pockets of her outer coat. She possessed three coats, and today she was wearing all of them.

  ‘It’s too cold to paddle,’ said the girl.

  Mary smiled back at the girl.

  ‘You’re right. It is very cold, brrrrrrr,’ said Mary.

  ‘What are those things?’ The girl pointed to the black symbols tattooed on Mary’s feet.

  Mary focused on the blue aura pulsing around the girl’s head and whispered, ‘They tell me where I’ve been, and guide me to where I’m going. Can I ask your name?’

  ‘Noorjehan,’ answered the girl, adding. ‘It means “light of the world”.’

  Mary nodded.

  ‘Why were you shouting?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I followed a line of energy from that church over on the bank to an energy centre out there in the river. It was very strong dark energy.’

  ‘Those marks on your feet, are they to do with the energy?’ asked the girl, her face turning curious.

  Mary nodded. ‘It’s my map. It shows me where the good and dark energy is.’

  From behind the railings bordering the wharf, angry shouts broke the sanctity of the moment.

  ‘Noorjehan, get here this very second! I’ve been worried sick!’

  Even hidden under her layers of clothing, Mary could detect the shrug of Noorjehan’s shoulders.

  ‘That’s my mum. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Before you go, let me bless you.’

  Mary leant forward and touched the girl’s forehead with the still wet tip of her finger.

  ‘Noorjehan, you will be the light of the world.’

  Chapter 45

  With his ear to the door, Blake’s landlord strained to listen above the constant drone of traffic passing close by. He had been waiting outside the basement flat for less than thirty se
conds, but he had already become impatient. He stepped away from the door and peered through the small crack between the curtains of the window, his hands square to his forehead as if he were looking out to sea. Slowly, his vision became accustomed to the shadowy interior. Even in the gloom, the bedsit looked a mess, with packing cases strewn across the floor. It was the sight not only of the disorder but also the Panasonic music system perched on the kitchen sink that strengthened the landlord’s resolve to act. So you think you can treat my house like a bloody landfill site, do you? Right then, it’s about time I took a deposit in lieu of your rental arrears, and that music system will do very nicely.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he unclipped the large ring of keys from his belt and searched for the silver Yale key that fitted the lock. Still unsure whether his tenant was sleeping soundly under the duvet heaped by the side of the bed, he turned the key gently, eased the door open and waited by the threshold, listening out for signs of life. Nothing stirred and he stepped inside.

  The door slammed shut behind him as if caught by a sudden gust of wind. Before his brain could compute the origin of the changing shadows to his right, the landlord felt a crushing pain at the side of his face. His legs buckled and he crashed to the floor.

  Crossland looked down at his captive’s moaning body and wiped the blood from the handle of his pistol.

  Chapter 46

  The ground floor of the Jerusalem Tavern was comprised of five separate rooms, each decorated in wood panelling and faded paintwork on which hung a hotchpotch of paintings, framed cartoons and newspaper cuttings. Running down the entire length of the largest room was a well-stocked bar. There were slightly too many wooden tables and chairs set out for the space available, forcing Blake to weave a zigzag route to the bar.

  Blake smiled at the landlady pulling a pint at the bar and waited for the drink to be handed over to an expectant customer before he started talking.