The Lucifer Gospel

by Paul Christopher

  “Many years ago, in Thomas Woodward’s time, they called this place Jeremiah’s Grotto,” said a voice, echoing in the enormous chamber. An old man stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the dome and approached them. “Which of course is one of the names associated with the Tomb of Christ. It is not that place, but it is interesting that such a reputation should still be associated with it.” He tapped his way across the floor, weaving his way through stacks and piles and racks of narrow-necked circular jars like the clay containers of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. “Woodward stumbled on this place but he was a drunkard and a famous sinner, so no one believed him. The Keepers then simply bought his silence and cooperation with more drink.”

  Finn peered into the flickering half-light as the old man came forward. He was tall and only a little stooped, leaning lightly on a heavy cane. In his free hand he was carrying what appeared to be a leather bundle rolled up and tied with a bright gold chain. His hair was steel gray and cut short, almost military. He was wearing old corduroy trousers and a dark blue knitted sweater that might have belonged to a seaman. He wore old, high-button boots and steel-rimmed spectacles. His voice was flat and Midwestern, but deep beneath there was a hint of something else. A sophistication that said something of foreign lands seen long ago. With a terrible lurch in her heart Finn realized that this old man reminded her of her father.

  “Who are you?”

  “The last of the Keepers.”

  “Keepers?”

  “Keepers of this place. Its stewards, if you will.” He smiled sadly. “More or less the janitor who cares for the True Word of Christ.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Hilts. “This place, in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t seem possible.”

  “What is the Libyan Desert if not the middle of nowhere? In relation to Rome, during the heights of empire, Jerusalem was just as much the middle of nowhere; the very ends of the earth to be exact. For Moses the Sinai was the middle of nowhere. To a New Yorker this part of Illinois is still the middle of nowhere. Einstein was right, Mr. Hilts; it’s all relative. I could spin you exotic tales of Lost Templar Fleets, of the ocean-spanning navy of King Solomon, whose temple is mimicked in the exact measurements of the Sistine Chapel, about Nostradamus, about the New Jerusalem your friend the madman Adamson hopes to found.”

  “He’s no friend of ours,” said Finn.

  “At least we beat him here,” grunted Hilts.

  “As a matter of fact, you didn’t,” said the old man. “He arrived yesterday. He’s been in Olney, a few miles away, gathering equipment and information. I expect he’ll be along shortly.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know a great deal, Mr. Hilts. About you and my old friend Arthur Simpson, poor soul. About you and your father, Ms. Ryan.” He smiled again. “It comes with the job, you might say.”

  Again Finn caught the faint edge of an accent in the distant past. With a breathtaking flash she had it. “You’re the monk. DeVaux.”

  He nodded, smiling wearily.

  “Pierre DeVaux, Peter Devereaux, Paul Devers now. Never a monk, though, that was a pretence. A priest always. A priest forever.”

  “A murderer,” said Hilts. “You killed Pedrazzi. And if that’s not you on the Acosta Star, then who was it locked in your cabin?”

  “Death and secrets are hardly strange bedfellows, Mr. Hilts. Pedrazzi tried to kill me in that terrible place in the desert. He’d discovered who I was and knew I’d never let him give the secret to a man like Mussolini to use as a trading piece in some political game. He tried to kill me; I merely defended myself.”

  “And on the ship?” Finn said.

  “In the cabin? Kerzner, the man sent to kill me by your father’s people, Ms. Ryan. The man bought and paid for by Adamson’s grandfather. The bishop never made an appearance. One can only presume he died in the fire.”

  “How did he know the exact location of this place?” asked Hilts.

  “Because I told him,” said the old man. “Just before I left him to die. It was his last wish.”

  “You really are a bastard,” said Hilts, curling his lip.

  “That too,” said the old man with a shrug. “Most of us were. Foundlings, orphans. The refuse of life. It seemed like a good seeding ground.”

  “Us?” asked Finn.

  “The Keepers.”

  “Of this place?”

  “Of what it contains.”

  “Which is?”

  “The True Word.”

  “The Lucifer Gospel.”

  “Hardly Lucifer’s. He only guarded it. He was the first Keeper of the Word. This is his place.” He spread his arms, staring upward into the infinity of the soaring stone above him.

  “I’m getting confused,” said Finn.

  “I’m getting a headache,” said Hilts. “I’m standing in a place that shouldn’t exist lit by lights that shouldn’t be burning, talking to a man who should be dead. None of this makes any sense at all.”

  “A thousand years ago the lights were made with mirrors, the rock was carved with the sweat and honest effort of faithful men, and the only reason I have stayed alive is to protect the secret of this place until it can no longer be protected.”

  “And then?” Finn said softly. “What then?”

  “And then I shall destroy it,” the old man said simply.

  “You’re crazy,” said Hilts.

  “Perhaps,” said the old man. “But the time for the words of men like Christ is over now. There are new gods, I’m afraid.” He held up the little leather-wrapped package. “When that time comes the Place of Secrets must be destroyed and the Gospel of the Light destroyed along with it. The instructions are quite clear,” he added sadly.

  “But why?” Finn urged. “Why destroy all of this?”

  “Because if all cannot have it, no one person shall. Light is meant to illuminate, after all, it should not be used as power.”

  “Then tell everyone.”

  “The simple revelation of its existence would be used against it. It would be used as a rallying cry by Adamson and his people. This place, His Word, was not meant for that. Crusades are fought with blood and swords, not faith and sacrifice.”

  The shot rang out like an alien thing in the chamber, striking the old man before it was heard, whirling him around where he stood and dropping him to the floor of the giant cave. There was a series of small explosions, sharp and hard against their ears, and then, almost as though it was a signal, the light in the huge domed cavern was extinguished and total darkness fell. It remained that way for a moment and then the blackness was pierced by half a dozen brilliant narrow beams of green.

  “Night-vision glasses,” whispered Hilts. He felt around on the floor and found the groaning huddled shape of the old man.

  “You’re hit?” Finn asked.

  “The shoulder. I’ll live,” said Devereaux. “For the moment, at any rate. Long enough.”

  “We have to get you out of here,” said Hilts.

  “You’ve got to get yourself out of here, before it’s too late.”

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

  “You are two hundred and thirty-seven feet underground. On the far side of this cavern is an exit that leads directly to the Winter River, separated by a shield of brittle rock that I can remove at any time I wish. Adamson thinks he has won. He thinks he has triumphed. He thinks he has finally gained the ultimate prize that will give him a nation. He has found nothing. Only the darkness.”

  “Grab him by the legs,” Hilts instructed. All around them now the green lines of light were twisting back and forth.

  “Sinkholes,” gasped the old man as they dragged him across the floor of the cavern. “He’s coming in from the old entrances above.”

  Suddenly Adamson’s voice boomed into the air from a bullhorn.

  “I don’t know how you did it, but you won’t survive this time!”

  “He’s nuts.”

  “Tell me something I d
on’t know,” said Finn.

  They finally managed to reach the edge of the cavern. Their backs were to the sloping stone wall. She felt the old man gripping the lapels of her jacket.

  “You must get away.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?” asked Hilts.

  “The Medusa Gate.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Over each of the monks’ cells a mask was carved into the stone. Medusa was the patron goddess of Lucifer’s Legion. Find it and you find the way.”

  There was a harsh sound like tearing cloth and a flare burst overhead, throwing the dome into stark outline. At least a dozen men were rappelling down on dangling ropes from the ceiling of the cavern. All of them were armed.

  “There!” Adamson bellowed. There was a burst of gunfire. Bullets ricocheted off the rock walls beside them.

  The garish, hot light from the flare began to fade. Finn spotted something.

  “The Medusa!” She pointed.

  “Come on, bring him!” said Hilts, taking the old man under the arms again. In the last light from the flare Finn could see the wound. It was bubbling, lower on his torso than the shoulder. A lung, or worse.

  “Leave me,” said Devereaux weakly. “If you try to bring me you will fail. Go!” he commanded.

  “We’ll get help!” said Hilts.

  “Go! Now!” said the old man.

  They ran. The flare died out completely, leaving them in utter darkness except for the piercing lines of green. They stumbled over the rocky uneven floor of the cavern.

  “One of those guys lights us up, we’re toast,” said Hilts.

  There was another tearing sound and the air around them exploded in sudden light. There, only a few feet away now, was the small cell-like entrance marked with the same Medusa image as the one on the medallion.

  “Run!” Hilts yelled, pushing Finn ahead of him toward the dark entrance. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the old man, sagging against the wall of the gigantic, wondrous place that had been in his charge for so many years. He was smiling.

  Bullets flew, whining like a swarm of angry hornets. She rushed into darkness, ducking her head below the hideous, snake-haired goddess, and stumbled into the little cave. In the light from the new flare she saw that it was no cell at all but the foot of a stone stairway leading upward.

  “Climb!” Hilts yelled.

  She moved swiftly to the steps and began to struggle upward, the photographer close behind her, his breath harsh and grating as they pressed onward.

  Minutes passed and still they climbed. Horribly, from somewhere far below, they heard other footsteps ringing on the stone. Then, with a terrible sound like the very heart of the earth breaking below them, there was a terrible roar and air pushed around them like wind from a tunnel.

  “What was that!?”

  “Keep going.”

  They kept climbing but the sound grew louder, a guttering, windy roar, and then it was upon them, a flushing horror of rock and debris that gathered them in its choking belly and pushed them upward in a tumbling torrent, hammering them with bruising force against the stone walls of the stairwell. The icy flood was like a battering ram that finally expelled them in a geyser of water on a cold stone floor. Gasping, choking, they climbed to their knees as more water flooded up from below, filling the chamber they were in.

  “Where are we!?” Finn gasped, climbing to her feet, hanging on to Hilts as she rose.

  “Some kind of basement,” he coughed, looking around. He pointed across the swirling pool of filthy water climbing up the walls. “Stairs.” He grabbed her hand and they waded across to the short stairway and climbed upward. There was a plain wooden door at the top. Hilts pushed it open and they stepped out into a musty-smelling country kitchen. There was a woodstove in one corner, an old dry sink, and a rough wood table with a few old chairs in the center of the room. Through a grimy window Finn could see out into the rainy parking lot of the Caverns of Wonder. They were in the kitchen of the old, decrepit farmhouse.

  “This is how the old man got in and out, I guess,” said Hilts, dropping down into one of the chairs. “Thank God it’s over.”

  “I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” said Finn suddenly. There was a dangerous creaking sound all around them, then a lurching sensation as the floor at their feet skewed and twisted, as though they were in the middle of an earthquake. Hilts got to his feet again. Above them the ceiling began to crack, plaster cascading down. The floor lurched again and the window shattered as the frame twisted out of its slot.

  They ran for the door leading out onto the sagging porch, barely making it before the roof behind them tumbled inward with a roar as the ruined old house collapsed inward onto itself. They raced outside into the rain and saw that the ground was cracking beneath them, huge rents in the earth appearing as the air thundered with the sound of the cavern destroying itself.

  “The whole river is going to change course,” Finn whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  They ran for the car where it waited at the edge of the parking lot, reaching it just as the ground opened up and swallowed the old school bus before their eyes. Hilts got behind the wheel, fumbled at the ignition and then at last got the car started. He pushed it into drive, slammed his foot down on the gas, and they rocketed away. They reached the arching gate a second or so before it collapsed, then lurched out onto the country road and away. As the Caverns of Wonder raced behind them Finn let her head fall back against the seat, exhausted. Then, suddenly, she sat forward, frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” said Hilts.

  She reached into her jacket and pulled out the leather bundle Devereaux had been carrying. She unwrapped the chain and saw it held a medallion like the one they’d found on Pedrazzi’s body. She peeled apart a little of the leather and saw what was underneath. A scroll on metal, the copper ancient, green and oxidized, but the writing in clear cuneiform script.” The last of the Lucifer Gospel.”

  “He must have slipped it into my jacket when he grabbed me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I didn’t know.”

  “So now what do we do?” said Hilts, driving them away.

  Finn let her head drop back wearily again and closed her eyes. Who knew what the scroll contained? What promise, what words, what power?

  “I’ve Got An Idea.” She Smiled.

  EPILOGUE

  Finn stood on the Promenade Deck of the Freedom of the Seas and leaned over the side, watching as the smooth green waters of the Caribbean parted for the massive bulk of the 158,000-ton vessel. To Finn the enormous thing barely counted as a ship except for the fact that it had a relatively sharp end and a reasonably rounded one.

  She knew she was old-fashioned, but to her ships were supposed to evoke some sense of passage and adventure, not simply be huge, top-heavy excuses for rock walls to climb, surf-slide wave machines, and monolithic shopping malls that floated. The boat even had its own television station broadcasting regular, enlightening programs on exactly what percentage you should tip various staff members on board.

  Finn, who could remember traveling across the Atlantic on the stately and sophisticated QE2 with her parents, wasn’t particularly impressed by a ship with the naval architecture of a Wheaties box and the marketing style of a Wal-Mart. If a ship like this ever hit an iceberg it wouldn’t sink, it would come apart like pieces of LEGO.

  Still, it was the only way to accomplish what she wanted to achieve and it had given them an excuse to visit with Lloyd Tereo and Tucker Noe and Lyman Mills at Hollaback Cay before setting out from Nassau as the Freedom made her inaugural cruise of the islands after her recent launch. They were well over the Tongue of the Ocean now. Finn wondered how many people jacking up their credit cards on board had even the slightest awareness of the depth of water underneath the thin metal skin of the big white ship. Barely six feet of Finnish aluminum and sheet steel between them and a two-mile drop into oblivion.

  She stared out over the expanse of bright water
and thought about the weed-and-coral-shrouded ghost of the Acosta Star, lying out there, not too far away now, hidden by the rolling ocean, keeping her secrets and her dead. Would Freedom of the Seas have an ending like that, a burial at sea? Not likely. In a few years, when her silly innovations became passé and were no longer cost-effective, she’d probably wind up being hacked to pieces for scrap on the breakers beach at Alang on the Indian coast, the great and terrible grave-yard for ships past their time.

  For a moment, feeling the soft Caribbean breeze on her cheek, she found herself thinking about Devereaux and her father and poor old Arthur Simpson, found murdered in a ditch in Over the Hill, a dangerous and unsavory part of Nassau where an old white man had no business being. His throat had been slit and his wallet and watch were stolen, but Finn knew he’d almost certainly been a victim of Adamson’s thugs.