Blood Infernal

by James Rollins

  “So exactly where is this guy’s lab?” Jordan asked.

  “I just need to get my bearings,” Elizabeth said. “Much has changed, but fortunately for us, much has not.”

  Rhun studied the clock’s many overlapping dials and symbols. It was already almost four in the afternoon, which left them another two and a half hours of daylight.

  Erin huddled in a light blue jacket. “I would’ve thought John Dee’s lab would be somewhere in the Alchemist’s Alley, off by Prague Castle.”

  “And you would have been wrong,” Elizabeth said, in a troublesomely haughty tone. “Many alchemists had workshops in that alley, but the most secret work was done not far from here.”

  “So then where was Dee’s laboratory?” asked Sophia.

  Elizabeth paced slowly away from the clock tower and into the square. She turned in a slow circle, like a compass trying to find true north. Eventually, she pointed down a narrow street that led off the square. Tall apartment buildings flanked both sides.

  “Unless it has been destroyed, his laboratory lies that way.”

  Erin’s brow creased with worry. Rhun understood her concern. If it was gone, they would not only have made this trip for naught, but they would be lost, with no way forward.

  Elizabeth headed off, forcing them to follow her. Sophia hurried to keep abreast of her, while Rhun hung back with the others.

  Erin stared around, clearly taking in the history, but her mind was on a more recent event.

  “Back in 2002,” she said, with a wave of her arm, “Prague was hard hit by a flood. The Vltava River broke its banks and flooded the capital. When those waters receded, sections of the city streets—including this one, if I’m not mistaken—collapsed into medieval-era tunnels, revealing long-lost rooms, workshops . . . even alchemy labs.” Erin looked at them, then at the wet stones under her feet. “Over the years, probably a million people walked over those tunnels without knowing what was there. It caused quite a stir in the archaeological community at the time.”

  Ahead of them, Elizabeth uttered a single harsh syllable that Rhun recognized as a Hungarian curse. They all hurried to join her. She had stopped next to a wooden sign hanging over the street. Next to it, two dark blue doors stood open. Her eyebrows were drawn down into a scowl. She looked ready to rip the sign off its metal hinges.

  On one of the doors, a bright silver circle enclosed a symbol of two flasks connected by tubes. The words Speculum Alchemiae Muzeum Prague were written around it.

  “It’s a museum!” Elizabeth spat. “This is how your age guards its secrets?”

  “Apparently so,” Jordan said.

  Rhun moved closer. Pear-shaped flasks hung from a wrought-iron rack attached to the doors. A golden shield on the front labeled each one’s contents: Elixir of Memory, Elixir of Health, and Elixir of Eternal Youth.

  Rhun remembered similar fanciful potions from his childhood.

  Christian planted his fists on his hips, looking dubiously at the museum. “John Dee’s papers are here?”

  “They were here,” Elizabeth corrected. “This used to be an ordinary-seeming house. It had a great room in front, and a sitting room in back, where alchemists would receive guests and talk about their works. Including scholars such as Tycho Brahe and Rabbi Loew. Old men with white beards hunched over crucibles and alembics. And of course, charlatans, too, like that damnable Edward Kelly.”

  Rain ran into Rhun’s eyes, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “What were they working on?”

  Elizabeth shook drops from her wimple. “Everything. They searched for many things that would prove foolish and elusive, like a philosopher’s stone capable of turning base metals to gold, but they also discovered much of real consequence.” She stamped her small foot on the cobbles. “Discoveries that were later lost. Things the likes of which your modern mind cannot ever comprehend. And now you have turned it into a child’s amusement show.”

  “Well, we came all of this way,” Christian said, slipping past her. “We might as well have a look.”

  Everyone followed, drawing her with them despite her protests.

  Two women welcomed them from behind a counter. The older one, a salt-and-pepper brunette, toyed with a necklace she was beading, while the younger one, likely her daughter, swiped at a glass display with a long feather duster.

  Rhun surveyed the room. He ducked from the dried herbs hanging from an arched ceiling. All around, wooden shelves lined the walls, crowded with all manner of old books and more glass and pottery. He noted a large wooden door to the right of the counter. It was currently closed.

  Elizabeth swept past him and went straight for the front desk, confronting the older of the two women. “Is it possible to see the receiving room?” she demanded. “And perhaps the rooms beneath?”

  “Naturally, Sister.” The woman peered at Elizabeth over the top of a pair of half-moon glasses, studying the mix of nuns and white-collared priests with a bit of amusement. “We give tours.”

  Elizabeth looked aghast, but Christian pushed forward. “I’d like to buy six tickets,” he said quickly. “When is the next available tour?”

  “Right away,” the woman said.

  The older woman took the euros Christian handed her and gave them each a large rectangular ticket.

  The younger woman smiled at Jordan. She had kind brown eyes and looked about twenty-five. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a bun and tied with a purple ribbon. The color matched her shirt and a tight skirt that ended high above her knees.

  Elizabeth stepped between her and Rhun, eyeing the woman’s tight garments with distaste.

  “My name is Tereza,” the young woman said, trying her best to ignore Elizabeth’s scathing glare. “I’ll be your guide through the alchemist’s laboratory. If you’ll please follow me.”

  Using a heavy key, the woman unlocked the door. As she swung it open, a waft of dank and moldy air rolled out. Rhun felt a prickling along his neck as he caught a whiff of something else. He remembered his days spent in the Egyptian desert, recognizing here the same sense of malevolence that he had hunted in the sands.

  He searched around but found no evidence of danger. The other Sanguinists showed no such misgivings.

  Still, Rhun moved closer to Erin.

  4:24 P.M.

  With the tour guide leading them, Erin followed Rhun through the door and into a dark hallway. Jordan trailed behind, giving off a resounding sneeze at the dust. Or maybe he had mold allergies. Still, Rhun jumped at the abrupt noise, pushing Erin against the wall with an arm that felt like a bar of steel.

  Jordan noted the protective gesture. “Be ready if I burp,” he told Rhun. “That’s much more dangerous.”

  They continued onward. Erin studied the oil paintings lining both walls, likely reproductions.

  Up ahead, Tereza waved an arm, while walking backward. “These paintings are of—”

  Elizabeth interrupted her, thrusting out her arm toward various oils. “Emperor Rudolf II, Tycho Brahe, Rabbi Loew, and Rudolf’s physician . . . whose name escapes me at the moment. Not their best likenesses.”

  She then walked right past their guide and into one of the rooms off the hall, as if she knew where she was going.

  “Sister! Wait!” Tereza hurried after Elizabeth, and everyone followed them.

  Elizabeth stopped in the center of a medium-size room, her hands clasped in front of her as if she were praying, but Erin couldn’t imagine that was true. Her haughty gaze swept the room.

  Overhead, a round chandelier held two horned masks and cast an orange-tinted light on a bearskin rug that lay before a marble fireplace. Erin’s attention was drawn to an antique case full of old books, skulls, and specimens in glass jars.

  Intrigued, she moved closer.

  This is what it must have looked like four hundred years ago.

  Elizabeth stepped over to the granite-topped desk along one wall, then to a curtained window behind it. She stopped and surveyed the room. “Where is
the bell?”

  “The bell?” Tereza looked nervous.

  “There used to be a giant glass bell in front of this window. Large enough for a man to stand inside.” Elizabeth dropped to one knee and examined the tiles underfoot. “It left grooves on the floor. John Dee kept his device here instead of in his main laboratory below because he needed the sunlight for his experiments.”

  Erin joined her, running her fingers across the floor. “Are these tiles new?”

  Tereza nodded. “I think so.”

  Elizabeth stood with a huff and wiped her hands on her damp habit. “Where was the bell taken?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tereza said. “So far as I know, there was never a bell.”

  Tereza turned slightly away, muttering something under her breath. It sounded like a Czech expletive. Elizabeth answered her sharply in the same language, making the guide gulp.

  Jordan stepped to Tereza’s side, touching her arm reassuringly. “How about we let this nice young woman tell us what she does know? After all, we paid for the full tour.”

  Elizabeth looked like she was going to say something, but instead, she clasped her hands behind her back. She glanced over to the spot where she’d expected to find the bell, a calculating expression on her face.

  Tereza took a deep breath, then tried to find her groove again. “Th-this room is where the alchemists would have received guests, but it wasn’t a simple sitting room. If you’ll note that each corner of the room bears alchemical symbols for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.”

  Erin turned slowly to examine each symbol. Off to the side, Elizabeth drifted over to the fireplace, keeping her back to the guide. She leaned against the mantel, as if she were about to be sick.

  Tereza continued more boldly, apparently glad not to have the irritable nun at her throat any longer. “The energy from these forces was channeled through the chandelier in the center of the room. Those energies were used for all manner of occult and alchemical purposes. If you’ll come over to this case, I can show you . . .”

  Erin stepped away, slipping toward Elizabeth who had turned away from the fireplace.

  “What were you doing?” Erin asked softly.

  Elizabeth kept her voice low. “Dee had a secret compartment in that marble mantel. The green diamond was once hidden there, when the stone was intact. I just checked it.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  Elizabeth opened her hand to reveal a scrap of paper in her palm. “Just this.”

  Erin noted a row of unusual symbols on it.

  “It’s a name written in Enochian,” Elizabeth explained.

  Erin stared at the strange letters. She knew that John Dee had created his own language, but she’d never learned it. “What name?”

  “Belmagel.”

  Erin frowned at Elizabeth, not recognizing the name.

  “Belmagel was an angel to whom Edward Kelly supposedly spoke with during his scrying sessions with John Dee. Dee eventually had his doubts, and the two men had a falling-out, but Emperor Rudolf was a fierce and unfaltering admirer of Kelly.”

  “So who do you think left that scrap of paper?”

  “Only Rudolf, Dee, and I knew of the existence of that compartment. Rudolf was very secretive about it. He even had the original designer killed to ensure that he never revealed its presence. If Dee had left something there, Rudolf would have taken it after the man died, so I assume that this note must have been left by Rudolf himself.”

  “What else do you know about this Belmagel?” Erin asked, nodding to the paper.

  “Kelly supposedly communed with two angels. Sudsamma was a good angel, a being of light. Belmagel was a dark angel, born of evil.”

  Maybe this was a clue. Her group was searching for the most evil angel of all—Lucifer.

  “If Rudolf left this, it may have been a message to me,” Elizabeth explained. “Something only I would understand.”

  “What was he trying to tell you?” Erin asked.

  Elizabeth gave a small, frustrated shake of her head. “It must have something to do with that charlatan, Kelly. Perhaps this was hidden to direct me toward the man, to his house.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “He had many houses. Who knows if any of them are still standing today?”

  Erin stared toward one person who might know. She lifted her arm. “Tereza, a question, if I might?”

  The guide turned toward her. “What would you like to know?”

  “Edward Kelly was an associate of John Dee. Do you know where Kelly lived and if that place still exists?”

  Her eyes widened, clearly delighted to have an answer. “Certainly. It’s quite an infamous place. It’s named the Faustus Dum, or the Faust House, and it can be found in Charles Square, though it’s not open to the public for tours.”

  Erin glanced to Elizabeth. The countess gave a small nod of acknowledgment, plainly knowing the place. From the darkening of her expression, she wasn’t pleased about this location.

  As Tereza returned to her lecture with the others, Erin spoke quietly with Elizabeth. “What do you know about the Faust House?”

  “It was a place of much infamy. Before Kelly moved in, Emperor Rudolf’s astrologer, Jakub Krucinek, resided there with his two sons. Later, the younger one killed the older one because of a supposed treasure hidden in that house. Kelly himself rigged the place with all sorts of trickery. Doors that would open by themselves, staircases that would fly around, handles that would shock you if you touched them.”

  She made a sharp scoffing sound, then continued. “The man was a fraud and a swindler. But the house . . . it’s authentically malevolent. It’s why the house was associated with the Faust legend.”

  “The scholar who made a pact with the devil?”

  “Some say Faust himself lived there, that it was in that very house that he was sucked away to Hell, drawn straight through the ceiling.”

  Erin eyed the countess doubtfully.

  She shrugged. “Legend or not, strange occurrences have been associated with that place. Mysterious disappearances, loud blasts during the night, strange lights.”

  Erin pointed to the paper with the Enochian writing. “Could Rudolf have left that secret message to you, directing you to the Faust House? The green diamond had a connection to a dark angel and so does that place.”

  “Perhaps . . .”

  Tereza spoke louder, stepping to a bookcase. “And now for the next stop on our tour.”

  The guide shoved the bookcase to one side, revealing a set of steps leading down.

  Jordan exclaimed loudly, sounding boyishly excited, “Cool! A secret passageway.”

  Tereza stood at the threshold of the secret stairs. “This passage leads down to an alchemist’s private laboratory. If you’ll look down near the floor, you’ll see a large metal ring just inside. It is said that the Rabbi Loew chained his infamous golem there when it misbehaved.”

  Erin smiled at the idea, but the Sanguinists looked down at the ring skeptically. Apparently, they believed in strigoi and angels but not in giant clay men brought to life by alchemists. She guessed they had to draw the line somewhere.

  Tereza led them down the stairs.

  Erin trailed with Elizabeth, who nudged the ring with her toe as she passed it. “Such nonsense,” the countess whispered. “Dee chained a wolf to that ring, a beast that answered to no one but Dee himself. On the day Dee died, Rudolf had to kill the animal to get into this room.”

  Erin followed last down the stone steps. The stairs were narrow so that everyone had to go single file. At the base of the stairs, a tunnel ran ahead, and Tereza directed them onward. But Erin paused to examine a metal door on the left. It had a square opening at eye level, like the door to a prison cell. Through the opening, she could see another tunnel.

  “Behind that door,” the guide called back, noting Erin’s attention, “is a tunnel that leads to the old town square. We discovered that tunnel and others a few year
s back following a great flood. It took some time to clean out the mud.”

  Jordan glanced back at Erin, clearly remembering her recounting of that flood.

  Tereza continued. “In the furnace room up ahead, we discovered a tunnel that leads under the river and runs all the way to Prague Castle.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Rudolf used that tunnel—and others—to come and go under the city, so that no one knew where he was.”

  Erin could not help but be fascinated by these stories, trying to imagine that time when science, religion, and politics blurred together, wrapped in mysteries and legends.

  They continued down the tunnel. Jordan had to keep his head ducked from the low ceiling. The passageway finally ended at a small room with a round metal stove in the center. The stove held metal flasks with long spouts, while a limp set of bellows rested in front of the stove’s opening. Soot covered everything: roof, walls, and even the stone tiles on the floor were black.

  This must be the furnace room that Tereza had mentioned. At the back, another doorway led off to a neighboring dark room. Their guide pointed toward it. “In the next room is where the alchemists worked on transmutation—changing base metals to gold.”

  Elizabeth muttered. “Such foolishness. Who could believe you could change simple metals to gold?”

  Jordan heard her, glancing back with a grin. “Actually, it is possible. If you bombard a certain kind of mercury with neutrons. Unfortunately, the process costs more than the gold it produces. Plus, the gold ends up being radioactive and decays in a couple of days.”

  Elizabeth gave an exaggerated sigh. “So it seems modern man has not given up his old obsessions.”

  “The furnace and the larger flasks are original,” Tereza said, continuing her dialogue about the old alchemists’ attempts to brew an Elixir of Eternal Youth. “We found a vial of that elixir bricked up in a secret safe in the wall of this room. Along with a recipe to make it.”

  Now it was Erin’s turn to scoff. “You can make it today?”

  Tereza smiled. “It is a complicated process, with seventy-seven herbs, gathered by moonlight, infused into wine. The brewing takes a full year, but yes, it can be done. In fact, it is being made by monks in a monastery in Brno.”