by Zoe Drake
“Spirit writing? An idiolect?”
Sam reached over to the next table and picked up sheets of paper that had been printed off a computer. “We did manage to find something similar, though. Take a look at this.”
Weiss took the papers from Sam, holding them up to the light. “The Devil’s Handwriting,” he read from the text below it. “As recorded in Albonesi’s Introductio in Chaldaicam Linguami published in 1539, one Ludovico Spoletano was said to have conjured the Devil, and bid him answer his questions…in reply, a pen was gripped by an invisible hand and wrote the above script on the wall of the house.”
Weiss accepted a magnifying glass from Sam and held it above the photograph, examining the angles, the strokes, the lines of the symbols.
“The language is the same as the Book of the Veils,” he said finally.
Sam nodded. “The computers tend to agree with you. Enough points of similarity to suggest that it’s the same language.”
Weiss put down the glass and photograph, rubbed his eyes. He saw drugged, lobotomized patients in an isolated hospital, their surgically altered brains channeling an unknown language, causing them to speak in tongues and scrawl arcane symbols on the walls. Hundred of years before that, in the same city, a cartographer somehow channeled a force that enabled him to have visions, and allowed others to see those visions. In 1539 the same language turns up again, channeled by a minor necromancer, seeking to strike a deal with the devil.
How does it all fit together?
The occult history of the world, Weiss thought, was full of people who had received messages while in an altered state of consciousness. Dee, Crowley, Smith, Shaver. Moses, Daniel, and the Quran given to Mohammad by Jibreel – the Quran, preserved word for word, no revisions permissible, the style and sheer poetry of its composition unsurpassed. What the scholars called perfect Arabic.
God speaks our own language, only better than we do.
“What about the Mani Codex and the Ardahang?” he asked. “If the three manuscripts were unearthed at the same time, was anything else found with them? Some relic that could help us with the decoding, or maybe tell us where the second Book is?”
Jenny shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid not. I’ve had my contacts check the sources in Egypt and Germany, but if a key to the code exists, it wasn’t found by the archeologists and the antique dealers.”
“No, maybe it was stolen by someone else before they got their hands on it,” Weiss lamented. “Or maybe it was accidentally destroyed…oy, oy, oy.”
He sat back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. “There’s another mystery, as well. Mendelson’s notebooks said that there is a word of three Hebrew characters written on the inside of the front cover, a word that’s either a name or another code. Zain, Pe, Nun. Their numerical values are, taken together, seven hundred and eighty-seven – the hundred and thirty-eighth prime and the number of coming or going forth, place of issue, way out, doorway. Their symbolic meanings are sword or weapon for Zain, mouth for Pe, and fish for Nun. I’ve tried Gematria, Notariqon, Temura and other techniques, but the corresponding passages from the Talmud don’t seem to fit. There is another possibility, however. I think it’s a kind of rebus. The weapon is the spell of summoning or expulsion, and the mouth is the speech that creates it.”
“The fish,” murmured Sam. “The Vesica Piscis.”
“The symbol of creation and generation, and the secret sign of the early Christian messiah,” said Jenny. She gingerly turned over the book to show the inside front cover. “Do you think that’s what the sigil beneath it represents? Two circles of equal radius, and where they intersect that square symbol could be a mouth or gateway, and that line could be a sword in front of it.”
Sam stared at the cover, his eyebrows raised. “So what does that tell us?”
“A sword to guard the gate,” said Weiss, “to stop something coming through.”
Weiss sipped his milk slowly. His gaze went back to the window at his elbow, and the men and women behind it. Spending their lives in the undead past worlds revealed in paper, parchment and ink. Tectonic plates of meaning shifting beneath continents of text, at any moment threatening to shake the surrounding reality. So like the synagogues of his youth, the devout Jews reading the Torah. The Torah is alive, his father had once whispered to him; that is our secret.
Yes, it would be best to also treat the Book of the Veils as something living. Something organic, something growing, something that had perhaps used the members of the Lamed Vav to free itself, like a parasite manipulating the host. A tremor ran through his body, and another keen-edged cramp twisted in his gut.
He drained the glass of milk and stood up. “I’d better be going, I think. Did Marcus call you? He’s given me permission to look after the Codex for the time being.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, he called yesterday. Rather you than me, Professor.”
Jennifer handed over the silk bundle with a tight smile. “Be careful, Benjamin.”
Weiss gave the broadest smile he was able to give. “Well, Hermes teaches us that the worst evils can be transformed to good. I suggest we all try to remember that, eh?”
Weiss heard the low hum of power behind him, a charged dynamo buzz in the narrow hallway; the security locks reactivating themselves after he had left the Atheneum. The stairs creaked and complained on the way down.
Yes, a living thing, he thought, looking down at the briefcase he held. It would be wise if he thought of the Book of the Veils as a living thing. Something with intelligence: a soul: a guardian spirit.
It was said that every letter of the Hebrew alphabet was ruled by a particular angel. If that were so, then dark, corrupt angels ruled the alphabet of the Book of the Veils – and Weiss had been brushed by their wings.
Chapter Thirteen
Sweet Dreams, Mr. David
One thing seemed to hold true no matter which country David was in; namely, hospitals were depressing places to visit.
He stood on the street corner, a good half-hour away walk from Aomori city station, looking at the entrance to Tsugaru University Hospital. The main building towered fifteen stories above him; the granite and blue glass exterior looked oddly top-heavy and compressed, and there was something overwhelmingly oppressive about it.
David tightened his grip on his rucksack. What I should do, he thought, is turn around, get back on the train, and go home. Put my feet up, put on some music, or download a movie – enjoy the rest of the evening.
What was he doing here? What would Lisa tell him to do? They saw pretty much eye to eye on most things – politics, human rights, the environment, she was really clued up. But would she say he was doing the right thing?
No. There was another girl involved. She’d be spitting mad. “Not a girl, David,” she would shout, “and definitely not a schoolgirl.”
He ought to give up this crazy idea…
Shouldering his bag, he crossed the road and walked through the main gates.
The reception area on the second floor wasn’t crowded, but there were enough people to fill up almost all the seats. Elderly men and women with walnut-brown skin, backs bent over into a perpetual bow, shuffled from seat to counter carrying slips of paper in their hands. Youngish mothers wearing floppy sunhats rubbed sunscreen into their babies’ skin while waiting for their names to be called. Tanaka-sama. Honda-sama. High-pitched female voices, as if the hospital was leaking helium into the air. The overhead lights were fluorescent and harsh, and David’s nose wrinkled at the pervasive smell of disinfectant.
He walked up to the main receptionist and was greeted by a nurse wearing a light blue uniform. “Good evening,” he said in formal Japanese. “I would like to join the volunteer program.”
The doll-wide brown eyes rapidly blinked. “The, er…which volunteer program would that be?”
“The program doing research into sleep and dreaming.”
More blinking. “But you would have to fill in a form to join that program.”
“Then could I have a form, please?”
The girl blinked so furiously it looked like grit had flown into her eyes. “But the form is written in Japanese…”
David smiled at her patiently. “Then I’ll do my best to read it and write down the details. I study Japanese, you see. We’re speaking in Japanese right now, aren’t we?”
“Could you wait a minute, please?” The nurse held up a hand as if to admit defeat, then retreated into a back room.
David leant on the counter, looking around the hospital lobby. The sour, wrinkled faces of the elderly stared at him with naked curiosity from their seats and wheelchairs. Middle-aged matronly women with dark glasses and too much make-up clasped their handbags on their knees tighter.
David smiled back and looked around him.
There were posters on the dangers of athlete’s foot, smoking, and body piercing gone septic, with explicit close-up photographs in full color. Who were the models, he wondered, and did they ever get paid for having their eruptions and pus spread all over the waiting room walls of the entire country?
“My name is Tetsuo Nozaki,” said a voice behind him. “Can I help you?”
David turned. The newcomer was a big Japanese man a few centimeters taller than David and a lot heavier, with a white shirt and lilac tie beneath his white lab coat. His round, bespectacled face rested on a double chin that looked like it was fighting against the tightly buttoned shirt collar.
“I’d like to join the volunteer program.”
“Which volunteer program would that be?”
David gritted his teeth. “The program doing research on sleep and dreaming.”
Nozaki assumed a pious look, and gave a little bow. “I’m very sorry, but we’re not accepting any more volunteers onto that program.”
David produced a handful of flyers from his rucksack. “Then why are you still advertising for volunteers to join you?”
“Where did you find those?”
“At the local tourist information center.”
“Ah, well…they should have been taken off the desk, you see…that’s not really our responsibility.”
David produced a newspaper, its front cover taken up by color photographs and florid blocks of kanji characters. “This is Aomori city’s weekly newspaper. It came out this morning.” David opened it near the end, folded it and handed it to Nozaki. “On page eleven there’s an advertisement from this hospital, appealing for volunteers for the research program.”
“Well…I can’t really…”
There was a quiet, buzzing sound, and Nozaki produced his phone. “Could you excuse me for a minute?”
Left alone at the counter again, David tried to find somewhere to look. The receptionist avoided his eyes, staring at the computer screen while speaking in a squeaky high-pitched voice to someone on the telephone. Around the lobby, the old people complained to their relatives in Tohoku accents, mangling their words as if they had mouthfuls of mush. A few hostile glances were thrown in David’s direction and he replied to them with smiles. If I can’t get in, then I can’t get in, he thought. At least I tried.
His gaze drifted from the posters to the signs high up on the walls, indicating the different departments and the names of some of the doctors. With a grimace he recalled his Japanese textbook explaining the roots of the kanji character for ‘doctor’: a combination of the characters for arrow and the human chest, signifying a man pulling arrows from the chests of fallen warriors. The Japanese were never far from their past. When he’d first arrived he’d thought that was charming…but now he wasn’t so sure.
“Mr. David?” Nozaki had returned, holding a hand out towards the elevator. “I deeply apologize, there has been some kind of mistake. Of course, we are still accepting volunteers. If you would care to follow me, I’ll explain the process to you.”
David goggled at Nozaki in surprise, then followed him as he walked to the elevator and stepped inside. Nozaki stared intently at the control buttons, as if lost in thought, lifting his head up as they reached the tenth floor.
He showed David to a small waiting room – cool and smelling of pine air-freshener, four cream-colored armchairs arranged around a coffee table – and gestured for him to sit down. “Here’s the application form,” he said, holding out two thin sheets of paper attached to a clipboard. “I think you said to our nurse that you have no problem reading and writing Japanese?”
“That’s right.”
“Very well then, I shall be back in twenty minutes.” With that, he left, retreating backwards and giving the compulsory bow as he left the room.
Now that, David thought, is what my dad would call a turn-up for the books. But he had no time to ponder Nozaki’s sudden change of heart; he had to concentrate on the form. At least in exams you get an about an hour, he thought ruefully. He smoothed down the paper and scanned it for the kanji he could recognize.
A little over fifteen minutes later, there came a knock on the door and Nozaki’s voice calling, “Excuse me for interrupting…”
As he came into the room, David finished the section he was writing and handed the clipboard and form back. He’d managed to answer what he thought were the most important questions. Anything left over, Nozaki could ask him.
The Japanese man sat on the easy chair opposite David’s sofa and started going through the form. “Let me see now…you’re British, twenty-four years old, you work in Hidariseki Junior High School…so, you are an English teacher.”
“There’s not much call for Swahili around here,” David quipped.
Nozaki looked up at him blankly and nodded.
“Now then, Mr. David, I must ask you. Do you have any health conditions, such as heart problems or epilepsy or anything named on this list below? If you do, I’m afraid it disqualifies you from the program.”
Here we go, David thought. They probably brought this in after Ayano died, to cover their own backs. “I’m perfectly healthy, and I have a doctor who can confirm that,” he said, reaching out to sign the form with a flourish.
“Well,” Nozaki said with a smile that was obviously forced, “Perhaps now you would like to see the lab.”
“It’s very…quiet,” David said. He stood at the railing, staring down at the laboratory below.
It looked like a chill-out room designed by the makers of Star Wars. A huge windowless room bounded by easy-wipe surfaces, potted plants everywhere, rows of beds on wheels going back to the far wall under soft ambient light. On the beds were stretched out the forms of men and women under thin blankets, their heads covered by light blue plastic hoods attached to the beds.
“Our volunteers,” Nozaki explained, “are entitled to a completely relaxing environment while they work.”
“Work?”
“Of course,” Nozaki nodded animatedly. “While they sleep, they are working. Working for the project.”
He turned to David, the grey light from the monitors reflected in his eyeglasses. “So, Mr. David, would you mind if I asked you one more question?”
“Go ahead,” he replied, putting his mind on guard.
“Why are you so interested in this project?”
“Well…sleep is so very important, isn’t it? I mean, we all need it. Most of my students say that’s their favorite way of passing the time. Especially when they’re in my classroom!”
David laughed at his own joke, but Nozaki just nodded, a faint smile on his rubbery lips, taking it all in.
“Perhaps, if you have time, you would like to try it?”
“You mean…right now?”
“Yes. Why not? We have a spare bed. You don’t have to stay all night. We also offer power naps, you see; we can offer either twenty minutes or fifty minutes. Dr. Kageyama has given special permission for you to try it now, if you don’t mind.”
“Who’s Dr. Kageyama?”
“He’s the director of this project. Unofficially, we call it the Kageyama Treatment. Well, if you’d like to go down to the laboratory…�
��
David frowned. Special permission? He thought of Nozaki’s phone going off downstairs, and the man’s attitude totally changing after he’d taken the call.
Maybe that call had been from Nozaki’s boss. But the Director had no way of knowing David was in reception…unless the call had been about something else, and after that Nozaki had mentioned there was a foreigner in reception asking to join the program. But why would this Kageyama guy be so keen in showing the lab to outsiders? Weren’t these doctors supposed to be elitist and secretive, like the websites claimed?
On the main floor of the laboratory, the two men walked quietly between the aisles of sleeping volunteers, towards the back of the room. “While the subjects sleep,” Nozaki explained, “we are monitoring the brain, heart, respiratory actions, leg movements, oxygen saturation, the movement of the eyes and jaw. The stage of sleep they are in is marked every thirty seconds by the computers. There are two focal points to this project: the relaxing and medicinal effects of sleep, and the therapeutic effect of the Sleep Modulator upon dreaming. To that end, we ask all subjects to keep a journal of their dream experiences, and we also offer counseling.”
As he passed by, David looked down through the transparent blue plastic of the screens. The faces of the subjects looked totally relaxed and peaceful. Could this really be what had killed Ayano?
“Please sit down here and unbutton your shirt,” Nozaki requested. David sat on the edge of the bed while the other man gestured a volunteer nurse to come over. David watched as the girl attached sensors to his wrists and the skin of his chest, over his heart.
“Now I’ll place this on your head,” Nozaki said, and then used a Japanese word that David had never heard before. In his hands he held what looked like a hair net threaded with scores of tiny silver discs.
“Sorry, what’s that?”
“This is the device that connects you to the Modulator. You have read the recruitment literature on this project, haven’t you? On those flyers you showed me?”
