My excitement vanished and I dumped my elbows on the desk. As I moved I knocked the laptop and it flickered to life. ‘She left her computer on. No way!’
Eyes clamped to Seth’s, I touched the keyboard and the screen brightened.
This computer is in use and has been locked. It may only be unlocked by the primary user or administrator. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to enter password.
Seth’s shoulders sagged but I looked at the paper in front of me.
I typed every single word we’d uncovered, but nothing happened. Resignedly I tried LEAZA then ASHWORTH and LEAZAASHWORTH just in case, but I remained locked out.
‘Try MOUNT HERMON,’ Seth suggested. It didn’t work.
Frustration sizzled down my body and my right foot started to jiggle wildly. I moved my hand to one of the locked drawers but,
before I could ask Seth for the chisel a floorboard shifted under my toes. Curious, I slid my feet around on the carpet but none of the other boards seemed loose. I slithered on to my knees under the desk.
‘What’re you doing?’ Seth bent down, but I waved him back.
‘I’m not sure.’ I examined the carpet with my fingertips and found myself tracing a square in the pile. A memory came back to me: when I’d come into the Doctor’s office earlier that day she had risen from beneath her desk.
I tucked my fingernails into the barely perceptible gap and peeled the tile back. It came away easily. Underneath, sure enough, there was a loose floorboard. I tried to lift it out.
‘Ouch! I bent my nail back.’
Seth placed a firm hand on my shoulder. ‘Let me try.’
I stood up so that he could take my place and he swiftly prised up the floor. As soon as he had the board out, I peered past him. Our efforts had revealed a small compartment and a wooden chest etched with the Doctor’s logo: Orion’s Belt.
Seth lifted the box out, holding it gingerly, like a bomb that had started to tick. I fell to my knees next to him. There was a terrible inevitability to its size.
Seth turned the box in his hands and the lid cracked open. It hadn’t been locked. Breaths blending, we bent over it together.
The book was there, nested like a living thing in a mulch of felt and velvet. Just as I’d dreamed, the cover was black with age and the scaled binding was tough and brittle at the edges. It did not completely overlap all of the rough pages, which protruded like a mass of yellow tongues. I brushed my palm over the cover and recoiled. The leather felt slippery and organic.
‘What kind of book hasn’t got a title?’ I whispered, wiping my hands on my trousers.
Nervously Seth licked his lips. ‘A diary?’
Steeling myself I lifted the tome from the box and laid it on the floor between us. ‘Let’s find out.’
W
hen Seth opened the blackened cover I saw that dozens of documents had been bound into the leather spine, like the snakes of Medusa’s hair.
The first was so old that my fingertips trembled at the idea of touching it. It wasn’t even paper. It reminded me of something I’d seen in a museum. I squinted at the odd symbols that covered the page, no more able to read it than I had been in my dream.
Seth’s fingers hovered over the ink. ‘This looks a bit like hieroglyphics,’ he murmured. ‘Kyle might recognise it.’
‘You think Kyle would be able to read this?’
‘It depends how close to the surface his Egyptian personality is. I can sometimes understand Yiddish.’
‘And that’s why I can speak German.’
‘Yeah.’ He made no further comment so I turned the pages, looking for familiar words.
The smell that drifted from the book reminded me of Pandra’s hole: rotting flesh and desiccated corpses. I resisted the urge to
cover my nose and skimmed over three more pages covered in pictograms. Then I came across yellowing parchment even more fragile.
We spent several minutes admiring the artistry of each capital letter. Although the crackling paper was starting to fall apart, the colours remained bright. Snakes and other serpents featured prominently, but stars also seemed to be important to the calligrapher.
‘Orion’s Belt, look.’ Seth pointed.
‘It’s coming up everywhere,’ I muttered.
Several pages later recognisable words began to stand out among the scrawl, but although we could decipher individuals, together they made no more sense than the odd words we’d pulled from the Doctor’s notes.
I frowned over the faded ink of paper that became less fragile with each turn.
Seth caught my hand. ‘Wait, I can read this. It’s cramped but look . . . it’s pretty close to modern English.’
Our heads almost touched as I traced the words with my finger and murmured them aloud.
* * *
Shemhazai and Azael, two angels in God’s confidence, spoke to the Lord asking: ‘Lord of the Universe, did we not warn You that man would prove unworthy of Your world? Are we not worthy to inherit Your world?’
God answered: ‘Upon descending to Earth, you would sin even worse than man.’
They pleaded: ‘Let us dwell there awhile, and we will make Your name sacred once more!’
God bound them with a law that prevented them from harming the sons of man. Then because He loved them dearly He allowed them to descend to Mount Hermon.
Seth’s sharp inhalation curbed my recital. ‘Mount Hermon,’ he parroted.
I frowned. ‘Why d’you think the Doctor named the Manor after the place angels came to earth?’
Seth shrugged. ‘Because she liked the name . . .’
‘It must be more than that.’
‘Maybe her family comes from there or something.’
‘Or something . . .’ I found my place and read on.
* * *
When he saw the beautiful daughters of man, Shemhazai was at once overcome by lust. He fathered two hundred monstrous sons.
Each daily consumed a thousand camels, a thousand horses and a thousand oxen.
Seth’s lips twitched. ‘Two hundred sons! He was a busy guy.’
My stomach felt as if a hole had opened in it. ‘He wasn’t a guy. He was an angel.’
‘It’s only a story.’ Seth squeezed my hand, but I pulled free. The words I had read seared into my brain.
‘What’s the matter?’ Seth frowned.
‘Don’t you feel this might be . . . true?’
Seth rubbed his elbows. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t read any more.’
‘No, I want to.’ Ignoring his concern I muttered my way through the text to the next section.
Azael’s jealousy of man was so great that he invented the ornaments and cosmetics used by women to lead men astray. Then he taught man all manner of art to tempt women and created musical instruments to help with their seduction.
Then he said: ‘Lord, see how lustful man is. See how ignorant he is of Your word. Destroy him and we can inherit Your world.’
But the Lord still loved the sons of Adam and He replied: ‘No.’
So Azael brewed beer, gathered crowds in taverns and taught them to forge iron swords and spear-points with which to murder each other when they were drunk.
He said: ‘Lord release us from Your law so that we might punish these men.’
But God knew that Azael had led man astray and would not release him.
And Azael was filled with bitterness and anger.
‘There’s something about that name, Azael.’ Seth frowned.
He was right; my neck prickled as if something was trying to draw my attention. I traced the lettering with my fingertip and the ink smeared. I snatched my hand away, wiped my hand on my pyjama bottoms and tried to read the cramped writing without it.
* * *
Weary of man’s rejection of Him, God warned the angels that He would set loose a flood to destroy all men and beasts.
Azael rejoiced because he believed he and his brother must now inherit the Earth.
But God said to them: ‘You polluted yourselves with the daughters of men and sinned within My sight. Your works and the tribes created by your lust will be destroyed and as long as Noah’s heirs still praise My name, you will not inherit the Earth.’
Shemhazai wept bitterly. ‘Surely, Lord, You do not mean to destroy my sons?’
And God replied: ‘Your sons, sinners created by both flesh and spirit, will die. But their evil spirits will not die. After death their spirits will cause destruction on the Earth. They will rise up against the children of man, because it is they who brought the flood upon them, and they will never have rest.’
Filled with repentance for what his lust had unleashed Shemhazai asked the Lord if there was any hope for mankind.
The Lord replied: ‘I will bind your sons into fleshly bodies for three hundred generations.’
* * *
Seth wrapped my fist in his. ‘Some father. He just gave up on them.’ He touched his scar and I stared at the page, discomfited.
‘What did it mean the spirits would be bound into fleshly bodies? Were the ghosts of his sons made into humans?’
Seth’s face twisted and for a second the mismatching of his eyes was even more acute. ‘Christ, imagine the torture: being stuck inside a human body when they hated us so much.’
‘But it meant they didn’t die . . . No, I’m wrong, aren’t I? Instead of drowning just once they each had to die three hundred times.’
Seth’s eyes were haunted. ‘Like our nightmares, but living it instead of dreaming it.’
‘For how long? Let’s say an average of twenty years per life then that’s . . .’ I paused, calculating. ‘
Six thousand years
.’
Strange and instant fury consumed me. I had to smash something. As if possessed I lurched towards the laptop on the desk. When my arm was wrenched behind me I jerked to a stop, surprised to find Seth holding on.
‘I don’t know what’s happening.’ His own face was mottled red and white. ‘But we have to control these feelings.’
I dropped back to the floor, trying to ride out the emotion that
would certainly give us away to the patrolling nurses, but it was like trying to surf in a hurricane.
‘Why do I feel like this?’ Frenzied tears boiled down my face. ‘Why am I so
angry
?’
Seth wrapped his arms round me and squeezed as if he could pour his own wrath into my body.
‘Seth,’ I gasped into his collar bone. ‘You’re hurting me.’
I struggled to lift my head and found myself breathing into his mouth. Abruptly he rammed his lips on to mine with all the force of our combined fury.
Devoured: that was how I felt.
Then it was as if all the alien and violating rage changed focus. I dug my nails into Seth’s back and raked his skin, gleeful as welts rose under my fingertips. The kiss deepened and I wanted to climb inside him, become one body. His hands touched my ribs, lifted my pyjama top and skimmed roughly over my burning skin. He sank his fists into my hair, tugging it roughly.
Then, just as suddenly as the kiss had begun, his touch gentled; our rage had been driven out by fever-bright desire.
Slowly our kisses lightened and we drew apart.
I touched my swollen lips and stared at his. My chin was raw,
scraped by the shadow of stubble on his cheeks. We were both shaking.
‘Cass, I’m so sorry.’ Seth winced and I realised that I’d really hurt his back. ‘I don’t think we should read any more.’ He slid away from me. ‘It’s like something is waking up inside me . . . and it’s furious.’ He swallowed.
‘Are you kidding?’ I pushed back my hair. ‘Could you really leave now? Don’t you want to know what just happened to us?’
‘What if it gets worse?’ Seth’s hands shook like an old man’s. ‘I might not be able to control myself next time.’
‘I have to know.’ I attempted to steady my gaze and my limbs, trying to communicate to him that I had enough control for the both of us.
Finally Seth nodded, so I read on.
Shemhazai knelt before the Lord and thanked him for his mercy.
And the Lord set Shemhazai in the southern sky, a star between Heaven and Earth, head down, feet up.
Then He spoke: ‘Heaven shall remain closed to you and your brother. Unless the spirits you created in your lust
overcome the restrictions of their fleshly bodies you will remain in this prison until the end of the world.’
Then the Lord sought Azael. But Azael was fearful. Believing that the Lord would be unable to see an angel in human form he took the shape he hated most. Then he vowed to find the sons of his brother and aid them in the destruction of man.
The text ended and I came back to myself to find my fists beneath my chin. Although the unfathomable rage threatened to return it had already exhausted my adrenaline and I was able to drive the weakened emotion down.
Seth leaned forward, trembling. ‘What if they overcome the restrictions of their human bodies? What happens then?’
I turned the page, but that was the end of the legend.
Why do I care? A hundred or so years ago a crackpot religious guy wrote a story, that’s all
.
But that wasn’t all . . . and I knew it. I looked at Seth.
‘Don’t say it.’ He glowered. ‘Don’t even think it.’
‘It makes sense.’
‘No it doesn’t.
We aren’t the sons of Shemhazai
.’
‘Seth . . .’
‘It’s just a story. Maybe the Doctor has it because it’s an early attempt to explain reincarnation.’
‘We’ve lived who knows how many past lives. The book says his sons won’t rest and
we never rest
.’
He jumped up as if he’d forgotten his own reaction to the text. ‘I think we should leave.’
I bit my lip. ‘I’m going to go through the rest of the book . . . see if there’s any better explanation.’
Seth huffed and began to prowl restlessly around the office. I ignored his activity; all I could think about was the story. Seth was wrong. It wasn’t a legend – it was history.
A
s I read on, the book appeared to turn into a diary after all. The later pages, no longer a set of mismatched manuscripts, were covered with odd comments and smudged notes.
Many were instructions on how to worship the angel Shemhazai, and I flicked through with only mild interest. Then something struck me.