The Parisian Codex

7 - Memories from the 14th Century

I headed for the metro again before changing my mind. I had no desire to be trapped in a metal box with drunken tourists and tired Parisians. Walking would give me time to think. And from Montmartre to the rue du Louvre, the streets are downhill all the way.

The rain poured down on me at Place Saint-Georges and never left me until I reached my destination.

Zagan... Was it the demon who had condemned me to this cursed non-life? And why had this codex resurfaced?

To tell the truth, I didn't know much about the codex.

The first time I saw it, I was seventeen.

In the early 14th century, the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was a thriving center of learning, enthroned in the heart of a village of several hundred souls. At the time, "knowledge" did not yet distinguish between the natural and occult sciences. My master explored both sides of that same coin. I followed in his footsteps, not quite understanding what I was getting myself into.

My master had left the abbey for a few days, refusing to take me with him. I accompanied him on most of his travels, not only because it was part of my education but also because one always needs a pair of strong, young arms to protect oneself from bandits—especially when you're bringing back precious writings from the four corners of the country. But not this time. My master was adamant. He would travel alone to a destination he refused to reveal, with an equally secret purpose. I was offended, of course: at seventeen, I was a man, not a child to be kept sheltered. But my master was inflexible, and I was an obedient apprentice. So I stayed at the abbey, with a list of chores longer than my arm, and an embroidery project to finish.

My master had returned days later, galloping on an unfamiliar horse, covered in sweat, grime, and many wounds, but visibly happy. He was clutching a codex, small by the standards of the time. No sooner had he dismounted his horse than he sped off to his study. He wrapped the codex in the stole I'd just embroidered, locked it in a box, and hid it in a chest. Then he made me swear to protect the book with my life if need be.

Two days later, the demon attacked.

I would have liked to forget the massacre. Unfortunately, that was not an option.

I fled the carnage and the monastery, until I lost consciousness in the woods. When I awoke, I had no master and was no longer human. I had never seen the codex again.

On Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, a car rolled into a puddle and shot a jet of dirty water in my direction. I turned to protect the kitten nestling in my pocket, then snarled a string of insults at the motorist before starting off again.

The codex looked familiar, and I was sure I recognized the embroidery. Chances were good that the demon was the same too. And if he'd spent the last seven centuries imprisoned in a stole, that at least explained why I'd never been able to find him. Now I had a name. But it wouldn't be enough.

As I walked, I searched my memory for this Zagan. If he was mentioned in Sofia's horrible grimoire, he was bound to be in one of the manuscripts I'd once read.

According to Sofia's book, Zagan was one of the most powerful demons in the underworld. That didn't help me, but I would have to make do. He could turn metal into currency, and that was a problem for me. If Zagan had access to an unlimited supply of cash, I couldn't track him with his victim's bank cards.

If only Sofia had let me see Zagan's seal, I could have evoked the demon immediately. I could go back to Sofia and force her to show me the damn seal. But the old hag wouldn't let me near her sanctuary, and her protections were strong enough to fry me on the spot.

No, I had no choice but to plunge into the depths of my memory and leaf back through every treatise on demonology I'd read in the last seven centuries. A task that could take me days or weeks. And all the while, Zagan wandered around in Leroy's body, free to do ... what, exactly?

A buffalo with griffin wings... In my head, I flipped through book after book, hoping to find the right page. My memory was a huge library, but I didn't have an index. I had to rummage around.

I thought I could help Nadine Leroy find her husband. Perhaps somewhere in the sun, enjoying the fruits of his petty theft. Perhaps in the arms of another woman. But alive, at least. I knew how to track living people. Their motives were limited, and they always needed to eat and sleep somewhere. They left traces.

Except that I was actually looking for a walking corpse animated by a demonic entity with mysterious motivations, to say the least. An entity that had decimated my monastery, murdered my master, and cursed me for eternity.

I couldn't help the Leroys, but I could find this Zagan and make him pay for his crimes.

Where should I start?

If I were a demon and had spent the last few centuries locked up in a piece of needlework, what would be my first instinct once freed? Why not take possession of the first body that came along? Especially if I found myself in the middle of a collection of liturgical objects. I figured it wouldn't do a demon any better than it would do me. So the demon takes refuge in Robert's body... Logical. And he takes his anger out on the liturgical objects around him. Why wouldn't he? Then he leaves the vault and goes off to live his demon life. OK. But why take the book? What could a demon do with it?

For centuries I had believed that the demon who had cursed me had run off with the book. But the traces left in the embroidery made me doubt it.

If the demon trapped in the embroidery was the one who had attacked the abbey, who had stolen the codex? A human driven by greed? Another demon?

Since the work had reappeared on the antiquities market, I was tempted to think that the demons had never got their hands on it. They didn't need to pilfer for money. For them, the codex must hold some other significance. Probably the same as for my master. But what was it? At the time, my master was vague whenever I asked him about the book. If only he'd told me more...

Was revenge a virtue? My master would have said no. In any case, it had been centuries since I had renounced virtue. I wasn't going to start wracking my brains now. I was going to find Zagan and kill him. And if the jumble that was my memory didn't spit out the necessary information, I was going to use other means, without further ado. For a being several centuries old, I was seriously short of patience. And that was far from being my worst flaw.

I passed the Rue du Louvre without even slowing down. Parisians hurried along in the persistent rain, car headlights and street lamps kept the night at bay, and nobody paid any attention to me.

The rain made the Pont des Arts slippery but didn't seem to put off the lovers who had come to contemplate the Seine. No one was interested in the dome of the Académie. I walked along the Quai Voltaire and turned into the Rue des Saint-Pères.