The Parisian Codex

44 - Third ritual

The pain in my shoulder convinced me to open my eyes again.

Zagan was gone. In his place, Romane was shaking me vigorously.

She had pulled the collar of her sweater up over her nose. She looked like a Western bandit. "It's salvia!" she said.

Her sweater muffled her voice.

"Hmmm?"

"The smoke contains a hallucinogen. Get up, I can't carry you."

She grabbed my hand to pull me up. The pain burst through my shoulder and finally straightened my mind. I struggled to my feet and followed Romane along the tunnels.

Luckily for us, Romane had a good sense of direction and a very small bladder. During our many visits to the "privy," she had memorized the way back. She plunged into the gully first, and I followed as best I could.

There was less smoke at this end of the tunnel, but I'd already breathed in too much. I missed the gully mouth and hit my head on the retaining wall. A powerful arm sprang from the gully, grabbed me by the collar and dragged me into the narrow passage. Zagan backed up and dragged me along like a rag doll. Once inside the pit, he put me down behind him ruthlessly. I sprawled on the floor once more.

A rucksack flew over my head. Zagan grabbed it and set it against the gully mouth. "Too small," he said. "Give me another."

Romane threw him a second bag—mine, with my blood supply. Zagan placed it on top of the first bag in a desperate attempt to keep the smoke out of our refuge.

"Let's finish the ritual!" said Romane.

Zagan nodded. He grabbed me by the collar, lift me up and placed my back against the bags to reinforce the barrier. I was slowly coming to my senses, enough to realize that serving as a bag and blocking the entrance was the best I could do in my condition.

Romane knelt in the center of the circle. Zagan brought her the grimoire, the box containing the codex, the bowl and the dagger. Then he returned with the sleeping sheep.

Romane's hands trembled, but she arranged the animal's head as she should, grabbed the dagger and took a deep breath.

A coughing fit made her regret that mistake. Without further ado, she applied the dagger to the sheep's neck and severed the artery. The blood that gushed into the bowl created airy arabesques and exotic flowers. Despite the bags, the smoke was clouding our minds.

With the sheep's blood, Romane again traced the formulas on the cave wall, the circle and the signs. She poured it over the boar tusks and deer antlers. Then she returned to the center of the circle.

"Forget the protections," Zagan said. "We're running out of time. Go straight to evoking the dead."

She nodded and intoned her call to Teutatis and Cernunnos. Behind my back, something pushed against the bags. I braced myself to keep them in place.

As the day before, the cave wall began to tremble, the bones to vibrate. I could hear their melody—crystalline notes as if from a xylophone.

A rumbling rose far below us. The ground shivered and shook. A few chunks of stone detached from the pit bell-shaped ceiling. I felt like I was floating.

Panic-stricken, I clung to the ground to keep from flying away. Behind my ear, a snake hissed. I leaped to the center of the room.

Released from my weight, the rucksacks were expelled from the gully mouth. The snake hissed louder.

"It's a smoke... machine!" shouted Zagan. "Grab it!"

I blinked. The demon was right. The nozzle of an atomizer hissed as it propelled the hallucinogenic smoke into the small cave. I was already well intoxicated. So much so that I thought the person coming out of the tunnel was Nadine Leroy, my client.

Madame Leroy was in mourning with her black turtleneck sweater and matching pants. She leaped to her feet and brandished the smoke machine. It looked like a fire extinguisher. And when she slammed the tank into my temple, it felt like a hammer blow. My head hit the floor.

Romane continued to call on the ancient gods, and the ground shook even more. Nadine Leroy lost her balance, and her atomizer flew out of her hand. I threw myself on it, looking for a valve. I found something which I turned and which stayed in my hand. Nadine Leroy rushed at me with a banshee howl. I greeted her with an atomizer blast to the head.

She dropped like a stone.

The smoke was coming out of the machine louder and louder, probably because I'd broken something important. Not knowing how to stop it, I threw it into the gully. Out of sight, out of lungs.

With Nadine knocked out and the atomizer more or less under control, I turned back to the circle and the ritual.

Romane had succeeded.

The specters rose from the ground like mist on an autumn morning. They were translucent and milky. Even so, I recognized the the Swiss Guards uniforms. Some had kept their bicorne. Others showed bloody wounds.

The specters seemed disoriented for a moment, but Romane intoned a new incantation, and they turned to her, all their attention focused on her words.

She rolled up her sleeve and ran the blade of the dagger across her forearm. A trickle of blood ran down the middle of the circle.

"Spirits of the dead, I have brought you back to the world, and I task you with a mission. Proud and fierce guards, I entrust you with this book. Take it with you to the depths of the earth. No one but you must ever lay eyes on this object. No one, living or dead, must ever touch its cover. No one, flesh or spirit, must ever contemplate its pages. This is your mission, from this day forward and into the mists of time."

The Swiss Guards rose to attention as one. I could see that they weren't the only specters visiting us. I counted three workers who must have succumbed to mine accidents, the youngest not even ten years old. They seemed vaguely interested in this business and no more aggressive in death than in life. It was the others that worried me.

We should have known better: performing a necromancy ritual after killing two dozen Brothers a stone's throw away might not have been the best idea. Because even if Zagan had evacuated the bodies, the spirits were still there. And they clearly weren't happy.