The Devil's Pact - S01 E240

Story 5 days ago

The Devil's Pact - S01 E240

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 240

Maryam touched my arm, gently. "Brandon has yet to make that transgression. If he claims the book and its secrets, then and only then, will he be our problem, Doug. But he must be allowed his choice. Free will is the greatest Gift endowed by our Creator."

I snorted. "I didn't get much of a choice last night."

"You can give up your Gift at any time, Doug," Maryam answered. "Do you want to

"No, my task is too important," I answered. It was strange. I once had been very devout Christian. My faith survived my first wife's death when a drunk driver killed her. But not my second wife. We had only been married three months when she went to bed beside me and didn't wake up. A brain aneurism, impossible to predict or prevent, the doctor's told me. Not impossible for God, though. So, I cursed Him and spent many bitter years hating Him.

But I felt God last night when Maryam freed me from Mark's control. And my faith was suddenly rediscovered, reborn.

Maryam handed me the scrollcase. "You must keep it safe," Maryam intoned. "As I have kept it safe for two thousand years, now it falls to you."

"I still don't understand why I have to hide it," I told her. "Let me go after Mark. Let me help those nuns sent to face him."

"Because, the Adversary has learned where we hid the scroll and through his followers, he has been posted that information on Wikipedia for the entire world to see," Maryam answered. "Because, if Gabriel's plan fails, the Warlock Mary shall seek me out and this book must not fall into her hands. And who knows what other servants of the Adversary are out there, plotting and

walting."

"But isn't there other copies?" I asked, frowning. You mentioned one in Cologne, in Altgrave's possession."

A smile cracked Maryam's face. "Altgrave is a German noble, not a first name. The one in Cologne and the one in New York are but coples. This is the original, and it possess passages not found in the other copies. It is the coal that shall ignite the hope in mankind once more and nothing must be allowed to extinguish it. I charge you, Doug, to hide this book, to keep it safe in the Wilderness for Maryam touched my arm, gently. "Brandon has yet to make that transgression. If he claims the book and its secrets, then and only then, will he be our problem, Doug. But he must be allowed his choice. Free will is the greatest Gift endowed by our Creator."

I snorted. "I didn't get much of a choice last night."

"You can give up your Gift at any time, Doug," Maryam answered. "Do you want to

"No, my task is too important," I answered. It was strange. I once had been very devout Christian. My faith survived my first wife's death when a drunk driver killed her. But not my second wife. We had only been married three months when she went to bed beside me and didn't wake up. A brain aneurism, impossible to predict or prevent, the doctor's told me. Not impossible for God, though. So, I cursed Him and spent many bitter years hating Him.

But I felt God last night when Maryam freed me from Mark's control. And my faith was suddenly rediscovered, reborn.

Maryam handed me the scrollcase. "You must keep it safe," Maryam intoned. "As I have kept it safe for two thousand years, now it falls to you."

"I still don't understand why I have to hide it," I told her. "Let me go after Mark. Let me help those nuns sent to face him."

"Because, the Adversary has learned where we hid the scroll and through his followers, he has been posted that information on Wikipedia for the entire world to see," Maryam answered. "Because, if Gabriel's plan fails, the Warlock Mary shall seek me out and this book must not fall into her hands. And who knows what other servants of the Adversary are out there, plotting and

walting."

"But isn't there other copies?" I asked, frowning. You mentioned one in Cologne, in Altgrave's possession."

A smile cracked Maryam's face. "Altgrave is a German noble, not a first name. The one in Cologne and the one in New York are but coples. This is the original, and it possess passages not found in the other copies. It is the coal that shall ignite the hope in mankind once more and nothing must be allowed to extinguish it. I charge you, Doug, to hide this book, to keep it safe in the Wilderness for She frowned. "Everyone's after that book," she muttered as she stood up.

"Who else has asked about it?" I asked.

"This guy, Brandon I think his name was, called earlier this week," the Asian girl answered. "Um, maybe Tuesday night? I was here working on my dissertation."

She stood up, leading us into the building. Her name was Samnag Soun. "Everyone calls me Sam, though," she giggled. She went into a complicated history of the book and the controversies of its dating as we walked, "Some think it was written by Gilles de Rais or Paracelsus. Or even by John Dee. No record of the books existence turn up before the 1500's you see. However, it is written in Aramaic, in a style consistent with intertestamental apocrypha."

"What?" I asked with a frown. "The intertestamental what?"

"A period of Hebrew writings that date between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament," Sam explained. "Like many of the Dead Sea Scrolls."

"Do you have the translation of the book?" I asked. I don't know why I was surprised to find out the book was in some ancient language I've never heard of.

"Nothing published, I'm afraid," she answered. "Not a lot of research has been done with the book. Our copy was only recently found arnidst a collection of old books in a cellar in London."

"And can you read it?" Mary asked, frowning.

"Oh yes," Sam answered. "I'm a doctoral candidate in ancient Semitic languages. I can speak Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic and I can read Ugaritic and Akkadian cuneiform. I can translate a smattering of other, more rare, Semitic languages. And Koine Greek, of course." She laughed like we should know why Koine Greek was important.

She led us into a small library, babbling the entire time, through a door that was almost an airlock. "Climate control" she explained. There were several tables with reading lamps in the center of the room and the walls were lined with tall bookshelves covered with leather bound books. Other shelves had drawers. All were labeled with some complicated catalog system.

Sam made a beeline for one shelf and came back holding a slim book. "Here it is. Bound using techniques common in the fourteenth century and printed on vellum. This book must have been in the possession of John Dee." She opened the cover and pointed to a strange symbol. Almost like the symbol for a woman, a circle above a cross, but standing on a wavy line with a crescent transfixing the top of the circle and a dot. "The Monas Hieroglyphica, which symbolizes all of creation, was John Dee's symbol."

"And who was John Dee?" Mary asked.

"The court magician to Queen Elizabeth, Sam asked. "And an alchemist. Very influential in the esoteric circles. Some say he conjured the storm that smashed the Spanish Armada and saved England from being conquered."

Sam turned the page and it was covered in tight, square letters written in fading black ink. "What does it say?"

"Um, let see," she frowned, reading silently from right to left 1 noticed. "Its a summoning ritual. To summon Helel ben-Shachar. That's the Hebrew name for Lucifer. It literally means the Shining One, Son of the Morning."

Mary reached out and stroked Sam's face, cutting off an explanation on the origin and etymology of Lucifer's name. A flush blossomed on the Asian woman's face and she looked down. "You are quite pretty," Mary purred. "Would you like to kiss me?"

"I...yes," the girl muttered, her dark eyes flashing briefly to Mary's face before she looked back down at the floor.

Mary turned the girl's face towards her, cupping Sam's round, beautiful face, and bending down and kissing the girl on the lips. I took the book from Sam's hand and set it gently on the table and watched as Sam began to kiss Mary back, growing more aggressive as Mary's power, that made any woman desire her, built within Sam. Soon, Sam's hands grew more bold, roaming about Mary's body in the airy sundress she wore today.

Mary broke the kiss and Sam stood there, breathing heavily. "Wh- what did you do to me?" she asked, licking her lips, savoring the taste of Mary's sweet mouth. "I've never felt so...so captivated before. And never with a woman."

"Because you love me," Mary told her. "You want to be my slave, and Mark's as well. You want nothing more than to fulfill whatever filthy, depraved acts we can imagine."