Blood Codex

Chapter 14

Crowley walked slowly, just ahead of Rose. The light from his small flashlight pierced the darkness, swept back and forth across old stone and worn floors. He was mystified, stunned that Margaret’s seemingly crazy musings had turned out to be true. How many people had ever walked these secret tunnels? Very few, he was sure of that. Excitement and concern battled each other, made his hand tremble slightly. He hoped Rose didn’t notice the wavering of his torch light. He kept it moving left and right just in case.

“We’re looking for an Egyptian ankh carved at ground level on a stone that sticks out an inch or so further than the others,” Rose said, using her own small penlight torch to read her notes. “That’s like a crucifix with a looped top, right?”

“That’s right.” Crowley paused, squinted ahead. “There.” He steadied his light on one stone protruding slightly from the wall.

They approached it cautiously. Rose watched up and down the tunnel while Crowley felt around for the edges of the door Margaret had described. The ladder down was lost now in the gloom behind them and the tunnel continued on. He wondered where it might lead. The historian in him was alive with glee at the thought. Once all this was over, he was definitely coming back here and he planned to explore every inch of the place. He paused. When all this was over. When might that be? What might the outcome be? He mentally shook himself. Keep your mind on the battle at hand, soldier.

His fingers found the deep groove above the stone carved with the ankh and he got a good grip with eight fingertips and pulled. The door moved more easily than he had expected and he almost stumbled back. The stones were cut thin, made a simple façade over a thick wooden panel hinged deep in the wall. An ancient, crumbling set of stairs led down into darkness.

Secret tunnels within secret tunnels. How far did all this go? “Here we are then,” he said, and started down.

Rose followed. He heard the soft scrape as she pulled the door closed again. “It’s cold down here!” she said.

Goosebumps ran along Crowley’s exposed forearms, the chill old and permanent. “Yeah. I don’t think this place has ever been warm, no matter how hot the days might get. We’re too deep now.”

They emerged into an open space, pale stone walls and flagstone flooring. Three deep pits took up the majority of the floor space in the long room, arched recesses along one side. A wide, arched doorway led out the far end, a wide mouth onto complete darkness.

“What is this place?” Rose whispered.

Crowley shook his head, smiled. “I’ve seen lots like it. It’s an old Roman bathhouse. Loads have been found in various places over the years. Whatever might have been above this, some dignitary’s villa or whatever, has long since fallen to ruins and London has grown over it like an ever-thickening mold. There are many who think things like this exist all over the place, buried in numerous lost underground parts of the city. I’ve never really given it much credence before, but maybe I should reconsider that.”

Crowley shone his light into the wide doorway at the other end, picked out a passage leading away. “This way, I guess.”

They moved forward and had only covered a few yards when Crowley’s soldier sense prickled. Was that the scrape of a shoe he heard? Before he could turn to locate the source, a soft, warm voice came from his left.

“Don’t move. What do you want here?”

Crowley took a deep breath, quelled the sudden spike of adrenaline. “Are you Declan Brown?”

“Who’s asking?”

“My name is Jake Crowley, and this is Rose Black. We were given directions to find you by Margaret Wilson.”

“Ol’ Maggie, eh?” Shadows moved in one of the alcoves and a man stepped out into Crowley’s light. He was short, but muscular, his skin a deep shade of chestnut brown. Tightly curled black hair was cut fairly close to his head. His eyes were large and friendly in the gloom, his smile wide. “Well, if Maggs sent you then you must be okay. You’d better come in.”

He turned and went back into the shadows of the arch. Crowley looked back to Rose, gave her a grin and a shrug, and followed. Beyond the arch was a small anteroom, maybe a changing room for the baths, Crowley speculated. At the back of that space was a wooden door pushed wide. Light flickered and flared as Brown lit a glass oil lamp inside, revealing a comfortable-looking room with threadbare couch and armchairs. Brown turned up the light, chasing the shadows out of the large room to reveal a wooden table surrounded by four dining chairs, several bookcases bowing under the weight of books. A small gas camping cooker stood to one side, on another table loaded with canned food, bread, cutlery and other cooking tools in one corner.

Brown hung the lantern from a hook in the low, brick ceiling and turned to face them. “Have a seat. You want a cup of tea?”

As Brown made three mugs of tea, Rose gave him a fairly good, though abridged, version of what had been happening. “And so we decided we needed to learn more about what Danny Bedford believed,” she finished. “And Margaret told us you were the man to talk to about that stuff. You and Danny studied occult things together, she told me.”

When he turned back with the mugs, Brown seemed unsurprised. “I brought her here to visit once. She thought it was tremendous fun. I knew she’d remember the way, you see. I’d divined that someone would need my help, and find it through her. And here you are. The wheel turns, eh?”

Crowley sipped tea, kept his mouth closed and his ears open, trying to get the measure of the man. He seemed entirely comfortable in his subterranean solitary confinement, unfazed by a lack of modern conveniences. And, Crowley reluctantly admitted, he appeared to be completely sane, contrary to everything Crowley had expected. Then again, madness often presented in strange and subtle ways, so Crowley wasn’t about to make any firm assumptions yet.

“So that’s why Margaret sent you to see me?” Brown said, sitting down. “Something with Danny? I’m worried. I haven’t been able to reach him for too long.”

Over Brown’s shoulder, Crowley read the spines of books on the shelves. Most titles covered subjects of occultism, history, Nazi Germany, ancient cultures, geography. For such a small collection, it covered a surprisingly extensive range of subject matter. Brown, it seemed, was an educated man. “You haven’t been able to divine what happened to him?” Crowley tried to keep the skepticism from his voice, but failed rather spectacularly.

Brown smiled softly, shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Margaret seemed to think you might have more answers for us,” Rose said, her voice a little weak. Perhaps she doubted the likelihood of help from such a strange quarter, but Crowley thought maybe this was the closest they might have got to an answer yet. If there was an answer to be found. Just because they had lots of questions, it didn’t automatically follow that there were answers to them all. “You believe,” she paused, lost in thought for a moment. “You know,” she went on, “a lot more of the lore and history of this stuff than we do, Margaret said.”

Brown smiled. “And I do believe too. I have reason to believe. You told me about your mark, and I have seen Danny’s. These are powerful things. The influence of history to make itself heard through the marks on generation after generation of people is well-documented.”

Crowley wanted to roll his eyes, but kept the urge in check. Not least because of Brown’s relaxed, easy delivery. He didn’t sound evangelical in any way, showed no signs of zealotry despite his bizarre choice of abode.

“Some people believe that a birthmark can be read like a tarot card,” Brown said, sitting forward. He kept his mug clasped between his palms, almost as if praying to it, and Crowley wondered if he should reassess his thoughts on the man’s fanaticism. But Brown continued on, as casually as if he were talking about the price of milk. “In that way, it’s believed a person’s future can be told. But you know what? I don’t buy that.”

Crowley hid his smile behind his mug as he sipped.

“Birthmarks, I believe, are windows to past lives.” Brown downed his remaining tea in one long draught. “This is a more common belief and one I do share.”

Crowley winced at the thought of the tea scalding Brown’s throat, but he just smiled and put his mug on the ground. “How does that work?” Crowley asked. “Does a person have the same birthmark as someone in the past, is that it? We know at least three people now have a mark the same as Rose’s. Does that mark travel back through history? In their family line or something?” He couldn’t believe the questions he was asking, but the investigation had led them this far and it was pointless to shy away from its continued progression, no matter how unnatural that might seem. “Should we be searching for a historical figure who had the same mark as Rose?”

Brown shook his head. “Not so literal. The birthmark tells you the way someone died. The markings match the death wound. Imagine some birthmarks you’ve seen and then think of sword wounds, spears, bullets.”

“There are lots of birthmarks that don’t make sense that way,” Rose said. “I mean, a small mark on an arm isn’t going to be an echo of some ancestral death, is it?”

“Maybe not. Or maybe that tiny wound got infected and did lead to the death of someone.” Brown smiled again. His grin was wide and easy, gave him an open, friendly expression it was hard to ignore.

This guy could sell snowplows to the Bedouin, Crowley thought to himself.

“I’m not suggesting all birthmarks are necessarily death marks,” Brown went on. “Just that some deaths are significant enough that they echo down through the ages, through generations, as marks permanently on the skin from birth.”

Rose frowned, shook her head slowly. “But neither my mother nor father have a mark like mine.”

Brown raised his palms. “So I guess their lives are not intrinsically tied to the life of their ancestor like yours appears to be. Your mark may well connect you with the death of someone back in your genetic history and there’s something here, now, that ties you together.”

Crowley turned to Rose, skepticism rising again despite his attempts to take all this seriously. “So we're looking for someone who was ambushed by an eagle?”

Brown left half a smile on one side of his mouth, but his brow wrinkled in a frown, puzzled.

Rose shot Crowley a glare, and he looked away, let the joke die. “What do you know about the Devil’s Bible?” Rose asked.

Brown’s eyebrows popped up. “Now, there’s an interesting artifact, and an even more interesting story accompanies it, especially with regard to past lives. If the truth is known.”

Crowley stiffened, and shot one finger up to silence them both. Brown and Rose watched him with wide eyes, alert. “Footsteps,” Crowley whispered. A soft tap and scuff in the distance drifted along the stone chambers, drawing nearer. Crowley had noticed them, but the strange acoustics made it impossible for him to determine the direction.

Brown nodded, gestured out the door and right, across the Roman baths.

“We need to go,” Crowley said. “But that’s the only way I know. Is another way out of here?”