Blood Codex

Chapter 16

“It was a good idea to get out of London,” Crowley said as they walked across well-manicured green lawns. “Not only to learn more, but I feel better with some distance between us and those goons.”

Rose nodded, eyes scanning the impressive pale building before them. “As long as they didn’t track us and follow. I’ve always wanted to visit Sweden, but didn’t really expect to do it under circumstances like this. You’re not going to lose your job, are you?”

“No, I pulled the sudden death of a family member card to make sure I wasn’t expected back any time soon. As far as work knows I’ve taken a red-eye to New York.”

“Thank you.”

Crowley put a hand on her shoulder. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you alone in this. Whatever it takes. What about you and work? Didn’t you call in sick? How long can that last?”

Rose twisted a contrite expression. “Actually, I called Dr. Phelps before we left London. He’s my boss at the museum. I told him that the virus I claimed to have was a little white lie and I’m actually going through some really difficult personal stuff right now. I didn’t want to tell him everything, but said I needed to get away for a week or two, have some space.”

“And he didn’t push you for details?”

“No, Charles is a decent guy. He told me he’d put through the form to give me two weeks’ vacation leave. Told me to actually take a holiday, look after myself.”

Crowley nodded. “He does sound like a decent guy.”

“There’s a few of you about.”

The National Library of Sweden loomed over them, bright in the sunlight. Two stories of pale yellow frontage, regular, intricately framed rectangular leadlight windows filled the majority of the flat façade, with the central section set slightly forward of the rest. An extra level stood above the two stories of the central block, KONGL. BIBLIOTEKET carved into an orange-hued panel of stone between two large gray coats of arms.

Crowley frowned. “Kongle..?”

Rose laughed. “It’s short for Kungliga Biblioteket. Means the Royal Library. But it’s known as the National Library as it houses everything of importance to Sweden.”

“Impressive building.”

Rose pulled out her phone, tapped up a page she’d found earlier. “Royal book collections had been held at Tre Konor, the castle of the Three Crowns, since around the 1660s. There was a fire in 1697 and stuff was stored in various places until Gustaf Dahl was commissioned to build this place. It was started in 1871 and completed seven years later. It’s a cast iron construction if you can believe that. The two wings were added in 1926 and 1927.”

“I wonder why Declan and Danny were both talking about finding the Devil’s Bible when it’s common knowledge that the thing is kept here?” Crowley pointed at the huge building. “Hardly secret.”

Rose shrugged, put her phone away. “Declan also said something about not believing in myths and fakes. About finding the real one, whatever that means. Let’s find out.”

Inside, the building was breathtaking. Two stories high outside, it was one massively tall room inside, regular columns supporting the roof with three deep levels of bookshelves. The ground floor held numerous reading desks and the next two levels of books could be accessed via mezzanine walkways skirting the wide open space, brightly lit by countless windows. Crowley paused and breathed in the calm magic that always accompanied libraries, especially ones as old and huge as this. Passage to other rooms led off the main space and he walked alongside Rose, marveling at every detail, as they made their way to the library’s most famous acquisition, The Devil’s Bible.

The huge book was contained in a sealed glass cabinet in a side room and Crowley’s mouth dropped open at the sight of it. He thought he had known what to expect, but the manuscript in all its glory was mesmerizing.

Rose spoke again, voice low and respectful. “The Devil’s Bible or Codex Gigas. It’s also been known as the Codex Giganteus, meaning the giant book, and the Gigas Librorum, which means the ‘book giant’. Also called Old Nick’s Bible, and The Black Book. Whatever you call it, it’s pretty impressive.”

The massive manuscript on the stand behind the glass was nearly a meter long and half a meter wide. It had thick board covers with scrolled metalwork corners, and heavy, uneven pages.

“It’s the largest medieval manuscript still in existence,” Rose said, reciting from memory. Crowley had quietly watched her studying up on the book while on the plane into Stockholm, glad she had found a focus to distract from her predicament. Anything was good, any movement forward to feel like they were tackling the problem. He desperately hoped they would learn something here that might put them ahead of whoever was after Rose, give them some clue to what they were being hunted for.

“It’s made from over one hundred and sixty animal skins,” Rose went on. “Takes two people to lift it. Written in Latin around 1210 AD, it’s reported to have brought disaster and pain to any and all who have possessed it. And to many others around them, apparently. Plague, mental illness, fire and destruction.” She glanced at Crowley and grinned. “However much of a skeptic a person might be, there’s history attached to this thing that’s pretty chilling. Its story is packed with mystery, misfortune and evil. It supposedly originally had three hundred and twenty pages, but seven have been removed, lost. No one has any idea why or where they are. Some people think they contained highly secretive magic or rituals. More likely they contained the monastic rules of the Benedictine monks, which needed to be kept private.”

“Maybe that’s what Declan meant by the real one. Those missing pages?” Crowley leaned forward, looking closely at the beautifully neat script, the even lines of handwritten Latin in pictures mounted around the display case. The book itself was open to the full page drawing of the Devil that gave the book its name. “Must have taken a long time to write this. I wonder how many people worked on it.”

Rose chuckled. “Right there we have some of its darkest history. Legend has it that it was completed in one single night, by just one monk.”

Crowley gave Rose a look of disdain. “Really?”

“That’s what I read. The monk was condemned to inclusion for his sins. That means he was to be bricked up alive and left to starve. He tried to avoid his fate by selling his soul to the Devil who helped guide his hand to perform the impossible task of making this. Anyway, the book contains both New and Old Testaments, as well as a number of historical works and medical writings, and that portrait of the Devil. People say that’s evidence of the pact made.”

Crowley looked closely at the famous portrait. It was quite horrible, depicting the Devil as an ugly, squatting creature with clawed hands and feet, fire snorting from nostrils in his blue, grinning face. “But we don’t actually believe all that ‘written in a night’ stuff, do we?”

“Most likely it was produced in a Bohemian monastery in the early thirteenth century, transcribed by a single scribe whose identity remains a mystery. And it probably took a long time.”

“Your memory for this stuff is impressive!”

“Museum brain! And it’s all speculation, really. But we shouldn’t discount any possibility until we know a thing for certain. I’m not an especially superstitious person, but I know for sure that I don’t know everything, so I try to remain open-minded.”

Crowley nodded, accepting the wisdom of that. “Sure, but who was it who said, ‘Don’t be so open-minded that your brain falls out’?”

A curator wandered toward them, smiling politely. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” she said in English.

“Are we that obviously tourists?” Crowley asked.

“I overheard your conversation. You’ve done a lot of homework, eh?”

“We’re fascinated by it,” Rose said. “We’d love to know more of the truth.”

The curator nodded. “Its true origin is unknown, but a note in the manuscript says it was created in the year twelve ninety-five in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia, known as the Czech Republic today. Shortly after that the manuscript went to another monastery, in Brevnov near Prague.”

“How did it end up in Sweden?” Crowley asked.

“That’s not the most honorable of stories. In 1594, Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, and King of Hungary, Croatia and Slavonia, took it to his castle.”

“Quite a string of titles.”

“Isn’t it! Anyway, the bible was kept at Rudolf’s castle until it was stolen by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War and became a part of Queen Christina of Sweden’s personal collection. Now we keep it here.”

“Stolen goods!”

The curator inclined her head, but changed the subject. “You were talking about the Devil’s portrait. You know it also contains a magic formula on how to overcome evil, misfortune and disease.”

“Isn’t it supposed to have caused those things?” Rose said.

The curator laughed. “Indeed. Inside is also a calendar containing a list of saints and local Bohemians, used to keep track of the feast days of the Church. All the indications are that it was the life’s work of one person, as you said, but of course, we doubt the one night legend. Historians estimate the scribe may have conceivably spent as many as twenty years on such a monumental work.”

Crowley walked slowly around the display, still in awe of the scale of the book. “How is the deal with the Devil supposed to have helped the monk atone for his sins anyway?”

“The story goes that the monk had committed terrible sins, though it’s unclear exactly what. In an attempt to avoid being walled up alive for those sins, he promised to write, in one night, the biggest holy book ever conceived, to make the monastery famous. He quickly realized the task was well beyond him and, in desperation, turned to the Devil for assistance. The Devil demanded his soul as payment and the monk included the full page portrait of the Devil as thanks. It’s said that his achievement did indeed spare him from inclusion, but he lost all peace of mind and his life became a living hell. The church, rather than condemning the evil book, has actually studied it in great depth.”

“That’s a sad and awful story,” Rose said quietly.

“I’d love to have a closer look,” Crowley said. “What are the chances of us getting a proper look, seeing the other pages?”

The curator smiled politely but shook her head. “No chance at all, I’m afraid.”

“What if we offered…”

She silenced him with a finger. “You can’t offer anything. But I’m more than happy to chat with you all about it. It’s my specialty here.”

Crowley had to respect her professionalism but was a little disappointed she had shut him down so quickly. His charm usually worked a bit better than that, especially with women. He chose to pick her brains anyway. “There’s a story that some pages are missing?”

“Yes, seven pages at best guess. Removed by persons unknown and now lost. Whether they’ve been destroyed or are kept in secret somewhere we may never know.”

“May never know? You think there’s a possibility they could be found?”

“Well, the only way to read them would be to find the original bible.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile.

Crowley and Rose exchanged a look. “So this is maybe what Declan meant,” Rose said.

Crowley nodded, turned his attention back to the curator. He gestured at the glass cabinet beside them. “This isn’t the original?”

“This one’s a fake. It’s not modern, it’s an ancient manuscript, but it’s not the original, and it’s said the text has been changed. And those pages you mentioned may not be missing in the original, of course.”

“Why would someone fake it and change things?” Rose asked.

The curator shrugged. “Those who believe in the power of the text may have any number of reasons to alter, replace, or simply remove certain sections. The history of this thing is drenched in death and many would have it destroyed entirely if they had the chance. We’re lucky this copy is as complete as it is, really.”

“But it’s still a copy?” Crowley pressed.

“Yes. We don’t make that especially public knowledge, of course. But you two are clearly serious scholars in this regard. Maybe not just tourists after all?”

Crowley shrugged. “Maybe not. Where might we find the real one?”

“You must understand, people who know the real history have been searching for hundreds of years. I’d love to have the time and money to search myself one day. If I did have the time and money, I’d start in the Czech Republic, where I could retrace the history of the bible from its original creation. Others have done so, of course, but all it takes is the right seeker. Someone smart and determined enough.”

“Looks like we have a lot more research to do,” Crowley said. “I might have some contacts I can pull in for some favors.”

The curator raised her eyebrows. “Please, if you learn anything, will you let me know?” She handed him a business card. “Use the email address on there? I’d love any information you get.”

Crowley took the card and shook her hand. “Absolutely, and thanks for your help.”

He was a little surprised when she smiled briefly before turning back to Rose and handing over another card. “You too. Please contact me with anything you think I might like to know.”

They strolled back through the library’s main room, heading for the warm day outside.

“I must be losing my touch,” Crowley said wistfully. “That curator showed no interest in me at all. I was hoping to charm a little more information out of her than that.”

Rose laughed loudly, causing a few heads to turn in the still building. She controlled herself and leaned close to whisper. “You really are a man.”

He looked at her in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t think any man has enough charm for her. Didn't you notice? She was looking at me the whole time. Why do you think I got her card, too?”