The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (49 page)

I started thinking about The Wheel of Fortune, how it kept coming up all the time for me. After reading these creation myths, I could clearly see that The Wheel (Jupiter) and The Universe (Saturn) were reflections of each other. So I shifted my arrangement and put The Universe on the table all the way to the left and The Wheel all the way to the right. I connected them with the other trumps and I couldn’t believe what I figured out. All the trumps are paired! The Fool (Air) above Judgment (Fire) below, The Magician (Mercury) above The Sun, The Priestess above The Moon, The Empress above The Star. But that’s not all. There’s a triangle formed by The Priestess, The Empress and The Star—the three manifestations of Sophia: Virgin, Consort, Great Mother. And another triad, The Emperor, The Hierophant, and The Devil—the three manifestations of Hermes Trismigestus. That’s where his catchy nickname comes from: Hermes Thrice Great. King, Sage, Sorcerer.

Does Paul know about all this stuff? Jesus, what’s the matter with me? Why do I give a shit what Paul knows? Why am I spending all my time trying to figure out what he wants, what he knows—when the only thing he really, really wants is for me to murder Rose?

Talk about timing. I was launching into a rant about him and there he was, knocking on my door. I hid the journal and let him in. He came to congratulate me. Said he’d been drifting in and out of my head all day, following my progress and
guiding
me along. Was he wearing me like a puppet, picking out which books to read, which pages to turn, clicking the mouse on all the right links, giving me imperceptible subconscious suggestions, leading me like a mongrel pooch down the dark, dirty alleys of his twisted scheming?

He didn’t specify. I didn’t press. I was too immersed in what he had to say about my research efforts. “I see you’ve discovered the First Arrangement,” he said, leaning over the table.

“It’s the whole creation myth!” I said excitedly, pointing at The Fool.

“The Alpha…and the Omega,” he said, looking at me like I was The Fool. Still, I could see a gleam of pride in his eyes as he said, “The key to the creation sequence lies in the starting point. Which is the first card? What’s the chicken? What’s the egg?”

“Well, if it’s not The Fool, I guess it must be The Universe.”

“It’s a creation myth; the Universe doesn’t exist yet,” he said with a pained sigh.

I was stumped. I tried a few guesses and he got bored, or impatient. He laid his big paws on the table and parted the vertical rows I’d made right in the middle, like Moses parting the Red Sea. Now there was a gap between The Emperor and The Hierophant, The Tower and The Devil. “It begins here,” he said, pointing to The Tower.

He laughed at my perplexed expression and laid it all out for me. “In the beginning there was only Chaos and the
Will
to Become, the
Intent
to act. Close your eyes and imagine that you’re in a sensory deprivation tank. No light, no sound. You’re floating in saltwater, so even the sensation of gravity dissipates. Now imagine being suspended in that senseless state without any thoughts, without words, because they don’t exist yet. What are you left with?”

“Nothing. Without any sensation or internal dialog you wouldn’t know you exist.”

“Close, but no cigar. You have awareness
.
And with awareness, the
ability
to perceive—the
capacity
for intelligence. Unfortunately, you have nothing to perceive because there is no other. All is one. You’re an entity with unlimited creative power, but no idea how to express that energy, how to come forth…to
become.
Imagine the agony of such a condition. And to make matters worse, the agony is eternal because time and space also don’t exist. The Tower is what you might call the Big Bang. The first Singularity. From that eruption of Chaos came the great engine of creation and annihilation, the
Apeiron
, or Maelstrom. With the
Apeiron
came the
Nous
, the
Intelligence
first manifested in Sophia,” he said pointing to The Star. “The Perceiver and the Perceived. Duality. Chaos into order and form.”

“You know about Sophia?” I interrupted.

He rolled his eyes like I had just asked the dumbest question in the world and continued, pointing to each card as he spoke. “From Sophia came the Watery Darkness (pointing to The Moon) and the material universe. From the Darkness came the Second Light of the Divine Realm (The Sun). From the Divine Realm of pure creativity, came the first being and begetter (The Aeon). And so the Ethereal and Material planes unite at the Axis and the first cycle of creation is complete (The Universe).”

He went on like that, card by card. He had different names for most of them, their true names, of course, since he decided they were: The Hero/Fool, The Herald/Magician, The Oracle/Princess, The Matriarch/Empress, The Good King/Emperor, The Master/Hierophant.

He called those cards the “apocalyptic sequence” because they tell the story of revelation, where male and female Chosen Ones are enlightened by Hermes-Thoth and Sophia.

“Now things take an interesting twist. What story is told by the remaining trumps?”

Before today I had never looked at the cards in any context other than their individual interpretations. But after I made my big discovery that Paul called the First Arrangement and especially after watching Paul outline the story of the first twelve trumps, I was actually able to see a narrative in the next sequence. “It’s a quest. For the Grail?”

“Billy! You just might be a genius after all. And the Grail is only one of the treasures. But if we’re going to see the hidden map of this great adventure, we’ll need another spyglass.”

He rearranged the trumps, preserving the same sequence, but with all the odd-numbered top and bottom pairs almost touching each other and all the even-numbered trumps a few inches apart. The resulting pattern made me think of the double helix in DNA.

“The
Nous
transmits the sacred knowledge through Thoth and Sophia to the Herald and the Oracle respectively. The virgin Oracle begets The Matriarch, who enlightens The Good King and thus begins the Dynastic succession, or the royal bloodline. The Master Trismegistus passes down the secret teachings to worthy initiates, one of whom is chosen to receive the ultimate blessing. This is the Apostolic line of succession.”

“Hold on a second, you told me that the Apostolic succession didn’t work, and the Hermetic line adopted a royal succession with Clan Kelly. Are you saying you switched over to
Sophia’s
way of doing things?”

“Ours is clearly a patriarchal succession,” he said with a withering stare, “if anything should be obvious to you it would be that salient point.”

“Yes, but it’s still a bloodline legacy. What happened? When did it change?”

“The change came after Ceallach, our namesake, but that is not the story I’m telling. Both traditions, though differing in their methods of passing the torch, are almost identical in all other respects from this point onward.” He thumped his bald fingertip on The Lovers (The Vows, in his interpretation) and declared, “These two cards are the key to everything,” he said pointing to the upper/lower pair formed by The Vows and The Alchemist (Temperance). “Once you truly understand this pairing, everything else falls into place.”

“The Great Work,” I said, the light finally shining in my eyes.

“Yes, The Great Work,” he repeated, like he was humoring me. “The Chosen One, whether heir or disciple, is shown the Prophecy (wouldn’t tell me, I asked), vows to protect and guide the
Nous
(why does the
Nous
need protection? No answer) and swears eternal loyalty to his Clan. Once initiated, his training begins. He proves his worthiness and tempers his spirit in The Quest for the Elementals and The Trials of the Hero, ascending from apprentice to journeyman to knight and finally Sage. Having attained the Grail, Staff, Sword and Stone, he and the Master penetrate the Threshold of the Divine. The Hero endures more challenges and finally surrenders his own ego and will to the Master completing The Great Work. He returns to the material realm in triumph, as the Lord of Two Realms…and it all comes full circle in—”

“Armageddon?” I asked, staring at The Tower. “All of this only leads to destruction? We’re back at square one again?”

“Or onto bigger and better things,” he said with a wide grin.

There were a million questions I wanted to ask, about the tarot, the Gnostic writings, Sophia, Hermes Trismigestus, Christ, Mary Magdalene…I had to know everything!

He cut me off immediately.

“Listen, son, you’ve done exceptionally well here, even though I gave your brain a nudge from time to time to keep your train on the rails. You’ve uncovered some very important information about our heritage, but you’re never gonna get to the bottom of this no matter how many of those old books you poke your nose into.”

“And that’s because…”

“For starters, those writings were deliberately intended to disguise the truth in countless metaphors and scrambled codes to keep the idiots at bay. They’ve been translated, and re-translated back into the original demotic, Coptic or Greek countless times, every scribe adding his own pontifical touch in his glorious interpretation. Of the more accurate writings, there’s more missing from the tracts than what remains, as you’ve seen in the Drivel of Mary. You’ve about as much luck hitting pay dirt in those dustbins as those literalist born-agains have of seeing the Rapture. However, I have a gift for you that should prove far more enlightening, if you apply yourself with half the dedication of these research efforts.”

He reached deeply into his pocket and told me to close my eyes. “Don’t go using yer second sight and spoil the surprise.” I nodded and felt him place a large rectangular object in my left hand. “Okay, open ’em.”

It was a tarot deck. Older than any I’d seen. The paintings were incredibly detailed and absolutely exquisite. I turned them over one by one, The Hero, The Herald, The Oracle—all the trumps labeled with Paul’s titles. “These are amazing,” I said, awed and yes, flattered by his incredible gift. I had a hard time spitting it out, but I managed to say, “Thank you.”

“You’ve earned it,” he grunted, taking the cards back before I had a chance to look at the rest of them. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ll see more in them than any of those dusty books,” he said, setting the cards down gently on the table. “But don’t stay up too late gazing at them…this deck can be quite…entrancing.”

“Is there something else I should know about them?” I asked apprehensively.

“Indeed, there is. Get a good night’s sleep and meet me in the chapel tomorrow. I’m bumping you up to the advanced class, so make sure your eyes are bright and your head is clear. You’ve earned a little taste of the Gospel according to Paul.”

The first three nails hurt so much that Michael’s screams almost pierced his own eardrums. The fourth one hurt even more.

“Oops! Sounds like I grazed a bone with that one.” The Striker chuckled. “I hope your protector won’t be too distressed by my carelessness.”

“Why are you doing this?” Bean howled, his blood leaking onto the black gummy wood beneath him, his bare hands and feet nailed to the altar in a perfect X shape. Martin would have liked the symmetry.

“You may have noticed that the nails I’m using have an unusual shape,” The Striker said, ignoring Michael’s question. “Although they’re much wider on the top, they have no lip around the head to prevent you, should you summon the valor, from extricating your hands and feet from their painful grip. All you have to do is pull…and pull…and pull…starting with your left hand, I expect. You’re a southpaw, correct? Shhhhhh. Don’t bother answering, I’m rarely misinformed and time is fluttering away. As I was saying, after you free the first hand, assuming that’s even a remote possibility for a sniveling brat like you, the Master has deigned, in his infinite generosity, to present you with two very compelling options—alternate battle plans as it were—you, of course, being far too inexperienced and frankly too doltish to come up with a feasible option unassisted.”

“Fuck you, you fucking fuck!” Michael yelled, only to have The Striker
whack!
the nail through the palm of that aforementioned left hand with such joyous vigor that Bean’s cursing invectives were immediately replaced by another round of bloodcurdling screams.

“Order in the court! Order in the court!” The Striker yelled above the din of Michael’s tortured cries, pounding the nail again and again, punctuating each gleeful shout.

“Whoa! Whoa! What’s all this racket in here?” Paul called out, slamming through the wall-portal. “You two could wake the dead!”

“Help me!” Michael cried, “This fucker is—”

“This fucker is trying to help you, if only you’d shut up and listen!”

“Help me?” Michael shrieked.

“If you don’t put a sock in it, I will,” Paul growled, his face looming over Bean like a blood-red moon. Michael instantly closed his mouth.

“That’s better,” Paul sighed, straightening up as The Striker retreated into the shadows beyond Michael’s limited sight range. When he was convinced Bean was properly attentive, Paul continued: “Listen well, for I won’t be repeating meself. I’m expecting a guest to come calling on you in a very short while, a recent acquaintance of yours. I imagine he’ll be barging in here with a mighty big chip on his shoulder. I don’t know where he got the idea, but Martin is under the impression you had something to do with the abduction of his poor, defenseless girlfriend. I’m sure you can imagine the distress that would cause. And while both of us know you’ve done nothing whatsoever to assist me in that nefarious plot, I don’t believe he’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, especially when he sees this peeking out of your pocket.”