The Nostradamus Prophecies (46 page)

‘And you have the prophecies for the succeeding years?’

‘Yes. I’ve isolated them by default. It’s exactly those prophecies that Bale wanted so badly. One describes the Third Antichrist. The one who will bring the world to the abyss. Another describes the Second Coming. And another describes the location of a new visionary who will either confirm or deny the date – who can see into the future and channel the information. Only this person can tell us what awaits – regeneration or apocalypse. But all will ultimately depend on whether we are prepared to recognise the Second Coming. Recognise it universally. See it as something beyond religion, in other words – as a universal blessing. Nostradamus believes that only by bringing the world together – in the communal worship of one entity – can we be saved. ‘

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Deadly serious.’

‘The Third Antichrist, then. Who is he?’

Sabir turned away. ‘He is with us now. He was born under the number seven. Ten seven ten seven. He has the name of the Great Whore. He already holds high office. He will hold higher. His numerological number is one, indicating ruthlessness and an obsessive desire for power. Nostradamus calls him the ‘scorpion ascending’. That is all I can tell you.’

‘But that is nothing.’

‘Oh, it is.’

Calque looked searchingly at him. ‘So you know his name?’

‘Yes. And so do you.’

Calque shrugged. But he had gone pale beneath his temporary Camargue tan. ‘Don’t think I won’t try to work it out. I’m a detective. Numerology isn’t an entirely alien concept. Even to me.’

‘I expected nothing less.’

‘And the Second Coming?’

‘I will tell no one of that. It was the real purpose of Nostradamus’s gift to his daughter. It is a secret that men and women would die for. A secret that could change the world. You are the only person on earth who knows that I have it. I am content for things to remain that way. Are you?’

Calque watched Sabir silently for some minutes. Finally, awkwardly, he stood up. He nodded his head.

Alexi kidnapped Yola when the summer was at its height. They ran away to Corsica and Alexi took her virginity on the beach near Cargese. As he made love to her for the first time, a flight of ducks travelled over them, casting their shadow across the mating couple. Yola sat up the moment he withdrew from her body and told him she was pregnant.

‘This is impossible. How can you know?’

‘I know.’

Alexi never doubted her. To him, Yola possessed a mysterious understanding of secrets beyond his ken. This suited him, as someone out there needed to know such things – and to carry their weight – if Alexi was to be allowed to live his life in the present, with neither a backward nor a forward glance.

The moment Sabir heard of Yola’s kidnap, he took a plane across to Europe and waited for the couple at the camp in Samois. In his new position as Yola’s brother and the titular head of her family, it was inconceivable that she should be allowed to marry without his presence and permission. He knew that this was the one final thing he needed to do for her and that his appearance at her wedding would at last free her of the blood taint from her brother’s death.

Yola had kept the towel she had lain the at beach in Cargese and when this was displayed before the wedding guests, Sabir formally acknowledged that she had been a virgin before her kidnapping and that her lacha was untarnished. He agreed to pay Alexi her bride-price.

Later, after the ceremony was over, Yola told him that she was pregnant and asked him if he would be kirvo to her son.

‘You know it’s a son?’

‘After Alexi plucked out my eyes, a male dog ran up to us on the beach and licked my hand.’

Sabir shook his head. ‘It’s crazy. But I believe you.’

‘You are correct to do so. The curandero was right. You are a wiser man now. Something happened to you while you were dying. I don’t want to know what it was. But I feel that you can see things sometimes, just as I can, after the eye-man gave me my two half-deaths. Are you a shaman now?’

Sabir shook his head. ‘I’m a nothing. Nothing’s changed. I’m just happy to be here and to see you married. And of course I’ll be kirvo to your son.’

Yola watched him for a few seconds, hoping for something more. But then a sudden understanding dawned across her face. ‘You know, don’t you, Damo? What the curandero told me about my child? About the Parousia? It was all written on those pages that you burned. This was why the secret of the prophecies was given to my family for safe keeping? That was why you burned them at the risk of your life?’

‘Yes. It was written.’

Yola pressed her stomach with her hands. ‘Was anything else written? Things I should know? Things I should fear for my son?’

Sabir smiled. ‘Nothing else was written, Yola. What will be will be. The die is cast and the future written only on the stars.’