Читать книгу The Ben Hope Collection - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 77

The seeker shall find. Ben grabbed his pen and feverishly scribbled the phrase out in code.

E/4, R/18; N/22, V/12, R/18, A/17, N/22, V/12,

R/18, A/11, A/17;

O/13, A/17, E/23, A/11, U/9, R/18, A/17, I/26

His heart was thumping as he dialled in the last number. From deep within the safe’s mechanism he heard a metallic clunk. Then there was silence. He grasped the handle of the safe door and yanked it. It held firm. He swore. The combination must have been the wrong one, or else something had gone wrong with the safe’s mechanism after all these years. The door was stuck fast.

A sound from behind startled him, and he twisted around as his hand went for the Browning.

The fireplace was opening. A gentle shower of dirt fell from the chimney as soot-encrusted panels swung slowly open to reveal a space just large enough for him to walk through.

Ben took a deep breath and stepped through the fireplace into the darkness. He flashed his torch around him and blinked at what he saw.

He was in a narrow room, some six metres long and three deep. At one end sat a large old oak table, covered in a thin layer of dust. On it rested a heavy metal chalice, like a huge wine goblet studded around the edge with iron rivets. Lying in the goblet, staring up with empty eyes, was a human skull. On either side of this grim ornament sat two iron candlesticks, two feet high with broad round bases and each holding a thick church candle.

His torch was dimming; he reached into his pocket for his lighter and lit the candles. He picked up one of the heavy candlesticks, and the flickering light threw shadow around the room. The toothless skull leered at him. Around the walls were dusty shelves lined with books. He picked one up and blew the dust and cobwebs off it. Holding the candle close he read the old gilt script on the leather cover–Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead. He replaced it and picked up another leather-clad book. De Occulta Philosophia. Secrets of Occult Philosophy.

It looked as though he was in someone’s private study, long since abandoned. He put the books back carefully on the dusty shelf and swept the heavy candlestick around him. The walls of the room were painted with murals depicting alchemical processes. He walked up close and studied one that showed a hand emerging from a cloud. The Hand of God? From the hand, water was dripping into a strange vessel that was being held up by little winged nymphs. From an opening at the bottom of the vessel there flowed an ethereal, misty substance scattered with alchemical symbols and the label Elixir Vitae.

He turned away and raised the candle to illuminate other corners of the room. Above the entrance he’d come through, a face looked down on him. It was an oil portrait in a broad gilt frame. The face belonged to a heavily built man with a grizzled beard and a thick mane of silvery hair. Looking out from under the bushy grey eyebrows, his eyes seemed to twinkle with a sense of humour that belied his stern expression. A gold plaque below the portrait read in stark gothic letters: