five weeks to fully replace. The plasma gets replaced in a day or two. The blood cells take much longer. In the study of disease it is these cells that give us the most information. They’re the things that have battled the disease and, in your case, won. At the moment your body will only just have started replacing the plasma and your white cell count per litre will still be relatively high. As far as virology and toxicology is concerned this is the good stuff, packed full of all the information we need. It would really speed things up if we could take some more of this rich blood now.’
‘How much?’
‘Another five hundred mils.’
‘And how much would that leave me with?’
‘Enough, you’d still have seventy-five to eighty-five per cent of your usual amount, which is in the safe zone for a healthy patient. My concern is that the last time we took blood it triggered some kind of mild relapse, though you recovered quickly and seem fine now.’ He looked at the ECG monitor connected to Gabriel’s finger by a clip. ‘Your vital signs are all strong and there’s no obvious reason for concern. But ultimately it’s your decision.’
Gabriel looked at the stained-glass window, the peacock motif hardly visible now as evening darkened the sky behind it. ‘What the hell,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere. But if I do pass out please don’t wake me until morning.’ An assistant appeared from nowhere and started to tighten Gabriel’s bindings.
‘Just a precaution,’ Kaplan said. ‘In case you do have another fit.’
Gabriel turned to Athanasius. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘And I sincerely hope you have a better night than I’m about to.’
81
Malachi’s candle lit up the words carved into the inside of the upper curve of an archway as he passed through it: CRYPTA REVELATIO – Vault of the Revelation.
Most of the library was organized according to date and origin, with the newest items nearest the entrance. But the contents of the Crypta Revelatio were drawn from every culture, every century and every part of the world. It was a collection with one unique subject in common: all of the texts and references gathered there contained prophetic accounts of the end of the world.
He made his way over to the far side of the vault and held his dying candle to a fresh one until the new wick caught and wavering orange light rippled across a desk entirely buried beneath books and sheets of paper filled with Malachi’s dense handwriting. Collapsing in the seat at his desk, he grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and took up his pen. His hand shook as he wrote, his lips moving as he recalled the symbols he had seen. He had not been able to memorize them all in the short time, but he had seen enough. He drew the symbols from memory, writing his interpretation of each next to it so he could capture as much of it as he could remember: one sign for a rider – a warrior on horseback; one sign for the Citadel, which occurred more than once; and at the very end of the prophecy the symbol of a skull – meaning death or an end – followed by the moon in the sun, representing a day.
End of Days.
He pulled the candle over and his magnified eyes moved behind the lenses of his spectacles, his skittish hands extensions of his tumbling thoughts as they searched through the accumulated mass of doom that spilled across the table top and down to the floor, looking for one item in particular. He had read and re-read the documents so many times that the terrible imagery and predictions they contained bled into his dreams as he slept here each night in his nest of prophesies.
He found what he was looking for buried beneath the handwritten, original manuscript of the Poetic Edda and a first edition of Les Propheties by Michel de Nostredame. The text was written on papyrus in Ancient Greek and bound into a codex with thin strips of leather. Such binding was usually reserved for pristine texts but these pages were filled with crossings out and additions crammed in the borders and between every line.
Malachi turned the pages, his hands touching only the edge of each page in recognition of the great delicacy of the book. It had arrived in the Citadel barely a hundred years after the death of Christ, shortly after it was written on the island of