House of Acerbi

actually spelled out in God’s book? It was like a biblical story from the Old Testament, only it was taking place now, in modern times. Another strange fact was that most of us had names that meant lion … Leo, Lev, Ariella … even John’s last name, Lowe … all lion names. We were all God’s lions, soldiers caught up in a celestial war, and I believe we’ve just been drafted once again.”

“Why didn’t God destroy the Devil’s Bible?” Diaz asked, his face a frozen mask of doubt.

Leo’s green eyes bored in on Diaz with such intensity that the man actually felt a twinge of fear.

“I like the way you always get right to the heart of things, Dr. Diaz,” Leo said. “In answer to your question, I believe God has always involved man in the war between good and evil. We must be participants in our own salvation. I believe that’s one of the reasons why He placed the code in the Bible in the first place. He knew where civilization would take us, and that one day, rather than relying on faith alone, man would begin to look for secular proof of His existence. How better to communicate with an advanced civilization hooked on computers than through a code so complex that it would take computers to unravel it. He’s given us a contemporary tool that we can use to continue our dialogue with Him.”

Evita and Leo looked at one another for a long moment. No wonder he had turned pale at the mention of a book, she thought. The entire story sounded fantastical, but she had no doubt that these people were telling the truth. “I was wondering, Leo, besides the code, was there anything else that led you all to believe you had been chosen?”

Ariella cleared her throat as she brushed a long strand of hair back from her face. “We had all been having the same dream. In the dream, we all saw a storm over the desert, and we all heard the word chosen echoing in the background. Sounds like a movie, doesn’t it?”

“Actually, my dear, what we are about to tell you sounds even more like a movie.” Mendoza glanced sideways at Evita. “Go ahead, Dr. Vargas … tell them. They need to know.”

Instantly, the members of the Bible Code Team were on high alert.

“The three of us have also been having dreams with the word chosen echoing in the background, but our dreams are quite different from the ones you describe.” Evita looked off into space before continuing. “Instead of a storm over a desert, we see bodies … thousands of bodies lying in the streets of deserted cities. It’s more like a horrible nightmare.”

Leo glanced over at Lev before leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. “We’ve known all along there were others like us. Last year, when Sarah first told us she had been having the same dream as us … we knew. We’ve been waiting all this time to hear from other chosen ones.”

In a space that amplified sound like the walls of a cavern, silence reigned as everyone waited for the next person to speak.

“When did you say the book was destroyed?” Mendoza asked.

“Let me go back to the desert for a moment,” Leo said, closing his eyes as if he were being transported back to another time and place. “Down in that cavern, we were surrounded by demons guarding Satan’s book. Without divine intervention, none of us would have survived what we experienced down there. Something happened … something we can’t explain. We sensed a presence right before the earth began to shake and huge fissures opened up beneath us, releasing the book from where it had been encased in solid rock. The demons seemed to evaporate right before our eyes and we were able to make it back to the surface just as the cavern collapsed. Oil came bursting up to the surface, igniting a tower of flame, followed by geysers of water that flooded the desert for miles around. It was like being present at a biblical event from the Old Testament, only it was occurring in modern times.”

“Is that when the book was destroyed?”

“No. We took it with us. We knew what it was, but we had no idea of its power or what we were supposed to do with it. It wasn’t until later that we realized the book was more like a living entity. We learned that, whenever it had been taken from the cavern in the past, bad things happened … really bad things. We believe the book was a way for Satan to physically release evil out into the world without interference from God … a kind of trump card if you will, and he used unsuspecting humans to accomplish this by periodically allowing the book to be discovered. For the past year, we’ve been trying to pinpoint the number of times it has made an appearance out in the world before. Some of our information has come from passages we’ve discovered embedded within the Bible Code, and we’re still trying to verify some actual sightings throughout history that seem to come from reliable sources. To date, we’ve only been able to document five separate occasions, but the appearances we’ve documented have always coincided with some horrific events that occurred whenever the book was out of its hiding place. For instance we know that it was out briefly during WWII, at a time when millions died around the world and nuclear weapons first appeared on the scene, and that it probably made an appearance in 1918, during WWI and the great flu epidemic that took fifty million lives. We weren’t aware of any of this at the time we removed it, but after Houston…”

“Which brings up the point of why you weren’t warned by the code to leave the book in the cavern,” Evita said.

“Probably because the time had come for the book to be destroyed,” Leo said. “We’ll probably never know all there is to know about the code, but we have noticed something that appears to be a constant theme throughout. We’ve discovered that everything seems to occur according to a specific timetable, but the details of the timetable are still a mystery. It’s like God is whispering across a crowded room, and we can’t hear everything He’s trying to tell us. All we knew at the time was that God wanted the book taken to a place of His own choosing to be destroyed. After we arrived back at the villa, Daniel discovered an encoded passage in Genesis that spelled out the fact that the ancient Christian chapel under the Vatican was that place. We almost didn’t make it. As I said, it was like the book was alive, and it had a very powerful protector. We came close to being killed more than once before we made it to Rome, but we had a pretty powerful protector ourselves.”

“But the book was destroyed, right?” Mendoza asked. “I mean, you all saw it go up in flames.”

“Yes … right after we delivered it to the chapel. That’s where the most miraculous event in this whole story occurred. After making our way through the catacombs under the Vatican, we entered the chapel with the book. Morelli and I were still just priests then, and we were joined by the pope, who was a cardinal at the time. The rest of the Bible Code Team was also there. It was in the chapel where we encountered the most powerful demon of them all-Agaliarept, Satan’s grand general over hell. After battling the demon for a span of time none of us could remember afterward, we saw the chapel fill with light as seven of God’s most powerful archangels appeared. They cast out the demon and saved our lives. After the angels departed, the book erupted into flames and burned to ashes on the altar in the chapel. Up until now, we had assumed that the world was no longer in danger from its influence, but it’s beginning to appear that we missed something.”

Diaz rubbed his eyes as he looked across the table at Lev. He had been waiting patiently, listening to the entire story. “Professor, earlier you said that Satan’s timetable and God’s timetable for the end of days don’t agree? When did you learn of this?”

“After we returned from the desert with the book.”

“Please excuse me, Professor. What I meant to ask was how you discovered the information.”

“From the Devil’s Bible. That was the very first thing we were able to decipher. We’ve been studying it for the past year, and some of the information is fascinating. We’re preparing a paper on it.”

“But the book no longer exists.”

“True … that’s why we copied it. The book was a treasure trove. Despite the fact that it was an instrument of Satan, we couldn’t let it be destroyed without first making a copy of the text. To an archaeologist, that would have been unforgiveable. The information it contained was priceless. I mean, we were dealing with ancient symbols and language the world had never seen before. Additionally, we were beginning to suspect that the Devil’s Bible also contained a code. Another reason we all agreed that the text needed to be preserved. Without it, we would never have discovered the fact that God’s timetable and Satan’s timetable for the end of days don’t agree.”

“Yes, of course. But how did you accomplish this?”

“We scanned it into our computers.”

“Uh-uh.” Diaz rubbed his hands together as he looked around at the others and waited.

Lev’s expression collapsed when the sudden realization of what Diaz was getting at struck him like a sledgehammer.