“How do you know all that?” asked Karl. “That happened a hundred years ago.”
“The documents from his trial survive to this day—that is how we know so much about his crimes. Gilles’s first victim was a peasant boy he strangled before cutting off the boy’s hands. Then he ripped out his heart and used the blood as ink to pen the words required to invoke the devil. Apparently, a former priest named Prelati helped him do it. From then on Gilles de Rais murdered hundreds of children with the aid of his henchmen. He tortured them, hanged them, slit them open, and violated them. He enjoyed it more and more. And in doing so he, well . . .” Agrippa faltered. The great scholar struggled to find the words. “I can’t prove it, but I fear that in doing so the marshal became the devil himself.”
“You . . . you’re saying Gilles de Rais is the devil?” asked Karl with disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
“He was, he is, and yet he isn’t,” replied Agrippa.
Karl frowned. “You speak in riddles.”
“Admittedly, it goes beyond our human intellect, and I’m not even sure if I fully grasp it or if it isn’t a silly ghost story after all. The devil appears in all kinds of shapes, in every culture and region on earth. He is one and yet he is many, and he is always that which we fear the most.”
“A child-murdering monster,” whispered Greta. “Children are what we hold dearest.”
Agrippa nodded. “It is possible that the devil used Gilles de Rais like a shell—like a costume one can put on. I’m guessing Satan needs a human form in order to walk on earth. He may be vulnerable in that state, but he can also lead people astray. He’s been doing so since ancient times—descriptions of him can be found in the oldest writings ever found, in the Jewish Talmud, in Persia, Babylon, and of course in the Bible. The Greeks called him Diabolos, the bringer of chaos. He seeks out people who are susceptible to him—magicians, sorcerers, demon conjurers . . .”
“People like Gilles de Rais,” said Johann softly. “Like Tonio del Moravia.”
“Like Tonio del Moravia.” Agrippa looked at his friend. “When Gilles de Rais died on the scaffold at Nantes, the devil probably needed a new shell. I’d been looking for information on Tonio del Moravia, and at last I found something. What I dug up in the old scriptures is as surprising as it is frightening. It would appear that Tonio was a juggler and magician who grew up in the area of Constantinople, in the time before the Ottomans conquered the city. At first he was just one of the many traveling quacks who had also read up on Babylonian sorcery—probably in an attempt to impress the common people. But then he must have begun to study the subject more seriously. It is possible that Tonio summoned the devil with some sort of old Babylonian rites, and Satan truly appeared. Tonio was tried in Constantinople and condemned to burn, but he managed to escape as if by magic. Ever since then his name pops up right across Europe, and always then when children are reported missing or killed. A malicious fellow and, well”—Agrippa sighed—“possibly the devil’s new coat. It seems as if Satan depends on the blood of innocent children in order to walk on earth. Only the devil knows how many different human shells he has already used to live among us. Tonio del Moravia is just one of many—there’ll be more after him.”
“Hang on a moment.” Karl cast a skeptical glance around the small group. “I do believe in the devil—I even believe that he’s in every one of us. But it’s the person who brings evil into the world. Gilles de Rais was an evil person. And back in Nuremberg, it was the people who murdered those poor children for some kind of horrific ritual. I’ve never seen the one devil. And why should he walk the earth? He leads people astray using what they already carry within them, with their own needs and cravings and thoughts. The rest is nothing but fiction.”
“These people never smell the old rat, even when he has them by the collar,” muttered Johann.
Agrippa raised his hands. “Like I said—pure theory. I can’t prove anything. Sometimes I pray that I’m wrong.”
There was noise outside the window now, shouts, marching footsteps, but no one paid it any attention.
“Back in Nuremberg, Tonio spoke of a coat,” said Johann pensively. “He said I was that coat.” He closed his eyes and tried to remember the words. “And when the day arrives and the great beast awakens, give it a coat. Those were his words. You spoke of a shell. Am I . . . ?”
“The devil’s new shell?” Agrippa rocked his head from side to side. “To be honest, I don’t know, my friend. You said yourself that your master taught you much. He would have had great hopes for you and must be feeling deeply disappointed now. But perhaps it’s something entirely different.”
“If the doctor wasn’t supposed to serve as a shell,” asked Greta, “then what had they intended for him? What could be worse than giving one’s body to Satan?”
Agrippa frowned. “Well, I think even worse would be if the devil had more than one body. So far he is just one single person. One who doesn’t age and is very powerful, but vulnerable nonetheless. Nothing that can truly throw the world into chaos.” Agrippa reached for the cold pipe and tapped gray ashes onto the table.
“But what if the world no longer belonged to God but to the devil? What if the ritual back
