Giordano Apocalypsis - Brutal Awakening

Book 2
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-8387-2393-8
Verlag: Bastei Lübbe
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 600 Seiten

Reihe: Bastei Lübbe

Journalist Peter Adam wakes up in Germany. The Cologne Cathedral. He has somehow survived near-fatal injuries. But his memory from the past few days has been erased. What happened? Why can't he remember? All around him the earth is shaking and Hell literally breaks loose as people spontaneously combust. It seems the apocalypse has begun...
Meanwhile, the Vatican's chief exorcist has been elected pope. He has taken the name Peter II and seems set to fulfill the devastating prophecy of Malachi. The last hope for salvation? An enigmatic tattoo that has appeared all over Peter Adam's body: in it, a pattern of ancient symbols could reveal one of the greatest mysteries in human history-the origin of evil.

About the Series

Written by award-winning screenwriter and author Mario Giordano, 'Apocalypsis' is gripping and explosive: what starts out as a sophisticated Vatican conspiracy soon develops into a uniquely intense and spectacular thriller.

APOCALYPSIS is a serial novel told in twelve installments per book. The entire saga is revealed throughout three complete novels; this is the complete second novel.

About the Author

Mario Giordano was born 1963 in Munich, studied psychology in Düsseldorf and writes novels for adults old and young as well as screenplays (his credits include Tatort, Schimanski, Polizeiruf 110, Das Experiment). He lives in Berlin.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Giordano, Mario

Weitere Mitwirkende

Millar, Peter

Leseproben

I

2nd July, the North Atlantic

The first sensation was an extraordinary lightness of being, of floating, dreaming. A wonderful feeling. Faces drifted through his head, trailing names behind them like the ripples left by a tiny boat on a vast ocean. Nicholas, Maria, Don Luigi, Laurenz, Kelly, Ellen. A woman’s tinkling laughter. Green eyes. Blurred images bathed in a blue light. Signs, symbols written in a strange hand. A mumbling, monotonous chant in a strange, disturbingly familiar tongue. Oroni bajihie Oiada! Orocahe quare, Micama! Bial! Oiad! Zodacare od Zodameranu! Noco Mada, hoathahe Saitan! Men in monks’ robes standing in a circle around a great stone, their hoods pulled low to conceal their faces. The voice of a child, frantic and afraid: Where are my mummy and daddy? Don’t leave me on my own. A whiff of holy water and clove oil. A young man on a massage couch, cramps coursing through his body, cursing in the Naples dialect: Ti scass’ à facci hom’ e merda!

A number. 306. Water. Endless water. An ocean by night, with a blue light reflecting on the waves, up and down, up and down. A fountain. A spiral symbol, spinning. Faster and faster. A lullaby from long ago: »Little rabbit in your hole, sat and slept. Sat and slept, sat and slept.«

Somebody calling. Pay no attention. Stay as you are, so peaceful, gently rocking, up and down, forever weightless.

And then he woke up.

Violently and without warning Peter Adam reentered a world of pain, panic and terror. On opening his eyes the first and only thing he was aware of was a pleasant, warm milky light enveloping him. For a moment he was tempted to yield to this friendly benevolent light that seemed to fill the world and keep him gently afloat. Beyond it there were only sketchy shadows, far in the distance. The next thing he was aware of was the tube running down his throat. Instinctively he tried to breathe, and couldn’t. The tube was blocking his windpipe. He realized two things right away: first, that he was under water, encased in some sort of transparent cocoon. Second, that this cocoon was filled with an opaque milky water in which his body floated like an embryo in its amniotic sac. That was when the shock set in. He thrashed out in all directions with his arms and legs. He tried to grasp the material that encased him, but to no avail. Whatever it was made of was tough and leathery. Despite the fact that he was under water he tried to scream with all the force of his lungs. But the pipe running down his throat made that impossible, too. The pressure on his lungs was growing. Terrified that he was about to drown or suffocate, he clawed frantically at the transparent cocoon surrounding him. Finally, the fingers of his left hand managed to force their way through and rip a hole in it.

He pushed his head through, only to be blinded by the light. The pressure on his lungs eased immediately, but he still had the tube down his throat. Naked, his whole body coated with a cheesy slime, he collapsed on the floor. The pain of his fall contrasted violently with the pleasant feeling of weightlessness just a few minutes earlier and brought him sharply down to earth. Instinctively, he grabbed the tube and choked as he pulled it from his throat, only to realize that there were in fact two tubes, down both his windpipe and his gullet. In desperation he yanked both seemingly endless tubes from his throat, vomiting up a torrent of brightly colored liquid. Now at last, groaning in pain, he managed to heave in a lungful of air.

But the act of breathing alone was torture. His lungs were on fire. In a puddle of milky goo, Peter curled up in a ball and gasped for breath, every now and then coughing up more liquid, retching and choking until he was able to inhale once more. To his surprise, he realized he had an erection which was only gradually subsiding.

When he had stopped coughing up more liquid and his breathing had eased, he took a quick look around him. The bright light came from a bulb suspended from the ceiling above him which appeared to be the only light. He was in an oval room with bare white walls. He was lying next to a sort of metal table, which he must have fallen off. The room was no bigger than his parents’ living room but there were three low banks of gently humming electronic equipment covered in LEDs and dials, and tubes and cables ran between them and the metal table. The floor was covered with his torn cocoon and the milky liquid, which was now giving off a sour smell. Only now did Peter notice with horror that the cocoon was attached to his body with pale tentacle-like growths of the same material, like umbilical cords made from a second skin.

What the hell kind of nightmare is this? Wake up! Wake up!

Maybe he was having an attack of paranoia. He half hoped he was. Whether it was a dream or madness, it felt all too real.

Do something! Anything!

The tentacles growing from his skin looked organic but didn’t seem to have veins or nerves. Cautiously, Peter prodded one. It didn’t hurt in the slightest but it was definitely attaching him to the cocoon.

Calm. Stay calm. Take a deep breath. Now …!

Trying hard to ignore his instinctive feeling of disgust, Peter grabbed hold of one of the tentacles and pulled hard. There was a short, sharp pain and with a sound like a wet kiss the knotted growth pulled free, leaving a tender pink patch on his skin like a burn mark. He summoned up his strength and one by one ripped off all the other tentacles, watching as they instantly curled and rolled back towards the cocoon.

Peter retched hard but no more liquid came up.

Stand up. You need to stand up.

Easier said than done. His legs would hardly support him. It took all his strength to haul himself up beside the metal table and use it to steady himself as he tried to stand. But the moment he let go of the table, his legs gave way beneath him as if they were no longer his. He slumped heavily to the floor again and twisted his ankle. He reached down to it with his left hand.

Your hand!

The sight that met his eyes was one that left the horrors of the tentacles in the shade. This hand …

Peter could not remember who had brought him here or how. He had only vague memories of what had happened to him. But the one thing he remembered clearly was the pain, and the blood gushing from the stump as his left hand was sliced off by an ancient Arab scimitar. He remembered quite clearly how all of a sudden his hand was no longer part of his body but a strange foreign object far away from him on the floor of a vaulted cellar underneath the Vatican. He remembered how they had speedily dragged him off, up slippery steps into the blazing sunlight.

Now, where the bleeding stump had been, Peter was looking at a brand new hand. Not a human hand, that much was clear. It was pale and white compared with the usual color of his skin and he could see the scar tissue where it had been joined to his lower arm. He could move it, feel things, grip them, but whenever he moved his fingers his stomach turned over. It was as if he was watching a parasite taking over his body.

He compared his two hands. They were the same size and shape. The fingers were the same, including the little indent on his ring finger, and the ball of his hand on each was the same size and shape. But the left was almost transparent. There were dark lines under the skin where the bones ought to be, but there was no sign of veins or arteries, just little pink specks beneath this alien skin.

Wake up! Wake up! This can’t really be happening!

Peter took a deep breath and touched the alien right hand with his left. At first he couldn’t feel anything at all in the new hand, but then when he pressed harder he became aware of the pressure while the fingertips of his right hand clearly told him that the alien limb was warm. The thing was alive.

Whatever it was, it had to go. And now.

Peter held the thing tight under his right arm and gritted his teeth against the pain as he tried to rip this alien hand off his body.

»Stop it! The process isn’t complete yet. Give it a little time.«

Peter spun his head round. Silently, without him noticing, a door had opened in the featureless white oval wall. Standing behind him, watching him with cold eyes as if he was some sort of foreign object, was a petite Japanese gentleman in a well-cut dark suit. Behind him stood three men in white protective clothing. They wore scrub caps on their heads and surgeon’s masks over their mouths. Peter recoiled instinctively.

»You woke up a little too early,« said the little Japanese man in a matter-of-fact voice. He came closer and said, »Actually, we didn’t intend to bring you round for another week.« He turned to the three men and gave them a look of stern disapproval. »But now here you are wide awake. How are you feeling, Mr. Adam?«

Peter retreated further, warily, shuffling along the floor, keeping the man in the suit and his three accomplices firmly in view. Until he found himself with his back to the wall.

»Who are you?«

The Japanese man made a formal little bow. »My name is Satoshi Nakashima. There is no reason for you to be afraid, Mr. Adam. You are quite safe here.«

»You’re Nakashima?«

»I’m sorry if I disappoint you.« There was no hint of a smile on his face, just the same cold seriousness.

»Where am I?«

»Well, let us say, a hospital of sorts. You were not exactly in the best condition when they brought you in.«

Nakashima stepped round the metal table,...