“Oh, well, you have a palate for harsher things,” Petra cooed, “and there is nothing wrong with the more rugged things in life.”
Nina giggled.
It was not a giggle out of humor, but rather one of jealousy. Such a giggle was normally construed as a warning by women to remind other women of the turf they are stepping on. But Petra was the epitome of confidence and paid Nina’s passive aggression little mind. Instead she raised her glass when they were all tended to and said, “To the hidden magic all around us.” Her eyes fell squarely on Sam. “Na zdraví!”
“Nasdravy,” Sam fumbled as the others correctly repeated the professor’s toast. He could not think straight while the Slavic beauty gawked at him.
After some small talk she pulled the documents out for Nina to have a look at.
“I especially favor this one, miláčku…” Petra said in an absent minded mumble as she rapidly paged through the collection as gently as she could not to damage the papers. She spread them out on the table once more with widely stretched fingers. Finally she thrust her index finger down on the one page where the deck and key were scribbled.
“That one!” she said with a serious voice of conviction, as if she had just planted her flag on new land. “Look at this. Can you tell me anything about it?” Igor sat on a wooden crate by one of the windows, sipping his wine while he waited for orders. Sam was right next to Nina, leaning over the table to see what was on the page.
“Look, Sam,” Nina said, and pointed to a small sigil in the corner of the page that Petra had not even noticed before. His heart skipped a beat and his stomach twisted in unison with Nina’s dark look. “The Order of the Black Sun.”
“What?” Petra asked. “What, what is that? The Black Sun, tell me.”
“The Order of the Black Sun is a secret organization started by the elite members of the Vril and Thule Societies after the Second World War, Petra,” Nina explained with her fingers entwined, clasped in front of her stomach. “These are the people I told you I have had run-ins with before with their relentless pursuits of ancient religious and occult relics.”
“Didn’t they disband in the 1950’s, though?” Igor chipped in from his vigil of boredom, showing the color of wine in his cheeks.
“That is the story, but it is a myth. Sam and I have come face to face with them on at least two occasions before and they are very much an active entity. Their clandestine existence makes it hard to prove that they are active, and you never know who their members are until it is too late,” Nina elucidated to Petra and her assistant. “This is their symbol. Memorize it.”
Chapter 16 — The Black Tarot
I am writing this in the hopes that the truth will be revealed should the evil of Adolf Hitler ever overwhelm the world and devastate the nations of the free. My name is not important. I am a soldier stationed at Zbiroh Castle until the Führer withdraws here after establishing a local military governance. Herr Hitler is currently at Hradčany Castle in Mother Prague, from where he stole our once majestic kingdom and culture. But I do not know how much of this information is true. All I know is that I am here for nefarious reasons, to aid these tyrannical beasts in the plundering of Bohemia’s cultural treasures and precious antiquities.
I am not speaking out of turn here for fear of being discovered. Nobody knows who I really am, and that my ancestors were Bohemian aristocrats. I just go about my work as I am ordered, but I am entering a place of dire peril by writing this down. I am one of eight children born to the last consort of Bohemia, Charles I and IV — last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
I was born in 1919 and my father died in Madeira in 1922. That is all you need to know of my identity. What I have to record here is far more important than my royal heritage, apart from the fact that the latter is why I have managed to gain access to the hidden chambers of Prague Castle, where I have visited as a child. Now, as a soldier in the army of the Führer by some twist of fate, I have to impress upon you, the reader, the importance of what I am about to tell you.
My specialty is explosives. I am a military explosives expert working for the SS and I was deployed to assist one of Hitler’s organizations with the removal and transport of certain artifacts seized from Prague’s Palace. Not being able to voice my grievance at this heinous violation of my own bloodline, I was forced to participate in the seizure — the theft — of Prague’s treasures. Knowing that Hitler’s dogs might locate the secret rooms during their occupation, I secretly collected a trunk of relics to include in the raid to be taken to Chateau Zbiroh and hidden there with the rest of the loot. It is the only way I can keep it from Hitler’s power-drunk claws. The trunk contains several religious relics and objects of obscure origin. I fear that the Thule Society, whom I have been summoned to assist, are involved in more than politics and war.
I do not know much about the occult, but I know what I feel. And I do not doubt the items in this chest appear to have some otherworldly power, if one believed in such things or not. Among these are various objects which could influence the turn of world events and the agents employing them.
Now, reader, I implore you to locate the chest from the well outside the Chateau Zbiroh where we were ordered to bury the stolen Nazi treasures. My grenades and trip wires are very much a threat, do not be fooled, but I am sure you will find a way to dig deeper under the false bottom and discover things that should immediately be destroyed by fire.
HEED WELL, reader!
It has to be reduced to ashes! Do not hold on to any of the items in the chest. Do not attempt to put these things into action, for I fear they are sources of a much darker realm, enforced by those who should never be given power over others.
Please do not speak of this and do not ever share the information I have shared. All I can do is hope and pray that whoever reads this letter will be of sound mind and true heart, someone who will have the integrity to rid the world of this slumbering evil. I can only pray that the contents of
Nina looked up from the letter she had translated from German for Petra to understand the contents. It was one of the main documents left to her by her brother. Petra’s hands were shaking as she stared dead ahead. Igor quickly poured her a glass of wine which she chugged before looking at Nina again.
“My brother had this since he helped excavate the well here in 1999!” she said with a quiver in her voice. “Why did he never tell me?”
Nina placed her consoling hand on the sobbing professor’s while Sam looked at the document.
“Is anyone else noticing what I am noticing?” he asked suddenly, pushing aside all the other glasses and papers on the desk.
“What is it?” Nina frowned. She knew Sam had a very sharp eye for detail. Being a photographer was one thing, but his entire accomplished career ran on his talent for connecting the dots. She knew he would be invaluable to this assignment.
“That letter is written in the same scribbled handwriting this one is. The sentence continues here…” he said with a self-righteous cough as he held out the other, “…on this one where the Black Sun sigil is drawn. I think we know what that means. It carries on; I can only pray that the contents of this trunk and its devilish games within will be utterly destroyed. The society sent to stash the relics here was not the Thule, but their secret affiliate. Psycho Satanics Anonymous and Friends.”