Nina sighed, “Welcome to my life.”
“I now see what you have had to deal with,” Gretchen said, “and I have to say my problems have shrunk remarkably in the last day.”
“Ladies, can you help us with the door? I have to lead with the lights,” Richard asked them. Sam and Patrick each had a dead man on their shoulders, waiting for the trapdoor to be opened. One man had a broken neck and the other was shot in the head, leaving the back of his gushing skull gaping and wet among his hair.
Gretchen took off to the laundry room to vomit at the sight of it. Nina opened the trapdoor for the men, led by the American. He was holding three flashlights to illuminate the place enough for Sam and Paddy to find their footing in the basement.
“Christ, what is that hideous smell?” Sam cried from just below the kitchen floor as he entered the basement. “No-one will ever know about these bodies, if the place smells like this on average. Fuck!”
Paddy just coughed profusely inside.
“Aye, I suppose the Glade air freshener is not as strong as they say, huh?” Nina called after him, yielding to an inadvertent smile.
Gretchen wiped her mouth, pinching her eyes in disgust.
“Sorry, doll. I just couldn’t take that,” she apologized. “Don’t worry, I washed out the drain.”
“Let’s get some whisky,” Nina said. “This shit is too much for me. It’s happening all over again. And smokes. I need a fucking carton for this.”
As the women went to the trapdoor to ask for Sam to go to the store for them, a majestic roar filled the neighborhood, sending them jolting backward onto the floor.
“What the fuck!” Nina screamed at Gretchen.
It had sounded like the clap of a cannon, its sub-toned bass punching them in the gut as if a thunder cloud released a bolt of lightning in the house. A blinding white and blue light filled the whole place, its rays shooting forth into the night for all of Oban to see. In the streets, cars slammed into one another and posts were dislodged by disoriented drivers as all eyes turned to the house on Dunuaran Road. From the windows and roof tiles, daylight emanated like beams from a spaceship and residents raced outside to behold what had not happened in the small town since the late 1950s.
Here was irrefutable proof. The legend was real.
Chapter 20
Jaap Roodt inhaled deeply. He wanted to smile, but instead he just kept his content to himself. Venice was rife with tourists from all corners of the planet, it seemed, and the place bustled with posing lovers, spoiled children with tantrums, and the odd photographer with proper equipment aiming at the Basilica’s rounded crowns, spires, and domes. The day was beautiful. The piazza smelled of Italian cuisine and flowers where the light breeze carried it across the channels from side to side. Gardens were hardly ever in dearth for the blessing of the warmer temperate weather and the skilled hands of their keepers who delighted in beauty, as much as Italy reveled in its art.
Upon the water from the Adriatic, the cooler squalls persisted and to the trained eye this was a sign of impending rain. Jaap traversed Piazza San Marco leisurely, looking at all the people minding their own business, each blissfully unaware of what he was planning for them. At his age there was much reason to contemplate the condition the world had been dumped into, and on those odd occasions when his conscience threatened, all he had to do was walk among the population of the cities he visited. Soon it reminded him how a supreme cleansing was the only logical advancement of the human race, or those left to survive it.
He sat down and waited for his companion to show up. With fingers like talons betraying his age, regardless of the speed and agility with which he moved, Jaap Roodt pulled out his buzzing cell phone.
“Roodt,” he said sternly, perfectly aware by the caller ID display that it was his young wife calling. As he listened to her, his colleague finally showed up. He motioned for the sullen man to sit down across from him while he completed the call. The wind picked up and stirred his guest’s hair, giving him an appearance of feral fury. His eyes were bloodshot and it was abundantly clear that he had not been sleeping.
When Jaap hung up the phone, he gave Dave Purdue a long, serious look.
“My God, boy! You are a mess,” he told Purdue and offered him a donut, which was gracefully refused. “For the fate you escaped, my friend, you should be grateful for what you still have. And considering the position you have been awarded after betraying us, it is nothing short of a miracle. So chin up.”
Purdue’s expression was static and all he heard from Roodt’s words were the steely disrespect for his plight. Yes, he was rescued from an awful send-off, courtesy of the council and the Black Sun’s respective factions, but that did not absolve them from what they had done to him. Still, Roodt made it sound like Purdue was a stray dog put to good use for the privilege of scraps. Perhaps that was exactly what he was these days, but he knew what he was getting into. His wealth, like it did most fools, blinded him to his vulnerability for long past the point of peril. Now all that was left was to stop antagonizing the organization and do as he was told, at least until things settled and he could assess his position.
“How is the project coming on?” Jaap Roodt asked, breaking off a piece of the confectionary with his sunspot-riddled hands.
Dave Purdue looked up at the clear sky and the sea birds floating above all the human misery below. “Apart from a few details, it is on schedule. I need the materials I requested urgently, but I have had no success in obtaining them yet. Are you sure we are in the right place?”
“David, I would bet my life on it. For centuries it has been a well-kept secret in our ranks that the Library of Forbidden Books was located here in Venice. How you discover it is your own charge. As long as the Longinus is ready by deadline and the ARK is sufficiently populated… ” Jaap looked at Purdue with a smug amusement that proved him to be more callous than judged before, “and Purdue, make sure you make the ferry, old boy. We would not want the Renatus, the great architect of the New World Order, to be late for his own Armageddon.”
Fuck you, you should make sure you don’t kick it before then, Purdue thought with not a second consideration. In fact, he could hear Nina’s voice saying it for him. Nina. His chest ached as he kept his composure and nodded at Roodt’s conceited warning.
“My wife is becoming a serious thorn in my side. I tell you, I have doubts on taking her with me to ARK,” Roodt chuckled dryly, looking down at the paving under his polished shoes. He was quite serious. “In fact, most of the women we drag on our arms are not worthy of the ARK’s refuge. Fortunately being a member of the council means that we carve our own niches. So should you.”
“I intend to,” Purdue spoke, his tone not as guarded as he had hoped. He had nothing left to lose, and even with all his properties, luxuries, and status in the world he felt barren. Nothing was left of the cheerful tycoon with his whimsical sense of adventure and eternal optimism. All that was left was a sense of loss and the desire to equalize the cheating he endured by any means necessary. “I shall find the Library of Forbidden Books soon, I hope. My scouts have found nothing, so it looks like something I have to undertake myself. However, I will need the help of one of the council’s… ” He sought the right word—“prisoner, hostage, and captive” were a bit too rich to use during a demand of this sort.
“The council’s what, Purdue?” Roodt asked, chewing in haste with ill manners that sickened Purdue.
“Advisor, I think. She is currently in service of Izaak Geldenhuys, I believe. With her knowledge of books, mostly so the more arcane ones, she would prove invaluable to my mission,” Purdue said as nonchalantly as he could.