Just before midnight, she entered the wide portal of double rosewood doors. Purdue gasped, his heart slamming in his chest. With some difficulty, he stood to draw her attention and no sooner did her eyes find him than he fell hard back onto his seat. His body felt the weight of an anvil and his head was spinning while the music and voices of the ambient evening echoed madly in an orgy of noise under the bone of his skull.
She strode casually toward his table, the waiter in tail to pull out her chair and take her drink order. But she whispered something to him and he abandoned the station entirely to take his place behind the bar until she would summon him. Purdue watched her tall, slender body sway gracefully as she took her place opposite him. For a long while they just stared at each other. She cocked her head to the side and her face exhibited true pity. Across the table her smooth hand slid to find his and she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
“I heard about Nina. I’m so sorry, David.”
He nodded appreciatively, but he was caught between his sorrow for the subject at hand and his shock at the one due. The waiter peeked over the draught taps every now and then, annoying her quite a bit, but she ignored him. It was good to see Dave Purdue again, but he looked dreadful. Ashen and gaunt, the once beaming and mischievous philanthropist and playboy had exchanged his freedom for power. Not that being Renatus was much of a throne, while the council watched every step taken on the chronological chessboard for the advent of the New World Order.
“I believe you asked for me,” she finally said in a smooth tone. She hailed the eager waiter and ordered a seafood dish with some sherry. Purdue looked on in amazement. His eyebrow stirred over his right eye as his glance jumped from her food to her face, as if he was ascertaining whether she was a charlatan in a false guise.
“You loathe seafood,” he remarked, ordering another Famous Grouse and more garlic bread. Behind him the cold gust almost sobered him, licking at the base of his skull to soothe the heated onslaught of the alcohol in his veins.
“People change,” she said nonchalantly as she slipped the oyster from the shell into her gaping jaws with absolute flair, as if she was a debutante of sorts who could not put a foot wrong.
“Not like this. I’d sooner expect you to brandish a pair of testicles than to take to seafood!” he hiccupped and burped as quietly as he could to preserve the general manner of the table.
“After what happened to me, I made resolutions not to restrict my experiences to reservation and vigilance anymore. Time is short, David. And I intend to make proper use of its linear debility,” she explained plainly, her voice as serene as an undisturbed pond. “So,” she lifted another shell, “I deign to eat slimy sea creatures now.”
“How Lovecraftian,” Purdue scoffed, among a series of repetitive hiccups. His face was contorted in mockery, but he was secretly elated for her presence and her company. She just smiled, perhaps a little too wickedly, at his unorthodox remark.
“Tell me about the Library of Forbidden Books. It sounds positively riveting, David,” she said sincerely, as she ran the napkin across her lips, careful to maintain her lipstick. Purdue was well off his face, but his mind was clear on his objective, nonetheless. He leaned forward on the table with his lanky torso, dealing her a stark look through dancing eyes that toiled to find their target and hold it. With a rich exhale of garlic and whisky he folded his hands on the table under his chest and whispered with meticulously formed words that made her realize that he had summoned her for more than the divulged reason.
“Where is the Longinus, Agatha?”
Chapter 22
An overwhelming stench, much like sulfur, possessed every corner of the old house in Oban. Outside a crowd had gathered while the emergency services sped all over the vicinity to assist in the assessment of several collisions and injuries, while the police raced to Nina’s house. By now the blinding light that had exploded through the windows had died to no more than ambient illumination and all was still inside. Even where the neighbors had congregated in shock and curiosity there was not a word to be heard. Mute and astonished droves of people stood, dumbstruck by the stupefying event, before only speculated by historians, physics academics, and occultists.
Nobody dared say a word in the wet, cold night until the authorities had gone in to have a look at the scene. Some of the women who had glared at Nina and Gretch when Nina came to sign for the house, nudged one another in a gesture of “I told you so” and nodding sorrowfully for the loss of the pretty historian fresh from Edinburgh. More than the shock, the predominant feeling was one of terror and scrutiny at the extraordinary incident they all had played witness to.
At the end of the long walkway with its shattered clay stones and thorny plants stood the big dark abode, white billows of steam or smoke permeating from its external walls and roof tiles. An eeriness crept over it, as if it was looking back at the townspeople to admit its iniquity and watch them shudder at its secrets. Through the windows of the top floor the atmosphere screamed with intent and challenge.
Come on in! Come see what I hold.
Come in, and perhaps you will join us!
Those more prone to superstition crossed themselves while others refused to look up at the place for fear that whatever dwelled there would “see them.” Oban’s Nazi house was already so deeply shrouded in mystery and otherworldly hearsay that many townspeople were of a mind to burn the place to the ground. Now that it had claimed yet another victim, the feisty yet likeable historian, Dr. Nina Gould, the once absurd notion had become a more and more logical one.
Some of the stray animals in the neighborhood would never even approach the house, even while it stood abandoned and empty. That was enough to fuel the flames of suspicion and loathing among the inhabitants of the coastal Scots village. Tonight was the last straw, although not a soul uttered such an idea, they were all thinking it. The accursed house and whatever it guarded had to be destroyed once and for all. But that was for later. For now they were waiting for the police to call in the appropriate government agency to determine the level of threat present and decide accordingly. But sooner or later they would eventually disperse, return to their stations, and leave the old house to the merciless judgment of Oban.
Inside the house it was pitch dark.
Everything was intact, just as it had been before the definitive anomaly struck. Gretch lifted her head in the matte black of her surroundings. For a moment she could not remember where she was and then she remembered.
“Nina! You alive, doll?” she shouted in the dark. “Nina! Answer me, please!”
“Christ, can you keep it down?” she heard Nina’s groan from somewhere to her left, not too far off. “My head is split in two from that ungodly clap. I swear I’ve lost my hearing in this ear.”
The two women were still in the kitchen, a distance from the trapdoor where the flash stunned them. Outside they could hear the sirens but they had no idea the amount of damage and chaos that rang throughout the neighborhood. Nina pulled out her lighter from her jeans pocket, and she flicked it on to see the extent of the destruction in the house… of which there was none. Amazed, Gretchen and Nina investigated the immediate area only to find that nothing had changed.