“Nope. I sincerely admit that you are an asset to any fallible scientist out there,” he teased. “Now tell me when you manage to notice where Perseus meets with Fg45, so that I can match it up and complete this diagram. Please and thank you.”
“Why don’t we just go to the Specola? They have a proper telescope from where you can enter your calculations in a jiffy, David. Not everyone knows who we are. It would be safe enough to collect information of constellations from them, because… well, everyone does, dearest. They will not harbor suspicion, I promise,” she suggested. Her added play on his perceived paranoia tapped into his mood like the repetitive clang of a dripping tap in a sink, but he restrained his natural urge to hit back with some well-placed sarcasm.
“I don’t want to be seen on any closed circuit cameras, studying stars when I am supposed to find a legendary alien hotspot,” Purdue sighed. “It is just too embarrassing to think I have to buy into all this interstellar monster rubbish to… ”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say it, David. To save the world, because Nina Gould is in it.”
“Mind your own business,” Purdue reprimanded her amicably. “If we can locate which tower points are under constellation Draco, even vaguely, I can find the channel we have to dive in.”
“Do we have to do the diving gear? I have such a stern aversion to big structures under the water. Venice truly is a personal nightmare to even think about, let alone to go submerging myself in the very phobia I nurture every time I see wreck divers,” Agatha protested.
“We have to dive, Agatha. And I don’t know half as much about ancient literature and authors of obscurity like you do. I need you to do this with me,” he coaxed. Purdue was well aware of his sister’s terrible fear not of water, nor of depths, but of statues, buildings, or vessels submerged in water. Even common objects under the water unsettled her because Agatha figured it was grotesque when certain things were not where they were supposed to be. It almost rendered her childlike when she laid her eyes on shipwrecks or large tree branches caught in the rushing waters of a river.
She realized that such things horrified her when she swam in an African lagoon, hardly a few months after her brother and uncle had left her behind on their return to Scotland when she was very young. Swimming in the cool water, Agatha tested her speed across between the north and west sandbanks. Exactly halfway through the dark body of serene water she remembered briefly opening her eyes under the water while counting her strokes to the next breath. What she saw simply scared the irrational bejesus out of her. Agatha’s legs and arms had gone numb at the sight of the strange phenomenon.
Trees don’t belong under the water, she protested in her mind, in the midst of her reminiscence of that first shock as a child. Neither do houses, nay, cities!
“I don’t want to go,” she fought. Her tone began to sound much like a child about to throw a tantrum, and Purdue was not having it. He had no time for mollycoddling or arguing about petty matters while some bat-shit crazy scientist and an evil house of imps with unlimited power and wealth were threatening the very existence of the world as he knew it.
“Agatha, you are going with me. I asked for you, when I could have asked for anyone else. You owe me at least that much for getting you out of captivity once and for all. Don’t force me to pull rank on you,” he warned her seriously. He would not send her back to her doom, but he would force her to comply by any means if it would help him fulfill his aim.
Agatha cursed her brother with her eyes. Not only did he force this on her, but the fact that he even brought up her liberation and claimed some sort of reputation from something that would generally be expected of brothers, pissed her off something awful.
“All right, but since we are on the subject of threats,” she snarled back, “I am a better swimmer than you and I might decide to use our lonely excursion to drown you and leave your bloated arse to the crabs at the bottom of the Grand Canal.”
With the delightful exchange of death threats between loving siblings behind them, Dave Purdue just looked at his sister with absolute indifference.
“Are you done?”
“Just about,” she replied casually, taking another cookie.
Outside his chamber, a shuffle of feet sounded. They could hear two people murmuring about something that carried a subdued, but urgent tone. A feeble knock prompted Purdue and his sister to cast muted glances to each other, gestures and shrugging about who it could be.
“Renatus,” a voice spoke from outside the door. “It’s Jennings, your night secretary.”
Purdue went to open the door, “Yes?”
“Just wanted to inform you, sir, that another council member has been found murdered,” the rookie in the cheap suit informed him.
“Who?” Purdue asked. He felt an odd sense of comfort at the news, but as Renatus, he was supposed to preside over all Black Sun arrangements for formalities regarding the council and its board of old veteran members.
“Izaak Geldenhuys, Renatus,” the young man replied in a heavy Italian accent.
“How?” Purdue pressed the reluctant herald, impatient at the imposition. His time was running out to find the Library of Forbidden Books with its wealth of ciphers and code still to be unraveled. while a fumbling idiot regurgitated bad news one word at a time. The young man looked sickened, something Purdue was not used to seeing in his company lately.
“He was… beheaded… sir,” the secretary forced out, disbelieving the manner of thing he had to convey.
“Grazie,” Purdue replied simply with the relevant expression of shock and loss expected of him. The news would be of special importance to his sister, but Purdue was not sure as to the extent of Agatha’s relationship with Geldenhuys, who had been her captor since she survived Joost Bloem’s hell almost a year before.
“Izaak is dead, Agatha,” Purdue told her. He did not want to waste time with etiquette. He was right to think she would welcome the news. In fact, it disturbed Purdue somewhat to see Agatha’s reaction to the news, because her vengeful laughter and reveling assured him that the late council member was not kind to her on any level. It was alarming to see her eyes blaze with silent ecstasy at the demise of Geldenhuys, and it was clear that whatever he did to Agatha while she was in his charge was not fit for any punishment.
Chapter 30
Just off the coast of Oban, a father-and-son fishing operation was pulling in a net. It was just after sunrise and the entire crew were elated at the catch they already scored from the icy blue waters. It was going to be an early day, and being Friday, it would mean Guinness and chips at Ballie’s Bar for a change. Usually the crew of the Talisman had to work well past dusk to fill their daily quota, but when they harvested a full net before the day even started, it meant good things. Today was such a day.
“Latch on the arm there, Pete,” Dugal shouted at one of his crewmen. “The weather’s looking nasty out and I don’t want to have that rope snapping on me when we have more of these to pull out, all right?”
“Aye, sir!” Pete shouted back and dragged his skinny frame to starboard to secure the arm and pulley. Dugal McAdams was a good captain and excellent fisherman, even holding several angling records. At home he had a small studio where he made lures for fly fishing as a hobby and he loved the sea. But he was a simple man who did not buy into the modern version of things, therefore McAdams Fish & Charters maintained a modest operation still done in the old ways. Dugal liked it that way — a small crew, three trawlers, and familiar waters to serve them.