Lita laughed. It was a laugh of genuine amusement without any competition or intimidation in it.
“That’s sweet, my darling,” she said, refusing Nina her war. “But I did not bring you here to scare you, did I? Keep your defensiveness in check, please. Don’t provoke my intolerance. I want the vial and you are going to call your friends to bring it to me,” Lita sighed. She sat on the floor, waiting for Nina’s answer like a bored schoolgirl.
“And if I refuse?”
“My goodness, peach, I thought you were smart. What exactly about that question seems a little off to you?” Lita chuckled. Nina had to admit to herself that it was a very stupid attempt at defiance that just made her look dumb. She intended to recover quickly and get things moving along. Doing the Ping-Pong bantering would just waste time and it was just childish.
“Give me the phone and give me an address,” she demanded.
“Ha!” Lita clapped her hands together with a giggle and rose without the support of her hands on the floor. It looked unnatural. She pulled a cell phone from a small sewn in pocket on the front of her dress, just below the waist beading and handed it to Nina through the bars.
‘Don’t try anything with this one,’ Nina warned herself as the temptation of grabbing her captor’s hand mounted, releasing adrenaline through her.
Lita wrapped her slender hands around the bars and leaned in, pressing her hauntingly beautiful face in between. With her hair pulled away and her face isolated between the iron bars, Nina realized that her nemesis had the youth of a 20 year old. According to Val’s records, Professor Lita Røderic was a member of the Thule Society and involved in the Ahnenerbe, of which the last member reportedly perished somewhere in the mid-1940’s. Nina looked at her face as she dialed Sam’s number and she could have sworn Lita’s skin displayed just a faint hint of luminescence.
Chapter 23
Terry waited in all urgency for Gunnar to answer the phone after his shaking hands had punched in the number. He was too weak to drag Sam’s limp body to the couch, so he just brought a pillow and two blankets to the kitchen and covered Sam right there on the floor.
On the other side of the line a deep, abrupt voice identified himself as Gunnar.
“H-hello? My name is Terry and I am a friend of Sam Cleave’s…”
“Yes?”
“Sam has collapsed and he said I must contact you urgently,” Terry frowned, realizing how it must sound to Gunnar.
“How do you mean, collapsed? Is he drunk?” Gunnar asked, sounding very annoyed.
“I think he was poisoned, by something in a… a…” the bartender picked up the flask from which he had poured their drinks and scrutinized it carefully as he tried to explain, “…antique looking silver container. He was really pissed at me. He said I killed him. Then he said I must call you. I–I don’t… really know why, but… I just know I must call you!”
A long pause followed from the other side, but Terry could hear several people talking in the background, as if discussing his phone call. Then a woman answered, “Listen, can you bring him to Newington?” It was Erika, the new Chieftain of The Brotherhood.
“Um… the rain is crazy. Not sure if I can drive like this,” Terry replied, looking at the large lazy cat lying asleep, carefree and exempt of human worry or tribulation. He wished he could have the last hour back so that he could still be in Bruich’s worry-free state. Now he was subjected to the opposite — probably guilty of manslaughter and about to spend the next decade or two missing out on life. His entire body throbbed with panic as the woman on the line raised her voice slightly and said, “Well, then he is as good as dead! You decide what you want to do, brave the rain or dump the body!”
That was enough for Terry.
Forty minutes later, after calling his father from Sam’s phone, they arrived at the large mansion with Sam in the back seat. Terry had called Dugal and rambling insanely, begged him to lock up and come help with the dying man. Dugal had never heard his son this frantic and, knowing the state in which Sam had left the pub, he figured the journalist must have drunk himself into a coma. However, what he saw when Terry opened the front door, was nothing that he could have expected. Dugal did not even ask for an explanation when he saw the state of his old acquaintance, although Terry filled him in on Sam’s request to call the man called Gunnar. When Terry’s father saw the container, the old Scotsman felt a twinge in his stomach. Perhaps, he thought, the contents had to have been really old and poisoned Sam, because of the evident antiquity of the flask.
There was something else he could not put his finger on, something subliminally sinister he could feel when first saw the beautiful silver piece. He smelled the inside, but could not place the flavor. It was definitely potent, he could tell. Dugal thought it well to take the container with them to Sam’s friends, just in case they asked what he had been poisoned by.
Terry hammered on the front door of the huge house while Dugal had Sam on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“Bring him in,” said the big biker who opened the door. Behind him was a house was full of people.
“You havin’ a party?” Dugal groaned under Sam’s weight.
“No, we live here at the moment,” Gunnar said plainly, “Come, bring him to the bed quickly. Erika! Erika, Sam is here!” Gunnar took them to one of the spare rooms on the ground floor under the staircase. It was a small room with just enough space for one single bed and a bedside table and lamp.
“They all live here?” Dugal whispered hard at his son, who was absolutely fascinated with the array of Norse themed paintings on the walls. Like a child filled with wonderment, he followed his father into the room, hardly paying attention to Sam anymore. Erika came into the room. She was an imposing lady, but her eyes were soft.
“Is Nina not with you?”
“No, who is Nina?” Dugal asked, but Terry recalled the name. It was the woman he was supposed to call first.
“Never mind, I thought she was with Sam,” she replied.
Very serious and strict, Erika asked the two men to recount in as much detail what had happened. As soon as they had told her everything, she shook her head, putting her hand on Sam’s forehead. She asked for the vial. It was empty. A look of subdued horror crossed Erika’s face.
“You may go home now,” she told Dugal and Terry.
“How do we know he will be alright, Miss?” Dugal asked, adamant to stay and make sure Sam was okay.
“If you do not let us do our thing now he will be dead within the hour, so stay, go, whatever suits you. I just would prefer you stay out of our way while we help Sam,” she said urgently as she motioned for a selected group of women to join her. Two of the men came in to lift Sam from the bed. Terry held on to Sam’s cell phone. He felt the device buzz at once, but he was not sure how to navigate the phone yet.
It read, ‘1 Unread Message — Nina’
Terry was relieved that she had sent a text. Now he could tell her about Sam, as he was initially supposed to. Just as soon as he managed to read the message he could call or text her back.
“Come, come,” Alex said. He spread his muscular arms to corral the two men away from the gathering. “You can wait here in the house with us. Let the women take care of Sam. Let’s get a few beers.”
The Sleipnir boys all went into the house and Gunnar closed the back door behind them.
Like the roar of a thousand oceans, the thunder clamored high overhead in the sky above Edinburgh. White lightning pulsed through the thick cloud cover, giving features to the faces formed within them. Rain showered down and drowned everything directly above the surface of the ground. Rocks protruded above the splashing festival on the tarmac road and puddles wherever the ground sank deeper. Along the sidewalks, miniscule rivulets cascaded toward the first drainage it could reach and windows were battered by the force of the storm.