Her ears hissed from the thick wall of silence that she met head on, and all about her the white oblivion matched the aural. “Jesus, the world has been erased,” she said to herself, feeling a lonesome flicker of terror ignite in the pit of her belly. “What did you get yourself into this time, Nina?” she sighed nervously, as she turned from one direction to another to another, until she was rotating slowly to find any significant change anywhere, unsuccessfully. “Everything looks precisely the same. This must be what it is like to be dead,” she mumbled.
“Would you like to find out?” a deep voice answered, echoing the remnants of Dutch in a German accent. It startled Nina into a near heart attack, but as she turned to face the voice, she only observed white fur looming over her helpless form for a moment before she was bludgeoned into unconsciousness.
“Who is she?” Nina heard as she came to. They were speaking German, but she understood them perfectly. Playing dead, she remained still, eyes shut in order to listen and learn who they were and what they wanted before attempting to reason with them.
“One of Cammerbach’s. But I thought we got them all,” the other said.
It was some feat for her to remain composed in the stench of freshly killed humans. The sickening warmth of the chamber fermented the coppery hemoglobin that painted the walls and some of the floor around her. Their voices were extremely deep and Nina worked through her blinding migraine and the aching wound on her head to concentrate on hearing the subdued tone of their words. All she could think of, apart from getting killed, was how very cold she was.
“Why don’t we just kill her?” another voice suggested, chasing a jolt of fear through Nina.
“We could use her as a bargaining chip,” the voice closest to her said.
“Oh, yes? With whom? Nobody knows about us, idiot. We have no foes…”
“Yes, and we usually leave no survivors.”
“I agree with Deiter.”
“You stay out of this! If you had done your job right this bitch would not be alive right now, working my nerves because I don’t know who sent her.”
“Hey, fuck you! If you did your own dirty work, I wouldn’t have to take the flack for your shit.”
“Boys, we are wasting precious time here. Just leave her here and make away with the generator.”
“I want to know who else has these coordinates,” the first and most ferocious voice spoke again. “Whoever has these coordinates has to be eliminated, obviously. We cannot allow anyone to find the gate to Agartha. Only the pure race has vril and there is no way in hell that I will leave it unguarded so that imbeciles like this nosy bitch discover it. She has to be killed.”
They sat in silent contemplation. “Why is this even an issue?” he barked so loudly, and suddenly, that Nina’s body jerked in fright. Regrettably they saw it. Nina screamed as they grabbed her hard, their fingers digging into her skin to take hold of her. It was time to employ her long-slumbering German.
“Bitte!” she screamed. The white primates froze for a moment to make sure of what they thought they heard. Nina saw it as the pivotal time to elaborate, “Brothers, I came here to seek you out. I have questions… on behalf of the Order of the Black Sun.”
Chapter 6
“Thanks for coming, Sam,” Purdue smiled as he stood in the open door. Sam’s taxi left and he was walked up the circular driveway toward the main wing of Wrichtishousis.
“Well, the fee you offered forced me to abandon my wits, I’m afraid,” Sam jested, his huge duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Had to find a babysitter for Bruich again. He is pissed, I’ll have you know.”
“The babysitter or your cat?” Purdue asked.
“I swear that cat is bipolar,” Sam added, “his chess game is way off lately too.”
Purdue chuckled and led the way into his home to show Sam to his room for the time-being until he had assembled everyone he needed for his excursion. When he turned to speak to Sam, the journalist had disappeared.
“Sam?” Purdue frowned.
From another room Sam asked, “What the fuck happened to your lawn, old boy?”
“Oh, you saw that,” Purdue said, “prematurely.”
“Aye,” Sam nodded, staring out the window at the devastation outside.
“Franz is going to be exceptionally upset at this unfortunate development,” Purdue lamented. “My gardener.”
“I see. Looking at this mess, I’d say he has every reason to be,” Sam agreed.
“The monument was struck by lightning,” he hesitated, half amused and totally flustered by the unsettling recollection. “Incidentally right after I told Thor to keep it in his pants, as a matter of fact.”
“Well done,” Sam congratulated him mockingly. “It seems to have been well received.”
“Actually that is exactly what I summoned you for, Sam,” Purdue announced. “Inside the broken cross I found something — something of historical significance, I think, but I cannot seem to find the foothold of the matter to start researching it.”
“And that’s where you need Nina,” Sam guessed.
“Have you been able to procure Patrick’s attention for that yet?” he asked Sam, looking hopeful.
“He is on it, he says. You know, I don’t want to sound paranoid, but if you cannot locate Nina, it is disconcerting,” Sam said.
“I agree. None of my less-than-legal, super-accurate methods have turned her up anywhere on the globe,” Purdue complained with no small measure of concern. “One would swear she disappeared off the face of the planet.”
“Maybe she has gone underground,” Sam speculated, trying his damndest to imagine where Nina would have gone. “But I’m sure Paddy will have more luck. I’m surprised that man has not found Jimmy Hoffa yet.”
They climbed the stairs to Purdue’s home office from where the view was now less magnificent with the broken cross outside. After pouring them both a stiff drink, Purdue ceremoniously removed the surface of his desk. Like a lid, the top sheet of expensively carved and glass-sheeted wood came off the support, which was actually converted into a hidden compartment the length and width of the desk itself.
“There,” Purdue boasted. “I found that inside the shattered circle of the cross head. Peculiar, or did I just miss the invention of such engineering marvels?”
Inside lay the remains of a great chain, reduced to eleven links. The chain links were each approximately 12 inches in diameter and 20 inches long. Even rinsed off from their granite tomb’s dust and wear, it was evident to Sam that the chain was unspoiled, with no signs of corrosion or erosion and not a sign of rust anywhere. It was of an odd color too. Unlike the usual silver or gunmetal hues of chains this size, it was a curious pale yellow, orange variety Sam had never seen before.
“What is it?” Sam asked. He was met with a most unnerving stare from Dave Purdue, a glare that somehow represented astonishment and annoyance together.
“Sam. It’s a chain,” he answered blankly.
“I know it’s a chain, Purdue. What is it made of? and why are you incubating it in your desk?” the journalist retorted impatiently.
“Oh, good, for a moment I thought you had gone simple on me,” Purdue admitted genuinely, provoking a grunt from his guest. “It is supposed to, by look and measure, be some sort of anchor chain of a boat, only… it is cast in pure gold.”
“That’s why it is such a strange color,” Sam exclaimed. “And that is why you are hiding it here.”