The Nostradamus Scrolls

by Preston William Child

  “You're slowing down, Aggie,” Mama May said as she took a seat across from her. “I don't need my foresight to see that. We all are slowing down, and as we grow slower, some in the world continue to pick up momentum. They will outpace us soon enough and we will be left behind in the dust.”

  “This was supposed to be a social call...” Agatha said with a roll of her eyes. Over the years, she had gotten very used to her friend's cryptic warnings. Sometimes they came true. Sometimes they didn't. Over time, they did get a little irritating, especially when she never asked for them. “Yet here you are, filling me with dread as always.”

  “I am just stating the facts,” Mama May said with a stifled little laugh. “Look at us, my dear. We aren't ever going to be this young again...but we have been far younger.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I know you wanted just to catch up and chat, but I think this may be the perfect opportunity to look into your possible futures again.”

  Agatha glanced at the palm of her hand. She still had the scars from where Mama May drew her blood in the past to perform her ritual to see Agatha's future. She wasn't really in the mood to have her hand sliced open again, but she was slightly curious, as she always was, about what her future would hold—especially now that she probably only had a couple of decades left of it, if even that.

  “Fine,” Agatha conceded. “But this is the last time.”

  They began the ritual, as always, with a slice across Agatha's hand.

  “You have attained much, but you can get even more. Yes, I see it. I see all of it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “There is an orb in your hands. Yes, a black orb. It is dark but glowing bright. So bright, but that shine is fading. It is fading slowly as you are closing your fingers around it. You have it in your control, yes, but it will burn your hand unless you suffocate it, snuff it out. You have to. You should. But those old hands of yours might not be able to do it. No, they are not as strong as they once were. You are weaker than you used to be. If you are going to make a better world, that black star in your hands will need to be destroyed, but you will only be able to destroy it if you heed the future. You must heed more than my words. You will need a clearer picture of what is to come. You will need to know it all, or that sun in your hand will burn you and burn everything that you have spent your life creating.”

  That was easy enough to decipher. To the Old Lady, that meant that dark star in her hands was the Order of the Black Sun.

  11

  THE BOOK SHOP

  Purdue and Julian pulled up in front of the best occult book shop in New Orleans, maybe even in the whole world. He had a good history with the owner, Jean-Luc Gerard, but unfortunately, Jean was the one that introduced him to Mama May.

  Mama May sat in the backseat, her arms bound. There was no chance that the frail older lady would have any real chance of escaping from there. Purdue instructed Julian to wait in the car since Purdue wasn't the only one with a history with the book shop's owner, but Julian's history with Jean was much more negative than Purdue's.

  David Purdue hadn't seen Jean-Luc Gerard in quite a while, not since Jean declined Purdue's invitation to join the Order of the Black Sun when he first took over leadership of the secret society. He had to at least give him the invitation since Jean was a natural choice for a potential recruit. Purdue already worked with him before, and he knew that Jean could be trusted. They had first become colleagues during a search for a deranged witch's journal of all kinds of nasty spells. Jean was a specialist in the occult. His little book shop full of supernatural text and grimoires was the most authentic in all of New Orleans, an unassuming treasure trove of occult studies tucked away in the French Quarter, shrouded by all of the fake haunted houses and faux psychic lying about reading tea leaves and crystal balls.

  Purdue was never very knowledgeable about the history of the stranger things in the world, so Jean's help had been essential when it came to finding the witch Mona Greer's book of shadows. Jean was honest, fair, and didn't mind telling Purdue off at times. They had different ways of looking at the world, but Purdue had grown to like him a lot, especially with what happened after they found the book—back when Julian Corvus nearly destroyed Purdue's life. Jean was caught in the crossfire of that war and had been taken prisoner by Corvus for months.

  Throughout his time being imprisoned by the old Order of the Black Sun, Jean never faltered or gave in to his captors. He stayed strong and adamant about being allowed to follow his own path. That was why Purdue couldn't blame Jean when he didn't want to join the Order of the Black Sun. Sure, the whole group was being changed, and Purdue would be in control, but Jean spent enough time caught up in that secret society's business. He just wanted to return to his book shop.

  Purdue never questioned that—what he did question was Jean's relationship with Mama May. Jean was the one that initially brought Purdue to her after all. And now, knowing what Mama May was really like, he found himself questioning Jean-Luc Gerard too. Was he part of her betrayal?

  Jean was noticeably surprised by Purdue's visit but welcomed him into the occult book shop that he spent his days in. “Purdue? I didn't know you were going to be stopping by.”

  Jean couldn't hide his nervousness. He probably expected that he was going to be asked to join some mission for the Order of the Black Sun, but Purdue had no intention of dragging him back into the fold, especially after the reveal about Mama May. Now he wasn't even sure if Jean could be trusted, let alone entrusting him with helping them.

  “I didn't initially plan to,” Purdue said. “Aye, this is a bit of a surprise for me as well. I was visiting Mama May...”

  He waited for some kind of reaction. If Jean were conspiring with the fortune-teller, then maybe he would have shown some worry hearing that Purdue had made an impromptu visit, but nothing seemed unnatural about Jean's response. That was a good sign but it wasn't nearly enough to rule him out. With so much at stake, Purdue had to be sure. He decided to just be direct about it. That would be the easiest and quickest way to get to the bottom of it.

  “Did you know about Mama May, Jean?”

  Jean raised a brow. “Know what about her? What do you mean?”

  He wanted to believe him, but Purdue had been betrayed enough not to want to take the risk. He needed to know for sure. It was too dangerous to just decide based on your faith in someone. People sometimes would inevitably let you down, no matter how much you believed in them.

  “I mean, did you know that she was conspiring against me the whole time? You know I have to ask, aye? Considering you were the one that introduced me to her in the first place.”

  Jean raised his hands in surrender. “Woah. Hold up. I didn't know anything about it, Purdue. This is the first I've heard of it.”

  “But you trusted her.”

  “Of course I trusted her. She is very respected around the Quarter. I never had a bad interaction with her before. Ever. She seemed trustworthy enough, and her predictions were usually right for the most part. Even yours, right? I had no reason to think anything of it...”

  Jean suddenly froze and stopped talking. He was staring past Purdue at the front door of the shop. His eyes grew wide with dread, and he stammered when he tried to speak again. Purdue turned to follow his gaze and found Julian standing in the doorway, holding Mama May by the arm.

  “What...what is going on here?” Jean asked. “What is Julian doing here!? I thought you...”

  “I did,” Purdue said. “This is a temporary release from his cage. We needed him to help bring down the woman that Mama May was spying for. She has more influence than I've ever seen, and we needed someone with his...”

  Jean wouldn't let him finish. He was already done listening to whatever reasons Purdue was going to give. Purdue couldn't blame him, not after Julian had kept Jean a prisoner for months. There was more than a little bad blood between them.

  “You brought him here!?” Jean asked, reaching for one of the spell book
s on the shelf, probably looking for some incantation that would be able to protect him from Julian's potential vengeance. “And you are asking me if I'm making secret deals with bad people? Are you not seeing yourself!? Last I checked, Julian was someone we didn't make friends with it! I seem to remember him causing a whole lot of other people and me pain!”

  “I did,” Julian said casually. “But it's amazing what imprisonment will do for you. It's been therapeutic.”

  “I can't believe this,” Jean said. “You do realize the last time him and I spoke, he threatened to set this whole store on fire, my whole life...”

  “It was a stressful time,” Julian said. “Everything got a bit out of hand, I admit.”

  It seemed to take Jean that long to even notice that Mama May was in Julian's clutches. He shook his head. “I'm going to give you two minutes to explain before I start throwing some hexes that are going to make you all feel very, very, very unpleasant, understand? I don't care if that psycho is immortal. That just means that I don't have to hold back with the flavor of spell I throw at him.”

  “Enough,” Purdue said. “Believe me, I'm not a huge fan of how this is turning out either, but we're low on options, aye?”

  “Jean-Luc,” Mama May said, interrupting. “You and I have known each other for years. I have helped you prepare for all kinds of events in your life. Are you going to let these men do this to me? Remove me from my home? Take me hostage? All because of these baseless accusations? David Purdue taking charge of the Order of the Black Sun has done nothing but make him paranoid. He even accuses you, someone who worked so hard to help him, even when he got you involved in a fight that you had nothing to do with...”

  “Shut up,” Purdue said. She had a point, of course, but her attempt to manipulate the situation was obvious enough. “Jean...I just needed to be sure. I'm not going to take you prisoner or anything like that. When I offered you a place in the Black Sun, I wasn't lying that it was going to be different this time. It already is.”

  “Then what are you going to do with her?” Jean asked.

  “Unlike you, warlock, she is involved in all of this,” Julian said. “So we have every right to take her and use her as leverage or as a hostage...we'll let you get back to all of this then. This smelly little store.”

  Jean looked ready to start hexing Julian, and he may have if Purdue wasn't there. He still looked hurt by the accusation and also confused by everything that was going on. He had a right to be. Since he wasn't part of the Black Sun, he had no real idea of what was going on. And Purdue had seen enough to accept that Jean had no part in Mama May's betrayal.

  “We will be on our way,” Purdue said. “I'm sorry to have had to ask. Maybe I have been a bit paranoid lately.”

  Jean looked like he wanted to say something, but Mama May beat him to it.

  “I will give you one last prophecy, David Purdue. Yes, one last thing to tell you before this is done. One last thing for you to hear. Yes.”

  Mama May was rambling and seemed almost incoherent. She was having a breakdown right before her eyes. She was far from the collected old psychic who told the people of New Orleans their futures, and she wasn't out of it like she was when she was in the middle of her predictions. It was more like her sanity was deteriorating by the second.

  “You have been through so much. You have defeated foes that believed they had killed you.”

  Julian folded his arms uncomfortably.

  “You have lost everything and then found it again. You have overcome so many trials and tribulations. But, I have grave news to share. Very grave.”

  Purdue waited to hear where this was going. Mama May suddenly clenched her teeth and laughed to herself like she just heard a joke. This wasn't the usual way she predicted the future, but she still seemed to be seeing some event that hadn't come yet anyway.

  “You are going to die today. I see it so clearly. Yes. You are going to die very soon. Right now.”

  Mama May suddenly pulled a thin blade out of her purse and charged at Purdue with it.

  “Look out!” Julian yelled from across the room.

  Mama May came at Purdue so quickly that he didn't have time to think at all. His body simply responded on its survival instincts alone, grabbing hold of her wrist and steering her arm and, by extension, the blade in her hand away from him and back at her. Her arm swung backward and the knife slipped into her stomach. The little fortune-teller let out a gasp of air as the knife pierced her body. She stumbled backward, almost falling to the floor, but Jean-Luc caught her in his arms before she completely collapsed.

  Mama May stared at Purdue while she choked on her blood. Purdue looked down at the weapon she tried to kill him with and recognized it as that same long, thin knife that she always used to draw blood to make her premonitions. His hand had been pierced by that blade several times, but it didn't seem she was trying to cut his hand this time.

  “What did you do!?” Jean gasped, looking down at May. “You killed her!”

  “Woah, no, what do you mean?” Purdue said. “She came at me! You saw it!”

  Jean bit his lip and looked down at Mama May with tearful eyes. He had known her for a long time, and up until five minutes ago, she was someone he admired and respected. Now suddenly, she was dying in his arms. It couldn't have been easy, but Purdue found himself feeling relatively hollow about it. Having to defend yourself from an attempted murderer tended to have that effect. It was hard to sympathize with someone that died due to trying to kill you.

  “Why? Why did you do this?” Jean said quietly.

  “Me?” Purdue was getting angry now. Jean-Luc saw what happened yet was still going to blame him for it? How was that even possible? “What do you mean me?”

  “You came here!” Jean suddenly roared, looking frazzled and waving his arms around at the body on the floor. “You came here with your accusations, interrogating me, questioning me! I had nothing to do with any of this, and you came here anyway! You brought her! And now this! In my shop! In my place of business! Look at this!”

  “I am looking!” Purdue yelled back, but he could tell that he wasn't convincing Jean. “I see it, aye? I see it.”

  Jean shook his head and threw his hands in the air. “This is the reason. This is why I said no when you asked me to join your Order of the Black Sun. This is exactly why. I do not want any part of this. I never did. We had a simple business partnership when we were looking for Mona Greer's book of shadows. That is all. That is all it was, and because of you, I got thrown in a dungeon for months by that man right there! And yet you bring him here!” He pointed at Julian in the doorway. “Look at you. You are working with the man that took everything from you, that killed your butler. Are you looking at that!? Do you see that!?”

  Jean let out a few exhales, but was sweating with anger.

  “I had nothing to do with this—nothing! And you brought this to my store. To my home. And this...” He pointed at Mama May's body. “You are staining my floor with Mama May's blood. Mama May's! Do you have any idea how popular she is in the Quarter? Do you have any idea how many people are going to notice that the best psychic in the city is missing? You think they won't notice that she is lying dead in my store?”

  “Mr. Gerard,” Julian spoke. “We can help dispose of the body. I have plenty of experience...”

  Jean pointed a finger of warning at Julian. “I want nothing from you! Nothing. Do you understand? From either of you! From any of you! Let me clean up this mess you brought me. I don't need your help.”

  Purdue took a step toward him. “Jean...”

  “I want you to leave,” Jean said, not looking up at him. “Get out of my shop now before I call the police.”

  Purdue wanted to stay. It wasn't right to just leave Jean here with a corpse, especially one that Purdue technically was responsible for making. He wanted to explain to Jean and apologize for bringing him back into this. He didn't realize how badly Jean wanted to keep out of the Order of the Black Sun's affairs.<
br />
  Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to argue as Julian took hold of his arm and led him to the door and out of the shop.

  “What are you doing?” Purdue asked, twisting out of Julian's grip as they got to the car. “We shouldn't have left.”

  “We don't have time for this,” Julian said. “Your friend Mr. Gerard is upset, but he'll live. Mama May certainly won't. We agreed to make this a quick stop to ask Jean some questions. You asked him your questions. Now we need to get to the catacombs.”

  “But—”

  “Every second, the Old Lady is probably one step closer to finding the remaining scrolls. So unless you want that to happen, Mr. Purdue, we need to get moving to catch up to her.”

  It didn't feel right, but so much of this didn't. Just having this conversation with Julian alone felt so wrong. Jean had a point during his angry rant. Purdue working with Julian wasn't something normal and wasn't something that he should be doing. Julian hadn't just hurt Purdue, he hurt so many other people that he knew too. Forming an alliance with him should never have happened, and yet it had been a strength to their mission lately. Julian had undeniably been helpful in the search for the scrolls and the skirmishes against the Old Lady. At this point, it was too late to stop working with him. They were in this together until the end—hopefully.

  12

  THE ONCE AND FUTURE NEMESIS

  Purdue would have felt much worse about Mama May if she hadn't tried to kill him seconds before her death. That made it much easier for his psyche to handle. He mostly just felt bad about where it happened and for suspecting Jean-Luc Gerard of being some kind of rat. All of this business with the Old Lady had made it hard for him to think straight. His mind was almost incessantly being bombarded with paranoia. It would be better once the Old Lady was beaten. He would finally have peace of mind just like he did after they defeated Julian—yet that hadn't last the lifetime that he hoped it would.