“Messy business back there...”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Of course not,” Julian said. “I will just let you be then.”
Purdue sat on the plane, and the whole flight he thought about the concept of the future and just how absolute it was. He always wondered about fate and destiny, what they meant, or whether they even existed at all. Some people seemed like they were fated to be as successful as they were or who was fated to have something horrible happen to them at some point. But was it already predetermined? Probably not. More than likely, their actions that put them on those paths are what led them to their outcomes at the end. He had never really taken a firm stance on that debate. Whether it was the infamous term “God's plan” or just a series of random events that no one had real control over.
He usually leaned slightly more toward the idea that people forged their own futures—but he had been slightly thrown off by the fact that there were actual psychics in the world. There was actual foresight and predictability. The moment he met Mama May, he knew that there was at least some credibility to the idea of the future being impossible to avoid; although, she was always sure to tell people that she only saw possible futures and that what she saw wasn't written in stone. That sort of made sense, but then there was Nostradamus too, who made predictions hundreds of years ago, and many of his prophecies had come to pass. How could he explain that?
“What's wrong?” Julian asked from across the cabin. “You are looking particularly constipated today. What's on your mind?”
“Is that what you are to me now?” Purdue asked with a little laugh. “My therapist? What do you care what's on my mind?”
“Mostly out of boredom,” Julian said. “Believe it or not, Mr. Purdue, this hasn't exactly been the most interesting part of my day. Instead of that whole ordeal, I could have just killed Mama May in the first place. Right away. That would have saved your friend from being angry with you. Mr. Gerard didn't look very happy when we left him there.”
“Will you shut up?”
Purdue couldn't believe that this was happening in his life. He was stuck on a plane with one of the people he hated most, arguing about Purdue's behavior. Who was Julian to judge anyone else's actions when so many of the things he did were sadistic and horrifying? He had no right to look down on Purdue for the mess they had made with Mama May.
“But really, what's on your mind?” Julian persisted with a smug smirk.
Purdue almost preferred the Julian Corvus that was burning down his home, kidnapping his friends, and ruining his life to the Julian Corvus that was trying to get to know about his inner feelings. It almost made him sick to even be talking this casually with a man that had done him so much harm. Charles would have been rolling in his grave to see Purdue being so cordial with the psychopath.
Still, there wasn't exactly anyone else to talk to. If he didn't make conversation, he would just be staring out at the sky lost in his thoughts. It was annoying to have those thoughts just bouncing around his head. He just needed to get them out. So finally, he did.
“You really want to know? Fine,” Purdue said. “I've been over here thinking a lot about the future.”
“The future?” Julian said with astonishment. “What about it? What you're having for dinner tonight or if the world is eventually going to be taken over by highly intelligent simian apes?” When Purdue didn't react, the immortal man shrugged. “That was a joke, Mr. Purdue.”
“You are far from a comedian,” Purdue said, grinding his teeth. This whole thing was weird, including this light small talk they were making. “I'm thinking about whether or not the future is predetermined.”
“Of course it's not,” Julian said. “It's our choices that dictate what happens.”
“But were we always going to make that choice?” Purdue asked, unsure of the argument but doing his best to play devil's advocate, if only to himself. “What if you think it's your free will deciding what happens next, but it was always going to turn out that way?”
“I know you don't want or value my opinion...” Julian said. He was right about that. “But I think that you're letting these kinds of thoughts drive you crazy. No one has already laid out our stories. No one is deciding what we're going to make of ourselves. No one does that but us.”
“But Nostradamus wrote—”
“I don't give a damn about Nostradamus,” Julian said. “Was he psychic? Could he see the future? It seems so, but that would just mean that he saw what choices we were going to make. He wasn't always right. His predictions were often accurate, but there were plenty that weren't. I suggest that you should have spent more time researching his predictions back in the deep vault.”
“You think that?”
“Of course,” Julian said. “But hopefully we will be able to determine his authenticity ourselves...when we read what he had to say.”
“I'm surprised that you've been this helpful,” Purdue said. “It's not like you.”
“You barely know me,” Julian said. “We were on opposite sides of a conflict before we even met. We both might have just made horrible first impressions.”
“And second impressions, and third impressions,” Purdue said with a snort. “I know you're probably as bad as you seem, Corvus, but I still appreciate the assistance that you've given. Thanks for not stabbing me in the back.”
“I don't even have a knife on me, Mr. Purdue.”
INTERLUDE: THE PAGE
MONTHS AGO
The Paris catacombs always fascinated Agatha, and she was always sure to visit them when she was in the city of love. The history of those lost souls down there was so open and on display, at least in the section that they would let you explore. She was more interested in the other parts of the tunnel networks that they wouldn't let tourists go through. Thankfully, with some connections that her friends had, she was permitted to do some exploring of those restricted sections. They were darker, less stable, and much more dangerous to explore than the tamer parts of the tunnels, but she was fine with that.
She hadn't been to the catacombs in a few years, but her previous interest had been reignited by learning that a follower of the long-dead Nostradamus was rumored to have hidden unpublished works of Nostradamus down in the catacombs. In a place as large and dark as the catacombs, it was a terrific place to hide something and almost guarantee that no one would ever find it. Rather than as a curious tourist who enjoyed how macabre the catacombs were, now she was there on business, and she wanted to be sure to see for herself if the lost works of Nostradamus were there or not. She brought a whole team with her this time, and it didn't take long before they found a scroll hidden behind a skull in the walls.
Agatha was pleased. That hadn't taken much time after all, unfortunately.
“Is this?” Donatello Amaro couldn't believe his eyes. “Is this one of the pages?”
“It is,” Agatha said. “It is...but this was all there was...”
“One thing is still better than nothing, wouldn't you say? This is a success. A great success. With this, we can start seeing just how accurate that man's visions of the future were.”
“But is this all of it?” Amaro asked. “It's not much. The old stories made it seem like he wrote much more than this...”
“Maybe he did,” Agatha said, hoping that was true. “We will just have to keep looking.”
13
THE UNDERGROUND
Purdue hoped that it wasn't true that the scrolls were beneath Paris in the catacombs. He had gone to all kinds of dangerous and scary places in the world, but the Paris catacombs were one place that he wasn't looking forward to exploring. He was fine in most kinds of places, but the catacombs were something else entirely. There was something so unsettling about being far beneath the ground, roaming through a maze in pitch blackness—making your way through a labyrinth of stone and bones. The catacombs were filled with the remains of the dead from hundreds of years ago, a macabre mass grave that had become a to
urist attraction for people who were looking to experience something creepy from history. But the tourists only saw a small portion of the actual catacombs. Most of those tunnels were considered too dangerous for people to explore, so were sectioned off. Only a tame, well-maintained part of the catacombs was accessible to visitors...but that didn't stop everyone from roaming further. Some even died in their attempts to explore the darkest parts of those tunnels.
Purdue highly doubted that the scrolls were in the easy part of the catacombs. If they were, someone surely would have found it. No, Nostradamus's writing would be hidden somewhere dark, deep down where it was difficult to reach. Purdue had gone on enough of these expeditions to know that the hardest path was usually the right one to take.
If they were going to be able to find their way, they would need a guide.
Surprisingly, finding a guide for exploring the catacombs beneath Paris turned out to be much easier than Purdue expected that it was going to be. It turned out that while many of the official guides wouldn't dare go to the restricted part of the tunnels, there were plenty of people that explored the catacombs secretly and without any actual permission. It just took asking around a bit to find someone willing to take a group down to look around the catacombs, and they were especially willing to be guides for the amount of money that Purdue was willing to pay. They found a number of people on the streets of Paris, but the one that Purdue decided to go with was a sarcastic Frenchman named Remy that supposedly went down to the catacombs every night. Even other guides said that Remy was the best option if they were going to be spending an extended period of time down in those tunnels. He was like a living compass down there in the dark.
The guide looked pleased to see new customers when they found him waiting for them in an alley. It wasn't the most official of places, but if everything everyone said about him was right, then appearances didn't matter.
The guide was a young man with well-kept hair, looking like someone that probably spent too much time in front of the mirror or trying to woo women. Every move he made was very carefully meant to showcase his charm.
“Bonjour,” the young guide said. “I am Remy.”
They all made the proper introductions, and Purdue explained the gist of the situation to the guide, leaving out any of the parts that would just worry or confuse the man. All he needed to know was that they wanted to thoroughly explore the catacombs, to parts most people didn't dare go in search of an old set of scrolls. Remy listened and bobbed his head a few times. Their backstory didn't seem to matter to the young man. He was just waiting for some compensation for the work he was in for.
“So you want to go down there? Really? Are you sure? I always like to ask because some people will keep saying that they do and they insist, insist, insist until they are blue in the face...but when they get down there, their minds tend to change. They start to realize where they are, and they start to panic. I have seen people act so brave and tough, but once they are down there in the dark, all of that goes away. They become something else. Many, many people lose their sanity down there in the deeper parts of the catacombs. It can cause more than just a bit of claustrophobia. You have to be very careful. I go down there often, and even I start thinking weird thoughts down there. The key is to ignore those thoughts and pull them right out through your ears. If you listen to those whispers, they will tell you that you should just stay down there. That is a lie, and it will need to be ignored. Please remember that. I do hate having to drag people back up to the surface once they have gone mad.”
It all sounded legitimately terrifying—so of course they were going to still go through with it.
Purdue didn't know how many dead people were all around him, lifeless in the dark and long dead. He was fine with that. Knowing the exact figure would probably just disturb him more—and he was already filled with more dread than he could handle. He wasn't usually claustrophobic, but the crypts were quickly changing that. He felt so confined in the narrow spaces, trapped well beneath actual civilization. It was like the legions of skeletons were welcoming him to their kingdom. They wanted him to keep going deeper. They wanted him to stay. They wanted him to join. They were beckoning him to lose his skin, his muscle, and find a place in the walls of the catacombs.
Purdue shook those creepy thoughts out of his skull. They were ridiculous and weren't going to do him any good. Still, it was no wonder this musty, cold place made his mind drift toward the macabre. It would be impossible not to think such things down there, enveloped by all of that death. He envied the people above them in Paris. They were enjoying beauty, romance, and life. They weren't surrounded by the dead. Luckily, he at least wasn't down in the catacombs alone. He would have lost his mind if he was.
“I hate this place,” Sam said. “I really, really, really hate it.”
“You're being dramatic,” Julian Corvus said. “It's not so bad, Mr. Cleave. If anything, I find this whole plate rather comforting. All of these bones so close together. It's like one big adorable group hug of rotted, decayed body parts.” Julian ripped an old skull out of the wall and looked it over in his hands, like he was admiring a globe or about to perform some atrocious Hamlet rendition. “I'm so relieved that I will never have to look like this.” He gave a big cringe. “This smooth skin of mine will stay stuck with me forever.” He winked at Nina. “Thanks again for that, Dr. Gould.”
Nina glared at him, probably imagining all of the ways that Julian could end up trapped down here with the dead. The intensity between them was palpable as their vitriol filled the small space that they were all moving through.
“Can we focus on why we came here?” Sam asked. “It's already going to take forever to find the scrolls given how huge these catacombs are. We don't need to make this any longer or more painful than it is to give you time to brag about your accidental immortality.”
“Besides,” Purdue cut in. “You may not end up in a grave, Julian, but you will be stuck all the same, back to being trapped in that display case in the deep vaults. You might as well be buried in a tomb like this.”
“I suppose we will just have to see, won't we?” Julian said, brushing off that fact like it didn't bother him. “You're so certain you will all be alive in the end, long enough to put me back in my cage. That is quite a big assumption. The Old Lady will probably have skinned you all alive by that point.”
“Maybe,” Nina said. “But we'll die if she skins us. It'll hurt a lot, but our bodies won't last too long before they give out. For you...she could have someone peel your skin off every day for the rest of time if she wanted. Your flesh will just keep coming back, so they'll never run out things to peel, and you'll never run out of something to scream about.”
Julian's expression darkened.
“See?” Nina laughed victoriously. “Believe it or not, Julian, there are downsides to everything, including being unable to die. It sounds great...until it's not. You're welcome.”
“Fair enough, Dr. Gould. You make an excellent point. We all have something to lose then if the Old Lady comes out of this on top. That just gives us more reason to make sure that doesn't happen. All of us seeing this to the end...who knows...maybe we will have a chance after all...”
“Fancy meeting all of you down here.”
They all turned around to find the tall, slender form of Inspector Donatello Amaro looking back at them, tapping the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully as he looked them all over. He seemed surprisingly happy to see them. Silhouetted against the darkness of the tunnel, his skinny form made him look almost skeletal, and Purdue's mind wandered to the ferryman in the Greek mythological underworld, welcoming them to the River Styx. They were certainly deep enough in the ground to maybe catch a glimpse of the god of the dead, Hades. Or perhaps Amaro was some demon welcoming them to the gates of Hell; maybe these catacombs moved through all of the circles of that fiery place, and at the bottom, they would find the devil in the shape of the Old Lady.
Once again, these catacombs
were filling Purdue's head with disturbingly dark thoughts, and he tried his best to push them away and keep them from distracting him anymore. It wasn't easy at all without any sort of positive thing to look at to clear his mind.
“We weren't expecting to find you here...I wasn't aware that these tunnels would be frequented by other visitors...” Something very visible clicked in Amaro's head, and he smiled. “Oh, I see now. That charming prune, Constance, talked a lot, didn't she? I knew we weren't as quiet as we should have been around her. The elderly sometimes don't know when it's best for them to keep quiet, do they? They're always so full of their age-old opinions and need to dispense their not-so-wise wisdom on anyone that can hear.”
Despite his awkward and seemingly harmless demeanor, Purdue was starting to be able to see through that when it came to Amaro. He could see the underlying violence that the man was capable of despite all of his big words of comfort. He could hear the veiled threats behind everything that he said. It was all there, just very well hidden. But down here in the dark, it was like the worst parts of that man was glowing for all to see more clearly now. His darkness was nothing compared to the musky catacombs.
“What you did to her was horrible,” Nina said. “Constance was just an innocent old woman that had nothing to do with any of this.”
Amaro shuffled his feet and scratched his bearded chin in thought, like he was trying to recall what exactly she was referring to. “To be honest, Dr. Gould, I thought we treated her rather well given the unfortunate circumstances.”
“Unfortunate circumstances?” Nina fumed. “That is what you are calling it? You abducted her. You threatened her. And you used her like a tool for your own ends. I would call that something a bit more than unfortunate.”
“To each their own,” Amaro said casually. “We needed a decoy and she fit the role. Not all actresses can be ready for that sudden role that will change their lives. They are not all ready for the call to greatness when it comes. Alas, she should have given a better performance, one that you all wouldn't have been able to detect.”
The Nostradamus Scrolls Page 11