The Nostradamus Scrolls

by Preston William Child

  Still, the Old Lady had given Purdue and the others a chance to find the scrolls themselves. They might not be able to get out of there with them, but there was still a chance that they could. At least they had the opportunity now rather than just being gunned down before they ever had a chance to start looking.

  “This is weird,” Sam said beside Purdue.

  “I agree,” Julian said. “Instead of racing to find the scrolls, let's just wait for them to find it, I'll murder them all and we'll take it. It will save us the trouble of having to find it for them.”

  “But if we don't do it, then it might take them a long time to find it,” Purdue said. “Not to mention that they will kill us if we don't find it for them.”

  “Typical,” Julian said. “The Old Lady is a master manipulator. She makes everyone around her a puppet. Look at us, doing a dance for her now just because she's making us. I can practically see the strings attached to my wrists.”

  “It's hard to see anything down here,” Gerald interjected. “Even with the night vision.”

  Purdue turned to Remy. “Is there anywhere you can think of that hasn't been looked at much? Some part of the tunnels that's remote enough that no one has explored before?”

  Remy clicked his tongue. “Perhaps. It is quite a ways away. It will take some time to get there.”

  “Aye, that's fine,” Purdue said. “That might be a better place to start looking than having to share all of this space with the Old Lady's men.”

  Purdue tried to think about what the best strategy would be to somehow find the remaining scrolls of Nostradamus and make it out of the catacombs alive. They would need to be careful and play their cards right if they were going to survive getting out from underneath the Old Lady's thumb. It occurred to him that the best thing to do now might be to split up, keep one group closer to the Old Lady's men while another group set out to this remote part of the tunnels that Remy was talking about. That way, it would still appear like they were sticking close by, but in actuality would be far away, hopefully finding the scrolls. It would give them enough cover and be enough of a distraction to either slip out or at least hide the scrolls on their persons until they could.

  Purdue broke down the plan to all of them quietly and explained what the two groups were going to be. He would go with Julian and Remy down deeper into the catacombs to where few people had gone while Nina, Sam, and Gerald would continue to search the nearby tunnels. Nina and Sam were uncomfortable leaving Purdue pretty much alone with Julian since Remy would hardly be able to do anything if Julian decided to betray them, but Purdue assured them he would be fine. The strange part was that he believed that; he believed that he and Julian wouldn't have a problem down there since they both needed each other’s help finding the lost scrolls.

  “This is a bad plan,” Nina muttered.

  “But it's the only one we've got at the moment,” Purdue said. “And with our luck, we're not going to find anything, and we'll be back up here in no time. Or, we'll find the scrolls and we'll come back up here anyway with our prize hopefully well hidden. From there, we can come up with an escape plan.”

  “And if we find it up here?” Nina asked. “What's the contingency you have in place for that? What's the plan if that happens?”

  “If that happens...well...I would say get out of here as quickly as you can the moment you have a chance. Hopefully, we'll find our way out not long after.”

  He knew that it wasn't a very reassuring answer, and her face was filled with uncertainty and worry, but the Old Lady had narrowed their paths even more than these tunnels already did. It was hard to come up with a plan when you were crammed in such tight quarters with people that were prepared to murder you on a whim. Their greatest enemies were squeezed into this dark place with them; there was no avoiding them now. The best they could be to find a way to outmaneuver them.

  Purdue gave Sam a nod. He was much more agreeable with the plan than Nina but he knew at this point that often—but not always—Purdue's plans somehow seemed to work out in the end.

  Gerald and Remy still didn't seem to fully grasp the severe danger of the situation that they were now in. They didn't know about the long history of animosity between the Old Lady and the Order of the Black Sun. They didn't know how important the treasure they were seeking was to the future. They didn't fully comprehend that they were at risk of being killed by the other people in the tunnels at a moment's notice. They both just agreed to break off very easily. Remy was happy to help continue to guide Purdue once Purdue handed him some more money while Gerald was happy to continue searching if it meant that Julian would pay him for it. That was one positive about having people like that on your team—as long as you had money, their loyalty was assured.

  “Good luck, aye,” Purdue said. “Try not to set off any of these lunatics. I'd just keep away from the Old Lady altogether if you ask me.”

  “We'll do our best,” Sam said. “Try not to die down there. Will take forever to find your body.”

  The groups split off into the dark.

  Purdue made sure to keep close to Remy as they moved through the tunnels. Somehow, things seemed to be getting darker and darker the deeper through the catacombs they went; or maybe it was just that Remy's flashlight was running out of power. Whatever the case, it was making all of them even more nervous. It felt like they were very far away from the world above now, like they never had any hope of seeing the sun again down there. It was a depressing place to be, and it seemed like it would be impossible to find the scrolls.

  How could somehow centuries ago have even gotten so far down? Purdue tried to imagine someone with a torch crawling through these tunnels with the Nostradamus scrolls. How far would they go into the dark to make sure that no one ever found them?

  They were in deep now, so far below the romance of the streets of Paris. They were nowhere near the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, or Notre Dame. Purdue's whole body was trembling and his mind was now racing with all of the dark thoughts that he was trying to not think about. He thought about getting lost in the dark and being buried under all of this old stone. He couldn't push those feelings away anymore, not down there. They had his whole body and mind ensnared in their unnerving hold. The deeper into the earth, into the darkness, that they went, the worse those feelings of dread got. It was like they were close to the pits of Hell now, and some eternal damned horror was whispering through the stone around them, scratching at the tunnel walls for his attention.

  “This is what you were going on about before we got here, aye?” Purdue asked. “All of that shit about people losing their goddamn heads down here when they went too far. This is it.”

  “You starting to feel it?” Remy asked, with a raised brow.

  “It sure seems like he is,” Julian said. “Keep your head on straight, Mr. Purdue. Keep your eye on the prize.”

  “We are close,” Remy said. “It will be just a little bit longer now. There are skeletons down there. I never got too close to them. Maybe it is the followers of the seer that you are seeking. The ones that took care of Nostradamus's work.”

  “Aye,” Purdue said. “It could be. If I were trying to hide some world-altering treasure down here, I would try to put it as far down as I could, where fewer people would ever have the chance of stumbling across it.”

  A short while later, Remy led them to a small opening in the tunnel walls, barely big enough to squeeze through. Purdue would never have even noticed it in the dark on his own. Few people probably ever had seen it. They shuffled their way into a chamber. It was a fairly small room, darker and dustier than even the rest of the catacombs. Few people had ever gone this far down, that much was obvious. Purdue felt so anxious; the deeper down they went, the worse it got, so now it was at its absolute worst.

  Across the room, an old skeleton rested against the wall. At least one person had managed to make it this far down into the dark, but they never made it out with their skin still on their body.

  There were ro
lled up, stiff scrolls of parchment in the skeleton's hands, like he had been clutching them right up until the life left his body.

  “You didn't notice that before?” Julian said.

  “Most people who go down this far don't want to touch skeletons, myself included. All of us guides try to stay clear of the bones down here.”

  “Ah, superstitious, aye?” Purdue asked.

  “Reasonably so.”

  Purdue looked at the scrolls of parchment. “Is that...that must be Nostradamus's scrolls, aye?”

  “I never dared to go down this deep, but of course I had to. Of course.” The Old Lady hobbled in behind them. She barely paid them any mind, staring at the scrolls in the skeleton's hands. Two large enforcers of hers flanked her, guns in their hands. Purdue and Remy put their hands up in surrender while Julian's hands remained at his side, not bothered by the threat they posed—since their bullets posed no real threat at all to him.

  The Old Lady slowly walked by them and bent over to pick up the scrolls. Purdue was tempted to try to stop her, but he would prefer that Julian tried instead of him, since he had a much better chance of not being killed. But surprisingly, Julian didn't unleash his killer instinct like Purdue expected him to. He let the Old Lady pass by without incident.

  The Old Lady pried the scrolls out of the skeleton's bony hands, nearly snapping some digits off in the process. She stared down at the scrolls with an undeniable thirst in her eyes before looking up at Purdue victoriously. “It seems that the future is mine, after all.”

  15

  DUEL IN THE DARK

  “How can he be so stupid?” Nina muttered to Sam as they searched a different tunnel. “He thinks splitting up in a place like this is going to be a good thing? He could be lost forever down there, and we won't have a clue where to even start.”

  “What would you have preferred?” Sam said. “That we all go down there together?”

  “Yes,” Nina said. “We've gone through the majority of this together, so why not now?”

  “Because dividing gives us the best chance of getting out of here alive,” Sam said. “It'll be harder for the Old Lady to get rid of us once the scrolls are found if we're not altogether. And...” He glanced down the tunnel at some of the Old Lady's men in the middle of a search. “It keeps us relatively in a view where they can think they're keeping an eye on us. Us being up here gives Purdue more of a chance at success down there. I'm going to head down that tunnel, you keep looking around here.”

  Nina wasn't a big fan of splitting up, but dividing might be the only way that they find anything. Otherwise, it could take them years if they all inspected everything together. Still, when Sam disappeared around a bend, she felt a sudden severe loneliness.

  Then she heard it—something sounding in the darkness around her. She didn't know what it was at first. It was muffled and so quiet, but as she listened, she started to be able to recognize it.

  Breathing.

  She turned. There were shapes slowly emerging from the shadows, peaking out through the darkness. Nina knew those gray, expressionless faces. She knew those unblinking eyes too well—the Third Triumvirate.

  “Hello again,” Mr. Nero said. “It's been a little while, hasn't it? Last time I saw you, we were two gladiators in the middle of the Colosseum, fighting for our lives. Now, unlike the old days, both of us left there alive. That was almost unheard of for that place. It doesn't seem right, does it? It seems like an insult to that sacred arena. We should probably make it right, shouldn't we?”

  “So you're here to try to kill me?” Nina couldn't help but laugh at her bad luck. “Naturally. I have to admit, I'm impressed that you managed to slip away from prison.”

  “We never made it to prison,” Miss Caligula said.

  Of course. Inspector Amaro was the one that put them in handcuffs and carted them away to face justice. He wasn't exactly the most dutiful police officer. Why take them into custody when he could just recruit them to join up with the Old Lady instead?? Apparently, that was exactly what happened. They weren't going to let a group of capable and dangerous individuals like that go to waste. She should have known that she was going to have to see them again.

  “So you have just ditched your dreams of bringing back Ancient Rome?”

  “For now.”

  “And you're working for the Old Lady then?”

  “She is a means to an end,” Mr. Nero said. “She might not share our vision but for now, we're just happy to be out stretching our legs. The real Rome has been gone for hundreds of years. It can wait a little longer for us to get it back. For now, we're here for you. Just you.”

  “Is this your idea of payback or are you just doing what the Old Lady told you to do?”

  “Somewhere in the middle. We hear she offered you a place in her plans but you declined.”

  “I did, yes. Unlike you three, I have this thing called integrity. I have a spine.”

  “You won't for much longer,” Mr. Commodus growled.

  The three masked figures closed in around her.

  Amaro appeared, standing idly by watching as the Third Triumvirate prepared to pounce on her. He let out a long sigh and a smile like he was enjoying some happy family moment.

  “I do have a soft spot for reunions,” Amaro said.

  Nina had grown rather tired of seeing Donatello Amaro everywhere she went. He had become her own personal demon, stalking her shadow no matter where she went. He had been observing her secretly in Rome when they first met, back when she thought that he was just some eccentric detective trying to top the Third Triumvirate's thefts. He surprised her in London when he revealed his connections to the Old Lady and coerced Nina into meeting with his boss. Then he appeared at the Order of the Black Sun’s compound. And now, he was still nearby, threatening her. She couldn't get rid of him. If the Old Lady was the ghost haunting Purdue, then Donatello Amaro must have been Nina's ghost.

  Nina was so tired of his peculiar quirks that accompanied all of the smug threats and manipulations. She was tired of that little notepad that he would always use to take notes on people. She was tired of his lanky, scarecrow-like body constantly stalking her wherever she went. She knew that behind his mask of eccentricity, he was probably just as evil as the Old Lady. They needed to beat him too, but he seemed pretty confident that he was going to win, and why wouldn't he? With the Third Triumvirate on his side, he had the numbers. He, being the puppet master that he seemed to be, could just let the Third Triumvirate do his dirty work.

  “I can't believe you recruited these jokers,” Nina said. “Really? What was it that made them look like potential good recruits? Was it their delusions about Ancient Rome coming back?”

  “They were a bit misguided, I'll admit,” Amaro said. “But I saw that there was some real talent behind those more...interesting ideas they had about the world. They just needed all of that enthusiasm to be channeled into something more practical and more productive. They needed direction, and we were willing to give them a new direction.”

  “You didn't give them anything,” Nina said, making sure the Third Triumvirate could hear her. “You are just using them as a tool. You're just pointing them at whatever you want to and then pulling the trigger.” She turned to Miss Caligula. “You have to see that.”

  “Of course we do,” Miss Caligula said. “We knew what we were signing up for. We didn't have much choice though, thanks to you. You put us in a place where we had to accept this less than desirable alliance...but, that's fine. They're giving us a chance to make that right by killing you.”

  Nina didn't like this one bit and saw only one way to get out—and that was to run as fast as she could. There was no reasoning with all of these people that were intent on settling old scores. Nothing she said would have mattered. So she ran and did her best to go as fast as she could.

  Those cold, expressionless faces were shifting through the shadows behind her in pursuit. She knew that their blades were there too, ready to stab her. They wante
d her dead, and they were going to see to it that she was cut open for foiling their plans before. This wasn't about their new job for the Old Lady. No, this was a much more personal matter that they were looking to settle. They had probably been waiting for this moment since she got them arrested back at the Roman Colosseum. In short, if they caught her, they weren't going to make their vengeance painless. They were going to make sure that she felt every bit of their anger toward her. She couldn't let them get that satisfaction.

  Nina defeating the Third Triumvirate was something she had done without Purdue and Sam. It was a victory that was hers and the team that she went looking for the sword of Caesar with, and it was one that she had fought hard for. She nearly died in that arena, fighting them, and watching them get carted away by police was one of the most satisfying moments of her life. Now, they were back and she felt like it was her responsibility to bring them down again. Purdue had a series of enemies, whether it was the Old Lady or Julian Corvus or a number of other people after him. The Third Triumvirate felt like they were Nina's foes, and it was on her to defeat them.

  Nina could barely see and nearly tripped over her own feet a number of times. It was hard to keep a straight head when death was on your heels. If she fell, they would be on her in seconds, and that would be the end. She would never make it out of these tunnels. She couldn't go back toward the surface because the rest of the Old Lady's men were up there searching for the scrolls. The only way to go was down. She doubted that she would ever bump into Purdue, Julian, and Remy wherever they went since the catacombs were like a labyrinth. It was unlikely that she would end up in the same space they did. All she could do was hope that this subterranean maze would be enough to lose the Third Triumvirate.

  It wasn't.

  “You can't run forever, Dr. Gould!” The shout came from Mr. Commodus. That hulking behemoth of a man was leading the pursuit. He was the most outwardly aggressive of that trio, and she was terrified that he would stampede over her if given the chance. “But please keep trying! I love the chase!”