Order of the Black Sun Box Set 10

by Preston William Child

  “How did you find me?”

  “Tevin saw you get abducted. He followed them to that warehouse. At least they didn't go too far to have their talk with you.”

  “Are we not going to talk about that black cloud in there?” Sam asked. “How the hell did you do that?”

  “The book,” Purdue answered for her. “It used to belong to a witch. It was the only artifact I managed to get away with when the Black Sun took the rest. There are all kinds of things inside, most of them horrible.”

  “Magic spells?” Sam asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Aya and Purdue exchanged knowing glances. Now she knew some of the contents of that book, contents that were some of the most disturbing things Purdue had ever seen. She shared that burden now and he hoped she hadn't read too much. The words and diagrams that Mona Greer had hidden inside could drive someone mad.

  “That black smoke was a spell?” Sam seemed very confused by all of this talk of witches and magic books.

  Again, Purdue said, “Something like that.”

  They continued hurrying along the dock, every so often looking back to make sure they weren't being followed. Purdue had no idea how far he had been taken after being taken by the Wharf Man but it couldn't have been too far ... not if they were running to their waiting boat. The warehouse must have just been a makeshift headquarters for the Wharf Man and Oniel to conduct the torture.

  They just had to get out to sea and get far away from the Wharf Man, where he couldn't find them. And once Purdue was underwater and miles beneath the surface, there was no way he would be able to be found.

  “The ship was anchored up ahead,”

  The ship was far larger than the boat Purdue, Aya, and the others had taken to find Admiral Ogden's hidden gold. That made sense, it needed to carry the Deepsea Challenger inside. That was the really important vessel.

  They ran up the gangplank until they were on board and met by a plethora of familiar faces. There was the rest of Aya's crew along with Dr. Volpe and her team of scientists. Everyone was scrambling around, getting ready to weight anchor.

  “Where have you been?” Dr. Volpe asked. “We've been looking everywhere for you.”

  “And we found him,” Aya said and looked back out toward the dock, like she was expecting the Wharf Man to come rolling down the pier to stop them. “We need to get moving immediately.” She got to work shouting orders at her crew to hurry the departure along.

  “I was a bit tied up,” Purdue told Dr. Volpe. “Sorry for the delay. She's right, though. We really should be on our way.”

  “Are we running from something?” Dr. Volpe asked.

  “We won't be if we leave right now,” Purdue said anxiously, still feeling those bolts of electricity that ricocheted through his body. He wanted to get as far away from the Wharf Man as possible. He was back there, probably rampaging like a storm trying to get him back. If they could get out to sea, he wouldn't be able to catch up. They were going someplace where not even the Wharf Man could find them.

  The ship pulled away from the dock and their new voyage began, heading straight for sea that rested above the Mariana Trench. From there, the descent toward the deepest parts of the sea would begin.

  6

  CHAPTER SIX – THE GUARDIAN OF THE DEEP VAULT

  Nina wasn't expecting to see Julian for a long while. Their last conversation hadn't exactly been cordial, let alone productive. She figured that he would let her stew and wallow in her own depression in that cell. He would leave her there to rot and only come back when she was broken, and possibly open to going along with whatever his plans were.

  It was surprising when he was standing in the doorway again—and it was even more surprising when he gestured for her to step out of her room.

  “Dr. Gould, I think you should come with me.”

  Nina hesitated and didn't exactly leap to her feet. For all she knew, she was going to be led somewhere worse, maybe even straight to the site of her execution. There was no way to be sure and she didn't exactly trust Julian Corvus to bring her anywhere good. Maybe he'd realized that he was crazy for even trying to convince her to help him and now was just going to get rid of her just like he did Purdue. Maybe she'd bored him more than he expected. She hoped so. She would be happy to disappoint him and make his revenge not nearly as sweet as he wanted.

  Julian's icy eyes narrowed and Nina slowly pulled herself up. Her legs were fast asleep and didn't feel quite right to walk on. She hadn't been able to really stretch her legs much since being a captive. If only the Order of the Black Sun provided their guests with some time at the gym or at a pool or something. Alas, she had to settle for taking a few steps within the confines of her tiny new living space.

  Julian looked pleased when she rose up and started coming toward the door. Part of her wanted to shove him aside and run, but knew her legs wouldn't cooperate with that half-baked plan. Even if she threw him into the cell and locked him inside, there probably wasn't a good chance that she could escape from this facility. And even if she could, she had no idea where she was.

  No, escape still wasn't a likely option.

  As she hobbled past her captor, she made sure he saw that she wasn't happy about it. She didn't trust him or this surprise field trip of theirs and she doubted she was going to enjoy wherever their destination was going to be.

  She followed Julian through a labyrinth of darkened corridors. It was like whoever built the place wanted to make it hard to see anything, to keep everything hidden from any wandering eyes. To see anything, you would have to go up close to check on it, or open one of the hundreds of doors they passed by. The whole building seemed like a dimly lit maze of secrets and deception, a fitting home for a secret society of crazy murderers.

  “You have a lovely home,” she grumbled under her breath.

  “I appreciate the compliment,” Julian said, still facing forward. “Try not to wander off. It wouldn't take much to get lost in here. And most of these rooms aren't very safe places to be.”

  Well, that was cryptic and made her even less hopeful to see whatever he was so keen on showing her. She imagined that each floor was filled with torture chambers, places where the Black Sun kept all of their enemies. She may have even been lucky with the dank, dark room she'd been kept in so far. Was he bringing her to a much worse holding cell?

  They turned a corner and a large metal door loomed ahead of them. Julian glanced back, maybe to see her reaction to the doorway but Nina didn't offer anything too visual for him. She just quietly examined the monstrosity of a door—it was more of a fortified gate, gigantic and thick like something that would be found at a bunker. It even reminded her a little of the newly installed trophy room door Purdue installed that Julian had such trouble getting through ... but this one was worse ... or maybe it was just that she knew there wasn't any chance there was anything good on the other side.

  She half-expected Julian to knock on the door with some secret code and then have it careen open in front of them. Instead, he accessed a panel on the wall to their right. A screen scanned his retinas and then he laid his hand on a pad which examined his finger prints. To top off the security, he punched in a long, seemingly complicated code of numbers and letters.

  Once he hit the final key, a robotic voice whispered, “Welcome.”

  There was the sound of slamming metal, that must have been the locks coming undone within the colossal door. Slowly, the door parted in the middle, bisecting and each side of it slid automatically out of the way, allowing a small space to walk through between them.

  Julian stepped through and Nina followed, looking up and down the doorway with bewilderment. She'd never seen anything like it before. All of that effort just to get it to open. Once it was closed, there was no way it would be able to be forced open without the proper keys—namely, having your eyes, fingerprints, and own personal code as part of the system. No thief could ever get into there, otherwise.

  “Surprised?” Julia
n snickered, glancing back at her puzzled face. “I have told you before. We take very good care of the world's oldest objects. A far better job than David Purdue did with that little panic room of his. They are protected and as you can see, very secure behind that door.”

  Nina heard the gargantuan metal door close behind her, and heard the slabs of metal within lock themselves back together.

  The room they entered was a huge library, with rows of shelves spreading before her for what looked like miles. The ceiling was high above, almost impossible to see. Nina expected that those shelves would be filled with old books but instead they all looked like they were filled with identical file folders. This wasn't a library for ancient texts, it was just the Black Sun's record keeping. She and Julian walked past rows and rows of files before they came to an open space where a man was sitting at a desk and surrounded by black crates.

  Nina recognized those containers from when the Order of the Black Sun had been rolling all of Purdue's stolen artifacts out of his home before they burned it to the ground. There was a gleaming sword on the desk, as well, and she recognized it as well—Excalibur, which had been among those relics taken from Purdue. This was where they put all of those items they absconded with. As much as she hated to admit it, this place was a step up from Purdue's home when it came to the safety of those items. Unfortunately, their caretakers were more than a little questionable.

  The man sitting at the desk was pale with dark, thick glasses on his face. He barely seemed to notice Julian and Nina at first, he was focused on whatever he was writing down on a spreadsheet. It took Julian giving a dramatic cough for him to acknowledge them. He peered up at them, looking a little startled, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. Nina was shocked he hadn't heard them come in, considering how loud that door was.

  “Hard at work, I see,” Julian said. “As usual.”

  “Of course,” the spectacled man said. “There's still so much work to be done...” He waved his arm at the piles of containers. “Most operatives come back with a single artifact ... maybe two ... but you, oh powerful new leader, bring back truck loads full of things to sort. The spoils of your victory over David Purdue were great indeed, but a pain in the ass for me.”

  The man spoke softly, almost listlessly, and only made minimal eye contact. Nina had met plenty of introverts but this guy seemed like he wasn't very fond of human interaction at all. It would make sense that his place of work was behind a door very few people could even enter.

  Julian turned to Nina. “This charming man you see before you is the current curator for the Order of the Black Sun, Elijah Dane.” Julian turned back to the man at the desk. “Elijah, this is Dr. Gould.”

  “Pleasure,” Elijah said but was already back to his notes, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. “And are you going to be here long, Julian, or...?”

  “Sick of us already?” Julian laughed. “We only just got here.”

  “I am quite busy. Far too busy for needless interruptions.”

  “I am aware,” Julian said, suddenly sounding a bit firmer. “You are a master of your craft but unfortunately, it's a craft that takes a lot of time. And that's exactly why I've come to give you a hand.”

  “No offense, Julian...” Elijah peeked up at his leader. He didn't look frightened at all by Julian. He regarded him like they were equals, despite Julian's current status among the order. “But you've never exactly been the kind of man who enjoys this kind of work. This side of the organization has never been your forte. You are far more comfortable out in the field, taking both treasures and lives.”

  “You're not wrong,” Julian said with a smirk and turned his attention back to Nina. “Elijah has been part of the order since shortly before my time. Some of us enjoy field missions. Others like my friend here prefer dusting off old books. He enjoyed it so much that I made him our new curator for the entire order when I took charge.”

  “Only because you killed the last one,” Elijah interjected. “There was a void that needed to be filled and I was the only volunteer. The rest of you can go run around with your guns and knives and travel the world. Someone needs to make sure everything we find is taken care of. And I've done a fine job so far ... you can be as impatient as you want, but I don't need your help, Julian.”

  “Not mine,” Julian said. “Hers.”

  Elijah looked up, his eyes looking over the rim of his glasses at Nina like he had taken his real first look at her. Nina thought she heard wrong at first but then turned to Julian. “Me? What are you talking about?”

  Julian ignored her and kept speaking with Elijah. “Dr. Gould is a rather revered historian, Elijah ... and she is currently one of our guests. It's been a rather uneventful and boring stay for her here, though. It occurred to me that she could lend you a hand here. Her knowledge of many of these items probably rivals your own.”

  Elijah looked her up and down, and didn't look impressed. She might have been insulted, but she didn't really care what any of these Black Sun members thought of her. This man wasn't overly impressive himself.

  “You are going to stick me with the prisoner, is that it then?” Elijah said grudgingly.

  “Do you see her imprisoned?” Julian asked. “She's not a prisoner. Not anymore. She is a guest and yes, she is going to be helping you sort all of this out and store it properly.”

  “Forgive me, oh wise leader ... but do you think that's actually wise?” Elijah's remarks were cutting and they seemed to be scraping up Julian's pride pretty effectively. “Let her get her hands on a whole stockpile of ancient artifacts ... some of which are weapons ... for her to just freely touch and examine? What's to stop her from using ... this sword for instance...” Elijah picked up Excalibur for emphasis. “What's to stop her from acting like she's just examining this and then she just stabs me through the heart?”

  “The door is, of course,” Julian said like he was expecting this resistance from Elijah. “She doesn't have the codes to get out of here.” He turned toward Nina but still spoke to Elijah, like he was making sure she heard his words. “So even if she did something foolish like trying to use these relics to her advantage in some misguided escape attempt, she would never make it out of this room.”

  “Fair enough,” Elijah said, but was still clearly not happy. “But she'd still be free to kill me.”

  “Quite true,” Julian said with a cruel, twisted grin. “But I know from firsthand experience that Dr. Gould only kills when she's under extreme duress. She won't harm you unless you're trying to murder her, right Dr. Gould?”

  Nina rolled her eyes but nodded. “You really couldn't take no for an answer? Now you're making me work for you? Using me to clean this mess up?”

  “As I said, I think you would be great at the job. And yes, we could use the help. There is quite a backup among the items we have here. What we rightfully took from David Purdue aren't the only things we need to store. We spent some time without a curator before that ... that didn't help matters.”

  “I seem to recall you killed the last curator,” Elijah chimed in, back to looking examining Excalibur like it was a live, dissected specimen.

  “I did, yes,” Julian said with some clear nostalgia. “Her and I didn't get along well at all. She would have hated seeing how far I've come since then. Thankfully, you and I don't have that problem, do we Elijah?”

  “That has yet to be seen,” Elijah said calmly. “But if you keep bringing me useless prisoners to help me do my job, we may have problems in the future.”

  “Noted,” Julian said. “This one will impress you, I promise.”

  Throughout the whole conversation, despite Elijah's verbal jabs at Julian, he never once said no to him. They may have been fellow operatives at one point but now, their relation to one another within the order was clear. Julian was the undisputed leader and Elijah respected that position even if he didn't seem to have much respect for the man himself.

  Julian turned away, smirking at Nina. “You'll hav
e a much better time here than in your cell, I imagine. And perhaps you will see that there's more to the Order of the Black Sun than just fighting and bloodshed. Much more. Enjoy your trip through history. I will be back to check on you in a few hours.”

  Julian started his trek back through the rows of files toward the vault door, leaving Nina behind with the Black Sun's awkward curator.

  Nina didn't bother saying goodbye. She hated that man and she was glad to no longer have to be in his presence—not that this Elijah Dane seemed much better. She would probably be lucky to even get a word out of him. If she just laid on the floor of this library quietly, Elijah probably wouldn't even bother with her. He was obviously not happy about her being there to begin with.

  Nina heard the enormous metal door open and close, and knew there was no getting out of this room anytime soon. It may not have been her small holding cell, but it was a prison all the same.

  As predicated, Elijah Dane ignored Nina's presence at first. He just kept quietly looking at every inch of the ancient sword on his desk, taking notes and checking off boxes on a chart. He seemed like the kind of man who relished taking his time to give a thorough examination and also the kind of man who absolutely hated anyone interrupting his train of thought. Naturally, Nina decided that that was exactly what she was going to do.

  “Do you enjoy being part of the order?”

  Elijah's brow twitched, ever so slightly, but he didn't respond at first. He had obviously heard her but was doing his best to shut her out and stay focused. She had to admit that she was feeling a little insulted by his attitude. She didn't want to help the Black Sun with anything—let alone storing the things they stole from her friend—but she was more than capable of doing it. Elijah was acting like she was a moron who would only get in the way of his far greater mind.

  “I could tell you all about how that sword was found ... something that Julian has no idea about. All he could have told you was how he stole it from the man who actually found it.” She was hoping that those snide remarks might be enough to at least get him to acknowledge her existence. When he kept ignoring her, she continued. “So do you file the things the Black Sun steals under a different category? We have to give credit the actual discoverers, don't we?”