Jean balked but a smile broke through the memories of his tribulations with real pirates. He settled down a little despite his annoyance over their surroundings.
They both looked over an image of the pirate fleet of the notorious Admiral Walton Ogden, who commanded a substantial pirate fleet of fourteen ships. It was hard to deny the amount of effort it must have taken to accumulate a criminal network that was that large back then and to sustain a small armada against the entirety of the British Navy.
They both stood in silence as they looked it over, until Jean finally spoke up; probably tired of looking at displays like that.
“Do you think she will call? Felicity Perry, I mean.”
Purdue raised his shoulders and spoke honestly. “Who knows? I sure hope so. Otherwise we might be dead in the water here.” Purdue snickered at his own words, pointing to a display where there was a little model of a man drowning under the sea, a cannonball chained around his ankle. A cruel fate for anyone, even a pirate. “Luckily, if she doesn't call and work with us ... then she won't see your page ... and she'll be floating around in the water right along with us. None of us would complete the book. We'd all lose, and no one would win.”
They finished up at the New England Pirate Museum, much to Jean's clear elation. Purdue had found the place rather interesting and even wished some of the museum's antiques were in his own private collection rather than out in the open for the whole world to gawk at.
They decided to go back to the busier section of Salem. That's where all of the top dollar attractions would be. They would just have to put up with the nauseating crowds of people filling the streets in their costumes and face paint. At least Jean would find more enjoyment out of the more occult-based sites. Purdue understood Jean's displeasure of pirates, but that didn't mean that pirates weren't utterly fascinating.
They took a trolley tour and hit most of the main tourist attractions that the city had to offer. They went to an old house belonging to one of the people involved in conducting the witch trials. Dubbed “The Witch House,” the house was really just an old, dusty renovation that wasn't much different than any other house still existing from that time period. Its name was deceptively interesting when it was really just an old house.
With each historical site they visited, all thriving with wide-eyed visitors, Purdue wondered how most of them would have reacted to any of the far more historical and ancient places Purdue had seen in his many travels all over the world. If they thought a town like Salem—which really wasn't very old in the grand scheme of things—was unbelievable, they would probably faint at some of the locations Purdue had excavated in his many searches for relics. The tomb Jesus Christ supposedly rose from was far more impressive than a dusty house belonging to some musty old man who had been afraid of witches.
Their next stop, the Witch Dungeon Museum, had an interesting name but as he had learned from the Witch House, he should wait and see it before getting excited.
The dungeon museum seemed normal enough at first. They followed a guide into an old meeting house where actors put on a recreation of a trial from back when witches were being accused. They weren't the best actors, but the subject matter was interesting enough, so Purdue didn't mind too much. It was only about ten minutes long, which helped it from being too much of a chore to sit through.
The actual interesting part came after. They were led downstairs with the rest of the tour group to a dark, narrow corridor: a recreation of a dungeon many of the accused witches were held prisoner in. As they walked through the dreary hall, Purdue took particular notice of the cells—if you could even call them that—which were holes in the wall that were so small, you would have to practically fold a body to make it fit inside.
“Horrible,” Jean muttered beside him. “Just horrible.”
Purdue grimaced, running his fingers along the rocky walls. “I don't know ... seems cozy enough to me.”
There were wax replicas of prisoners trapped in the cells, showing just how confined it had been for them. Purdue squeezed himself next to one of the wax figures in the cell. It was even worse than it looked. He couldn't imagine spending any extended amount of time there. It was more than uncomfortable. It was torture, but that was the point of dungeons, he supposed. It wasn't mean to be a pleasant stay.
They moved past a display of a naked man with a wooden board on top of his body. Large replicas of rocks were on top of the board, crushing the man beneath the weight. Purdue's knowledge of the witch trials was limited, but he'd heard of this particular victim: Giles Corey. Corey had refused to stand trial and plea to the men who accused him and his wife of witchcraft. To try and force him to comply, they tortured him by pressing him, stacking rocks onto the plank on top of him.
Giles Corey didn't relent, however, and famously kept asking for more weight. He was crushed to death under the rocks, in a very public display that might have helped motivate some of the townspeople to think differently about the witch hunts.
It was disturbing enough as an old story, but even worse once it was actually visualized. Purdue couldn't imagine going out that way. Slowly, as all of your bones give way beneath the weight on top of you. He shuddered at the thought and then kept walking.
It was one of the more gruesome museums Purdue had ever been to. They did a terrific job showing just how horrible the witch trials were for their victims.
If so many were tried and killed who weren't witches at all, then real witches certainly would have been executed. Jean and Felicity would have been kept in a horrible place like this. Jean was peering around uncomfortably, and the same thought seemed to be crossing his mind. If more people knew that real witches actually existed, something similar to this could even happen again. Fear of the unknown bred violence, no matter what time period it was.
He was staring at a grim, life-sized model of a witch hanging from the ceiling when Purdue's phone rang. He glanced down at it, but he didn't recognize the number. He hoped it was Felicity, and when he answered, was happy to find her voice speaking on the other end.
“David Purdue?”
“Aye,” Purdue said. “I see you got my note.”
“I did.”
Felicity didn't sound very happy, but it was hard to tell with the crackling. His phone had terrible reception down in the dungeon. But it was good to know that no accused witches would have had trouble sending texts for help if cell phones had existed at the time. He was sure the designers of the dungeons had that much forethought in mind when they built it.
“And?” Purdue asked, hoping they wouldn't lose signal in a potentially crucial moment of negotiation. “You come around and see the light?”
Her response didn't come for a few seconds, but he finally heard. “I'm not happy about it ... but there's also not many other options at this point. So, fine, okay? Fine. I'll help. We'll restore the book of shadows together.”
“Brilliant,” Purdue said, feeling ecstatic, mostly just so they could stop this morbid tour of Salem's history. “We'll come back to your place to figure out our new move, aye?”
“ ... Okay.”
She hung up and Purdue turned to Jean, who stood patiently waiting to hear the news.
“Let's get the hell out of this place,” Purdue said. “We've got an old dead woman's private journal to read.”
10
THE BLACK SUN'S NEW FIRE
Nina had no idea where they were going. The blindfold didn't help. All she could tell was they were in a car, and they had been driving for an absurd amount of time. Probably driving in all sorts of circles, just to ensure that she couldn't memorize the turns of the route they were taking, or how far away their destination really was. Based on the high step she had being brought to the vehicle, she was probably in the backseat of some kind of van.
From the sounds of it, Julian was in the backseat beside her, and someone else was driving the vehicle. There might have been another in the front passenger seat, but if there was, they were being very quiet
.
“You trying to impress me?” Nina asked. “Take me for a nice, casual ride for sightseeing? It would help if I could see the sights.”
“It won't be long now,” Julian said from beside her. “Once we reach the destination, you'll see everything that you need to. You'll see that the Order of the Black Sun is going through something of a metamorphosis, by my design. And, hopefully, if you keep an open mind, you'll begin to see that the order under my leadership will be good for the world.”
“I really doubt it,” Nina said. “You can save all of your posturing shit for someone who cares. No amount of sugarcoating is going to suddenly make me see the Black Sun as anything more than defilers of history.”
“Fair enough. Maybe you'll change your mind when you see us making history.”
The car came to a halt and they pushed Nina out of the parked vehicle. With the blindfold over her eyes, she stumbled as she walked, with no concept of what the terrain looked like in front of her. For all she knew, they were walking her to her own open grave or off a cliff. She wouldn't be overly surprised if she met a sudden, unexpected end. A death like that seemed like something Julian Corvus would enjoy setting up just for the sheer, sadistic amusement of it all.
All his claims about her mind being changed once they reached their destination ... it was probably just him giving her false hope before ripping it away from her in an instant.
Every step she took, she waited for the end.
Luckily, the end didn't come and after a few more minutes walking in the dark, the cloth over her eyes was removed.
The image in front of her was the inside of an enormous old room with beautiful old paintings lining the walls. They were drawings of vast landscapes, stretching out endlessly. The whole room gave the feeling that you were standing at the start of a landscape with no horizon; that the possibilities were infinite.
There was something beautiful about it, but also something terrifying. Especially given who her hosts were. Julian stood in front of her, at the foreground of an enormous painting of a barren desert.
“Welcome to one of our many sanctuaries,” Julian said. “In here, we are as far away from the world as can be. Here there are no windows for our enemies to look through and no doors for them to enter in. Naturally, this means you also have no way out. It is my hope, however, that once you see what we have to offer, you'll have no desire to leave.”
“I don't know about that,” Nina said. “And how the hell do you even get in here without any doors? Sounds like a pain.”
Julian didn't pay much mind to her verbal jab. “You don't like me. I understand that. You made that clear when you killed me. And you don't like the Order of the Black Sun ... but we're an altogether new entity now that I am in charge. Far different than the bumbling, confused, and incompetent rabble that you were used to dealing with. We have focus now. Drive.”
A man limped toward them, a cane pressing against the ground in front of him as he moved. He was short, scruffy, and all-too familiar to Nina.
“Galen?”
Nina hadn't seen Galen Fitzgerald since the end of their last quest, when he'd scolded her for losing the Spear of Destiny. Based on the cane in his hand, his limp from the injuries he'd received during that venture hadn't healed.
Nina didn't like Galen. And she hadn't been keen on seeing him ever again. This was far too soon for her. One hundred years from now would have been too soon for her.
“Julian took you too? Another off his checklist?”
Galen laughed. He looked far happier than Nina expected a prisoner to look. He was at least doing a lot better than she was with their new situation.
“Not exactly,” Galen said with that pompous grin she remembered.
“Mr. Fitzgerald saw the truth,” Julian said, approaching them. “That our order could change civilizations. He wants to be one of the hands that reshapes the world as we know it.”
“You can't be serious,” Nina said, honestly surprised that a rat like Galen could somehow sink even lower. She pointed at his leg. “These people shot you. Took us prisoner. Tried to kill us.”
“Godhood is a tempting offer,” Galen said with a shrug. “And they only did that to me because I was mixed up with Davy. Purdue was their real target. I was a casualty of that feud, that was all. They recognized my value once I had severed my ties with that bastard.”
Nina couldn't believe that Galen was that moronic. He was a narcissistic, entitled, blowhard with delusions of grandeur, but he couldn't actually be siding with the people who had crippled him. All because they had made him feel important, played to his need for validation. He was even more pathetic and sickening than she thought when he was seemingly on their side. He really was a snake. A snake who shed his skin to adapt to whatever would benefit himself.
“Don't be angry with him,” Julian said. “Mr. Fitzgerald made the right choice. A choice that Purdue should have made when he had the chance. But instead, your friend chose to be a hindrance rather than a help. We no longer tolerate hindrances in this order. There's still time to make the right choice, Dr. Gould. You can be part of all of this instead of making the same narrow-minded choices that David Purdue keeps making. You're smarter than him. We all know that. So, act like it.”
Julian's salesman facade was melting away the more she was resisting, even though he was trying to hold his frustration at bay. His words were becoming less optimistic and idealistic and more aggressive. It wasn't about what they could do for the world anymore; it was about being better than Purdue and anyone who ever stood against them.
Nina wasn't going to be fooled by him. He was right about one thing. She was smart; and she was going to show that she was smarter than the people he had manipulated. She was smarter than Galen, for instance, and she stepped up to him and he flinched at her approach.
She stood in front of Julian and Galen, refusing to give in to this sorry display; their attempt to get her to submit.
Nina shook her head and was surprised by her own firmness. “No. That will never happen.”
A muscle on Julian's face twitched and for a moment, he looked ready to strike her. There was that terrifying fury she knew was inside of him; just waiting for a chance to be let out. She was practically summoning it from his body. That wrathful monster under his skin was trying to come out but a thin smile kept it at bay.
“Fair enough,” Julian said with mock understanding. “Then your choice is made, Dr. Gould. You will have to live with that.” His face contorted into a sadistic sneer. “For however much longer that will be.”
The room they put her in was dark and small, with bars on the doors. It was unmistakably a cell—a place to put anyone who didn't buy into the Black Sun's cult mentality. They tried to impress her with a tour and an offer, but it would never work. Nina knew more than enough about the secret society to avoid being fooled. She saw past the fake promises and the fancy hideout. As persuasive and sharp of a tongue as Julian Corvus had, she knew that all of his words that came out of his mouth were laced with lies and malice.
Nina Gould knew exactly what the Order of the Black Sun was. She would never join them. There was no offer that could change her mind and actually entice her to work with them.
Her cell wasn't nearly as inviting as the rest of their facility had deceivingly been. There wasn't much to it; just a thin little bed in the corner and a dimly lit lamp on one of the walls. Convicts in high-security prisons had better accommodations. It was slightly infuriating to know that sentenced serial killers, rapists, mass murderers, and terrorists were more comfortable than she was going to be. That was the price to pay for saying no to Julian Corvus and his underlings.
She was surprised that Julian hadn't killed her when he finally understood that she couldn't be coerced. He clearly considered it. There was no good reason to keep her as their prisoner at this point other than to use her to get at Purdue. She would be bait or collateral in their efforts to finally get rid their greatest enemy. If everything Julian
said was to be believed, then their next goal was to get rid of David Purdue forever, and she feared that she was their weapon to do just that.
Nina sat in the dark, stewing on her own thoughts. Maybe she should have played along and pretended to join them. She could use that position on the inside to learn more about their plans. She could help Purdue from behind enemy lines.
Regret swelled in her isolation. If she hadn't acted so defiantly—if she had really thought about her options and the possible moves she could make—she might be in an advantageous position rather than as nothing more than a prisoner, left alone until she was needed.
A door somewhere down the hall slammed shut, and she heard a tapping coming toward her in the blackness of the Black Sun's holding cells.
They would probably torture her now. When they brought her down there and threw her in the cell, Julian claimed that they wouldn't harm her any further, but he was hardly the most honest of people. Why wouldn't they torture her? They would probably pry any information about Purdue they could get out of her. Or they might hurt her and mutilate her to send a message to her colleague. She dreaded the thought of one of her body parts being sent to Purdue as a macabre warning. She didn't want to be the thing that brought Purdue down. She should never have let down her guard after their last adventure. She should never have breathed a sigh of relief when she killed Julian Corvus.
The sound came closer and Galen appeared in the darkness on the other side of the barred door. His cane tapped on the floor as he moved, echoing ominously in the darkness. At least it was only Galen. She could deal with his pompousness over Julian. Galen was a clown. It was a wonder that the Black Sun even let him join at all.
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