“No,” Aya said confidently. “No, the Wharf Man does not. That should be the end of them I think. Now that Dajuan is gone, no one else would be able to keep the Wharf Man's things together. They will all start fighting over them probably. I know many of them and there are very few who would ever be able to lead anyone. The Wharf Man...in many people's eyes but not mine...was like a king. Everyone knew they had to bow to him, whether they wanted to or not. When the Wharf Man died, his place went to Dajuan.”
“Right. The prince,” Sam said with some relief. “And now that the prince is dead, there aren't any other real heirs to pick up the crown. The Wharf Man's network will just collapse in on itself, and that problem is finally gone for good.”
“Yes,” Aya said. “Jamaica will be free from the Wharf Man. My crew and I, we will be safe from him and his men this time. I might even be able to go back home now.”
“I hope so,” Sam said. “Thank you for all of your help...and for saving my life back there, of course.”
“It was not just about saving your life. I have been wanting to put a harpoon through Dajuan for years. I finally had my chance so I took it.” She smiled. “But you are welcome. Tell David Purdue to leave me alone for a while. I want to enjoy the world without the Wharf Man and his dogs.”
“And you're sure you don't want to join the Order of the Black Sun? You have been a huge help to us more than once now. You are practically already a member. Why not make it official? We could use someone like you.”
“No,” Aya said. “I like to be able to take my boat wherever I want, whenever I want. I cannot do that if I am chained down. But, if you or Purdue ask for my help, just like these last times, I might decide to give it to you. I might bring my boat if needed...but that will be by my choice. No one else's.”
“Fair enough,” Sam said with understanding. He couldn't blame her for that decision. He was only just starting to adjust to the whole secret society part of it. “The ocean is an unpredictable place.”
“I know that, yes,” Aya laughed. “You don't need to tell me. Do not worry about me. I have Poseidon watching out for me, hmm?”
Supposedly, they all really did—and Sam could still barely wrap his mind around that.
“I am very sorry about your family's pearl...”
“Don't be,” Erica said but she couldn't hide her sadness. She seemed to still be grappling with the reality of the whole situation. “It was never my family's. Not really. They just stole it...”
“Still,” Sam said. “It was passed down through generations. That means something, even if it wasn't rightfully yours.”
“That whole stupid story was real...” Erica giggled nervously and shook her head. “I still don't believe it. My dad used to say sometimes that he thought one of our ancestors just found a funny looking pearl and made up the whole story about taking it from Poseidon...just a way to make the pearl seem so much more important than it really was, that was all.” She laughed again, but there was pain mixed in. “I really did come from a family of thieves after all.”
“You put the pearl back. You fixed your ancestor's mistake. That's what really matters in the end, Erica.”
“I guess.” They both stood there, trying to figure out what to say. The whole situation was rather awkward. “So this is what you do all the time? Finding old things and almost dying?”
“That tends to be how it goes, more often than not, yes,” Sam said and thought back to their first conversation at the gala's bar. “That's apparently in the job description for an archaeologist.”
The heiress laughed, obviously remembering how he had introduced himself initially. “This was a bit more than digging up old fossils, Sam. You almost drowned. You were almost beaten to death. You—”
“Spilled my drink on some spoiled rich girl that demanded she come along for the whole adventure?”
“Well...yeah.” That brought a smile to her face. “That was pretty clumsy of you.”
“So what's next for you now that you've dishonored your family legacy and lost something that was treasured for like...thousands of years...?”
“I'm not sure,” Erica said. “Definitely not stick around here. As charming as you are, I don't envy all of the danger you seem to put yourself in. One of these days it will probably catch up with you. You can only take so many risks before something goes horribly wrong.”
Sam nodded. “You think I'm charming?”
Erica rolled her eyes. “Seriously? That's what you got out of what I just said?”
“It is.”
“I won't miss you,” Erica said.
“And I won't miss you either.”
They didn't know it, but they were both lying.
Elijah Dane didn't look pleased when he heard about them finding more pearls and then putting them on some island in the middle of nowhere. The curator never liked hearing that a prized artifact wouldn't be joining their collection in his deep vault. Elijah was the kind of man that preferred knowing that rare items were safe under lock and key and under his protection. Frankly, he should have been thanking Sam after the damage the first pearl had done to the vault room.
“You do know that our order is meant to collect items, not discard them.”
“You heard that water man,” Sam said. “We needed to get the pearls back where they belonged. We would have all died otherwise.”
Elijah balked. “So you gave in to a terrorist's demands.”
“It wasn't a terrorist, Elijah,” Daisy said. “It was Poseidon.”
Elijah took off his glasses and wiped off the lenses, like it was going to help him hear what he presumed to have heard wrong. When he put them back on, he raised a brow over the frame. “Poseidon. The sea god.”
“Yes,” Daisy said confidently. “Poseidon needed his pearls brought back to his trident or he was going to continue causing the people who had those pearls problems. If we brought the pearls back here, then it would have been even more disastrous than the last time.”
Elijah looked to Sam for some kind of explanation for her comment but Sam just shrugged.
“She's telling the truth, Elijah,” Sam said. “I know it sounds ridiculous...trust me...but she is telling the one hundred percent truth of the matter.”
“I see,” Elijah said. “I see that you both had a long journey. That much time at sea...well...I've heard it does some drastic things to people. Why don't you both get some rest? I can be angry with you when you're back in your right heads, I suppose. You won't retain a thing I'm telling you when you're like this. That much is certain.”
Elijah gave both of them one last look of displeasure before walking away. That must have been exactly how Sam looked at Daisy when they first met. He felt a bit bad, now seeing exactly how he appeared—disinterested and smug.
Sam stood alone with Daisy. They had left together, now they were returning together but it didn't feel at all the same. He saw her in such a different way than he had before. She was peculiar, yes, but that didn't negate all of the knowledge she had.
“So you are a believer now?”
Sam turned to Daisy who was smiling at him expectantly. She obviously was relishing the fact that her beliefs were validated.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I'm not going to hold it over you too much, but you have to admit, you were completely in the wrong.” She let out a bellowing laugh. “Like you should have seen yourself, arms crossed, so stubborn, and just refusing to open your eyes just a little wider.”
“I get it, I get it.”
“It was...an experience,” Daisy said. “But truth be told, I wouldn't mind working with you again at some point.”
Sam shrugged. “It might happen someday. After this, who knows? Maybe at some point, we will have to take a rocket ship to the sun to help Apollo.”
“That would be quite the journey,” Daisy laughed. “Did you know that sun is pulled over the sky every morning by a chariot?”
She was still weird, but at least she knew
her stuff.
18
THE SETTING SUN ON THE HORIZON
Purdue was glad to hear that Sam had returned to the compound in one piece. He hadn't drowned after all. There had been some close calls thanks to the Wharf Man's successor but in the end, Mama May's vision hadn't come to pass. Sam was alive and well, and not a corpse at the bottom of the sea. It was a great relief since Mama May's predictions had been all Purdue was able to really think about since he heard them. None of it had been very good news. They had avoided Sam's death, but there was still the worry that there was a possible traitor among them. Things like that made Purdue incredibly nervous, and were what caused him to stay holed up in his room, trying to figure things out rather than spending time helping fix the plumbing damage with so many of the others. He didn't want to risk too much interaction with a possible traitor.
Purdue knew that Mama May's vision of the future was limited and sometimes didn't always come to pass. He hoped that it would have just been enough to get him prepared for what could possibly be on its way but instead it only heightened the fears he already had. She hadn't been able to glean much information about the Old Lady that Purdue didn't already know. All she had done was put terrible, worrisome thoughts in his head. He almost wished he hadn't gone to pay her a visit. It had done more harm than good.
There was a knock on the door and Purdue immediately felt on edge. He knew it was probably ridiculous but he couldn't help it now. Mama May's vision didn't mean that he was guaranteed to be betrayed but it did mean that there was a very real chance that it could happen. Somewhere in the Order of the Black Sun, someone had the potential to stab him in the back. He would do everything he could to keep that knife away from him.
“Who is it?” Purdue called out after a moment.
There was a knock again.
“I said who is it?” Purdue asked with a bit more force.
“It's me,” Sam's voice said through the door. “Is this how you welcome a friend home? A locked door in my face?”
Sam wasn't the traitor. He had proven time and time again that he was dedicated to the same cause that Purdue was. They were more than just colleagues, there were times when they would consider each other very good friends. He trusted Sam more than he trusted most. The only person he trusted even more would probably have been Nina.
“You just going to leave me out here?”
Purdue walked over to the door and unlocked it. As Sam entered, Purdue nodded to him and offered a supportive smile.
“It's good to see you alive.” Sam had no idea how good that really was after the warnings Purdue received. It wasn't just good, it was somewhat of a surprise.
“It is, isn't it?” Sam chuckled. “There were like five times I almost died. Really could have used your help out there...”
“I know,” Purdue said, returning to the papers that he was looking at before. “Unfortunately, searching for our new enemy has taken a spot at the forefront of every decision I make lately.”
It was true, and Purdue was just glad his friends had stuck with him.
“I met a god today, Purdue.”
“Oh?” Purdue didn't look up from his paperwork at first, and seemed to barely even hear Sam. After a moment of the statement hanging in the air, Purdue looked up. “Wait, what? What do you mean? What the hell you talking about?”
“I mean exactly what I just said. I met a god today. I'm not talking about finding God like so many priests and religious people like to go on about. No. I'm not talking about meeting a god in a spiritual sense. No. I'm being surprisingly very, very literal...as crazy as it is to hear myself say. I'm talking about a flesh and blood god...standing as far away from me as you are, talking, moving, all of it...”
Sam realized how crazy he sounded but he was long past the point of caring about that. He no longer minded if he seemed to have lost his sanity. He didn't care if people looked at him with that same apprehension and disbelief that he used to look at Daisy Judge with. He knew what he saw and he knew how real it was. There was no getting around that—there was no getting around any of it. It had really happened, that much was for certain.
Purdue, unsurprisingly, just looked somewhat concerned. “Um, that's brilliant. Right?”
“Yes...and no...I don't know.”
“So I take it you found Poseidon then. That pearl and the other ones really did belong to him after all, aye? Is that what you're trying to say?”
“Yes! Exactly. Yes, it was Poseidon but he looked like a homeless man at first...maybe he was...but now...he was so real, Purdue. Believe me.”
“I do, Sam,” Purdue said. “Life is full of all kinds of surprises, isn't it? Things happen that you never, ever expect. That's why you've got to keep an open mind, Sam. It could make you much more prepared for days like this...days when things you thought weren't possible turn out to be very real.”
“I suppose,” Sam said, having come to the same conclusion himself. “I'm just surprised Daisy wasn't completely mad after all. She was right. She was right about the pearls. She was right about the gods. All of it.”
Purdue smirked. “Well, I didn't invite her to join the Order of the Black Sun for nothing...”
“She must think I'm a complete moron.”
“Probably, and she wouldn't be wrong,” Purdue said with a snicker and a wink. “You were just a little bit ignorant. That's all. But ignorance isn't always permanent. Now you've been enlightened and now you know better. I would call that personal growth, wouldn't you? Nothing to feel too bad about.”
Sam hadn't really thought too much about that but he did feel a bit better about himself now. It was sometimes hard to recognize that you were on the wrong side of an argument but it was nice to understand that you had learned your lesson when proven wrong. Sam had no problem admitting that he was incorrect when evidence showed him the real truth.
“So I take it you reunited all three of the pearls then? Poseidon's not going to drown the whole world?”
“Or kill us all with a stampede of horses...”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” Sam said. “Yeah, it seems we diffused this particular depth charge. Poseidon isn't pissed off at us anymore.”
“That's a relief,” Purdue said. “We have enough problems without having to worry about being on an ancient god's shit list. We've got enough enemies as it is.”
Sam looked over Purdue's mess. He definitely hadn't eased up in his investigation of their invisible foes. If anything, he had just gotten even deeper into his obsession with them. It was eating away at Purdue so much that not even the existence of an ancient god was enough to deter him from continuing his spiral.
Sam finally brought it up. “So, how are we doing with the enemies we already have then?”
“They remain as elusive as ever.”
Purdue didn't sound angry. He just sounded defeated and on the verge of giving up. Part of Sam hoped that Purdue would throw in the towel, for the sake of his own mental health. The search for enemies that they weren't even sure were real was obviously affecting Purdue very negatively. He couldn't keep it up for much longer. At the same time, though, he wanted to be supportive and he wanted for Purdue to succeed in his search. It was a tough situation to see Purdue in.
“Do you really think they're out there?” Sam had asked that question before, but found himself continuing to ask it. He needed to see if his friend's certainty had wavered at all.
It hadn't wavered. “They are.”
There was a long silence between them.
“And you think that they're going to come after us?”
“They are,” Purdue said again, with just as much certainty. “We let out guards down, even for a moment, and they will have us. The Order of the Black Sun that we have remade will be gone and everything that we've fought for will have been for nothing.”
“Well then we'll just have to do our best to not let that happen.”
“It will be difficult when we have no idea what to even expe
ct.” There was something Purdue wasn't saying. Sam knew him long enough to know when he was withholding information but he didn't press him. He trusted Purdue to tell him what was on his mind if it was really important.
“Just keep an open mind,” Sam said, reiterating what Purdue had told him about Poseidon. “As long as you do that, you have a chance of being ready to face the unexpected.”
David Purdue smiled and Sam Cleave smiled back. The new Order of the Black Sun was facing an uncertain future, but they had taken on uncertain futures before. They could do it again.
“I know the changes haven't been easy for you, Sam. I know that you weren't entirely comfortable joining the Order of the Black Sun, even now that we're the ones making the decisions...but thank you for having my back all the same. It's good to know that I can still count on you.”
“Of course, always,” Sam said. “As much shit as you've gotten me into, Purdue, you've done much more good for my life than bad, that's for sure. You've pulled me out of some dark holes at times. You, me, Nina...we've been through a lot together. We know each other so well. It's just been hard having to take on the same kinds of challenges but not having you guys by my side anymore.”
“I know,” Purdue said. “I've felt the same. At times, I've considered it for the best. It has given us a chance to get to know our new allies. But, you're right. We were quite the team out there in the field. I might have forgotten that at times. I have a feeling with this, though...” Purdue pointed at the papers around him. “It's going to take all of us together.”
“Good,” Sam said. “Then we might stand a chance after all.”
Almost as if summoned by their conversation, Nina Gould appeared in the doorway. At first glance, she looked incredibly troubled but her concerned face formed a smile at the sight of her friends. She ran up and hugged Sam hard before wrapping her arms around Purdue too. They were just as happy to see her. There was a palpable feeling between them all, standing alone in that room, that this trio of theirs felt right. All of the changes had made them forget that for a time but there was nothing stronger than the bond they shared after all of their adventures.
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