Order of the Black Sun Box Set 11

by Preston William Child

  “So what did I miss?” Nina asked. “Looks like someone set off a bomb. All the walls in the building are ripped up...”

  “Someone practically did set off a bomb,” Sam said casually. “And his name was Poseidon.”

  Nina looked at him like he was nuts, but he was used to being looked at like that now.

  “You missed a lot, aye,” Purdue said. “The pearl I found at the bottom of the ocean needed to be given back to its creator, which like Sam said, turned out to be Poseidon himself. So how was your assignment? Bump into any ancient gods?”

  “Oh yeah,” Nina said with a sly smile. “Me and Anubis got lunch. And after that, I took a stroll with Odin through the shopping mall.”

  She obviously wasn't fully behind their story but Sam knew the truth and that was all that really mattered. He didn't need Nina to believe him. Besides, she seemed somewhat distant, like there was something preoccupying her mind.

  “Find any good books for our collection?” Purdue asked.

  Nina held up the bag of books that she had bought in London. It hadn't been the most exciting mission compared to Sam's but he was glad that Nina got a break after all of her trouble with the sword of Caesar. She deserved some calm before whatever was coming next.

  Nina frowned and looked like she wanted to say something. Finally, she did. “Although, our book collection doesn't really compare to the Old Lady's.”

  Sam and Purdue both looked to one another in confusion as Nina continued.

  “Like hundreds of thousands of books in this massive library. It was incredible.”

  “The hell you going on about?” Purdue asked. “The Old Lady's library?”

  Nina looked pained as she tried to speak but pushed through whatever unease was holding her back. They all knew each other so well. They knew they could tell each other anything, but this looked particularly difficult. Usually, Nina was so willing to share her honest thoughts. So whatever this was, must have made her uncomfortable to bring up.

  “I met the Old Lady today.”

  Sam meeting Poseidon didn't feel quite as impressive anymore—still impressive, to be sure—but just a little less so now. Nina might not have met a god but she did meet the person that was supposedly the biggest threat to their new Order of the Black Sun, someone that wasn't even confirmed to be real. She was almost as mythical as Poseidon had been. Now both of those figures had proven to be real.

  Purdue's expression darkened and Sam noticed a flicker of fear.

  “Well go on then,” Purdue said. “You're going to have to elaborate on that one.”

  Nina nodded, looking like she was trying to figure out the best way to explain it. “It wasn't by choice—well it was, but it wasn't. I was just having some coffee when one of them showed up.”

  “One of them?”

  “One of the Old Lady's men...an inspector from Rome that I met when I was there looking for Caesar's sword. He was one of hers the whole time, watching me, following me...” Nina flinched when Purdue slammed his hand onto some of his papers in frustration. “They know everything about us, Purdue. Everything.”

  “Why were they watching you?” Sam said. “Are they watching all of us?”

  “I'm not sure if they are,” Nina said. “But I do know why they were following me. They were looking to expand their operation and they thought that I would be the perfect candidate to their expansion. They were hoping...they came to me looking to recruit me.”

  “Recruit you?” Sam asked, his mouth falling open. “They do know that you're part of the Order, right? Why would they—”

  “Did you say yes?”

  Usually, that would have been a facetious thing to ask, but Purdue asked the question with dangerous intent, and even somewhat suspiciously. Something was turning in Purdue's head and Sam wasn't sure if he liked the tone he was giving. He looked ready to attack Nina depending on her response, like he was petrified that one of his closest allies would join the opposing team. Sam couldn't believe that Purdue would think so little of Nina to seriously ask that question.

  “Of course I didn't,” Nina said, looking just as upset that Purdue would have to ask. “They brought me to some base of theirs...I'm not sure where. I was blindfolded...and they showed me all kinds of things to try to entice me over to their side. They said all kinds of things...but no, Purdue, I told them that I wasn't interested.”

  Purdue nodded slowly but still didn't look like he entirely believed her. “And they just let you go?”

  “Yes,” Nina said. “They asked me to reconsider and then brought me right back to the coffee shop that they scooped me up at. They didn't hurt me. They didn't try to force me to do anything. They just told me some things about them, put the offer out, and then let me go.”

  “Is the offer still on the table?”

  “How the hell should I know!?” Nina snapped. “Even if it was, I would say no again. You know that. So why are you acting like I'm getting ready and just waiting to screw you over? You really think I would do that?”

  “I would hope not,” Purdue said.

  “What's going on?” Nina asked. “Why are you acting like this?”

  Sam was wondering the same thing. Just after he and Purdue had talked about how they all needed to stick together, Purdue seemed to be doing his best to push Nina away. Purdue just looked so worried and afraid. Whatever was on his mind, was tearing him up inside.

  Purdue let out a long sigh. “I went to speak with Mama May.”

  Purdue started telling them the whole story; how he had gone to New Orleans to see if the fortune teller Mama May could tell him more about their enemy but instead she had just given him cryptic prophecies about the future.

  Mama May told him that one of his friends, implying that it was Sam, was going to drown. That was a bit awkward for Sam to hear now but he was glad that her vision hadn't come to pass...it almost had.

  Even worse, and obviously the source of Purdue's unease, was the warning that someone close to him would betray him. That would have put most people on edge but Purdue was already so paranoid thanks to the difficulty of learning anything more about the Old Lady. Hearing something like that just made him even more afraid and paranoid, to the point of believing that even his closest friends would turn on him. It was no wonder now that Nina's story about meeting with their enemy had horrified Purdue because in his mind, it was just confirming the fortune-teller's prophecy.

  “I'm not betraying you, David,” Nina said. She so rarely used his first name that it immediately reminded everyone how close they all were. “I'm not. I only went along with speaking with them so that we could learn more about them. Obviously you were having trouble finding anything, so it was just too good of an opportunity to let slip away. And while I don't know everything, I know a lot more about the new threat than I did before.”

  Purdue nodded, looking down at the floor with some shame. Nina's words were finally sinking in and he was coming back to reality and away from the paranoia that was crippling his thought processes—and could even ruin his friendships.

  “It's been a hard few days,” Sam said, knowing how much of an understatement that was. “But we need to stick together. The three of us. All together. That's the only way that we are ever going to stand a chance. We can't fight among ourselves right now. That's exactly what that old lady wants us to do. Don't let her have that. We're not like the old Order of the Black Sun. We're not going to all be conspiring behind each other’s backs. We can't do that. We can't. You know how much I hated us even having anything more to do with this secret society bullshit after we beat Corvus...but here we are...and we can't self-destruct now.”

  Sam hoped that his feelings were being conveyed properly. He had to keep everyone together or else Mama May's words could actually become a reality, and that wasn't a reality that Sam wanted to live in.

  “I'm sorry,” Purdue finally said. “You're right. You're both right. We are going to have to stick together.”

  Nina nodded. “If
we're going to beat the Old Lady, we will need even more than that.”

  Sam wasn't looking forward to facing their new enemy. He longed for the days when he thought that defeating Julian Corvus was the end of having to fight enemies. Now it felt like they were going to war, and Sam would rather have the ancient sea god screaming in his ear again than have to prepare for war.

  There wasn't a choice though—their greatest battle was coming. They would need to be ready for anything.

  Epilogue

  MAY

  Mama May wasn't as spry as she used to be. When she was young, she could see so many different futures and feel completely fine after; it just felt like she had watched a very realistic movie but could then separate herself from those sights immediately after. Now that she was older, well within the age of being considered elderly, her gifts took a much greater toll on her body and on her soul.

  David Purdue had seen her multiple times now and she had delved into his fate each time. For some reason, going into his future took so much more out of her. There wasn't the usual amount of things to see with him, there was so much more. It wasn't just him trying to learn if he was going to find love someday, no, the visions about David Purdue usually involved so much pain and sometimes even death.

  This latest one was even worse—and she hadn't even told him everything. She told him the broad strokes of what to expect but there were plenty of details that she left out. Some of the things were just too horrible to speak, while others were omitted due to prior commitments she made. The haze around the group that Purdue was searching for wasn't quite as thick as she may have made Purdue believe. The picture was clearer than she let on, but she couldn't tell him that. She couldn't let him see past that particular curtain—because she had helped put that curtain up so many years ago.

  There was now a new visitor sitting across from her at her table. It wasn't one of the usual customers there to scratch the supernatural itch for their tourist trip to New Orleans. No, this visitor was someone she had known for so long, but whose future she hadn't seen since the beginning of their relationship.

  “You didn't tell him anything you shouldn't have, did you?” the Old Lady asked.

  Mama May knew her visitor's real name just as her visitor knew hers. They were two elderly women that had quietly helped shape the world from behind the scenes. To do that, they had given up their old lives and the old names that they were born with. They had needed to become something new to fulfill their dreams and that was exactly what they had done.

  “Of course not,” Mama May said. “Believe me, I know exactly how much I should say and when I should say it for all of my clients. This was no different. There is nothing of real value that David Purdue knows. I only told him things that would put him into even more distress. It is not my job to always give them good news or to tell them what they want to hear. I just tell them what I see, but I don't have to tell them everything.”

  “You've always been so cold,” the Old Lady chuckled. “As long as I've known you.”

  “When you have a gift like mine...when I see so many people's ends...you can't let yourself be anything but cold sometimes. It is the only way that I can sleep at night. How about you? What is your excuse for being the way that you are?”

  “Necessity as well,” the Old Lady said. “It's the only way to get anything done in this world.”

  The two women had fought for years to get to where they wanted to be. They knew the world that they wanted to create and they knew it would be no easy task to make it come to fruition. The Old Lady had always known the importance of history while Mama May, by contrast, always had her sights set on the future. Together, they had made it their goal to constantly be influencing the present; that way, they could protect the past and change the future.

  It was a slow process and despite decades of efforts, there was still so much they needed to do to make the world that they wanted. They knew they weren't getting any younger and understood that their work might have to continue beyond their lifespans. It would all be worth it in the end though, as long as they could get the wheel turning in the right direction.

  The matter of the Order of the Black Sun was a complicated issue and had only gotten more complicated as the years went on. Mama May had stayed out of most of the inner workings of these secret societies and their interconnections, keeping to herself while the Old Lady dealt with all of that nonsense. She didn't know some of the specifics but she knew what kind of threat the Black Sun's new leadership posed to the Old Lady's plans. At least with the council or even Julian Corvus running things, the Order of the Black Sun was predictable. Now they were something else entirely, and that needed to be rectified.

  There was a part of Mama May that felt guilty for deceiving Purdue after he had come to her a number of times now. He obviously trusted her abilities and her advisement. Now, that was going to prove to be part of his undoing. She had warned him about being betrayed but she was sure that he would never suspect her. He would be looking in the wrong places, right over his shoulder, when the truth was that the betrayal had already happened and there was nothing he could do about it. She had helped him, certainly, but she had never sworn allegiance to him. Mama May and the Old Lady went much farther back than she and Purdue could ever go. Still, it was hard knowing that he trusted her foresight so much.

  Mama May tapped her finger on the table. “So what will become of that man? What will become of David Purdue?”

  “I'm sure you already know.”

  Mama May nodded. “Yes. But are you certain that is the path you want to take?”

  The Old Lady just smiled, and all of the wrinkles on her face smiled too.

  “I am.”

  END