A ruckus ensued behind them. The bedroom door slammed and swung open violently. Toshana came darting out with only a towel wrapped around her, screaming at the top of her lungs as she hung over the balustrade to alert her friends two floors down.
“We have to go!” Ayer said, grabbing the revolting Head and bunching it up in his rucksack. Toshana was dive-tackled by Gille and thrown to the floor, and then pinned down with his humongous weight. A clamor of footsteps and voices came rushing up the first and second flights. “Come, let’s go out the window!” Ayer commanded. “Bring the bitch!”
Gille slammed her hard onto the floor, rendering her unconscious before flinging her naked body over his shoulder. “You had better get going,” the old Templar instructed. “There’s a battalion of angry Nazi’s coming up the stairs.”
But Purdue and Sam could not leave without Nina. They watched the Militum take off with Toshana and the Crown, finally claiming back what was theirs along with the thief that had taken it from them. Purdue suddenly raced towards her bedroom.
“Purdue! Purdue, are you daft?” Sam shouted, trailing after his friend.
“I have to find the leather folder with my contract. I cannot allow it to bind us,” Purdue raved, his white hair wild and sweaty. Sam saw the officers appear on the stairs, pistols drawn.
“Listen, listen,” he panted, grabbing Purdue by the shoulders. “I have a better idea, okay? Just go with it.”
Sam smashed all the bottles of spirits lining Toshana’s personal bar tray, sending shards of crystal everywhere and reeking up the room with strong alcohol. He flicked his Zippo and dropped it on the lavish wet carpet. Then Sam dragged Purdue out the bedroom door by his white cotton shirt, just ahead of the crowd of shouting, gun-toting soldiers. He had Purdue by the collar, sprinting the length of the corridor to reach the left-hand stairs on the other side.
The few men and women who came up their way were promptly kicked back down and trampled by the two fleeing Scotsmen. Holding his tablet up to navigate their way to the garage, Purdue fell about by Sam’s steering. Smoke filled the upper floor as Sam glanced upward. It moved just the way it had when Nina had been suffering the fire treatment and he had rescued her.
Like rats on a sinking ship, Sam and Purdue scrambled into the basement. An engine was already revving as they shut the door behind them and padlocked it.
“Move your fucking asses!” she shouted. Ahead of them, she was mounted on an old BMW R75 with a sidecar, waiting for Sam and Purdue to get on. The door behind them broke down like plywood and they careened in front of the pistol fire. Sam jumped into the sidecar, allowing Purdue to drive, with Nina holding on behind him. The World War II motorcycle bolted up the ramp into the moonlit night, barely making it out before the top floor started to rain debris. Even as they crossed the perimeter, shots rang and whistled past from the officers in the archway.
“That is why the Militum was late coming into the citadel!” Sam shouted after he had emptied a magazine on the Nazis.
“Why?” Purdue asked over the whoosh of the wind.
“Look, they sabotaged all the cars first!” Sam laughed. Nina looked back at the burning vehicles, thankful that this time she was far from the flames. It was a pleasure for Purdue to watch the emblem of Mammon plummet from the gate arch and crash to the ground in flames.
He did not miss Toshana, nor did he dread her fate at the hands of the cruel Templars who needed a new female body for their idol. Purdue began to smile as he felt Nina’s hands hold on to him in the cool Arabian night air. Although he had broken into the citadel, he was the one who had been liberated.
36
Residue
One Week Later – Edinburgh, Scotland
At Wrichtishousis, Sam and Nina waited for their host to arrive. Purdue had invited them over to unveil a new artifact he had procured recently, and to celebrate Sam’s latest nomination for the World Media Awards’ Best Investigative Journalism award. After Jan Harris’ body had been retrieved from the Templar tunnels, her footage had been delivered over to Sam Cleave, whom she had named as collaborator on the exposé she was covering.
Between his careful editing and both their respective footage reels, he was able to compile an exclusive on the involvement of the Bilderberg Conference in a worldwide monopoly that manipulates the markets and political leaders to submit to a sinister, clandestine organization. A covert mass blackmailing of government systems to adhere to one master – finance.
“Looks like Mammon is alive and well,” Nina sighed.
“Look around you, love,” he told Nina. “We are right in the middle of it all.”
“Aye. Aren’t we lucky we have a High Priest as a friend?” she laughed, amusing Sam.
“Aye. And speaking of priests,” he said, lowering his voice. “They still have not been able to recover Father Harper’s body from the tunnels under Al-Aqsa.”
“You’re shitting me!” she gasped. “Sam, what if he is like…like Jesus or something?”
Sam chuckled. “Who knows?” He shrugged. “He wasn’t always a priest, you know.”
“Ha!” she giggled.
Purdue burst through the doors. “It is ready, friends!” he grinned shrewdly.
“Oh God, what is it this time?” she mumbled.
He led the two of them through the manor, out the backdoor, and into a newly constructed summerhouse of sorts, holding various relics of grandeur and age incalculable. The building boasted scorched stone to turn the rock masonry as dark as possible, and it was crowned with a dome-shaped roof of black slate. The rosewood doors sported old, crude, iron carvings of demon heads that unsettled Nina somewhat – her horrible experience had not yet faded to memory.
“Um, Purdue, if you don’t mind,” she said, “I don’t really want to see anything evil right now.”
“I do understand,” he replied quickly, “but please humor me. Trust me.” He posed at the front plaque. “This will be my collection of Occult relics from all countries and eras,” Purdue bragged, “but it is what is inside I wish to show off. Got it from some friends. They asked that I promise to show it to Dr. Gould. Apparently it was a promise to her that she would see it.”
Sam gently steered her forward to enter the spacious interior. Nina’s eyes immediately caught the biggest relic of all, positioned at the far end of the place, aptly named ‘The Throne Room.’ Her mouth fell open as she slowly approached the huge statue, glancing back at Sam and Purdue who stayed behind to relish her amazement.
Before her, cast in bronze, sat a topless woman. She was positioned precisely on a throne of crude metals, bolted in to hold her body fixed. “The same throne,” Nina marveled as she inspected every detail. “I wanted to see Toshana sitting on the throne.”
“Quite macabre,” Sam told Purdue. “Having your murdered girlfriend cast in bronze.”
“Not me. I know nothing, old boy. To me it is just a statue of an idol,” Purdue answered, shrugging. “I received the piece as a gift. Besides, they wanted the Crown of the Knights Templar to be kept from the world. What better way than to fashion it on a body and trap it inside a cocoon of bronze?”
“It’s in there?” Nina asked. “The actual Head?”
Purdue smiled and nodded, holding up his tablet’s infrared to prove it. Sam and Nina gasped as the x-rays revealed the mechanical cranium and its deformities under the metal.
“The Militum send their regards,” Purdue told Nina.
“They have assimilated into the Brigade Apostate, I hear,” Sam said. “They will fit in well.”
“God, I never want to see another goat’s head in my life,” Nina said. They laughed together, still limping and stitched, leaving the newly acquired idol in peace and quiet behind locked doors.
Nina sighed and asked, “Will I never be rid of the nightmares that goddamn thing gives me?”
Purdue slipped his tablet into his pocket without noticing the static interference that came from the crown of the statue. On the screen of the device,
coming from the active head, appeared one word.
No.
END
The Inca Prophecy
1
Obligation
Solar Eclipse Imminent: 22%
Madalina reached for the vodka. It was unlike her to drink this much, but after what she had just seen, what she had just experienced, nobody would blame her. The rancid liquid blazed its way down her throat, rendering her momentarily stunned. As she choked for breath, she thanked God that soon the poison alcohol would make everything better. Tears impaired her vision as the vodka claimed her control, but she couldn’t tell whether her eyes were watering up from emotion or if they had fallen victim to the onslaught of the neat serving of fire water.
Rapidly she wiped at her face with a shaking hand, finding her wrist wet from the misdirected motor skills she would soon surrender entirely to a drunken state of consolation. Madalina was used to mild trauma, having been through the unrelenting hell of a violent mother all her life, but this was a fresh lashing of upset she was not used to. Sure, she had seen her fair share of domestic violence, but never before had she witnessed such a cruel reprimand visited on a child.
“I have to save him,” she told her brother, Javier.
“Shut it. Grow up and deal with it,” Javier snapped indifferently from across the kitchen as he grazed his sister’s shoulder to get to the sink. As he rinsed off the pasta, he glanced quickly in her direction, reading her expression in the reflection of the window she was staring out from. Her eyes were wild. “The boy will be fine, Madi,” he sighed as the food scalded his fingers under the worthless soothing of a cold tap. But he could see that she would have none of it. A quiver played on her chin as she stared out into the half dark of the street below. “They should not be getting away with it,” she muttered, unmoving.
“It’s none of your business,” he said, walking back to the stove. His sister said nothing, but she was seething. Another chug tormented her gullet while stroking her demeanor. Javier listened to the clink and bubble of the toppled bottle as she threw back another mouthful, her lips popping away from the vacuum of the neck.
“It’s not right,” she insisted. “We were treated like shit a lot, you know, but what that woman was doing to that little boy’s heart was just wrong. Did you see his face?” She scowled at her brother, who ignored her rant and buried her argument under the deliberate clamor of his spoon against the pot. “Javier!” she barked. “Those beautiful dark eyes of his were reddened with tears while that bitch scolded him like a leprous animal. Such a timid little boy, and yet she screeched at him as if he was a clump of dog shit she couldn’t scrape off her shoe! He just stood there shaking, crying softly. Jesus, I’ve never seen anything sadder in my life. He looked . . . ,” she hesitated, swinging the bottle, “heartbroken.”
“So what?” Javier moaned. “Are you going to take him from his mother? Deal with it, Madi. This is life.”
“It’s because nobody gives a shit anymore,” she shrieked, again staring out the window. “Well, I give a shit.”
“That is clear as day, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to interfere,” Javier reminded her. “Come, it’s time for dinner.”
She had no appetite. Even with the vodka urging, she felt no need to eat. The vision of the skinny seven-year-old boy stayed with he, haunting her. She couldn’t shake the hopelessness in his face, the abject misery and sorrow of his fate evident in his big brown eyes.
Outside the window, the dusk fell shortly after the clock struck nine. The corner where Madalina had watched the child and his mother enter into the local motel beckoned, but she knew her brother would stop her if he knew what she was planning. This knowledge led the far-past-tipsy Madalina to play into her brother’s hand for the next hour, biding her time until he would retire to bed.
“You never drink vodka,” he remarked as she sat down at the small table, only half decked, as it had been since their parents departed this life together a year before.
“You never bitch this much about my drinking habits,” she replied snidely. “I just need to relive some stress.”
“You’ve never had to use that before,” he scoffed, nodding toward the barren bottle she had set down on the sink. “For fuck’s sake, Madi, you’re a teacher, not a social worker.”
“My vocation does not limit my compassion,” she muttered under her breath as she sank her fork into the mash potatoes her brother had drowned in gravy.
“I didn’t say anything should limit your compassion,” he retorted, “but you are becoming emotionally invested in people you don’t even know, people whose lives are none of your business. Stay out of it. You have your own troubles.”
She pinned him with a reprimanding glare for stepping onto that personal turf.
“My divorce?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, trying to sound cogent in the swaying vision of her surroundings. It was a sensitive subject. Her divorce was nearing finalization, yet it was still a sore spot for her and she had implored her brother not to mention it if he could refrain.
“Yes, your divorce. I know you want me to ignore the fact that you are hurt, but you’re my sister. I can’t just switch off my anger for Paulo because you need to be oblivious to the pig he is until you’re finally rid of him. And,” he unwittingly pointed his steak knife at her, “I will not pretend it’s all okay while I have to bear listening to your sobs every night.”
“That’s very sweet of you, big brother,” she snapped defensively, “but this little boy’s welfare has nothing to do with my divorce.”
“Oh, but it does,” he came back with a quick counter, the gravy lining his chin as he hastened to speak. “It does, you see. Since you and Paulo officially began to sever your bloody sinews from one another, you’ve been exceedingly emotional . . . protective, even.”
With a befuddled frown and a fork on high, her face questioned his logic. But before she could say anything, he continued with, “You are projecting your own need to feel safe onto this boy. Paulo, let’s not deny it, is not above physically hurting you and you know well that any time he could arrive here and start some bad shit again at any time. You need to feel protected, to feel safe,” he said, looking decidedly worried, “and for some reason you don’t see me as guardian enough.”
“I never said that! I never said that, Javier,” she protested, feeling sorry for inadvertently causing her brother’s assumption. “I trust you with my life. You are presuming these things because of your psych classes.”
“What?” he scowled, taken aback.
“Sí, those classes you’ve been taking for extra credit, the psychology studies at the night college,” she said shrugging, trying to alleviate the tension with casual observation. “They’re clouding your perception with all that terminology and analysis.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped.
Madalina calmed down somewhat as the food settled the onslaught of the vodka in her system, and she decided to acknowledge Javier’s attempts, if only to pacify him. Her hand reached for his. “You know I appreciate everything you do, right? I really do, Javier. Just, I just,” she hesitated, trying not to spoil a good moment, “try not to act like you are Papa, okay?”
He looked surprised at the comparison, but took a moment to realize that he was being a bit bossy of late, though only out of concern for her well-being. Admitting it, he slowly nodded, facing his food without meeting her eyes. “I’m just worried.”
“I know, I know,” she smiled. She finished her meal before him, which was quite unusual, but she lingered to make him feel that the effort of his cooking was appreciated. “Should I make the coffee?”
“Gracias,” he smiled, content.
Madalina was happy that she could appease her brother while consolidating her trust in him. Now she would not feel guilty about feeling for the little boy with the dark eyes. Now she could peacefully weave her plan to spring him from the terrible mother he was cursed with. Still, the alcohol drove her to absurd expectations of what
she was and was not allowed to do to save the boy. Kidnapping is illegal. You know that, right? her inner voice warned. But her answer was already fixed. But I’m not planning to abduct him, am I? I just think his mother needs . . . a talking to, a polite warning.
After dinner the brother and sister did the dishes together in their small kitchen in the center of Sagunto while the hot Spanish night breathed into the open windows of their apartment. Below, the streets were alive with partygoers and secret lovers, but the din they caused by no means bothered Javier. He was exhausted. After some casual conversation over the last coffee, he gave his sister a kiss on the forehead and ruffled up her hair, just as he had done when they were teenagers. “Don’t stay up too late. You have an early day tomorrow,” he muttered as he walked away down the dark hallway.
“Sí, Papa,” she teased, swallowing the last of her cold coffee.
Fifteen minutes later, she was stealing along the stairs of the three flights down that led to the street below. Outside the scent of the sea melted into the smell of the take-away around the corner, but Madalina’s usual fetish for their spicy chips had no effect on her tonight. All she could think of was to make her way into that motel, to find that bitch, and to scare her into being a more compassionate mother than she would ever be without the rap on the knuckles she was due.
Under Madalina’s coat she harbored her late father’s pistol as a frightening aid. It was an antique heirloom she’d inherited from her father, a rusty old thing that looked scary to the untrained eye, though it was completely useless, as her father had assured her. And why wouldn’t it be? The thing’s barrel was rusted and the hammer was missing, but Madalina knew how to hold it in such a manner that her target would be none the wiser.
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