The Nostradamus Scrolls

by Preston William Child

  She glanced back and nearly fell. Through the darkness, she saw the pale stone face of Commodus. He was closing in. It felt like she was being chased by a tank that would crush her under its tracks. She couldn't risk looking away from what was ahead. One misstep and that tank would crash right through her, but they were right. She couldn't run forever. Eventually, she would tire and they would catch up to her. There was probably no escape route down in the catacombs. Eventually, she would have to try to fight back. She wasn't usually a violent person, but she wished that she had some sort of weapon to defend herself with, something that would even the odds.

  Nina noticed the lines of skulls in the walls of the catacombs and stopped her running. She grabbed at one of the skulls and pulled as hard as she could. She hated touching the dusty, grimy head and especially hated that it used to be a living person, but she ripped it out of the wall and used it as a projectile against her pursuers. She threw the skull as hard as she could and watched as it connected with Mr. Commodus's masked face. The giant man staggered backward, caught off guard by the sudden attack.

  “What was that!?” Mr. Nero asked behind Mr. Commodus. “What did you stop for?”

  “She's got something,” Mr. Commodus growled.

  Nina tore another skull out of the wall and threw it down the tunnel in their direction. Unfortunately, this one didn't quite reach her targets. The head cracked against the floor in front of them. The masked figures looked in her direction with some confusion. She wished she had a better throwing arm—or at least a more reliable one.

  Mr. Commodus looked down and picked up the skulls she had thrown at them, showing them to his two accomplices. She heard Miss Caligula's cold laugh; she was amused by the tactic that Nina had chosen for her defense.

  “A bit morbid, isn't it, Dr. Gould?” Miss Caligula called down the tunnel. “Hurling people's heads around...I'm surprised you would do such a thing, with all of your respect for history. These people had faces once. They had mouths and eyes and lives. How would you feel if people starting tossing your head around after you were gone...though I suppose they don't have much use for their heads where they are now. It's the most movement the dead have gotten in hundreds of years. Still, you can have them back.”

  Mr. Commodus threw one of the skulls in Nina's direction and it tore through the air. He had a much better throw than she did. His arm was like a rocket launcher. Nina just managed to duck out of the way as the skull passed by, smashing against the tunnel wall. It shattered into pieces and Nina just barely managed to avoid the next. She thought she had been putting up a strong defense, but she was giving them more ammunition to attack her with. They were taking her idea and turning it on her tenfold. Mr. Commodus was ripping bones off of the walls and lobbing them at her some more. Nina's only option was to start running again and doing her best to not get struck by the bony projectiles. She wouldn't be able to fend them off in a direct throwing match. That much was obvious.

  Her next best option was to use the darkness of the tunnels to her advantage. That would be the only way she would have any chance. She took a hard turn around a corner, picking up a skull off the floor and pressed as hard as she could against one of the walls, trying to make herself as flat as possible. Mr. Commodus came stampeding past her, just barely missing her with his broad shoulders. Miss Caligula followed close behind him, and then Mr. Nero brought up the rear of the pack. Thankfully none of them had noticed her, which made an ambush so much easier.

  Nina swung her arm out, knocking the skull in her hand against the back of Mr. Nero's skull. She knew how much it sometimes hurt to bump heads with someone. This would be so much worse. Mr. Nero fell forward and landed in a heap on the ground. The sound of the skulls colliding rang out, and Mr. Commodus and Miss Caligula turned back in surprise.

  “You are trying to put up a fight,” Miss Caligula laughed. “How adorable.”

  They didn't seem to care that their friend might be hurt, but then again, they didn't seem like the most sympathetic types. They walked toward Nina, ignoring Mr. Nero on the floor. She was glad that she wasn't working with such an uncaring bunch of people. Her, Sam, and Purdue were a triumvirate of their own, and they cared much more about each other than that. They would never just ditch each other if someone was injured. At the very least, they would give some sort of reaction if one of them got hurt.

  “This is getting tiresome,” Miss Caligula said as she and the juggernaut beside her approached. “You got a lucky shot in, but all of this ends now.”

  “You're still mad about the sword of Caesar?” Nina asked. “Really?”

  “Oh yes,” Miss Caligula said. “Isn't that right, Commodus?”

  The huge man chuckled behind his stony mask. “Very angry.”

  “As we have made clear, we are not very enthusiastic about our current situation. We're not thrilled to have to work for the Old Lady...but the only reason we even have to do that is that you got in the way of our actual goals. We are forced into this servitude because of the actions you took against us. You, Dr. Gould, came to Rome and ruined everything for us. Everything. With the sword of Caesar, we could have inspired enough people, created enough of a spark, to bring back the power that Rome once had. It would have been so simple, it almost was, but you had to destroy it all. You are the destroyer of our dream, and that's why we're...how did you just put it...still mad. Mr. Commodus. Kill her. Kill her now.”

  “Gladly,” Mr. Commodus bellowed.

  He charged at Nina like a bull. She didn't have enough time to run away. He had too much of a head start and his momentum already had the giant on her before she even had a chance to think about fleeing. All she could do was dive out of the way. That powerful inertia that Mr. Commodus had built up with his charge couldn't be stopped quick enough for him to slow himself down as she just narrowly avoided him. The man crashed headfirst right into one of the walls of bones with enough force that it broke his mask and knocked him out. He fell like a toppling tree and shook the tunnel when he collapsed.

  Suddenly, the odds were even. It was just Nina against Miss Caligula, as it had always been. Mr. Nero liked to act like he was in charge, but Miss Caligula was the real brains behind the Third Triumvirate's entire operation. It was only fitting that it come down to the two of them to end this feud that had built up between them.

  “Idiots...” Miss Caligula muttered. “It was hard finding people that understood my dreams for bringing back Ancient Rome, so I had to take what I could get...unfortunately, it was them.”

  Nina vividly remembered barely surviving her fight with Miss Caligula back in the Colosseum in Rome. Maybe she got lucky that time and that same bit of luck wouldn't hold out this time.

  Miss Caligula came a step closer and there was a giggle behind her gray mask. “If I’m being honest, I don't even know what exactly the Old Lady is looking for. She told us but I didn't bother listening. I don't care what some walking bag of bones is trying to find. Some treasure to help her plans...some old piece of trash...it doesn't matter. Yes, we joined her because it was either that or death...but there was something else I wanted too, and I knew that working with her would get me what I wanted. I knew that we would inevitably bump into you. I heard her and her people talking about you. They wanted you to join them, didn't they? Imagine if you had...then you and I would be on the same team. That would have been something...but I would have killed you then too. I tend to hold grudges. I should be thankful to the Old Lady for reuniting me with the woman who stole my dream. You. I don't think I can ever get my dream back, but killing you will be comparable.”

  Miss Caligula took another threatening stride toward Nina. People like Miss Caligula would never understand that murdering someone wasn't going to make her feel any better. They could justify it any way they wanted to, but it wouldn't make it right. They were thieves and killers trying to make something impossible happen and were willing to hurt anyone to do it, yet somehow people like Nina, Purdue, Sam, and all of their other friends
were the bad guys in their eyes. It was just deranged delusions. The Old Lady was using legitimately crazy people to do her bidding.

  Nina did wonder what would have changed in recent days if she had accepted the Old Lady's gracious invitation to join her cult. This fight might not even be happening—though Miss Caligula did say that she still would have come after her either way. Maybe there would be no avoiding the scorn of that particular woman, but everything else might have changed. Would Nina still be down in these catacombs looking for the Nostradamus scrolls, but would she be trying to stop Purdue from getting the scrolls too? She couldn't even imagine fighting against her colleagues, especially if it was while she worked alongside lunatics like the Third Triumvirate.

  “So what do you say, Nina Gould?” Miss Caligula cooed excitedly. “What do you say to you and I finishing what we started in the Colosseum? What do you say to round two?”

  There wasn't much of a choice. The fight was going to happen whether Nina wanted it to or not. She would be defending her life from a crazy woman that wanted to see her dead. Nina didn't know if she could win this time but she wasn't going to make it easy for Miss Caligula. At the very least, she wanted to knock that stupid mask right off of her face.

  Miss Caligula pounced and tackled Nina to the ground. Nina tried her best to avoid hitting her head hard on the rocky floor. She needed to at least stay conscious if she wanted to have any sort of chance of winning this fight. Unfortunately, Miss Caligula didn't want the fight to be a long one. She wrapped all ten of her fingers around Nina's neck. In a matter of seconds, Nina found herself having the life choked out of her by Miss Caligula. She tried as hard as she could to break free from the hold the masked woman had on her but it didn't seem to be possible. Miss Caligula was so strong, much stronger than Nina was, and had no qualms about murdering her. If it went for much longer, she would never breathe again. Nina stopped trying to pry Miss Caligula's hands off of her and instead focused on hitting her face. She threw her closed fists out in front of her, smashing into Miss Caligula's mask. The blow knocked the mask crooked on her face so that she couldn't even see through the mask's eye holes anymore. Miss Caligula loosened her grip and took one hand to try and set her mask straight. That was Nina's chance. She broke free from Miss Caligula's now fleeting grip. While Miss Caligula was still blinded and trying to readjust herself, Nina threw as hard of a punch as she could at Miss Caligula's head. She put her mask back in place just in time to see the punch reach her face. It was the hardest punch Nina had ever thrown in her life, and it struck Miss Caligula so hard that it immediately knocked her unconscious before she even hit the ground. When her body hit the tunnel floor, Miss Caligula lay in a heap. Best of all, her mask was crooked again.

  Nina stared down at Miss Caligula and then looked over at Mr. Commodus. Somewhere in the darkness, a little way down the tunnel, Mr. Nero was beaten too. She couldn't' believe that she had survived the fight with the Third Triumvirate when it was three against one. She was filled with a great sense of pride for a moment. She had won that fight.

  However, she didn't get much time to enjoy her win. There was a shuffle behind her, and she turned to find Inspector Donatello Amaro standing nearby, following her as usual. Inspector Amaro must have taken his sweet time following the fight. He wasn't in any hurry to help the Third Triumvirate beat Nina; maybe he just wanted the leftovers and wanted to be the one to push the final nail in her coffin. Hanging back as a puppeteer seemed to be his style. Being far away must have helped him with his deductive analyses. His gaze examined the three unconscious figures on the tunnel floor. A thin smile shifted under his bearded face, though the rest of his face looked somewhat sad.

  “You keep surprising me, Nina, which makes your decision to refuse us more and more unfortunate. You weren't even aware that you could do this, were you? Yet here you are, finding the strength when you need it most. It is very impressive. The Third Triumvirate must have been so very surprised by your tenacity.”

  Amaro approached, and Nina felt confident that she could beat him. If she could bring down giants like Mr. Commodus and women that were so crazy about killing her like Miss Caligula, then some lanky detective wouldn't be too hard to beat the hell out of.

  Inspector Amaro clapped his hands together. “This didn't have to be so difficult, Nina. It didn't. You could have joined us and made an actual difference in the world. Instead, you had to stick with that mess maker, David Purdue. Believe me, that is all that man is capable of...making messes. Everywhere he goes. All of this could have been so, so simple.”

  “Nothing about this is simple,” Nina said. “I'm sure you were a good detective once...you probably actually helped people. But then you threw that all away to take orders from that old witch. You are not solving cases anymore. You are just solving problems that the Old Lady can't figure out for herself. She's using you and you are just letting it happen. All you're doing is running errands for her now.”

  “I'm making more of a difference now than I have ever made as part of a system that gets more corrupt by the day. The fact you can't see that is most unfortunate, Dr. Gould. You could have been on the winning side, with the right kind of people.”

  “She already is.”

  Amaro turned to find Sam's closed fist waiting for him. Sam's knuckles crashed against Amaro's nose, knocking him, stumbling back a few steps. Sam was already on him again.

  “She declined your offer, remember? No means no, Don.”

  It was the only time that Nina heard someone refer to Inspector Amaro as Don. He always requested it, but no one ever went along with it. Now someone finally had, but she doubted Amaro had much of a chance to enjoy it; he might not have even heard over his head being rung like a bell.

  Amaro tipped over and collapsed to the floor of the tunnel, unconscious. He wasn't going to be making any more awkward observations or nefarious deductions any time soon.

  Nina turned to Sam, practically ready to pass out. “What took you so long!?”

  16

  FATE

  “Touch the scrolls and you die,” Julian said to the Old Lady.

  “Mr. Corvus. Ever the rabid dog making a mess of things wherever he goes.”

  “That's me. You look older than I thought you would, if that's even possible.”

  “And you will never look this old, will you, Julian? You'll never know what it's like to have such loose skin or to have such brittle bones. Thanks to your run-in with the Spear of Destiny, your body is frozen. I imagine that you will get very bored after a few hundred years. Eternal youth seems nice in concept but I'm sure at some point, your undying body will come to realize that it's not blessed, it's just stuck. Just like you.”

  “Really? How am I stuck?”

  “Look at you. There was a time not long ago when you had so many great ambitions. When you weren't afraid to reach out and take what you thought should be yours. You didn't care what was in your way, or who was in your way. You just removed them from your path. Now look at you, lost and stuck in time, unsure of what to do with yourself. Aligning with David Purdue, the man that you tried so hard to kill...it's quite a shame.”

  “If you think I'm friends with Mr. Purdue, then you're not nearly the wise old sage that I took you for. I have my plans for him, which is why I can't let you enact yours. To put it in simpler terms that someone as old as you might not understand, I've got dibs on him.”

  “I envy you...at least part of you. The immortal part. Your run-in with the Spear of Destiny gave you a life that never ends. That is a real gift, one that I'm sure you are wasting with all of your lunacy. You already squandered your coup in the Order of the Black Sun. You were the leader for what...a few weeks? A couple of months? You could not be killed by the weapons of mortal men, yet you still somehow lost. That's a talent unto itself.”

  “Did I lose?” Julian asked, raising his arms to his surroundings. “I think I’m right where I should be actually. A few unforeseen incidents are bound to happen to any great en
deavor. It's all about how you get back to the right path. And with those scrolls, unforeseen incidents won't be a problem anymore. No one will ever get the drop on me again. Not you. Not David Purdue. No one. So, I really don't think I have lost.”

  “You can revise history as much as you want if it makes you feel better about yourself. The people of the world have been doing that for millennia. It doesn't change the fact that you've done nothing with your everlasting life but lose. I would do so much more with that. I would have taken that immortality and embraced it, relished it.”

  “I'll just go ask Dr. Gould to stab you with the Spear of Destiny then. But I can't promise that she won't pick the wrong one.”

  “I'm old. I'm sure I don't have very much time left. I'm so close to being able to change this world for the better. Especially with these.” She shook the scrolls in her hands.

  Julian laughed. “You act so altruistic, but that's not it at all, is it? Everything that you've done to make your little secret shadow group...you are not all that much better than the Order of the Black Sun, and you are certainly not all that much better than me. The biggest difference between us is youth. Yours is long past. Mine's...well...going to last forever now. You don't need to worry about controlling how the future goes. You won't be around to see it in person anyway.”

  Julian took a threatening step forward, looking to throttle the woman, but Purdue caught his arm.

  “Wait.”

  The Old Lady looked genuinely surprised by Purdue's reluctance. She probably expected that he wanted her dead most of all; she wouldn't be wrong to think that, but Purdue wanted to make sure he got some answers from her before she was gone forever.