“He can't,” Purdue said firmly. “That's part of why I'm here. Jean was with me when my whole life came crashing down around me. He got caught in the crossfire and was taken prisoner.”
Mama May looked disappointed to hear that. Jean was very popular in the community and a friend to Mama May.
“I have to say...it had been some time since I heard anything from him...”
An idea came to Purdue and he figured he should at least ask. “There's not any way for you to detect if he's still alive at least, is there? Use some sort of magic to find him...?”
“I'm a seer, young man, not a wizard. And my sight only extends so far. You came to me because you wanted to know what you might be facing in the near future, yes? I can tell you that much, but I can't promise it will be anything good and I can't--”
“Guarantee it will even happen the way you see it,” Purdue finished for her. “Aye, I know. But I'd rather have an idea of one possible outcome than no idea about any of them.”
Mama May nodded and pulled out a slim knife from under her table. It had seemed so threatening the first time he came to visit, and even now it was unnerving to see that frail little woman drawing a knife on him. But at least this time, he knew what the knife's real purpose was.
“You have done this before. You know how it works.”
That was true. Purdue held his hand out, opening his palm, ready for the first part of her ritual. When the knife came, slicing open his skin and spilling blood from his hand, he wasn't startled like the first time. This was how her visions worked. She pushed Purdue's hand into a fist, letting blood droplets seep out onto the table. It was just like before; Mama May kept holding his hand while she stared at the blood that started to pool in front of her.
That was where her visions came from—the blood. She could almost read it, and it showed her so many things that could happen to its owner. He didn't know if the amount of the blood made a difference, or if maybe the blood type showed different things. But his blood apparently didn't contain any good possibilities.
She was trembling, and it was growing worse the more she looked at his blood on the table.
“The place you are going is cold.”
She wasn't wrong about that. The Arctic wasn't exactly a sauna this time of year, or any time of year. If that was all she had to offer this time, then he was wasting his time. He could have predicted that the Arctic would be cold too. He already had.
“Yes, very cold. Cold as death itself. You and so many others will be colder than you have ever been. Cold forever. Frozen forever. Stuck. Yes, stuck.”
She squeezed his hand tighter, pressing right down on the open wound in his palm. He winced from the pain but she didn't seem to care. She just kept tightening her grip, but she wasn't focused on him. She was still fixated on the blood that was dropping down to the table.
“The place you are going will be infested with evil. It is the same evil that you have come across before. The dead man still walks. He will keep walking for eternity if left to his own devices. And he will walk in a world that is his own, and he will walk by many bowing before him.”
None of that sounded good at all. So, Julian would be walking a world that he ruled; he could conquer the world at some point. Purdue couldn't imagine that it would be a good world.
Purdue pushed through the searing pain in his hand. He needed to try to learn more about his allies that were taken. They were what would make this battle worth it. She might not have been able to tell him if they were alive, but maybe she could see if they were even part of his future at all. “What about Nina? Jean? Charles? What about them? Do you see them!?”
Mama May was quivering, still squeezing his hand hard.
“There is a key. A key. Yes, a key and it is unlocking a cage. Inside the cage there is...a cage...a glass cage. A cage full of darkness. You can see it through the glass and it can see you. It can see you! It is entrapped! Trying to shatter its container! Do not let it! Do not let it!”
“I won't!” Purdue said through his clenched teeth as she kept squeezing his hand. He felt like he was going to run out of blood at some point and pass out if she kept this up. It was like she was draining all of the blood from his body. The future was sapping his life force away and it was going to take all of his blood in exchange for her visions.
“There is more. More. More. More. There is a man...a man standing on...standing on the sun. A darkened sun that does not shine very bright. This man is standing on this sun looking down on it. He wants to change its shine. He wants to change its intensity. He wants to change the sun. But no one can change the sun. They can't touch it. They can barely look at it. It can't be changed! It can't be changed!”
It just sounded like gibberish now. He knew there must have been more to it but all of it was so vague. A man standing on the sun wasn't exactly scientifically possible so he wasn't sure how much stock he should put in that vision. It probably wasn't going to happen, at least any time in the next few hundred years. Whatever man was standing on the sun was no doubt melting and burning to a crisp. Then again, she had mentioned it was a darkened sun—a black sun. Someone was standing on top of the black sun...it had to be Julian. He probably would have liked that image. It almost seemed godlike, and he knew Julian Corvus well enough to know that he would have loved having that distinction.
“Please, what about my friends?”
“Your friends...” Mama May somehow looked even more distant than she had before. She leaned in close to the blood, practically touching it with her nose, like she was trying to find the answers deep in its red hue. Like Nina, Jean, and Charles were somewhere in that blood, drowning inside.
“There will be many faces in the cold. So many faces. They all have their own reasons for being there, and those reasons will put blades into their hands. There will be many blades, as many as there are faces. And those many blades are piercing many backs. Yes. Many blades piercing many backs.” Her voice was growing louder, and her posture more frantic. She was seeing something bad, something very, very bad.
“Many blades piercing many backs! Many blades piercing many backs! Many blades piercing many backs! They are being sharpened! Sharpened! Sharp enough to cut through souls! Sharp enough to change the world! Many blades piercing many backs!”
Purdue tried to pull away but she wouldn't let him. Her grip was so strong for such a frail little woman, but maybe the power coursing through her wasn't just showing her the future. Maybe it was filling her petite body with a drive to make sure that her message was hard. She couldn't allow him to pull away. He needed to hear the rest of what she had to say.
“There will be a sacrifice!”
Purdue stopped trying to resist her warnings now. He hadn't mentioned anything to her about the Mayan temple or its power, yet she seemed to know about the legends of the sacrificial altar. He needed to know about it.
“A sacrifice!”
“Yes,” Purdue admitted but he doubted she could even hear him past her own yelling. “Yes I know about the sacrifice already. But what will the sacrifice be!? What is going to be used to make the wish? What are we going to have to lose?”
“Something you would not expect. A true sacrifice. Sacrifices are not easy! Sacrifices are not easy! Sacrifices are not easy!”
She kept yelling the same phrase over and over again incessantly, giving him no choice but to pull his entire body away from her. He pried his hand out of her vice grip and got to his feet, practically running backward to the other side of the room. Mama May's upper body plopped down onto her table and lay there, limp. Purdue rubbed his hand, which still stung from the wound needed to initiate the vision. Part of him worried that Mama May was seriously hurt, or maybe even worse. She was just lying there, motionless. He remembered that she had been exhausted after seeing his future the first time but now it looked even worse.
Purdue walked over and slowly put a hand on her shoulder, hoping to nudge her back to her senses. The moment his hand touched
her shoulder, the frail woman sprang up and grabbed hold of his wrist. Purdue let out a yell but he was completely overpowered by the seer. She forced his hand back onto the table, rubbing his palm against it and smearing what was left of his blood in front of her. She barely seemed to even notice him. All he was to her in this state was an ink jar, providing the necessary material she needed to get her task done and write down the message that she felt obligated to provide. Her eyes were wide as she investigated the red stain in front of her.
“The world is not ready for what's to come. It's not ready. It never was. You will try to make it ready...you will try...but it will not matter. The cold will claim the ones who dare to feel it. The blades will find the backs that they mean to betray. And a sacrifice will be made in that temple. That sacrifice will change everything. Your future depends on that sacrifice. Your enemies depend on that sacrifice. And once it is made...it cannot be undone. It is a toll that must be paid for what you want most. And sacrifices are not easy...sacrifices are no easy...sacrifices are not easy...”
She wasn't shrieking this time. She seemed far too tired for that kind of reaction. Instead, she slowly continued to speak to herself, like the residual effects of what she saw were still leaving her body. Purdue made sure she didn't fall over or flop down on the table again but he was glad when he finally got his arm away. He wasn't going to get too close again, only for her to grab him once more. He didn't need to be startled that way again.
Purdue stuck around for a while longer, keeping an eye on Mama May to make sure she was okay. She looked exhausted and overwhelmed by all of the visions that she had found in the blood. Purdue wrapped up his hand and then cleaned off some of the blood on the table in front of Mama May. He didn't need her catching any more glimpses in those bloodstains and losing her mind again. As he wiped off some of his own blood, Mama May seemed to be regaining some of her senses.
“You will need to be careful out there, Mr. Purdue.” He half-expected her to be looking at the few speckles of blood still left on the table but was surprised when she was looking at him with eyes that weren't wide or distant. She was looking at him wearily, and he could tell she was completely in the present. She was completely aware of her surroundings. “That is not a warning of vision. This is...just...I felt I needed to say about what might come. If what I saw is the path that you end up walking, then you have much to be cautious about.”
“I will take everything you said into consideration.”
Of course he would. How could he not? All of the things she told him were food for thought, and most of them didn't sound like anything pleasant. Most of them were cryptic and dread-inducing but he still tried to go over them in his head as he waited to make sure Mama May was going to be okay. He sat there, staring at the bandage wrapped around his hand and did his best to recollect every detail that she told him.
It was going to be cold—naturally. His objective was in the Arctic. That was to be expected and not at all a surprise. He didn't need a psychic to tell him that but at least it was something. He hadn't told Mama May where his destination was going to be so her knowing it would be cold just yet again proved the legitimacy of her abilities.
She spoke about the cold place being infested with evil that he had faced before. That sounded a whole lot like the Order of the Black Sun, especially when she went on to say that the dead man was still walking. Julian Corvus was a dead man at one point, however briefly, and he was absolutely still walking. When she'd elaborated, she made it sound like the whole world was going to be bowing to this dead man and that made Purdue more than slightly nervous. Did that mean Julian was going to win? Would he take over the world the second he got his wish? Would no one have any choice anymore but to bow to him?
Next...next...he struggled to remember. It was all so much to process. If it was too much for him to just hear about and try to remember, he couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Mama May, who had all of these possible futures practically downloaded directly into the lobes of her brain. It must have been so overwhelming...it clearly was, considering how it sapped the energy right out of her every time she saw any of his future.
There was something about a key and a cage. A key that unlocked the doors to a cage, but there was also a glass cage with darkness inside. And this was some sort of darkness that could see him and wanted to escape and shatter its prison. Hopefully he wouldn't have to be careful about unleashing some unspeakable darkness, but glass wasn't difficult to break most of the time. Maybe he would accidentally let something loose that he shouldn't...some sort of horrible Pandora's Box situation where he let something out that he wouldn't be able to put back in.
Then there was the other man. It didn't sound like the same man as the dead man but someone else entirely; someone standing on top of a darkened sun. That was one of the strangest of her prophecies of the night. He could understand the idea of freezing environments or even a dead man still walking but a man standing on top of a sun wasn't a usual sight at all. But the sun she described sounded an awful lot like the Black Sun, and if that was the case, then he shouldn't be so literal with the message. That man could be standing on top of the Black Sun...as in being above that infuriating secret society.
And then she had moved on to warning him about those blades stabbing people in the back. Being stabbed in the back obviously meant betrayal, but the way she talked about, it sounded like it was going to happen to a lot of people. Whatever was coming next, it was going to inspire a whole lot of backstabbing. Purdue just had to hope that his back wouldn't be one of the ones that ended up with a blade in it. It might be more difficult than that though, if she was right about just how many people were going to end up pulling knives out of themselves.
And finally, there was all of her warnings about the sacrifice. That sacrifice that was needed to make a wish inside of the Mayan temple was something that he was already somewhat anxious about, but he had tried to put it out of his mind. After all, a sacrifice could mean a lot of different things...but the way she had said it made it very clear that it was going to be anything good. Based on her words, the sacrifice that needed to be made wasn't going to be an easy one, and it wasn't going to be one that he expected. For all he knew, he might end up being the one who was sacrificed. That was probably the one sacrifice Julian Corvus would perform if given the chance and the choice.
The cold. The dead man being bowed to. The glass cage with darkness inside. The man standing on the black sun. Blades piercing backs. And of course, the notion that sacrifices were not easy. All of those visions filled Purdue with an extreme sense of dread. Suddenly, things seemed bleaker than they had before, but he hadn’t come to Mama May's for good news. He came to hear anything that might be able to benefit him in the future. It was helpful to have even a vague idea of what you might be up against; good or bad news didn't matter, as long as it could be beneficial to know.
Mama May started to perk up and she shook her head at Purdue. “What are you still doing here, boy?”
“I'm just making sure you didn't croak,” Purdue said with a wink. “I would feel guilty if you died from seeing my future. That would be on me, for having such a terrible fate waiting for me. I just would rather if you're going to die, let it be from natural causes or someone else's vision. Not mine.”
“How gallant of you,” Mama May said with a shake of her head. “I would like to be honest with you, Purdue. What I just saw...I don't know if it will happen but if it does, I don't expect you to get out of it all in one piece. Honestly, I would already be preparing your funeral arrangements if you hadn't surprised me before. The last time you came, your future looked very bad too...and yet you survived. Maybe...just maybe you can do it again.”
“I don't intend to die, if that wasn't obvious,” Purdue said. “At least not now. Who knows years down the road when I'm as old as you and unable to get out of bed...I might not have a choice then. But, I enjoy life far too much to just lay back and let this horrifying doom come to kill
me. That's never been my way. I'm far too stubborn of a bastard, aye?”
“Yes,” Mama May said, and even smiled. “I suppose you are. If you do see Jean-Luc...please get him to safety. I do not know if he still lives, but I have hope that he does. He is also stubborn, much like you, and this community is missing a large piece of our heart without him around. I've had to take measures to stop the city from clearing out his book shop but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do it.”
“If I can, you know I'll get him back. We didn't get a chance to work together long but he was a good guy. I'm sorry I got him wrapped up in all of this. The people that I'm up against...this wasn't Jean's fight. He should never have been caught in the middle.”
“And that's why you're going to be the one to get him back,” Mama May said firmly, like she was a mother scolding her son to improve his grades. “You got him into this mess. If he is alive, then you are going to get him back.”
“Aye,” Purdue said. “That's fair enough. I'll do my best.”
Mama May seemed well enough to be by herself again. Purdue turned to leave, his head racing with thoughts. There were all of the visions that she described to him, and then there was the looming threat ahead of him, and the stakes that came with it. He had to stop the Order of the Black Sun for good, and if it was possible, he needed to save all of the friends he had lost.
Purdue left the fortune teller's house only to find a very angry line of visitors waiting for him. He didn't realize how long his conversation with her had been but then again, he had stayed for a while after. They were probably used to going in, hearing a quick fortune or two and then leaving. Purdue ignored them. They were the least of his concerns and they would get over it. The things he really had to worry about were much more costly.
Now that he had an idea of what he might be facing, he had to go toward it, and the first step was meeting up with Sam. From there, it was going to be a direct journey to the Mayan temple that was waiting for them in the Arctic.
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 10 Page 40
