“What is the matter?” Sam asked.
“I met someone who looked precisely like Nina while I was captive in Hitler’s bunker under the Reichkanzlei,” Purdue smiled. “And Helmut…this is uncanny…”
“He looked just like you,” Lydia recalled.
“That’s right,” Purdue winked at her, silently letting her know that he knew why she slept with Helmut while she was there. Lydia just shook her head and chuckled.
“What about Tesla’s schematics?” Nina asked. “That is after all why you went, wasn’t it?”
“I had it with me, but it was incinerated on the way back, I’m afraid,” Purdue frowned. “I’m sorry, Lydia. It would appear that I failed you.”
“No, sir. You did not!” she replied in her strong, forceful way. “After what I’ve seen today, I am bloody grateful we did not bring back the recipe to that ungodly invention. Can you imagine what the power hungry imbeciles would do with it? Poor Nina and Sam almost got killed over the teleforce weapon!”
“Well, now we know that time travel is possible,” Sam announced.
“I would agree with you, Sam, had I not known that the formula I used had no principals of quantum physics,” Lydia remarked.
“How do you mean? I was there,” Purdue argued, “I was there in Nazi Germany in 1944. I had gone back in time.”
“Not really,” she contested. “You wondered by you saw so many famous people not looking the way we know them, right?”
“Yes,” Purdue nodded.
“According to my own theory - based on Tesla, but largely augmented by myself,” Lydia explained proudly, “you did not travel back in time, nor did you bend space. You actually punched through to another parallel universe. It is quite a different thing.”
“Wait,” Nina chipped in. “How? You mean Purdue went into another dimension?”
“No, darling. Another dimension is a different plane of existence that carries different frequencies to our physical existence. Purdue would have to be a ghost or a demon or an energy ball, whatever, to go there,” Lydia gestured with her hands. “He was in a parallel universe, one just like ours with almost the same events and people. The difference is that this multi-verse is merely the product of different scenarios.”
“So how this world would have been if things turned out differently?” Sam asked, trying to wrap his brain around the oddities of Lydia’s ramblings.
“If Hitler never existed,” she said abruptly, “one universe. If Mozart was a physician and not a musician – another universe...see where this is going?”
“My head hurts,” Nina jested.
“This was why Dave saw people who looked like the exact twins of people here, just in a different life or environment,” Lydia carried on. “The bottom line here is that we proved that we could punch through the veil of a parallel universe, where hopefully we could make a change to their history to keep them from making the same mistakes we made.”
Purdue added, “Without having to worry about changing the future we now live in, as it would be with the past.”
“That’s it!” Lydia smiled. But unlike other times, she seemed less flamboyant and loud about her experiments. To Purdue it seemed that his old friend was ready to hang up her gloves. He was happy for her to have gone out with a historical breakthrough, having no idea that she had passed over all achievements to his credit.
33
“This house brings back bad memories,” Sam remarked. “Especially that bloody attic.”
“Oh stop,” Nina said, quickly closing the front door and locking it behind him. “I stay here alone and I’m still alive.”
“Still, you are a very angry lady. Monsters won’t even fuck with you,” he reiterated. “I am however, bait for the denizens of the other realms.”
“Come on, help me carry the last crate, please,” she smiled. “I’ll cook you dinner if you do.”
It had been over three weeks since they left France and went their separate ways. But then Nina gave Sam a call to help her with some new acquisitions she needed to move into her house. Sam was delighted to see her again so soon. He even brought his cat, Bruichladdich, with him. As always, Bruich was on his own mission, seeking out the best spots to laze around in Nina’s home in Oban.
“Have you heard from Purdue?” she asked Sam.
“Aye, he is still in Lyon with Lydia. They are compiling all their notes for a book about the Tesla Experiment and they want me to write the thing for them.”
“Sounds like an interesting job,” Nina replied. “What about Healy?”
“I decided not to press charges,” Sam shrugged.
Nina could not believe it. “Are you daft? I’d let him have it!”
“Look, I did not get killed. And besides, I felt bad about luring Westdijk to Lydia…to all of you. It just goes to show that we all fuck up. And sometimes you mean well, you don’t think that you are acting wrongfully and you end up putting others in danger,” Sam explained in between groans of effort at the heavy crate.
“And all that time Foster was in fact after Westdijk. At least he perished while saving Purdue. I suppose that warrants some redemption, if you believe in that stuff,” she smiled.
They carried the wooden crate toward the back of the house, where the winding steps that led up to the attic, had now been boarded up. “This goes in the back spare room, thank you.”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Some old documents they found on a ship wreck off the coast of the Bering Straits. Belonged to some character from the Middle Ages, I think. Should make for some interesting reading, if I can decipher the writing,” she rambled on.
“Who gave it to you?” Sam asked, hoping to rush her along so that she could keep that dinner promise.
“The University in Glasgow,” Nina replied. “They discovered this through some salvagers who donated it. They want me to figure out what it is and assemble an index of sorts to have it exhibited at some point.”
Sam waited until they had sat the big wooden box down.
“Shall I get us some pizza?” he asked.
Nina leered at him, annoyed that he could not wait for her to cook something. “What is wrong with my cooking?” she asked with her hand in her side and one eyebrow raised.
“Nothing,” he said softly. “But it’s just that your kitchen freaks me out.”
“Oh, Sam!” she snapped. “Get over it!”
They left the room to collect the next box, a smaller one, from the lobby. It was almost as heavy as the other crate.
“Imagine if this one had some treasure in it,” Sam played. To his surprise she chuckled with him. “Let’s see then? You open it.”
He looked at her with great uncertainty, but the temptation was too much to bear. They put the box down. It made no sound to indicate that there was something inside, but the weight had their attention. The big ginger cat strolled into the room, following Sam.
“Hurry, the boss is hungry too,” he winked.
Slowly Sam opened the lid, waiting for Nina to scare him with something sudden and loud. But it was Bruich that had them both thinking twice. The large cat stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the smaller box. Arching his back, his long hair stood on end all over his body, erect along his spine as he hissed at the box.
“Okay, I don’t like that,” Nina said solemnly. “Don’t open it, Sam.”
“I know this is a dumb thing to say, but Bruich’s reaction has only made me curious now,” Sam said. He watched the cat, calling him, but the cat would not move an inch closer to Sam. Instead, he turned around and ran out of the room.
“Bruich!” Nina called, chasing after the spooked feline.
Sam was amazed at the cat’s behavior, but in his opinion the entire house was creepy. He hardly thought it was the box that upset Bruich. “Probably saw a bloody vampire in the closet,” Sam sniggered to amuse himself and the silent room beckoned for him to open the lid.
Nina had caught up with Bruich in the living roo
m. “Come on, sweety,” she coaxed, picking up the cat and stroking him until he calmed down. “Don’t be like Sam. There is nothing wrong with my house. Come, I have some treats for you in the kitchen.”
She emptied out some juicy canned sardines for Bruich when she heard Sam calling from the other room. He sounded intrigued, and just a little uneasy.
“Nina!”
“Aye! What did you find?” she smiled.
“I don’t know what this is about, but I think we should call Purdue!”
END
The Seventh Secret
PROLOGUE – Cheryl’s Predicament
The sky over Port Elizabeth was clear, but beneath the peaceful mask of the pleasant late summer weather, a putrid stench wafted around the old buildings in the city center. With the night came the vermin – hidden in the crevices by daylight – and crime. Under the pale yellow street lights lining the empty sidewalks of Govan Mbeki Avenue, footsteps echoed; two pairs almost in perfect cadence with each other. It was just before 3 am, a time for the city's pests to thrive, but there were darker things exchanged here than the common lechery of prostitution and the desperate deeds of broke junkies.
Cheryl stared out over the melancholy of the barren street, flanked on either side by historical buildings and once beautifully constructed museums, now reduced to slums and crumbling memories of order and care. Her windows were tainted, not by some fancy form of glazing but rather the layers of dirt and build-up from years of foregone cleaning.
It was irrelevant that she was a careless housewife or a woman of ill repute with a drug habit. Cheryl loved architecture, and she adored visiting the old public library nearby, built in the heyday of the British rule. Inside its oddly placed corners and sections, lined from wall to wall and floor to ornate ceiling with books, she found solace. History and its long forgotten buildings beckoned her, in particular, the lovely curls and intricate stucco of the façades she found on Cape Dutch structures. She would read everything about the settlers who came from Europe in 1820, most at the behest of the greedy queen, who sent men south to conquer and subjugate in her name, only to leave their descendants homesick for the lands of their forefathers. Cheryl was one of those descendants.
The footsteps she heard reverberating from the grimy filth on the walls of the shops and eateries that closed before nightfall were on their way to see her – Cheryl the hooker. They emerged from the shadows under the window of her third-story flat and just stood there at first as if they were surveying the area for witnesses. Cheryl caught her breath. Through the gray obscurity of the dirty window pane, she hoped that they were mere specters, monsters from her dreams, shrouded by the veil of her reality. But their imposing figures were regrettably only cloaked by the window and very, very real. Cheryl wanted to cry, but she had been expecting this after all. Not only did she know that this time would come, but she knew full well she had brought this upon herself.
All she wanted to do was find a way to escape the hellish country she did not belong in, having no idea that searching a shortcut to obtaining the relevant documents would dump her into such a dangerous underworld. Like many other women in the building she lived in, she had come into prostitution when she had no longer been able to afford her medical needs on a personal assistant's salary. When she inadvertently became addicted to various substances to cope with an unfortunate incident that had made her another of South Africa’s crime statistics, she had subsequently lost her job at the University of Port Elizabeth.
As much as her boss, Dr. Billy Malgas, had tried to help her kick the habit, Cheryl had just not been able to let go of the beautiful delirium of heroin, and eventually she had been abandoned by her friends as well. She had found out very quickly how awkward it was to constantly ask friends for a hand-out, a loan, sometimes even crossing lines of propriety to beg for money. They had dumped her and her burdens to liberate themselves from her anxious company.
After almost a year of prostitution, she had still avoided the claws of pimps and police officers who abused their power for inappropriate favors. But being a free agent in this despicable line of work did not protect her from beatings, robbery, and humiliation. The only way in which it benefitted her if that was even a term one could use in this context, was that she kept all her earnings to herself. She got less business than other women, but she was calling her own shots. With the money she made, she was able to sustain her expensive habit and pay her rent by working as a prostitute. Her clientele consisted mostly of traveling businessmen who frequented the cheap bars in the area.
International visitors were her best callers. Being a Cape Malay beauty, she had the exotic looks that drove the Europeans at the Black Jack tables crazy. They loved her bronze complexion paired with her emerald green eyes, which were typical of the Colored beauties with Malaysian ancestry. It was this very attractiveness that had her secure a fateful evening four months ago with a client from Stockholm who baited her into the quicksand she now found it impossible to escape from. She had not seen him since the week before last, even though he had promised her that he would facilitate her immigration as smoothly as possible to join him in Sweden before Christmas.
Now he was nowhere to be found, and she was being pursued by his associates, the men he employed to falsify her credentials to use for Home Affairs; the same men he had neglected to pay after the job had been done and her passport delivered to her. In no uncertain terms, they had informed Cheryl that she was now liable for payment, a sum she could not come up with even if she fucked her way through seven clients a day for the next two months.
Cheryl blew out all her candles. Their bases were jammed into empty wine and beer bottles set all over her small flat since she could not afford electricity and the wiring in her light fixtures was broken anyway. It was part of the decrepit condition of all the once majestic old apartment buildings in Central, slowly falling into utter dilapidation since the new government had put the fox in charge of the henhouse by appointing crooks to run the city treasury. The misappropriation of funds was the reason the Oceanarium had gone from a grand complex of marine wonder and dolphin shows to little more than a half-assed attempt at a reptile park and an empty pool. The only water the latter held these days were the pond scum filled puddles left by occasional rainfall and neglect. Port Elizabeth had gone from a vibrant cultural and entertainment hub to nothing but a dreary industrial town with a beautiful ocean front.
Corrupt regional government and nepotism assured that the city Cheryl grew up in was mostly ruled by criminals who lined their pockets instead of maintaining the centuries of exquisite architecture she so admired. Two of those crooks were on their way up to her flat. She had gathered the little money she had been able to earn over the last few days and prepared for the worst case scenario. It paid to be just a little paranoid in her profession. Her nostrils filled with the sharp whiff of exhausted wicks and the white tongues of smoke they breathed out in their demise.
The two men knew where Cheryl lived, but they had no idea on which floor her place was on as far as she knew. The Swedish deceiver had never known her exact location, but they knew that her domicile was one of the only two decrepit old buildings that still housed vagrants and illegals near the town square. They made their way up the filthy staircase, dodging the disgusting remnants of cheap sex and the fickle minds of drunkards and drug thugs. Broken bottles threatened to infect their soles and used condoms littered every other step.
“Ag man, the people here are dirtier than the rats,” the shorter of the two men suit wearing tacky suits remarked to his associate.
“Wat’n krot,” Zain agreed as he winced from the scenery that only barely outdid the pungent stench around them. The street light outside slightly illuminated the steps’ black peeling paint in stripes of yellow, lighting the way for Zain and Sibu.
“I think she is on the second floor,” Sibu whispered as they reached the third landing, getting ready to be seen by the residents in the corridor. But they neglected to conside
r the time of night. Even here, most people had turned in or passed out for the night. Sibu pointed to a door on their right, “There. Number 3C.”
Zain turned to look at him in astonishment. “How the fuck do you know? This place has no numbers anywhere. The scum here probably stole the copper numbers off the doors to sell for scrap.”
Sibu chuckled, that was not at all unusual here. He revealed his secret, “Don’t think I’m psychic or anything, man.”
“I didn’t. You’re an idiot on the best days, Sibu.”
"Well, I saw in her police report that I…borrowed…that she is in 3C, Dunlop Heights, Central, right?" he started, but Zain interrupted him promptly.
“Her police report?” he asked.
“Aggravated assault and sexual assault charges she filed a while ago Zain. I thought you knew this,” Sibu bragged, for once having information Zain did not already know. “The file included pictures of the damage to her door where the guys broke in. Her flat door had that green chalky skull mark up there in the corner. So, that’s how I know this is 3C.”
“No wonder she is so jumpy,” Zain sighed as he pulled his lock pick set from his jacket pocket. He sank to his haunches while Sibu kept watch. Somewhere down the hallway, there was a loud argument, which masked the noise of Zain’s tampering with the lock. Finally, the lock clicked, and the door creaked open under the light force of the intruder’s hand.
They smelled recently extinguished candles as they entered, but there was no sound or movement in the seemingly vacant apartment. Slowly, Zain closed the door behind them and left his associate to guard it, should Cheryl the hooker decide to make an escape.
“Cheryl,” he said into the dark, steering his sight just outside the borders left by the penetrating street light, “Cheryl, we are not going to hurt you unless you try something stupid. Okay? You just come out so we can make an arrangement and this doesn’t have to turn ugly.”
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 4 Page 19
