He sank to his knees, allowing the hell in his heart, the infernal torment of his recent experience drown him. Trembling, his hands held his chest as it all came pouring out, dampened only for the sake of keeping quiet from human attention. He thought of nothing, not even Nina. He said nothing and did not consider, plot or wonder. Under the extended roof of the enormous old manor, its master shook and wailed into his hands for a good hour, just feeling. Purdue abandoned all reason and elected only to feel. It took its own course, like regurgitating the past few weeks from his life.
His light blue eyes finally opened laboriously from swelling lids, his glasses long removed. That glorious numbness after sweltering purging caressed him as his whimpers lessened and became more subdued. Above him, the clouds pardoned a few calm twinkles of brightness. But the wetness of his eyes when he looked up at the night sky turned every single star into a blinding sparkle, their long streaking rays meeting at the points as the tears in his eyes stretched them unnaturally.
A shooting star caught his attention. It streaked across the dome of the heavens in silent chaos as it fell rapidly to some unknown destination to be forgotten forever. Purdue scoffed imperceptibly at the sight he had seen so many times, for it was the first time he really took notice of the strange way in which the star perished. But it was not necessarily a star, was it? He imagined the rage and fiery fall like the fate of Lucifer - how it burned and screamed on its way down, undoing, un-creating and ultimately dying alone where those who beheld the fall perceived it indifferently as just another quiet death.
His eyes followed it on its path into some amorphous chamber within the North Sea, until its tail left the sky unpainted to return to its normal, static state. Feeling a tinge of deep melancholy, Purdue knew what the gods were telling him. He too, had fallen from the crest of mighty men, turned to dust after erroneously deeming his happiness eternal.
Never before had he been this man he had turned into, a man who was nothing like the Dave Purdue he knew. He was a stranger in his own body, a brilliant star once, but reduced to a quiet void he did not recognize anymore. All he could hope for was the reverence of the meager few who deigned to look up at the sky to watch him fall, to take but a moment from their lives to salute his collapse.
“How I wonder what you are,” he said softly, inadvertently, and closed his eyes.
2
Treading on Snakes
“I can do it, but I will need very specific and very rare material,” Abdul Raya told his mark. “And I will need those by the next four days; otherwise I will have to cancel our agreement. You see, Madam, I have other clients waiting.”
“Do they offer a fee close to mine?” the lady asked Abdul. “Because this kind of exuberance is not easily trumped or afforded, you know.”
“If I may be so bold, Madam,” the dark skinned charlatan smiled, “by comparison, your fee would be seen as a gratuity.”
The woman slapped him, leaving him even more satisfied that she would be forced to oblige. He knew that her offence was a good sign, and it would leave her ego scorned enough to procure what he wanted while he duped her into believing that he had higher paying clients waiting on his arrival in Belgium. But Abdul was not entirely deceptive about his abilities in his boasting, because what talents he hid from his marks, was a far more devastating notion to grasp. That, he would keep close to his breast, behind his heart, until it was time to reveal.
He did not leave after her outburst in the low lit drawing room of her lavish house, but remained as if nothing happened, leaning with his elbow upon the mantle in the dark red surroundings broken only by gold framed oil paintings and two tall oak and pine carved antique tables near the entrance of the room. The fire under the mantle crackled with zeal, but Abdul ignored the unbearable heat against his leg.
“So, which ones would you need?” the woman sneered, returning soon after leaving the room, fuming. In her gem adorned hand she held a posh notepad, ready to jot down the alchemist’s requests. She was one of only two people he had approached successfully. Unfortunately, for Abdul, most Europeans of high class had keen character judging skills and quickly sent him on his way. On the other hand, people like Madame Chantal were easier marks because of that one quality men like him needed in his victims, a perpetual quality in all those who always found themselves at the edge of the quicksand – desperation.
To her he was just a master smith of precious metals, a purveyor of fine and unique pieces, wrought from gold and silver, precious stones from fine smithing. Madame Chantal had no idea that he was a virtuoso at forgery as well, but her ravenous taste for luxury and extravagance blinded her to any revelations he may have accidentally overlooked in his mask.
With a very capable left-handed slant, he wrote down the gems he needed to perform the task she had hired him for. He wrote in the hand of a calligrapher, but his spelling was horrendous. Nevertheless, in her desperation to outdo her peers, Madame Chantal would do her best to attain what was on his list. After he was done, she perused the list. With a scowl sunk deeper in the prominent shadows of the fire, Madame Chantal let out a long sigh and looked up at the tall man that reminded her of a yogi or some arcane cult guru.
“By when do you need this?” she asked abruptly. “And my husband cannot know. We must meet here again, because he does not readily come down to this part of the manor.”
“I have to be in Belgium in less than a week, Madam, and by that time I must have completed your order already. We are pressed for time, which means I will need those diamonds as soon as you can slip them into your purse,” he smiled gently. His empty eyes fixed on her while his mouth spoke sweetly, Madame Chantal could not help but associate him with a desert adder, flicking its tongue while its face remained stone.
Repulsion-compulsion. That is what it was called. She loathed the exotic craftsman, who also claimed to be an exquisite magician, but for some reason she could not resist him. The French noblewoman could not take her eyes off Abdul when he did not look, as he thoroughly revolted her in every aspect, yet his hideous nature, animal grunts and unnatural talon-like fingers fascinated her to a point of obsession.
He stood in the light of the fire, casting a grotesque shadow that was not far from his own likeness against the wall. A crooked nose upon a bony face lent him the appearance of a bird – a small vulture, perhaps. Abdul’s narrow set dark eyes shied away under virtually hairless eyebrows, caught in deep falling holes that only made his cheekbones seem more protrusive. Stringy and greasy, his black hair was taken back into a ponytail and a single small hoop earring adorned the lobe of his left ear.
Madame Chantal found his scent overwhelming, the stench of incense and spice permeated from him and when he spoke or smiled, eerily perfect teeth broke the line of his dark lips. She could not tell if he was Pharaoh or Phantasm. Of one thing she was certain; the magician and alchemist had a larger than life presence without even raising his voice or presenting a move of his hand. It frightened her, only escalating the strange revulsion she had for him.
“The Celeste?” she gasped as she read the familiar name upon the paper he had given her. Her face betrayed the concern she felt for obtaining the gem without question. Flashing like sublime emerald in the light of the fire, Madame Chantal’s eyes searched Abdul’s. “Mr. Raya, I cannot. My husband has agreed to donate the Celeste to the Louvre.” Trying to remedy her fault at even suggesting she could get him what he wanted, she looked down and said, “The other two I can manage, surely, but not that one.”
Abdul showed no sign of concern for the glitch. With a slow wave of his hand across her face, he smiled serenely. “I do hope you change your mind, Madam. It is the privilege of women like you to have the deeds of great men in their palms, at the ready.” As his elegantly crooked fingers drew a shadow over her fair skin, the noblewoman could feel an ice cold bolt of pressure imbue her face. Briskly wiping her face where the chill crept, she cleared her throat and composed herself. If she faltered now she would lose him in a
sea of strangers.
“Come back in two days. Meet me here in the drawing room. My assistant knows you, and she will be expecting you,” she ordered, still shaken by the ghastly sensation that haunted her face for a moment. “I will get the Celeste, Mr. Raya, but you had better be worth my trouble.”
Abdul said nothing more. He needed not.
3
A Touch of Endearment
When Purdue awoke the following day, he felt like shit – plain and simple. In fact, he could not recall the last time he really cried, and although his soul felt better for the purging, relieved, his eyes were swollen and burning. To make sure nobody would know that his condition was born from Purdue polished off three quarters of his Southern hooch bottle, the one he kept in between his horror fiction books on the shelf by the window.
“My God, old cock, you look the right part for a hobo,” Purdue groaned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “How did all this happen? Don’t tell me, don’t,” he sighed. Walking away from the mirror to open the shower faucets, he kept muttering like a senile old man. Fitting, since his body felt like it had aged a century overnight. “I know. I know how it happened. You ate the wrong cuisines, hoping that your stomach could get used to the poison, but instead you got poisoned.”
His clothes fell from him as if they did not know his body, hugging his feet before he stepped out of the heap of fabric his wardrobe had been reduced to since he lost all that weight in the oubliette of Mother’s house. Under the lukewarm water Purdue prayed without religion, grateful without faith and deeply sympathetic to all those who did not know the luxury of indoor plumbing. Under the baptism of the showerhead he emptied his mind to exorcise the toil that reminded him that his ordeal at the hands of Joseph Karsten was far from over, even if he played his hand real slow and vigilantly. Oblivion was underrated, he reckoned, being such a glorious sanctuary in trying times and we wanted to feel its nothingness fall over him.
True to his misfortune of late, Purdue, however, was not to enjoy it for long before a knock at his door interrupted his budding therapy.
“What is it?” he cried through the hiss of the water.
“Your breakfast, sir,” he heard from the other side of the door. Purdue perked up and abandoned his silent resentment of the caller.
“Charles?” he asked.
“Yes, sir?” Charles answered.
Purdue smiled, elated to hear the familiar voice of his butler once more, a voice he missed dearly while contemplating his death hour in the oubliette; a voice he thought he would never hear again. Without even thinking twice, the downtrodden billionaire leapt from the confines of his shower and wrenched open the door. Completely stumped, the butler stood with a shocked face as his naked boss embraced him.
“My God, old boy, I thought you had disappeared,” Purdue smiled as he let the man go to shake his hand. Fortunately, Charles was painfully professional, ignoring Purdue’s bagpipes and retaining that stiff upper lip business the Brits always bragged with.
“Was just a bit under the weather, sir. Right as rain now, thank you,” Charles assured Purdue. “Would you like to eat in your room or downstairs with,” he grimaced somewhat, “the MI6 people?”
“Up here, definitely. Thank you, Charles,” Purdue smiled, realizing that he was still shaking the man’s hand with his crown jewels on display.
“Very well, sir,” Charles nodded.
As Purdue returned to the bathroom to shave and remedy the awful bags under his eyes, the butler walked out of the master bedroom, birthing a grin at the reminiscence of his jovial, nude employer’s reaction. It was always good to be missed, he thought, even to such a drastic extent.
“What did he say?” Lily asked when Charles entered the kitchen. The place smelled of freshly baked bread and scrambled eggs, smothered slightly by the odor of percolated coffee. The adorable, yet nosy senior kitchen lady wrung her hands inside a dishcloth with eager eyes, probing the butler for a reply.
“Lillian,” he grunted at first, as usual annoyed by her prying, but then he realized that she too, had missed the master of the household and that she had every right to wonder what the man’s first words to Charles were. His review done quickly in his mind, his eyes softened.
“He is very happy to be here again,” Charles replied formally.
“Did he say that?” she asked endearingly.
Charles took a moment. “Not in so many words, although his gestures and body language pretty well established his elation.” He tried desperately not to chuckle at his own words, so elegantly formulated to convey both the truth and the bizarre.
“Oh, that is lovely,” she smiled, heading to the cupboard to take out a plate for Purdue. “Eggs and sausage, then?”
Uncharacteristically the butler burst out laughing, a welcome sight to his usual stern demeanor. A little befuddled she stood waiting to confirm the breakfast as the butler held his face in a fit of laughter, smiling at his unusual reaction.
“I shall take that as a yes,” she giggled. “My goodness, my boy, something very funny must have happened for you to desert that firmness of yours.” She took out the plate and set it on the table. “Look at you! You are just letting it all hang out.”
Charles doubled up in laughter, leaning against the tiled niche next to the iron coal stove that adorned the back door corner. “I’m so sorry Lillian, but I cannot relay what happened. That would just be improper, you understand.”
“I know,” she smiled, dishing up bangers and scrambled eggs next to Purdue’s soft toast. “By God I am dying to know what happened, but for once I will just settle for seeing you laughing. That is enough to make my day.”
Relieved that, for once, the older lady relented at pressing him for information Charles gave her a pat on the shoulder and composed himself. He fetched a tray and placed the food on it, helping her with the coffee and finally collecting the newspaper to take it to Purdue upstairs. Desperate to prolong the anomaly of Charles’ humanness, Lily had to hold back on another mention of whatever charged him so as he left the kitchen. She feared he would drop the tray and she was right. With the sight still clear in his mind, Charles would have left the floor a mess had she reminded him.
Throughout the ground floor of the house, the secret service pawns infested Wrichtishousis with their presence. Charles had nothing against the men who worked for the intelligence service, but the fact that they were posted there made them nothing more than illegal intruders funded by a false kingdom. They had no right to be there, and although they were only following orders, the staff could not stomach their small and sporadic power plays while stationed to keep an eye on the billionaire explorer like he was some common thief.
‘I still cannot fathom how Military Intelligence could have this house annexed when there is no international martial threat resident here,’ Charles thought as he carried the tray up to Purdue’s room. Yet he knew that there had to be some sinister reason for it all to be approved by government – a notion even more frightening to consider. There had to be more to it and he was going to get to the bottom of it, even if he had to get his information from his brother-in-law again. Charles saved Purdue the last time he took his brother-in-law at his word, so he could furnish the butler with some more, he presumed, if it meant finding out what this was all about.
“Hey, Charlie, is he up yet?” one of the operatives asked cheerfully.
Charles ignored him. If he was going to be forced to answer to anyone, it would be nobody less in rank than Special Agent Smith and by now he trusted that his boss had firmly established a personal bond with the supervising agent. When he reached Purdue’s door all manner of hilarity had left him and he had returned to his usual firm and obedient self.
“Your breakfast, sir,” he said at the door.
Purdue opened the door in quite a different guise. Fully dressed in chinos, Moschino Penny Loafers and a white, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he opened the door for his butler. When Charles enter
ed, he heard Purdue promptly closing the door behind him.
“I have to speak with you, Charles,” he urged under his breath. “Did anyone trail you up here?”
“No, sir, not that I know of,” Charles replied truthfully as he set the tray down on Purdue’s oak table, where he sometimes enjoyed his brandy at night. He straightened up his jacket and folded his hands in front of him. “What can I do for you, sir?”
Purdue looked wild in the eyes, even though his body language lied him to be contained and cogent. Much as he tried to sound proper and confident, he could not fool his butler. Charles had known Purdue for ages, and had seen him in most ways along the years. From insane fury at the obstacles of science to jovial and suave at the hand of many well-to-do women. He could tell that something was troubling Purdue, something more than just a looming hearing.
“I know it was you who informed Dr. Gould about the secret service being out to arrest me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for warning her, but I have to know, Charles,” he ranted in a hard whisper. “I have to know how you came to learn about that, because there is more to it. There is far more to it and I need to know anything, anything that MI6 perhaps plans next.”
Charles understood the fervency of his employer’s request, but at the same time, he felt terribly inept at the charge. “I see,” he said with considerable self-consciousness. “Well, I only heard of it by chance. When visiting Vivian, my sister, her husband just sort of…came out with it. He had known that I was in the service of Wrichtishousis before, but apparently, he overheard a colleague at one of the affiliate British government offices mention that MI6 was given the all clear to pursue you, sir. In fact, I think he did not even think much of it at the time he told me.”
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6 Page 39
