The matured woman sighed before she turned to Floriana. “You must be Floriana. You can’t imagine how happy I am to see you again!” She took the young girl in a warm embrace as if they were old friends who had met again after years apart.
“Have we met before?” Floriana stood bewildered, wondering whether she should reciprocate the embrace or not.
“You were two years old the last time I saw you. I'm Valerie Newman, and I was a good friend of your mother’s. Here’s Carson Blake.” She pointed to the older man who rushed to shake hands with their young guest.
“And I am Vittor Rose. I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier.” It was the young man’s turn to shake hands with her.
“Has she been informed about the reason she’s been brought here?” Carson addressed Maite.
“Not clearly enough. We thought that the Master should be the one to thoroughly inform her,” she replied.
“You thought correctly. The Master is waiting for you. Vittor will lead you to him, and I’ll make you something to eat,” Valerie said. Noticing Maite’s discerning eye, she comforted her.
“If the boys fail to arrive soon, we’ll send someone to look for them.”
“COME IN!”
The deep voice of an old man invited them in as soon as Vittor knocked on the heavy oak door. They entered into a cold dark chamber with the smell of cigars in the air. She saw the figure of a man seated behind an old heavy desk. A large bookcase of dark cherry wood stood behind him.
Maite and Vittor entered the room. Floriana followed them timidly. A lamp burning on the desk lit the face of the man, and she could see his visage: thin lips, Caesar nose, and sharp bright eyes. With an invisible eraser, she imagined taking away the wrinkles out of his face. He must have been quite good looking in his youth.
With the help of a cane, he stood up and approached her. A wide smile spread across his face.
“I have waited so many years to meet you again. I wish we had been able to meet under different conditions. Welcome, Floriana.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you ... again ... I guess.” She gave him her hand, and he held it gently.
The door opened, and Valerie entered holding a large wooden tray laden with a steaming teapot, a few cups, a plate full of cookies, buns, and bowls full of jam and honey. She placed the tray on a table across the room.
“We spoke to Eric on his mobile. They are both well, and they’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said.
“Fantastic. Once they arrive, please tell them to come here with no delay. Thank you, Valerie,” the Master said politely. “Please, help yourselves!” He pointed to the dinner table after Valerie left the room. “You've been through a lot today. I'm afraid that after what happened tonight in the square, there is more to come. Probably sooner than you think.” His voice depicted him as a decisive, severe, yet polite man.
The two young women approached the table and filled their plates with biscuits and buns. Floriana added a few tablespoons of orange marmalade while Maite settled for a cup of hot tea. Vittor offered a cup to the Master, who had joined them.
The old man drew up a chair and sat down. “Thank you, my boy. Now, please leave us. We have a lot to talk about,” he said in a calm tone.
“But,” Vittor protested, “I have to stay.”
“No, young man, you do not.” The Master made himself clear.
“How can you say that? I am the one who needs the information this girl can give us,” the young man insisted.
“You're just the scientist who will assess the information this girl may give us. Beyond that, you don’t need to know anything else.” The ice-cold voice of the man declared his unwillingness to negotiate.
“But, Maite is...” Vittor stammered.
“Maite has been risking her life for the cause for so long that she’s entitled to know why she puts herself in danger,” the Master hissed, staring severely at the young man.
“Alright,” Vittor admitted his defeat.
Floriana’s eyes followed him as he opened the door and left, head bowed. Then she gazed at the old man, who was the real leader of this strange group in which she was tangled up. He was sitting in his chair with his hands supported on the silver handle of his staff. A black ring adorned the little finger of his right hand. The black ring.
His movements were all well-measured, revealing him as a man who had everything under his control. The staff he was holding gave away his injured legs, although the movements he made with his hands were fast and stable. His eagle eyes implied a perspicacious mind imprisoned in an old man’s body.
“Floriana, I can’t describe how glad I am that you decided to join our cause,” he finally said.
She felt his intense gaze, like he was trying to scan her thoughts. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
“What is this cause of yours that’s so important?”
“Keeping the timeline of human history intact. At any cost.”
Floriana felt a thrill going up her spine. Despite everything that had happened in the last few hours, a sense of adventure had taken over her, and her curiosity was stronger than her fear and anxiety. She looked at Maite, who seemed amused by her confusion.
“We’d better take first things first,” the Master said. “Since you haven’t graduated Clocksworth Academy yet – you haven’t even enrolled – I must emphasize that everything said in this room tonight should stay inside these walls. No leaking will be allowed. If anything gets out, we’ll act accordingly.”
Her limbs felt frozen, as if the circulation of blood had stopped.
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“I'm sure you won’t need to know. Unless you’re planning to betray us...”
The old man leaned toward her and looked her in the eyes in a way that made her feel awkward.
A sudden noise startled her as the heavy door opened and Eric and Egon made a slapdash entrance. Maite jumped from her seat and rushed to embrace Eric.
“Hey, no hug for me?” Egon asked with a faked complaint.
“Young man, I hope it’s not me you want to hug,” the Master mocked, leaving aside his hitherto serious attitude.
Egon approached him, and they shook hands. It wasn’t a formal handshake; it was the kind of contact a grandfather would have with his beloved grandson.
Maite turned to Egon and hugged him, smiling.
“You save the best hugs for Eric,” he teased her.
“Any problem with that, buddy?” It was Eric’s turn to join the teasing game.
“The truth is that we’ve all been worried about you,” said the Master.
“Everyone? And you?” Egon looked at Floriana who frowned.
She could have told him that she was more concerned about her own safety but chose to remain silent.
“We have no time for greetings,” the Master interrupted them. “What happened tonight in the square shows that there is no more time to lose. It also shows that they know that we know.”
Trying to avoid the old man’s gaze, Floriana turned to Eric, who was sitting across from her. He was calm and grim. Next to him, Maite was playing nervously with her black ring while Egon, comfortably seated in his armchair, was staring at something in his hand. A feeling of uneasiness spread through the room as they waited for her reaction.
“We probably shouldn’t be requesting an instant response. You should first know the whole truth before you make your decision.” The Master’s serious voice took her out of her thoughts. “So, let’s resume from where we were before our boys came in.”
“You’ve probably heard of the Knights of St. John, or the Order of St. John as they’re also called,” he said. “Founded a thousand years ago in Jerusalem by the Order of Knights Hospitaller, they intended to provide medical assistance to the pilgrims who visited the Holy Land.”
After taking a sip of his tea, the Master continued recounting. “It was after the First Crusade and the Latin Christian conquest of Jerusalem when the Order gained
its religious and military character.”
The old man’s narrative helped her to relax. She felt as if the grandfather she’d never met was telling her a story.
“Along with the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, they had the task of defending the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the city of Acre by the Arabs, the Order took refuge in Cyprus and Rhodes, two islands of the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Floriana had no idea what the meaning of all of this was. “What does all of this have to do with what happened to me in the last fifteen hours?” she asked.
“A little patience and you will soon understand,” the Master replied. “The Knights of St. John, Knights Templar, Teutonic Knights ... These aren’t only our ancestors; they are yours as well.”
She had no idea who her ancestors were. She didn’t even know who her grandparents were. Her mother never spoke of them. She didn’t want to interrupt the narrative, so she mentioned nothing.
Eric approached his mentor, put his hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “Let me take over.”
Despite the fatigue of the day and the bizarre events in the square, he retained his enigmatic charm.
“Theosophical ideas gained great popularity in the early 20th century, and some of the most powerful salons in Europe and North America were filled with mystics. Many closed societies were created before the Great War. Among them was the Reichshammerbund, which claimed the superiority of the Aryan Race. An offshoot of the Reichshammerbund was called the Thule Society.”
“I’ve heard of Thule,” she interrupted. “It was a country supposedly located on the verge of the ancient world. Many thought it was Atlantis, the mysterious country Plato also spoke of in his famous dialogues. That’s where the Thule Society took its name from.”
“Well done. Your parents would be proud of you,” the Master said calmly.
“Thank you.” She blushed. “It’s said that Hitler himself was a member of the Thule Society.”
“That has never been proven,” Eric replied. “Hitler was opposed to the esoteric movements and he outlawed them a couple of years before WWII started. However, he was a great fan of astrology.”
“Will you ever get to the point?” Egon grumbled from the armchair where he was immersed. His voice sounded heavy and tired.
“The Nazis were deep into mysticism and the occult,” Eric continued. “They recruited the elite of the German scientists to create the purest Aryan race, the strongest weapon, the invincible soldier... The concentration camps were not just places where those who didn’t meet the Aryan standards were exterminated; they were also venues of irrationally inhumane experiments. The Nazis had brilliant scientists in their service, but they also recruited occultists and magicians. In other words, alchemists.”
A slightly ironic expression was drawn on Eric’s thin lips when he noticed Floriana’s bulging eyes. Obviously, he was entertained by her puzzled look.
“Don’t be surprised. Alchemists still exist in modern times; they just don’t wear pointy hats and they don’t stir thick green liquid in cauldrons,” he said, adapting a charming smile.
“Those demons would have done anything to dominate the world. As it turned out, they were not as capable as they thought they were. Neither magic pots nor pagan invocations eventually saved them. It was a dark time, but the good eventually prevailed. The good always prevails over evil,” the Master said with a dreamy tone in his voice.
He put his weight on his staff and slowly stood up. “We did a good job back then. Our spies had infiltrated the highest layers of the Nazis’ structure. They never learned who betrayed their secrets. We managed to get to the most secret of their laboratories where they’d been working for Great Work.”
“Do you mean the creation of the atomic bomb?” she asked hesitantly.
“No, no... The alchemists had years of knowledge concerning the liberation of nuclear power but avoided making it widely known because they were aware of how catastrophic it could be for mankind.”
The Master paused as if weighing his words. “At least, that was what Foulkaneli himself, the alchemist who had managed to transform graphite into gold, confided in me. I was very young and enthusiastic, full of ideals with the flame of serving the greater good burning in my heart. My studies in chemistry and physics secured me a post in the secret laboratory of Flakturm One. Only a few were aware of what was happening in the basement of that antiaircraft shelter located in Tiergarten. Everyone who knew belonged to the highest levels of the hierarchy of the Nazi government. I was a German citizen, born in Munich to German parents, and I didn’t raise suspicion. Unfortunately, my young age and my inexperience in science prohibited me from gaining access to all the experimental programs. Each day, I was stopped by closed doors. Each day, I stood outside laboratories I couldn’t enter. Those rooms held the deadliest secrets and outlandish experiments. We thought those experiments had vanished when Flakturm One was destroyed in the Allied bombing. We discovered how wrong we were two decades after the war ended...”
The Master took a sip of his tea, which was now cold. “Foulkaneli was a Paris resident, but he frequently took trips to Berlin,” he continued. “He had free access to all Flakturm One workshops, and he could work on any project he chose. Nobody really knew what those experiments were for, and Foulkaneli would refute any claims that they were working on the development of the atomic bomb. All indications led to the conclusion that they had been working on the creation of a super-human, the ultimate soldier, who could be used both on the battlefield and for city surveillance. There were indications of what they were working on, but no robust evidence. I found myself unable to put together a case against them. I had the will, I had the passion, but I was young and inexperienced. And I’ve carried the burden of that failure all my life.”
He took a deep breath before he continued. “It was a few days after Berlin surrendered to the Red Army when some Soviet officials ordered two German public servants to bury the remains of two men in Nazi uniforms on the bank of the River Spree. As it turned out, three decades later, it was found that they were the corpses of Hitler’s secretary Martin Bormann and SS doctor Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger. They had both committed suicide by biting cyanide capsules near a railway bridge near the Lehrter Railway Station. The two men had left the Führerbunker, Adolf Hitler’s underground bunker, the day after the Führer and his spouse Eva Braun committed suicide. They tried to escape by breaking the Soviet bloc, but they were trapped, and they chose to end their own lives. A small leather folder was found on Stoumpfegker’s dead body. It contained personal documents proving the identity of the Führer’s personal doctor, along with several manuscripts. The folder came into the possession of the Soviets, who agreed to destroy all its contents. But we knew we shouldn’t trust the Soviets. It took many years of effort and intrigue for our people in Moscow to discover Stoumpfegker’s leather folder in a KGB underground storage facility and take its secret documents into their possession.”
He approached his desk, unlocked a drawer and opened it with slow movements. With gentle strokes, he pulled out a transparent plastic folder. He carefully removed a few yellowed pages full of handwritten notes.
“These are the notes of Foulkaneli and his associates. Humanity must be thankful for two reasons: our people’s effectiveness and the Soviets’ oversight of the importance of these documents.”
He was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Valerie who was holding a large platter filled with pieces of ham, cheese, and boiled eggs. Carson followed her with a tray full of dishes, glasses, cups, and a steaming teapot.
“After such a hard day, you probably need some protein. We also brought some hot tea. Eric, Egon, there’s crockery and cutlery for you as well,” Valerie said while placing the tray on the table.
“Is there any news from the square?” asked Maite, who had been sitting silently.
“Fifteen people were transferred to the hospital. Seven of them were slightly injured when they got shoved during
the confusion. The rest of them have deep wounds made by sharp objects of indeterminate shape, and they are in serious condition,” Carson replied.
“Human bite wounds,” Eric concluded.
“Those eight people,” Egon said in a slow, deep voice, “make them nine. I got bitten too...”
CHAPTER 6
*
“TAKE IT EASY! I am fine. I simply got bitten.”
Egon was sitting, holding his right wrist with his left hand, while all six others had surrounded him, chatting incessantly and waving their hands nervously.
“When did that happen? Where?”
“Was it when we were attacked?”
“Where is the wound?”
“Why you didn’t tell us?”
“How are you feeling?”
“My God, how serious is it?”
“Stop it now! All of you!” Egon’s voice echoed through the room. Silence followed the uproar. His hitherto carefree face had darkened, and his playful smile was replaced by a grimace of concern.
“You must control yourselves if you want to help me. Unless you don’t,” he said with a devious smile.
“It was my fault,” Eric said. “When the turbulence started, one of those creatures attacked us. Egon protected Floriana before Maite took her away, and he found himself fighting against it. I didn’t act fast enough. I hit the creature with the cricket bat, but I lost time. The fault is mine.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Egon said. “And don’t cry for me. I’m not dead. You won’t get rid of me so easily.”
Clocksworth Academy Page 4
