Tomb of Odin (Order of the Black Sun Book 9)

by P. W. Child

  “How do people sit here? These hooks would wreak havoc on your calves where you sat . . . not to mention rip ladies’ hosiery,” Sam winked and grinned.

  “I suppose nobody ever sits here, because it is not a pew,” Purdue remarked.

  “The back side of the same panels also have copper hooks at the same intervals as those on your side, Purdue,” Sam reported.

  “Sam, that is not copper,” Purdue said. “It is pure gold, dear lad.”

  Purdue called Thomas nearer. The giant had the canvas sack over his shoulder. When he entered the church Sam pointed to the hooks without saying a word.

  Purdue whispered, “Look Thomas, the Tomb of Odin, my friend!”

  “How do we drape the chain on the hooks without the vicar noticing?” Sam whispered. “Nina?”

  Suddenly there was a tremendous clattering of ceremonial goblets and trays toward the front of the church where the vicar was working. They all jumped with fright. Nina rushed to help the vicar, but he was not paying attention to the fallen objects at all.

  He stared at Thomas in awe, his jaw dropped into a static state of disbelief. From his small eyes, silvery streaks of tears shimmered and he made a strange sound, between weeping and moaning.

  “Vicar?” Nina said with concern.

  “Odin, the one-eyed man-god has returned to the temple,” the vicar’s quivering voice proclaimed, echoing through the empty building.

  “Oh, that is just my friend, Thomas,” she smiled serenely.

  “No, my dear girl. He has one eye, the other blind, a mighty and powerful being above man but below the stars,” the old man explained. “You have come to return to your grave!”

  “Oh, my God, what is happening?” Purdue shrugged, amazed at the developments unfolding. Thomas looked at Purdue and then examined the hooks.

  In the front of the church, Nina was holding the old vicar steady as he began to collapse, murmuring in Swedish. Occasionally she could decipher the names of the Norse gods he spoke of as his voice wavered and faded in shock.

  “Hurry, Purdue. If you want to open this doorway you’d better do it now,” Sam warned.

  “Thomas, the chain please, sir,” Purdue ordered.

  “Purdue,” Thomas lamented the billionaire’s decision.

  “We are getting back your generator for your trouble, remember?” Purdue countered.

  Reluctantly, Thomas helped Sam and Purdue hang the two parts of the golden chain on the hooks. Every time a link was placed over a hook a heavy click like the bolt of a giant safe would sound. One catch after the other, the Tomb of Odin was being unlocked.

  The last link was in the hands of Dave Purdue. He cast a look up at the towering SS officer of a time long ago, contemplating his action. Purdue looked down.

  The last barren hook beckoned.

  Chapter 33

  Purdue had to know. He simply had to.

  Thomas closed his eyes as the final clack sent a fearful jolt through his body. “Es wird getan.”

  The vicar pulled Nina in beyond the doorway of his small office as the deep rumble started, rivaling that of an earthquake. Praying frantically next to Nina the vicar fell to his haunches in sheer terror, holding his crucifix.

  “Vicar, what is happening?” she asked.

  “The end of the world, child! Now the end of the world will come!” he shrieked, protecting her with his body as daylight emanated from the ground where the pew had sunk gradually into the floor. Thomas kept his eyes closed while Purdue and Sam cowered in the corner, unable to open their eyes.

  Right down to the very foundations, the small church vibrated while an unearthly roar of subterranean gases and pressure were released. To their ears, in the absence of sight, it sounded like the growl of an immense demon, and when the blinding light finally dimmed slightly, Sam and Purdue looked over the edges of where the pew was.

  “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that,” Sam whispered.

  Inside the chasm that fell into the floor of the stone church, the light illuminated a long, gradually slanting corridor that was lined with what looked like silver mosaic. But on closer inspection, they realized that the substance inside the tiles moved like rippling water. A deep, continuous hum emanated from the bowels of the earth and emerged from the rectangular hole as the tone of a foghorn.

  Nina was petrified, but she wanted to see what was happening. With her came the vicar, clutching at the small woman to protect her from anything that could injure her. Frowning, she looked into the hole and collapsed to her knees, weeping. Sam rushed to her side.

  “It’s okay, it’s just a tunnel,” he said.

  “No, Sam, it looks exactly like the caverns I had to crawl through to steal the generator. I’m sorry, but I’m losing it,” she sobbed.

  “You won’t have to go in there again, Nina,” Thomas promised. “In fact, none of you will.”

  “Wait a minute,” Purdue said, but Thomas placed a firm hand on his chest.

  “I insist . . . that you refrain from entering Agartha. Humans will be experimented on and I assure you, they will not bend to your will or your weeping,” the enormous German cautioned.

  “There was a reason the golden chain was slashed in two when the temple was destroyed and there was a reason this Christian church was built over it,” the old vicar explained. “It was not out of disrespect for heathens and their gods. God, no! We all come from this history. But it was done for the human sacrifices to end, for the location of the sacred ground of three great gods to be inaccessible to mere humans, this church was used as a barrier.”

  “They will be here soon,” Thomas said. “The shift in air temperature and pressure will alert them.”

  “So we will disengage their instruments,” Purdue shrugged.

  “Their skins, Purdue, are their instruments. How typical of arrogant humans to regard everything in their control, to always antagonize creatures when you do not even know how they operate. This is exactly why vril is not to be wielded by you.”

  A deep clang came from a few hundred yards under the floor and the earth shook. Sam wrapped Nina in his arms and pulled her farther from the edge, while the vicar retreated to the third row of seats.

  “What do you think the festivals and their human sacrifices were about?” the vicar shouted at Purdue. “Once the grave of Odin is opened, only a human sacrifice can appease the gods not to kill us all and take dominion of the earth!”

  A manic howl echoed from closer to the surface and the light brightened slightly.

  “How do we close it?” Purdue asked Thomas, his face suspended in terror, now that he believed superior beings lived under the earth.

  “You imbecile!” Thomas shouted. “You were warned!”

  “Jesus! Let’s get out of here!” Sam told Nina and he ran out of the church, lugging her behind him.

  A helicopter was busy touching down on the open grove a few yards from the church grounds.

  “Okay, this is surreal,” Nina gasped through her tears.

  “It’s Paddy!” Sam exclaimed in surprise. “And he has the generator!”

  Patrick Smith ran toward them with a small, black case in his hand. He hugged them both at once as greeting and then he looked at them. His face was scarred and he had a broken nose.

  “You found Hilda?” Sam asked.

  “She had killed her superior, Beinta Dock, to take the reins of the Vril Society. Now that she had the generator she did not have to develop her mind and psychic abilities to generate vril, so she got greedy and thought to take over the organization,” he informed them while the rotors of the helicopter whipped their hair.

  “Good to see you, Paddy!” Sam shouted in the din of the flying machine.

  “Is there an earthquake?” Paddy asked.

  “Oh, Paddy, you don’t want to know what these tremors are about,” Nina said.

  “I have to give this to my mate Thomas,” Paddy smiled.

  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the rotors of the helic
opter stopped dead and the engine shut off instantly, leaving only the clicks of a cooling engine to be heard. The rain had turned red. Like blood it streamed over everything and it looked like nature was hemorrhaging.

  Nina yelped in horror.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Sam screamed, his eyes wide with the supernatural physics the vicinity was subjected to all of a sudden. “Come, Paddy!”

  They ran back to the church and stopped in their tracks when they saw the light filling the whole church. Purdue came rushing out into the lobby, away from the sub-octave voices in the hole. “I think I went a bit too far on this one,” Purdue said. His eyes were wet and his voice shivered. “Hello, Patrick.”

  “Hello, David.”

  “Thomas!” Sam shouted. “Thomas! We have your generator!”

  The voices ceased, but the thunderous hum and rumble continued. Their watches had stopped, their hair filled with static, and the electricity in the church was disengaged. From the smoky white glare, Thomas’ massive muscular frame came into view.

  “Thomas?” Paddy asked.

  “Patrick, I presume,” Thomas replied and shook the agent’s hand. “I cannot thank you enough.

  “And I you,” Paddy smiled. “Hilda Kreuz and Beinta Dock are no longer operating.”

  “That is good. Can you incarcerate this maniac too?” Thomas asked, putting his hand on Purdue’s shoulder. Purdue and Paddy laughed nervously, but somehow they knew the German was not bluffing.

  Thomas shook Sam’s hand, then Nina’s, and at their befuddled looks he explained.

  “Please. PLEASE. Keep the two parts of the chain separate . . . forever,” he implored.

  “I’ll make sure of it,” Purdue promised. “I give you my word, Thomas Thorsen. I’ll do that one thing right.”

  “Are you going back, Thomas?’ Nina asked.

  “I have to. Either I go back down, or they will come up to the surface. And one day they will. Just see me as a modern-day human sacrifice to the gods,” he smiled awkwardly.

  “But they won’t kill you . . . as a blood sacrifice,” Nina worried.

  “They won’t. I’m already half like them and besides, they killed us in 1944 already,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be back when the world comes to an end. Hope not to see you here.”

  He took the black case and walked into the light, the blinding shaft of white enveloping his large frame until he was gone.

  “Kind of sounds like Jesus Christ, doesn’t he?” Sam remarked.

  The vicar sat on the opposite side of the room, watching the light die slowly as the portal receded. Under their soles, the Earth became still again. By the time the pew had recovered its place, the rain was clear again. The chemicals exuded by the portal had reacted with the water and colored it crimson. Now that the Earth’s atmosphere had recovered the balance of its compounds, the electrical currents were restored.

  “Makes you appreciate the term ‘playing God,’ eh?” Nina said.

  “This is what happens when we try to manipulate the power of gods,” Sam concurred.

  “Yes, yes, I get the picture, you two,” Purdue admitted. “I have learned my lesson. From now on I’ll keep to skiing resorts and science symposiums.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sam and Nina said together.

  Purdue approached the shocked vicar, who was still muttering in Swedish. The old man’s whole body was shivering and he prayed without ceasing.

  “Vicar,” Purdue started,

  “No, just leave! Please just leave and take that accursed gold with you!”

  “Vicar, I was wondering if you would like to keep the shorter chain,” Purdue said. “I can even send someone to melt it down for you. It would fund the work you do for the local community and that way, that door could never be opened again.”

  “What?” the old man asked in amazement. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am. This . . . what happened here, should never be risked again,” Purdue said. “Sam and I will carry it to where you want to store it until I send someone to melt it down.”

  “God bless you, Scotland,” the vicar smiled. “But never come back, okay?”

  “Not soon,” Purdue chuckled.

  Paddy took Sam and Nina aside.

  With a grave expression he sighed. What he wished to convey would be deeply uncomfortable and unpleasant, especially after all ended relatively well.

  “Sam, I don’t know how to begin,” he said. “Before, when I have helped you, or when I used my resources to give you guys a hand with your . . . your . . . problems, it was not too much of a problem. I have managed to keep it from the service and so on,” he rambled, hoping that saying it quicker would lighten the blow.

  “You can’t help us anymore,” Sam stated, seeing his best friend’s dire efforts.

  “Aye,” Paddy said. “I’m your best friend, Sam. I’d give my left nut to get you out of a crunch. You know that.”

  “Aye.”

  “But this time . . . my wife . . .” Paddy started sobbing like a child, and Sam spared no time in grabbing his friend in an embrace to console him.

  “I know, Paddy. I know what you both went through because of us,” he admitted to his weeping friend.

  “Because of me,” Nina said. “Had I not gone back to the site, none of this would have happened with the generator.”

  “Nina, we would still have almost brought on the end of the world,” Sam comforted her, but she was adamant.

  “Paddy,” she said sincerely, “I absolutely understand. But please, don’t discard Sam because of me. “All these innocent people who were killed in pursuit of this device—it was all because of my returning to the dig site, Sam. And I agree. We should stop calling on Paddy for everything we cannot do ourselves.”

  “That is all . . . I ask . . . is just,” Paddy sniffled, trying to compose himself, “don’t get me involved anymore, all right? Two colleagues died, hospital staff is dead and injured, flight staff dead and injured, me and Cassie . . . Jesus! Cassie,” he whined. Sam grabbed him again.

  “No hard feelings, old boy,” he told Paddy. “We understand. This time I think we all went too far, got too reckless.”

  Purdue came walking out of the church, “Sam! Can you help me with the other chain, please? I’m giving one part to the poor vicar whose heart nearly stopped today.”

  “Well done! Far be it from you to take all the gold, huh?” Sam laughed as Nina and Paddy followed.

  “I’ll do you one better. I’m not keeping any of the gold,” Purdue proclaimed boastfully. “I am melting the other chain down too . . . and sending it to Jari!”

  “That’s wonderful!” Nina cheered, grabbing Purdue and planting a kiss on his forehead. “I remember he said the sale of the cross to you was all that kept him and the wife holding onto their property. That gold will secure their future.”

  “Correct,” he said.

  They picked up the chain and lugged it to the 4x4.

  “So, no gain whatsoever from this expedition, Mr. Purdue?” Nina asked.

  “Nope. Not all treasure is gold and precious stones. Someone once told me that,” Purdue smiled. “This time the treasure was wisdom; knowledge. I know Agartha exists, but I also know that we are not ready to attain the godhood we think we can. That in itself is more precious to know than anything money can buy.”

  “Let’s go sample some Swedish homebrew,” Sam suggested. They lowered the car windows and waved goodbye to the beaming vicar.

  The rain finally ceased and left them with fresh, crisp Swedish air while they cruised through the stunning country landscapes once ruled by earth-walking gods. A place that still held the power of Odin and beauty the likes of Fólkvangr itself.

  END

 

 

 
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