Nazi Gold (Order of the Black Sun Book 5)

by P. W. Child

  “My brother was killed because someone wanted to corrupt the world’s very existence. I wish to destroy them once and for all…but…”she sighed with much burden in her face, “…that will not end the deck. The woman who had Petr killed – she has a few of the cards and can still wreak havoc with it. I have no idea where to find her.”

  “You don’t have to, Professor,” he said nonchalantly, “she will be here soon.”

  Petra sat up in her seat, but his hand rested on her arm as a signal to relax.

  “How do you know this?” she asked. Her eyes were wide under the pounding of her heart. Finally it felt as if she was getting somewhere with her search.

  “The cards Petr discarded that day, the ones that German woman did not get her hands on – they are safe,” he said, and took a drink of Mihail’s concoction as if it was common spring water. Petra winced with him, but kept prying still.

  “You are not going to tell me where they are, are you?” she sighed in cynicism and sat back in her chair.

  “Why not?’ he asked, sparking life into the Petra’s demeanor.

  “Obviously these cards are extremely valuable. Most people would sell them to the highest paying tyrants on the face of the earth,” she replied.

  “That would be the most foolish thing to do, don’t you think?” he asked. “Think about it, Professor Kulich. Would you, if you were at all wise, sell this devilish weapon to anyone who would think of altering the fate of the entire world for power, thus putting your very existence and your own life’s path at risk?”

  Professor Kulich did think about it. She took quite a long time to anticipate the outcome of such an action in her head, like contemplating the moves of a chess game. It dawned upon her that the young man was correct. No one with even an ounce of wisdom, anyone who was not blind to the guile of money, would think of selling the Black Tarot. Evil men would not think twice about the consequences, nor would they care about the fate of others in their pursuit of power.

  “I see. Does that mean you will help me find them?” she dared to ask.

  “I do not see why not,” he smiled as he took another ruinous chug of the vile firewater, “I helped your brother, after all.”

  Petra felt like a truck slammed headlong into her chest. She frowned at him, confounded at his revelation.

  “You are the one who told my brother where they were?” she asked as quietly as she could. He nodded, but she was thinking that perhaps he was just putting up an act.

  “My brother’s name?” she asked quietly.

  “Dr. Miroslav Kulich of Plzeň, a renowned curator,” he replied charismatically, reveling in her shock. “That man was a huge inspiration to my curiosity, Professor. When I was a little boy he came here on some sabbatical, but I think he was actually looking for the secrets to Hoia Baciu. I met him when I tried to sell him a radio device I made with wire hangers and electrical cords I found in the back of King Iulian’s yard,” he pointed at the old man who was talking to Sam by the fire.

  “You met him here?” she said with no real direction.

  “Yes, so naturally, when I found Petr’s cards in the crawl space under his house’s floor, I contacted Dr. Kulich immediately to take them out of this place. I was afraid they would wake up whatever devils lived in the forest. Now, of course, I believe in science and leave the paranormal to the tourists,” he told Petra with a chuckle.

  She stared at him with a blank expression, but behind her eyes her brain was working on hyper drive to process all the information she had been given. The thin young man grunted from the sting of the last drops in his glass, while she was still nursing the full glass of wine they poured her over an hour ago.

  “You said you found the cards under his floor boards?” she asked suddenly. “How did you know to look there?”

  “I did not,” he smiled. “I was ransacking his house when I heard others coming, so I escaped through the trapdoor in his kitchen and hid under the floor.” Petra loved how these men spoke of crimes and taboos as if it was a way of life. But it was a way of life everywhere, she reckoned, only the Roma people had no reservations about human nature and thus addressed such things outright. It was quite refreshing.

  “And the deck was there?” she urged him to continue.

  “The deck was everywhere, Professor!” he replied in exhilaration at the oddity of his discovery that day, relieved that he could finally tell someone about it. Her puzzled expression compelled the young man to carry on eagerly. He lurched over to her and whispered, “The cards were strewn everywhere, just as he threw them before he fell to the Nazi dogs. Professor, they say he threw the cards through a portal he almost disappeared through, right? That son of a bitch knew more than he led on, because that crack in the time-space continuum he ran to – it led to his house!”

  “Teleportation,” she marveled. He simply nodded with great satisfaction that she grasped his otherwise ludicrous theory.

  He sat back again in his chair while he relished her reaction – stunned to silence. Then Petra looked at him once more; and she cracked a smile he did not expect. It was as if he had just lifted a terrific burden from her shoulders and he could see the relief in her face. Her young ally returned her smile. In her thoughts she came to the conclusion that the young man had been the one laying out the cards, a mildly disturbing thought.

  But at the same time she knew that he had probably manipulated several spreads to facilitate the events that brought them all here. The déjà vus they suffered continuously in their own countries and the fact that he sounded so sure that Petr’s killer was on her way there told her that he was secretly using the tarot to foretell what he wanted to happen. His comprehension of the workings of Hoia Baciu was frighteningly accurate and it terrified her to be in the presence of such a man. But still she could not get enough of his company and vowed to get to know him intimately.

  She cocked her head slightly and asked, “What is your name?”

  Chapter 31 – The Pact

  When Greta and her boy walked into the quaint old guest house, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Their room was lovely and cozy, adorned with beautiful wall hangings and lanterns mounted against the walls for rustic atmosphere at night. Two single beds stood parallel to the large window where the cool air was playing with the pastel blue curtains; a similarly colored carpet covered most of the varnished wooden floor. Flowers in a vase stood on the bedside case that divided the two neatly made beds. Radu hesitated to put his small bag of clothing on his bed.

  “What is wrong?” Greta asked, her hand on her upper abdomen as she had been doing for a while now.

  “I don’t want to spoil how smooth the surface is. The surface of the bedding is so perfect right now,” he smiled and placed his bag on the reed woven chair against the wall instead. Greta had to chuckle at the child’s appreciation for the work of servants, much as she did. In her own home she often avoided dirtying just washed plates by taking her sandwich in her hands to spare the housekeepers from having to do it again.

  But this endearing thought was stained by the sudden flashes of Sofie, the cook she had to silence when she would not let Greta take the seriously sick boy from his room before Herr Heller got home. In her mind the images of Sofie’s blood spattered face and gaping fleshy neck pounded the front of her skull like a persistent hammer. For a few seconds she had to pinch her eyes shut to contain the guilt and the blinding headache that ravaged her head.

  Greta dipped forward, but recovered soon afterwards.

  “Are you alright?” Radu asked.

  “Radu, sit down.” He obeyed, and she sat on her bed, while he chose the empty chair next to the one occupied by his bag.

  “I have to tell you something. The reason I brought you here was…” she sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, folding her hands nervously, “…was because…I am very sick. And I wanted to keep my promise to you about bringing you to see your home, but I was afraid that, if I died, I could not keep that promise, you see?
” she explained in a soft voice that was void of emotion. Radu could hear that she chose the most tender words to convey her case as not to upset him, to ease him into the bad news. She believed she owed the child that much.

  “Are you dying?” Radu asked. He looked distraught.

  “Yes, my darling. But one last time I want you to do me a favor,” she forced through her concerns as to how he would take it.

  “Anything Frau Heller,” he said.

  “We need to play the game that made you feel ill the last time, but just one more time,” she said quickly to lighten the blow.

  Radu shook his head forcefully, “Oh no! No, no! I won’t!”

  “Please! Radu, I need this one more little thing from you. You’ll be fine,” she lied.

  “I can’t. It is a terrible, horrible, horrible feeling!” he cried.

  She knew she would probably not find the rest of the deck, unless Igor had news on its location. But she could not take any chances and waste too much time. Heinz would come looking for them and then he would certainly stop her from forcing Radu to lay out the spread. She had to find Igor, kill Sam Cleave and destroy his equipment and get Radu to read the few cards that she did have. She did not have enough for a three row reading, so she figured Radu would lay out one row at a time as a complete reading, if that was even possible. There were only enough for two rows, give or take, as she counted them at nine.

  One by one she had counted them – The Stone, to crush or block; The Goat, to sacrifice for attainment; The Ship, to flood or drown; The Tooth, to injure by cutting or ripping; The Shackle, to hold back or close doorways; The Wheel, to reverse or accelerate; The Coffin, to contain, bind or choke and The Pyre, to progress or prosper. She had not forgotten The Boy, the card in Radu’s possession – a card representing the Dealer or an unlikely successor, a person of dark power.

  But cleverly she made Radu believe that this card was just his. That way he would not use it in the spread with those she gave him. Greta counted on his possessiveness and defensiveness over his precious picture card, so that he would only use her few.

  They would have to suffice. If the past row was laid out by the Dealer, she was convinced she could reverse events to a time before she got cancer, thus being healed. Then she’d command the next row in the spread, the present, where she would topple leaders by closing their doorways and sacrifice them for her rise to glory at the head of the Black Sun, eradicating all challengers. The future row would have to consist of cards from the first two readings, a terrifying risk to take on future fate of all things, but she had no choice. Once her husband found them she would never be able to complete the spread.

  Greta did her best to keep from losing her cool with the unwilling boy who was the only one who could bring her destiny into fruition.

  “Radu, just once, and I will never ask you for anything again. Have I not taken good care of you?” she bit her lip to remain calm.

  “Yes, madam, you did. And I appreciate it, but…it brings the most ugly feelings,” he whined with tears in his eyes.

  “Nur noch einmal, bitte,” she whispered. Her eyes delved deep into his in a plea for one last time. He did not have to understand her native tongue to see this. She appealed to his sympathy. Radu whimpered, tears streaking his cheeks. But eventually he got up and walked to her with his arms outstretched and she wrapped him up in her embrace.

  “I will help you, Frau Heller. But then you must set me free. You must let me go back to my life here. It is what I know, who I am. I want to be free from the ropes of what families bring. Does that make sense?” he sniffed. Greta felt immensely relieved to hear this. It would remove much of her guilt for causing the child’s death for preventing hers. She ran her perfectly manicured nails through his soft, dark hair.

  “Of course, my darling boy. That is a fair trade. You will be free, I promise you.”

  There was a knock on their door. It was the manager, Lola.

  “Excuse my intrusion, Mrs. Heller. I was wondering if you and your son would like to join us for a game of checkers. A few of us enjoy a few games of checkers in the midday before lunch, and sometimes our guests join in for some good fun,” she smiled.

  “Oh, no thank you,” Greta said politely. “I find games quite boring, actually.”

  “Yes, she prefers cards,” Radu said zealously, and the exclamation made Greta wince. “But can I go, please?” he asked Greta in a typical show of hopping and begging with glee.

  “Go on, then,” she smiled. “But I will be resting a bit, and so should you, before we go out this afternoon.”

  “Thank you! Yes, I will come and take a nap before we go,” he promised. He gave her a peck on the cheek and skipped out with the laughing manager.

  Greta punched a number into her cell phone to ascertain if the help she summoned – the Captain who had failed thus far to apprehend Sam Cleave and a few new men - had already arrived in Cluj. A short conversation followed and she was told that Igor had not surfaced since the last check-in, but that being in the company of the enemy probably deterred him from doing so right now. Greta lay back on the soft bed and smiled. From her purse she took her medicine and swallowed the painkillers with some water on the bedside table. Satisfied that she had secured her plans, she took some well-deserved rest to still the excruciating pain in her stomach and the fever that burned her skin.

  Chapter 32 – Shuffle of Power

  Sam fell off the couch and landed right next to a mangy mutt called Vladimir. It did not belong to any discernible breed that he knew of, unless it was some species own to Transylvania. When the pitch black thing that sported long tangled fur growled like a T-rex, Sam jumped back on the couch with gymnastic grace and speed to get away from the monstrous canine.

  “Hey, fuck off, Cù Sìth!” he muttered through his unkempt hair, his unshaven face beginning to resemble a handsome Wildman.

  “His name is Vladimir, not Koo-Shee,” the old Gypsy King chuckled from the flimsy kitchen table, where he sat watching the business news while having his morning brew. Sam wondered if he would ever know how oddly ‘Koo-Shee’, as the name was pronounced, was spelled.

  “It is a death omen in my country - a big black dog, an angry lad at that, that appears on the moors when someone is going to die. ‘Cù Sìth’ means ‘fairy dog,” Sam smiled, not sure if the old man was even interested in Scottish lore.

  “You have a fairy dog that brings death, but you people have trouble believing in a haunted forest that steals people?” King Iulian, the chief of Stefan’s clan, snorted.

  Sam just shrugged, running his hand through his hair and hoping the flee-infested animal did not share its pests with sleeping journalists.

  “You really went overboard last night, didn’t you?” Nina teased from the open back door where she was having herbal tea with Mihail’s wife, the quiet healer who was scared of being branded a witch for her root working on Nina’s wound.

  “I did not,” Sam protested, unaware that the two women had discussed his chiseled body while he was asleep in as much detail as their language barrier allowed. Mihail was watching his baby for a change to give his wife a rare opportunity to socialize with a Western European woman who seemed very fond of her.

  “The police have still not located Igor. I am getting seriously worried now,” Petra’s voice came from the corridor, growing louder as she approached. The tall beauty was speaking on the phone, moving where the meager signal bounced to a stronger reception. She was checking in with their guest house in Cluj and arranged another two day stay with the manager, promising to be back soon.

  Petra hung up the phone and emerged from the dark hallway to join in the morning warm beverage binge. She was wearing a different shirt than her own. Sam stared suggestively as she passed him a glance, questioning her new wardrobe with a naughty look to which she answered his inquiry with a dirty smile. She flicked her eyes into the corridor and back to Sam, telling him that she slept with the owner of the shirt just down the hall. He smil
ed and mouthed a ‘whoo!’ and she laughed out loud for the first time.

  “Looks like one of us had a good dose of local culture,” Nina teased her when she joined them outside.

  “My god, Nina, the culture is richer than I ever thought. Deep culture, you know?” she played along.

  “I know. Anthropology can only teach one that much of a country’s…abilities,” Nina jested with a straight face. “You learned a lot first hand last night, hey? I myself had to watch the object of my studies dance with a humongous dog to the tune of a coarse fiddle until he passed out – the object, not the dog,” Nina added, raising her mug and laughing.

  Mihail’s wife was called in to get some breakfast and she excused herself in her best broken English.

  “Nina, I know where the rest of the deck is,” Petra whispered. “Are you familiar with the ‘Heart of the Heavens’?”

  Nina gave it some thought and searched her mind’s history files like a super computer. It sounded very familiar, although she was not sure in which country exactly the SS had established an outpost for the secret launch of their various UFO crafts, the experimental fighter planes reported over German airspace by the Allied Forces.

  “….and some speculation came out over attempted communication with extra-terrestrial civilizations from the same area. But they called it ‘Gate of the Gods’, as far as I remember. Why?” she asked after her concise exposition of what history’s more obscure academics had reported.

  “That area was just on the edge of the Hoia Baciu Forest, did you know? And guess what? In the 1980’s a house was built on the ground where the ‘Gate of the Gods’ were reputed to be located,” Petra keenly relayed to the equally curious historian. “Precisely the things you and Sam saw - the fiery orange, glowing red floating orbs and so on – similar to those things were thought to be Nazi produced crafts that followed fighter planes and could not be out- maneuvered or shot down. Maybe you saw something more esoteric, Nina, but nevertheless, there was a house built where that doorway was situated.”