The Atlantis Scrolls

Chapter 24

Two days later, Agatha had made arrangements with her client to deliver the codex, as she was hired to do. Nina found it hard to part with such a valuable piece of ancient history. Although she specialized in German history, mostly that which concerned the Second World War, she held immense passion for all history, especially eras so obscure and far into the Old World that barely any true relics or accounts of it existed anymore.

Most of what was written about truly ancient history was destroyed throughout time, defiled and destroyed by humankind’s desire for dominion over all the continents and civilizations. War and displacement had caused precious tales and relics from a forgotten time to be tucked into myth and debate. Here was an item that had actually existed while gods and monsters reputedly walked the earth, when kings breathed fire and heroines swayed whole nations by the word of God alone.

Gently, her slender hand caressed the valuable artifact. The marks on her knuckles were beginning to heal and her demeanor was strangely nostalgic, as if the past week had been just a hazy dream wherein she had the privilege of being acquainted with something deeply mysterious and magical. On her arm the Tiwaz rune tattoo protruded somewhat from under her sleeve and she remembered another instance just like this, when she fell headlong into the world of Norse mythology and its alluring reality in this day and age. Not since then had she felt such an overwhelming sense of wonder as to the buried truths of the world, now reduced to ludicrous theory.

Yet here it was in plain sight, tangible and very real. Who was to say that other words lost in mythos did not hold credence? Although Sam shot every page and captured the beauty of the old book with professional efficiency, she mourned its imminent absence from her. Even though Purdue offered to have the whole journal translated from the successive pages for her to read, it was not the same. The words were not enough. She could not place her hands on the fingerprints of antique civilizations with words.

“Jesus, Nina, are you possessed by that thing?” Sam jested as he entered the room with Agatha in tail. “Shall I get an old priest and a young priest?”

“Oh, leave her be, Mr. Cleave. There are few enough people left in this world who appreciate the true power of the past. Dr. Gould, I have transferred your fee,” Agatha Purdue notified her. In her hand she had a special casing of leather to carry the book in; one that clicked in on the top with a lock like Nina’s old school case when she was fourteen.

“Thank you, Agatha,” Nina said amicably. “I hope your client appreciates it to the same extent.”

“Oh, I am sure he appreciates all this trouble we went through to retrieve the book. Please refrain, though, from publishing the pictures or information,” Agatha requested from both Sam and Nina, “or telling anyone that I allowed you access to its contents. They nodded in agreement. After all, if they had to uncover what the book directed them toward there would be no need for its existence to be exposed.

“Where is David?” she asked, as she collected her bags.

“With Peter in his office out back in the other building,” Sam answered as he helped Agatha with the bag of climbing gear.

“Well, tell him I said goodbye, will you?” she said to no-one in particular.

What a strange family, Nina thought to herself as she watched Agatha and Sam disappear down the stairs to the front door. Twins haven’t seen each other in eons and this is how they part. Shit, I thought I was a cold relative, but these two just… must be the money. Money makes people stupid and mean.

“I thought Agatha was coming with us,” Nina called from the balustrade above Purdue as he and Peter made their way to the lobby.

Purdue looked up. Peter tapped him on the arm and waved goodbye to Nina.

“Wiedersehen, Peter,” she smiled.

“My sister left, I presume?” Purdue asked as he skipped the first few steps to join her.

“Just now, actually. I suppose you two aren’t close,” she remarked. “She couldn’t wait for you to come in to say goodbye?”

“You know her,” he said, his voice a bit croaky with a definite hint of long-standing bitterness. “Not very affectionate even on a good day.” He gave Nina a deep look and his eyes became softer. “On the other hand, I am very affectionate, considering the clan I hail from.”

“Sure, if you weren’t such a manipulative bastard,” she cut him off. Her words were not overly harsh, but they conveyed her honest opinion of her ex-lover. “Seems like you fit right into your clan, old boy.”

“Are we ready to go?” Sam’s voice from the direction of the front door broke the tension.

“Yes. Yes, we are ready to go. I have asked Peter to arrange transport to Buren and from there we’ll take a tour of the castle to see if we find any significance to the journal’s wording,” Purdue said. “We must hurry, children. There is much mischief to be perpetrated!”

Sam and Nina watched him vanish into the side corridor to the office where he had left his luggage.

“Can you believe he is still not tired of digging up the whole world for that elusive prize?” Nina asked. “I wonder if he knows what he is looking for in life, because he is obsessively searching for treasure, and still, it is just never enough.”

Sam, just a few inches behind her, stroked her hair tenderly, “I know what he is looking for. But I fear that elusive prize will be the death of him yet.”

Nina turned to look at Sam. His expression was fraught with a sweet sadness as he pulled his hand away from her, but Nina quickly caught it, and grasped his wrist tightly. She held his hand in hers and sighed.

“Oh, Sam.”

“Yes?” he asked as she played with his fingers.

“I wish you would also let go of your obsession. There is no future there. Sometimes, no matter how much it hurts to admit you’ve lost, you must move on,” Nina advised him softly, hoping that he would heed her counsel about his self-imposed shackles to Trish.

She looked truly sorry and it made his heart ache to hear her say what he had been fearing she felt all this time. Since her obvious attraction to Bern she had been acting distant, and with Purdue back in the scene, dwelling from Sam was inevitable. He wished he could go deaf, to have spared him the pain of her confession. But this was it, he knew. He had lost Nina once and for all.

She caressed Sam’s cheek with a graceful hand, the touch he so loved. But her words skewered him beyond recovery.

“You have to let her go, or that elusive dream of yours will be the death of you.”

No! You can’t do this! his mind cried, but his voice stayed mute. Sam felt lost in the finality of it, immersed in the terrible feeling it brought. He had to say something.

“Right! All set!” Purdue interrupted their moment of suspended emotion. “We have little time to get to the castle before it closes for the day.”

Nina and Sam followed him with their luggage, neither saying another word. The road to Wewelsburg felt like an eternity. Sam had excused himself and settled into the backseat with his earphones plugged into his phone, listening to music and pretending to doze off. But in his mind all the happenings milled. He wondered how it came about that Nina chose not to be with him, because as far as he knew, he had done nothing to alienate her. Eventually he did drift off to sleep to the music and blissfully abandoned his worry over things beyond his control.

They stayed on the E331 for most of the way, driving at a comfortable speed, so they could visit the castle during the day. Nina took the time to study the rest of the poem. They were down to the last line, “Where the gods send fire, where the prayers rose.”

Nina frowned, “I suppose the location being Wewelsburg, the last line should tell us where in the castle to look.”

“Probably. I must confess though, I have no idea where to begin. The place is magnificent… and massive,” Purdue replied. “And with Nazi-era documents you and I both know the level of deception they could attain and I think that is a bit intimidating. Then again, we can be intimidated, or we can see it as another challenge. After all, we have conquered some of their most secretive webs before, who says we can’t do it this time?”

“I wish I had as much faith in us as you do, Purdue,” Nina sighed, running her hands through her hair.

Lately she had felt the urge to just come out and ask him where Renata was, and what he had done with her after they escaped from the car crash in Belgium. It was imperative that she found out — and soon. Nina needed to save Alexandr and his friends at all costs, even if it meant jumping back in bed with Purdue — in every way — to get the information.

Purdue’s eyes kept darting to the rearview mirror as they spoke, but he kept a steady pace. A few minutes later they decided to stop at Soest to get something to eat. The picturesque town invited them from the main road with church spires raised well above the rooftops and clumps of trees dipping their heavy branches into the pond and rivers beneath. Tranquility was always welcome to them, and Sam would be ecstatic to know there was food to be had.

All throughout their meal outside a quaint café in the town square, Purdue seemed distant, even a tad uneven in his behavior, but Nina chalked it up to his sister leaving so abruptly.

Sam insisted on trying some local flavor, opting for pumpernickel and Zwiebel-Bier, as suggested by a very happy bunch of tourists from Greece who had trouble walking in a straight line this early in the day.

And that was what convinced Sam that it was his kind of drink. In general the conversation was light, mostly about the beauty of the town with a bit of healthy criticism of the passersby who wore their jeans too tight or those who did not deem personal hygiene necessary.

“I believe we have to get going, people,” Purdue groaned as he got up from the table that was by now strewn with used napkins and empty plates with scattered scraps of what was a marvelous feast. “Sam, you don’t perhaps have that camera of yours in your bag, do you?”

“Aye.”

“I’d like a shot of that Romanesque-styled church over there,” Purdue requested, pointing to an old cream-colored building with a Gothic flair not half as impressive as the Cologne Cathedral, but still worth capturing on high definition.

“Certainly, sir,” Sam smiled. He zoomed out to get the entire height of the church in, making sure that the light and filtering was just so that all the fine details of the architecture could be discernible.

“Thank you,” Purdue said and rubbed his hands together. “Now, let’s go.”

Nina watched him carefully. He was his old flamboyant self, but something about him was vigilant. He appeared to be a bit nervous, or something bothered him that he would not share.

Purdue and his secrets. Always keeping a card up that sleeve, aren’t you? Nina thought as they approached their vehicle.

What she neglected to notice was the two young punks following in their footsteps at a safe distance, pretending to be sightseeing. They had been trailing Purdue, Sam, and Nina since they left Cologne almost two-and-a-half hours ago.