The Library of Forbidden Books

Chapter 22

An overwhelming stench, much like sulfur, possessed every corner of the old house in Oban. Outside a crowd had gathered while the emergency services sped all over the vicinity to assist in the assessment of several collisions and injuries, while the police raced to Nina’s house. By now the blinding light that had exploded through the windows had died to no more than ambient illumination and all was still inside. Even where the neighbors had congregated in shock and curiosity there was not a word to be heard. Mute and astonished droves of people stood, dumbstruck by the stupefying event, before only speculated by historians, physics academics, and occultists.

Nobody dared say a word in the wet, cold night until the authorities had gone in to have a look at the scene. Some of the women who had glared at Nina and Gretch when Nina came to sign for the house, nudged one another in a gesture of “I told you so” and nodding sorrowfully for the loss of the pretty historian fresh from Edinburgh. More than the shock, the predominant feeling was one of terror and scrutiny at the extraordinary incident they all had played witness to.

At the end of the long walkway with its shattered clay stones and thorny plants stood the big dark abode, white billows of steam or smoke permeating from its external walls and roof tiles. An eeriness crept over it, as if it was looking back at the townspeople to admit its iniquity and watch them shudder at its secrets. Through the windows of the top floor the atmosphere screamed with intent and challenge.

Come on in! Come see what I hold.

Come in, and perhaps you will join us!

Those more prone to superstition crossed themselves while others refused to look up at the place for fear that whatever dwelled there would “see them.” Oban’s Nazi house was already so deeply shrouded in mystery and otherworldly hearsay that many townspeople were of a mind to burn the place to the ground. Now that it had claimed yet another victim, the feisty yet likeable historian, Dr. Nina Gould, the once absurd notion had become a more and more logical one.

Some of the stray animals in the neighborhood would never even approach the house, even while it stood abandoned and empty. That was enough to fuel the flames of suspicion and loathing among the inhabitants of the coastal Scots village. Tonight was the last straw, although not a soul uttered such an idea, they were all thinking it. The accursed house and whatever it guarded had to be destroyed once and for all. But that was for later. For now they were waiting for the police to call in the appropriate government agency to determine the level of threat present and decide accordingly. But sooner or later they would eventually disperse, return to their stations, and leave the old house to the merciless judgment of Oban.

Inside the house it was pitch dark.

Everything was intact, just as it had been before the definitive anomaly struck. Gretch lifted her head in the matte black of her surroundings. For a moment she could not remember where she was and then she remembered.

“Nina! You alive, doll?” she shouted in the dark. “Nina! Answer me, please!”

“Christ, can you keep it down?” she heard Nina’s groan from somewhere to her left, not too far off. “My head is split in two from that ungodly clap. I swear I’ve lost my hearing in this ear.”

The two women were still in the kitchen, a distance from the trapdoor where the flash stunned them. Outside they could hear the sirens but they had no idea the amount of damage and chaos that rang throughout the neighborhood. Nina pulled out her lighter from her jeans pocket, and she flicked it on to see the extent of the destruction in the house… of which there was none. Amazed, Gretchen and Nina investigated the immediate area only to find that nothing had changed.

“Oh, my God!” Nina exclaimed suddenly. “The men!”

Gretchen lit a short candle that barely filled its makeshift tin holder on the old sink. With this and Nina’s lighter they approached the black square hole at their feet where the steps waited in silence. In the dark below there was no sound but the thrashing currents of the mouth ominously inviting the ladies into its moist cavernous home.

“Look at that dark pit, Nina. I must confess to being quite scared shitless,” Gretchen admitted as they started down the dark steps.

“You and me both, Gretch,” Nina answered, secretly concerned for Sam’s welfare. A dreadful feeling of loss filled her in anticipation of discovering Sam, Paddy, and Richard in scattered butchery after such a powerful explosion.

As they sank deeper with every step in the flimsy yellow flicker of their light, the atmosphere felt thicker with electrical activity. It made their hair stand on end, almost like walking down a dark corridor after a goodnight ghost story.

It feels as if something is waiting for us, Nina,” Gretchen implored, tugging at Nina’s shirt to pull her back to the steps. Nina swirled around with an irritated frown, “Can you not say shit like that?”

“But it’s true.”

“I know it’s true, Gretchen. I was trying to ignore that! Now come. They could be anywhere in any condition and I don’t even want to entertain that thought. They should not be so quiet,” Nina said, as she turned to stalk nearer to the rushing water of the well where the men were last. Their light was too slight to discern anything before they had come right on it — an added reason for nerves.

“Sam!” Nina called out, her dark eyes very reluctantly searching the blackness for him. “Sam!”

“Ladies,” a voice came from where the mouth was gurgling and gushing, almost drowning it in the din.

“Richard?” Gretchen asked. “Where are you?”

“We are at the edge of the mouth, ladies,” Paddy said plainly.

It appeared the men were unscathed, yet their strange serenity was disturbing. On inspection, Nina and Gretchen found Paddy and Sam on one side of the mouth and Richard seated on the opposite side.

“Our flashlights have died. The battery power was sapped completely!” Richard mentioned, his voice thrilled and exhilarated at the same time.

“What the fuck just happened?” Nina asked. She sounded exasperated, more from shock and relief than actual vexation.

“You won’t believe us if we tell you,” Sam added, his eyes still resolutely fixed on the restless pool of water in front of him. “You had to have seen it, else you’d think we were daft; completely fucking nutters.”

Paddy nodded in agreement.

“Tell us anyway,” Nina insisted, while Gretchen sat down next to Richard’s pale frame. For the first time since they had met him, he looked cheerful, even flushed.

“Well,” Richard exclaimed, surprisingly the loudest and most talkative of the three, “it worked.”

“What worked?” came the question from both women.

“The theory of inter-dimensional travel appears to be more than mere hypothesis, it seems. From what just happened here, this is indeed a portal to another time-space continuum, but the conundrum presents itself in that it is unclear what activates it,” he rambled, deep in thought, though maniacal his words came rapidly and precisely.

“Bodies? Perhaps?” Sam suggested in his snide way, ashen and horrified. Paddy said nothing. He simply stared into the well in the feeble candlelight that barely stayed alive in its frantic dance for the subterranean air rush.

“When we dropped the bodies into the water… ” Sam tried to explain to Nina, but the words failed him from there.

“The big bang happened,” Paddy added blankly without moving a muscle. Sam nodded.

“I venture to guess that the water is merely a conduit to another barrier, otherwise this… bang, and… this… light, would happen all the time. No, it was definitely something about the dead men’s corpses that excited the physics of this place,” Richard spoke with wonderment, almost reciting his words like a man in a trance. There was no doubt that he admired the science at work here, sinister as it might have been.

“But, how? And what precisely was the clap about?” Gretchen inquired. She looked at Nina and reached out to run her hand over Nina’s black crown to console her, calming her nerves somewhat.

“You know that when the sound barrier is breached, there is a similar clap,” Richard explained.

“Hey, we did not drop them in at Mach 1, pasty,” Sam objected to the ludicrous idea from the man he dubbed in disdain of his pale complexion. To Nina’s surprise, Dr. Richard Philips was entirely unfazed by the epithet. She reckoned he was such a social outcast that someone going through the trouble of giving him a pet name was a compliment. She shook her head at Sam so that Philips would not note her reprimand, but she was smirking slightly, amused by the old Sam’s streak revealing itself briefly. It made Sam feel good to see the feisty beauty appreciate his jest, even in this horrid situation of confusion and impending trouble.

“Yes, Mr. Cleave, but this is not about sound. It is rather a penetration of the wall between completely different spaces that happen to run on wholly separate frequencies,” the bland academic described with more animation than he had exhibited in hours. “From there the clap, an entry from one consistency to another; a transition from one plane of existence to another, if you will. Of course, now that we know it is plausible and possible, the question of danger is undeniable. Such a transition into an unknown molecular structure could be catastrophic… at least!”

Sam tried to follow the gibberish of the thin man, but ultimately it did not matter that much to him how this happened, as long as they survived it. Paddy got up and dusted himself off.

“I have to leave or else I’ll fail to make my appointment with my superior tomorrow, Sam. Is there any other way out of here that does not involve police, press, or people?” he asked.

“Aye, Patrick, over here,” Nina said, gesturing for him to follow her to the rotten and rusted doors fixed in the stone wall of the back of the basement, those that she discovered the first time she came down here to view the place with Mrs. McLaughlin.

“Now listen, Sam,” Paddy told Sam and Nina, “get Nina out of here pronto, right? I don’t want anything left here for my agency to discover when they sweep this place. I was never here. But if Roodt is connected to McLaughlin, you can bet your last shilling MI6 knows about this cozy Reich house, eh?”

“How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?” Sam asked him with an urgent whisper, but Sam was not as quiet as he had thought. From the well, the snobbish voice of Dr. Philips set things straight, “That’s quite all right, Mr. Cleave. We’ll get out of here totally undetected, I assure you.”

Sam frowned at Richard, but Paddy grabbed his arm with reassurance, “He is right. Don’t fret about that just now, old boy. Get all the books upstairs, so that Nina’s assassin has nothing to take home. Find the Library of Forbidden Books and whatever Roodt is up to, MI6 will handle it. You lot take care of the Black Sun’s goons and stop Purdue from completing the plan.”

He tapped his best friend on the shoulder before leaving through the decrepit exit into the noisy night outside before he could be seen. As soon as he was gone, Nina bolted the hideous contraption behind him and returned to where Gretchen and Richard were conversing under their breath. Outside the house they heard rotor blades as helicopters with news teams arrived.

“Come!” Richard urged. “Quickly, get the books in the attic so that we can leave before they break the doors down.”