The Library of Forbidden Books

Chapter 28

Purdue’s head felt thick and his legs heavy and numb under his average weight, which had fallen visibly in the past months. It was unlike him to feel poorly, but for the first time in a long time his mind was the cancer of his welfare and his thoughts dictated his health. Apart from rediscovering his sister, few other things gave him pleasure these days. Nina was dead and Sam was a traitor. Alexandr, his favorite guide and exploration colleague had disappeared into the fold of the Brigade Apostate, sworn and effective opposition of the Black Sun. That made Purdue his friend’s foe, and there was no way out of it that did not involve a coffin and a lot of dirt overhead.

Poor Agatha had been brutalized so severely during her council-commanded imprisonment in Rotterdam — under Bloem’s monsters — so that she had literally changed into a cold and arrogant woman, robbed of her beautifully annoying eccentricities. Now she conformed more than what was natural to her, even with the guidance of brainwashing and parental discipline that could never before unnerve her from her idiosyncrasies. His heart was heavy, and his wealth could not heal him. Now that he was a prominent figure in the Order of the Black Sun, his life was in more danger than ever. Inside his inner sanctum slithered the eyes of traitors, while his friends lived behind enemy lines where he could not reach them.

Even though his sister reluctantly disclosed the location of the Longinus and returned to him what she had stolen, he still loved her. More than anything, in a strange way he felt that she was the only one insane enough to trust anymore. As they collaborated on the unlawful claim of the Longinus they would now once more team up to hunt for the Library of Forbidden Books. Purdue had a mind to burn the place to the ground as soon as he came upon it, but within it were locked the carefully shunned and rebuked truths of the ancient universe, something a man such as he would find enormously useful. It was worth at least first investigating and sifting through to see the subliminal rivers of knowledge meandering under the false world ideologies chiseled out by power-drunk, religious lunatics.

After what Dr. Alfred Meiner had imparted to Purdue, the normally resilient and reckless billionaire found it just about impossible to find any form of hope in the continuation of humankind collectively. As much as he felt saddened by the fate of the innocent and promising, Purdue realized finally and totally that it was time for the world to end. It was the only way to end the revolving suffering of generations and undo the countless avenues and labyrinth of cluttered ideologies. Misshapen psychology would never cease its evolution to breed a more deadly human, and a more indifferent reaction to unrighteousness. The children Meiner spoke of in such mundane terms hindered Purdue’s mental focus and deterred his concentration on the goal at hand. He stood at a fork in his road, he knew, and it was the darkest decision he had ever been forced to face.

First, he could once more counter the insidious agendas of the order and the council, somehow hoping to survive it only to be drawn back in from just another arm of the colossal cephalopod it had become under the wretched symbol. Second, he could mobilize Final Solution 2 and put the world out of its misery, only to suffer the far worse fate of having to share his new life with the snakes of Himmler, the children of Hitler. Then there was the option he held no belief in, yet was entrusted to ensure. The coming of the old gods, whether they were indeed super-intelligent extraterrestrial beings or apocryphal demons of chilling measure and size, would result in extinction entirely. Such things, should they exist, would never share power with these timid droplets of cosmic piss that populated Earth in their arrogance before vaporizing at the sight of the sun.

All these contemplations passed through his thoughts as he paced leisurely along the elevated circumference of the great structure the organization dubbed ARK. For more than twenty years the ideology was gestating in the minds of members, but the search for relevant relics held up their swift progress, as did interfering parties threatening to expose or destroy them. He had never realized that his influence and genius in the academic society and his subsequent obsession with historical treasure hunting would get him into the dark world of those who truly believed that they could control the fate of others.

Now it was here; right here, in front of him, the birth of ARK.

“You look positively sullen, David,” she said next to him suddenly. Purdue started. His twin sister had snuck up on him while he was surveying the vast and seemingly indestructible hall that was nearing the end of completion.

“You scared the hell out of me, Agatha,” he said in surprise.

“Apologies. I don’t recall you being such a frail pup,” she teased with a pout, Agatha’s rendition of a chuckle. “What is this place all about?”

Purdue was aching to ask her about her time in the claws of the council in Rotterdam, but he refrained because of the unspeakable torment they had exerted on her. It was not just personal and traumatic for her, but it was not something easily addressed. In all this he still wished he could just ask, because it would have helped his final cause so much to know how she had survived Bloem’s men and their brutal methods of doing away with her. Knowing what had happened to her and how she eventually came to a relatively bearable existence would have benefitted what he wished to use against them. Unfortunately, this was not the time or place for such prying and Purdue elected to remain professional — for now.

“You have not heard of ARK while you were in the company of the council?” he asked. Agatha looked hard at him, her face wrought with intolerance for his cheap attempt at reminding her where she had spent months of hell just for being his kin.

“No, David. I have not heard of it. You do know that I was not invited to their meetings or their lavish parties,” she snapped in abrupt sarcasm.

“I suppose you weren’t wearing the right jacket,” Purdue jested with a slight smirk.

Agatha scoffed as her eyes ran coldly across the huge gathering hall, “No, apparently I was wearing the wrong surname.”

The statement hit Purdue in the gut. He looked at his sister with empathy and honest regret. Not only did he abandon his twin in the jungles of Africa when they were young, to pursue family matters, but he had the audacity to do it again when he learned of her capture. Once more he did not go out of his way to rescue her, hoping that she would somehow get out of her predicament without his aid and once more, she had managed.

“I am not the only Purdue responsible for the disdain of others,” he defended, while he knew what had happened to Agatha was categorically his fault. They used her to get to him and any chance she had to make her own way was marred by her brother’s reputation and her family name. Agatha simply always pulled the shortest straw. Something about how she looked at him convinced Purdue that she would not allow anyone to take advantage of her again.

“Oh, you want to blame me?” she asked. “I successfully moved under the radar all my life, you know, until I found you again. Just mull that one around in your head, old boy.”

“I did not ask you to seek me out,” Purdue said plainly, ignoring eye contact with her under pretense of overseeing the arrangement of the ladders on the concrete walls. “You came to me, out of obscurity.”

“Ah,” she smiled, a humorless grin utterly laced with hurt, “that obscurity I was cast into… by whom, again? Just remind me? Oh! The brother who was too goddamn good to come and look for me after my uncle left my fate in the hands of a bunch of tribal nursemaids. That same brother did not care to set aside one single day to condescend to come and see if I was even alive.”

“I knew you would be all right, Agatha,” he replied meekly. “You were always self-sufficient. Besides, I did look for you for the longest time. My investigators had me convinced that you had perished.”

“And just like when you heard I was dead from a bunch of ingrates who took your money for no services rendered, you believed it again. You believed I was dead when that stinking Dutchman and his imbecilic sycophants lied to you. David, you never double-check if you are being lied to. My God, you are naïve!”

He looked at her. His sister had never been this fragile and it alarmed him. Did he really do this to Agatha with his insistent gallivanting with danger? The normally cool and composed genius she was had now momentarily shed her robotic logic and revealed her humanness to him. It was almost an honor for Purdue to be torn out like this by his sister, proving to him that what he did actually did matter to her after all. He put his arms around Agatha, but she did not reciprocate in any way. Like a mannequin she stood waiting for him to get his fill of the mocking embrace she did not recognize.

Any normally functioning woman would have perhaps shed a tear by now, but the scrawny blonde woman he had grown up with only stared blankly at him. Purdue sighed, more in relief at her minor outburst than hopelessness at never regaining her trust again.

“You do have an uncanny way to dismiss the possibilities of being betrayed by those you trust. Twice you were told that I was dead, David, and both times you did not waver to question the source and find the truth. The women you care for aren’t dead just because your precious Nazi mates told you so, you know,” she said bitterly, folding her slender arms over her chest and finding a point in the vicinity to focus her attention on.

Purdue felt her words seep into his reason. Something in what Agatha said, although naked truth, sank heavily into his mind. It was something he never considered, yes. She was absolutely correct! It suddenly dawned on him that he might have also been lied to about Nina’s fate. For once he would question the report. If there was any woman worth investigating further, it was Dr. Nina Gould. Purdue gave his sister a tender look, realizing that she was deliberately using their torrid and shaky bond to reveal something very important to him.

“Agatha?” he whispered, taking care not to exhibit his stunned realization to those who could see him here.

“What?” she asked abruptly. “When are you going to explain this whole set-up to me?” She spoke dismissively, but he smiled at her. To say thank you would be redundant and besides, Agatha was not the soppy type. In appreciation for the news he favored her by not dwelling on the subject one moment longer, but Agatha could see her brother’s face light up and his enthusiasm returning as if by some form of magic. If she was the type, maybe she would have smiled.