The Fountain of Youth (Order of the Black Sun Book 15) Read online

  “No wonder they’re fighting, with that bitch Christa living there,” Nina scoffed as she drew the smoke deeper in, deeper than she usually did, deep enough to constitute deliberate harm. But this time she got more than she bargained for. As if her fading body were retaliating, her lungs convulsed in a coughing fit. She felt like an amateur smoker – she was coughing just like had when she’d started at the age of sixteen after Jimmy Harrison dumped her.

  Finally Nina’s attack subsided, leaving her weeping in pain. The cigarette had fallen from her fingers and it rolled rapidly toward the edge of the steps that led down to the lawn. Against the wall outside her front door she leaned hard against the coarse paint while clutching her chest, but it was her back that was on fire. The region underneath her right scapula especially seemed to tear from the surrounding tissue every time she coughed, and it stung so badly that she cursed through her tears.

  But what followed was a nightmare for Nina Gould. From the crying spell she sank to her haunches, burying her hands in her hair, trying not to draw her breath too deeply. Her scalp felt loose, in a way, when she lifted her head and her hands fell to her knees.

  “Oh Jesus!” she cried. “No, no, no! Oh Jesus, no!” she mumbled insanely as tufts of hair stayed behind in her palms. The pain in her back was suddenly not her worst agony, as she felt around her head only to discover that her hair had started falling out. In disbelief, Nina looked at the result of even the gentlest run of her fingertips over her hair. “Christ, no!” she kept repeating from a whisper to the crescendo of her emotions where she screamed hysterically into the cushion on the sofa inside.

  She knew it was true. She knew she had to expect this sooner or later, but now that it had actually happened for real, she couldn’t deal with the shock. Nina refused to believe what she knew was real. There was no denying the clumps of hair in her hands. For the past two weeks she’d been shedding more than the usual amount of hair when she brushed her tresses, but she’d chosen to ignore the obvious portent.

  Muffled in the cushion, the sobs of the historian would never be heard through the noisy gales outside. Yet her frantic wails of despair were deafening inside her and around her, the final clout of reality too much to bear. Maybe she should have told Sam, or even Purdue. Maybe she should’ve counted on their support before she deciding selfishly to exacerbate her condition out of some kind of spite toward the cruel deities that punished her. But now the hour for such things was late. The small fraction of treatment she’d allowed, or could afford, was now depleted and she was on her own in every way.

  Nina had never been so alone.

  Chapter 5

  Kirkwall, the sleepy Scottish town on the Orkney Islands, was suffering a terrible storm that, according to the weather station, threatened to remain indefinitely. Just a few kilometers from the Bay of Weyland, the exclusive clinic, owned by Purdue’s holding company, had their generators on to brave the power outage. Power cuts had been plaguing the town since the night before, two days into the unexpected tempest that had approached from the northeast over Everbay and clean across Balfour.

  The townspeople had had little warning, but they managed well enough with what they had. They knew to stay indoors while the rain pelted the landscape. Unfortunately for some of them, like Evelyn Moore, work was far too important for the greater good. She still had to commute from the western region to the clinic, where she served as an accounts administrator. The highly qualified accountant-come-business executive had been employed by David Purdue since 2011. By doubling her salary and including a nice townhouse in Kirkwall, he’d effectively lured her away from her old job in London. And Evelyn did not regret it for a second.

  At the clinic she was allowed, even encouraged, to work the financial administration of the establishment in the best way she saw fit. Not only was this good for her, but the teams of specialists, scientists, and medical staff she was fortunate to work with made her job more than a living. They were a close-knit family at the clinic, not only because of their pleasant personalities, but because they all shared the same confidence.

  Under the ownership and management of Scorpio Majorus, an affiliate of the mighty Brigade Apostate, all staff members at the Orkney Institute of Science were contractually bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Because of the privileged capacity of the research and patients admitted, all personnel were to keep their work to the confines of the clinic perimeter. With the generous benefits supplied by the holding company, the agreement was not difficult to maintain.

  Evelyn had had stressful situations, naturally, but all in all she was working her dream job with a group of people she could trust with her life – in every way. The rain had continued even with reports that it could diminish slightly, and Evelyn was already late for work. Moats of muddy water had blocked her way out of the garage this morning. It had taken her over twenty minutes to get her car out of the garage and successfully locked up before she could leave for work.

  With her dark hair in soaking disarray and her make-up hideously un-made by the downpour, Evelyn was cussing under her breath as she drove through the grayed-out vernacular-styled houses. She knew full well that speeding even a tad over the limit here could cause almost certain trouble, but she had a meeting with a prominent member of the board and couldn’t afford to be late.

  Her VW Polo took to the road with little effort and she was grateful for the new tires she’d put on the month before, even though it had cost her a lot in one go. Times like these were why she’d had the new treads fitted, gripping the road under the wet onslaught of the rain. Nervously she clutched the wheel past the giant structure of St. Magnus Cathedral, but she had to admit that she was relieved most people had elected to stay home today. Thanks to them the road was even emptier than the small population usually took up.

  After some annoyingly slow crawling due to traffic lights and children’s crossings, Evelyn was freed from the grid-like navigation of town and could speed up a bit on the country road towards the clinic. Carness Road wound in obscured turns through the fog and low-hanging clouds.

  “Finally!” she sighed, and dared to push the accelerator deeper than usual, vowing to herself to hold the steering wheel extra tightly for the speed she was going. Her windshield wipers worked at optimal speed to clear her view ahead as she sped up, leaving the houses, churches, and stops behind. To her left the ocean camouflaged itself by turning the same gray as the clouds that covered it, and to her right there was only flat green country as far as her eyes could survey.

  Fifteen minutes after she’d shaken off the more constrained parts of her journey, she finally came to the turn-off toward the clinic. While stationary at the T-junction, Evelyn checked her watch. “Oh shit! Shit!” she moaned out loud. The face of her watch declared that she was, in fact, now three minutes late for work. That meant three minutes late for her important appointment. Without wasting another moment, she turned into the small road and sped forward.

  “Thank God it’s raining! No tractors. No insane farmers or delivery trucks. Oh God, if I’m not there before him I’m going to lose the contract!” she whined, still trying to fix her drying tresses into something respectable as she chased the end of the road. Evelyn was right. On days like these, the farmers did not bother to check their fields. It was simply too perilous in such hazardous conditions.

  Thunder raged above her miniscule vehicle as she approached the last turn-off, but Evelyn could only think of her business with the board member. Far ahead, she could see a slow moving vehicle emerge from the ghostly road. Gradually it turned darker as she drew closer and slowed down against her will.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she exclaimed, vexed at the slow manner in which one farmer chose to pull his tractor across the last stretch of road. “I’m late, you idiot!” she shouted and slammed her hand on the wheel. Gearing to second, she released her clutch and checked the opposite lane one more time before accelerating. She passed the melancholy farmer with ease, looking back at him in the r
ear view mirror with no small measure of annoyance. He was motioning something, but Evelyn had no time to entertain the attitude of a country dweller.

  “Oh yeah? Well, screw you too, Farmer Brown!” she cried, as he grew smaller in her mirror.

  It was ten minutes past her meeting with the board member and Evelyn dreaded being dismissed. Mr. Purdue did not tolerate inefficient staff and he would have no qualms with firing her on the spot. Evelyn was so concerned about the future of her career that she never saw the small brown hare that sprinted across the roadway until she was right up on it.

  “Oh shit!” she screamed and swerved to a hard right to avoid hitting the furry thing.

  Her brakes locked and sent her vehicle skidding along for the next few meters, leaving Evelyn no control of the car as she watched the ditch on the side of the road swallow the bonnet. Screaming helplessly, she braced herself subconsciously, but it was no match for the impact as the node of the car buried itself in the thick muddy turf off the road. The accountant’s body came to a sudden halt, which broke her ribs and instantly rendered her unconscious when her head slammed against the dashboard between the steering wheel and the driver door.

  ***

  “Did you hear?” the filing clerk whispered harshly when she entered the office of Doris Hipman, the administrative manager at the Orkney Institute of Science.

  “Hear what?” Doris asked as she unpacked her case and switched on her laptop.

  “This morning Evelyn was in a car accident! She’s at the town hospital now…in a coma,” the middle-aged lady told Doris. “They say she broke five ribs, fractured her skull, and her back was severely injured in the crash.”

  “Oh my God!” Doris gasped. “I’ve been calling her incessantly since 8 a.m. because she missed a meeting with one of the main board members!” She rose from her seat and took off her glasses. “When did you get the news?”

  “A few moments ago. Dr. Cait told me he got a call from Balfour Hospital. A farmer out on Work Farm was driving behind her when it happened. He said she passed him on the road and he tried to warn her about a broken fence letting animals onto the road,” the clerk recounted.

  “She hit a sheep or something?” Doris asked.

  “Dr. Cait said that apparently she’d swerved for something running out in front of her car and that was when she went off that deep ditch where the fence runs. The road was, of course, too wet when she tried to brake and, well,” she shrugged.

  “Alright, thanks for informing me, love. I will give Dr. Cait a call and see if we can send her a bouquet this morning, if any delivery vans are willing to go out in this unholy shower,” Doris said. When the clerk had left the office, Doris quickly gulped down her tea. With a labored sigh she shook her head and whispered, “Looks like I will have to do the month end accounts as well. Great.”

  A few hours into the day, after Doris and the other personnel had sent their colleague some flowers, she finished her daily admin duties to handle the first wave of incomplete accounts to be sent out. She knew the basics and had used Pastel and such before, but Doris did not have a personal relationship with the debtors like Evelyn did. After all, it wasn’t her job.

  But at the institute they all helped out where they could and sometimes took on other duties above their own when needed. So today Doris would play accounts lady as well. By the fourth or fifth record she was becoming more familiar with the statements, businesses, and patients to be directed to. In fact, by 3:48 p.m. Doris Hipman was feeling quite confident that she could easily do Evelyn’s job if she ever had to again.

  Some of the documents had footnotes scribbled in about the main member responsible for payment, or alternative payment methods for special patients. Little things that only Evelyn knew about, however, did not appear on all the statement records and the latter was the case on the Purdue account of a few months ago, still outstanding by three installments.

  “Odd,” Doris frowned. “Purdue?”

  Upon requesting that the clerk pull the hard copy to make sure, she still found the discrepancy strange. “Why on earth would David Purdue have to pay anything in installments?” she asked the clerk.

  “Why not?” the clerk shrugged innocently, provoking Doris’ impatience. The acting accountant pushed out her hip and tilted her head with an annoyed sigh.

  “Jessica, David Purdue can buy a small country’s cash…with his wallet contents at any given moment. The only thing he ever pays in installments is God’s salary! This doesn’t make sense at all. He could have paid this treatment off in one swoop.” She frowned.

  “Who is the patient? Is it for his own treatment?” the clerk asked.

  “Um, hang on,” Doris replied, keen to see what the clerk had brought to her attention. Her eyes rapidly perused the schedules, scripts, and hospitalization duration before she found the patient’s name. “Dr. Nina Gould.”

  “Ah! Yes, that lady was discharged by Dr. Cait just before that historical peace treaty was signed last year,” the clerk exclaimed, her face lighting up at the realization.

  “What was she in for?” Doris asked, scanning the incomprehensible medical jargon on the sheets. The clerk did not want to exhibit an insubordinate attitude, but it was something that was bound to be written on the very document her superior was holding.

  “Uh, I think it should be written…” she said slowly to sound uncertain long enough for Doris to grasp the concept.

  “Oh, wait, here it is,” Doris exclaimed, leaving the poor clerk relieved that she did not have to point out to Doris how thick she was being. “Treatment for acute radiation sickness,” Doris read, and then her voice dampened slightly at the bad end, “and subsequent small cell lung cancer.” She looked up through her glasses. “I’ll send this one out first. Just in case she needs more consultations.”

  Chapter 6

  Sam was crouching on the floor of the ferry, packing his satchel. He’d decided not to keep his long lens Canon around his neck on account of the vile sea spray that could edge into the camera’s innards. Around him the bottom parts of passengers’ legs moved about as the ferry crossed the icy ocean between the island of Suðuroy, one of the islands of the Faroese archipelago, and the Shetland Islands where he would book a Cessna back to Edinburgh.

  “You take pictures of the fjords with that monster?” someone asked him, but Sam was still laboring to get his gear to fit inside the bag without stripping the zippers. His greasy, thick, black hair was wet with saline water, the ends of his locks bending on his tan-colored collar as he moved. As he finally managed to get the last zipper closed, he looked up at the patient man staring down at him.

  “Not so much the fjords as the monuments,” Sam answered genially.

  “Oh, the old churches?” the man asked, his own long blond hair taken back in a low-tied, rough ponytail.

  “Also, no. I was up at Eggjarnar for the day to get a view from up there and take pictures of the ruins,” Sam told him. He could not help but be intrigued with the Nordic charm of the well-spoken local with the modestly braided beard and ice gray eyes.

  “I see. You came all the way from what I guess to be Scotland to take a picture of the old station in Eggjarnar?” The curious man smiled with a cynical wink.

  “Only after I did an exposé on the Grind in Hvalba,” Sam admitted.

  The Nordic man kept smiling, but it became more of a wince at Sam’s revelation. “So you’re another Sea Shephard lunatic playing judge over thousands of years of tradition for the people here?”

  “I’m a journalist who came to get real information on the whale hunt, and I’ve spoken to many native citizens here, sir. True reporting does not include having a predisposed opinion. I report on the origins of matters and events,” Sam informed him, trying to keep from sounding defensive. “All I was doing here was getting the real reasons behind the hunt from the actual people who live here, not some outlandish speculation,” Sam explained as he leaned on the barrier, subjecting his face and hair to more frigid spray as
the ferry sailed on through the grey above and beneath.

  “That’s a good rule of thumb, my friend,” the man nodded satisfactorily, his head turned to survey the waves and what he knew lived within them. “It’s good to ask the truth from only those who live it. That’s something I can respect, even in enemies. There’s something to be said for informed opponents that is far more worthy of respect than ignorant compliance from allies.”

  “Did you grow up here?” Sam asked, itching to whip out his Panasonic and record the attractive local. “If I may say so, your command of English is exceptional, even with the accent.”

  “Thank you,” the man replied modestly. “I’m from Toftir, on Eysturoy, but I travel extensively all over the world with my various ventures. My command of your language comes from my love for linguistics.”

  “That’s interesting.” Sam smiled genuinely. What he found most peculiar about the man was that he could not tell his age. As far as Sam was concerned, the local could have been anything between twenty-eight and fifty-four, as he displayed signs of a number of different age groups altogether. It struck Sam that he was looking at an ancient young man, if there were any such glorious blasphemy in this world by science or God. “So you know what those ruins up there used to be, I would venture to guess.”

  “I do. It was built up there by the Allies during World War II,” he said nonchalantly, tapping his fingers on his windbreaker cuffs. His fingers were decorated with Norse runes, which wasn’t unusual, given the countries they were travelling between. But the man’s answer hooked Sam.

  “What exactly did they do up that high?” Sam pressed.

  “They built a Loran-C station. You know, a radio signal to guide British ships and aircraft after the Germans occupied Denmark. The Allies occupied us and used the altitude of the island peaks to their favor,” the local explained with articulate precision.