Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

“If he did, he would have been a girl. Genius!” Nina kept mocking. She imagined all the things Sam Cleave would have spat at his captors. That way she was assured that she would piss Christa off. After all, that was one supremely effective trait of Sam’s.

“Don’t make me gag you, Dr. Gould,” Christa threatened, grinding her perfect teeth. It had always astonished her how cocky her female captives behaved as opposed to the, dare it be said, stronger males.

They walked down a small offshoot with a concrete floor that quickly flowed out into an average-sized room, tiled from wall to wall. Even the floor was decked out with white tiling, which was what scared Nina the most.

Killing floor, she thought. No way they’d tile everything if it didn’t get messy in here. My God, I’m a lamb wandering right into the abattoir. Much as she hated it, it was time for Nina to start playing nice.

“Alright, then tell me and I won’t talk back. Why did you invite me to teach here? Had it been your husband, I wouldn’t have given it another thought. But you were the one who got his authorization to send me the offer, Christa. How come?” Nina asked as nicely as she could manage when all she wanted to do was get into a brawl with the self-righteous cow.

Clara wiped the blood smear from Nina’s face with a cool cloth.

“Ta,” Nina mumbled derisively.

“We need your blood, Dr. Gould,” Christa said. Her scowl fell hard on Clara. “Clara, strap her down, for fuck’s sake! Are you waiting for her to tip you or something?”

“Why do you let her talk to you like that?” Nina asked, frowning. “Just because she pays your salary, you have to relinquish your self-esteem? Why would you do that for a colleague?”

The two women exchanged glances as Clara strapped Nina to what looked like a dentist’s chair, while Christa held the gun uncomfortably close to the historian’s face.

“I wouldn’t do this for a colleague, Dr. Gould,” Clara explained. “I would do it…for a mother.”

Nina laughed. “No, seriously. Why would you…?”

She noticed the resemblance between the two women, although one was about a decade the other’s senior by the looks of it. Neither of them seemed amused either, which was pretty much their psychology, but there was a disturbing element of honesty in Clara’s words and Christa’s lack of reaction.

“No. Seriously,” Nina forced with a breaking voice, unsure of the unnatural circumstances she was entangled in. Not intending to be cocky this time by sounding like a vain diva, Nina inadvertently uttered, “Jesus, Christa! You look amazing. You have to tell me your secret.”

Without deeming the compliment worthy of a response, Christa ignored Nina. The historian held her tongue now, imagining the painful way in which she was doomed to die.

Nina’s mind raced with thoughts and regrets as her cranium was strapped back onto the headrest of the chair. Exsanguination? Fuckin’ hell! That’s a slow and ugly way to go! Her fear of dying becoming clearer as her chances of escape waned. Nina reconsidered her illness. I never thought I’d want to live through this cancer shit until now.

“I don’t want to die,” Nina said softly, just for good measure, but she knew there would be no clemency from these women. Mute and focused, Christa placed the gun on one of the desks and pulled up her sleeves. “Clara, remove her pants.”

Heri was the last one to step out of the car when they reached the cursed place where, in 1969, his uncles had shared their last night together before one was taken from this earth by the cruel greed of occult-obsessed SS officers. Sam and Johild walked together a few feet behind old Gunnar to allow him some privacy during such an emotional moment. They walked slowly and Heri caught up with them.

“Sam, you’re not going to tell anyone about this, right? I’m just making sure, because I don’t want my cousin here to tell me she told me so after you betray my trust,” he asked Sam sincerely.

“On my mother’s life, Heri,” was all Sam replied and that was all he had. Fortunately, Heri accepted that out of hand.

“So you’re really going to keep all this to yourself?” Johild asked skeptically.

“Aye, but I will show my two friends I told you about,” Sam reminded her.

She looked at Heri. “I don’t like it.”

“Look, Sam, if this gets out, those bastards who murdered my uncle right in front of his brother will return. And who knows which of us will end up being their victims this time, you know? I can’t let that happen, as you must understand,” Heri told the journalist.

“I understand. Would you feel better about it if I left the cameras in your car?” Sam asked.

The two cousins exchanged glances, considering the offer. Heri moved closer to Sam and gently put his hand on the camera, pressing it downward. “As a matter of fact, that’s probably the only way you will leave these islands, my friend.”

“Really?” Sam gasped. “You would kill me for this secret?”

“Or keep you here forever,” Johild said, only realizing how affectionately promising it sounded after Sam raised an eyebrow and nodded in acceptance.

“Put it away, Sam. You can know the secret, but you can’t have evidence,” Heri said, making sure the Scotsman heard his ultimatum. “Look at him over there. Look at him.”

Sam looked at Gunnar’s large frame, wilting and slow in his sorrow where he stood. He was waiting for the young ones, but he didn’t turn to see how close they were. He just wanted to stand up there in the icy gusts of Grímsfjall, alone with the spirit of his brother who was thrown from these very cliffs. Gunnar was quiet, but his heart had much to say. When the others joined him he sniffed and said, “There, about fifty meters off, is where we found the Empty Hourglass.”

“Is that the name you gave it?” Johild asked her father. He nodded and even smiled a little.

“That’s what it looked like to us when we stood up on the edge of the cliff and looked down toward it. Little did I know at the time that it didn’t resemble an hourglass, yet served a similar purpose. The fact that it was empty was like a poem, you know, a poem about a magical timekeeper without sand. Where time did not pass, no matter on what side of it you were,” he mused with a smile. “The glorious glow of the narrow part was really the portal between the time we have and the time we lose, just as it’s a passage for the sand to fall through to measure time,” he philosophized.

Gunnar took a deep breath, as if he wished to breathe in his brother’s ever-present essence. “They left the next afternoon, not having found anything. Those Nazi pigs! When the commando men and the police came up here they played the same game of deceit, saying they were just tourists, journalists who wanted to see the historical sites. By that time my brother was only missing and all I had was my word, see?”

“Aye, they’d have no reason to detain them and the sons of bitches knew it. You didn’t come back with the police?” Sam asked.

“No. I was advised to keep away until they had proof that these people were involved, but of course, the rock they had killed Jon with was lying at the bottom of the currents long before the sun even came up that day,” Gunnar said as Sam shook his head in disbelief. Gunnar looked him up and down. “Where is your camera, Scotsman?”

Heri stood up proudly. “I forbade him to bring it up here. Whatever you want to show us tonight, you can show us, but there will be no proof of its existence.”

“That takes a lot of pressure off my heart, I must say. Sam, thank you for that,” the old man said.