The Dragon Coin (16 page)

The race was on to reach Roderick and my family before he did.

Chapter Sixteen

There are times when I greatly envy the abilities of other immortals. Some of us are true supermen and women, able to break through walls of stone, bend bars of steel, and outrace speeding locomotives, bullets, airplanes, etc.

Skills I don’t possess.

For the most part, my immortality is limited to the curse of being immune to death. Well, let me clarify that statement a bit…I can die, but only temporarily. Most of you by now know if someone like Dracul has their way with me, I’ll lose my current body. However, I will awaken elsewhere with an identical body in every aspect, as compared to the one I just left. I have reincarnated, so to speak, intact many, many times during the past two thousand years. Same thirty-year old Jewish guy with a generous smile, full hairline, and penetrating blue eyes.

But, in every instance of ‘temporary death’ I’ve experienced, I lose something, too. Starting over again is a bitch most of the time, and often I am drawn to revisiting places I’ve lived in before. Sometimes, the ‘layover in light’, as I like to call it, translates to a significant absence from earth. Often, a minimum of several years has passed by the time I make it back here, and in ages past, traveling across continents added many more years before I made it back to mortals I’ve loved. As one can guess, many times it meant visiting gravesites, since loved ones had passed through the veil I’m prohibited from breaching during my absence. The sense of loss is most profound, and is one of the chief reasons immortals of a likeable disposition are inclined to seek out one another. We need the sense of stability such unique companionships can provide.

Why bring this up now? Well, for one thing, Dracul’s penchant for extreme wickedness meant that my longest known immortal companion—who could cross the veil I mentioned and
not
come back—was in grave danger of making his final exit from the planet. And all it would take is a quick text message to Vlad’s henchmen and Beatrice, Alistair, and Amy would join Roderick in the afterlife.

I couldn’t let any of this happen, and yet as I fled Dracul’s vile bedchamber and pursued him down the long corridor to his throne room, all I could do was pray I wouldn’t arrive too late. I couldn’t fly like my enemy, nor could I cover hundreds of feet in a single leap. All I had was the hope The Almighty would hear my fervent entreaty for mercy, and that He would finally intercede on behalf of the tens of thousands of victims this demon had racked up in less than six centuries, including Vlad Tepes’s mortal years.

“As you can see, you’re just in time for the start of our festivities, Judas!” Dracul exalted.

I had just reached the cathedral. For the moment, Roderick was bound, gagged, and nearly unconscious from his previous suffering. Dracul floated in the air while embracing him, moving to position Roderick’s body above a single spike of gold. I suppose there isn’t much of a thrill thrusting a human being onto a double spike after all, since the single version allows for extended agony—the only thing that seemed to bring supreme joy to this most heinous fiend.

“You’ll never learn, will you?”

I raised the coin and pointed it in his direction, knowing every decision I made from this point until that night’s conclusion could be equally wise or foolish. Not to mention, I was continually forced to deal with my near-unbearable guilt regarding Jesus from the flood of memories brought on by the coin’s touch to my flesh. I felt feverish and knew I wouldn’t be able to cognitively function much longer. Yet, to my knowledge, there wasn’t any other weapon aside from the coin that could work against this monster.

Following my gut would be the only sensible way to play the game, when death and salvation were the only prizes to be had. I held my breath, praying again for my first response to be the right one. Dracul snickered, though apprehensively, as if unsure of what to expect from the blood coin that had once been his friend, the Dragon Coin he assumed would always be loyal to him only. However, when the veins and arteries close to the skin began to expand, his nervousness turned to rage.

“Do you think your coin’s trick can conquer me so easily?”

His gaze shifted to the shadows to either side of me. Before they even attacked, I knew what was coming. Unfortunately, in my zeal to pursue Dracul before he skewered Roderick, I had failed to account for the presence of other vampires.

Like a nest of venomous spiders that had just been disturbed, dozens of nubile bloodsuckers launched themselves at me. I had nothing physically to defend myself with, and despite their youth, each vampire possessed enough strength to toss me across the room’s expanse, or simply break my back and render me paralyzed.

I did the only instinctive thing that came to mind.

As they flew at me one after another, I whirled around with the coin in front of me, ignoring the bombardment of Christ’s suffering and hoping the coin’s talisman qualities against Dracul’s powers would prevail against his offspring. It took a moment to confirm it helped at all, especially when one male vampire delivered a blow that sent me flying back twenty feet. But as I quickly got back to my feet and resumed my ballerina act, the attacks lessened until finally they stopped altogether. I watched in amazement as the entire brood retreated to the shadows, leaving behind several dark lumps on the floor that I soon understood were once their brothers or sisters that had succumbed to the coin’s mysterious power.

“Would you like to go next?” I said to Dracul, swiftly approaching the stage when I saw he had not yet murdered Roderick. “You might look better with a little more red, don’t you think?”

“Don’t
come any closer, Judas!
STOP or I WILL butcher him!”

He was desperate. Everything from the wild look in his eyes to the tentative hold he had on his dagger, that was ready to filet Roderick’s flesh, said so.

“Okay…I’ll stay right where I am.” I lowered my voice, relying on the de-escalation training I had gone through with Cedric Tomlinson several years ago. It was a fairly new thing with the CIA at the time, and I prayed it proved helpful now. “You know…we can make the same deal I offered when you had the upper hand, when the coin was still loyal to you.”

“What pitiful deal is that?!” he hissed.

“I’ll reveal the home of the crystals, which can give you what you crave most, Vlad,” I said, remaining calm in my delivery. “You will no longer be restricted to the night, and can finally mingle with civilization in daylight.”

For a moment, he appeared to seriously consider my offer. Maybe if Roderick hadn’t awakened and appeared as startled as he did, this story would’ve taken a different turn, one that engendered a compromise acceptable to all involved. But the look of horror on my druid friend’s face when he saw his anus was less than six inches away from a gleaming spike of gold seemed to resuscitate the evil that would always be a permanent aspect of Vlad Tepes.

“I don’t need your useless charity any more than I need your accursed coin!” He crowed, holding Roderick with one hand while raising him slightly. The impaling was about to commence.

“NO!
Please, don’t do it, Vlad!” I pleaded, unable to control the panic in my voice. “Let me take his place—
I beg you!”

“Say goodbye to Roderick, Judas, or Emmanuel, William, or whoever else you pretend to be!”

I rushed the stage, but I couldn’t get there quickly enough. Just before he dropped Roderick on top of the spike prepared for him, Roderick screamed for Dracul to remove the taped gag from his mouth. To my surprise, he relented.

“Oh? So the whimpering Brit wants to give us his last words, eh?” He removed the tape and Roderick spit out the gag. “Speak to us in the eloquence you once reserved for me in Madrid, old friend. Do you recall how it was? Hmmmm?”

Roderick said nothing, merely glaring at Dracul while his body shook with as much rage as the vampire had expressed earlier.

“Cat got your tongue?” taunted Dracul. “Ahhh…that’s too bad. Well, since we don’t allow eulogies here in my house of pain, I’ll tell you what I can offer. I would very much like to set the record straight about what a coward you’ve always been. Eh? You do recall how your friend Emmanuel here saved you twice, and if I had known he would show up again in the same lifetime, I would have refused his offer to exchange his life for yours and executed you on the spot. I’m fairly certain you lack the ability to come back from death like your friend…no? The look in your eyes tells me this is correct.”

“Vlad, you don’t need to do this!“

“Oh, but on the contrary, Judas, I believe I
do
need to do this! It is absolutely necessary to set the record straight, since you two imbeciles have roamed the world scot-free, as they say, for the past four centuries, while I’ve been forced to watch and wait from afar.” He held up a hand in warning when I crept up the steps leading to the stage. “The Americans might see you as some kind of hero, Roderick, with all you supposedly did to help build that corrupt nation from the start. But after you’re dead, I will personally deliver excerpts from the diaries I kept during your two imprisonments in 1515 to 1518, and 1556 to 1569…. I see you don’t want me to share the things I made you do, deeds I bet not even Judas knows about.”

Roderick shook his head vehemently, and when fresh tears formed in his eyes, I realized this was not just an idle accusation. Something did happen…something terrible enough to shame him to the point he had never shared any of this with me. In fairness, back in those terrible days we were held in separate cells roughly two hundred feet apart during the first incarceration. And for the second one, I didn’t make it back to Spain after the Inquisition had me drawn and quartered, until 1574. By then, Roderick had already arrived in what would later become New York.

Roderick opened his mouth to say something, but only a whisper came out.

“What? You want me to come closer, so you can utter your last words to me in private?” Dracul laughed, and as he did, the crimson blood vessels expanded further. “All right, tell me what you want to say. When you finish, I will bathe myself in your blood!”

Roderick nodded subtly, as if resigned to his fate. Dracul pulled him close, and as Roderick opened his mouth, the deadliest vampire I’ve ever known prepared to receive the blood rush soon to follow Roderick’s impalement. But as soon as he brought his ear close to my buddy’s mouth, Roderick let out the primal shriek first heard in Bolivia last November.

Startled, Dracul let go of Roderick, and I cringed in horror when he fell upon the razor-sharp golden spike. I looked away, unable to bear watching Roderick’s body writhe as the spike worked its way up his ass and ripped through his intestines and abdominal organs. I wasn’t prepared for the thud of his body landing on the stage, but my heart filled with incredible joy to realize he had survived nearly intact. His only injury was a pierced left buttock. At least that’s how things appeared from where I presently stood, near Dracul’s throne.

He squirmed between the stakes to escape Dracul, who had ripped one of the iron stakes up from the stage floor and tried to stab Roderick with it. Of course, I was already on the way to help Roderick fend him off.

Meanwhile, the reverberations from Roderick’s yell gained strength, bouncing loudly from wall to wall. The dark glassed cathedral windows began to crack, and to Vlad’s unexpected horror, the windows shattered. Rays of sunlight poured into the castle, as the sun had risen just above the eastern horizon.

Vampires ignited all around us, including Dracul. Only a few youngsters made it to the deeper shadows in the far corner of the cathedral, beneath an awning that prevented the sun’s rays from reaching them. The rest of the vamps exploded into fiery cinders drifting in the air around us.

“God damn you, Judas and YOU, fucking druid!”
Dracul shrieked. The flames had been contained to his legs and arms, but now spread up his torso, chest and back. He howled in agony, and it appeared he had one last, disparaging remark to say. But the flames ignited his face, until all at once his head exploded.

I sheltered Roderick from the spray of gore, until Dracul’s headless body fell over as a burning heap among the spikes. I stood cautiously and sought to help Roderick stand, as well.

“How bad are you hurt?” I asked him, while the remaining glass shards from the windows and what must have been UV filtering skylights fell around us. “Can you stand and move with my help?”

“I think so,” he said, hoarsely. “Thank God you found your coin. Otherwise….”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help, as you know.” I said, helping him to his feet. His clothes were missing, other than ripped trousers lying nearby. I gathered them for him. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The stench of burning flesh hastened our departure, and once he was dressed in his ragged pants, we made our way to the cathedral’s exit. Roderick draped his left arm around my shoulder until he got his legs back. The healing had already started, but it would be mid-afternoon before he started to feel like himself again. At least he could travel. Whatever energy flow he had set in motion was now working through the main structure of the castle, and tremors shook the floor below our feet.

“Good idea,” he agreed. “We need to find the ladies and your boy.”

“I know. Any ideas on where to look?”

“No, not yet,” he said. “But if they’re in the castle, we won’t have long to find them. In fact, we need to leave now!” He left my side, limping at a near sprint until he reached the corridor, now bathed in daylight. “Come on, Judas, we need to get to the front of the castle before things change!”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I ran after him.

“We need to hurry.”

“Yes, you said that.”

We stepped into the corridor. The entire structure suddenly began to shake, and deep fissures formed in the walls and ceiling. Huge pieces of granite and marble from the castle’s grand façade fell toward us as the ceiling crumbled.