The Dragon Coin (6 page)

“You know him, Judas,” said Roderick, tersely. “Your thoughts and words aren’t helping. Stay focused on the ripples in the air…. I sense another illusion is coming. Maybe not as dramatic as a dozen teenage boys accosting us, but something.”

“Something fun? You mean those brats weren’t just a bunch of miscreants from a local reform school?”

That brought a sterner look, but then he whipped his head toward the east. It took me a moment to detect what had embraced his advanced senses.

“The kids seemed real,” I said, quietly, when he remained focused on the area where we had last seen Dracul’s youthful messengers. “You’re sure it wasn’t something else involved…maybe spirit possession?”

“You make it all sound like a joke,” he replied, quietly, while his gaze remained fixed upon the deserted beach. “I know you are trying to keep things light, but it isn’t working. And, as for your point, yes, I believe it was a form of possession. But it happened long before you assume. The mist was Dracul’s means of influence, and while we were admiring the mist like a pair of buffoons, he was scouring the area for the right messenger. The right….”

He didn’t finish his words; distracted by a sound once common to this area just over a century ago. The sound of horses neighing and pounding the sand as they raced toward us. The horses sounded quite real, and yet were invisible. A thick mist billowed toward us from the east, and under the moon’s glow I saw the top of a large black carriage. The mode of transportation Van Helsing claimed Dracul preferred most in the nineteenth century.

“Here they come,” I whispered, surprised by the literal truth of the advisement by the kid named Mortis to us earlier. I could feel the swell from Roderick’s growing terror. I suddenly remembered more from the night he nearly died at the hands of Dracul in Madrid, with enough details peppering my awareness to inspire immense guilt for being so damned jovial a moment ago.

The carriage-driven mist raced toward us on the moonlit beach, picking up speed as it approached. I prepared to be trampled underfoot from a team of horses. Suddenly, the carriage morphed into a black Jaguar, most likely one of the newer XJ sedan models, from the look of it. The automobile swerved to an abrupt halt a few feet away.

For a moment, the car’s occupants remained inside, in all likelihood studying us. Was Dracul physically present, as well?

“No. He is waiting elsewhere, Judas,” Roderick advised, quietly.

The front passenger door swung open. A blonde roughly my build and height stepped out, grinning wryly as if privy to some private amusement.

“Very good, Roderick,” he said. “If only Judas would regard our master as earnestly as you. Come, join us, as Dracul awaits your arrival.”

The man pointed to the empty sea, presently bathed in the moon’s glow. Roderick regarded me warily, as if needing assurance what we were about to do was indeed the wise choice. For me, it was more the inevitability we could no longer elude Dracul and his obsession to track us down.

We stepped over to the car. The back passenger doors opened and another man stepped out. This one’s long hair and complexion were dark, reminding me of my Greek compatriots from before the Ottoman invasion that conquered nearly all of the Mediterranean. He motioned for us to enter the back seat.

“We should arrive at the castle in the next few minutes,” the blonde advised. “You will have much to discuss with our Lord of Darkness.”

“Do you share his gifts, or are you merely a puppet for his ventriloquist tendencies?”

Roderick glanced at me worriedly, but the blonde chuckled at my insolence. Meanwhile, the driver—another dark haired man with his hair slicked back into a ponytail spun the car around and headed for the pier.

“From what I understand, Roderick here is the master of making his voice resound from one place when it actually originates in another,” said the blonde, still chuckling. “Perhaps introductions are in order. My name is Arso. Arso Dmitar. Jevrem is the guard sitting between you, and Gajo is our driver….”

Hard to hear the rest of his advisement while the car threatened to crash into the decaying structure’s steel and wooden support beams. Roderick and I prepared for the worst, gasping slightly when a wooden ramp appeared out of nowhere at the base of the pier. The Jaguar raced to the top and became airborne.

“We are kindred sorcerers, you and I, Roderick,” continued this man, Arso, as the car plummeted toward the gaps in the pier’s surface. Suddenly the missing slats appeared and were quickly covered in concrete. Before the Jaguar landed on the highway bridge, a layer of asphalt softened the impact, and by the time the driver regained control of the vehicle, the gleaming highway had extended more than a mile across the Adriatic Sea. Ahead of us loomed the massive castle upon a rocky island that had visited our most recent dreams and visions.

The Jaguar raced toward the gates that had begun to rise in anticipation of our arrival. Larger than any private estate I had ever seen before, the black marble and granite edifice soared to dizzying heights above us…even higher than the Essene castle we visited in Bolivia last year.

“How can we be of the same ilk, if you share the bloodthirsty deeds with such a monster?” Roderick replied. Impressed by his bravery, his response made me worry he had resigned himself to end his illustrious life that night. “Unless, as I sense, you are not completely like him.”

Arso eyed him curiously, and for a moment I recognized the fleeting warmth that Roderick had detected within this servant of our enemy. Out of fear or denial, he glared angrily at us and turned his attention to the castle we were about to enter.

“Save your pathetic tricks for when you try to rescue your own skin, druid,” he said.

Torches lined the walls around us as we drove inside the castle. The immense gate descended quickly, and then sealed the opening with a thud. Meanwhile, the driver veered to the right into what appeared to be an underground garage—one with a steep grade and bathed in pitch black. The butterflies rolled with more ferocity than they had just minutes earlier, when it had appeared the car would crash nose first through the board-less pier. The grade evened out, and the driver parked the car in the lone vacant spot.

“Get out and follow me,” said Arso.

He was all business now. Roderick and I stepped out of the car with the one named Jevrem hovering close behind us.

“Well, at least we’re off to see the wizard without being dragged along in iron restraints. That’s new,” I joked, determined to raise the ante for Arso’s demeaning remark about my buddy, whose internal terror I sensed was escalating. Roderick seemed oblivious to everything going on around him. Not even a pained grimace for my witty statement. I didn’t immediately recognize the reasons for this, not until we ascended a narrow stone staircase. That’s when I picked up on what had overwhelmed him with such profound sadness. Misery thrived all around us in the castle, palpable enough for me to taste.

It certainly fit the murmured words and cries growing steadily more plaintive from the darkened depths to either side of the stairs.

“You hear them, Judas, I know,” he said, as we continued to ascend higher. Since we were headed to our face-to-face meeting with Dracul, I wondered why the driver hadn’t dropped us off just inside the castle entrance, instead of descending into the bowels of this place. Then again, maybe Dracul arranged it purposely to be like this. “But, I
more
than hear them, my brother. Women, some young and some old…men, too. Bound in agony. These are the lucky ones.”

“How so, if they are but food for our Lord?”

This time it was the driver, Gajo, who spoke. He and Arso led the way.

“Yes, I know of his minions, his unholy concubines who feed on living blood with him,” Roderick told him. “I’ve seen them dine on the flesh of their human brothers and sisters, but they destroy the life force inside themselves with each bite. When they finally die, there will be nothing left of the spark God infused into their souls before their earthly incarnation. Soullessness is far worse than any death your Master can concoct!”

“You forget your place, Roderick, and you’ll soon regret your words,” Arso advised, just before reaching a large iron door at the top of the stairs. He rapped his knuckles against the door’s edge, near its middle. “Dracul awaits.”

I would’ve expected a door like this to groan loudly upon opening. But it opened with only slight protest. Perhaps it had something to do with the vampire standing on the other side, a young woman, likely in her late teens when she was turned. Her dark hair and eyes in sharp contrast to her pale skin, her voluptuous form was scarcely concealed beneath her sheer black gown. She smiled without warmth, dulling the delicateness of her face.

How gothic of her.

“Marika, I give you Judas and Roderick,” said Arso, bowing after ushering us into the grand hall. “If you need—”

“That will be all,” she said, her sultry voice muting her Slavic accent. She shut the door with the so-called sorcerer standing in surprise. I chuckled, drawing a suspicious look from her. “Follow me.”

The hall looked like a cathedral, complete with stained glass windows of exquisite craftsmanship. But if this was a place of worship, prayer and meditation were done by either standing or kneeling on the stone floor. There were no chairs or pews. The only illumination came from sparse candlelight and torches in each corner of the room, along with soft moonbeams drifting in through colorful windows—the sort of things that often bring peace and comfort to one’s heart. But the brooding figure perched on an ostentatious jeweled throne atop a white marble stage at the end of the hall took care of that notion in one fell swoop.

“So, we finally meet again, Judas and Roderick!”

The voice was booming, bigger than life and much more robust than the last time we conversed with this vile demon. Even his Romanian accent was less pronounced than I remembered.

“Markita, bring them before me,” he said, leaning back against his enormous throne. A throne gruesomely framed in human skulls.

I must admit he looked bigger by a few inches, where as in our previous meeting he was only slightly taller than me. Powerfully built by wielding a broadsword for decades before his natural death, his muscular arms and broad chest were exposed. Garishly exposed, I should say, since his deathly paleness gleamed from the moonlight’s glow. Even Roderick on a bad day looks far healthier than Dracul could on his best.

“Oh, you think so, Judas? I’m sure you both will look far more deliciously pale when I’ve skewered your blood from your writhing bodies and had my fill of it!”

Roderick gave me another worried glance. But honestly, as much as my mouth can get me into trouble, at least I can control that. My thoughts have always been a more difficult assignment.

Dracul waved his hand to dismiss our escort once we reached the base of the steps leading up to the stage. The throne loomed less than a dozen feet away. Markita disappeared in a blur, nearly impossible for my human eyes to follow. It appeared she retreated into a row of long curtains that swayed along the wall to our left. I glimpsed similar faces to hers, and to my right several more moved among the shadows along the opposite wall.

Vampires. Baby vamps? Or, were these veterans from previous centuries?

“It will hardly matter what they are if you prove tiresome with your endless questions, Judas,” advised Dracul, scornfully. “Why can you
not
be more like Roderick, who has learned to suppress his thoughts and feelings, and as such is a much more worthy challenge than dealing with you. Although, there is something different about you since our last meeting. You have changed in some ways. How interesting.”

He stood from his throne. His face remained shadowed, but more of his powerful build lay exposed. Dressed in a tunic, there were bloodstains along the left side of his torso, and these had dripped onto the white silk of his garment. For a moment, I thought he would move up to us. But instead, he stepped over to a trembling young man lying naked on the stage. The man’s arms and legs were bound by ropes tied to four golden spikes that resembled the wooden and iron spikes from Vlad’s more infamous days as the Impaler of thirty thousand Ottoman captives.

Blood had pooled around the man’s neck. In the sparse light, the blood appeared to originate from his carotid artery, likely from twin holes caused by the vampire’s fangs. Despite his probable fate and the torture already delivered at the hands of Dracul, or by one of the others eyeing the man hungrily from either side of the room, this was one of the lucky ones, according to Roderick. Fortunate in that his torture would eventually end, whether that meant hours, days, or even weeks from now.

Truly, I could say this based on personal experience. I silently vowed not to be tricked into easy submission, as happened on two separate occasions in the early years of sixteenth century Spain.

“Oh, but you might still be such a victim!” roared our host in amusement, while Roderick shook his head in disgust. I mouthed ‘sorry’ to him, since it was going to be a long night if my druid pal waited for me to shut down the thinking machine in my head. “It all depends on how you react to my proposal.”

“Proposal? What proposal?”

Roderick sounded hopeful, as he voiced his first words in our nemesis’s presence.

“Unlikely as may seem, you have something I desire, items to barter your freedom.” His tone mellowed to one more familiar, from long ago. “While you were in Bolivia, I saw your son and his fiancée bearing certain crystals on their persons. Even from this distance, I could tell these crystals carried energy like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Energy that could prove useful to me and my kind.” He motioned around him, and the room resounded with the excited whispers of his depraved progeny. Like snakes in a pit ready to attack an intruder.

“Since when could you see anything unless you were physically within one hundred miles?” I asked, unable to mask my contempt. In truth, I was masking something else…my terror for Alistair’s and Amy’s welfare. The fact Dracul had watched and studied them for any length of time made my blood run cold.