Reign of Coins

by Aiden James

  Still, I remained cautious. Despite Roderick’s assurances that Cedric remained my friend, how could I truly be certain? Especially, as I relived our last encounter and how his wild, angry eyes almost obliged me to kill him in order to protect Alistair.

  “He and I have already cleared the air about what happened, William,” said another familiar voice.

  Roderick’s taller frame joined Cedric and the pair approached us together. The moon’s light had begun to wane as the night ruler continued its course toward the western horizon. Yet, it was still bright enough to cast an eerie glow upon my best immortal friend’s stark white features. If not for his generous smile, it would appear a deadly blood drinker had stopped by for a midnight snack. Little Sha uttered a whimper and Sulyn did nothing to soothe her fears. Truly she shared them.

  “Please, all of you have nothing to fear,” advised Cedric. “The chopper’s ready to take us back to the city. So, if you’ve got the Mantle of Genghis Khan with you, we can get the hell out of this place before Morrow or Kaslow cause us any more problems.”

  “Morrow’s dead and Kaslow might be,” I said, feeling secure enough to step into the moonlight. “As for the mantle you seek...it disintegrated when Morrow tried to wear the damned thing. Whatever’s left of it is somewhere back there, in an angry whirlpool you might want to avoid.”

  I pointed to the small entrance in the wall, surprised to see it closing. I briefly worried Kaslow had already returned to exact the revenge he threatened. Then I caught the slight bluish glow emanating from where Sulyn stood. Holding the golden stylus, she was pointing its sapphire tip at the wall.

  “The abomination must remain hidden forever.” There was resolution in her voice, though it remained hushed. “The stylus and map should be locked away, or maybe they should be destroyed….”

  “May I?”

  Cedric took a careful step toward her, as if afraid she’d toss the stylus into waves presently lapping the shore.

  “No, you may not,” she said, lifting her chin. It wasn’t so much defiant as steadfast, and surely based on her family’s heritage. “There is no need for anyone to handle these items, they are safest with me.”

  Cedric didn’t force the issue. Even so, as the helicopter sped toward the heart of Hong Kong, he kept a vigilant eye on Ms. Cheung and the map-wrapped stylus resting on her lap.

  “I’m sorry that I almost killed you,” I told him, drawing his gaze. He and Roderick sat across from the four of us. “Next time you have a bone to pick, and the agency views my life as expendable, please lay things out plainly so I don’t have to guess. Without knowing your intent—and considering the fact you were carrying a Beretta—I had no choice but to take you out.”

  “Yeah, my neck is still hurting,” he said, tenderly massaging his esophagus. He studied me, wearing a wan smile. “All right…next time I’ll remember. So, are you willing to come back and resume your part-time status?”

  “Will Alistair’s and my name remain on the ‘disposable’ list?”

  “Hell, no, man! I made sure the two of you were cleared before Roderick and I went looking for ya’ll tonight.” His brow furrowed playfully, he chuckled. “Everything will be as it once was, man—the way things used to be.”

  No, he was definitely wrong about that. Things could never be the same. Even if my former employers treated me as they once did, and pretended they knew nothing of my identity as Judas, the very fact I knew they were aware would be enough to ensure a laborious and volatile marriage between us.

  “I’m going to pass on the offer for now,” I said, ignoring his look of disbelief—the initial step in the sales effort to overcome my objection. “Maybe someday I’ll feel differently.”

  “Why not give it some serious thought over the next few weeks, William?” said Roderick, drawing a startled glance from Sulyn. Her eyes grew wide and she shook her head slowly. No doubt, she struggled with a voice that simultaneously sounds as if it’s in front of her while emanating from behind her head. “You’re finally free of Viktor Kaslow. He is dead.”

  “Maybe not…he made it back the last time. He could do it again.”

  Roderick and Cedric nodded thoughtfully, their signal to let the issue ride for now. Sulyn nodded as well, while my son looked out the helicopter’s window at the city’s gorgeous skyline. He and she favored my point of view.

  Nothing more was said for the rest of the trip into the city. When we landed atop one of the taller bank buildings, we were quickly ushered inside. There wasn’t much time afforded to say goodbye to Sulyn. For her own ‘protection’, she and Sha Fen Wan were whisked away by local Chinese authorities apparently on good terms with the agency. Alistair worried what might become of our new friend, should the local Hong Kong government become interested in the ancient map and stylus in her possession.

  Within the hour, our luggage and other personal belongings were loaded onto a private jet and we headed back home. Cedric and Roderick stayed behind to make sure any other unforeseen loose ends from this fiasco were neatly tied up.

  Neither one ever asked about blood coin number twenty-three. It remained in my wallet, where I didn’t have to touch it again. I don’t believe I could’ve maintained my composure had I endured the images of my Lord’s torture and death a second time that night.

  * * *

  “Well, if it isn’t the Barrow boys!”

  Just after 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Larisa Jones, my wife’s nurse for the past six years, greeted us warmly.

  “Hello, Larisa,” said Alistair, stepping over to give her a hug. “We didn’t get a chance to bring you the souvenir I promised, but I’ll make it up to you very soon. How about I treat you to lunch later this week?”

  “I think that’ll work just fine!”

  Her golden brown eyes lit up. She had recently turned fifty-four, but the fact she has nary a wrinkle in her smooth ebony skin and her hair remains jet black makes her look several years younger than Cedric. Never one to worry too much about her weight, she looked as though she’d lost a little of it since we saw her the week before last. But to pay a compliment that can be taken the wrong way, most fellas will get it wrong.

  Not me.

  “You look fantastic, Larisa!” I said, adding the charming smile I’m usually known for. In this case, it was one hundred percent genuine. “What’s going on in your life that’s so good?”

  Of course she wouldn’t tell me, but a sincere compliment goes a long way for anyone’s self-esteem.

  “Just keeping a good eye on your grandmother, William,” she said. “And, if you think I’m looking good, just wait until you see Beatrice!”

  My heart quickened. Along the way home, Alistair and I had rehashed our Hong Kong experiences a few times, since we like to share different perspectives to better ensure accurate perception of events. Not to mention this time we were going to start keeping a diary/journal to go along with the discovery of each coin—something we intend to do going forward. For much of the plane ride, we talked only about Cheung Sulyn and Amy Golden Eagle. We never spoke a word about Beatrice, until my comment as our plane began its final approach to Dulles airport. Since her healing is taking longer than Alistair’s, I’m afraid of saying anything that might jinx the process. I know, it’s a stupid superstition, but one I’m reluctant to let go.

  As for my son’s flirtations with Ms. Cheung, they were easy to dismiss. Though we both will try to keep tabs on this wonderful woman, Amy’s the right gal for my son. I would’ve never believed such a thing could be healthy when it was a sixty-two-year-old man in love with a woman almost young enough to be his granddaughter, at twenty-eight. But, like him, she’s getting younger from her share of crystals from the Tree of Life. The physical arrangement between them now is a twenty-five year-old woman paired with a middle-aged man—a man who’ll likely be as young as her in the next few years. Very doable. Besides, who am I to criticize anything, when I seduced his mother at the age of nineteen hundred and fifty four?

 
; “Are you okay, William?” asked Larisa. Her face quickly clouded with worry. “It’s that jet lag getting to you, huh?”

  “Yeah…yes, I think so,” I said, drawing a worried glance from my son. He looked a little irritated with me, and who could blame him? I should be ecstatic to see my wife, the very love of my life. “I’d really like to see her.”

  “Your grandmother is gonna be thrilled to see you both!”

  The light of God returned to her countenance. If anyone doubts The Almighty resides in the hearts of men and women, they need to take a trip to Virginia and meet Larisa Jones.

  “Come on now…I’m sure she’s gonna be really pleased to see you’re back safe and sound!”

  I don’t remember the last time walking down a hallway made me feel this nervous, and in a good way. It wasn’t some rehashed Karma from the fourteenth century, when the early versions of the Inquisition sought to find and execute me. But, if the love of my life were to reject me—and rightfully so, after I deserted her with a kid so many decades ago—then I might as well be facing the Tribunal of the Holy See.

  Larisa knocked on the door of Room 1F.

  “Beatrice? I have a couple of visitors to see you.”

  Up until a few months ago, Beatrice wouldn’t have possessed the mental presence to realize someone was knocking on her door. But, since March, she had gotten used to standard politeness, and soon preferred it to her nurse barging into her room with only a slight warning.

  Steady footsteps coming to the door. That was new. Alistair and I exchanged nervous glances before watching the latch click and the door open.

  “Who’s come to see me?”

  “It’s me, Mom, and I brought William with me,” said Alistair.

  My son’s approach was tentative, since sometimes she recognized him and sometimes she didn’t. If she acknowledged Alistair, then chances were good she’d accept my presence. If not, I might as well have been a janitor coming to empty the small trash can by her bed.

  “William?” she repeated, and raised her eyes to meet mine.

  Oh my God…does she see me?

  It could make sense…maybe the crystals were working faster. In just a week and a half since our last visit, she seemed a little younger. Was it just a few months that had disappeared from her age?… Or, maybe a year or two? Or, even more?

  She had walked to the door without her normal shuffle. The walker remained in the corner by her bedside. But, that wasn’t the thing that got me. Nor was it the few strands of strawberry-blonde hair taking up residence next to the white ones. Not even the fading liver spots, or suppleness returning to her facial skin and the plumpness in her previously sallow cheeks. No, not even the fact her back had strengthened and she looked a little taller than before. None of that.

  It was the eyes. They were fully green again, and gorgeous.

  She studied me with a knowing look.

  I tentatively approached her to offer the hug that a grandson gives his grandmother, fighting the urge to take her more passionately in my arms. Too early for that, she’d need to forgive me first for what I’d done before I could ever cross that line again.

  I nearly cried when she embraced me, and at first I thought it was me who was shaking. But it was Beatrice. She shook, and I heard sniffles as she buried her face into my shoulder. For the first time in centuries I absolutely had no clue what to do next.

  “Well, are you going to keep these young men standing out in the hall, Bea?”

  I was glad for Larisa’s prompt and the warm, heartfelt laughter that followed. It gave me a moment to try and regain my composure. Slowly, my love pulled herself away, and then looked up into my face with tear-streaked eyes.

  “Are you who I think you are?”

  That’s all it took to break through my façade.

  Now I was the one crying. That’s all I could do. A man who possessed the death skills coveted by many nations over the centuries could do nothing else.

  Of course, I want to be ‘right’ with The Almighty, and atone for what I did to my Lord so long ago. And, while I’m still here and can make a difference, I want the world to be a better place for everyone.

  But what I desire and yearn for more than anything is to love my son and be fully united again with my wife—the everlasting love of my life.

  “Yes!...yes, I am!” I managed to get out between sobs. “It is me! I am him…William!”

  I felt my son’s grip on my shoulder as he moved to hug me from the side, and through my tears I saw Larisa smile lovingly at me. Too afraid to look ahead, I forced myself to do it anyway. Once I did, Beatrice reached up and kissed the tears on both cheeks. Then she took me in her arms and embraced me as her man.

  “I have so missed you!”

  All three of us stepped into her room, and Larisa closed the door behind us. Regardless of what dangers lurked ahead, and whether or not Viktor Kaslow would come calling again someday, in the meantime I had what mattered most, and I held them close. Close to me, where I could love and protect them.

  Could this be a new beginning to a life I’ve long pined for?

  I certainly hope so.

  The End

  To be continued in:

  Destiny of Coins

  The Judas Chronicles, Book Three

  Available now.

  (Please read on for a sample.)

  Chapter 1

  The heavy, gray mist hovering above D.C. had become an impenetrable blanket of gloom for the past four days. Thanksgiving would be here in less than a week, and I daresay the upcoming holiday was the only thing keeping the city from falling into a serious funk. In the past, I would have welcomed such melancholy, since for centuries it had acted as a balm to ease the loneliness of my sentence to walk the earth largely alone. But the light that had entered my life years ago in Glasgow, Scotland after World War II had returned to me in this second decade of century twenty-one. Beatrice. Beatrice, whom I once deserted foolishly in fear of happiness, had given me a new lease on life. Or, perhaps more accurately, a new perspective on what it takes to be truly happy.

  We are together again. And, although there are moments of awkwardness between us as we become fully acquainted once more, there is incredible joy. Joy fed by a profound love that has always mystified me by its strength and ability to consume all that is negative and change it into something truly positive.

  Why do I wax so eloquently about my dear wife and what she means to me? Well, for starters, I am deeply in love with her. Not to mention, two and a half years ago I expected to lose her to old age, as she withered away in her nursing home bed. She is healing now, and seems to all who meet her to be a miracle at eighty-seven, when she doesn’t look a day over sixty. Such is the benefit of owning a handful of crystals once part of the Tree of Life, which is now forever reburied in the remote mountains of Iran.

  Of course, as the man whom most people assume is her grandson, I’d surely raise many more disbelieving eyebrows to consider my next birthday will be number two thousand and sixteen. Especially, since I occasionally still get carded at the local liquor store, which sits just around the corner from our son Alistair’s penthouse condo the three of us share, along with his girlfriend, Amy Golden Eagle.

  This brings us to the other reason I’ve been thinking about my dear wife and what she means to me. I was on my way to the aforementioned liquor store to meet a friend I hadn’t spoken to in nearly a year. He sounded worried on the phone, and in a predetermined code from long ago, he had directed me to meet him in the very back of Allegiance Wine and Spirits.

  “You’re looking good, Judas,” said Roderick Cooley, as he surveyed the array of chilled lagers in the store’s refrigerated section. “Or, should I be addressing you still as ‘William’, the name you hated when I first gave it to you in 1908?”

  “Only people under the age of one hundred and ten years get to call me William,” I joked, extending my hand to take his. As expected, we gave each other a hug with hearty back slaps. I had missed hi
m more than I realized. “I’ll always be ‘Judas’ to you, and you shall always be ‘the pale faced druid’ to me.”

  He chuckled while casting a casual glance toward the front of the store.

  “There is happiness in you that I don’t readily recall ever seeing before,” said Roderick. “Beatrice’s recovery must be coming along famously.”

  He reached toward the bottom of the open case before him, pulling out a twelve-pack of Killian’s Red. I had assumed he would reach instead for the bottled ale from his Irish homeland instead of an Americanized version.

  Roderick is almost as old as me, joining the immortal ranks when a druid ritual, designed to keep the Romans at bay, failed to take his life in a frigid black-water bog. He emerged at sunset that winter solstice very much alive from the ordeal supposed to drown him. Instead, his skin and hair had permanently turned white as snow, and his brilliant blue eyes forever after contained golden flecks floating within his irises. Very disturbing to witness for most people, I’m sure. It’s the reason he wears sunglasses when venturing out in public. As for his vampire-like complexion, he has resorted to a number of remedies down through the centuries to camouflage that aspect. Lately, the wonders of MAC products have given him the upper hand on his pale affliction.

  “You’ll love Beatrice, when you finally meet her in person,” I assured him. “If I had known you were coming earlier, you could join us tonight for dinner at The Inn at Little Washington. I’m sure it won’t be a problem getting your name added to the reservation.”

  He nodded thoughtfully and looked away. For him to make the six-hour drive from his historic estate nestled in the western corner of Virginia to Washington, he had to have an urgent reason for doing so. Something was up. Something big.

  “Perhaps, I shall,” he said. “But after hearing the news I’ve chosen to deliver in person, you may decide to spend this night with your dear wife, as well as your boy and his girlfriend, without my intrusion.”