Tyranny of Coins (The Judas Chronicles, #5)

by James, Aiden

  I smiled lovingly at Beatrice, passed out with the television remote held loosely in her fingertips. I gently removed it, turned off the TV, and carefully wrapped her body in her favorite blanket. She smiled as I climbed into bed next to her, drawing close. Then I patiently waited for dawn and its promise of warmth and light to arrive, and whatever Krontos Lazarevic had in store for us.

  Chapter Three

  “Why can’t Krontos just stop by and pick up the damned thing?” lamented Alistair. “And, why in the hell does he want us to meet his cronies in New York?”

  Early afternoon. We had recently received the promised correspondence from Lazarevic. While his previous note was bathed in thinly veiled hostility, the latest correspondence was a sterile affair. No rosa sericea accompanied the delivery, and the priority mail envelope came with an actual physical address: The Ritz-Carlton in New York City. Did Krontos presently reside there? Maybe… or maybe not. Enclosed with an impersonal note were six first class airline tickets and two reserved suites at the same establishment.

  “Well, Ali, at least you won’t have to wait long for answers to those questions. According to the tickets our assigned United flight leaves just after nine o’clock in the morning,” I said, looking for levity. I laid the tickets face-up in the middle of the dining room table, where everyone had gathered. “The note says a limousine will be waiting for us at LaGuardia Airport, and will bring us to the hotel. If he’s there, you’ll have your answers by mid-afternoon, I’d guess.”

  “And, if this is just a wild goose chase, and we never get to meet the guy?”

  “Then you get the satisfaction in knowing you were right.” I replied, shooting him a perturbed look. “But approaching a solution from a gloomy point of view will only ensure things turn out badly.”

  My son has always been a stick in the mud, so to speak. But, I didn’t realize the physical aspects of growing older are what had mellowed him in his former ‘normal’ life. I am admittedly dismayed the restoration to full youth has created a petulant ass for the most part. I hold out hope someday this prevalent attitude breaks like a fever. It’s Roderick’s prophecy for my boy, and I pray it happens sooner than later.

  He shrugged indifferently, and Amy went to work on comforting him, rubbing his shoulders affectionately. In all honesty, I’m more prone these days to cut him slack in most instances of surliness—especially after Krontos’ lightly veiled threats in the letter he left for us in Abingdon in June: Your loved ones will summarily be returned to Dracul’s menu. The vampire is dead forever, but does this mean Krontos shares his cannibalistic tendencies? Roderick and I witnessed the rampant bloodshed Dracul indulged himself in, feasting on human organs and muscle in addition to human plasma.

  “We mustn’t give in to the thought patterns being fed to us,” Roderick advised. I turned my attention to him and he nodded. “Yes, I am addressing you, William.”

  “What in the hell?” Cedric snickered, and shook his head. He looked almost amused, which certainly meant he wasn’t. “Do you two ever think you’ll tire of the covert messages you send back and forth?”

  “How to change nineteen hundred years of annoyance? Is that what you’re asking?” Maybe it would have been prudent to ignore the dig, yet I felt compelled to respond. Not only that, but also the urge to lecture this relative youngster, since Cedric was in his early sixties. In truth, the only person with less years here was Amy. “The answer should be obvious—”

  “Judas! Shhh!” Roderick slammed a palm onto the table, catching everyone off guard. He held us all in a sullen gaze before continuing. “How do you think a master sorcerer can alter dimensional reality to where the vast majority of people are unaware it’s happening? I tell you it has everything to do with the basic premises of metaphysics. And what do we know is a key ingredient?”

  His voice surrounded us, which added eerie urgency to his questions. Questions made worse since they were directed at me. Perhaps justifiably so, as I knew exactly what he was getting at.

  “Our thoughts and perceptions are in part holding our reality together,” I said, hating how this sounded like the dialogue in a religious thriller novel, where one character would ask another character an obvious, though awkward, question to move the plot along. Or, worse, like Bob Barker and Rod Roddy years ago—“Tell us what they’ve won, Rod.” “Well, Bob… it’s a new car!”

  “Exactly,” said Roderick, without smugness. He hated this, too. “For everyone else’s benefit, I tell you all to question anything that feels unnatural in your mind. This includes behavior tendencies you actually have that suddenly feel exaggerated. The energy around us has been agitated for more than a week, and I believe our increased bickering is partly due to this. Though impossible to prove, I’d bet everything I’m worth Krontos has been playing us in this manner ever since we left Abingdon. If you’ll think about it, every one of our moves during the past four months has been preceded by heightened tension like we’re dealing with at present.”

  The proverbial feather hitting the floor would be apropos to describe the dumbfounded looks and silence as we all considered the truth of Roderick’s observation.

  “What we must never lose sight of is the diabolical nature of our adversary,” he continued. “Krontos’ motives are always harmful to the human race. You’ve heard it said before that madmen revel in the world burning to ashes around them. That image defines him better than anything else. Especially, since he prefers to employ his destructive influences behind the scenes.”

  “So, does it mean we’re like some dumbass sheep, as we prepare to fly out to meet this jerkoff?” asked Cedric. Surely this was another moment where he wished things had worked out better in Paititi. “Roderick and William… you two should know better, in dealing with someone like this. It’s a no-win situation, and it can only end one way. Badly!”

  “While it’s true it does seem hopeless—at least at first glance—William and I have been discussing some options that might work in our favor,” Roderick advised. He motioned for the guys to join the ladies, who had already sat down at the table. “I ask that you keep your minds open as we discuss an alternative buy-out plan.”

  “Buy out plan? Sounds like we’re trying to avoid a hostile takeover,” Amy observed, grimacing as if this notion brought unpleasant memories from her former life as a successful corporate attorney.

  Her deep green eyes were on fire, as were Beatrice’s. The pair reminded me of hungry felines with matching gazes, one brunette and the other with lustrous locks the angry color of the Scots. Much of what was to be discussed would strike many as whimsical bullshit. I prayed they kept their mental channels open long enough to absorb most of what was coming. Lord knew it might save their lives as we invaded the world of Krontos Lazarevic. It had become obvious to Roderick and me that we had no choice other than taking the game to our menace, instead of waiting for what would come next. We intended to step up the aggression once we made contact, which now had been set to happen the next day.

  “Like the small companies in the business world desperate to hold on to their individuality—their identity—yes, our battle is quite similar,” said Roderick, after he sat down with the rest of us. “Here’s the wild card we intend to play. We know Krontos wants the Dragon Coin. But to give it to him may bring terrible consequences, both to us personally and to the world in general. So, we will seek to stall him while we make arrangements to purchase another coin that might suit Krontos better.”

  “What coin? A blood coin? Nobody told me anything about new coins.” Alistair glared at me accusingly.

  “I just found out early this morning, Ali. Although, it is a coin I’ve known about for some time,” I said, meeting his gaze without relenting. It wasn’t hard to picture delivering an overdue butt paddling to my kid, and I hoped my eyes carried enough cobalt anger to subdue the fiery glint in his. “It’s one that disappeared from my awareness more than a thousand years ago, carried in secret by a Russian Jewish family that eventually r
elocated to Poland. After they were incarcerated by the Nazis in World War II, the coin became legendary among Jewish survivors of Stutthof and Auschwitz concentration camps.”

  “No shit, huh?” said Cedric, nodding thoughtfully. “So, what kept you from collecting it before now?”

  “The Nazis eventually learned of its presence in Auschwitz,” said Roderick. “They killed everyone associated with the coin… or so they thought. Several former Auschwitz inmates spoke of the coin after they received nourishment and recovered enough stamina to discuss the horrors they endured. Yes, William, I knew about this, too.”

  He cut me a look begging me not to grill him on how he knew these details. I assumed he might’ve had a cursory knowledge fed by Jeffrey’s detailed report from a week ago. Obviously, not so.

  “No one believed them,” I said, recalling those interviews.

  The allied teams of physicians and psychiatrists managed to dam the stream of information about the coin soon after the war ended. By December 1945 all mention of the coin was lost, either by threats of prolonged detention or effective drugs to those who refused to ‘give up delusions and face reality’. Sadly, I believed the information might be lost forever, as the only surviving account of the coin came from Sophi Lieberman, who successfully posed as a Stutthof camp employee and escaped being shipped to Auschwitz with her parents and older brother. Her account was duly recorded and saved by two nuns who sheltered her in the basement of a Catholic church in Danzig.

  “Maybe I missed something,” said Beatrice, pausing to clear her throat as if she hadn’t intended to join the conversation. “I understand this poor family lost the coin to the Nazis, and I assume it must have moved from them to someone else. How do you intend to get it now?”

  “The coin has recently resurfaced via the antiquities black market,” Roderick advised. “An old friend of ours in the CIA, Jeffrey Holmes, brought it to my attention a little over a week ago.”

  “The kid from Buffalo?” asked Cedric.

  “Yes, that kid.” I smiled at Roderick, since I wasn’t the only one who failed to update their age perception of Agent Holmes.

  “How will the bidding for it work?” Beatrice persisted. “I presume you are planning to buy it sight unseen. What if it’s a fraud?”

  Good question, and one I hadn’t seriously considered. But Roderick had.

  “Jeffrey utilized resources that could potentially get him fired if the agency ever found out he put them to use for this,” said Roderick. “The coin is the veritable real deal, and comes with letters attributed to Dr. Joseph Mengele and the last two commandants of Auschwitz, Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer. There is also a small journal included in the auction offering that belonged to Heinrich Himmler, and examines the supernatural aspects of the coin discovered by the Nazis toward the end of 1944.”

  “Sheesh, there’s no telling how much this will go for.”

  Beatrice eyed me worriedly after she said this, slowly shaking her head. Did I ever mention I’m not a fan of a woman’s intuition, when it could potentially invite thunderclouds to come our way?

  “The opening bid is six million euros—which is beyond absurd for a silver shekel,” said Roderick. “But I expect it to go for at least twice that much, which might cause a temporary hole in our finances, eh William?”

  “That’s only if we can’t get Krontos to go after it himself, and leave us out of this mess,” I said, grimacing as I briefly considered the myriad ways this could turn out adversely for us. So many things could go wrong, and the limited list of things going our way was shrinking. “That would be ideal. But, if he insists on taking the Dragon Coin, us having the ‘Stutthof-Auschwitz’ coin to make up for it might counteract the consequences. Hopefully it would stem the cost of losing a cured coin to someone as evil as Lazarevic.”

  The mood at the table became reflective and dark, and Roderick and I exchanged one more knowing glance that seemed to irritate everyone else. But other than mutterings from Alistair and a heavy sigh from the ladies, Roderick’s and my agreement to curtail the conversation in favor of picking up Angus steaks for dinner proved to be an effective distraction.

  I believe we all knew there was little to fret about until we arrived in New York the next day. Until then, our adversary held all of the cards. Whether he accepted our counter offer of another coin would determine our next move as a group. Other than affirming and reaffirming this information with our four mortal companions, the subject soon turned to what to pack for the trip, making sure each of us brought enough warm clothes for autumn in New York City.

  We retired to our rooms by ten o’clock, hoping to get enough rest for our 9:05 a.m. flight. For the second straight night, I watched my beloved as she slept, hovering protectively as I lay by her side.

  It was the only thing to bring me comfort.

  Chapter Four

  I should have expected someone to throw a wrench into our affairs. Should’ve been ready for anything. Though we understood much about the fickle and cruel nature of Krontos Lazarevic, we were ill prepared for his latest shenanigans.

  “What do you mean he canceled our trip?!”

  Roderick flinched as I addressed him, the first clue my tone carried unwarranted irritation toward him. Beatrice dropped her packed carry-on bags near the top of the stairs, gently grasping my arm as I prepared to hurry down to the main floor like an agitated tom turkey. I whirled to meet her pleading gaze.

  “Hear the rest of what Roderick has to say before you say anything else,” she cautioned, tenderly. “It’s not his fault, William.”

  She reached up and caressed the left side of my face with her free hand. Her touch was cool and comforting. Very few human beings have been able to calm my anger like Beatrice. Only my mother and younger sister, Esther, from my mortal days in Judea could do it. And, admittedly, on occasion Roderick has managed this feat… just not that morning.

  Beatrice tightened her grip on my arm until I nodded my consent to her admonishment. She smiled lovingly and I allowed the grin that often turns into a smirk to shine through.

  Hey, it was a start.

  We strode downstairs together, making my pace less resolute than it might’ve been. Everyone else stood in the kitchen, apparently waiting on us to emerge from our bedroom suite. The clock above the mantel gave the local time as 6:52 a.m. Several suitcases sat next to the fireplace, apparently left there when Roderick gave his initial update.

  “When I prepared to call the limousine service to ensure our car was on the way, I happened to see this latest note waiting outside the back patio door.” He held out a folded-over parchment, familiar as Krontos’ favored medium. My buddy motioned for me to take it once we joined him and the others in the kitchen. “Go ahead, take it.”

  Roderick cast a grateful glance to my better half for her nudge to my ribs. I offered him a muted apology as I took the letter.

  Roderick and Judas,

  I have decided to wait on our meeting. As such, please consider this an indefinite reprieve. Should I determine a need for the Dragon Coin, I will contact you expediently.

  In the meantime, enjoy your freedom in Sedona. But stay close to your ranch, in the event your presence here is required. Your indentured status, and that of your loved ones, remains in effect.

  Sincerely,

  Krontos

  “So, we are casual acquaintances now?” I mused, chuckling at the irony. Compared to the normal detached coolness we had become accustomed to from our invisible overlord, this latest correspondence was almost merry in comparison. “Next thing you know we’ll be getting a Christmas card from the bastard.”

  “Since he has a penchant for delivering his messages without warning, I suggest we keep the derogative responses to a minimum,” chided Roderick, mindful to keep his tone as sweet as Beatrice’s had been just minutes earlier. “We would do well to speak of him respectfully.”

  “Personally, I prefer Pops’ response,” said Alistair, absently twirling fingers thr
ough his long, dark bangs that had grown unchecked since my last update. “After all, being an indentured servant isn’t exactly a title to be proud of.”

  “So, you showed everyone else this letter, I take it?” I asked, trading impish glances with my boy. As for my dig about the letter’s privacy, I preferred to not divulge much information from the Hungarian devil—especially anything addressed specifically to Roderick and me.

  “I gave them the general gist,” said Roderick, eyeing me seriously. “They have a right to know what we’re up against.”

  “And, my money’s on this cat Krontos gaining an edge from what we discussed last night, William,” said Cedric. Dressed in a sharp black polo shirt and slacks, his hands fidgeted as if the longing for his slim panatelas had grown tenfold since our last private conversation. Lots of nervous energy going on around here. “You’ve got to admit it makes the most sense for an abrupt turnabout like this.”

  It did make sense… perfectly. It also meant we were far behind Krontos’ next move. If the mention of the Stutthof-Auschwitz coin was behind our adversary’s sudden change of heart, then he had far bigger fish to fry than merely aborting our travel plans for his sadistic pleasure.

  “We need to get to the coin before Krontos does,” I said, directing my words to Roderick. “Who do we—”

  “I’m already on it, William,” he said, interrupting me. “I’ve been on the phone twice in the last hour with Bennevento in Rome. I had a hunch the asking price for the coin would skyrocket if Krontos became a player in the stakes. And, he definitely has joined the early bids. But the amount the new entry point has risen to now means we need assistance in covering the coin’s cost, until we can access our Swiss reserves.”