Kalzar, in dragonling form, stalked toward him across the great stone sculptures adorning the cathedral’s eaves. He walked toward Justin with a terrible smile on his face. His smile slipped when he saw the sword in Justin’s hand. The smile’s last remnants froze forever on Kalzar’s face the instant the blade swept through his neck…
The vision wrenched away, and once again Justin saw himself walking into the cathedral. Once again, he killed Sandra. He wrestled with the dream. Again he was in London on the cathedral. Again Kalzar’s head rolled to the stone facings of the great church. Then Sandra’s death played out once more. And again…and again…and again…
Justin willed himself awake, finally escaping the clutches of the visions that haunted him. He’d never escaped such visions before until released by the Dragon, had never been able to do so. Perhaps he hadn’t done it this time. Perhaps the Dragon had let him go. After all, Justin’s mandate was obvious. The Dragon wanted Sandra dead. But he seemed to want Kalzar dead as well.
Perhaps not all the visions had come from the Dragon…
“I will not kill her…” Justin vowed through gritted teeth. “She will convert. I swear it.”
But even as he said it, pain shot through him, burning him alive as he cried out. He staggered and slammed into the coffee table. Wood cracked and a huge, jagged splinter of it pushed through his forearm. His blood gushed onto the carpet, but that pain was peripheral to the other agonies the Dragon was unleashing on him. Now there was pressure on both sides of his head, and it felt as if his eyeballs were going to pop from their sockets.
“No.” He was defiant. “I will not!” His forearm came free of its impalement, and he struggled to stand. Huddling into himself, Justin forced the pain from his body. He willed the Dragon away. Electric shocks coursed through his limbs and he screamed in agony, but his resolve did not falter. He remained hunched over, eyes shut, fighting.
With each jolt of burning anguish, a memory of the last time he had fought this battle came to him.
The other…
Images of her flashed across his mind and he focused on her, not the fire burning his flesh.
He was in Russia. It was the turn of the century. A young woman entered the barn. Her breath was a white cloud in the frosty air. She had recently given birth for the first time. Justin could hear the baby crying from where he hid in the barn. He perched in the loft, one with the early morning shadows.
The woman’s blonde hair was a cascade of sunshine framing her soft, round face. Her movements were graceful and her happiness radiated from her. The vision of her would always stay with him, the way her lips were curved in a smile, the way her cheeks were flushed, the way she whistled softly as she worked, never knowing of the demon who hovered by her door.
His dreams had sent him here, the only kind of dreams he had anymore. She was his victim. He had seen how he would kill her. Here, in the barn. Now, as she was gathering eggs. Now, as she lifted her skirts and tucked them in her waistband, to keep them free from the straw and dirt in the barn as she collected the eggs.
He watched her exposed legs, smooth and youthful, and he remembered when he had first seen Gwendolyne. He had been in his nineteenth year, fully a man by the standards of the time. She had been fourteen, a slim and agile sylph of a girl, all hair and eyes and that beautiful smile. His first glimpse of her by the riverside had been enough for him. He’d known then that he would marry her.
He had seen too much of Gwendolyne in that young Russian girl. He had dared to love her and the Dragon had disapproved, just as Justin’s father had disapproved of Gwendolyne. That first night Justin could not bring himself to kill her. He waited until she left, and that was when the pain hit. All of that day and all of the next he stayed hidden from the young woman, locked in his personal struggle with the Dragon, drinking hell by the mouthful. In the night, sometimes, he would allow himself to cry out quietly, caught in the throes of torment.
By the third day, he could not remember what it was like to be without pain. All he knew was that he could not continue the struggle for another minute without going mad. That morning, when the young Russian girl entered the barn, he was ready to take her. Her death was instantaneous. A knife from behind. A slit throat. She never had time to realize what exactly was wrong before she passed from the land of the living.
He had bought her three days with his pain. Three days. How valuable were three days of happiness? He’d had little more than that with Sandra. What price could be put upon such a thing?
Slowly Justin’s memory faded away…and with it, the pain…
The phone. His cell phone was ringing.
Justin plunged his hand into the inside pocket of his coat, fumbled after the phone.
“Yes?” His voice was tight, controlled.
“Justin? It’s Benny. I’m at the cathedral. Sandra’s here. I had to go to a pay phone outside to call you. You told me to call as soon as I saw someone suspicious. Well, he’s here, I think. That guy you mentioned. Kalzar.”
“Kalzar,” Justin managed to say.
“Yeah, him. He came in and sat by the door. I think he knows who I am. The way he looked at me…”
“It’s possible. Elders can often tell when a younger disciple is near. Very well. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Stay as close to him as you can without revealing yourself. Don’t fight him, but do what you can to keep him away from Sandra.”
“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know…but you have to try.”
“Okay.” Benny hung up.
Justin folded the phone and slipped it back in his pocket. Was the Dragon sending Kalzar to kill Sandra? Or was Kalzar operating independently? If it was the latter, then Justin might buy himself time by killing Kalzar. If it was the former, Justin could never protect Sandra. There would always be another disciple assigned to kill her. One of them would eventually succeed.
There was only one way to protect Sandra forever…
Justin stepped out the door and sensed them immediately, though they weren’t readily apparent to human eyes. He wasn’t surprised when two men stepped from the shadows near the corner of the building.
They were Chinese, an older man and a teenage kid. They seemed familiar, though Justin couldn’t place either one of them in his memory. Justin looked down at the ring on his finger, looked at them, then narrowed his eyes.
The two flanked the edges of the staircase that descended from the door of the building to the sidewalk. Never pausing, Justin started down toward them. What would have been creepy to anyone else was merely annoying to Justin. He didn’t know who these people were, but he had a fair idea who might have sent them. They could stand in his way at their peril.
“Who are you?” he asked. They didn’t seem inclined to stop him, but they weren’t afraid of him, either.
The man was middle-aged. His short, black hair was streaked with gray. His eyes appraised Justin, and Justin didn’t like the feeling at all.
“You know who we are,” the man said.
Justin nodded. “Yes, of course. You’re Drokpas. Human slaves of the dragons from Beyond.”
The man nodded. “Yes. We serve them, but we are not slaves. We seek—”
“I know what you seek,” Justin said. “You think you can stop my master from returning to this world.”
“You do not realize—”
“I realize that if you try to stop me, I will rip you limb from limb. You know I can do it.”
“We know,” the man said. He and the kid bowed and stood aside.
Justin brushed past them. “At any other time I would not suffer your kind to live,” he growled, walking quickly down the street.
When Justin was almost out of earshot, the man yelled to him, “Remember the blue flame! It will serve you well!”
The words were so surprising he froze for a moment. He spun around to ask them what they meant, but when he faced the steps again, they were gone.
As if they’d never been.
>
Hidden in shadow, the two Chinese men could still see Justin as he hailed the cab. Neither spoke for a long moment.
“I fear for her,” the younger finally said.
“I know. Matters are coming to a cusp,” the older returned.
“I don’t trust him.”
“It is not our mission to trust him. It is our mission to help him understand his true nature and that of his master.”
“What if he hurts her?” the younger asked.
“Then that is as it must be.”
“I cannot stand by while this happens,” the younger said. “Then I will send you back to Drokpasyl,” the older man said. “She is not our purpose. The earl of Sterling is. We have watched him for hundreds of years. He is the one who can end everything.”
“So we may save the girl Tina, but we may not save Sandra?” The younger man’s voice was thick with rage.
“Tina was meant to be taken into the fold. So the Dragons said.”
“And yet they will not take Sandra. How are we different from Justin, then? We justify these deaths as necessary things. How are we different?”
The older man turned a stern gaze on the younger. “Your passion is admirable, but your logic is lost in a sea of anger.”
“I just don’t think—”
“That is correct. You are not thinking clearly. You assume that you could stop the earl of Sterling as you stopped his henchman, Omar, from killing Tina. Need I remind you that if Omar had spent a little more time on you, you would be dead? There is nothing you can do to stop Justin. If you stand in his path, he will cut you down and think nothing of it. And your resistance might be the one thing he needs to work himself into a rage. And then how would you have served his future victim?”
“The Dragons could take Sandra into the fold,” the younger man pointed out.
“Would you have them take her as Justin wishes to take her? Would you tell her, ‘Join us if you wish to live. You have no choice’? I turn your question back upon you. How would that differ from what Justin is doing?”
“At least she would be alive.”
“So Justin thinks, also. You are both correct. But neither of you are right. They both must make very important decisions. They cannot make those decisions if we do it for them. What must be will be.”
The younger man paused for a long time. He struggled with himself, but finally his face became calmer, more placid. He let out a long, slow breath.
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“We must trust,” the older man said.
“We must trust,” the younger echoed.
twenty-six
The cathedral had three entrances, the great double doors in the center, and two smaller, steel-bound wooden doors on either side. Statues of the apostles flanked the center doors. The pointed arch was a recess three feet thick, carved into delicate filigree which sloped down to the entranceway. Above the arch was a scene of Jesus weighing souls, with Mary to his right and Peter to his left. It was an impressive edifice, even to a man who had watched Gothic cathedrals being built, as Justin had witnessed the construction of parts of Westminster Abbey and other great churches.
Below those scenes was a representation of Christ at the time of Armageddon. Souls floated free, rising from their tombs. Radiant angels with beautiful wings carried the devout up toward Jesus.
But farther down, a more insidious scene took place. At the bottom of the frieze, the souls of the wicked reached imploringly for heaven, crying out in pitiful, silent shrieks of terror as long-horned demons with maniacal grins gripped their legs and dragged them down to where the flames leapt high. Within those flames, every atrocity imaginable was occurring. A huge devil, by far the largest figure of the scene, held a man in seven tentacles. The devil was ripping the man’s head off. A naked woman ran through the flames, tears sliding down her face. Three snakes sank their fangs into her flesh, one at each breast and one at her genitals. Another man was being stuffed headfirst into a tub of flames by three small demons. His legs kicked fiercely.
Justin turned his gaze from the scene. If he should die—actually die—worse awaited him. Eternal torment. Yet wasn’t that how he might describe his current existence?
Justin reached the right-hand door and opened it. The pain had stopped, for now. He was approaching his victim. In the eyes of the Dragon, Justin was no longer resisting his edict.
The cathedral was all but empty. Only two people—Sandra and Kalzar—sat in the pews. Benny was there somewhere, hidden in the shadows.
At the sound of the door opening, Kalzar, close to the entrance, turned around. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a gray, pin-striped three-piece suit. Kalzar saw him and grinned. For a moment Justin’s rage almost slipped out of control. His hands longed to strangle the smile from that smug face, to push those glinting eyes back into his skull until they burst. But now was not the time. Soon enough there would be a more appropriate moment. Justin would wait.
Kalzar stood up, smoothed his lapels. Justin did not even spare him a glance as Kalzar walked by, nodding in approval. He opened the door and left the cathedral.
Justin saw Benny out of the corner of his vision, standing in the shadows of the nave. Justin beckoned the newly made disciple to his side with a slight motion of his head.
Benny walked to him without a sound. Already he had slipped into a disciple’s powers as if he had been born to wield them. Justin placed a silent hand on Benny’s shoulder. He nodded toward the door. Benny shot him a questioning glance.
“Follow Kalzar. Keep your eyes on him if you can. I wish to know where he goes.”
Benny smiled. “It will be a pleasure. What about Sandra?”
“Give me this moment alone with her,” Justin whispered. “I must dissipate her fears. She will be one of us soon. It will be all right.”
Benny nodded and followed Kalzar.
Justin began the long walk down the center aisle. Sandra was sitting in the same pew as when they had first talked here. Perhaps she always sat there. He allowed himself to wonder how often she came, how often she sat in that pew. The questions took his mind off the Dragon’s singing desire for her death. Every cell of his body ached with the Dragon’s need to destroy her.
He carefully chose a pew three back from hers and sat down. The pain returned with a vengeance as he halted. He gripped the back of the pew. The wood creaked under his tightening hands.
Sandra had not moved since she’d heard the door open. Her back was straight, and she gripped the seat in front of her just as Justin did.
“Is it you, Justin, really?” she asked, her voice drifting up into the ceiling. “And will it? Really?”
“What?” Justin asked, quietly, trying to conceal the struggle within himself.
“Will it really be all right? Or did you just tell Benny that to get him to leave?”
A pain like hundreds of small burning blades opened the flesh on Justin’s back. He gasped. “That depends upon you.”
She turned around. Her tear-stained gaze was hurt, angry, betrayed. “Join you or die, is that it?”
A spear of fire slammed into Justin’s guts, twisting. He let out a tight breath and tried to keep his arms from shaking. The wood of the seat in front of him cracked.
He nodded. He could not speak now. The pain was too intense.
A tear ran down a well-traveled track on Sandra’s cheeks. “Why did you have to drag Benny into this? Couldn’t you have just let it be between the two of us?”
Fire encircled Justin’s heart. The burn spread throughout his chest, choking him. He paused until he could speak. “Benjamin…he wanted this,” Justin managed. “It is all he has wanted for a long time now. You know it’s true.”
“No,” she said. “The Benny I saw back at the apartment was some mutated version of my Benny! What did you do to him?”
“He chose his path, Sandra. You should choose it, too. You are just afraid.”
Sandra laughed, a hollow sound. “Of course, I’m te
rrified. Look at what it’s done to you. Look at what you’ve become. The same thing will happen to Benny, and you brought him to it!”
Justin felt the pain of his fingernails being plucked out, one at a time. The hairs on his head, as well, one by one. His jaw was shaking when he opened his mouth to speak. He closed it with a snap, marshaled his strength, and spoke slowly. He could hear the pain in his voice, though. If Sandra were listening, he was sure she could hear it now, too.
“What I do is painful, and not necessarily just. I do not deny it. It is a heavy burden to bear, but a necessary one for all of mankind.”
Sandra gripped her seat with white knuckles. “So killing that kid? Killing McKenzie? Those murders served the good of mankind? I don’t buy it. It’s not necessary! It could never be necessary!”
“I did not kill McKenzie.”
“What difference does it make?” She turned to face him. The cathedral thrummed, echoing with her ire. “It’s all the same! People die at your hands—Madrone, Baxter, Zack. What justifies that? Nothing could!”
“Wait….” The pain intensified. “Let me….” Helet out a small breath. “…Let me tell you something, a story, before you make your decision.”
“Forget it.” She started to leave, but Justin cut her off. “Please,” he begged, and for the first time, she noticed his pain. She finally realized the price he was paying to let her live. She was silent, watching, wary. She sat back down, prepared to listen.
“Long ago, near the turn of this century, I was ordered to the Russian countryside to kill a young girl.”
Sandra seemed about to say something, but Justin motioned her to be silent.
“I did not want to do it,” he continued. “She was the wife of a poor revolutionary named Iosif Dzhugashvili. Iosif supported his small family by doing odd jobs and by keeping the farm. In his spare time, he wrote for a tiny underground Bolshevik newspaper under the name of Joseph Stalin. I did not want to kill Yekaterina. She was a wonderful woman. I do not believe I have ever seen such devotion between a couple. They were in love, despite the danger that was always a part of their lives. She had recently given birth to a son, Yakov. She was wild, spirited, and she bolstered her husband’s convictions when he despaired. He lived in constant fear of the day when men would appear at his door and arrest him for treason.
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