As a man of strong faith, I knew my Lord wasn't with him.
He streaked through the graveyard. As I began to catch up, I took a chance and flung the flail forward. The head wrapped around his left ankle and sent him sprawling to the ground. I lost my balance and tumbled down, as well.
We scrambled to our feet. “Jean Pollard said you were the most dangerous of the lot.”
“Coming from that jerk, I'll take that as a compliment,” I said, digging my heels in.
His hand drifted to the sword on his hip. “The world is changing and the church recognizes that. If we have to combat evil with evil, we will.”
“You knew those people were damned from the moment you handed them whatever that stuff was.”
“Of course,” he laughed. “When a witch hands you poison, you know it is tainted with the devil,” he admitted.
This confirmed Alura’s involvement. That one was supposed to be dead. As the holy man reached for his sword, I saw no reason to prolong this affair any further. I snapped my wrist and the mace sprang to life. The chain wrapped around his neck before the full length of the blade left the scabbard and his neck was broken just seconds later. As his dead body crumpled, I walked over and inspected the body one last time. He’d been wearing a plain cross of a silver chain; this man didn't deserve that. My final interaction was to take my God’s symbol. This would be his penance for cursing the simple minds of those fighting my family.
By the time I’d gotten back to the graveyard shack, bodies were strewn all along the grass. Abigail was sheathing the Sanctae Crucis when she spotted me. “It was the witch,” I called over to them. “She supplied the local church man with whatever that stuff was.”
“We must track her! She will lead us to Koenig and we can end this war humanity has ignited,” Radu declared.
Julia didn’t say anything; her worries were pointed directly at her mother. “Am I still allowed to track the inquisitor down?” Abigail asked.
I was good with my original plan. “Like I said, we get you to Europe and meet up with Shaman Franc-”
The ground shook.
The night sky lit up blood red.
Just what in God’s name was going on?
“This is cursed magic, a pact with the Devil has just been made.”
“Radu, how do you know?” I asked.
He scowled upwards at the night turned ominous. “This is the same facade that met me the night my brother turned us into vampires. One does not easily forget that.”
That was a mighty good point.
“It is coming from the middle of the graveyard,” Julia pointed towards.
For me the choice was simple. “We go confront whatever that witch’s done.”
“Castor, wait,” Abigail voiced.
“Mother, are you thinking the same thing I am?”
“That the witch who traveled with Castor may be connected to this, yes,” she replied to Julia.
That was ridiculous. “Cassie’s trying to kill Alura, not help her. Back me up on this Radu.”
But he wasn’t in the mood to back Cassie up either. “There are too many questions, Castor. Be prepared to do whatever is necessary.”
I was prepared; my upbringing and values deemed it necessary to end daemonic threats to this world. Cassie wasn't an innocent by any stretch - no I hadn't forgotten how she let that ghoul kill those hotel patrons, but she had proven that her loyalties were to the world.
“You are fond of her.”
“Would you three be happy if I just admitted that?” I snapped, Radu's simple statement was enough to infuriate me.
When they chose to remain silent, I was confident that my feelings for Cassie had become a closed subject. “No point bickering like old women, no offense,” I added.
“What are we waiting for?”
All it took was Abigail's obvious bloodlust for another fight to get the three of us to move towards the center of the graveyard and to discover what plague had been unleashed upon the Earth.
Chapter Sixteen
T he closer we got to the epicenter of the event, the hotter it became. My hair was soaked with sweat, my palms slick. And all of that came before the burning winds started whipping around.
Radu grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Abigail and Julia were already huddled with him. “What we are about to witness will change you,” he spoke.
“What do you mean?”
“We are the products of direct contact with Hell,” he answered me, including my grandmothers into the conversation. “Even though you carry my family's tainted blood; even though you carry the burden of my brother's blight against your soul, God has chosen to protect you. I cannot guarantee His protection will follow forward.”
It was quite the warning, but one had no intention of heeding. “To not protect what God built, to not go forward would be worse.”
Satisfied, he let go and continued the trek. The only thing that gave me peace was the immense concern Julia had as she stopped quickly by me. No words were spoken; we didn't need them. I knew exactly how she felt and she knew my resolve wouldn't change.
It didn't take long from that moment to reach our end road. As the scene came into view, my boyish naivete was replaced with a scorching anger. Two sisters, hand in hand, chanting together to bring about a daemon. In the center, shrouded in black, something was already about to set foot on Texas soil.
No.
Shame on you, Castor for believing.
Snap!
Their hands were protected by black magic but the force of the flail's power was enough to break the connection. But it was too late. The daemon took its final step out of Hell just milliseconds before. The black shroud broke, revealing a monster straight from myth. The horns that jutted out of its head reminded me a longhorn steer, the muscles covering the body raw and powerful. Two black eyes surveyed the scene before the bull’s mouth gaped open and snarled at the red moon above. Slobber fell from its mouth as it cried its awful warning.
The Minotaur was here.
Easily over seven feet tall standing straight up, the bull daemon hunched over and dug its knuckles into the ground. The back hooves began kicking up dirt as it built momentum to charge. The four of us scattered as hellfire broke from its nostrils and ran right towards the spot we’d been occupying. While the three vampires stayed relatively close to the daemon, I hustled towards the witches, a burning desire to bad things to the two damned girls.
The head of the flail cracked the ground. “What have you two done?”
“Castor, leave!” Cassie pleaded.
“It’d be too late, Cassie. They all gonna die,” her sister cackled.
“No one dies,” she turned on Alura. “The Minotaur captures Radu and that’s it.”
Nothing they said made sense. “Capture Radu? Why do you want to capture him?”
“He’s the last living true link to Vlad, Castor. Gerhard Koenig needs his blood to fuel whatever God awful experiments he’s running in Germany.”
Cassie explained all of this as if she was telling me about a sunny day. “After everything we’ve been through? You’re going to help this nut job?”
The raging battle between three very old vampires and one powerful daemon echoed all around us. My attention was solely on the two witches, however. “I know she’s your sister, but seriously?”
“I told you, I’m not a good person.”
“Bullshit.”
Still, my hand tightened around the handle of the flail. I also was very aware where my gun was in accordance to my off hand. Alura’s expression taunted me to make a move - until something else began to light a fire in her twisted mind.
“There’d be somethin’ else goin’ on here.”
The tension built even more as Alura sniffed the air like some sort of magical bloodhound. “He’d be the true prize!” she exclaimed, pointing at me. “Ye had me thinkin’ ye were actin’ the fool over a boy!”
“Don’t do this, sister.”
Alura brushed off Cassie’s warning. “Koenig be rewardin’ us greatly for that one. Ta think, I assumed it’d be Radu triggerin’ my senses when it’d be this one.”
“Ladies, it doesn’t matter what either of you think, no one’s getting hauled off to Germany.” I was prepared to take them both out, if needed.
“I be sorry, sister. This is too much ta pass up.”
Alura conjured up a spell, only for it to never materialize. Cassie, without hesitation, reacted with her own, much more powerful magic. Clasping her hands together, Alura’s head burst like a watermelon across the graveyard. Blood splattered on me as I stood there in complete disbelief.
“Castor, we must leave. The Minotaur will not stop until he delivers ones of the Draculs to Koenig. That was a condition of his release from Hell,” Cassie whispered.
“No,” I said simply.
With Alura dead, hopefully for good this time, I found myself enthralled in the battle between my family and the daemon. As soon as Cassie’s attention turned that way as well, I knew I had my chance. The barrel of the gun found itself pressing up against the side of her head. She didn’t even move when it cocked, the bullet moving into the kill chamber. My finger was steady on the trigger, just like this was another monster - something not worth saving.
“You need to know something.”
“There ain’t nothing I need to know right now.”
The Minotaur picked up Radu and slammed him into the ground. Julia and Abigail jumped on its back, biting and ripping into tough, leather-like skin. “The Minotaur’s only weak spots are its mouth and eyes. If they don’t start attacking there, they’ll never survive.”
“Why are you telling me that?” I asked.
“If the choice is between losing you and being able to keep you, damnit Castor, just know I don’t want to lose you, not now,” she admitted, her eyes turning red and lips starting to quiver.
Crack!
Smoke issued from the end of the gun as I pulled the trigger once. The bullet found its target fairly quickly and did damage. The Minotaur began to buck and scream as the hot lead ripped out its left eye, leaving it permanently blind on that side. With one last look at Cassie, I did what I needed to, I joined the fray.
I helped Radu to his feet while Julia and Abigail regrouped on the back side of the creature. “The mouth and eyes are the weak points,” I shouted.
One grunted and the other one nodded to acknowledge they heard me. “What about the witches?” Radu asked.
“Alura’s dead and Cassie is dead to me,” I answered honestly.
“Very well.”
With one eye no longer of use, The Minotaur’s renewed attack plan was a tad more cautious but still as dangerous as ever. Seeing as I was the one who caused his great pain, he ripped up a chunk of the cemetery's ground, tombstones and all, and chucked the odd-shaped mess at me. I rolled out of the way with Radu darting off in the opposite direction. The ground shook like a mini quake when the projectile landed, again showing us just how strong this big bull was.
When Julia tried to sneak upon it, a hoof snapped backwards and caught her right in the jaw. She crumpled with no more resistance; I’m pretty sure she’d been knocked cold. Abigail lunged at the creature in rage, her daughter meaning the world to her. She slashed twice with Max’s sword, trying to kill the daemon with brute strength and rage. The third movement, a straight jab with the point burying itself into the creature’s chest, left her unable to protect herself. I fired off two more shots, hoping to distract the beast, but The Minotaur wouldn’t be moved from its target.
Radu tried to get in close, but The Minotaur backhanded him away. With nothing to encumber him, he spiked Abigail with his long horn and plowed her into the ground. As soon as he ripped it free, he snorted his blast of Hellfire, killing the matriarch of my family instantaneously. He turned and picked up Radu without much trouble. With a prize in his hands, The Minotaur opened up a portal of some kind. As he stalked towards it, I yelled out one last time.
“Hey dick head, you forgot something.”
He tossed Radu through the portal before rounding on me angrily. With his mouth open, breathing hard, my last bullet found its mark. The Minotaur stumbled backwards, into the portal, with a grapefruit sized hole blown out of the back of his head. As his hoof disappeared, the portal closed up, leaving me alone with an unconscious Julia.
**Nazi Germany; 1941 the year of our Lord**
When the body of Radu Dracul appeared through a rip in the space-time continuum, I couldn’t help not to smile. Not long after, the dead body of The Minotaur came crashing into my laboratory. The awful smell of the bovine daemon was overwhelming and that was before blood and bits of its small brain began to fall out of the large hole in the back of its head. Otto was going to have quite the mess to clean up!
As I injected the dazed and confused vampire with a sedative, it wasn't lost in me that Alura didn't return as well. The silly girl probably got killed in the struggle and that was okay. Her part to play was over. Soon, with a simple blood transfusion from Radu into my glorious test subject, the Nazi Army would rise above them all.
“May the Führer’s rule go unopposed!”
“The day the world stood still.
When the Japanese drank from the poisoned
cup and bombed Pearl Harbor, the world stopped.
Little did anyone know that a shadow force was assembled, ready to strike at the heart of
the Nazi Regime.
Clan Brinza would rise again.”
-Journal entry of Paddy Finucane; 1941
Chapter Seventeen
**Imperial Japan; 1942 the year of our Lord**
I t was just three days after New Year’s but the only fireworks to be heard were Japanese soldiers firing off at the small group I was a part of. The rat-ta-tat-tat of their guns was a sure sign to not leave the cover we'd established. I heard both Jordan and Gill swear under their breath that they'd gotten mixed up with me.
Do you trust your instincts, Castor?
In the months from that fateful night in El Paso, I trained my body and mind to use my gifts. By now, I had a clear line of communication with both Luka and my father, David.
I sure do, Dad.
Then play the long game.
The Japanese were relentless in their attack. It seemed to take forever for the guns to silence, but they eventually did. Right around sun up, the forces hunting us ceased fire. Random commands in a language I didn't know were shouted out.
“They're pulling back,” Jordan said quietly. “The guy in charge figures we've been shot or we'll die with hours. He's ordering his men back to base.”
Perfect. “Koenig is supposed to be meeting with Admiral Soemu today. We have to be in position,” I stressed.
Sam Gill and Joe Jordan were the two men that I met upon landing at Normandy after Radu was kidnapped and Abigail murdered. They assumed I was with the newest platoon of men that arrived, but I was really just a stowaway with illegal credentials. The long voyage across the rough Atlantic waters was where I really honed my gifts, the ones passed from my mother, Maria, to me.
“We maybe have two hours to lie low before moving out, Brinza. That should get us into position to eliminate Koenig,” Gill ventured to guess.
God bless these men. Through some thievery and deception that Julia and I orchestrated ele in Washington, D.C., the army commanders based at Normandy thought I was with a government black agency sent on a mission to capture Gerhard Koenig.
Half of it was true.
We waited patiently for our chance. Joe Jordan was our translator and Sam Gill was logistics. It was decided that a small three man operation would be the best bet not only to get into the country, but to also infiltrate the base where Koenig would be for less than a day.
“I still don't understand why some mid-level Nazi is worth its risking our lives.”
Even though Gill asked the question, both of them had at various points of our excursion. And everytime, I
had to give them the basic need to know type answer. It was bad enough that they were volunteered for a job that actually wasn't signed off by Uncle Sam.
My other fear was exposing them to something supernatural. Reports had come out of Nazi super soldiers, but most of the news chalked it up to the Germans using various drugs to hype up their front lines. Little did they know these soldiers were fueled by mystical juju from Hell.
As the day grew, we began our movement from our position and left the security of the forest. We closed in on the base by midday and found a spot on an elevation that allowed Gill to take in the terrain and formulate the best course of action.
He took a long look through his binoculars. “This place is like a prison,” Gill mused.
He spent the next ten to fifteen minutes explaining all the potential problem spots for us to break into the naval base. By the time he finished, Jordan and I were convinced we had no options moving forward.
“With all that said, we do have a way. I hope you boys don't mind getting wet.”
****
Gill wasn't kidding. The cold Pacific waters chilled us to the bone as we jumped in from the little alcove he found. We hadn't prepared for an aquatic adventure, so we needed to be fast. The swim took about fifteen minutes from point of entry to exit; an out of sight old barracks that backed up closely to the water's edge.
We were freezing. Jordan reached into his bag and pulled out some little bean bag objects. "Crinkle these up, they'll provide some heat."
The moment I did, blessed warmth touched my hands. "Thanks for that."
At least the sun was out.
We stopped; a battalion of Japanese soldiers came running by with the one leading them shouting instructions. Once out of earshot, Joe Jordan gave us a quick rundown. “The Germans are here. They’re setting up a reception area to receive him.”
Rise of the Seventh Reich Page 10
