by Aiden James
“Yes, Dracul is aware of our presence,” said a pained voice from roughly thirty feet away. I could make out the severed wheel from Roderick’s motorcycle by the metallic paint glistening from the faint torchlight that reached it on the floor. However, the voice wheezed painfully, and it took me a moment to determine it was Roderick who addressed me. “The others are not inside yet…they’ll be here soon. I believe I’ve got a punctured lung from a rib that pierced the lower left side. And, the femur on my wounded leg snapped.”
“I’m truly sorry, Roderick,” I told him, keeping my voice to a pointed whisper as I carefully crawled over to him. Before I reached him, the healing of my injuries was almost complete. “I’ll carry you while we look for everyone.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to leave me here? I will be a liability for at least the next few hours,” he said, releasing a chuckle that turned into a wheezing, coughing fit. I felt the spray of blood…he was just a few feet away now.
“It’s frigging dark as hell in here,” I remarked, drawing close enough to see his most prominent features, the sleek nose that bled and of course his snow-white hairline, almost purple in the dimness. Yet, despite my gratefulness to have him with me still, his eyes’ ethereal glow had quieted to the point they were nearly invisible in the dimness. “You’re hurt worse than you’re letting on. The light in your eyes is dead.”
I moved to keep him from sitting up. By then my eyes had largely adjusted, and I noticed several other pieces of his motorcycle were scattered haphazardly. Apparently, the bike had exploded upon impact. Roderick was fortunate to avoid being torn to pieces.
“Trust me…it brings me little comfort to agree with you.” He chuckled, perhaps at both the words in my head and images that inspired them. “But, a very long vacation is in order once I bail us out of this mess.”
“You? You can’t even walk, and could be hemorrhaging at this very moment!”
“I’ll be fine!” he snapped, and pushed me away to stand up. “We can’t stay here. They’ll find us very soon, and the impression I’m getting is of our host having a bigger temper tantrum than we’ve ever seen before. If we’re captured right now, he’ll be content to let us be eaten alive by his vampire brood while his henchmen train their guns upon our heads.”
Suddenly aware of voices, Roderick confirmed a team of vampires with human counterparts were on the way from Dracul’s throne room. Moving as fast as the sprinting henchmen could travel, they would be upon us in the next few minutes.
“Come over to my right side and lift me up. Your leg will serve as mine until the injuries can be addressed,” he directed, his voice barely audible. Never a braver man have I known, and though it had been centuries since he suffered like this, his determination to not give into pain and misery far exceeded my own. Without imminent rescue, it brought him much closer to the human condition, one I hadn’t sympathized with for far too long on account of my body’s ability to begin restoring itself within seconds. “And, quit piddling! We haven’t got all damned night! We need to get the hell out of here, so chop chop!”
“Well, smart ass, where do you propose we start looking?”
I hoped he’d let me lead the way. My vision had vastly improved to where I could make out our environment clearly enough. And, my instincts pulled me toward what looked like a darkened hall to our right. If it wasn’t Beatrice, my boy, and his fiancée waiting to be rescued down that pathway, then perhaps the thing that had just started calling to me would pull me on its own.
“Well, I’ll be damned, you can finally hear the voice of the Dragon Coin,” mused Roderick. “Hallelujah and sweet Jesus…. It only took you half a week to figure it out!”
He was right. I could hear the soft ring that all of my coins emit, although the frequency for this one sent uncomfortable tremors through my left arm. One of my bloodiest coins out there, as Vlad Tepes stayed quite busy building his legacy of suffering, even after his move from the living to immortal.
“Better late than never,” I told him, pulling his right arm around my shoulders and drawing him close with my left arm around his waist, an intimate gesture most recently reserved for my wife. “But, we need to get going.”
“Ready when you are.” He grimaced, tightening his grip around my shoulders. “They’ll be here in under a minute.”
“All the more reason to make sure we’re not.”
Together, we limped to the hallway and moved into blackness too dense to make out anything. I assumed the floor beneath us was made of the same marble as the floor in the immense court we had just exited, and the draftiness above indicated a high ceiling. I pictured the hall accommodating a freight truck. Roderick stayed with me, stride for stride, as if locked into the impulse signals from my brain to my legs. Difficult to avoid making some noise as we ran with a limped pace, I worried the echoes would make it easy for our eventual pursuers to locate us.
All the while, the coin’s pull grew stronger. It was definitely the right direction to pursue. However, I worried perhaps we’d run right smack into Dracul’s throne room, negating my assumption the coin’s home was somewhere else, or that his small army of henchmen and vamps would suddenly ambush us. My latest vision was highlighted by bright sparks from gunfire, along with the vice-like embrace of Dracul’s brood as they prepared to drain Roderick and me of our crimson life force.
“Must you always be this dramatic?” whispered Roderick, harshly, though the tone was mostly amused. “You always see the cup as half empty.”
“I beg your pardon? Wasn’t it your suggestion to try and plea bargain by meeting our enemy face to face?” I countered. The hallway’s draftiness worsened, surprising me given the balminess of this area of the world and its summer season.
“Obviously, it was my suggestion,” he said, and I could feel him in the darkness turning his head to look behind us. “And, your instinct to continue to elude him can be just as easily seen as panic driven, which in truth, is giving in to one’s fears. Hence, half empty cup.”
I followed his gaze, which unfortunately slowed our progress. Behind us, a few hundred feet away, I could discern the faint glow of the entry court. Echoes from whispers traveled down the hall from there. So, Dracul’s warriors did come after us from the projected origins that Roderick and I had picked up on. The throne room would logically be closer to the area we left, which told me the coin must be in Dracul’s bedchamber, or someplace similar.
I returned my attention toward the darkness ahead, confident Dracul’s welcoming party wasn’t waiting there. But, knowing they could pursue us down the hall at any time brought little comfort. Of deeper concern was the fact I still had no idea where my beloved family were being held. Terrible dread upon realizing we might already be too late seized my heart again. A half glass moment of the most inconvenient kind!
“I sense their spirits. They remain with us in the flesh,” said Roderick, his whisper barely audible. “They remain unharmed, relatively speaking. But, be aware of others in the search. I sense Dracul. His mind is seeking our location, like an octopus’s tentacles, and I don’t see how we can elude him for much longer.”
Roderick has always had the knack for impeccable timing. No sooner than he said this, a door screeched open ahead of us, and pitch-blackness gave way to intense light.
“Watch out, Rod! Quick, duck and follow me!” I shouted, when a volley of bullets ripped through the air around us.
One of the bullets grazed the top of my head, just inches from the intended kill shot. He let out a cry and let go of me to grab his right shoulder. Silhouettes of an armed trio ran toward us, and excitement coming up from behind announced we would soon be surrounded. Enough light was present to reveal several alcoves along the corridor. Trusting my gut, I picked one to the left, largely since it would be an easier leap to make while dragging my buddy with me. We slid down an unexpected incline, and rolled into a room with exits on every side. Relying once more on my instinct to tell me which one to try first, I picked the one
to my right and helped Roderick scurry inside.
Screeching voices moved closer and would soon follow our escape route. But as I turned to take us further away from the melee in the hallway, there was nothing to step onto. The floor was gone.
* * * * *
“Now what?!” I hissed, when Roderick resisted my efforts to get him to move back into the room we had just exited. “There’s no other frigging place to go!”
“What would you like for me to tell your loved ones and our departed friends beyond the veil? Because if we step back into the room, I won’t have the strength to fight the vampires off,” he said. “You won’t be able to do it either, and we know what that means for you and Beatrice and Alistair….”
A sudden chill had entered the room ahead of us. No heartbeats, and no breaths.
Vampires.
Hungry and on the hunt, and surely freed by Dracul to feast on us.
We wouldn’t hear them, and would only see their physical presence when their bumbling human companions descended on the room à la Rambo.
“Trust me, Judas. Trust me like you never have before!”
Before I could respond, Roderick lunged into my chest, carrying me with him as we fell backward into the abyss. Some might picture my surprise, my dismay, and ultimately my alarm. Perhaps they would also picture my screams as we plunged to the bottom, none of this personally flattering, of course.
Yes, I screamed, as any man would, or woman, since my voice turned shrill. I felt the vampires hover above briefly and then they left us to our demise. But, what they surely didn’t understand was what Roderick meant when he charged me to trust him.
Save me, Judas…save me like I’ve saved you many times before!
I had no idea how far we would fall in such an environment, a veritable sea of black. Nor did I have a clue as to what we’d encounter at the end of our drop. Would there be another marble floor? Or, a room with furnishings that could become instruments of death upon impact? Perhaps, this was a natural cavern, and at the bottom were piles of rocks, or more delectably, sharp stalagmites. Regardless, I knew what needed to be done, since Roderick was already greatly injured. Any chance he had of healing depended on nothing worse befalling his physical person.
“Hang on, Rod!”
What seemed like an eternity likely lasted only a few seconds. I cradled him as I did my boy when he was young, or even Beatrice when she forgave my desertion of her and Alistair nearly two years ago. Then we smashed into the unforgiving floor. Not the same grade of stone as utilized above, but just as painful. However, a blow that could’ve proved fatal was minimized by the fact my shoulder hit and then we rolled.
I couldn’t breathe, and I wheezed, painfully sucking air while the bones and tissues that were obliterated began their miraculous regeneration. I wanted to cry out—especially when I realized I had damaged several lower internal organs and smashed my hip as well. But my head and heart were spared, which was why I was writhing on the ground, instead of waking up whole someplace else.
“Keep quiet for another minute, and they will leave us be,” whispered Roderick from just above my face. I couldn’t see him, but I pictured his pained smile as he fought to ignore his latest injuries. I wondered if he would make it, telling myself I was going to be seriously pissed if I went through the agony on his behalf and he succumbed to his wounds. “I owe you my life, Judas.”
“I think this makes us even,” I said, grimacing despite waves of healing traveling across my body. “You owe me nothing.”
“On the contrary, I see things differently…. They’re gone, by the way,” he said, and then pressed a grimy hand over mine to keep me from speaking. He waited a minute or two before releasing his gag over my mouth. “Dracul may resume his search for us soon, but everyone has withdrawn for now.”
“Lovely. Just frigging lovely,” I said, feeling more like my old, endearing self again. “So, I wonder where the hell we are now?”
“Hard to say.” He chuckled. “But the floor’s texture feels like granite, and…. Oh shit, this feel’s like a bar. It is! We’re in a frigging dungeon!”
He started to laugh, until we both heard movement roughly thirty feet to our right. Probably a rat, or maybe a sea snake or other marine critter flapping around on the puddle floor, since this place had to be sea level in elevation, or lower. Hell, it could be—
“Pops?”
“Huh? Alistair?!”
Chapter Twelve
“My God, Ali, are you all right? Is your mother and Amy there, with you, too? And, are they okay?!”
The questions came out rapid-fire, as my surprise and fears were heightened. I was especially alarmed by my son’s weak sounding voice, as if something had frightened him terribly.
“They haven’t harmed us yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. It sounded as if he attempted to scoot closer to Roderick and me, the soles of his shoes scuffing the stone floor. “They ambushed us at the hotel.”
“Dracul’s agents? What, were they waiting inside your rooms at the hotel in Rome?”
“Yes, that’s where they were.”
My heart sunk at the sound of Beatrice’s frightened tone, as she answered me instead of Alistair. Doubtless, she had been served a heavy and unforeseen dose of extreme unpleasantness, the very thing I had always strived to protect her from. And, we were merely talking about Dracul’s henchmen. If he had sent his vampires to Rome instead, or if he had handled the visitation himself, it might’ve turned out far worse.
“Beatrice, my love, are you all right?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, and I heard a soft rustling near where her voice emanated. Picturing dinginess similar to what Roderick and I found ourselves immersed in, I knew it could be no better. “They treated us roughly after first telling us we needed to cooperate or never see you alive again. They said you were here, and that Dracul would torture you to death if we didn’t come along peacefully.”
It broke my heart to hear her like this, and I resisted a powerful wave of incensed rage churning up from my solar plexus. An indignant wrath, I should say, toward whoever specifically had lied about Roderick’s and my whereabouts. I pictured Arso and his human buddies being involved with this cruel farce. Vesuvius couldn’t produce worse violence than what brewed within me at that moment, and the urge to brutally retaliate threatened to consume my spirit.
“Don’t worry and hang on! I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can figure out where ‘here’ is.” I felt Roderick’s accusing look, as I put forth every ounce of courage I held within my heart to have faith that good would prevail. “Where’s Amy?”
“I’m right here…sitting next to Bea.”
Similar to the weakened spirits of my wife and only child, Ms. Golden Eagle’s vibrant personality sounded as if she had become a terrified shell.
What in the hell happened…what did they do to my family?!
“I’m so sorry, Pops, so very sorry,” said Alistair. He was weeping, and immediately the tears spread to his fiancée and my beloved wife. “We should never have ventured away from where the feds took us, to Roderick’s home. I should’ve insisted we stay put and waited as you instructed…. He killed a young girl in front of us, and said you would tell us how much worse things will be when it’s our time to die.”
I could easily imagine the terror of not only being given a death sentence by this fiend, but to watch another, presumably innocent victim be sacrificed to make a point. A mere child! Certainly, there were screams of agony and the obligatory rush of nubile blood to feed the monster Vlad Tepes. The image in my mind not only came from my current knowledge of this unholy fiend, but also from my personal experiences with Dracul when he masqueraded as a Roman Catholic inquisitor five hundred years earlier. It’s impossible to forget the agonized screams I heard from his endless victims back then, along with the flickering silhouettes in adjacent dungeon cells as men and women slowly slid down poles with sharpened tips that had been treated with the blacksmith�
��s fire prior to insertion.
“Let it go, William,” whispered Roderick, addressing me by the name I had favored since the turn of the twentieth century. “That’s what he wants. Dracul draws pleasure and energy from your rage and disgust. Until we leave this place with Beatrice, Ali, and Amy, we can ill afford to react to his heinous deeds in any way. You know this is true.”
Yes, I knew it well. Our nemesis greedily coveted the total suffering of his victims, and had always enjoyed drawing out pain on every level of a person’s physical and spiritual makeup. But, honestly, I had forgotten the extremes he would pursue to destroy a human being’s core essence.
“Okay, Roderick’s right. This isn’t the time or place to dwell on what has brought us here.” I paused to look up from where we fell. Maybe it had been only thirty to forty feet, since judging from the voices and other noises coming from where we fell, we would have company very soon. “We need to get you all out of there while we can.”
“How?” Alistair sounded closer, and I heard him grasping the cold iron bars that separated him from Roderick and me. “We are all as good as fucked, if you ask me!”
“Calm down, Ali. You know better than to sport that attitude, if you want to leave here alive,” I chided him, gently, although his assessment matched the honest analysis in my head. Without a major miracle from The Almighty and his finest angels, we were indeed in trouble. “I’ve got an idea…I’ll be back in a moment.”
His protests continued, but became muffled when Beatrice implored him to shut the hell up about it. Tough love from his momma, and I must say it made me proud to hear her trying to hold it together. It gave me hope that she wasn’t as damaged as I had feared. No doubt, Amy would follow her lead, at least I hoped. Still, whatever escape route we managed to come up with would be difficult at best. Having everyone pulling in the same direction was direly important.
