The Dragon Coin

by Aiden James

  I scurried up the bars, hoping for the oft chance that the cells were fourteen to fifteen feet tall, and not all of them connected to the ceiling. At first, it appeared the only thing working out was the dungeon cell’s height. But as I moved from bar to bar, I finally found a gap, and one wide enough for the ladies and my boy to squeeze through to join us on our side.

  “Okay, I found a way for the three of you to leave your cell and join us here,” I announced, when I returned. “I’ll guide you up the bars to the top, and then you’ll climb through to where we are.”

  “Pops, that’s nuts!”

  “Have you got a better idea?” I honestly didn’t see another viable option.

  “What are we supposed to do when they come down here?”

  I could tell from Alistair’s voice he had turned his attention to a spot above us, where the whispered voices echoed toward us. Hungry vampires and trigger-happy thugs approached the edge of the abyss.

  “Quickly, get your mother over here, son!” I whispered, forcefully, and for the moment ignoring his growing panic.

  “She’ll never make it to you before they show up!” he hissed, more worriedly. “None of us—”

  “Stop it, Ali!” Roderick interrupted. He had crawled quietly to the far side of our dungeon cell. The sound of a pebble he threw bouncing off the walls of the chasm indicated a deep and promising passageway lay there. “There’s a tunnel over here. If everyone can climb over to our side quickly and quietly.”

  Roderick and I heard it at the same time. The hushed voices above had ceased to converse with one another. The silence likely meant one thing.

  “You all need to scale the bars, now!”

  “But, Pops.”

  “Now!”

  “William, help me!” cried Beatrice. I could hear her stand up, slapping at herself. “Something’s on my head, crawling in my hair!”

  My wife was never afraid of the creepy-crawly critters in the world, and in fact, the very night she and I first met she had killed a poisonous snake that had wandered into the Scottish pub, where she worked as a no-nonsense barmaid. Even during her age regression, I had never seen her squeamish about anything. Yet, here she was, acting like a fragile princess.

  Dracul must’ve gotten to her and invaded her psyche somehow.

  “Help your mother climb the bars, Ali, and I’ll catch her over here!” I urged him. “Then Amy and you will need to quickly follow.”

  How I wished for a damned flashlight to help guide them, as the only thing we had thought to bring along were hunting knives from a local store that resembled machetes. Very foolish, in hindsight, though we truly were pressed for time. There wasn’t near enough to secure firearms, since neither Roderick nor I had black market contacts in this region. Or, we no longer had them, I should say.

  “Maybe this will help,” said Roderick, pulling out a small penlight and turning it on. After a cautionary pass with the small beam into the darkness above, which surprisingly revealed we remained alone for the moment, he pointed it to where our beleaguered trio’s voices had originated.

  “Oh my God!...” I whispered.

  Alistair shielded his eyes from the light’s bright beam, as did Amy. Apparently, they had been down here since shortly after their arrival in the castle. My son’s mouth had been bloodied and both he and Amy sported red welts under their eyes. It wasn’t the first thing I noticed, since both were disheveled and soiled, as if they had rolled around in the muddy ground on their side of the ancient, rusted bars that separated us from each other.

  As for Beatrice, my initial gasp was mostly on account of what had happened to her. Disheveled like my boy and his fiancée, she also sported the same welts under her eyes, and her hair was tousled into an unruly mess. Admittedly, it could’ve been related to her screaming fit from just moments ago. But, the fact her blouse had been nearly torn away told me otherwise.

  “What happened, my love?” I asked, finding it incredibly hard to stay calm while I motioned for Alistair to meet me at the bars, with the intent to help the women scale the obstacle first. “Are you all right?”

  “Let me see you, William,” she said, her voice shaking as she approached the spot where her son and I waited. “Shine the light in your face, please!”

  Roderick and I exchanged baffled looks in the light’s dimness, and I could tell he was just as disturbed by Beatrice’s unstable behavior. Despite knowing we could be attacked at any time, I motioned for Roderick to illuminate my face for my beloved wife.

  “There, you see? It’s me….”

  Ear piercing screeches filled the air above our heads, and when Roderick pointed the tiny flashlight in that direction, several pale faces greeted us.

  Beatrice and Amy screamed, and several short blasts of gunfire sent bullets ricocheting off a wall behind us.

  “Get your mom and Amy up on the bars, Ali, and don’t let them stop climbing until they make it over!”

  It was all I could get out before the wave of bloodsuckers struck.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Look out!”

  Roderick called out as a vampire descended upon me. A strong sucker—literally—but unprepared for someone with my skill set. Skills I had spent centuries perfecting, and that at one time the CIA found indispensable. The face that greeted me belonged to a young man, not quite twenty when he was turned. The perfect age, according to Dracul’s standards, since subservience was made easier by youth. His eyes were as black as midnight, an initial result of the germ that causes all vampirism. Manifesting itself in a variety of ways, for this vampire the germ produced several fangs, as opposed to the standard two. The demon’s youthful bravado apparently was enhanced by his knowledge of the defect, and he smiled as if privy to my musings about him.

  A very good development for me. Especially since my aforementioned skills were of the killing kind, and had become part of my instinctive repertoire centuries ago.

  The vampire ripped through my shirt with his razor-sharp fingernails, and certainly intended to rip away my shoulder to get to my neck. But as he moved in to secure his powerful grip upon me, I slid away and climbed onto his back, using my long knife’s serrated edge to sever his throat from ear to ear. Blood erupted in all directions, and before the monster’s garbled screeches reached their crescendo, I plunged the knife’s edge through his back, slicing his heart in two.

  He fell dead at Roderick’s feet.

  Meanwhile, two more vampires had drifted down toward him, hovering less than a foot above his near seven-foot frame. Impossible to know why the pair of females waited, but in the faint light provided by the fallen penlight’s refraction off one of the dungeon walls, I noticed their attention was drawn more to me after their cohort perished at my hands. They foolishly underestimated Roderick’s prowess, perhaps thinking his fear of Dracul extended to all blood drinkers.

  He gave me a slight nod, surely picking up my vantage perspective of where the pair hovered above him. He jumped up and pulled the one to his right to the floor, briefly exposing his carotid to bring the demon closer while he plunged his blade into her heart. Gambling this would inspire her companion to come to her rescue, I staked the other one with my knife before she could sink her fangs into Roderick from behind.

  Three vampires dead in under two minutes.

  But there were more. Many more. We knew this, and it surprised me they hadn’t launched themselves at us all en masse.

  “You realize we can’t kill every one of them,” Roderick advised, breathing heavily while scooping up the penlight from the floor. He moved closer to me. We then circled each other defensively, while I worried about Alistair, Amy, and Beatrice. “Be thinking of a way to barter, and I’ll do the same.”

  “What could Dracul possibly desire from us? And, what about his mercenaries? The shots earlier must’ve been a warning.” I looked anxiously toward the darkness behind us.

  Someone should be rappelling down by now!

  “They’re not professional enou
gh to be given that title,” said Roderick. “The thoughts I’ve picked up from Arso and some of the others indicate the entire lot are street thugs, pimps, and low-budget assassins. If Dracul wins and succeeds in becoming a full-fledged day-walker, then he will need to seriously upgrade his ranks.” He chuckled sadly.

  “He’s not going to win, but of deeper concern is where is Amy? She should be in our cell by now.” I couldn’t hide my anxiety, and I glanced again into the darkness. A soft thud suddenly resounded from where I had stood moments earlier. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me…Amy.”

  She sounded winded as she limped toward us. Roderick pointed the penlight to the top of the cellblock. Alistair was climbing through the space, while Beatrice clung to the bars just below him, looking around herself anxiously. Her affliction from earlier had not subsided.

  “Ali, don’t come down yet. Not without your mom!”

  I kept the volume of my serious tone low, knowing he would hear me, as often we communicated like this. However, the stressed look on his face as he nervously glanced into the darkness above his head made that prognosis dubious at best.

  “She won’t come, Pops! It’s like she didn’t even hear me when I urged her through the hole just a minute ago,” he said. “There’s something hovering above me, I think. I smell an odor that wasn’t there when the three of us first reached the top of our cell.”

  I grabbed the light from Roderick, ignoring the fact it would have likely taken no longer for him to point the narrow beam toward Alistair. I expected more vampires to be poised above my son’s head, but the beam revealed nothing, other than the hole, my son, and my bedeviled wife. But above our heads, I heard rustling, soft and subtle. Without needing to shine the beam above us, I knew beyond a doubt another attack was ready to commence.

  Roderick sensed it as well. He grabbed Amy by the arm and ushered her to the tunnel’s edge, and I heard him whisper to her to be prepared to scurry through it at a moment’s notice. The opportunity to escape was slipping away, we both felt it. Rather than wait for Alistair to convince Beatrice to cross over into our side of the dungeon, I took matters into my own hands.

  “Ali, jump!”

  “What? And leave Mom up here?!”

  “Yes!” I confirmed, feeling a lump form in my throat.

  “Are you frigging crazy, Pops?!”

  “Perhaps, but it’s now up to me. Only I can save her…. Jump!”

  Alistair hesitated, but then seemed to hear the same rustling we did. A small army of vampires was descending toward our cellblock. He reached through the opening to pat Beatrice’s right hand, while mouthing something to her, largely inaudible to me. But I heard, ‘I’ll always love you, Mom.’ So little faith in his old man’s abilities to make things right—to save the day once more? Of course, our chances of surviving through any of this were not assured, and somewhat dismal when looked at objectively.

  Alistair jumped down. Before he hit the floor, I was there to meet him, telling him, ‘I’ve got this!’ Then I scurried up the bars to where I prayed my wife still waited.

  “Who’s coming up here?” she asked, warily.

  There was wildness in her eyes, but not the fear I expected. I had been mistaken, and it terrified my heart to realize something much more twisted was going on. I sensed Dracul’s handiwork, and yet this was not an attempt to use my wife’s eyes to see. No, this time it was something much more sinister, in that a form of insanity had overtaken Beatrice’s person. She was not herself, and I could tell she didn’t recognize me.

  “Beatrice, I am a friend, and have come to lead you to safety,” I told her, doing my best to hide the terror I felt. Anything was possible at this point, either favorable or not. “There is danger near you. Come, let me guide you to safety.”

  She looked around herself, not focused on anything. I wanted to reach out and grab her, to pull her to me regardless of her reaction. However, without that moment of eye contact to assist me, the mere touch of my fingers upon her flesh could disengage her grip, and she would fall nearly twenty feet to the unforgiving stone floor.

  The potential for disaster outweighed the benefit of rescuing her, even when considering such a move would likely save her life. I was frozen by similar fears I once held, when she was a fragile elderly women standing on death’s doorstep.

  “William, what’s taking you so long?” Roderick hissed from below.

  I glanced back at him, feeling the negative energy growing in the darkness beyond the reach of his penlight’s glow. Alistair had joined Amy at the mouth of the tunnel. Everything seemed set for a legitimate chance of escape, at least from the present predicament.

  “Just give me another minute!”

  I returned my gaze to Beatrice, whose wild eyes had yet to lock on to anything. There wasn’t time to formulate the wisest plan of action, so I followed my instincts and gently reached for her hand, knowing she might recoil, but praying fervently she wouldn’t.

  She stopped moving, and as she lifted her face toward mine, she grasped my hand tightly.

  “William? Is it you?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” I said, recognizing the change, and too thankful for the return of the woman I cherished to even consider what became of the foreign presence. It was gone, I felt certain of this fact. And, for now, it was all that mattered. “Come, let me get you over to safety.”

  My heart thudded madly in my chest. I was a nervous wreck, knowing she could jerk free and fall to her death. All the while, I smiled at her lovingly…calmly.

  “Okay, I’m coming, William,” she said, her voice laced with familiar sweetness. She reached out and I pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her when she threw her arms around my neck. “I’m so sorry, my love. I don’t understand what happened. It was as if I were someone else, and not me at all. I felt so much hate, and especially toward those I love with all my heart! It felt so real…I hated our child, and I hated you, but why? It makes no sense! It….”

  Alistair and Amy suddenly cried out in surprise. I couldn’t see them, and my mind filled with panic. The only one I could discern was Roderick, whose tiny flashlight had fallen on the floor. In the beam’s narrow glow, I watched a dozen vampires pounce upon him—far too many to fend off as a team, much less alone.

  “William, save your family! Lead them out of here while you can!” pleaded Roderick. “Dracul’s army is coming in droves, and we can’t fend them off any longer!”

  “Hold on, Rod! I’ll be right…huh?!”

  Beatrice was snatched from my arms. She disappeared into the sea of black surrounding me. Or, so I thought, until she released a bloodcurdling scream from just a few feet beyond my reach. My heart sank and I screamed her name while begging for mercy on her behalf.

  “Take me! Take me instead—you can do whatever you want to me! But release her unharmed! Please!...”

  Deep guttural laughter filled the air before me. This was followed by a command in one of the older Serbian dialects. Immediately, the attack upon Roderick ceased, as well as the ensuing harassment upon Alistair and Amy. But there was no respite for my beloved wife.

  “So, Judas? …It appears you have played out your hand as William Barrow,” said Dracul. A fiery torch flew across the room from my left and stopped as it reached the vampire’s right hand. In his left, he held Beatrice by the neck. She trembled from unspeakable fear that grew worse as he brought her face close to his. “How delightful!”

  “Please—I’ll do anything you ask, and give you anything you want!” I pleaded. There was nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to save her. “Please, I beg you!”

  Amy and Alistair wept below me, and I could feel the immortal pull from Roderick’s breaking heart. Meanwhile, Dracul snickered in unabashed amusement.

  “Why, Judas…you have nothing I need. Nothing I desire, and no reasons to present to spare yourself…much less your loved ones,” he said, his tone jovial. “I warned you there would be no quarter for you, Roderick, and your family. The only
thing you can count on is that you will be last in the order of human sacrifices to come this night. Therefore, prepare yourself to witness the demise of all whom you cherish.”

  “Surely there must be something I can bargain with?” I persisted, as he pulled back Beatrice’s neck. Whether he intended to feast on her blood or create an unholy companion, it appeared she would be spared his favored execution of impaling. Of course, what was to stop him from a ruthless combination?

  He laughed heartily.

  “Have you still not learned to shelter your thoughts? It does seem as though you are not evolving well, eh?” he taunted. “But fear not, you will suffer less than those who oppose my conquest of the day kingdoms I’ve looked upon longingly for far too long.”

  “You’ll never succeed, Vlad,” I told him, realizing nothing I could say would change the course of the night’s events. “You don’t have enough crystals you covet, and you never will.”

  “On the contrary, I have enough of your ‘Tree of Life’ crystals on my person to walk in daylight as of sunrise tomorrow,” he said. “But enough of the bullshit! Let the death of those you hold dear begin!”

  He moved to take his first victim.

  “Wait! What if I told you of a place where I have more crystals than you could use in a lifetime?”

  “What, in America? My agents are already on their way to all of your homes. By midnight tonight, each abode will be leveled to the ground, and the bounty held in secret by your family will officially be mine. Enough of this nonsense!”

  He reared his head back angrily, and his eyes glowed hotly. I have no doubt Beatrice sensed the same thing as I, that the fiend intended to rip open her throat beyond the necessary puncture wounds to drain her blood. She whimpered, eyeing me with a resigned look. How I wished The Almighty had cast me into hell immediately after my infamous betrayal of His favored Son!