by Ted Dekker
I am a snake, she thought. An albino reptile. Floating in a warm sky.
Sofia came in and helped wash her hair, silently watching Lucine with wide, dark eyes. When the water cooled, Lucine stood and stepped into a black robe held by Sofia. Her skin felt as if it were on fire, wrapped up in that robe, too sensitive to be touched by such a crude cloth.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It is my honor, my queen.”
Queen. It was all so heady. So rich. So then why did she feel so powerless? So empty and hollow under this translucent skin?
She faced Sofia, who took a step backward and dipped her head. A terrible sadness overwhelmed her and she thought she might burst into tears right there, standing as the queen of snakes.
When she didn’t speak or move, Sofia lifted her head and stared at her face. An understanding passed between them. Tears misted Sofia’s eyes.
I’m sorry, Lucine.
The words were clear, put in her mind by Sofia. Sorry for what? Something was wrong, wasn’t it? Beneath all of this beauty and power there was a deep pool of dark sorrow that remained hidden. Natasha had expressed it. Vlad had lashed out at her. Fear returned to her, a searing, painful fear that seemed to flow from her bones.
She spoke in an unsteady whisper. “What’s wrong?”
A single tear broke from Sofia’s right eye and trailed down her cheek.
I cannot . . .
No more. Just that.
“Please, Sofia. I’m frightened.”
Another tear from Sofia’s other eye. Then they streamed down her face. But no words, only this silent weeping that broke Lucine’s resolve to be any sort of queen.
She began to weep. But she wasn’t as reserved as Sofia. She walked to a chair covered in red silk, sank to her knees, lay her head on the seat cushion, and wept. She couldn’t express the remorse that drained her of these tears. Her mind was a pit of emptiness that had no bottom. Her heart seemed to have stopped, although she could hear it beating in her chest.
“Am I dead?” she sobbed.
Sofia spoke quietly, with some effort. “They are waiting, my queen.”
Lucine faced her. “Not until you tell me what has happened to me.”
The woman wiped her own tears with the back of her hand and glanced at the door. “You’ve been made by a half-breed. Among us that makes you a queen.”
“I don’t want to be a queen.”
Please, Lucine. Please don’t make me cry again. Then aloud, “But that will change. Your mind is still deeply upset by your . . .” She hesitated. “Your transition.”
It occurred to Lucine that Sofia had put herself in some kind of danger by what she’d said without speaking. Perhaps she had a true friend here, then?
“Tell me more,” she whispered. “Tell me I’m not dead.”
“You look ravishing, my queen. And you will see just how alive you are.”
Lucine stared at her.
Please. Please, no more.
So Lucine stood, light as a feather, and walked into the bedroom. They dressed her in leggings woven like a fisherman’s net and boots to her knees. Then a long, black, lace-sleeved gown that parted at her thighs and swept elegantly to the floor on either side and behind. They combed out her long dark hair, allowing it to dry naturally in soft waves. Sofia placed a black velvet choker with a single red ruby around her neck.
And all the while, not a word. Not even a thought from Sofia.
Her appointed handmaiden led her downstairs, through the dining room where they’d eaten last evening, and into the grand ballroom.
It was bright day outside, past noon perhaps, but in this room there was only darkly stained glass in an overhead dome to allow hints of sunlight inside. Through an image of a winged creature. A hundred candles in sconces and a massive chandelier cast an orange hue over those gathered.
The entire retinue stood waiting in groups, up the twin stairs, along the balcony. Dozens. Perhaps a hundred, all dressed in black, including Natasha and Alek, who stood to the right with Dasha and Stefan.
Vlad stood at the center, fixated upon her. Utter silence engulfed the room. Every eye watched. She could feel their stares like a hundred peering moons.
Lucine saw it all in a rather disconnected state. But then her appreciation for this show of honor sank in and her pulse surged. Sofia left her side and joined her sister.
Vlad smiled, spread his arms wide, and looked around the room. “On the third night, in two more cycles, I will marry. My friends, I present to you my bride and my queen!”
The sound started out as a simple rhythmic tapping of feet, then swelled to a stomping, all in unison. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Vlad slowly walked toward her, eyes drinking hers, drawing her with such compulsion that she could hardly stop her own feet from stepping forward.
In the time it took to blink once, he crossed the room. Then he was over her, one arm around her waist, hot mouth hovering over hers. Feet filled the air with thunder.
“Then, my dear, there will be no turning back,” he breathed.
He kissed her lightly, and as his lips lingered, the stomping crescendoed. She saw past him to the eyes, all staring, all glaring, all feeding upon her and Vlad in wonder.
But in that moment a new sound reached into her mind. A distant scream of anguish that swelled and shattered the pounding of boots in one bone-splitting shriek. Instead of human over her, she saw beast. A hunched, winged wolf.
The terror that slashed through her heart in that single moment was so raw that she could not think to scream. Then it was gone, replaced by a cheer from the Russians, who’d all raised brass goblets.
Humans all.
Vlad scooped up his own drink from a table and lifted it high. “To my bride and your queen, Lucine!”
“To the queen!”
They drank. Lucine breathed. Memory of the vision faded.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The dungeon they threw me into was attached to the monastery and had its own entrance, which would have provided access to the outer wall if I’d managed to break out of the prison. But they hadn’t given me a single opportunity for escape. They’d chained my legs and arms before releasing me from the cart and dragging me down the stairs into the dank place.
I was the only prisoner; this wasn’t a holding tank for commoners, only those whom orthodoxy wished to contain while the church investigated their crime. There were three other cells, all sealed off by iron bars, and a large room at the end whose purpose I would quickly discover. My cell was only four paces to a side, walled with stone and brick and littered with dirty straw to soak up some of the moisture from the ground. It smelled of mildew and sweat.
But none of this bothered me. My mind was spent on other matters.
I had to get out. I felt as if the demon had shot an arrow through my chest and pierced my heart.
There was no window to tell me how much day had passed, but with each passing hour that wound bled more. I grabbed the bars, thrust my head between them, and roared for the guards to attend to me. I was in Her Majesty’s service and at the end, when they learned that I was an innocent man wrongly imprisoned, a full accounting would be made. They would pay with their lives!
I yelled this repeatedly, but either no one heard me or they thought me a lunatic. And at times I wondered if they might be right. If so, then love had driven me to it. Lucine was my lover. I could think of her in no other terms now. My lover was in mortal danger and I was powerless to save her.
My imagination of what Vlad van Valerik was doing to her knew few boundaries. I saw the vulture latched onto her with great claws, flying her away to the mountain peak to feed on her, and I screamed at those mountains to give her back.
I saw whips and chains tearing into her flesh, and I wept with her pain, tempted to claw at my own skin so that she would not be alone.
I saw that beast hovering over her limp form, choking her with one fist as he ripped her clothes off.
I saw tea
rs streaming down Lucine’s cheeks. And I sat in the corner and wept.
They came to me hours later, a tall gaunt man with a wicked grin and his shorter henchman, who looked like a dog that hadn’t been washed for a month. They stood outside the cell, holding a torch for light.
“At last!” I cried.
The tall one dipped his head as if courtesy mattered here in the earth. “I’ve come to hear if you have decided to make your confession.”
I grabbed the bars. “What blasted confession? They’re checking out my story, please tell me that.”
“The story of a man whose soul is twisted by witchcraft can only be a lie. Your only recourse now is to confess so that God might have mercy.”
“Then I confess! Now let me go about my duty. Let me out or I swear I will have your head when this is all over.”
The man’s grin stayed fixed. “You’d best not threaten God’s servants. The next time I come down it will be to rack you.” He motioned at the room down the hall with his head. “A hot skewer is known to loosen even the darkest tongue. Then you will scream for God’s mercy.”
“I’m screaming now, you fool.” They intended on torturing me until I confessed to witchcraft? But that confession would only earn me a death sentence. I was trapped by these monsters. My only way out was to earn some sympathy or trust, and I was doing both badly.
I released the bars and held my hands in a show of surrender. “Forgive me, sir. Forgive me, but I am beside myself and at your mercy.”
“True,” he said.
“There has been a terrible mistake. If only you could reach the general in Moldavia, he would explain my esteemed position. I am well known as one of Russia’s most celebrated heroes.”
“Is that so?”
“But here, I’m glad to be your servant. My interest isn’t for my life but for the life of Lucine Cantemir.”
His right eye grew larger, brow arched. “The woman you have wrongfully loved?”
Did the whole of Moldavia know this? An outrage!
“Don’t be absurd, man. I love all those put in my charge, if only to protect and serve them! I demand you contact the general immediately.”
“Oh, we will. As soon as you bare your wicked soul.”
Then the gaunt man turned and walked away, followed by that ghoulish dog of his. The light receded with them. If I could, I would have reached through the bars and strangled them both with my hands.
How could they know of my love for Lucine? Kesia had betrayed me! I was bared here for all the powers of darkness. They would gouge out my eyes and feed on my soul. I’d seen their kind of torture before, the worst kind that reduced common humans to excrement for the sake of religious confession.
I stood in my cell, trembling, reminded once again why I despised the church. It claimed to be the bride of God, but I couldn’t see God marrying the bishop. The very instrument of Lucine’s salvation would now snuff out her only hope. Me. The one man who loved her. I was powerless.
I fell to my knees in the corner and wept. They could dig out my eyes and rip out my veins, but none of their torture could compare to the pain that ravaged me in that corner.
I begged God to hear me. If he would not save Lucine, then I only wanted to die with her. My strength and control, all that had made me a hero in Russia, now felt like a curse. Useless. I was to be pitied as the warrior become a worm.
I lowered my head into my hands and I sobbed in great heaves that refused to release me. I could not breathe; I could not stand. I could only shake and groan.
The man who could not be broken by any army was crushed. I would have preferred to meet my death on the battlefield, because this kind of death was at the expense of Lucine, and that drove me to the brink of madness.
Then I succumbed to that innate core of myself that I had never shown any man. Unable to contain myself, I threw my head back and hurled my guttural cry at the stone above me, a trapped wolf howling at the moon, a wounded lion bound in cords.
And when my cry exhausted my breath, I drew a deep groan that echoed in that chamber, and I thundered my rage and remorse again. My hands were clenched to hammers, my neck was strung to vines, but I was only a worm.
How had I gone from stoic hero to ruined fool in a week? What kind of disease had taken my mind and my heart? What fate had delivered me to Moldavia to find this scourge that would make the black plague seem like a blessing?
I cursed myself. I cursed Alek. I cursed Natasha. I cursed God. I cursed the devil. I cursed that beast. I cursed all the powers that had conspired to render me such a terrible lover.
But I would never curse Lucine. The rest of us could die if only she lived.
And when my body could not sustain this display of madness any longer, I sank to my side, held myself tight, and let the rest of my tears drain from my eyes.
My face was still planted on the soggy earth when I heard the creak of a door and the distant rattle of keys. They’ve come to rack me, I thought. They will take a hot skewer and sear my bowels. They will gouge my eyes and pluck apart my body until I tell them what they need to justify my execution.
I will scream that I am a witch, that I have been touched by the devil. Then they will crucify me.
And I welcomed it.
But no . . . no, I couldn’t. I had to pull myself together as long as there was the slightest hope that I could escape these monsters, find another priest who was not mad, and rush back up that mountain to confront Valerik on his terms, however unlikely any victory might seem.
So I pushed myself to my knees, stood up, and steadied myself by one hand on the wall as the sound of boots approached on stone.
One man, not two. Even in shackles, I might be able to take one man. I might take him from his feet, twist the chain around his neck, and choke him to the death.
Orange light crept into the pit. The boots stopped outside my cell. I refused to turn. Let them enter.
“Toma.”
The voice was low. Gravelly. I blinked.
“Toma Nicolescu. Is that you?”
I had heard this voice before. I slowly turned my head toward the bars. A priest dressed in a brown hooded robe stood holding a torch in his left hand. His face was hidden in shadow.
He faced me for a while, then reached up and pulled back his hood. I recognized him immediately. This was none other than the old man who’d warned Alek and me at the Brasca Pass! His scraggly hair hung around a wrinkled face and cloudy eyes that now stared blind through those slits.
“Who are you?” I asked, stunned by the sight of him.
He inclined his ear toward the passage, then stepped closer to the bars. “We don’t have much time.”
“Who are you?” I demanded again.
“I’ve chosen the name Thomas for your sake, though names don’t matter. But you are called Toma, which means ‘twin.’ So call me Thomas, which also means ‘twin.’ Saint Thomas, if you want.” He cackled. “It has a nice ring to it. And it was he who sent me to you.”
“Thomas?”
“But that doesn’t matter. Names mean nothing now.”
I wasn’t sure I could trust the man, but I wasn’t in a position to argue, so I held my tongue.
The old man wrapped the shriveled fingers of his right hand around one of the bars and spoke quickly, in a hushed voice.
“We don’t have time, you have to focus.”
“Who are you?”
“Like I said—”
“Not your name.”
This so-called Saint Thomas took a deep breath. “One who knows far more than you. Think of me as an angel sent to you from another realm to free you from your prison—it’s happened before—albeit this time without an earthquake. I’m sure that sounds absurd. Just know that, like Vlad van Valerik, I’m someone you’ll never fully understand.”
I approached the bars cautiously. “You know Valerik?”
“He’s a half-breed. The blood of the Nephilim flows through him. A creature of the night.”
“He’s the devil, then.”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking. Nephilim. As in that book Genesis. The offspring of fallen angels and humans. They’ll be known by other names one day, but it all comes down to the same thing, my young friend. You find yourself at a pivotal point in history, long before all the most famous stories based on such creatures are written.”
“What stories? How can you possibly know all of this?”
“Because I’m from that other realm. Evil isn’t the only force that can manifest itself in physical form.”
I grabbed the bars, knowing now that no matter how old and blind and frail, this man must be my salvation. “Then let me out! Tell me what I must do. I am lost in here while that beast has her!”
The old man stared at me, then pulled out an ancient leather book from under his cloak. “You’ll have to discover that on your own, but I can help. This is known as a Blood Book. A journal.”
“It’ll take more than a book to defeat them. If you’re a man of God, go with me.”
“No, Toma. I am an old, blind man and must go back.” He placed his cracked hand over mine. “There are times when spiritual realities show themselves in flesh and blood, yes? When roles are played to mirror something far greater. ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood.’ Some say symbolism, but now here it is true.”
It made no sense to me. Lucine had already tasted the blood, as I had, and it was working evil in her.
“I should serve her communion? It’s that simple?”
“The affairs between God and man aren’t about simple rites performed at an altar. You love her, I think?”
Tears flooded my eyes.
“You’ll have to woo her first, if you can. This is a passion play, a contest for her heart, not her service. Win her heart and you might be able to save her. Enter her world. Be her Immanuel.”
The tears spilled down my cheeks and I made my confession to that old man. “I didn’t tell her. She doesn’t know!”
“And it might be too late—she might have turned cold already. The seduction of those dark beings is astounding.”
