The Scarlet Dragon Saga

by J. P. Rice

  “We have witnessed a cleansing of our order. Although it is a difficult choice, choosing to ignore the problem is detrimental. When we start a journey...”

  Vlad’s body straightened and his head sprang forward. His mouth snapped at the back of Bruceras’s leg, who screamed out in pain. Bruceras ripped his leg away, exposing Vlad’s head, alive again, smiling with bloody lips. I knew they hadn’t killed the vampire.

  Bruceras kicked Vlad in the head a few times and his demon soldiers rushed through the door with lava swords. The full-length blades had lava coursing through them, yet held a fine edge perfect for precise slicing. The sight of lava made me a bit lightheaded and I grabbed onto Cheryl’s arm for support.

  One demon ripped a stroke through Vlad’s right leg, removing the limb right above the knee. A shower of blood trailed the follow-through of the glowing blade and fountained up from the injury.

  Tears sprang from their ducts and I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t known Vlad personally, but perhaps his association with Jonathan was giving me the feels. Or maybe I was sick of watching innocent people die.

  Bruceras approached me, an angry scowl developing on his face. “Crying? Why would you be crying?”

  Oh shit. What could I pull out of my ass here? “My lord, I took an oath to serve the 13. I guess I’m torn on one of them dying.”

  “You took an oath and you’ve lived up to your end. Vlad did not. He got what he deserved, just as you will if you decide to travel the same road as he. Now stop the sniveling or you will be next.”

  Those words gave me the motivation I needed to stuff down the emotion.

  “Chop this disgrace to pieces,” Bruceras commanded. “Then shovel his sorry remains into buckets and take him to the dump. Make sure the contents are well spread out. I’ll be inspecting it myself,” he said, raising an eyebrow to enforce his point.

  The devil looked at the group. “You are dismissed. Actually, we need a few to stay and carry. You, you...” Bruceras kept pointing at people and said, “You, you, you.” He gestured at me and then at Cheryl. “You and you. That should be enough. Get the flat shovels to clean up this mess.”

  Chapter 19

  The sword-wielding demons continued to chop Vlad’s body into little bits, their glowing blades slicing through bone like soft butter. I could feel the warm breeze as the blades whooshed through the air, chopping into tiny bits the remnants of what was once Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia.

  Telling Jonathan his father had been hung was one thing. But I wasn’t going to tell him about the unnecessary sashimi-style treatment he had received afterward. The first part would be hard enough.

  A few demon helpers ran into the room and handed out flat head shovels to everyone. Staring at the grotesque mess on the floor, the shovel landed in my hand. I grabbed it from the assistant as my stomach spiraled in discomfort. The helpers returned with buckets.

  Scraping along the stone floor, I scooped the soupy remains of Vlad the Impaler into a white bucket. The metallic funk in the room pasted itself to the back of my tongue. No matter how many times I swallowed, the nasty taste persisted.

  We each filled up most of our respective buckets and I thought the nightmare was finally over.

  “Now you need to take the buckets to the dump. You and you.” He pointed to Cheryl and me. “You will take the far route and make sure the remains are spread over a safe distance. No less than twenty yards. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and Cheryl repeated my words.

  Each of us carried the buckets through the dim tunnel hallways. The bodily sludge shifted back and forth as my arm swung from walking. Then a rancid stench hit my nostrils and I stopped in my tracks. I put down the bucket of Vlad’s remains. I was at the back of the line, so I took a few seconds and calmed my stomach down.

  I hooked my hand through the carrying handle and hustled to catch up to the rest of the group. As we neared the dump, the fetid funk intensified and I felt a strange energy in the air. The hot, heavy air made breathing difficult. A tiny shaft of light appeared ahead.

  The group went into the bright opening and I followed them through. We stood on the lip of the dump, which was a huge craterous hole that consisted mostly of bodily waste. Several pipes for feces-laden urine from the bathrooms led right into the middle of the pool. High above us, long fluorescent light bulbs illuminated the entire area.

  Fighting away the constant urge to puke, I stared down at a steep incline of soft dirt that didn’t look well suited for carrying buckets of chopped up bodily remains. Then I remembered that Cheryl and I had been instructed to carry our buckets twenty yards past all the others.

  The dirt incline merged into a chunky pond of black liquid spiked with aged feces and stale urine. The rest of the group started down the hill as Cheryl and I turned to each other.

  “Lucky us, huh?” I tried to lighten the mood.

  With wide eyes, she shrugged but didn’t say anything. I pointed and said, “So I guess we should go down there and walk along the liquid line since we can’t get around there from up here.”

  “Yeah. Would have been nice if there was a track up here.” She thumbed to where the upper lip of the dump ended.

  We headed down the hill, and I slid on the loose ground, almost dumping out the contents of my bucket. My sliding foot finally caught firm ground and I came to a halt. As I readjusted myself, the rest of the group had already dumped their buckets and were scurrying back up the little hill.

  Cheryl and I continued trudging down and stopped about three feet from the sludge line. The ground was still tilted and moist, so carrying a heavy bucket with the constant urge to throw up would be a major task right now.

  I peered up the hill. The rest of the group disappeared into the tunnel, leaving us alone in one of the most disgusting areas I’d ever been in. This business could take you to some pretty gross places, but basically being in the bowel of the demons was the worst.

  We walked in silence. There weren’t many words that would make this situation any better. Something silver caught my eye and I turned toward it. It stood out in the murky liquid, and as I looked closer, there were silver strands leading up to my bucket.

  The strands yanked on the bucket, not allowing me to move forward. I tried to fight against it. I took a step and my right ankle buckled. I listed to the right and knocked into Cheryl. As I fell, I let go of the bucket and so did Cheryl. My knees hit the moist soil first and Cheryl fell onto her side.

  Our two buckets collided and crashed down, the contents of Vlad the Impaler leaking into the nasty sludge. We both looked at each other, eyes wide and full of fear. My heart thumped as I gazed around the waste dump and didn’t see anyone.

  Then I peered into the water. Just below the surface, there seemed to be a silver snake, lurking and waiting to strike. Bubbles formed on the surface. Something was breathing under there.

  My mind drifted to Romanian vampires. The Varacolaci were the most powerful of the undead. And Vlad the Impaler was the strongest among them. Apparently, you could chop them to pieces and still not sever their silver cord that connected the physical body to the higher or astral being. My heart pumped as I realized that wasn’t a snake under the nasty liquid.

  Cheryl said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  She scared the shit out of me.

  I nodded and grabbed the empty bucket. We trekked along the incline with dirt pouring into my shoes. My mind raced, wondering if they had surveillance cameras set up in the room. It didn’t make sense to keep watch on a dump, but who knew with the demons.

  Cheryl made it to the top first and I was right on her heels. Then my foot slipped, and my body slid backward. The more I tried to stop the momentum, the worse it got until I stood on the bank of the funky body of liquid again. As I clawed my way up the hill again, I couldn’t see Cheryl anywhere. I surmised that she’d assumed I was behind her and kept moving.

  A loud grumbling behind me stole my attention and I slid down again.
I turned over my shoulder and the swirling remains of Vlad the Impaler raced through the waste to reunite. His silver cord came up out of the water. It looked like Christmas garland, and in some thin spots, it resembled loose tinsel. The silver cord gathered the pieces of the physical body and started to organize them in a pile.

  The contents of the two buckets Cheryl and I had dumped raced through the sludge and jumped up on the silver cord. The bits and pieces sped along the cord and started to fuse with the rest of the remains. The chopped-up pieces of his body morphed together. As the process went on, his silver cord became a thick, uniform cylinder.

  Chapter 20

  The reassembly happened randomly as his physical body began to take shape. Bones and muscle tissue formed in his arms and legs like a puzzle was being put together. Then a flash of pale light meshed everything together seamlessly, but it left Vlad with awful scarring from head to toe.

  I turned and went to run up the hill. “Hug the ground or Dante will kill you.” The raspy, dead-sounding voice stopped me in my tracks.

  I fell forward, my chest and face hitting the soft dirt. As I hugged the ground, I peered over my shoulder, and Vlad sat up with his arms folded in an “X” over his chest, his hands clutching his shoulders. “Not now. When the time is right.”

  What the fook was going on here? Enough hugging the ground. It was time for evacuation. Using my hands and feet, I bear-crawled up the hill and pulled myself over the top. Everything in my head told me to run for the tunnel and get the hell out of there. But I wanted one last peek.

  I spun around and stared at the area in which Vlad had just been sitting. It was nothing but a black ripple of shit and piss. I scoped out the entire area searching for the risen devil. Where the fook had he gone? This was beyond freaky.

  Then it hit me. The Varacolaci were rumored to travel on an astral thread. Vlad could have used it to teleport out of the Red Cavern. He could travel in between the worlds of the living and dead until he reached an anchor point. I didn’t have a clue where Vlad’s anchor point would be. On further thought, maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “What are you doing?” someone asked from behind me.

  My heart almost exploded as I jumped in fear. I whirled around, eye to eye with Cheryl. “Nothing. I fell down the hill.”

  “You ready to go back?” she asked, gesturing with her head at the exit.

  “More than ready,” I mumbled, and we plunged into the dark tunnel.

  So that was why they’d wanted us to spread his remains out. Even if we had taken our buckets the distance they had wanted, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Vlad had seemed determined not to stay dead. He’d seen me with that bucket. He could think I was the one responsible for this.

  And what was that cryptic message about Dante? Dante Alighieri? Who the fook was Dante? I took stock of all the people I’d met recently and none of them were named Dante. None of the demons were named Dante. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever meeting an individual named Dante.

  As I dwelled on the name, I wondered what to tell Jonathan about his father. He’d fallen out of favor with me lately, and he never talked about his father to keep his identity hidden, but he would want to know. At least, I would want to know. What would I tell him?

  I still hadn’t processed what the hell had just happened. How could a silver cord be strong enough to put back together a hacked up physical host? How had the cord remained invisible until it hit the sludge?

  Hug the ground or Dante will kill you. What the hell did that mean?

  As soon as we came out of the tunnel and into a communal area, Dweezil asked, “Everything all right?”

  I assumed he was referring to me since I probably looked like I’d just seen a ghost, which in my defense, I had. “Fine. That’s just a nasty area.”

  “I will not enter a debate with you on that. You made sure to take those buckets the specified distance, yes?”

  “Of course,” I said, and Cheryl repeated it and added a sharp nod. She probably hadn’t seen anything other than the grotesque foulness in the shit swamp. The extrasensory vision was a blessing and a curse. Call me a rookie, but I’d never seen a mutilated body reconfigure and then go poof before.

  Dweezil smiled shyly and turned away. Then he raised his chin and a serious look came over his face. “Good. I need to speak with both of you about something of vast importance.”

  The devil’s assistant led us back to our cave room in silence. My stomach and head were still recovering from what I’d just witnessed. What had I witnessed?

  Dweezil lit the torch ensconced in the wall of our room and the modest dwelling area came into focus. I wondered what was of vast importance.

  Dweezil went to speak, but hesitated. “You two have been selected for a high honor. You will be joining Bruceras on a very special mission. You won’t know the exact manner of the mission until you travel to the location.”

  He was beating around the bush, but I knew it was a mission to recover the Devil’s Glove from the boy who had taken it. However, it didn’t make sense to take two unskilled humans along.

  I tried not to sound indignant, and asked, “No offense. But why us?”

  Dweezil turned away and scratched his neck nervously. “Your skills have been recognized and appreciated. As I said, it is a high honor.”

  Cheryl walked up to Dweezil and the demon could barely contain his smile. He liked Cheryl. She looked him in the eye and said, “What are you leaving out?”

  The demon blushed, shaking his head rapidly.

  She pressed him, “Is it really a high honor?”

  Dweezil tried to remain headstrong, but he seemed powerless around Cheryl. He hung his head and sighed deeply. “Perhaps not.”

  “What are you leaving out, Dweezil?” I demanded to know.

  “Nothing,” he said, turning away. I could tell he was wrestling with whether to tell us.

  “Spill it, Dweezil. We probably care about you more than Bruceras,” I told him.

  Our eyes met, and his went from angry to understanding to defeated in short order. I could tell my words had pained the demon, but also brought on a realization of something he’d been avoiding. I imagined I’d had the same look on my face when I’d found out my mother was the one trying to kill me.

  At first, the revelation had crushed me, and then it had made perfect sense. He seemed like he didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t blame him. Neither had I.

  He fought against it and said, “He cares about me.”

  “Why are we being sent out on this mission, Dweezil?” Cheryl asked in a soft tone.

  He turned and stared at the opening at the top of our cave. Fifteen seconds passed and he turned back to us. “If things go south, you two will be used as fodder. Some chum to distract the sharks. Bruceras is only taking a small crew. A powerful crew, but he is clueless as to the size of the opposing force. So...”

  He didn’t need to say anymore. I understood completely. “You know it’s only a matter of time until that fodder is you.”

  “Never,” he tried to state firmly, but his voice cracked.

  “Do you really believe that? Is Bruceras really going to overtake the Celtic Gods?” I asked.

  Tears welled in his glossy eyes. His world was crashing around him. “He’s given up,” he blurted. He closed his eyes and exhaled audibly as if that breath had been trapped inside him for a thousand years.

  My eyes widened. “Say again?”

  Dweezil took a few deep breaths and checked out the entrance again to make sure no one was snooping. As tears rolled down his wart-covered cheeks, he said, “Bruceras knows he will never defeat the Celtic Gods. Not with the forces of the Red Cavern at least. His vision, although it has grown beyond all expectations, isn’t in any position to mount a serious challenge.”

  “Go on.”

  “I shouldn’t be saying any of this, but your words make sense,” he said, defeated. “I’ve seen the man kill others because of nothing more than a foul mood.
It is only a matter of time until I’m the target of that aggression.”

  “What do you really want to do?” I asked, trying to see if I could exploit his dreams.

  He sniffled and dabbed the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he announced in a deep voice. “I’ve made a choice and I need to see it through. I’m not running away like that redhead did.”

  Redhead? What redhead was he talking about? Nervous energy shot through me as I wondered if my hair had changed color. I scratched my head roughly, trying to pull out a few follicles. Nonchalantly, I looked in my palm and saw the dark hair.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as he continued, “Choices have consequences. And I’m facing mine now as I’m sure you two are as well. I don’t want to sour you two on your Red Cavern dream. I’ve probably already scared you.”

  This was a weird situation. We had just joined a group that we were supposed to support unconditionally. And I was about to tell this guy to leave if he wasn’t happy.

  I chose my words carefully. “We don’t scare that easily. And we don’t give up. And neither should you. If you want something, make it happen. If you want to get out of here, do it. We’ll help you, in fact. We got out of the situation we were in because we weren’t happy with it.”

  “Your words make sense.” His head bobbed between Cheryl and me. “But where would I go? I know nothing other than my existence in the Red Cavern.”

  “That can’t be true,” Cheryl said and patted him on the shoulder consolingly. “Even if you’ve had thoughts about anything else, you know that you want more. You don’t have to have a place to stay or even a city picked out. Just believe in that dream. Focus on that and take the necessary steps to make it happen. The details can always be worked out later.”

  Dweezil had confirmed my suspicion that the Red Cavern didn’t present a real threat to any of the pantheons. Bruceras could keep them busy by terrorizing Pittsburgh, but he wasn’t going to invade Clara Spiritus and kill all the Celtic Gods. Which was his ultimate goal.