Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  “David?” Kano faltered. “David was nothing, my Lord! A shepherd boy who became king! A fool! He could never match your glory! Your power! You are the one who will rule this world!”

  Curtains fluttered at the name …

  “Ignorant fool,” Cain muttered. “What if I told you that David fought with the sword of the slain Goliath for more than fifty years to slay his tens of thousands! What if I told you that David conquered the greatest empires this world has ever known? It was the work of ten thousand years and destroyed within a single mortal’s vanishing life. Destroyed by the strength of his own right arm!”

  Kano trembled.

  “You know nothing.” Cain grimaced. “You regard the greatest warrior the world has ever known to be a mere shepherd boy. In your pathetic arrogance you regard one who conquered the unmatched Jebusites, the Amalekites and Egyptians—one who united Israel as both priest and king—to be a mere shepherd boy. But David was more. He was a warrior to be feared just ... as this man. Both of them were created by that hated Hebrew god to wage war against me.” He bowed his head; the bright gleam in his eyes was fading. “Yes, the Old One has ... his own weapons.”

  Silence.

  “Go,” Cain growled. “Soloman must not reach me.”

  ***

  Soloman clenched his fist, testing it.

  He felt the strength, knew he was ready. The blow to his back had sliced across the deltoid to sever a segment of muscle, but Maggie had done a good job stitching the wound. And the chaotic fight on the stairway had amazingly resulted in only minor cuts that she bandaged easily.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, replacing sutures in the medical kit.

  “I’m fine,” Soloman replied, knowing he could handle the pain for at least another twelve hours. Then he gazed at the wooden walls, glad that they had been able to find an abandoned farm with a barn large enough to conceal the car. He’d taken advantage of it immediately in the night, knowing they had to stay off the road until they left for the castle.

  “Soloman.” Maggie spoke into his face, transparent in her love. “Please be careful.”

  He touched her face. “Don’t worry, Maggie. I’m going to get Amy back and put Cain down. Anything that happens after that isn’t important, much.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  He shook his head. “If I live, they’ll probably put me in prison for violating international laws prohibiting interference in the operation of foreign governments. Or for violating a direct order, since I’ve been recommissioned. They might even put me in Leavenworth.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. They’ll think of something.”

  She paused. “I don’t want to lose you, Sol.”

  He returned the gaze and hugged her in a moment that lasted long. When they finally separated, his voice was soft, a voice used only in intimacy. “Maggie,” he began, “we need to face the truth. Neither of us can expect me to survive this.” He raised a hand to silence her objection. “It’s all right, darlin’. It’ll be worth it as long as we get Amy back. The rest is gonna burn down however it does.”

  “C’mon, Sol ...”

  He tried to sound encouraging. “Maggie, understand me on this,” he said. “This is going to be a fight like nothing either of us has ever seen. There’ll be no mercy, and it’s probably going to destroy that place. So I want a promise from you before it starts – just a promise.”

  Even in the moment, she had the strength to smile. “I’m good at promises, Sol.”

  He laughed lightly. “Good. Then as soon as you get Amy, get the hell out of there because whatever happens after that is between me and Cain. You’re not part of it. Neither is Amy.”

  Silence.

  “And,” she said, controlled and abruptly cold, “you’re going to sacrifice yourself if you can kill Cain doing it.”

  He blinked slowly, moved his hand down her face.

  She closed her eyes, composure crumbling as she said, “I’ll do what you want. I promise. I just want you to know that I do love you – that I’ve come to love you as I’ve come to know you.” She gazed up at him, vulnerable. “And I’ll wait for you.”

  Soloman was stunned. He’d forgotten how hard and hurtful it was to truly love, or live. He was beyond the desert now, he knew, as beyond as he would ever get. Beyond all of it.

  “Maggie,” he said, “if there’s any way to survive this, I’m going to. Amy gave me life, and you have, too. So if there’s any way to come out of this, I’ll find it. I promise.”

  He kissed her and a tear fell from her cheek.

  “I know.”

  She bent her head into his chest.

  ***

  In a slow rising light Cain roamed the corridors of the Castle of Calistro, his face distorted by a frown frightening to behold. He found the remaining five warlocks awake and fearsomely prepared at their hidden stations. Two watched from the broken battlements; the others were poised inside to attack from the shadows.

  Darkness hovered over him, clouding his countenance with a deep gloom even blacker than the night. Then his cloak was lifted by a whispering wind that stirred the shadow-shrouded corridors of the ancient edifice.

  Yes, he was home. The stench of death was as thick as that age-old mist that rose upon this hardened earth before ... before ...

  He scowled.

  Before what?

  A shattering light like a vision in a blackened tomb pierced something deep and forgotten within him, behind his eyes, as if hurled down from something he had lost. And he saw—

  NO!

  He closed his eyes.

  No, that is not. . . what I wished to remember. . .

  A snarl twisted his jaws as fangs emerged and he raised his face, talons raised in curled fingers tense with hate. His voice was resurrected death. “If I could lay these hands on you, in your sentenced human form, I would finish this conflict forever ...”

  But there was only silence as a vast whispering wind, cloudlike and colossal, rolled over the mountain, and he sensed a river of thunderous voices, reminding him of glory lost to time.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I regret not what I have lost. For I will gain far more in this continuum of space and light than I would have ever gained as your ... your vassal! And you cannot destroy me – you know as well! For nothing you have created can be ultimately destroyed! It only changes form! But whatever hated form you deliver to me will be reformed again and again by my will and wrath! By my own righteousness!”

  His fists clenched, trembling, and he glared about at the dark as if it had betrayed him. His face was the image of war, malevolent and fearless and unyielding – the hated heart of will.

  “Even light is as darkness to those who have seen your face,” he whispered. “Yes, this I remember too well – nor can you torment me with the knowledge, for I miss it not, and have no regret. But neither is your judgment enough to withstand my wrath. I will destroy you yet. The things known only to us ... reveal it. And I await the day.”

  He fell silent, a faint smile.

  “I injured you.” He laughed hatefully. “I injured your heart by taking these sheep you adore so much. ‘An enemy has done this,’ you said. Bah! An enemy created by your holy pride! And I will do even more! I will await the return of the Nazarene! I will await that most beloved flesh of your flesh ... and I will destroy him also!”

  An answering doom sounded from deep within surrounding stone.

  Weak ...

  He staggered.

  Thirst ...

  Need ... blood ...

  He swayed as he lifted a hand to his head. He had little time, he knew, before he must have more. Perhaps before midnight he would have to take the life of one of these idiot vassals. They were only flesh, after all, and inconsequential to his greater plan.

  Yes, perhaps. . . Kano.

/>   Yes, Kano, who’d been so impertinent as to question his celestial wisdom. But, he perceived distinctly, as long as he was not wounded again before the sacred ritual, he would last though his blood was indeed destabilizing, descending quickly to cause the intense thirst that drove him mad. But he would last, yes, if he could only take the child. And the thirst would only make it more delicious.

  It gave him pleasure.

  A scarlet haze fell through the skull-like window to his side, and he turned his head, gazing at the rising sun.

  Sun of the morning ... lost forever.

  No ...

  He did not need the sun. Not while he had remembered the birth of its hated light. Darkness, yes, darkness was what he craved. And with the thought he moved deeper into the Castle before encountering two black-cloaked forms—Kano and another—moving toward him. They knelt at his feet as he stared down. The gathering thirst made him impatient.

  “Speak,” he growled.

  “Soloman lives, my Lord,” Kano said, with a nervous pause. “We have confirmed it. We ... We have failed you.”

  Cain said nothing for a moment, then bent to lift Kano fully from the ground. He leaned forward, canines extending far enough to reveal the threat, the hot fellness of thirst.

  “Soloman will pursue me!” he hissed. “He will pursue me to my place of rest! So kill him! Kill him before he reaches me!” He waited, sensing that they detected the faint tone of fear in his voice. “I will kill him myself if necessary!” he continued, even more fierce. “But I have no time for fools! I must prepare for the mass! I cannot be distracted!”

  “Yes, my Lord,” Kano gasped. “Soloman will die! We will not allow him to reach you!”

  “I trust you,” Cain whispered, settling him back on his feet. “The mandrill is hungry, and prepared. He knows whom he awaits. And when Soloman is inside the Castle I will release him from his chain.” He bent his head suddenly, groaning. “He ... He ...”

  Kano faltered. “My Lord?”

  Cain growled.

  Show no weakness!

  “I am ... all right,” Cain whispered, pausing to take a deep breath. “Just remember this!” He laid a clawed hand on Kano’s shoulder again. “If Soloman reaches me, all of you will die because you failed me!”

  As Cain staggered away, Kano whispered, “It will be done! We will not fail!”

  ***

  A cold sun rose with mist from the earth.

  Standing alone in the loft of the barn, Soloman stared into the distant gray horizon, caught the scent of rain, a distant storm. And he sensed a despair void of any comfort whatsoever; only a fatal sentiment that settled like winter over his bones, chilling and fatal.

  He knew that the premonition of death would come with the dawn, and it had come with a vengeance, shrouding his will with a force he had encountered only once before. It was a reminder of his hour of madness, the hour when he’d thrown himself into a soulless rage to pursue a purpose that had evaded him then and forever since.

  His family, all that he loved and lost. . .

  Until now.

  In his mind he had killed the killers over and over, over and over, so many of them through the years. Had killed them in ways hideous and creative, drawing the blade as if to cheat death of its claim, so he might kill them even more. But vengeance had failed him in the end, no matter how many times he had killed them because now he knew that they were not the ones truly behind the suffering of this world.

  Yes, now he faced what was truly responsible, for Soloman had come to believe completely in Marcelle’s words. He didn’t know what, exactly, had pushed him over the edge. He only knew that he had stared Cain in the eyes time and again, each committed to fight to the death, and he’d measured that what he saw was not of this world.

  Staring at the sky changing to crimson, he frowned. He had no idea how he’d arrived at this place. Whatever it was that had brought him here was beyond them all. And he knew the moment would never come again. Whatever he took from this, victory or defeat, would be the end, for it would receive the blood and love that buried him with the past.

  Gazing out, Soloman no longer saw the sky. He saw only tiny lifeless hands clutching, fumbling. There was a small face alive with questions and trust and smiles, and then he saw the hands tightened by the agony of death, the face pale, all that was her cruelly taken from such a beautiful vessel of life.

  He saw Marilyn as he had never imagined he would, her body empty of the gift of life that she had held, her eyes glassy, all that was special and golden and giving gone forever.

  He had wanted to avenge them, but it had been impossible, his vengeance beyond quenching because he could never really confront who was truly, truly responsible.

  Until today.

  He bowed his head, released a breath.

  Enough . . .

  He frowned.

  It’s time to kill.

  He’d hoped for years that he would be brought to this hour, and now he had. And as he pondered it he knew that it had always been coming, coming in the dreams and faces and memories that haunted him through the long nights, just as he knew nothing could have stopped it.

  Cain had taken something more than life from him. For beneath the graves of his wife and child, Cain had buried a piece of his soul. But now, Soloman knew, he’d come to take back what was his.

  And then some.

  CHAPTER 25

  Standing on a desolate mound in the midst of a waste of empty stone and sedge, letting them see that he was coming, Soloman gazed at the Castle of Calistro.

  The fortress was isolated in the middle of a vast, empty land of rock, weed, and broken stone. Monolithic in strength, it was a gray mountain set on the shores of the sea. Ancient stone gargoyles spread batlike wings on the tremendous walls, whose towers were still intact. And the battlements held massively solid black eyes.

  Soloman’s face revealed only a grim fatality of purpose as he stared at the Castle, a purpose that embraced life and death together and seemed to scorn the storming day. He contemplated a tactical approach but could find only empty grass blasted bare by cold mist.

  Standing close, Maggie and Marcelle and Sister Mary Francis waited silently, cloaked in the low rumbling thunder that swept over the barren land with a shuddering moan. A thunderstorm approaching from the sea held the faint dying rays of the sun, a crimson glow.

  Shaking his head with a sigh, Soloman knew that the only way to reach the child he had come to love as his own was through the front gate. And he was grateful that the portal had long ago crumbled into dust, leaving no defense.

  It had taken all day to reach the Castle because he’d been forced to take the interminable backroads that crossed the forests of Northumberland. The tactical move had been made necessary after the spectacular conflict in the hotel, which made national news.

  He had done his best to save as much of the day as possible, but he’d failed in the end. And now they stood on the eve of Samhain, possessing no advantage at all as they faced Cain on the night and in the hour that he was strongest, for the sake of Amy.

  Five hours remained until midnight and the sacrifice.

  Soloman nodded to himself.

  So be it ...

  Turning without expression he descended the rain-soaked mound and walked up to Maggie, kissed her gently. Then he regarded all of them in turn.

  “We’ve lost the sun,” he said. “We’ve got to go through the front gate; it’s the only open approach.” He paused. “Listen, people, it doesn’t get any worse than this. There’s nothing between us and the Castle. It’s a one mile walk across nothing.” Cold rain swept over them as he continued, “They’ll see us coming the whole way, and if they’re using rifles, we’ll be dead in thirty seconds.”

  He stared at Maggie.

  Stoic, she nodded.

  “I’m going in,”
he continued to Marcelle and the Mother Superior. “But I’m leaving it to you to decide if you want to go through with this. Now is the time to back down, if you want.”

  Marcelle laughed. “I believe we have already chosen with whom we will stand, Colonel.” His aspect had never seemed stronger. “Whatever faces us is not as strong as we are.”

  “We don’t know what’s inside that Castle, Marcelle.” Soloman was military and precise. “Cain could have anything – a minigun, claymores, bodyguards, or dogs. The only thing I know for sure is that a lot of people are going to die. And it might be us.”

  Frowning, Maggie reached into her purse and removed the syringe. Soloman watched in silence as she sharply unsnapped the cooling unit, tossing it aside. Her face said she wouldn’t be needing it anymore. But she left the steel cap over the needle as she put the syringe into her coat, gazing coldly. She said nothing.

  A moment passed between them, and Soloman nodded. Then he reached down and lifted the daypack filled with the dynamite and napalm. Slinging the pack and shotgun over his shoulder, he turned and walked back up the mound.

  Together, in the dying light of a dark, dark day, they walked beneath a haunting sky into a conflict that would leave them either dead in a cursed and haunted land or wounded survivors in the Devil’s Castle.

  ***

  Kano knelt once more.

  “They are coming, my Lord.”

  “As I anticipated,” Cain rumbled. “Is it Soloman?”

  “Yes. He does not come alone. He has a priest, a nun, and a woman. And Soloman is heavily armed. He is walking ahead of the rest of them. They follow, but Soloman fights at the front.”

  “As all his kind.” Cain was contemplative. “Is The Circle prepared?”

  “Yes, my Lord. They are ready to deliver Soloman to his grave.”

  “Good. But be prepared, Kano. Soloman will attack boldly, but he will attack with wisdom. When you meet him in battle, remember that you are fighting one who knows no retreat. And remember—if Soloman is wounded, you will be fighting a wounded lion.”