Reign of Coins

by Aiden James

  “Found it!”

  Like a kid at Christmas, Morrow’s smile stretched from ear to ear. He eagerly removed the armored vest and hurried to put it on. I couldn’t believe it was a perfect fit, and it seemed to surprise Kaslow, as well.

  “You are a fool for ignoring the legends from long ago!” warned Sulyn, angrily, after finally able to spit out her gag. She sat between Alistair and the girl, who clung to her as if she were her birth mother. One of the thugs punched her in the face, but she hid the pain, raising her chin defiantly while twin crimson streams trickled from her nostrils. “Genghis Khan was the only one worthy to wear his mantle!”

  “Oh, you think so?” Morrow eyed her contemptuously. “Who in the hell made you the expert around here?!”

  “It is widely known that the great leader of the Mongols embraced all worthy philosophies on life, including those of the most powerful shamans,” she explained, drawing a surprised look from Alistair and a raised eyebrow from me. We both understood she hadn’t previously embraced anything dealing with the supernatural. She shot me a look that begged me to roll with her on this. “The mantle is only for those as worthy as Genghis to wear it.”

  “In other words, I’m not worthy? Is that what you’re implying, Ms. Cheung?”

  That frigging crazy facial expression again.

  “What she means is this: If the mantle was created for good, then it will fail if it falls into the wrong hands,” I said, which was pretty much the same damned thing she told him. Yeah, I couldn't resist taking a shot at making him feel more like a dumbass.

  And, just like that, crazy maniacal became homicidal…at least in appearance. Maybe it was pretty dumb to egg him on, but my instincts were now in full control. I had committed myself to follow them and see if they somehow led me to one solid opportunity to rescue three innocent human beings. I’d gladly sacrifice my life and coin if it would spare Alistair, Sulyn, and the little girl snuggled up against her.

  “Well…fuck you both!” he sneered. “And, William, Judas, stupid asshole—whoever you really are, get this: Since your blood-encrusted coin has been sharing a home with the mantle, all of the wickedness you brought into the world has been marinating a device already incredibly powerful. I’ll bet you know nothing of how this thing originated—do you? Have you ever heard of Fushine the Sorceress?”

  “Of course, I have, “ I said, trying to clear my thoughts of something I’d just noticed. A fallen Japanese soldier had drawn his sword just before his death. Surprisingly, Kaslow and the other fiends hadn’t noticed the blade sticking upward, still grasped tightly by the boney-gloved hand holding it. Unfortunately, it was too far away to grip the handle from behind. It left no choice other than impaling my hand with the blade and manipulating the blade out of my palm to cut my bonds. “She started out well enough, but was beheaded after her predictions for her emperor were found to be fraudulent.”

  “Bullshit! It appears your knowledge is as faulty as your ability to find your coins!”

  He was really getting angry. Excellent. A little lie doesn’t hurt when designed for the greater good.

  “For your corrected information, Judas, Fushine was a greatly honored practitioner of magic!” Morrow continued, his livid voice unsteady. “Not only that, but she was instrumental in creating the mantle for Mr. Khan. How do you suppose a nomadic warlord rose to such heights so quickly? How does a leader of a few thousand men eventually grow that army to half a million soldiers, and effortlessly conquer nations vastly superior to the early horsemen Genghis Khan assembled? Hell, you were there, Judas, so don’t give us some shit about him picking himself up by the bootstraps and deciding one day to be ‘Emperor of the world.’”

  I nodded smugly in response while feeling the worried gazes of Alistair and Sulyn. They needed to trust me. They also needed not to look behind us, since I had just impaled my left hand on the sword’s dirty blade. Time to reel it in closer without drawing any attention, despite the searing pain making me want to scream.

  “Well, we’re going to have to agree to disagree,” I said, releasing a low sigh, as if this conversation meant no more than a hill of beans to me. Meanwhile, I kept working the blade through my hand, until several small streams of blood coursed down my fingers. Oh, and I should mention here that since the metal was continuously piercing me like a shish kabob on a rotisserie, I wasn’t healing as quickly as usual. “I have the experience of actually meeting that wench. The charlatan bitch got everything coming to her.”

  In truth, I never met her, and all I ever heard about Fushine was her talent was genuine. But for the moment, I made up an alternate existence for her in my head, just in case Kaslow was peering into my subconscious.

  “That’s it. That’s fucking it!” railed the madman. “I’ll show you who’s right about this! I’m going to demonstrate what this thing can do, now that it’s been in bed with your nice little coin—which Viktor has agreed to melt down to a tiny silver wedge to be deposited into the South China Sea! It should keep you busy for the next thousand years trying to recover it. For now, we’re done dealing with each other! No more waiting and no more talk!”

  No one else fully understood what this ancient armor vest could do. As I mentioned, I had seen the plasma stream rip through the air a few miles beyond the plain of Samarkand, and later the destruction of the city’s walls, twenty feet thick. Perhaps Alistair pictured what I’d described to him upon our arrival in Hong Kong, as terrible dread filled his expression.

  None of that mattered now. Morrow pulled out a piece of paper from his pants pocket, and prepared to recite another incantation. Kaslow appeared ready to intervene. But no one did. Not until it was too late.

  “Prepare to die, assholes!” Morrow shouted, and began his initial chant. The words were rhythmic, and only vaguely familiar. Yet, Sulyn seemed able to follow along.

  This is when the party changed—and not just because I managed a secure enough grip to pull the sword near. I could finally slice through the tight bonds upon my wrists. Alistair now noticed what I was doing, and had the good sense to keep his attention on Mr. Morrow. It soon became impossible to do anything else.

  “Oh, my God, this feels amazing!” he exclaimed, pulling his attention from his chanting exercise. He drew a deep breath as if enjoying unfathomable power within. “Maybe I’ll hang on to this for a while…maybe I’ll double my asking price! Hell, maybe I’ll…What in the….?! Oww! What’s going on! Owww!”

  As he had hoped, the incredible energy that once aided Genghis Khan in his quest to rule the world began to seep out toward us as a purplish haze. Even in its infancy, the haze’s energy was dangerous, igniting Marrow’s incantation paper and thus ending the chant. As I worried his threats against us were about to come true, the haze emanating toward us began to withdraw. At the same time, the vest began to shrink. We watched in horror as it crushed Christian Morrow’s torso and squeezed the very life out of him.

  It wasn’t a quick death, and as he screamed in unspeakable agony, his writhing body rose into the air and started to spin. Kaslow tried to grab onto his arm, but was easily thrown off. Stunned by the first successful rebuff since becoming an immortal, he tried to save his shrieking employer once more, and was thrown back much further the second time.

  I needed the distraction to finish filleting my bonds. Determined to ignore Sulyn’s look of incredulous fascination while the gaping hole in my palm closed up and healed in under a minute, I worked furiously to free my son from his restraints. Kaslow and the two mortified Middle Eastern henchmen eventually returned their attention to us. Fortunately, it didn’t happen until Sulyn’s and the little girl’s bonds were severed.

  We had to get the hell out of there quickly. Kaslow now noticed we were free from bondage. But instead of picking us off one by one, like tin ducks at a carnival, he was compelled to watch the terrible transformation of Christian Morrow into a burning, spinning blade of purple fire.

  Assuredly Morrow was dead. Then again, in a world
filled with various kinds of immortality, who truly knew? The spinning purple torch that once was a man spun faster and faster. Suddenly, the earth beneath our feet began to give way.

  In terms of our immediate survival, this latest development was a very good thing. At least for Morrow’s three former prisoners and Kaslow, who had been thrown far enough from the room’s center to avoid the collapse of the cave’s floor into a churning whirlpool of darkness. Morrow’s thugs, however, tumbled headfirst into the violent seawater churning upward.

  Part of the ladder was gone, broken off at the midway point when the floor disappeared. My son and Sulyn managed to lift the girl to safety, and she scurried up the remaining ladder steps without looking down into the deepening chasm below. Meanwhile, I searched for a better means to get my kid and Ms. Cheung out of there in one piece.

  I scurried to a pile of old ropes, but Kaslow blocked my path. Too fast and too strong to elude, he easily knocked me to the floor and pushed me toward the expanding chasm.

  The swirling light grew even more intense, and I heard the anxious shouts from my son and Sulyn as the rest of the cave floor fractured around us. A horrible development, except for the sudden blast of air that knocked Kaslow back to the edge of the cave. If I’d been standing with him, I likely would’ve found myself partially wedged into a wall crevice as he was then.

  “Grab the rope, Pops, and let’s get out of here!” shouted Alistair.

  The brilliant light exploded into millions of tiny purple dots that filled the air. Their luminance remained bright, allowing me to clearly see my surroundings. The floor continued to crumble into the growing chasm, and the water lapping the edges hastened the deterioration. But I also saw the rope bundles mentioned by my son. I heard Kaslow groan and knew he’d soon free himself from the wall.

  “I need something to secure the rope above us!” I said, moving past Kaslow to where the aged rope bundles sat. I picked up three of them and hurried back to where Sulyn and Alistair anxiously waited.

  “There’s nothing heavy enough lying around here that would work for a weight to tie the rope to,” my boy lamented. “Shit!”

  “Hold on…this might work!”

  I noticed the chest that recently contained the mantle and still held my precious coin. It was lying near the edge of the hole in the room’s center. Being careful, I quickly pulled it up by its lid and brought it over to where the others waited. Alistair had taken the least rotted rope bundle and created a big enough noose and knot to secure the chest. But before I let him finish his work, I reached in and grabbed my coin.

  For those unfamiliar, every time I track down one of my blood shekels, I’m forced to relive Jesus’ pain and suffering that I had a major hand in creating. The blood and sweat that covered his broken body smells more pungent than the time before, and it’s as if I am in Jerusalem to witness his torture and death all over again. His probing gaze finds me in the crowd after the crown of thorns is placed upon his head. As most of you can imagine, it’s too much to bear and I break down and cry like a young child in agony--especially when I see him mouth the words, ‘I forgive you, Judas, son of Simon.’

  I experienced all of this again right then…so much worse than before. The latter coins are far more excruciating than the earlier ones. But, this wasn’t a time where I could let the experience wash over me as it’s intended to do. Not with two precious lives hanging in the balance and another younger life waiting for us in the room above.

  “Let’s get going—we’re almost out of time!”

  I stuffed the coin in my trousers and shut the chest, praying what was left inside would prove heavy enough to secure the rope. We needed it to anchor above us long enough to scale the ladder’s remnants without fear of falling to certain death below.

  Alistair and I quickly secured the rope to the closed chest, and I tossed it up to the next level. Sulyn was the first to climb up, scarcely relying on the rope to get her there. Alistair was next, and he almost fell into the churning water that continued to claim pieces of the fractured floor. I sent a prayer of thanks heavenward once he climbed to safety.

  That left just me, and true to form, it wasn’t an easy process of getting from point A to B. Part of the reason was the same thing that Alistair had encountered, when the chest above slid all the way up to the opening above. Then the ladder’s ancient wood began to splinter.

  “Pops, look out!”

  A powerful hand grabbed my foot as I tried to pull myself through the hole. Kaslow had freed himself from the rock crevice, and was now the only thing standing in my way. He clung to the rope to steady himself, and at any moment the fragile floor pieces he balanced himself on would give way. All it would take for me to join him was one solid tug. One more tug and then adios for this body.

  No more William Barrow, and Judas Iscariot would once again be transported to some other place and time.

  Kaslow’s sardonic chuckle reverberated throughout the room. As I reflect now on this event, I can’t decide if it was his arrogant knowingness or his Steyr’s gleaming silencer that enabled me to summon a higher physical prowess than I’m accustomed to having. In any case, I kicked him in the head as hard as I could with my other foot, ignoring the fear he would pull me with him as he slipped into the chasm.

  Being an inexperienced immortal, he was likely surprised by my sudden power and let go. Unlike most people about to die, Viktor shouted a promise to me. It was a promise of revenge…a promise of death, and delivered with even more venomous hatred than I thought he carried for me. With that level of malice, I had no doubt he’d find his way back someday.

  Probably soon.

  Chapter 22

  “So, when do you plan to see Mother?”

  “Just as soon as we get off this frigging plane at Dulles.”

  Another long flight, this one seemed much worse than the trip out to Hong Kong had been. Of course, on that trip we had stopped in Hawaii for a few days and shortened the journey to China by stopping in Japan for one night. However, on our way back home we skipped most of that, stopping over for a matter of hours in both Tokyo and Honolulu. Then there was an emergency stopover in Denver before continuing on to D.C.

  But, enough about the technical aspects of our journey back to the States. Surely everyone would rather hear about the events that transpired after Viktor Kaslow disappeared into the churning abyss inside the cave at Wong Chuk Kok Tsui. Correct?

  Assuming that’s the case, I should finish most of my update by the time our plane lands in Washington. Once we land at Dulles and pick up our car, then it’s off to see Beatrice, despite our exhaustion and irritation. Really, it’s exhaustion for Alistair, and irritation for me, since I’ve had nearly thirty hours in the air to think about what to do about my exposed identity. I mean, how many people know I’m not really William Barrow, anyway?

  It’s an annoyance for another time and different story.

  As for Kaslow…once he landed in the volatile murkiness, the miniature purple lights quickly dissipated. The cave below cast into complete darkness, the only sounds were of water splashing against the ancient chests stored there.

  “Are you all right?”

  My question was intended for all three companions, though directed most to the little girl. She nodded and offered a weak smile. I could only imagine the long-term aftereffects from what she had witnessed the past few hours. She had been present for at least one murder, according to Sulyn. That alone would traumatize most kids. Adding the experience of watching Christian Morrow get crushed and ignited supernaturally could certainly breed horrific nightmares.

  “We will eventually be all right,” said Sulyn. She carried a small flashlight that looked like it came from a convenience store. Her beautiful eyes were dulled, which told me her soul may have suffered permanent damage…at least for this lifetime. “But Sha Fen Wan won’t ever forget this…neither shall I.”

  I wanted to tell her how truly sorry I was again, though I feared it would come across as ins
incere.

  “Sha Fen Wan?”

  “Yes…that’s her name.”

  “Sounds pretty.” I smiled at the little girl and her smile widened. Maybe she’d be okay much more quickly than either Sulyn or myself assumed.

  “We should go…from the sound of things below us, the water’s rising,” said Alistair.

  “Okay, Ali, you’re probably right…let’s get out of here.” I could see a slim sliver of moonlight less than thirty feet away, marking our exit to the outside world again. “Were there any other hoodlums we should know about, Sulyn?”

  “No, it was just the two of them and Mr. Kaslow…. So, you really are Judas Iscariot? That would make you—”

  “Two thousand and fourteen years, two months and seventeen days young, to be exact.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’ve given a glib response to that question, and truly I didn’t intend to come across as an ass. Sulyn gave me an indifferent nod, as if the question and its answer were merely polite conversation. But then I saw her pull the girl closer to her protectively. She was more than a tad freaked out by my true identity.

  Nothing more was said, until after we stepped through the crevice in the rock wall. I thanked The Almighty it hadn’t closed back up yet. But the yacht was nowhere to be found.

  “Shit! What are we supposed to do now!”

  I shared my boy’s frustration. The ship was long gone, without another boat in sight. However, a dark helicopter sat on the shoreline roughly one hundred feet away from us. Not knowing if it came with friends, strangers, or someone new with bad intent, I urged everyone to follow me over to a nearby ledge with a cleft beneath it deep enough to shelter us all.

  “There’s no need to run and hide, Willie Boy!”

  “Cedric?”

  At first I didn’t see him, until he stepped out from the shadows. The casual stride of Agent Tomlinson moved toward us.