“First, who blew up the barn… the short answer is… well, you probably don’t want to hear the short answer without first a little explanation… so here is the explanation: A witch did it. She is not happy with what you did to the Reverend Laden Long.
“Witches are also powerful manipulators. They can control the innocent minds of people, especially people of their own blood, like their children, specifically,” the speaker’s thoughts became slower and more deliberate, “her daughter. Especially if that daughter also shared a bloodline with the witch’s former lover. They don’t call them black widows for nothing, Harry.”
Harry was clueless, and answered accordingly, “So, who was the bomber? The witch’s daughter? Was she someone we knew?”
“Yes, she was someone you knew, Harry.”
Sarah, who had the natural discernment and wisdom of both her sex and her species, gasped.
The speaker responded even quieter to their hearts, “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
Harry was still slow. “Why? Who is it?”
Sarah, who had been hovering close to Harry, pulled back and stiffened.
“Sarah?” Harry asked, surprised at her reaction. “Sarah, what’s wrong? Do you know who he is talking about?”
“Yes, I do,” she said in a cold, stern voice. “And so do you.”
“Who? For heaven’s sake!”
The speaker answered solemnly, “Lizzy, your daughter by the witch, Harry.”
Dances with
my Dragon
William David Ellis
ALTAR STONE PUBLISHING, BEN WHEELER, TEXAS
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Trailer for Kisses of my Enemy
Author Notes
Chapter One
Belle knew a hundred ways to kill a man. That did not make her task easier. Neither did the rumor she had heard from one of her more intelligent pets stating Ernst Rohm had hired the kind of protection that could give witches trouble. Whether or not the report was true, it didn’t hurt to be wary, to be crafty. She didn’t take long to ponder it. She had already been planning for weeks. She walked over to her kitchen sink, carefully took out a cheese slicer, and cut her palm. She cried out as the blade cut her flesh. Scars riddled her hands and legs, providing proof she had a lot of practice. The wounds healed quickly but the cuts burned and were sore for days afterwards. Clenching her fist, she held her hand over a silver chalice and watched as the blood dripped into the cup. It did not have to be full. Just a swallow or two was all that was necessary. Once the mark was reached, she covered her hand with a clean towel, then washed and bandaged it. Her pets would drink her offering and then be bound to her for whatever task she assigned them. Now to call them, feed them, and target them.
Not everybody prayed to the Most High God. Belle Rodum prayed to the cast-out angels who lied, declaring they were gods to foolish men. The old demons typically got away with it, till men caught on and bowed before the real one. Until then, however, Belle’s prayers and conjuring paid for by her victims’ blood got her what she wanted.
With blood dripping from her bandage, Belle raised her hands above her head and chanted. Low murmurings in a tongue she’d never learned flowed from her. Hypnotic and rhythmic, she gradually increased in volume. A single word spoken over and over, then another added and another till finally a sentence formed repeated a hundred times, “Čia kačiukas, čia kačiukas aš gydau,” louder and louder, till with a clap of her wounded hands she screamed. Then silence. A thick, wicked snowfall silence fell like a dark blanket covering and insulating. It was first warm then hotter and hotter, until a salty rain-like perspiration poured from every pore in her body, drenching her. She tore off her clothes, screaming as the rough cloth touched and blistered her skin. Then it stopped. Suddenly the heat was gone. A light breeze blew across her burning skin in tingling caresses, making the hair on her neck stand in shivering salute.
The creature, a jörmungandr, a demon from Norse legend, slowly flickered in front of Belle, fading in and out of view as though partly there and partly not. It was the descendent of a beast once labeled more crafty than all the beasts of the field. It was shrewd, beautiful. Its head was crowned like a cobra with a ribbed fan that sat behind its skull like an Indian headdress. When it spoke, cream-colored jaws and sparkling bright fangs glinted. Its forked tongue flitted through the air, sampling Belle’s aroma like a lover does a bouquet. Its neck, bent just beneath the ceiling, towered over the small-framed witch. Unlike its earthly cousins, this serpent had hands, long, thin, and clawed with opposing thumbs so it could easily grasp and strangle its prey. As it stood before the witch, it moved back and forth swaying to the motion of an ancient song.
Finally, the jörmungandr spoke in a chilling whisper, rasping broken words forged in sin’s dark crevices. Piercing the silence like a heroin addict’s needle breaks the flesh.
“You called, and I have come. What do you want from me?”
“Where is your brother? I called for both of you.”
“You are not the only conjurer busy tonight, Belle Rodum. My brother is engaged elsewhere. Many are feasting. Tonight, much blood is crying out.”
Belle nodded and realized that must surely be the case. Hitler had ordered the assassination of many, and given Himmler’s involvement with witchcraft—he was the son of a witch after all—pets and familiars would be occupied.
“I repeat, time is short. What do you want?”
“You and I have a short journey; then you kill and feed. Simple as that.”
The beast slowly nodded and replied, “Get on my back and show me the way.”
Belle had ridden the jörmungandr before. It was an adrenalin junkie’s dream. Like the crocodile and the scorpion, the ride could end in both of their destructions. Other than that, so long as they both behaved themselves, it was an exhilarating ride for the witch. Moving with purpose, she quickly climbed on the back of the demon. Noticing the silky skin and knobby scales, she grabbed the harness and squeezed tight with her knees. The beast seemed to jump through the roof because of its ability to pass through material objects. As they burst into the night air, Belle Rodum gasped. The wind blew through her hair, and she pressed in close to the beast’s neck. She whispered directions, and within a few minutes they reached their destination.
Ernst Rohm was a socialist who believed in the distribution of everyone’s wealth but his own. As a good friend and the right hand of Hitler’s paramilitary group, he had access to money and used it. The jörmungandr settled easily into the huge backyard of the grand old house that had once belonged to a Jewish banker and now was occupied by Rohm. Immediately Belle Rodum sensed the guardians she had been told might protect Ernst Rohm. It was easy to spot them. They were wolf-like shucks, fierce black dogs, twice the size of a normal animal, w
ith glowing red eyes.
The three shucks caught the scent of the jörmungandr as soon as it settled on the ground. Their job was to alert the house when an uninvited guest arrived. The baying and growls drove all pretense of surprise away. Within seconds, they bit and struck at the jörmungandr’s feet and belly. As fast as the shucks were, the jörmungandr was faster. With a quick backhand, it broke the back of one of the huge beasts. The animal hit the ground with a yelp, then nothing. With its giant mouth, the jörmungandr clamped down on the head of another of the wolf-like creatures. The jörmungandr shook viciously, popping the big dog’s head off its shoulders in a cloud of spurting blood and gore. The third shuck, seeing what had happened to its companions, turned and ran but only managed a few feet before Belle Rodum’s lance pierced its black pelt. Its cry wrecked the night and then everything grew quiet.
Well, the witch thought, that didn’t go as planned, but we are here, and there is work to do.
The jörmungandr climbed over the fresh corpses of the animals it had killed and slithered up to the back door of the house. It bent its head against the doorframe and pushed. The door groaned, and the brick-framed anchors broke. The demon crashed through the ruined doorframe and sniffed the house, flicking its tongue in every direction, searching for Rohm. Its head swayed back and forth; then it caught the scent of the one it had come for. Belle Rodum watched the dark serpent hunt, her eyes wide, her face lit like a child’s on Christmas morning. She turned to face the direction the jörmungandr had gone and saw a stairway. She placed her foot on the first step and was thrown backward by the rapid fire of a Thompson submachine gun. She felt the bullets pierce her flesh, tearing through her. Blood spurted from her arterial wounds like water from a hydrant.
At the top of the stairs stood her prey, his famously scarred face obvious, leaving no doubt to his identity. Belle Rodum stood there. Rohm watched, fascinated, waiting for pain to mark her, her eyes to roll back, and her body to fall. None of that happened. She took a deep breath and sighed. Looking up the stairway toward Rohm, she laughed.
Under protective spells Belle Rodum’s wounds closed and regenerated. Rohm’s face paled as he raised his gun to fire again, but the jörmungandr’s lightning assault struck him square in the chest. Bones cracked, his lungs collapsed, and his eyes widened. The beast was about to press his mouth over the fallen man when the witch shouted, “No! The Führer wants proof, and if you eat him, somebody will have to sort through your droppings, and it won’t be me!”
The jörmungandr smirked and withdrew from the stairway, turning to look back at the witch. “My task is over. You are on your own. Good evening.” With that, it stiffened like an antique photograph staring at her, growing fainter and fainter until, like smoke on a windy day, it was gone.
Belle Rodum slowly walked up the stairs and stared down on the broken body of Ernst Rohm. The dying man sensed someone was hovering over him. He opened his eyes and strained to focus. Disappointment crossed his face. Slowly he gasped out, “Why?”
She answered honestly, “Hitler’s orders.”
Rohm coughed, then laughed, “I knew it was coming… He will destroy you too…”
Belle Rodum leaned over the man and whispered, “The kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Chapter Two
Harry stared aimlessly at the cotton candy clouds that slowly slipped across the bright blue sky. He was having a hard time processing the last few weeks and caught himself slipping into little short trances where he would mull over the events. He shook his head, frustrated. This could not be happening! Then he remembered it was… He had been cast through time and landed in a country that didn’t even exist when he walked the earth a thousand years ago. He had spent forty years off and on in a place called Texas. He had grown old, and in the process, he had adopted an infant girl and raised her to be a wonderful woman. He had been coerced by that same young woman, who had become the town’s librarian, into entertaining a circus of little munchkins. In the process of telling the only story he knew, he had discovered the story was still in play. It was real.
Harry had found and lost his ancient love, also cast through time, but who had been transformed into one of the children who listened to his stories at the library. She had no clue who she really was and had only begun to remember when it became obvious the story was still continuing. He killed a dragon who had threatened his town and his lady love, and then Harry had been blown through another portal, where he now lay by the love of his life, who was stuck in a huge dragon body. Harry sighed, closed his eyes, and waited to wake up from the dream. “That is the last time I experiment with honey mead.”
He heard a deep-throated rumble that sounded strangely like the combination of one of his German shepherds hocking up a hairball and a trumpeting elephant.
“What did you say? Something about honey mead?” The hocking trumpet was Sarah Linscomb, his dragon lady, laughing.
Harry was leaning against Sarah’s side. She was his oversized dragon pillow. He stood, raised both hands skyward, and stretched, then proceeded to drop and do sit-ups. “Gotta keep this old body in shape,” he huffed. “If I don’t stretch and exercise, all the accumulated sins of forty years of fried foods at the café will pounce on me!”
Sarah, watching him closely, said, “Harry, are you aware that you look younger? I mean much younger. You could pass for thirty easily.”
“I was wondering about that. My skin blotches are clearing up, and I’m feeling stronger.”
Sarah peered from under her long feminine lashes, her great teeth glistening in a dragon smile. “Well, I couldn’t help notice, and well, you are a very handsome man.”
Harry blushed. He didn’t receive compliments well. A terrible stray thought filtered through his mind. Did Sarah’s glistening teeth mean she was praising his physique as a handsome man or sizing him up for a future meal? “Thank you, I think, my dear.” And before Sarah’s preternatural sensitivity kicked in and she picked up on his concern about her intentions, he added, “Do you realize this is the longest time we have ever spent together, knowing who we were, without a threat of death hanging over us?” As he spoke, he looked up into her eyes and realized that the woman locked behind them would die before willfully hurting him. Shamed, he softly stroked her long jaw. She responded by gently caressing him with her claw, talons retracted. Harry was surprised at how gentle a large creature could be.
He heard himself sigh and noticed a puff of smoke exhale from her nose. He groped for the right words, and then the speaker interrupted. “Hey guys, sorry to barge in at such a… ah… a tender moment, but I know you have questions. Now, I need to answer your questions.”
Harry jumped. Even though he, and now Sarah, were bonded to the speaker sword, it still startled him when the sword interrupted his thoughts with abrupt conversation. The sword had entered Harry’s life when he had first attempted to rescue Sarah. It had lain dormant in a tomb until Harry had literally stumbled upon it. Since then, he had come to depend on the sword as an embedded mentor.
“Hang on, Sword, give me a second to catch my breath. We are really going to have to work on your entrances. You can’t just plop right in anytime you please to say hi!”
“Especially not if I am going to be around,” Sarah added. “If I jump when you barge in, people could get hurt!”
“Are you done yet? Hmmm? Do you know how many people would love to have a mentor with access to the knowledge I bring to the table?”
Harry shrugged, and Sarah rolled her eyes. “Get on with it, Sir Speaker Sword,” she grumbled.
“As I was saying, one of the first questions you must have is, what happened in the barn? The second being, where do you go from here? And the answer to the second kinda depends on what you think about the first. And the third and fourth questions—will Sarah remain a dragon and can you two ever be together in a normal relationship?—are just as important as the first ones.”
Sarah groaned, and a large puff of smoke blew out of her n
ose. “Sorry! Sorry! I’m still not used to this body, and things… happen.” Harry laughed and waved his hands in the air, dispersing the smoke.
Because he had no body, the speaker sword continued, unperturbed. “First, who blew up the barn? The short answer is… Well, you probably don’t want to hear the short answer without a little explanation, so here is the explanation: A witch did it. She wasn’t real happy with what you did to the Reverend Laden Long.”
“Oh no! Do not tell me about witches! No, uh-uh. No… not happening!” Harry grumbled, shaking his head like an angry bee was buzzing him. “My mother told me to stay away from witches. She said if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.” He paused, scratched his chin, and added, “Of course, she later declared she was one, but my dad said that was because she didn’t know the difference between a w and a b.”
Sarah snorted, then coughed, and her green tint blushed pink as she put a large claw in front of her mouth, but wisps of smoke slipped through her talons.
“Anyway, a witch can be a powerful manipulator. She can control the unsuspecting minds of innocent people, especially people of her own blood, like her children, specifically.” The speaker’s words grew slower and more deliberate. “Like. Her. Daughter. Specifically. Also, the spells will be more powerful if betrayal is involved. For instance, if the intended victim and the daughter shared a bloodline with the witch, the manipulating spell would be very powerful… They don’t call them black widows for nothing, Harry.”
The speaker’s words slipped by Harry. He winced, clueless, and asked, “So, who was the bomber? The witch’s daughter? Was she someone local? Do I know her?”
“Yeah, she was someone you knew, Harry.”
Sarah, who had the natural discernment and wisdom of both her sex and her species, gasped.
The speaker responded quietly, “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
Harry was still slow. “Why? What is it?”
Sarah, who had been hovering close to Harry, pulled back and stiffened.
“Sarah?” Harry asked, surprised at her reaction. “Sarah, what’s wrong? Do you know who he is talking about?”
The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set Page 23