Harry moaned as his tortured thoughts brought him back from his first day’s introduction. The drugs were doing their work. Struggling to wake from pain and cold, he tried to move and screamed. His bonds reminded him he was strapped onto a cold steel table. He looked through swollen eyes at the sterile grey walls that surrounded him. He could only hold his head up for a moment and even then, it cost him dearly. Hurt was the price tag of movement. His hair had frozen in small pools of blood and when he moved, they pulled, ripping away the last vestiges of unsoiled flesh.
He tried to look down the length of his body and saw he was streaked with bloody lines and seeping wounds, steam rising from the crude dark stitches that seemed to hold him together.
He sensed he was alone in the room. No one spoke, no sense of movement greeted his ears. Then he remembered he was naked and was grateful he was by himself. His thoughts were as tortured as his body. Dreams of blood and knives and needles, large painful needles, piercing his body in so many places—nothing was sacred, no limb or organ exempt. And pain, ice-cold water, and laughter, and the silence. His torturers did not even ask him questions. Nothing, no human contact even with those who were butchering him. He tried to swallow and realized his throat ached, scarred from the animal screams his torturers had wrung from him. Time had escaped him. He could barely recall his own name or how he had gotten strapped to the table, or how long he had been there.
As he lay on the table, he heard a moan, long and low. He turned his head side to side frantically trying to find his next assailant, then realized it was only the wind blasting through a solitary window ten feet from the ground, a single friendless portal out of his cell. He quieted, then his curiosity aroused. If he cocked his head and bore the pain, he could just see through the small window into the sky that hid behind it. The wind poked him with frigid needles, its bitter fingers wrapping themselves around him, massaging his body.
He laid his head back on the table. He longed for the death sleep of hypothermia and was easing into its dark clutches when he heard through the chatter of his own teeth a birdsong.
In the middle of his numbness, as he faltered between death’s invitation and pain, he heard the gentle trill of a redbird. He fought to focus on it, concentrating all the strength that was left in him to listen. The cardinal’s warble swept warm and soothing through the cold walls of his prison. The song could not be bound by the cruelty of his cage. He pushed through his pain to tilt his neck so he could see out the lonely window. Cold blasts still pushed through the bars, but so did the redbird’s song. The notes were free and soared on hope. They lanced through the icy chains of winter’s harsh breath and warmed him. It hurt to smile. His lips were split and encrusted with his blood, but he did it anyway. His shivers ceased and a warmth began to settle on him like a blanket toasted over a fire and then placed over a small child on a winter night.
As his body relaxed, memories came. He turned into them and saw the face of a beautiful, raven-haired young woman. She was tall and slender, with high cheekbones and creamy skin and a light sprinkling of freckles that streamed across her nose. She was dressed in Lincoln green. He thought he knew her; her name was on the tip of his swollen tongue… yes! Sarah.
Chapter 40
Lizzy felt weak. She leaned against the wall, her eyes never leaving the woman who stood in front of her. The woman didn’t move to help her but raised one eyebrow, observing Lizzy’s reactions. Lizzy’s breath came in quick gasps and her heart thundered in her chest. Finally, words edged from her lips. “My creator?”
“Not in the sense of deity, Elizabeth, more like a processor, a fertility technician if you would.”
Lizzy’s expression drew the woman out and she continued to explain, “When your dad was captured by the Nazis, I took his seed and your mom’s egg and combined them. Nature took its course and here you are.”
Lizzy stared, her mouth agape. Then her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. “You’re lying! World War Two was over seventy years ago, and you don’t look a day over forty!”
“Your math is perfect, dear, but your science not so much. Moments after cells were collected from your parents, they were combined. Your blastocyst was then frozen with cryoprotectants. Then we set you on a shelf and brought you out when your father reappeared here thirty years ago. German science has always been cutting edge and I had access to razor-sharp technology. It obviously worked or we wouldn’t be talking. As to my age… well, fertility wasn’t the only science I dabbled in.”
As the shock wore off, Lizzy’s curiosity grew. “You’re the German scientist my father wrote about! Ah… Dr. Ober… Oberheust, isn’t it?”
The woman’s smile and nod told Lizzy she was right. “What do you want now? Why are you here?” Before Oberheust could answer, Lizzy’s expression changed. Horror darkened her features. “You’re the one who made me blow up the… barn! But but the sword said you were a witch and angry because my dad killed Laden Long.”
Oberheust laughed. “Really? A witch? Now that’s a thought, isn’t it? But your resource was wrong. I am not a witch—although I can mimic some of their powers, including mind manipulation—and yes, I forced you to blow up the barn. Your dragon was a problem, as was your father… and now they’re gone and it’s just you and me.”
“They’re not gone, not forever anyway.”
“Really, Elizabeth? They have been gone over a year… do you really think they’re coming back? And why would they want to if they could? As far as they know, you betrayed them.”
Lizzy drew back, terror streaming from her eyes. “No! No! I didn’t! You made me. I didn’t even know.”
“Of course you did. It’s a matter of established science that hypnotic suggestion cannot override a person’s core values. You can’t be forced to do something you really do not want to do. So you did want to blow up that barn, you did want to kill those children… you really did, Elizabeth,” Oberheust said so matter-of-factly Lizzy slipped into despair.
Nausea, fueled by guilt and bathed in condemnation swelled up from Lizzy’s stomach. Tears formed in her eyes. “Noooo,” she whispered. “Noooo.”
Oberheust’s eyebrow lifted slightly and a contemptuous sneer hid behind her eyes. She continued, a cobra comforting a mouse. “Yes, my dear, it was you, it really was. The witch wanted out and all I did was free her.”
Lizzy grimaced, shaking her head, whimpering. “I’m not a bad person… I am not a killer…” she kept saying.
“Oh, but you are! As I recall, didn’t you actually hurt one of your children? Easton, I think his name is. You actually choked the child; he couldn’t talk. And all because he was asking questions? Think about it, Elizabeth. And what about your ability to throw fire? Do you really think an innocent heart could curdle dark flame and pitch it like a softball? I don’t know about you, but it sounds like there’s a demonic bloodline in there somewhere.”
Lizzy pushed back the shame that threatened to overwhelm her. The facts accumulated like chains around a convict’s legs. The truth was devastating … and sickening. Darkness whispered in her ears. Old spirits that haunted her mother generations before knocked on the door of Lizzy’s heart. Generational familiars, demons that attached themselves to bloodlines and tormented families over and over, driving them to repeat the sins of their fathers and mothers, scratched at the gate, demanding their ancient thrones.
Chapter 41
Sarah stumbled into bed, barely able to keep her eyes open and her feet moving. Her people had rallied to her and within hours had counterattacked the hordes that threatened them for years. The dark locust of an enemy had been caught flatfooted and perished by the thousands. It had been bloody, brutal work. It had cost her a quarter of her warriors, but they crushed their enemies. The last she had seen of them was a few stragglers fleeing across the horizon. A nation had died in a day and a new one had risen from the ashes. In twenty-four hours, her people had fended off an attack against overwhelming odds, lost their leader, found another one,
and rallied to destroy their enemy. History had changed and she had changed it.
But right now, every breath was a labor and every muscle ached or cramped. It hurt to move and the adrenaline that had sustained her was depleted. Everyone in camp was exhausted. Guards fell asleep outside her tent. Women grieving the loss of husbands and sons had cried themselves into fitful repose, awakening only to sob again, then slip back into troubled slumber. Some of the younger troops managed to keep themselves awake long enough to loot their enemies’ tents, but most people just sat down and drifted into oblivion where they had fought.
Sarah had a tent to return to and took full advantage of its refuge. Her heart was broken, her body exhausted, and her mind confused. She had led her people into battle today as the warrior Dragon Queen of the Berbers. She had rallied them and led them and fought for them. It was intoxicating, but she also realized even before the last enemy perished that the easiest part of leadership was over and the hard part was before her. It was one thing to lead them into battle; it was something else again to lead them day by day as a person who was not familiar with their laws and customs, a person who had been born in medieval Europe, trained as royalty, then raised again in a twenty-first-century society by parents who were Texans by birth and Baptist by choice. Her last conscious thoughts as she drifted to sleep were, What would Grandpa think of me now?
“Sarah… Sarah… Wake up, honey. We need to talk.”
Sarah stretched like a cat waking up on the front porch of a country house. Her muscles ached, her joints ached, every bone and fiber in her body ached. She was pretty sure her hair was sore and her toenails bruised, and she was not happy about it. “No… go away. I’m tired and I hurt.” She didn’t bother to open her eyes and tried to turn away from the person who had gone from speaking to shaking her.
“Get up, sleepyhead!”
“What?!” Suddenly she recognized the voice and instantly her eyes opened. She sat up squealing. “Grandpa!?”
Kenneth and Grace Linscomb looked years younger. Their faces beamed; their eyes were bright. Grace had her arms folded in her ever so frequent look, her I-am-not-cross-but-you-need-to-mind-me-before-I-get-cross look.
Sarah jumped into their arms. They surrounded her in a long embrace. Finally, Sarah broke the hug and looked at her grandparents. Her eyes narrowed as curiosity opened the tired synapses of her weary mind. A sad frown crept across her face, brushing the previous moments’ joy away with it. “But you’re dead. Ohhhh nooo.” Sarah fell back onto her pillows, tears welling. “That means this is a dream. It’s not real. Ohhhh…”
“Sarah!” This time her grandmother’s scolding tone brought back other memories not so cheerful. “Don’t make me have to come over there and drag you out of that bed.”
“You’re a dream… go away,” Sarah whimpered. “Please.”
Her grandfather, who often found himself between his feuding women, took his familiar place between them and knelt beside his granddaughter. Gently he began to stroke her hair. She sat up and embraced him. “Oh, tootle butt,” he whispered, “I love you so much… and you are right, this is a dream.” Sarah continued sobbing but he kept on stroking her hair and holding her close. “But… baby girl, just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it’s not real. Dreams are portals and the medium of great messages. Remember your Bible, honey… it has all kinda dreams and all of them significant.”
Sarah’s grandmother had joined her husband kneeling beside her granddaughter’s bed. “Your grandpa’s right, Sarah, we are really here. And you can waste this moment boo-hooing or you can perk up and listen.”
Sarah looked at her grandmother. Her sobs were settling down, still coming but growing calmer. “I guess you’re not here just to visit, are you?” she sighed.
Her grandpa answered, “Oh, Sarah, of course we can visit, and we are. But we also have something to talk to you about.”
Grace Linscomb said, “We are going to go on a short trip.”
Sarah’s eyes brightened and her whole body shivered. “What, really? A trip? With you?”
Her grandparents smiled as they grabbed her outstretched hands and pulled her up from the pillows.
“Honey, this is not a fun trip, but it is a very important one. You have to see some things for yourself in order to make the right decision. You’re at a crossroads, Sarah. Remember the poem, ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’?”
“Yes, ma’am, and ‘I took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference,’” Sarah added, ending the quote.
Her grandfather said, “Yes, it will make all the difference. But it is a very hard choice to make, and no one can make it for you.” As Sarah stood between her grandparents, the world around her changed. She stepped from a warm, safe tent to a narrow, bitterly cold concrete cell. “I have to warn you, honey, this is not pretty,” her grandfather whispered in her ear.
In the middle of the cell was a stainless-steel operating table. A naked man was strapped onto the table with large leather bands. He was a bloody mess. There was not a square foot of his body that had not been cut or burnt or peeled away. His flesh looked like it was held together with crude black stitches. He was pale and lying in a pool of his own blood and body fluids.
Sarah did not recognize him at first. His face was swollen, his eyes shut, he had lost weight and seemed to have aged centuries. When she did recognize him, she gasped. “Harry?” She ran to him and reached out to touch him. Her hand passed right through him. “Oh, Harry!” she whispered. “Oh, Harry!” She looked back at her grandparents, both of whom wore angry expressions. “What happened to him?” Tufts of smoke began to stream from her nostrils, her anger quickly rising to the boiling point.
Her grandmother was about to reply when the large steel door to the cell opened and Alice Oberheust and Laden Long walked in, escorted by Nazi guards.
Oberheust shivered, then laughed. Turning to Harry she said, “It’s cold in here, Herr Ferguson. Perhaps you should complain to the proprietor of this establishment to turn up the heat?”
Laden Long looked down on his sadistically enthusiastic physician and shook his head, chuckling. “Proprietor? Seriously, Alice, that’s bad even for you.”
“Oh, I forgot,” she continued her mocking, “I am the proprietor.” She bent over Harry’s shivering body and whispered, “And I like it cold… meat cuts better.”
Long raised an eyebrow. “How much longer for your drugs to stimulate and focus his pain? We need a willing sacrifice, my dear. He has to want to die… only then will the strongman garner enough strength from him to break through the veil.”
When the pair had walked into the room Sarah had pulled back, standing in the shadows. Now she tried to transform but discovered it didn’t work. “Not here, Sarah, can’t transform here,” her grandmother said quietly.
Laden Long heard Grace’s voice and jumped. He turned toward the sound and glanced around the room but saw nothing, then looked again, only this time his eyes flickered and glowed red. Instantly he was rewarded with a vision of Sarah and her grandparents. He smirked and nodded like he was greeting them. Looking back at Oberheust, he answered her worried frown. “It’s nothing, Alice. Only the dead come to greet one about to cross over.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, glaring at Sarah, then turned back to the doctor. “Alice, get him out of this room and get him warm. If they’re here he is close to leaving us, and we can’t have that until it’s time. Get some food in him, even if you have to intubate him and force-feed him. He can’t die till I am ready for him to die.”
He reached over to the blond physician who was examining Harry, touched her shoulder, and gently drew her toward him. He stroked her face with his hand, causing her to blush. She was enthralled with him, her eyes bright, her smile wide. He bent his head and looked her in the eye. “Because if he does, we will have to find another sacrifice, and there are not that many options at short notice. So, you will be his substitute, and that won’t be fun, will it?”
Oberheust jerked back, then paled, swallowing hard. “He will live, Herr Long. I will see to that.” With that she motioned to the guards, who bent to shift the brake levers and then pushed the table out of the cell.
Long followed, then quickly turned to stare at Sarah and her grandparents. “This time you won’t be there to save him.” He started laughing and was still laughing when he stepped through the cell door and slammed it behind him.
Steam rolled off Sarah. Both grandparents had their hands on her, holding her in check with a gentle but firm grasp on her shoulders.
“Come, Sarah, we need to talk,” her grandmother said, gently pulling her away from the cold, blood-stained walls.
Reluctantly she turned from the dismal stone cage and followed her grandparents. She expected them to lead her back to her tent. Instead she found herself in her old house, their house, seated on the couch where she had spent hundreds of hours being cuddled and read to. It took her a moment to adjust to her new surroundings. Nothing had really changed; it was brighter though and felt newer. There was even the faint scent of Pine-Sol, her grandmother’s favorite cleaner and a smell Sarah had grown up with. It smelled like home, a woodsy, clean, wonderful smell.
Her grandmother walked in with a tray of fresh warm cookies and a glass of cold milk. Sarah thought a cold glass of Dr Pepper would have been better but wasn’t about to say anything. She was still trying to banish the images of Harry’s suffering from her mind. They were not obliging.
Her grandmother forced a fake frown and said, “Dr Pepper is your and your grandfather’s thing, and besides, cold milk and warm chocolate cookies just seem to go together.”
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