“Okay…” Sigh… “What’s your question?”
This time Sarah pulled back. She had been ready to blurt out the questions that haunted her, and now when the moment finally came, she hesitated. She wanted to ask him, Do you love her? More than me? Have you been with her?
But it came out, “Ah, hmmm, uh… well… ah.”
Harry smiled and drew a long breath that did not hurt for the first time in a long time. “You know, you’re right. Thoughts are indistinguishable from spoken words here.” This time his eyebrows rose as her eyes widened. “You forgot, didn’t you? Ha!”
“I, uh ah… yeah, I did.”
“Yes, Sarah, I have learned to love Belle; she changed. The North Star told me she would. I was skeptical. He saw that and called me on it. Do I love her more than you?” He snorted. “Did you love Kusaila more than me?” Before Sarah could respond, he continued, “It’s different, isn’t it? You are my all-consuming love. From the moment I first laid eyes on you I loved you. That never changed, but when I thought I lost you and when I realized Belle is really Lizzy’s mother, and when I needed her, she was there. And if I get out of here, it’s going to be because of her…” As an afterthought he added, “And because of you.”
“Finally… it’s over, it’s done, the curse is broken.”
Harry started and stared at Sarah. “What?! What did you say?”
“That wasn’t me, Harry… I heard it too. And it sounded like our old friend.”
“The sword at your services, my friends! I am back. The curse the dragon put on you is shattered and all is right in the world!”
“Excuse me!” Harry shouted. “All is right with the world? That is ridiculous! Even for you. I am still strapped naked to a steel operating table, being slowly butchered while my essence hides here in this dark pocket of my heart arguing with Sarah!”
“Yes, yes, well, we shall have to remedy that, won’t we? But in the meantime, can’t you celebrate that you are free to love Sarah?”
“I never stopped loving Sarah. And where have you been hiding? I could have used your help days ago, and when I needed you the most, poof, you’re gone off on some—”
“Ahem! I beg your pardon. I have been… shall we say, encumbered. Your assistants Brady and Raleigh have just removed that encumbrance and now I am available. And I must say you really have made a mess of things while I was away.”
Sarah, who had more than her share of the speaker sword’s haughty ways, was chomping at the bit to rip into his arrogant hide. Smoke curled from her nose, her eyes flashed, and had someone nudged her she would have shifted in a heartbeat into her dragon self.
“Now, now, Sarah, the wrath of man and especially of a woman does not accomplish the righteousness of God. And besides that, if you will hear me out, I have a solution to this dilemma, very effective and clever, if you will.”
Chapter 49
Long nodded to the guards who held Belle Rodum. They started to move away with her; then he called them back. He paused as though he were second-guessing himself, then said, “You know, Belle, I don’t think this is possible, but I am not taking any chances. So, I have placed an extension spell on you.” Belle’s puzzled look caused long to explain. “If by some freak accident you were able to get the thorn back and try to use it against me, or heaven—ha—forbid, the master, the moment the tip of the thorn pierces the strongman, if you are the one holding the thorn, you will be cast into the darkness as well, with”—he pointed to the smoldering ashes at his feet—“all the same torments as the one you pierce. Do you understand me?”
Anger flared through her golden eyes. Long stared back, unmoved. Finally, Belle nodded. Long looked at the soldiers and they proceeded to drag her across the room to an area just to the right of the altar. Long walked to the back wall and flipped a switch, and the room exploded with bright light. Belle squinted and then her eyes grew wide as she saw where the guards were taking her. In front of her was a large cross overlaid with silver. It was blood-stained, and smooth silver spikes the size of penny nails protruded from the cross piece. It was not elevated but didn’t have to be. She jerked and tore at the cuffs that bound her. The soldiers guarding her were prepared for her reaction. One swore as she broke free for an instant, blood spurting from his broken nose. But the others were on her, beating her, hammering her with their rifle butts. She screamed as one grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and brutally taped her mouth shut. Powerful hands gripped her shoulders, then a laugh. She recognized it—Cadmus!
“Oh, Belle, quit struggling. It only hurts worse when you do.” He seized her blouse and pulled, ripping it off her. Soldiers grinned and joined in. As they tore her clothes to shreds, Cadmus bent over her neck and whispered in her ear, “Be ready, Belle.” Then he slipped something into her hand.
The guards were leering; one reached out to grope her. Cadmus grabbed his hand. “Later! She is not to be touched until the sacrifice is over. You wouldn’t want the strongman to be angry that you spoiled her fun, would you?”
The man pulled back as though fire had been poured into his hand. Cadmus picked Belle up like she was a child and placed her on the cross. The tape muffled her screams as the silver spikes pierced her wrists. Cadmus shot a glance from the corner of his eye toward the gift he had given her. She gripped it in a tight fist.
Chapter 50
Harry woke to the rattling of a cart rolling through a stone tunnel. The floor was uneven and every time it hit a bump or fell into a dip, flames of agony would rip along the tortured lines of his body. He slipped in and out of consciousness. One minute he was covered by the mercies of darkness and the next he was staring wide-eyed as hot ceiling lights passed overhead. Finally, the cart stopped. He heard a door groan on rusted hinges. Then the journey began again. The room he was carted into was bright with glaring light from large bulbs hung across the ceiling. A face hovered over him—dark, familiar, male. Hard eyes and a goatee with a single grey streak dividing it.
“He is conscious, but only just. He has to be fully awake and aware, Dr. Oberheust. Preferably as painfully aware as possible without pushing him over,” Laden Long ordered, looking back at the beautiful German scientist who pressed close to him.
“Yes, sir, Herr Long.” Oberheust walked over to a medical cart, withdrew a large syringe with a wickedly long needle, and held it to the light. She slowly pushed on the plunger and green fluid spurted out the needle. She looked back at Long, who nodded. Bending over Harry, she rubbed the large vein in his neck with an alcohol cotton swab.
Long snorted. “I don’t think there is any chance of him dying from infection, doctor.”
She shrugged, “Old habits die hard, Herr Long,” and then carefully injected the fourteen-gauge needle into the vein.
Fire raced through Harry. He jumped, straining against the bloody leather straps that held him to the steel cart. A scream tore from his bruised lips. As his body spasmed, his eyes shot open, staring and after a few seconds focusing on the dark clergy hovering over him. Long’s teeth were bared in a smile that split his mocking face. Harry still struggled to focus thought: Dragon?
“Good of you to join us, Mr. Ferguson. I hope you’re quite awake.”
The fire that had raced through his veins was ebbing. The tremors that had racked his body were slowly subsiding. He was aware and beginning to understand the cold words that slipped from the man’s lips. As he continued to speak, Harry’s focus improved until finally he shuddered in realization. “Laden… Long,” he rasped.
The dark clergy’s face lit, his overly white smile radiating. “You remember… very good… very good! Now would you happen to remember why you are here?”
Harry closed his eyes, released a painful breath, and then in a remarkable show of strength raised his head as far as the straps across his chest would allow and whispered, “Yes.” He fell back onto his steel pillow, exhausted.
Long bent over him and in a pleasant voice continued, “And what would that be, Harry? Why are yo
u here?”
A tired smile crept across Harry’s swollen lips, causing Long to bend lower and closer. Harry used his last bit of gusto to roar the answer to the oppressor. “To kill you!” Harry strained against his straps, opened his mouth, and bit the cheek of the dark priest. He clamped down, ripping the facial muscle. Blood splattered across Harry’s chest, and his mouth filled with its metallic taste. Long shrieked, his hands covering his face. Oberheust reached for him. He pulled away from her, then caught himself and turned back to Harry. A guard handed him a wet cloth, and he held it to his bloody wound. Harry’s eyes were fixed on him, a contemptuous sneer half-hidden behind the blood. Harry deliberately swallowed slowly.
Laden nodded and whispered, bloody teeth showing, “Almost, dragon rider. Almost you… forced… my hand!” He spit out a large glob of blood and then chuckled. “But you didn’t. That didn’t change a thing!” He wiped his face with the dark-red towel saturated with his blood. Harry saw the large rip in the man’s face closing even as he spoke. “All you did, dragon rider, was to ensure that your friend,” he grabbed Harry by the hair of his head, twisting his neck to see Belle Rodum’s naked frame nailed to the large silver cross near the altar, “will die the most horrible death, an eternal one in flames and pain that never stops.” Then he stopped and peered at Harry as though struggling with an idea. “Or not. Harry, I will make you a deal… even now… even after your little outburst. I will spare Belle Rodum the abyss, the everlasting death, if you willingly surrender and offer yourself on this altar. You die quickly, she does the same. If you do not willingly offer yourself, then you can watch as I pierce her with the thorn… and she is cast into everlasting torment. What will it be, Harry? Will you give yourself in one last heroic sacrifice or will your stubborn pride condemn Belle Rodum?”
Harry stared up at the glaring lights strung across the ceiling. In spite of the drugs pumping through his veins, he was still confused. He had lost so much. He remembered there was a place somewhere in the darkness where he had hidden. He had met people there. A dragon… and someone else. His head ached; the memories he longed for were missing. Emptiness clung to him, despair; he could barely remember his name. Had Long not called him Harry he was not sure he would have known.
“Ferguson! Answer me!” The large callused hand of the tall reverend held Harry’s face in a viselike grip, squeezing him just enough to release a pain that would not let him fall back into the mercies of unconsciousness. “Will you do the right thing? Or will you force someone else to pay the price for you?”
Harry blinked and shook his head, desperately trying to free himself from Long’s grip. Exhausted, he stopped, exhaled a painful breath, and nodded. Long released his grip. “Say it, dragon rider. Say it. Speak it so all can hear.”
Slowly Harry opened his mouth and whispered, “I’ll do it.”
Long stared back, his eyes hard, his voice cold. “Do what, dragon rider?”
“I willingly sacrifice myself for Belle Rodum.”
Long nodded. “Finally!” Then in a loud voice he declared, “Let it begin!”
Two large doors opened, one at each end of the hall. Harry settled down upon the steel cart, an exhausted laborer collapsing into his pillow at the end of a hard day. He heard the rustling of soldiers, a hundred pairs of boots marching into the cathedral. Peace fell on him like a warm blanket on a cold night. He was reconciled. His decision was made. He sensed something was missing but could not find it, like a hole in his mouth where an old tooth had slept. His mind wandered through his memories only to find locked doors and dark hollows. But it was okay. It was over. The pain was coming to an end.
Then the drums began. Steady, rolling, unhurried, echoing the slow fevered pulse that pumped through his bruised veins. They were a dead man’s march into darkness. He startled as several soldiers picked him up from the steel cart and carefully, almost respectfully, laid him on the cold stone altar. Harry turned his head to watch as a regimental sergeant major in full dress uniform gently lifted one of his arms that had fallen off the altar to dangle against its side. For a second their eyes met. Harry saw reluctance, regret, and the respect of one warrior to another. The man did not want to be there. Then his eyes hardened, his feelings slipping behind experienced shields. The man stepped back and in a gesture that would mark him for life, saluted. Harry nodded imperceptibly, then closed his eyes.
****
Belle focused on finding words ancient and deep that lay concealed until times of stress and trauma. She reached far into hidden crevices of her soul that had been guarded by the evil of her ancestors. In her spirit she saw the doors that locked her strength behind them. She saw herself run toward them and hammer them, breaking them off their ruined hinges. Then the words came, gentle at first, then more and more till they ran like rivers of torrential power. She began to murmur and then to slowly recite them. Energy ran through her frame. The silver cross started to vibrate. The movement caught the attention of one of the guards assigned to her torment. He looked up to see her face glowing, her voice vibrant.
Enemies surrounded me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me.
They pierced my hands,
They look and stare at me.
O my Strength, hasten to help me!
I do not love my life unto death.
Give me strength to crush those who open the lion’s mouth,
And spare Harry from the horns of the dragon!
In the middle of her chant, Belle’s attention was drawn to the altar. Harry lay stretched out, his body crisscrossed with hundreds of bloody streaks. Laden Long stood above him dressed in black robes trimmed in crimson. On his head was a large hat, a mitre, a startling mockery of the hat a pope wears. It was black with gold trim with the swastika blaring from its center. As Belle watched, her mouth gaped, her heart thundered. Behind Long was a swirling oval mirror, large enough for a truck to drive through. But Belle wasn’t concerned about what might move into the gateway, rather what might come out. The silver-covered surface bulged. It reminded her of a child trying to thrust his finger through a sheet of rubber that stretched with every prod.
Long was chanting low tedious tones, wrapped in evil and seething with despair. They were invocations, words meant to break open prisons, to loose evil so vicious and consuming that only the vilest, most insane person would utter them. His lips were bleeding, huge blisters forming on his face and cheeks. The words were burning him, but he was so engrossed he could not feel his skin searing beneath the dark energy he was freeing. Slowly he lifted a twisted dagger higher and higher, creeping toward its apex. Long’s hands began to tremble. His face was radiant with madness.
Then an explosion rocked the cathedral, blasting a door off its frame. Soldiers were crushed as the stone and wood flew through the air like ragged flechettes. Belle watched as a giant hairy man and a huge white wolf tore into the Nazis. She wrenched against the spikes that held her. One hand was free, blood spurting from her wrist; then she pulled the other one free, blood pouring from it as well. She gripped the thorn, careful not to allow the tip to pierce her. Then she gasped. Long had recovered from the blast. His blade flashed and ripped into Harry’s chest.
The room shifted. Power vibrated a tuning fork echo, twisting everything, hurling them to the floor as it swept through the large room. Soldiers closest to it were slammed into walls or thrown against the stone ceiling. Brady’s roar sounded as though it were miles away, drawn out and laborious, broadcasting in slow motion. Pushing through an avalanche of dark, a muddy current thick and raging, Belle battled, straining to reach the center of the storm.
She heard her own screams stretched and slow, her stare riveted on the altar where Harry lay. Suddenly the storm broke, snapping back to regular speed. Guns flashed and barked in the cathedral as the Nazi soldiers fired at Brady and Raleigh. Brady held a soldier in front of him as a quivering bloody shield. The bullets of his comrades ripped through the body. The speaker sword sang as Brady sliced t
hrough men and steel, carving a path of gore headed straight for the altar. Raleigh, teeth flashing, claws ripping, tore and bulled his way through anyone that stood in front of him.
Belle heard another roar, only this time it was reptilian and it was coming through the mirror. The silver coating was gone. A large gaping hole filled the place it had been. Huge red claws were breaking through, squeezing the aperture open like a birth canal. Belle unclenched her fist; the thorn was still wrapped in the small piece of brown cloth. She hurriedly unwrapped it. She couldn’t think about what she was doing or what it was going to cost her. The strongman could not be allowed to come through the gate. No matter the cost. She gripped the thorn like tweezers and laughed in spite of herself. A giant evil dragon demon was pushing through the gate and she was attacking it with a splinter!
Long saw her. He realized what she had in her hand and lunged toward her, striking with the bloody knife he had pulled from Harry.
Belle dodged the blow and glanced toward the strongman. Her head was halfway through the gate! She looked back at Long, who had stopped his attack and was gazing at the beast, his hands hanging at his sides, mouth open in wonder. The dragon screamed in rage and struck the cave floor, causing it to shake, and then shrieked again. Its claws dug into the stone. It was desperately trying to anchor itself to pull out of the gap. But it was moving backwards! Something was dragging the strongman back into its prison
Chapter 51
Drums rattled, then suddenly stopped. Death was close. Harry could hear the mumbling and dark language of Laden Long. The man had worked himself into a frenzy. Words bubbled like sulfurous vapor, foul and angry. Harry flinched beneath their onslaught. Then felt something slip into place around him, like a tin roof on an old barn sheltering him from a hailstorm. The tainted thunderstorm of defilement could not touch him. He opened his eyes. The knife was hovering over him, held by Laden Long, whose contorted face was blistering. Harry laughed as he realized Long was in more pain than he was. Then the knife flashed.
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