by Chase Erwin
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
The Memoirs of Abel Mondragon: Volume 2 (Echoes of Demons)
Copyright © 2018 Chase Erwin. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 9781717780430
Chase Erwin on Twitter: @ChaseExLibris
Abel Mondragon on Twitter: @Abel_M_Mage
Cover art by Daniel Denova - @Tartan_Kiwi
Winds of Andusk character art:
Beltrin, Taryn and Remi by @HellaGhost; Caeden by @TheRamblingBard; Irek by @TjuringaToons; and Abel by Marisha Horza (Etsy: SpicyEskimoArt).
Frames used in the art section are designed by Stephen Clulow and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Volume 2: Echoes of Demons
CHASE ERWIN
Also by the author
The Memoirs of Abel Mondragon:
Vol. 1 – Captivity
Bloodbound:
Deluxe Edition
Mind’s Eye
The Railroad Ripper
CONTENTS
1. Protective Custody
2. Shattered Memories
3. Reflections
4. Guests of Honor
5. Whispers in the Woods
6. Basic Training
7. Prep Work
8. First Date
9. Collateral Damage
10. A Kaa Flies at Midnight
10. The Flood
11. Ambushed
12. Last of a Dying Breed
13. Storm Surge
14. Transcendence and Absolution
15. A Hundred Paper Cranes
16. A New Home
17. The New Day
1. Protective Custody
I was running as fast down the cobblestone path as my legs could carry me; sweat was pouring down my face and causing my already blurry eyesight to worsen.
I knew I was running out of fear… but I couldn’t remember just what had been frightening me.
“Abel, stop — for your own safety!”
These men had been shouting after me ever since I broke free of their grasp. I didn’t understand why they wanted me to remain with them, but they had too many weapons within their reach for me to feel safe.
Blades… swords… axes. That’s right! These men had been brandishing swords the last time I remembered seeing them! There had been so much bloodshed in the chaos. Then one of them demanded I come with them, and I obeyed.
Obey… Who am I supposed to be obeying?
“It’s no use,” one of the men said. I didn't think it was directed at me.
“No, you fool, keep running!”
I remembered there was something I could do with my hands… create electricity. I held out my hand, pointed in the direction of my pursuers.
A large bolt of orange energy shot from my fingers towards them. ZZZAAAAAP.
There was the sound of a pained cry and a clatter of metal and armor. I think I hit one of them. My lead ahead of them grew.
As I ran and ran, I tried to remember more about just where I was. I seemed to know the terrain well, enough to avoid a large pothole in the cobbles that I leapt over as I turned a corner onto a backstreet.
Uh-oh. I’m approaching a dead-end… Think, Abel, think - where can you go from here?
“Abel, please.” It was a new male voice. It sounded friendly yet concerned. It surprised me. I stopped in my tracks. When I stopped, a surge of dizziness washed over me, and I leaned against the wall of the building we were behind.
A horrible screeching noise echoed within my skull. It sounded like rubber being dragged across a freshly polished wooden floor, only about a hundred times more powerful.
“Don’t come any closer!” I held up my hand. I twitched as I felt a residual charge of energy build up from my shoulder blades. “Please — I don’t want to hurt you!”
No sooner had I said the words than the energy released, and a yellow bolt fired from the open palm of my hand.
The person who had called to me ducked, and the bolt passed harmlessly by, dissipating into a far wall with a few unimpressive sparks.
I began to shake… my body appeared to be giving up, even though my brain was still urging me to flee.
“It’s alright,” the male voice said reassuringly. He stepped slowly so he could be seen under the light of the building’s rear window.
He looked very much akin to a dragon. He had silver, leathery skin, and a round, oblong head, atop which was a rather smart, black top hat. He was wearing a white suit, which had I been paying much attention at the time, I may have called “gaudy.” He carried a walking stick, which he seemed to be favoring as he stopped his gait.
“Who are you?” I worried aloud.
“My name is Beltrin,” the dragonkin said. His voice was oily and reptilian, but still conveyed sincerity. “Beltrin Velasco.”
A far distance behind him, too far for me to see clearly in the night, stood the figures of four other people.
“These are my friends,” Beltrin said as he motioned to them. “We have been asked to help you.”
Tears began to well up in my eyes. In the few seconds I had to catch my breath, a few fragmented memories came back to me, including repeated images of the one thing I wished I could forget.
“Why don’t you begin by telling us who you are, and what has happened to you?”
“I”m… I’m Abel,” I began. “Abel Mondragon.”
From there, it was as if a floodgate opened. Memories, fuzzy though they were, were pouring back into my head, and my mouth tried to spit it all out as best I could.
I told the group how I had been abducted, along with my brother, by a group of men who had accused him of owing them a debt.
I recounted for them how they forced me to watch as he was made to drink a vial containing potent acid and died an agonizing death.
Pausing only for sobs, I told them how these men kept me prisoner, for a length of time I could only estimate at a year, testing various potions and elixirs on me, interspersing them with cruel and painful physical experimentation.
Beltrin exchanged a worried glance with his companions as I told them about how the liquids would give me temporary control of magic, and how, after nearly 200 such rounds of liquids, testing, and drugging back to sleep, I was now experiencing what I guessed were permanent side effects.
“That zapper I just threw at you? I can do that at will now,” I said in between gasps of air. “I can also do this…”
I squinted as I stared at Beltrin’s top hat. They all watched as the hat lifted from Beltrin’s head, hovered in mid-air for a moment, before I dropped concentration and it landed over the head of his walking stick to hang.
“I don’t want to be this way,” I said, the tears coming back in waves. “I just want to go back home… but I suppose I can’t. I don’t have a home anymore. I don’t have a family anymore. I have nothing.
“So please,” I said. My weight became too much for my overused legs to bear, and I sank to my knees. “Please kill me and put me out of my misery, I implore you.”
Beltrin frowned deeply, understandably upset with my request. He knelt to one knee, so he could address me.
“Do you know who you were with the last few days?”
I shook my head.
“They are from a… for lack of a better term, from a spy organization,” Beltrin said. “We know them as the Daggers of Allach. They were acting under orders to break into the place where you were being held and rescue you.”
I b
linked in confusion. Then I remembered — yes, these men were dressed differently than the ones who had been holding me captive. These men had red cloaks, while the others had gray…
Suddenly, I remembered something that was said to me on one of the first days of my ordeal…
“Welcome to the secret world of the Grey Ravens, kid.”
“The Ravens,” I whispered.
Beltrin nodded solemnly. “Yes, the Covenant of the Grey Raven was responsible for what happened. The Daggers here were trying to keep you safe until they figured out what all had been done to you.
“They say you developed a pretty severe fever shortly after they broke you out,” the dragonkin continued. “They say you began behaving erratically at that point. They’ve been trying to keep you comfortable until your fever came down, but you kept having bouts of fright and your magic would go off uncontrollably and you’d wind up escaping.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry,” was all I could think of to say.
Beltrin smiled. “You have no need to apologize. You’ve been through something terrible. We’ve volunteered to look after you now. You’ll stay with us.”
I didn’t particularly want to; at that moment, all I wanted to do was go back to my farmhouse outside the Galek city limits, crawl into my bed, and sleep for a month.
I realized, however, that was probably impossible, given how badly the Ravens wrecked the place the night I was abducted.
“Can you get up on your own, or do you need help?” Beltrin looked me over.
I blinked a few times as I tried, but my legs were too fatigued. They were not budging.
“Remi, could you give me a hand over here?” Beltrin called over his shoulder.
“Sure,” said a female voice.
Into the soft bath of light came a rather tall female Felinial. She sported a meticulously groomed coat of gray and pink fur; like a cat she had pointed ears and a soft pink button nose, but like a rather fit human, she had a muscular torso. She gave me a soft and understanding smile as she approached me from the right.
Beltrin turned to my left side, and together they lifted me to my feet. They bore most of my weight as I walked feebly with them.
“We’re staying at the church just down the road,” Beltrin said. “They won’t object to one more guest.”
“Nah,” Remi said, “that’s probably why they call it a sanctuary!”
I tried to laugh but couldn’t.
Beltrin, Remi and I walked past the rest of the group: two humanoids and one fae-like male who had grand, purple horns lifted vertically around his equally grand, light purple ears. The humans were standing; the fae was seated in a metallic wheelchair. I couldn’t tell if they were concerned, angry or just in a general state of sleep deprivation due to the late hour. They stayed several paces behind us and whispered a conversation as we made our way to the Church District.
Once we were inside the Galekian Church of the Great Mother, I was led to what appeared to be a large multipurpose room. It had a small bench off to one side across from a full-length mirror. There were eight cots laid out across the floor.
Irek, as I soon learned was his name, was dressed in simple peasant-like clothes. However, he wore a symbol of the Great Mother on a chain around his neck – he was obviously the group cleric. He mumbled slightly when he spoke, but if one knew he were speaking to them, it would be easy to make out what he said by reading his lips and hearing his inflections.
“Have you eaten lately?” was what I could understood when he finally spoke to me.
“Not that I can recall,” I said as Beltrin and Remi gently set me down on a cot.
My diet had been mostly a mystery. When I was first brought in, my captors fed me a steady course of soup made from rat and assorted entrails, but my eventual refusal of that dish coincided with their increase of potion use. My memory was heavily clouded, and I couldn’t remember any other specific food I had been given since.
“We’re out of rations,” Remi said to the group. “We can’t do a full shop right now — Caeden, is anything open at this hour?”
Caeden had been lost in deep thought. He had ink tattooed over his left hand – a tree. He might be a druid, I thought. He raised his head to speak.
“The Festival crowd is still up and about,” he said, indicating at the people walking past our single, barred window. “If nothing else I bet you could find a vendor or two selling treats.”
“The Festival?” I frowned. “Oh, no, have I missed the festival?”
The city of Galek was founded several millennia ago by a group intent on celebrating what are known as the five Great Sentinels - Family, Commerce, Knowledge, Expression, and Forgiveness. Each Sentinel has its own period of celebration at some point during the year.
The Festival of Forgiveness was a citywide celebration of both life and death. While remembering the departed, those who were living were expected to ask forgiveness from each other for any wrongs they had committed, and to forgive those committed against them.
Revelers were usually encouraged to indulge in the things that made life worth living - friendship, food, drink and fun (just short of what might be considered outright debauchery). That meant lots of chances for a chef like me to make a bundle on tasty food.
However, that chance seemed to have passed me by, at least this year. I was going to complain about missing the chance to earn money, but it seemed out of place at this time.
“The Festival only began yesterday. Let’s get you out of these ragged clothes and into something cleaner,” Remi suggested. She was standing by a wardrobe, rifling through drawers until she came up with a simple shirt and long-legged sleep pants.
She gingerly took my arm and helped me out of the shirt. My back was facing opposite the mirror.
The group gasped as my shirt came off.
“Great Mother in heaven,” whispered Beltrin, aghast.
“What in the hell did they do to you in there?” Remi placed her small paw against my back. It was then I felt what they had gasped about: a massive scar ran parallel with my spine, for at least seven inches or so.
In a flash, I saw myself, back in the Ravens’ operating theater, a giant saw blade whirring, digging into and separating my flesh. Blood… so much blood… and all the while, I am awake and cognizant of every ounce of burning, acidic pain their torture machine is causing.
My vision went white, and when it finally returned, I was on the floor of the church, crumpled in a ball, sobbing at the feet of my adoptive friends.
“We should get him something,” Beltrin said. “Taryn, what do you think?
Taryn, the fae, shrugged his shoulders with a small degree of petulance. “I don’t know — ice cream?”
Strangely, the thought of ice cream appealed to me. My breathing began to regain a slower pace, and the tears stopped flowing.
“I could manage a bit of ice cream,” I said weakly. Somehow, I felt as if Taryn was like the father figure of the group, looking after a large brood of children. By the same token, I felt like I was a six-year-old recovering from a bad illness. Ice cream!
Beltrin and Taryn excused themselves to leave and find the treat. Beltrin allowed Taryn to wheel his chair out the door before following him out. That left me, Irek, Caeden and Remi to bask in a very awkward silence.
“Perhaps we should let you lay down and rest?” Remi offered.
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. I began to lean back into the cot.
“Come,” Irek told the other two. “I’ll make us some tea. We should talk.”
The others left. Remi turned down the bright light of the oil lamp before she left, illuminating the room less and less until there was just a dull glow.
I stared up at the ceiling as I tried to make myself go to sleep. My gaze lowered in front of the window. The bars instantly made me remember the various cells and rooms I was locked up in at the Ravens’ lair. I turned to my right side to avoid that sight.
There was a calendar against
that wall. It read: 4 Springheight 1497.
1497?
When my brother and I were abducted, I had been making food for his birthday. That was on the 9th of Deepfrost… of 1495.
I did the math in my head. Fifteen months. I had been a prisoner of the Ravens, as well as their lab rat… for almost a year and a half.
So much time lost… Then, I remembered Antareus. My brother had been dead for a year and a half.
So much time…
The thought resonated in my head for the hour I was left alone, until Beltrin and Taryn returned with a small dish of ice cream. Beltrin assisted me, and the five new people and I gathered in the communal room as I ate.