“Surely, your race was more intelligent than blaming each other for such stupid and miniscule things.” Jacob laughed maniacally. “Plain fact of the matter, Lord Adrian, is you aren’t. I simply suggested things, and before you knew it, there was war. I thought, if only humanity would wipe itself out, we, the Immortal Ones, could roam the Earth, the galaxies, the universes to our hearts content.
“Instead of seeing the death and annihilation as something marvelous and to be celebrated, they grew angry. So, angry, and distraught, indeed, they even cried over your pathetic race. Thus, the Siapheg and the Teselym were born. One to balance the good and one to balance the evil.” Jacob spat the words out.
“Blah, disgusting. I was so angry about their need to save the human race from itself, I began to exchange the songs I would sing to enchant the people to songs of war. I sang of all the things that had happened and all the battles. I wiped the smug smiles right off their faces. When they realized I was to blame for all the death and destruction, they cast me out.” Jacobs face darkened.
“Not only was I cast out, but I was cast so far out, that even the universes were out of my reach. I was banished to the ‘Nether World.’ When I tried to come back, they locked me out for eternity. Now, the only place I can be is here on this Earth and the Nether World. I? The most gloriously talented being in all the millions of galaxies. Sentenced like an outcast, allowed only to roam with the lowest infestation of the human race that swarm around me. I was no better than a common roach.”
“So, that is why Wylie and I must die?” Adrian ventured to ask, interrupting Jacob’s selfish reverie.
Jacob was jerked back to reality.
“Ha ha ha, no. You? Adrian. I am going to kill you for the fun of it because the Immortal Ones granted you a mythical body and you can do whatever you please. Wylie must die because she is of the Teselym bloodline, and that just isn’t working for me. I need everyone to die. I need the whole world to become so overwhelmed with hopelessness that they long for death. And when I deliver it, they will see it as a mercy. Then perhaps the Immortals will see my power and allow me back into the celestial towers once more.”
“Hey! What is going on here!?” Professor Cornelius had arrived, in the middle of their conversation, dressed to the nines in a black suit and top hat, his wrinkled face sad and yet surprised. Wylie’s funeral, he must be handling it on his own?
“Oh, Professor. How very nice to see you here. Look at this incredible creature I found!”
“Incredible indeed! But what happened to Cyrus?” Professor Cornelius pointed outside, to where Cyrus still lay; the blood flow had long since slowed, but he remained unconscious and unmoving.
“That gall darned beast did it! Swooped down and attacked him, Professor.” Jacob lied. “I was so afraid. I didn’t know what to do, so I trapped it here. We need to catch it and lock it up before it hurts anyone else.” Jacob played up his youth in that moment, the fear in his eyes seemed all too real. Adrian couldn’t blame the professor for falling for it. After all, Adrian himself had been taken in.
If only I could warn Wylie and Quincy.
I wouldn’t even think about that if I were you, Adrian. Jacob warned, using his mind speak to do so.
“Well, I suppose we could capture it. I imagine it would be worth quite a lot. I still can’t believe what I’m seeing. Are you sure it’s real? It hasn’t moved in the slightest.” Professor Cornelius watched Adrian with keen interest, coming a little closer for a better look.
“I sssssuppoooossssseeee it could be a sssstatue……” Jacob hissed and slithered. Adrian had averted his eyes for just a second to watch the advancing professor. In that brief moment, Jacob’s body had disappeared and in its place, a large snake wriggled and writhed. The huge body followed the edges of the room, filling up the empty spaces, circling around the professor and Adrian with quiet calculation.
“My golly. What’s this? What's happening? Jacob? There’s a huge snake. Jacob. Call for help,” the professor yelled, quaking in his boots, his voice full of fear.
“Pleassssssse sssstop yelling Professssssor. You’ll scare everyone away, and I don’t need that!”
Adrian chose that precise moment to fly up into the top of the barn and roost on a rafter.
“Go ahead, Adrian, I’ll deal with you laterssss.” The Jacob snake had grown tremendously in size. His scaled body was crushing every bit of machinery and all the inventions he slithered over, including destroying, yet again, Adrian’s steam-powered carriage, or what was left of it.
“Don’t wriggle or resist, it just makessssss it more painful. I promisssssse this will all be over quickly.” Jacob coiled around the professor who tried to jump over the slippery body, but he fell just as he was about to make it. Adrian flew down and grabbed the professor’s shirt in his beak, trying to help him.
Jacob’s rattling tail lunged at Adrian, attempting to knock him out of commission. Adrian was forced to let go of Cornelius, and fly back up to the rafter watching helplessly as Jacob’s hold on Cornelius got tighter and tighter.
Now is my chance! He won’t free Cornelius to come after me! Adrian flew out of the wide-open door and went in search of Quincy and Wylie. He wasn’t sure, but as he got out of sight of Jacob, he was sure he could hear the horrible beast hissing and yelling.
Must try to help Cornelius.
“Quincy. Quincy. Where are you? Hurry. We don’t have much time. Jacob is going to kill Cornelius.” He dashed over the barn roof, and flew in through a window of the Octagon Inn, breaking it as he had done the one in barn building. “Quincy. Quincy.”
There were more people than usual present inside, and they gasped at Adrian’s fiery orange and red plumage.
“Is that a …?” one called out, unable to believe his own eyes.
“How in the world?” another woman said.
“Quincy.” Adrian called again, but when he didn’t see him anywhere, he flew back outside and up to perch on top of the barn and think for a bit. He noticed a small insect was already on the portion of the roof he had chosen. Suddenly he realized with a huge sigh of relief, it was Quincy.
“Quincy! Did you reunite Wylie with her body?”
“No, they’ve already buried her. If I would have brought her back to life, it would have suffocated her human body the moment her essence resumed its place.
“We must hurry; Jacob has Cornelius and is going to kill him.” Quincy began to increase his size.
“I’m limited in what I can do, because you and Wylie will restore the balance together, but I can help you dig up her grave. It can’t be far?”
“It’s just up the road apiece,” Quincy said.
“The cemetery is not here on the property?” The idea was foreign to Adrian. All the families kept their family plots on their own property in London.
“We aren’t in London. This is America. The cemetery is just up the road there, next to the church.”
“Quincy, Cornelius is going to die."
“Yes, but more people will die, if you don’t reunite Teselym Wylie with her body as soon as possible. You think losing Cornelius is going to be a loss, you have no idea the terror that Jacob and Jameston have planned.”
“Wait, you know about this?” Adrian questioned.
“Look, I’m a helper. I don’t have all the answers, but yes, the gods gave me some information. Just enough to help you take the next step, but we must hurry. Teselym Wylie is fading fast without her body.”
“Yes, yes.” Adrian took to the air, his mind in a whirl at everything that was occurring at the moment. He flew the streets of Long Island until he discovered a very large cemetery. “How odd,” he thought as he soared overhead reading as many of the stones as he could. Everyone seemed to be there, from every walk of life. He spotted a few fresh graves, then one that looked so fresh he could smell the freshly turned earth from where he was. He swooped down, and sure enough, the headstone had Wylie McCollum on it with no birthdate and Died 1852. Adrian used his ta
lons to start clawing at the dirt as fast as he could.
An enlarged Quincy jumped in as well, pulling out large clods of dirt with his large clawed front feet, until they finally reached the wood of the coffin a few feet down. Adrian grabbed the handle on one end with his beak, and Quincy grabbed the other end following Adrian’s lead. Everything was happening so fast, there was no time to think or breathe.
When they had the coffin up on the grass, Adrian flipped open the lid quickly.
“Come on Quincy, reunite them.” Quincy slid the Dracosinum off his neck, and turned the knob with two of his earth-caked talons. The winged cover flipped open with a loud click and the fading blue light that was Wylie’s essence immediately entered her human body. At that instant Wylie took a long deep breath as they were made one once more. Adrian started to pick up her Dracosinum from the grass, but it rose of its own accord, and slipped itself over her slender neck.
Adrian could feel tears forming quickly when he saw how sickly she looked. He was sure she would never recover, he would lose her forever.
Minutes passed, and Adrian couldn’t find the strength to breathe.
“Quincy?”
Quincy shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know, Adrian! That should have worked. I don’t know!”
Wylie’s emaciated body remained still. The sunshine and the singing birds all seemed to be suspended in time.
“Wylie? Wylie, my love. I need you. Please, fight for me. Jacob is going to kill Cornelius. Probably already has.” Her slight hint of color seemed to grow paler, if possible, under the harsh daylight. “Wylie!” Adrian cried out, his heart feeling as if it would rip from his chest. She’s gone! I’m too late! I can’t believe she’s gone. He had hoped that repeating the mantra over and over would somehow magically resurrect her, but she remained still and cold as ice.
Chapter Eighteen
Adrian’s world came crashing down around him. Wylie was gone. She was really gone. He just couldn’t internalize the truth.
Jameston and Jacob had taken away his one true love and best friend. He would make them pay. Adrian shot straight to the sky and shot like an arrow back to the barn so quickly that Quincy couldn’t keep up.
“You’re going to pay, you Hell beast!” As he screamed in anger, his body seemed to enlarge with it. His love for Wylie had been enough to bring him back from death, his anger for her senseless loss of life was going to have to be enough to put a stop to evil once and for all.
He took a huge breath, the fire magic starting in his stomach, and as he opened his mouth, he sprayed out a great blast of flames along the scaled body of the Jacob beast.
“Tut, tut! Such anger does not become you, Adrian. Whatever is the matter? Angry over a little ol’ professor?” Adrian looked around the interior of the barn building, expecting to see Cornelius’s lifeless body, lying somewhere, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Oh, you looking for him? Oh, no. A snake as large as I never waste a meal, especially one as tasty as Professor Cornelius!” The Jacob snake tossed his head back and laughed maniacally again, clearly pleased with himself and unfazed about how angry Lord Adrian was.
“Even as I light your body on fire, you laugh? You will die today, Jacob. You will die.” He flew hard at the Jacob snake’s head, his beak aimed at the snake’s eye like a carefully guided arrow. A split second before impact, the snake’s tail whipped up, and knocked Adrian out the air.
“Did you think I was going to be that easy?” Adrian shook his head to clear it, then flew back into the air and launched himself at Jacob’s head again, this time not caring where he landed as long as he took out flesh. Jacob tried to duck his diamond shaped snake head out of the way, but Adrian had managed to graze a cheek.
“You’re never going to take another life,” Adrian called out, and he dove again, taking another chunk out of the snake’s head.
“Oh, I’m afraid you’re very wrong about that. See, I’m not the one dying here today. I have things to do after this, but you, you have nothing left. I’ve killed the one woman you love, I’ve destroyed your invention, and your livelihood, and now you don’t even have a stable boy.” The Jacob snake tossed his head back and laughed, clearly pleased at his little joke.
“No, you’re wrong!” Adrian screamed, not noticing that Jacob’s body had slithered closer to him. The end of Jacobs’s tail hit him again, knocking him out of his flight pattern once more. Adrian fell hard and was caught in the constricting grasp of the Jacob snake. No amount of wriggling and squirming would get him free. As the snake tightened his grip, Adrian couldn’t even think straight to get himself out of the situation.
“Sssssay bye-bye, Adrian. Tell the godsssssss I give them my besssst.” Jacob slithered as his body got tighter and tighter around Adrian. Adrian tried to reach within his phoenix being and summon the magic fire that he knew came from within, but Jacobs grip was so tight, he couldn’t even breathe. After everything he had done, Cornelius had been eaten by the snake, Wylie had still died, and Quincy was nowhere in sight.
“Please. Don’t do…” Adrian couldn’t even get the rest of the words out; his vision was going black. He was sub-consciously aware of people screaming, but there were little sparks floating before his eyes now. He could feel his phoenix body being crushed under the vise grip of the Jacob snake, and he knew his time had come. I failed. He gave in to the darkness that closed in on him.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hey Jacob, I brought a friend.”
Jacobs diamond shaped head whipped around to the door, just as he was about to tip his head back and swallow the gamey little Adrian bird whole.
A phoenix? That’s what the gods had resorted to? What a pathetic attempt to right all the wrongs that he had committed. Oh well, never mind. He was nearly done, and once he was finished, humankind would gladly end their own lives. That was how things would be. Without Teselym Wylie to balance out the good, they would have no compassion or mercy.
“Jameston, what are you doing?” Jacob asked.
Jameston shook his head. “What I should have done a long time ago. I know that as a Siapheg, I am evil. There is no way around it. I rightfully deserve anything that is due to me, thinking back at how I treated my daughter. It’s my fault she’s gone. I know that and I can never bring her back, but I can’t continue killing without reason.”
“You disgust me.” Jacob responded. “No worries, I’ll be done with you in a moment.”
A smashing sound came from the front doors as they burst open and crashed to floor in splintered pieces.
“You’ll have to get through me first.” A huge, beautiful white dragon stood in the doorway, her head held high, smoke billowing from her nose.
“Wylie! I killed you! What are you doing here?”
Wylie stepped forward into the barn, her steely-eyed gaze focused intently on the deadly coiled body.
“You see, the magnificent thing about this whole arrangement between all of us and our bloodlines is that the only way it works is if there is a balance between right and wrong and good and evil. You, however, threw off the balance when you enlisted Jameston here to help you on your killing spree. At that point the evil outweighed the good, and that’s why the Phoenix Lord was created.
“With Adrian dying, as we speak, there’s nothing left to balance the good. The gods have allowed me more time, and here I stand before you. My next task is to rid the world of you, so that Jameston can go back to doing his job, and I can go back to doing mine.”
“Hmm, that may sound good to you, princess, but it doesn’t work for me.” The Jacob snake opened his mouth, and raised Adrian’s limp body above his fangs, ready to drop it in.
“That’s not going to happen.” The glorious white dragon that was Teselym Wylie flew into the room, opening her mouth, and sending a rain of fire down upon Jacob. The moment she did so, he transformed back into his human form, leaving Adrian lifeless on the ground.
“What’s the problem, Jacob? Let’s fight it out.”<
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“Oh, I very much want to fight you, but let’s fight fair, shall we?” he hissed between clenched teeth.
Wylie landed on the ground and stared at the human form of Jacob for a long while.
“Hmm, as much as I would hope that to be your true desire, Jameston has told me some things that made the hair rise on the back of my neck. I don’t think you know how to play fair. So, let’s fight the best way for both of us.”
“Wylie, just kill him already! Trust me! It’s for the best!” Jameston yelled out.
“Jameston, you know I can’t do that. There has to be a balance.” Wylie responded.
“Fine, then I will.” Jameston, unable to transform into his Siapheg form without his Dracosinum, pulled out a pistol he had been carrying in a leather pouch on his hip. He aimed it at Jacob and pulled the trigger. Wylie turned her head away, unwilling to view the aftermath.
“Laughable really, Jameston. Did you actually think that was going to work?” Jacob tilted his head slightly, watching the man’s response.
“Jacob… I…” Jameston took a step back. As Jacob stepped forward, Wylie stood in front of Jameston, separating the two from each other.
“Not you too, Wylie? I can reach right through you to him and kill you both. Is that what you want?” Wylie shook her head, anger bubbling up inside of her. Her human side, boiled with rage. She wanted nothing more than to reach out, and grab Jacob by the throat, tearing him limb from limb.
Jacob raised his arm, and swung it at her scaled dragon face before she had time to react, hitting her so hard, she flew across the room and hit the wall. Her pearlescent body fell to the ground, her wings glimmering softly in the light of the sun which peeked in through the broken front doors. Adrian hadn’t moved, and she wondered if he had been crushed by Jacobs’s constriction.
The Phoenix Lord (The Dracosinum Tales) Page 13