Vilmo's Wrath: Deglon Blood

by Lachesha W. B.

  “You will not touch my children.”

  “Even after this body is gone, I will return. I will always find a way,” Dumont says in a low whisper.

  Robbie shatters the ruby with his spike and it vanishes. Robbie stands over Dumont as his burned, human body returns and then turns to ash. Instantly the gray sky clears.

  Looking up into Robbie’s eyes, Nora smiles.

  “You did it. I want to see things like we did as kids. Do you remember, Robbie?” Nora says weakly.

  Robbie lifts her head and slides beneath her, resting her body on his. He nods, waving his hands, bringing life to the dead world.

  The ground is now clean from the death that covered it. Flowers and grass fill the land. Distant sounds of horses stampeding through creeks makes Nora’s smile. As children, she and Robbie would sneak off to watch wild horses run through the fields near their home. Nora would often imagine herself running along the side of them as an equal, a strong mare, galloping, worry free through the open field in the sun.

  “Stop, Nora. Stop thinking this is the end. You're going to be fine, we are healing.”

  Nora touches Robbie’s face and wipes the tears from his cheek.

  “Our time is up. This is what Losrath meant. This is our sacrifice. Our death to this life. Never being with our children again. Giving all that we are so that life can go on. Gods cannot change the destiny of life, we can only give our people the strength to carry on in battle. Robbie, we must die to release our strength to our children. Our greatest sacrifice is us. We will find ways to protect our family, but they need our strength to survive. Let go, my love,” she says softly.

  Nora inhales deeply and whispers softly.

  “I give you all that I am, my sweet Lizzy.”

  “No. It can’t end this way!” Robbie yells.

  He looks down at Nora’s limp body and wipes his face free from tears. It’s not over yet, don’t leave me. Not yet, he thinks. Robbie lays Nora down and lies next to her in the grass. Blood spills from both their bodies and he reluctantly prevents himself from healing. They watch the birds, holding one another until Nora’s heart stops beating. Nora’s spirit stands, watching her husband grip her dead body as he sobs. He whispers I love you over and over again. Even in death, Nora feels his pain and love.

  “Let go, Robbie. It’s okay,” Nora whispers.

  Robbie looks up at his wife and smiles.

  “We will rule together. Side by side, my love.”

  Nora Nods.

  “Zen and Jonny, I leave my children in your care. Teach them and care for them as we would. Others will be after them. I will place upon them the ultimate disguise. For them to live, they must not remember us. Even you will become strangers to them. If they do not know who they are, they can never claim this family and will not be targeted. What, I ask from the two of you will be difficult, but it is the way it must be. JR, I give you all that I am, my son. Be strong, JR. Never stop fighting,” Robbie says making his last Szion call.

  Zen and Jonny sob while promising to protect the twins. Robbie holds tightly to Nora’s body.

  Nora plants a kiss onto Robbie’s cheek and drifts off into the wind.

  “I will be waiting for you,” Nora whispers.

  Robbie wipes the tears from his face and smiles.

  “I know, my love. Your wait will not be long,” he says releasing his last breath.

  He stares at the stream until he too is no longer one with his body. He smiles and vanishes.

  For a long time, Mia weeps holding the twins. A loud bang hits the door and before long, Light and Shadow charge the house. Jonny races the twins to the basement while Mia and Zen fight.

  “Listen. Stay here until I come for you. Shh,” Jonny tells the twins, hiding them in a small crawlspace in the basement wall.

  “Uncle Jonny, please don’t leave us,” Lizzy cries.

  Jonny kisses her cheek.

  “I will be right back, baby.”

  He closes the door and races back up the stairs. The sight of Mia’s beheaded body lying near the basement door infuriates him, but he is given no time to mourn. Jonny is thrown across the room. He hits a wall with a hard thud. The wall shakes and pieces of the ceiling fall on his head like flakes of snow. Jonny gets back on his feet in a flash. His spike flares with blue intensity and spins in his hand violently. He slings his spike with is mind, hitting three Light in its path. His spike returns to his hand as he leaps into the air slicing through another one of his enemies on the way back down.

  The room trembles with horrifying hollers and growls. Light tackle Zen, sending a pain through his mid-section, he heaves with nausea. With his elbow, Zen hit one Light with a killing blow to its neck, he plunges his spike into the other and tosses both bodies to the floor. Side-by-side Zen and Jonny fight to protect the twins. A long two minutes pass. The fight ends with Zen and Jonny standing in the center of bodies, slime, and blood. Their hearts are broken and their bodies are wounded. Zen drops beside Mia’s body and Jonny races to the basement.

  Reaching the bottom step Jonny hears an infant cry from the crawl space. He opens the door. Paralyzed by what he sees he eyes the children. Puzzlement crinkles his face. Different children occupy the spot where Jonny placed his niece and nephew. The girl—holds a slight resemblance to the Lizzy he remembered and the boy who was no more than a few months old, but unmistakably JR.

  The baby cries. Jonny lifts him.

  “Are you going to hurt my brother?” Lizzy asks in a soft voice.

  Jonny’s eyes fill with tears. He shakes his head.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asks.

  She shakes her head.

  “What is your name?” Jonny asks, reaching for her hand.

  She shrugs her shoulders. Zen walks down the stairs covered in blood. The girl gasps and hides her face behind Jonny’s leg.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Zen says, kneeling down so that she can see his eyes.

  She peeks at him. One look into his eyes makes her smile.

  “Pappy?” she whispers.

  Tears flood Zen’s eyes. He hugs her gently.

  “How does she remember you and not me?” Jonny asks.

  The girl pulls away from Zen and looks up at Jonny.

  “Are you my daddy?”

  Jonny wipes the tears from his face and shakes his head.

  “Oh. Where is my daddy?”

  Zen lifts her into his arms and he and Jonny walk out of the basement and leave the house.

  “Your parents are gone, sweetheart,” Zen answers, closing the door to their home.

  “They can’t come back, can they?”

  Zen shakes his head. Lizzy rests her head on his shoulder.

  “Do you remember them?” Jonny asks.

  Lizzy shakes her head.

  “No uncle Jonny. Just you and Pappy.”

  “You remember me?” Jonny asked excitedly.

  “I forgot for a little bit. I’m sorry if I made you sad.”

  Jonny kisses her forehead.

  “You only make me happy,” he says.

  “Pappy, what’s my name?”

  Zen looks at Jonny.

  “The ultimate disguise,” Jonny says with a smile.

  Jonny reaches for her and gives JR to Zen. “We are going to start a new life and forget all about our old life, so how about we pick a new name for you?”

  Lizzy nods and smiles.

  “Okay. How about Diana?” Jonny asks.

  Lizzy shakes her head.

  “How about Mertil?” Zen asks

  Lizzy frowns and shakes her head.

  “How about Auelia?” she says.

  Jonny smiles.

  “That is a good name. Where did you get that?”

  “The lady in my head,” she answers softly.

  Jonny and Zen look at each other and smile.

  “Okay, well ask her if she has a name for your brother,” Zen says.

  Lizzy nods.

  “Yep, his name is Samuel,” she
says happily.

  Jonny laughs and gives her a light squeeze.

  Without the use of teleportation, traveling is hard, especially with two children. For three days, Zen and Jonny traveled. Sometimes by car, other times by way of boat. Italy is where they make a home of a small house.

  For three months, they lived with no sign of danger. Zen and Jonny hoped that the worst was over and they could give the twins a normal life.

  Zen and Jonny are awoken to a banging at the door. Jonny jumps out of bed and approaches the door slowly with his spike in his hand. Zen glances out of the window in the living room and gives the okay for Jonny to open the door. He cracks the door and looks out to find a group of townspeople standing on the porch with smiles on their faces and dishes of various food in their hands. Jonny looks at Zen then he shuts the door. Zen and Jonny ignore the five other knocks that drilled their ears and woke the children. When the knocking became violent, Zen swings open the door and stares at the smiling mob.

  “What do you want?”

  “Ciao, oh you are American. Well, that is no way to greet your neighbors,” a small older man says, handing Zen a loaf of fresh baked bread.

  Zen looks at the loaf of bread and pushes it back into the man’s hands.

  “No thank you,” he says.

  The man gives him a questioning look and then smiles.

  “It was made this morning. My wife makes the best bread in the town,” he says proudly.

  He places the bread back into Zen’s hands and grips tightly on his overall straps.

  “No thank you,” Zen says, again giving him the bread.

  The man frowns.

  “Well, okay. I suppose you're not interested in the other dishes these fine people made just for you?”

  Zen nods and begins to close the door. The man places his foot in the way of the door.

  “So is it just you and your son that lives here?”

  Zen glares at the man, then gazes into each face. Without his Szion gifts, he couldn’t tell if they were demons or merely nosey humans.

  “Why is it your business?” Zen growls.

  The crown inches away.

  “We want no problems, just trying to be friendly,” the man says.

  Zen closes the door. He turns to find Auelia staring at him. Her eyes glistened with tears and her bottom lip shivers.

  Jonny picks her up and kisses her cheek.

  “Uncle Jonny, those bad people are here to hurt us.”

  “How do you know this?” Zen asked, gripping his spike and peeking out of the window.

  The end of silence and hope of normalcy disappeared quickly when Zen sees the group of people huddled in the yard whispering. Contemplating their attack.

  “The lady in my head told me, Pappy.”

  Jonny’s eyes glow as he growls.

  “The lady says they have a ruby, Pappy,” Auelia says. “What’s a ruby, uncle Jonny?”

  “It’s something very bad sweetheart. How many do they have?”

  “One,” she answers softly.

  “Jonny, get the children and run. They can only bind one of us with that ruby. Go quickly out the back door!” Zen says preparing for the attack.

  Jonny races out the door with the children. He runs for a little over a mile and a half then stops. He places the children in a bunch of tree shrubs and places his finger over his mouth.

  “Here, hold your brother and be very quiet. I will be right back,” he says, then races back.

  Jonny is hit with a gust of wind that knocks him on the ground. He slowly gets to his feet and starts to run again.

  “Jonny, stop!” a voice calls.

  “Robbie?”

  “Listen to me, Jonny. There are only 10 Deglon left. I have just given you and Zen the power you need to find every Shadow and Light and destroy them, you will once again be able to feel them as if you were still Szion, all Deglon will. Do not let Deglon life end. Free Zen. Find the rest of the beasts that want my children dead. Only kill in the Dark World. You have to leave them, Jonny. You will have to leave the children. Once you are not in their lives Lizzy will forget you. ”

  “No, I can’t do that, please don’t make me do that,” Jonny begs.

  “I’m sorry, but that is the only way. Come back for them, find them later. Now go! Now or Zen will die!”

  Jonny races toward Zen’s echoing screams. He stops nearly hundred yards away. Zen is bound by ropes and tied to the beams of the front porch. The people take turns hitting him with leather straps and thick sticks.

  “Where are the children?” The old man yells.

  As Zen laughs he coughs up blood.

  “Who wants to know? Not Dumont. He is dead.”

  “You lie!” The man yells striking Zen in the chest with a large sharp rock.

  “Nope! His soul is forever trapped in the Dark World. No one, not even your group of idiots can save him,” Zen says, spitting blood into the man’s face.

  Unsure of what to think about Zen’s words, the man steps back and paces on the porch.

  “Well, this gives a new opening. With those children, I can become the new lord. Where are they?”

  “Dead. Everyone is dead,” Zen says.

  “Well, then I’ll have to settle for you.”

  “What? Do you think I am just going to agree to let you have my body?” Zen laughs.

  The man strikes Zen again with the rock and then nods to the rest of the people to attack. After a few seconds, the beating stops. The old man leans in close to Zen’s face and laughs. He pulls the ruby out from under his shirt and smiles.

  “With this I can make you do whatever I want.”

  Zen laughs loudly. The man frowns, steps back, grips his overall straps and sticks out his chest. Jonny draws his spike and throws it.

  “Laugh all you want, but with this stone I am …”

  Jonny’s spike shatters the stone and goes through the man’s chest. Zen’s eyes light up with an intense brightness and flames leap from his body. The people scream and run. The ropes burn and Zen jumps to his feet. He roars loudly, dropping each one of his attackers to the ground. Blood pours from their ears, nose, and mouths. With another ferocious growl, their bodies drop dead.

  “Zen, are you alright?”

  “I will heal. Where are the children?”

  “Zen, Robbie says—he says we have to leave them.”

  Zen shakes his head.

  “No. That is an order I cannot follow, my lord,” he says.

  Jonny smiles. He and Zen race to the children. Their hearts pound as they follow a blood trail. Their eyes dart from puddle to puddle until they land on the very place the children should be. The branches are scattered and blood is splattered on the trees. Jonny drops to his knees and grips his hair. Zen repeatedly pounds the tree in anger, both men sob and curse themselves.

  “We are too late,” Zen says softly.

  Deglon Blood

  Series

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