“What happened?” he asked.
“You held the field for a little bit, but when you lost your focus, you woke up.”
He looked at his watch. Somehow only five minutes had elapsed during a training session that felt like it had lasted at least half an hour. He felt spectacularly exhausted.
“You have time for a nap before it gets dark,” Kat said reading his mind.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“No more dream-link drugs for you today,” she said with a smirk. “I didn’t think it was possible, but your little quips are getting even less funny.”
Drew grunted, put the medallion around his neck, stumbled to the guest room, and tumbled into a deep slumber.
*
*
*
Three gray creatures sprinted toward Alexis. With the wave of her hand, she disarmed them. They stood a moment in the shadowy place looking afraid of her and then ran away.
It’s like playing ‘pretend’ at school.
She thought about when her friend Bobby would pretend to be a tiger. For a little bit, the classroom turned into a dark jungle. His face looked like a tiger. If she got too scared, she could change him back into a boy. And then they would be back in a noisy room full of toys. The littler kids didn’t know how to change things back to normal without help. That’s why they cried for their mommies and daddies. But now, Alexis felt like a big girl.
Her new friend, Kat, had told her that in this place it was okay to make things move. And it was easier than it ever had been. Alexis liked Kat. She acted more like a big kid than a grown up sometimes.
“Alexis,” Kat said, “are you concentrating?”
“I’m trying to.”
“Okay, I’m going to bring more bad guys. Get ready.”
Alexis was happy that the shadow had not come today when she had taken her nap. The angel had visited her again. He was so beautiful and so bright. His glow never hurt her eyes, though. He’d taught her things like how there is both good and bad in all people. He warned her that she might have to go through a very scary time but promised that when the time came for her to notice the difference and chose between the dark and the light, she would know what to do. Then, they sung one of her favorite songs together. As soon as he had left, Kat showed up.
“Alexis, I want you to really focus now, okay?” Kat asked. She stood on a giant red rock. The sky was black, and Alexis couldn’t see really well, but she knew Kat wasn’t far away.
“Remember, we talked about focus? Think only about the things going on around you. See if you can do it!”
“Kowabunga,” Alexis said with a smile. Kat had let her pick her own thing to say that helped her do this focus thing.
“Okay, here we go. Be my brave girl and remember to use the things around you.” Kat leapt from the rock and stood a few feet behind her.
A lightning bolt lit the sky and, for a second, she could see lots of the gray monsters coming at her. The feeling she had standing in front of granny’s closet came back. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move her legs.
“There are too many, Kat!”
“No there’s not. You can do it.”
Alexis stuck her arms out and swirled them like a hummingbird. Not only did she rise up, but winds blew toward the monsters, stopping them.
“Good, now finish them off.”
She looked around her. There wasn’t much there.
“Can I throw rocks?”
“You can throw them all, honey.”
She stopped waving her arms and floated down. She wanted to make sure she really could do it. Alexis made herself get angry. So mad that she wanted to—
The ground shook.
The monsters started coming at her again. She closed her eyes, made her mouth into a circle, and blew. She used her imagination and saw the rocks flying at them. The monsters tumbled backwards like the bad guys did on Scooby Doo. She breathed in through her nose and blew again.
When she opened her eyes, there were no monsters left.
“Nice work,” Kat said giving her a hug.
When Alexis woke up from her nap, it was almost dark.
- Chapter Thirty Six—
The night prior to Night of Nights – Lake Arrowhead, California
There was little information that Tapusscar could not find when unconcerned about the bloodshed left in his path. He’d easily gained access to the local county office of records for the Lake Arrowhead region. Computers, security systems, satellite communication systems, and devices necessary to block incoming dream links required significant electrical power. Even if ownership was protected behind a mountain of governmental secrecy, no one got around building permits. He ransacked records, searching for the information he needed to ascertain their location.
The sole night security guard whined from behind the strapping tape across his mouth. His eyes, the last bastion of communication, watered and bugged out wide, obviously pleading to be left alive – the desperate measures of the beaten. Tapusscar had ignored them for years.
Only one man had not begged for his life after being defeated.
Two months before his nineteenth birthday, Tapusscar had lain in bed knowing it would be the day he defeated his father. He’d been close to victory for months. At times, he’d seen fear and uncertainty in the old man’s eyes, only to watch Father call on a hidden reserve of strength to defeat him.
The fights intensified in ferocity to the point that had his mother a backbone, she would have insisted they go outside. Instead, over the past three weeks, they’d broken plates, shattered glasses, and collapsed chairs en route to temporary stalemates that eventually led to victories for Father.
But on that particular day, Tapusscar had stockpiled a series of tricks. A few days prior, during the morning ritual, Tapusscar had inadvertently ripped the chain from Father’s neck, causing a gold medallion to fall to the cold, tiled floor. His father had erupted in rage, halting the fight with hissing profanity. The old man’s temper was legendary, but something struck Tapusscar as odd about the way he picked up the medallion and tucked it safely into his pocket before commencing the inevitable thrashing.
The next day, not only did the medallion hang from a new chain, but Tapusscar noticed defensive moves Father made to protect it. Insufficient attention to his father’s brutal offensive moves not only lost Tapusscar the fight but nearly cost him his eyesight. Father had grabbed a nearby steak knife and brandished it mere centimeters from his left eye.
That night, Tapusscar crept, an inch at a time into his parents’ bedroom, clipped the chain from around the snoring man’s neck, and snatched the gold medallion. Afterwards, Tapusscar lay in bed all night unable to sleep. In the morning, when he heard stirring, he trudged out to the kitchen. Without saying a word, his mother served him breakfast. She was doing her duty—nothing more.
Father stumbled into the kitchen a few minutes later, apparently unaware of the heist.
“It’s time for morning ritual,” Tapusscar said.
“Not yet.” Father dismissed him, sitting at the head of the table for breakfast.
“No, now, you weak piece of cow shit!”
Father exploded, reaching across to inflict punishment for the insult. Tapusscar deftly moved back, his father’s fist lazily sailed through the air, impacting nothing.
Tapusscar began a verbal assault that stunned both his parents. Father moved around the table and instinctively reached to touch his medallion. Like a chess master realizing he’d been trapped into checkmate, he stopped and stared blankly from behind the table. Then, the hateful accusations began.
“You’re a coward, old man, worthless in the eyes of the world, and today’s the day that I shall beat you.” Taking the offensive, he lunged across the table.
The personal war that had brewed for a decade, escalated to savage climax. Tapusscar took the advantage precisely where he’d planned. He reached under the table where, the night prior, he’d taped the knife. He raised it to Father’
s throat. He plunged the tip into an area that would cause bleeding enough to distract and thus neutralize his father.
His mother, suddenly and conveniently turned pacifist, raced to the rescue of her husband.
From behind she screamed, “You bastard, I disown you!”
Tapusscar timed perfectly the cocking of his elbow backwards; he connected with her nose, breaking it. Blood splattered across, forever staining the simple tablecloth his grandmother had passed down. Hands to face, the woman recoiled. Father squirmed beneath him.
“Do not fucking move,” Tapusscar shouted, adrenaline flowing through and intoxicating his system. “I have defeated you. Tell me the secret!”
“You’ve won nothing. You cheated. You stole my medallion and hid the knife. I will tell you nothing.”
“Then you’ll die today.”
Tapusscar pressed the knife on his father’s throat.
“Tell him!” Mother screamed. “I want him out of our lives!”
Father resisted. Tapusscar readied his hand for murder.
“All right, stop!”
“I want the truth about the secret!”
“Get off me and I’ll tell you.”
His mother, pressing a ragged cloth to her face, offered Father a towel for his wound.
“I don’t fucking need it!” he panted, and continued to apply pressure to the gash on his throat. Then, without taking his eyes off Tapusscar, he grabbed it from her. Father stumbled to the meager room at the front of their hovel. The old man looked like someone who’d just realized his entire life had been exposed as a fraud. He sat on the threadbare couch and stared at Tapusscar.
“Our bloodline, the ancestor of my father and his father before him, traces directly to the great warrior Spartacus.”
“You’re insane,” Tapusscar retorted. “That goes back two thousand years. There cannot be proof.”
“That medallion you have—the medallion that you stole from me—was his. It’s how he attained greatness in battle,” his father said, pressing the blood-soaked towel to his neck. “I hoped to mold you into a great man, but you are nothing but an ungrateful punk. You’ll never amount to anything.”
Believing none of the ramblings of historic lineage, and without saying another word, Tapusscar turned and walked out of his parents’ house and lives forever.
Weeks later, as he slept in an alley, Luzveyn Dred visited him in a dream and showed vivid images of Spartacus in battle. Except for his scars, Tapusscar even resembled the great leader.
A three-dimensional scene of the gladiator general and his army pillaging a small Roman town surrounded them. People ran amok as warriors on horseback chased down and killed them. The screams of terror faded but the violence intensified as Luzveyn Dred spoke.
“Tapusscar, of everyone in the history of your family, Spartacus included, you are the most prepared to help bring about the Night of Nights.”
“What is that?”
On Tapusscar’s left, a slave warrior had stabbed a blacksmith with a gladius, and now was raping the dying man’s daughter.
“Night of Nights shall be the uniting of my world with yours so that dreams may come true. Your father knew of the gold medallion’s power and tried to keep it from you. However, it was always meant for you.”
“How would you know that?”
“I have seen your dreams, my son.”
“How?”
Luzveyn Dred cackled. “Unbeknownst to you, that medallion contains enough of my world, my dimension, that you are pulled here every night. In time, like Spartacus before you, you shall learn to control it, to transport here to the Spatium Quartus at will.”
The nearby rape continued. The screaming girl flailed about in the dirt. Luzveyn Dred must have noticed Tapusscar’s interest. He moved closer.
“With the powers I grant, women beyond your dreams can be yours— young ones, beautiful and willing to be dominated by you. You can live with all of them together or you may spread them throughout the world and take advantage of them as you wish.”
The scene faded; a gray swirling mist was all that remained.
Luzveyn Dred continued. “Spartacus pledged to me his never-ending loyalty and I made him a great warrior. Will you do the same?”
Tapusscar quickly agreed, and at Luzveyn Dred’s direction, he kneeled and swore to a life of service.
When he awoke, the Tokarev was in his lap. The predawn forelight illuminated the gun, appearing to imbue it with omnipotence. Its cold metal barrel on his fingertips felt like the friend he had always wanted but had never known. The gold medallion on his chest was burning hot.
Soon thereafter, he followed Luzveyn Dred’s order to move to Naples and seek out the Sogno di Guerra. That was in 1988, a year ahead of the economic disasters that had devastated Bulgaria and had claimed the miserable lives of his miserable parents.
Tapusscar stopped rifling through permits. The specifications for one particular “family residence” built in 1988 drew his attention. It was ironic how, during the same year that his country of origin crumbled, his enemies built a hideout that he would destroy.
Now he knew where she was. He’d kill the others, secure the medallions, and capture the blonde. They outnumbered him. However, only he and his Master knew the power of his medallion.
Outside, the coast was clear; he no longer had a need for a potential hostage.
Tapusscar pointed his Tokarev at the security guard. The man, if he could be called a man, started bawling like a little girl, and turned away. Tapusscar aimed intently for the base of the skull, and fired hitting his target. It would have been a shame to waste more than one bullet on a cowardly piece of shit. He’d been fortunate to have been granted a quick death, without torture. A luxury the blonde bitch would not enjoy.
- Chapter Thirty Seven—
The night prior to Night of Nights – Rome, Italy
“But Tabatha, you know that I did absolutely everything that I could!”
Hyde’s pleas disgusted her. “It obviously was not enough, was it, Bernard?”
Apparently the shock and confusion of his capture had not yet faded. He still thought he could talk his way out of it. For some reason, she had expected him to put up a physical struggle, but the sight of him in the backseat, dwarfed by two of her Sogno di Guerra bodyguards, made that expectation rather absurd. He sat meekly between them as Nuncio sped towards the doctor’s final destination.
Dr. Hyde seemed on the verge of tears. “So it was my fault?”
“This is not about fault or blame, Bernard. Although I could not help but notice that your career did not swan dive after the OIA was shut down.”
“Tabatha, I was put in charge of an insignificant program. As soon as they could, they forced me into early retirement.”
Her patience ran thin. “I said that this was not about blame. I couldn’t begin to explain to you the significance of Night of Nights.”
Hyde’s lower lip dropped, came up, and dropped again. She may as well have been speaking Chinese. Dying would save him from having to watch his fact-based, scientific way of life collapse into a universe run by Luzveyn Dred. She turned and faced straight ahead as the car exited the freeway.
“Tabatha, isn’t there some way—”
“No, Bernard there is not.” Her first work day at the OIA flashed in her memory. Dr. Hyde was welcoming her to the “family”. He had used that word, not she.
Stress caused the saline liquid in her eyes to increase; they watered slightly. She opened them wide and clenched her jaw until the feeling passed.
- Chapter Thirty Eight—
Lopez opened the taxi’s creaky door, attempting, for a third time since they’d landed, to call Dr. Hyde. As he settled into the backseat, it rang until a messagio gratuito again informed him that the person he was trying to reach was unavailable. The cabbie lowered the volume of the radio that broadcast excited voices in staccato bursts.
“We should head to the university,” Lopez said.
“First, I have a stop to make. It’s on the way.” Alfonso said. Then he spoke to the cabbie. “Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.”
“I guess we need all the prayers we can get.” Lopez’s tone was sarcastic, but Alfonso didn’t seem to hear him. Lopez rolled down his window.
They looped around Leonardo da Vinci airport. After passing the main terminal, the cabbie made the sign of the cross.
“You go to church to pray for the people in the crash?” His reflected eyes peered from the rearview mirror.
“We just got off a flight ourselves,” Alfonso said. “What happened?”
“Many are dead. There was an earthquake south of here. They say it flattened Capua,” he said, checking the rearview again as if to make sure they recognized the town mentioned. “Many died. It was happening as a plane from Berlin landed. It crashed on the runway. There are many dead and injured. It is terrible.”
“Hector,” Alfonso whispered leaning in, “Capua is where Spartacus escaped.”
Lopez looked at Alfonso, and then gazed out the window as fields of nothingness in the countryside slowly gave way to high-rise apartments. On one of the balconies, a lady in a hairnet slammed a rug against a rusted porch railing. A bird, startled by the ruckus, took flight from the adjoining porch and soared away.
An impending sense of urgency crept over him.
Come and see!
“Alfonso, we both know that there is nothing we can do to stop Vesuvius from blowing. We’ve got to attack Dred at his core.”
- Chapter Thirty Nine—
Night of Nights – Naples, Italy
When the thunderous roar shook Naples Capodichino Airport, Stanley knew. Suitcases continued counterclockwise through the W-shaped pattern of the baggage claim carousel. Some people continued to wait nervously, while many drifted out past the unmanned customs booths to the terminal area. The ground continued to tremble, causing luggage to hop along the conveyer’s black rubber belt. He grabbed his Samsonite and quickly walked away.
He wove through the crowded building and stepped outside to where everyone stood frozen, mesmerized by the skyward-bound plume shooting from Vesuvius. The dormant peak, on the left and nearer the city, remained perfectly tranquil, as though bearing witness while its counterpart, the peak to the right, propelled an ash-white stream of earth into the hazy aqua sky.
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