Tyranny of Coins (The Judas Chronicles, #5)
Tyranny of Coins
The Judas Chronicles
Book 5
by
Aiden James
Acclaim for Aiden James:
“Aiden James has written a deeply psychological, gripping tale that keeps the readers hooked from page one.” Bookfinds review for “The Forgotten Eden”
“A variety of twists, surprises, and subplots keep the story moving forward at a good pace. My interest was piqued almost immediately and my attention never wavered as I forced my eyes to stay open well into the night. (Sleep is overrated.) Aiden James is a Master Storyteller, whose career is on the rise! Out-freaking-standing-excellent!” Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews, for “Plague of Coins”
“The hook to this excellent suspense thriller is the twists that will keep readers wondering what is going on as nothing is quite what it seems. Adding to the excitement is that the audience will wonder whether the terror is an evil supernatural creature or an amoral human…Aiden James provides a dark thriller that grips fans from the opening.” Harriet KLausner, for “The Forgotten Eden”
“Aiden James’ writing style flows very easily and I found that Cades Cove snowballed into a very gripping tale. Clearly the strengths in the piece were as the spirit's interaction became prevalent with the family…. The Indian lore and ceremonies and the flashbacks to Allie Mae's (earthly) demise were very powerful. I think those aspects separated the work from what we've seen before in horror and ghost tales.” Evelyn Klebert, Author of “A Ghost of a Chance”, “Dragonflies”, and “An Uneasy Traveler” for “Cades Cove”
“The intense writing style of Aiden James kept my eyes glued to the story and the pages seemed to fly by at warp speed…. Twists, turns, and surprises pop up at random times to keep the reader off balance. It all blends together to create one of the best stories I have read all year.” Detra Fitch, Huntress Reviews, for “The Devil’s Paradise”
“Aiden James is insanely talented! We are watching a master at work….Ghost stories don’t get any better than this.” J.R. Rain, Author of “Moon Dance’ and “Vampire Moon” for “The Raven Mocker”
BOOKS BY AIDEN JAMES
CADES COVE SERIES
Cades Cove
The Raven Mocker
THE TALISMAN CHRONICLES
The Forgotten Eden
The Devil’s Paradise
Hurakan’s Chalice (with Mike Robinson)
GHOSTHUNTERS 101 SERIES
Deadly Night
The Ungrateful Dead
THE DYING OF THE DARK SERIES
The Vampires’ Last Lover
The Vampires’ Birthright
Blood Princesses of the Vampires
Scarlet Legacy of the Vampires (with Patrick Burdine)
(Coming September 2014)
THE JUDAS CHRONICLES
Plague of Coins
Reign of Coins
Destiny of Coins
The Dragon Coin
Tyranny of Coins
WITH J.R. RAIN
The Nick Caine Adventures
Temple of the Jaguar
Treasure of the Deep
Pyramid of the Gods
Curse of the Druids
(Coming March 2014)
WITH MICHELLE WRIGHT
The Judas Reflections
Murder in Whitechapel
Curse of Stigmata
Blake 187
A Zombie Revolution
WITH LISA COLLICUTT
The Serendipitous Curse
Reborn
Reviled
WITH JAMES WYMORE
The Actuator
Tyranny of Coins by Aiden James
Published by Aiden James
Copyright © 2013 by Aiden James
Cover design by Michelle Johnson
Ebook Edition, License Notes
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Tyranny of Coins
Prologue
Greetings from Sedona, Arizona.
I say this not without trepidation. After being evicted from our previous lives in Virginia by Krontos Lazarevic, we’ve spent the past five months looking over our shoulders while searching for a new home. Preferably, it means a haven beyond the voyeuristic reach of our latest, and most deadly, nemesis.
Not an easy proposition, since this enemy holds an enormous advantage over my family—Beatrice, Alistair, and Amy Golden Eagle—and my closest friends, Roderick Cooley and Cedric Tomlinson. As many will recall, Krontos Lazarevic successfully flushed us out of Roderick’s splendid underground fortress in Abingdon. He made certain I personally understood his intent to confiscate the twenty-five coins held in my possession. Silver shekels once paid to me for the betrayal of Jesus Christ nearly two thousand years ago. The majority of these coins I have tirelessly hunted down during the past century, and am in no hurry to relinquish. Not a single blood coin, as I like to refer to them, will I hand over without strong incentive to do so!
However, to save my beloved son, Alistair, and the woman I cherish above all others, Beatrice—I would forego my hoped-for redemption and give all twenty-five coins to whoever forcefully demanded them. I would do this, if it could guarantee my family’s permanent safety and prosperity. Same thing goes for Amy, Roderick, and Cedric.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
What follows is not an account that’s been resolved. We remain in grave danger. But rather than wait until after reaching a final outcome or after securing the permanent haven we diligently seek, I’ve decided to bring everyone up to date now on the latest events, and continue on from there.
So, lend me your attention and hold on tight to those you love.
It’s what I intend to do.
William
Chapter One
It took almost three months to find a place safe enough to serve as our home. Not a permanent pad, but someplace nice. Cedric had hoped his cousin would put us up in the Indiana farm he mentioned back in Abingdon. But after receiving a less than gracious welcome, we stayed the night and moved on to the rural outskirts of Kansas City. Another farm, this one belonged to a government friend of Roderick’s.
I thought we might stay a month or two in this locale. However, when a pair of decomposing red roses was left outside the front door three mornings after our arrival, we were back on the road within the hour. It might’ve been a strange coincidence for what appeared to be Lazarevic’s calling card, but no one was willing to chance it.
We headed south to Austin, Texas, as Amy won the debate with Alistair on where to try next. If Austin turned out like Goshen and Kansas City, we would appease Alistair’s hankering to visit New Orleans.
Austin was great for Amy, as her brother, Jeremy Golden Eagle, presently resided there. His large bungalow offered plenty of room to keep us from negatively impacting one another’s personal space. Not to mention, the restaurants and nightlife in Austin are exceptional.
We stayed with Jeremy almost a month, and began looking for several houses in the area to comfortably appease everyone. Perhaps that was the problem. We were becoming too much at home. In reality and later in retrospect, we hadn’t found a haven of any kind, only distractions from the malevolent unseen eyes of our Hungarian adversary. I could feel him. Roderick felt him, too. Lazarevic, or his
spying essence, was somewhere close.
When Beatrice began spending much of her days frowning while warily looking around, Roderick and I overruled Amy’s reluctance to leave. She couldn’t sense the danger, which surprised me. Even Alistair went out of his way to ensure the blinds and curtains throughout the main floor of Jeremy’s place were closed throughout the day, and the doors and windows locked tight each evening.
The uneasiness intensified during our last week in Austin.
“So, can we now go to Nola, Pops?” asked Alistair, a twinkle of orneriness in his soft brown eyes. He had recently completed his regression from a sixty-year-old man to twenty-one. His eyes and generous smile were all that remained as physical traits of the old Georgetown professor, thanks to the ‘age reducing’ crystals he, Amy, and Beatrice possessed from Iran’s Tree of Life.
“Nola?”
“It’s how the locals down in Louisiana refer to their wonderful port, William,” said Roderick, pulling back the blinds covering the main picture window in Jeremy’s living room to peer outside. “It has changed quite a bit since the last time you were there… 1929?”
He chuckled, closing the blinds and joining Cedric near the small wet bar that had become our favored oasis. Roderick seemed almost comfortable in the snakeskin boots and black Stetson he had adopted as his ‘new look’—even with his near seven-foot height. A pair of mirrored sunglasses made him appear more Texas Marshall than oil tycoon. Especially with his closely cropped white hair died brown, and the latest cosmetic bronzing upon his ashen skin. Knowing he would soon discard his new get-up for something else, I hadn’t needled him about it.
Everyone’s emotions remained on edge, wondering when Lazarevic would strike next. Whether the next visit would bring him to us in the flesh.
“I had a layover in 1984, on my way to Houston,” I corrected him. “My stay lasted for only three and a half hours, and I never left the airport. So, technically you are correct. But, you know my aversion to most acronyms.”
“So, based on some silly prejudice, you’ll stall us from making the trip?”
The twinkle had kindled a blaze in Alistair’s eyes. Baiting me. Baiting his father to come clean on why I was hesitant about New Orleans. Since we share the same inquisitive trait, I could easily sidestep the interrogation soon to follow his initial question.
“No. Not prejudice. Just the ‘still small voice within us all’ telling me to keep my eyes peeled,” I replied. “And, to not ignore my gut.”
“What in the hell, Pops?!”
“I think your dad is picking up the same thing I am,” Roderick said to Alistair. “We’re running out of time to be willy-nilly in our search for a suitable refuge. Krontos is toying with us. I would rather be someplace that provided a chance to keep surprises to a minimum. I don’t think it will happen in a city that invites decadence… do you?”
“What about the Garden District?” Cedric interjected. “And not every place near downtown is for the sinners of the world.” He smiled warmly, and his brown eyes were aglow within his smooth ebony complexion. They bore almost the same impish glint that was once his trademark before his sabbatical in Bolivia. He had yet to recover from time spent in another dimension barely tied to the Bolivian and Peruvian worlds most of us understand.
“A better question is ‘Where in the Garden District?’” I moved to squash the debate. “Unless you come from old, connected money, you’d be hard pressed to find something any more suitable than our present location.”
“Exactly Amy’s point for staying here.”
“Which we can’t do—unless we’re content to be sitting ducks!” Roderick’s irritation slipped through his placid veneer as he addressed my son. “You and your bride-to-be need to trust me—as do you all—both for my warnings about staying here or heading down to New Orleans. They are both bad ideas! Krontos Lazarevic is coming for us—it’s only a matter of when, and not if. He knows we are here… hiding from him. We need to leave within a fortnight, and when we do, we’ll need to forget about this place and its comforts. Forget about it all forever. And, make sure we stay open to the sanctuary I know in my heart is out there waiting for us… provided we are diligent in finding it.”
Roderick’s rebuke hit us all, and in truth was directed mostly toward Amy—who wasn’t there at the moment. She and Beatrice had gone out to get their hair done that afternoon. Having to tell my beloved wife and our future daughter-in-law we would be packing up and moving again in the next few days fell on my shoulders.
I expected the worse reaction to come from Amy, whose reluctance to leave her brother behind—her last living relative on Earth—was completely understandable. But it was Beatrice who broke down crying, falling to her knees as tears streamed down her face. My heart felt like it was torn asunder within my chest. I ran to her, gently taking her into my arms as my wife, yes, but also as if she were my child. The heartrending wails were a combination of all she had endured since rejoining my life, along with the rejuvenation that had sped up during the past few months.
When I concluded the story now known as The Dragon Coin, Beatrice was pushing thirty-eight—on the downside of that number, and getting younger by the month. Since then, however, changes once noticeable every three to four weeks began taking place in a matter of ten to twelve days. An entire decade disappeared in a matter of two months, and now no one would ever believe Beatrice Barrow was a day over thirty, with some compliments in the twenty-six to twenty-seven year range.
Counting the age reduction Cedric enjoyed from his time with the Yitari people in Paititi—the mystical land invisible on our plane, but until recently a vibrant globe metropolis floating above Lake Titicaca—I was now the oldest in appearance among our group of human misfits. Perpetually thirty despite working on my third millennium, being the father figure in physical terms brought a new perspective.
“There, there, my love… it will be all right—everything will be fine,” I whispered to her, gently brushing strands of strawberry blonde hair away from the tears, knowing she would be further upset if the stylist’s efforts became matted. “Trust me.”
She looked into my face, her gorgeous emerald eyes boring into mine. Never before had I seen her this vulnerable… so terribly frightened. Did she feel it, too?
The prickly, invisible voyeur touch of Krontos Lazarevic…. May The Almighty condemn the sick bastard to the very fires of hell!
Yes, I thought it. If only I believed in such a place. Surely the Lord has ways of dealing with all human shortcomings, as evidenced by my perpetual presence in the flesh, no less. Eternal hell defies the idea of a merciful God. Mankind’s justice in its primitive form is the only thing calling for endless suffering and excessive retribution. But I digress.
Beatrice recovered, and more quickly than I began to believe might happen. Somewhere inside her, I suppose, remained the resilient ninety-year-old woman I almost lost three years ago. As for Amy, she handled the news stoically, staring ahead with her usually intense green eyes devoid of emotion. Her only acknowledgement was a slight nod, as she swept her long dark hair away from her face. As if she knew sooner or later her protests would become irrelevant in deciding where fate should take us next.
We left on the second Tuesday of August, and to my surprise, my three amigos—Roderick, Alistair, and Cedric—deferred to my choice. Really, it was a process of elimination in my mind, and I was content to travel to any place from Missoula to Yuma. Just as long as the journey took us westward. My only qualms were to avoid the coast, since something about being on the western outskirts of the continent made me uneasy.
But what the guys wanted was specifically the place I had spoken of on several occasions. A town that fascinated me for its unique ‘feel’. It had done so since my return to America from England in 1889 with Roderick.
Sedona. Sedona, Arizona.
The name admittedly has a ring to it. My initial suspicions as to why the guys were all in favor of it had more to do with something silly
like that. Or, the fact Cedric and Alistair expressed interest in gaining insights from the mass of mediums and psychics who call Sedona home.
But, when Beatrice and Amy expressed similar interest in at least visiting the town that had grown to be a modest city in size, I took it as a positive sign. Like fate was pulling us there next.
We arrived Friday morning, just three days after leaving Austin. Despite being mid-August in the arid portion of America, Sedona immediately reminded Roderick of the Mediterranean climate he had greatly loved and missed terribly. After the death of his wife and child, he rarely returned to that region of the world. I always felt if he could find a similar place far away from so much pain for him, he would settle there. Truly, if Sedona had been where the colonies began, it isn’t a far stretch to think the United States capital would be in Arizona, instead of resting between Virginia and Maryland.
“I read online that in the fall the days are typically in the high seventies and the nights drop down to the low fifties—without the humidity we’re used to,” said Beatrice, noting the fascinated expression and first real smile we had seen on Roderick’s face since leaving Abingdon in June. “It’s hot today… the temperature on the First Bank sign we passed said ninety-three degrees. But it still feels better than the eighty degree days we’d get in D.C.”
Watching her nod thoughtfully, I could tell she was just as impressed as he. She pictured herself living there, as I could see it in her eyes. So far, her impressions were favorable.
Cedric seemed happy with the decision as well. He watched the progress of two men, dressed similarly to how he had re-entered our lives in June, wearing dark robes and matching fezzes on their heads. I teased him about regrets in returning to western customs, since he was dressed in his favored jeans and polo shirt.