Tyranny of Coins (The Judas Chronicles, #5) Read online

  “What about Beatrice, Amy, Alistair, Roderick, and Cedric?” I purposely named them all, in the faint hope they could hear me bartering for their lives. “I’d go willingly to Kaslow in a trade, as long as they are allowed to return home safely. I want you to personally see them home in one piece and assure me they will be allowed to live out their days in happiness.”

  “What? How is that supposed to work, Judas?” he said, snickering while he regarded me with disdain. “Even my disciples in the Third Reich understood goodness delivered without a wicked deed to cap things off was a project incomplete. What I can promise you is they will endure suffering beyond what they could ever anticipate, with enough discomfort to ensure they hardly think about you.”

  He smiled almost sweetly. Perhaps if he had delivered his condemnation without such relish and anticipation of my loved ones’ suffering, I might’ve let it ride. Not likely, but possible, since I was without a clue where to check for my coins—which I had begun to see as the likely keys to our salvation. If they had somehow been transformed into the sun crosses as their present state, how could I possibly change them back to what they once were? Cursed as an immortal to live out my days without any way to permanently kill me, I could never thwart someone with Krontos’ or Kaslow’s vision. They would merely brush me aside on the way to wreaking havoc upon the world.

  While thinking along these lines, a sharp pain entered my back, came out through my abdomen after piercing my liver, and exited from my back. I stumbled as I turned around. Krontos was there. A wide grin stretched his wrinkled face, and he held a medieval battleaxe in his hands, dripping with my blood along its tip.

  “Kaslow won’t come out to play, I fear, unless I give him an invitation,” he advised, as I fell to my knees. A vital organ had been compromised and if he struck me again—say in the heart or head—my recovery would be dubious at best. “Hold still and be a good boy… maybe your God will surprise you by letting you inside St. Peter’s Gates.”

  More laughter. Mean and robust—enough to make me briefly consider whether Kaslow was truly more evil than Krontos. But one thing was painfully clear. With so many different options of how to kill me, whether natural or supernatural, I was running out of time. I had to make a move, and it had to be the right one.

  I collapsed on the floor as Krontos prepared to finish me off with the axe. Lining the weapon up with my neck for an apparent decapitation, as he raised the axe to take a swing I mustered the last of my reserves and rolled away from him to the platform holding the crosses. Before he could stop me, I reached up and grabbed both crosses, pulling them down as I fell on my back.

  It was a desperate move, knowing I’d have no way to transform the crosses into the coins, if that was in fact their original state. Each cross was at least one hundred times bigger than a silver shekel, and all either item had in common was the silver content and the mysterious blue glow.

  But as my hands were losing their grip on the crosses, and my head grew light from the glow’s sudden rise in intensity, I noticed two small silver disks resting inside the ethereal blue flame.

  My previous mistake was to assume the coins would be resting on something or lying in a box, perhaps stored in cerecloth. I never considered the damned things would be floating, just inside the top of each sun cross.

  Krontos screamed, realizing I could see the coins, and warning me not to pursue the powerful thought in my head that followed my surprised gasp. He failed to prevent my hands from grasping the coins. I knew I’d be powerless to fight him off, and my death remained likely—especially given the rage when he reached me.

  I felt his fingers tearing at my hands, along with the sting from voracious bites in his desperation to get me to release my tenacious grip. But the painful attacks were soon replaced by the vision I had come to expect with each redeemed coin. Only this time, it was far worse than anticipated. Had I known what would happen, I would’ve grasped one coin instead of two.

  For those unfamiliar, in the past when I’ve touched my blood coins, I am taken back in time to Jesus Christ’s arrest and execution—forced to relive the torture, anguish, and full realization of suffering He would soon endure on the cross. Whether or not that included the terrible weight from the world’s sins is not for me to judge or expound upon. What I’ve experienced is the heavy sadness and indescribable sense of guilt for my role in His betrayal. Intensified with each coin I recover.

  But now it was beyond that. Two coins together provided a hostile experience more emotionally painful than anything I could’ve ever imagined.

  Though it lasted under a minute, the event will stay with me for the rest of my earthly days. The vision suddenly shifted, and instead of me observing Jesus from behind the woman’s veil—Mary’s hijab—I saw things from where Jesus stood. The labored breaths, taste of blood in my mouth, and blurred vision from the bleeding crown of thorns—I experienced it all! I felt what He felt, and it truly was too much to bear.

  Something no human being could endure, it was almost as bad for this immortal. When it ended and I was pulled back to the present, I could only watch Krontos pummel my prone body with an attack as vicious as any territorial baboon. In retrospect, I believe he thought I died. Otherwise, I suppose he would’ve clawed out my defenseless eyes, or worse.

  My eyes fluttered. He launched into a vile tirade with more anti-Semitic insults, adding references to what he witnessed his SS men do to women in the presence of their tormented husbands, forced to watch. Surely these comments were intended to be a preview of what awaited my Beatrice and Alistair’s bride-to-be, while the two of us watched—just as our Jewish brethren were forced to do seventy years earlier.

  Unable to move, to my horror the ironclad grip I had on my coins began to loosen. I couldn’t hold on, and I watched Krontos’ expression of vehement hatred turn to enraptured surprise.

  “Ah, that’s better,” he said, his tone peaceful as he reached for the coins. “Once I free them from your defiled fingers, I will deal with you once and for all, Yehudah. This should only take a moment… Owww!”

  His touch had merely grazed the one in my left palm after prying my fingers free, perhaps expecting the coin to drop into his open palm. However, it remained attached to my palm, as if glued to the skin. It was the same for the coin in my right hand, and a louder cry of pain resulted when Krontos grabbed it. He jerked his hand back, as if he touched a fiery coal instead.

  “Damn you, Judas!” he shouted. “I’ll kill you if I must—let go!”

  “I’m… I’m not holding onto them,” I responded, weakly, still recovering from my most recent coin-holding experience. Something else was different, and difficult to define at first. “Honestly, I’m not.”

  True. Both were adhered to my palms by some other force.

  “Let them go!” he shrieked.

  “I can’t!” I shouted back. A fresh surge of energy flowed through me. “You’ll have to kill me to have a chance at them, Krontos. Do you know what will happen then? You’ve heard the legends, right?”

  A sudden cloud passed over his countenance, and his hatred softened.

  “That’s right,” I said, trying to keep my excitement down. “You kill me while holding these coins—or rather, while they’re holding onto me—and you’ll likely never see either one again. Wherever I go, they’ll automatically come with me.”

  If I didn’t have so much riding on the line, I might’ve smiled at the look of dumbfounded horror on the fiend’s face. He backed away, nodding his understanding. I thought he might give me enough space to stand up. But a moment later the rage was back full force. He dove at me once more, clawing at my hands to try and tear the coins out.

  A disastrous mistake on his part.

  I expected Krontos to shriek in pain from touching the coins again. He surely expected it, too. What neither of us anticipated was the sudden surge of blue flames engulfing his hands. The flames swept up his arms and traversed quickly across the monster’s torso. As soon as the m
atching streams met near his heart, the angry blue fire burst into hundreds of new flames that engulfed his entire body.

  He became a writhing torch, wailing in high-pitched shrieks unheard since his days as a squalling infant eight hundred years ago. The flames didn’t consume the body, and Krontos couldn’t free himself from this spell, despite waving his arms wildly in desperate attempts at an incantation. Nothing could save him. In the end, a cruel man had found equally cruel justice.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As Krontos began his new existence as an eternal fire, the blue sheen covering the shekels in my hands faded to where it was barely detectable. I slipped the coins into separate pockets, fearful of inadvertently bringing the Silver Trinity of Death to life if they came in close contact with the Dragon Coin in my wallet.

  My strength fully restored, I needed to find the others. Find them before Viktor Kaslow showed up. During the latest battle with Krontos, I glimpsed one of Bochicha’s Emissaries in the room’s doorway. The demon brought its immense body and wingspan into the room for only a moment before disappearing. Surely by now it had reported my present location to Kaslow, or perhaps the Russian already knew. It wasn’t like Krontos and I pantomimed our contest.

  The biggest challenge in locating my companions was where to begin the search. I didn’t sense anyone near the relic room, and yet I had the distinct feeling I’d find them on the third floor. Krontos’ pitiful screams echoed behind me as I stepped into the darkened hallway. Despite the valid fear of an unseen attack, I focused on Beatrice, since she came to mind first. I pictured her laughing merrily in an attempt to cheer up Amy and Alistair, and I prayed the impression would soon be confirmed.

  I crept quietly, pulled to explore the rooms to my left instead of those along the right. Powerful wings fluttering near the gallery to my left briefly distracted me, though it remained virtually impossible to make out anything in the darkness beyond the relic room, where the blue glow from Krontos writhing body seeped into the hallway. The scrutiny from encroaching watchful eyes from beyond that point grew strong, and I prepared myself for the bloodcurdling screeches I remembered from Bolivia.

  Meanwhile, I diligently traced my fingers along the walls, trying to remember the contours of the marble and dormant torch holders, hoping to find the door that called to me. Since my intuitions were sometimes flawed, I prayed I wasn’t wasting precious time exploring a dead end path. Strangely, this felt different than the hit-miss hunches I usually fell into.

  Not this time. They’re here, Judas…. Somewhere close.

  More fluttering sounds behind me indicated a small crowd was forming near the gallery. I tried not to think of the feeding frenzy that might start at any moment. Immortal or not, I would be just an appetizer for the bigger prize of human flesh presently hidden nearby.

  The wall gave way to a doorframe, and my pulse quickened. But the latch was securely locked with what felt like a skeleton keyhole. I stooped to see if I could make out anything through the tiny hole, and whispered my wife’s name.

  No response from beyond the door. But claws scraped against the hall’s marble floor, sending a warning my way. Bochicha’s fallen angels were getting antsy.

  I didn’t have long, and began to doubt my gut instincts when the next door I encountered was just like the first one. Very soon I might be faced with plowing through a demon horde to get to the other side and continue my search there. Nearing the last room on this side of the hall, I prepared to investigate the keyhole.

  As I stooped, I heard voices coming from the room directly across from me. I paused to listen, and heard them again.

  Roderick? Saying something to Cedric… I heard his name. Shit! Better hurry!

  I scurried across the floor, for a moment forgetting my brooding observers down the hall. Unlike the other doors, this one was unlocked. The room was dark and the voices immediately stopped when I pushed the door ajar. Was this a lingering trick from Krontos? A possible trap in the event I gained the upper hand against him?

  I would soon find out.

  The sound of flapping wings approached. I pushed the door fully open and slipped inside, unprepared to face whatever waited in the frigid blackness. A complete act of faith—or foolishness, depending on the perspective—I set the iron latch behind me and stood… listening.

  All was still, deathly quiet. I detected something else.

  Breathing. Air taken in and released in uneven bursts. Without time to better brace myself for whatever shared the room with me, I used the flashlight from my cell phone to illuminate my surroundings.

  I gasped.

  Roderick and Cedric were bound to wooden chairs to my right, and to my left sat Beatrice, Amy, and Alistair. All were gagged and disheveled. But at least they were alive and appeared relatively uninjured.

  Once Beatrice recognized me, she squealed through the gag over her mouth. Everyone followed her excited reaction except Roderick, who appeared exhausted, though he eyed me gratefully.

  “We don’t have much time,” I whispered, tearing the bonds from Cedric and Roderick, so they could take care of Amy and Alistair while I attended to Beatrice.

  My love wrapped her arms around my neck as I lifted her from the chair. Trembling, she fought admirably to control her tears. I held her tightly, comforting her with soothing whispered promises of protection while affirming my undying love for her. But as this was not the time to celebrate anything, I led everyone to the doorway, which suddenly splintered.

  Holy shit—I’m too late!

  “Not yet, my brother,” said Roderick, answering my panicked thoughts and taking my phone to shine a light across the room. A thick windowsill peered out from a heavy tapestry. “Most of the castle’s rooms have windows.”

  He smiled weakly, hardly enjoying the joke at my expense, as we urged the others to make a dash for the window.

  “Alistair, help me tear this sucker down!” shouted Cedric, pulling on one end of the thick, ornate tapestry that had successfully camouflaged the window’s presence. “We’ll have to get Beatrice and Amy out of here first, then the rest of us. William, you’ll have to be last, since you heal the quickest between you and Roderick.”

  I was about to concur, but a heavier crash behind us tore open a sizeable gash in the door. The restraint wouldn’t last much longer.

  “Can you grip the fabric while we lower you down?” I asked Beatrice, after throwing a chair through the window, destroying stained glass panes several centuries old. Krontos would be most unhappy, I’m sure, if he didn’t have much bigger fish to fry at the moment. “I’m sorry I can’t make this any easier.”

  Roderick and Alistair were rolling up the tapestry while Alistair prepared to secure the edge with the window’s splintered frame. Fortunately, this ancient tapestry from what appeared to be the Ottoman Empire period was roughly a dozen feet longer than the window’s twenty-foot width. Still, considering the forty-foot drop from the window to the front courtyard below, everyone would have to drop the last ten feet to reach the unforgiving cobblestones below.

  Provided we got everyone out in time.

  “William, this ain’t the time for lovey-dovey shit!” warned Cedric, as the first demon talon successfully made it through the door’s wound, clawing at the iron restraint bar. “Get your wife’s ass over here, now!”

  He and Roderick tossed the tapestry through the window, where gusts of wind added additional peril to getting down. Not to mention, once the tapestry’s surface was exposed to the deepening chill outside the castle, it would be much more difficult to cling to. Without a moment to lose, I kissed my wife and lifted her onto the tapestry while the other guys held the top of it to give additional support.

  Beatrice slid down to the bottom, uttering a startled yelp as she instinctively clung to the fraying tassels before dropping to the ground. I braced myself for the sound of breaking bones, but she landed with a slight thud on her butt. Still, I worried until she stood up and waved she was okay.

  Next ca
me Amy, who seemed to draw confidence from watching Beatrice. If not for the sound of the iron restraint falling to the floor below us, I might’ve drawn encouragement from Amy’s quick descent to the ground.

  But it was too late to wait on anyone else to go down the safe way.

  “Rod, we’re out of time, and you know what we have to do, right?”

  “Indeed. I hate it when things work out like this.” He grimaced.

  “What in the hell are you two talking about? Quit jacking around—Huh?!”

  Cedric’s surprise was matched by Alistair’s. As a horde of demons flew toward us, I grabbed Alistair and Roderick grabbed Cedric. We dove out the window, careful to twist our bodies to land with the least damage to our passengers. I sent a silent prayer heavenward that Alistair and Cedric would join Beatrice and Amy unscathed, and Roderick’s injuries wouldn’t prevent him from hobbling to the car. As for me, by now most everyone knows it takes a much more severe fall to bring me anymore than a few minutes of discomfort. Although, snapping bones back into place to aid the healing process is not usually a pretty sight.

  I landed on the edge of my feet and rolled. Alistair received a few scrapes from the cobblestones. Despite momentary agonizing pain from shattered legs, feet, and several vertebrae in my lower back, by the time I stumbled to where Amy and Beatrice waited I had mostly healed.

  As I feared, Roderick got the worst of it. A broken femur and ankle in one leg, along with two ruptured disks in his lower back. Injuries that might take several hours to heal, and a day or two before he walked pain free again. It’s the only time I feel guilty about my body’s ability to heal in a matter of minutes. But if he ever tired of his long existence on Earth, Roderick would be free to leave on his own accord. Unlike me.

  My druid buddy limped gingerly as far as he could make it, just beyond the entrance steps. Alistair and Cedric lifted him on to their shoulders, and I gathered our ladies, with the intent of reaching the car before we encountered any other trouble. However, Bochicha’s Emissaries circled above us, and their numbers had increased tenfold. There would be no way to outrun them to Krontos’ Mercedes, parked roughly a football field’s distance away.