Chapter 38

At that moment he really didn’t give a rat’s ass who he was hitting with his electric blasts – he was having one hell of a time watching the monstrosities die. Blast after blast he made sure someone died. He really didn’t care if he killed everyone in the damned room. He could start over; they couldn’t.

“But can you?”

Orion stopped and dropped his hands to his sides when he heard the voice of Beth in his mind again. “Can’t you stay away from me? Can’t you see I’m busy here?”

“Can you really start a new line when all of your sleepers are awake?”

“They,” he began and shook his head. “I just checked on them dammit. They’re all asleep.”

“What about the ones in the dungeons?”

“They’re being looked after, I guarantee you.”

“For how long? Don’t you see that if just one of the rebels breaks through and goes down, they could release them?”

Orion chuckled and sighed. “A nice scenario, but I highly doubt that would happen, my Sweet.”

“Don’t be too sure, Father,” replied Beth. “Mykella’s almost here as we speak.”

Now Orion was no longer amused. At the thought of Mykella Brown and her even coming near his fortress, it made his blood boil. “You’re telling me lies.”

“No, Father. She’ll be arriving relatively soon, I suppose.”

“How,” He wanted to know how she had gotten here, but settled for, “How soon?”

There was a pause and then Beth responded, “It’s hard to see. There are two entities struggling for her soul right now. It might be hours or it could be a couple of days.”

Now Orion paused and balled his hand into a fist and then slammed it into the door he was hiding behind. “Damn you!” He didn’t know who he was damning most, Mykella or Beth, but he felt like damning someone nonetheless.

He spun around and took to the stairs once again and climbed down two at a time until he had reached the dungeon level.

He looked around and saw that there had been no disturbance. He went to the only door in the room and opened it and began walking down the long narrow corridor of the cell block. He didn’t look into any of the cells as he walked by them – there was a deep loathing of the human spirit he felt and was terrified by their humanity.

He made his way to the far end of the corridor and approached the Dreamkiller who was sitting behind a crudely-shaped desk. Once the Dreamkiller took notice of his master, he quickly stood up. “Everything is in order, Sir,” he exclaimed.

“For now,” said Orion. “There have been rumors of a breach in security.”

Taking offense, “Not on my watch there hasn’t, Sir,” grunted the Dreamkiller.

Orion raised his hand and smiled. “I know. It has yet to take place, I’m afraid. And I intend on being here when it happens. You are relieved of duty until this matter is taken care of.”

The Dreamkiller bowed his head. “As you wish, my Master,” he said and walked back down the corridor – the same one Orion walked up.

Orion watched the creature dissolve into the darkness before sitting down on the same chair and took a glance around the cell block. It struck him as odd that he didn’t remember ever being down here. He looked down at the row of cage doors and wondered to himself, Could I have been that horrible – never seeing my prisoners, ever?

He looked down at the floor before his feet and an alien feeling crept into his body at that moment. It was a strange feeling of guilt that he felt when he first thought of his prisoners. And he wasn’t sure, but he thought that when he felt the sudden guilt wash over him, he could have sworn he heard a woman’s laughter echoing somewhere in his brain.

Or could it have been coming from one of the humans?

He listened harder and concluded that it must have been Beth laughing at him. And when he thought this, the rage returned and the feeling of guilt subsided, which made him feel better about himself. He had vowed to never again feel that feeling of guilt. There had never been a feeling of guilt when he used to slaughter his prey in their dreams – their nightmares. That had been enjoyable.

And ever since creating his Dreamkillers, he really never had any reason to kill anymore – he let his army do the work for him – so there would be no future feeling of guilt.

But dammit! He felt guilt nevertheless. And then the laughter echoed in his brain again.

“Leave me alone,” he screamed, not caring if his prisoners heard him or not.

“She’s coming for you and there’s nothing you can do about it,” whispered Beth in his head.

“Well,” said Orion and he stood up, trying to regain his dignity. “There’s only one way into this dungeon and she’ll have to get by me.”

“Don’t you remember Sister Agnes?”

Orion wasn’t sure why Beth would be bringing up that bizarre nun, but he nodded. “So,” he replied.

“Haven’t you ever wondered how she got into your fortress and out again with that lot of human prisoners – especially Mykella Brown?”

Orion narrowed his eyebrows in contemplation. “It had crossed my mind, yes. Are you going to supply me with that information?”

Beth laughed in his head. “Are you kidding?” She was mocking him now. “I love this war. Let me tell you a story, Father, one that will make you think.” Beth hoped this would give the Dream Crusader enough time.

Orion hesitated for a moment and then sat back down on the chair. “Go on; I’m listening,” he said and then heard a sigh from Beth and wondered what that sigh meant.

“Allow me to take you back twenty years,” she began and Orion grinned. “The time when Mykella was inside her mother. Vincent was helping her, you remember. He wasn’t trying to kill you, merely making sure that she is given birth to. But you were doing your best tormenting that child, weren’t you? You even created Eric and me to help you destroy the soul of the Dream Crusader. I’ll always damn you for doing that.”

Orion sighed. “What does all this have to do with anything?”

“As I said, you were doing everything to torment her. Believe me – she was very close several times at giving up and letting everything end. When she found out what she was to become, she wanted to give up her entire prophecy. There were plenty of times when you had actually broken her soul. Even using Vincent’s sister had damn near done her in.”

Orion rose to his feet again. “I had nothing to do with Xan. She became mine only after the second wave came into existence.”

“Whatever,” grunted Beth. “What I’m saying is that you really achieved your goal. That is, until God interfered and showed her the crucifixion of Christ. At that moment, her faith made her stronger, almost invisible.”

“And you’re telling me this because,”

“When Mykella was born, she lost all memory of what happened to her when she was inside her mother. She had no faith to live by – you made sure of that when you built this fucking fortress and began taking control of the Net. And although her faith has been tested by God and Satan, I believe that she has chosen to follow in God’s footsteps.

“So what I’m saying to you is this: Mykella found faith, lost her faith, and found it once again. You, on the other hand, had your own messed-up sense of faith, and here I am bending that faith. You are beginning to lose your own faith and now it’s too late in the war to find that faith again like Mykella.”

Orion waited until he was sure that Beth had finished her narrative and then he shook his hooded head. “I’m still not following you. Are you really trying to tell me something important or are you just blowing smoke up my cloak?”

Beth laughs, a big hearty laugh, one that he had never heard before. And it concerned him when she would not stop laughing.

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What felt like an eternity later, Mykella saw the smallest pinprick of light coming from the other end of the tree. It wasn’t as bright as the light of God, but she was relieved to see it nevertheless; she was coming to the end of this claustrophobic nightmare. She began walking faster, but then something caught her ankle and she fell onto her stomach.

She felt around her ankle and realized that she had snagged her foot on an exposed root. But as she tried to unwrap her foot, she noticed that the root was coiling itself tighter and tighter around her foot, snaking up around her calf. She screamed as the vine slithered up passed her thigh, touching things on her that no one else had ever touched.

“I can make it stop, Child,” hissed the voice of the snake.

Mykella stopped screaming and realized what was happening. This was the devil’s doing. He needed her to ask for help, therefore overpowering her. But she would not let that happen, even as she felt the vine slither up inside her (tearing a hole in her jeans). She closed her eyes, tears running down her trembling face. She tried to dismiss the disgusting feeling of being desecrated and tried even harder to imagine the image of God and so she prayed to him, whispering the words that her mother had taught her just before leaving.

Her body was quivering in nausea and she was pushed to the breaking point and she doubled over and vomited where she was sitting. But instead of body fluid coming out, she threw up pieces of wood. She began gagging and wrapped her hand around the vine that was dangling from her wet mouth and began pulling.

What felt like many excruciating minutes of pulling and gagging, she finally reached the end of the vine. Everything inside her body felt like it was burning, including that very private area which had never been touched by another person.

Exhausted, she lay down next to her vomit and put her hand to her chest and felt her heart beating hard in her body. If anything else happens to her like this, Mykella thought she may actually die. “Just leave me alone, please,” she whimpered as she tried to get her burning voice out to the devil.

Mykella closed her eyes and after a moment, she felt a soft velvety hand gently caressing her cheek. She slowly opened her eyes and wasn’t frightened to be looking into the dark eyes of some beautiful man. Although she knew this was not the face of God – God wouldn’t have dark eyes – she wasn’t afraid.

“Mykella,” he whispered as he bent down and gently kissed her clammy forehead. “You are much too pure for my kingdom. I shall miss you for not being my Queen, but I shall never forget you either.” With that he placed his hand around her crushed hand and as she glanced down, she saw a light red glow emanating from his hand.

A moment later he let her hand go and he vanished into the darkness with a smile on his lips.

An odd sensation ran through her hand and she glanced back down at it, made herself ball it into a fist, and was in awe that she had been given back her bones. The devil asked for nothing in return. He must have figured that she would never join him. She formed a tired, yet triumphant smile and splayed her fingers.

She sat there for a few more minutes, praying to God. She was begging for forgiveness for allowing the devil to mend her crushed hand and liking him for doing it. She promised that she would never join him, though.

She stood back up, almost falling back down from her rubbery legs, and began walking toward the light once again. Deep down she knew that the devil would not try anything else to win her over. His healing her hand without asking for anything in return seemed proof enough.

By the time she reached the light at the other end of the tree, she was relieved. She had to climb a little to get out of the tree, but when she made it completely out of the tree, she was awestruck at the sight that befell her. She was standing on the top of the tree, on the other end of the moat, and now looking up at the enormous fortress.

She heard the sounds of war coming from the other side of the castle and decided that that wasn’t where she wanted to go. She was, after all, looking for a fight, not having a fight waiting for her. She looked around but could not find a way into the fortress – there wasn’t any type of door back here.

Mykella walked a little more along the side of the castle wall, running her newly constructed fingers across the stone, until her eyes fell upon writing on the wall. How absurd, she thought as she looked at what was written in red:

Agnes was here

which was followed by an arrow pointing down. She shook her head and knelt down where the arrow was pointing. There she found a hole dug into the ground. She presumed this hole went under the castle as well. This must have been how she got us out, she pondered.

She knew there was no use in waiting so she lowered her legs down first, surprised at how far down the first drop really was. She didn’t know how long Agnes had been planning her breakout, but the old woman had somehow managed to build herself an adequately-sized tunnel (she must have known that a breakout would take place some day). As she looked around, she shook her head. It must have taken her years to have dug this out.

Other than the note written on the wall outside, there was no other trace of Agnes then or now.

She stopped suddenly when she heard a voice above her, from the floor. She recognized the voice of Orion. She was directly below him and he had no idea where she was; how close she was. Funny, she thought. It seemed like Orion was talking to himself.

But she saw that the tunnel went further past where she thought Orion stood above her and so she walked on. It took another short eternity of nothing to look at before she found a ladder going up to a small hole in the floor.

One step at a time, she finally reached the top of the ladder and squeezed her body through the hole. She poked her head out first and surveyed the area before pulling herself out. Once her body was out of the hole, she laid down on the floor, making herself less noticeable as could be.

When she felt safe, she stood up and saw that she was at one end of a long corridor. She could hear the low moans of people suffering within these walls. She could feel hundreds of them – no, thousands. She closed her eyes and rubbed her hand across her face, wondering how she was going to free thousands of prisoner’s right from under Orion’s nose.

Bewildered, she leaned her body against a wall and felt it move inward, which knocked her to her knees.

She looked down at her hand and saw that she had cut it on a rock as she fell. She cursed herself for letting something like that happen and when she stood back up, she came face to face with the first of many humans who already regarded her as their savior.

She saw the need in their bright eyes as the twenty or so in this cell came to her and she raised her hands to them, trying to make them stop advancing. But they didn’t seem to have any desire to stop moving closer to her – they seemed to know who she was and what she was here to do.

“Please,” she whispered, which seemed to halt them for a moment. “You have to keep quiet.” She looked around their cell, hiding the disgust she felt by the odors lingering inside the cell, and found a similar small hole at one corner of the cell which went into the other cell. She went over to it and knelt down to the floor and put her face near the hole. She saw that there was an identical hole leading into the next cell, and so forth.

How could Orion not see this?

She looked back at the prisoners and saw that, although they had frail bodies, they still looked somewhat well-fed – they weren’t starving. Of course, she replied to her own train of thought. Orion needs them alive, doesn’t he? He can’t kill them.

But that doesn’t say anything about me.

She stood back up and turned to the prisoners. “We need to hurry. I haven’t seen Orion, yet,” she began and then one of the female prisoners lifted an index finger out of the cell.

“He’s right out there, Dear,” the woman explained as Mykella followed her finger.

Although she could not see through the wall, Mykella knew what the woman meant. If she were to raise her voice above a whisper, He would know she was in here. And like she thought before, He would keep these prisoners alive and slaughter her right in front of their eyes.

In fact, he might even enjoy that.

“Then we’ll have to be even that much quieter,” she whispered to them and they nodded in agreement.

She went over to the adjoining hole and crawled her way into the other cell and explained to them what they were going to do. And then she went into the next cell…and so on and so on…until she reached the final cell. And then she crawled her way back to that first cell where she found a line waiting patiently for her command.

“We can only move several at a time,” she explained when she looked back. “There’s a hole in the floor at the far end of the cell block – it goes down into a large tunnel. We’ll regroup down there,” she said and then looked around the side of the cell and saw that the coast was clear. “You five,” she paused, “Go.”

Mykella watched as the first set of prisoners crept across the corridor – she thought it sadistic how long this corridor was now that everything seems to be moving in slow motion. She saw that the leader had trouble locating the hole so she had to direct them using ancient sign language (mostly pointing left or right). They finally found the hole after some time and, relieved, Mykella sent out the next group.

She had to keep a close eye out for Orion – like they weren’t doing that already. She was here to save them, not to kill them. And all that time she kept hearing the Master Dreamkiller talking to himself.

By the time she reached the last cell, fatigue had claimed her and Mykella dropped to the floor. It was the female prisoner who had first pointed toward Orion who came to her aid as she helped Mykella into a sitting position. Why she had followed her when she could have already been gone was beyond Mykella’s ability to comprehend.

“Here,” she said, producing several pieces of bread. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

Mykella smiled shamefully and took the bread with thanks. “How long have you been here?” she asked, trying to sound as sympathetic as she could.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “I’m not really sure anymore. It must be near fifteen years by now. Longer than some, shorter than others.”

Mykella finished off her bread and stood up. “That’s too long. It’s time to go,” she said and held out her hand.

She looked around and saw that they were the last two in the cell. The others must have made it, she thought as they crawled their way back through the cells. She took one last look, didn’t see Orion (or, for that matter, didn’t hear him either) and they made for their escape.

Before they could get to that safety, however, the wall next to them exploded. They were knocked down just as a piece of the wall came down, almost striking Mykella’s head.

“I knew you would come,” they heard and turned around to see the tall cloaked figure of Orion in the shadows of the cell block, his hand extended.

Mykella stood up, facing her enemy and thinking that this would be her last sight; a victorious Orion. And then she felt the woman grab her arm and squeeze. Mykella looked down and saw that they were mere inches from the hole. If they could just make it.

The woman turned and looked at Mykella. “When I give the word,” she said, “jump.”

“No,” replied Mykella. She was not about to let someone else take their own life for her. “I can’t let you.”

“It’s time, Mykella. Go!” And that was it.

The woman released Mykella and ran, charging at Orion who began sending blasts of electric bolts her way.

Mykella didn’t waste time to see what had become of her savior. She took a step to her left and began climbing back down the ladder as fast as she could.