Chapter 40

There was no sign of Mykella anywhere when Vince finally got to the fortress of Orion. When he came to it, he was awestruck at the enormous structure. It seemed to reach up to Heaven and seemed as wide as an entire continent. There was no way in hell he would ever have a chance of stopping Orion – not with so many Dreamkillers lurking within.

He turned and looked at the forest behind him – the one he had just run through, trying to stop Orion from killing Mykella. And now here he was, standing and looking up at the ominous castle with no sign of either Mykella or Orion. Anxiety was playing on the tips of his hair on his scalp. They were here, he was almost certain. But where?

As they ran, Chris was able to keep her dying army several feet ahead of the Dreamkillers, who were throwing shouts and curses in languages she didn’t understand.

She remembered a section from Rick Hopman’s book Army of Dreamkillers that described his and Tracy’s confrontation with Alexius. During that passage there was no mention of the Dreamkiller ever speaking a different language. As far as she knew Alexius was speaking English to Rick and Tracy. So what happened during the last twenty years to make them become less intelligent?

And then she recalled that it was regret that finally changed Alexius back to his former self. Regret and guilt. They had to feel remorse for what they had done and were willing to die to go back to what they once were.

Chris glanced back at the hideous creatures and a sarcastic grin fell across her lips. “I don’t think you guys are feeling regret or guilt right now,” she said to no one in particular.

What she hoped to do when she caught up with Vince, she didn’t know. She did know one thing, however: something made Vince bolt through the forest, and the only thing that could make him do that was Mykella.

Was something wrong with her or did she communicate with Vince telepathically?

If something was about to happen, then by God, she wasn’t going to let Vince face it alone. They had been friends for more than twenty years – she owed him that much.

Three sides of Orion’s fortress were now, or about to be once Chris showed up, under the watchful eyes of his enemies.

He went back up to his chamber to look down at the front of his home. Here he saw Ilias’ handiwork as the rebel Dreamkillers kept coming into the castle. He closed his eyes and pictured the top of the tower – his chamber – to rotate and then he opened his eyes again to see that it had rotated to the left. He looked down and saw Vince standing there, looking around the fortress, like he was expecting something. And then he could see past Vince into the forest and he saw the rest of his human army. He spun his chamber a second time and that was when he was shocked. The God-King Orion. Master Dreamkiller – shocked.

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He saw the red hair of Mykella as she and her new friends were heading back here. Why, he wondered. He watched her for a little while trying to figure out what it was she was doing – what kind of card she had up her sleeve.

“Oh my sweet one, how little do you know of my powers,” he whispered as he watched her. A desire for wanting to be with her emerged from somewhere in the back of his head. He waited for Beth to enter his mind and laugh at him but there was no mockery in his mind.

He watched as she talked to her friends, trying to coax them into doing something they didn’t really want to do, he thought. He studied the movement of her hands and fell in love with the way she ran them over one another. That was when he was half-amused that her hand was somehow healed.

He fell in love with her hair which had fallen over her shoulders in red ringlets. He wanted to roll her hair in his fingers.

He fell in love with her innocence. She had absolutely no idea what her part in the prophecy really was. In fact, he didn’t know himself, but at least he could admit it. She was going around spreading rumors that she was mankind’s savior. As far as he knew, she had let a handful of people die for her – those who she was trying to save.

But most of all he wanted so passionately to kill her because he was beginning to fall in love with her.

But before he could fantasize on ways to kill her with passion, he heard a peculiar crash from somewhere in the castle. This crash did not come from down the main staircase – this came from his secret stairwell that went directly down into the dungeon and the Network.

“Oh my,” he whispered as a sudden realization came to him. “Things are not going as planned.”

“They’re here somewhere, I can feel it,” pleaded Mykella when she saw that some of the prisoners were having doubts about her. She brought them here to do battle against their oppressors and to maybe save their race. But now she felt uncertain because she didn’t know where everyone was and she truly knew that they were outnumbered.

What or who was she really here to save?

The one thing she did know was that she had promised God that she would let Him move her and make her decisions from now on. She would only be here to be his servant. There were times when she had begun to question what He wanted of her, but then she would have to have faith. He knew what he was doing. Perhaps she would get in on the plan, but she doubted it.

“I don’t like this any more than you,” she said. “But I know they’re here.” She looked around in desperation. “They’re here somewhere,” she whispered.

Right now she didn’t know if her father was still alive, but she needed to see someone she knew and loved. She sat next to Ben Krieger and watched him drift off to death. When she awoke she found herself lying on the forest floor covered with leaves and branches and Agnes was nowhere to be found. She assumed that Agnes was dead as well. And everyone else who had given up their lives to save Mykella’s – she could never repay them for their sacrifice.

She closed her eyes and wished that she could take one last look at her father before her prophecy ended. She needed his guidance now more than anything else. She didn’t want him to be her Watcher, but she needed him to be her Daddy for a change. She needed him to hold her tight so she could cry into his chest. She needed reassurance. She needed more time.