Chapter Thirty-Five

“Dear God,” Frederick whispered to himself that evening as he lay in his bed. Shortly after excusing himself from Rick, he had gotten himself a room at the nearest hotel. He had every intention of going straight home to the United States just as soon as he could get a ticket.

Tonight, however, visions of a tortured Tracy clouded his thoughts. What kind of pain she was in, he wasn’t sure. But he knew that her pain was great and that he must help her – with or without Rick’s help.

He closed his eyes and listened to the rain hammering the window and he was taken back to another time – a time when he was only eighteen years of age. The night was much as it is tonight – rainy – and the atmosphere was almost equally stale and thick with tension. But, he didn’t know of the tension back then. All he knew then was that he wanted to get into Bernadette Chambers’ pants.

He felt that his dreams were good enough for him. And that one night, he began feeling the arousing aura of Bernadette but was quickly transported to a different place. The cave he was taken to was circular and contained a single flame dancing in the center of the room. He noticed many skeletons sitting above individual tunnels brandishing swords in their skeletal hands.

“Where the hell am I?” he asked no one in particular and was almost hoping for no response. But he got one nonetheless.

“The gate to the Forbidden Realms,” replied a hoarse voice from behind Frederick and he jumped and turned around.

He was repulsed when he saw the creature standing before him. The thing was crawling itself through a tunnel, heading toward Frederick. Its white hair had been slowing the creatures’ crawl, as it kept stumbling over its length. Frederick could see its brain pulsating through its skull and he saw its claw-like fingernails digging into the rock.

And when it looked up at him, Frederick let out a small scream and it smiled at him behind yellow and cracked teeth and all-white eyes.

It took the thing moments to plant its bare feet on the same ground as Frederick, and when it did, Frederick watched the awesome miracle as it transformed itself into a tall handsome man who didn’t look a day over thirty. His beard was just past his chest. The man smiled and looked at Frederick. “This is a magical place. This is what I looked like when the position was given to me by my grandfather.”

Frederick shook his head and blinked several times. “Who, what are you?” he asked and the man smiled again.

“I am sorry, I have forgotten my etiquette.” He threw his arm in front of his stomach and bowed. “I am James Whitaker. I am your great-great-and so forth grandfather.”

Frederick shook his head again. “I don’t believe I’m having this dream. If you don’t mind, I’d like to wake up now and go about my life,” he said and James put up his hands.

“Please, you must take my place. I am too old to guard the gate. I need your help,” he pleaded.

Frederick backed away from the man claiming to be his relative. “This is not my kind of dreaming, old man.” He turned and began walking away from James, not knowing where to go since he had not awakened yet, and added, as an afterthought, “’Sides, you don’t look anything like me.”

James began shaking as he held out his hands. “I am begging you: I am too old to battle Orion and his Dreamkillers. I need your help; it is your burden – as it was mine – to learn the history. It is time to pass the legacy on to you,” he explained and almost cried out when he saw what Frederick did next.

Frederick spat on the ground before James and thrust his arm into the flame, burning himself awake.

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To this day, he wasn’t sure if what he had done was the right thing for him to do. After all, he had no life anyway. But, at the same time, his life had been chosen for him, instead, to research Orion’s past and watch over Tracy Kingston, the Dream Crusader, who would bring an end to Orion. Without Orion, who needs the gate guarded from?

Strange feelings crept into his mind that night. As he rummaged through his clothes and found a shirt and pants, he felt as if everything was a race and time was against them. The finish line was Tracy. But, who would get to her first?

In fact, who was he racing against? Rick? Orion? Or was he like the rider on the pale green horse and death was following him?

As he got dressed at this very late time of night, he remembered the only other two times he was visited by the man who claimed to be a relative, James Whitaker. The first time it had been more of an accident. It was the grotesque image of James that Frederick conjured up and not the handsome man. But still, the creature begged Frederick to take the position of the guardian of the gate. And again, Frederick declined.

The final time he had seen James was about ten years ago – shortly after Tracy and Rick left Lungland. Instead of begging, James figured it would be in vain; all he did was inquire on behalf of Tracy and her well-being. Frederick, taken by surprise, began talking about Tracy and what a strong girl she was and then explained all about Bolan and Tracy’s deliberate amnesia.

They spent hours talking about Tracy and Rick and in the end it had been bitter sweet. James bid Frederick farewell and told him that they would never see one another again. James must now, he told Frederick, go in search of a new guardian. Frederick said not a single word but just nodded in understanding.

He didn’t know where she was or where she was going, but he knew that he had to look for her. After all, if Orion is back, then that means that the young Dream Crusader must be followed and supported at all costs.

Rick Hopman practically fell out of bed when he heard the loud hotel phone ringing in his room. It took him a second to get everything in his head to work again, and when he did he grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

He listened as the front desk explained that he had a visitor waiting in the front lobby. Rick thanked the receptionist and hung up the phone and wiped the sleep from his heavy eyes.

“This is it,” he whispered to himself and he pulled on his hiking boots and grabbed his black duffle bag, making sure that he had his trusted crucifix in it before closing it, and hoisted it up over his shoulder.

He reached the lobby where he found the beautiful red-haired young barmaid. As he approached her they smiled at one another and he held out his hand as she took it. “I can’t tell you how much I am indebted to you for this,” he said as she shook his hand.

“Send me a copy when it’s published, okay?” she smiled and he nodded.

They pulled up in front of the huge iron gates almost an hour later. Claudia stopped the car in front of the gate and, with the aid of the headlights; she unlocked the padlocked gate with ease using just a hair pin.

Rick jumped out of the car when he noticed that she was having trouble sliding the gate open far enough to allow them entrance. He looked down and noticed that the bottom had turned to rust and had become one with the pebbles and dirt. Putting his back into the job, they did manage to push the gate several feet to the left – which was all they needed to get her small car through.

It took another few full minutes before Rick took sight of Darvon Keep for the first time. Even Oscar will love the pictures, Rick admitted to himself as he stared up at the enormous castle. The shrubbery spread sporadically across the front lawn had been unattended to for centuries and seemed to have grown into weeds and vines protruding from the ground which seemed to be suffocating every living tree.

Rick turned and put all of his attention amongst the death on the front lawn. A large spike was seen towering above everything dead. Its tip seemed to have glistened from the light of the moon. “What was that?” Rick inquired as Claudia glanced over and saw what Rick was looking at.

“Oh…that was Queen Nanaac’s resting place,” she answered and he turned and gave her a quizzical expression and she smiled. “Queen Nanaac. She was King Darvon’s worst enemy. Seems she was raped by Darvon and bore him a son. But that’s all ancient history – you’re here for the haunts, aren’t you?”

He studied the spike for a while before answering. “Yeah, I am,” he replied and faced her once again. “But it helps to know the history.”

She stared into his eyes for a moment and then nodded. “If its history you’re after, I can introduce you to the guy who does the tour groups – he’s on that Scariest Castles series. He comes into the tavern quite a bit,” she explained and saw that his mind went back to the spike.

“There’s just something about me being here…I don’t know,” he turned to Claudia. “But it’s important that I get in there,” he said and then turned to look at the large castle.