Chapter Forty-One

He couldn’t have been more satisfied as he watched his family ascend from the hell he had known for as long as he could remember. His army had served him well, he supposed, and now was the time to reap what was his: ultimate knowledge from whatever Eden had to offer. He needed Bolan for a little while longer but the time was close when he would dispose of the annoying corpse which followed him wherever he went.

Bolan, on the other hand, was clueless as to his master’s plans. He didn’t understand why Orion had placed his army above-ground. And when the last of the Dreamkillers disappeared from view, he turned to his cloaked master with caution in every move. “Sir,” he began, choosing his words carefully. “I seem ignorant of your motives. Your army has the ability, now, to kill Richard and Tracy. If they’re dead how can you ever get your book back; this is, after all, the real reason you’re after them?”

Orion nodded. “I need my children to create a diversion – which I believe they will do with ease. Besides, if they do kill them, then there’s no one to stop me from finding it. Is there?” he pointed out.

“I agree, but you’re so close to it now. To kill them would set you back so much precious time.” Bolan didn’t even know why he was trying to spare their lives. Perhaps he was getting tired of this game. Perhaps he was tired of kissing Orion’s ass. Or perhaps yet, he was growing a conscience.

“I understand your concerns, Charles. They are well thought out. If your concerns become a reality, then let us make haste and pay a visit to Richard before my children find him first.” At that he turned and headed in the same direction his horde had taken.

* * *

A pause had taken place between Darvon and the ones who summoned him back home. Finally that silence was broken when Darvon looked up at Rick. “I do not know why you are so interested in the story. All generations after me seem to have forgotten the Great War.”

This sparked something within Rick’s mind. “You speak as if you’ve watched the war from the netherworld. Do you know what became of Orion and when?”

Darvon looked around his throne room behind saddened eyes. “I was not as evil as legend has me. I truly wanted my kingdom and the Grendels to be united. I was tired of the war.” He looked over at Rick. “I would have done anything to have stopped the war.”

“Anything?” Rick replied and Darvon nodded behind sorrow. “Even rape your enemy?”

Darvon dropped to his knees. “I was young and stupid. I did think it would have ended the bloodshed. I was terribly wrong.” He grabbed a sword from its sheath on his back and brought it down and bowed his head to the hilt. “By my father’s life and his sword, I truly did not mean for…Orion to do the atrocities he has done. Barbus Whitaker took some book from Nanaac’s Keep and Orion has vowed to find it. He told his army that entrance into the Forbidden Realms is written in the pages. He learned of the place from me, and I apologize. I did not actually believe such a book existed.”

Before anyone could speak another word, the doors opened and all eyes turned to look at the Cloaked One standing in the doorway. They had not heard the master Dreamkiller enter through the front door; he may have come through a secret entrance, Rick thought. Nonetheless, he stands here now with the wind erupting behind him; his cloak flowing in a haunting fashion.

And behind him peered Bolan.

Orion glanced down at his father. “Get up you babbling monkey.”

Instinctively, Darvon drew his sword and held it in attack formation as everyone stared at Orion, but it was Orion who chuckled first as he moved his hood toward his father. “You always were a fool. You cannot possibly strike me down – your steel is nothing more than spirit material. I am flesh and immortal.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Bolan had had enough. It was now or never.

Rick turned and threw Bolan a shocked expression. Orion snapped his head around, too, but not with a look of surprise. It was of hatred.

“He is as mortal as you or me. He has never died.” Bolan screamed out, attempting to shed some light on Rick as to stopping Orion.

But before he could brighten that light, Orion lifted his cloaked arm, his skeletal hand outstretched, and a demonic winged hell beast screamed out of his sleeve and headed for Bolan. Bolan ducked in time to avoid being hit by the small bat-like creature but as it turned back around, it struck Bolan in his neck, severing his head once again. And if that wasn’t enough, the creature clawed its way into his chest and began tearing at what was once Charles Bolan’s heart.

Orion turned away from the helpless form, which had now fallen to the ground, to look at Rick. “I can make all of this stop. Let me make it stop, Richard,” he pleaded.

Rick stared deep into the Dreamkillers hood and saw the two red glimmers he had seen a long time ago. He was paralyzed as he watched them.

“I can make all of this like it never happened. You were never here and Emily not going to die searching for your remains,” Orion droned on in that same hypnotic way he had over all of his minions.

Rick had not seen Stan and Darvon attempting to break him of the trance. He stared at Orion with tears forming in his eyes. Over and over he kept seeing his wife looking for his dead body.

Orion took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yes. Let me take it all away from you. Let me end all of it.”

Like a huge weight lifted from his chest, Rick nodded behind tears and walked over to Orion, who waited with outstretched arms. They embraced one another for a short time; Rick ignored the scent of everything repugnant which rolled off the cloak. Orion lowered his triumphant hood and looked down at Rick and brought his darkened face down to Rick’s. In less than a moment, Orion’s entire being seemed to have liquefied and seeped into Rick’s slightly open mouth.

Once Orion had disappeared, Rick doubled over gagging violently. Stan ran over to assist Rick by helping him over to the table. “What the hell happened, mate?” he asked as he helped Rick sit down.

Rick looked up and smiled an odd smile; one of which startled Stan. “The little fuck was too weak – that’s what happened, mate.” He stood up and grabbed Stan by his arms, binding them at his sides, and walking him over to the tall window.

They arrived at the castle by two in the morning and by that time Tracy’s feet had been bruised and bloodied by the many cuts they had endured. When they approached the tall gates, Tracy was more relieved that they were ajar than she was worried that someone else might be in their enemies' keep. She needed to sit down – lay down, perhaps, if this castle had a bed like her beloved queen.

“No,” Nanaac shot her thoughts to hell in a heartbeat. “We came to win a war – not to sleep.”

Tracy nodded her weary head. “How do you expect me to fight when I can hardly stand up myself?” she inquired more out of sarcasm.

“My child, it is not you who will be fighting. It will be I. I will be your energy,” the queen replied and Tracy sighed and nodded as she took them up the long trek to the front of the castle.

Tracy was halted, however, when they came upon the large spike where the queen had been impaled. Cold chills raced down her back as Tracy watched it through Nanaac’s eyes. “He did that to you?” asked Tracy behind pity.

Tracy could feel the sorrow emanating from her soul as she felt Nanaac sigh. “It was well before your time, Dear. Do not worry your head of my previous life’s dismay,” explained the queen after a moment.

Once again Tracy began walking, as much as her feet and legs protested, until they reached the door. She didn’t knock but merely shoved the door open and when the moon rays shone quite the opposite of what she had expected to see, she became worried that others were in harms’ way.

She walked over to the tripod and camera. Looking down she saw other video paraphernalia lying about. She knelt down next to a black bag and saw a white badge clipped to it and then she read Richard Hopman on it in bright blue letters. She gently ran her fingers over the plastic badge. Fate has brought us here together, she thought.

And then a promising thought entered her mind. Maybe he can help us win this war. After all, why else did fate put us together again?

Tracy scanned the room for any signs of Rick and when there was none to be found, she began running down the closest corridor, calling his name as she ran. It only took her several minutes to locate the man she once knew as Rick Hopman. He was leaning across the throne with his arms caressing the back of the chair, looking at his new visitors.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“We’re so glad you could make it,” Rick grunted. “Now we’ll have that family reunion I’ve always dreamt about.”

Tracy turned her face over to the other side of the chair and saw Darvon standing inside a circle of ashes which were inside a circle of blood. “You?” Nanaac asked accusingly in Tracy’s voice.

Darvon shrugged and shook his head. “It was not my idea. The bastard has trapped me here. There is nothing I can do to get out of this bloody circle,” he glanced down at the ring of ashes. “And if you are not cautious, he will have you here for eternity as well.”

Tracy shook her head and then her eyes stopped when they found a man hanging from the tapestries; the fabric wrapped tightly around his neck; blood had dried on the once colorful masterpiece. He had hung to his death some eight feet from the floor.

And then her eyes took her to the floor several yards from where they stood and Tracy barely recognized the decapitated body of her old doctor. It had been apparent from the lack of hue he had been deceased for some time.

Then the queen’s eyes rose and they rested on her son. “Whatever demons were in his seed when he planted them in my womb, I will kill. I swear it upon my name, Nanaac Grendel.”

Orion smiled beneath Rick’s flesh. “At last, the war will have a conclusion.”

* * *

They heard the police sirens first, followed almost immediately by those of the ambulances. Car horns soon blared in the close distance and that was when Emily turned and looked at her chauffeur. “Wonder what’s going on,” she replied, expecting Claudia not to respond. Back in the States she felt a very uneasy feeling, hell, call it terrifying, about her husband here in this foreign land. And now those feelings were being intensified a hundred fold as she listened to the cacophony of sounds which seemed to be coming from just around the bend.

Claudia was about to explain that it was probably just a bad car wreck but her thoughts were interrupted as she jerked the steering wheel and ran the car up on the deserted sidewalk. A fire truck screamed past them and quickly disappeared around the corner.

Once the car was stopped, Claudia slipped it into Park and sat still for a moment. Emily saw that her friend’s hands were shaking violently upon the wheel. “I’m sorry,” Claudia began, looking embarrassed at her sudden scare. “I looked into the mirror and saw that bloke came almost crashing into our back side.”

Emily smiled in a reassuring way and she patted Claudia on her shoulder. “It’s all right. There’s no harm done. ‘Sides, I don’t think we’ll be seeing that truck any time soon to make a complaint.” Claudia smiled and nodded.

No sooner than the words were spoken, that same fire truck came crashing out of the sky a yard in front of them. Both women screamed as the truck crashed to the ground exploding on impact.

They got out of the car and stood with their doors open and then they saw it – when they both looked up in the direction the truck had been attacked. Several buildings were ablaze and black smoke had blocked out any skies. And then they heard the deafening screams. They couldn’t make out any particular person because it seemed as if all of England was screaming and burning. There came a horrible odor in the breeze as it blew past them. Emily wasn’t positive, but she had the image of burning flesh in her mind.

Claudia glanced over at Emily with a frightened expression behind her green eyes. She wanted to know if Emily thought it a good idea to go around the corner to offer a helping hand; but at the same time she was beyond frightened to move her solid legs.

And then came the silence. It was an odd calm-before-the-storm type silence. The fires, too, seemed to have quieted. The two women standing motionless by their car didn’t dare breathe – for fear of another uprising of atrocities, whatever those may be. The silence seemed to be calling them forward.

They didn’t bother closing their doors; they abandoned their post and headed around the bend on foot. Claudia quickly turned from Emily and vomited onto the sidewalk. Emily wasn’t far behind her friend, she was turning white in the face, but she forced herself to bear witness to the apocalypse.

She scanned the street from left to right. There were vehicles of variation but with very similar passengers. Some of the drivers and passengers were hunched over their steering wheels; whereas some of them had their heads bent back over their head-rests. For those who were hunched over their wheels and dashboards, blood had been dripping down onto the floor from the dashboard or wheel. For those whose heads had been bent heaven-ward, their blood had merely run down their fronts and had dried before amounting to too much on the floor. But they were all dead. Men, women, and their children. The killers showed no mercy and no prejudice. They came to kill and they didn’t give a damn who they slaughtered.

“Help!”

They turned and saw a younger woman in tears and she looked frantically from the streets to the top floor of a burning building. Claudia and Emily followed the only survivor’s eyes and they saw a young child leaning out of a window.

“My baby!”

It was Claudia who rushed to the aid of the woman in peril; Emily had begun searching for clues as to who did this. Her eyes left the woman for the child; the woman’s lips turned into a hungry-insane smile. Emily turned back to the thing and she screamed. The woman had transformed into a blue-green hideous beast with six arms as large and round as her head with yellow razor-teeth. “I cannot believe you fell for that old one,” the beast said.

Claudia would have screamed if she could have found her voice box. Instead she stared at the beast with terror behind her green eyes. The Dreamkiller burst into laughter. And it was this laughter that found Emily’s ears and the woman turned and saw the grotesque beast which had taken hold of Claudia’s neck by one of its many claws.

Before she ran to the woman’s aid, Emily looked around for a weapon strong enough to kill the demon; at least now she knew who had created the atrocities. Her eyes fell upon a still-burning two-by-four and had picked it. She ran over to the creature with the flaming board over her shoulder and when she approached striking distance, she swung her weapon down as hard as her limitation would allow. It seemed to have done the trick; the beast felt the blow to its head and it dropped Claudia

But it did not kill the beast, it only irritated the Dreamkiller and it turned all its attention to Emily now. It stared at her for a few moments, looking as if it were sizing her up. No one had challenged me, it thought. Not since the Great War anyway. Claudia was still standing behind the Dreamkiller motionless. She was too terrified to move and the Dreamkiller sensed this fear – it could smell it – and it enjoyed that smell. The Dreamkiller swung one of its large arms around and lashed out with its claw and made four deep incisions across Claudia’s abdomen.

Emily was the one who screamed “no” as she watched her new friend’s eyes widen with shock and they both looked down and Claudia saw what she thought she would never see: her intestines were uncoiling from her open wounds and flopping onto the ground before her feet. She fell to her knees and let a small yelp escape her lips just before falling over next to her innards and ceased breathing.

It was just the Dreamkiller and Emily, and Emily didn’t especially like her odds. She dropped the board and began running the opposite direction, heading in the direction of Claudia’s car. She didn’t bother looking back to see if the creature was in pursuit. She only had her own survival in her mind.

She reached the car several moments later and jumped into the driver’s seat. Before doing anything further, she propped her arms up on the steering wheel and buried her face in them and began weeping.

“That won’t help you,”

Emily jumped and turned to face the voice and was taken aback to find an old man standing by the passenger door, neither woman had closed their doors when they went in search of the horror, smiling down at her as he peered into the car. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am a friend of your husband’s. My name is Frederick Whitaker and I suggest we get the hell out of here,” he said and plopped his body down into the passenger seat, looking straight ahead.

Emily turned her head and saw what he was referring to; the horde of demons was advancing on them and there must have been several hundred of the bastards. They were screaming words she had never heard before. Orion was one word she could make out and they seemed to have repeated it like it was some sort of chant. “What the hell are they?” She couldn’t remove her eyes from the fearsome onslaught.

“They are Dreamkillers. They have come back from below-ground to continue their master’s war,” Frederick said without bothering to tell the story. He felt that now was not the right time to discuss Dreamkiller lore. In fact, it was not the right time to discuss her husband. Right now, the urgency to remain alive was more important.

“Dreamkillers?” she repeated and thought of something. “Doesn’t that usually involve dreams? Has it occurred to you,” she turned and faced Frederick for the first time. “We’re not dreaming!”

He nodded. “England – and the whole damned world as far as I know – is asleep. These are the nightmares made flesh by our world,” he said as he looked out the window at the demons coming closer to them.

“How do we stop them?” came Emily’s next question as conflicting thoughts raced through her mind. She didn’t want to fight, let the Royal Military fight them, but at the same time, she knew she was here right now where it was all happening. She couldn’t just let them kill more people – especially the children.

Frederick gave forth a sorrowful smile. It was her husband Rick who felt it his duty to protect Tracy. He fought Orion himself on the beast’s own territory. He almost died fighting Allen. And now his wife – oblivious to everything that has happened – wants to rid the world of the same creatures. “I will not let anyone else fight my battles. I must make a stand and pray my family will help me,” he said in almost a trance.

She looked at him with confusion in her mind. She turned back to the demons and saw that they were ten yards from the car now and she turned the ignition, put the car in reverse, and sped back far enough that she could right the car. Once they were farther from the demons, Emily felt a long sigh escape her lips.

They drove for ten minutes in silence and when she pulled around the corner, she found that the same street the pub was on, the one where she met Claudia, had been totally obliterated. Every building had extensive damage done to them; windows shattered, doors ripped from their frames, roofs completely torn from their beams, and not a single person left alive to tell the tale of the Dreamkillers.

She stopped the car in the middle of the street and shook her head disbelievingly. She doubted that a single cockroach would have been spared.

“I must leave you for now.” Frederick turned and reached for the handle, but Emily grabbed his shoulder.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? We gotta stick together,” she pleaded with tears in her eyes. “You need to show me where Rick is.”

Frederick sighed and nodded. “Your husband is at the Darvon Keep. It’s about ten miles west,” he said and thought of something. “You may not like what’s happened there, I’m afraid.” With that, he pushed the door open and exited the car, leaving Emily to ponder what could have been meant by his farewell. Or was it a warning?

She watched as he disappeared around a corner and then turned the car around and headed west.