Chapter Forty-Two

The storm outside raged on, blowing wind gusts deep inside the castle. The corridors howled and the candles danced to a seductive theme. Shrieks of ghosts long dead echoed throughout the keep. Angry voices were heard cursing into the wind, some expressing their disapproval of what was going on and some others were shouting expressions of gratitude for their King. The loud metallic swinging of the spike was heard bouncing off the walls. An explosion, too, was heard somewhere within the walls.

“You will not live,” the voice of Nanaac said to her son. She stood as tall as Tracy would allow but her posture was of true authority – her shoulders were stiff and held back and her head was held high. She had her son cornered between the wall and a large statue of some god thought to bring enlightenment which had its large marble arms outstretched, palms up, with flames dancing in either palm. The figure had his head turned heavenward and a single tear was seen running down his cheek, about to disappear into his beard.

He shook his head and smiled. “You don’t understand, Mother. It is my destiny to survive,” Orion began and looked around the home he had known for seventeen years. His eyes then dropped back to his mother. “No – there are other reasons for me to live. You, on the other hand, should have remained dead. I don’t know why you’ve come back; there’s nothing you can do to stop me from taking control of Eden.”

Nanaac stopped and stared at her son for a moment in disbelief. “Is…is that what the Great War was? A campaign to find Eden?”

Orion nodded. “To know the secrets of Eden is to know the secrets of the universe. Right now I’m living in the time circuits, but imagine – learning to live for eternity!” There came a look in Rick’s eyes at that moment. A look of hunger for power.

Nanaac lowered her host’s head in pity. “Whitaker took the book because I thought you could protect it from your father; not to use it against mankind. And all this time I thought it was for land control,” she said.

Orion grinned. “I guess it really was if you look at it my way.”

Nanaac shook her head. “I don’t believe you – you lie to me. The Great War started long before you were even born.”

He shook his head. “If you don’t mind, Mother, I’ve lots to do. So,” Orion began and lifted his hand at Nanaac. Flames danced on his fingertips for a moment and then shot out at Nanaac.

She dodged the flames as it engulfed a nearby tapestry. Turning back to her son, Nanaac showed that she had not been resurrected empty-handed; bolts of red lightning shot from both of her palms.

He defended the lightning by shooting out another blow of flames which countered the bolts of electricity.

Without realizing it they were heading toward the mouth to the castle. The pounding rain had made the entire floor wet.

Grinning, Nanaac continued throwing her red lighting toward her son. Her aim wasn’t directed at Orion, but at the floor instead. Her gamble was rewarded when she saw that her beloved child was being electrocuted from his feet up. His body was jerking and gyrating. Finally after five minutes of watching her son’s agony, she ceased the bolts of electricity and his limp body fell to the wet floor.

Nanaac stood her spot for a while; she watched the form on the floor smoldering, but it did not move. The war is over, she thought and moved her stiff legs. She walked over her son and out of the castle into the raining world. “Thank you, my love. I could not have accomplished this without your assistance,” she said to Tracy as they walked down the path toward the front gate.

Tracy turned her tired lips into a smile. At least she can go back and get her son and leave this damned place forever. If there is such a thing as forever. Orion believed in forever.

That was when she felt a sharp pain penetrating her stomach. She fell to her knees and looked down and coughed out blood as Nanaac saw the same device which had ended her life so many years ago.

“You will not stop me!” cried an irate Orion when he staggered over to his mother who was on the verge of tears. He placed his hands around the spike’s end, mud had encrusted it from being in the ground which housed the likes of worms and grubs, and turned it which made his mother cry out. “It will be my pleasure to kill you twice.”

Tears became one with the rain as both Nanaac and Tracy felt the spike twist inside their abdomen.

Orion was smiling when he yanked the spike from his mother’s body. She had fallen to the ground as the spike was removed. He had the pleasure once when he was but a child to see her impaled upon this same spike. And now to see her die a second time from this same piece of metal pleased him to no end.

Nanaac picked up what effort she had and rolled onto her back and she looked up at her son who had raised the spike up in preparation for the final blow. “Why? Why do you hate me so?”

This stopped Orion and he stared down at his mother. He had felt no love growing up. He was left alone to live with such deformities about his face. He was left all alone when he was picked on by his peers, even those who knew his father was their king but did not care. He was left to learn to hate – and that was what he was best at. He hated the world and its atrocities. He hated his peers and he hated his physical deformities, for he was forced to wear the cloak to hide his features. He hated his mother for not loving him. “You never loved me – you wanted to kill me before I was even born! Defenseless! Only Darvon made me stronger. Sorry the old fuck didn’t know I stumbled upon my gift of being a Dream Crusader. I suppose I have that trait from you.”

She stared in horror as her son opened up what heart he had. She only hated her child because she was raped by such an evil man – whose only intent was to wed her and unite the families.

* * *

From the corner of a near-by building Frederick watched Emily drive away in the direction he headed her in and then turned around and placed his hands inside his pockets. He didn’t know where to go; he had only visited the guardians in his dreams, not in the real world. He knew that they were in some cave, but he didn’t know how to get to them.

His dreams – that was how he would get to them. But even if he attempted to fall asleep, too much destruction would have occurred by the time he reached his relatives. No, he mused. There had to be a quicker way to fall into unconsciousness. He glanced up and across the street. All that was of interest was just a bar with several motorcycles parked out on the curb.

Salvation came to him as he pondered the possibilities of the biker bar. With no time to spare he ran across the street and slammed into the doorway of the bar screaming, “They’re coming! Gotta get the hell out of here!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Several of the men at the bar turned and only grunted at what they thought to be just another drunkard.

Irritated, Frederick crossed to the bar and grabbed the closest costumer by his leather collar and shook the large man. “They’re coming, man. Those creatures from another world!” he shouted, throwing some spit in the man’s direction, and glanced back at the still-open doorway.

This must have done the trick. Just as Frederick turned back to look at the man, a large fist came screaming at his head. Frederick did not duck but took the blow to the left side of his head – knocking him to the ground unconscious.

It was dark and cold. He felt claustrophobic and he discovered he was on his hands and knees crawling. Up ahead he saw the lamination of a flame. Frederick smiled triumphantly and sped his pace and when he reached the circular room, he was surprised to find that James Whitaker was nowhere to be seen. In fact, it looked like the flame itself had diminished.

He looked up and saw the skeletal figures of the past guardians. He followed their bodies around the circle, and then he saw a newer looking skeleton. Oddly, this one seemed to still have pieces of flesh dangling about his ribs. He noticed, too, that several rats were lying about the skeleton’s feet. They were not feeding on the flesh. In fact, it appeared that these rats were lamenting the loss of this one.

Frederick shook his head and knew that this one must have been James Whitaker. Just when and how he died, he didn’t know. What was certain was that James died without finding that replacement he was looking for. “I’m sorry,” Frederick whispered and dropped his eyes.

A few moments passed and then he cleared his throat. “I need your help – all of you,” he said.

Another few moments passed, causing a strange stillness in the air. And then he felt it; the ground and walls began vibrating. Pebbles were being dislodged from their resting places. “Why?” thundered a voice which sounded as if it were all the voices of the skeletons speaking in unison. “You had your chance. Why should we help you?”

Frederick moved his head around to look at each guardian in turn. “I need an army. Orion has unleashed his Dreamkillers into the real world and they are destroying the city. If they succeed, it’ll only be a short time before he gains access to the Forbidden Realms. In fact, he’s probably almost here,” he said.

“It is too late for us to care anymore. However, we will discuss the issue further,” the thunderous voice said and then all was silent again.

And this silence annoyed Frederick. “No! I need an answer. If you do not help me then Orion wins. All that we fought for will be for nothing.” And then he felt his eyes begin to open.

Trying as he may to keep them closed, his eyes opened and he looked up at the reflection of the lights in the mirror of the bar. He felt that the bartender had placed a wet washcloth over his eye. He sat up, ignoring the pain that was shooting through his face and head, and looked around.

He wasn’t sure what he would see. Some part of him expected to see the guardians standing there waiting for their orders. But the other part, the part he knew more as realism, expected to find the Dreamkillers coming closer to this part of the town. He sighed. No matter what the outcome would be, there was nothing he could do but wait.

* * *

Something happened in the few seconds following Orion’s revelation within Nanaac. She felt pity for the boy. He was right – she had left him alone and had not fought at all to get him back. She left him with no hope for any redemption. From the beginning she had made sure that his light would always remain meek. She began weeping for her child.

Orion stared down at his mother with contempt behind Rick’s eyes. There could be no other feeling – he had practiced hate for the past lifetime so he knew hate like he knew people’s fears.

“Forgive me, my son. I did not know that I had hurt you so. Is it too late for us?” Nanaac asked and Orion gasped at her.

“Too late?” he repeated and laughed. “Woman, you lay there bleeding to your second death – and you ask me if it’s too late.”

Tears of sorrow fell from her eyes as she shook her head. “Then there is to be no peace,” she said and then lifted her hands up and faced them at Orion. She shot another round of electric blasts at him, sending Orion screaming through the air, hitting the wall of the castle.

Orion stood up at once and grabbed the spike from the ground which landed near his feet. He looked around and saw that his mother was crawling toward the Tower steps. He began walking after her, spinning the spike above his head with such velocity that the hum of the metal could be heard over the rain.

* * *

A breeze blew through the town and with it brought new strangers into the bar. As one of the biker’s exited the establishment, he was pushed aside as a large number of people entered, one right after the other, in double-file. When the group of people entered, all wearing vintage uniforms of various ages, the maximum capacity for the building had been exceeded by a hundred and twelve.

One of the men walked over to Frederick who had been watching the procession and bowed his head. Frederick smiled and jumped off the bar. “James.”

James looked up and returned the smile. “I have been trying to get you to become a guardian and now here you are – our master,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘our master’?”

“I mean you have complete control of us. You may not be a guardian, but this battle is yours and we are your army.”

It was Frederick who bowed his head this time. “I thank you for what you have already sacrificed.”

James put his hand on Frederick’s shoulder and they faced the army. They approached one of the soldiers and James turned to face Frederick. “Here is a man you may want to talk with when all of this is over.”

The man held out his right hand. “I am Barbus Whitaker. You could say that I am the cause of this war.”

As he shook his hand, “How do you mean?” Frederick asked and Barbus smiled.

“When I discovered what Orion was up to, I stole his book during dinner one night. Ever since then, he has vowed to find the book no matter what it takes or how long it takes.”

Frederick nodded and glanced toward the door when they heard a crashing sound coming from up the street and he made his way through his army and pushed open the door and glanced to his right. “Couldn’t’ve been timed any closer,” he mumbled when he saw the horde approaching – picking up and then tossing cars and telephone poles in every direction.

He looked back into the bar and then over at James with concern in his eyes. James smiled and nodded. “We have been resurrected for this. We will return to death when this is over – it is our duty to see to it that our team defeats the Dreamkillers,” he explained.

Frederick sighed in return and pushed open the door to its fullest and stepped out into the night and faced the demons. On their cue, the guardians walked out and fell into three lines behind Frederick. He heard a thunderous clank and turned back to his army and saw that they had all brandished their swords and held them above their shoulders waiting for their command.

He turned and watched the Dreamkillers’ tactics. They either did not see the defense line or they did not care in the least. Frederick was hoping that they had not noticed them yet because if they did see them and did not care, that meant that they didn’t care if they lived or died. And that makes for a more dangerous foe. At least Orion wanted to live.

He waited a little while and when the approaching killers were a couple yards away, he glanced over his shoulder. “Attack!”