Shawndirea, p.27
Shawndirea, page 27
“At first I didn’t see them. When I heard you calling out, I tried to go back upstairs, but they attacked me.”
Riese placed his hand on Marc’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re safe now.”
Marc looked from the alley back toward Hobskin’s Tavern.
“You said that some of the townspeople tried to get through the front of this building?” Riese asked.
Marc gave a slight nod while still watching the front of Hobskin’s Tavern.
“Where did they go?” Riese asked.
Marc’s face paled. He slowly raised his right hand and pointed. Riese turned to see at least a dozen disease-ridden corpses staggering toward them. There wasn’t any way to get around them. Riese only had his hammer. Marc held his dagger. The undead townspeople marched forward, blocking Riese and his son in between the two buildings and cornering them against the ridge wall.
Riese looked at his son and said, “Be brave, even until the end.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Queen Istrell summoned her crystals by placing her weary hands upon them. A faint glow emitted from the stones, momentarily, but she was unable to draw their full power. Her mirror remained dark. No matter how much she focused, it gave her no clear picture to let her see where Shawndirea was. All she knew was that her child had been in a very frigid climate, and the closest region with such icy temperatures was Glacier Ridge.
“Why?” she asked aloud. “Why would you venture there? No faery can withstand such frozen conditions.”
And after the human clothed her in the black cloth, she seemed to have gone stealth by a different kind of magic.
“What has the human done to you?” she asked, holding the crystals tighter, hoping to make a connection that might clue her to where Shawndirea was now. But the crystals grew cold and refused to respond to her touch.
Frustrated, Istrell said, “I’ve warned you about humans, and yet, you always have to stubbornly ignore my counsels.”
Istrell left the small room where she kept the crystals and hovered along the downward winding path until she reached the throne room. When she reached her throne, she plopped down and released a long sigh. She covered her eyes with her right hand, trying hard not to cry.
“Your Highness,” a dainty faery servant whispered.
Istrell opened weary eyes and replied, “Yes, Feather?”
“I have brought you some honey wine,” Feather said.
“You are always a dear one,” Istrell said with a tired smile.
Feather’s hair was long, curled, and black. Her eyes were a bright blue that sparkled like rare jewels. She wore a pink flowing gown to match the pinkish tint in her delicate wings.
Feather handed the large golden goblet of wine to the queen and curtseyed, gliding backwards in respect of the throne. She smiled and said, “What is troubling my queen?”
Istrell downed the strong wine in one quick gulp. She set the goblet down and replied, “Shawndirea.”
Feather’s eyes widened. While refilling the goblet, she asked, “Is she missing again?”
“Has such news roamed my kingdom?”
Istrell drank half the wine, licked her lips, and narrowed her eyes when she focused her attention on Feather.
Feather tucked her chin to her chest, looked at the floor, and shook her head quickly. “No, Your Highness.”
Istrell finished the second goblet of wine, set down the goblet, and rose to her feet. She held the throne arm tightly and swayed back and forth. She took a staggering step forward and said, “Not that it should be any surprise at all. One builds hope in her heir to be the greatest queen this kingdom has ever had, and she disregards her destined responsibilities.”
Feather extended her hand for Queen Istrell to grab. Istrell didn’t hesitate to cling to it.
“Your Grace,” Feather said softly. “Have you eaten?”
Istrell shook her head.
“When did you last eat?”
“I don’t recall. Probably a couple days.”
Feather extended her right arm and Queen Istrell looped her arm around Feather’s. The dainty faery braced the queen and said, “Allow me to walk with you to the Great Hall so you can eat.”
The strong wine had taken effect quicker than normal. Istrell slurred her words and continued rambling, “And then she foolishly allows a human to capture her.”
“A human?” Feather gasped.
Istrell nodded and said, “Yes. Destroyed her magnificent wings.”
“Oh my, not her glorious wings?”
Istrell closed her eyes and shook her head in disappointment. “Shredded. Absolutely shredded.”
“Here, My Grace,” Feather said, helping Istrell sit at the head of the long banquet table. “I will see what the cook has prepared.”
Istrell nodded sleepily. “Thank you, my dear one.”
Seconds later, Istrell folded her arms on the table and rested her head. Her heavy eyelids slowly blinked closed. She snored.
Feather shook her head. “My poor Queen Istrell.”
“Has my aunt become such a lush?” the male faery said with laughter in his voice. He drifted along the top of the long table and hovered over Queen Istrell’s head while she was lost in drunken slumber.
“Dirk?” Feather asked. “You’ve been eavesdropping?”
Dirk chuckled and flicked his long golden hair back. It shook like fine threads of silk. He said, “Knowledge is what I seek in order to claim the throne.”
“Shawndirea is destined for the throne.”
He shrugged. “She does not have the qualities of a true Queen. She’s too busy pursuing idle fantasies and not disciplined enough to reign over our kingdom.”
“So you’ll be our King?” Feather asked.
“I will.”
Dirk took her hand and pulled her close. He kissed her passionately and embraced her tightly. He backed away and looked into her eyes. He said, “And you, my love, will be my Queen.”
Feather smiled and squealed with delight.
“Just keep milking her for information,” Dirk said. “I need to know where Shawndirea is and prevent her from returning.”
“As you wish,” Feather replied.
“Istrell is in no state of mind to rule our kingdom. Especially not in her current condition.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Riese heaved Marc upward at the side of the building. Marc grabbed the edge of the roof and held tightly. Riese placed his hands beneath his son’s feet and shoved with enough power to get Marc securely onto the roof.
Marc reached down his hand. Riese shook his head. “I’m too heavy for you to lift.”
“I can try!”
“No. Stay there. Don’t move.”
Riese swung the hammer back and forth, smashing the steel head through several of the walking corpses’ heads, which parted the way enough that he rushed through and got to the other side of the icy path.
“Father!” Marc shouted.
“Stay put!” Riese replied.
Two of the undead lay motionless on the cobblestone path. Blood oozed from the large dents in their skulls. The remaining undead corpses staggered toward him. Pustules burst on their skin. Little green vapor clouds puffed from the lesions while yellow ooze leaked. Riese understood he must avoid touching any of the leaking bodily fluids and the drifting green vapor. Otherwise the disease that took their lives would infect him as well.
Their hollow dead eyes chilled him, but at least Marc was safe being on the roof. All Riese needed to do was destroy these creatures that had once been friends and townspeople he held dear without exposing himself to the plague. Once they were really dead, he and Marc could get to the stables and get out of Glacier Ridge.
The one advantage Riese held was that the undead townspeople were slow. They didn’t recognize him, but they seemed to be following orders to kill from another source. And should that be the case, Riese believed the old man who had infected them with the disease was also summoning them to kill any living survivors in the town.
Riese tightened his grip on the hammer, shook his head with partial regret, and one by one, he brought the undead men and women to the last peace they’d ever know. And like those dead on the street, Glacier Ridge was dead also.
Tears heated his eyes as he gazed at the broken bodies on the icy cobblestone. Small green clouds of plague hung over their pus-filled sores. He eased clear of the disease clouds and set the hammer against the side of the building and helped his son get down.
Marc embraced his father and said, “What about those inside Hobskin’s Tavern?”
“Leave them be,” Riese said. “I doubt I have enough stomach to eliminate more.”
“What do we do?”
“We pack up and leave this godless town.”
“Where will we go?”
Riese shrugged. “I have to catch up with those that stayed last night.”
“The ones with the thief?”
Riese nodded. “Yes. But first, we need to see if we can find the black carriage’s tracks. I want to find that old man. He will suffer for what he did to Glacier Ridge. He will suffer dearly.”
Marc and Riese studied the marketplace cobblestone. Only one place seemed to have a short path of where the carriage wheels had pressed down on the ice. Riese reasoned it must have been where he had stopped the longest and handed to bag to Jez. After that, the tracks disappear.
“I see nothing else, father,” Marc said, making his way from the trading lot toward the stable.
“I know, son. I don’t see any marks other than these.”
The oddest part was that Riese had never found any along the icy road after the old man had asked for directions and driven away. It seemed the man had magically disappeared.
Riese ran to catch his son. “Let’s hurry, Marc. We pack up some weapons and food and leave.”
“Can we ever return?”
Riese’s jaw tightened. “I hope to someday. For now, we concentrate on staying alive. You’re all I have left in this world that is dear.”
Marc didn’t reply. He wiped tears away as he thought of Jez.
Riese placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “It will be okay. I was foolish to have left the town.”
He and Marc returned to his stables, packed up their best weapons, and slung the double-sided pack across the massive horse. He slid bags of gold and silver into several bags. The rest of his gold wealth he hid beneath floorboards in the back of his forge room and slid heavy crates on top of it. He would not leave Glacier Ridge forever. With what gold he carried with him, he could hire others to come back to eradicate the undead townspeople and reclaim his small township.
Riese saddled the horse and fastened a bridle into place. Marc did the same with his horse.
Riese was at the stable doors and pushed them open. Cold rushing snow and wind dropped the forge room temperature quickly. When he turned around, Marc was pulling his horse and Jez’s horse behind him.
“What are you doing?” Riese asked.
“I can’t leave Jez’s mare behind, father. Jez would haunt me forever. And what about all the horses we’ve housed for the . . . our former patrons?”
Riese nodded. “We need to release them. Perhaps we can get them to follow us out of the ridge. They can graze in the grasslands below Glacier Ridge.”
They tethered Jez’s mare behind Marc’s horse and weighed the mare with weapons, food, and more supplies.
Riese and Marc opened dozens of stalls and led the horses out to the marketplace. Then they climbed upon their horses and headed up the icy path. Eventually, the freed horses would follow them up the hill, along the frozen mountain path, and down the next ridgeline where fields of green grass bent with warmer breezes.
Marc was silent during the long cold ride. The loss of his brother weighed upon him. They were close. The best of friends. Coldness set in Marc’s eyes. Firmness hardened his jaw. Seeing his son become a man should have been a blessing, a moment of celebration, but how Marc reached that plateau was more costly than Riese wished to dwell upon.
Riese’s small town inside Glacier Ridge was dead. He had nothing left there. His heart ached. Where the icy path thawed, he found wagon wheel tracks and hoof prints. If he hurried, he could join Roble and the others as well as take delight in watching Crukas hang.
Chapter Thirty-five
Marshall Jackson, an FBI agent in his mid-forties, sat across the table from Deiko in a mental hospital in Somerset, Kentucky. Marshall was a massive black man with broad shoulders, huge arms, and massive hands. On the table in front of Marshall was an odd leather covered book, a yellow notepad, and a black ink pen. Marshall folded his hands together while he studied Deiko’s demeanor.
Deiko’s hands shook. His lips quivered and when he glanced at Marshall, he quickly avoided eye contact and mumbled softly to himself.
“Mr. Deiko,” Marshall said in a very deep voice.
Deiko shuddered when Marshall spoke.
Marshall sat back in his chair, making notes on his yellow notepad. “Mr. Deiko, what did you see inside the cave?”
The blonde nurse’s aid shook her head. “He won’t speak. We can’t get him to say anything.”
Marshall’s eyes narrowed as they flicked from Deiko directly to her. “Ma’am, I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“I know,” she replied nervously. “I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Well, don’t!” he said, slamming his fists on the table. “I’m a federal investigator and if I need your opinion, trust me I’ll ask you for it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I’m very sorry.”
Marshall shook his head, pointed toward the door, and said, “Why don’t you busy yourself with some of your other chores. I need to speak to Dr. Deiko. Alone.”
She nodded and hurried out of the room.
Marshall waited for the door to swing shut. When it closed, he smiled at Deiko.
“Mr. Deiko. Would you kindly tell me what you saw in the cave?”
Deiko’s nervous eyes braved enough to look into Marshall’s.
“It’s okay, Mr. Deiko. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help. I want to know about this Elias that you saw in the cave.”
“El-El- Elias?” Deiko said, biting his fingernails.
“Yes. Elias. Do you happen to know if his last name was Jackson?”
Deiko’s haunted eyes looked away. He visibly shook.
“Mr. Deiko, I know you’re frightened. I know. But believe me, I want to stop this Elias from hurting anyone else. I know that you understand what I’m saying. Tell me what I need to know, and I won’t let the doctors and nurses know that you’re sane. You can stay in here as long as you’re where you think you’ll be safe.”
Deiko snapped to attention and looked around the room. Seeing no one other than Marshall, his nervousness vanished. In a calm collective voice he asked, “How did you know?”
Marshall shrugged. “A hunch. Sometimes when people see something that frightens them and they have no rational way to explain it, they simply want to hide in a place where security is higher than home.”
“What I saw? Was it real?” Deiko asked.
“What did you see?”
“A man that looked like a walking corpse. He was old and rotten, but he was walking, moving.”
“In the cave?” Marshall asked.
“No. In my mind.”
Marshall frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“He had mental control of me. How is that possible?”
“Anything is possible when you’re dealing with the paranormal.”
Deiko shook his head. He glanced around the room again, checking to see if any doctors or nurses were secretly watching him.
Marshall smiled and said, “We’re alone.”
Paranoia gripped Deiko. In a sense he knew he’d be relieved to tell someone else about what had happened, but he also feared that Elias might also hear and return to kill him. He wondered how this agent knew about Elias, too.
“Are you certain?”
Marshall nodded. “You said that he took control of your mind. Any idea how long that occurred?”
“Not really. I believe it happened after I found my friend and colleague while he was butterfly hunting. I was watching him with binoculars and saw him catch a faery.”
“A faery?” Marshall’s eyebrows rose, and he looked at Deiko with such speculation that Deiko knew the statement made him sound even crazier. “What medications do they have you on?”
“Yes. I know you don’t believe that, but after seeing the faery, that’s when I found myself determined to kill Ben to get her.”
Marshall frowned and wrote on the yellow notepad. “Ben?”
“Dr. Ben Whytten. He’s a zoologist at the campus and a friend.”
“He’s your friend?”
Deiko nodded. “Yes. Well, probably not any more.”
“So you tried to kill him to get the faery?”
“Something dark possessed me to get her at any cost. I remember looking in the mirror and my eyes were different.”
“How so?” Marshall asked, jotting down notes.
“My eyes were black. Even where the white should be.”
“Okay,” Marshall said, “When did Elias release you and do you know why?”
“I entered that cave. I followed it for a ways, looking for Ben. I had my gun with me and knew if I saw him that I’d kill him. When I couldn’t find him, Elias turned on me. He battered me and forced me to leave the cave.”
Deiko showed Marshall the scars on his arms and face. He lifted the back of his shirt and showed him more.
Marshall stood and walked around the table. He took Deiko’s wrist and studied the marks carefully.
“Well, the good thing is,” Marshall said, releasing Deiko. “That he didn’t carve any symbols in your flesh.”
Deiko stared at the marks and then looked at Marshall. He said, “What does that mean?”
“He has no more purpose for you. If he had cut symbols on your arms or back, I’d be worried. But he’s done with you.”
Deiko looked relieved. “So he won’t be back?”
