The Children of Arnborg: the Prophecy

by Rene Barry

Chapter 1

part 2 of 2

Stuart wrenched at his tie, loosening it till he finally felt like he was breathing. He swirled the whisky around the glass he held. He had been drinking all evening, and the air and everything he touched reeked of alcohol.

God, you’ve really lost it! You’ve lost it! I can’t even... I can’t... God!

Matthew Raines had been his friend and colleague for years, and now the counselor’s words of disbelief played over and over in his head like a stuck CD.

God, you’ve really lost it! You’ve lost it!

He dragged his hand across his desk, slamming everything from the paperweights to the pencils onto the ground. “Dammit!” he screamed, dousing down the alcohol for the slightest chance of feeling better.

A voice cut across the room. “Trust me, it ain’t gonna help.”

Stuart wheeled around. “How the hell did you get in here?” he spat at the sight of the man, looking just as haggard and disheveled as he, crowding his office doorway.

Judge Grant laughed. “You spend enough time with the Undead, you learn a thing or two.” He struggled to prop up his coat and peered at Stuart’s phone lying on the ground, another victim of the D.A.’s rage. “You got the call?”

“What do you think?” Stuart spat.

Grant measured the battered-looking attorney. “We asked for this you know,” he sighed. “She gave us an offer. We accepted. Now we’ve got blood on our hands, literally—”

“Would you shut the hell up! Christ! I don’t need another damned lecture about you finding your conscience crap!” He drained the empty glass and slammed it on the desk. A slight crack appeared.

“Fine.” Grant shrugged. His eyes searched the room. It was Stuart’s private home office, and both it and the living room he had walked through just moments ago looked just as bad as Stuart. “She paid me a visit in the parking lot last night. Wanted to know what’s in it for Woolsey.”

“And you came all the way over here to tell me this?”

“Hey, I don’t like your office. It’s crappy. I don’t know how you work here. But what I do like is my neck, and Emma doesn’t think Woolsey’s going down fast enough, which means we’ve got a little problem called The Coven... and Raines.”

Stuart’s head shot up. “What about him?”

“What about him, indeed? Seems to me that discretion isn’t one of your strong points. Now, look, I know you want to save your friend’s ass—”

“Don’t start! Just don’t...” Stuart grimaced.

“But it’s time for you to shut up!” Grant yelled. “Stop giving Rainey Junior ammo after ammo to have your ass tossed in the Looney Bin! I want you to try this case, get a conviction, give me the bitch to sentence! Emma’s happy! The Coven’s happy! And then, hell, I can try to pretend those blood-sucking bastards don’t exist!”

He kicked the waste paper basket in front him. He reached for his inhaler, sinking down into the chair behind him. “Dammit, Morrow. How the hell did we get into this?” he whispered wearily. He was propping up his coat again as a thin sheet of paper peeked out from under it.

Stuart stared at Grant. He noticed now that the judge’s age was beginning to show. The gray at the sides of his temples was now steadily and unrelentingly creeping farther and farther to the center of his head. The lines of his face were more pronounced now.

It seemed to Stuart that in less than a few months the youthful Thomas Grant who had defied years of gruesome testimony and threats from every conceivable type of criminal was now degenerating into a tired and worn old man desperate for a way out, a man who in his last hour, for all his pragmatism and knowledge of the real world, had been outsmarted by something that spat in the face of the logical, the tangible and provable.

The judge who had worshipped at the altar of concrete evidence and smoking guns had dared to accept the heresy of beings who were not human beyond a reasonable doubt. In the end, his inner child who still dreamt of the impossible and longed for magic had won out. But was it worth it, Stuart wondered now. He had only to look at the defeated aged man sitting in front him for his answer.

“I don’t know...” Stuart said faintly, answering Grant’s question. “I don’t know...”

* * *

Stuart eased his way past the beings of porcelain and ice, their cold stares just a semblance of humanity. He noted that the fluorescence of the blue lamps around the room really did not help this. His eyes moved to Emma standing in all her demonic beauty over Judge Grant seated before her.

“Thomas here has made a fatal error in judgment,” she spoke as Stuart still shuffled his way through the room, her voice falling in sharp whispers of iron. Judge Grant trembled under her. “Thomas has failed to exercise every bit of power vested in him to produce the required results. Haven’t you, Thomas?”

Stuart stopped suddenly, realizing this was more than just a meeting. It was a judgment.

“Our agreement has not changed, Thomas,” Emma continued, “just in case you thought it had.” She pulled a Bible from her coat and slammed it down in front of the judge. “Just in case you need to pray!”

“Emma, I—” Grant pleaded, half-rising from his chair to face her.

“Sit... down... Thomas!” Emma’s whisper was barely audible. “You should appreciate my hospitality while you can.” She let the words linger.

Stuart saw that her fangs were visible now. He knew vampires showed them only for a purpose, but something else caught his eye. A dossier was lying underneath the Bible. He also knew that just hours before Karen Woolsey had walked free and he had been removed from office and advised to seek help. He watched Emma circle the room slowly.

“Our pact was made in good faith, was it not?” she asked Judge Grant. “We offered you protection and prosperity, both you and Mr. Morrow here. We removed your rivals; every one of them paid off, transferred, blackmailed or imprisoned for their own indiscretions. Now, you’re a superior court judge, and you” — she turned to Stuart — “up until last night, were a respected D.A.

“In return for our trouble, all we asked was that you try, convict or silence in any way you can all who would threaten the very delicate secrecy of our existence.” Her nails were digging into Grant’s shoulders. “The likes of Karen Woolsey who seek to kill us and anyone who has pledged their allegiance to us. Rebecca Morde risked her life for us. That is not something we easily forget.” She surveyed the room. “No. Au contraire, we reward, and her loyalty has been rewarded.”

“What do you mean?” Stuart interrupted. “What have you done to her?”

“She has her life back, that’s all. Free to do whatever she pleases.” She turned back to Grant. “A mistrial is not what we had in mind.”

“Emma, you know there’s a good chance—”

“And a retrial is not to my satisfaction!”

“Dammit, Emma! Why me? Huh? Stuart here’s the one who tried the damn case! He’s the one who couldn’t keep his mouth shut!”

“Ah, a man who turns on his friends in the face of death. You disappoint me, Thomas. Believe me, your ancestors had much greater courage.”

“Silence, Emma.” A small voice came cutting easily and commandingly through Grant’s and Emma’s quarrelling. All within the room looked to the voice. Joshua remained seated as he spoke. “I believe we’ve heard enough for the night. We all have other concerns to tend to, and I must see after Rebecca. She will need me now. I believe we can conclude this tomorrow?”

Stuart peered at Joshua and Emma. They seemed to be communicating something beyond his understanding. He observed Grant who still sat trembling while Emma’s steely gaze acknowledged Joshua’s request with a fleeting dip of her eyes.

“Then, we are done. Tomorrow we gather,” Joshua spoke looking at Grant with a sinister smile. “Same time tomorrow, Thomas?”

Emma’s lips curved with a smile as well.

* * *

Judge Grant’s Sedan came to a screeching halt on the gravel entrance. He did not wait for the engine to die, dashing out of the front seat, inhaler in hand, drawing on it like a cocaine addict. He scrambled up the stairs of the church, gasping for air as he ran through the archway, stumbling toward the oversized crucifix at the head of the aisle.

The bitch flung a Bible at me. Doesn’t matter, he thought. Probably burned her hand on the damned thing and found a way to hide it!

“Father!” he yelled. “Father! Dammit, I need a priest! Anybody!” Only his echoes answered him, and then... silence. Not even the flickering candles made a sound to quiet his rising fear. His heartbeat decided to take up the mantle booming into his ear and, it seemed, into the darkness that lay around him so loud he swore it echoed off the dome.

“Okay! Okay!” he panted. He dropped himself before the altar, his eyes frantically roaming every inch of the cross. The inhaler slipped from his feverish grip, clattering onto the floor and into the deathly silence of the church. He started. His hand knocked against the altar, sending several candles crashing onto the floor.

“God!” he screamed, darting his head downward toward the commotion, watching the flames sputter, writhe for life and then die, softly, into the darkness. In the remaining candle light, he could see his sweat on the altar. “Oh God! Oh God!” he sobbed.

“Yes. God, indeed,” a man’s voice echoed out from a hidden crevice of the darkness. “It’s funny that He is never around when you need Him. Isn’t it?”

“Who is it!” Grant screamed into the emptiness. “Which one of you? Joshua? Dammit, I gave you every thing I could! Everything!” he cried.

“Not everything, Thomas. Not everything.” Joshua flew out at Grant, swift and deadly, his nails piercing Grant’s throat so that the bright red blood spurted onto the altar, drenching the cold, tiny bodies of light that were still burning.

“Josh... shua...” Grant groaned. “Please...”

“Shh... No whining during the evening meal, my friend,” Joshua chided. He looked up at the towering crucifix and smiled. “Indeed. Christ, forgive me,” he whispered in mock apology and held Grant’s limp body up to the effigy over his head.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” he sang, jerking Grant’s body back and forth in the sign of the cross accordingly. “Amen,” he laughed out. “Rebecca, my darling! Dinner is ready.”

Grant saw Rebecca Morde emerge from the darkness, her hard, white body dancing toward him. His eyes widened realizing that the figure was no longer human. “How?” he moaned.

“Now, that’s a stupid question, don’t you think, Tommy?” Joshua jeered. “Miracles. That’s what we are, my friend. And this...” — his hand swept across Rebecca’s frame — “is her reward.”

Rebecca hovered over Grant. “You let my killer go free!” she charged.

“You’re not dead...” Grant groaned.

“Well, the jury’s still out on that one, isn’t it?” she chuckled, baring her fangs.

The veins of Grant’s eyes tightened and cracked across his widened orbs as Rebecca sank her teeth into his neck drawing the liquid and his life into her body. She moved her skirt away and spread herself atop his organ, writhing on the moaning body beneath her, the entire abomination committed under the silent, bleeding body of Christ on His cross above them.

* * *

To be continued...