There was no reply.
“If your mother followed emergency protocol,” his father said, “she took the girls down the back stairway to the computer room.” He walked to an intercom unit on the wall and pressed three buttons. When the speaker beeped, he leaned toward it. “Everything’s okay, Marilyn. We have some special guests. Want to come out and meet us by the fireplace?”
“In a minute,” came the scratchy reply. “Monique fell and scraped her knee. I’m patching her up.”
Billy lifted the box off Barlow’s shoulder and hurried with it to the family room. As he laid it on a coffee table in front of the fireplace, the lid shifted and fell to the side. A beautiful sword lay on top of a blanket of crinkled white paper.
He grasped the hilt. He knew this sword, the replica of Excalibur he had used in training before he pulled the authentic one from the stone. Although only several months had passed since he last gripped this hilt, it now seemed like years. So much had happened since that day.
Raising the point toward the ceiling, he gazed at the etching of two dragons on the silvery blade and the ancient runes that bordered them near each edge. As he recalled the day he first learned the meaning of the odd letters, Professor Hamilton’s voice echoed in his mind. “This one says, roughly speaking, ‘May the Lady’s purity never depart from the one found worthy to draw the sword.’”
Billy smiled. Leave it to Morgan to claim the purity label. She was so full of herself she probably pulled a muscle patting herself on the back. Still, the phrase was appropriate. In his mind, the Lady would always be Bonnie. No one could dispute her purity.
“I see that you have discovered your gift.”
Billy spun around. Sir Patrick strode in, a wide smile on his face. Although his eyes seemed young and fresh, his gait revealed a much older man. Obviously his many years as a full-fledged human were catching up with him, yet with a wool sweater fitting snugly over his trim waist, he still displayed a youthful frame.
Patrick sat on the sofa’s middle cushion and patted the one on his right. “Please, William. Sit, and I will tell you why I have brought this sword.”
While Billy took a seat, his father, Sir Barlow, and Shiloh walked in. His father, still carrying the rifle, snapped open the blinds. “Better to let them see us with our weapons, at least until Marilyn and the girls come in.”
“Indeed,” Barlow said. “When it comes to those scoundrels, many a parent in my day used nightmarish legends to frighten children into submission.” He lowered his voice to an ominous tone. “If you fail to obey me, young man, I shall give you over to Caitiff, and they will use your hair for a wig, your teeth for a necklace, and your eyeballs as fish bait!”
Billy laughed. “Did you ever use that threat yourself?”
“No, William. I was never blessed with a wife or children.” Barlow sat on the floor near the hearth and prodded the fire with the poker. “But if I were to protect a child from the Caitiff, I think this rod could come in handy, especially when used in the proper place.”
Shiloh sat on a plush recliner that faced the sofa, while Billy’s father chose a space on the floor near Barlow. “I saw one of the ghouls down the street,” he said, patting the rifle he kept at his side. “He was close to a neighbor’s window, so I couldn’t get a shot at him.”
“Firearms will be of no lasting value.” Patrick nodded at the sword in Billy’s hand. “We should rely on the more tried-and-true method of relieving those villains of their heads.”
Sir Barlow jabbed the air with the red-hot poker. “Slicing and dicing villains is preferred by knights two to one over shooting them with balls of lead.”
Billy grinned at Barlow’s antics. Ever since the gallant knight escaped from his centuries-long imprisonment in the candlestone, he relished every opportunity to use modern idioms, even when they sounded hokey. He was especially fond of using “the cat’s pajamas,” though he never seemed to understand what it really meant.
Billy lifted the sword a bit higher. “This was Prof’s. Where did you get it?”
Patrick withdrew an envelope from his coat’s inner pocket and showed it to Billy. “Charles left his will in the possession of the Circle of Knights. During the months between his locating you here in West Virginia and your subsequent journey to England, he altered his will and stored everything he left to you in this box. Most of his possessions went to his daughter, Elizabeth, of course, but I think you will find some valuable treasures in here.”
As heat surged through his ears, Billy rubbed the blade with his thumb. “He left this to me?”
“Who is more worthy?” Patrick removed the crinkled paper from the box, revealing spiral notebooks of various colors stacked haphazardly throughout.
“Some items,” Patrick continued, “were on his person or at his lodging when he passed away.” He lifted a gold chain from underneath one of the notebooks. An old-fashioned pocket watch dangled at its end, slowly twisting. As a jewel on its back plate caught the rays of the sun in each rotation, it sparkled. “You were likely far too busy to notice that this lay on the ground where Charles fell in battle. Fortunately, Sir Barlow’s eyes were keen enough to spot it.”
He laid the watch in Billy’s hand and draped the chain over his arm. Billy placed the sword across his and Patrick’s laps and closed his fingers around the watch. It fit perfectly in his palm. As his throat clamped shut, he couldn’t bear to look at Shiloh. He would think of Bonnie again and how much they both loved Prof, and he’d cry for sure.
“And these,” Patrick said, lifting one of the small spiral notebooks, “are journals. Charles was faithful to record his daily activities, including his efforts in finding you and your adventures together thereafter.” He placed the notebook in Billy’s other hand. “I perused his collection and gathered the ones that related to you.” The aging knight gazed into Billy’s eyes. “They are yours now.”
Billy stared at the notebook’s cover and imagined where the professor’s hands had touched the worn edges. A chill crawled along his skin. Now the wise old teacher could speak to him once again, even from Heaven.
A loud thump shook the door.
Sir Barlow shot to his feet, a hand on the hilt of his sword. “That was not a friendly knock.”
A window shattered. A long howl sounded from outside.
Billy and his father stood as one, Billy lifting the sword as he rose. Drawing his own sword, Sir Barlow rushed to the doorway. Billy kept pace. A hairy arm reached through a jagged hole in the glass next to the door and unlocked the knob.
As it released the deadbolt, Sir Barlow set his foot against the door. With a lightning-fast swipe, he slashed through the creature’s wrist. Black fluid spewed from the arm as it jerked back through the hole. Its hand splashed in a puddle and wriggled like a decapitated snake.
Barlow tried to refasten the deadbolt, but the door flew open and knocked him to the side. A thin, hairy man in a dirty loincloth burst in, grasping his bleeding stub of an arm. As ten more crowded in behind him, each one snarling through long, pointed fangs, he raised a club and lunged toward Billy.
Billy swung the sword at the lead Caitiff and whacked its head off. So much for barging in with a club.
“Catch!” Barlow yelled. He flung his sword to Jared, lowered his shoulder, and plowed into the pack from behind, steamrolling them with his hefty body. As they toppled forward, Billy and his father severed heads and limbs until only one Caitiff remained alive, quivering as he lay on the floor in a widening puddle of thick, dark blood.
Jared pressed his sword’s point against the Caitiff’s throat. “Tell me, foul beast. Why did you come here?”
The dirty-faced creature trembled violently and let out a plaintive howl.
Pushing the sword, Jared cut into the Caitiff’s flesh. “I heard one of your kind speak just last night. I know you can talk.”
The Caitiff raised a finger and pointed at Shiloh. She stood near the fireplace next to Patrick, firmly embraced in his arms. “We saw th
e girl,” it squeaked. “We wanted the girl.”
Jared glanced at Shiloh, then back at the Caitiff. “She is just one. Why did so many of you attack? And why are all of you in a little town like Castlewood?”
The creature tugged nervously at his loincloth. His fangs dragged so heavily against his mouth, his lips began to bleed. “She has the scent … the scent of the circles. I must … I must take her.”
The Caitiff pushed his body up with his hands, but Jared slammed his shoe against his skinny chest, pinning him. “Why are you in Castlewood?” he yelled. “Answer me!”
“Let me stand.” The Caitiff pointed at one of his fellow attackers. “And I will show you something.”
Jared moved his foot away, but kept his sword close to the creature’s throat. “Very well.”
The Caitiff struggled to his feet and pushed his fingers into the loincloth of the dead body next to him. He withdrew a flattened scroll, about six inches long and tied in the middle by rough twine.
Jared snatched it away and handed it to Billy.
After ripping off the twine, Billy unrolled the dirty, wrinkled page. Odd lettering had been scrawled in a single line from one end to the other. “I have no clue what this says.”
Sir Barlow leaned over his shoulder. “The script is from my era, but my reading skills were quite poor in those days.”
Jared took the note and looked it over. “Hmmm … It says, ‘The devilish witch carries the odor of Hades. Take her, and you will be set free from your wretched state.’”
“Hades?” Shiloh said. “Well, I was certainly there long enough, but I hope I don’t still smell like that place.”
“True.” Jared crushed the note in his fist. “But you’re not the only one who has been in Hades. If the slayer is looking for Bonnie, these stupid beasts wouldn’t know—”
The Caitiff screamed and pushed Jared to the side. “I must have her!” He lunged at Shiloh but stopped in mid-leap. The end of a poker protruded from his back, its red barb partially blackened by the Caitiff’s blood.
Patrick held the other end, his face twisting in rage as he lifted the beast farther off the ground. “Nothing from the bowels of Hell will ever touch my daughter again!” He threw the poker, sending the Caitiff sprawling backward.
Barlow hacked its head off, then turned away as the stench of its fluids joined that of the others littering the floor. “Phew! We will need more than Lysol to rid the carpet of this foul odor!”
Jared nudged the Caitiff’s body with his foot. “They were already dead with regard to their lives on Earth. If the legends are accurate, when the dead residents of Hades die again in that realm, their bodies and fluids will disintegrate, and their souls will pass to the Lake of Fire.”
“I hope it happens before Mom comes in here,” Billy said, holding his nose.
Jared nodded toward the rear of the house. “With all the commotion, she probably stayed in the computer room.”
“Then let’s go there. This place reeks.”
After cleaning his sword, stowing it with the journals, and picking up the box, Billy and his father led the others through a hallway to the back of the house. Jared pushed a key into a dooknob but didn’t turn it. “Son, I need to tell you the bad news before we enter.” He let out a long sigh and glanced at each person in turn. A low hum reverberating from within the door made the air feel heavy, even prickly.
Billy shuddered. Something was wrong … very wrong.
Finally, his father spoke in a near whisper. “As I told you, Sapphira called earlier. Karen, our valiant little warrior, died in the battle against the Nephilim. According to Sapphira, Karen literally saved the entire planet.”
A painful lump lodged in Billy’s throat. He imagined the cute redhead and her freckled face the day he first met her on a wintry mountain. Her voice played in his mind. “So,” she had said, snow flecking her fiery-red bangs, “I’m supposed to believe that you’re a dragon? Human and dragon in one body?”
Billy let a tear drip from each eye, unashamed. He hadn’t merely lost a fellow warrior; he had lost a sister whom he had grown to love dearly.
He scanned the others. Tears passed down Shiloh’s cheeks as well as Patrick’s. Barlow’s eyes glistened, and he shook his head sadly. “We will all miss that feisty lass. She was a corker.”
“Your mother knows about Karen,” Jared said to Billy as he turned the knob, “but your sisters don’t. We will tell them in due time.”
Still carrying the box, Billy swiped his sleeve across his face and forced a fake smile as they entered the computer room. A high ceiling and bright lights greeted their eyes, as did his mother sitting at a desk in front of Larry the supercomputer, a collection of metal boxes and glass enclosures covering most of the wall on the left and rising to near the ceiling. Red letters flashed on the largest of five flat monitors on Larry’s outer panel. His stoic voice, more human than mechanical, interrupted the hum of his cooling fans. “Marilyn, an intruder has breached the perimeter. My sensors indicate an unusual odor, suggesting a skunklike presence.”
Marilyn rapped her knuckles on the panel. “It’s just Jared and Billy. Get a clue.”
“Clue collected. Jared and Billy are now registered in my database as skunk apes.”
Three girls—a blonde with Nordic features, a dark-skinned brunette, and Monique—rose from their cross-legged positions on the carpet, abandoning the scattered pieces of a Monopoly game, and followed Marilyn as she shuffled wearily toward the door. Red blotches on her cheeks gave evidence of a recently scrubbed face, and a wide bandage on the side of her neck, partially hidden by her shoulder-length light brown hair, provided a painful reminder that she had recently been the victim of a dog attack. “Jared? Is everything all right?”
“We survived.” Jared took her in his arms, kissed her tenderly, and turned her toward their guests. “Marilyn, I’m sure we have room for everyone, don’t we?”
She smiled. “Of course. The more the merrier.”
Billy felt tears forming again. His mother’s smile was mechanical, pain-streaked. With three frightened girls gathering behind her, the picture seemed more tragic than ever. Karen had been her daughter long enough to become a true part of the family. His mom’s heart ached, but she couldn’t afford to let on to the other girls, not while the Caitiff were still lurking. They were scared enough already.
Patrick bowed. “The merging of Earth and Hades is a rather lame excuse for leaving England, isn’t it?”
“Any excuse will do for friends to come together.” Marilyn waved her hand, fanning her husband. “Did you men wallow in a pig sty?”
Jared wiped a splotch of Caitiff blood from his hand to his shirt. “Those monsters aren’t exactly the cleanest—”
“Alert!” Larry called out. “Incoming message from Ashley.”
Billy hustled to the computer desk, slid into the swivel chair, and looked at the monitor on Larry’s panel. “Can we get her onscreen?”
“The bandwidth allocation from her handheld computer is inadequate for full-motion video. I will bring across still photos as a background for her voice.”
After blinking once, the screen showed a picture of Ashley, her hair blowing back into Walter’s face as he sat behind her. A sword hilt protruded from his back scabbard, the real Excalibur.
Another female sat in the rear, a dragon’s spine between her and Walter. Billy studied her features, long auburn hair and piercing eyes framed by a face much like Ashley’s. Although they had never met, from Walter’s description, she had to be Ashley’s sister Abigail, the former dragon, Roxil.
“Who’s on the console?” Ashley’s voice seemed wind-blown and agitated.
Billy grabbed a headset, slipped it on, and adjusted the microphone in front of his lips. “It’s Billy. Go ahead, Ashley. I have you on headset and external speakers. Mom and Dad, Sirs Patrick and Barlow, Shiloh, and our sisters are here.”
The others gathered behind him and watched the screen. The photo changed, t
he same scene shifted to one side to show part of a dragon’s wing. Only half of Ashley’s face was visible now. With her dampened brown hair plastered against her cheek, she seemed ready to blow it out of the way. “My mother’s going to try to create a portal to the Bridgelands,” she said. “Arramos did it, so she thinks she can do it, too. Once we go through, I don’t think we can contact you anymore.”
“What’s the hurry?” Billy asked. “I thought you were going to wait for Sir Patrick.”
“Yeah, I know. I sent Larry an e-mail. That’ll explain everything.”
Jared stepped up to the desk. “I already heard from Sapphira. She says the portal at the top of the turbine is still active.”
“True,” Ashley replied, “but that roof was too small to use safely, especially since one of us is a dragon. When you and Billy and Patrick and his knights meet Sapphira in Montana, she can transport you from the turbine.”
“No more time to talk!” a male voice shouted. “See you later, Billy! We’ll— ”
Static drowned out his words, though the monitor still displayed the previous scene, half showing the dragon and half showing Ashley, Walter, and Abigail. Somehow, the blend seemed appropriate.
Billy clenched his fist and whispered, “Knock ’em dead, buddy!”
“Ashley is no longer within range,” Larry said. “I will show the final photo and print out an e-mail Ashley sent immediately before her call.”
As the printer hummed, Billy stared at the new photo, Ashley and Walter leaning forward, their hair shaded orange in the glow of a stream of fire that spun in a tight cyclone to their left. Thigocia was probably flying in a circle and creating a ring of flames as she attempted to construct the portal. Walter’s face beamed. Ashley’s showed her fierce determination. Abigail’s expression mimicked Ashley’s, her brow low and her lips in a flat line as she held on to Walter.
Billy loosened his fist and slapped his palm lightly on the desk. If only he could go, too. Fighting side by side with Walter again would be awesome.