Curse of the Druids (9 page)

As for me? I needed a few minutes to consider everything; including cutting my losses and heading back home to America. But I couldn’t leave the woman I had unfortunately fallen for. Nor could I leave my Tawankan pal to dangle in the winds of fate.

“Sorry for the hard time, babe…. Count me in,” I whispered, drawing a relieved smile from Ishi and a soft sigh from Marie.

For better or worse, we’re headed for the Scottish Highlands.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and find this latest treasure.

Maybe I’ll live long enough to write about it, too.

Stay tuned.

Nick.

The End

The Nick Caine Adventures will return in November 2014:

Secret of the Loch

Nick Caine Adventures Book 5

Available now:

The Dragon Coin

The Judas Chronicles, Book Four

(Please read on for a sample)

Getting out of Podgorica proved easy enough, and we were on the main highway by four-thirty that Monday afternoon.  Traveling by train would’ve been quicker, but having a car as a possible getaway source seemed to be the wiser choice. Besides, if Roderick wasn’t correct about Dracul’s residence being in or near Budva, a car gave us more immediate options to rectify that potential problem.

That was my opinion, anyway.

We checked into the Hotel Astoria shortly after six o’clock, and after a quick dinner overlooking the beach we headed downtown. Standard logic wouldn’t necessarily help in determining the layered illusion supposedly waiting for us from Dracul. But we went with a version of common sense anyway, visiting the oldest part of the city first. A place that preceded my existence by more than five hundred years.

The locals refer to this area as ‘Old Town’. In truth, it has always been Budva’s trademark, and is a sandy peninsula that once was an island. Legendary even when Roderick and I first visited this area of the Adriatic coast eighteen hundred years earlier, it remains the biggest tourist attraction in the area.

The ancient walls of this section are a huge draw, and have survived at least two major earthquakes, in 1667 and again in 1979. The walls form the cornerstone for the labyrinth feel of the place, because of the braided streets, squares, bulwarks and towers. No wonder Dracul chose to be close, since this certainly fit his taste.

“Do you think he would be so obvious as to set whatever trap he has in mind for us in the citadel?” I asked, as we approached the city’s oldest standing structure. It appeared deserted and locked up. “I see it’s a theater now, one that’s apparently closed on Mondays.”

“Hard to say,” said Roderick, looking around warily. I felt a cold chill traverse along my spine. “He’s watching us.”

“He feels close.”

“Yes, he does,” he agreed, turning away from the citadel/theater. He began walking back to where the car was parked. “We’re wasting our time here. I could almost feel him laughing at us.”

He was right, that’s exactly how it felt.

“Then where is he? Or, better yet, where does he want us to go?” I said, getting increasingly irritated. Yeah, I know...like I should be in such a hurry to die, right? “Is this part of the game?”

“What, like foreplay?” Roderick chuckled and picked up his pace. “I just received an image of an immense dark castle, somewhere near water. No, that’s not quite right…the place is
surrounded
by water, lots of water.”

“Could be another dead end,” I said. “Especially if he knows you are getting mental images, this might be nothing more than another session of ‘fuck with the druid’.”

He laughed, shaking his head as he continued to move back to the parking garage where we left our rental.

“I’m serious!”

“I know, “ he called over his shoulder. “You might be right, Judas. But one thing is for certain. He isn’t here.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because the images of the castle are getting stronger…as much as I would like to not follow them, I feel it will be worse for us if we don’t hurry to try and find this place. Somewhere on the coast, and if we go now, we’ll still have plenty of daylight.”

Roderick’s sense of urgency won the battle over my desire to stay longer and have a better look around in ‘Old Town’. Unlike our casual pace from Pedgorica to Budva, and from the hotel to the older section of the city, he drove the Camry we rented with near abandon, and almost ran down a pair of bicyclists on the main road back to the beach. Following his inner voice, he took us further south and let up on the gas as he became calmer. Then, without warning, he pulled the car over and parked in front of one of the many scenic beaches the area is known for. At the moment, it appeared to be crowded with tourists and local sun-worshipers alike.

“So, are you looking for some cryptic clue beneath a sunbather’s umbrella that will lead us further on this wild goose chase?” I asked, smiling wryly.

“Shhh! Let me listen for a moment.” He stared out the windshield as if expecting such a clue to suddenly appear among the beach tenants, or the rising tide sending deeper swells toward the shore. Only a handful of surfers braved the bigger waves, and other than a few sailboats in the distance, the sea sat empty. The shoreline, on the other hand, was teeming with swimmers in the shallow depths while couples walked close to the water. “Come on, let’s go have a look.”

He exited the car, and without waiting for me, hurried toward what looked like an abandoned pier from long ago. The structure was missing most of its planks, and only the rusted steel supports remained. An ancient dingy was tied to the end of the pier, roughly two hundred feet from the shore.

Roderick jogged through the sand, dodging several volleyball players as he moved past their net. I ran after him, concerned by his careless behavior, as so unlike him. He stopped when he reached the steps leading up to the pier.

“What in the hell is this about?”

He ignored my question, removing his glasses and squinting his eyes as he gazed toward the deeper depths far beyond the pier. I followed his eyes but saw nothing, and in fact noted nothing unusual—not even a hint of the creepiness we had experienced in ‘Old Town’. However, a slight mist drifted toward us from the sea, just beyond the pier, and spread out along the shoreline in either direction.

Hardly detectable at first, only a few people around us seemed to take notice until the mist thickened.

“It’s here,” he said, finally. “Or, the road to it is here.”

“What do you mean?” I honestly had no idea what he babbled about. “What’s
here?”

“Dracul’s palace.”

“In the middle of the sea?”

“No, it sits on an island.” He turned to study me, and seemed surprised we were surrounded by other people. People, I should say, whose stares were drawn to Roderick’s face. He quickly put his glasses back on. “I’m beginning to think this is much worse than either of us could’ve anticipated. The island is out there right now…and yet, it’s not.”

“What?! Like we’re dealing with multi-dimensional shit again? Please say I’m wrong.”

I followed his gaze as it returned to the deeper waters beyond the pier. Roderick shook his head incredulously, while I awaited more details on what his perception picked up.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” he said, finally. “Maybe this is part of the maze…the illusion in the game that might reach other levels beyond the physical, and beyond normal acuity….”

His voice trailed off as he looked to the right of us, where the mist had thickened to a fog above the waves that crashed against the shore. A couple with a dog became briefly invisible, and seemed oblivious to the mist, until a dozen adolescents kicking a soccer ball hurried past the startled pair.

The youths, all boys and apparently local, chased the ball as it careened toward where we stood. Instinctively, I reached out to catch it when one of the boys kicked the ball toward Roderick and me. The kid, a striking blue-eyed blonde with dimples, smiled sheepishly and ran over to where we stood.

“You should be more careful, “ I said to him, using the Serbian dialect I remembered from long ago, and prepared for him not to understand, since modern Montenegrin is the official tongue taught in Budvan schools.

He nodded shyly and took the ball from me, bowing before taking a step to rejoin his buddies, who wore similar awkward smiles. I assumed he had merely read my tone and facial expression, but then he stopped and looked back at us, this time knowingly.

“Dracul looks forward to your attendance tonight at his palace,” he said, in English delivered with a strong Slavic accent, surprising us. “Return here at midnight. His coachmen will be waiting.”

The lad ran to rejoin his mates.

“Hey, wait!” Roderick called after him. “What’s your name?”

He took a step back toward us and stopped, and the knowing smile turned mischievous.

“Mortis is my name,” he said.

“And your family name?” Not sure why it mattered to me, but I suddenly thought this youth might be blood related to our nemesis. “Do you live around here?”

He laughed as if my question inspired hilarity, and his buddies joined in. Roderick and I glanced at each other, warily.

“Do you have such a name, Judas?” he retorted, and I scarcely recognized the boy who humbly approached us just a minute ago. “At least my name is genuine, and not a name intended to deceive. Same for you, Mr. Cooley.”

What the fuck?!

“Just make sure you’re both here at midnight,” he advised, again, when all either Roderick or I could do was stare at him as mutes, dumbfounded. “My master is most cruel when people disappoint him.”

He turned away and this time the entire group ran back from whence they came. I would certainly understand the expectation of these kids suddenly disappearing into thin air as they moved further down the beach. But we were able to watch their progress until their images grew too faint to track. We missed most of a gorgeous sunset settling in the west as a result. All the while, the foreboding feeling from earlier worsened.

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Blake 187:

A Zombie Revolution

(Please read on for a sample)

The strength I once had ebbed slowly from my tortured soul along with the broken pieces of my life. There was no reason for me to stay in a world not worth living in alone and depressed. My only option was to slit my wrists.
An escaped zombie sat outside my window screaming for breathers. No one responded, not even my sorry excuse for a father who was unaware of my actions in the bathroom. The only sound to my dying ears was the slow drip of my blood onto the stone floor of an almost bare, cold room.

I could no longer see as I slipped away… my fate decided.

I was happy to go into an afterlife where I hoped my loving partner Enni would be waiting for me with open arms. Her death months before came from yet another virus, which had destroyed thousands more as well as my reason to carry on living. I waited for Enni to come. She didn’t. Instead, I woke up to a conscious nightmare of epic proportions.
The zombie clinic.

Everyone I had ever known told horrid stories
of needing to keep clear of the place where Severance deliberately reanimated the dead for their own profiteering means―free labor and a boost to a declining population. I’d heard the tales of wretched screams coming from inside the high security building so loud they echoed through the walls and across the barren land of what was once a thriving city. Now I was a victim, forced back to life and strapped tight to a gurney, my eyes struggling to stay open in a room no bigger than a body box.

A blonde haired
nurse in a red uniform came to replenish my drip and admonish me big time. “Open your eyes zombie. It’s been three days already. Yesterday you should have sat up, but no, you lie there like a useless bundle of garbage. There’s been forty-two infusions and procedures done on a body you destroyed, show some damn gratitude.”

There was tension in the air as she busied herself around the unresponsive me, who had nothing to bring to the table of the living dead. She could have wrapped the infusion cord around her neck and, as far as I was concerned, if I never got up again I’d be happy.

She muttered something about my father being notified I had been classified as “not disposed” of. I was still usable and fit for work unlike the old and the sick who were disposed of the instant they drew a last breath. I visualized my father’s angry face, his brows pulled together and his lips curled at the thought of his only son becoming one of the monsters he loved to despise―and kill when necessary. “Do you want us to send word to your father? By law, we have to advise you of your rights to some contact with family before your rehabilitation,” the nurse coldly informed me.

My throat was so sore I could barely speak. “No, I have nothing to say to him.”

“Ummm, bad blood between you. What does Severance tell you about not honoring your father or mother? It is the ultimate disrespect for authority. Maybe I’ll report you for it.”

“Tell them whatever you want nurse, I don’t care.”

She was no more than twenty yet she held the ultimate authority and power. “Just so you know,” she replied, leaning over me with a scowling face. “You are now lower than a third class breather who exists only in the disease infested sewers. Any rights you had before are gone as is your ability to think for yourself and be an individual. I suggest from now on you be careful how you speak to me and others in the program.”

I had lived without human rights for so long I never knew what it was like to be my own person. Her big speech had no impact whatsoever.

For more than a week, I was stuck in a soulless room with a window view consisting of toxic rain falling day and night onto the mud drenched field outside. The zombie clinic was cleverly concealed. Only important officials knew of its location.

Occasionally, someone showed up and took me for minor surgery or a walk through the spotlessly clean white corridors for exercise. Then came the cosmetic procedures designed to give me the human touch.

“Let’s get those eyes looking good shall we?” Her name was Cherub, a technician with fake red cheeks and false breasts too big for her short stature. With an insincere smile, she forced me to try on different contact lenses. “I think you must have been real handsome when you were alive. Did you have brown eyes? Am I right?”

“Y
eah, I had brown eyes. Maybe this time you can try pink or purple or green or―”

“Stop it. You know you must never disrespect a breather. Besides, I’m one of the nicer ones who doesn’t hate the walking dead. Because of this program, I get extra food credits
.”

Her sense of pride made me want to throw up―if only I could.

An hour later, I was fitted with brown eyed contact lenses and a spare set just in case I lost the disguise. She gave me a mirror so I could look at what I’d become.

“See how much better you a
re without the dead eye look you all have. I’ve done such a great job you could almost pass for one of us.”

I wanted to puke and would have if I still could. “Blake 187, I think you’re ready for rehab,” she informed me before leaving with her little, red case tucked under her arm and an air of false authority.

“Number 347052… Blake 187, report to room four.”

I was moved from the clinic to the high security rehabilitation center. Every day my number was called to go where I was told without question. Forced into different indoctrination programs designed to control my ability to think, I was being groomed for slavery. They needed me to be compliant. A voice crackled from speakers long past their clarity. If only they didn’t boom clear enough for me to hear. Dying had brought me many problems, including sensitivity to noise and a heightened awareness of the truth. The longer I was in there, the more I came to know the moment I stepped back out into the living world I would be hated and oppressed. My only reaction to the fear I felt was to rebel.

I was constantly late; a sign of my desperate need for some control in a building with three hundred floors, each one dedicated to zombie rehab. I would have fun on the high-speed elevators when I thought no one could see me. I’d been given three warnings for my unwillingness to comply and put into happiness therapy. It didn’t work. I bombarded the therapist with inane questions determined to be so bad they’d keep me where I was. I didn’t want to go back outside under any circumstances.

The result was a downgrade to level four. This meant I was given even more therapy and reported as an “asker” because I was too inquisitive. The dumb bastards marked my file.
Not making progress
. Then they sent me to a “detangler” therapist.

“The dangers you fear, Blake, are only for the walking dead who escaped rehab. Once you leave here, you’ll be sent to work under the protection of Severance, your great and wonderful Illuminati who only has your interests at heart.” Doctor Lila Field, a breather who
loved
the rehab program was determined to win me over. Young, naive, brainwashed, and ambitious, she appeared to care meticulously for her zombie patients. I was no exception.

Illuminati? She had to be kidding. Severance was a dangerous and extreme dictatorship who hid cleverly behind their leader Pye Peters and his “enlightenment” theme.

“The truth is,” I explained. “I never wanted to come back as some kind of freakish ghoul society hates. Even though my care mother taught me never to discriminate against zombies, it makes no difference to the rest of the world. If you put me back out there, I'll be in trouble.”

“Blake 187, you must use the politically correct term,
walking dead.
Zombie isn’t appropriate. Severance has harsh penalties for not using the correct wording.”

I had lived under the control of Severance for too long and saw through their thin disguise of governing only for the good of humanity. Witch Hunts, assassinations for the smallest misdemeanors, and control on what we said or thought was part of everyday life. While Pye and his officials lived in opulent splendor, I worked all hours and struggled to eat on food credits.

Doctor Field may have been an exception because she did care, but she couldn’t deny the truth. The constant influx of rehabilitated zombies ejected into her dwindling existence spelled disaster. “If and when I’m released… I’m
not
going home,” I told her with conviction.

Not returning to family would mean taking up residency in a Severance-controlled halfway house. There, I would be guaranteed anonymity and a secure barrier to the rejection and discrimination. I feared breather judgment more than anything and the pressure of my father being informed by law I was a zombie didn’t help. He was a man who hated the sight of them.

Doctor Field handed me a syringe filled with the daily dose of a human touch. Without it, I would be rabid and useless to Severance. She also gave me my daily cigarette ration. According to the rules, the more I smoked, the smarter I would be. This went for breathers as well. Another brainwashing tactic from Severance.

“Remember your contract,” Doctor Field reminded me. “Should you leave and fail to take your prescribed dose, there will be dire consequences if you become rabid.”

“Are you speaking of escape from the program, Doctor?”

She shook her head in frustration. “What do you think I mean? As long as Pye Peters decrees you are to be looked after, you’ll be medicated. Escape and you will be hunted down.”

After a grueling one-hour therapy session on my need to cooperate and be less fearful of breathers, she turned me loose. Guards watched every move I made as I returned to my quarters. My thoughts of escape were interrupted by a short and pretty zombie girl with long dark hair who stopped me in my tracks.

“Hi, I’m Zindra 211, and you are?”

“I’m Blake 187.”

“What a cute name, Blake. How long have you been suffering in this place?”

“Too long… and you?”

“It’s been so long, I don’t remember. I got here because friends kept telling me it was fun to go around making out I was a zombie. My family told Severance they’d had enough of my behavior and to put me in the rehab program to teach me a lesson. Crazy fuckers my folks.”

“Personally, I think you’re delusional.”

Zindra reminded me of other zombies I’d met in flat denial, who in spite of being thrown into rehabilitation couldn’t accept they were no longer alive. “We are a band of innocent victims, thrown into rehab amongst zombies as a punishment for speaking our minds,” they would tell to everyone they came in contact with.

As a result, they were put under constant supervision, and thought reprogramming. Failure to accept they were zombies meant they would come to a sticky end.

“Do you know what they do to you if you think bad thoughts? Punishment in a dark room with no meds. You fly around the room like a crazy person.” Zindra had no subtlety. She was all over the place.

“I get the feeling a lot of what you say is bullshit.”

“Then think away and see what happens!”

“I already do.”

“Really, are you sure?”

Did she know something I didn’t? From first impression, I knew talking with the likes of Zindra would bring me a whole heap of trouble I didn’t need. But I didn’t want her to think I was the greenhorn zombie who therapists could pound every day until they were sure I was no longer able to think outside of the box.

“Did you die old and get a younger face?” she continued.

“I didn’t wait so long. I was done battling to survive in a shit world full of broken down humans. I was twenty-eight years old with nothing left to live for. The most important person in my life, Enni, my girlfriend, died of the virus. I wanted to join her, so I ended it with sharp blades, and a gamble on not re-emerging as a zombie statistic.”

“I figure it didn’t quite work out the way you wanted.”