The Secret of Lions (33 page)

Willem stopped and looked behind him. He
wanted to tell her how he felt about her. He wanted to tell her
he’d loved her for a year, but now he was focused on killing
Beowulf. It was time to stop running.

Willem held his gun out in front of him. He
crept toward the stairs. He carefully climbed them. He knew Beowulf
probably wore a flak jacket and was wounded at best.

He made his way to Barbara’s room. The door
was ajar. He opened it all the way and swept the room with his gun.
He saw no one, only the bloodstains that covered Lucy’s bed covers.
Her body lay underneath them.

Beowulf killed her roommate
, Willem
thought. He grinned. He started to ignore the body but then he
decided to check it. He pointed his gun at the covers and began to
walk toward it. As he crossed near the window, he saw a figure out
of the corner of his eyes. The scaffold was back in front of
Barbara’s window, and there was a figure leaning against the
rope.

Willem turned and began shooting. He fired
until the chamber of his gun was exposed. His gun was completely
empty. He watched as the smoke in front of his barrel cleared. He
saw the figure was hunched over the scaffold now.

Beowulf is dead,
he thought.

After the smoke cleared, his eyes suddenly
shot wide open. It was Barbara’s roommate lying on the scaffold.
Her corpse rested against the ropes. Beowulf had propped it there.
It was a trick.

“Shit!” Willem muttered. He quickly ejected
the clip from his gun and reached for another one.

A bullet caught him in the leg first. He
fell to the floor. He slipped the clip in and aimed in the
direction of a dark figure that sat up in the roommate’s
blood-soaked bed. Beowulf hid under the sheets. He fired another
round at Willem. The bullet severed his thumb. He screamed in
agony, grabbing at his hand.

Beowulf fired another silent bullet at him.
This bullet blew a large hole clear through his hand. Willem’s gun
dropped to the floor.

A forth bullet tore through his chest. He
felt the bullet explode his right lung. Blood clogged his
throat.

He gagged.

Beowulf walked over and stood above him. He
stared down at him. Willem tried not to cry. He was beaten and was
going to die. He knew it.

“Last words?” Beowulf asked.

“Barbara…Leave her out of this. You don’t
need to hurt her. She won’t tell anyone. She doesn’t even know
anything. Please, from one killer to another, I beg you to leave
her out of this. She can’t identify you,” Willem’s face was covered
in his own blood. His eyes flooded over with tears and blood. He
just wanted to tell her that he loved her.

“She can’t identify me? She’s the one who
led me to you. I’m Charles Blake,” Beowulf said. He smiled at
Willem and pointed the gun down at his face.

The final bullet tore through his head and
cut straight into the floor.

Black Lion was dead.

Willem was dead. 

Epilogue

Escaping Secrets

1950 London

95

Beyond the beautiful courtyards and gardens,
Barbara walked to the art gallery. She remembered the campus and
all of the places she had seen Willem. She peeked behind her and
noticed she was being watched. She suspected it was Beowulf.

She entered the art gallery and stared at
the painting. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed an old man
sweeping the floors. The image of an old ghost swept up in her
imagination. It was a vision of Willem sweeping in the
distance.

Barbara’s hair was now long and blonde. A
shawl covered her face. She wore a dark blue dress. Barbara smiled
sadly at the memories of Willem. They had belonged together.

Every single day she thought about that
night in the cemetery. She’d waited for him. When he did not show
up, she did as he’s asked. She looked behind the tombstone and
found a box.

Barbara opened the box and found a bag full
of money, a gun equipped with a silencer, and a tattered, old black
sketchbook. It was the one his mother had given him.

The sketchbook was full of sketches by
Willem. The first half was done when he was a boy. The second half
was more recent. Many of the drawings were of Barbara. Some were of
Gracy Kessler, Willem’s mother.

The sketchbook acted as a kind of journal of
Willem’s life. Barbara held it close to her, never letting it out
of her possession. Often she would flip through it, using the
beautiful illustrations as reminders of Willem’s life.

Slowly, she walked out of the gallery. She
looked down at her belly. It was big now. She had returned to
London after disappearing for the last six months abroad. She had
come home and was expecting her first child. She wanted to be near
Willem. He was the Unknown Soldier.

Barbara was running out of money and had one
last option. She had one last message from Willem. It was an
address here in London and a name, Mr. James Bosworth. He was a
special agent with British Intelligence. She was going to have to
trust him. So far she had not trusted anyone. If they had found
Willem, they would find her. Still, she wanted her son to be near
his father.

As the wind blew through Barbara’s
surroundings, she rubbed her belly. Before she would go to find
Agent Bosworth, she had one last thing to do. She couldn’t allow
Beowulf to find her son. She had to protect him at all costs.
Beowulf was a loose end. And she wanted to tie up this loose
end.

Killing him wouldn’t just be revenge; it
would be assurance of the safety of her son, little Willem.

She could not see him, as he hid near one of
the buildings, but she knew he was there. Beowulf kept his
distance, but he was still behind her, still waiting for her to sit
and stare at the painting, as she always had.

Barbara smiled. She knew she would lure him
into the art gallery. Finally she did, and now he watched as she
began scribbling something underneath Willem’s painting. She wrote
the name Willem had signed the painting with:

Unknown Soldier

She vanished into the darkness and watched
Beowulf walk out to the painting. He stared at the words she’d
left, confused and distracted.

Barbara drew her silenced gun, the one
Willem had left for her. Her next move would be for both Willem and
her son.

About the Author

I grew up in small town in Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico. If
you liked this story and want to read more of my stuff check out
www.scottblade.com
or just
google my name. I appreciate you taking the time to read this one
in particular. I spent more than ten years writing and researching
this book. It will always have a special place in my heart.