Chapter 5
“Who the hell are you?” I snarled, wishing Roy were around to help.
Being a Fairy King without the Fairy King with whom I had shared my soul for several centuries was not good…
seriously, not good. I had no Magic, and Roy was nowhere to be found.
I needed to get in contact with Martha. She had to be freaking out.
For a few brief seconds, all I got was endless silence. Talk about frustration, I was ready to gnaw through rocks with my teeth.
Then something echoed. Was it a whisper? Maybe just movement. I needed to know.
A flash of orange. The sound of shuffling feet. Then, out of the shadows, appeared a man.
PPFBH in thick black letters sat over his heart. Purgatory Penitentiary for Beings of Horror, the words slashed through my mind.
It had to be Barney Mackrelfresh, but…
He was NOT what I expected. He didn’t look insane, whatever that looked like. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth. Not even drooling or talking to himself. At least, not at that moment. And I didn’t sense any violence.
In all honesty, he just looked exhausted, thin, emaciated, and starving. He was also really dirty. Looking right into his soul, letting him know that in no uncertain terms I was sizing him up and deciding what to do next, I saw something I had never expected.
Barney was utterly terrified.
The man looked as though he hadn't slept in years. His cheeks were hollow. His hair hung in tangled ropes around his face. Purple, black, blue, green, and yellow bruises painted every visible inch of skin.
But his eyes... His eyes were sharp.
It was time to get to the bottom of the mess I found myself in. So, I firmly stated, “Barney Mackrelfresh.” When he didn’t even blink, I went on, “You're supposed to be in prison.”
“And you're supposed to be upstairs.”
Reaching for my Magic, sure he was about to attack, I pulled back two fistfuls of nothing. No Roy. No Enchantment. I was instantly enraged… And did a shitty job hiding.
“Don't bother,” Barney sighed. “She won't let you.”
“She who?"
“The Queen.”
“Martha?”
Laughing as if he’d just heard the best joke ever told, Barney was almost hysterical as he guffawed so loudly that it echoed off every rock, stone, and speck of dust. The dude was almost hysterical, and just when I was about to go over and shake him, he calmed enough to sarcastically chuckle, “No.” With a shake of his head, he added, “Not Martha.”
Stopping, his expression instantly changed to fear all over again, and he breathed, “Not yet.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I demanded, immediately enraged and in need of answers.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You will tell me, or I’ll beat it out of you.
Shrugging, the Wyvern Shifter matter-of-factly stated, “You can hit me.” Looking at the scraped and bleeding skin of his knuckles, he went on, “Been hit. Been stabbed. Been electrocuted.”
Raising his eyes, the haunting look sent a chill down my spine. “I spent forty years in Purgatory. At this point, you're competing with every day that ends in y.”
“You escaped from prison.” I tried not to feel sorry for him, but it was getting harder by the minute.
“I escaped because nobody listened.” Waving his left hand through the air between us, he added, “If you knew what I knew and no one would listen, you would’ve escaped, too.”
Turning away from me, he motioned for me to follow… And as the lamb led to slaughter, I did.
Bending at the waist, I followed him through a small, cramped tunnel.
Being six feet seven inches had never been a disadvantage until that very moment.
Keeping my guard up, ready for Barney to turn on me, I shuffled and crept along the cold, stone shaft, feeling thousands of years of history and memories just waiting to be discovered.
Losing sight of Barney as he turned left, I cautiously turned the corner. Walking right into a huge chamber, I could not believe my eyes.
Hundreds of thousands of carvings covered every available surface. Approaching the farthest wall, the one that called to me, I tried to make sense of the images.
There were Queens and Dragons in all settings. There was a breathtaking coronation with all the regalia, spectacle, and splendor I could imagine.
There were bloody battles. The losses of both sides were always horrible. It didn’t matter that the Dragons always won. They suffered death just like their enemies.
Following the curve of the wall, I came to a screeching halt. The image before me made my heart skip a beat.
Women with lavender eyes and dark hair, their features all so similar that there was no way they weren’t family. Each and every one carried flames and bore the expression of warriors marching off to battle.
I froze. I couldn’t move. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could breathe.
Then Barney whispered, “I told them.” He exhaled sharply. “I told all of them.”
You told them what?”
“That she was coming.” Walking to the opposite side of the chamber, he pointed to an entire wall covered with a chaotic combination of words, images, and places where someone, or something, had scratched out phrases and pictures.
Running his fingers along the words at the beginning, Barney read, “When the Queen returns...” He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. I have no clue what he was looking for, but apparently he saw it and, with a single nod, returned to the carvings.
“Fire shall awaken. The veil shall thin. The Guardian shall fall. The World Below shall rise. There shall be…”
“There shall be what?” I asked, so enthralled with what he was saying that I had to know what came next.
But that was not to be. Barney had just stopped. So, I stepped in and took over.
Looking closely, I countered, “You're reading it wrong.”
“No. I am not.”
“Yes, you are,” I insisted. Pointed back to the wall with the pictures of all the women with lavender eyes and gorgeous, dark curls, I asserted, “Martha would never hurt anyone.”
“That’s what everyone said about the last Queen.”
“Wait. There was another Dragon Queen?”
“Several.” His eyes were glassy and unwavering from the scratched-out carvings. “Only one survived.”
“Where is she?”
“Buried.”
“What are you saying?”
Inhaling painfully, Barney laid his hand across his torso and exhaled. Turning all the way around, he took a single step in my direction, and the words just started coming as if he had no control.
“Look, I’m gonna be straight with you.”
“That would be new.”
Ignoring my jab, he just kept going, “I didn’t escape to hurt Martha or…” He pointed at me. “Or you, for that matter.” Pushing a thick clump of greasy hair out of his face, he went on, “I escaped because I love her.”
I didn’t have time to think. Every protective instinct I had jumped into action. Closing the distance in the blink of an eye, I fisted what was left of the color of his orange jumpsuit and lifted the smaller man off the ground. Glaring at him, I seethed, “What the fuck did you say?”
“Whoa, chill out, Big Man.” Barney choked as I continued to squeeze. “Not like that.”
Dropping him as fast as I’d snatched him up, I stood perfectly still, scowled as I looked down my nose at him, and snarled, “Explain.”
Clearing his throat a couple of times, he swallowed hard, then sighed, “Not romantically, Dipshit. I love her like a brother, protectively.”
“What in all that’s holy are you talkin’ about?”
“Are you gonna listen?”
“Yes.”
“And not try to strangle me again?”
“No promises.”
“Wow.” Chuckling sarcastically, he shook his head and scratched at his scraggly beard. “Okay, here it is.” He inhaled again, shrugged, and went for it. “I promised my grandmother… On her deathbed… That I would protect Martha at all costs.”
“Wait. Aren’t you the one who tried to incinerate her– and your own brothers?”
“I was not trying to hurt anyone. I was trying to talk to Martha… To tell her what my grandma told me… To warn her. But Geoff and Wilbur were following me. They started the fight. What was I supposed to do? Let them force me back home before I had done what I was there to do?”
“Sounds better than blasting everyone with Wyvern Fire.”
“I did not…” Huffing an exasperated breath, he slowly shook his head. Then, looking up with a glint of rebellion in his eyes, he charged, “Do you want to know why I’m here and my connection to your Mate, or would you rather I just let you go?”
“Just talk.” Yes, I was a dick. No, I didn’t believe him. Yes, I wanted to know everything. So, I gave him a sharp nod, softened my tone, and added, “Please.”
“As I said, my grandma told me to protect Martha when we were still kids. She had been sick for a long time and kept saying that she had something to tell me when the time was right.”
“One night long after, my mom woke me up and said Grandma had called for me. I got right up, got dressed, and went next door. Sure enough, she was ready for me. She told me where this cave was and that I had to come down and study everything. Then she said that no matter what, I had to protect Martha Dellencourt. That she was the key to everything.”
“So, that’s what I did.” Tapping his temple, he kept explaining, “I committed everything to memory. Every day when I left, I went straight to my hidey hole and wrote it all down.”
He stopped. His eyes glazed over. And he just stood there.
I waited as long as I could, and just when I was about to bop him, he shuddered as if someone had walked over his grave and started where he’d left off. “That journal is the only thing I took to jail with me. I studied it every day for forty years.”
His clenched fists shook at his sides. “I told the Warden, and he laughed at me, even had them throw me in solitary for a couple of years. I tried again, and he told me that he would send me to Hell’s Gate Prison, where they scoop the kitty boxes of Lucifer’s Hellcats.”
“And?”
“And I stopped trying to make him believe. Next, I tried the Chaplain. He was even worse. He tried an exorcism. However, I wasn’t possessed. So, he wasted another couple of years.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t stop there. I told every guard who would listen and even a few of the inmates who were being released.
Everyone said I was crazy. Those assholes went as far as contacting a psychiatrist. That’s when I knew I had to escape.
If that head shrinker had gotten his hands on me, I would have been pumped full of anti-psychotics and left drooling in the Psych Ward, all the while the world went to Hell in a handcart. ”
I had to give Barney credit. He truly believed everything he was saying.
Moving so close that he was all up in my personal space, I forced my feet to stay put as Barney leaned in and whispered, “Ya’ see, if Martha becomes fully awakened...
She’s gonna destroy Dragoon Bootay, everyone in it, and the whole Bibbidi Bobbidi Bubble. ”
That was where I drew the line. I knew my Mate better than an escaped convict who was mentally ill. It was time to get the hell out of wherever we were and get back to Martha.
“You are full of shit, Barney Macrelfresh,” I growled. “I cannot believe I stood here for all this time listening to this bullshit. I’m outta here.”
Turning, I didn’t even make it a step before Barney grabbed my arm and pleaded, “No. You can’t. You have to help me. We have to…”
“MARTHA!” I shouted as loudly as I could, only to have Barney reach around from behind me and clap his hand over my mouth.
“Shut up!” He whispered loudly in my ear.
I could not only hear the fear, the terror, but I could also feel it. He was completely and totally freaked out.
“Oh no!” He gasped, jerking his hand off my mouth and stepping back. Spinning around to punch him in the gut, I stopped with my fist raised.
Barney looked like he’d seen a ghost. The sickly-sweet stench of fear filled my senses. He was visibly shaking.
Dropping my fist, I couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong now?”
Pointing straight up, he whispered, “She's too early.”
“Who’s too early for what?”
“Martha for the coronation."
Completely disregarding that I spoke, his panic was growing by leaps and bounds. “Oh no,” he gasped. “This is gonna be worse than I thought.”
Looking up, then back at Barney, I turned to see what he was staring at right before pain shot from the back of my head all the way to the bottom of my feet. My hand flew to the back of my head. I pulled it away, wet with my own blood.
Vision darkening, I couldn’t even get turned around before I crumpled to the floor. The last thing I heard before everything went dark was Barney whimpering, “I am so sorry, but you’ll thank me when you’re still alive.”