THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (ereader that reads to you .txt) 📕

interdependent, so why don't you shut up and play by the rules!“
Clang.
"Your rules?"
Clang-clang. Clang.
"Are there other rules?“
"Look around you! Creation is not just a big scam for your enjoyment!“
"Really?"
Clang. Clang.
"You are absurd ..."
"I know ... Ain't I great ?"
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang.
"Weren't you beautiful once?“
"I was betrayed!“
"How?“
"God never kept his promise!“
"God never promised you anything!“
"I am a friend of his firstborn ..."
Alex started to laugh.
“And my sister’s best friend has a cousin in the royal navy whose sister is an actress, so she ought to get me free tickets to an amphitheatre that plays Electra.” He shook his head. “You cannot blame everything on God, Lucinda. You have to make the best of what you have right here!”
Everything stopped right there.
It seemed that this comment started something in her that forced her to fight without weapons.
“Let’s drop the swords, shall we? We both know that we are capable of sorcery, so why not just work with that a bit, huh?”
Lucinda dropped her sword and it hung in mid air. Floated and wouldn’t drop.
Alexander dropped his and it floated as well.
Then, as if on a given signal, both of them looked to the other side of the cave and they saw that the angel on the rock had awoken and was now staring at them. It had been staring at them for a long time. It was such a beautiful angel. Pure, as he been once, with eyes clear as a springtime river.
They turned back to each other and now Alexander knew what he was fighting for.

Meanwhile, it had become obvious to Adnicul that he was in a trap. Somehow, he had entered a time-loop and was experiencing the same ride through the same forest over and over. He felt himself ride into the forest from Rigor Mortis and being abused by the Rumzils again and again. He had to find a way out of this. Someone was tricking him into not arriving at the cave.

This was a fist-fight of the mind.
Lucinda hovered there, erect and noble, her eyes now green and glowing menacingly in the dark and her mouth opening wide and fierce. She raised her arms and breathed in, seeming to open up creation inside that ravine of physicality.
Alexander was confused as to how he should react.
Her mouth grew wider and wider as all the bats flew out of her mouth.
They looked like a storm around her and Alex had to gather all his strength in order not to fall and loose his concentration.
“What on earth are you doing? I thought this was a fair game.”
She laughed. “In my world, there is no such thing as a fair game.”
Then she shook her head and bent forward, her cape settling like a sheet hanging out to wash after a wild twister, her eyes focused on her brother. Her eyes turned red and yellow lightning hit him repeatedly and she laughed a sonorous basso-laugh and screamed:
"Eye of snake, ear of toad, you shall quake, upon my road. Will you live? Will you die? You shall know, before I cry: WINDS ... fly to the sky, meet the birds and fly HIGH!"
All this time, Alex was fighting for his life, surrounded by hundreds of bats, realizing there seemed to be no escape at all from this unexpected blow.
The witches head jerked to the lake with a nervous twitch. Her transparent eyes and now green skin glowed like hell in the moonlight as he fought.
Then she looked at him and grinned cutely:
“First: The animals of death and shame! A dragon to conquer, beasts to tame, spiders to kill and a dog to strangle! There's a job at every angle!"
Then she was gone, along with the bats.
Alex looked around. Every sign of life gone. She had disappeared in smoke.
“Hello?”
Alexander turned around and looked if she was behind him.
She wasn’t.
For the first time he was petrified.
Nobody there at all.
There was an echo of a laugh coming from the shore, from the tunnel, from the ceiling, from below the water, from his own mind. Cackles echoing in his mind.
“What is this?”
Then she reappeared at the other side of the lake and shook her head, blowing the formerly swallowed bats into the lake. The water bubbled with excitement and seemed to be alive. Lucinda opened her mouthed an airy breath exuding her mouth, her eye-whites glowing.
Then she sat down at the shore and waited.
“What is this, Lucinda?”
He began to fly toward her, but before he could he was stopped, not by her hand, but by a beast.
Suddenly, with a tremendous roar, a dragon leapt out of the water and landed on two reptile-clawed feet on the shore in front of Lucinda. It roared. Alex flew to his sword, still hovering in mid air, and fought it, but was chased through the cave fast enough to feel by rapture clawing at his spiritual doorstep.
It chased him, forcing him to fly faster and faster, feeling the fire on his skin every time.
Then his plea turned to an angry scream.
He leapt up on a rock and buried the steel into the dragons heart.
It screamed in agony, blood oozing out of its fangs and hell-stinking flesh dropping from its horrific and most dying frame. Character and soul fiercely splitting apart and its head shaking with untamed agony, showing its true face: the devils.
Then it was gone. He looked at the witch on the other side of the lake. She sat still. Not a reaction.
“There is no way that I am going to be the victim of your ridicule, Lucinda.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t care. Just as long as I have some fun.”
”This is an equal battle of right and wrong. Fly up and fight like you should. Just you and me. No tricks here. Just family.”
”Who ever mentioned equality, Alex?”
Suddenly, out of nowhere his body was swarmed by wasps and spiders, scorpions and lice, bees and bugs and beetles and worms. They all wanted his death. He was stung a million times and ran thru the entire cave, up and down the walls and into the water, out of the cave and into the forest where the ghouls were ready to eat him again and into the cave once more, down the path and into the lake. Buzzing, tickling, stinging, piercing, itching, aching, chewing, munching, crunching, deforming ... Finally, he screamed till his lungs were out of air and his soul was weeping and his spirit cried and ...

They disappeared. Once again, his eyes turned to the witch.
The whites of her eyes were showing and she was rotting. But a terrible smile was on her face.
“You still want to speak of equality, Sire?”
He was paralyzed and couldn't move. The dog that arrived out of nowhere was a Kerberos, the guardian of hell. It came closer and closer, its heads barking all at once.
The heads were different dogs-heads: pit-bull, wolfhound, rotweiller,
a German Shepherd, bulldog, Dalmatian, wolf, afghan, boxer and poodle. All on lion's body with tiger's legs and a leopard's tail. It was grotesque.
He fought to fight it away and reach Lucinda, but there was no possibility of reaching her.
It barked and barked so loud that it seemed to block out any other sound, coming his way.
Now it was right next to him, its heads barking in his face.
It barked in his ear for five minutes, so loud he actually grew deaf. And then it spat acid into his eyes and made him blind. Thirdly, it was killing his sense of feeling by ... but before that could happened he grabbed one of the heads he smashed it to the ground repeatedly and against the walls.
For every head he smashed he could see more, hear more and feel more. He was screaming, crying and whipping the dog. Panting, he lay on the ground, when the wolfhound-head bit him, still alive.
He turned around ferociously only to strangle the head fiercely and with great avid anger.
He lay close to the white angel now, panting, bathing in sweat.
The creature was smiling at him.
He could not help but smile back.
He was just about to wave, when Lucinda spoke.
“Nothing gets to you does it?”
He turned around, his long hair falling into his face.
He fell of the stone and landed in the water. He crawled up, feeling like warrior.
“What the hell is this? What kind of methods are you using? I thought this was a duel, not a panic attack.”
He stood up and walked toward her, picking up his sword as he went along.
“Hell? That’s my department. And equality? Come on, now, Alex. We both know this is not a game of equality.”
Alex raised his sword and was just about to swoosh it through the air toward her neck, when she spoke again, standing up and literally lifting off the ground.
"The first of rounds, my boy, you've won. But now you will have to scream and run. Now your task will be most mean. Your soul will have to be quite keen. From every time I will set thee free:
THE VILEST SINNERS OF HISTORY!"
“You poetry stinks, Lucinda!”
She laughed.
”I know, thank you … But my visions don’t stink. Good luck!”
He was looking around for her, but she was gone again. The only thing he could hear was the dripping of water from the walls of the cave and his own soft, at-guard breathing.
“This has ceased to be humorous.”
He felt silly talking to the silence.
“Lucinda” he screamed, only his echo answering back. The angel started to whimper on the stone.
He saw it shivering and cowering on its stone and at once felt sympathy for him.
“Oh, I am sorry!”
He flew up and landed on the rock next to the angel, held it in its arms and cuddled it, stroking its blond hair. “Oh, dear, I didn’t want to scare you.”
The angel was warm, almost hot, but in such a heart-warming way that Alex felt like he was holding a piece of God. It was a campfire and a ray of light from the sun at the same time.
”What happened to you, hmm? Why did you lose yourself?”
The angels said nothing, it only cradled back and forth in his arms.
“There, there, shhh!”
Tears rolled down the angelic cheeks and, as Alex saw this, he noticed that the tears turned into diamonds that dropped into the water, leaving small specks of light on the surface.
The angel looked up and shook his head at Alex.
It spoke with a soft, high voice.
The eyes were so blue and so transparent, that it shocked Alex. He could see all the pain and suffering of life inside those eyes. Here was the innocence raped.
“Alexander!”
“Oh, my God” Alex cried in only a whisper. “Who are you?”
“You must leave. Adnicul is trapped.”
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he heard footsteps of an army. He saw them. He actually saw them thru the walls. They were Romans. The entire cave was disappearing and was turning into Rome. Frruhmm-frruhmm-frruhmm-frruhmm.
Alex was cuddling … nothing. Nothing was in his hands. The angel was gone and he was no longer on the rock. He was standing up.