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

sensual lullabies in his ear.
“Why did you leave me? Do I not please you?”
She smiled and his heart weakened.
“Make love to me, Alex darling!”
She began to seduce him.
They kissed and caressed and hugged.
But suddenly his heart realized his mistake and he pulled away from her, screaming.
"No ... you did this to me with Beata. I will not succumb to your wishes, whore!"
She pulled away and her black dress swung around, her eyes turning completely white:
"If that's want you want, then I shall oblige! You won two battles with religion and prayer, but can you win over the ghouls my powers share?"
From the walls of the tunnel, a legion of beasts came crawling out of the stone.
Thousands of ghouls, poltergeists, demons, devils, ghosts, zombies, aliens, dragons, vampires, werewolves, mummies, monsters, bats out of hell and insects swarmed him.
He screamed the Lord's Prayer summoning all his powers and all of his strength inside to beat the swarm of hellish fire-fighters.
He brought out a cross and said: "You shall die by the power of the lord and all of his might!" over and over until they all shrieked and disappeared into oblivion.
He looked behind him and saw Lucinda hold his sword in her hand.
She threw it to him.
“Let’s get back to basics, shall we?”
There was a determination in her eyes now that seemed to transcend his own and he followed it, not knowing why he was worried.
Yes, he was back into a corner, probably toward hell, but that was where he was going anyway, right? To save his family.
The clanging of steel seemed to penetrate every fibre of his heart.
They turned the corner and he heard the waterfall behind him.
Clang-clang. Cling-cling-cling-clang. Clang.
What was behind him? He did not know. He only knew that he was coming closer to it.
Then, out of the blue, he heard a horse galloping down … the river?
Yes, the horse was galloping down the river? There was a man screaming.
The voice was deep. “Stop, Lucinda, stop now. That is enough!”
Lucinda turned around, obviously distraught and up roared by this new twist in the plot. She had been tricked by her own master.
She recognized the voice.
“How did you escape my trap?”
Her voice crescendoed into a screaming falsetto. The high-pitched voice of an maniac fish wife.
Alex took his chance and lifted his sword just as Lucinda looked back toward him.
Alex swung his large sword toward her neck and saw it bury itself in her neck and cut through her throat. But the head stayed on.
Adnicul screamed from his horse.
“Penetrate her heart! Only her heart keeps her alive!”
There was a triumphant smile on Lucinda’s lips as she lifted her weapon, ready to strike.
But before she did, Alex held his weapon in his hand and looked into her eyes, shifting colour from black to blue to green to brown. He remembered her birth, he remembered how his mother suffered bringing Lucinda’s to the world. He remembered trying to understand her. He remembered liking her, hating her. He remembered the black masses and he remembered short-circuiting, spontaneously locking her in the attic of the summer house where the important meeting was to take place. He remembered now that it had been on her own request. In a flash, the entire story was repeated in front of his brain. The fire, the deaths, the loss of friendships, the excommunication, the escape, the rumours. His own affair with Madeleine. Pat and Morgy’s births. Sieglinde leaving and returning, saving the Empire. Belinda’s birth.
(Save my soul, Belindy! Love me, so I forget!)
Belinda’s kidnapping.
(I will not let you forget this!)
Belinda’s nightmares.
(I wake up at night screaming in my sleep, Father!)
Alexander’s stressy jolliness.
(I have no problems)
Fights, attacks, wars, visits, demons, deaths, illusions, unions, marriage, liars, witches, curses, honeymoon, plagues, death of an empire, the haunted kingdom, returning daughters, avenues, wastelands, conversations with the self, training, the ides of march, strange land, weird forest, traps, duels and temptation.
(I have no problems, not anymore)
“Here’s for forty years of pain, Bitch!”
As he buried his holy sword inside the witch’s heart, his own heart triumphed.
He saw her shiver and shudder and shake.
She dropped into the water, changed shape. Turned into Nomed Snekawa, into Beata Maria, into the devil, into herself and into Nomed again. There were arms and limbs everywhere and there was an ear deafening scream that seemed to penetrate the soul.
Then she was gone. Her body turning into mud and swimming toward the waterfall.
Adnicul stepped off his horse and lead it across the pond to where Mercutio was standing.
All the while, Alex sat on the stone closest to the waterfall and rested, simply not being able to believe that he had actually been able to vanquish his sister. Out of the blue, she appeared again, jumping out of the water with a sword in her hand. Adnicul was just turning the corner as he saw her reappear and he took his own sword and buried his weapon in her belly whilst Alex buried his metal into her heart a second time. The body swam upstream toward the light.
They sat down next to each other and when they looked up again and saw Michael taking Lucinda by the hand and leading her into the light. She was about to make amends for her sins. But Lucinda was now not in her usual form. Her soul had taken the shape of Rebecca, the innocent incarnation she had been before Lucifer transformed her eons ago. Alex suddenly remembered himself as Joseph of Yambalah, worried about his wife’s new friend and what he might mean for her future.
Over 7000 years on, he knew the result of that friendship.
She had seemed to have given up. With one look, the two men knew that the were ready to move on
“Let’s save the Winsletenna family!”
“Yes, is high time now!”
So, the two men, gifted with the magic powers of a dream and rewarded with having yet one less culprit to face, flew into hell to find and rebuild the haunted kingdom.


CHAPTER EIGHT
JOURNEY TO THE UNDERWORLD

It was obvious to them both that Alexander would not have been alive had it not been for Adnicul.
There was a relief about knowing that Lucinda now finally was a part of the past, but pain about knowing that the difficult part was yet to come: getting his family back.

It had all gone faster than Alex had thought initially. In his mind the duel had shaped itself to him as a month long endeavour. In reality, such as it was, the sword fighting only lasted for a short time. Though temptation absolutely almost had pulled him in. He had been tempted to riches, to fame, to the Roman Empire, to luscious women, gorgeous food. Had it not been for Belinda, the thought of his daughter locked in Hell forever, he would now be …
But was that true? What about everyone else?
In any case, it was good truth that Lucinda was dead and reshaped into her first innocence.
As they stood overlooking what seemed to be the most horrid scenario in creation they both felt each other shiver.
“Who are these people?”
Adnicul said nothing, he just kept looking at the toiling workers, the doomed ones whose faces were mortared into walls, souls hanging from trees and then some who were simple spirits lost in their own world. These were crisscrossing the dungeons and they were crying.
Adnicul looked at Alex, startled. It was such an open, honest stare that Alex had to smile. He was happy to see his friend had made it this far, although knowing his sister had not. They were not so different after all, but they had one important difference. Adnicul had always doubted his complete devotion to the selfish. Lucinda had never wanted to give winning everything, having it all and thereby ending up not really knowing who she was anyway.
Alexander was thankful for that difference, at least when it came to Adnicul.
“These people … who are they?”
Adnicul looked back upon the valley. “They are the doomed souls, Alex. The murderers, swindlers, philanderers that never turned their backs to the underworld. I thought that was obvious and didn’t need explaining. That’s why I didn’t answer first.”
Alex chuckled, although felt himself shiver at the fact that he laughed.
The whole place looked like a mine, a huge cave with a high roof of sorts, dug out of a mountain.
One large door to their right opened now and a man with a large hat and cape came in.
His horse was very restless, that much was clear.
The man picked up what seemed to be some kind of a bag and opened it.
It was hard to see from this distance what was happening, but from out of the bag something seemed to fly. What was that? Doves? No, this looked like … souls. Yes, they were souls.
They were transparent and seemed restless. They criss-crossed the immediate area a while until some large, strange animal caught them in his fangs, transparent or not. He mortared them into the walls with the claws of his right hand and some lightning rod he had in his left.
Alex looked down.
“What did I just see, Adni? I need to know.”
”The most horrible criminals are mortared into the walls. The half-breeds, the ones that just do the work, the hangmen and the intrigue players, they become the soul eaters.”
“Soul eaters?”
Alex looked around the cave and saw these beasts chewing all around. There were about one-hundred of them. They looked like rhinos mixed with elephants.
“That is what they are called because they mortar them into the walls with a piece of …”
There was a pause. “A piece of what?”
Adnicul sighed. “The tree. Hwee-Aeil-Sihl. Lucifer’s plants them way down in the bowels of hell and gives them to the soul eaters.”
Alexander grew quiet. “Why was the tree given this name?”
”No one knows. I suspect Michael knows. There is a good tree and a bad tree. The mystery was somewhat uncovered, it was said the day that …”
Alex saw that Adnicul was fighting with this. “What?” Alex waited. “Adni, I need to know this. My family is a victim of this game.”
”I don’t even know if you know this. If you don’t I have no idea how much they want you to know before …” He looked at Alex and tried to find the real Alex behind all the spiritual mimicry. “Never mind, Sir, I will take a chance.” Adnicul gave his fellow traveller a long, very penetrating look. “Long ago, the legend tells us, Lucifer was walking a beach in heaven with his brothers, contemplating his fate of having to share what he considered to be his pioneer status with so many others. He was provoked and soon enough a quarrel emerged which ended with Lucifer walking away saying a few words that made them all stare at him in surprise.”
“What did he say?”
Adnicul sighed, laughing. He shook his head, obviously afraid to say the words. “He who eternally excels above everyone in life lies lustily steadfast in his lifestyle. Hwee-aeill-Sihl. There have been several versions of what he actually said back then, so the abbreviations tend to vary.” Adnicul bent forward, and as Alex looked into his friend’s one healthy eye