Heidelberg Effect (32 page)

“Well, a very special
welcome, little nun,” he said, leering at her naked breasts which
were now almost completely free of her shirt. “And I thought I
would have to find
you
.”

He held her wrists in an iron grip, twisting
them hard until she cried out and then twisting again until Ella
thought he would break them both.

“And where are the others, little one?” His
face was a mask of hatred and lust. Ella couldn’t imagine she ever
thought he was handsome. He was hideous.

“No understand,” Ella said as she struggled.
He released one hand long enough to reach up and backhand her hard
across the face. The pain exploded in her cheek and she felt her
mouth fill with blood.

“Perhaps you will feel more like talking
afterwards?” he said, leering at her, his eyes on her breasts.

Ella fought to bring her knee up between his
legs but he had her too securely beneath him. All she could do was
squirm. Holding both her hands over her head, he ripped her shirt
off and threw it behind him. Ella forced herself not to close her
eyes, not to disengage. She knew she couldn’t give up, even as she
felt his hand grasping her bare breast and twisting it.

“I like it when you fight,” Axel said,
breathlessly. “Don’t you know I like it better this way?” He
gripped her other breast and began to slowly lower his mouth to her
nipple. As she watched him, it all seemed to be happening in slow
motion. As soon as his face was nearly touching her breast, she
jerked her shoulders off the floor and took his ear between her
teeth. She bit down as hard as she could. She heard him scream but
she didn’t let go. He released her hands to punch her but she was
ready for him. As soon as her hands were free, she pushed off him
with her knees, sliding on the slick slate floor away from him. He
allowed her to scramble under the bed.

“Bitch!” he roared. “I’ll kill you for this!
I’ll eat your heart with my dinner tonight!”

Ella had one hand on the Taser and the other
on the extra shotgun plug. She felt his hands grab at her under the
bed. She tried to kick him in the face but he nearly succeeded in
snaring her foot. While she was concentrating on trying to insert
the second and last Taser barb into the chamber, he reached far
under the bed and grabbed her foot. She twisted on her back, the
Taser still unloaded, as he yanked her out from under the bed.

Rowan was sure Axel had
threatened to visit him again, but the morning had dragged on and
nobody came. The poor woman’s screams had mercifully stopped. He
tried not to think
how
she had been silenced. One thing Axel had unintentionally
revealed to him last night was that all of the nuns had escaped
safely. He had been given this information in conjunction with the
blows that temporarily robbed him of his hearing, but it was a
relief to him. The last time he saw Ella, one of Axel’s henchmen
between them, was enough to make him go mad. Even when he was being
dragged off to a medieval dungeon, he could see she was looking to
him for direction. She had obeyed his order to flee. He thought of
that look in her eyes that begged him to tell her that all was not
lost.

He was jarred from these thoughts by the
clang of his cell door being swung open, letting in a shaft of
blinding light. He tried to stand but could only get to his
knees.

“Get up, warlock!” a harsh voice shouted.
“Today all of Heidelberg comes to watch you burn!”

Rowan struggled to his feet. He could not
tell who had come for him. It wasn’t Axel’s voice. “Who are you?”
he croaked, his voice parched from lack of water.

“Silence! This day, the lord of Krüger keeps
the citizens of Heidelberg safe from the Devil’s emissary!”

Still blinking against the harsh light,
Rowan felt iron hard hands grab him and drag him through the cell
door. The dull pain of his branded back leaped to a searing heat
and he gasped at the shock of it.

“Your chariot awaits you, Demon,” the voice
snarled.

Tumbling on the slick
pavements in the cell, Rowan felt himself being dragged out of the
dungeon and into a narrow passageway. When the two men who held him
turned to the left to wind their way up to the outside, Rowan
thought to himself,
Ah well, I had a
fifty-fifty chance of getting it right
.

When Ella felt Axel loosen his grip, she
didn’t waste the opportunity but kicked free and scrambled back
under the bed. The bed was tall enough to allow her to sit hunched
over on her knees. She brought the gun up to her chest, slammed the
final barb in the chamber, and aimed the gun at his feet. Just
then, Axel’s legs moved away from her, and she realized that
someone else had entered the room.

Axel went ballistic. “Get out! Who are you
to enter my bedchamber?”

“Herr Krüger?” a deep voice said. “Herr Axel
Krüger?”

Ella slid to the edge under the bed where
she could see what was happening. Three men and Axel stood in the
doorway. Axel was clutching a bloody rag to his mangled ear. Her
heart was pounding hard and she prayed they couldn’t hear her
breaths coming in terrified rasps.

One man in the doorway was obviously the
leader. “I am Magistrate Schwartz,” he said. “I have come to ask if
you will deny that this is your handwriting?” He shoved a letter at
Axel. “I must tell you that your own valet confirms it is your
hand.”

Axel grabbed the letter and ripped it into
two pieces. He threw it in the man’s face.

“Get out at once,” he snarled. “Or I will
have you boiled in chicken fat.”

“In this letter,” Schwartz continued, “you
boast of committing unnatural acts. You relate how you are able to
make the fires of Lucifer spring from your fingertips and how you
can turn newborn babes into minions of the Devil himself.”

“Is that against the law?” Axel said
sarcastically.

“It is against
God’s
law,” Schwartz
said. He leaned down and picked up the pieces of the letter from
the floor. “You boast in this letter,” he said, “that you are above
the law, that your work is the bidding of the dark
lord.”

“I did not write that, you vermin,” Axel
said.

“It is in your hand, Herr Krüger,” Schwartz
said.

Axel held out a hand for the letter.
Schwartz gave one small piece to him and added, “We must keep all
evidence for the trial.”

“What trial?” Axel said with a sneer. He
glanced at the magistrate’s men and then at the letter in his hand.
“I did not write this,” he said.

“It is in your hand.”

Axel held the piece of paper with both
hands, letting the bloody rag drop to the floor. He looked from the
letter to the magistrate.

Not so sure now, are you,
asshole?
Ella thought.

“Perhaps you don’t remember writing it?”
Schwartz said.

“Of course, I don’t remember writing
it!”

Ella knew what he was
thinking and why he looked so confused.
Without question, the letter appeared to be in his
handwriting
.

“The Devil has many wiles and ways to seduce
us,” Schwartz said, almost kindly. “Often in spite of
ourselves.”

“This is madness!” Axel said, waving the
letter. “And lies!”

The magistrate snatched the
piece of paper from Axel and tucked it into his vest. He regarded
Axel with hooded eyes. “We have
another
letter, received last week,”
he said, “from an eye witness who claims he saw you create fire
with your fingers and dance with the dead.”

“An eye witness? Impossible! This is merely
an enemy sent to discredit me. Letters make weak proof.”

“Which is why I much prefer confessions,”
the magistrate said with a smile. Then he turned to one of his
deputies and said, “Look inside the drawer of the bedside
table.”

“How dare you? I forbid you to enter my
bedchamber!”

Ella held her breath as one of the
magistrate’s men came close to the bed and jerked open the bedside
table drawer.

“I will have you burned in the square!” Axel
shrieked. “I will have all your heads on pikes!”

Ella saw that Axel was now being restrained
from stopping the man by the bed.

“Sir!” The man at the bedside table returned
to his master, his arm outstretched as if carrying something highly
contagious. Even from her vantage point, Ella could see his face
appeared flushed with fear as he held his hand out to the
magistrate. “I found it.”

“That is not mine!” Axel screamed. “That
does not belong to me!”

The magistrate took the item from his man
and frowned.

“What unholy treachery is this?” he said as
he spun the tiny wheel on the lighter’s igniter with his thumb. It
burst into flame. Schwartz screamed and dropped the lighter. He
turned to his men. “Seize him!” he bellowed. “We will question him
further in our dungeons!” Axel’s howls as he was dragged from the
room rang through the castle halls. Ella waited until the sounds
had faded in the distance and then counted to ten before bolting
from under the bed. She grabbed her shirt and tied it on as best
she could.

She stood outside the bedroom and tried to
gather her thoughts. Her iPhone had long since lost power but she
didn’t need a digital timepiece to know they were cutting it close
for Rowan. She also knew that the arrest of all the warlords in
Heidelberg would not commute the death sentence of one lone warlock
in the castle bowels.

Greta stood at the gate to
the castle. She had hoped she would find Ella immediately. She
feared that
not
finding her meant that she was inside the castle. As she
tried to decide whether to go inside or not, Krüger suddenly
appeared in the courtyard. At first, she thought he was taking a
walk or perhaps checking on his stable full of prized warhorses and
racers. It was rumored that he never went anywhere alone so it
didn’t immediately occur to Greta that the entourage about him
wasn’t so much protecting him as escorting him. She didn’t
recognize the men as Krüger’s. When the Sheriff of Heidelberg
strutted out into the courtyard behind him, a wave of relief passed
through her entire body.

He was under arrest!

She watched with delight as Krüger was
marched to the end of the courtyard. The castle guards clearly did
not intend to obstruct the Sheriff‘s purpose or defend their
master. Krüger spoke briefly to his aide, then mounted the horse
brought to him by the stable master. Greta could see that both his
sword and dagger sheaths were empty. When he mounted, he turned and
gave one last look to the castle. But before he turned his horse
away with his escort of sheriff’s men, he saw Greta standing by the
castle gate half hidden in the bushes. She thought she saw a brief
expression of resignation on his craggy features. Then he turned
away on his journey through the courts and to the gallows that
inevitably awaited him.

As soon as the group passed, Greta entered
the courtyard. When she did, she locked eyes with the aide Krüger
had spoken to in the courtyard before leaving. Before he could
sound the alarm—if indeed that was his intention—they both heard
and saw a screaming and struggling Axel in shackles being dragged
into the courtyard and lifted onto the back of a mule. The
magistrate and his burly men surrounded Axel as he was tied to his
mount. Evidence of his refusal to come quietly could be seen in the
blood pouring from his ear and his mouth. Greta watched as he
continued to scream like a wild animal as the mule was led out of
the courtyard and across the castle bridge into town.

Ella allowed herself no
time to rejoice that the plan had worked. Keeping her Taser out and
ready to dispatch anyone who tried to slow her down, she raced down
the hall to the line of family bedrooms. She knew there was only
one way to save him now.
Christof will
either listen to reason or get the shit shocked out of him.
One way or the other, she was not leaving the
castle without her husband.

She ran to the room where she had first
taken refuge and flung open the door. Christof was again kneeling
in prayer with his back to her. He stood when she entered. His
shoulder was heavily bandaged and his left eye blackened, but he
was very much alive.

“Herr Krüger,” Ella said breathlessly as she
entered the large cold room, “I am here to inform you that your
father has been or will shortly be arrested for treason. He is, I
should also tell you, in the process of disowning your elder
brother, who is being questioned by the church elders on the charge
of being a warlock. You have the opportunity to put right many
wrongs perpetuated by your family, starting with the immediate
release of a United States Deputy Marshal currently being held in
your castle dungeons at this very moment.”

Ella gripped the handle of her Taser. It
took every bit of restraint she had not to point it at him and
force him to hand over the keys to the jail cells immediately.

“A warlock?”

“Really?
That’s
all you
heard?”

“Christof!” Greta appeared in the doorway
and rushed to the young man. “It’s over, Christof!” she said,
embracing him. “Praise God, it’s finally over. Your father has
publicly renounced Axel. You are Lord Krüger!”

Somewhere in the outskirts of the castle
grounds, the agonizing sounds of a man’s screams reverberated up
through the spiraling stone staircases. Slowly, a beatific smile
spread over Christof’s face as he recognized the owner of the
plaintive howl and realized what it meant.

The reign of Krüger the Terrible was at an
end.