The Thirteen Hallows Read Free Page B

imagination to realize that the chunk of red-rusted metal nestled in the yellowed newspaper was the hilt and portion of the blade of a sword. But she had never doubted it. When the old tramp had first pressed it into her hands, he had whispered its true name into her ear. She could still feel his breath, spicy and rancid against her small face. All she had to do was call the sword by its true name to release its power. She hadn’t spoken its name in years….
    “Dyrnwyn.”
    Judith Walker looked at the lump of metal in her hands. She repeated the name: “Dyrnwyn, Sword of Rhydderch.”
    Once, it would have come trembling to life, cold green flames shooting from its hilt, forming the remainder of the Broken Sword.
    “Dyrnwyn,” Judith called a third time.
    Nothing happened. Perhaps there was no magic left in the Hallow anymore. Maybe nothing had ever happened and it had been only in her imagination. The eager dreams of a prepubescent girl mingled with the fading memories of an old woman. She dropped the rusted metal onto the bed and brushed flakes of rust from her lined flesh. The rust had stained her skin the color of blood.
    Millie, Tommy, Georgie, Nina, and Bea had also possessed one of the thirteen ancient Hallows. Judith was convinced that they had been tortured and brutally slaughtered for those artifacts. And what about the others she’d lost touch with? How many of them still survived?
    Seventy years ago, the old man’s last words to each child had been a distinct warning: “Never bring the Hallows together.”
    No one had ever thought to ask him why.

3
     
    It was so much more than just sex.
    They had practiced the ancient ritual until it was perfect. Their damp, naked bodies teasing and arousing each other by any means possible until they would each tremble on the brink of orgasm.
    And then stop.
    She enjoyed intense pain, while he thrived on hedonistic pleasure, and each knew the exact buttons to push to propel the other to the edge of ecstasy. Then the lithe, athletic young woman, known as Vyvienne, would lie with her toned arms and long legs spread-eagled atop an ancient stone altar stolen from a desecrated church. The man, known as Ahriman, would enter her, male and female becoming one, power flowing together, unstoppable.
    They enacted the ancient ritual, generating the most powerful of the magical elements to aid them in their quest, to seek out and find the location of the spirits of the Keepers. And when they discovered them, they went forth to do battle with them.
    And destroy them.
    Decades ago, it would have been inconceivable to go up against the Keepers of the Thirteen Hallows, but times had radically changed. Now the Keepers were nothing more than tired old senior citizens, untrained and unskilled, most of them blissfully unaware of the treasures they possessed. Although it took much of the sport from the hunt, there was still the kill to be relished. But now with All Hallows’ Eve fast approaching, they had recently hired others to help them complete the rest of the butchery.
    Nine Hallowed Keepers were dead. Four to go.
    Vyvienne watched the man carefully, gauging the tension of his well-defined muscles and the pulsating rhythm of his shallow breathing. Her powerful legs locked around his taut buttocks, keeping him deep inside her but initiating no move that would bring on his orgasm.
    That would be disastrous.
    In that instant, the moment of power would escape. It would then take them three days of bodily purification—no red meat, no alcohol, no sex—to reach this critical point again.
    “The chessboard.” She whispered the words into his open mouth.
    He swallowed her words. “The chessboard,” he repeated, sweat curling down his stubbled cheeks, dripping onto his hairless chest.
    They were close now, so close.
    Vyvienne closed her eyes and concentrated, every sense heightened, alerted to the possible smells and sounds that would lead them to their treasure. The sensations in her