Chapter -7-
Clock Tower

The large cogs rotated on either side of the staircase. Justus stopped in the doorway, looking up into the abysmal gloom of darkness, stretching into the vast ceiling. He glanced back at Molly and frowned. "You're positive we should go up?"

Molly ran her fingers up through her hair, pushing her dark bangs out of her eyes. "This is where James and I split up. He claimed that Dracula's throne room was accessible by going up this way. He said there would be no traps in the clock tower, but it would be dangerous, just the same. But it makes more sense, according to him, to struggle over gears and moving cogs that you can see, then to fend off traps you can't. I have a feeling we'll be able to find him if we go up to the throne room. He also mentioned one other thing."

"Go on."

She shifted her knapsack, locking the flap. She began re-threading her belt through small loops sewn on the bottom side of the pouch, to keep it secure to her hip. She continued, looking up at the werewolf every so often, while working the belt and re-clasping the buckle. "This tower was written to be guarded by some sort of "were animal", a little like you. He jumped from the top to save some guy, who was part wolf or something. Anyhow. We should be able to take a corridor leading from the throne room, down to the main foyer, without any traps."

"I know the guy you're talking about," Justus said. "I've already crossed paths with him. He won't give us any trouble. So, why can't we just go to the foyer and take the un-trapped hallway up to the Throne Room?"

"I asked Mister Johnson the same thing," she said with a sigh. "He told me to try if it I felt so bold as to ignore his advice. That's why we split up. I don't know if he went through the tower or not. So, I found the hallway and quickly found out that the stairs turn into a ramp if you try to ascend them. Spikes come out of the walls and, when I tried to use them to pull myself up the flat concrete surface, I quickly learned that asps drop from the ceiling. You have to go down."

"Asps?" Justus tilted his head, laying his ears back. His whiskers eased back along the length of his muzzle and his bushy dark gray brows furrowed overtop of the light gray fur of his face. "As in snakes?"

"As in snakes," Molly replied. "Give me a boost," she added. Justus put his paws out, palm up and the girl placed her foot into his grasp. "I'm trusting you, so don't try and kill me."

Justus face faulted, glaring at her. His ears remained laid for another moment then perked up, above his head. "You shot me and I didn't eat you. Obviously, you have trust issues."

Molly sighed, thinking of the contraband in her bag. She paid her groceries off of her illegal deliveries; Dracula's Castle became nothing more than a roadblock to her. "You learn not to trust anyone when you carry." She cleared her voice then corrected herself. "When you are a courier, I mean. I stay off the radar by walking the fields of lower Romania to make my drops. Bucharest drops are worth four times as much as my normal routes because I'm often taking crazy shit to the University. Stuff they consider paranormal."

Justus tilted his head, wondering about the relationship between paranormal objects in Wallachia and the location of the castle. "Do you have something paranormal with you now?"

"I don't know," she muttered with a frown. "Part of me trusts you," she said, "Or I wouldn't have my foot in your hand right now." She began to boost herself up, putting her other foot on his shoulder. "But yeah, I have a stolen diamond hidden inside of a bag of opium. I'm not supposed to know it's in there, but I check my cargo then carefully reseal it. This diamond is a goddamn underworld legend and I had to research the background. It's some evil freakin' shit, if you ask me."

"Go on, I'm listening," Justus said, hoisting her up to a maintenance ledge next to a large spinning cog. Ruts in the concrete were specially paved and grooved for holding a repairman's ladder in place. Molly pulled herself up to the ledge with a grunt then turned around and reached down for his paw.

Molly hooked her ankles around either side of a pole designed for a repairman's safety harness. "I don't know how well I'll be able to lift you. I wedged my feet into a safety harness pole, so see if you can pull yourself up on my hand. Careful with your wound and all."

"I've got it; just tell me about your diamond." He put his foot on a large gear to the left, which spun with the speed of a second hand. It lifted him high enough to grab the ledge after only twelve seconds, at six large turns.

"Well, this diamond in a Washington DC Museum, is just over nine grams. It's called the Hope Diamond, but it has a history in France. I think it was uncovered in India, in Golconda. Now, here's some Vampire Lore for you, right from James Johnson… Golconda is the name of Vampire Heaven. If you're able to break the curse of blood drinking, you live in a state of harmony known as Golconda. If you master your state of Harmony, you return to life, as a normal human being. You live out your life, then you die and go to heaven. So, the diamond was dug up in Golconda, India. It was about twenty-two and a half grams in size, when they found it."

"Right," Justus said, adding, "That's the diamond that Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette owned, right? Then, supposedly, the curse caused a bunch of crap, they died, a bunch of owners down the line died, save for maybe one or two of them, and supposedly an iteration of the DC Museum burned down; the fire started in the room that housed the diamond, but it wasn't tarnished when recovered from the fire, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, and supposedly you can't take a clear photograph of it, yet there are photos of it all over the internet," Molly said, standing up and reaching for another gear which turned slowly. There were pegs on the side, which she used as footholds, hoisting herself upwards. "But if the Hope Diamond is nine grams and it was originally found in India at twenty-two and a half grams, then how much was hacked off in the cutting? Plenty."

Justus nodded in reply then bent his knees. He took a moment to ready himself for the pain of the wound in his gut, then jumped upwards. He hoisted himself up to the next ledge. "I'm following you. So, you've got another piece from the original full diamond, and it's considered paranormal, right?"

"In the year Sixteen Sixty-Eight, Louis the fifteenth had it cut down to thirteen and a half grams. So, where did the other half of the diamond go?"

"You got me," said Justus, offering his paws out. Without so much as breaking in her story, she put her left foot up on his padded palms and continued up to the next ledge.

Molly made her way up then took a short breather. "It's the other half, here. I've got the twin, which is nine and a half grams, slightly larger than the Hope Diamond. The jeweler, who cut it, Sieur Pitau, actually cut it in half. He shaped the first half and gave it to the king to use for display. The other half was given to the king in a broach. Louis the 16th sold the diamond to a rich merchant who returned it to India. The diamond was placed into the eye of the sculpted idol of the Hindu goddess, Sita. The legend got all screwed up and people claim that the whole thing was stolen out of the Hindu statue's eye. But only my half ever got stolen out of a statue. Anyway, the whole piece was the Travernier Blue, but when cut, one half became The French Blue, or the Blue Diamond of the Crown. My half became the eye of a statue. The other eye was a sapphire of equal size. They almost matched."

She continued to climb again, using another gear. It elevated her to a rotating cog. The rotating metal disc spanned twelve feet, allowing her to move to the other end of the tower, so that she could ascend the facing wall. "Anyhow, the Hindu statue got robbed for both eyes. But they were both sold by an idiot of a thief, who thought that both jewels were sapphires. The guy who bought 'em was probably happy as hell to have paid for two sapphires and one of them turn out to be a big-ass diamond."

"So how is it paranormal?" Justus asked, leaping out to the rotating disc. He hung precariously, throwing his left leg up over the side. It continued to spin, bringing him closer to the perpendicular gear. He knew he had to hurry or risk getting crushed. With Molly's help, he scrambled up over the side, onto the flat disc. "And does it have a name?"

"Not really," she said. "Most assumed that the French jeweler who cut it turned the scraps into small diamonds for other jewelry. But eleven years ago, a scientist in Madrid, Spain, was able to get both diamonds side by side. He conducted the tests that proved both were the same diamond at one time. He died four hours after returning the Hope Diamond. But, if you ask me," she ran her fingers through her hair, "neither are cursed. He was probably killed for the other diamond, which was on him at the time. Obviously, whoever killed him took the unnamed Twin Blue Diamond. It went back underground. Eventually, it resurfaced and some rich guy is paying me to bring it to Bucharest. I trust he won't kill me, because I've brought him stuff before. Besides, he doesn't know I know it's packed in the opium. He's paying me double what he normally gives me and, like I said earlier, a Bucharest University run is normally five times my normal catch. So, this is a really big chunk of change. If I play my cards right and manipulate him into paying me more because of the diamond, then I could probably retire from being a courier. This guy is independently wealthy and has the cash."

Justus glanced up into the dark abyss then leaned over the side, peering down three stories to the platform where they'd entered the tower. "Sounds interesting. So why is it paranormal or cursed? Did you find that out, while researching it?"

"Hell yeah, I did," she said. "But I don't believe in that sort of crap."

"C'mon, what did you learn?" he asked.

Molly stood up again and leapt from the spinning disc, onto another ledge, ascending an old stone staircase. "They call it the Vampire's Diamond. It was mounted to the tip of a silver stake, used by an oriental vampire hunting clan, and used to kill vampires throughout China and India. Eventually, one of the vampires obtained it and had the entire clan of hunters killed. Their entire bloodline was wiped out. The legend gets silly, but whatever," she continued, with Justus following her up the steps. "Supposedly it fell into the 'paws' of a Kumiho, a Korean fox spirit, and became the source of the creature's power."

She lowered to a crawl, ascending the old stone staircase, on all fours. She peered over the side, frowning at the sheer drop. The stones jutted less than half a meter out of the wall. "Anyhow, it turned up in Japan, known as the Hoshi-no-tama diamond. Then, in the mid Eighteen hundreds, it turned up missing. To this day, its theft is still on record as the guard claiming he saw a five-tailed fox steal it and run off. An outside guard had the same claim and yet the two guards hated one another. So it was assumed that, because their stories matched, it must have been true. The diamond showed up in Bucharest, Romania fifty years later. Then it disappeared on and off for several years, rumored to be used as a Boon Stone by vampires. They would hand it to one another as a reminder that they owned someone a favor or something. Not quite sure how that worked. And now I have it and plan to take it back to Bucharest, but I'm not supposed to know I even have it."

"What makes it appeal to vampires? I mean, it was used to kill them," Justus said, keeping his eyes on her to ensure her safety. The two continued up the slim staircase. "Anything at all?"

"I don't know," Molly replied, carefully taking one step at a time. "But if you hold it under a black light, it turns red. The Hope Diamond does that, too. Ultraviolet light causes it to glow with a sort of red phosphorescence. So, it's nothing special, like … vampire blood makes it turn red, or any of that crap. Both diamonds do it, because of all the elements within the diamond. There's like, one called boron and another called… well, I don't remember the other one. But yeah, it turns red under a black light. Who knows if that has anything to do with why Vampires use it as a trading stone."

"That's really rather interesting," Justus said, fluidly moving up the slender staircase. "How red?"

"I don't know about the Hope, but I assume they're the same," she started, pausing to eye a nearby ledge, near the top of the staircase. "But this one turns so damn red that it looks like a ruby held up to a candle."

"Weird." He arched up and peered over her shoulder. "Looks like the staircase has collapsed beyond this point. That gear looks to be moving pretty quick, but it looks safe to stand on. You wanna make a jump for it?"

Molly nodded. She glanced over her shoulder and noted Justus' emphatic looking expression and offered a scolding one in return. She despised this tower. "It'll be like jumping onto a moving merry-go-round. Let's do it." The moving gear didn't look so dangerous, but she knew that things would be moving faster up near the top, because they would be transferring energy to a massive second hand, on the outside of the clock tower, closer to the top.

She peered back down, unable to see the bottom. "I'd say we're about five stories up. I think the tower is ten stories tall, but it sits on an elevated section of rock, so it towers pretty high on the outside. I was only paying partial attention to Mister Johnson, when he talked about this thing. I thought I'd be bypassing this stupid tower."

"Life is unfair, isn't it?" Justus returned with an offered grin. "All right, I'll go first, you jump behind me." He stood up, slowly, then put his back to the wall. He lifted his right leg and placed his heel firmly against the wall, eyeing the flat, spinning disc. "Here we go!" he announced, leaping out into the open. Justus collapsed on the disc, on his hip, opposite of his injury. He groaned from the unceremonious landing. The world around him began to spin. He pushed his palms against the flat disc, staring at one of the pegs at the edge, to focus. It took a moment for the dizziness to end; by the time he got his bearings, Molly joined him at the center.

Unlike Justus, the spinning didn't affect her equilibrium. She walked to the edge, crouched down and waited for the opportune moment to leap to the ledge on the wall across from the crumbling stone stairs. She leaned back against the wall, looking relaxed.

Justus crept to the edge and rotated his head to keep his sights on the platform. He waited, spinning about twice before feeling ready to jump. He put his foot up on one of the pegs and pushed off, careening into the wall, besides her. The man beast slumped down on the ledge and reached up to cup his paws over his eyes. "Give me a second. I've lost a lot of blood and that's a factor behind getting dizzy on those damn things."

Molly gave him a cheerful pat on the head. Seeing him at a disadvantage helped her to trust him. Something about seeing a man's weakness often made women feel comfortable. "Take your time; we're about sixty percent up. We're making good progress… Justus, right?"

"You got it, Molly." The werewolf reached up and wrapped his fingers around his left and right ears, breathing slowly.

"What're you doing?"

"Balance is affected most by your hearing. I'm holding my ears until the world stops spinning. My sports coach used to tell us to do that if we got hit really hard and felt dizzy. We'd reach up, hold onto our earlobes and, damn if it didn't work. So, I'm trying the same thing."

Molly felt something against her back and glanced down, at the wall behind her. Gnarled fingers reached from the wall, causing her eyes to widen. She opened her mouth to call out to Justus but her voice failed. For once in her life, she couldn't speak. Her lower jaw quivered, moving to the edge of the concrete platform. The fingers continued to ease out of the wall, like a Hollywood trick. The massive, gnarled, old hand thrust forward, all the way to the wrist. The fingers wrapped around her body, to keep her from falling over the ledge.

The palm extended from her shoulders, down to her knees. Just as Justus began to recover and look up, she found her voice and shouted his name. He stood up quick, a clear look in his eyes, and plunged his claws into the large wrist emanating from the wall. The massive hand didn't bleed. He continued to chop and stab at the wrist, only to realize that it began to sink back into the wall.

He retargeted his claws on the fingers, trying to stab through them, to pull her from the hand's grasp, but the injuries had no effect on the knobby, contorted flesh. It pulled her into the wall with ease and yet Justus found himself clawing at the solid wall, unable to get to her.

He collapsed to his haunches, just glaring at the stone wall. In the background, the massive gears continued to click and grind, filling the tower with their ambient rhythm.

Justus pushed his paw against the wall one last time then sighed in frustration. Un-rhythmic scrapping joined the fray, causing his ears to flicker. He glanced up and frowned. Monsters seemed to step from the walls, now patrolling the ledges and stairways. He closed his paws into fists. "Not as dangerous, huh?" He withdrew the Taurus pistol from beneath his cloak and knelt down on the ledge to take aim. He wanted to take down as many enemies as he could, before climbing up.

He peered down the barrel and lined up the sights then fired. The noise, swallowed up by the ambient clicking of the gears, still caused his ears to lower. He flinched from the crack of the sound each time. His first round tore through the skull of a skeleton, knocking its jaw from the head. Justus fired again, leaving a crack in the skull but the skeleton didn't seem to be fazed.

The werewolf tightened his jaw and aimed higher to a zombie on the ledge. He fired two shots into the flesh of the zombie's torso. The police-issue rounds acted as they were designed to act. They opened wide on impact, tearing two large holes in the torso of the zombie. It threw the corpse back against the wall but the body still showed signs of life.

Frustrated, Justus eased the weapon upwards, lined up a shot and put a bullet into the zombie's head, smashing in side of the face. To his surprise, the monster seemed agitated, still ambling around on the ledge. He lifted the weapon, singling out another undead beast and opening fire until the gun clicked softly in protest. He reached beneath the cloak and withdrew a magazine, releasing the empty one and slapping the fresh clip home in the handle.

"A gun?" The voice belonged to Ortega. "You brought a gun with you? Are you sure you're of Cornell's blood? What fool brings a gun to fight the undead? Those are designed to inflict pain, slow an enemy or bring about the death of mortals. How do you inflict pain on those who cannot feel?"

Justus looked over his shoulder. "You…"

"Indeed, it's me. What kind of fool are you, boy? I've nearly lost respect for you. You have claws! Haven't you tasted blood with them, yet?"

"I have, but," Justus sighed. "I'm going to be struggling up the side of this damned tower. I'd like to pick off my opponents now. It's a strategic safety measure, if you ask me."

"You're wasting your ammunition!" Ortega laughed. Justus paused to look over the dead beast again then frowned. Ortega hovered against the wall, in the open, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. His feet disappeared into the voice, his legs floating like the apparition he appeared to be. "The Chinese invented gunpowder for use in small rocks. It was nearly two hundred years before my time. The Muskets of my day put a ball the size of a thumbnail into your flesh if the gun hit its target. It hurt but wasn't enough to kill a were-beast like myself."

"Look at the holes in that Zombie!" Justus shouted, pointing up to a ledge with an injured undead being.

Ortega snorted with disgust. "I see; he looks very animated." The beast shook his head and said, "I see you met Scylla. Did you…?"

"Did I what?" Justus snapped, replacing the weapon in the belt, beneath his cloak. "Do anything with her? What makes you ask?"

"The clothes you're wearing," Ortega replied, offering a smirk. "I recognize them. The last time I saw them, they were on the back of a man she seduced. But if you're actually wearing them and she let you live, then she must have taken a liking to you."

"Let's not talk about her, all right? I know your body is down there in her chamber, somewhere. I'll do what I can to find it, later." Justus dashed forward, leaping off the ledge and onto a massive clockwork cog. Perched on a gear groove, the large metal cast-iron disc lifted him into the air. Justus jumped away from the gear towards an occupied ledge. His cloak billowed out beneath him and he withdrew his paws from his sides, crossing his arms in the reverse motion of a swimmer's breaststroke.

His claws diced through the skeleton, shattering the ribs. Bones, white like starch, exploded in all directions. Justus landed on the ledge, bringing his knee into the pelvis of the skeleton warrior, knocking it from the stone edge. It struck a gear a few stories down, becoming crushed between two cogs.

The metal mechanisms of the clockwork mansion never missed a beat, thundering out the next massive noise every sixty seconds. The simple rhythm of each second seemed to be accompanied by the softer cadence between each second stroke. The noise sounded like percussive genius in a time signature of four beats by four measures. Each gear and cog made a distinctive sound. Like congas over the beat of a drum set, the clock tower continued its unforgiving beat in an emotionless rhythm of perfection.

"You've not got far," Ortega said from somewhere behind. Justus ignored the voice for now. He stepped onto a nearby disc that brought him around to a spinning vertical gear disc. The werewolf stepped onto a waterwheel-sized gear, kneeling in a groove on the side. It lifted him upwards. His fur rustled softly, being projected straight up. The rustling fur and billowing cape danced about his body, animating him beyond the stoic expression on his muzzle. He folded his arms, waiting for the ride to end.

It lifted him upwards to a massive pendulum that swung from one wall to the other, bringing the power of gravity to power the gears. Massive weights hung from chains in the background. Justus leapt from the gear and wrapped his paws around the metal shaft, above the large round section at the bottom. It took a moment of struggle but Justus pulled his body up until his feet met the metal weight at the bottom of the shaft. He held tight to the shaft.

The swinging pendulum brought him close to one of the weighs used to counterbalance the moving of the second hand on the outside top of the tower. The weight, now off balance, began to lift, resetting itself higher on the tower. It carried him up, passing the zombie on one of the ledges, he'd shot at earlier. The zombie reached for him. He reached out with his right paw, pushing his claws into the beast's forehead and pulling. The zombie jerked about, slipping off the edge.

With a twist of his wrist, Justus released his clawed grip on the zombie's forehead, allowing it to fall into the void. The weight continued to take him upwards another full story. He stepped from the weight onto a set of stone pegs that lined the wall and began to ascend the seventh story of the tower, now able to see the vague image of the tenth floor at the top.

A semi-hollowed out floor covered this portion. Holes for the weights and several gears were cut into the stone. Justus took a moment to catch his breath on the seeming safe floor. After only his first pant, something began to materialize from the wall. His eyes narrowed, watching the emergence. Two partially decomposed dragon heads pushed through the stone bricks, as if they were only a mesh screen in its way.

The disheveled scales and dreary split ends of the tousled mane above each head suggested that these beasts were recycled enemies, reanimated after their defeat at the hands of another. Justus narrowed his gaze. "I'm tired of getting scraps," he said. He leapt at the dragon heads. He put his left foot on the first head, drawing his paws back to strike at the second, but he'd not anticipated their speed. The second head jerked to the left, swatting him away like a fly.

He rolled to a stop on the stone platform, favoring his injury with a paw. One of the dragon heads opened its gnarled maw, hissing in anger. A foul smelling chemical came from its throat, creating a wavy haze. The hiss-crackle of a spark coming to live sounded inside the dragon's muzzle.

Justus's eyes widened and, somehow, he instinctively knew to dive away. A plume of fire rushed towards him. With nowhere to hide, he drew the cloak around himself. The fire seemed to roll off the cape, redirected with ease by the fire-deflective material. A corner caught in a nearby gear that emerged from the floor, on the left side. The material tugged him towards the cog's groove and he had to roll towards the gear to unhook the fabric before it could further jerk him towards the floor. He sat up on his knee, looking at the floor where small splotches of fire crackled on the stone platform.

The second head spit out small flaming balls of burning napalm-like saliva wads. Justus blinked, realizing that the gear, which caught his cloak, had saved him from being targeted by the second head's attack. The first head opened its mouth again, inhaling a deep breath of oxygen.

Justus reached to his lower back, withdrawing the Taurus pistol again. He plugged to rounds into the dragon's mouth, tearing two holes in its neck, but didn't faze it otherwise. The spark flashed in front of the dragon head's uvula and, with ease, it belched fire. However, from the holes in its neck, a miasma of flairs escaped through its neck. The fire immediate trailed over its rotted scaly neck, engulfing the entire first head.

Flames licked upwards, along the wall. The second head eased away from the partner, but the flames crept down the lengthy neck of the first, to where the scaled necks met. Out of frustration, the flaming head lunged forth in an attempt to bite at the werewolf. Justus leapt over the head. His legs came out from beneath him and he tucked them beneath himself. Executing a sloppy somersault, the beast kicked his legs back out, bounding off a nearby wall. He withdrew his claws and dove downwards towards the second head.

Justus' claws plunged deeply into the skull of the rotted secondary dragon head, falling atop of it with an unceremonious collapse. The were-beast put his feet against the floor then shifted with all of his body weight, forcing the two heads to collide.

The flaming first head caused the mane of the second head to catch. Justus spied a ledge above him and ran towards the wall. He put his left foot on the concrete and made an attempt to use his inertia to carry him up the wall. Ignoring the pain in his gut, he extended his arms and closed his fingers around the granite ledge.

The second head swung out, striking him in the ribs, just above his wound. The connection tossed him from the ledge. Justus sprawled across the platform floor, below. He rolled onto his back, over by the wall, panting and wheezing. The cloak wrapped around his waist, binding his arms down.

Unable to defend himself for the moment, he rolled away, evading another physical attack by the angry second head. Fire lined its head, where only the hair of its mane managed to catch. Young Bell, the athletic built Belmont-blooded survivor that he was, fumbled about, trying to get to his knees. With the weight of his body off of the jumbled cape, it dropped back to where it belonged… his back. He lifted his arms out and dashed towards the two dragon heads, again.

Like before, he plunged his claws into the second dragon head's neck, then used his body weight to slam the two heads together. The fully engulfed first head caused flames to catch along the side of the second dragon's neck. The wall, where their necks emanated, now burned with the splattered jelly of their saliva and blood.

The second head, now enraged, jerked its head about, catching Justus beneath the jaw. The brunt force trauma of the attack sent Justus into the opposite wall so hard that slumping down the concrete felt much like being peeled off of the granite surface. He opened his eyes, staring at the Taurus pistol in front of him, resting on the platform. He snatched it up and opened fire on the second head, trying to hit it in the face.

"That's it," Ortega said from out of nowhere with a sarcastic tone. "Just keep shooting it, so that you're fighting a Holy Dragon. Are you an idiot? I was so proud of you, using your claws, then you go back to that stupid metallic contraption."

The second dragon head opened its mouth and inhaled. As soon as it attempted to spit fire, a thick flash of orange came from the holes in its neck, engulfing it in flames, like its twin. Justus replaced the gun in his belt, turning to Ortega with a smirk. "They're both leaking flame spit out of their necks. See? The gun isn't such a bad idea, after all."

"You should have used your claws to decapitate them!" Ortega shouted. "You're wasting your time with this childish pet! When I faced it, before giving my body to Dracula, I tore both heads off the full body, right from the neck. That's why you're only facing the neck up, because I decapitated the heads and destroyed the body. The heads are all that's left. That's what you're facing… my leftover table scraps! You're embarrassing Cornell!"

"Shut the hell up about him," Justus shouted. "Stop comparing me! He trained his whole life with his abilities. I've had them a day! Either shut your mouth or tell me where I can find the girl."

"The one with Dracula's Diamond?" Ortega asked. He chuckled, sitting on the floor near the flaming heads. While thrashing around, one of them passed through his tenebrous body and out the other side. "She shouldn't have brought that diamond back to Wallachia. She claims she did research, so what was she thinking, bringing that stupid stone into this part of Romania?"

"Where is she?" Justus shouted. He drew his fist back and plunged his claws into the snout of the second dragon head, then pulled his other fist back, shoving his dagger-like nails into the snout of the first dragon head. He pulls his arms apart them clapped them together, forcing the two flaming heads to slam into one another with such tremendous force that it cracked the skulls of both opponents with a sickening sound.

He pulled his arms back, saving them from the heat of the flaming heads. Justus then drew his foot back and kicked the first one in the chin. His foot connected with such powerful force that the head careened into the granite wall and left a cracked marking in the stones. Fueled by rage and adrenaline, Justus got to his feet again. The first head opened its mouth once more but the werewolf moved quick.

He shoved his claws in between the eyes of the semi-engulfed first head and used the sharp nails of his other paw, jamming them into the jaw. With all the muscle in his shoulders and back, he forced the first head to face the second, just as it ignited its saliva. A large ball of flame gushed out over the second dragon head, melting the flesh and scales off of its face.

Ortega's voice cackled with delight. "That's it! See, use your natural weapon! Trust in your body and your powers!"

Justus, remembering that his cloak protected him from a blast of fire, moments ago, withdraw his claws and reached for the fabric. He pulled it out like a blanket, beneath his right arm, and wrapped it around the first head, to dampen the flames. Then, he wrapped his arms around the head, using his cloak as a shroud around the first head. He put his legs on the wall and arched his back. With all of his body strength, the muscular lupine tore the head out of the wall and flung it into the nearby gear that came up out of the platform. The neck rolled into the grooves of the gear disc, dragging it down into the floor after breaking the neck in two places. Once beneath the platform, the head fell into the abyss, disappearing in a freefall.

The second head, now fully overcome by fire, flailed about in a listless manner, swallowed by flames. Justus backed away then sprinted towards the head, full on. He planted his feet atop of the dragon's nose and used it as a platform in which to boost himself up to the ledge above. He threw his arms out, catching the stone edge then kicked his legs up to pull himself onto the protrusion. The stone shelf held his weight; he rolled onto it, reaching his paws down to cradle his wounded abs. For now, Justus took a moment to catch his breath, sitting on the cold stone ridge, high above the remaining dragon head.

"Are you really going to leave that thing alive?" Ortega asked.

"You've already killed it, so what does it matter?" the boy animal shot back. "Furthermore, it's burning to death. What's the point of giving a damn?"

Ortega nodded, rubbing at his chin. "Fair enough. I'll be around. I don't know where the girl is; I'll find out what I know." The were-lion offered a smile. "You have a long way to go before you're strong enough to fight all the creatures in this castle. You wouldn't have destroyed me. I assumed the form of a three-headed chimera, boy. The Eagle's beak would have pecked out your eyes, the dragon's jaw would have crushed your ribs and the lion's teeth would have torn your legs apart. I was a fearsome creature."

"Fierce but defeated by Cornell, right?" Justus panted. "You talk too much. I'll see you again, when you find out where Molly is being kept. Her life is a priority over your body, so you'd better find her quick."

Ortega tightened his face and narrowed his eyes. After a moment of glaring, he vanished.

Justus, still favoring the flesh-wound above his hip bone, closed his eyes and thought to himself, 'Now to get the rest of the way out of this stupid tower and look for James. Maybe he'll know something. Molly said he was knowledgeable; maybe I can use his help in finding her. But he'll just run when he sees me again. Being a werewolf has its disadvantages.'

For now, however, Justus knew he had to find a source of hydration. Heading back to the water beneath the castle would require backtracking. He needed something now. His hopes for finding water in the throne room remained strong. He still had two more floors to scale before he would arrive at the tower bridge, leading up to the throne.

"If this is all because of that stupid diamond," he said to himself, muttering a vituperative string of curses beneath his breath.

A/N: Okay, I kept it to a level. I gave it some game-like design. I gave him a mini boss with a pattern for attack (him whacking their heads together, them having one head that breathed a plume of flames, the other spit globs of fireballs.) I also did a little research on the Hope Diamond, then the curse and finally started putting pieces together as to why the Castle found the power to return. We'll cross paths with James again, real soon. Not sure what his story is just yet… maybe he accidentally got sucked into the solar eclipse when the castle was plucked out of the Earth Realm, because his home was a little too close. Or maybe there is something more to him, seeing that he is fairly knowledgeable of a castle he claims in the first chapter was impenetrable. We'll see. I gotta get a feel for it.

ANYway, most Castlevania games DO have a clock tower. I remember playing Castlevania 64 and struggling with Reinhardt to get through the mechanical tower with the platforms and crap. Ah, memories. I can just remember back to games where the music would occasionally synchronize with the rhythmic turning of the gears. …

Hopefully the story is picking up since the boring beginning. I overloaded the reader with a ton of history back at the beginning, so whoever has made it this far, I'm glad you're still reading!

There will be more information on James, Julius, the nuclear strike against the Castle's magic seal, what happened to the Turkish Prime Minister and… all that stuff. I always tie up my loose ends. And, maybe I'll even have Justus run into another embarrassing session with Scylla. I thought it was a funny scene.

Thanks, again, for reading! I appreciate people letting me know when they enjoyed a chapter or if they're enjoying the story, or letting me know if there is something in particular they want to see happen in the story. So let me know if you readers are still with me! Again, thank you for reading this story, thus far!

-Kit