Dream Killer: Book One in the Nadia Chronicles

The pain ended abruptly, sharply replaced by motion sickness.

“Hello, again.” A voice that was becoming all too familiar said dripping in arrogance as Nadia started to wake.

She knew that voice from two dreams she had already had. When Nadia opened her eyes, she was staring at a medieval looking metal chandelier that had low burning candles. The chandelier was spinning in an all brick room that reminded her of a torture chamber. The room was musty and filthy. It smelled strongly of rust and smoke with a hint of blood. Nadia guessed the floor was covered in dirt and there were old, much used shackles attached to the walls to complete to the look. She tried to look at the man who spoke to her and realized it was not the chandelier but Nadia herself that was spinning. She was lying on her back on a hard-circular wooden table of sorts that was steadily spinning counterclockwise, vertical to the floor. Nadia’s ankles were shackled to the bottom of the table by heavy, metal restraints. Her wrists were shackled above her head by what felt like thick leather straps. After watching the room spin around in a blur, Nadia gave up trying to see faces and stared back up at the chandelier.

“Listen,” Nadia began sarcastically. “If you are trying to make me throw up, you are going to succeed, but my guess is you want something else.” The motion stopped so suddenly that Nadia’s left wrist and ankle were gouged by the restraints. She bit back her pain determined to show the orange-eyed menace nothing but sarcasm and hatred. “Cute.” She said, with malice, shifting slightly to right herself on the table.

“Oh, you are so brave, aren’t you?” The orange-eyed man mocked. “Little Nadia, come to save the day from wicked ol’ me? I guess I should give up now and save myself the trouble.” He finished with an evil laugh that chilled Nadia to the core.

“I guess the rumors were incorrect.” Nadia said. “You can learn and you aren’t as dumb as you look.”

The orange-eyed man was snarling within an inch of Nadia’s face. He had blood shot eyes and too much nose hair. Nadia also noticed his yellowing, crooked teeth and unimpressive weak looking chin. “Joke all you want, but soon you will be begging for a mercy stroke to end your life.”

“You’re wrong,” Nadia whispered, only partially feigning fear. “I may ask for it sooner if you continue to breathe on me. Doesn’t Baako have breath-mints or tooth brushes? Seriously.” She would have continued, but for the manic laughter that escaped the chapped lips of the orange-eyed man.

“You do possess bravery,” he cut in. “Or you are extremely stupid. Has no one told you who I am? The peasants fear to say my name, believing that I will swoop down on them with vengeance.”

While he spoke, Nadia instantly thought of Harry Potter and the character Voldemort. However, the orange-eyed man looked nothing like the rather sexy Ralph Fiennes who played Voldemort in the movies. The orange-eyed man was maybe an inch or two shorter than Nadia. His hair was thinning rapidly. He had sweat on his brow and above his lip and he had the look of a man that got very little restful sleep. Though he looked unimpressive, Nadia could feel the power that he may not personally possess, but he surrounded himself with. His ‘gifts’ felt wrong as if they were not his to begin with and it gave him a menacing unpredictable feel. She also believed that he could follow through with the attack on any villager that said his name, but most likely only through their sleep.

Nadia knew that even if the man was not insanely evil she would not have liked him from the start. She tried to imagine him thirty years younger when he would have been her age and saw him as an ego driven maniac that stepped on any in his way. Nadia suppressed a shiver as she realized he must have said something he considered funny and was expecting her to laugh along with him.

“Oh, sorry,” she said simulating real sorrow for him. “Your voice is just so irritating that I stopped listening.” He snapped his fingers and Nadia was punched across the face by a man that was much more impressive and stealthy than the orange-eyed man. Nadia did not even notice him in the room. His six-and-a-half-foot bulk could not stop him from almost blending completely into the shadowy corner. He moved with the practice of a man

that had lived in the shadows all his life.

After the shock of being hit wore off, she could feel the pain in her jaw and the right side of her face. She laughed to keep from crying and to continue showing her defiance. “Thanks for the love tap, um, guy,” she said with a somewhat hysterical giggle blinking back tears.

“Oh, how rude of me,” the orange-eyed man said with a mock bow, his eyes never leaving Nadia’s face. “I forgot to introduce myself and my friends.” The plural friends, was not lost on Nadia and she glanced around the room to see who else was there. Every corner of the grimy room was occupied by a man with a similar build to the man that punched Nadia, except one. That man was seated in a chair and nothing but his hands and robes could be seen. He had very old looking hands and Nadia guessed he was in his late sixties or early seventies. His robes at one time were black as night, but had been worn to a grubby gray. Despite the man’s obvious lack of money to purchase new robes he held himself as a king. There was a clear feeling of power radiating from his corner as well as an equally strong feeling of bitter betrayal that Nadia could not place. Nadia noticed that the man was not introduced. The other three men were not named but instead had numbers that were more than six digits in length. Nadia decided it was not worth her time to remember any of them and turned her attention back to her captor.

“Interesting names you give the help,” Nadia said with confident sarcasm. “And what is your name?”

The orange-eyed man looked Nadia over from head to toe greedily before he smiled a very toothy smile that showed too much of his gums.

“You are feisty,” he commented, as Nadia tried not to squirm. She had no choice, but to lay there and let the orange-eyed, creepy, old man gave her the dirty up and down look. She was glad for her thick blue jeans and baggy t-shirt in that moment. They helped her feel less exposed and vulnerable. “You will be more fun to break than the others.” He paused for a reaction but did not get one. “My name is Sergei, but you may call me King Sergei, Ruler Sergei, or simply god of Baako. Someday you may even call me, husband.” The last title broke through Nadia’s perfectly constructed façade. Sergei saw her grimace and he clapped with joy. “Ah, you do fear me just not the way I thought you would. There will be other ways you will fear me before this is over.”

“Oh, you are right,” Nadia put her façade back into place. “I fear your blood getting on my clothing when I kick the crap out of you.” Sergei laughed again. “Oh, I’m not done,” Nadia said to hide a shudder.

“Then, by all means,” Sergei gave her a mock bow, gesturing for her to continue.

“Thank you, your royalness,” she said savagely. “I fear your receding hair line. Eventually, I will see you in the sun light and it may blind me.” His smile faltered slightly as she continued. “I fear the oversized child that you are may run kicking and screaming from the room when you don’t get your way.” Sergei was no longer smiling and his fists had balled up, but Nadia was not done with her insults. “I fear you may someday hit puberty and your voice will no longer be the sweet sounding five-year-old little girl’s voice it is now.”

“Enough,” he growled as one of his men stifled a giggle.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am just getting started. I fear that you will breathe on me again with your tooth decay and dragons breathe.” Her table started to spin again, but she was speaking too fast and loud to give up. “I fear your tiny man syndrome will continue to grow and we will all be crushed under the weight of your ego trip.”

Nadia gasped when she abruptly stopped spinning and everything in the room had gone dark. It took her a second to realize her arms and feet were no longer strapped down. She flexed her hands and rubbed her wrists to try to work out some of the pain in them. She hit a wooden surface directly above her body. She tried to move her legs and hit the walls of the wooden structure she was in. Her breath caught as she groped in the dark of the dank, wooden coffin that had replaced the spinning table. Nadia was starting to feel the familiar panic of claustrophobia rising in her chest. She had been afraid of enclosed places since she was a small child, but the coffin was the tiniest of the places she had faced.

She tried desperately to get her raging emotions and ragged breathing under control. “This is a dream,” she muttered to herself closing her eyes tightly. “I am free of this box.” She could feel the hysteria mere inches from the surface and spoke faster. “I am only dreaming. I am not in a coffin. I am in my bed safe and sound.” There was a knock on the top of the coffin shattering Nadia’s concentration.

“Oh, Nadia?” Sergei asked. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Are you comfortable, Nadia?”

“Go to hell!” Nadia tried to sound fierce, but fell short of the mark.

“So much animosity,” Sergei said with obvious delight. “What is wrong Nadia? Is it that you can feel the walls closing in on you?”

Nadia’s breathing picked up even more. “Maybe you can feel the air thinning around you, stealing your breath.” Nadia was nearing hyperventilation at his

words. “You know, Nadia, I will let you out if you want me to. All you have to do is ask.”

She could hear the smirk on Sergei’s face and had the uncontrollable urge to slap it off. That gave her a small amount of hope. If she could still think of violence, she had not lost the battle completely. She considered her options: 1. ask to be released. She knew this was a trick and refused to ask anything of that despicable, little man. 2. Kick her way out. She thought about giving that one a try and if it failed then she would go with 3. Feign death or passing out. She could see in Sergei’s eyes that he wanted Nadia to bow down to him, but if she died she took away all the fun. She didn’t intend on dying or even passing out. She did intend on drawing from all her past acting experiences from high school, college, and community theatre roles.

Nadia took a deep breath and opened the curtain for act one. She started kicking and pounding on the walls and lid of the coffin trying to loosen them up. She heard Sergei say, “It won’t work, my love, but, by all means, keep trying.” He laughed as she kept up the noise for another minute.

She cut her knuckles and could feel blood running down her hand as she gasped with effort which gave her an idea. She used her already harsh breathing to play up act two, the death scene.

“I,” Nadia gasped scratching at the lid feeling the wood splinter under her nails. “Can’t breathe. I.” She scratched feebly two more times before she feigned a death, rattling breath, then stopped moving all together. It was harder for her to slow her breathing so that she wouldn’t be heard, but she seemed to do the trick.

“Nadia, honey? No more outbursts or sarcastic comments?” Sergei sounded victorious, but Nadia did not answer. “Nadia?” He asked his voice colored with concern. “Damn it, I told you to leave enough air for her to breathe. I swear, if she is dead.”

Nadia closed her eyes and tried to look as dead as possible. She had to concentrate on not flinching when her eye lids were accosted by the sudden light. Nadia stayed perfectly still when Sergei touched her arm to feel her pulse though her skin was crawling and she itched to start punching.

“You are so lucky she is not dead. She must have passed out. Take her to the room.” Sergei’s anger was making him slur his words together. “I will be there shortly.”

Nadia was lifted out of the coffin swinging like a rag doll. She knew she had been lifted by one of the numbered men, because of how high off the ground she was. Nadia did not open her eyes in the slightest to see where she was going. The giant of a man had Nadia unceremoniously flung over his shoulder so that her feet were in front of him and her arms bounced around on his back. She brushed the double swords the man had strapped to his back twice before she realized he had a small dagger on the outside of his sword sheath.

A plan slowly formed in Nadia’s mind even as she heard a door being opened and Sergei saying, “Put her there and leave us. I will not need you any more tonight.” As the large brute lifted Nadia to drop her onto an overly soft bed Nadia grabbed the dagger. She swung the pointed end up toward her elbow hoping for a soft landing so she would not impale herself. Luck was with her and Nadia was dropped onto her stomach, sinking into the fluffy bed. Nadia slowly inched her arm with the dagger under a pillow. She risked opening her eyes ever so slightly to see as much of the bedroom as she could. Sergei had his back to Nadia as he aggressively shut the door and Nadia could see that Sergei had a short sword hanging from his belt. She knew from the light pouring into the room there had to be a window on the opposite wall as the door. The bright sunlight showed it was clearly day time. She watched Sergei lock the door and pocket a key before she had to go back to playing dead.

Sergei turned and watched her for a few minutes from the door. Nadia would have squirmed if she was not ‘unconscious’. Then, Sergei crossed to the other side of the bed, kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed beside Nadia. He leaned over to Nadia and brushed her hair lightly with his fingers before smelling her hair deeply. She was still on her stomach facing away from him, but she gripped the dagger under the pillow until her knuckles were completely white. She was trying to think calming thoughts to keep her pulse and breath from speeding up giving away the fact that she was awake.

Sergei abruptly grabbed Nadia’s shoulders and rolled her toward him and onto her back. Nadia was so close to him they were touching. She kept her hand with the dagger under the pillow as she was rolled over allowing the other arm to flop onto her face. She was hoping to hide her eyes to look around the room more, but Sergei gently lifted her arm from her face and placed it to her side.

Nadia’s skin crawled as Sergei started whispering to her, “You are so beautiful, Nadia. It is such a shame that your beauty is tainted with sarcasm and hatred.” He brushed all her hair from her face. When he whispered so close to Nadia’s cheek she could feel his chapped lips moving against it. “You will submit to me Nadia. You will make a beautiful trophy for me.”

Nadia had more than enough of Sergei’s arrogant nonsense, but was frozen with indecision. If she moved when he was this close to her, he could over power her before she got the dagger out. But if this went on any longer she was not sure what the horrid man was capable of. She was desperate not to find out. She waited almost holding her breath unsure she could keep up her stillness if he touched her again. Sergei leaned in and kissed Nadia’s cheek with his freshly licked lips and she made a split-second decision to act or throw up. He must have closed his eyes when he kissed her because he was shocked when she flung herself off the bed. It took him a second more to realize Nadia was armed and that she seemed to know how to wield the dagger she had stolen.

“What is this?” he whispered enraged. “You devious, little pretender. Rest assured I will kill you slowly for this.”

“Try it,” Nadia challenged. She wanted to keep him talking so she could take in more of the room and plan her escape, but she hated the sound of his weasley, whiney voice. Why can’t I change this dream, she thought to herself as he drew his weapon. Where is Dimitri? For a very small instance she could hear voices.

“Dimitri, honestly I don’t think I can keep up this pace.” Nadia recognized the voice as the beautifully dangerous Althea’s. Nadia tried to open her eyes, but the pain of her own body overwhelmed her.

When Nadia could open her eyes again she found herself in a dark room. At first Nadia thought she was back in the coffin, until she realized she was standing. She thrusts her hands forward just to double check, but they did not bounce off hard wood walls.

“Find her!” The livid voice of Sergei echoed through the hall Nadia was standing in causing her to jump.

Damn it, Nadia thought. I am back in his freaking castle.