Chapter 24

Armando awoke to a terrifying reality - his reality! There were manacles on his wrists and shackles securing his ankles. The short chains allowed for some movement; but not very much. The chains were solidly anchored in the rock wall. There would be no escape from here Armando was certain. He could only make a guess at how long he had been kept in this windowless dungeon cell. His only visitor had been an enormous silver gray wolf with an impressive set of teeth.

Ever since he had left the dumb waiter to locate his target, his existence had turned into one shocking experience after another. First, there's some strange asshole wearing something that looked like it came from the fashion pages of "Witches and Warlocks Clothiers". Almost the same instant that his eyes register the unexpected presence he gets hit with some kind of ultra-powerful stun gun that just about does him in. Next he wakes up chained to the rock wall of a dungeon cell with this enormous wolf that is so damn big it must have been living on steroids and the monster talks! Once the wolf began talking - so did Armando! The whole damn situation had him so freaked that he didn't even try to withhold information from the canine killing machine asking the questions.

So far the wolf had seemed satisfied with his answers and had maintained its distance from Armando. Some hours ago, Armando didn't know if it was day or night in this cursed place, another not so lucky prisoner was placed in the cell next to his. The man had a nasty set of gashes down his left arm and appeared to have been bitten once or twice on his right arm. Whoever the poor slob was, he'd been unconscious when he'd arrived. At first Armando was hoping the man would wake up and maybe give him some information.

Though he was tired, Armando forced himself to remain awake so he wouldn't miss any opportunity to get some idea of where he was or who his captors were out of the stranger in the next cell. When the man finally started to come around, Armando was severely disappointed and soon grew even more frightened than he already had been. The fellow was mostly incoherent and constantly muttering to himself. Armando realized that no matter what condition the guy might have been when he'd been captured, he was certainly out of his mind now.

The only words that seemed clear enough to understand didn't really give Armando a lot of hope. He could just make out bits of phrases here and there as the man muttered to himself: "Please! Don't eat me Master Fang! I'll tell you the truth now, honest I will!" No, the man's conversation with the empty air in his cell didn't inspire much hope in Armando at all.

Several days had elapsed since the incident at the Castello Estate and the police activity had finally wound down somewhat. Emilio had stayed in touch with Enrique and the Wizard through the crystal communication charm the wizard had given him. Now that things were a bit calmer, Emilio decided that he would risk leaving the estate for a few hours. He was getting just a bit stir crazy being in the same place for so long and needed a bit of a break.

Within the first few minutes of his drive Emilio realized he was being followed. Uncertain of what he should do, Emilio decided to call upon his new wizard friend.

"Manix, Can you hear me?"

"Yes Emilio, I can hear you just fine."

"I'm driving in my car right now. This is the first time I've left the estate since the night of the assassination attempt and I'm positive I'm being followed. Any ideas on what I should do?"

Dale thought for a moment and conferred privately with Vyagar. Once he had a plan worked out, Dale gave Emilio enough of the details to work with. Emilio was to head south on the main road for about an hour or so and then drive off into some trees. Dale assured him that although the plan might sound a bit crazy, it would work out fine and asked Emilio to trust him.

"Well," Emilio thought to himself, "I already agreed to let Maria and Enrique entrust their lives to the man. I guess it's about time for me to do the same."

"Do you have the package in sight Dropper?" Heinrich asked over the digitally scrambled cell phone.

"Yes Top Dog. I have it in view. It's moving south from the monitor point at roughly 90 clicks an hour."

"Stay on it!" Heinrich instructed his man.

"Dale?"

"Yes Vyagar?"

"I just intercepted a cell call you might find interesting," Vyagar replied. He let Dale hear an unscrambled recording of the call.

"Sounds like you've located one of the villains Vyagar. Good work!" Dale enthused.

"Actually I was also able to pinpoint the location of the other cell phone as well, so we could grab both of them if you want."

"Sounds like a plan! See to it my friend," Dale instructed.

"That's the turn-off," Emilio said to himself as it came into view. "I sure hope the wizard knows what he's doing!"

Emilio turned the car off of the main road and headed down the smaller road until he was under the cover of the thick foliage. He expected that the other car would follow him and sure enough it did. What he hadn't expected was the shimmering blue light that seemed to envelop his car. In the next instant, he was no longer on the little dirt road under the trees; instead Emilio found that he had been transported to a vast chamber. Somewhat stunned by what had transpired, Emilio stepped out of the car to get a better look at his new surroundings. The chamber was enormous dwarfing any stadium or coliseum Emilio had ever seen. Except for Emilio and his car, the entire chamber appeared quite empty.

"Just sit tight for a moment Emilio and I will join you," he heard the wizard's voice say in his head.

One moment he was in his lavish office in a Puerto Vallarta high-rise office building; next, Heinrich found himself in the center of a ring of ferocious looking animals gathered in what appeared to be a cavern. When a simply enormous tiger approached him, opening its mouth to bellow out a loud roar, Heinrich shit in his pants and fainted.

Dale gathered Rob, Enrique, and Maria as well as several of his body slaves and transported with his entourage to the palace using the mirror network. Once there he asked the slaves to serve some refreshments while he attended to one or two matters.

"Vyagar, would you be kind enough to transport me to Emilio's location?"

"Certainly Dale."

The now familiar blue shimmer of light whisked Dale away from the bath chamber he had been standing in and into the large chamber where he found Emilio leaning against his car, patiently waiting.

"Sorry to have kept you Emilio. I just took a few minutes to gather Rob, Enrique, and Maria together with some of my servants. They're all waiting for us to join them," Dale informed him.

When Dale had transported into the chamber, he found that Vyagar had clothed him in his Wizard's robe. He reached into a pocket and withdrew another one of the unique gadgets that Vyagar had created. From Emilio's viewpoint it appeared that the wizard had just pulled out a small rectangular mirror from a pocket in his unusual robe. The mirror appeared to have legs of some kind that allowed the wizard to stand it upright on the floor. Pointing his wand at the small mirror, the wizard spoke the phrase "augeo" and much to Emilio's astonishment, the mirror began to grow larger until it was the size of a large doorway.

Dale turned towards the mirror and spoke the words "Ingressus erga solium cella." Then he turned to Emilio and said, "after you my friend."