Curse of Stigmata (The Judas Reflections) Read online

  "Aiden James is a master storyteller... Out-freaking-standing-excellent!" ~ Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews, for Plague of Coins

  "We are watching a master at work." ~ J.R. Rain, Bestselling Author of the Vampire for Hire series

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  A Taste of The Judas Reflections: Murder in Whitechapel

  About Aiden James

  About Michelle Wright

  Copyright & Publisher

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  Full Table of Contents

  CADES COVE SERIES

  Cades Cove

  The Raven Mocker

  THE TALISMAN CHRONICLES

  The Forgotten Eden

  The Devil’s Paradise

  GHOSTHUNTERS 101 SERIES

  Deadly Night

  The Ungrateful Dead

  THE DYING OF THE DARK SERIES

  The Vampires’ Last Lover

  The Vampires’ Birthright

  Blood Princesses of the Vampires

  Scarlet Legacy of the Vampires

  (Coming summer 2013)

  THE JUDAS CHRONICLES

  Plague of Coins

  Reign of Coins

  Destiny of Coins

  The Dragon Coin

  (Coming summer 2013)

  WITH J.R. RAIN

  Temple of the Jaguar

  Treasure of the Deep

  Pyramid of the Gods

  (Coming summer 2013)

  COLLECTIONS

  Terror at Midnight

  Dark Legacy

  Twice Bitten

  Pray for Daylight

  Cursed Immortals

  In the Dead of Night

  Dying of the Dark Vampires

  Vampires, Ghosts, and God

  CAPPUCCINO HEAVEN SERIES

  Cappuccino Heaven: A Life After Death

  LOST

  DEAD DREAMS TRILOGY

  Dead Dreams

  WITH J.R. RAIN & SCOTT NICHOLSON

  Ghost Hall (Ghost Files #4)

  From now on, let no one cause me trouble,

  for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

  Galatians 6:17

  wise man once told me when I found myself in a personal mire, “From crisis comes opportunity.” It seemed impossible to believe I’d find it in the bowels of hell, aboard the ship Vestibule, which rocked violently from side to side as the weather deteriorated. I felt nausea rising from the pit of my stomach. Having already lost control a few times, causing me to run to the closest side of the ship to vomit was especially embarrassing. Since I perceived weakness as an unwanted liability for an immortal, I did everything I could to be strong.

  Captain Van de Velde, of Dutch nationality and burly in stature, claimed he was a direct descendant of Nordic Vikings who took no prisoners when it came to seasickness. He followed suit, convinced it to be a personal attack on his abilities as a Captain, never mind the weather. In the ten days I’d endured the perilous journey, I watched two able-bodied seamen receive six lashes apiece for vomiting.

  Not a pleasant sight, yet I remained ambivalent as to what happens with a paying passenger such as myself, if I unexpectedly lost control of my stomach contents. All I wanted to do was get from A to B with no stops in-between. Crossing an ocean in such conditions was frightening, and naively, not anticipated.

  “How much longer do I have to endure the endless waves throwing us around like rag dolls? Above or below deck it’s all the same. I’m tired of it, Judas. I want to disembark!”

  The voice of Isabella rang in my ears, a reminder of her overbearing, annoying personality. Apart from her prowess in bed, she held little attractiveness for me. Physically, she was stunning. Her dark Spanish complexion and sultry eyes a magnet of appeal. For the rest, I had the misfortune of being on the end of her fiery Latin temperament too many times.

  “If you want to know when we’ll be in calmer seas, I suggest you ask the Captain. I’m no expert, so do not try to make me one.”

  I hoped, in vain, she would leave me be. When I embarked in the port of Santander, I intended to deliver her straight into the bosom of her family without my presence. Her irksome habit of calling me ‘Judas’, knowing I go under the name of Emmanuel, was infuriating. Certain she did it with deliberation; it provided another justified reason to leave her to journey on to mama and papa in their palatial country palace.

  “You are nothing more than a selfish, boring man who brings me no pleasure. I am not happy, I cry endless tears, yet you ignore me, your heart is frozen!”

  Unprepared for a grand altercation on deck, I snubbed her continued tirade and made my way below deck to the cabin, and peace and quiet. But I was not afforded the luxury. Isabella followed in hot pursuit.

  “I have been dragged through Italy and Sardinia, not to mention Egypt and the Sudan looking for those stupid coins. I have been rained on, parched from thirst in deserts and covered in dust from cities of filth. For what? For nothing… You failed to find anything. A fruitless search.”

  “I don’t recall breaking your arm to make you follow me. You chose to come along. Now you think it fair game to attack without provocation an innocent man who is doing what he has to do, searching for something important. Holland was tolerable, I thought. Or was that also a hardship?”

  “Tolerable? You are indeed delusional, I had to play the little mouse woman while you went about your business!”

  My Spanish wasn’t perfect. At times, I wish I knew less when she attacked. Ignorance indeed would be blissful.

  As the tall ship creaked and rolled with unrelenting waves, Isabella and I made passionate, angry love, if you could call it that. I, for one, did not enjoy it. My mood, coupled with mild seasickness, didn’t make for a pleasurable experience. I was glad when it was over and she left for her cabin, leaving me alone, finally.

  I expected her to get out the rosary beads. Something she did, as she liked to pray hard for her sins. I often had to bear this scenario as she pleaded to be forgiven in the eyes of God. Meanwhile, she raged at me with the guilt of her immorality.

  “I curse the day I met you Judas Iscariot!” was thrown at me with alarming regularity.

  I was to be met at the port by one Juan Garcia de Moguer. A Basque acquaintance I had the fortune to meet many years ago, he was now to be my guide through the Pyrenees Mountains. Whispers, via Juan, had reached me by letter on good authority that a coin or two lurked within reach. My coins, and they were in the possession of a certain shepherd who lived with his daughter and goats high on a mountaintop just across the border in France. It truly defied belief as to how someone of such low standing had come across such fortune, or misfortune, as the coins are cursed. However, I didn’t doubt Juan’s intuition and knowledge. Once I’d arrive in Spain, leaving Isabella where she belonged, on the road to her family in Aragon, Juan and I would make our way. If successful, then all will be revealed. If not, I will regale a tale or two of how I trekked the French Pyrenees on the cusp of winter and survived. There was nothing to lose.

  I was expected for dinner, not a culinary delight. Ship food being rather basic, most often consisting of beef stew with a hard biscuit. As I’d failed to make Isabella’s allotted time, there came the predictable knock on the door.

  “Dinner is served, Master Ortiz. Your fellow passenger, the young lady, is asking why you have yet to join her.”

  The cabin boy had appeared on Isabella’s demand. Too irritated to come herself, she sent a messenger. It reminded me again, of how foolish I’d been to stumble across such a woman and embark on a relationship. My carelessness trapping me for seven torturous months, I had failed once more to re
alize beauty most often is only skin-deep.

  Isabella was born into a wealthy family of olive growers who’d preened and pampered her since birth. Well-traveled with a host of suitors, her father had taken a business trip to Rimini with Isabella for company. He hoped for her to form a union with Count Redditi of Florence, a wealthy landowner linked to Italian Royalty. Isabella Rosana Montez disliked him on sight, claiming he was too effeminate for her taste and smelled of garlic.

  The ill wind of fate blew when I attended a dinner given by the Count in his regal estate on the shores of Lake Como, where I hoped to find business connections, not a desert storm in the shape of a woman.

  An ample bosom enticed me as it squeezed from the bodice of a scandalous dress. Her sense of humor intoxicated me into a fever while her sensual lips worked their magic, inviting me to kiss her passionately. By the end of the evening, we’d slipped into the gardens to make hurried passionate love behind a tree. I had easily snared the twenty-three-year-old Spanish beauty and, without conscience, corrupted her. The next step was to fool her family into believing she was to be a travel companion for my fictitious sister. This enabled me to happily drag Isabella from one land to another, bedding her at every opportunity.

  Now, reluctantly, I made my way to dinner and the sight of a woman I could no longer endure. The food remained uninviting as we continued to hit rough seas and my stomach churned. Isabella was more than settled as she tucked into mutton stew, long slender fingers tearing at the bread. By her mood, it seemed our argument was forgotten. She was once more on fire.

  “I expect to see you in my cabin when you’ve eaten… have you washed since this morning? You know how I despise dirty men,” she advised.

  “I’ve washed, but as for joining you, that I’ll debate.”

  Isabella constantly vied for an hour or two of passion, more than three times a day. Unable to control her urges, she’d be a challenge for any virile man. I was never weak in matters of sex, but even I wasn’t immune from saying no. She was exhausting… sometimes.

  “If you don’t come to me, then I will shirk you for the rest of the voyage. I don’t jest with you. There is always a cabin boy or seaman, if I become desperate!”

  “Which one? I thought you’d already been through them all,” I replied with suspicion, hoping the assumptions were out of place.

  I stopped listening to her enraged response by thinking of my upcoming meeting with Juan and our journey to the Shepherd, holder of my coins. She mattered not, and the only thing we could agree on was we both wanted off the ship, badly. Aside from our happy union, the unstable weather hindered our journey from Holland. There were constant altercations between the Captain and his first mate creating continuous tension that Isabella only worsened.

  I had left Holland in good spirits, riding high after securing a lucrative business deal in a country of great wealth. Exporting clocks to Japan, I’d purchased a thirty-three percent stake into an established export company in De Hague and expected a nice dividend at the end of the year. A growing priority to search for the coins, funds were needed in order to travel freely whenever necessary. I’d amassed a fortune as the centuries passed, and liked being wealthy. It brought respect in business and social circles, funded on-going education and new skills, and drew women aplenty. There would be many more after Isabella, as they come and go.

  “The moment we dock I am sending you on your way,” I told her, now. “Your travel expenses will be offset by me. Our time together is over my dear, this is my conclusion.” As blunt as I could be, unfortunately, I failed to see the spoon fly across the table and hit me in the eye. An embarrassing moment for me, it also pained our fellow passengers.

  “I will despise you for the rest of my life!” she cried out. “You are dishonorable, corrupted, and repulsive! I will make sure everyone knows who lies underneath your thin disguise of a gentleman. What kind of man are you to disown me like this? Heathen!”

  “The sooner we’re off this ship and you are on your way to Aragon, the better. I am done with you Isabella… you are a disgrace!”

  We ate in stony silence, neither inclined to continue in the fray, while the swaying ship forced us to hold tight to our bowls. Isabella would return home with her morals intact as long as she continued with the web of deceit, never daring to disclose my true relation to her. I, in turn, would do nothing to discredit the family name by revealing the true nature of their daughter. I had some decency.

  “I will be delighted to lose your company, a man who fails to satisfy a woman’s needs is a man not worthy of my attention,” she whispered in my ear as she swayed past, the sound of her petticoats rustling. Less than one day from port, it would soon be over.

  I went up on deck, my mood soured, the rainy night air uninviting.

  “That woman has the look of an angel and the soul of a beast,” said a sailor as he finished rigging. He placed his calloused hands firmly on my shoulders.

  “I’m aware of the beast in her, when we arrive in Santander we go our separate ways, I’ve made it perfectly clear,” I replied.

  “Good choice, mate. I’ve had her and I’m not the only one. She can’t get enough. One night it was, right here on deck with a high wind lashing. She came up on deck and enticed me. I’ve never known a woman like her… so insatiable.”

  I was an immortal, forced to live under an assumed name as I ploughed my way through an ever-increasing troubled world hoping to find resolution. Yet, for all my struggles, I never took myself for stupid. Now, I admit to it. Shamefully, while I slept, my man-sick woman was beating down the cabin doors of sailors and passengers alike.

  I didn’t confront the sailor for his role in this. She was not to be fought over, an unworthy human who didn’t deserve my attention. I thanked him, and for the remainder of the voyage avoided my wayward woman at every opportunity.

  Knowing all along that it would end acrimoniously, I never imagined she’d betray me. Something told me to watch out when our relationship extended beyond one night. Now it looked like my intuition was right all along, despite ignoring it. I should have listened. Isabella wasn’t the first poison dart through my heart. I was luckless with women, my choices often abysmal. Seeking only the wildest vixens with a passion for living on the edge always came with a price. Time to reflect, Judas. Immortality did not equal irresponsibility, so says The Almighty to my heart….

  The morning of our arrival in the port of Santander was a welcome relief; I could finally dispose of the excess baggage.

  “I expect you to make immediate arrangements for my journey home,” she demanded as we stood on deck watching the coastline come into view. “And, I want to be spared the humiliation of waiting unchaperoned on the dock with my luggage. Men will think me a woman of immoral intent.”

  Knowing what I did of her escapades, I found her comment especially amusing. What kind of Jezebel would describe herself as nothing more than a pious nun type character to the outside world while leading a life of lustful debauchery? Only Isabella. Unable to look at her, I chastised myself for initiating anything more than a sexual dalliance needed to fill a lonely night or two.

  A cabin boy collected my trunks while eager passengers chatted excitedly, as they waited to dock and continue with their journeys. We’d all suffered varying degrees of seasickness, and I for one, was relieved to have two feet firmly on the ground. Summer passages were always more agreeable. As the dock came closer, I preferred to keep my own company, disregarding comments from all and sundry, including Isabella.

  A chilled wind ripped through my heavy cloak as we left the ship for the exposed dock. Santander had changed little since the second half of the 15th century when I last graced its sandy shores. Back then, a large project was underway, an extended dock reaching to the foot of the castle. Apart from Castilian wool exports, profitable in the 12th century, there was little to entice me to stay these days.

  Isabella had come ashore, her cap and cloak fastened tight against the cold. A woman who r
ead books, spoke fluent Latin, Italian and French, who could hold her own in any situation, now appeared very lost. Meanwhile, I looked everywhere for Juan, expecting him to come bounding forward to greet me. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is the horse and carriage to take me to Aragon?” Isabella asked.

  “When you see Juan, then you’ll see the carriages. Woman, can you not have patience for once in your life?”

  “I’m not you, drifting through countless centuries with no concept of time. I have only one life. Maybe I’ll follow in my family’s footsteps and die young. I make the most of what I have. Patience is not always a virtue for us lowly mortals.”

  She had a point. Her mother died very young, as did her older sister and uncle. For once, we agreed on something, I had an advantage. When first I confessed my immortality to Isabella, she balked and wasn’t amused. As the weeks passed, she began to slowly accept what she’d been told, although she remained slightly unsure and madly intrigued, telling me numerous times she found it wild and strangely exhilarating.

  “You hope finding your coins will redeem you in the eyes of Jesus, our Savior and the Lord God. Perhaps you’ll even be forgiven for your terrible sin against him. I, on the other hand, cannot forgive you!”

  I ignored her, wishing Juan would hurry. I amused myself by watching the fishing boats come in, one after the other, bringing their catch to eager buyers. The dock was busy with passengers embarking, and locals arriving to buy something to go in the pot. Depending on the catch, in a few hours the sea air would be tinged with fragrances of the region. Oil and garlic, grown in the rich soil, would complement fish frying in the pan. Judging by the amount of shellfish on offer, I anticipated the smell of Cantabria’s sherry to invade my nostrils, enticing me to stay just a little longer.

  I searched endless faces for Juan, his beard a trademark. Our last encounter, on the shores of Lake Como, was one of frivolity. He arrived drunk and provided non-stop entertainment for all of the Count’s guests, including myself. Later on in the midst of my travels, Juan urged me to follow him here at my earliest opportunity. There had been one or two delays while he searched for the precise whereabouts of the Shepherd, while I waited patiently.