Chapter 1
My hand shook as the cold steel barrel of the Colt .38 entered my mouth. My teeth clamped down hard to hold the gun steady. The taste of gun-cleaning oil almost made me laugh at the thought of my last meal being gun oil.
My finger tightened on the trigger. My closed eyes and Emily’s face floated in front of me. I’d never see her again as my finger slowly squeezed the trigger, and the hammer clicked as it drew back. The gun barrel knocked hard against my teeth and the sound terrified me. My finger squeezed harder and a loud CLICK sent me sprawling onto the bed. Believing what just happened was difficult.
As a safety precaution I always left one chamber empty. My subconscious mind probably knew all along and wanted me to play a little Russian roulette. Sometimes my mind does things like that to give me unexpected thrills.
This reprieve gave me time to think. A note should be left so Emily could understand. Setting the gun on the bedside table I tried to think what to say and how to say it. To whom it may concern? I killed myself because . . . Those words coming from me were hard to believe. Dear Emily. No, I couldn't say Dear Emily -- I'm going to kill myself. I agonized over the right words to explain why a tough guy like me would take my own life. Should she know about my lifelong fear, not of dying, but of being helpless? I've seen a lot of people on their way out, lying in a bed, unable to wipe their own ass, and always swore to die before becoming helpless. I fantasized about having a fake tooth filled with cyanide implanted in my jaw. If it ever got to where my body no longer functioned, the tooth could be broken and the cyanide would end my life in an instant..
My hand pulled open the nightstand drawer where Emily kept her writing materials. The perfume of her stationary floated from the draw. The scent brought warm memories of her. They took me back in time. I've heard how a drowning man's life flashed before him, and wondered if my entire life would flash before me. Visions from the past flowed through my mind. I wanted to enjoy the memories before pulling the trigger again.



























Chapter 2
1950 was my year to be born, number twelve out of thirteen. Number thirteen, Ellen, the only girl in the family. Of course she got all the attention, and I got all the worn out hand-me-downs. I also got the shit kicked down from the top. Dad would whack mom and she in turn would whack one of my brothers. It didn't matter which one, because shit always hit bottom, and that’s where I was.
An optimist would’ve said, “That’s a good thing, because that's how you learned to fight.”
But if it was him eating all that shit, I didn't think he'd be an optimist for long. Yeah, it taught me to fight. It taught me to hate too. I hated everybody and everything. When someone had something I wanted, my guts would tighten and turn, my heart would race and my anger flare until I figured a way to get what they had. My figuring was usually done with my fists, the easiest way I could figure on getting anything. Just take it!
By age fifteen I kicked all my older brothers’ asses, and I knew the next time I saw my old man hitting my mom would be when I found out for sure if I could kick his ass too. I loved kids and animals, but I sure hated people, because the only ones I knew were depraved or downright mean. So much shit went on in my neighborhood that I don’t even like to think about it.
My sixteenth birthday came and I got drunk to celebrate. I did the usual when I got drunk--found someone to fight with. It didn't matter who. A fight was a fight and in my neighborhood, when someone wanted to fight you, you couldn't say no. Jimmy Callahan came walking down the street with his sister Emily. One of the toughest guys in my neighborhood, he was a few years older than me. Probably why we hadn't fought yet. I picked a fight with a few choice words, and he had to oblige me.
“All right asshole, you want your ass kicked? I’ll do you that little favor,” he said, and got ready to swing.
His sister stepped between us. “No! Don’t be idiots,”
Jimmy Callahan’s honor was at risk. If he refused, he'd have to move out of the neighborhood or forever hear the chicken cackle wherever he went. He pushed Emily aside, swung and missed. I grabbed his ankles and pulled hard. A trick I learned from the toughest guy in my group. He’d pretend to crouch in a boxing stance, and as soon as his opponent would swing he’d drop down and grab his ankles and pull hard. Once he got the other guy down he made sure he never got up again. It worked, he was down and it was over. But I’d twisted his ankle too hard as I pulled his feet out from under him.
“Damn, you broke my leg.” Jimmy held his left ankle with both hands.
Emily's blue eyes blazed at me accusingly, blaming me for hurting her brother. My body became Jell-O as those bright, hot, angry eyes burned into me. She tried to kick me in the balls and swiped her tiny hands at my head. My hands held her by the wrists as my lips brushed those angry trembling lips. That was it for me. Love mysteriously overcame me.
“I don’t want any part of you Jim Jackson,” she said, a scornful look crossed her face.
Compulsion overcame me and my entire being wanted her enough to take extreme measures. To have a chance with her my life would have to change to change. I reformed myself, and even stopped stealing, and got a job at the nearby box factory. It was an honest living and I hated it with every emotion inside of me. My job, unload rolls of cardboard from freight cars. The rolls weighed eight hundred pounds and I moved them all day using a hand dolly. After awhile, I was able to unload a million pounds a day by myself. My muscles swelled and my new strength showed every time I got into a fight.
I loved boxing more than anything, even more than Emily. It gave me recognition, pride and an honest way to earn a living that I really enjoyed. All because of Emily and boxing, life was treating me well. Things were going my way for a change. Happy for the first time in my entire life.
##
Things went well for a while until the shit hit me again. It started with a little fucking headache. That morning when I woke up this morning, everything was going my way. It was 1976 and I had a great future. I was getting close to winning the heavyweight championship when the sporadic headaches I had suffered for years suddenly became severe. Emily wanted me to see the doctor and to satisfy her, I did.
The look on Dr. Dean's expressive face should have warned me. I figured he probably had a bad day and the “I just lost my best friend look” didn’t have anything to do with me.
“Have a seat Jim, I’ve got some not so good news,” he pointed to a chair.
I sat and he told me “Six months, maybe you’ll last a year before the tumor ends your life.” He looked heartbroken. I felt sorry for him, until what he just said sunk in.
“Dr. Dean, can’t you do something, anything to help me?
“Unfortunately, at this time, there's nothing we can do. A brain tumor of this size, along with its location, makes surgery impossible.”
“Come on doc, I only had a headache, and now you’re telling me I’m dying, and I’ve only got maybe six months.”
“I wish I could give you some hope, but I believe telling my patients the truth is the best policy,” he wrote something on the clipboard he always carried.
I never once thought about dying before. Guess I genuinely thought I'd live forever.
“Wait a minute Doc., how can you be so sure? Maybe I should go to another doctor?” I wasn’t going to give up so easy.
“If I wasn’t absolutely positive of your condition, I’d run more test and consult with others, but I’m telling you your X-Rays don’t lie. I’m sorry. Wish I had some hope to offer, but I don’t want to lie to you.”
On the way home to tell my wife, I cried, wondering if I should even tell her. Why make her as miserable as I was? Just twenty-six and I had just won my twenty-eighth heavyweight pro-boxing match. A victory in my next fight will put me next in line for a championship fight. I already spent money I anticipated earning. Six months! My son turned six months old last week and I’d die before he turned one.
When I got home, Emily and little Joe were still at the park where she took little Joe everyday for sunshine and fresh air. Why wait six months? End it now, just end it. Do away with months of worry, pain, remorse, and debilitating illness. I went to the closet, got the gun from the top shelf, spun the cylinder and stuck the barrel in my mouth.
###
I looked at the clock and realized I’d been sitting for over an hour since I pulled the trigger. The phone rang.
Dr. Dean sounded excited. “Jim there's one possibility, but I'm not sure whether I should even tell you about it.”
“Don't bullshit me!” “You call and tell me there may be hope, but maybe you shouldn't tell me? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Calm down, this is so radical a procedure, I’m not sure if it's a good idea or not.”
“What the hell are you saying, Doc?”
“Please try to remain calm so we can discuss this intelligently.”
“OK, I'm calm. Tell me what in the hell you're talking about?”
“Well, there's a new science called Cryonics.”
“Do you mean Cryogenics?”
“No. No, they sound the same, but this is spelled C-r-y-o-n-i-c-s, not C-r-y-o-g-e-n-i-c-s.”
“Spelling it out does nothing for me. Do you want to tell me what the hell you're talking about? I've got important things to take do here.”
“All right, Cryonics is a technique that involves cooling legally dead people to liquid nitrogen temperature where physical decay essentially stops, in the hope that advanced scientific procedures will someday be able to revive and restore them to good health. A person held in such a state is claimed to be a cryo-preserved patient, because we do not regard the cryo-preserved person as being truly dead.”
“That's a mouthful doc. I'm not sure exactly what you’re saying, but I do know a body starts decaying as soon it dies. How do you preserve a rotting corpse?”
“You need to make arrangements with the hospital to put you on a heart-lung machine to keep blood pumping throughout your body until it's frozen. When science learns how to shrink brain tumors like the one you have, you’ll be revived, your tumor cured, and you'll be able to live out your life.”
“Hold on Doc, you’re talking science fiction here. I can't believe what you're telling me.”
“You pleaded with me to do something. Though unproven, this procedure may work sometime in the future. The only guarantee you have, Jim, is you'll be dead within six months.”
What did it matter what happened to my body after I died? I wouldn’t be around to find out, I hoped. What if I got frozen and still had feelings? I hated the cold worse than anything; the plan of being frozen was scary. What if I was aware and trapped in a tank full of nitrogen? It couldn’t be any worse than being buried six feet under.
“Will I be conscious or have any feeling?”
“You'll be legally dead before your body is frozen. Your mind will be a total blank when we start the process. If you're not frozen, all you have to look forward to is your body decomposing. If you decide to do it, one day you may live again.”
I guessed it was the only answer he could give, because no one knows what happens after death.
“When you put it that way, I guess there's not much choice. Go ahead and make the arrangements for me. I'll have my attorney handle the financial end.
After I said that, I wondered just what in the hell I was getting myself into. I swore I’d never be a guinea pig for any of those crazy experiments the guys in the white coats are always trying out on poor saps like me. I remembered Dr. Dean’s words, “If you're not frozen, all you have to look forward to will be your body decomposing.” Those words convinced me I didn’t have any choice.
“Good thinking, Joe. Putting money away for when you're revived is an excellent idea.”
That wasn’t my intention when I said “take care of the financial end” but if I ever was returned to life, it would be nice to have money.
This Cryonics stuff changed everything. I knew I’d never live again if I blew my brains out. It felt good to unload the .38 Colt and put it back in the closet. I tore up my goodbye note, walked to the kitchen and poured myself a triple shot of scotch. I downed the drink in one swallow and poured another.









Chapter 3
Thoughts and images flashed in and out of my confused brain. How could I tell Emily? What about little Joe? How much money did I need for cryonic treatment? I swallowed the second scotch, and that seemed to slow my thoughts. I tried to think logically, but I couldn’t think clearly at a time like this? I knew I could win the championship before I died if I put my mind to it. I needed help, but didn’t know where to turn.
Help came unexpectedly from the Cryonics Institute where I went the next day. The director, Dr. Rhemus, had a wonderful outlook on everything. He reassured me everything could be taken care of with minimal problems. He almost made dying and being frozen sound like an everyday occasion, nothing to worry about….
“Jim, you don't have many choices. The best you can do for Emily and Joe is to see that they are financially secure. Why don't you take the wife on a vacation and enjoy the time you’ve got?”
I already had taken care of our finances for my wife and kid. Thanks to my insurance agent’s hard-sell tactics, I’d purchased a two million dollar life insurance policy from him. Now I’m grateful to him for talking me into it. That’s more than enough money to take care of Emily and Joe. I agreed with him I should enjoy the time I had left, but our views of enjoyment differed. My biggest joy in life would be to win the heavyweight championship. That was my logic. I had six months to do it. I just needed to win the fight scheduled three weeks from today, and I would be the number one contender. The tumor hadn’t physically disabled me yet--I only had headaches. I figured I’d go on fighting until I lost, or died. That was my way to enjoy my time I had left.
Telling Emily about my prognosis was the decent thing to do, but I was conflicted because I knew how devastated she’d be. Maybe I was being selfish by withholding it from her.
I decided if it meant lying to Emily, I’d lie. I lied to her in the hope she’d never know I was dying. “Once I become champion, we can take a long vacation, maybe we’ll take a month-long cruise, maybe even take one around the world,” I knew there’d never be a cruise, but one lie led to another.
“That would be wonderful Jim,” she kissed me like she did when we first started dating.
I was in no mood for romance. I took her arm and led her to the sofa. “We need to talk seriously for a minute,” I took the papers from the Cryonic Institute out of the envelope.
I hoped she couldn’t see through my lies, “You know I’m in a dangerous profession and, God forbid.” Emily’s smile faded, “Don’t get upset, this is just in case something ever does happen to me. I want to have my body preserved at the Cryonic Institute.” I explained all about the institute and how someday I could be revived and live again.
She looked at me with those blazing eyes of hers and my guts twisted thinking she may know I was lying to her, “Why would you want to do something like that, what about our burial plot, you know I want us to be side by side forever?”
I tried to make it easier for her, I told her lie after lie. Damn it seemed once I told the first lie I couldn’t stop. “I’m doing it for science, once the experiment is over I’ll be buried in our plot,” I handed her the papers she had to sign authorizing the CI to acquire my body once I died. “Just sign here,” she looked at me a long time with tears in her eyes, but after a while she resolutely signed.
I thought I wouldn’t have to lie to her again, until she asked, “Is there something you’re not telling me Jim?” I looked her straight in the eye when I lied and told her of course there wasn’t anything I wasn’t telling her.
“I’ll be leaving for training camp in the morning,” I wasn’t lying, but I may as well have been. If she knew the short time I had left she wouldn’t allow us to be apart.
Mr. Zoloti, my attorney, came to camp and I signed all the necessary papers for the cryonic treatments. We went over my insurance policies to be sure Emily and Joe were named as the beneficiaries for the two million bucks once I died. We arranged for the purse from this fight to be put in a trust fund for me, If I was revived, and we both knew it was a big if. When I was revived I'd have plenty of money.
“Look Zoloti,” I said, “here's what I want on my tombstone if they fail to revive me. ‘Here lies Jim Jackson. Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, born 1950, died, 1976.' ”
“All right Jim, I’ll make sure it's at the top of the list, but what if you don't win the championship before your time comes?”
“I don't care. That's what I want.”























Chapter 4
Fight night, my head was flashing sharp shooting pains every ten seconds. I ignored it. A fighter has to be able to withstand pain, or he's worthless.
Hell, I was scared. Thinking about dying terrified me, but I knew before I went I was going to fight the last two fights. I wouldn’t quit as long as I could breathe. I just wished the goddamn tumor had a face so I could punch the shit out of it. It didn’t, so I was going to punch the shit out of my opponent instead. At least all the legal stuff was taken care of, so as soon as I was declared dead, I’d be immediately shipped to the Cryonic Institute and frozen.

My opponent was “Homicide Hank.” He earned this unusual name because of almost killing several boxers with his unrelenting assaults. A young Italian fighter out of Boston's North End, built like a Greek statue, solid muscle throughout. I knew being muscularly built like that was more for show than for work. His stamina wouldn’t match mine. He was tough, but I knew I was tougher and looked forward to punching the shit out of him.
We met center-ring and the ref had us touch gloves. “Hope you've got your life insurance paid up,” Homicide Hank told me. I just looked at him, as though I didn't hear a word. That rattled him more than some snide remark. The fight went along as expected and was even for a few rounds. Suddenly I had a blinding pain that seared my brain like a jolt of high voltage electricity. While I was distracted, he hit me with a right uppercut The stars and the brain pain were almost unbearable. Whoever said the brain doesn’t feel pain is dead wrong, because I couldn’t convince myself the pain wasn't real. I grabbed Homicide’s arms and hung on as tight as I could while I tried to recover.
The bell rang. I staggered to my corner, spit out my mouthpiece, and took a deep breath, to clear my exploding head. “How many fingers?” my trainer asked, as he stuck his big hand in front of my face. I slapped his hand away. If my corner-man hadn’t already put my mouthpiece in, I’d have told him to get fucked,
My head felt like it was expanding, like a balloon being filled with helium. The pain grew right along with my head size. So much pain, raging rivers of it flowed inside my head. I knew I couldn’t take another punch to the head. I’d die right now if he punched me in the head again. Better this way than sticking a gun in my mouth.
My trainer wanted to throw the towel in. I gave him an evil look that he changed his opinion real quick.
The thought of my opponent killing me got my adrenalin flowing. I got pissed at him. Now my brain was playing tricks on me. I didn’t see Homicide Hank coming at me. I saw a man-sized brain tumor, the one causing all my pain. Now I got a chance to return some. I surprised him by standing flat footed, just waiting for him. He did what I expected, and I caught him with a straight right lead to the face. Confused by this unorthodox move on my part, he hesitated for a second. That’s all it took. A split second later I caught him with a left hook and a right cross that sent his mouthpiece and two teeth flying across the canvas. I wasn’t about to let this life-sized brain tumor escape. I hit it again and again, finally I was getting to give back some of the pain it had been causing me. The bell rang and the ref had to pull me off of Homicide Hank.
“You got him now,” my trainer told me, “Go right at him as soon as you hear the bell and finish him off.”
Sounded like good advice now that I saw I was fighting a man and not the monstrous tumor my brain had contrived.
The bell rang, instantly I was at him with a left-right-left-left. A right uppercut stood him straight up, and laid him flat on his back. The ref took forever to count to ten, and then raised my hand in victory.
“I hope your insurance is paid up,” I said to the unconscious Homicide Hank.
I took a handful of aspirin before I got to the dressing room because I felt my head was about to explode. The reporters were there, waiting, just what I needed; a bunch of morons asking dumb questions.
“You're first in line to fight for the heavyweight championship; will you fight anyone else before the champion?”
“No, I earned a shot at the championship, and I want to take it as soon as possible.” I wanted to be happy, but I couldn’t. I knew I was going to be the champion, but once won, I’d die soon after. Thinking of death squashed any feelings of joy I had.
The pain gave me second thoughts about that Cryonic stuff. I didn’t believe in the everlasting life preached to me all my life. At least I hoped it wasn’t true, because I envisioned an eternity of being miserable. I scared myself thinking about it. What happened if I survived after death and was trapped in that liquid nitrogen forever? My thoughts went on and on until I finally slept.
The next day I told Emily, “Let’s go to Disneyland. That’s what all the big time stars do when they win something.”
“Maybe we should wait until Joe is old enough before we go there.”
It was a slap in the face, telling me I’d never see little Joe enjoying Disneyland.
“Let’s get your mom to babysit then, and you and I go away for a few days,” I said, and she agreed.
I spent the last night with Emily while suffering from a headache so severe that she called an ambulance. I died on the way to the hospital. My biggest regret as I died on the way to the hospital was that I hadn’t held on long enough to fight the one fight, I wanted all my life.


Slowly I became aware, where I was and who I was. I vaguely remembered being carried to an ambulance. My eyes were shut tight and I didn’t want to open them. I was afraid if I did I’d see Heaven, Hell, or someplace else? I wasn’t ready for this. Is it my immortal soul that existed in this place? And what was this place? I felt nothing, I heard nothing. I was mystified and terrified at the same time. Did this mean I was going to live for eternity? Is it my soul that’s aware? If so, then my worst nightmare had come true.
I opened my eyes, and as I did my mind expanded. Understanding flowed through me, a river of knowledge that had been incomprehensible a short time ago. On this plane of existence, I could view past lives from the understanding that time was an illusion. Time existed only because humans had dreamt up a way to calculate it, and operated within those illusionary boundaries. I discovered there were many worlds, many spirits and many universes. All were made of energy, and energy is indestructible. When a form of energy is disrupted it always reformed as something else and is never destroyed.
I knew as I watched, a shining star in the heavens above disintegrate in front of my eyes, which I was observing an event that had actually took place thousands, maybe millions of years ago. Yet I still saw it happening. I viewed my past lives in the same manner. The life I viewed no longer existed; but the energy never disappeared.
When my body arrived at the hospital, the Cryonics Institute doctors were already waiting for me in the emergency room. I was immediately injected with an anticoagulant heparin, 30,000 units were given to me and a machine administered CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to oxygenate my blood and circulate it. This minimized deterioration, cooled me and helped to distribute the heparin.
Then my blood was drained and replaced with CPAs, substances that prevent ice formation, similar to automotive anti-freeze. The medical team packed me in dry ice and transported my body to the Cryonics Institute. I wasn't aware of these activities at the time, but I see them all clearly now. At the CI facility, DR Harrow placed me in a sleeping bag, tagged, and cooled my body down to -120ºC. It took another four or five days to cool me to liquid nitrogen temperature. At the end of cooling, the cryogenics team transferred my body to the cryostat, the rectangular long term storage units where patients were stacked on top of each other three or four layers deep. Encased in “sleeping bags” the bodies are buoyant in liquid nitrogen, so there is no crushing weight or injury. At least I had company for the long sleep.

In the spirit world where I now existed, time was non existent. Anything that ever existed or will ever exist is accessible. All a spirit had to do was to imagine the time and place it wanted to visit and it would be transported to that existence. From this place I saw my son Joe….
Joe wanted to learn anything and everything about Cryonics. His goal in life was to study medicine and revive me. Even when in high school he read medical journals and textbooks, all because he wanted to discover how to reanimate frozen corpses. How much more love could a son have for his father? He loved me so much it might have been better for him if I had been buried or cremated. He could have moved on instead of devoting his life to me.
Fifty years later.
My son visited Emily at her nursing home where she lived because she needed care after a stroke partially paralyzed her. He showed her the scientific paper he had been reading,
“Look mom,” he turned his laptop around so she could see the screen. “Russian scientists have discovered a way to shrink brain tumors just like the one Dad had, and I think I’ll be able to successfully treat Dad with this method.”
“Do you really believe after all these years your father will live again?”
Joe didn't answer right away. He had discussed the subject with her attending physician who had advised that his mother may not understand the complexities involved in reviving a cryogenically frozen person after her stroke had reduced her reasoning powers.
He tried to explain anyway. “I've told you hundreds of times that the central premises of cryonics. Memory, personality, and identity are stored in the structure and chemistry of the brain. We've found that brain activity is known to stop and later resume under certain conditions”
Emily tried to smile, but failed, “Are you saying that if you do bring him back to life, he'll remember who I am?”
“I don't know. It’s not generally accepted that current methods preserve the brain well enough to permit it to retain previous memories. We've completed studies showing that high concentrations of cryoprotectant circulated through the brain before cooling can largely prevent a freezing injury. This also preserves the fine cell structures of the brain in which memory and identity reside. Believe me the CI has assured me many times that Dad had the highest possible concentration of cryoprotectants infused before his being frozen. In fact they used the newest one available at the time, a novel "cryoprotectant" liquid which is non-toxic, does not rupture cells as it freezes and exerts very little osmotic pressure across cell membranes. This cryoprotectant is still in use. So maybe, just maybe he'll have his memory when revived.”
Emily frowned and spoke with difficulty. “What about his soul?”
“I believe his soul is asleep and in God's care.”
“Will God return it after fifty years?” her voice broke as she spoke.
“Babies are born after years of being frozen in liquid nitrogen storage while they were embryos. Or people who awaken after years in a coma. Their soul is always intact.”
“I'm glad we're talking . . . so many questions . . . bottled up all these years. I never understood how Jim could be brought back . . . only Jesus can do that,” she raised her eyes heavenward as though in prayer as she said this.
Joe took her hand in his, “As we learn more about life and how it works, our idea about death have changed. Once we believed life required breath, then we learned to restart breathing. We knew life required a beating heart, and we learned to restart hearts. Then we found life merely required a functioning brain. Now, we know that death is simply a natural process that may be reversible.”
“We all die Joey . . . I never believed your father could be revived.” Emily struggled to brush her hand across his cheek.
“Mom, listen. When a body is frozen, the disintegration stops almost completely, and most of its important structure are preserved despite the damage freezing does. But while a body is frozen in timeless slumber the march of science is not. As the boundary of life and death continue to be pushed back the body stays in its frozen state. Given enough time the ability of medicine to repair damage to a body will exceed the loss that disease and cold inflict, and what appeared to be a dead and frozen corpse will once again become alive.”
“You make it sound so simple, Joey.”
“Mom, I'm not a kid any longer. Please don't call me Joey.”
“OK, Mr. Jackson! But I still don't think your father will ever live again.”
Joe kissed her hand and looked her in the eye. “If by some chance Dad is revived, most neuroscientists agree that long-term memory is stored by durable structural and molecular changes within the brain, not transient electrical activity. My hope is he'll remember who we are.”
Emily cast her eyes heavenward again as though petitioning God. “I hope God doesn't think we're trying to cheat him . . .
Joe tried to make her understand that what he was trying to do, didn’t offend God in any way.
“Preservation and reanimation simply reenact an older fantasy. Are the elaborate preparations a body undergoes prior to cryonic suspension really so different from the mummification procedures Egyptian nobility went through prior to being interred in their pyramids? After all, both were and are carried out at great expense by dedicated people who believe seriously that the complex rituals they perform will give their patients a realistic shot at a second life.”
“Looking at it like that makes it okay,” love radiated from her smile and Joe saw she accepted his attempt to revive his father.
“This doesn't mean that if we're successful, and revive Dad, that he'll live forever, at some point in time, he'll still die.”
“Of course Joey, we all die at some time,” His mother murmured. Her eyelids closed she lapsed into her dream-world where she spent much of her time.











Chapter 5
My son was celebrating his fifty-first birthday. Emily was in the nursing home. I was still floating in liquid nitrogen waiting for something to change.
Joe’s a good kid. The past fifty years had been good to him. Emily often told him when he was a kid about how I donated my body to science so I could be revived when a cure was found for my tumor. He not only entered medicine, He became president of Nano Technology Restorative Systems. The scientists at NTRS measured whatever they were working on in one thousand millionths of a meter.
My son did amazing things with this nano tech stuff. So far he had perfected a process to manufacture nano robots. These nanobots coursed through a person's bloodstream, and detected any trauma that needed repairing, and restored healthy cell structure and chemistry at the molecular level.
X#
I observed his entire life from my plane of existence, an existence without emotions. I knew Joe was my son and Emily my wife, but I had no feelings toward either of them. Maybe spirits don’t have feelings.Time was meaningless and a spirit could observe anything anywhere in any time. Spirits surrounded me and came and went in the blink of an eye. Other spirits told me this wasn’t my final destination, just a stopover to wherever I was going. I only wished I had taken a visited the future of this life I observed.
X#
He looked and sounded impressive at his company’s annual stock-holders meeting this year.
“The restorative system we have devised is a ground-breaking technology,” Joe said from the crystal-like glass podium. “However, I believe that this is the easiest component of what we’re trying to accomplish We all know organs and body parts can be replaced even if defective in some manner. But I’m worried about the long periods of dormancy before starting brain restoration. I agonize over our limited but growing knowledge of brain function. Our company has developed technologies for general molecular analysis and repair of most bodily functions. Now we’re racing to develop the same technology to restore brain function. Of course we have a problem here, because no one’s yet sure exactly how the brain functions.” That didn’t stop him from trying to revive me. NTRS started the Russian discovery that cured the tumor in my frozen brain. My frozen state made the process simple, as there was no blood or respiration to worry about. That no one currently knew how to revive a cryonic frozen human was the problem.
Joe had frozen and revived hundreds of animals without any adverse effects. None of the animals he revived had brain damage. He was willing to gamble, and he asked Emily for permission to revive me. She signed the papers with a trembling hand. If she’d a clue what would happen next, she’d never have signed.
The procedure would take months. Joe started it by injecting his nanobots into my still frozen body so they could start their work. After a few months he warmed my body in a temperature-controlled room. It was cold--but not as cold as the nitrogen tank. He hooked me up to the advanced heart-lung systems that would pump fluid throughout my body while the nanobots continued their repair job. The object was to eventually replace the CPAs in my veins with blood, test all my organs, and if they were in working order my body temperature would be slowly raised. If and when everything was functioning, my son would jump-start my heart.
The hope was, when my heart started, my brain would show electrical activity along with the electrical pulses that caused my heart to beat. The day came when the CPAs in my veins were replaced by blood, and one by one the machines were unhooked, except for the artificial circulation supported by the heart-lung machine. Joe hooked electrodes to my head to check for electrical brain activity and my head was placed in an fMRI device, so the world’s first cryonic revival team could observe for any brain activity. There were two doctors and two nurses assisting Joe.
Joe had restarted animal hearts with bursts of direct electrical current, by alternately accelerating and decelerating the current into their hearts until their hearts started beating. Once that happened the animal’s brain always showed electrical activity.
It was common knowledge that even if a brain showed electrical activity it didn’t mean that the brain functioned in a normal manner. This was the first step in revivification. Get the heart beating, the brain active, and go from there.
One of the doctors took a break from the medical procedure and set up a video camera to record the historical event. Once the camera was in place and all his medical gadgets were operational, Joe checked the amperage and started to apply the electricity. My body jumped, and then stiffened until he cut the juice, and I sagged to the table. The medical team scanned the many screens lining the room’s walls. The heart monitor and all the other monitors showed nothing but flat lines.
Joe applied the electrical current again, turning up the voltage by a factor of two. Same result.
He increased the level by a factor of four and applied it. Smoke came from the contact points as the flesh burned. The other doctors tried to console my son by telling him he had done a magnificent job of restoring my body, even if he couldn't insert that spark of life into me.
Joe stubbornly turned away. “One more time, and turned the voltage to the maximum setting. That last jolt though it burned two large areas of my chest, gave me that necessary spark of life. The screens lit up like Christmas trees, and the beeping from the many machines was deafening. Or was it her that gave me life?

“Joe look at this,” shouted one of the doctors, pointing to the bright glowing fMRI.
“I've never seen brain activity this pronounced before.” One of the nurses said.
“Oh shit,” Joe exclaimed. “I did something drastically wrong.”
I wasn't conscious. The doctors couldn’t determine if my brain had been damaged from the high current. The idea was to get that spark going, and nurse me along to consciousness over a matter of weeks. As far as they could tell, my systems were working fine, and they'd have to wait to determine the extent of brain damage the overload of electricity had caused.
One of the nurses inserted a foley catheter into my urethra and wheeled me on the surgical gurney to a private room. Over the weeks, a nursing staff administered intravenous fluids and medications as needed . . . I seemed to drift in an out of my cosmic overview and into my body from time to time. One time I drifted into my body and couldn’t leave it. I now know my body was about to awaken from its fifty year slumber.

Chapter 6
I woke up and it wasn’t me.
The prognosis is terrible. "With his brain being inactive for half a century, improvement is highly unlikely. Essentially one in a million he'll ever be aware of anything," Dr. Dovinsky, a neurologist specializing in comatose patients was called in because none of the treating doctors had experience treating a long-term comatose patient. Even Dr Dovinsky had never treated a person who had been revived from a cryonic state. According to him, I was a hopeless cause.
My son was despondent. “I should have left him in his frozen state until science had advanced sufficiently to revive him,” he told Emily. “It's just that I'm getting older mom, and I wanted to communicate, with my father before I died.”
Emily held his hand. “You did the right thing, Son, I wanted to say goodbye to him too. So don't blame yourself for anything. You've devoted your whole life to reviving him. If your plan wasn't successful, at least you've done your best.”
The physician who oversaw my care, Dr. Dohmed, told my son he had recently changed the combination of drugs he gave me.
"I put him on Ambiem, a new medication that can trigger a cascade of events in the brain known as the GABA pathway. sometimes it will awaken a coma victim.
I thought we might try it as nothing else appears to be effective. The Ambien was effective. DR. Dohmed was as surprised as everyone else when I woke up two weeks later. It wasn't only me who woke up. When I tried to open my eyes, my eyelids felt as though they’d been glued closed. I managed to open them a crack and all I saw was a blur.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. The last memory I had was riding in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, after Emily had called the ambulance for me. My thoughts became clearer and other more recent memories filtered in and I sensed an intruder, a presence inside my mind. I thought it was caused by the drugs being administered until Elizabeth made her presence known by opening my eyes.
I wondered how my eyes burst open on their own, and tried as hard as I could to close them. They wouldn't budge. I felt my right index finger move and yet, I didn't will it to move. It bent, and I tried to straighten it. It wouldn't move.
I thought I heard a woman’s voice inside my head, “I’m in control, if you want to live, relax and let me control everything.” She closed my eyes.
Confusion, frustration, disbelief, anger, feelings and emotions flooded through my mind as I tried to understand what the hell was going on. It wasn't a voice I heard. She planted her thought in my mind. I have chosen to inhabit your body, I'll return it to you when I finish what I need to finish.
What the hell was going on, how could somebody be inside my head telling me they’re taking over my body? I knew it had to be the drugs. Or maybe the tumor was driving me insane, crazy people hear voices.
Now a surge of fear overcame me, fear that I was psycho. People who heard voices suffered from schizophrenia, but I didn’t hear voices. I understood everything when she allowed our two minds to merge. It was more like telepathy; the idea was planted inside my brain without spoken words Elisabeth Bathory let me see the part of her mind that showed me who she was.
Elizabeth was the cause of all the electrical brain activity the doctors had witnessed. When she entered my consciousness it was the first awareness that this mind had in fifty years. Once I lived again, all memories of my existence in the spirit world were erased. I was barely aware when I felt a presence creep into my consciousness, an eerie feeling; like a rubber glove being slipped over my mind. I immediately lost all feeling and couldn’t move once this presence controlled my mind. Now we were aware of each another. She knew everything I knew or thought about. I only knew what she allowed me to know of her thoughts. I could do nothing but observe. She dominated and totally controlled my mind and bodily functions.
It was like a horror movie began playing inside me. My mind was alert, but I couldn’t feel or do anything I imagined a quadriplegic must feel like this. But someone paralyzed wouldn’t have an entity trying to take over their mind like I was. I struggled for control and resisted to the best of my ability. I was no match for her. She simply overpowered my mind and I was defenseless. Helpless to change anything unfolding before my eyes or in my head, I wondered how two minds could share one body. I tried to fight back, but like a cripple, I could see and think, but barely do anything else. Elizabeth felt my body’s pain or pleasure. Though it caused her severe discomfort to move a body inert for so long, she was strong and took the suffering like a man.
When Elizabeth opened my eyes and moved my finger, she attracted the attention of the nurse sitting by my bed. She summoned the doctors, and they observed my brain activity signals on the monitors. Dr. Dohmed ordered the ventilator removed, and I was able to breathe on my own. I wondered if I'd been able to without Elizabeth.
A week went by, and I learned little about her. One doctor visited frequently and said he was my son, Joe. I couldn't comprehend that until I gathered I’d been frozen for the past fifty years from listening to the staff talk as they worked in my room. I guessed they disregarded the fact that it was possible I could hear them.
When I finally figured out Joe really was my son, I still found it hard to believe. He looked old enough to be my father, an older version of me. About the same size, too, almost six feet tall and around two hundred pounds. He had similar features—gray streaks in his hair and a small but protruding pot belly. His face wasn’t scarred like mine, and his straight nose had never been broken as mine had many times over.
I lay immobile for days. I knew Elizabeth was trying like hell to speak. One morning a sound came from my lips. I couldn’t feel a thing as my lips moved. My brain/mind responded by being aware. I may as well have been a spirit. I couldn’t feel any part of my body.
Finally, Elizabeth spoke in a foreign language dumbfounding everyone, including me. It was my voice all right, raspy and hoarse, but it wasn’t me doing the talking.
No one said a word, but my accented voice grew louder and louder, demanding who knew what.
“I didn’t know my father spoke more than one language,” Joe looked perplexed.
“My grandmother on my father’s side used to speak in Romanian, and that’s what the language sounds like to me,” one of the nurses said.
“I don’t have any idea where in the hell he would’ve learned Romanian. Is there anybody in the CI that speaks the language?” Joe asked.
“Dad, Can you understand me?” I answered “yes” in English. Joe and his staff were perplexed. What had happened? How could I speak a foreign language when I had no memory of ever hearing the language? Elizabeth read my every thought. She demonstrated how she could speak English by using my knowledge combined with hers. Between us we knew at least five languages—I knew one, and she knew the rest.
Once Joe overcame his shock at hearing this foreign language coming from me, he said, “Good, good.” Though accustomed to unusual happenings when people came out of anesthesia, this was way beyond the usual, and so was the fact I hadn't spoken a word in fifty years. He stared at me for a moment. “Can you tell me if you know who you are, or where you are?” Joe wondered how much damage his brain had suffered from the voltage overload.
“Of course I know who I am, I’m Elisabeth Bathory.” Jim said this with such conviction it would’ve been believed if everyone in attendance didn’t know that it was impossible for Jim Jackson to be Elizabeth Bathory.
“Good,” Joe said again, steeling himself to respond neutrally. “Elizabeth, can you tell me what year it is?”
“The last I remember, 1614.”
How badly was his brain damaged Joe wondered with answers like this? “Where and when were you born?”
“Hungary, 1560.” If his brain was damaged, how could he be answering questions so rationally and logically?
Joe held my hand in his. “Can you move your fingers?” My fingers wagged slightly, and Joe smiled.
My answers were the very last thing anyone would've expected, me included. “Does anyone have any idea how he can seem so rational, yet claim to be a woman from the 15th Century?” Joe asked as the medical team huddled in a corner. “What could possibly make him think he’s from the 16th Century?” Joe asked.
“There are certified cases of people with multiple personality disorders in which one of the personalities believes it lived in the past. There's a possibility this has happened here,” answered another doctor.
“I know this sounds unscientific, but is it possible he could be possessed?” asked one nurse.
“Did you watch the Exorcist last night?” Joe asked.
“There have been academic studies of people who believe they've lived in another era,” a third doctor suggested.
Joe absorbed the medical team’s opinions without comment. “Let’s let him rest, and see how he acts in the morning.”
“Rest! I’ve been resting for fifty years can’t you see what’s happening? Come on do something give me a shock or something to make this apparition go away, get this craziness out of my head somehow. Unfortunately no one could hear my thoughts and Elizabeth wouldn’t allow me to speak. 

Chapter 7

Joe brought in a respected psychiatrist, actually three, because he didn’t want any half-baked diagnosis. He wanted to determine if I was brain damaged, hallucinating, suffering from a psychosis, or maybe multiple personality disorder.
The next months were filled with rehabilitation and mental testing. Elizabeth scored in the top percentile of all the intelligence tests. It had to be her IQ, because I'd never been very smart. She learned fast, and soon understood everything I knew. She read voraciously, and learned in a day how to use a personal computer and search the Internet, where she found a recent picture of her castle and looked longingly at it. I could do little but read the caption: Castle of Csejthe, situated deep in the Carpathian Mountains of what is now central Romania, known formerly as Transylvania. She read what it said about her, and laughed. I would have shut the damn thing off, but Elizabeth wouldn’t let me. The laughter sparked a deep resentment in me. “What’s so funny? I can see how horrible you must have been in your previous life.”
She pointed to the text on the monitor. “That’s what I’m laughing at.” Under a picture of the castle was this story about Elizabeth Bathory, described as the most evil woman in history by many accounts.
“First she murdered over six hundred, and that’s not the worst of it. It’s how she killed them that merits her reputation as the vilest woman ever. The girls she….”
“Enough, quit reading,” I yelled mentally, “you must be really sick to laugh at such a grotesque story.” “Come on, Jim. If what this says were true, do you think I'd laugh at it now?”
I didn’t know what to think or how to answer her questions so I went on the offensive. “What’re you doing here, anyway? Why don’t you just get the fuck out of my life?”
“Things aren’t that simple, Jim. I already told you I’d be leaving as soon as I accomplish what I have to.” She cut off communication between our minds; she could shut me completely out when she wanted to. I got so frustrated I’d have punched myself if only she’d let me.
***
My physical rehabilitation was remarkable. The nanobots’ repair job restored me to a level beyond my original condition. I was stronger and faster than I had ever been before the tumor. Elizabeth loved having the strength of a man, and worked hard to get as strong as possible. Where she had come from, a man’s physical strength was his most important attribute. She knew I was a boxer before I knew much about her, and she wanted to try punching a heavy bag. She asked Joe to get one for her, and when she started punching it I was amazed at the viciousness she demonstrated. It was obvious that my body instinctively remembered the footwork and combination punches. Instinct and the nanobots’ work enabled me to throw punches faster and harder than ever before.
The staff at CI though they were confounded them when I introduced myself as Elizabeth awed by my physical strength, the still snickered when they called me Elizabeth. I knew they thought I was nuts, and I was starting to wonder if maybe I was.
“How’s it going Lizabeth?” One of the orderlies greeted me when I entered the day room.
“Just great,” Elizabeth answered. She never tried to hide the fact that she had hijacked my body. I guess she thought it was a royal privilege to just take what she needed and not worry about it.
I had to use the bathroom and she knew it as well as I did, She was confused about whether to use the men’s or women’s. She never had to make this choice before as we had a private bath since I’ve been revived, but here in the day room she stood undecided in front of the two doors.
“Use the men’s, I told her, its bad enough you’ve got everyone calling me Elizabeth. What’re they going to think of me using the ladies room?”
She had never seen a urinal before and I didn’t help her out, intuitively she walked to a urinal and unzipped my pants and pulled my penis out. She started pissing, but didn’t know she had to hold on to aim and we pissed all over everything. I silently laughed at her surprised discomfort. I looked at my watch and saw it was time to meet my new Psychiatrist.
I walked to the meeting room where all my so called therapy took place. Sitting at the table in one of the two chairs in the room was a short plump almost bald man. He looked up when I entered the room and his glasses magnified his eyes so they looked like owl eyes, in fact he did sort of resemble an owl entirely. The tufts of hair around his ears, his short round body, arms encased in a tweed jacket held close to his sides could have been wings. His voice didn’t change my impression as I pictured his small tight mouth as an owls beak with sounds coming from it.
The owl said, “Hi, ah, Jim, or would you rather I call you Elizabeth? I'm Doctor Abrams.”
“Jim Jackson,” Elizabeth said, and extended my hand. I was glad she decided to start using Jim instead of Elizabeth.
Dr Abrams seemed friendly and was easily able to acquire my trust.
“Today we’re going to try hypnotizing you to see if we can determine where Elizabeth came from. I’m going to give you a little something to make things easier for you.”
He prepared my arm for an injection, and injected me with a drug that he hadn’t told me he was going to use. Then he pulled a shiny amulet attached to a chain from his pocket and slowly swung it back and forth in front of my face.
“Watch the pendulum,” he talked as he swung it, telling me I’d awake when he said the words wake up. I thought it was hokey, sort of like a stage magician I saw hypnotize members from the audience and had them squawk like chickens. I wanted to laugh. Instead I went into a trance.
“Elizabeth, I need to speak to Jim Jackson,” he quit swinging the pndelum and set it on the table.
“You’re speaking to Jim Jackson,” Elizabeth told him. Even I knew this was the usual procedure when a person has multiple personalities, ask to speak with the distinctive personality that the examiner wanted to communicate with.
“But I genuinely thought you were Elizabeth Bathory.”
“I am, but I’m also Jim Jackson.”
“How can you be two people at the same time?”
“You’re the doctor, you figure it out.”
Dr. Abrams sighed and took another line of reasoning. “Tell me about where you lived in Transylvania.”
“I lived in the Castle of Csejthe, it’s a mountain top fortress overlooking the village Csejthe. The village and castle are situated deep in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. Do you want detailed descriptions of these towns during the 17th century?”
“Sure, give me whatever detail you remember.”
“Other towns I frequented were Brasov, Sibiu and Sighisoara. Sighisoara, which my ancestor, Vlad Tepes, called home, is one of the most beautiful towns in the heart of Transylvania. It was a military stronghold, and I remember the clock tower located in the main gate of the defensive wall was built in the 14th Century.”
“You have a great memory, Elizabeth…”
“I told you my name is Jim,” Elizabeth rebuked him sternly.
“Yes I know, but I know I’m talking to Elizabeth. Can I please have just a few words with Jim?” he pleaded
“I’m speaking for Jim,” Elizabeth answered.
When Dr. Abrams located maps from the 1700s on a university website, all the towns and villages Elizabeth named were on them.
He returned for a follow up visit a week after his first visit. We met in the same room, but this time there were three chairs. Elizabeth sat and looked at the extra chair. Dr. Abrams saw me looking at the vacant chair.
“I thought I’d have a chair brought in for Jim,” he stared directly at me.
“I told you, I’m speaking for Jim,”
“Well I just thought if Jim wanted to say something, it might be more comfortable if he had his own chair,” he patted the empty chair.
“I don’t know what kind of witchery you’re using with this chair trick doctor, whatever kind of sorcery you’re using is useless against me. I already told you, I speak for Jim,” I could feel her anger leaking into my consciousness.
“It’s just that I’m not sure if I should be calling you Jim or Elizabeth. I thought if I gave you each a chair to sit in, I’d know what to call you by where you sat,” he explained, and waited for a reply.
“Do I look like or sound like an Elizabeth? If I’m going to get by in this world, I want to be called by the name that suits my appearance, and that certainly isn’t Elizabeth.”
“Okay Jim, now that we have that settled, can you tell me how you know so much about Transylvania?” He held his pen over a notebook waiting to write down my answer.
“Are you dense? I told you, I lived there,” Elizabeth thought the doctor was an idiot.
“Yes I know Elizabeth lived there. I’m asking Jim how he knows so much about it.”
“I’m speaking for him and he knows so much, because I told him all about Transylvania,” the expression on Dr. Abrams face let me know he thought I was nuts. He walked away shaking his head in what I thought was confusion. Based on his diagnosis, I was transferred to a psychiatric hospital for the care Dr. Abrams thought I needed. Several psychiatrists tried their hand, but Elizabeth never changed one word of her story and gave more and more details of Romania in the 17th century that proved to be factual.

 
The staff of the CI and the staff of the psychiatric facility held a conference in an attempt to determine my specific problem The Institute had problems because I returned to the world of the living a different person than the one they had cryogenically frozen. The doctors were sure there was a rational explanation of how this had happened and were doing their best to find it. I was allowed to sit in the room as an observer.
Joe was the first speaker. When he stood at the podium, he was given a polite round of applause to acknowledge his accomplishment in reviving me. Everyone expected him to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.
“You all know why we’re here.” Joe glanced solemnly around the room. Let me present a quick overview of all the events leading up to this conference. After I summarize the overview, I’ll open the floor to discussion. I’d appreciate hearing your theories on why my father not only genuinely thinks he is from the 17th century, but he’s able to substantiate his claim with verifiable facts, no matter how unorthodox this may seem.” His overview was quite brief because all the conference members were familiar with my case.
“We’re getting a lot of inquires from other patients’ families. They’re worried that when their family members are revived, they’ll be possessed as Jim Jackson is,” the meeting coordinator said.
Dr Johnson was introduced and acknowledged everyone attending the meeting. “I’ve been researching the phenomenon of reincarnation for over twenty years, and reincarnation is a field of inquiry that records and analyzes the memories subjects claim to have of past lives. Young children sometimes claim to remember a previous life, and they talk about the events and the people from that life at length. Typically, the child begins talking about these memories around three years of age, and loses these memories around age seven. In some cases, these memories seem to be corroborated since the child’s memories are shown to match closely with actual people and events. If scientists can interview these children before contact is made with persons familiar with the supposed previous family, then an objective comparison can be made between the statements made by the child, and the actual features of the previous life.
“In this particular case, we have verified numerous events and facts related by this subject. I believe what we have here is a reincarnation, not in the usual sense of a child’s birth after a previous life. A child has years to assimilate spirit and body before communicating with anyone. In this case, we have a spirit reincarnated into a fully grown human with no time to assimilate before communication.” “Are you saying the person I revived is not actually my father?” Joe asked.
“It’s your Father in every sense of the word. He’s the same man, but his body holds a different spirit.”
“Doesn’t that make him a different person, then?”
“I can’t answer that. When reincarnation occurs, children mature naturally with a new personality and carry memories of a previous life. In this case, a mature reincarnated spirit appears to be the only awareness in the new body.” Dr Johnson sat down and the next speaker rose.
Dr. Kowalski stood an imposing figure with a completely bald head and blue piercing eyes. There was no need for an introduction as he was known worldwide for his work on Dissociative Identity Disorder also known as multiple personality disorder
“The usual way this disorder presents itself is when an individual breaches the barrier of reality and fantasy, and then is allowed free rein. Once the patient has an alter personality, a search for more alters surrounding the host personality begins. Sometimes the original two or three personalities proliferate to ninety or a hundred. At least one alter must be of the opposite sex. Sometimes even one alter is an animal—a dog, cat, or cow must be found and made to speak! In Jim Jackson’s case there is one persistent personality. I think we can rule out MPD.”
He then sat down without fanfare and Joe introduced the next speaker. Dr. Abrams, a psychiatrist, spoke softly. “All our testing finds this subject normal in every aspect except his delusion of having lived in the 17th century. While Jim’s claims are unique, I don’t see any reason for his continued confinement.”
Joe had invited Father O’Malley, the Catholic Church representative involved in my case from the day I had been frozen. The Church had an open policy on cryonics. By bringing someone back from death, one might carry memories of where they had been—heaven, hell, or purgatory—thus presenting proof of an afterlife. Now the Church believed they had, at least, proof of the existence of evil spirits. Father O’Malley knew what he had to say would be met with disdain. The look on his face seemed to say “men of science nowadays don’t respect religion as they should.”
“Dr. Abrams, I wholeheartedly disagree with you. This man is suffering a clear case of possession. He admits to being Elizabeth Bathory, described as the most evil woman in history. I can give you many credible accounts of her cruelty and …
My son interrupted his macabre story. “How accurate do you believe this story from 1600 actually is?”
“It’s a matter of record,” the priest replied.
“So is the Inquisition, and they did some horrible things then. But that was before the age of enlightenment banished almost all of the old superstitions and myths. You want us to judge someone for deeds committed four hundred years in the past? I’d say the statute of limitations comes into play here.”
Father O’Malley moved one hand over his chest in the sign of the cross. “There’s no statute on this kind of evil. A spirit this profane does not belong in a human body. I insist we perform an exorcism before it’s too late.” I felt Elizabeth’s mind squirm at the exorcism word, maybe that’s what I needed to be free of her and wanted to shout out that I agreed with the priest, but she wouldn’t let me say anything.

A conference member requested that Father O’Malley leave the room while his proposal was discussed.
The Chairman of the Cryonic Institute took the floor. “Imagine being labeled the most evil woman in history. The claim needs to be taken in context, though. What was recorded in Elizabeth Bathory’s lifetime had many reasons behind it. It’s obvious she was a woman of wealth, and if someone wanted to take it, the easiest way at that time would have been to accuse her of witchcraft.”
“Hold on,” my son interjected. “What is your point? We all know it’s impossible for a four hundred-year old spirit to transport itself in time and possess someone, if there’s even such a thing as a spirit. We must outright reject any idea of an exorcism. Exorcism has been known to cause considerable physical harm to the exorcised. I don’t want to risk my father’s health for some crackpot idea.”
I sensed Elizabeth’s relief at these words in my consciousness.
The CI Director, Dr. Rhemus, stood at his chair. “I concur. We shouldn’t take any unnecessary risk with this patient. Since his revivification, we’ve been swamped with customers. There has even been a bill submitted in Congress to allow cryonic freezing before legal death in terminally ill patients. Freezing before death will make it easier for revivification once we’re able to cure the affliction. I must say we’re all in line for substantial financial gains because of this success with Jim Jackson. I propose he be immediately released to the care of his son.” Joe called a vote and all members of the conference except Father O’Malley approved unanimously.
Elizabeth’s happiness entered my mind, and I’m sure my dismay entered hers. This meant the end of scientific research on my problem. Elizabeth released onto an unsuspecting world in my body worried me. What had she come here to accomplish? 

Chapter 9
Though I’d been present at the conference, Dr. Rhemus, formally informed me I’d be released the following day and that Joe would pick me up. I signed my way through a stack of release papers without bothering to read them, but Elizabeth, as usual, took note of all the details that could only be interesting to someone not used to such things. I didn’t have anything to pack other than the few outfits Joe had gotten for me. Elizabeth didn’t understand why I didn’t have a servant pack for me.She was overjoyed to finally be released from confinement and dying to experience the modern world in person, rather than from watching television or the Internet. I tried to convince her to put me back in control of my body,”You had better let me take charge once we’re out the door. You don’t even know what a traffic light is, you’ll probably get us killed crossing the street.”
Mentally I received her answer, “Do you take me for a fool? Once I give you control I know you’ll do everything possible to prevent my dominating your mind again. Don’t forget Jim, I’m using your mind along with mine, everything you know, I know. We’ll be fine,”
She gave me hope when she mentioned she may not be able to easily dominate my mind again once she was out of it.“Don’t forget, I’ve been out of circulation for fifty years, so a lot has changed, and I’m sure there’s a lot missing from my knowledge of today’s world too.” Why me I wondered. She knew my thoughts and answered.
“I picked your body to be reincarnated in for two reasons. First, you’re a fighter and have the heart to do what needs to be done, and secondly, when I entered your body your spirit was nearly gone. I took possession when you were revived and returned fully, an event unprecedented in the history of mankind. I could rightfully have sent your spirit back to wherever it came from since you had all but abandoned your body, but I knew we could learn from each other, so I allowed you to remain with me.”
I guessed I wasn’t the only one shocked to find I shared my body with another spirit; from what Elizabeth told me, she was as surprised as me. Now I knew for certain that the mind was separate somehow from the body. And that this body had two minds vying for control.
I wondered if my predicament was anything like a person who had multiple personalities. I only knew as much about that situation as my doctors and psychiatrists had discussed in front of me. I imagined the personalities might struggle to control a person’s life as Elizabeth and I were struggling to determine who would control mine. The thought that multiple personalities were my problem died almost instantly, because Elizabeth had acquired a vast knowledge of things I couldn’t possibly know. There was no way I’d ever understand history or languages like she did.
She was smarter and she was dominant. She controlled my body completely, and I couldn’t do anything without her willing it. Although my body had a memory of its own and instinctively acted in many things, it seemed that instincts were controlled by the body and not the mind.
My son and I walked out the doors of the institution side by side. I was delighted to be free and standing in the sunshine again, and Elizabeth was excited at the prospect of a brand new world to conquer. I was surprised how much had changed in fifty years. Elizabeth was amazed at all the modern conveniences. She had learned to emulate how I acted, so she could mimic the things I would do if I were in control. She was aware of the powerful people in this world who would lock me up and throw away the key if they had a mind to. She often remembered the years when she was walled up. Those years had put a deep fear of incarceration into her. It was a good thing she had that fear, because some of her thoughts she shared with me were totally unacceptable in today’s society. One time she wanted to whip the orderly for being disrespectful toward me, and when she didn’t like a question Dr. Abrams asked me, she wanted to stick a pencil in his eye. I vehemently let her know if she broke our laws and got me locked up, she’d be right there with me. I believe thinking about the dungeon was the only thing that cowed her into obeying the law.
When we got into my son’s car, he hugged me. “Dad, I have bad news about Mom. She had another stroke, and it has affected her memory. I’m not sure if she’ll know who you are when we visit her.”
I had anticipated laying eyes on Emily since my mind became active again more than a year before. I didn’t care if she remembered me or not. I wanted to see her, talk to her, touch her and to tell her I still loved her, if Elizabeth would let me.
Elizabeth soaked up everything I saw: high rise buildings, so many different types of vehicles— sport utility, pickups and many others I didn’t even know what to call. So many signs and traffic lights, people, just so much of everything she could hardly believe my eyes. I was shocked myself at how busy the world had become.
Elizabeth and I saw a lot that day because the hospital was over two hundred miles from Boston, where my wife and son lived. During the four-hour drive, Elizabeth saw more buildings than she had seen in her entire previous life. She couldn’t believe the vastness and prosperity of the country. I didn’t know how to feel. I was grateful to be alive, but was I really alive, or just a spirit?
I felt like a voyeur, just watching the world go by. Then I thought of the alternative, and decided it was better than floating in nitrogen.
It was getting dark when we reached the outskirts of Boston, and my son wanted to wait until morning to visit Emily.
“She’s probably asleep by now,” Joe said. “Anyway, Dad, I want you to meet my wife.”
I wondered if there were some way I could communicate with my son without going through Elizabeth. I wanted to tell him I’m not really me, that my body really did hold an intruder, and that he might be putting himself in extreme danger by associating with me. From what I'd seen of Elizabeth’s ways, I was glad she knew what penalties we’d have to pay if I did some of the things she wanted to do. Because she was a member of the royal family in her time she could do almost anything she wanted without worrying about consequences. She saw nothing wrong with the fact that she wanted my son to purposely smash into a car that had pulled in front of us, “Teach that bastard to cross in front of a princess, smash him to pieces,” were her exact words. I warned her about imprisonment again for acting impulsively. She remained calm until we came to a toll booth, “Don’t pay this highwayman any tribute…” she stopped talking when she heard me pleading with her to shut up, because she didn’t know what she was talking about.
These crazy comments of hers were coming out of my mouth and my son looked really worried. I imagined he was thinking it was a mistake to take me from the clinic. I resolved to let Elizabeth keep on putting her foot in my mouth. Maybe I’d get sent back to the clinic and one of those smart doctors could figure out how to separate Elizabeth’s spirit from my body. She read my thoughts and laughed, “Not a chance, from now on I’m going through your mind before I open your mouth,” from then on whatever came from my mouth was something I would have said in the manner I would have said it.

Joe lived in Newton, a middle class suburb of Boston, and as we pulled into his long, circular driveway I could see he had done well. In the center of the circle formed by the driveway was a running fountain with a woman emptying a container the fountain flowed through. I sensed that Elizabeth compared it favorably with our last few places of residency. Joe parked close to the front door. I stepped onto the driveway, inhaling the smells of suburbia. Grass, flowers, trees and many other overpowering aromas triggered pleasant memories for me. Elizabeth compared the smells to her Transylvanian home, and approved favorably of the present over the past. The air where she lived always smelled of cowshit.
 
Chapter 10
Joe opened the door. “We're here Audrey,” he called into the expansive front room. A petite, well-dressed middle-aged woman threw her arms around me “Welcome, Mr. Jackson, I'm thrilled to finally meet you. Your son wouldn’t let me visit you at the clinic. He said you had you had so much to deal with that meeting me would only add to your burden or confuse you. I’m Audrey, your daughter in law of course.”
When Audrey put her arms around me Elizabeth became aroused. I began to worry again that Elizabeth would do something to harm my family.
“I’ve made a late dinner, and I hope you’re both hungry because I’ve made plenty.”
Joe showed me where to freshen up before we ate. I closed the door, and turned the hot water on full force. It still amazed Elizabeth to be able to turn a handle and have hot and cold running water. She remembered her servants drawing water from a well and heated in a large kettle over a kitchen fire. If she’d had this luxury in her previous life, her problem with rough and wrinkly skin would have been less severe. I washed my hands and dried with a thick, luxurious towel. Elizabeth loved the feel of the towel. She thought it fit for royalty, and that meant it was good enough for her.
As I looked in the mirror, she studied my body and the scar on my face. The long gash running from the edge of my right eyebrow halfway down my face contributed to an overall “hard look.” I sure looked a lot meaner than I was. But she liked the look. Tough, masculine, scarred, but handsome, I looked younger than I did before I was put in the tank. Superb, shapely muscles bulged underneath taut, unblemished skin, thanks to my son’s nanobots.
Elizabeth scanned my mind to learn how and when I got the scar. I got it, not in the ring, but when I was a kid trying to outrun a queer who tried to pick me up on the way home from school. I was in the second grade and back then people were a lot more trusting. When the guy sitting in a Cadillac called me over, he asked if I wanted a candy bar, and I ran to the car to get it. He laid a Hershey’s bar on his lap, and told me to take it. I reached through the window but instead of my hand closing around the candy bar, it closed around his dick, hidden under the candy. I tried to jerk my hand away, but he wouldn’t let me. He held me by the wrist and tried to make me masturbate him. I spit in his face. Surprised by this action, he loosened his grip and I was able to pull free. I ran like hell. He got out of the car, and chased me with his dick hanging out of his pants.
I looked over my left shoulder to see if he was gaining when I tripped, and smashed my face on the curb. I don’t know what happened to the guy, but I bet someone beat the shit out of him if they saw him with his dick waving in the wind. I woke up in the hospital with twenty-seven stitches running from my right eye to the corner of my mouth. I never told anyone how I’d fallen, but because of what happened I’ve had a lifelong hatred of queers.
I walked into the dining room and observed the contents of the house as I passed Joe and Audrey. They made a handsome couple even though both were in their fifties. I was pleased with their taste in paintings. Apparently they collected Impressionist and Abstract pieces. Elizabeth thought them insane to have such rubbish hanging on their walls.
The mirror image of me was still fresh in my mind. How weird that my son and daughter-in-law appeared to be twenty-five years older than me.
After dinner, Elizabeth was still sexually aroused from her contact with Audrey. She allowed me access her thoughts as she wondered how it felt for a man to have sex. She complained to Joe how tired I was, and asked them to show me to my bedroom. Once we were alone, she unzipped my pants and slowly stroked my penis. Unfortunately, I felt nothing, but Elizabeth evidently did as my body became aroused, and I breathed heavily as she stroked harder and faster, and faster. My body became rigid as I ejaculated into the tissue she held around my dick.
How easily a man ejaculates, Elizabeth thought. Me, I wished I’d enjoyed it and not her.
Unfortunately, the act caused memories of her sex life to fill her mind, and she shared some of her memories with me, memories of her fucking her husband and several lesbian encounters.
I turned into a goddamn voyeur. I enjoyed her visualizations; I’d been sensuously deprived for so long I didn’t reprimand myself for enjoying it.
We lay down to sleep. Restless, I stayed awake, but Elizabeth dreamed, and the part of her mind that normally shut me out was occupied elsewhere. I concentrated very hard and I was able to slip into her mind while she wasn’t paying attention. Her mind was an unimaginable vision of horrors to me until I became attuned to her dream that she was experiencing. I would have immediately left the way I had come in, except I knew I better take advantage of this opportunity. I might never get it again.

Chapter 11
Elizabeth’s memory drifted into the past when she was nine years old. A farmers’ rebellion had raged in the countryside surrounding the castle her family lived in. The rebels had succeeded in entering the fortified castle. Some children and women escaped with Elizabeth and her two older sisters, Anischka and Sandra, through a secret tunnel that led to the outside. When the peasants found them, the women hid Elizabeth in a tree. It was too late to hide the other children of Báthory. The angry rebels raped both of Elizabeth's sisters, and hung them from the tree where Elizabeth had hidden herself. Elizabeth had watched everything, unable to move.
Once the rebels left, she climbed down from the tree, nearly blinded from fear and grief. She found a horse roaming in the woods and she rode it to the nearest village. There the rebellious farmers had already been captured. She watched as soldiers tortured them and then executed them by quartering.
A scant six years later she decided to disobey everyone’s advice, and went by herself into the woods surrounding the castle. She loved to swim nude and if anyone knew she was going to the lake, guards would be sent and she wouldn’t swim nude in front of them. She had just turned fifteen, and already blossomed as a woman. She knew how all of the men stared at her, thought her attractive.
Elizabeth hiked into the woods, and quickly undressed in a stand of reeds by the lake. She loved to bathe in the clear, cool water and dry herself in warm sunlight. She had just climbed out of the water when she heard the sound of a branch snapping.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
There was no answer, so she assumed she had heard one of the creatures that lived in the woods. She climbed atop a big rock to let the sun dry her wet body, stretching luxuriously, all the time imagining how the men from the castle would love to see her posing.
Snap! The sound was close to her now. She turned in a circle looking in every direction. Nothing. Then she heard heavy breathing and quick movement right behind her.
There in the bushes was the ugliest, most horrifying creature she had ever seen. Not more than four feet tall, the creature had an enormous head and a face that looked like someone had poured boiling oil on it and melted his skin. What he was doing was more horrifying. His eyes bulged under closed eyelids, and drool dripped from his mouth while he massaged a giant penis that protruded from his tiny form. She was both shocked and awed by the sight, shocked by the monstrous appearance, awed by the size of his penis. The only comparison she could make was with horses when they mated.
It opened its eyes and lunged at her; she screamed and fled. They were both naked, and as she recalled, she had almost laughed at what a sight it must have been. The creature caught her, threw her to the ground and pulled her legs apart. What it intended couldn't have been clearer, so when it leaned close to kiss her, she struck by sinking her teeth into its Adams apple. It didn’t scream, but gurgled, and it struggled, shaking all over trying to free itself. The more it struggled the harder, she bit. This went on for the longest while, and finally it died and fell on her. Her mouth, face, and body were covered in its blood.
Her father noticed his beautiful little princess was nowhere to be found and mounted an intense search for her. He and twenty of his men searched the woods for her. They came upon the scene the instant the thing died atop her.
To everyone that saw it lying on top of her, it brought only one thought to mind: Elizabeth and the creature were screwing, and in her excitement she had bit and killed him. From that time on, not one of her father’s men would ever desire her again.
When she tried to tell her father what happened, he wouldn’t listen. Any mention of the incident reminded him of that accursed scene, his daughter lying with that deformed freak atop her, its throat torn out and she, covered with its blood.
 
Chapter 12
Two weeks later, Elizabeth was married off to Count Ferencz. Although she belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the country, he was the only one who would accept her as his bride after rumors about the incident spread. Publicly, Ferencz announced the marriage as a beneficial alliance between their families and the large dowries she brought him. Privately, it excited him how she had ripped that thing's throat out. Why, it was beyond anything he had ever done, and he highly admired her action. Rumors spread that she had gotten pregnant by this thing, the reason for the large dowry and the hasty wedding.
Count Ferencz knew this wasn't true — on their wedding night he found her virginal. It wouldn’t have mattered to him if Elizabeth had been pregnant. If she were, he would have smashed the spawn’s head against the castle wall once it came out.
Unending rumors spread throughout the land. It was said Elizabeth had killed the Devil himself while having sex with him. One story told how she had conjured a demon for her pleasure and then bitten it to death. Stories flew around as though people engaged in a contest to see who could invent the most bizarre story.
Elizabeth found the rumors unfair and uncalled for. The defamation of her character had come about because she had defended her honor, as she was always told she must do at any cost. There was nothing she could do about it. Her own father wouldn’t discuss the event with her. If he couldn’t believe her, no one could. She immersed herself in books and pursued an education as a way of ignoring all the horrible stories circulating about her.
Count Ferencz continued to be pleased with the stories. Elizabeth became adored as an accomplished witch in some of the secret societies to which he belonged. Anyone who conjured up demons for their own amusement had to have extreme supernatural powers. The stories of her powers boosted his standing in these societies, and his colleagues believed he would somehow acquire these powers from his wife.
The Count moved his new wife to Castle Csejthe, his ancestral home in Northern Hungary. He left her to fight the Turks, and to continue his pursuit of black magic. Elizabeth lived an exemplary life, regardless of the rumors about her. She found it hard to believe everyone thought her as evil as the stories portrayed her to be. She tried to help the peasant girls by opening schools for them. She supported midwifery, and she gave her time and money to the church. The few people who knew her personally thought she was saintly, but the rumors persisted.
Meanwhile, Count Ferencz made a name for himself in the war. He became feared after capturing 15,000 Turks in a battle and ordering their eyes gouged out. Only one eye in every hundredth man was left with sight so they could guide the sightless men home. When these 15,000-blinded men appeared before their king, he promptly had a heart attack and died.
When Count Ferencz traveled in the East, he came upon practitioners of the black arts. He learned many secrets from them, and also new methods of torture that he immensely enjoyed. Hagar, one of the officers, had watched as Ferencz tried to extract information from a captive without success after one battle.
“I can show you how to get almost anyone to tell you all they know,” Hagar said.
“Get this prisoner to tell me where he hid the gold Icons he stole from the church.”
Hagar had a brazen bull brought into the chamber. It was made totally of brass and was hollow with a door in the side. He put the prisoner in the bull, built a roaring fire under it, and heated the metal until it became red hot. When he asked his questions they were quickly answered, because it wasn’t possible to bear the pain of being roasted alive. Once he confirmed the answers he received were the truth, fuel was added to the fire, and the prisoner inside slowly roasted to death.
When the bull was reopened, the victims’ scorched bones shone like jewels. Hagar made these into bracelets. He presented one of these shiny bone bracelets to Count Ferencz. This act endeared him to the Count. Before long, Hagar and the count wore many bracelets made of shimmering, jewel-like bones.
There had been a minor battle and the captives were being tortured by Hagar and The Count to extract the exact number of men they traveled with and other pertinent Information when out of the blue Hagar said,“Lord, I know of a secret that will interest you.”
“What secret are you talking about?”
“Before time began, My Lord, the god Marduk, a very young god, killed all his enemies and wrested from them the Tablets of Destiny. Under his reign, humans were purposely created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure. But the humans frequently died of deadly diseases and other causes. Marduk created bracelets of fire that promised eternal life to those who possessed two of them, one on each wrist. While wearing both bracelets, a man couldn’t die from any natural cause. If he wore only one, he would be reincarnated when death came. The gods wouldn’t need to make a new man each time one died because of the bracelets.
Men were lonely, and Marduk created women for them. Out of love, men gave one of their bracelets of fire to their females and lost their immortality, but retained the power of reincarnation. The reincarnated man or woman wore an invisible bracelet of fire on the right wrist of the new person they had become. These invisible bracelets would only become visible if one knew the incantation prescribed by Marduk.
If a man wanted, he could retrieve a second bracelet from a woman or another man and regain immortality. That was the birth of murder, because every man wanted a woman and two bracelets enough to kill for either one. The bracelets had to be hidden because of this, and most were lost over time. Only two of these bracelets are known to be in existence. I believe that together we can find the owner of these bracelets and acquire them for ourselves.”
“Where would we begin to search for these bracelets?”
“A sorcerer in ancient Egypt had learned from one of his gods the incarnation that Marduk had created to make the bracelets visible,” Hagar explained. “He knew once they were visible it would be possible to steal the bracelets. The sorcerer used the incantation, and proved his suspicions about the Pharaoh having both bracelets were true.
That meant he wasn’t sharing his immortality with his wife. Marduk used this to his advantage. He told the Pharaoh’s wife if the Pharaoh died and she married him, he could grant her immortality by giving her one bracelet, and she would forever be reincarnated upon her death. She readily agreed, and they planned how he was to get close to the Pharaoh in order to steal the bracelets of fire.
The Pharoah’s wife added a small amount of poison to her husband’s wine, enough to sicken, but not enough to kill. When he became deathly ill, she told him of the healer she had met and recommended he send for him. The sorcerer arrived and took hold of both the Pharaoh’s hands. He then leaned toward him and started the incantation to transfer the rings from the Pharaoh’s wrist onto his own.
He could feel the comfortable warmth as the bracelets slowly started sliding from wrist to wrist. The Pharaoh struggled to free himself of the grip that held him, but he was so weakened by the poison he was unable to break free. Once the rings were on the sorcerer’s wrist the Pharaoh shriveled into a wrinkled corpse.
His wife faced the sorcerer. ‘I know you intended to keep both bracelets for yourself. So I consulted my priest, who told me there is a way to kill you even though you wear the bracelets of fire. Give me one right now, or die.’
He took her right hand in his. ‘I never thought of doing such a thing. You know I need you to make me Pharaoh.’ He then whispered the magic incantation into her ear, and the ring of fire slid from his right wrist to her right wrist.”

Chapter 13
Count Ferencz looked skeptically at Hagar. “I find your story hard to believe. There are a million stories told about the gods, and I know they’re mostly bullshit.”
Hagar reached into his robe and pulled out a scroll made of animal skin. Covered with faded hieroglyphics, it looked ancient.
“Look, my Lord,” Hagar said, “this was recently found in an ancient tomb, and I had to torture a great many men to gain possession of it. I tell you of this, Lord, so we can both share an eternity together. Just imagine you, and I born many times over, what wars and tortures we can experience over and over again!”
Firencz narrowed his eyes. “How do I know you only want to use me to find the bracelets of fire?”
“Once we have the bracelets, we can each take one and go our separate ways, if that makes you more comfortable.”
They stared at each other and both read treachery in the other’s eyes.
The search started in Egypt, because the scroll showed this as the location where the rings were last seen. Count Firencz learned to read hieroglyphics himself, so Hagar wasn’t able to deceive him with any of the meanings. They wondered if either the new pharaoh or his wife were able to get the others’ bracelet of fire. If either one had both bracelets, it would mean he or she were still alive. If neither had both bracelets, how could they determine when the new pharaoh and his wife had reincarnated, who they had become, or where on Earth had they returned?
Their first destination was the tomb where the scroll was found. No one would answer their inquiries until Hagar captured the leader of the tomb raiders and used his version of foot roasting to extract everything the man knew. Hagar immobilized the prisoner, laying him on his back and baring his feet, which were then imprisoned in iron. The soles of his feet were smeared with lard and slowly barbecued over red-hot coals. Hagar pumped a bellows to control the intensity of the heat. Questions were put, and if the questions were not answered to Hagar’s satisfaction, the tomb raider’s naked soles were exposed to the flames for ever-increasing periods of time. This was one of many forms of torture Hagar taught the Count during their quest for the bracelets of fire.
The leader of the raiders didn’t like having his feet roasted to cinders, so he readily gave Hagar and the Count all the information he had. Unfortunately for him, Hagar wanted to demonstrate his technique to the Count and continued burning until his feet were charred to the bone and odd pieces of phalanges and metatarsals fell to the floor. Satisfied he had shown the count the efficacy of his method, and to be certain his victim would never seek revenge, Hagar then dumped the hot coals onto the chest of the immobile man. Hagar and the Count watched him die as the red hot embers burned away his flesh. When his screaming finally stopped, both torturers turned away from the smoldering corpse to get some fresh air.
Now they knew the location of the tomb where the scroll had come from, and needed help to dig out any buried secrets The Count sent his soldiers to capture the new leader of the thieves who regularly robbed the Pharaoh’s burial places. The master thief knew what had happened to his predecessor, and was very cooperative. He freely supplied any knowledge he possessed. He also sent one hundred experienced diggers to the tomb. But the tomb had been emptied by the tomb robbers, except for the drawings and maps that covered the walls of the tomb. Maps of the desert, maps of the stars, so many maps it would take years of studying to determine a starting point for their search.
As Hagar and the Count studied the maps to figure their next move, they both saw it at once — a rat skittering through the stone wall. Impossible they both knew, but there it was in front of them, coming right through the wall. They walked to the wall and saw the rat hadn’t come through a solid wall, but through an almost invisible crack running across it. Hagar and Firencz looked at one another in excitement. This meant there was a hidden chamber behind the wall.
Not wanting to let the tomb robbers or their soldiers know what they had found, they started digging themselves. Before long, a they had pounded a hole large enough to crawl through. They crawled into the hole with a torch in each hand. Rats scurried away, and hundreds of insects, various beetles, and other ugly winged things that wanted to devour them dropped from the ceiling onto their backs. The insect bites didn't deter them in the least, because they were excited by the find.
They found brackets on the walls, and set their torches into them. Rows and rows of scrolls, half-eaten by rats, lined one wall. On a platform against the far wall hung solid gold amulets with hieroglyphics carved into them.
“Thankfully rats don’t eat gold,” the count said as he put all the golden amulets in his rucksack. They gathered what scrolls appeared to be readable, and returned to their tent to study what they had found.
The surviving scrolls were all about alchemy and might prove to be invaluable. Alchemists had been searching for centuries for the secrets of transmutation and that secret could be in these ancient scrolls. Normally they would have been excited about finding the secret to transmutation of elements, but they were on a mission that took precedence over gold.
First, they needed a clue where to find the bracelets of fire. After dispatching the scrolls in a shipment to his castle for later study, the Count and Hagar studied the amulets. The clue they were looking emerged in the star charts. Hagar knew how to read them. He concluded the rings could be followed using astronomical charts. He set up a large chart, and while copying information from the amulets, he was able to trace the rings for the last two thousand years, right up to the new Pharaoh and his wife, where the history ended.
“We need to prepare a new star chart like this one for the last five hundred years and follow the rings by following the alignment of the planets,” Hagar explained.
Firencz stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“Look at the chart and you can see every time the rings changed hands, Mercury changed to this unusual position.”
“That may tell you when. How do you know where?”
“By using triangulation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“See here. Every time the rings have changed possession, Mercury moved to a new position. All we have to do was draw a triangle through Mercury, Earth and the Sun. See where the point hits Earth? That was where the rings were. I tested this by using the information. Every location we knew them to be matched up with the triangulation.”
“Well, go ahead, triangulate, so we can see where the bracelets are now,” the Count ordered.
Hagar did as he was told, and they were both pleased when they saw the point of the triangle resting on Turkey, a country Transylvania had been at war with for years. Now they needed no excuse to invade in search of the rings. They could just go and search anytime they wanted. The order was given to pack up and head for Turkey.
It took several months to move all Count Firencz’s troops and equipment to the border. The rings must be in the city the triangle pointed to, just thirty miles from the border.
“How do you know both rings will be there? the count asked.
“Because the planets align differently when there is only one.” Hagar showed him a duplicate copy of the chart. He pointed out the periods they knew the rings to be shared, and matched up the planet alignment. “The pattern was obviously different than when both rings were transferred at once.”
“How will we know who has the bracelets?”
“Remember, the first scroll I showed you told us how to see the bracelets.”
“You mean the one that told of the incantation to make them visible?”
They would search for the wearer of the bracelets, and they were willing to do whatever it took to gain possession of them. The Count was feared in this part of the world; his reputation as “Count Eyes Out” preceded him. Since he had blinded the fifteen thousand captives, there wasn’t much opposition to his advance.
“I've pinpointed the exact location of the bracelet’s wearer, the city of Şanlıurfa,” Hagar explained.
“Where exactly is Şanlıurfa on the map?”
Hagar laid a large map on the table, and pointed at Urfa, in southeastern Turkey, about eighty kilometers east of the Euphrates River.
“I thought you said Şanlıurfa?”
“That’s the old name; it’s now called Urfa.” He put his finger on the map.
When the army arrived at the city of Urfa, a delegation was sent to greet the Count. The city was willing to buy peace at any price. A meeting was arranged, and the city’s leaders came to the Transylvanian’s camp to negotiate peace terms. Hagar greeted each leader individually. He took each one by the hands and whispered the incantation into their ears. It seemed logical the wearer of the bracelets would be among the leaders of the city.
There were twenty-one in the delegation, and when Hagar whispered to the twentieth, he saw the bracelets glowing. But when he chanted the incantation to transfer the bracelets, he couldn’t draw them onto his wrist. Once the bracelet glowed from the incantation and the move chant recited, the bracelets should have slid easily to Hagar’s wrist.
“Count, Count, come quickly, I’ve got the wearer of the rings,” He held on, and shouted for Firencz. “Hurry up, before he gets away, Hagar shouted.
The Count came running with some soldiers following him, “ Send the remainder of the delegation back to the city,” he told the soldiers.
Hagar held on tightly to the man for fear he’d get away somehow.
“I know why you're here,” the man said. Hagar knew why he couldn’t move the bracelets— the man knew they ere coming and must have used a magical spell to prevent theft of the bracelets.
“Then you must give me the bracelets, so we don’t have to kill everyone and burn the city.” Hagar planned on doing both anyway, whether got the bracelets or not. If they had slid off as expected, Hagar would have possession of both bracelets, and wouldn’t need the Count any longer. “They belong here,” the man insisted.
Hagar sneered in the man’s face. “No. They belong to me now that I’ve found them.”

The Count watched both men coolly. “Why didn't the chant work?”
“I knew you were coming, and I’m prepared to resist giving up these bracelets.”
“The gods sent us for the bracelets,” Hagar told him.
The man laughed. “And which gods sent you?”
“The gods of Egypt,” Hagar said, waving one of the old scrolls in the man’s face.
“My God is more powerful than all the Egyptian gods combined.”
“I find that hard to believe since you’re our prisoner,” the count said.
Just then the Earth shook, and the old man laughed. “I don’t think God likes the way you treat me. If you don't release me, I’m sure He'll wipe you and your army off this planet.”
Hagar held on to him tighter than before. “I want those bracelets, and I’m willing to fight God or anyone else for them.”
“What happens if we just cut his hands off? Will we be able to take the bracelets then?” the Count asked.
Hagar released one of the man’s hands and drew his sword. He forced the hand to the table, raised his sword high and forcefully brought it down just above the bracelet. The bracelet glowed brightly on the severed hand. The count grabbed the hand, and tried ripping the bracelet off. The shocked old man silently watched blood pouring from his severed wrist.
“You only have one bracelet now. You're no longer immortal.” The Count grabbed his other hand and cut that one off too. The man shriveled into a pile of dust.
The Count gazed at Hagar.“How can these bracelets make someone immortal if we can so easily cut this wearer’s hands off?”
“The immortality only assures one doesn’t die a natural death. When the God Marduk created these bracelets, there was no such thing as murder, because there were few men. Then Marduk created women for men and women begat many murderers.” “Hell, the bracelets aren’t going to do us much good then, are they?”
“I’m not after immortality,” Hagar said, “its knowledge I want. When you wear both bracelets you see into the mind of God, and know everything.”
“What good is it to have all God’s knowledge without His powers?”
“Knowledge is power,” Hagar said.
Both wore a bracelet of fire on their right wrist, and both were assured birth in a time of their choice if killed while wearing the bracelets. Both would be in possession of the bracelet worn when they died. And both were planning how to possess the other’s bracelet.
 

Chapter 14
Count Firencz’s devoted wife Elizabeth unexpectedly showed up at camp. Hagar promptly put his plans on hold because he had heard of her powers. He was willing to fight God for the bracelet, but to oppose a powerful witch who used any and all tactics was another story.
Hagar tried to impress the Countess with his profound knowledge of the occult by putting on a display of his magical prowess. Hagar had an arena constructed from stones placed in a large circle nearly sixty feet in diameter. A reviewing area was constructed with a canvas cover to protect the princess from the sun. The ground was covered with sand to soak up any gore from his demonstrations.
A chariot drawn by a team of horses ran straight toward where Hagar stood. Suddenly they disappeared. Elizabeth had learned that trick long ago, she obviously wasn’t impressed.
“I know my magic is by far inferior to her majesties, but perhaps your majesty hasn’t seen this next trick performed before? He had a slave girl stood directly in front of her, and caused her to disappear piece by piece. First one arm disappeared, then the other arm. Her right leg was the next to go. This left the girl hopping about on one leg, until that too disappeared and her torso dropped to the ground. It lay before the Countess with only a head attached. Hagar chanted his magical incantation, and the head disappeared, leaving nothing but a torso lying on the ground. Hagar walked to the torso; with sword in hand he struck the regions where there should have been arms, legs, and a head. He plunged his sword into the chest of the living torso, made a large hole, then reached in and pulled out a still beating heart.
Impressed with Hagar’s magic powers, Elizabeth worried the heartless magician might outmaneuver her husband. Lying in bed, the Count confided to her about the bracelets.
“I am not sure how to take Hagar’s bracelet, because I know him well — shrewd and vicious. He wants my bracelet as badly as I want his bracelet. As you have seen, he possesses many magical powers and I can’t just steal it from him.”
“What will stop his taking your bracelet?”
“Just my army and myself.”
“With the powers he has, I doubt that’s good enough.”
“Let us not forget, I have studied for years and possess powers, too.”
“What I saw tonight proves his power is far beyond yours.”
“Then I shall kill him first thing in the morning, and take the bracelet.”
“Give me your bracelet,” she said. “If something goes wrong he shall not be able to take yours.”
“You will return it to me as soon as I secure the other?”
Elizabeth kissed him, “Of course, You know we’ve always shared all our occult discoveries. Why should this be any different?”
Hagar had ordered a servant who resembled him to sleep in his tent. When a cadre of the Count’s loyal soldiers rushed in, they found the servant sleeping.
“There it is,” On the servant’s wrist was a bracelet Hagar had crafted to resemble his bracelet of fire. Although it looked the same, he had filled it with snake venom. Once removed from the servant’s wrist, small barbs would protrude, and when slid onto another wrist, release the venom into the wearer’s skin. Death was assured within five minutes. The servant awoke to a sword crashing down on his arm that held the bracelet.
Hagar followed the soldiers accompionied by a contingent of his followers. He cut a peep hole in the tent where the Count’s soldiers took the severed hand. As he watched, the Count seated himself at a table in the center. The soldiers dropped the severed hand on the table, and were dismissed. The Count picked up hand, tore off the bracelet, and jammed it on his left arm. Once he did this, Hagar said, “Stand guard while I retrieve my bracelet,” he told his soldiers and entered the tent.
The Count’s face drained of color as though he had seen a ghost.
“Did you not wonder why my hand did not disintegrate as the hands we took the bracelets from?” Hagar asked.
“You tricked me, I’ll make sure you never do again,” he attempted to draw his sword, but the toxin was already killing him. “You may have gotten the best of me, but you’ll never get the bracelet,” he attempted to laugh, but choked instead and fell to the ground and died.
Hagar could not believe he had been cheated of what he wanted so badly. It had to be her. No one else but Elizabeth could have talked the Count into giving up the bracelet. He started planning on how to retrieve it from her, and he was prepared to do anything, anything at all. Because Elizabeth belonged to the royal family he couldn't just take the bracelet from her. Her Uncle was King of Poland and he wouldn’t allow a commoner such as Hagar cause insult to any member of the royal family. If he did he would be hunted and killed by the Kings minions.
Hagar came up with a plan to destroy her reputation and make her vulnerable to him.
He started rumors to discredit Elizabeth. He knew she was related to Vlad The Impaler and he had transcripts of Vlad’s history penned. He used this information to create the illusion she was also draining the peasants’ blood.
Hagar’s stories had her bathing in blood, torturing young girls, biting to death her servants and many other extraordinary feats of cruelty. He had young girls killed and drained of blood so it appeared a vampire was at work. He paid his murderers to dump the bodies around Elizabeth’s castle, laying suspicion at her door step.
Elizabeth desperately tried to counteract these rumors, but ended up locking herself in the dungeon, so she wouldn’t be murdered in her sleep. Her dream finally ended, and my nightmare began.
Elizabeth desperately tried to counteract these rumors and pleaded to her Aunt Klara for help. “When my husband died I inherited great wealth. Now my Uncle, The King, your brother wants the wealth for himself and I’ve learned that he’s encouraging Hagar and has thwarted many of my attempts to get Hagar,” she wrung her hands in distressed frustration.
“Why not send your army after Hagar?”
“It has been disbanded by orders of The King himself.”
“My brother is known to poison those he wants disposed, so you better be careful,” she looked sympathetically at Elizabeth but knew once The King wanted something, he usually got it.
“I’ve always had my servants taste my food before I eat,” Elizabeth looked into her empty tea cup as though searching for dregs of poison.
“If I had as great an amount of wealth as you do, I’m sure he’d have me taken to his castle to meet his persuasive torturers. You have to be careful that he doesn’t have someone simply abduct you,” she said all this with empathy in her voice.


Chapter 15
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