The Maze The Lost Labyrinth - By Jason Brannon Page 0,27

remember anything leading up to your arrival in this place? Did anything strange happen to you?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Someone started sending my wife communications accusing me of adultery. I‘m pretty sure that same person shot me at point blank range right outside her apartment.”

The minotaur smiled. “And wouldn’t you like to know why someone would do such a thing?”

“Of course, I would. They’re indirectly responsible for my being here.”

The minotaur laughed. It was a sonorous, throaty sound that reverberated off of the walls of the labyrinth. “I’m not a bit surprised that you want to blame your shortcomings on someone else.”

“Tell me about the person who’s been sabotaging my life, and tell me how winning this battle will help my family.”

I was getting to the point that I thought nothing would surprise me. But the minotaur did something next that set me back. With a quick flick of its wrist and a few subtle manipulations, it extracted one of its eyeballs. The ocular tissue was red and striated with burst capillaries. An image was frozen in the pupil.

“See for yourself.” The minotaur held the eyeball out to me.

It was a little like watching television after I got past the fact that I was holding an eye in my hand (and one that was still attached to its stalk, no less).

The man I saw in that eye was a man I had seen on and off for the past year and never thought much about. Only this time he wasn’t wearing an angel mask.

“Darrell Gene Rankin?”

I was both enraged and mystified. I had never said much to my neighbor across the street other than a passing ‘Hello’ or a ‘How’s it goin’?’” I had certainly never done anything to warrant the systematic targeting of my family for destruction.

“I don’t understand.”

“Watch,” the creature said. “You will.”

Like a movie advancing frames, the scene shifted to show Darrell Gene sitting alone in his living room, staring out the picture window, watching my family. We were happy. He obviously wasn’t.

The next sequence showed Darrell Gene surreptitiously stuffing a folded note into our mailbox. Abruptly, I saw Darrell Gene with a cellphone camera, watching me through a set of binoculars, then back in his house listening to demons who were speaking to him through his electronic devices.

“Is this for real?”

“Your true enemy can be very subtle in his manipulations, but he can also be very overt. The serpent‘s temptations are diverse and varied.”

“None of this makes sense. You’re a creature from mythology and you’re talking about Christian principles. What does a character from a Greek fairy tale know about the serpent?”

“What you see is a representation. Nothing more. I could put on a different face if you’d like. Maybe I‘d be more effective if I masqueraded as Kali, the Hindu god of death.”

In a flash, the minotaur transformed itself into a haunting tanned figure with six arms, all of which held sabers that could cut me down just as effectively as the scythes in the Hall of Barabbas.

I shook my head. “No. That‘s not necessary.”

“Osiris then?” The minotaur changed himself from a six-armed god of death to one resembling an Egyptian pharaoh.

“I don’t care what you look like. Death is death regardless of the form. I could die just as easily from anthrax as I could a couple of rounds from a Smith and Wesson.”

Suddenly the bull-creature stood before me again. “As you wish.”

“What should I call you?”

“I’ve gone by many names. Asterion is the one that best fits this masquerade. Of course if this appearance stops being effective, I’ll change faces until I find the one that makes you quake.”

“I‘m not sure I could ever get used to something like you, but the way you look isn’t important. Right now I want answers more than anything. You still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with my family?”

“Do you love your wife and son?”

“Of course I do! More now than before.”

“Do you think your wife feels the same way about you?”

I was taken aback by the question. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how Amy felt about me anymore.

The minotaur’s eye shifted away from Darrell Gene Rankin and focused on Amy. She knelt at the foot of her mother’s bed, rocking back and forth on her knees and sobbing profusely. She was praying. Had I been there, I would have wrapped my arms around her and told her that everything was going to be all right. Of course,