Tyranny of Coins (The Judas Chronicles) (Volume 5) Paperback Read Online Free

disgustedly and started to say something, but caught himself.
    “What is it, Rod? You’ve been acting like you want to tell me something important for days—long before this latest incident.”
    True. Actually, I noticed the silent burden he carried nearly a week ago. I had hoped he would reveal his secret naturally, and decided to wait it out. If not for the dreaded token from Lazarevic, I had already planned to broach the matter by this coming weekend.
    “I know if pressed to do so, you would relinquish Dracul’s coin to his master,” he said, shifting in his seat to better regard me. “It may come to that, old friend. I pray it does not, but there are no guarantees of success in protecting all of us from harm, as you know. What are you planning to do if Krontos demands this coin?”
    “To save you, my beloved family, and Cedric? I would give him what he wants,” I said. “But, what would such a move cost me personally? Since I’ve never been in a situation like this before, that answer is unknown. You and I will be traveling through uncharted territory. Yet, having said that, reintroducing my cured coins into the world would certainly spell untold disaster. My gut tells me the consequences and curses would be much more severe the next go round.”
    “So, you’d rather not give your coins in exchange for others. Correct?”
    “Yes… but why does any of this matter right now? My brother, I know you so well. Tell me what’s up.”
    I could have, and perhaps should have, made him blurt out the piece he was hiding from me days ago. I prayed my perturbed expression would be enough to get him to come clean.
    “I heard from Jeffrey the other day. Jeffrey Holmes? You remember him, don’t you?”
    “The kid from Buffalo, New York?”
    “Yes. But he’s not a kid anymore, having recently celebrated his forty-first birthday,” Roderick advised. “Though it was unfortunate he learned your identity from Michael some years back, he has proven to be a good ‘silent’ fan of yours, Judas. Remember, he’s the one who tracked down the Damascus coin before it suddenly disappeared again.”
    “What a surprise,” I deadpanned.
    “I’m serious, man!”
    We had been sitting at a small dinette near the fireplace, and Roderick stood to tend to the dying flames.
    “What if I were to tell you that Jeffrey has found links to a black market deal coming up soon for another coin of yours both of us assumed might never see the light of day for centuries?”
    “I’d say better get the damned thing before you blink, or ‘poof’ it’ll be gone!”
    “Very funny, smartass,” he said, scowling at me as he laid a medium sized log on top of the hearth. A bed of fiery coals from the previous log ignited the new offering. Roderick brushed off his hands and returned to me. “The coin is quite unique and is said to have more mystical properties than your Dragon Coin. It remained for centuries in the possession of a wealthy Jewish family in Poland. No one has seen it since World War II.”
    “Wait a moment… you can’t be serious?” I couldn’t believe my ears, and felt like an idiot for playing him as I had. Then again, he didn’t need to be so coy. “The Stutthof-Auschwitz coin?”
    “Yes, the very one that began the legend of healing among the condemned Jews in the Stutthof concentration camp. It later caused much more excitement—enough to where the coin was eventually discovered in Auschwitz, and then confiscated by the Nazis,” Roderick confirmed. He smiled, obviously pleased by my response. “If you’ll recall our previous conversation on the subject—and granted it’s been some years, now—unlike the other coins, this coin came to Stutthof from a Polish Jewish clan. The Nazis somehow missed it. The coin kept this family safe from harm’s way for nearly three months, until the evil of Hitler’s Final Solution was too much to defeat.
    “The family was separated, and the parents were sent with the oldest