The Dove Read Online Free Page A

depression.  To get rid of the drag on his psyche and the emotional turmoil he faced every time he ventured into the lab.  He had hoped to free himself of this part of his life and move on in a new and better direction.  Now he felt as if he had committed the ultimate crime: the murder of his own son .  He could not shake the feeling of guilt that gripped his heart and yet he knew it was not true, it was imagination.  The child had been dead a long, long time.
    He mourned the loss of his father, Omar, and his mother.  For the first time, he realized how much they had loved him and how it must have hurt them when he had rejected that love without even giving them a chance.  His empire had fallen into the hands of a man he had trusted completely and he had allowed the creature to bring one of his infernal companions to life in the guise of his own mother.  It was unthinkable!  Unbelievable!  Unforgivable!  Further, he had foolishly gone to her bed and compounded his crimes with great abominations!  If his father did suddenly appear to him there and then, he would not have resisted if Omar had ripped him to shreds.  If he had more courage, he would have cut his own heart out… if he could find it.
    Bari dragged himself wearily from the floor, thinking of what he had to do next.  Colonel McGuffy had successfully replaced the palace guard assigned to watch over his grandfather with his own men.  The Colonel was just waiting for him to give the word.  Give the word!  The word!  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was within God, and the Word was God.   One of the few scriptures that he had learned from Joey came to his mind as he approached the oven.  He would have to make sure that nothing remained of the child.  Nothing that would betray what he had done here today.  He unfastened the bars on the heavy door and swung it outward.  The hinges grated and a strange smell filled the air.  The residual heat struck him in the face and took his breath away.  Very fine particles of ash drifted out of the interior and he fanned the air with one hand.  It was horrible.  These ashes had once been a living creature.  It was sacrilege to breathe them in.  He held his breath.
    He waited for the ashes to float away and then took a deep breath before looking inside the furnace.  At first, he did not realize what he was looking at.  The oven was a state-of-the-art, self-cleaning device that was usually used to bake the various concoctions and alchemical experiments made by the people who lived, or had once lived in the palace, who dabbled in such things.  Omar had delved into the art from time to time, Jozsef Daniel had come here before he had been taken by the Ancient Evil, Lemarik had borrowed it once or twice and he, himself, had played about a bit in the lab when he’d first come here as Emperor.  For the most part, the servants had used it to dispose of the trash after the war had changed everything and shut down the city services for a while.  When set on high, there was practically nothing that could not be incinerated to oblivion by the intense heat.  A vent system attached to a chimney on the roof dispersed what little particulate matter that escaped the heat into the air in an almost invisible trail of thin, blue smoke.  The thing was so very efficient that it did not even have a clean-out chute or access for cleaning. 
    Bari squinted into the wavy, hot air within the furnace and blinked slowly.  A small rounded object about the size of small cantaloupe lay on the stone floor of the oven.  It was glowing with an orange light.  It took several seconds for him to realize this object was exactly where he had carelessly thrown the baby into the oven.  He drew in a sharp breath and then stumbled across the lab to the wall where various metal tools and utensils hung on pegs and hooks. 
    The Emperor grabbed a pair of long-handled tongs from the wall and rushed back to the oven.  He almost