Mania and the Executioner

by A. L. Bridges

  We walk out of the gate where Sara is waiting for us with the car. I slide into the back passenger side while keeping Cheza on my lap. Natasha sits behind Sara and gives me this look that is similar to the look girls get when they watch several puppies playing together. We drive home with Sara shooting me amused looks in the rearview mirror. Cheza is still asleep so I carry her in the house.

  “Natasha, I prepared a spare bedroom while you three were in Hawaii.” Sara asks.

  “Thank you, Sara!” Natasha says.

  “Wait, what’s going on?” I ask.

  “As liaison, Natasha will be staying with us in the spare bedroom.” Sara explains

  “Are you talking about Uncle Eric’s room?” I ask.

  “No, I’m talking about the other guest bedroom. You know, the one that is in front of you when you walk down the hall to either Tia’s or my room?” Sara says.

  “That’s a bedroom!? I always thought that was a closet!” I exclaim.

  “Well, it doesn’t have windows or its own bathroom but it is still big enough to hold a bed.” Sara says. I don’t understand how I could have not known that we had a guest bedroom since Cheza came and occupied the old one. I decide to not think about it and I carry Cheza to her room instead.

  “*Sigh* You just had to be wearing jeans, didn’t you Cheza?” I say as I uncomfortably unbutton her jeans.

  “That’s good enough Cole. I just wanted to see how far you were willing to go for me.” Cheza says quietly as she plays with a strand of her hair and keeps her eyes away from me, looking slightly embarrassed.

  That’s so cute that it’s totally unfair. I have this sudden urge to just rip her pants off and throw my head in between her thighs…

  “You can if you want to, Cole.” Cheza whispers to me. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind…”

  “I…uh…I…I!” I stammer while slowly unzipping her pants, my body acting already while my mind tries to catch up. I know I don’t want my first time with her to be like this but I’m having a lot of trouble holding myself back. Then, god answers my prayers…well, goddess.

  “HEY COLE! I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE BASEMENT!” Tia shouts.

  “COMING!” I shout back.

  “This will have to wait for another, better time.” I tell Cheza and give her a parting kiss before running out of her room. I sprint down the basement steps and stop in front of Tia, putting my hands on my knees and breathing heavily, but not because of the run.

  “Thank you.” I say to Tia.

  “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Tia says while beaming at me.

  “We should make a game plan for that later though.” Tia whispers. I’m not looking forward to that awkward discussion but it seems like a good idea.

  “Sure. Anyway, what did you need my help with?” I ask.

  “We need to pick out Chezarei’s weapon!” Tia exclaims.

  “Why would she need a weapon?” I ask, worried about what Tia has planned for her training.

  “She needs to learn to fight Cole—” Tia says before I interrupt.

  “No, she doesn’t because I will be doing the fighting for her.” I tell her.

  “And what if she falls into a situation where you can’t get there in time Cole? How is she supposed to defend herself?” Tia says. I don’t like it but she has a point. “I’m guessing that she will work well with two short swords like the kukri blades, what do you think?”

  “I agree.” I say, thinking of all the times that having two swords would have been advantageous for defense.

  “Okay, let’s get started with her training tomorrow. I’m going to need your help for this Cole.” Tia tells me and something about her tone makes me think that I’m not going to like this.

  …

  [May 23rd]

  The next morning, Tia comes into my room and wakes me up. “Cole, wake up and get dressed in tight fitting shorts and a tank top. Then go wake up Chezarei and tell her to wear tight fitting clothing, like yoga pants and a tank top or something. Oh, and bring your Sic blades.” I do as she says and I go to wake Cheza.

  “Cheza, wake up Cheza. It’s time to start your training.” I say to her softly while touching her side and gently shaking her.

  “Hehe Cole, stop it! That tickles! I can’t go again right now, you need to let me rest!” Cheza says while half asleep. Her eyes flutter open and she screeches “COLE!?” in dolphin as I get a flash of a vividly erotic dream. I guess those involuntary images get sent both ways.

  “Yup…” I say while not looking at her. “Anyway, you are starting training today so Tia says to dress in tight fitting clothing like yoga pants and a tank top or something.”

  “O-okay…I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She says quietly while also not looking at me.

  The embarrassment on her face is blatant enough for me to notice it with my peripheral vision. I go to my room, grab my two short Sic blades and my normal Sic blade, and then I head for the basement. Tia is already there, waiting with a kukri blade in each hand.

  “Alright, so why did you ask me to bring my Sic blades?” I ask.

  “You’ll see.” Tia says simply.

  We wait for about ten minutes, when Cheza comes down the stairs wearing a grey tank top and black spandex shorts.

  “Alright, now that we are all here; Cole, go and cut Chezarei’s wrist open with one of your Sic blades and drain about a liter of her blood into that bucket. You will then follow up by transfusing a liter of your blood into her.” Tia explains. I don’t like the idea of hurting Cheza, but Tia most likely has a reason for what she is asking.

  We walk over to the bench and we sit down next to the bucket. I grab the short Sic blade and Cheza rests her right hand in my left. I whisper, “I’m sorry Cheza,” as I drag the blade across her wrist; however, nothing happens. Tia strides over carrying my other short Sic blade and swings it at Cheza’s left arm. The blade doesn’t do that cool gel snake thing that it did when Tia tried that on me, but it doesn’t cut Cheza.

  “That’s what I thought.” Tia says before she takes out her combat knife and quickly slices across Cheza wrist. This one hurts her, and I can feel it. I’m about to get angry and yell at Tia when Cheza squeezes my hand.

  “It’s alright Cole.” Cheza says calmly. Her wrist closes up with my blood a few seconds later. Tia flips the knife over in her hand and hands me it hilt first. I’m tempted to grab the hilt and stick her with the knife until Cheza opens our connection.

  “No.” Is all Cheza says before closing our link.

  I grab the knife and reopen the wound while telling my blood to leave the wound open for the time being. This time it stays open. I feel Cheza’s head rest on my left shoulder during the drain, but I keep going, knowing that she is still alright. After about a liter of blood is drained, I slice my left wrist open and I turn our hands so that my wrist is on top of hers. Cheza looks really pale and dizzy, meaning that she is anemic and I need to get my blood into her as quickly as is safely possible. Something occurs to me that I didn’t consider the last time I gave her my blood.

  “Airi, can you make sure the blood is clean; so no hormones or anything like that?” I ask.

  (That won’t be an issue, Master. Your blood will automatically adjust to her chemical balance with no ill effects to Chezarei)

  Good, that’s one less thing to worry about. After I finish, Cheza has a bit more color in her cheeks but she still looks a little pale and rather sleepy. I seal both of our wounds and scoop Cheza up.

  “We are taking a break.” I sternly tell Tia as I carry Cheza up the stairs with her weakly hanging on to my neck.

  “Sara, can you please get Cheza something to eat and drink?” I call out to her as I sit down on the couch with Cheza lying on top of me, her back being propped up by the arm rest.

  “Airi, are you able to give me the status of Cheza like you did with me when we first spoke?”

  (Chezarei has 4.9 Liters at capacity, 4.8 Liters currently. She has 1.8 Liters of your blo
od inside her; however, this does not make her resilient to blood loss like you are. She will be in mortal peril if she loses 2 Liters. She has some accelerated healing abilities, as you have noticed. In all likelihood, your previous hypothesis is correct and she only has a single Drive that is similar to yours)

  “So Tia just made me drain her half way to death!?” I scream in my mind. I feel Cheza grab my hand meekly as I look over to see her smiling at me. Sara walks in holding a sandwich and a glass of juice.

  “What happened?” Sara asks as she sets the plate and glass on the table.

  “TIA JUST TRICKED ME INTO DRAINING CHEZA HALFWAY TO DEATH!” I shout startling Sara while Cheza calmly moves to sit up.

  “What!? How did she trick you?” Sara asks.

  “Okay so maybe tricked isn’t the right word…she used my own ignorance to get me to drain Cheza halfway to death!” I exclaim.

  “Explain.” Sara says so I tell her of the events.

  “Why would you agree to drain someone of a liter of blood!?” Sara questions.

  “Because I didn’t think it was that much! I use up almost twice that just making the Mu-cutter!” I say.

  “Mu-cutter?” Sara inquires, looking puzzled.

  “Tia hasn’t told you anything has she?” I ask. Sara shakes her head so I tell her what I told Tia at the hotel, about my fight with Illapa.

  “That is totally awesome!” Sara says with her eyes bright like a child’s when they see Santa at the mall. “And the name totally makes sense now! Can you show it to me!?”

  “I will sometime, but it uses up 1.8 Liters of blood and I’m already a liter low.” I reply

  “Yeah and he needs to be conscious for the next part of Chezarei’s training.” Tia says while coming up the steps.

  “It had better not include Cheza losing more blood!” I pointedly exclaim.

  “Nope, or at least not as long as you are the instructor.” Tia says.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “Next we are doing sword training!” Tia exclaims.

  Chapter 8: That was all me…

  Cheza finishes her sandwich and we all head down into the basement.

  “Okay Cole, you will be using your usual Sic blade; Chezarei, I want you using the two smaller Sic blades.” Tia says.

  “Why am I teaching her dual bladed fighting, especially with only one blade?” I ask.

  “Chezarei, let me see one of those for a moment.” Tia says while pointing to the Sic blades. Cheza hands one to her and Tia proceeds to stab Cheza with it, only to have the blade melt in her hand and reform in Cheza’s, just like it would have if Tia had stabbed me.

  “That’s why.” Tia says. That gives me an idea.

  “Here Tia, try that again using my sword.” I tell her. She tries again, but this time, since there is no open hand to go to, the blade just drops to the floor. I guess that won’t work.

  “Wait, it didn’t do that before! So why did you want me to give her a liter of my blood? You could have trained her before then!” I exclaim.

  “Because, I’m thinking that her power will come out easier with more of your blood. Also, we need to make it so she can use your blood to speed up, just like we did with you.” Tia explains.

  Okay, that does make sense; it took me a long time to train my blood to subconsciously reinforce my muscles in various ways. I probably would have died a handful of times if I had to think every single time I needed to speed up. Wait a second…train my blood.

  “Cheza, think about running as fast as you did back in Hawaii, and run to the other wall.” I say with a kind of ‘eureka!’ smile on my face. Cheza looks confused and tries running but she goes normal speed.

  “Visualize it!” I shout after her, which turns out was a mistake, because it makes her close her eyes. Of course, then she speeds up, headed straight for a wall with her eyes closed. Thankfully, I’m still a lot faster than her so I’m able to get in front of her before she reaches the wall. Instead of running into the wall herself, she tackles me into it.

  “Good job Cheza!” Ouch, that hurt…damn concrete walls are out to get me! Cheza looks up from my chest with a slightly confused look on her face.

  “Oh! Sorry Cole!” Cheza exclaims when she realizes what happened.

  “It’s alright, I’m fine!” I tell her.

  “Cole, how did you know that would happen?” Tia asks while standing over us.

  “It just clicked in my head when I thought about how much we trained and how I referred to it as ‘training my blood’. Then I remembered our discussion earlier about how Airi might be a personification of my blood, so I thought that there may be a possibility of my blood already knowing what to do because Cheza can hear Airi.” I explain.

  “Alright, that makes things easier; well, let’s start training. Cole, use your two Sic blades. Chezarei, you will be using the kukri blades.” Tia says while walking away.

  “What!? I can’t do that Tia! What if I hurt Cole?” Cheza shouts while jumping to her feet.

  “So what? It’s not like he’ll be hurt for a long time! Remember how much I would hack him up while I was training him? The only reason we are going about it this way is because I don’t want Cole to cut off something I need!”

  ‘Ouch…that really hurt’ I think as my head recoils down and to the right as if I had just been slapped. I feel my chest and throat constrict; my stomach feels like a five year old turned it into a butterfly cage. Out of my peripheral vision, I watch Cheza storm in front of Tia and proceed to slap her with tears in her eyes. Before Tia can respond, Cheza just points in my direction.

  “Shit! I’m sorry Cole; it was just a stupid, careless joke! I don’t truly think you would hurt me!” Tia says.

  “It’s alright. Let’s get to work!” I say while standing up, feeling like I’m using only five percent of my lung capacity.

  “No…we’re done for today.” Cheza quietly says.

  “Come now Chezarei; you heard what Cole just said.” Tia says.

  “YEAH, I DID! BUT YOU DIDN’T JUST FEEL HIM TIA!” Cheza screams, grabs my hand, and pulls me up the stairs and into my room before I can protest. She slams my door shut behind us and pushes me onto my bed (which is much comfier with the new, not-splattered-with-vampire-brains mattress). I scoot up so my head is on my pillow while Cheza throws herself into my left side. I wrap my left arm around her and set my hand on her hip as I use my right hand to brush away a tear that was rolling from her left eye and onto her nose.

  “I’m fine Cheza,” I tell her trying to sound as convincing as possible and hoping my emotions follow suit.

  “No, you aren’t Cole. It’s no use trying to lie to me when I can feel how badly that hurt you…” Cheza says while turning her face down towards my shirt so I wouldn’t see her crying.

  “You feel so empty…it hurts me to be connected with you when you feel like this. I want to fill this void but I don’t know—” Cheza says, choking up while muffled by my dampened shirt. After she breathes a few times, she turns her head and looks up at me. “Tell me what I can do to make you stop feeling so hollow…”

  I bend my head down and kiss her forehead. “Just you laying here is enough.” I say and then I shut my eyes for a while.

  …

  A long while apparently because when I wake up, it’s dark outside and Cheza is no longer beside me. It feels kind of cold…I get out of bed and walk into the kitchen, only to find that no one is home. I hear a voice coming from down Sara and Tia’s hall.

  “Yes…According to the reports, it sounds like he is starting to get pleasure from it…Yes, I think that it’s possibly that he’s being influenced…” Sara says. I try to pick up the voice of the other person, but no matter how hard I push, I can’t hear the speaker of the phone.

  “They seem closer now…Yes…Yes, it does seem that he finally came to his senses…I think that influence is also a possibility in this as well…No, it sounds like they are headed to Greenland next…” My mind flashes back to The Kahala hotel
. How had the were-sharks and/or Kamohoali’i known where we were? Oh Sara, don’t tell me that you…I need to find out who she is talking to!

  (Knives on the rack. Ask while holding it to her neck to frighten the truth from her)

  I grab a medium sized chef’s knife from the magnetic rack on the wall and walk silently down the hall.

  “I agree; it still isn’t time yet…”

  I’ll wait until she gets off of the phone, and I’ll knock on her door.

  “Yes, I’ll keep you updated…”

  When she opens the door, I’ll quickly pull the blade up to the left side of her neck.

  “Alright, the others will be home soon and Cole will be awake…”

  I’ll press the blade in hard enough to draw blood to exemplify my seriousness.

  “I really have to go start dinner now…”

  Once I have the information that I need, I’ll quickly slice through her jugular.

  “Okay…I love you too, bye.” Sara says and ends the call as I hear my phone start to ring in my bedroom.

  What was I just about to do? Was I going to kill Sara? Did I really just imagine myself sliding this knife through Sara’s throat? I imagine her horrified expression, the same one she had when she saw what I did to Illapa’s vampires, permanently frozen on her face with her death.

  The gravity of what I almost did hits me and I take off in a full speed sprint to my bathroom. I throw the door open, go past the cabinet sink on the right, and turn right while dropping to my knees. I’m able to open the toilet seat just as vomit flies from my mouth while the knife clatters on the tile floor. About a minute later, I fall backwards over my feet, my head and shoulders slamming into the wall. I rest my left arm on my propped up left knee while grabbing both of my temples with my right hand as my body starts to go numb.

  I hear the front door get thrown open as someone runs inside the house, followed by footsteps pounding against the tile in the hallway. Cheza comes around the corner and drops to my side as she grabs my head and pulls me into her chest.