“Wait, wait, wait… I think you’re forgetting something.” Jason suggests.
“No, I’m not.” Byron replies while removing his jacket.
“Yes, you are.” Jason says.
“No, I don’t believe I am.” Byron replies.
“Where’s your monologue?” Jason asks.
“I’m not doing one.” Byron says.
“What!? You can’t do that! Can you do that?” Jason asks before turning to me. “Can he do that?”
“Of course I can!” Byron replies.
“What about you? Do you feel like telling us what in the hell is going on?” I ask Hades.
“Uh… no, I don’t think I do.” Hades replies.
“Oh come on, you guys! This is bullshit!” Jason exclaims.
“Well, how about you answer one question.” I suggest.
“Fine.” Hades compromises.
“Was Byron in on this the whole time? Here for every meeting and knows everything about it? What I’m basically asking is whether or not Byron befriended us and screwed us over, or if he was screwing us over while befriending us.” I clarify.
“He was in on it the entire time.” Hades says with a satisfied smile.
“Really man? We disposed of a dead hooker together! That was a bonding experience!” I exclaim and sigh.
“Well, don’t kill him and I’ll get us our answers once I kill the shit out of Hades. Oh, and take the Diamond swords; they’ll be ineffective against Hades anyway.” I tell Jason.
“Got it, bro.” Jason replies, drops the P90, and pulls the Diamond swords from my back.
I slice open my right wrist with my ring as Byron stabs himself in the neck with the pen, causing his aura to turn a shade of bronze; well that’s new.
“Look out, Jason! Byron has a different strain of the enhancement and this one seems much stronger.” I warn Jason as he sprints toward Byron.
Byron runs over to the back right corner and grabs a massive claymore that is five feet long and probably forty pounds of steel, but he still manages to swing it rather fast as he meets Jason. Jason gets both Diamond swords up in time to block, but the sheer force of the claymore is enough to send him flying back about fifty feet; Jason hits the ground and slides to a stop near my feet.
“You alright?” I ask.
“Surprisingly, yes. Your armor is freaking amazing!” Jason replies.
“Might I suggest a less direct approach? While my armor will protect against the edge of the claymore, it doesn’t do as great against blunt weapon damage with that much force.” I inform him.
“Right.” Jason says and hops to his feet. I look back and notice that Hades is missing.
“Where’s Hades?” I ask.
“He went down that way a couple of seconds ago.” Jason says while gesturing towards an opening in the left wall.
“Thanks. Good luck, bro!” I exclaim and run towards the opening as my Mu-cutter completes.
As I reach the opening, I see a staircase that leads down. The spiraling staircase keeps going down for what seems like an incredibly long time; like a ‘why not just install an elevator at this point?’ long time. I consider slowing down in case Hades is lying in wait to spring a trap, but I realize that it’s unlikely because fighting in such tight quarters would put him at a disadvantage, so I keep going. The staircase lights up when I reach the bottom and see that it has led me down to the beach. The light of the moon illuminates the fifty feet of sand to my right that leads to Hades and his relaxed posture with a wicked-looking black dagger in his right hand: the same dagger from my dreams.
“So what now, Feros? A moonlit duel on the beach?” Hades shouts.
“I was thinking I’d just kill you so I can go get married.” I reply as flash forward and lunge at him, Mu-cutter drawn back.
Hades calmly raised the dagger and points it at me; I hope he doesn’t think that I’m just going to impale myself on that… actually, I’m on a committed path since I have no way to change direction now that I’m airborne so I will hit the dagger, but it probably won’t pierce my suit.
Hades’s answer: Nope. A blast of water and electricity hits me in the chest and sends me flying into the water, skipping along its surface before dropping below it. The water starts churning and suddenly sucks me beneath the surface; this fucker shot me into a whirlpool! As a side note, it looks like Ganesha made the right choice when making my phone waterproof…
Little does Hades know, this actually gives me the advantage since I’m less than one hundred meters away, so I don’t have a conceivable way out of this. Now I can just port behind him, surprise him, and quickly finish this. I reach back and touch my triskele, hoping that he hasn’t moved from that spot.
I port behind Hades as he slams the Void dagger through my suit and into my chest, puncturing my left lung before jumping back to distance himself. I think this whole thing might’ve been an elaborate trap, considering that I’m essentially paralyzed with this dagger in my chest. Huh, that’s funny… I don’t really feel all that paralyzed.
“What? You thought I wouldn’t know about your short ranged porting? Even if Apollo hadn’t told everyone, I still already knew about it. I knew right after you used it against Veles and Perun thanks to a certain… acquaintance.” Hades explains while slowly walking toward me, so I feign paralysis; no need to ruin the surprise.
“I suppose I should thank you… after all, without you, I wouldn’t have been able to get away with killing Juno and Neptune. There are a few who still doubt your guilt, but after I claim that you attacked me and I was forced to kill you, who will argue?” Hades rhetorically asks, stopping just outside of my range.
“What is taking this thing so long!?” Hades asks in an exasperated fashion.
“It’s because…” I mumble through gritted teeth, trying to restrain the consequences of porting short distances.
“What? I couldn’t make that out.” Hades says and gets closer.
“It’s because…” I repeat.
“What?” Hades asks and steps right up to me.
“It’s because I’m not paralyzed.” I whisper and bring the Mu-cutter through his knees.
“AUGH!” Hades screams as I vomit blood.
I wonder why I can’t stop that blood from flowing? I always know that it’s coming, so why can’t I keep it in?
(Consider it a sacrifice for short ranged porting; the act rearranges your organs and destroys the element in some of your blood that allows you to control it, so it is expelled out of your body as a byproduct)
I still don’t really get it, but I have a speech to make and a god to kill.
“What? You thought a dagger made of the Void would work on me!? Bitch, I am the Void! I have two limbs made of the stuff and you thought that a weapon made of it would have the same effect on me as it does on gods!?” I shout as I step over him and raise my Mu-cutter.
“Just wait a moment, Feros! Don’t do anything rash! You don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Greek/Roman pantheon as well, do you!?” Hades screams.
Shit… he has a point. Hades’s face contorts to a smug smile when he sees that he has me beat.
(Fret not, Master. Simply do to him as you did unto Horus)
“But I’d still be killing him, which will destroy the pantheon!”
(Trust me)
“Ha ha ha… do you think I give a shit about killing off the pantheon?” I ask and Hades’s eyes go wide as horror strikes his face.
I bring the Mu-cutter up through each of his arms before slicing his chest open as Hades screams. I place my blackened left hand on the golden mass in Hades’s chest and pray that Airi knows what she’s doing. The golden mass turns into black smoke and melts the inside of Hades’s chest cavity before getting sucked into my arm. I sit in the sand and wait for a few moments for signs that the world is ending… but nothing happens.
“Can I just pull this thing out?” I ask as I remember the dagger sticking out of my chest.
(Yes)
I pull the dagger out with my left hand, stopping the light flow of blood running down my chest.
“What should I do with it?”
(Smash it against the rock wall)
Trusting Airi’s judgment, I do as she says. I slam the dagger against the rock wall repeatedly, which becomes increasingly difficult with only one lung. The Void dagger finally breaks like glass and all of the shards stick into my blackened left hand. An intense burning sensation in my left arm brings me to my knees as the shards seem to melt into my hand.
“AHHH!” I scream in a panic as the burning sensation envelopes my body.
This pain is so intense; I’d give anything for it to stop… anything to dowse the flames… I suddenly feel very wet. I open my eyes and see that a bubble of water is swirling around me. I quickly hold my breath, only to realize that I didn’t need to before. Inhale… Holy shit! I can breathe underwater! The pain fades while I’m in awe; I gesture away with my left hand, and the water bubble flows off of me, back to the ocean.
This is pretty fucking sweet! I hold my left hand out and think of the electric-hydro cannon that Hades hit me with. A purple lightning bolt appears on the back of my left hand as a torrent of water and electricity shoots out of my palm like a fire hose. That’s the same bolt that was on Jupiter’s hand when I first met him! So the water control comes from Neptune? I suppose that makes sense… wasn’t Neptune/Poseidon the god of earthquakes too? I lightly stomp the sand with my right leg and I feel the ground softly rumble; okay, that’s enough of that! Don’t want to accidentally cause a tsunami.
(Focus, Master! Jason is still fighting)
Right! I grab Hades’s husk and sprint up the stairs, my wet jeans feeling really heavy and chaffing my skin. I touch my jeans with my left hand and imagine them being dry as the water just flows out of the fabric. I reach the top to find a broken and beaten Jason on the right wall, roughly thirty feet from the girls, with Byron holding the claymore over his head.
“I’m sorry I have to do this, Jason.” Byron says right before a blast of water forces his body to go flying into the back wall.
While dropping Hades’s husk, I flash forward, cover Byron’s mouth with my left hand, and pump my blood down his throat, which isn’t hard because he starts lapping at my hand like a cat once my blood hit his tongue, unable to help himself. I knock him out before passing out beside him.
It’s time to get some answers.
****
Chapter 26: Explanations
The scan skips the ‘floating through darkness’ part and goes straight to Byron’s memories. I find that I am/ Byron is sitting in a dark room, next to a lit wood fireplace.
“Damn that azeman bitch!” Byron exclaims, his voice emanating from my throat.
“First she tries to take power away from me by using Feros to hold my court hostage, and then she survives my assassination attempt! Something needs to be done about this!” Byron says before taking a drink of scotch from a crystal glass that he holds in front of his face, watching the dancing fire light reflect off of it as he thinks.
“Indeed, something does need to be done.” A familiar voice says from the corner of the room.
“Who’s there!?” Byron demands.
“A friend.” Jack Evari says as he steps out of the shadows, wearing an all-black suit with a maroon tie.
“Who are you!? How did you get in here!?” Byron frantically asks.
“That is unimportant… what is important, is eliminating the Azeman Queen.” Jack Evari states.
“And how do you propose I go about that?” Byron asks in a curious, but cautious, fashion.
“When is the best time to wage a war? When the leader is mentally and emotionally compromised. So the question becomes, how can you mentally and emotionally compromise someone? By taking away something that is dear to them… someone that is dear to them.” Jack Evari answers.
“You are suggesting that I kill the Duchess Reyna before attacking the Azeman Queen.” Byron clarifies.
“Yes, but you cannot kill her outright; that only accomplishes the fueling of rage, giving a cause to fight. No, you must take away the cause for fighting, take away a mother’s cause for living, by taking away the Duchess Reyna in a way that doesn’t implicate yourself.” Jack Evari replies.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Byron inquires, somewhat enthralled by this mysterious man.
“All in due time… the first thing you must do is get yourself closer to the Queen by getting yourself closer to Feros. Prince Jason is getting married to Duchess Reyna; you should offer to plan his bachelor party by way of apology for the assassination plot that you ‘allowed to slip by unnoticed’.” Jack Evari says while using air quotes.
“Go to Niflheim’s palace tomorrow; you will find both the Azeman Queen and Prince Jason there. Once that meeting is complete, meet me in San Francisco at 2pm; the Golden Gate will take you directly there. I’ll meet you at the nearby Fisherman’s Wharf.” Jack Evari finishes and turns back towards the shadows.
“Wait, how should I address you?” Byron asks; Jack Evari turns around with a beaming grin.
“Just call me Jack… Jack Evari.” Jack says and steps backwards into the shadows, his white teeth reflecting the fire light before disappearing with a coinciding blink from Byron.
The stream of memories fast forwards, past my meeting with Byron, and slows to a stop after he walks through the Golden Gate in Niflheim and appears underneath San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Byron walks along the waterfront until he comes across the giant pier that is impossible to miss, mainly because of the high decibels of noise that all of the sea lions are making. Byron walks to the end of the wharf, unable to find Jack Evari. He turns around and Jack Evari appears from the side of a booth, wearing his signature all-black suit and maroon tie.
“I apologize; another meeting of mine ran late. How did the bachelor party offer go?” Jack asks.
“They accepted.” Byron replies.
“Good; now it is your job to throw a bachelor party and become chummy with Prince Jason and Feros; Feros just lost his three year old daughter so this might be a good way to relate to him. This is all in effort to create something of a character alibi; making the very notion that you had something to do with Duchess Reyna’s demise seem asinine. The overall plan is to kidnap Duchess Reyna in a way that doesn’t appear to be a kidnapping. The way to do this is to make it look like she ran off with one Natasha Holmstrom: a friend of Feros and ex-girlfriend of the Duchess.” Jack explains.
“So we write a goodbye letter to Prince Jason, kidnap the Duchess and the ex-girlfriend, and make it look like a lesbian murder-suicide.” Byron adds.
“No, that’s not good enough. If there is no indication of their relationship advancing, the two of them suddenly running off together won’t make sense, which in turn will arouse suspicion. What we need to do is trick the family and friends into thinking that the Duchess and the other woman might be getting back together. Drugging them with Spanish Fly or another aphrodisiac would be most effective.” Jack says.
“Well a bachelorette party is most likely being planned; I can have my people keep an eye on reservations, find out what club they are going to, and bribe the bartender into dosing the two girls’ drinks with Mandy, powdered ecstasy; nature should take over from there, leading them to show their sexual proclivities towards one another.” Byron suggests.
“You are smarter than I gave you credit for. Follow through with that while I decide when the best time to take them will be. I’ll be in touch.” Jack Evari replies, rounds a corner behind a small booth, and presumably disappears.
The memories speed onward, passing by a conversation about a delivery of enhancements from Jack Evari for Byron’s vampire military, before resuming their normal playback speed a few weeks later, after the bachelor party. Byron is in the room with the fireplace, accompanied by Hades and Jack Evari.
“King Byron, this is Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Hades will be ass
isting in your plot.” Jack introduces.
“Why? What’s his motivation for helping?” Byron questions with a suspecting tone.
“It’s partially at my request; he owes me several favors after I gave him a dagger that allowed him to take total control of the Greek/Roman pantheon; and it’s partially because Prince Jason seduced Persephone whenever she was in the Underworld.” Jack explains. He’s the one that gave Hades the Void dagger!?
“Airi, do you have any thoughts on this?”
(…)
“Airi?”
(Hmm?)
“What’s up? You’ve been unusually quiet lately.”
(It’s nothing, Master…)
“I’ve discovered that Reyna and Natasha will be alone in the women’s dressing room before the wedding tomorrow. Hades will port in a camera and pay off a random person to take pictures in front of the personnel that will be guarding the hallway leading to the dressing room, and to take the subsequent beating. With the hallway momentarily unguarded, Hades will make his way into the dressing room, grab the women, drop off the goodbye letter to Jason, and port them to a house in Syracuse that he has generously loaned us. You will be waiting there to help bind the girls and hold them in the basement while Hades ports you two to the wedding to make sure that you don’t draw attention with your absence. After that, it’s just a matter of leaving a suicide pact and drowning them using Hades new powers over water.” Jack explains with a bright smirk as everything fades away.
****
I regain consciousness on the concrete floor of the basement to the sound Reyna’s sobbing as Jason holds her.
“How long have I been out?” I ask as I notice that my arm and leg are back to their regular silver color and my helmet has disengaged.
“About fifteen minutes.” Natasha somberly informs me while I look at Reyna as she cries and holds her stomach with both hands.
(You may wish to tell Reyna that the baby is perfectly healthy, courtesy of your blood. In fact, your blood is to thank for the relatively lively condition of all of them)
“REALLY!? THAT’S TERRIFIC!” I shout and everyone looks at me.
Cole's Haunting Melody (The Gods' Executioner Series) Page 23
