The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  “All right, just go with it,” I said.

  Tommy transitioned back into his Carni form. We were once again and for the last time, squared off. He and I traded punches, allowing each other to land blow after blow at our faces. I definitely took something off my punches, but Tommy was letting me have it, full on.

  “Now,” I said. I uppercut Tommy and he flew back onto his back and played it like he was completely passed out.

  I went over to him and threw him through the hole in the floor. I grabbed the ax and Tommy and Lena moved to the side as I jumped in with the ax over my head and came down with a furious chop. I slammed the ax in to the left of Tommy and Lena. It made a frightening sound that could be heard all throughout the arena. It appeared to the crowd that I had just obliterated Tommy. I rose out of the hole in my Mani looking down, as if I had just killed my friend and couldn’t stand the thought of it. The crowd chanted my name as I pasted a sick and remorseful expression on my face. As far as they were concerned, I was the victor.

  Now, it was time for phase two of my plan.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I motioned to the announcer to bring the microphone up to me. My name was being echoed throughout the arena. I motioned for the audience to be quiet.

  I looked around the arena and stared at all four corners of the audience and said, “I want every person or immortal to be out here to hear what I’m about to say. I need every fighter in the holding area to come out here!” I yelled into the microphone.

  I looked around.

  Where’s that piece of shit Romero?

  Within a minute, the entire arena was filled with members of the crowd, soldiers and fighters. I looked out to everyone and I knew what I needed to say: “Tonight, some of you spent a lot of money to watch people eliminate one another from this earth. And others of you came down here out of curiosity. And there are still others of you who had no choice. You had to be here. The bloodbath that you all witnessed was a primitive one. It was no worse than purchasing a ticket to watch Christians being eaten by lions.”

  I paused and looked out to the crowd. I looked at Romero’s soldiers and they seemed jumpy. I knew I had better say and do what I wanted to, and quickly!

  I continued my speech. “I stand before all of you tonight. Not victor of anything worth a damn. I defeated a man who fought until he was bloodied to the point of his own insanity. He was destroyed both physically and emotionally.”

  I made my voice even more serious. “If any of you are under the illusion that any fighter in this room was paid tonight or any other night, you are sadly mistaken. No matter what you have been told, no fighter has ever been paid in this arena at any given time. Each one of us is paying off a debt. And some of us have been told that our families would be killed if we didn’t fight! I was one of them!”

  Now, Romero’s men were scrambling around. Guns were drawn, I knew they wouldn’t shoot. There would be no way that Romero would give them the green light. I was more valuable to him alive than dead. There were far too many important people in the crowd. The soldiers began to spread out. They were anticipating something would go haywire and they were damn right.

  “Immortals! I am now speaking to you! You may have owed a debt to Romero, to this underground society. I’m telling you tonight, if you fought just one fight, you have paid him back in full. He is making you pay him back pennies on the dollar!”

  Now I had the attention of all the fighters. if I hadn’t already had their ears and eyes.

  I continued, “Tonight it ends! Tonight, this underground dungeon that he calls a prize arena is finished! Join me, fighters! Join me! It doesn’t matter if you’re Carni or Mani! Tonight, we fight together! They might have firepower! But we have something far greater! WE HAVE IMMORTALITY!”

  I dropped the microphone and all hell broke loose. The fighters turned on the soldiers and all-out war erupted inside the arena.

  It was the beginning of a battle for the ages. I wish I could tell the tale that it was a massacre in favor of the fighters that were being exploited. But it wasn’t. It was a massacre, nonetheless, but for both sides.

  Yes, the fighters did prevail, but not without a serious number of casualties. In less than a half hour, hundreds died in that arena. Most of millionaires and billionaires escaped out alive. No one had any beef with them. They were just bloodthirsty fans. Some didn’t make it out, and that was unfortunate.

  Mani and Carni fought aggressively alongside one another on this night. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Within minutes, we turned the arena upside down. Fires broke out and nearly every soldier died. The ones who didn’t fled like cowards. When all was said and done, only one hundred and twenty Mani and Carni survived. We lost more than half our men.

  In the end, the only casualty that mattered to me was Romero’s life. He was going to pay for all seven of his deadly sins and whatever other ones he had committed in his lifetime.

  He had made it out to his helicopter. He was about five miles just outside the compound, flying the helicopter by himself.

  I got word that he had taken off out of there. I had never appreciated being able to fly more than I did at this moment. I took off in the direction of the helicopter and I caught up to him shortly.

  He was zigzagging the chopper across the sky, trying to avoid me, but he knew his fate. I flew above the helicopter and looked him in the eye from outside the window. I wanted him to see my face. I went to the open doorway of the copter and grabbed him and ripped him from his seat. I held him in my arms, 5,000 feet in the air. Below, the chopper spun wildly out of control. A moment later, it exploded in a black and orange fireball.

  “Please, Josiah. Spare me! At least let me become one of you. Please don’t let me die,” he screamed, as he dangled in the sky.

  “Romero, you’re the worst human being—or immortal for that matter—that I have known. You don’t deserve to live your life as either.” With that, I dropped him and watched as he fell to the ground below. It was finished.

  I flew back to his compound. By this point, the entire compound was set on fire, Waco style.

  To the left of the compound, the remaining fighters stood in an open field, watching the place blaze up. I flew over and landed in front of them.

  The one hundred and twenty Carni and Mani who stood in front of me no longer had any direction or purpose. I was about to give it to them.

  As Romero’s compound went up in flames behind me, I stood in front of these amazing warriors who had fought for something tonight that was as great as any human or immortal could ever fight for. Tonight, they fought for their freedom.

  “Warriors!” I yelled to the men. “Tonight, you have proven that you could stand and fight alongside enemies. Tonight, I ask you to join me in one more battle, a battle greater than even your freedom, a battle that will free all of us from the bondage of hate. Will you join me against an enemy even worse than the man we defeated tonight?”

  “We’ll follow you anywhere, Josiah,” a Carni man yelled out.

  “So will we!” a Mani man yelled, too.

  I looked around the group. These were the toughest men in the world and they were now on my side.

  I finally had my army.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Before we went home, I went to the Deity to see if Lena and Tommy had made it there okay.

  When I arrived there, I went down into the bunker myself. I made my way to the back room where I had previously met the Deity. Both Tommy and Lena were lying on the floor being cared for by the Deity and some children.

  Tommy looked up at me and smiled. The children had done a pretty good job cleaning him up.

  “You did good tonight, Tommy,” I said.

  He nodded his head and smiled. “We good?”

  “We’re good,” I said. “Romero won’t be exploiting any more immortals. Romero won’t be doing much of anything.”

  I looked at Lena and she seemed to be doing okay. The children were giving her food an
d water.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Lena.

  “Yes, I am,” she reached her arms out to me.

  I knelt down and hugged her. “I am so sorry that this happened to you,” I said.

  “Josiah, it had to happen,” Lena said. “Everything had to happen for all things to come to pass.”

  I looked over at the Deity and said, “She is starting to sound like you.”

  The Deity smiled and said, “You have an amazing woman, Josiah.”

  “I know I do.” I looked over at Tommy and said, “I have an amazing best friend, too.”

  “Josiah,” the Deity said. “You’re going to need to take Lena back and get ready. You will have more challenges to come, not to mention a couple of bundles of joy.”

  I smiled. “I can’t wait.” I sat down in between Tommy and Lena and just collapsed.

  “Are you okay?” Lena asked.

  “Yeah, Josiah,” Tommy said. “What about you?”

  “I’m great, guys.” I paused and then said, “Oh, by the way. We are going to have a few more houseguests, one hundred and twenty to be exact.”

  They both looked at me, surprised.

  I leaned back on the ground of the bunker and knew from this moment on, my destiny and my family were one. I was forever going to live by one strict code to defeat Krull: That strict code was: ‘One Love.’

  The End

  To be continued in:

  One Love

  Return to the Table of Contents

  ONE LOVE

  by

  H.T. Night

  Immortal Warriors #11

  One Love

  Published by H.T. Night

  Copyright © 2012 by H.T. Night

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Eve Paludan. Her attention to detail and amazing gifts mean more to me than I can express. She is a very talented writer and editor, and I am very fortunate to know her.

  One Love

  Chapter One

  “I can’t believe we’re back in Mexico, Josiah,” Tommy said, pain and anguish in his voice.

  “Where else would we go for wine, women, and song?”

  He stopped me in my tracks and continued, “I’m being serious, bro. How can you justify bringing me back here?”

  “I feel terrible putting you through this—it’s the last place I ever wanted to bring you back to—but I desperately need your help. I have promises to keep, promises that I made to a dear friend.”

  “Those are your promises to the Deity, not mine.”

  I looked at him sharply. “Hey!”

  Tommy said, “Sorry, it’s just hard to accept that this is what we’ve come to, Josiah. This day is going to be... agony.”

  “I know, Tommy, but a lot of things rest on our ability and willingness to give all of ourselves. This thing is bigger than just the two of us. It is for the many.”

  We looked up at the compound and began our walk up the long dirt road. It would just not do to arrive in a vehicle and would be too much explaining if I flew and carried Tommy in broad daylight.

  “I wonder if this is what it feels like when the guard shouts, ‘Dead man walking!’” Tommy said, shaking his head.

  “Nonetheless, Tom, we need to succeed today, no matter how hard the task in front of us is going to be.” I looked on as we continued toward the compound and began planning in my head what we were going to do. I wanted to take them by surprise. And to be honest, they were going to be an extremely rough group.

  “This is too much, Josiah! I’ll fight for you, but how could you even ask me to—”

  I looked at my best friend and stated the obvious. “I’m sorry. I promise that after you do me this last favor, I’ll never ask you to do anything for me again.”

  “You promise? I’m going to hold you to that,” Tommy stated, knowing full well that was never going to happen.

  I smiled and said, “Okay, I won’t ask for any more favors for the remainder of the year.”

  “Josiah, in two weeks, the year will be over.”

  “Then you should have an exceptionally pleasant Christmas and New Years. Anyhow, it has been seven months since you’ve been here, so try to keep it together.”

  “I know, but still. This is asking a lot of me, Josiah. You know how I feel about going through something like this.”

  “I know, man. I’ll make it up to you. If we make it out alive, I promise to buy you an enormous steak back in Victorville.”

  “I want an Awesome Blossom, too.”

  “You got it, Tom. You can smother those onion strings in as much ketchup and mustard as you like.”

  I felt immensely hot as I approached the front door to the compound. “Damn, I feel itchy.”

  “Why wouldn’t you? Look at you!” Tommy said, annoyed at the sight of me. “You look freaking ridiculous!”

  “You don’t look any better. As a matter of fact, hold on. Let’s record this moment for posterity.” I took my phone out of my pocket and turned it around to take our photo.

  “You’re now documenting this horror show?” Tommy scolded. “You better not blackmail me with this photo.”

  I snapped the picture.

  “Let me see that,” Tommy said.

  I turned around my phone to show Tommy the photo on it. There we were... my best friend and me looking miserable and truly, the picture of ridiculousness. Tommy was dressed in a bright green elf suit—complete with green leotards, green slippers with turned-up toes, a tunic that came only to his hips and a jingle bell at the end of his silly red-and-green striped hat. I was Santa Claus, complete with fake itchy white beard and a red fake fur suit that was much too hot and itchy for Mexico. The boots with the buckles were cool, though. I would wear them again. They were very “street.”

  I opened the door, and all the kids in the school gym looked at us and yelled, “Santa Claus!”

  I looked to my left, and there was the Deity grinning from ear to ear. “You’re in for it, Santa Claus.”

  “Don’t I know it.” It was time to plunge into the task.

  “Feliz Navidad. Ho, ho, ho!” I bellowed, and the impoverished kids screamed shrilly with excitement. I walked up to the children with my giant bag full of gifts that I had lugged all the way from the Victorville Super Walmart, where Tommy and I had gone crazy in the store, filling cart after cart with cool stuff. Happy pandemonium unfolded with the opening of that Santa bag. I was almost flattened by their joy and enthusiasm as they rushed me as a group, climbed all over me, hugged me, and touched my hands and pulled hard on my fake, glued-on white beard like I was Santa himself. Tommy was likewise attacked.

  It was a long and extremely uncomfortable evening, with both Tommy and me getting itchier and hotter by the minute and a hundred or so kids running around screaming in glee, clutching their gifts and wound up by extreme sugar consumption and the bounty of Christmas loot, the likes of which they had never experienced.

  I grinned, watching their unfettered joy, with a pang of nostalgia in my heart for my parents. They were not alive to enjoy Christmas with my own children. I thought I’d better get used to kids because Lena was about to burst any day now, with our twins. Playing Santa should be good practice, at least to get used to the running and screaming. I was about to become the head of a household of an instant family of four. Was I daunted? Oh, hell yes, I was daunted. Not completely prepared for either event, I was almost as scared of becoming a father to two baby immortals as I was of fighting Krull.

  Chapter Two

  After the Santa Claus gig in Mexico, Tommy and I returned to Victorville in the early morning hours.

  Once there, I removed the itchy beard, glue, and costume and went back into my comfy Josiah clothes: black jeans and black T-shirt. Tommy lumbered off to bed after wolfing down about three pounds of cold roast beef from the fridge, and I decided to check on my men, who were staying in bunkers right outside our house.

  The bunkers that we built were wor
ld class, to say the least. I was pretty sure we were breaking every building code in the books with our mega man cave, one that we created right smack in the middle of Victorville. We had brought in one of the most prolific contractors and construction units to illegally build our underground playground to top-of-the-line specs for a fortress that would withstand even a nuclear attack.

  Our bunkers had it all. We had enough room to house 800 Mani in sublime comfort. That was ridiculous in itself. We also had a full-featured large gym and workout facility, even a double Olympic-sized heated lap pool with twenty lanes. Not to mention a game room that could compete with Dave & Buster’s, complete with dartboards and pool tables.

  I made my way down into the man cave of all man caves, one for the ages. We currently had 200 Mani and Carni men living down here. Considering the testosterone that flowed in this place, we had remarkably few problems. Most of the men in the bunkers were made up of my strong vampire and werewolf compadres. They were fighters who came back with me from that infamous night a few months back at Romero’s compound. These guys were happy to get a new lease on life. They were not about to rock the boat, and get kicked out of an exceptionally good situation. Plus, they couldn’t beat the price. As long as they were down for the cause when I needed them, they lived here for free. It helped that the chow was really, really good. One of the big problems of hosting an army is feeding the mob. I knew that I couldn’t have some of my soldiers flying off to grab a blood meal every night, so we had a professional chef, a Mani himself, who created all sorts of delicious Mani cuisine made from human blood—blood that we bought from a legal source, a large medical supply corporation that provided steady supplies of immaculate human blood for researchers. And for us. They didn’t ask any questions about what we did with the blood. They just billed us every month.