The Tale of the Blood Diamond

by Laveen, Tiana

  Okay, think…

  The worse part of it, he didn’t know exactly how much time he had left. The numerals spinning around were going forward and in reverse, making no sense — but internally, they made perfect sense. He had no time to sit there and decode it; all he did know was that time wasn’t on his side. He was taking a chance, but he had no choice. Drawing closer to the two boxes, he X-rayed them both, careful to not change their temperature from his laser rays. He was desperately looking for that special, miniscule difference, the one that would change the tide forever.

  This is the same….so is this…five wires there…five wires here…two small cotton-filled areas…similar firing systems. Cutting that wire right there though could lead to another detonator. Come on…come on!

  ...And then, he saw it…

  Breathing hard and heavy, he reached into the left box and brought two wires together. He peered further down; his X-ray picked up the eternal flame deep within the damned thing. Where it began and ended was still a mystery, but he saw it alright and his pulse froze like ice when he acknowledged he was almost at the end of his journey, one way or the other. Taking a deep breath, he briefly closed his eyes.

  Please, let this be right!

  He yanked the sons of bitches at the exact same time, with the exact same amount of pressure until they were lying beside his leg. Then it seemed as if a giant machine had sucked all the sound, the air and the whole fucking area away. He waited…nothing happened. Taking another deep breath, he peered back down and glared.

  “YES! GODDAMN IT!” He raised his arms and raced over to the nearby corpses to dance on their damned bodies with the glee of a Publisher’s Clearing House Winner.

  The light had extinguished. The numbers went to a crawl and stopped movement. He stood atop an enormous, hearty mound of Yuledrake carcasses with his phone in hand.

  “Jayme, I hate that this went to voicemail, but hopefully you are asleep or better yet, up waiting for me because…I did it, baby. No, that’s wrong. We did it. I’m coming home… I-I gotta see you, kiss you, hug you. And then, I’ll get our baby, the best gift I’ve ever been given, our child, and…I’ll bring him back to you…and we…” He paused, hating that his eyes were watering. He shoved the emotions away and continued, “We will be a family…and everything is fine now, okay? You did good, baby. I’m so proud of you… I Love you…” He quickly wiped his eye and made his way back to his pod in the near distance.

  Next stop: Washington D.C. to get a hit of the drug called Jayme…

  ****

  “Just keep fucking running!” Cxeza navigated past a thick line of night-clubbers, cursing and pushing as she and the three Zarkstorm soldiers burned a fiery path to a destination yet undisclosed. Once she got past the packed crowd dressed in their Saturday night best, she slowed, her eye darting about, looking for the telltale signs. Confusion set in. The thumping of hundreds of feet echoed about. She’d set the stage for this shit, and it could all fall apart at this pivotal moment. After she and her men killed an alarming amount of Yuledrakes in the Altay mountains of the Russian Republic, she’d gotten the remainder’s attention all right, but her energy was zapped. She and her men were exhausted, and the fuckers just kept on coming.

  Regardless, one of them spoke out, grabbing what appeared to be a megaphone of sorts, and made an announcement. Just as Xzion suspected, they wanted to negotiate, to strike a deal.

  Big brother was right…

  The Yuledrakes didn’t want to die, especially not on the planet Earth. She said she’d make no such deals without Xzion’s permission, that she was unable to stop their bomb, and was leaving. She led the way, and like falling dominoes, the Yuledrakes shadowed her, following her just as she’d read in the Earthling children’s nursery rhyme about the odd man playing his flute as a parade of rats tailed close behind. She was now the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

  The bastards now wanted one thing: to be face to face with Xzion. They were desperate, and she had to cash in while the iron was hot. They had no idea where her brother was, but they figured she was the key to his whereabouts. Her men barely had time to land before they were hot on their trail once more, now, out for nothing but blood, but pretending to want an end to the ongoing war. Their country had been devastated by two Zarkstormian warriors — the most notorious in their history and the most infamous of their present had joined forces and slaughtered them in record time. Their leader had been murdered by the one from the new era, her dear brother, and she and her men had wiped out over half of their Earth-bound army.

  The Yuledrakes knew it was over, but survival pushes even the most resistant forward. As soon as Xzion let her know he was less than two minutes away, she’d darted off like a blaze of fire that could never be snuffed. Now, here she stood, back in Washington D.C., under a starless night and drenched in freezing rain. She stomped her boot against the slick pavement as her frustration mounted.

  He said he’d be…right…here…

  She looked down where she stood, as if she were trying to conjure the Devil himself. It was the damn slippery street. With off and on showers, water ran all around, flowing into pockets of the earth. The trickling of H2O snaking itself down a steamy sewer caught her attention, the sound amplified.

  That’s it!

  “Hey!” She screamed out to her men waiting for her instruction and the mob of Yuledrakes hot on their tail. “Come on!”

  “Uhhhh!” She dragged the manhole off the damn road after quickly removing the screws as fast as her nimble fingers could manage. She looked both ways; her heart flipped as she seized the headlights of oncoming traffic.

  “Hurry! The light turned green!” She hustled down into the sewer, her men following closely behind. They had additional time now as the Yuledrakes were stopped by the parade of unceasing, honking cars, no doubt being driven by angry fellows who’d spotted the uncovered thing and swerved to avoid it. Cxeza carried on, moving through the tunnel, her feet stomping and splashing about.

  Damn it!

  Sludge, slime and grotesque debris clung to her boots and lower leg, but she kept on trudging ahead, not daring to slow her pace. And then, she heard it…

  An unmistakable movement from up ahead in the moist tunnel, and then another, as if one were wading through thigh-high water, came to her full attention. The slight glimmer of light appeared from another manhole a ways up, soon shadowed out from a passing car, and then the stream of stingy light returned, highlighting the larger-than-life form. She grinned, kept her stride and reached one, then another, and another and another. Someone powerful snatched her around her waist, their grip strong, able to snap her into two, but she laughed with glee as she ascended higher towards the open, city air, all of the hands upon her, their sharp claws not daring to tear into her flesh. They hoisted her upward to another circle of city light, until she was completely free.

  Taking a deep breath, she popped her head up and hoisted herself the rest of the way, dashing like mad across the road. After she and her crew were out, the cover was slid shut. Despite the bustling people rushing to get out of the rain and into the restaurants and night haunts of their choice, they’d only caught the attention of a few. Some people that had actually noticed the now wet and stinking group crawl out the damn sewer only brought delight to Cxeza’s face. She laughed as she ran her hand down her muddy, filthy face. The petrified, muffled screams were soon to follow as the slaughter below her feet commenced. Yes, Bosi and his boys were taking care of business and Cxeza surmised that from the sounds of things.

  This ‘Yogi’ and his Boo-Boo clan finally got the picnic lunch they so desired…

  ****

  Jayme worked her way around the rooftop, keeping a safe distance from the beast. She had two choices: jump, and no doubt ensure her death, or stay up there, and prolong her demise. It would no doubt be one that was far more painful and heinous than anything she’d ever fathomed. But she was still alive, and she wasn’t going to take these extra breaths for granted.


  “What do you want from me?” she shouted, her gun in front of her, though it may as well have been filled with water or assorted candies.

  “To terrorize you, and I’m doing a splendid job.” The thing spoke persuasively, through the demonic tone of its voice. She felt a bit light-headed, as if it were snuffing out something deep within her, or worse, sucking her soul.

  “That’s it…” Its voice echoed over and over again. “Let me taste your fear.”

  In a slight haze, she wobbled. She shook her head, and noticed the damned thing was closer, much closer. It didn’t matter that her weapon wasn’t shit and no match to the troll. It was all that she had.

  “Ahhhhhh!” she screamed out, and shot her gun over and over. The bullets went inside of the thing, causing it to fall back and hit the roof in a big thud. She hurried to the other side, fearing it would be up in no time flat. Those bullets wouldn’t hold the beast down for more than a few seconds if she was lucky, so she moved as fast as her weakened body would carry her. Reaching the slick, paint-chipped metal rail, she turned to climb down the steely ladder when suddenly she was grabbed by the wrist and tossed atop the roof as if she were nothing. Her body was temporarily airborne before she landed harshly on her side with gravel now covering her face. The wind had literally been knocked out of her, and the heavy gait of the monster approaching made her insides gel. She pushed past the pain and scooted away, slowly, but moving nevertheless until it stood over her, blood oozing out of its damn head. It tapped the side of its temple, reached tenderly down to her, and smeared the stench onto her face.

  This was the part where she was supposed to cry out and plead for mercy. This was the part where she was supposed to cower down and ask for her life…but she didn’t. She remained there, looking up at it, trying to steady her heart. He was eating her trepidation, savoring it; so she had to rein it in.

  “I’m not afraid of you!” she belted. A stream of hot, angry tears went down her face. “Just kill me!” She called its bluff, and disappeared into a new world she’d just created, one that would help her maintain the new role she was playing.

  The monster Vex burst out laughing. “Oh, yes you are…”

  And it was right, but she kept trying and trying for she had no other plans, no weapon, no way out. Or did she? At her previous location where she’d been cherry-picking off Yuledrakes for the sheer pleasure, she’d noticed something that had reminded her of her early courtship with her one and only Xzion. If only she could get her hands on it…

  “Okay, yes, I’m afraid…but…please at least tell me what…what I did to cause you to want to do this to me? What did I take from you?” She glanced at the area, a mere two feet away, hoping and praying she could reach it before the fucker bit into her, ending her once and for all.

  “You killed my nephew!” The fog of its hot breath from the yelling was so intense, her eyes watered.

  She inched away; its eyes followed her as she scooted, bit by bit.

  “…And just where do you think you’re going?” It sneered. “I don’t like fast food!”

  It gripped her leg and tugged, daring to rip the damned limb from her body. Jayme reached for the edge of the roof with both hands. She tossed and turned, kicked and screamed for her life. It burst out laughing, enjoying the show, giving her just enough room to keep moving, inch-by-inch. So close, yet so far away…

  Like a blast of wind, the beast stomped towards her, taking hold of her once again, and tilted its head to the side, grinning as it loomed over her. She fought her own nature to prevent from passing out. The hideousness, the foul stench, the way it touched her almost stopped her damn heart…

  With one hand she gripped what she needed, ripping it from the gutter of the roof. As the eyes of the damned thing noticed what she’d obtained, its smile waned like the moon.

  Riding on pure adrenaline and the fear that had almost cost her her life, Jayme lifted the humongous icicle in the air with both hands and embedded it right between the fucker’s eyes.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” It shrilled.

  “Ohhh God!” she wailed as it screamed out over and over and fell back, scraping at its face and flipping about.

  She got to her feet, wobbly, but moving. She approached the beast and with all of the strength in her body, pushed it over and over to the edge, then shoved it the rest of the way until it fell like a huge heap of trash, landing on the freezing ground, still as a corpse. In those moments when the beast had filled her with terror, she’d managed to think of the weak spot Cxeza had told her about during casual banter after her first Morphitian kill: a shock of ice cold temperature, right between the eyes, was the only other way to kill a Morphitian; and since they were typically in disguise, no one knew where the fuck that spot actually was until it was too damned late. God had answered her prayers after all, and gave her a frozen slice of irony to boot…

  Jayme hastened down the ladder, stumbling over the bodies she’d collected and when she reached solid ground, she raced through the alleyway, screaming, yelling, filled with an exhilaration that only God could give a child, until she found herself in the middle of a typical Saturday night in Washington D.C. Once she caught her breath, she slid against the wall of a closed jewelry store and reached into her pocket for her phone. She took it off silence and moments later, she fell onto the sidewalk. She heard Xzion’s voice on the voicemail, telling her everything was okay…that he was proud of her…and he was going to get their son after coming home to her…

  F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

  ****

  “And that is why it is our great pleasure, to present you, Mr. Khrome, with a heart-felt ‘Thank You.’”

  Xzion struggled in the constraining tuxedo he’d donned and glared into the blue eyes of the United States Secretary of Defense. Various ambassadors from the United Nations mulled about in the vast dining room, almost glittering with excitement while the champagne in their hands bubbled.

  “Okay,” was really all Xzion could offer as Jayme smirked at him and patted his shoulder. He wasn’t good at scenes like this, and though he knew there would be no public accolades, much to his delight, he was still happy to be acknowledged — more so for Jayme, than for himself. He’d been shaking hands with far too many people, and the President of the United States had made a cameo appearance, gave Xzion a hearty handshake and whispered some politically correct banter in his ear. He’d expected such. No one forgot who he was, and what he’d done, and he was thankful. Furthermore, to his relief, his true identity as the XXX Killer was never disclosed to the public.

  Xzion worked through his boredom and discomfort. He’d much rather have been at home working, or going over the new case that had come across his desk. But instead, he was sitting here in front of a plate with tiny golden wrapped pieces of butter, a basket of French bread and so many glasses and plates, he was sure whoever had set the tables had donated half of their lifetime to accomplish the task.

  Sensing his grumpiness, Jayme took his hand and held it under the table. softness of the cream tablecloth brushing against their knuckles brought him back into the moment. He stared at her, and she stared back, until he could no longer resist leaning to her for a kiss. Their lips locked, and he stayed there, taking her all in. The night was bearable because she was with him. These people truly had no idea what had happened, and what he had to do so that they could continue living their fairy-tale lives…and they never would. The only person who truly ‘got it’ was his spouse, his best friend, his confidante, and that was worth its weight in diamonds and gold…

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Two weeks later…

  “No she isn’t!” Jayme chuckled as she placed the last piece of toast in her mouth and looked at Zachary in his high chair, working over a bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal.

  “She is, and she is bringing a Morphitian with her, for you to practice on.”

  “Don’t even play like that!” Jayme snarled, pointing her finger at the teasing man. “I do miss your sister,
though. I wish she were visiting again soon, under better conditions, of course.”

  “Well,” he ran his arm affectionately down her back, “if things continue progressing in the right direction, you’ll be seeing her, anyway. I’ve put my latest assignment on hold for a few weeks. I wanted to spend a bit more time with you and Zachary, with no distractions. I’ve got more time to devote to working on your pod and apparatuses now.”

  She grabbed her small glass of orange juice off the counter, gulped it down and sat next to Zachary. She grinned at him and he grinned back, then burst out laughing, causing her to do the same.

  “I looooove you,” she sang as she pushed her nose firmly into his. His warm, cinnamon-scented breath made her want to call in sick and stay under the covers with her man and son, watching silly movies and snacking all day.

  “Chop, chop, baby,” Xzion called out as he sat at the kitchen table, turning the page of a newspaper. He was so old-school at times, it tickled her.

  “Ugh…” She sighed, kissed Zachary on the cheek and rose from the table. Catching her reflection in the toaster oven, she briefly admired her coiffed, braided bun. Dressed in her navy blue uniform, she sized up her collar and brushed her shoulder, then casually made her way towards the front door.

  “Bye, baby!” she called out, her back still turned as she lazily waved.

  “I know you didn’t just walk away from me without so much as a kiss goodbye?” Xzion scolded as he got to his feet and chased after her. She laughed in his arms as he swiveled her and planted a firm, sexy kiss on her lips, his breathing harsh and needy.