by M. K. Gibson
Long story short: Paige was a bitch.
I stopped outside the wing’s reception hall. Listening by the main entrance, and looking through the massive door’s crack, I saw her and heard her shrill voice continuing to command servants.
“No, imbeciles! Why would we decorate in cold colors when this land is perpetually cold and bleak?”
“Mistress, you commanded us to honor Baron Grimskull by decorating the wing. Purple is the primary color on the lord’s standard,” one of the braver maids answered.
“As is his golden battle ax!” Paige shrieked. “Nice warm, golden tones would brighten this room and make the entire wing come alive. Never mind. It is clear from your narrow jaw and oversized brow you come from poor breeding and are therefore stupid.”
Raising her hand, Paige launched the maid across the room. “Dispose of this trash. And if this room isn’t glowing in brilliant golden tones by nightfall, well, let’s just say you’ll feel as if this dumb bitch got off lucky.”
“Yes, mistress!” the rest of the maids said, running off. No doubt looking for golden things to make my sister happy.
I continued watching through the crack of the doors to the hall when I felt a presence.
“’Sup, dude.”
I turned and Randy was sitting on one of the hall benches. The greasy-haired idiot was playing with another smartphone, no doubt a gift from his mother. He had sneaked up on me and could see me while I was nearly invisible.
“Randy?”
“’Sup. Mom’s like, really pissed off. She hasn’t been able to find you. And she couldn’t find that Sophie chick to make her do what she wanted. So she came here to be, like, I dunno, that Grim dude’s new woman. Or whatever.”
“Well, that’s good for me, then.”
Randy shrugged, not looking up from his phone. “I guess. You gonna take her down and then like, get your revenge?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.” Randy nodded. He looked up at me from under the mop of hair and actually looked me in the eyes. “Sorry about before, Uncle Jack. Mom set you up and threatened to like, kill me. Plus, she said I was like, a godling, or demi-god, and I could use her power. It’s how I can see you. It’s kinda bitchin’.”
“Yes, it is . . . bitchin’.”
“When you get your revenge, are you going to go back to the prime universe?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Cool.” He nodded again. “Can I come with?”
“Are you going to stop me when I am forced to deal with your mother?”
“Nah. Bitches and snitches get stitches.”
“There might be hope for you yet, Randy.”
“Cool,” Randy said. And just like that, he went back into his own little world, then teleported away.
Interesting.
Turning my attention back towards Paige, I decided it was best to approach this like ripping off a Band-Aid. It would be fast and painful. But first, I needed to make a call.
“Sophia.”
“Yes sir?”
“Send the signal,” I said.
“Are you ready, sir?”
“I better be. Send the signal.”
“Yes, sir. Good luck, Jackson.”
“Sophia, you know better.”
“Yes sir. Luck is for idiots and people who do not plan.”
Sophia broke contact and sent out the signal to my allies. Regardless of how well they had accomplished their mission, it was time.
Dropping my invisibility, I expelled just a little bit more of my power and blew the hall’s ten-foot doors off their hinges. The massive, ornately-carved doors blew inward, smashing into the gaudily-decorated tables and destroying cheaply-made plates and serving ware.
If I’d given the doors a little extra effort, perhaps the door would have shredded the giant oil painting over the hall’s fireplace of a much slimmer Paige atop a throne. I assumed the painter had taken liberal license with the subject matter rather than risk getting his neck snapped.
“Hello Paige.”
“Julie?” Paige asked as the blood drained from her face.
Clearly she wasn’t expecting me. Which only proved she did not belong in my position. Rather than see an adversary as capable and as willing to commit as much as she was, Paige only thought of herself. She saw all others as inferior to her, despite never proving her own worth and value by the sweat of her brow or the machinations of her mind. A trend prevalent in today’s youth culture. Those we call “entitled.”
That thought struck me as odd.
How could one as dense as Paige have orchestrated a coup against me? Even with the assistance of Grimskull, the execution against me was near flawless. At the risk of countering my own sentiments of underestimating an adversary, I felt the plan against me was something those two could not manage on their best day against my worst.
Sadly, I could not consider the thought any further, as Paige decided to take advantage of my deep reflection and hurl a giant chunk of the remaining doors back at me.
Quickly, I rolled to the floor, dodging the makeshift projectile. The door crashed behind me, destroying even more of the gaudy, cheap furniture. Paige reached out with her power and grabbed another large piece of the broken door and hurled it at me.
From the ground, I threw my hand up and used my power to stop the incoming debris. As much as I needed to conserve power for my inevitable fight with Grimskull, I had to show her she was a child in the villain equivalent of the kiddie pool, while I was Michael fucking Phelps.
But, you know, without the enormous eyebrows. And I didn’t look like an anorexic Andre the Giant.
Whatever, the metaphor stands.
I hurled the door back at Paige with more force and more velocity than she was ready for. To my surprise, she didn’t try to catch it. She was adept enough to pull all the nearby tables towards her, creating a makeshift shield around herself. I was a little proud.
So I ignited the wood of the tables.
“Goddamn it, Julie!” Paige yelled as she exploded the tables away from her. “Why aren’t you dead already?!”
“Is that what you want, Paige? For me to be dead like our parents so you can have it all?” I asked as I walked towards her.
“Yes!” Paige yelled. I saw immediately in her frazzled eyes that the answer had inadvertently slipped out.
She had never meant to say it. But she had said it nonetheless.
It was one of those perfect moments of honesty. The ones that only come with a scattered mind or alcohol.
I pulled the sword given to me by Hawker and threw it at her. Not to kill her, but rather so it landed at her feet.
“Pick it up,” I commanded. Dropping to my knees, I pulled open my shirt, exposing my chest. “If you want me dead, then just do it.”
“Julie, I—”
“Pick up the fucking sword!” I yelled so loudly the words rang off the walls and hung in air.
Paige obeyed, for once, and picked up the sword. It looked awkward in her hand as she pointed the tip at my chest. She looked at me with a mixture of sadness and contempt.
“It’s OK, Paige. One quick thrust, right here, and it will all be yours.”
Paige took in a deep breath and I saw the muscles in her shoulders tense, ready to strike.
“Goodbye, Paige.”
“Goodbye, Julie.”
Then my sister jammed my sword deep into my chest.
Chapter Forty-Five
Where I Explain Some Rules, Deal with Paige, and Suffer from a Gunshot Wound
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noted a few facts along the way. The first being how magic works. As a god from another realm, I cannot directly alter the structural matter of an object I do not own while visiting another realm.
For example, the poor clothes I was given when I first escaped Grimskull’s lair would remain threadbare, foul-smelling rags that only thrift-store hipsters would enjoy. Until they were given to me. Once they were mine, they were mine to do with
as I pleased. Same with people. I couldn’t act directly upon, or kill, a person unless they posed a direct threat to me. As for things like the doors, if I unleashed kinetic force, physics took over. As long as I did not alter the molecular construction of the matter, I violated no laws.
It happens all the time, believe it or not. Gods visiting planes of reality, changing things, stealing items. Worse, being gifted items allows said divine power to play with the gifts as a child with a new toy.
Still unconvinced? Where do you think your left socks keep going? If you knew the true purpose of what millions upon millions of missing hosiery were meant for, you wouldn’t sleep again.
Ever.
So, in cases like this, where I am on my knees with a sword in my chest, the story would normally be over. Except, the sword was my sword, gifted to me by Hawker. With that little fact in mind, how could my sword hurt me?
Answer: It can’t, and it didn’t. It was just meant to scare the ever-living shit out of Paige when her dead brother sat up.
“I hate you, Julie. You always thought you were better than me.”
I snapped my eyes open and smiled at my sister. “Because I am.”
Paige screamed in shock and fear. The sword obeyed my commands as the handle and hilt melted like liquid metal and flowed upwards, covering Paige’s hands and wrists. The sword’s blade practically came alive as it elongated and narrowed into a flat, edged snake and wrapped itself around Paige’s throat. The blade constricted, drawing blood. As Paige tried to scream, the remainder of the blade moved upwards and wrapped around her open mouth.
“This coup is at an end,” I decreed as I stood. I walked over to Paige and allowed my senses to open up, detecting every item in the room that held any power from my realm. Holding my arms wide, I commanded the power to flood into my phone, refilling me and depriving Paige.
“Stop moving and you will bleed less,” I told my sister. “You have me in a unique position, Paige—unsure.” I circled my captive sibling, looking down at her and wondering what to do with her. With almost no power in her, she was mostly a mortal. Only her hereditary connection to me allowed her to have base-level goddess status.
“Sis, I spent a lot of time, effort, and energy getting to this moment. And now that I’m here, I am not quite sure what to do with you. Kill you? Banish you? What sends the best message to my enemies, allies, or potential business partners?” I asked my unresponsive sister.
I could barely make out anything intelligible between her bleating whimpers of pain and frustration. Not that it mattered anyway. This whole line of questioning was largely rhetorical. It was nothing more than psychological catharsis.
If you cannot afford therapy, I highly recommend binding your siblings in painful mechanisms that contort their bodies while you get off your chest all your built-up stress.
Then again, if that’s your particular kink, perhaps you do belong in therapy. Hmm . . . what does that say about me?
“Paige, what would you do with me if the roles were reversed? Oh, that’s right. You wanted to kill me,” I said as I knelt down next to her so we were eye to eye. “And you even tried to do it. The only reason I’m alive is because you were too stupid to ever bother learning the rules I tried to teach you a long time ago. And the only reason you are alive is because I am currently cursed with a lingering sense of family. Maybe that is all I need to be free of to truly spread my wings and accomplish even more? What do you say, Paige? Do you think you deserve to live?”
I set my phone down for a second to take Paige’s head in my hands. I held her there, with my forehead resting on hers. With my mind made up, I kissed her forehead.
“Goodbye, Paige.”
“Step away from her, Jackson,” I heard Courtney say from behind me.
Damn it.
I turned to look over my shoulder and Courtney stood there in his full tactical response gear instead of realm-appropriate garb. To top it off, he was aiming a .45 pistol and a magical wand of unknown power at my head.
I looked at my phone on the ground. It was right there, less than two feet away. But I was not fast enough to beat the muzzle velocity of the weapon, let alone whatever the wand did.
So I did what I normally did in situations like these. I talked.
“You know she doesn’t love you, right?” I said to my former head of security. “She is with Grimskull now. I don’t know if this land-whale even knows what love is.”
“Jackson, this is your last warning. Step away from her.”
I complied. Raising my hands, I moved away from Paige and stood, facing my former employee.
“So what’s your plan? Do her bidding while you watch her with another man? Hmm? Are you going to be her little slice on the side? Do you think she’s going to realize she was supposed be with you the whole time?”
Courtney didn’t answer me with words. Instead, the prick shot me in the leg. The large-caliber bullet ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of my left leg, just below my hip. The impact spun me around as if I were a rag doll, and I hit the floor hard. Both my hands went to my gaping wound as I tried to apply as much direct pressure to it as possible.
My hands trembled in shock as blood poured from the wound. I immediately felt faint. Courtney didn’t shoot me in the artery, but the .50 caliber weapon had done so much superficial damage that he may as well have.
“I never said that she loved me,” Courtney said. He walked in a slow arc around me, keeping the weapons out.
“What?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“You said she never loved me. I know that. I never said she did. I only said that I loved her.”
The comment made me stop thinking about the hole in my leg and look at my former employee as a person. As a man. A man who suffered from the age-old pain of loving someone who didn’t love you back. I looked at him with new eyes and a new perspective on the man. On Courtney.
And I laughed in his face.
“Ha ha ha! Oh, fuck that hurts. Oh my God, that is too funny! Seriously? That’s what the mighty Courtney has been reduced to? The sympathetic loser in a romantic comedy? Oh Jesus, just put a bullet in my head now and end this.”
“Stop laughing, Jackson. I’m serious.”
“So am I,” I said. “Do you think that makes you noble? You’re Duckie from Pretty in Pink. Paige only loves powerful, evil men and what they can do for her. This whole thing only makes you weak and stupid. Two traits I abhor. I am glad our partnership has been terminated.”
“Free her,” Courtney demanded.
“I need my phone to do it.”
“I know. But the moment I sense anything other than you freeing her, I put another bullet in you.”
“Can I heal myself?” I asked, but Courtney didn’t answer. “Fine. But I must reiterate my pleasure that our contract is no longer valid. Especially since you never took any of my lessons to heart.”
“Such as?” Courtney asked.
“Like the rule where you don’t announce yourself when you plan on shooting someone. You just shoot them. Otherwise, it gives your opponent time to plan a way out of the situation. Like now, for example. You are going to die. Goodbye, Courtney. When you’re dead, I am going to have your niece expelled from Harvard for cheating and running a drug ring.”
“You’re not getting out of this one,” Courtney said. “And she’s at Yale.”
“I always forget that,” I said. Then I chuckled.
“What’s so funny, Jackson?”
“I never said I was the one who was going to kill you.”
“What?”
A bullet ripped through the back of Courtney’s head, exiting between his eyes.
“’Sup dude,” Randy said, lowering his own pistol.
Chapter Forty-Six
Where I Ponder Paige’s Fate, Compare Myself to Tolkien, and Consider Public Nudity
“Randy, you beautiful idiot, thank you,” I said as I grabbed my phone and immediately healed my leg. Power washed over me and I felt who
le.
“It’s cool, Uncle Jack. Sucks I had to smoke muscle-dude. But he was a punk. Yammering about love and bitches.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Love and bitches are just the worst.”
“That skull-dude is in his throne room. He’s pretty pissed off. I guess the city is, like, under attack? A bunch of people showed up.”
“That would be part of my plan, Randy. I need Grimskull distracted.”
“Is killing Mom a part of your plan?” Randy asked.
I looked at my sister, still bound on the ground and covered in Courtney’s blood and brain matter. “Yes.”
“Dude, don’t.” Randy said. “I know she’s a bitch sometimes, but she is still my mom.”
“What happened to bitches and snitches get stitches?” I asked.
“That’s just an expression. ’Sides, stitches ain’t murder.”
“You just killed Courtney.”
“That’s different.”
“She betrayed me,” I said rather than argue the point of Courtney’s death. “She orchestrated this insurrection against me. She is responsible for my capture and imprisonment, and the attempt to remove me from the very empire I built. Any leniency I show is an invitation to enemies to attack me. Especially if it is known I was bested by this idiot. I am sorry, but this is business.”
“Come on, Uncle Jack, you’re a smart dude. Why not, like, imprison her in some mine somewhere? Or, like, I dunno, make her an immortal statue. She’d make a cool coat rack.”
My nephew had a point. An endless living punishment served an example just as well as death.
“I will consider it. For now I must attend to Grimskull. What did you see out in the city?”
“I’ll show you,” Randy said. “Follow me.”
I cast several spells on my still-immobilized sister, rendering her completely silent and asleep. I basked in the joy of not hearing her for a moment before following Randy.
