Venom of the Gods

by Sebastian Chase

  "Civil disobedience will not be tolerated," the guard said to the stunned people before resuming his spot in my escort. The crowd fell silent, now fearing that any question asked might be perceived as civil disobedience. I too remained quiet, shocked at how far the world had fallen in such a short time.

  The Jackson Five led me through the grand entrance and into a hauntingly quiet palace. The big doors swung shut, sealing us into a silence like that of the dead. We walked with the sound of our footsteps echoing off high ceilings and distant walls, and I even heard the breath from my captors hissing in and out in dark anticipation. I felt that I was heading for a military tribunal where a blind and deaf judge would hand down a death sentence.

  "This way," the guard to my right said, grabbing my elbow once again and pulling me into a long red-carpeted hallway that appeared to extend into eternity. A vision hit me of a little-boy prince riding a tricycle down this hall, saying "Red rum" repeatedly in a flat, tight voice, while behind him the syphilis-ridden caricature of Henry the VIII swung an axe to and fro, demanding the child take his medicine. I knew that the bitter medicine intended for me would soon be served. Halfway down the hall of doom, a door eased open as if done by ghost hands.

  "Go in," a guard ordered.

  I stepped forward while the escort remained in the hall. Behind me, the door closed, and now I could see the mysterious door operator. It was a girl. She was no older than my own daughter, but her youth was all that was left of her. Streaks of crimson-red makeup—possibly blood—cascaded down her sickly-pale face; her head was shaved smooth as if rigorous cancer treatment had taken its toll. More to my horror though was that her lips were sealed with black thread and her eyes lacked irises and pupils; they were pure, sightless white. My flesh crawled, trying to escape the aberration before me, but at the same time, my heart leaped out in sorrow and pity.

  The girl reached out a hand to me and, hesitantly, I took it. It was cold, but soft. She led me towards a lone chair in the middle of a large, royally decorated room. She glided easily as if her eyes still functioned, and as I gazed at this child, I saw that her neck displayed numerous bite marks. Once to the chair, she released my hand and indicated that I should sit. As I did, she took up silent residence standing next to me, with both of us facing a large curtained stage. On each side of the dark-red curtain, two other teens stood with similar disfigurements. I could not tell if they were male or female, as the injustices bestowed upon them left them appearing sexless.

  As if a play were about to commence, the curtain opened. I tensed, prepared to squash the madness of Samael's brief reign.

  Behind the curtain, the stage was a black void, but my eyes made out several figures standing next to what looked like a throne. On the throne, I vaguely could see a twisted smile on the face of my nemesis, his thin frame swallowed by the enormous chair. I stood, about to lunge and decapitate him, but then a voice boomed through overhead speakers: "Dad?"

  Hearing Lori cut through me like a merciless sword, paralyzing me in my tracks. Behind the throne, a projector lit up the wall. The screen displayed my little girl strapped to a surgical table, with a plethora of menacing surgical instruments on a Mayo stand next to her. Amongst the instruments rested a spool of thick black thread that sent shivers of fear through me.

  "Samael!" I cried, outraged.

  "Dad? Is that you?" Lori asked, apparently able to hear me.

  "Yes, yes, it's me, baby."

  "Where are you? Help me, please!"

  "I will. I promise." On the screen, a hand came into view and picked up a scalpel. Lori convulsed violently.

  "No!" she yelled, and then Samael pressed a button on a remote, freezing the image. The stage lights came up and Samael, along with his insane-looking entourage, started clapping. Around him stood four women—demons in every sense of the word—their deformed eyes delirious with sick humor. They snarled in joy, displaying mouths overflowing with jagged teeth. A fifth woman stood closer to Samael, but she displayed more reserve than the others did. She gleamed with the confidence that comes from power; this woman was Karen.

  "Excellent performance!" Samael exclaimed with exuberance. Unable to restrain myself, I rushed forward, causing several soldiers armed with virus rifles to come out of the backstage shadows. They surrounded the throne, aiming their weapons at me. I instantly recognized one of them as Captain Thomas, the SEAL Team commander in Virginia who wondered if I loved the United States and my daughter as much as he loved his. To see him defending Samael was an insult to those thoughts.

  "Let the surgery begin!" Samael yelled. The stilled image on the screen began to play again. "Proceed," he ordered the unseen surgeon. A gloved hand holding a silver scalpel came down towards Lori's face. I froze halfway to the stage.

  "Okay! What do you want?" I cried, anguishing over Lori's tormented grimace.

  "Hold," he said. The surgeon's hand retreated and Samael once again paused the video. "The next time I press play, Michael, you will see the fate of your daughter. Make the right choices and she will not be harmed. Now sit down!" Defeated, I walked back to the chair and sat.

  The soldiers retreated to behind the gilded throne, but not before a look from Captain Thomas caught my eye. Perhaps I was desperate enough that my imagination concocted his brief glance, but I felt certain that his eyes had conveyed a message to me. What was it, though? Be patient, I have a plan? Or more likely: Sorry, but you're fucked. I reserved a small dab of hope deep inside, knowing that I needed something to sustain me from here on out.

  "I feel so bad for your daughter," Samael continued. "I really do. I am appalled that you did not tell her that her mother is dead. Not to worry, Michael, I broke it to her gently—fatherly you might say." As he spoke, the flaming-redheaded demon that I recognized as Ricka moved closer to him and stroked an adoring finger down his arm while licking her lips in unrestrained lust. That I had been with her in the past, even though it was in ignorance, would forever haunt me.

  "You bastard, cut the bullshit," I said. "You could have killed me anytime during the past seventy years, but you didn't. Why?"

  "How very perceptive of you." He stood, handed the remote to Karen, and leaving his lustful groupies behind, walked towards the stage stairs. "Should you try anything, my most competent surgeon will hear and go forward with the surgery. Understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. You are right that I could have destroyed you when your memory was missing, but in fact, I went out of my way to protect you. To bring you into the fold even." He approached, the sharp clack of his black boots echoing off the walls.

  "Bring me into the fold?" Remembering what Ricka said to Jack about steering me to the company, I said, "Plasma Worx…you bought an entire company trying to get me there?"

  "Small change. If you had just accepted our initial offer of a job, none of this would be happening. That incompetent manager of yours never would have tried to rape his secretary, either. That is where it all fell apart, when he plucked your sense of justice. The fool. You were right in killing him." He circled around me like a shark preparing to attack.

  "I didn't kill him, Ricka did. Why are you doing this?"

  "Oh you killed him, just not directly." He let out a chuckle filled with sinister intent. "My friend, I am doing this because I still believe we could be powerful allies."

  "Never."

  "I will take an unwilling ally over a willing enemy any day. When my soldiers found you, they expected a fight, but when you gave up so easily I knew you were coming to kill me, hence the need for such theatrics. Your daughter, whom we were fortunate enough to steal away from Mickey Mouse, is my insurance policy."

  "And what if I decide that saving the world is more important than saving my daughter?"

  He stopped in front of me and looked down, an amused expression on his face. "Michael, I know you too well. You will not decide between saving one or the other, simply because you believe you can save both." He was right, and I knew it. "The main reason I al
lowed you to live though, was for the information I wanted from you."

  "You want my secret margarita recipe?"

  "For a man in your situation, sarcasm does not serve you well. Remember, your daughter's beauty is on the line." He started circling slowly again, hands behind his back, speaking as if conducting a college lecture. "During the war, after I healed from your treachery that caused me almost seventy years of near-death hell, I kept a very close eye on you. I even sacrificed my own comfort and sent Ricka to be your lover. Besides your treasure stashes, I noticed that you also seemed to have something very valuable on deposit in a bank. Something that you ran to the moment your memory returned during the war."

  "The potion, yes, that's not a big secret," I said.

  "After you left, I went into the bank, and took the last vial."

  "And then you were kind enough to send the vial back to me filled with your virus instead of the potion. That was very kind of you, but I knew it wasn't from Nostradamus."

  "It was very clever though, you must admit. There was just enough virus in it to make you manageable, like in the cemetery. I have been very patient, trying hard to make this meeting between us happen. Sadly, you and your friends have been very uncooperative, so here we are, with other measures in place to insure your cooperation."

  "What is the information you so desperately seek?" I asked.

  He bent down and placed a hand on my shoulder, tempting me to rip it off, but I held still for Lori's sake. "You already gave it to us." His head came forward, his mouth close to my ear. "Which means only my good will is keeping you and your daughter alive." His breath reeked of young blood; the closeness of his proximity making me cringe in disgust.

  "This is all about the potion?" I said, thankful that he stood and resumed pacing, but worried that I had foolishly told Karen what the potion was and who it was from.

  "Exactly. Let me explain this better. For you and me, and the lovely women on stage, this potion takes our memory and makes us appear human. An entire vial of it causes this for decades, but a single drop creates such effect for only a few days. That is how Karen managed to work her way into your good graces."

  I looked past him to the stage where Karen stood, arms crossed, an arrogant smile on her face. Ricka now stood behind her, making Karen the new object of her lust, stroking her hands up and down Karen's hourglass figure, licking her lips behind Karen's ear while eyeing me teasingly.

  "But do you know what happens to certain humans when they are injected with a single drop of this potion?" he asked.

  "They turn into vampires?" I said, pulling my eyes off the demons and back to him.

  "Let me see your arm," he demanded.

  "No."

  "Doctor, proceed."

  "Shit! Okay, here!" I held my arm up, palm out.

  "Hold, good doctor." He took my hand and placed a red-polished claw on the backside of my wrist. "I want to show you something." Samael pressed down and slid his claw across my arm. The feeling was so faint that it was barely perceptible, nor was there any indications left on my body that he had touched me.

  "That showed me how weak you are. What's your point?" I asked.

  He walked to the disfigured girl that still stood silently next to me, and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. "They are lovely, are they not?"

  "They're victims of your insanity."

  "Quite the opposite. Within their veins they hold the elixir of God." With blinding speed, he buried his fangs into the girl's neck and drank deep. Before he indulged enough to make her pass out, he withdrew. Small moans escaped from the girl's sealed mouth, but beyond that, she appeared fine—aside from the rampant cancer that would soon ravish her body. "They have come to relish the pleasure I give them, for it is all they have. Now let me see your arm once more."

  I hesitated at first, but then gave in, not wanting Lori to experience yet another panic attack due to the scalpel coming for her again. He grabbed my hand firmly and then sliced down with his claw just as before. This time though, my skin instantly parted, revealing purplish sinewy flesh inside. I tried to yank my arm back, but he held firm. Disturbed shock washed over me that I could not break his grip. It would be like a grown man being unable to pull his hand away from a child. I looked into his eyes with hatred, but inside I felt my little reserve of hope slip down a black hole. The cut healed before our eyes, and at last, he let go.

  "Unlike yours, my venom is not quite so noble; these children will not survive much longer, which is why I require more of the potion, Michael. When combined with their blood, it makes me invincible." His voice had taken on a hushed quality as if we were coconspirators. "But now we know what the potion truly is, don't we? It is venom."

  "I don't know how to get more," I said, rubbing the inflamed line on my healing wrist.

  "I do. The mouth of Ra contains an unlimited supply."

  "You killed him long ago."

  He looked down upon me like a parent scolding a child. "I never said I killed him. It would be foolish to kill a potential asset."

  "Ra lives?" I played dumb, knowing that the unpredictable deity could be in this very room possessing someone. Perhaps that was why Samael had removed the eyes of his victims, so they couldn't turn piercing blue with Ra's judgment.

  "I would not quite call it living, but it is none of your concern anymore. I have other plans for you."

  "I do not want to be part of your plans."

  "Let me remind you, if you choose not to cooperate, your daughter will suffer."

  I jumped up, coming eye to eye with him, nearing the breaking point. I yelled, "What do you want from me?"

  His hands came up to my chest faster than I could evade and he pushed. I flew back, destroying the chair I had been sitting in, and continued until I slammed roughly into the wall. Paint chipped, concrete cracked, and the sound of his laughter echoed.

  As I lifted myself up, the laughter abruptly ceased. "Things are different now," he said, coming towards me. "You do as I say, or not only will your daughter suffer, but you will die. Understand?" I didn't reply, wondering if I had any options left. I couldn't find any. "Understand!" He lifted his claws menacingly over my head.

  "Yes," I said softly in submission. His hand lowered.

  "Good. Now that I have the world at my feet, I need to consolidate my power. Rumors are already spreading about those I healed dying, and it is causing problems. Your venom can end that with some high-profiled successful healings that will prove once and for all that we are gods. Give it to me freely and I will allow your daughter to live, beautiful as ever."

  "I want to go to her."

  "Perhaps in due time, Michael, but for now you shall be my guest. After what you did to my ships, trust is hard to come by."

  "What you did to France was the most disgusting act in all of history."

  "That depends what side of history you are on. Do you agree with my terms or not?"

  Unable to bear the thought of Lori tortured, I had no choice. I would have to look for opportunity elsewhere. "Yes," I conceded.

  The screen came back to life, my daughter's eyes bloodshot with tears.

  "Release her, Doctor," Samael said. "Get her cleaned up and let her rest." I watched as the surgeon sat the scalpel down and undid the leather straps securing Lori. He helped her up, and I could tell that she was weak with fear.

  "Don't worry, Lori," I said into the air. "You're going to be okay." The projector went dead.

  "She is a very good looking young lady," Samael said. "Even under her current circumstances. Should you fail me, I think I shall enjoy her immensely."

  I started for him but stopped, considering the situation I was in. "I won't fail," I said, disgusted.

  "That's good to hear. Captain! Come take our guest to his quarters."

  As Samael made his way back to the stage, Captain Thomas and his men hurried down and surrounded me.

  "Move it!" the captain ordered.

  With a last glimpse towards the stage, Ka
ren waved and gave me a wink. Samael stepped next to her and the curtains closed. Show over.

  Chapter 41

  Decked out in their crimson attire, the Navy SEALs escorted me back down the hall of horrors towards whatever quarters awaited me. In desperation, I tried to reason with the captain, hoping a thread of patriotism still existed in his being.

  "Captain, please do something!" I pleaded. "I promised you before that I am loyal to the United States, and I know you believed me. Now I wonder if you are still loyal. Help your country for God's sake!"

  He walked behind me, making for an awkward show as I tried to face him while keeping up with the forward soldiers. I didn't like how he held his virus-loaded rifle pointed squarely at my midsection, but the look of determination and sweat on his face told me that he had mixed emotions. I sensed his nerves were beyond frayed; they were hanging out and being plucked violently by the situation.

  "Turn around before I remind you of who's in charge," he said through clenched teeth, but this was followed by a small shake of his head and a wink.

  I think he wants me to keep being difficult. I hope…

  "What if that was your daughter on the operating table," I said, still facing him but stealing glances over my shoulder so I could see where I was going.

  "I wouldn't have put my daughter in such a situation. That's why I cooperated, as you should."

  "Cooperated? You are a traitor! A fucking traitor who sold out his country because he was scared!" He scowled in disgust and his face hardened, eyes squinting with restrained anger. I hoped that I hadn't gone too far.

  "Stop!" the captain yelled. His subordinates slammed to a halt. Caught off guard, I backed into the lead soldier who twirled around and raised his rifle as if I had poked him with a knife.

  "Stand down," Captain Thomas told the jittery man. "Master Chief, you stay with me. The rest of you go secure the main entrance just in case our smart-mouthed friend here tries to get away while the chief and I teach him a lesson in respect."