by Jordan Ervin
“Now let us go to work,” Lukas said.
“And Maria?” Jamie asked.
Lukas glanced up toward the White House, gazing in the direction of his room almost as though he could see his wife through the fog and walls. He still loved Maria, despite what she had done and his growing attraction to Jamie. Still, he needed to be careful. He doubted that she would betray him again, but he couldn’t risk his empire on the love of one woman.
“You don’t need to worry about Maria anymore,” Lukas finally said. “So far as you are concerned, you will be working alone from now on.”
“Yes, Lukas,” Jamie said with the nod of her head. She turned and began walking in the opposite direction, turning back once to shoot him a warm smile before disappearing behind the shroud of fog. Lukas’ smile vanished as he turned and began walking toward the White House. He entered the door and walked through the hallways, greeting those who approached him while answering their pressing inquiries. It was methodical—going through the motions as his mind really focused on the coming conversation with his wife. Finally, after an hour delay to answer questions about the reconstruction effort and another half hour to pick up the gift he had recently ordered for his wife, he found himself slowly opening the door to his room.
Lukas stepped into his bedroom and slowed, eyeing Maria as she lounged casually in her chair. She wore a red dress and white embroidered gloves, both fancy enough for a state dinner. She was beautiful and queenly, Lukas’ perfect counterpart. In one hand she held a nearly empty glass of wine while a half empty bottle sat idly on the table before her.
“Hello, my love,” Maria said, her relaxed face sporting a smile.
“Hello,” Lukas said, closing the door behind him and removing the polished wooden box he had picked up downstairs from his secretary.
“What is that?” she asked. Lukas smiled back and approached her, sitting down beside her before opening the box.
“I call it the Spirit of the Sovereign,” Lukas said as he withdrew a luxurious necklace. A silvery band studded with hundreds of stones held seven jewels as large as Maria’s wide eyes. At the center, a massive black teardrop diamond hung. Lukas grinned as he raised it and began to fasten it around her neck. “I ordered it made a few days after the Battle of DC. I had the smaller diamonds made from stones that were found on every continent but Antarctica to represent our authority over the nations. The larger seven were all pulled and reshaped from royalty crowns and jewels throughout the world. And that final stone, what I call Maria’s Tear, is the largest black diamond known to man.”
“All this…for me?” Maria asked, glancing up at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Of course,” Lukas said as he leaned back. “It only arrived this morning.”
Maria smiled before gulping the last of the wine from her glass. “And did you pick it up before or after your nice little walk with Jamie Rowe?”
Lukas paused, eying his wife carefully before standing up and walking toward the bed where he threw his coat. “So this is how you repay my benevolence?”
“Benevolence? My love, it was only a simple question. No need to become defensive. Unless, of course, there is a need to be defensive.” Maria reached forward and began to pour another glass. Once the glass was full, she sat back, her left arm stretched across the back and her luxurious necklace dangling from her smooth neck as she began to drink again.
Lukas shook his head. “Don’t you think it’s a bit early in the day to be drinking?”
Maria smiled and stood, her legs steady as she slowly circled the table. “And isn’t it a bit early in your reign to be bedding cheap concubines?” Maria replied casually as she removed the glove from her right hand, tossing it the ground behind her. “I would hate for you to anger your queen, no matter how fancy the jewels are that you dangle from her neck.”
Lukas’ face quickly shifted into a mask of disbelief as her words hit him like a stray bullet.
“How dare you say that to me,” he began angrily. He stood up, rounding the table as he approached her. “Woman, I am your—”
If her blunt words earlier had been a surprise, then her openhanded slap had been a jolt more shocking than a bolt of lightning. Stars danced across his vision and he flexed his jaw gingerly as hot pain covered his cheek.
“You might one day become the world’s supreme leader, but today you are my husband!” Maria shouted, her eyes glossed over and tears beading in her eyes. “I will not share you with a meddlesome bitch who’s trying to divide us, no matter who you think you are!”
“I have not touched her,” Lukas growled. “And who do you think you are, ordering me around and questioning my actions? I am your Sovereign.”
“I am your wife!” Maria roared, grabbing the neckless. “Tell me, did you make two of these?”
“What?” Lukas asked.
“The Spirit of the most high, insufferable Sovereign,” she said, clutching the necklace as though she were going to rip it off.
“No,” he said quickly.
“Then so long as I wear it, I, and only I, am yours. If you want to share me, then you can take your pathetic necklace back. Despite your intolerable actions, I still love you and I will fight for your sole affection. But make no mistake, if you so much as touch that woman I will never forgive you!”
Lukas paused, glancing back at her before picking the box up from where he had dropped it. He hesitated longer before tossing the box onto the bed.
“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Lukas said. “For now, you will obey me.”
“And what would you have your pretty little trinket do?” Maria asked.
“For now, you are to no longer assist Jamie in discovering who is working for Sigmund. You are to focus on looking and acting like the queen you must become. The world has changed, and they will soon need to see the man and woman they will bow before.”
“She has gotten to you, hasn’t she?” Maria said, shaking her head as wine spilled onto the carpet below. “Have it your way; I care not. I will be your queen and smile for your cameras. But make no mistake.” Maria approached him, her grin dangerous and her walk as steady as a lion stalking its prey. She wrapped her arms around him, leaning in close as though she were going to kiss him. “So long as that woman is in my home, you will not touch your queen again.”
Maria stepped away and began to walk back to the couch. Lukas watched for a moment before turning to leave, his frustration burning as he began to wonder once again if the world’s supreme Sovereign should be limited to one queen.
Sigmund smiled as he stood in the center of the New Orleans mansion, listening to Mahiri Onyango deliver the news of their defeat at Savannah and the status of their armed forces. Mahiri apologized time and time again, trying to reassure those around him everything was fine. Sigmund, however, knew the truth.
Everything was far from fine.
Ever since their defeat at Montgomery, the Patriarchs had failed to do anything but fall before the Imperium on the eastern front. Sigmund held strong to a hope that victory in the west would come before Lukas reached New Orleans, but so far his quest to hunt down what he had invaded a continent to find had come up short.
“And so, without our Agents in Savannah,” Mahiri began, “we have little hope to stem the flow of Yellow Jackets being manufactured behind their lines. I am sorry, sir.”
“You know, General, I learned long ago to never be sorry for my actions,” Sigmund said with a smile as he slowly paced back and forth. “Sure, I might say ‘forgive me’ or ‘my apologies,’ but I never really mean it and avoid such expressions as often as I can. You see, being sorry means you very well might regret the decisions that led to the failure in the first place. You might be sorry we lost our Agents in Savannah, but had you not deployed them in the first place, we would never have even had the opportunity to destroy the factories that were creating Lukas’ precious drones.”
“Sir, I—”
“Of course, you could be sorry that you f
ailed to save my Agents once they were discovered,” Sigmund cut in. “Even then, you would be admitting failure as my chief General to protect my precious Agents—not a field of those dime-a-dozen Recruits, but dozens of trained Patriarch Agents with years of experience! Such admittance might elicit a…painful response from me. I might decide to punish you by cutting off an ear or gauging out an eye as recompense for your failures. Even then, when you were either half deaf or half blind, you might be sorry you chose either the eye or the ear over the other. And there we are again, reveling in the weakness of constant, monotonous regret.”
Mahiri stared back quietly, tensing as though ready to fight. He glanced left toward Sūn, Silvia, and Sigmund’s seven armed guards. Victor Castle stood quietly at the entrance, his hollow eyes gazing at nothing. Mahiri firmed his jaw and flexed his fists, gazing back at Sigmund defiantly. Sigmund smiled before raising his hand toward Sūn and nodding. The seven-armed men lunged toward Mahiri. The General fought back valiantly, but was quickly overwhelmed and subdued. As they held him to the ground, Sigmund approached quietly, Silvia at his side.
“You see, being sorry leads to situations where those in power over you might begin to think you are capable of nothing but failure. I might even begin to think that you don’t want to win this for me. Is that it, Mahiri? Do you simply want me, the man who has every right to demand your eye or ear, to lose this war?”
“No!” Mahiri exclaimed. “I’ve only ever tried to win this war for you. I swear to you, I am your man to the end!”
Sigmund smiled, staring back at Mahiri for a few long, breathless moments, before waving his hand casually, signaling his men to release the general. Sigmund motioned to a nearby chair. Mahiri nodded and slowly rose, adjusting his uniform before walking over to the chair and sitting down. Sigmund continued to grin and walked over to the chair, Silvia to his left and Sūn to his right. He stared forward, gazing into Mahiri’s eyes.
“Well?” Sigmund said after a few more moments of silence.
Mahiri looked back at him confused, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at the others.
“Well what?” Mahiri replied.
“Oh, my apologies,” Sigmund replied mockingly. “Did you think I was joking earlier?”
“About what?” Mahiri asked nervously.
“Your eye or your ear?” Sigmund answered bluntly. “Tell you what, such a decision requires higher brain function. I will decide for you. Sūn, take his right eye please.”
“Touch me and I will rip you apart limb by limb!” Mahiri roared as Sūn approached.
“On the contrary,” Sigmund said. “Resist and I will do worse than kill you. I will have my little darling Silvia inject you with a brand new creation of ours. You will know a pain that dwarfs anything we have previously manufactured. I had it made specifically for Lukas, though I am sure we have more than enough to pass around if you wish to test it now. I have a feeling if you find yourself in that torment forever, you might be sorry you denied me something as trivial as an eye.”
“You’re a monster,” Mahiri said.
“Birthing other monsters,” Sigmund replied with a laugh. “And that is something I am not sorry to agree with.”
Mahiri glanced at Sūn as sweat beaded on his forehead. His eyes grew bloodshot and the heavy beating of his heart pumped the thick vein on his neck. Sigmund reveled in the man’s discomfort. Mahiri took a deep breath and nodded.
“Do it,” Mahiri said.
“Just a slit or two now,” Sigmund said quietly to Sūn, “No need to remove the whole thing.”
A few minutes later, Silvia was gently wrapping a bandage around Mahiri’s head. The brutal warlord turned General had failed to scream during the makeshift surgery, much to Sigmund’s sadness. When Silvia finished, Mahiri glanced up at Sigmund—his one eye both angry and full of sorrow at the same time.
“Look on the bright side, General,” Sigmund said. “I doubt I will ever ask you to fight for me on the battlefield now that you are a cripple, so to speak. Go now, see to it that you find a patch worthy of my chief General. My friends and I have some planning to do.”
Mahiri nodded and left the room. Sigmund smiled and motioned for the others to take a seat. As they sat, Silvia patched Rendell into the meeting. Once his apparition arrived, Rendell was the first to speak.
“Where is Mahiri?” Rendell asked.
“He was sorry he couldn’t be here, but he had to see to other things,” Sigmund said, nearly rolling his eyes at his own unintended pun. “Sūn, have we found the Nautilus yet?”
“Not yet,” Sūn replied. “I have a team combing through weeks of encrypted satellite video archives. However, we are most certain that it entered the Gulf Coast and never left.”
“Good,” Sigmund said. “Keep up your search. I need what was on that ship if we are to defeat Lukas.” Sigmund turned to Rendell. Rendell was a hard, no nonsense man that displayed as much emotion as a stone. He was one of Sigmund’s most cherished tools. “Rendell, my old friend, any update on your river escapades?”
“We have seized multiple river-front towns as far north as Missouri, but we have yet to take Memphis herself.”
“And why is that?” Sigmund asked.
Rendell nodded. “There is quite the armed resistance there and to attack it would be to lose much.”
“The resistance—is it Imperium, Texan, or American?” Sigmund asked.
“None of the above,” Rendell said. “So far as we can tell, they are in league with no one. They have set up a trading post and guard it heavily.”
“What are they trading?” Sigmund asked.
“Mostly women and drugs,” Rendell replied emotionlessly. “It seems the birthplace of rock and roll is rapidly becoming a city of sin.”
“Well,” Sigmund said with a grin, “I believe such a lovely group of individuals shouldn’t be hard to persuade to join our cause.”
“You’d think that,” Rendell said. “But they’ve been resilient to outsiders looking for anything but a night with their precious and lucrative goods.”
“Set up a blockade and let only our men pass north or south along the river,” Sigmund said. “The Mississippi is a vital artery between Texas and the northern states, and I alone want to control it.”
“Yes, sir,” Rendell replied.
“And what of our western advances?” Sigmund asked. “Have you made progress?”
“North Little Rock is all but ours,” Rendell said. “Unfortunately, we have begun to see heavier than expected resistance on the southern half of the city.”
“Texas?”
“I believe so,” Rendell replied.
“Do what you can to secure the entire city and establish a well-fortified presence there,” Sigmund said. “If we can take Little Rock, we will control yet another river that gains us access to the entire state of Arkansas.”
“We will do what we can, but we need more men.”
“Indeed,” Sigmund replied, motioning to Victor. “I’m sending you an asset of mine. His name is Victor Castle. He was actually the very first Recruit and is our most decorated man. I want you and the other agents to work with him to bolster your numbers while Victor prepares them for battle. They’ll need to be ruthless, trained, and unwavering if we are to avoid another disaster like Montgomery.”
“I will not disappoint,” Rendell said with a nod. “What of the eastern front? Any progress?”
Sigmund smiled, twiddling his thumbs as he looked to the others one by one.
“You know, when I was a young man I was addicted to poker. It was mostly small games at first—never more than a few hundred dollar buy in as I had not yet inherited my fortune. I spent many a night behind endless towers of chips and cards. I was young and let anger best me far too often. But you see, I learned so much through that game.”
“Like what?” Sūn asked.
“I learned how to read a man, study his movements and the twitching of his eyes so that I may dive into his mind and embrace his thou
ghts,” Sigmund replied. “I discovered how to lose to a man, admitting defeat and learning from my mistakes before the next hand was dealt. It is a secret to no one that Lukas has been the victor in this little game of ours and he has outdone us all at every hand. As of now, he is the better player. As his chip count increases, ours dwindles into nothing. Without a change of course, we will bleed out once he goes all in.”
Sigmund smiled as they all looked back at him before glancing at one another with concern.
“But the most important thing I learned all those years ago was how to beat those who were better than me,” Sigmund said after a pause.
“And how do we beat a man like that?” Rendell asked.
“Just like I beat the first man who went all in on me during a high stakes game,” Sigmund said. “With the Jack of blades.”
Rendell glanced at Sūn and Silvia confusedly before staring back at Sigmund.
“I gambled many long nights here in America, waiting for your call,” Rendell said. “Never have I heard of the Jack of blades.”
“I was in the states on business when I first played it. It was back in the seventies in an underground club in New Jersey that a friend of mine owned. I have never tried it again in a card game, but I have won many personal battles with the same tactic.”
“What happened?” Sūn asked.
“I had been dealt pocket kings in a high stakes, hundred thousand dollar buy in, but this newcomer beat me on the river with a flush. He had been one of those cowboys from down south, talking smooth and trying to get in my head and under my skin all night. After hours of losing to him, it dawned on me just how I was going to beat him. I waited for him to win that final hand—his greedy eyes fixated on his battle prize. As he reached forward for the last of what I had lost, I drew a knife and stuck it in the side of his skull. I remember his eyes glancing up at me in horror and confusion as his life quickly faded away. I smiled and pushed him back into his seat before reaching forward and taking both my chips and his. The other players were too shocked to try to stop me while the club owner actually thanked me for shutting him up.”