“Hmm… again.” I command the snake. I close my eyes and drink in the screams as though I were listening to an opera. Three minutes later, Horus’s skin has regrown and he’s stopped screaming.
“Again!” I command, sounding absolutely giddy. Once again, Horus’s wails do not cease to please me. Another three minutes go by and Horus has healed.
“Aaaaaaand once more!” I command, my tone implying that I should be bouncing and clapping. I hear myself chuckling in response to Horus’s screaming.
“You know, it’s just not quite the same without the blood…” I tell Horus once his skin is back. “What should I do next… oh, I know!”
My tendrils lay Horus down while keeping his left hand up. The tendril in Horus’s left shoulder and the one in his hand start to pull in opposite directions while twisting his arm. I pour all the strength I can summon into the punch directed at Horus’s left elbow. At the moment my punch connects, the tendril in Horus’s hand twists and rips his forearm off. I laugh at his screams while the tendril in his hand releases the severed arm as it disintegrates. I repeat the process for his right arm and both legs, the legs taking quite a few more punches to break.
“And finally, the Coup de Grace!” I exclaim whilst beaming.
The four newly unoccupied tendrils that I have surge into Horus’s chest and weave their way through his ribcage before pulling in opposite directions. I’m not entirely certain that the tendrils have the strength to do it alone, so the tendrils in his shoulders and thighs lift Horus up and repeatedly pull him into my punches. I start to question my capability to do this without my Mu-cutter until, a dozen hard punches to his sternum and collar bone later, I hear a marvelous crack as his ribcage gets torn asunder and his body starts to flake apart.
Going on instinct, I reach my left hand into his chest and place it on the golden mass. The golden mass in Horus’s body turns into black smoke and almost looks like it’s going into my arm. The inside of Horus’s chest seems to melt slightly once the smoke is gone; it kind of looks like lava that has solidified into volcanic rock upon cooling, with its smooth ridges leading back towards the spine. The absence of the golden mass stops the disintegration of Horus’s husk-like corpse, notifying me that my revenge has been achieved and that my fun is over… or is it?
I look around at the armed ifrits in front of me, and the marids and ghouls behind me, while smiling broadly. The soldiers all back up uncontrollably in response to my attention.
“Oh, look… targets!” I announce just loud enough for them to hear. I feel a ripple of panic start to consume the jinn around me as a blur hits me from my right and tackles me to the ground.
“COLE! SNAP OUT OF IT!” Cheza screams as she repeatedly punches me in the face.
Cheza gazes into my eyes, carefully observing while she stops punching me. As I wonder what she is looking at, an image is projected into my mind:
My face, contorted with an evil looking smile, but the things that are the most disturbing are my eyes. They’re completely black, and not black like pupils where they will show a reflection; no, my eyes are the kind of black that gives one the impression that they have the ability to suck the light out of a room. Cheza tackles me and my silver irises slowly surface as Cheza punches me. She stops and watches as the black fades to white in my eyes, and as the black fades to silver in my arm.
“Cheza… I’m so glad that you’re okay.” I tell her, unable to look into her eyes; unable to admit that while I was killing Horus, at some point I had forgotten about Cheza…
“Idiot… I was worried about you…” Cheza gently replies and leans over to kiss me. She sits up and gives me a stern look while straddling me.
“You are not allowed to kill anyone else here, do you understand?” Cheza scolds.
“But mooooooom!” I reply, causing Cheza to smile.
“Well it seems like you’re back to your usual self. Can we go home now?” Cheza asks as she gets off of me and helps me to my feet.
“Almost.” I tell her while turning towards the palace and engaging my helmet. The ifrits in front of the palace tense up and start to bring up their weapons.
“If you have any sense of self-preservation, you will accept this hostile regime change and lay down your weapons! I will give you ten seconds to decide before I decide for you, despite what my better half just said!” I shout to the ifrit soldiers with my voice modulated back to ‘eerie’ levels instead of ‘Sith’ levels. They shoot glances at one another before an ifrit places his rifle on the ground and the others follow suit.
“Smart choice boys… and girls.” I say as I look at them and spot three ifrits that are about a foot shorter than the rest, realizing that they’re female ifrits, a fact that is difficult to tell under their modern combat armor.
I grab Horus’s husk by the neck and drag it along as I head up the white marble walkway towards the palace. At the end of the walkway are two, twenty foot tall, white marble doors. I attempt to pull them open, but they refuse to budge; they must be barred. I free up my left hand by switching the husk over to my right before placing my left hand upon the center of the doors.
“I create nothing. I preserve nothing. I only erase.” I say aloud as my arm momentarily flushes black.
“Showoff.” Cheza thinks while grinning at me as the doors turn into smoke, revealing that a large marble crossbar is what was jamming the door; then that too, turns to smoke.
There is a wall of approximately fifty ifrit soldiers at the end of the throne room, about one hundred feet away, all with guns that are trained on me.
“If you don’t want to end up like this guy, I’d suggest that you put down your weapons.” I tell them as I slowly lower the husk to the ground and slide it over to them with a kick, or at least that had been the plan.
The husk stops at about the halfway point. A single brave soldier walks over to inspect the husk while keeping his FAMAS rifle trained on me. Are the jinn sponsored by the French or something? Everyone and their mother has a FAMAS assault rifle, which is way too many for them to have gotten an illegal shipment; not to mention the fact that I haven’t seen a single gun of a different brand in this whole place. The ifrit taps the body with his foot to make sure that it won’t explode or something before taking a closer look at it.
“HOLY SHIT! THIS IS HORUS!” The ifrit shouts. “You guys have to get a load of this, he is seriously fucked up!”
“Yes, he is and I’m the one that did that to him.” I announce. I hear murmurs of disbelief so I turn around towards the door.
“Can I get a witness!?” I shout to the ifrit soldiers that are standing around and watching me. They just look around at each other and then back at me. “Seriously? I’m trying to do this without having to kill anyone so if someone could just come over here and explain the situation so I don’t have to slaughter my way through your buddies to get to the king, that would be good.”
Upon hearing this, one of the female ifrit soldiers and one of the males walk to the doorway to recant Horus’s ass-kicking. By the time their tale is finished, roughly half of the ifrits have set down their rifles.
“You are just going to abandon your king like this!?” someone shouts from the back of the room, and he sounds like a pompous dickhole.
“Kill the traitors!” the Ifrit King commands.
One incredibly loyal soldier that is standing at the back of the room, jumps into the air and takes aim at me while I consider my options. I could try shooting him, but he would most likely dodge them at one hundred feet away and it would most likely cause a shoot-out. Perhaps I should try darts; I can throw those things pretty damn fast… I touch my right finger tips to the hole in my left palm and draw four darts. I flick my hand out in a horizontal fashion with hopes that if he tries to dodge one, he’ll move into the path of another. The ifrit sees them coming and swoops up to dodge all of them, only to smash his head into the ceiling and come crashing down to the ground; I suppose that works too. I follow up by racing towards the k
ing before anyone that is still loyal gets any ideas.
“It’s time for you to answer to Tali for what you’ve did to Anai and for what you’ve done to our friend Naia.” I tell him as I grab him by his royal coat collar and drag him off of the throne. Cheza watches my back as I drag the king down the middle of the throne room
“Yphon-tay Ineris-cay!” the king barks.
I hear Cheza yelp and I turn in time to see her get engulfed in a swirling pillar of flames. The smell of burning hair reaches my nostrils just before I loose myself. I roar at the king before tearing off his right wing, quickly followed by his left and his tail while he screams out in agony. The jinn in the room panic and swiftly vacate before I start pounding the king’s limbs into pulp with my blackened left hand. Blood begins splattering my helmet before I notice that the king has gone into shock and passed out. I feel the heat of the inferno against my back start to dissipate.
I look over my shoulder and all that’s left is a scorch mark…
“Flay.” I command while setting my left hand on top of the king’s chest. His coat, dress shirt, and skin fly off of his torso in ribbons as the pain causes him to jolt awake screaming. Now that he’s conscious, I give a pelvis shattering punch to his groin, which hurts me ever so slightly by association, before wailing away at his stomach with my left hand. Pink foam starts to bubble out of his mouth by the time I reach his ribcage, and continues after I make sure to shatter every one of his ribs. I scream as I smash my fist into the king’s head and about six inches into the tile.
With tears running freely down my cheeks, I disengage my helmet and drag myself over to where she was. I place my right hand on the scorch mark.
“Please… bring her back… just give her back to me!” I pray as my tears pile up on the scorch mark, mixing with the ash so that little black flecks float through the miniature puddles.
I wait, but I hear no response.
“I can’t do this anymore… Fuck it.” I say.
I reach around to my back and wrap my left hand around the grip of my gun. I remove my gun from its holster, press the barrel to my temple, and close my eyes as I think of Addie and Cheza.
“I’ll see you both soon.”
The last thing I hear is the sound of a gunshot.
Chapter 45: Epilogue?
“So that’s it. That’s how my story ends. As I sit here, floating through the darkness with this laptop, typing out the story of my life, I can’t help but feel like the universe has had the last laugh. Addie and Cheza are nowhere to be found so I’m left here. Alone. Forever. After all, it’s not like there’s a conveniently placed door behind me that I just failed to notice the entire time that was spent typing this out…”
I chuckle to myself before looking over my shoulder, only to find a silver door, conveniently placed, that I just failed to notice the entire time that was spent typing my story out. I close the lid of the notebook before standing up and floating over to the silver door. I wrap my hands around the handles of the double doors and slowly pull them open.
“We need you to retrieve a girl. Loki will be having Fenrir pick her up soon, so time is of the essence.” My mother says via webcam on the computer in Uncle Eric’s office. The computer shows that she is talking to Inti, but I don’t see him.
“What is her significance?” Inti asks as I hear his voice exuding from the position of my throat. This is confusing; unlike last time, the scene isn’t shot from my point of view, but from Uncle Eric’s. My mother snaps her fingers and a manila folder appears on the desk. Inti opens the folder and reveals it to be a dossier of Cheza with a baby picture of her.
“She is the first artificial angel and she is a complete success. Loki was able to genetically alter Fenrir and had him rape a snow elf woman since they are genetically closer to angels or jinn than humans are. If Loki manages to gain access to her, he will be able to easily manufacture artificial sentient beings to rival the power of the angels or jinn.” My mother answers.
“It sounds too risky to leave her alive and I’m sure that The Faction will want to eliminate her.” Inti replies.
“Normally I’d agree; however, this girl has certain properties that make her compatible with Cole. That is why you are going to lie to The Faction when the time comes and say that Loki believes her death to be required to start Ragnarok.” My mother says.
“This girl is going to be the balance to the second ‘unpredictable madman’? But she’s only around two years old.” Inti points out as he looks at the dossier; when did Inti know about Cheza? I was under the impression that he saved her while interrupting Fenrir when she was eight years old.
I catch a glimpse of something that causes a great deal of confusion: a date of birth that is set only twelve years ago. What? That’s not right; Cheza is only two years younger than I.
“Retrieve the girl and bring her to Saraswati. Saraswati will bring the girl to Mount Kailash where we will make some minor alterations to make her more of a match, age just being one thing we will change.” My mother replies.
“I understand. I’ll leave for Siberia immediately.” Inti says.
“Good. And do bring a jacket; the shores of Lake Baikal get quite frigid this time of year.” My mother replies.
I sit back and watch as Inti ports to a dark, wintery forest. The frozen crunch beneath his feet is noticeable as he walks through the otherwise silent forest for a little over a mile, until he reaches a log cabin and the sound of snarling wolves. Inti pulls a Desert Eagle .50 caliber handgun out of his coat pocket, enters the cabin, and quickly dispatches the pack of five giant wolves. A man and a blonde snow elf woman are lying on the ground, both bleeding heavily. The man is dead, his throat having been torn out by the wolves, but the woman is still alive. She looks at Inti with fear in her eyes as he walks over to a cabinet in the back left corner and takes out a crying bundle of blankets.
“Mama!” the bundle cries as the woman pleads with her blue eyes. Inti removes the blankets to reveal a baby Cheza that can’t be more than two years old.
“Don’t worry; she will be well taken care of.” Inti says in Russian, but the meaning finds its way into my mind. Inti aims at the woman’s heart and pulls the trigger.
Inti slips the gun back into his coat pocket before porting someplace with tropical plants and giant leaves. I see stone columns and realize that he’s in the pool-adjacent garden of a large house. An Indian woman is to the right of Inti, lying on a white, pool-side lounger, wearing a red bikini while reading a book. She sets her book down, stands up, and takes a crying baby Cheza from Inti.
“The alterations will most likely take about six months.” Saraswati says in Indian accented English as she lays her right hand on top of Cheza’s forehead, causing her to instantly fall asleep.
“Alright, I’ll await her word.” Inti replies and returns to his office. A few moments later, there is a knock at the door.
“Uncle Eric? Sara asked me to tell you that dinner is ready.” A nine year old me says from a crack in the office doorway as the silver doors slowly close.
Okay… what the fuck just happened?
(I still have something else to show you, Master)
“Airi?”
The silver doors reopen to the garden with Saraswati standing next to an eight year old Cheza.
“As you can see, we accelerated her age by six years. We also sealed her powers away and implanted her with false memories that should bring her closer to Cole, as well as disabling the Westermarck Effect in her so she won’t be able to see Cole as her brother.” Saraswati states.
“Won’t that mean that she could also become attracted to me?” Inti asks.
“Yes, but to counteract that, we also implanted the idea that Cole is the only ‘bee’ to Chezarei’s ‘flower’… that is a horrid analogy, but you understand what I mean. As a precaution though, you should probably spend as little time alone with her as possible. While Chezarei won’t be able to see Cole as a brother, this won’t stop the boy from
seeing her as a sister; he’ll get over it though… probably. Anyway, all the rummaging through her brain has left her like this, but that should make the boy naturally gravitate towards her because she will remind Cole of himself.” Saraswati says while gesturing to a doll-like Cheza.
“Consensus among us dictates that Loki will try to take her eventually, which works out in our favor because it will allow Cole to naturally hate Loki, giving him a cause to fight without us telling him to.” Saraswati adds.
“What should we tell The Faction?” Inti inquires.
“Bring her up at the next meeting. The backstory is that her death will lead to Ragnarok if she’s killed on a specific date. Someone will suggest that we kill her to permanently end the threat. That’s when I’ll chime in and suggest that killing her may inadvertently start Ragnarok and that we don’t have enough information to chance it so protecting her from Loki is the only course of action.” Saraswati answers.
“Is it really worth it to keeping her around?” Inti asks.
“Surely you’ve heard the stories about Shiva’s rampage on earth that is only stopped by Parvati’s influence, and the stories of Kali’s rampage on earth that is only stopped by Shiva tricking her. That boy has both those influences in him; without the balance that this girl will provide, there’s a chance that he might lose control and cause destruction of legendary proportions.” Saraswati replies.
“Will he really be that dangerous?” Inti inquires.
“That boy was designed to be Loki’s killer —to be Shiva’s influence on this plane— and Void help us should he ever go rogue.” Saraswati says as the silver doors close.
****
I jolt awake while gasping for breath in a four poster bed with a silk bedspread. How am I still alive?
Feros and the Underworld Prince Page 34