Brookes had already disposed of the son’s body. He had to make it seem like there was a fight, like they were given no mercy. That was why he had placed the girls near the door, and the mother and grandmother sat dead on the couch.
With the way he had them set up, the police would probably determine that the rebels came in and killed the mother and grandmother, while the daughters attempted to run as their father held off the attackers to no avail. With the rebels then taking the son to sell him into slavery or something. The media would think of something creative for the boy. Brookes liked letting them make up a story.
Of course, it had been a lot simpler than that. Brookes had simply pulled out his knife and gone to work. He hated using his gun, but sometimes it could send a powerful message.
He shot the mother and grandmother before they could do anything. If he didn’t shoot them, he wouldn’t have had enough time to torture the father and his children. To rip open the man’s chest with his knife in what looked like rage, while his children watched. With them, he simply carved up their faces slowly, that way, their screams of terror could be frozen on their faces as they died. It needed to look real. Another innocent family dead, killed by the rebels.
The family were really innocent and so were the two other families he killed in the apartments next to them, but he was no rebel.
Brookes stuck his hand into the father’s chest and removed some blood from it and walked to the wall again. It was the only wall not covered in some mess. He wrote “Human traitors” on it.
Not that creative.
“Creative,” a voice said behind him. Brookes turned.
There stood Queen, in all her misplaced glory.
Her lips were cherry red, her hair bloody crimson. Her eyes the deepest of blues. She wore a cloak that matched her hair. Her skin looked creamy and smooth.
The goddess had some life in her.
She was the greatest beauty Brookes had ever seen.
Brookes didn’t answer her as he wiped off his hands on a curtain.
“It’s been three hours. A little too long, Brookes. I expected you to be quicker.”
“It would be easier if I had a team again.”
“Svante is preventing that. He is the god of war and all.” She said with indifference.
“Your doing,” Brookes said. He moved around furniture and cleaned up his tools. He had to make this look like it was more than a one-person job. He went into the closet and pulled out the father's shoes and stepped them into the blood on the floor. He placed multiple footprints on the carpet leading up to the door and around the bodies, rubbing the prints with his hand to make the footprints indistinguishable from one another.
“I like seeing you work. I knew I was right to pick you.” Queen watched him do his thing.
Brookes washed off the shoes and put them back in the closet just the way the father had them before. The police wouldn’t look too closely into the murders. Ifor owned them, after all. If they actually attempted to learn anything, they would only see small smudges of blood on the shoes. But they wouldn’t, so Brookes didn’t have to clean them to perfection.
Brookes looked at Queen. “Why are you causing discord in Sotira? This town has nothing for you.”
“Since when did a human believe he was high enough to speak to me in such a manner?”
“You have hundreds of wet teams to choose from.” She did this every time.
She laughed and approached him. “You must act this way just because we made love.” She laughed again. “It must have been exhilarating for you.”
She always did this, mock him. He wondered if she knew that she said the same exact thing every time they met. Repeating herself about how inadequate he was, how below her he was. She must have loved how her shit smelled.
“It must have been amazing.” She came uncomfortably close to him. She liked to remind him how inadequate humans really were.
Yet, she still fucked him.
Her hands caressed his chest and moved to his lips. Brookes clenched his fist. He tried with all his might to not ravish her. Her scent was irresistible, her lust life-threatening. She was his weakness.
To have sex with a god was to ascend to the highest point of enlightenment.
Her hands stopped and her laughter died down. “I need you to kill someone. A man by the name of August Hedley. I need you to make it look like the gods weren’t involved. He’s with the rebels now.”
“He left Sotira. Why now?”
“Once again, you’re asking too many questions. If you question me again, I will take your other little friend.” She made a cutting motion with her hand and smiled. His testicle. “You are my pawn to do what I want, whenever I want. Stop asking questions.”
Brookes sighed.
She’d never take the other one, she liked it too much. After Queen first made her offer to him, to be her pawn to do whatever she wanted with, Brookes was afraid of what she’d do with him.
After he said something that she deemed wrong, she cut off his right nut. For years, that put an eternal fear in his heart. But as he grew wiser and saw the world for what it really was, he figured out that she needed him as much as he needed her.
Plus it was hard to be a good fuck without his nuts.
Brookes nodded.
“August has undermined us. He killed a person of Ifor. Despite my distaste of the humans we employ, we cannot have that show of weakness. Eight months he’s gone uncaptured. This town has begun to lose faith in us.”
“Why not wipe them all out? Sotira is small enough to disappear.”
“Svante would prevent that, he rules over this state of derelicts and Michael would never let that happen. Not again. Now is not the time for conflict between the gods. Not yet.”
Brookes didn’t say anything. He’d just asked a question. He hoped he was right in that she wouldn’t do it. Cut off his prize and honor.
She continued, “The Eye of the World is broken. The gods can’t see the world like we used to. We need him dead, killed by a human to restore the faith in the true believers. To show that we don’t have to lift a finger to mete out justice. It’s easier to kill a cancer cell when it starts small.”
Brookes looked around the room, at the remains of the family that were starting to go sour. Yeah, not a finger, he thought.
“You do that and you’ll have your team. Now, finish up. You’ve spent too much time here.” She turned and walked to the next room.
“I asked you a question,” Brookes said. Queen paused. Why in the hell didn’t he keep his mouth shut?
Queen looked at him. A sliver of a smile crept up her mouth. But it went away instantly. She pulled out a cloth and wiped her hands in such a manner that it seemed like a religious habit.
She used to make him bathe for hours before she would even come close to touching him, and now, she barely batted an eye at his smell, at his existence. How ungodly. He wondered how low she’d fallen down the rabbit hole to fuck a sub-being like him.
She said, “I’ll cut it off next time.”
She stepped through the door and he knew she was gone. He didn’t know what her power was but whenever she left the room, she disappeared. The rumor was that she was the god of death. She could travel through the spirits of the dead as they moved to the Radiant.
Despite all her talk, he was enamored with her, to the point that he would say there was a connection between them. But she’d never admit that. As she was Queen, the god of death and the ruler of Ifor.
Kevan sat in his car, Sotira’s Ifor headquarters in front of him. His hands gripped the wheel. He had to do this. For his mother.
He stepped out of the car and walked in. The inside was oddly plain. The walls were white, the light was buzzing and draining. He walked to the front counter. A secretary typed on her computer.
Kevan saw the name on her tag, Shelly.
“Um, hello, Shelly. I have an appointment to see the head.”
“Was your meeting set by Mr. Bert
ek?” she said.
“Um …” Kevan paused. “Who?”
“Sorry. By a Brookes Bertek?”
“Oh yeah, Brookes. That’s him.”
“Okay. Please take a seat in the waiting area until I call your name.”
Kevan looked around and saw a waiting area in the corner with about twenty chairs. He walked over and sat down.
Kevan sat and sat. He watched the clock tick away an hour and then another.
His ass was sore, his back was stiff. What in the hell was the wait? He walked up to the secretary and before he could say a single word, the building shook and a loud boom rocked his ears.
“What the hell was that?” Kevan asked.
“Your meeting. Right this way.”
The secretary stood and walked him down a hallway. As he passed open doors and offices, he noticed this place seemed oddly normal. Nothing godly about it. People typed on computers, talked about what was on TV the previous night by the water cooler. Was this where his father used to work?
The secretary stopped at the end of the hall and knocked twice.
“Come in,” a voice said. Kevan walked through the door and the secretary left.
In front of him sat Svante, the god of war. He leaned back in his chair with his legs on his desk while smoking a cigarette. His office was oddly sparse. There were no pictures on the walls, no furniture except for his desk, the chairs around it, and a lonely plant in the corner.
“Kevan Hedley? Right?”
“Um, yes sir.”
“Sir? Just call me Svante.”
“Yes, Mr. Svante.”
Svante laughed and motioned for him to sit.
“Now, Mr. Hedley, what is it that you want?” Svante leaned back in his chair. Kevan guessed that as a god, you could relax as much as you wanted to.
“I need help.”
“Everybody needs help, one way or the other. I’m going to need you to be more specific.”
Svante looked so young. In fact, he and Kevan looked about the same age. But Kevan knew he was centuries old. He didn’t know how long gods could live though. Maybe forever.
Svante looked bored, indifferently smoking his cigarette. Kevan needed to put him at ease, or at least get his attention. Maybe that would help Kevan with his nerves.
“Sorry to ask this… but you look really young, is that because you’re a god or is it for some other reason?”
Svante laughed.
“That’s a good question. Out of all the current gods, I’m one of the youngest.”
“I thought you were all immortal?”
“Immortal? I’m not sure if we really are immortal, I’ve seen us age with my own eyes. But I’ve never heard of one of us dying of old age. Maybe we haven’t existed long enough for Grandfather Time to take us.”
“That’s … interesting.”
“But gods can die. I’ve killed some with my very hands.”
Kevan didn’t know how to respond to that.
Svante said, “Now, I’m sure you didn’t come here to speak of my age or who or what can kill a god. You said you needed help?”
“Yes, for my mother. She has a drug problem and she needs to go to rehab.”
Kevan pulled out the pamphlet for Heaven’s Heights and handed it to Svante. Svante opened it and looked at it. His face didn’t change. “Why should Ifor help out a drug addict?”
“Because, having drug addicts in the streets of your town could negatively affect your image.”
“And my rule?”
“No! I—I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you implied.”
“No…” Great, Kevan was already messing up. Svante’s face didn’t change during their whole exchange. Kevan couldn’t get a read on him. “I was just saying that, because of my father’s contributions to Ifor, we could possibly receive a little help for her problem.”
“I know exactly who your father was.” Svante put the pamphlet down. “You know, we used to have programs for people like your mother. The human ability to succumb to chemical dependency was a common problem with this town. At least, that was what the previous head said. But some gods don’t understand what these drugs do to humans.” Svante exhaled a puff of smoke. “So, they got rid of the programs.”
Svante sat up in his chair. “I’m sorry, we don’t have the budget to help you. Send her to a cheaper rehab center, there are plenty.”
“What? She’ll never break her addiction at one of those places. I know enough people who go to those third-rate hell-holes to know they don’t work. Your town is filled with crack addicts because of that shit!”
“Sorry—”
“After all that my family has done for Ifor! After all my father has done for you gods. After my father has died for you! This is how you repay him!?”
Kevan stood and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.
Svante was left staring at the door. He put out his cigarette and sighed. His budget didn’t have room to give any handouts. That was the point. To give the bare minimum to the humans. Queen knew what she was doing.
He stood. There were reasons he chose to be stationed in a position where he could interact the most with humans. The first reason was because a lot of gods were assholes. Especially Queen. And the second was because humans weren’t as lowly as the monkeys they came from anymore.
With his power, he could’ve ruled next to Queen herself.
He needed to make a few phone calls.
Brookes sat at the bar at the Skullet. He had two empty glasses in front of him. The bartender brought him another. He stared into the clear liquid. He couldn’t get drunk anymore. But god-dammit, he tried. Trying to find something to wash away the darkness inside him. To wash away the memories.
He swallowed the drink whole. It burned when it went down. At least, there was that. A sensation close enough to pain.
The TV over the bar was on. It usually never was, but Brookes asked for it to be turned on today. The bartender gave him another drink.
The news was on, with a breaking news story. Three families were killed in an apartment complex in Sotira. The news claimed that they were killed by the rebels because they refused their offers to join them.
The cameras showed the remains in the apartments. Horrible stuff: blood splattered on the walls, the chopped up remains of the kids. A few close-ups of the children’s eyes bugging out of their faces. A few bar-goers turned away from the television. The station couldn’t blur out something like that. Ifor wouldn’t let them. At least, Queen wouldn’t.
Brookes heard someone mutter, “Fucking rebels.” It was already working, the disinformation. As Brookes stared at the screen, the bottom title bar ran the phrase, “He is in his heaven, all is well in the world.”
Brookes raised his glass. “All is well in the world.” He downed his drink. He needed something stronger.
The bar door opened and Kevan walked in. He sat next to Brookes.
Brookes asked, “How’d it go?”
“Are you always here?”
“Not always.”
The bartender gave Brookes another drink and gave Kevan a whiskey on the rocks. He didn’t even have to ask for it. He was an alcoholic, like Brookes. Well, not exactly like him, seeing how Brookes couldn’t get drunk anymore. But like another person trying to drink away the bad memories. And Brookes knew exactly what those memories were. He was going to use them.
Brookes downed his drink and said, “So, not good?”
“No.”
Another drink was placed in front of Brookes. Kevan took notice.
“So, what am I going to do now?”
“I don’t know. You’ll think of something.”
“I’ve thought of everything.”
“We all have to do what we need to survive.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“All of us, you, me, your brother, everybody has to do what we have to do to survive.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know really … I’m drunk.”
Kevan looked at him. Despite all the empty glasses in front of him and him reeking of alcohol, Brookes didn’t look like he had an ounce of alcohol in his blood.
“Understand that, just because you can see into a person’s life, doesn’t mean that you know what he has to do to survive.” It sounded like he was apologizing for something he was about to do.
“This is useless.” Kevan stood.
“Svante will turn, he always does for humans.”
Brookes took another swig of his drink. Kevan stared at him. He needed to go check on his mother. He hoped Brookes was right.
“Thanks for your help.”
Kevan left.
Kevan walked into his mother’s house. “Mom!” he yelled. It was dark, none of the lights were on and there was no answer.
Her car was out front, so she must have been home. Where was she? He searched through the living room and the kitchen. He stopped his search.
Her bedroom door was closed. It was obvious, she must’ve been asleep. He went up to the door and knocked. “Mom,” he whispered. He knocked again. Nothing. He slowly opened the door.
“Mom, I need to talk—”
He paused. His mother lay on the bed, foaming from the mouth. Her eyes rolling to the back of her head.
“Mom!” He ran to her. A needle was in her arm, he ripped it out and he shook her. “Wake up!” A moan came out of her mouth. He didn’t know what to do.
The hospital. He picked up her limp body and carried her to his truck.
“Hold on.”
August and Sara walked from their car and into their apartment. It was right after their meeting with the rebels. Sara dropped her purse and yelled.
“Finally! We’re making progress!”
She hugged August and they passionately kissed.
“We have to celebrate,” August said. “To a new beginning.”
“Yes, a new beginning. No more lying around. No more hiding in fear.”
August spun her. “We’ll take them down.”
“How about I make us some dinner and you go get some wine.”
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 204