Queen walked up to him, looking at his bloodstained clothes. “Svante, oh…what happened with Zakhehus?”
“I killed him.”
Queen paused. “You… you what?”
“I killed him, and I’ll kill you next if you ever start a war like this again.” Svante pushed past her. She didn’t deserve to know the truth, to know about the executioners and his brother’s death. But if she ever crossed the line again, he would kill her with his own two hands.
That was the only way to stop the violence.
To make sure they always lived by He’s words.
Queen sat on her throne, overlooking the major gods as they initiated her as the head of Ifor. Queen smiled. About time.
After the initiation, half of the major gods left. The remaining ones barred the door.
“Make sure no one can ever come in again,” Queen said.
“I made sure, Queen. Is our agreement in order?” one of the major gods said.
“It seems long-winded, I say we act now,” Queen said.
“We can’t. After a war with this many casualties, we cannot chance another rift between the gods again.”
“So, you want us to wait thousands of years until we can rule over the world?”
“Think, Queen. If we allow humanity to revel in their freedom now, they will become used to it. Then, when we slowly start taking their freedoms away, pushing our power over them through small events and taking their liberties, then slowly they will rise up, forcing us to increase our power over them. Which will cause a domino effect, causing greater mischief in the world, and when they finally revolt and rebel against us, when the situation is unavoidable, only then will we be able to get the other gods on our side, when the humans start threatening our livelihood. Then we will have a reason to enslave them, to rule over them without dissidence from our peers and we will rule over the world.”
“Like I said, long-winded.”
“We will replace you if needed, Queen. You are our leader because of your influence and age; if you stray from our plan, then I’m sure there is someone here who will take up the mantle.”
“Calm down, I agree with your plans. I want to rule as much as you do. But let’s have a little fun while we are at it.”
“Fun and games can wait, Queen.”
They turned and left. Queen stared up into the ceiling. She was right where she wanted to be. But it almost felt too easy.
Svante sat on the cliffside of a mountain. It wasn’t Mount Olympus, as with the Eye of the World gone, he couldn’t watch the storms from the heavens anymore.
A storm was ravaging in the distance. He stared at the black coming down on the Earth. He was lost in his thoughts.
The rumors about his brother trying to kill He had gotten out and it was becoming common knowledge. The gods not involved with the war started to support Queen, as she had attempted to stop his brother.
He knew it was a lie, but he didn’t see any other way to keep the peace. If the truth came out, then there would be another war, another massacre.
All of his brother’s men were killed. So there were no witness to deny the fact.
He couldn’t allow that to happen, for people to see how malevolent Queen was. He was being paraded as a hero, the one who killed his own brother to stop him from killing He.
He wanted to stop the rumors, the praise, but he couldn’t. He had to live a lie.
The sun was eclipsed above him. Large black wings swooped down from the heavens. Michael flew in front of him. “Come with me.”
Svante walked into the Wavering Radiant, following Michael. “Where were you, Michael?” Svante had been asking Michael what he was doing when the fighting was going on below.
But Michael never answered him.
“I brought him,” Michael said.
In the clouds, He appeared and walked toward them. Svante fell to his knees.
“Rise, My Child,” He said.
Svante stood and stared at the blur of He’s face. “Why? Why did you abandon us for all these years? Did we forsake you?” Svante asked. He was standing in front of him and he hadn’t see him in years. He had so many questions to ask.
But the answers Svante would receive for his questions were unexpected and sudden. They would change his life forever.
“I Left…” He hesitated.
Svante’s stomach dropped as He never hesitated, never questioned his own words. For he was God and God was all.
“Because I Saw My Death.”
Flames rose into the summer night. Bodies lay in waste in a small human village. The full moon painted the blood black.
Queen stood over a dying man. Her hand was sliced open, her blood floated in the air. Her blood turned into a small thin spear.
She pierced the man in the gut. He screamed as he bled out.
“My hatred for you humans seems like it can’t be quenched.” She looked around. She couldn’t have killed everyone yet. She still had some steam to blow off.
She heard a sound behind one of the cottages next to her. “Come out.” Her blood stretched out like tentacles and slung behind the cottage and pulled out a man and woman.
She stuck the man’s hands into the cottage wall with her hardened blood spears. He screamed out as Queen dragged the woman in front of her. “Why do you get to be free?” Queen swung out her hands, she could feel the blood that pulsed through the woman’s veins. She could control anybody’s blood, but she had the best control over her own, this was enough.
The woman’s arms swung out and she floated into the air and in front of Queen. “You will bow down to me.”
The woman’s arms and legs snapped with sickening cracks as they fractured into a bow. The woman screamed as her arms were twisted into an inhuman shape.
“You don’t deserve to look up to me.”
The woman’s neck snapped and her body dropped.
The Omniscient Man never took his chains back from her. That worked in her favor, as she was one of the only ones who knew where He rested. Zakhehus did but he was dead now. Thanks to him, she would rule the world.
He’s eyes wouldn’t judge her any longer. And with the Eye of the World gone, she could do anything she wanted.
“You’re sick!” the man stuck to the wall said.
Queen approached him, a blood spear appearing in her hand.
“Please, stop this! Where is He? He save us!”
“He won’t protect you any longer.” She shoved the spear into the man’s chest.
13
No Kind of Hell
Heat.
Pain.
Death.
Embers of heat seared through August’s flesh and his very being.
The last thing he remembered was staring down at Svante’s dying body and then the flash of light that encased his entire soul.
And then the insufferable heat.
His death had been quick. Even though the burning had felt like it lasted an eternity. He didn’t even have time to say goodbye to his brother. He had pushed him through the window before the light came. It was too late for himself.
He had felt the heat burn his insides to a crisp, the quick flashes of intense pain, and then the feeling of nothing as his nerves were scorched.
His last thought had been an apology to his brother. It had been his fault that this happened. If he had never killed his father, if he hadn’t been so selfish to his family and to himself, then Kevan would have never been in this situation.
But now, it was too late.
Blackness surrounded August. He didn’t have any thoughts, as the dead never pondered. The heat of his death was gone. He didn’t feel anything. He didn’t think or feel. He simply existed.
A small light appeared in the blackness. It was a warm creamy light. August would have walked toward it if he had a body. But his presence simply basked in its glow.
“Wake up.” A voice.
Was it He?
A part of August came to. His conscience, his spirit. �
�I’m sorry,’ he wanted to say but no words came out. ‘Please forgive me,’ he wanted to scream but he had no mouth.
“Wake up,” the voice said again. The light in front of August reverberated. His senses started to come back to him.
He heard the chirping of birds, the gust of the wind. “I’m sorry,” August said again, but this time the words came out as a whisper.
The light in front of him seemed to get stronger. A smell swirled around him. It was faint at first, but then it smacked him right across the face.
The smell of shit.
The darkness around August disappeared as he slowly opened his eyes. He lay in a cell. The light in the darkness was the sunlight hitting the rusty tan cell walls. The smell, a decrepit old man sitting against the wall opposite of him, with only a loincloth covering his pride.
August spat the taste of stale urine out of his mouth. The cell was overpowered with it.
He slowly looked around.
A small barred window was in the wall across from the metal-framed door. The light was hitting the wall across from him. It was their only light. The cell walls were clay-like and clammy. They were stained with blood and excrement.
Where was he?
August sat up. There were no beds or covers in the cell. Only him sitting on the floor and the other man.
“You’re finally up,” the old man said.
He ignored him. He was bare down to a loincloth, just like the old man. The man smelled something fierce, but then August took a big whiff and noticed that he smelled, too.
“I know who you are,” the man said in a resolved tone.
“You don’t know a damned thing about me,” August replied with venom.
The old man laughed. “Yes. Yes, I do. You’re Fabien Owen.”
“No. No, I’m not.” The old man was lying. He was grinning cheek-to-cheek like he had him all figured out. His toothless grin let out a smell worse than the shit-stained cell.
Why would the gods put him in here with this crazy old fool?
“You’re the one who killed those kids. Your own kids,” the man laughed. “The king that went mad.”
August tried to ignore him, but he had felt the words strike a chord in his heart. Everything the man had said felt real. August felt like he had killed his children, that he really did go mad, that he had once ruled an entire kingdom. The images of screaming children ran through his mind.
“I have been wishing for death for a very long time, but they’re going to kill you first,” the old man said with a sudden sadness.
August clutched his head. Those weren’t his memories. He was August, he wasn’t a killer.
It must be a trick, something the gods cooked up. The man was mad, the man was insane.
But so was August. He was a killer, he really did kill his father, Sara, and, indirectly, his mother. He didn’t kill any kids but he was a murderer.
They deserved it. They needed to die. Those thoughts kept running through his head. But he knew they were a lie.
A tear dropped from his left eye. He killed his kids. “No!” he screamed. His memories were getting mixed up. Visions of Sara, Patrick, and Barbara swirled around in his head, but so did the images of the three kids that felt like his.
“No!” he screamed again.
He wasn’t a killer.
It was a thought he wanted to believe.
He was a murderer.
The thought he tried to run away from.
The cell doors burst open and a man in steel armor walked in. He said, “It’s time to account for your actions.”
He grabbed and pulled August out of the cell. August yelled and kicked but it was useless. The old man in the cell laughed as August was carried away.
August was dragged down a dark dirty hallway and out onto a terrace overlooking an expansive old city.
August gawked. There were wooden spires and hundreds of thatched rooftops and stone buildings filling his view.
Nothing of the twisted glass and metal he was familiar with. It was like he was sent back thousands of years in the past.
He was dragged to a guillotine in the middle of the terrace. Surrounding it were royal family members and soldiers. Most of them looked at him with disgust.
Why did they look so familiar to him? Like he knew them personally? His mother, father, wife.
Thousands of people cheered on below the terrace. They were going to execute him. The crowd booed as he came into view, chanting for his death. The death of the Mad King.
The people around him were saying something as his head was loaded into the guillotine, but their words were inaudible thanks to the chanting below.
If so many people wanted him dead, maybe his visions were true. Maybe he wasn’t August anymore but the Mad King. A child-killer.
Even if this was all a mistake and he didn’t murder his kids, maybe only death could help him escape his afflicting thoughts.
The blade released and August felt the cold metal connect with his neck.
Everything went dark.
He could still feel his breaths, the sweat teasing his eyes.
“On the account of twenty-three counts of homicide…” He heard a voice in the darkness.
He tried to move but his arms and hands were bound. Did the guillotine fail?
“Ten counts of extortion and thirteen counts of robbery,” the voice continued.
He felt a hand grabbing at his face. He was blinded by the sudden sunlight as a bag was pulled from over his head. He stood on a hanging station in a small town. A noose around his neck.
He looked around. “What’s happening?”
He was in the Wild West. The air was thick with horse manure. The town was small and everything was made out of wood. The twenty people surrounding him were all the folk this one-horse town had.
Who was he? A gunman, an outlaw. He once ruled the West, and these were all the people who came to his execution? He spat on the ground. Some of the town folk backed up.
August smiled, he still had them.
The sheriff turned to him. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Banshee.”
The visions of all the bad he’d done flashed through his mind. Murder, kidnapping, robbery. Whoever he was now was far worse than the Mad King.
The crowd started to cheer. His reign over them would be coming to an end.
“Any regrets?” the sheriff asked.
“I regret nothing! Everyone who stepped in my way deserved to die!”
August wrestled with his bindings. They deserved to die!
“So much for last words,” the sheriff said. He pulled a lever and the floor fell from below August.
August felt his neck snap before everything went dark.
August sat in the back of a car behind the passenger seat. His previous death slowly diminished from his memory.
Where was he now?
He rubbed his neck as if the rope burns were still there. But then, the life of the person he was now slowly took over.
The other seats were filled with men just like him, dressed in various-colored jogging suits. Fast-paced electronic music thumped out of the speakers. They each held a weapon.
The guy beside him clutched an AK like his life depended on it. His head bobbed, with the ratta-tats of the music, while staring out the window. He was getting himself amped up for what they were about to do.
August’s hands were sweating. He wiped the sweat off of the shotgun he held.
How did he get so far?
Why did he kill all those people?
Did they really deserve it?
Or was he fulfilling his own selfish needs?
Nobody deserved anything. That was what his mother had always thought him. Take what’s yours and don’t think about the consequences. Nobody else mattered except for him and his goals. They deserved to die if they got in the way of that.
August checked his shotgun. Nine shots. He had a Gat tucked into the back of his pants if he ran out of ammo.
/> His gang leader turned around to him from the passenger seat. “Yo, are you scared, mate?”
“N…No,” August said.
“You look scared to me,” the gang leader said.
“Looks like he’s pussing out,” the guy next to him said.
“Fuck off, Vilen. I’m not scared, Marlon.”
“Then why are you here?” Marlon asked.
“I’m here to kill.”
“Damn right, these motherfuckers went into our territory, killed our people, even shot Vilen’s grandma here and they think we’re not going to retaliate?”
Marlon sat forward and started checking his gun. “They betrayed us. We had a partnership and they fucking betrayed us. They need to be put down.”
The car stopped at a light. Only one more block. August stared down at his feet. He had to do this. They had to be put down.
Glass exploded across August’s face as bullets ripped into the car. August closed his eyes and cowered down as he felt a sharp sting rocket into his right leg and arm. His crew yelled as they were littered with bullets.
Then, everything went quiet.
August looked around. He was covered in blood. Everyone was dead. He opened the door and fell onto the glass-covered ground. He saw a pair of shoes come up to the car on the other side.
He tried to drag himself into the bushes next to the sidewalk, the glass cutting deep into his belly.
The feet came to him and more surrounded him. The leader pointed his gun at him. As August looked up, the sun obscured the man’s face.
“I’m…I’m sorry!” August said.
“This is your fault.” The leader capped him.
August’s vision jumped and he stared out into a city very much like New York City. The sun was setting into an orange purplish haze.
He owned this city.
But who was he?
Chris Porter. He was dressed in an expensive designer suit. Only the best for the CEO of the world’s largest corporation.
He had built a legacy. One his father had never built for him, one that he had erected from the ground up.
But how many had he destroyed to get to where he was now?
Many.
His loved ones and the ones that weren’t so loved.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 221