An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) (15 page)

When the movie ends,
I notice that Sara has fallen asleep. I put my left hand over her mouth and siphon more of my blood down her throat.

“Cole, what are you doing?” Cheza thinks.

“I’m getting an insurance policy… I’m not losing this sister too.” I solemnly reply.

…

Chapter 14
: Dragon Kidnapping

[December 26th]

After Cheza throws up again in the morning, she and I spend the whole day with Sara, helping her through her grief.

“This is hitting Sara pretty hard, huh?” Cheza comments around lunch time
while we’re downstairs.

“Yeah… I’m pretty sure they were together…” I reply.

“Yeah, they did live together for like twenty years.” Cheza says.

“Not like that…” I mumble.

“What do you mean?” Cheza asks.

“I’m pretty sure they were a couple.” I tell her.

“What? No way.” Cheza incredulously replies.

“They hooked up four years ago and last night Sara mentioned how she didn’t want to live without Tia…” I recant.

“What!?” Cheza exclaims.

“Yeah… that’s why I took the extra precaution of spiking Sara with my blood.” I explain.

“Wow… I had no idea…” Cheza says.

“I didn’t either until Sara said that
.” I reply.

“Cole, can we talk again?” Cheza asks.

“What’s up?” I respond.

“You know how sometimes a woman will
think about her husband and say to herself ‘I know what’s good for him and I know what’s going to make him happy so I’m going to make a major decision without him and he’s going to deal with it’?” Cheza asks.

“I
didn’t, but I do now… what major decision did you make without me?” I warily inquire.

“Oh, good; you’re actually picking up on it this time. I stopped taking something which resulted in something else happening, which I know will make you happy in the long run, but right now it won’t seem like such a great thing.” Cheza replies.

“Cheza, what are you talk—” I start to say as my phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it’s Naia.

“Hey Naia, what’s up?
” I answer.

“Cole! Ryuji ha
s been taken!” Naia frantically exclaims.

“Calm down, and explain what
happened.” I reply and Naia takes several deep breaths.

“We were eating lunch
together, finally able to relax now that the vampire crisis is over, when there was a loud banging at the door. Ryuji grabbed my arm and pulled the bracelet off of my wrist as four armed men in ski masks broke the door down. The men grabbed Ryuji and left! I tried to stop them using magic, but it did not work on any of them!” Naia exclaims, freaking out again by the end of her story.

“Can you remember anything else about them?
” I ask.

“Nothing stands out…” Naia softly says.

“Alright, I’ll be at the apartment in a few minutes.” I tell her.

“Okay, thank you,
Cole.” Naia replies and hangs up.

“What’s going on?” Cheza asks.

“Ryuji’s been kidnapped. I’m going to help Naia.” I reply as I head upstairs.

I walk into our bedroom,
wrap my arm in a bandage, grab my pouch from the table, and stick it to my lumbar. I open up my bag and find a new pair of armored jeans, along with a new sleeve on my jacket; Sara must’ve done this a couple days ago. I quickly dress in those as Cheza walks in and grabs her suit from her bag. Having already expected this outcome, I don’t say anything as I exit the room and head down the hall to Sara’s room.

“Hey Sara, Ryuji is in trouble. Naia told me
that he was kidnapped by four men and her magic didn’t work on them; any ideas on what they were?” I ask.

“Naia’s magic didn’t work? That seems like it would be nigh on impossible given her background. There are spells that will block other spells of a specific type, but the caster would have to be more powerful than the offensive spell, which would be really unlikely with anything cast by Naia. Hmm… if I remember right, dragons tend to have an extreme resistance to magic.
Did Naia say what kind of spells she tried?” Sara asks.

“No
, she didn’t. What does it matter?” I inquire.

“Well dragons are pretty much immune to illusion magic and any magic
that directly affects the body, like sleep magic. However, elemental types of magic would still be effective since the magic is affecting the element and not the dragons directly. It seems likely that Naia would have only tried illusion or corpus magic though.” Sara informs me.

“Alright, thanks Sara; I’ll look into it. Cheza and I will be back as soon as we can… are you going to be okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, Cole… I’ll be okay.” Sara replies with an attempted smile.

I lean over and give her a hug
before exiting the room. I head downstairs and find Natasha.

“Hey, Cheza and I need to go help Naia; Ryuji has been kidnapped. I need you to do me a favor and help Sara.
Try and get her out of the room, if you can.” I request.

“Sure, focus on finding Ryuji.” Natasha says.

“Of course. I’ll find him and be back as soon as I can.” I tell her.

I walk into the kitchen, grab a bottle, and use my left hand to pour some blood into it for Alice in case I’m not back tomorrow. I head upstairs and enter Alice’s room.
She’s sleeping peacefully in her bed so I lift her over the guard rail, knocking Dynamite to the floor in the process. I place her head on my shoulder and she sniffs before biting into my neck. I cut Alice off at half a liter and tuck her back into her bed. After picking Dynamite up off of the floor, I brush him off and place him in Alice’s arms, causing her to snuggle up to him.

“Ready to go?” Cheza thinks and I turn around to see her smiling in the d
oorway wearing her leather suit.

“Yeah, let
’s go find our friend.” I reply.

I walk across the room, grab Cheza’s
hand, and port us to Ryuji and Naia’s apartment in Seattle.

“Cole! Thank you for coming! You too, Chezarei.” Naia gratefully
says with tear-stained eyes while standing from the couch in the living room.

“Of course.
Here.” I say and hold my left hand out before moving the bandages away from my palm.

“Airi, if you’d please.”

A maroon bracelet forms in my left hand and I hand it over to Naia.

“Thank you
, Cole.” Naia says and slips the bracelet on her right wrist.

“Naia, what kind of magic did you try on the kidnappers?” I inquire.

“Well, since we are indoors, I tried an illusion spell and a spell to put them to sleep.” Naia replies.

“
Just as Sara thought. I think I might have a lead on the kidnappers.” I inform her.

“What is it!?” Naia runs over
, grabs my shoulders, and starts shaking me. “WHAT DID YOU FIND!?”

“I would tell you if you stopped shaking me!” I exclaim in a broken up fashion because of the shaking.

“Sorry…” Naia replies and lets go.

“It’s okay, I understand. Anyway, from what Sara
said, dragons have a resistance to magic.” I tell her.

“
That makes sense; Ryuji got sick a few months ago and none of my spells would work on him. I had assumed it was because of dragon physiology or I was using the incorrect spells.” Naia comments.

“If I remember correctly, Ryuji had something of a master in
Chinatown, San Francisco. I think that’s our best bet for information.” I say.

“
Ryuji’s parents should have an address, or at least a phone number. I shall call Mr. and Mrs. Wright and let them know that we are coming.” Naia tells me and walks back to the bedroom.

“
Cole, can I tell you a story?” Cheza asks.

“Uh, yeah… sure.” I reply.

“Okay. It starts off with a woman who really wants to have a baby, but due to a traumatic event in her husband’s past, she can’t figure out how to talk to him about it. So, she decides to stop taking her birth control without telling her husband.” Cheza starts.

“Cheza, I’m not really in the mood for horror stories.” I interrupt.

“It’s not a horror story! Anyway, so the woman stopped taking her birth control and the inevitable happened.” Cheza continues.

“
Are you sure this isn’t a horror story? Because I think I’ve heard this story before.” I say.

“You have?” Cheza asks.

“Yeah, doesn’t it end with the wife pushing her husband into a wood chipper or something?” I inquire as I notice Naia coming back down the hall.

“
It might if the husband doesn’t stop being so idiotically dense…
” Cheza mumbles.

“What?” I ask
Cheza as Naia walks into the living room.

“Never mind.” Cheza replies and looks to Naia.

“Alright, Ryuji’s parents know that we are coming, but they do not yet know why…” Naia informs us with a downtrodden tone, presumably at the prospect of telling Ryuji’s parents what’s happened.

“
Okay, do you have a picture so I can port us there?” I inquire.

Naia walks into the kitchen and comes back with a Christmas card. The card shows a man and a woman
standing in front of a fireplace, both white and looking so generic that I wouldn’t be able to realize that the card wasn’t a sample in a store if it weren’t for the personalized text: ‘Happy Holidays Ryuji and Naia! Love, Mom and Dad.’ Even though Naia and Ryuji still haven’t gotten married, I guess Ryuji’s parents already consider Naia to be a part of the family.

“Will this
do?” Naia asks.

“Yeah, I can work with this.” I
reply and set the card on the table.

I grab Naia and Cheza’s hand
s, and focus porting to the fireplace from the picture. We appear in the living room of the San Francisco townhouse, standing in front of a granite fireplace. The pristine, cream-colored carpet beneath my feet makes me feel uncomfortable for standing on it while wearing shoes.

“Mother! Father!” Naia shouts.

Generic white folk numbers one and two enter the living room with puzzled expressions. Both of them are wearing cashmere sweaters. Mr. Wright is balding and wears glasses while Mrs. Wright has short brown hair; nothing else about them is even remarkable.

“Naia? How did you get here so quickly?” Mr. Wright asks
.

“Oh! You must be Ryuji’s friend
, Cole! The one that can teleport, dear.” Mrs. Wright tells her husband.

“I see! It’s nice to meet you, son.” Mr. Wright says and holds his hand out so I shake
it.

“Where’s Ryuji?” Mrs. Wright asks and Naia looks down so I take over.

“Ryuji’s been kidnapped. I’ve determined that dragons were most likely behind it and I remembered that Ryuji mentioned another dragon he knows in Chinatown that taught him something or other. I figured that they are probably my best bet for information on why any dragons would kidnap Ryuji and I thought you would know how to find them.” I explain. Ryuji’s mom wears a shocked expression on her face as she slumps down onto the couch.

“Don’t worry; I promise that I’ll bring him back.” I tell her.

“I’m pretty sure I still have the address. Just a moment.” Mr. Wright says and walks out of the living room, keeping a cool head despite the situation. Naia sits down next to Mrs. Wright on the couch and hugs her.

“It i
s going to be okay, Linda. If anyone can bring Ryuji back, it is Cole.” Naia tells her with confidence.

Although
, looking at my track record with kidnappings, this can go either way. The situation with Lila was a win; the one with Addie… not so much. Maybe Ryuji has an edge because he’s not a small girl? Wait, I forgot about Kita… so I guess Ryuji only has a one in three chance of making it out of this alive… No wait, I forgot that Reyna and Natasha were kidnapped too; I guess they were okay after everything was said and done. So I suppose that Ryuji has a sixty percent chance of coming out of this on top… Hey that’s better than half!

“Cole?” Naia asks.

“His chances are better than half.” I blurt out without thinking.

“What?” Naia
inquires.

“Well
, I was thinking about all of the kidnapping cases that I’ve dealt with and realized that two out of those five died while the other three were fine… actually, the two that died were both kidnapped only because of me to begin with. So as long as this kidnapping isn’t my fault…” I reply.

“Why would this be your fault?” Naia questions.

“I suppose you haven’t heard that Tia was just killed because of a plot by Loki to hurt me by hurting those close to me.” I state.

“What!?” Naia exclaims.

“So if Ryuji wasn’t kidnapped because of you, then the odds are good that you’ll be able to bring him back?” Mrs. Wright asks and I nod in response.

“What are the chances that he wasn’t kidnapped because of you?” Mrs. Wright inquires.

“Honestly? Given the circumstances, not great…” I reply and Mrs. Wright starts crying.