Deadly Wands (44 page)

“Yes,” Billy told Hulagu, his intestines
falling between his fingers. “I’m the Red Baron. And now I’m gonna
rape your women and kill your children. Or was it the other way
around?”

Nobody came out of the house, so Billy
transferred wands according to how soon they’d die -- what veterans
call “wand triage.” He only had two sets left when a boy his age
stepped outside, screamed, and drew wand. Billy thrust a steel rod
through his chest from twenty meters away -- the look on the kid’s
face was priceless.

Billy flew into the mansion and found several
adults and children running towards him. His fireballs engulfed
them and set the home on fire. Someone shot at him from behind a
door, so he thrust a blade with such force that it penetrated the
wood and pierced the guy through the gut.

He flew outside and shot at two women getting
out. A beautiful lady carrying an infant flew out, but he easily
swallowed them in a fireball, thinking of the four unborn babies he
lost. Another woman fled in the opposite direction, but he quickly
overtook her as well.

Two women and five teenagers blew open a wall
and escaped the inferno, but not Billy. He surprised them as they
took off their burning clothes. Their numbers didn’t win the fight,
despite their obvious wand power. An older lady took longer to kill
than the rest of them combined, despite her hair on fire, so he
transferred her wands as she bled to death. He stopped her cursing
by kicking in her teeth, then flayed her alive once he recognized
her.

His fury not yet satiated, Billy beheaded
them all and had them face the same way in the vegetable garden. He
packed Hulagu's head in the box and added snow on the way to the
Khan's tent city.

One day before his 16
^th
birthday,
Billy wished he waited until tomorrow. As he descended, he recorded
himself: “Either Genghis Khan or I will die today.” He turned his
wand to show thousands of troops turning to look up at him before
pointing the wand back to his face. “Maybe I should have given this
more thought.” His voice trembled with doubt. “Papa, sorry if I
fail you. Mama, maybe I’ll see you soon.”

Instead of greeting unobtrusively, he
emphasized his presence to attract the guards. As soon as he
landed, he yelled out the good news: they finally got the Baron!
Hundreds of guards cheered him on as he held up the box that he
said contained the Baron’s head. They all escorted him in, only for
Empress Borte to inform Billy that the Immortal was unavailable.
Apparently the old man was in another of his killer moods.

Well, that screwed everything up. Billy was
hoping to end this whole thing today. Even if it killed him.

“Would you like it see it, Empress?” Billy
asked, placing the box on the ground. They only let him get within
thirty meters of her. Everyone gathered around excitedly. The
Empress couldn’t refuse. The head of security, at a gesture from
her, reached inside to pull out a severed head.

With everyone’s eyes on Hulagu, Billy flew
over them to plunge a blade into Borte’s gut from twenty meters
away. His shoulder knocked the wind out of her as she collapsed on
him without his feet ever touching the ground. His momentum carried
him far into the giant tent. He frantically searched for his
nemesis.

“Genghis! I’m gonna rape her!”

Having run out of time, he burned a hole in
the ceiling and flew through it. He popped up over the camp and
fired at every tent within range.

Alarms beget other alarms. With thousands
rising towards him, he showed them his primal scream, burned four
wands, then shot at more tents that he drifted over.

As soon as the alarms sounded, his guards
covered Genghis Khan in shields and carried him to a nearby steel
room that they used as a bomb shelter. Somebody shouted that the
Red Baron was attacking and Genghis pushed aside a great-grandson
guarding an arrow slit to look up at the Baron shooting fireballs
at his royal palace. As thousands rose, so did hope that they’d
capture him. Oh, would that be satisfying! To get his hands on the
guy who made him suffer so much. Then his heart sank when he heard
the powerful scream and the four burning wands -- much longer than
the last time he saw them in person. He must have fought a million
times, Genghis whispered under his breath, to power wands that
much. He must be ancient!

They won't catch him, Genghis sadly realized.
Which is why the arrogant bastard took the time to show off while
elite troops chased him. The arrogant pig certainly recorded the
royal tent city burning for the propaganda.

What the hell is he carrying? Genghis felt
his soul shrivel up. Somebody pointed to the incoming balls of
fire, but Genghis shrugged off their hands, watching them strike
where he slept a moment ago.

Some days he really felt his age.

He heard someone yell that the Baron took the
Empress and ran to see for himself. He questioned a stunned guard
who cried out, “When she said you were unavailable, he just took
her. He said he was gonna rape her.”

She had already been raped for several
months, as a teenager, because Genghis married her. His father
kidnapped his mother, making Genghis the result of a rape. His
mother’s tribe got their revenge on the son by raping his wife
until impregnating her. Genghis loved his wife so much that he
treated the son of this kidnapping as his own.

The Great Khan promised her that it’d never
happen again. So to have her taken from him while in her own palace
-- to be raped at over three and a half centuries old -- was
intolerable.

“I’ll never see her again,” the Great Khan
whispered out loud, the tone of his voice melting in pain. And with
Borte he lost his backup Millennial Wands. No one had any idea how
many good Mongols he had to kill to get his Millennials back.

The enormity of losing the love of his life
struck him down. He collapsed, hardly able to breathe. Denial and
reality fought, neither winning, yet neither losing. Much later,
one of her maids would show him the video so he could see for
himself. Among hundreds of the world’s best quads, the Red Bully
kidnapped his wife.

What kind of man has the balls to waltz into
the enemy’s den and, surrounded by lions, take the mother of the
pride? Who could conceive of such a thing, much less get away with
it? The Great Immortal shuddered at the thought of defeating such a
man.

Genghis was now on the receiving end of the
implacable rage that he inspired in so many others. For him, war
was total. If his men caught the Baron's wife, he knew what they’d
do to her. They’d kill any kids they caught. That’s just how things
had to be. The Baron showed he played by Mongol rules. And reminded
Genghis that he faced a Mongol. A really great Mongol.

His four legitimate sons -- drunks all --
died centuries ago. Then most of his grandchildren. He now outlived
everyone who knew him before he ever touched a wand. While everyone
held up Genghis as the oldest Mongol alive, he failed to point out
that Borte was actually a year older. Women hate to be reminded of
their age and, really, she didn't look more than seventy.

Of course, keeping her alive meant she had to
kill and drain the wands of hundreds of imprisoned quads a year,
but slaying tens of thousands of jailbirds over three centuries
seemed a small price to pay for immortality. In fact, Genghis saw
everything as worth the price of immortality.

Long after he scared the doctors, healers,
and shamans away, Genghis finally noticed the box stinking up what
was left of the burning tent.

"What the hell is that?"

A guard held up the head so the Khan could
see Hulagu’s face. Genghis grabbed his chest at the sight of his
favorite grandson. “Why couldn't it be that fat bastard, Kublai?”
was his first reaction. Something that his last legitimate grandson
would intensely resent.

Genghis flew to his grandson's estate. There
he found Hulagu's dead family and still smoking home. He counted 27
heads among the tomatoes, including the Imperial Guard commander.
When one head moved he almost wet himself, but it was only a
rabbit, going after another carrot. It looked either spooky or
comical. Genghis had no doubt that all the world would soon see
what he looked at now. Mongols would shudder while everyone else
would applaud. If nothing else, this one image would turn the Baron
into a near-holy hero to Arabs and Persians. Neither had yet
recouped the populations they enjoyed before Hulagu decimated them
two centuries ago.

Genghis found that he could identify every
single frozen face. All twenty-seven. How could one guy defeat so
many? Hulagu’s assassination team must have killed someone the
Baron loved for him to risk his life like this. It looked like
Hulagu’s mother died the hardest, given that he took the time to
skin her alive. Genghis made his drunkest son marry her because she
was the best female dueler of her day. Ugly as scorched earth, but
among the best duelers he had ever seen. Yet, judging by the
position of the bodies, the Baron apparently beat her and several
others at the same time.

Genghis Khan had never felt out-classed
before. Unable to think and too able to feel, the Immortal walked
the grassy steppe until late at night, nursing his vengeance til
his fingers cramped.

CHAPTER 59

Billy lost them in the clouds and landed in a
wooded ravine where he had left blankets and food, since he could
not afford to light a campfire.

He examined the empress. Gut wounds can take
hours to kill. He transferred the Millennial Wands as blood loss
slowly took her. Given his rage, rape was the last thing he was
capable of.

“You’re just a boy,” she said surprised.

He opened his eyes to see her watching him.
He had taken off his helmet and the cloth that kept the helmet from
digging too much into his scalp. How odd that the Empress Borte
would know his face before almost everyone else.

“Tomorrow I turn 16.”

“I know you.”

“You knew me eight years ago in Peking as the
Boy Wonder.”

The empress grew angry. “I cried at your
funeral. Genghis gave a beautiful speech.”

“Well, that makes up for him killing
thousands of members of my family.” He started recording their
conversation in case anything good came of it.

“I can’t believe you tried killing him in his
own tent. He must have hurt someone close to you.”

“He had my mother gang-raped and his personal
bodyguards killed four of my unborn babies.”

She nodded her head in sympathy. “War is such
a terrible thing. Will you be the one who stops him?”

“To stop this never-ending global war, I’ll
kill everyone who fights for the Mongol Empire. No one who
practices genocide as public policy should control all of
humanity.”

“I wish this war ended centuries ago.”

That pissed him off. “You’ve killed thousands
of quads to live so long, so you’re not innocent. You could have
saved one hundred million lives by simply cutting his throat in his
sleep.”

“I loved him too much.”

Billy had not anticipated liking her. He felt
his rage melt as her breathing grew ragged, patiently recording her
last hour alive. His father would have approved of how well she
died. Many who live strong, die weak. Literally the last thing that
anyone can do in life is die well.

“I’m gonna behead you and feed your body to
the wolves. I’ll then collect their excrement. After I turn the
Mongol empress into crap, I’ll turn the Mongol Empire into
shit.”

The most powerful woman in the world used her
dying breath to get the last word: “You must be in more pain than I
am.”

Billy desperately wanted to hate her guts,
but couldn’t find it in him. Instead, he remembered how kind she
was to him as the Boy Wonder in Peking as her Millennials warmed
his hands.

Camping alone relaxed him. Even with a
million Mongols searching for him. Since coming out as the Red
Baron, he constantly worried about being killed in his sleep. The
super-quads he trusted the most guarded him while he slept and he
only ate food he knew could not be poisoned. Billy tried to get to
know those who joined his team -- they assumed because he was such
a good leader, but self-preservation motivated Billy. Those
recruits who inspired doubts he paired with quads of proven
loyalty. Despite the cold, lack of shelter, and terrible food, he
didn’t have to worry about assassination when camping alone.

Being alone also let him do stuff that he
couldn’t do with others around. He often needed help sleeping, so
he projected videos of his ancestors on his father’s side,
beginning with a short clip of American Jack looking very
different. Generation by generation they passed. His father
recorded all that he knew about them, especially how they died.
None had ever passed away from old age. He liked his father’s
parents very much and wished he could have known them. His father’s
beaming face reminded him why the world’s richest kid endured so
much suffering. Then he got to his mama.

Billy had compiled a best-of video -- a
thousand short clips that defined how he remembered her. Where they
went, things they did, battles they fought. The last clip was his
favorite, from when he was just three years old. Mama sang a
nursery rhyme to help him sleep because he had nightmares of the
boogeyman. Her smiling face, soothing voice, and beautiful eyes
imprinted on him like a baby duck.

Billy woke up next to the dead empress. He
carried her to where they least expected him: the nearby capital.
He found his room just as he left it and got to work.

He spent a few days killing hundreds of quads
in the street or in stores. He’d enter a tavern or the mayor’s
office or the police station and slaughter everyone.

But it was the empress who gave away his
location. Her stench brought the manager, who pounded on his door.
Billy stabbed the guy right through the door, and left a video wand
so the world would know how well she died.