Feros and the Underworld Prince (54 page)

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 king 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?

(That would be my doing, Master. I blocked the oxygen flow to your brain while partially engaging your helmet to stop the bullet)

“
Cole!” I look around the bedroom and see Nagi by my bedside.

“
Good… I was about to be seriously fucked if you were dead…
and that bitch Kanta would have never let me hear the end of it.
” Nagi mumbles.

Dead… Cheza…

“
Cheza’s fine!” Nagi blurts quickly. “She’s with your family. Are you ready to go meet them?”

“
What are you talking about? Cheza’s dead… I watched her go up in flames and I smelled her burning.” I solemnly reply.

“
No, she was remotely ported to Mount Kailash. She’s alive, but she is missing some hair; she’s just lucky that your mother or father happened to be watching, unlike the incident with Adelaide… I was sent to come and get you since remotely porting people takes up too much energy to be done twice in a row. I found you passed out on the floor when I got here and the Queen helped me carry you here to recover.” Nagi informs me.