Saved and SAINTified (73 page)

He looked at
Nizsm, who was anxiously awaiting what Saint would reveal.

“It’s ego
... it’s pride, Nizsm. It’s extreme arrogance, borderline narcissm. I already know this about myself, and I didn’t give a fuck because the rewards outweighed the consequences, but that all changed when I found my Queen. She showed me the world doesn’t revolve around me. However, I make sure now that my world revolves around
her
. You never humbled yourself! That was your ticket out! You never stopped to ask yourself what you were doing wrong. You always assumed you were in the goddamn right!”

Nizsm
’s bloodshot, inflamed eyes grew wider.

“Yeah, now we are getting somewhere. I’m an arrogant son of a bitch. I’m a know-it-all and hate to admit to defeat
. I hate to lose.” He increased his stranglehold on Nizsm, causing the man’s eyes to bulge from their bruised hoods. “
That
, is what we have in common, Nizsm, and it will bring us to our damn knees and ultimately, to our death, if we are not careful.”

Nizsm
tried to move beneath him to no avail. Saint pressed down harder, feeling like a boulder on the man’s body. He enjoyed it slowly going limp.

“Before I stepped foot in this damn country, in this damn room, I said a prayer and I meant it. I asked our Creator to protect my wife and children from you
, no matter what happened to
me
, and I’d accept defeat—just make sure my Queen and my seeds are safe and if He was so willing, to give the Rainbeau Knights of the Round Table a new leader who had the skills necessary to see them successfully into the future. I knew I just might lose this fight today, Nizsm. Everyone told me how scary, deadly and evil you were. I accepted it. I prepared the best way I knew how, wanted to give it a fair shot. You, on the other hand, never even thought that far because you took me for a simpleton! A weakling! A coward! You never even imagined you’d lose this, because you were prepared to cheat and lie your way through.”

Nizsm
tried to shake his head, but he seemed to get dizzy as more blood pooled out of him. His eyes glazed over, not from tears, but from the strain of not being able to breathe while Saint’s grip tightened.

“You spent all of that valuable time planning how to trick me, to get me here
, thinking I didn’t have the brains and forethought to know that once I left, you’d come after my family. While you were busy sending henchmen, I was busy securing my premises. You never
once
considered that I might be two steps ahead of you! Your demonic seeds have a surprise waiting for their asses.”

“What have
... you ... done?!” Nizsm choked out. “What ... have you ... done ... to my sons?!”

The door continued to rock and roll, and the pounds grew louder as ill-fated attempts to enter the fortress failed.

“You never once thought,” Saint continued on with his tirade, ignoring the desperate man, “that I could be
smarter
than you,
stronger
than you ...
better
than you!” Saint tapped the side of his temple. “I’m
always
thinking but more importantly, I accept my weaknesses and my downfalls. I had to, because power addiction and blind hatred will get ya destroyed, man. Your reign of terror is over. Your weaknesses are
my
weaknesses, dear cousin, and the worst of them all is ego.”

Nizsm
closed his eyes, no doubt realizing his time was up. He’d mistaken him for a bumbling buffoon, an American fool with inferior Asian blood. The product of a soft-spoken, eccentric Korean mother growing up in the inner-city of New York and an Egyptian father whose family had fled for a better life only to discover they’d entered America’s dirty little secret—the South Bronx, declared a poverty and violence ridden warzone. But that place had taught him well, and helped prepare him for this very moment in time.

Nizsm
felt himself invincible before this humiliating finality. His inability to even accept the possibility of defeat and a complete lack of humbleness was the one thing that led him astray, and it fell beautifully into Saint’s lap. He’d found and detonated, Nizsm’s atomic
bomb
.

Saint
locked his hands tighter around Nizsm’s long neck; the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed underneath his bloodied skin as he swallowed nervously. Saint was hell bent on making this quick. No need to stretch out the inevitable; he wanted the fiend dead and with that, he looked down at Nizsm and quickly twisted the muscles, bones and ligaments to the far right, snapping Nizsm’s neck like a wispy twig on a dying, brittle tree...

Xenia woke up in a cold sweat. A mother’s tuition was the next best thing to psychic abilities and, to some people, they were one and the same. She leapt out of the bed and through the door, storming down the hall to her children’s rooms, one by one. Each room was cool and empty. Xenia moved quicker as she hauled tail to Beset’s bedroom, her long, black satin gown flowing wildly as she walked.

She rapped on the door, and waited impatiently. After no answer, she turned the knob and entered. The entire room smelled of strong sage. She looked around in awe. She hadn’t been inside the room for at least two days, and it looked nothing like before. Feathers, glass jars filled with unknown powders
, and colorful stones were all over the room. Xenia’s eyes darted from one end of the room to the other. Beset was gone and so were her children. Walking further inside, she noticed the swirls of smoke from the sticks of incense and recently blown out white and black candles.

What the fuck is going on in here and where are my babies?

She exited the room and headed down the steps, soon sighing with relief when she saw her two boys engaged in conversation with their grandfather, Beset sat at the kitchen island with a glass of water and Lawrence and Jagger huddled close, whispering secrets.

“What’s going on?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest, looking back and forth for
Isis.

“
Xenia, it appears that your sons, as well as your father-in-law and Saint’s friends here, believe that someone is approaching ... someone who shouldn’t be. Hassani had a dream and Dakarai knows their comings and goings,” Beset answered. “We didn’t want to wake you just yet.”

“Wait, where is my baby though?”
Xenia asked frantically. “Where is Isis?!”

“I hid her away,
Xenia.” Beset stood and cupped Xenia’s arms. “She is safe and no one will find her until it is time.”

“But where is she? I need to know!” Beset pulled
Xenia aside and whispered in her ear.Xenia grabbed the old lady and whispered a question back to her. Beset obliged with an answer and patted her back, which helped Xenia calm down.

“Okay, what do my children have to tell me?” she asked
in a level voice.

Saint had pulled her aside one evening and told her in great detail of the boys’ abilities after the infamous ‘flying robot’ incident. She knew there was more to it, though—a mother
always
knows. They were too young for such things, yet it was happening anyway.

Snatching her out of her thoughts, Dakarai stood in the middle of the room and held his head high. Like a radio announcer, he gave another report. Some portions were difficult to understand. To help him along, Beset ushered him over to the table and handed him a box of crayons and a stack of paper, allowing him to draw pictures of what he was seeing and hearing as well. The blood drained from
Xenia’s face as she picked up the last piece of artwork. In brown, Dakarai had drawn two tall stick men with frowns on their faces, one holding a bag and the other, a long knife. The paper fell from her hand like a feather to the floor.

“I think it’s best we all stay here in the kitchen, together
,” Lawrence urged. I will grab some blankets and pillows for the boys and...”

“Can you bring down my robot?” Hassani said
with a yawn. “He’s in my room, by my chair.”

“I sure can.”
Lawrence grinned down at him before disappearing up the steps...

****

Saint stepped over the still unconscious woman and opened the large stone and steel double doors. A thin trail of light poured out, enveloping him in gold. He wasn’t surprised when he was immediately thrust into an angry crowd, face-to-face with Nizsm’s wives and remaining children. No one said a word. They just backed up and stared at him, their faces twisted and their energy hard to read.

N
o one dared try to stop or attack him, not even Nizsm’s own father, Osiris, who made his way through the flock, click clacking his cane along the way. The old man was mourning, but he’d prepared for such an outcome. His face said it all.

Saint
had killed this man’s eldest child—he’d killed his own cousin, a man as strong as he— so he deserved respect on that alone. It didn’t mean they still didn’t want to form a lynch mob and provoke him into a violent frenzy, but they knew better. Saint’s energy had grown instead of diminished and anyone who dared to step to him would be wiped out faster than a cockroach on the bottom of a shoe—swiftly, harshly, and without concern.

Lost for words, h
e looked into the small crowd, smelling their fear and abhorrence, except for one—and he was not sure who the owner of the backstabbing heart was, but he also detected one sigh of appreciation. The energy was female and cloaked in mystery. He searched for her, but who ever it was, she hid it well.

Despite the power surge, his soul was tired
. He stumbled past them into the bright, morning sun, ready to get back home as soon as possible. But when Saint stepped out into the Egypt dawn, he couldn’t hold back a gasp. A sea of people surrounded Nizsm’s home, their faces glowing with unknown intentions.

“Oh
, shit,” He whispered as he reached in his pocket, gripping the gun he’d confiscated from the wife. The energy was spastic. So many thoughts and ideas swirled in him that he could barely understand anything being shared. One thing he knew for sure, however, was that they were all family—all Angel Children. He stood there with the blood of their leader on his hands.

No gun is going to wipe out of all of these people
. I’m going to have to fight ... every ... last ... one ... of ... them!
He gritted his teeth and stood back.
I need to get back home to my family!

Just then, a voice came from the crowd
. “Is it true?!”

Saint
looked in the crowd, seeing a short, frail man approach him. He stood on guard, aware that looks could be deceiving.

“Is what true?”

“You killed Nizsm? We heard and felt it. Are we mistaken? I don’t believe so! It was you, wasn’t it?!”

He
held back, wary. With them all talking at once, confusing him, and his energy depleted—he was barely able to hold himself up, let alone figure them out.

“He is the father! His daughter is the Princess of Life! He is our leader!” a woman’s voice screamed.

“He is! We saw you go in, sure you’d never come back out. We’ve been waiting for you for so long!” someone sobbed.

“You’re one of us!
Thank you, Allah!”

T
hen people began to talk on top of one another, approaching him steadily, quickly, shocking his senses. The sea of brown, tan and dark faces descended on him, their arms reaching out, their eyes full of hope. Different people speaking various languages—some he could understand, others he could not. 

A man tugged his arm,
and spoke in Arabic. “Thank you,” was all he said as tears ran down his face. He fell to his knees, grabbing Saint’s ankles and kissing the top of his sand covered shoes. Saint looked around, a mixture of horror, relief and sadness taking over.

“Don’t
...” Saint whispered as he looked down at the man who continued to shower him with affection and devotion. But the man didn’t listen. Saint repeated his request in Arabic and the man looked up at him and stopped. Saint helped him to his feet.

“Look, my Arabic is rusty
, I’m sorry. Do any of you speak English well?” Several hands went up in the crowd. “Okay, you there.” Saint pointed to a man, as tall as he with prominent cheekbones, a short, dense black beard and sunken hazel eyes. “Come here please, and help me.”

Then man rushed to him,
an expression of pure admiration on his face. Saint hugged him. He could feel the man almost buckle from his touch. “I need you to help me, okay?”

The man nodded
. “Yes, yes,
anything
for you!”

“Everything I say, repeat it back to these people in Arabic, okay?”

The man nodded again.

“My name is
Saint Aknaten, and I’m from the United States.” He waited while the man translated his words.

“Some of you may know my father, Osaze Aknaten
. His father and mother were born here, in Egypt.”