An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) (13 page)

“Why chocolate milk?” I ask at a whisper.

“We’re out of the regular kind.” Reyna whispers back.

“Well
,
Santa
would appreciate it if you could replace half of his chocolate milk with peppermint schnapps… or gin.” I reply.
5

Reyna smiles at me and carries the glass back to the kitchen. I grab a cookie and take a bite while watching Alice’s adorable sleeping face for any signs of her waking up as everyone quietly heads upstairs.

“Goodnight, Cole.” Cheza thinks as she stops on the stairs.

“Night, Cheza. I love you.” I reply and Cheza gives me a suspicious look before continuing up the steps. How like her… I spontaneously proclaim my love for her and she immediately thinks I’m up to something.

“Is Mrs. Claus getting jealous because Santa is sleeping with one of the elves?” Natasha thinks with a sly grin.

“I saw this one coming.” I reply.

“Remember that daunting evidence I was referring to?” Natasha asks.

“Goodnight, Natasha.” I think in response and Natasha walks upstairs to one of the other guest bedrooms. Reyna comes back and sets my drink on the table.

“Goodnight
, Cole.” Reyna whispers and heads upstairs.

I take a sip of my drink and see that Reyna went with the schnapps. I finish one and a h
alf more cookies and drain the rest of my drink before seeing Jason come downstairs.

“Forgot about the stocking.” Jason whispers.

“Right… wouldn’t want Alice thinking that Santa is just some guy that breaks into people’s houses to steal their milk and cookies.” I whisper back as Jason snaps his fingers and candy appears in Alice’s stocking.

“Want a top-off?” Jason asks while pointing at the empty glass.

“That depends… do cops ever pull over jolly old fat guys for flying a magical sleigh while intoxicated?” I question.

Jason smiles at me and snaps his fingers in response
before giving a quick glance to Alice’s rabbit on the other end of the couch.

“I heard you talked Alice into naming her rabbit Dynamite
… awesome, just awesome. Night, bro!” Jason whispers and heads back to his room. I finish my drink as I watch the Grinch.

…

[December 25th]

I wake up
a while after midnight with the TV on and I realize that I’m lying in a puddle. Crap… first I pass out and now I’ve pissed myself… I’m never drinking schnapps again.

“Uncle Cole? Why am I all wet?” Alice sleepily
asks.

“Uh… because Santa peed on us.” I re
ply and immediately regret it.

My go-to move to save face with my niece… is to forever crush her
image of Santa. Alice immediately starts crying, making me feel even worse.

“I’m sorry
, Uncle Cole!” Alice cries and I realize that there is significantly more moisture on my shirt than there is in my pants.

“It’s alright, sweetie; I’m not mad.” I gently tell her.

After all, statistically speaking, at least fifty percent of this is a byproduct from my blood anyway… or not, considering that I have no clue when it comes to azeman/ vampire physiology and digestive systems.

“Come on; let’s go get cleaned up.”
I tell her and stand up.

I carry Alice upstairs to the bathroom and run a bath
. I help her out of her soaked clothing before stripping out of everything but my boxers. After tossing the piss-soaked clothes into one of the two sinks in the bathroom, I grab some towels and washcloths from the hall closet. I pick Alice up and get in the tub. I scrub my chest and wash Alice, thankful for the lack of music and mood lighting this time around.

“There we go; all clean.” I announce as I lift Alice up and step out of the tub.

No longer able to stand the feeling of wet cotton around my junk any longer, I wrap a towel around my waist. As I’m sliding off my wet boxers and freeing my ankles from them, my towel comes undone and slips down.

“Shit!” I say u
nder my breath.

“Uncle Cole?” Alice asks as she starts to turn around.

“Don’t turn around!” I exclaim and quickly stick my hand out to stop her, but I end up accidentally pushing her.

“Cole? What hap—” Reyna starts to ask as she opens the door.

“Oh, come on!” I practically shout as I view this situation from a third party perspective:

First there’
s me: a naked twenty-five year old man. Then there’s Alice: a naked three year old girl who is on her hands and knees in front of me. To top it all off, I was just overheard telling her to not turn around.

“How
!? How did you not wake up before now!? I mean, running a bath alone should’ve been loud enough to wake everyone up! But nooooo! You have to wait for the absolute worst possible moment!” I exclaim. My loud ranting brings Natasha, Cheza, and Jason to the doorway.

“Okay, this evidence goes beyond daunting to
‘without a reasonable doubt.’” Natasha comments.

“Seriously!? Who in fuck’s sake is out there
, dishing out cosmic luck and deciding I deserved this shit!? ‘Well, I know he’s dealing with the whole “I got my sister killed” thing, but let’s see if we can’t fuck up his week a little more and make him look like he was in the process of trying to rape his three year old daughter in an act of incest and pedophilia! He’s already batting a thousand in the shitty week Olympics, so let’s help him go for the gold!’” I yell and then I turn my head towards the ceiling.

“Why Cosmic Luck deity that I just made up? Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you take me out to dinner first? At least use some lube because I like the slide in to be squeak free when I’m being FUCKED!
No? How about some spit? The least you can do is spit directly into my asshole if you’re going to FUCK ME!” I scream skyward.

“Cole, what did you mean by
incest?” Natasha asks.

“Oh yeah! Alice might be my daughter; Tia thought so too! The best part is that a paternity test would come back positive no matter what because of my blood
’s interference! And the only fucking person in the entire fucking world that can give me some fucking answers is the fucking voice in my fucking head that refuses to fucking talk to me about it! Merry fucking Christmas everyone!” I shout and storm out of the bathroom. Jason snaps his fingers as I pass by and flannel pajama bottoms cover my waist and legs.

“Thank you!”
I yell, still sounding angry despite being thankful, and storm downstairs to the liquor cabinet.

I grab a fifth of Everclear and begin chugging it like it’s water as I walk out the front door. My arm flushes black as I take to the sky
. I fly as high and fast as I can go while downing the Everclear. Once the bottle is empty, I reach the apex of my ascent and decide to race the bottle towards the ground. As the wind roars past my ears, I find a strange sense of peace, free from my regrets about Tia and about teaching Alice a variety of new words… and possibly showing her what a penis looks like, but I’m not sure on that last one. Oh, Everclear; how I love thee and thy band named after thee… right until I start violently vomiting because I just rapidly consumed three quarters of a liter of 190 proof grain alcohol.

My puke follows me as I continue to fall so I move myself about
ten feet to the left of it. I turn over and look down to find that I’m only about one hundred feet from the ground now so I start rapidly slowing my descent before turning back over. My back connects with the soft grass on the palace grounds and I close my eyes. Suddenly, I remember the bottle and open my eyes, just in time for it to connect with the center of my forehead and shatter.

Just my luck.

****

Chapter 13
: Down with the Sickness

I find myself floating in the darkness
of my mind; it’s been quite some time since I’ve been here. A silver door appears and I float towards it, knowing what comes next.

(Master, I was able to recover something from Tia’s core that I think you should see)

The elevator doors open and I walk across a familiar room to the reception desk.

“Hello, I’m here from the Aztec pantheon.” Tia’s voice says to a familiar
vampire secretary behind the desk.

Things move quickly as the back door is thrown open and the secretary dives out of the way. The Void dagger hits me in the chest and I feel my body freeze up.

“Rango-fay Yalus-hay!” Venus says as she sprints to the right, behind the desk.

“Luminus-fay!” Venus calls out as the window to my left shatters. A jet of water hits me from the right and sends me sailing out of the seventeenth story window.

“So this is how it all ends… at least I know Cole will catch her.” Tia thinks just before I’m hit from my right and my face appears above me. The descent of Tia’s body, which I’m currently occupying, slows down.

“That was pretty close, eh Tia?”
Cole from two days ago asks above me. I watch as Cole looks down and notices the Void dagger sticking out of Tia’s/ my chest and his face falls in shock.

“Tia?” Cole asks as
I feel him collapse to his knees.

“I don’t have much time… Cole will find out about Venus so I shouldn’t waste this on that… I want to tell him not to blame himsel
f, like I know he is going to, but I don’t have the strength to get that much out…” Tia rapidly thinks as the pain in my chest starts distorting my thought processes.

“I love you, my little brother.” Tia softly says while I feel my face put on a sad smile over what I wish to say, but don’t have the strength to.

“No Tia! Don’t talk like that! I’m going to fix this!” Cole exclaims as a few tears slip from his eyes. I feel my arm weakly reach up and place my hand on Cole’s cheek. My eyelids become increasingly heavy as my arm falls.

Everything just fades away.

****

I wake up in the guest bed at 10am
with tears in my eyes.

“Cole?” Cheza asks
with concern from beside me.

“I’ll be alright.” I
tell her and I know I will be. After all, if I continue to mope, all I’m doing is dishonoring Tia’s memory. Instead, I should be focusing on finding and killing Loki for perpetrating this.

“How did I get here?” I ask.

“Jason brought you back here when he found you unconscious in the field you were in.” Cheza replies.

Cheza opens her mouth to say something else, but jumps up and rushes
out of the room instead. I hear the toilet seat clatter open in the bathroom as Cheza throws up. I get out of bed and stand in the doorway of the bathroom.

“Are
you alright, Cheza?” I inquire.

“Yeah, I’ll be… fine.” Cheza says in between puking.

“Do you want me to get you anything?” I ask.

“No…” Cheza replies and
she vomits again.

“I’d appreciate it if you left though.” Cheza requests.

“Okay, let me know if you need anything.” I reply.

I
shut the bathroom door behind me and head downstairs. I use the single cup coffee maker in the kitchen, and sit down at the table to drink my coffee. Reyna comes in and sits down across from me.

“Cole, I’m pretty sure that you aren’t Alice’s father.” Reyna says.

“How can you be so sure?” I ask.

“Because, I’m pretty sure
that we didn’t have sex that night four years ago. I was fairly drunk, but I wasn’t nearly as drunk as you or Jason; and while I do remember hooking up with Chezarei, I don’t remember anything where you were directly involved with me.” Reyna explains and I recall something Airi said when I asked her about that night the following morning. She mentioned how Jason and I had some sort of unspoken ground rules and neither of us had sex with each other’s girlfriend.

“So she’s just my adorable goddaughter/ niece and is in no way related to me? Well that’s a relief!” I exclaim
and Reyna gives me a suspecting look.

“Hey Cole? You aren’t planning on taking Alice and running off somewhere, are you?” Reyna asks.

“Reyna, she’s only three years old! I have to wait at least a decade, learn Spanish, and then move to Spain or Argentina before I’m not committing any felonies by being with her.” I say.

“You’re forgetting Algona; a
ge of consent there is twelve.” Jason interjects as he walks into the kitchen.

“Yeah
, but then I’d be taking Alice to Africa, which feels like child endangerment in and of itself.” I reply.

“
I decided that I would just stay away from Africa at a young age…” Reyna says.

“
Because of the wildlife, pirates, wars, or disease?” Jason asks.

“No… well, there are
those, but my reason is because of how homophobic the entire continent is. The only country that I knew that I could visit and have sex if I brought a girlfriend with me was Kenya.” Reyna replies.

“Why Kenya?” I ask.

“Apparently the Kenyan penal code is okay with lesbians! Homosexual men: not so much. Twenty-five years in prison for homosexual men, which seems completely counterintuitive. Arresting men for homosexual sodomy and sending them to the places with the most homosexual sodomy per capita on earth seems like a terrible punishment.” Reyna says.

“Yeah, I’ve never understood that. Why do you know so much about lesbian laws in Africa?” I inquire.

“I thought it would probably be a good idea to figure out where I can travel and not be arrested for being a lesbian… wait a second! Why do you know so much about age of consent laws!?” Reyna shrieks at me, the chair legs screeching against the flooring as she quickly stands up.

“Whoa, don’t act l
ike I specifically looked up those laws because I was planning on running away with Alice the moment she turned thirteen!” I exclaim and feel an ice dagger pressed to my throat; Cheza knows that she should place the blade beneath my left ear if she was looking to get my jugular, but she also knows that slicing through my quick-healing jugular isn’t much of a punishment while my larynx takes hours to heal.

“What were you planning on doing with our goddaughter when she turned thirteen?” Cheza asks from behind me.
“That sounded like a confession to me. That was a confession, right Reyna? So this is the reason you spontaneously said you loved me last night…”

Of course… Cheza’s selective hearing only caught the part of my statement after the ‘Whoa, don’t act like’ part
, automatically turning a denial into a confession.

“Relax ladies! I know the age of consent laws too!” Jason comes to my defense.

“Yeah, but that’s obviously so you’d know where that lolicon had run off with your daughter. Narrowing down the country would be half of the battle with our Cole.” Natasha chimes in with a smile from the entryway and I feel the ice dagger dig a little further into my neck.

“No, it’s because Cole and I researched it together!” Jason replies, causing Reyna to draw a knife from the block on the kitchen counter.

“Reyna? Honey? Take it easy there!” Jason exclaims as Reyna stalks her prey.

“There is an innocent explanation for all of this!” I shout and Reyna turns towards me.

“
Prey
tell.” Cheza says while digging the blade in deeper.

“Ha, punny… anyway, Jason and I were watching the fourth season of
Archer
a few years ago and one of the characters said Morocco has a repulsively low age of consent, so we looked it up and found a map that color coded all of the ages of consent in the world. It turned out that Morocco has an age of consent of 18, so the episode lied. It also continued that myth about not letting someone who has had a concussion go to sleep when that’s actually recommended as long as they’ve stayed awake long enough to hold a conversation, and have the ability to hold one.” I explain.

Reyna studies me for a moment before returning the knife to the block as Cheza removes her ice dagger from my neck
.

“Cheza, are you feeling okay now?”
I ask, ignoring the fact that she was just holding a knife to my throat because that’s what makes me a good husband… or clinically insane.

“Yeah, I’m fine n—” Cheza starts to say and runs out of the kitchen whilst covering her mouth.

“I think she’s sick…” I announce.

“I’ll go check on her.” Reyna says and walks out of the kitchen with a sort of shifty smile.

“Is it just me or was Reyna acting suspiciously?” I ask.

“It was probably just you
because you consider anyone over the age of fourteen to be suspicious, just like you are considered suspicious when around anyone under the age of fourteen.” Natasha replies with a smile.

“JASON! CAN YOU COME IN HERE!?”
Reyna shouts from the bathroom.

Jason heads out of the kitchen. I start to follow Jason back to the bathroom, concerned about Cheza’s wellbeing.

“Cole, where are you going?” Natasha asks.

“I’m going to check on Cheza
.” I reply.

“Really? You’re not going to kidnap Alice while everyone is distracted?” Natasha accuses.

“I AM NOT A PEDOPHILE! And while, yes, I do love Alice and find her irresistibly adorable to the point that I will most likely try to kill any man that touches her when she gets older… although, if any man tried to touch her now, that isn’t Jason of course, he would be dead before he could get near her… I am not sexually attracted to her!” I exclaim as I hear the sound of a snap from the bathroom.

“Okay, wow Cole… you are soooo not helping your case.” Natasha
replies.

“Hey Cole, we’re making a trip in to town to get some
, uh… soup, for Rei.” Jason tells me as he walks back into the kitchen.

“Why can’t you just summon it here?” I ask.

“Uh… we’re getting special soup that I can’t just snap here.” Jason says.

“Oh, so that’s why you snapped in the bathroom.” I
determine.

“Uh… yeah! Alright so let’s go already!” Jason exclaims.

Jason snaps me into jeans and a t-shirt before placing his hand on my shoulder as a swirl of black mist wraps around us. We land in front of a fancy restaurant that I recognize as the restaurant Jason took me to when he asked me to be his best man. We walk up the white stone steps and enter the restaurant.

“Prince Jason! It has been quite some time!” the maître de exclaims when he sees us walk in.

“Hello Benoit; It’s good to see you again. My buddy’s wife is sick and we could really use some of
that soup
.” Jason says.

“What soup?”
Benoit asks and Jason sighs.

“You know,
that soup
. The one that takes about fifteen minutes to prepare?” Jason explains.

“Ah, of course.
That soup
. I will notify the chef immediately.” Benoit replies.

“Thank you,
Benoit. And also have him whip up six salmon dishes to go.” Jason adds.

“Of course. Why don’t you have a seat right there; your food will be out momentarily.”
Benoit says and leaves the Maître D’ podium. Jason and I take a seat on the bench by the door.

“I don’t think the sixth salmon dish was necessary; I doubt Cheza will be able to keep salmon down.” I tell Jason.

“I think she’ll be fine after some of this soup… but she might start throwing up again tomorrow morning.” Jason mumbles.

“Why is that
?” I ask.

“Because… uh… the soup only delays the symptoms of sickness, it doesn’t eradicate them.” Jason nervo
usly replies, which I find odd.

“Wait a second, how is Cheza even sick? With my blood, she shouldn’t even be able to get sick… and with her powers, she should be able to drop her blood temperature down to the point where the virus in her wouldn’t be able to survive…” I think out loud.

“Maybe it’s a food allergy!” Jason exclaims.

“Yeah, maybe…
why is this restaurant open on Christmas?” I ask.

“
Pierre loves to cook so he always keeps the restaurant open. He actually lives here.” Jason replies.

“That is some serious dedication to the craft.” I respond.

“Yeah, but it really shows in his cooking. This restaurant is booked solid for six months in advance at all times.” Jason says.

“Yeah, his
food is really good…” I reply.

We wait out the next ten minutes in relative silence before
Benoit comes out with a large paper bag.

“Here you are, Prince Jason.” Benoit says as he hands the bag over.