An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) (24 page)

I remain airborne
and search for Aine while taking out any shades that are outside, and several that are inside after sending my tendrils through the roofs of those buildings. I’m going to attribute my knowledge of the shades’ presence in the buildings to my Void state. Something about a large house at the far edge of town attracts my attention so I fly over there.

A total of
six shades are in the house: two engaging two people on the first floor while four are upstairs, advancing towards a grouping of five people. I crash through the roof and slash through the four shades with my claws as two tendrils shoot out of my right leg, through the floor, and eliminate the two shades that are on the ground floor. I turn around and see Aine, along with Lila’s friend Aimee, Aimee’s mother, Lila’s other friend Megan, and another woman who is presumably Megan’s mother.

Upon seeing Megan, I remember that I still haven’t forgiven her for dosing me with fairy alcohol and being the direct cause of me waking up next to a naked Lila four years ago.
I grab Aine, touch my triskele to port to the gate, and immediately port back to my house; it’s really convenient that the time limit doesn’t affect me when porting within Tir na nOg.

“MOM!” Lila exclaims and hugs her mother while
Aine is still shocked.

“Fairy town is secure now and
I’m going to be heading back to clear out the rest of the shades.” I announce.

“Cole?”
Aine asks, finally realizing who I am.

“Yeah?” I reply.

“Thanks for saving us.” Aine says.

“No problem.” I respond as I fight the impulse to kill everyone in this room. Cheza must sense this because she starts walking towards me.

“No, Cheza. I’m not done yet so I’ll hold out; I only have ten more seconds.” I tell her while holding my hand out to stop her.

“No… Manannan mac Lir is dead…” Brighid softly announces
with a fallen face.

“
Shit… Stay here!” I order and port back to Tir na nOg.

Once at the gate, I touch my triskele and port to the foyer of
Dagda’s palace. The first thing I see is that the doors to Dagda’s location have been blown away; the second thing is the waves of shades that are in the hall. I step into the hall behind the shades and notice Manannan mac Lir’s husk off to my left. My phone starts ringing as my tendrils surge forward and deal with the shades. The resulting black mist settles in time for me to see Sydney slamming a black claw, much like my left arm, through Dagda’s chest.

“NO!” I scream and charge forward
.

Sydney throws her free
left hand at the ground and a cloud of red smoke fills the area… wait, red smoke? Despite the smoke, I’m still able to see relatively well, especially her silver and black aura. Sydney’s aura flares as Dagda’s body comes flying and hits me in the chest.

“
Rango-fay urus-may!” Sydney’s modulated voice calls out as I hear the sound of rock breaking.

I watch as Sydney sprints away, presumably out a newly made hole in the wall. I roll
Dagda’s body off of me and stand up.

“Wait lad! I don’t have much time!”
Dagda coughs and I turn around; I thought he was already dead…

“Take my position as head.” Dagda tells me.

“Dagda…” I reply and reach into the hole in his chest with my left hand. Despite the hole being made with a Void weapon, the core doesn’t appear to have been absorbed at all and is flaking apart, like gods’ bodies seem to do when they suffer enough damage.

“Avenge us,
boyo.” Dagda requests.

“I will.”
I emotionlessly respond.

I open my hand to pierce the edges of his core with my claws and quickly absorb it, feeling rather indifferent to taking the life of the man that has been my friend and
mentor for the past five years… and also thinking that this might be the plot of
Transformers
with Optimus and the allspark… it is kind of similar. Now that that’s settled, I have a black leather clad, motorcycle helmet wearing bitch to catch.

Upon remembering that Sydney is really fast
, and having no idea which way the gate is on foot, I port to the gate to intercept her. What I see when I arrive at the gate is Sydney—Void claw sticking into another person’s chest—and Brighid—with a claw in her chest.

“Dammit Brighid! This is exactly why I said to stay at the house!” I shout to her while her core is absorbed, feeling little towards seeing my friend killed in front of me.

Sydney tosses Brighid’s husk to the ground and turns towards me because I’m blocking the only way out of this place.

“
I suppose I should kill you now for what you’ve done.” I nonchalantly tell her.

I point my left hand forward and tendrils spear out towards her. With her speed and being
a hundred feet away, she has plenty of time to dodge, but she allows the tendrils to hit her. The tendrils pierce her suit and hit her skin before bouncing back and retracting; I notice that the holes that several of the tendrils made show Void-black skin and others show pale white skin.

“Huh… so I guess the Void isn’t going to be effective against you.” I comment as I pull my Diamond sword
from over my right shoulder.

“Nor will the Void be effective against you.” Sydney says and grasps her left arm with her right hand. She pulls her right hand away and blood streams from her left arm until she’s holding a
red, three foot blade in her right hand.

“You know, I was wondering how you made that cloud of red smoke back there.” I reply.

Sydney and I look at each other for a moment and flash forward. We meet each other half way and our swords clash. We go at it for several rounds and I find that she’s pretty good. Sydney blocks and counterattacks with ease, showing no signs of fatigue while displaying finesse. She suddenly disengages and jumps back to put some distance between us, going into a more relaxed stance.

“Aw, come on! It was just getting good!” I exclaim.

“As much as I would love to stay and play with you, I really must be going; I got what I came here for anyway.” Sydney tells me and raises her right hand.

I’m suddenly engulfed in black flames that
seem to be slightly different than the ones that were caused by the shades, and things get blindingly bright, even to the point that my helmet can’t completely neutralize it. Water flows over my body and extinguishes the flames as I turn towards the gate.

“
See you soon!” Sydney calls out; I can barely make out her aura as it disappears.

So, I now know that Sydney can control her blood
like I can, and based on her use of sun and flame based magic without incantations, she also killed Harry and absorbed his core.

Fucking fantastic…

Thanks to my Void enhanced senses, and possibly to Dagda’s power, I notice that the ‘off’ feeling of the plane has disappeared with the shades’ presence as I trudge over to the gate and port back to the house.

“Cole! How’s the situation?”
Aine asks as I notice that only she and Cheza are in the living room.

“Manannan mac Lir is dead, Dagda is dead, Brighid is dead… so not well.” I reply.

“What!?” Aine says in a state of shock.

“
Aine, I need you to focus, turn around, and take your blouse off.” I respond.

“Why?”
Aine asks while trying to hold it together.

“I was able to take
Dagda’s position as pantheon head before he died so I need to transfer that power to you.” I quickly explain.

Aine
processes the information for a moment before turning around, unbuttoning her shirt, and lowering it past her shoulder blades. I set my left hand on Aine’s back, the blades on my fingers cutting in slightly while I fight the urge to sink my claws into her. I close my eyes and the computer-like screen pops up in my head. I click and drag the Dagda’s folder over to Aine’s folder.

“Would you like to name yourself as the successor in the event of the receiving party’s demise?”
a pop-up asks.

I click yes and my eyes shoot open. My nerve endings are set on fire as a burning in my chest tells me that I’ve gone too long without killing anything. Cheza rushes over and rips open my suit, placing her left hand on my chest as she reaches up with her right and pulls my head down to meet hers. My chest cools down and a tingling inflicts itself as I feel the Void receding.
Once my Void state vanishes, the grief I should feel at the loss of my friends hits me all at once. Cheza embraces me and opens our connection.

“I couldn’t save them, Cheza… I watched two of my friends die in front of me and the worst part is… that I felt nothing. I took
Dagda’s core, dealing the final blow, and then I ported to the gate to stop Sydney and watched Brighid die… and you know what? All I did upon seeing Sydney’s Void claw sticking into Brighid’s chest was joke about how I told her to stay here…” I think.

“
Cole…” Cheza replies, unsure of what else to say.

“Come on… let’s go lie down.” Cheza suggests, takes my hand, and leads me upstairs
. I strip out of my suit and we lie down in our bed when a question occurs to me.

“How’s Charlotte doing?” I ask.

“She’s suffering from a good deal of blood loss; Natasha and Sara are at The Agency office getting blood for her so she’ll be fine.” Cheza answers and I close my eyes to get some rest.

Despite trying, I don’t get any.
I get up and go to the bathroom about an hour later. I finish my business and wash my hands.

“So how do you like them? My pets?” Loki asks. I guess the lights don’t flicker if they’re off
initially.

“I see you finally succeeded in creating your own army of artificial sentient beings.” I reply.

“Artificial sentients? I gave up on that plan years ago; too difficult. After all, it was much easier to just alter a race of beings that already existed.” Loki says with a broad smile and the truth dawns on me.

“The jinn… the jinn turned into shades when you flooded the plane with the Void…” I summarize in shock
as I hear my phone ring.

(He certainly seems to have lost his morals; the old him never would have done something like this)

“The next event should be starting right about now.” Loki says and disappears, his broad smile being the last thing to vanish, reminding me of the Cheshire Cat.

I
fetch my phone from my suit pocket.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Cole… Help!” Reyna exclaims, her voice cracking and sounding distressed.

Great… What now?

Chapter 23
: Laws of the Universe

[January 1st]

After getting dressed, I immediately port to Reyna and Jason’s house to find Reyna crying in the kitchen with Hel comforting her.

“What’s the situation?” I ask.

“Alice has been kidnapped. She and Jason went for a walk in the park when she was taken. To top it all off, a war for Underworld has been started and my resources are stretched thin.” Hel answers.

“What do you mean a war for Underworld?” I question.

“Fighting in the streets across all districts. Manannan mac Lir seems to be behind it based on the bizarre black creatures that are flooding out of Annwvyn.” Hel replies.

“That’s doubtful…” I say.

“Why is that?” Hel asks.

“Because Manannan mac Lir was killed not too long ago. What do these bizarre black creatures look like?” I inquire.

“All black humanoid creatures with thin arms, no facial features, and incredible speed. How was Manannan mac Lir killed?” Hel questions.

“Shades… so Loki is behind this one too…” I respond.

“What does my father have to do with this?” Hel asks.

“Loki created the shades for the specific purpose of giving me an enemy that only I could kill. He sent them to
Tir na nOg with his right hand, Sydney, and they tore the place apart; killing Dagda, Manannan mac Lir, and Brighid in the process. They seemed to disappear when Sydney left so I wouldn’t be surprised to find that she’s behind this as well.” I reply; that coincides with what she said about getting what she needed as well since she had already absorbed Manannan mac Lir…

“
Back to the kidnapping, where’s Jason?” I inquire.

“Shot in the neck with a tranquilizer.
When the fighting started, I sent a patrol to go bring them back and they found him face down on the trail. He’s still unconscious on the couch.” Hel points and I see Jason’s feet hanging off the edge.

“Do we have any leads?” I ask.

“No…” Hel admits somewhat shamefully.

My phone suddenly beeps loudly; one of those impatient sounding beeps that notifies me when I have an unchecked message. I pull out my phone and see
that I have a missed call from an unknown number and a message from that number. I press play and put the phone up to my ear.

“Feros… I believe I have something
that you want.” I hear Osiris say before pulling away from the phone.

“Say it… SAY IT!” Osiris shouts
in the background and I hear a slapping sound.

“UNCLE COLE!” Alice cries.

“I’ll be seeing you soon.” Osiris says and the message ends.

“Osiris…” I say as I slip my phone back into my pocket, the tingling in my arm and leg intensifying.

My kidnapping statistics ring through my head and fill me with a sense of dread. This is my fault… I promised her that I’d protect her… I promised her that I’d keep her safe… I promise… that she won’t end up like Addie. The Void crawls across the entirety of my right leg as the tingling crosses the bridge of my nose.

“Cole?” Reyna warily asks.

“I’m going to bring her back, Reyna… I swear I will… and I’ll make Osiris pay for this. I’m heading to Duat; fair warning, the shades can’t be stopped by normal means. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll bring her back.” I coldly reply and touch my Haglaz rune.

I appear at the entrance of
Duat to the unmistakable feeling of shades in the area, courtesy of my heightened sense of awareness due to my Void state. The rush of excitement at the ensuing battle makes my spine tingle as I take off towards the concentration of shades, and presumably Duat’s palace based on the direction.

As I round a corner, my right leg suddenly pivots, causing me
to spin. The asphalt road ten feet behind me explodes as I hone in on a sniper with an anti-material rifle on a rooftop half a mile away. I pull my .460 handgun from my back and take aim as the gun is dyed black and the purple lightning bolt surfaces on the back of my hand. I pull the trigger and lightning shoots out of the barrel with the bullet following close behind. Despite being unable to see the bullet hit, something tells me that the threat is eliminated so I continue towards the palace.

I get within a half a mile from the palace before I run into my first group of enemies: a medley of
shades and mummy soldiers armed with Kalashnikov PKM machine guns. With 200-round box magazines loaded with 7.62mm rounds, those PKMs will slow me down at the very least. The shades advance toward me with their usual melee weapons as the mummies open up on me with complete disregard for friendly fire; I guess they got the memo that the shades can’t be killed.

This confirms that Osiris is working with Loki and Sydney
… So that’s how Sydney got out undetected; with her speed, she could have made it to the gate that leads to Duat in the three or so minutes that she had before Niflheim was locked down. Once there, she could just port out without the threat of detection since only Osiris would detect porting in all of Duat and he was on her side…

Void tendrils jettison out of my right leg and break down the shades while I use my clawed left hand to tear through a couple mummies. Strips of flesh and bandages
weave in between my fingers like cheese through a grater, which gives me a strangely satisfying feeling. One mummy moves its PKM up to block a downward slash from my claw; five clinks ring out as the metal of the barrel hits the ground in pieces. I really wish that these mummies were… well, not mummies because the lack of blood is really make this whole thing less enjoyable. The screams that are emitted from the mummies when I disembowel them or cut off their limbs does amp up the enjoyment, however.

After a last look around at the ribbons of flesh and cloth, I continue towards the palace; the top of
the black pyramid now in sight. I turn a corner and walk into a blockade of three .50 caliber machine guns. The mummies manning the turrets get out about five rounds each before full sized tendrils strike both the turrets and the mummies, sending chunks of each to the Void.

“
AUGH!” I yelp and grab my chest at the pain that has suddenly beset me. I look down and see that I wasn’t hit, so this pain in my chest can only mean one thing… I need to hurry.

I sprint forward with a sense of urgency and make it to the entryway of the black sandstone pyramid that is
Duat’s palace. I’m met by several hundred shades, which do little to slow me down as my tendrils slice through and vaporize them. The pain in my chest intensifies as the dust settles and I see a dozen golden auras standing in front of the entrance to the black pyramid. The auras belong to minor gods armed with khopesh sickle swords.

“Where’s Osiris?” I inquire, but the gods remain silent.

“Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it.” I reply and the gods charge.

I duck under a
khopesh and stab my left hand into the god’s chest. His core starts being absorbed as I spin to the left and use his body to block another khopesh. I laugh as I hurl the husk of the god to my right, hitting an attacking god as I slam my claw into the chest of another god.

“You know, it’s times like these that I wish I had a second Void claw!” I announce while absorbing the core of the second god.

My chest and right arm start tingling as I feel the Void crawling down my right arm, which distracts me long enough for three gods to hit me from the front, sending me flying back. I hit the black sandstone fence with a crunch. My right hand turns black and my fingers elongate into wicked-looking bladed claws, the sound of bones cracking reaching my ears as they do so. When it’s finished, I notice that I no longer have a sense of touch with my right hand, but something tells me that it still isn’t as hardy as my left. As I pry myself out of the stone fence, I look up at the gods with a smile behind my helmet.

“Hey Airi, does absorbing the cores of these gods do anything for me?”

(Since they are minor gods, not really)

With that, I flash towards the gods with both claws crossed at shoulder level. One god meets my charge and I rip my claws outward, tearing through his
khopesh and shredding his core. I roll to the side to avoid the aerial down slash from another khopesh while I rip through the ankles of another god. After coming out of the roll, I tear through another god’s core before flipping back and landing with my left claw slamming through the core of the downed god that is missing his ankles. The god behind me must think that I don’t see him coming; he certainly doesn’t expect me to spin on my knees and slam my right claw through his chest.

The remaining six gods surround me and slowly close in. The key to getting out of a situation like this is to pick the weakest link in the circle and charge, so that’s what I do. The surprise on the god’s face is priceless
when he realizes that I’m heading for him, shortly followed by
be
heading him. Now that the chain is broken and I’m out of the circle, I focus my efforts on speed as I spin around while throwing a smoke bomb. With their vision obstructed to the point that they can only see my aura, I charge forward and spear each claw through a chest as I run through the grouping, breaking the circle once again. I fling my arms out, sending the bodies of the two gods flying into the fence, and turn around for another go.

The last three gods have regrouped as I advance towards them. I start running circle
s around them, herding them inward until they’re back to back as I get closer. They keep trying to hit me with the khopeshes, but they aren’t quick enough. Once I get sick of playing with them, I give three run-by stabs into each of their cores. They crumple to the ground, moaning in agony as they live out their final moments with the other gods that are nearing death now that their cores have been destroyed.

With the small fries taken care of, now the real fun can begin! I walk through the
front doors to the lobby of the pyramid palace expecting to see some opposition, but instead I see nobody. Where are all of the gods!? Speaking of gods, where is Isis in all of this? Ryuji and Naia too…

(Based on the location of
your blood, I’d say that they’re downstairs)

Since the only way out of the lobby is to go up, I head up the left staircase to the balcony that overlooks the lobby. I
walk down the hall, passing by Isis’s room, and continue until I find a staircase at the end that leads both up and down. I take the stairs down two at a time and find that they continue past the distance to the first floor. The staircase winds back and forth seven times before I finally reach the bottom and see a brick wall. Obviously it’s a feint and I should just look for the brick that opens the wall; however, having had enough of this Scooby-Doo shit, I place my left hand on the wall.

“
Erase
.” I command and the wall blows away like dust.

I step through the newly
made hole into what is obviously a dungeon. Isis, Ryuji, and Naia are chained to the wall on the far side of the dungeon, about fifty feet away. The ceiling starts rumbling as a brick falls down on my left… are you fucking kidding me? Fucking Scooby-Doo! I try to ignore that bullshit and bypass the mystery wall only to have the place act like I just fucked up the laws of the universe so it has decided to just collapse! I flash across the room and use my tendrils to slice through the chains binding Isis, Ryuji, and Naia.

After picking the three of them up with my tendrils, I
touch my Haglaz to port to Jason’s house, the blades in my hands sinking into my shoulder; that’s a fact I should keep in mind. We land on the floor in the living room and I take a knee, my bladed hands cutting into the carpet.

“Cole!
” somebody exclaims, but I can’t differentiate who the voice belongs to.

“Where’s Alice?” I grunt out as I turn to look at Isis.

“Osiris took her to Heliopolis.” Isis replies, but I wouldn’t be able to tell it was her judging by the sound of her voice alone; it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time and the sound is completely unfamiliar to me.

“He’s taken over the entire pantheon now that he’s the only head and he’s obsessed with getting revenge for Horus.” Isis tells me.
I feel the worth she has as a person slipping away with the familiarity of her voice.

“What’s Heliopolis?” I ask while trying to ignore the burning in my chest.

“It’s the plane where the majority of the Egyptian pantheon resides.” Isis answers.

Alright, porting there should be doable since I have all of Horus’s power. Isis is no longer needed… I should just end her
. After all, she most likely had some part to play in this… it’d be safer to just kill her and be done with it.

She had some part to play in this and decided that she’d chain herself up in the dungeon? Highly unlikely.

But not impossible.

I can’t take the only family Naia has left.

Then kill her too. She did take Addie from me.

No, that was Horus; Naia was told that n
othing bad would happen to her.

I need to get out of here.

“You guys should go get Cheza… when I come back with Alice, there’s a good chance that I won’t be myself.” I announce as I stand up, keeping my eyes closed.