An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) (32 page)

I feel my body go crashing through a table amidst a round of gasps and a couple
of yelps.

“COLE!?” Cheza screams.

“Chezarei, no!” Natasha shouts.

I open my eyes to find all of my friends and quite a few gods dressed in black. Natasha is holding Cheza back as everyone looks at me warily.
Did I just crash my own funeral? I hold my hands up in front of my face and see that both are made of flesh. I look down at the rest of my body to find that I’m naked and bleeding. What’s going on?

“Cole?” Cheza asks.

“Hey Cheza… I guess I’m back.” I reply and everyone continues to look at me warily.

“Prove it.” Natasha says.

I try to open my connection with Cheza, but I find that I’m unable.

“Uh…
How? My connection with Cheza is gone… Cheza, can you see my aura?” I ask.

“No, I haven’t been able to for the past few weeks…” Cheza replies.

“Well, you’re aura is still silver.” Hel announces.

I try to close my cuts and find that I’m able to with a fair amount of effort.

“Cole!” Cheza exclaims and runs over to me before gingerly bending down to hug me.

“What happened?” Cheza asks.

“I absorbed Loki, went to the Void, found out that Airi has been using me as a puppet for her entertainment, and nearly got destroyed by her before Loki and I tried to kill her. Airi said that she was taking us with her if she was going out and then Loki split away from me and I was sent back here before they exploded.” I recant. All I get are confused glances in response.

“I take it that we’re at my funeral?” I ask and a few people nod.

“When we recovered the powers that you said we would upon your death, we decided that it was time to accept that you were gone.” Diana informs me.

“
You’re actually back, right Cole?” Cheza asks as tears slip from her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m back, and I’m not going anywhere. Come on, let’s go home.” I reply.

…

That night, I slide in
to bed beside Cheza and drift off to sleep, glad that we can continue with our life together without Loki or Airi interfering. Even after she put me through all that, I’ll admit that I’m going to miss her; my mind seems like a much lonelier place now that she’s gone.

First I was an executioner for the gods
, then I became an executioner of gods, all while actually being a puppet, and now that Airi has been killed, I’m just Cole… and you know what? I think I prefer being just Cole.

Poor, naïve, little Cole. You can’t kill a personification. Now, Cole gets his happily-ever-after and I get to continue unopposed. Everybody wins.

So,
who’s next?

References

Have you come across something in this book and thought ‘I know I’ve heard that before, but I can’t remember where it’s from’? Well that’s what this section is for! I have marked down every reference in this book that wasn’t self-explanatory so that you don’t have to wake up at 3am and shout “Got it!” when you finally remember.

1
: This is from the
Animaniacs
, the character Mindy would always call her mother Lady, much to her mother’s ire. Mindy is a little girl that would get into various misadventures which were then always blamed on her dog, Buttons. Due to my niece’s likeness to the character of Mindy, I had always wanted her to say that to my sister-in-law, but it never happened.

2: From
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
, the scene with the killer rabbit that King Arthur refers to as “Dynamite” after the rabbit tears out the jugulars of three knights.

3: Based
The Boondocks
character, A Pimp Named Slickback.

4: Spoof on
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, the line where Indiana Jones reminds the audience of his fear of snakes.

5
: The Scottish-Indian comedian, Danny Bhoy, has a joke in his comedy special
Subject to Change
about how whenever you go to someone’s house for a party, they always have the alcohol, but not the mixer that goes with that alcohol. This leads to him talking about a drink mixture of gin and chocolate milk, which tastes exactly how it sounds… delicious.

6
: Reference to
Archer
Season 2, Episode 10: El Secuestro.

7: Liam Neeson is an actor that plays the lead in the
Taken
movies.

Acknowledgements

Writing
The Gods’ Executioner Series
has been a fun, seven month ride. This whole journey started because I wasn’t able to return to school for the Spring 2013 semester and I knew that if I had to go for another nine months just watching TV, reading, or playing video games, I was going to go insane and jump off a cliff with a dozen chickens duct taped to my body to give my loved ones the impression that I didn’t commit suicide, I was just testing a chicken flight suit and testing went horribly wrong… perhaps while leaving a note that would read, “Invention idea #2: Duct tape + 12 ducks = ability to swim. Name: Duck Tape.”

So, I decided to start writing books that I would want to read. I started writing the first book on December 17th, 2012. By the end of January of 2013, I had finished the second book as well. The third was finished being written by the middle of April, the fourth book was finished by the end of May, and this book was finished at the end of July. After that, the long process of editing, beta readers, and publishing started. I’ve got to thank all of the people who read my book and helped me catch errors and incongruities that I missed.

“
A.L. I’ve gotta ask, what’s with all the pedophilia jokes in the last book?” you may wish to ask. That’s due in part to a joke my brother made a few years ago about how I’d better not end up being the ‘creepy uncle’ to my niece, and in part to a joke by Jim Norton in his
Please Be Offended
comedy special where he discusses how you never want to be in a pedophilia related misunderstanding with someone’s kid. I sort of took these two ideas and ran with them.

Speaking of my niece, I based Adelaide’s character off of her. Ruby, if you are reading this in the future, hopefully the distant future because you’re only five years old right now, I’m sorry I killed the character that I based off of you… twice. Honestly, when I wrote out the death scene for Adelaide in the third book, I didn’t write for four days after that because I felt so bad.

I’d like to thank my 8th grade health teacher for the inspiration in Chapter 26. The whole manatee bit comes from her showing the class an ultrasound photo, me commenting that it looks like a sea cow, and her replying “Thanks for calling my baby a sea cow!” That was her way of announcing that she was pregnant.

I give my thanks to all of my fans that have read my books, shared them with their friends, written reviews, and emailed me. I think the biggest shock of this whole experience was discovering that people enjoyed my writing and were waiting for the next book in the series.

I’m giving a special thanks to Deke for helping me out as a beta-reader for the last book and for all of the thoughtful reviews he has written. I reached out to him after he called me “a dick. A genius and a
great writer, but a dick.” which was the result of him having finished the third book and read about me killing a three year old. That led to me offering him the chance to read this book before it came out. He was a big help in getting this book ready for all of you.

If you all could keep spreading the word about my books and writing reviews wherever you can, I’d appreciate it! And who knows, I might even ask you to beta-read my next book!

About the Author

As of August 2013,
A.L. Bridges is back at school, going to a university in Arizona, and not actively writing anything besides school reports. He may return to writing one day, but for now, he is focusing on finishing his degree in biomedical sciences… and working on his bucket list that includes getting banned from a country without serving jail time and catching a squirrel with his bare hands… no, those two things don’t have to be related.

Any updates on future writing will be posted on
http://albridges.blogspot.com

Or
on Twitter @Albridgesauthor