Deadly Wands (57 page)

With all his twirling, he could not keep an
eye on his wife, so he tracked her grunting and groaning as she
sliced off limbs, lanced chests, and whacked helmets. It sounded
like his wife was having great sex. Without him. But as long as he
knew she lived, he was free to fight like a fire demon. She didn’t
know it, but just one moment of silence would have undone him. Him
-- the mighty quad who spooked history’s greatest empire. He heard
her yelp in pain, and would have turned to make sure she was okay,
but she screamed in outrage and Billy clearly heard a terrified
Mongol loudly curse her -- and that anger made him love her all the
more. When he next saw her, she still hovered above her twin,
daring the big bad men to come any closer. Not only did the sight
make his heart leap, but it gave him an untimely erection that
pressed uncomfortably against his body armor. In a weird irony,
Princess hurt the one part of him the Mongols left uninjured.

Smoke, steam, and mist now obscured the
battle zone. Billy didn’t defeat the enemy so much as blind them.
The Baron didn’t even kill many of them. Instead, he worked his
fire dance like a flute player controlling a cobra.

Every second felt like eternity, although it
couldn’t have been more than a minute before reinforcements
arrived. His company repeated his arc and one hundred super-quads
-- each touching a wand to their throats -- screamed like a million
stadium fans outraged at a referee for an impossibly bad call. The
sound wave hit Billy like a gust of wind and covered his exposed
flesh in goose bumps.

But Billy, at least, expected them, and
popped down to get out of the way. No sooner did his feet touch
solid earth than he fell, his head still dizzy from spinning. Tiny
kicked him to get up, but instead he flopped like a fish on a
beach, mostly defenseless and completely terrified. He could almost
taste the fishing hook in his lip.

The closest Mongols could only see a dark
shadow falling menacingly towards them. As if fighting the Red
Baron was not enough. And who knew what to make of the piercing
scream that sounded like a dragon belching? They sure as hell did
not venture closer to find out.

Because no one knew what the Baron looked
like, the superstitious speculated that he was super-human. The
videos this fight produced would give their worst fears better
imagery.

Then a few hundred large fireballs swept the
sky like a volcano exploding sideways. A cloud of mist drifted up
in their wake, creating an impermeable wall between Team Red and
the Mongols. Their simultaneous screams and the sudden stench of
burnt flesh cost even the bravest of Mongols their nerve. Those who
fled slowest were next.

Later, his friends would praise Billy for his
brilliance, but he couldn’t remember ordering them to scream as
one. Billy agreed it was clever, but couldn’t claim credit, despite
one hundred witnesses. It became really popular with parents who’d
project the clip to cower their kids. Even Mongol veterans could
praise the tactic over lonely campfires. All that mattered to Billy
was that even more enemies feared the Red Baron. When Billy closed
his eyes, he could hear his mother laughing with savage glee.

“That’s my boy!” she’d say proudly.

Diva, pregnant with their third child, had
her guts split open and Billy saw his unborn son on the bloody
grass. That baby would have been his first redhead. The Russian
known as Crotch, because he fondled his penis like a wand, had
several fatal wounds. That elderly Swiss lady who kissed his feet
literally lost her head. Zulu, a fierce African great-grandson of
American Jack, bled too much to fly. Billy’s flopping on the ground
kicked Dreamy, who certainly looked dead from a nasty head wound,
but who shocked him by yelling, "I'm awake, I'm awake." Billy
didn't know how many they lost in the entire battle, but he could
see a few dozen dead friends just in this firefight. With the enemy
blind and bewildered, they carried back their wounded.

Although the Mongols didn’t press their
momentary advantage, their victory no longer felt victorious.

CHAPTER 74

At the rally point, Billy found Princess
moving from wounded to wounded, and kept away to not distract her.
He found Prince, now conscious and badly burned. It must have hurt
like hell. Billy scooped water from the stream and heated it for
pain-relieving tea.

"We thought we were doing so well when they
surprised us from behind. I turned and the damn blast hit me in the
face," Prince explained as Blade fixed him up.

"That’s how I got so handsome," Billy
whispered, his throat sore, his nose hairs burnt, and his eyes
blurry from smoke. "Now you look more like me than your twin
sister. Congratulations, you poor bastard."

“The crazy stunt you pulled saved sixty
lives,” Blade remarked, almost angrily.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” Billy told her.

"I’ll not let my children lose their father
like I lost mine.”

"I want that in writing."

Startled, she looked up and smiled. His
ability to make her laugh really pissed her off.

Sweaty, filthy, and stinky, Blade still
looked great. Princess once showed him images of Blade a decade ago
and he was almost dumb enough to tell his fiancée that Blade was
the best looking blond he had ever seen. He could hardly blame
Princess for sleeping with her. If Blade and Princess could somehow
reproduce, their kids would probably look like Greek gods with
great tans.

Pushing away the pain, Prince looked up at
Billy like he didn’t recognize him. “You really do love my
sister.”

“You sound surprised.”

“You don’t know how much you care for someone
until given the opportunity to kill or die for them. You knowingly
threw your life away, so you must love her so much that you cannot
live without her.”

Prince may as well have peed in his face, the
way Billy reacted. He kept blinking as if his eyes didn’t work.
That’s when Billy knew he was screwed. He knew he loved Princess,
but he never pondered the depth of that love. He apparently didn’t
follow his father’s advice by falling in love with someone
wonderful. Now he’s vulnerable because her safety will warp his
tactical judgment, and if he ever lost her, he’d become a shell of
a man like his father after his mother’s death. Which he expected
to happen. Hell, it almost happened tonight. Billy was surprised he
survived for so long, given that he feared death from withdrawal
more than death from battle. He remembered his father’s last two
years -- that’s what I’m gonna look like soon, Billy realized.
Unless he died before her. He didn’t know which fate was worse.

“Well, that’s why I’m gonna marry her.”

“If you wanted to marry her, you’d have done
it by now. But at least I know your true feelings for her. You may
never actually take her to the alter, but if you do, you have my
blessing.”

“I want that in writing, too.” Billy needed
to know something. “The day we met, did you fight me because you
didn’t like me or because you didn’t want anyone with your
sister?”

Prince smiled through the pain at the memory.
“For years I threatened everyone who wanted my sister, so I
couldn’t give you a free pass. I also couldn’t challenge a better
dueler, so I had to punch you or else everyone would know how much
you scared me.”

“I scared you?” Billy asked, shocked.

“My sister’s bodyguards recorded those
thousand guys you dueled that day in Barcelona. Just watching
exhausted me. I’ve dueled since I was ten, yet you clearly fought
far more than me, although I knew you were younger. And don’t get
me started on the scars. You must be a masochist to endure so
much.”

Just really addicted, Billy thought to
himself. “Bodyguards?”

“Every guy thinks he’s her big brother.
Everyone loves her, while nobody likes me.”

“That’s not true. Blade likes you.”

Billy backed up so Blade’s punch missed him.
He looked over and saw Princess, on her knees in the mud, fighting
for Zulu’s life, an obnoxious man she didn’t even like. She thought
nothing of how much this would drain her while thousands of enemies
camped just minutes away.

The guys claimed she was the world’s best
female dueler, but he never paid it much attention until now. If
she had not dueled for the last decade, she would not have survived
that last fight. Billy knew he loved her, but he never dreamed he’d
respect her so much. He always knew his wife was amazing; he just
now realized she was awesome.

“Your sister is a damn hero,” Billy
concluded, surprised at his surprise.

That startled Blade, who also now looked at
him like she no longer recognized him. Which, considering he never
showed his face, seemed odd.

“You need another helmet,” Blade told him.
“The one on your head died, saving your life. How is it that you’re
not dead?”

“When I become completely still inside, I can
see one heartbeat into the future. Well, not exactly see. But
something compels me to move suddenly, like a sixth sense foretells
when something lethal is about to strike me.”

He had never mentioned this to anybody
before. Not even his parents.

He took the burnt metal off and nearly
fainted. Something sharp cut deep into the top. Well, that
explained the headache. He fingered his scalp and felt blood flow
down his face. He closed his eye just in time as blood dripped off
his chin. Uncle George’s suits saved him again. Billy couldn’t even
remember the blow.

“I’m leaking.”

“Take mine,” Prince said, handing him a
helmet. “That’s the least I could do for you saving me.” Prince
looked ready to cry. "Princess wouldn't leave me, and Tiny wouldn't
leave her. Even after they got Diva, Zulu, Crotch, and Geneva. Even
pregnant, that arrogant bitch Mali almost died protecting me, and
she despises me. The Mongols saw victory and charged. Another
minute and they’d have killed us. Then you screamed and the fight
turned upside down. Even through my burning flesh I could see the
naked fear in their eyes. I have never known someone who could
terrify veterans like you do. Not even Genghis Khan wielded such
power.”

“Stop turning me on,” Billy joked. “Unless
Blade is into it.”

Prince closed his eyes to better soak up wand
juice. “I’ll make their families rich. I’ll tell their children
that their parents were heroes. And I’ll one day make the same
sacrifice. Princess and I are from a city called Philadelphia. It
means love for one's brothers in arms."

"I gave him a lot of painkiller," Blade
explained, as Prince rambled on.

“I better leave before he breaks out in
song.”

Despite herself, Blade laughed. She didn’t
know whether to curse him or herself. It’s hard to stay miserable
with him around.

Drenched to the bone, the world’s best flier
struggled through the mud and waited until Princess finished
stitching a wound before stepping into view. Visibly pregnant, she
looked up despite the rain, face dirty, hands bloody, and her messy
hair blowing in the wind. She was completely unprepared for his
verbal assault.

“I never imagined the world’s most beautiful
woman could become better looking, yet tonight you somehow did it.
I want you to know that I’m in awe of you, and that I plan on
marrying you as soon as I can.”

Like any good surprise attack, Billy
disappeared to maximize the shock value, so he didn’t see her burst
into tears. He walked off, trying to think of something witty to
tell Prince, before he suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed, his eyes
swimming. He spit out dirt and realized his leg hurt like hell. He
found his lower-leg plate bashed in. He took it off and nearly shat
when he saw the size of the welt.

“I have more bruise than leg.”

Blade explored the leg, ignoring -- or
perhaps maximizing -- his pain, before concluding his leg was not
broken. But then she found additional cuts, bruises, and burns. The
more he undressed, the more wounds she found, until he was
completely naked and feeling anything but heroic. He stood among
thousands of warriors wearing nothing but bandages. The fearsome
Red Baron appeared covered in toilet paper. By the time Blade
finished bandaging Billy, the scrawny kid looked like a mummy
looking for his daddy. While the gauze stopped the bleeding, it
also soaked up the rain, making his every movement squeak like a
rusty wagon on a bumpy road. His dancing sounded like the world’s
worst orchestra.

“You belong in a hospital,” Prince
insisted.

“I belong in a museum,” Billy countered. “I
look like I escaped from an Egyptian pyramid. Bear will start
calling me the Red Mummy.”

“Go away,” Blade begged him with a smile,
“before you make me more gay.”

Billy called his leaders together and
proposed hitting the bastards again while they aided their wounded.
Armor would ruin his bandages, so he stood before them dressed in
gauze, boots, and Prince’s battle helmet, looking as silly as he
felt.

“Go ahead and laugh,” he dared them. “I just
wanted to prove I could become paler because we don’t have enough
albinos. Come on, Bear. Wrap me up. Bandage my pride. Show me your
best cracks.”

Instead, they stared at him silently with
glassy-eyes, looking like lost puppies. Even Bear wasn’t coming up
with any quips, and those were his specialty.

“Why are you all looking at me funny? Is it
my helmet?” Billy joked.

“Us?” Bear asked. “Did you notice how the
Mongols looked at you? You’d think the Baron was a kilometer
tall.”

“What are you talking about?” Billy demanded,
exasperated.

“We just compiled videos of what you did back
there to save our wounded, and we’re all awed by it. We’ve never
seen anything like it. You somehow paralyzed a few thousand Mongols
by impersonating a giant fire serpent. I thought I’d gotten used to
you routinely doing the impossible, but then you pull this out of
your helmet. And what’s most unbelievable is that you don’t see it.
You should be strutting like a peacock.” Bear gestured to his white
bandages while getting one quip in. “Maybe it’s your new battle
uniform that keeps you humble.”