Mania and the Executioner (16 page)

I think for several moments. I can understand how changes in temperature could weaken the steel blades, but how could it affect the silicon carbide? Silicon carbide has a really wide temperature threshold so the cold shouldn’t make it any less durable…but it could make the iron that is in the silicon carbide less durable. However, I can’t make pure silicon carbide of that size. Hmm…I’ll have to
experiment a little later.

“Hey Airi, what’s the status on my throat? I’m kind of thirsty
.”

(You are able to drink now, but your larynx is still damaged)

“What’s the ETA on that?”

(Two hours)

“Cheza, it looks like I’ll need you to translate for the next two hours. Could you ask Tia to bring me something to drink?” I think.

“Tia, can you bring Cole something to drink?” Cheza asks for me.

“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Tia says. She comes back a minute later with a glass of juice.

“Thank you. Now go get ten paper cups and boil a teapot.” I think. Cheza looks at me
with a perplexed expression, but relays what I said. Tia looks confused for a moment, but nods anyway and leaves the room. Ten minutes later, she comes back and hands me the teapot as I sit up.

“Okay Cheza, we need you to work on control. So I want you to cool the water, but don’t freeze it.” I think to her while setting a paper c
up on her bedside table. I pour water from the kettle into the cup as Cheza nods in response.

An hour later, Cheza manages to freeze all ten cups in each of the three rounds we do.

“We’ll just keep working on it until you can maintain control over it.” I say with a raspy voice.

“How much longer
until my voice is completely healed Airi?”

(About twenty
minutes)

Sara walks into the room looking slightly perturbed.

“Hey Cole; the director of The Agency has asked to borrow you to help Natasha with an investigation into some strange events at a frat house over at ASU. They’re having some big annual party tonight and you two will be going under the guise of a guy and his girlfriend from the university.” Sara says as if she is waiting for a bomb to go off any second, as am I.

“Okay, I mean I do owe Carla for keeping me hidden from authorities and the media; and Natasha is my friend so I want to help her.” I say, my voice sounding a bit less raspy. I can almost hear the whistling of the silver bombshell as it comes crashing down on top of us.

“Okay, you two have a nice time!” Cheza says with a smile. Cheza is being reasonable…

IT’S A TRAP!

“No Cole, this isn’t a trap.” Cheza says with a smile.

“
I just want you to help Natasha and I know that you won’t do anything foolish with her…right?” Cheza asks, her smile morphing into a look that is slightly homicidal.

“Of course not!”
I say.

“Then I have nothing to worry about!” Cheza exclaims wi
th her broad smile back on. “Go. Help her and watch her back…her upper back.”

“Oh, and Cole?
You are going to have to go in without your holster. I still haven’t finished the new one and a sword hilt peeking over your shoulder is far from inconspicuous.” Sara tells me.

“That’s fine; I can make new swords on the fly if I need to.
When do we leave?” I inquire.

“In about an hour; Natasha is getting ready now.” Sara replies.

“I guess I will too.” I reply.

I go to my room, take a shower
, and dress in cargo shorts, white t-shirt, and my leather jacket. I walk out into the kitchen and have lunch while waiting for Natasha. She comes out fifteen minutes later, wearing denim shorts, a magenta polo shirt, and matching Vans as she looks at me expectantly. I grab the keys to the Mercedes SUV and we head out.

“Hey Natasha, if this party isn’t until tonight, why are we going now?” I
inquire as I take the ramp onto I-10.

“Surveillance mostly; we are kind of flying blind into this one. All we know is that several of the
fraternity members may be involved in the summoning of something to our world.” Natasha replies.

“Summoning to our world?” I ask
.

“I’m not entirely sure where that kind of stuff comes from, but a
friend tried to explain it to me as pocket worlds or dimensions that can be connected to where we are. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” Natasha says.

‘
However it makes quite a bit of sense to me.’ I think as I remember the secret door behind the bookcase in Uncle Eric’s office that led to the sandstone platforms and the jungle; explaining it as a pocket dimension makes quite a bit of sense…for my fucked up reality at least.

“What kind of strange events have been happening at this house?” I inquire.

“Strange online purchases, local blackouts on just one street, and a neighbor swore he saw a penguin in the backyard, one night.” She answers.

“Strange online purchases?
What constitutes strange?” I ask.

“Several pounds of colored sand, shit-tons of chalk, and five gallons of
pigs blood; all of which are indicative of attempts at summoning. Plus, there’s the penguin…” Natasha tells me.

We reach the house about an hour later. I drive past it and park in front of a nearby house that is on the opposite side of the street. Several crews of people are setting up a stage, wheeling in crates of alcohol, or bringing in food. At 5pm, Natasha suddenly tenses up with her eyes
tightly closed, and starts to shake slightly. About ten seconds later, it stops and leaves Natasha breathing heavily.

“There’s someone being held captive in the house.” Natasha says after she calms down.

“What do you mean, being held captive?” I inquire.

“What I saw wasn’t very clear
, but a barred cage definitely stood out and I could see a huddled mass inside of it.” She replies.

“…do you think it could be the penguin?” I ask while trying to think of a reasonable explanation.

“No, it was definitely a hominoid figure.” Natasha says, shivering slightly.

I can only imagine what these sick bastards are doing to that orangutan!

(Probably not an animal…what she is referring to)

“Thanks Yoda.
”

“Well, I guess we will just have to
rescue them.” I say calmly and pat her left shoulder, causing her to wince.

“What happened to your shoulder?” I
inquire, thinking back to that night in Hawaii.

“It’s an old injury that I sustained
while training with my grandfather when I was ten years old.” Natasha says.

“What were you training for when you were ten, if y
ou don’t mind my asking?” I ask, knowing that normal people don’t start training for anything combat related at the age of ten, unlike myself.

“I was…I don’t really want to talk about it right now…” Natasha says quietly while avoiding my face.
Her injury was most likely caused by a badly broken shoulder blade, which isn’t something that can be easily done by accident; her reluctance to talk about it hints at a rather unpleasant relationship with her grandfather…or maybe I’m just reading into this too much?

“So…about how long ago was that?” I ask, realizing that I don’t actually know how old Natasha is and it is a good subject to switch to.

“Wow you are unsubtle! I won’t tell you, but I will give you a hint. The age difference between us is less than that between you and Sara.” She replies.

So that puts her anywhere between the age of 9 and 31, but she also called the injury to her shoulder old and she sustained that when she was 10 so I think I
can put her safely between 13 and 31 years old…

“Well, you are quite filled out to be only thirteen, but now I’m really glad we didn’t do anything in Hawaii!” I joke.

“You know, we could change that…” Natasha says while turning in her seat to face me.

Now, I may be dense when it comes to these things, but I’m not that dense. I’ve always hated guys that were that dense (on TV or otherwise) and I promised myself that I would never be dense enough to not see when a girl was throwing herself at me. Looking back, I sor
t of acted like that with Cheza. The difference was that I think I’ve always known how Cheza felt; I was just in extreme denial about it.

“I’ll give you one more hint: I’m older than Chezarei.” Natasha says quietl
y while moving towards my face.

So as I see Natasha, turned toward
s me and thrusting her chest out, I know exactly what she is trying to do, even with my relative lack of experience in this area (relative to Jason, that is). In fact, it is precisely because I lack great experience in this area that I know that this is a trap. It is also most likely the reason that Cheza was so reasonable before. However, I’m not going to trip this trap; I’m going to turn it around in my favor.

Natasha
moves steadily towards my face until she is about six inches away: Perfect.

“I’m sorry Natasha! I can’t! I feel too strongly towards Chezarei
to betray her trust like this!” I say, perhaps a little too exaggeratedly, after putting my hand up to stop her.

“Then why is your hand on my breast?” Natasha asks
quietly while not moving back.

It seems that I
have miscalculated. I freeze and start sweating bullets. I pray that Cheza can’t see this.

(Too late)

Airi says as I hear Natasha’s phone start ringing. The ringtone is organ music that sounds like it requires an accompanying thunderstorm to be complete, but it still spells
death
.

“Hello?” Natasha asks, answering her phone. “Why yes he is right here!”

I start pleading with my eyes to just let me get a ten second head start.

“You wish to talk to him?”

Please Natasha, have mercy!

Her response: No dice
.

“Well his hands are a little
preoccupied at the moment. It’s funny that you should call right now; he was just telling me that, unlike in school, there are some situations in life where a D is just far superior to a B!”

That whore just threw me under the bus!

“Chezarei wishes to speak with you Cole. Can you give up one of your handfuls to hold the phone instead?” I nod in affirmation as I feel all six tires run over my carcass, and then once again as the driver backs up to see if they hit something. I reach for the phone with an unsteady left hand.

“Cheza, this isn’t what it looks like.” I say while holding the phone away from my ear slightly, expecting there to be some screaming. What I hear is much worse.

“Cole. If you do not remove your right hand from Natasha’s breast this instant, I am going to cut that hand off when you return home.” Cheza says with her voice uninflected. This is really bad…

“Yes ma’am.” I say while quickly letting my hand fall.

“Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to finish this investigation, you are going to come home, and we are going to have a little chat.” Cheza says.

“Yes ma’am.” I
reply.

“Good boy.” *click*

Natasha can no longer control her laughter, and starts dying.

“Haha ha…so, what have we learned?”
Natasha asks when she has calmed down.

“That, when given the choice, you will always choose the option that is the most amusing?” I say.

“No…well, yes there is that, but it’s not what I was referring to. When you see the trap coming, you have to spring the reversal early on or you risk running into the trap anyway.” Natasha explains.

“Yes, that is an important lesson that I’ve learned today.” I say solemnly.

“Well now that the fun is over, we need to review the faces and names of each member; it might just be useful.” Natasha says while pulling up a database on her phone.

…

Chapter 14: Save your energy for the party!…you’ll probably have to fight someone

We head to the house when enough people show up for us to be unobtrusive. I’m not sure what this fraternity is called, but I know that delta is i
n its name. My Greek is terrible, but I am positive that I know delta, theta, and mu…wait, delta is the triangle, right?

“Here, we may need these.” Natasha says whil
e handing me an ASU student ID.

As i
t turns out, she’s right; there’s a guy at the door checking student ID and normal ID. I don’t remember his face from the photos of members, so he must be hired help. We walk in the house and are met by a grand staircase in front of us, a large dining room on the left, and hallways on each side of the staircase that lead into the kitchen and subsequently, the backyard. The band and a professional looking bar are set up out back so that’s where most of the party is. Natasha and I order a couple drinks, so as not to stand out, and then we circle back inside.