Mania and the Executioner (28 page)

“Hmm, that’s interesting. Anyway, I got this because it allows me to port to Tir
na nOg so I can spend more time with Lila.” I tell Cheza after walking back into my room.

“Why do you need to spend more time with Lila!?”
Cheza asks frantically.

“Cheza, there’s something I haven’t told you about. You should probably sit down. Well,
thirteen years ago, I met this girl named Trixie in Carson City—” I start.

“COLE!” Cheza screams, not enjoying the joke so I switch on my serious face.

“I want to help her Cheza.” I say quietly.

“What do you mean? Does this have anything to do with your anger earlier?” she asks.

“Did you see the bruises on her?” I ask, thinking that I may have sent an image back then.

“You mean the four skinny bruises on each of her hips? I thought they looked kind of like fingers…but what do they have to do with anything?” she asks.

“Cheza…take what we did this morning, and take away the ‘consensual’ part… ” I explain and Cheza’s eyes go wide.

“Alright Cole, I under
stand now.” Cheza quietly replies.

“By the way, how did you get rid of your anger earlier?” she asks.

“I satiated my rage with the blood and screams of twenty people.” I say flatly as Cheza looks at me in shock. I send her the information about the illusion via image.

“Anyway; we are taking Lila to the mall because I kind of sliced the majority o
f her clothes in half.” I say and Cheza gives me an incredulous look.

“She had barricaded herself in her room using her dresser so when I used my Mu-cutter to slice down her door, her dresser exploded in the process. Since it’s my fault, we are going to the mall…I also want to take her someplace to try and get her mind off of things and I doubt she has ever been to a mall.” I explain.

“Alright, let’s go.” Cheza says, I pull my shirt on, and then we exit my room.

We enter the living room and I see Lila an
d Natasha engrossed in a movie.

“Hey Lila, do you want to go to the mall?” I ask as Lila turns around. I watch Lila’s face light up at the prospect as I remember one very important detail that had slipped my mind. Did I mention that this cute little girl has
wings that are very noticeable?

“Hey Natasha, what’s the standard protocol on fairies in malls?” I ask.

“*Sigh* Cole, are you trying to give me another headache? There is no standard protocol for fairies in malls because they have fucking wings!” Natasha exclaims.

“We also have ears…and I’d like to go to the mall, if we can…” Lila says
, downtrodden. I glare at Natasha as she opens her mouth to say something to fix this situation, but she can’t think of anything.

“Don’t worry Cole, Sara has a solution. I heard y
our plan and I approve so Cheza, no training today.” Tia says, coming out from the kitchen. “Apparently Sara had been wondering about this problem since the first moment you showed up with Lila. She’s working on it now and said she can have it done in about thirty minutes.”

“Great, what’s the solution?” I ask.

“A disguise.” Tia answers.

“Tia…how in the hell do you disguise three foot wings!?” I ask.

“Just wait, you will see.” Tia says so we all sit down on the couch and watch the movie.

They’re watching the first Harry Potter movie and Lila loves it. I see us watching the rest of the Harry Potter movies sometime in the near future. Sara comes out holding something that looks a lot like my
holster with a piece of cardboard on the back of it.

“Lila, could you t
ry this on please?” Sara asks and Lila gets up to try it on. “It may be a little uncomfortable, but the cardboard has to look like it is attached to your wings.”

“It’s not that uncomfortable at all! Thank you Sara!” Lila says excitedly as she
turns around and hugs Sara. The cardboard is wedged between her wings, making it look like the straps are holding the wings onto her back.

“This means we can go, right Natasha!?” Lila asks.

“…Of Course!” Natasha exclaims even though I can tell she is unsure about it.

“Hey Cole, come to my room for a minute. Cheza, you should probably get ready to go.” Sara points ou
t as she walks toward her room.

I hop over the couch and
follow Sara while Cheza runs off to her room to change out of her training clothes; I notice that she is walking a little funny…hehe. I walk into Sara’s room.

“It’s done
, Cole!” Sara says, beaming as she points to her desk where my new pouch sits. I stick the pouch to my back at about lumbar level.

“I decided to add more discs to the back and make it so they follow along the perimeter. I figured that if you w
ere running around, the pouch might slip off if there were only two discs.” Sara says.

“Just a second.”
I reply, run to my room, grab my gun, put it in the new holster, and return to Sara’s room.

I do a qui
ck draw of both the Sic dagger and the gun. I eject the magazine and try reloading the gun one-handed. The magazine locks into the gun and I feel another magazine being pushed out behind the one I just loaded; it works perfectly. It appears that WFNGC rounds are loaded in the gun now, meaning that the JHP rounds must be in the other ejector.

“This is awesome Sara! I love you like so much right now!” I say ecstatically as I hug her while trying not to be reminded of the events that nearly caused me to end her a few nights ago.

“So you only love me when I make things for you?” Sara asks sarcastically.

“No, I love you all the time Sara!” I
exclaim with a grin while not adding ‘except for when I thought you were a traitor that I was going to interrogate and kill.’

“Good. Now, I want you to take the pouch with you and try out the stealth factor at the mall. Now get going! I don’t think Lila wants to wait anymore!” She says with a smile as I
walk out into the living room.

Cheza is waiting wearing a bleached yellow tank top and white shorts. I
grab the keys to the Mercedes SUV, which I can only assume that somebody drove home from Tempe and it didn’t just magically appear in our garage. I grab my jacket from the car and put it on to cover my holster pack. Lila and Natasha get in the back while Cheza sits passenger and I drive us to the mall.

We start getting looks the moment we exit the car. I grab Lila’s hand to set the appearance that she is my little sister who like
s wearing angel wings. I notice Lila’s face is red a few minutes later.

“I know this is a little embarrassing
, but just bear with it.” I whisper to her.

“Oh, no I’m fine!” Lila
replies as I hear Natasha giggle behind me for some reason.

We walk into JC Penny’s and head over to the girl’s section. Lila tries to search around for clothes
, but her wings keep getting stuck on the tightly packed racks of clothing so she just comes over and stands next to me while Natasha and Cheza look. They find a few things and proceed to take Lila back to the dressing room to try them on. I peruse the clothing nearby but that’s mostly just to fend off boredom. The girls come out about fifteen minutes later and we head over to the registers to buy the two pairs of jeans and a couple halter top shirts that actually fit with her wings. We repeat this process with two more stores where the girls find a Gothic Lolita dress that actually doesn’t look too bad on Lila. As we are walking to the fourth store, I look down at Lila and see here eyeing the various food places.

“Hey Lila, are you hungry?” I ask the little winged girl that is connected to my hand. She tenses slightly when I ask her, then she nods while blushing and avoiding my face. I see a P.F. Chang’s which I figure would be good because she probably has never had Chinese food…American-Chinese food.

“Hey, let’s grab some lunch.” I say to Natasha and Cheza.

“Okay, I’m pretty hungry anyway.” Cheza
replies and Natasha agrees. Once we are seated in P.F. Chang’s, I pull out my phone and discover that it is already 3:30PM, meaning that we’ve been in the mall for nearly five hours. I’m a patient man, but I’ve had enough for today.

“Let’s head home after
this.” I say as we finish our lunch that Lila seems to be enjoying.

“Yeah, it is getting late.” Natasha
agrees.

We pay for lunch and head back to the car. On the drive home
, I notice a pet store. Lila might enjoy that, so I pull in to the parking lot; rush-hour traffic is already unavoidable anyway so why not?

“Come on Lila; we will just be a couple of minutes, do you two want to stay here?” I ask Natasha and Cheza
, who both look at each other and then shake their heads.

“Alright
then, let’s go Lila!” I say and leave the car on. I exit the car, open Lila’s door, grab her hand, and help her out of the car. It ain’t easy having wings. The look Cheza and Natasha gave each other was suspicious so I enhance my hearing. We walk into the pet store and Lila’s face lights up as she looks at all the animals.

“I think it’s nice that we gave her some alone time with her first love.” Cheza says.

“Yeah, I agree. Don’t you feel the least bit threatened by her though?” Natasha asks.

“Threatened? No, not at all; Cole is too dense to even notice her feelings, let alone respond to them.” Cheza
replies.

“I don’t think Cole is all that dense, he’s just too stupid to notice the obvious signs when he’s dealing with girls that are younger than him. All my advances he’s responded to in one way or another at least…” Natasha says in a tone that
implies the presence of a sly smile on her face.

Are they right about Lila having a crush on me? It would
certainly explain a few things, mostly the flushed faces, and the reason why she hangs on to me often…

They have kitties and puppies and all the other standard pets; Lila makes a lap around the store and then stops at a cage that has two chinchillas playing. She watches them for over a minute and I take the hint quick enough to ask an employee if I can hold one. He grabs one of the chinchillas from the cage and hands it to me. I kneel down so Lila can pet it.

“It’s so soft!” Lila says ecstatically.

The employee gets called away so I let Lila hold the chinchilla. S
he would have been able to with zero problems if she actually looked like she was thirteen, but she’s only as tall as a six year old and the wings didn’t help her seem older. I check my phone and see that it’s 5:04PM so we’ve been in here for about half an hour.

“Alright Lila, we need to get going.” I say and watch as her face falls. “Don’t worry! We can come
back another time, I promise.”

“Alright.
Thanks Cole!” Lila says as she gives me a hug. Now that I’m aware of it, the possibility of her having a crush on me is rather obvious.

Chapter
24: Rage Round 2

We get into the car and drive on I-10 to get home. I take the exit ramp and drive through a few lights to get to the county road that leads to the house. When we are stopped at one of the lights, Natasha suddenly starts brea
thing heavily in the back seat.

“Cole, quickly change seats with me!” Natasha says urgently.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“JUST SWITCH SEATS WITH ME DAMNIT!
” Natasha screams and we pull a quick ‘Chinese fire drill’.

“Can you tell me what’s going on now?” I ask
.

“An SUV full of Weres is set to ambush us on this road.” Natasha says while trying to regain control of her breathing.

“…what type of Weres?” I ask as I feel my anger’s interest gets piqued.

“Wolves, why
does it matter?” Natasha asks.

Fenrir.
My rage bubbles to the surface as my helmet engages.

“Cole?” Cheza asks as she feels my rage build
ing.

I look
out the back window and see a Chevrolet Suburban SUV rapidly approaching. I focus and see five white outlines and five yellow, crescent-like centers. I still have enough sense left to zip up my jacket in spite of my rage, but that’s about it as far as common sense.

“When bullets start flying, I want Lila and Cheza to get down in between the seats. Natasha, how is your evasive driving?” I ask with the creepy overlapping voice.

“Not that great.” Natasha answers honestly.

“Good because I just want you to drive steadily and not evade because it will fuck up my shot.” I
reply. As the Suburban gets closer, they open fire with automatic weapons. I’m about to shout for Lila and Cheza to get down when I realize that this car is armored; that is really convenient.

“Never mind about th
e getting down part, this car must be bulletproof for low calibers. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I say as I open up my door.

I hang out of the car, take aim, and
fire a WFNGC round. I hit the passenger side’s assault rifle (possibly a FAMAS) that was shooting at us and I watch as the thing practically shatters, damaging the shooter in the process. With their firing currently ceased, I take the opportunity to climb onto the roof.