Cole's Haunting Melody (The Gods' Executioner Series) (25 page)

“If we don’t speak with Persephone, there won’t be a wedding.” Jason says.

“Prince Jason! My apologies for not noticing you sooner; come in.” the maid says and
ushers us in to a sitting room.

We take a seat and wait a few moments
before a woman with curly dark brown hair in her mid-thirties walks into the room wearing a slightly transparent black silk robe.

“Jason! It’s been ages!
Congrats on the engagement!” The woman says and Jason stands up to hug her.

“Thanks
Sephi, that’s part of why we’re here.” Jason says, but all I can think is ‘Sephi? Yep, they boned.’

“Reyna and our friend Natasha have been kidnapped and I’m almost positive that Hades did it.” I say.

“Fucking asshole… he’s always doing shit like this! Like kidnapping me and tricking me into being Queen of Hades!” Persephone exclaims.

“
Sephi, do you have any idea where Hades would have gone if he had kidnapped two women, which he has?” Jason asks.

“Well there is a large house
in Sicily that he bought. Quite a lovely view; it looks out over the ocean from a cliff top.” Persephone replies.

“Do you have a photo? Or even a specific city?” I question.

“I believe it was in Syracuse, but I don’t have any information beyond that.” Persephone says.

“Can you work with that?” Jason asks me.

“I should be able to; Sicily’s like the size of Rhode Island, right? Since it’s narrowed down to a single tiny city on an already tiny island, I should be able to manage it.” I reply.

“I don’t think that’s right…
anyway, thanks for your help, Sephi! You should go finish getting ready for the wedding, because it’s definitely still on for today; although, you do have an extra hour or so.” Jason says and we exit the palace. Once past the gates, I pull out my phone.

“So how did you meet Persephone?” I ask while
Googling Syracuse.

“She was at the first dinner party I went to as Prince of
Niflheim. We hit it off because we both really didn’t want to be there. We ended up hooking up in the coat room at the party and then for the next three months until she returned to Mount Olympus. When she came back last November, we resumed our affair and Hades was none the wiser.” Jason explains while I find a suitable picture of Syracuse.

“Or Hades had known all along and we just discovered his motive for doing all of this.” I reply.

“Shit… you might be onto something there…” Jason responds.

I grab his shoulder and touch
my Haglaz run to port us to the forest near Syracuse that I found. We appear in the Sicilian twilight as I notice Jason’s faint golden aura growing even fainter by the second.

“Shit! Jason I thought you had some time on earth saved up!?” I panic.

“I do!” Jason exclaims, panicking because I’m panicking.

(Transfuse your blood into Jason and everything will be fine)

Heeding Airi’s suggestion, I twist open the ring on my left hand and slice into Jason’s right palm before grabbing his hand with my left.

“There, that should handle things.” I tell him as I start syphoning some of my blood into him.

“Airi, have you been able to find Natasha and Reyna yet?”

(It’s either them…
or a flock of seagulls)

“Why would a flock of seagulls have my blood in them?”

(I don’t know, Master. Have you been giving any of your blood to seagulls?)

“You know that I haven’t!”

(Then it is most likely Reyna and Natasha. What I’m trying to say is that it’s difficult to see from here. Their location is two miles to the south of our position)

“Found the girls. The
y’re two miles to the south.” I tell Jason. He turns right and starts walking.

“How do you know which way is south?” I ask.

“Well the sun is setting and since the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, this is the right direction.” Jason explains.

“Isn’t the saying
‘the sun rises in the east and sets in the west’?” I question. Jason stops, turns around, and starts walking in the opposite direction.

Some things never change.

Chapter 25
: Sicilian Standoff

Jason and I walk hand-in-hand through the forest
when I realize that we look like we are in one of those ‘stuck together’ episodes in which I got tree sap on my hand and then pulled Jason out of the way of a falling boulder or a pit of snakes before realizing that the sap had magically solidified so now we have to walk to some sort of absolvent factory that is in the middle of town while holding hands… don’t all episodes of that nature in TV stem from homophobia?

(The transfer has been c
omplete for the past minute…)

“
Now I’m just doing it to prove a point that I can hold my best friend’s hand without feeling weird about it.”

(And moving slowly in the process when your friends have been kidnapped)

“Well, when you put it that way…”

“Okay, now that you aren’t going to die in the next ten seconds, let’s
get going.” I tell Jason and he nods in response.

We keep up a mild run through the forest until we reach
a road, and then we follow the road south, keeping the ocean to our left. About ten minutes after beginning our run, I feel Natasha’s and Reyna’s presence coming from a walled compound on a cape. We arrive within viewing distance of the compound and see an enormous multi-story house through a large cast iron gate; I also see dozens of enhanced vampires with silenced P90 submachine guns, which confuses me.

“Tasha? Can you hear me!?” I
call out in my mind.

“Cole…?”
Natasha weakly answers.

“Hold on, Tasha; Jason and I are here!” I tell her.

“Cole… Reyna was stabbed… in her stomach.” Natasha softly replies.

My left arm and right leg flush black as my helmet engages
and I feel that bizarre sensation in my eyes. Hades will pay for this. I can understand wanting a little revenge on the guy who had been plowing your wife/ niece, but this is going too far.

“CT
!? What’s going on?” Jason asks in alarmed fashion.

“Reyna’s been stabbed.” I say with my ‘
Sith’ modulated tone as I grip the hilts of both of the Diamond swords over my shoulders, and draw them. “And Hades is going to pay for it.”

I flash towards the gates, vault over them, and cut an X through the torso of a vampire
just before landing. As I land in the cobblestone courtyard, I turn and lop off the arms of the vampire behind me before bringing my Diamond sword through her neck. Before the other vampires have a chance to react, I hack apart three more.

(Dodge right)

I dive to my right as a vampire behind me opens fire, missing me and stitching up their comrade. I lop off his arms and horizontally bisect him at the waist before decapitating the vampiress that was just shot, when I hear the pounding of a large group of boots on cobblestone. As the volume increases from the side of the house, I quickly sheathe my swords and whip out my Obliterator. I rip it from right to left as the first of the group rounds the corner. Seven decapitated heads fly through the air as the bodies drop. I bring the Obliterator back around and rip through six more, leaving three vampires that are too shocked to move.

I race forward, jump, spin, and bring the steel toe of my strengthened right foot into the temple of one vampire, causing his he
ad to explode before sending the rest of his body flying into the side of the house with a satisfying squish. After pulping the second vampire with a left hook, I notice that the third vampire is running away. Well, that just won’t do! I cast the Obliterator forward like a fishing pole. The Obliterator punctures his chest before I pull back on the hilt, retracting the blade and dragging the vampire with it. I yank the Obliterator out, leaving a gaping chest hole that I fill with my left arm before starting suction to replace some of the blood that I gave to Jason.

“What are you doing?” Jason asks behind me.

“Draining this vampire of the little blood he has to replenish my own supply.” I tell him and Jason picks up one of the suppressed P90s.

“I’ll cover you while you do that. Let’s
move.” Jason says and moves towards the house.

“Why are you using a gun?” I inquire.

“My powers aren’t working too well here.” Jason replies.

I follow after him while keeping up the drain. We head into the house an
d find that there isn’t anyone here. I feel Natasha and Reyna on the floor below us, but I can’t find the stairs.

(Door on your right)

I drop my blood bag, rewrap the Obliterator around my waist, open the door, and see a tile staircase. The stairs lead down to a concrete basement that is probably about five thousand square feet, with Reyna and Natasha chained to the back wall, one hundred feet away. They both look to be in fairly rough shape, but with the hole in Reyna shirt at stomach level… it’s much worse. Then I notice something that just confuses me.

“
Lord Byron?” I ask as he and Hades turn around, both dressed in suits for the wedding that they were supposed to be attending.

“So it’s come down to this, has it? Well, let’s get this over with.” Byron says as he pulls a black
epi-pen out of his pocket.

“Wait, wait, wait…
I think you’re forgetting something.” Jason suggests.

“No, I’m not.” Byron replies
while removing his jacket.

“Yes, you are.” Jason says.

“No, I don’t believe I am.” Byron replies.

“Where’s your monologue?” Jason asks.

“I’m not doing one.” Byron says.

“What!?
You can’t do that! Can you do that?” Jason asks before turning to me. “Can he do that?”

“Of course I can!” Byron replies.

“What about you? Do you feel like telling us what in the hell is going on?” I ask Hades.

“Uh…
no, I don’t think I do.” Hades replies.

“Oh come on, you guy
s! This is bullshit!” Jason exclaims.

“Well, how about you answer one question.” I suggest.

“Fine.” Hades compromises.

“Was Byron in on this the whole time? Here for every meeting and knows everything about it? What I’m basically asking is whether or not
Byron befriended us and screwed us over, or if he was screwing us over while befriending us.” I clarify.

“He was in on it the entire time.” Hades says with a satisfied smile.

“Really man? We disposed of a dead hooker together! That was a bonding experience!” I exclaim and sigh.

“Well, d
on’t kill him and I’ll get us our answers once I kill the shit out of Hades. Oh, and take the Diamond swords; they’ll be ineffective against Hades anyway.” I tell Jason.

“Got it, bro.
” Jason replies, drops the P90, and pulls the Diamond swords from my back.

I slice open my right wrist with my ring as Byron stabs himself in the neck with the pen, causing his aura to turn a shade of
bronze; well that’s new.

“Look out, Jason! Byron has a different strain
of the enhancement and this one seems much stronger.” I warn Jason as he sprints toward Byron.

Byron
runs over to the back right corner and grabs a massive claymore that is five feet long and probably forty pounds of steel, but he still manages to swing it rather fast as he meets Jason. Jason gets both Diamond swords up in time to block, but the sheer force of the claymore is enough to send him flying back about fifty feet; Jason hits the ground and slides to a stop near my feet.

“You alright?”
I ask.

“Surprisingly, yes.
Your armor is freaking amazing!” Jason replies.

“Might I suggest a less direct approach? While my armor will protect against the edge of the claymore, it doesn’t do as great against blunt weapon
damage with that much force.” I inform him.

“Right.”
Jason says and hops to his feet. I look back and notice that Hades is missing.

“Where’s Hades?” I ask.

“He went down that way a couple of seconds ago.” Jason says while gesturing towards an opening in the left wall.

“Thanks. Good luck, bro!” I
exclaim and run towards the opening as my Mu-cutter completes.

As I reach the opening, I see a staircase that leads down.
The spiraling staircase keeps going down for what seems like an incredibly long time; like a ‘why not just install an elevator at this point?’ long time. I consider slowing down in case Hades is lying in wait to spring a trap, but I realize that it’s unlikely because fighting in such tight quarters would put him at a disadvantage, so I keep going. The staircase lights up when I reach the bottom and see that it has led me down to the beach. The light of the moon illuminates the fifty feet of sand to my right that leads to Hades and his relaxed posture with a wicked-looking black dagger in his right hand: the same dagger from my dreams.

“So what now, Feros?
A moonlit duel on the beach?” Hades shouts.

“I was thinking I’d just kill you so I can go get mar
ried.” I reply as flash forward and lunge at him, Mu-cutter drawn back.

Hades calmly raised the dagger and points it at me; I hope he doesn’t think
that I’m just going to impale myself on that… actually, I’m on a committed path since I have no way to change direction now that I’m airborne so I will hit the dagger, but it probably won’t pierce my suit.

Hades’s
answer: Nope. A blast of water and electricity hits me in the chest and sends me flying into the water, skipping along its surface before dropping below it. The water starts churning and suddenly sucks me beneath the surface; this fucker shot me into a whirlpool! As a side note, it looks like Ganesha made the right choice when making my phone waterproof…

Little does Hades
know, this actually gives me the advantage since I’m less than one hundred meters away, so I don’t have a conceivable way out of this. Now I can just port behind him, surprise him, and quickly finish this. I reach back and touch my triskele, hoping that he hasn’t moved from that spot.

I port behind Ha
des as he slams the Void dagger through my suit and into my chest, puncturing my left lung before jumping back to distance himself. I think this whole thing might’ve been an elaborate trap, considering that I’m essentially paralyzed with this dagger in my chest. Huh, that’s funny… I don’t really feel all that paralyzed.

“What? You thought I wouldn’t know about your short ranged porting? Even if Apollo hadn’t told everyone, I still already knew about it.
I knew right after you used it against Veles and Perun thanks to a certain… acquaintance.” Hades explains while slowly walking toward me, so I feign paralysis; no need to ruin the surprise.

“I suppose I should thank you…
after all, without you, I wouldn’t have been able to get away with killing Juno and Neptune. There are a few who still doubt your guilt, but after I claim that you attacked me and I was forced to kill you, who will argue?” Hades rhetorically asks, stopping just outside of my range.

“What is taking this thing so long!?” Hades asks in an
exasperated fashion.

“It’s because…” I mumble
through gritted teeth, trying to restrain the consequences of porting short distances.

“What? I couldn’t make that out.” Hades says and gets closer.

“It’s because…” I repeat.

“What?” Hades asks and steps right up to me.

“It’s because I’m not paralyzed.” I whisper and bring the Mu-cutter through his knees.

“
AUGH!” Hades screams as I vomit blood.

I wonder why I can’t stop that blood from
flowing? I always know that it’s coming, so why can’t I keep it in?

(Consider it a sacrifice for short ranged porting; the act rearranges your organs and destroys the element in some of your blood that allows you to control it, so it is expelled out of your body as a byproduct)

I still don’t really get it, but I have a speech to make and a god to kill.

“What? You thought a dagger mad
e of the Void would work on me!? Bitch, I am the Void! I have two limbs made of the stuff and you thought that a weapon made of it would have the same effect on me as it does on gods!?” I shout as I step over him and raise my Mu-cutter.

“Just wait a moment, Feros! Don’t do anything rash! You don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Greek/Roman pantheon as well, do you!?” Hades
screams.

Shit…
he has a point. Hades’s face contorts to a smug smile when he sees that he has me beat.

(Fret not, Master. Simply do to him as you did
unto Horus)

“But I’d still be killing him, which will destroy the pantheon!”

(Trust me)

“Ha
ha ha… do you think I give a shit about killing off the pantheon?” I ask and Hades’s eyes go wide as horror strikes his face.

I bring the Mu-cutter up through each of his arms
before slicing his chest open as Hades screams. I place my blackened left hand on the golden mass in Hades’s chest and pray that Airi knows what she’s doing. The golden mass turns into black smoke and melts the inside of Hades’s chest cavity before getting sucked into my arm. I sit in the sand and wait for a few moments for signs that the world is ending… but nothing happens.