An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) Page 10

  I float up to the doors and see twenty-five vampires with guns trained on the entrance. The tendrils spear forward and then move horizontally from left to right at chest level before moving in a circular pattern around me. The tendrils send a small width of everything they touch into the Void, cutting the vampires and the middle section of the wall in front of me. The vampires’ arms fall off at mid-bicep level as their shoulders and above are stricken from their bodies. The center of the wall, including the doors, falls to pieces as I float through the circular opening.

  I look upward and know that there are squads of vampires on each of the seventeen floors above me. I come up with a fun way to take them out, but I won’t be able to kill the leader, or have confirmation of his death. I exit the building, look up at the window that Tia fell out of, and will myself to fly up there, feeling the gravitational pull reversing beneath my feet.

  The vampires watching the elevators and the stairs on the seventeenth floor are surprised when they notice me floating outside the broken window. One vampire turns and fires a damn rocket launcher at me, but a tendril shoots into the room and strikes the rocket as it leaves the tube, causing it to explode and kill the surrounding vampires. I notice a door on the back wall behind the reception desk and move towards it. My tendrils ‘open’ it for me and I proceed through the large hole where the door once stood.

  “Who is in charge here?” I ask the six vampires in the room from the entrance of the ornate office.

  I somehow notice the lights above the elevator door, sixty feet to the rear of my position; reinforcements brought on by the explosion, no doubt. Tendrils shoot across the sixty feet of room to the elevator doors before puncturing them to sever the cables as the light for the fourteenth floor lights up; that’s a long way down.

  “I SAID WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE!?” I shout.

  Five out of the six vampires immediately point to one at the back of the room. I float towards that one as tendrils spear into the heads of the other five; after all, snitches get stitches… or in this case, decapitation. I turn my attention back on the vampire in charge: the leader of the vampire rebellion. The white man with brown hair looks neither strong nor charismatic as I approach him.

  “So, you are the one responsible for this… for killing my sister.” I gravely announce.

  “No! That was Venus! She’s the one that has been leading us! She’s the one that threw the dagger into that woman’s chest and blasted her out of the window! She ported away right before the fighting started!” the vampire spills.

  I know Venus hates me for killing her husband, Vulcan, and her lover, Mars, but would she really side with Loki for revenge? That, I’m not sure of. I send the tendrils over to pick up the vampire and bring him to me. I hold my left hand out while still cradling Tia and bring the vampire’s mouth towards it with the tendrils. The vampire closes his mouth and keeps it tightly shut.

  “Open your mouth.” I order, but he doesn’t obey.

  I could force the blood in through his nose, but that seems too easy. Instead, I spear a tendril through the bottom of his chin and have it hook around his jaw before yanking down, breaking his jaw in the process; a process which wasn’t really necessary considering that he started screaming once the tendril punctured his chin, but it was already in there so I decided to follow through. I siphon the blood down his throat and move it into his brain where I start flipping through his memories in a rapid fashion.

  I’m vaguely aware as my tendrils shoot out of the office, towards the door that leads to the stairwell that is located near the elevators, as I get to the recent memories.

  “Venus, Tlazolteotl is here from the Aztec pantheon to discuss the murders of the pantheon heads that took place last night.” The vampire says; I guess he’s Venus’s assistant, secretary, or receptionist.

  “Haha! I can’t believe my luck! Here I was thinking that the plan last night had failed since we weren’t able to kill Quetzalcoatl, but now the true target is coming to me! I always thought that destroying the Aztec pantheon just to kill a single goddess to hurt Feros was overkill, but now I get the satisfaction of killing her in person! Where is she?” Venus asks.

  “She’s been waiting in the lobby for the past fifteen minutes.” The vampire secretary replies.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner!?” Venus angrily demands.

  “Because you ordered me not to interrupt you under any circumstances!” the vampire secretary quickly explains.

  “Just send her up! And get away from the door when she steps up to the desk.” Venus commands, her irritation blatant in her voice.

  The vampire secretary leaves the back office and assumes his position at the front desk.

  “Send her up.” The vampire orders with his finger on an intercom.

  Several minutes later, Tia exits the elevator and walks across the room to the front desk.

  “Hello, I’m here from the Aztec pantheon.” Tia says and the vampire secretary jumps out of the way as the door to Venus’s office flies open.

  I watch as Venus throws the Void dagger into Tia’s chest, runs behind the secretary and his desk, breaks the window with a spell, and blasts Tia out of the window with a torrent of water.

  “Now I just have to go collect the dagger—” Venus absentmindedly says before a worried look crosses her face and she ports away, most likely upon sensing me port in to catch Tia. Since Venus isn’t a pantheon head, the only place she could have ported is Mount Olympus. I’m going to kill that bitch, but first…

  I start moving all of the tendrils in a spherical gyroscopic pattern around me, causing the tendrils to cut into the walls, ceiling, and floor. I float down through the newly made hole in the floor, slicing apart the sixteenth floor as I had with the seventeenth. I continue traveling down through the floors of the building, slicing apart any vampires that happen to be under me until I reach the ground floor. Once on the first floor, I spear the tendrils out in all directions and spin in a circle, cutting through the walls of the building at a fifteen degree slant towards the blocks of city that the vampires are occupying.

  I retract the majority of the tendrils into me before flying out of the building and heading skyward to take in the view. The screams of the vampires that are still alive in the collapsing skyscraper reach my ears. After the skyscraper starts sliding off of its foundation, the major structural damage from my trip down causes the building to collapse in on itself. As the plume of dust comes up towards my location, I port to Mount Olympus.

  Chapter 11: Bittersweet Symphony of Revenge

  Upon arriving at the marble gazebo that serves at the gate to Mount Olympus, I look down at Tia. If it weren’t for the hole in her chest, I’d say she was sleeping peacefully… a renewed amount of anger fills me as I set Tia on the ground, take my jacket off, and cover her chest with it before picking her back up. I take to the sky and head over the cloud pathways toward the village, where I land beside the three tier fountain in the center of town.

  “Iris, either open this gate before I count to three or I destroy your stupid fucking fountain and kill everyone. One, TWO, TH—” I shout before the rainbow gate beams down.

  I carry Tia through it and arrive at the glittering palace of the Olympians. This place hasn’t changed in the past four years with the exception that the courtyard now has giant pillars bordering along the right and left sides leading to the palace. Now the question has become, how do I get Venus out here?

  (Remember how you kept the title of King of the Gods because of your asinine thinking that it would cause Vesta to grow a penis? While the reason is still asinine, the power will come in handy)

  I remember what Airi is talking about so I set Tia down off to the side of the entrance and walk to the center of the courtyard. I think of Venus standing in the courtyard and snap my fingers. Venus appears fifteen feet in front of me, looking bewildered for a moment before she notices me and her eyes go wide in terror.

  “Hi.” I greet with a malicious smile.
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br />   Utilizing the war god aspect, I charge forward and throw a left punch straight into her face faster than the speed at which she could react. Venus sails back and smashes into a wall of the palace, nearly two hundred feet away. I follow after her and before she has time to recover, I grab her by the face with my left hand and throw her back into the courtyard. I’m sprinting back towards her when I stop, noticing a confused look on her face…or it might just be shock, but either way, I stop.

  “No, you bitch… You don’t get to look at me like that… You know exactly what you did…” I tell her with a grave tone as I slowly advance.

  “Feros? What is going on here?” I hear Diana ask behind me and to my right.

  “Hello, Diana. I’m about to brutally kill Venus, so just stay out of this and I’ll explain later.” I reply without turning towards her.

  “Help me!” Venus pleads, reaching out toward her fellow gods with her left hand as she props herself up with her right.

  I flash over to Venus’s position and bring my right boot into her face, knocking her back to the ground and landing her on her back. I raise my right leg into the air and bring my heel down on her head. The tile around underneath us cracks with my lack of restraint as her head sinks in a few inches.

  “After what you’ve done, you no longer deserve to ask for help.” I tell her.

  Tendrils shoot out of my left arm and catch an arrow twenty feet back and to my left, which had been traveling towards the back of my left knee, before disintegrating the arrow. I turn towards the source and see Apollo holding his bow made of light.

  “Oh Apollo… you just had to try and take my left leg at the worst possible time, didn’t you?” I ask as I raise my left arm.

  The tendrils spear forward to Apollo’s position, roughly one hundred feet away; normally they wouldn’t be able to reach that far, but something tells me that the tendrils can do it. At that distance, Apollo sees them coming and tries to out run them, but he’s not fast enough. The tendrils stab through Apollo’s left knee at one hundred fifty feet away, wrap around it, and drag Apollo back to me before dangling him upside-down until we are face to face.

  “You see, on any other day, I might’ve just zapped you and gone about my business. However, today I am in a truly terrible mood, and since I still haven’t forgiven you for blowing off my right leg, I’ve decided to seriously fuck you up!” I exclaim.

  My tendrils swing Apollo around through the air above my head. Once there is enough momentum, the tendrils extend out further and send Apollo crashing through a wall of columns on the left edge of the courtyard. He’s smashed through seven of them when I sense Venus trying to make a run for it. My tendrils shoot behind me and sink into both of her legs multiple times, causing Venus to scream out in pain as she face-plants. Before Venus has the time to use any spells, I flick my arm forward and my tendrils slam her into the tile in front of me. I flick my arm back, causing my tendrils to slam both Venus and Apollo into the tile behind me. I laugh as I flick my arm to the right and the left. A certain rhythm gets started as Apollo and Venus repeatedly slam into the ground, cracking the tile to the front, left, right, and behind me as they let out pained exclamations over the sound of my laughter.

  “Feros, drop Venus and my brother this instant.” Diana says with a stern tone from behind me.

  I turn around to see that the pantheon is armed and assembled; Diana even has an arrow knocked and aimed at me.

  “Look… I really don’t want to kill you guys to kill Venus, but I will. That’s how serious I am.” I tell her.

  “And my brother?” Diana asks.

  “He picked Venus’s bed and now he has to lie in it with her… figuratively… also probably literally given the amount of dudes Venus is involved with.” I reply.

  “That isn’t acceptable, Feros.” Diana responds.

  “Then you leave me with no choice.” I say as my tendrils drop Apollo and Venus.

  Suddenly four stone slabs shoot out of the ground and encompass me in a tepee-like rock cage while the ground beneath my feet opens up and swallows me. The earth fills in and restrains my arms and legs, leaving only my head above ground and inside the rock cage. Okay, how is this possible? Olympus is in the clouds so why is there dirt and stone? I suppose I can attribute the stone to the tile courtyard, but the dirt is still a conundrum.

  “That was a lot easier than I expected.” I hear Diana say.

  “I know. Restraining his arms so he can’t touch his triskele to port has effectively trapped him.” Ceres says; ah, so she must’ve used Neptune’s power over earthquakes to accomplish this… if I had known that power could do this, I would’ve kept it.

  “So what was that all about?” Diana asks.

  “I don’t know; he’s crazy! Feros summoned me out here and began beating me!” Venus exclaims, sounding like the epitome of innocence.

  “Iris just reported that Feros threatened to destroy her fountain and kill everyone in town.” Vesta says.

  “See!? He’s finally snapped! He’s a threat to all of us!” Venus chimes in.

  “He apparently was also carrying someone when he arrived.” Vesta adds.

  “Over here.” An unfamiliar female voice says while walking towards the group.

  “That’s Tlazolteotl; she was captured by Vulcan, Mars, and Apollo to lure Feros into coming to them when he was accused of killing Zeus. She’s practically Feros’s sister.” Diana recants.

  “He must’ve killed her!” Venus exclaims and my rage reaches the boiling point.

  “YOU DARE TO ACCUSE ME OF KILLING HER!?” I scream as my tendrils travel in the gyroscopic pattern, slicing through the dirt and my rock cage as I hover out of the newly made bowl in the ground while noticing that the sky has suddenly darkened.

  “YOU LYING LITTLE BITCH! YOU KILLED HER AND YOU KNOW IT!” I boom as black lightning strikes down around the courtyard. The gods start dodging the lightning while trying to get closer to stop me, but it’s not letting them.

  “AND I’M GOING TO DESTROY YOU BECAUSE OF IT!” I shout as I send my tendrils through Venus’s hands, feet, shoulders, and thighs, and pull her towards me.

  Upon realizing that they can’t get closer, Diana and Apollo start shooting arrows at me. More tendrils shoot out of my right leg and move in a gyroscopic formation to provide arrow coverage, slicing all arrows to bits before they can get within ten feet of me.

  “I’m sorry!” Venus screams.

  “You’re sorry? YOU’RE SORRY!? You apologizing won’t fix this… YOU APOLOGIZING WON’T BRING HER BACK!” I yell.

  “Please!” Venus begs.

  “I’ll give you one chance. Give me the information I want, and I won’t kill you.” I tell her and Venus looks hopeful.

  “Tell me where Loki is.” I say and Venus’s face falls.

  “But I don’t know where he is!” Venus exclaims.

  “I know, I didn’t think you did.” I reply with a malicious smile and hold my left hand up while enjoying Venus’s plunge into the depths of despair.

  That’s the funny thing about hope: it can bring you to the highest peaks, but having it taken away can bring you lower than the deepest trenches. My fingertips turn into wicked-looking points like claws as a bladed spike emerges from each knuckle and is swept back. The undersides of my fingers sharpen down to an edge on each segment, forming small blades. After the transformation is finished, I clench my hand several times to see that the blades on each segment are slightly restricting my ability to do so while Venus looks on in horror.

  “You know… my only regret, is that I didn’t let Chezarei kill you four years ago.” I whisper into her ear.

  I spear my pointed hand through Venus’s stomach, underneath her ribcage, and move into her chest as Venus shrieks out in pain. I reach her core and drag my index finger across it, feeling it turn to smoke where I scratch. Judging by the sounds coming from Venus, this is causing her immeasurable amounts of pain, so I keep doing it. I bask in her agonized screaming, enjoying
the shivers that course through my body. Venus tries to say something, so I stop scratching.

  “Please! I beg of you! Just kill me! Just fucking kill me!” Venus pleads.

  “Since you asked so nicely… I’ll continue scratching. How about we go a little deeper?” I rhetorically ask and carve small trenches into her core; Venus screams even louder.

  “Damn Venus! With the amount of pleasure you’re giving me, I’m going to need a smoke after this! You are certainly living up to your reputation!” I exclaim over her screams.

  “You usually like being penetrated, don’t you?” I ask and laugh maniacally as I poke holes into her core with my index claw, causing the loudest screams yet.

  “I think we should finish this with a bit of fisting!” I exclaim and slam my whole hand into her core.

  Venus falls silent as I start absorbing the core while a hole is burned through her chest. When I’ve turned the golden mass in Venus’s chest to smoke and absorbed it into my arm, I toss her husk away like the garbage it is. Venus’s husk hits my gyroscopic wall of slicing tendrils and gets hacked to pieces, as though I’d thrown it into a garbage disposal, while I sink to ground-level. The lightning continues to strike around me and my tendrils swirl to provide protection against arrows.

  “Now… what to do about all of you?” I ask with my malevolent grin as I turn towards the Greek pantheon.

  Cheza is suddenly jumping through the air towards me and my tendrils. My heart nearly stops as she reaches them, but the tendrils open up at the last second and let her in. Cheza tackles me to the ground with her mouth slamming into mine, her tongue frantically probing the inside of my mouth as I notice the tears in her eyes. She pulls back, sits up, and studies my face while straddling me.

  I watch through Cheza’s eyes as my Void-black eyes start to fade and the silver iris in my right eye resurfaces. The five, black, tattoo-like spikes that are reaching into my left eye follow the black strip on my cheek as they retract down my neck while my left iris finally resurfaces. The strip flows down my neck to my shoulder, where it reconnects with the retracting black tattoo-like spikes that are on my left pectoral; they look a lot like my left hand does at the moment, which serves to send a chill down my spine. I assume that there is something similar on my left shoulder blade based on the prickling sensation I felt before and feel now.