Feros and the Underworld Prince Read online

  “Much better. Alright, there’s a taxi out front that will take you to the club.” Carla informs us.

  “Here, you will need these.” Ryuji says while handing us tiny silicon earpieces and Natasha slips hers in.

  “Just speak and I should be able to pick everything up. I’ll relay any information if needed.” Ryuji explains while I try and fail to put the earpiece in. Natasha smirks at me, takes the earpiece, and puts it in for me.

  Natasha and I proceed down to the main floor and into the awaiting cab. Natasha tells the man that we are headed to the nightclub called Izz and we arrive fifteen minutes later. There is a line that has to be at least thirty people long. I consider just doing the normal thing and waiting in line with Natasha, but I decide to act like a rich prick instead. I pull out my wallet, take out a one hundred dollar bill, and hold it up as I walk up to the bouncer. He puts his hand out to stop me but then he notices that I am indeed holding a one hundred dollar bill that could be his, so he takes that and lets Natasha and I in.

  “You go find a table and I’ll go get some drinks.” I say in case anyone is listening; it’s nice that the music isn’t ridiculously loud in this place. I start walking towards the bar, keeping an eye on Natasha as she walks around the dance floor and towards a table by the stairs in the back left corner. I walk up to the bar and wait to order my drink.

  “Man, the women in my life are so abusive! I can’t believe she shaved my head while I was sleeping.” I overhear a guy to my left say.

  “Quit your bitching; having a girl shave your head isn’t abuse, it’s a prank. My ex-girlfriend stabbed me last week!” I butt in.

  “Can you still consider it getting stabbed if she only got your arm?” the guy asks while pointing to my bandaged arm.

  “No, I got stabbed in my stomach.” I clarify.

  “Then what happened to your arm?” The guy’s friend asks.

  “Oh, she also set my suits on fire.” I tell them.

  “What does that—”

  “I was still wearing one of them.” I explain.

  “Wow… I guess it’s true that someone always has it worse… let me buy you a drink.” The guy says and I humbly accept.

  We start drinking and talking about how crazy the women in our lives are. It’s probably around shot number three that I forget what I was here to do.

  “Hey yo bitch, you stepped on my sneaker!” A man says behind me.

  Oh, right… Katka and the mission. He’s supposed to throw something at me and I’m supposed to punch the person behind him to start a giant bar fight. I look behind him and see this cute little curly haired girl with glasses, whom could easily be characterized as mousey. I have to punch her!? I can’t do that!

  “Oh, sorry about that. Here, let me buy you a drink to make it up to you.” I say.

  “COLE! What’s going on!? Just follow the plan! Ryuji has been screaming at you for the past ten minutes, and says you have been ignoring him, just blathering away!” Natasha thinks.

  “Really? I haven’t been able to hear Ryuji at all. And I can’t follow the plan.” I tell her.

  “What? Why not?” Natasha inquires.

  “Because there is this cute mousey chick with glasses behind Katka! I can’t punch her!” I explain.

  “Shit, Cole… Alright, Ryuji has a plan and one of the Delta members is working on it. Just wait for the cue.” Natasha says.

  I wait for thirty seconds until I see a steel folding chair sail through the air before clattering on the floor without hitting anyone. Everyone stops and looks at it for about twenty seconds before going back to what they were doing.

  “Hahaha did you seriously think that was going to work!? That’s hilarious, but the steel chair effect isn’t real; steel folding chairs being thrown don’t start fights.” I say aloud, knowing that Ryuji could hear me. 5

  “I’ve got a plan, just follow along.” I tell everyone.

  “Umm, Cole? What are you going to do?” Natasha nervously asks as I make RDX coins that are filled with blood.

  “You’ll see. Be ready to run upstairs, I think this place is about to get busy.” I reply.

  “I have to go take a leak.” I tell the guys next to me. I get up and walk over to the DJ’s booth.

  “Hey, can I make a request?” I ask in a drunken manner as I spot a box near the base of the wall to my right that has several cables sticking out of it; looks like it’s just far enough to be taken out without collateral too.

  “Sure, what is it?” the DJ asks as I stumble and catch myself on the wall. I drop one of the coins on the box that wires the table to the sound system.

  “It’s, uh… that one song… uh… shit I can’t remember. Hold on, let me go ask again.” I say and then I stumble away.

  While walking back towards the bar, I transmute the blood in that disc into nitrogen triiodide. It doesn’t go off. I wait for fifteen seconds before it finally goes boom and blows the sound system. People start to panic a little, but what we need is a full-scale ‘stampeding herd of zebra’ level panic. I toss the remaining nine coins at the ceiling at an enhanced speed. I throw them in groups of threes, transmuting my blood to nitrogen triiodide in midair so that they explode when they hit the ceiling. The groups of threes have the effect of making it sound like burst fire from an assault rifle. Everybody panics and bolts for the door. I see several security guards investigating while several are bolting; my guess is that the bolting ones are human, or just smart.

  “That’s your cue Natasha.” I think to her.

  “Yeah, I kind of caught onto that. I’m already in and I’ve connected to the computer… What!? SHIT!” Natasha thinks.

  “What!? What’s going on!? Natasha, talk to me!” I ask in an alarmed fashion, thinking she might’ve been caught.

  “The files had an altered Trojan in them that deleted the files when accessed. It’s all gone and Ryuji wasn’t able to get anything useful…” Natasha explains.

  “Well, let’s get out of here before the cops show up and make things complicated.” I tell her.

  “Yeah… dammit. What a waste.” Natasha replies.

  I join up with Natasha at the base of the stairs. We duck into the bathroom while the rest of the panicked masses go for the doors and I port us back to the office.

  “Damn Feros! Do you know how to crash a party or what!?” Ryuji asks when Natasha and I appear.

  “You could say that it is something of a specialty of mine!” I grin.

  “You two can go home now… we’ll let you know if anything comes up.” Carla says, sounding kind of defeated as she walks away. I don’t blame her; this mission was pretty much an utter failure and we’re back to square one on the enhancements investigation.

  “Alright Carla. See you guys later.” I say before grabbing Natasha’s hand and porting us to Natasha’s penthouse.

  I look over at Natasha and see that she is rather disappointed with the outcome of the mission too. I doubt she’s in the mood for sex and I doubt she’s tired since we slept quite a bit.

  “Hey, do you feel like meeting somebody?” I ask.

  “What? Who?” Natasha curiously asks, perking up from her disappointment slightly.

  I simply smile at her, take her hand, and touch my right shoulder. I look around at the obsidian walls of the familiar bedroom and see that I’ve succeeded in porting us to Niflheim.

  “Where are we?” Natasha asks.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” I tell her as I sit down on the black leather couch that is about twenty feet from the foot of the bed.

  My guess is that Jason can tell when someone ports into the palace, if not anywhere in Niflheim. Hel knows we’re here at the very least, so all we have to do is wait. A mass of swirling shadows appears in the room a few moments later.

  “CT! What’s up bro?” Jason asks as the girls see each other and start squealing. I can’t really make out what they are saying, but it is something along the lines of:

  “AHH! IT’S BEEN SO LONG! HOW
ARE YOU?” they both ask each other before Reyna takes Natasha’s hand and leads her out of the room saying “I have so much to show you! Come on! We’ll be back later boys!” Jason and I give stunned glances at the door as they walk out. Jason takes a seat next to me on the black leather couch.

  “So… what’s been going on with you and Reyna?” I inquire.

  “I don’t know, bro… I think I may be in love with her.” Jason admits.

  “What makes you think that?” I ask.

  This is huge, like monumentally big for Jason to be in love with any girl… he has some abandonment issues because of his mother. Thus, as his best friend, I need to make sure that he really does love Reyna before he fucks himself up further and ends up being loveless and miserable for the rest of his quasi life.

  “Well, I’ve never felt this way about a girl. I mean, she’s funny and crazy hot and then there’s that cute little face she makes when she’s sucking my—”

  “DUDE!” I interrupt.

  “—blood…” Jason continues.

  “Oh, I thought you were going to say something completely—”

  “from my dick.” Jason finishes with a smug grin; I really hope he was just using misdirection for comedic effect and he isn’t actually letting Reyna do that. So far it doesn’t really sound like he loves her…

  “I don’t know… I care for her unlike any girl I’ve ever met… even more than Rei…” Jason says.

  “How does she feel about the other girls?” I inquire.

  “What other girls?” Jason asks.

  “The girls in your harem.” I clarify.

  “Oh, I disbanded my harem.” Jason replies.

  “W-w-what!?” I ask in utter disbelief.

  “The harem is gone. Reyna didn’t approve so I disbanded it.” Jason explains. Whoa, this is serious… really serious.

  “Well, it sounds like you’re in love, bro. If disbanding your harem for a single woman isn’t love, then I don’t know what is. After all, guys are only monogamous to begin with when we realize that love and friendship are more important than getting laid.” I tell him.

  “You think so?” Jason asks.

  “Dude, I practically know so. Let’s go get some drinks and celebrate!” I exclaim.

  “Yeah! Let’s get fucked up!” Jason exclaims. “Oh, but we should probably wait for the girls first.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” I concur. About a minute passes by in silence.

  “I have to ask, what was with the run-around and the clues that led me to Hawaii and Greenland?” I inquire.

  “Well I was trying to lead you to the Underworld so that you could visit, but I had to be careful with the war going on. Directing you two to Hawaii was my way of celebrating your engagement and then I gave you a cryptic message that only you would understand in case someone else got a hold of it. That way, I was able to lead you to Niflheim without implicating either of us.” Jason replies.

  “Where was I supposed to go after Greenland? Where did those coordinates lead?” I ask.

  “They led to the only entrance to Niflheim in North America: San Francisco. If you remember your Norse mythology, Hermod crosses a golden bridge to enter Niflheim. The golden bridge in North America is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Upon arriving there with the golden coin, a gate to Niflheim would have opened.” Jason explains.

  “I guess that all makes sense, especially considering the vampires that Jormungandr had waiting in Hawaii…” I reply.

  “So… how’s the new arm?” Jason asks.

  “It’s cool at times, like yesterday when I crushed a vampire’s skull like an egg. The extra strength and inability to be cut make it an excellent weapon; plus I don’t have to cut myself to draw my blood now. However, not having any feeling blows. Sex with Natasha earlier was a little weird because I couldn’t feel her. I’m not too sure she liked it all that much…” I explain.

  “Natasha? What about Rei?” Jason inquires.

  “We had a bit of a falling out… she has a boyfriend.” I tell him.

  “Well, maybe it’s not that serious!” Jason exclaims, trying to be positive.

  “She lets him call her Cheza, bro. He calls her Cheza… called her Cheza.” I inform him.

  “Damn… she wouldn’t even let me call her Cheza… wait, what do you mean ‘called her Cheza’?” Jason asks.

  “I killed him… Cheza doesn’t know that yet…” I explain solemnly.

  “Wow… it sounds like you may be getting in over your head… it also sounds like you could really use a drink. Where are those two?” Jason asks rhetorically.

  “Maybe they’re lezzing out in Reyna’s room!” I joke and we both laugh. Then we both jolt upright from our reclined statures on the couch.

  “They did use to date…” I say.

  “And Reyna is supposedly still a lesbian…” Jason adds.

  “You don’t think…” I say.

  “Perhaps we should go look for them?” Jason suggests.

  “Yes, let’s.” I concur.

  We stand and walk out the door. I expand my hearing as I follow Jason to the kitchen. I hear voices so I start heading that way as Jason follows. The voices lead me to a large door.

  “Ooh Reyna! That feels soooo good! I’m glad to see that you still have it!” I hear Natasha exclaim through the door. Jason and I press our ears against the door and listen in, despite the fact that I can hear them without doing that.

  “What, can’t Cole satisfy your needs?” Reyna asks in a kind of mocking fashion.

  “Not really.” Natasha says. “Especially not since…”

  Not since I got this stupid arm. I start walking back down the hall.

  “Dude, fuck them; let’s go get trashed.” Jason says angrily after catching up to me.

  “Yeah…” I reply, sounding demoralized.

  Jason claps his hand on my shoulder and ports us to the neon-lighted bar at his nightclub. He snaps his fingers and six flaming shots align themselves on the table. We do three apiece in the course of the next minute.

  “I don’t know bro!” I shout over the music. Jason snaps his fingers and the music turns down while two drinks appear on the table.

  “My life has just been shitty since coming back… maybe I never should have in the first place… maybe I’ll just stay here or do what Kita said…” I tell him.

  “Whoa, this more serious than I thought!” Jason exclaims as he snaps his fingers.

  “Here, smoke this.” Jason says as he hands me a lit joint. I do so and pass it to him.

  “What’s in this?” I ask.

  “Haha… just think of it as drug Neapolitan!”

  ****

  Chapter 19: Just Another One of Those Mornings

  I wake up at the bar in the night club in Niflheim.

  “You’ve sure been racking up the body count since our last chat.” Bullet-hole Kita says from the barstool adjacent to mine.

  “I don’t feel guilty about that. They were vampires and werewolves that were going to kill a little girl.” I say.

  “Yes, vampires and werewolves that had lovers, families…” bullet-hole Kita points out.

  “No, they made the wrong choices and paid the price for them. With the exception of you, I’m not responsible for the death of anyone who didn’t deserve it.” I argue.

  “Who didn’t deserve it!? WHO DIDN’T DESERVE IT!? WHAT ABOUT THE 1437 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN THAT ARE DEAD IN ILULISSAT BECAUSE OF YOU!?” bullet-hole Kita screams.

  “Fourteen hundred thirty-seven…”

  “Oh, I see. You didn’t consider them did you? What, did you think you could just blow up half of a town and no one would get hurt? Just thinking about the 370 children that never got to grow up because of you just breaks my heart. The least you can do is come and keep them company. Why don’t you join us Cole? It’s not like you have anything worth living for anyway. You can’t even be of any use to Natasha anymore; it’s only a matter of time before she gets smart and
throws you away like Chezarei did. You know what you have to do Cole.” Bullet-hole Kita gestures to the gun in my hand.

  I pull the slide back.

  I press the barrel to my temple.

  I pull the trigger.

  ****

  [September 15th]

  Have you ever woken up with a massive hangover, little recollection of the night before, wearing a thong that has been stuffed with money, covered in glitter, and in the same bed as your naked best friend, with your ass hurting?

  If you have, then you may know what I’m going through right now.

  “Bro… what happened last night?” I ask while staring straight ahead.

  “Not so loud dude, my head is killing me… why are we naked in my bed? And why does my ass hurt?” Jason asks.

  “Yours too huh… fuck. What in the hell happened last night?” I ask aloud.

  “WELL! LOOK WHO’S AWAKE!” Reyna announces as she and Natasha barge into the room.

  “So did you guys have fun last night? Try some new things? Discover a love of catching?” Natasha jokes.

  “Well, I guess everything works out then! Natasha and I had a long chat and we’ve decided to get back together because we are so much better than you guys!” Reyna exclaims.

  I guess Kita was right… Natasha is throwing me away too; not all that surprising when I can’t even satisfy her… and then there’s all the people in Ilulissat that I killed… Kita was right… too bad my gun isn’t here… I guess I can always make an explosive and set it off in my mouth; that should be enough to kill me… I should be able to just bite my tongue off and do it now…

  “COLE, NO!” Natasha screams as she jumps onto the bed and tackles me.

  “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! It was just a stupid prank! Please don’t do it Cole!” Natasha frantically exclaims.

  “Natasha! We spent all that time setting this up!” Reyna says somewhat pointedly.

  “Sorry, but Cole was going to kill himself!” Natasha explains.

  “Wow… that hurts bro. You’d kill yourself just because you had sex with me?” Jason asks.