Mania and the Executioner (4 page)

“What should I do bro?” I ask

“You should…do as she says, take her into the other room, and sex her into a coma.” My inner Jason replies. I should have known; Jason always has my back, just not in the correct way this time.

A
s if answering my prayer, my blood sings out to me…from within Cheza. I look at her completely furious face and I remember how she and Tia tricked me into thinking that the babydoll incident had all been a dream. Payback time.

I wave
my hand in an arc at her eye level as I block the blood flow to her brain. When she starts to fall, I race up and catch her. I do a quick check to make sure everything is alright and that she won’t suffer any ill effects from it.

“Good to go, except for one loose end…” I say as I cradle Cheza in my
arms and turn towards Natasha, who looks slightly frightened of me.

“Can you do that to anyone?” She asks warily. I lift my hand and wave it in front of her face; she tenses up and her eyes go wide.

“Haha no I can’t. I ended up having to give Cheza a blood transfusion so my blood is still in her and I just used that blood to block the oxygen flow to her brain a little. I’m hoping she’ll wake up thinking this was all a dream,” I say light heartedly with a smile as Natasha relaxes a bit.

“So if you tell her about this, I’ll kill you.” I say to Natasha after wiping expression from my face. I start towards the door and then stop in the threshold and turn.

“See! I can make jokes too, mine just aren’t very funny.” I say while smiling at a horrified Natasha who is now completely uncertain of me. Perhaps it’s a little better this way.

(That was completely unethical
…I enjoyed it)

I put Cheza in bed and then I close my eyes, take my shirt off of her, turn her on her left side,
and pull the covers up to her shoulders. I open my eyes so I can get into the left side of the bed without killing myself. See, it’s the little details that help you get away with shit like this.

(Shit like blocking the blood flow to your sister/fiancé
e’s brain so you can manipulate her?)

“Well, it sounds bad if you put it like that…”

I can’t believe I just did that…what came over me? I turn over to fall asleep, only to have a sex dream about Cheza. Natasha suddenly makes a guest appearance and things get a little weird…until I wake up. I get up and go out to the bar, finding that Natasha is already there and that she is unable to meet my eyes.

“What you did last night was…umm…” Natasha starts to say as I remember the terrible thing I did to her.

“Yeah, I’m…uh…sorry about that. You don’t need to be afraid or anything.” I tell her.

“Afraid? Why? It felt great! And you showed me
a whooooole new use for a ping pong paddle.” Natasha says. Now it is
I
that can’t meet
her
eyes. I guess the Natasha in my dream was actually Natasha…

“What are you guys talking about?” Cheza says while rubbing her head and yawning as she walks in from the bedroom.

“Oh, nothing.” Natasha says with a smile.

“How do you feel, Cole?” Cheza asks
with a concerned look.

“I’m fine, Cheza. What were you screaming about anyway?” I ask.

“There was a weird bug on the wall and Chezarei freaked out when she saw it.” Natasha answers while Cheza looks away in shame.

“Hey, I need to go to The Agency’s local office and check in so you two are going to be on your own for today.”
Natasha adds.

“Cole, if I remember correctly, I believe that you owe me a date!” Cheza says
while beaming. I vaguely remember promising something to that effect as she was straddling me while I was handcuffed to my bed.

“Alright, we can keep an eye out for whatever Jason was talking a
bout while we’re at it.” I say.

“Yay!
I’ll go get ready!” Cheza squeals and then runs into the bedroom.

“Cole, r
emember what I said last night. It may be a good idea to wear a bulletproof vest or something as well.” Natasha whispers seriously.

I
nod in response and walk into the bedroom to use the shower, only to hear that Cheza is currently using it. So, I gather up some clothes and start to walk back to the main room, towards the other bathroom. Natasha is standing in the doorway, smiles at me, and then laughs as she goes inside; however, she doesn’t shut the door all the way. I think she is implying that I can a) take a shower with Cheza or b) take a shower with her. It’s not like I can just wait it out or anything; perhaps that was just wishful thinking on her part. I walk over and close the bathroom door without so much as a peek in.

“If only I had known that taking a peek would have saved the
world from enslavement by the shark people!” I chuckle to myself. It’s nice to know that something is so ridiculous that there is absolutely no chance of it happening. I sit down and have a glass of juice with half of a grapefruit.

Then three Shark people break through the front door. That’s
a shark head on a human body with the possibility of a dorsal appendage, I don’t know, I’m a little preoccupied by the rows of teeth. My vision switches to, what I guess is, combat mode so that I can see their auras. Normal white outlines, but their centers are cyan and with a white sharks mouth that is wide open.

“OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” I scream as I stand, break my
drinking glass on the table, and use the shards to slice open my wrist.

I run forwar
d and meet an advancing shark man in the hallway. After dodging the giant snapping mouth that was aimed at my head, I take the broken glass and smash it into his eye. It just occurred to me that sharks don’t have necks, so if I can just get around him…I’d walk straight into another set of teeth. Stupid hallway!

While the shark man is preoccupied with the giant shard of glass sticking out of
his eye, I form a twelve inch, Sic dagger and stab it into his other eye, wiggling it around to make sure I destroy the brain.

(Legs)

Airi says as a second shark man dives through his dead friend’s legs. I respond by pulling the Sic dagger out of his friend, jumping, and spinning around; I slam the blade down through his skull with my landing. Thankfully, there is no dorsal appendage because my testicles would hurt right about now if there were.

(Scoot back one foot)

I obey and a set of jaws appears in front of my face as I notice shark man number three’s right arm by my shoulder. I stab the Sic blade into his right knee as I grab his right hand with my left to throw him over my shoulder and into the table. Before he can recover, I launch forward from my crouched position and land on his chest.

“ALL! I WANTED! WAS TO ENJOY! MY BREAKFAST! WITHOUT! ALL THIS! CRAZY!
SHIT!” I scream, stabbing him in the neck with each exclamation and consequentially getting red everywhere. “IS THAT! SO MUCH! TO FUCKING! ASK!?”

“Cole?” I hear Cheza ask.

I turn around and see her in only a towel, giving me a concerned look. Natasha is fully dressed and has her gun drawn, but she looks slightly shocked; most likely because of the blood everywhere, including on me. I get my first look at Natasha’s aura, which I’m surprised to see is a lot like Cheza’s. However, Natasha’s aura is white on the outside instead of silver and the blue in the center is more of a navy blue, with the same frosty white encroaching from the sides.

“Natasha, cover the door while I go wash some of this red off of me. Cheza, I don’t want you getting farther
than ten feet from me.” I order.

I walk into the bedroom
, grab my holster, head into the bathroom, and throw the bloody Sic dagger in the sink.

“Cheza, get dressed in whateve
r, but wear shoes.” I shout into the bedroom as I start stripping.

I quickly shower and dress in tan cargo shorts, my holster
, and my jacket. I wash off the Sic dagger and stick it in the pouch of my holster as a backup, making clinks on contact with the metal magazines. Walking out of the bathroom, I see Cheza sitting on the bed wearing jean shorts and a light blue, checkered plaid button-up shirt that she has tied in a knot just above her navel. She is also wearing matching Converses. Good girl. I motion for Cheza to follow me as I head for the door.

“Natasha?” I call out from behind the door.

“Clear,” She calls back and I walk out. “and I don’t think we will be getting our deposit back.” Natasha jokes but it is obvious that she is on edge.

“Alright, first thing’s first: I need to call Tia.
That’s a stupid saying; of course the first thing is going to be first, otherwise it wouldn’t be the first thing!” I babble before recovering.

“
Natasha, I need you to call down to the front desk and ask if there are any people waiting by the elevator and have them check the security cameras for the beach elevator.” I say to Natasha. There’s no way a hotel like this wouldn’t have cameras covering the elevator used solely by their richest guests. I pull out my phone and hold the home button.

“Call Tia.”
I say to my smartphone’s voice navigation that shares Airi’s name, with the exception of a change in the first letter.

“Heeeeello?
” Tia answers.

“Hey Tia, I need to ask you some—” I say.

“No Cole, you cannot actually sex someone into a coma. Chezarei or Natasha will wake up in a few hours.” Tia interrupts.

“That’s not—” I say.

“IT WAS BOTH CHEZAREI AND NATASHA!? Way to go Cole! I had hopes but they weren’t that high!” Tia says, interrupting again.

“Let me fini—” I try to say.

“You don’t have to worry about something like that! It doesn’t matter where you finished. Just call down to the concierge and have them bring you a morning-after pill, or two as applicable.” Tia says and I nearly face-palm in response.

“The other thing I called—” I say.

“YOU GOT TO TRY THE OTHER HOLE TOO!?” Tia exclaims.

“WHAT!?”
I finally got to finish one.

“What naughty girls! Was it Natasha or Chezarei? If she really is a mini me, then my money is on Natasha. But if it was Chezarei, I swear I didn’t teach her that. The other things however…” Tia says.

“I’m hanging up now.” I say.

“Glad I could help Cole! Talk to you later! Oh, and if they don’t wake up in a few hours, check for a pulse and then call me; we’ll go from there. You may want to call down to the front desk and see how much bleach and lye they have, just in case things go south.”
2
Tia says as I hang up.

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. That conversation just raised far more questions than it answered. I’ll call Sara, like I should have done in the first place.

“Uh, Cole?
We might have a problem.” Natasha says.

“What kind of problem?” I ask with my eyes still closed.

“The ‘beach elevator security camera is malfunctioning’ kind.” Natasha replies.

“I’ll go check it out;
stay here and guard the room. Cheza, stay in the room.” I tell them.

I step over the bodies, go out the busted door
, and carefully head down the hall to the left. I get to the elevator and see that it is coming up. This elevator is exclusively for this floor and the floor below it so this could be bad…or it could be some rich kids and their mom. I decide to be prepared just in case; then I get an awesome idea.

I pull out the
Sic dagger and wedge it between the doors to pry them open. This way, if the elevator stops on sixteen, no problem; if it keeps going however...It seems that luck is on my side as the door dings on the sixteenth floor. I’m glad that I can relax now.

“Shit for brains, it’s the seventeenth floor, not the sixteenth!” someone in the car says.

Why me? The car starts moving slowly up to this floor and I execute my plan. As the top of the car passes by, I silently step on. I see the emergency hatch is at the back of the car: perfect. I quietly open it as the door dings. I peer in and see three men carrying P90 submachine guns. All I know about the P90 is from video games and in every one that I’ve played, it kicks considerably more ass than the MP5 and its magazine is also around twice the size. The stakes in this just got a little higher.

They move quietly out of the car as I drop down behind them. They are moving
carefully down the hall in a ‘winner’s podium’ type formation (2-1-3). I step up behind ‘third place’ and I stab the Sic dagger through his spinal column, severing it completely and cutting off all sound. I lower his body quietly to the ground. While slowly and silently walking across the hall to the guy on the left, I find myself thinking that the leader is doing a shit job. Aren’t there supposed to be hand motions or at least some confirmation that your team isn’t way behind you, letting you go on alone to ‘feel out the situation’ while they smoke weed with some local strippers; or in this case, dead?

Of course, as I’m thinking this and closing in on
second guy, the leader turns around and his eyes go wide with surprise. Now that stealth is out and I don’t have to worry about noise or air displacement, I speed up and off number two. I grab the guy, using him as a shield as I rush toward the leader, until something catches me off guard. Looking over my shield’s shoulder, I see that the leader has a shark head that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there a second ago…I mean, I’d remember something like that right? They must be were-sharks.