Vendetta Page 7

  Mercenary

  Cole was the one who answered the door at their Lakefront home in the city of Kingston, Tennessee in the United States. He did so with great caution. They had settled here years ago in order to get away from the world of Descendants. It had proven more difficult than expected to find a place away from that world. However, America was still a very young nation by comparison, and so they had eventually ended up here, finding a remote location away from larger cities where they could observe the world in a somewhat detached manner.

  Brody was presently here at the house but asleep. He still visited various people around the world, but his health had never recovered to its former state following Adolf’s attack upon him during our time in the city of Trinity. His lion’s head cane had, over the years, become less of a weapon and more of a crutch to lean upon. Compared to his former glory, the man seemed frail.

  Cole had taken it upon himself to see to his safety. There were still those who would seek to do him harm. According to Brody’s intuition, which was rarely wrong, Southresh was still present somewhere in the world. In fact, any time that Brody felt his nearness, he drew up stakes and moved them all away to another location.

  That was how they had come to dwell here at a lakefront property overlooking the Clinch River. It was remote with only a small town nearby. The nearest true city was a little more than one half hour away. In this place they had remained for nearly five years without Brody feeling that the fallen angel had sniffed them out.

  Black had never been seen or heard from again. Quite possibly, Brody’s attack with Malak-esh had done him in. Still, since none of them shared any blood bond with the angel—Black possibly never having had any Descendant children of his own—it remained impossible to tell if he was in the world or not.

  Sadie was not home. Presently, she was traveling abroad. One of her attempts at killing Adolf. Unfortunately, she spent a great deal of time doing this.

  It wasn’t that she neglected her father’s safety. Sadie simply claimed that Adolf was the biggest threat, and therefore the best she could do for any of us was to use Malak-esh to kill him. Then they would all be safe, and she and her father would be at peace for the loss of her mother.

  Honestly, though Cole did love Sadie, he did not believe any of her excuses. Brody had already come to grips with Sophia’s death decades ago. He had no desire to chase about after Adolf or Southresh and had even gone so far as to forbid his daughter to do so.

  But Sadie was consumed with revenge. She wanted Adolf killed and she wanted Southresh banished to Tartarus. Admittedly, both goals were laudable. Adolf had proven himself to be a menace to the world at large, and Southresh was almost certainly involved in the war’s progression, even if only from behind the scenes in service to Lucifer.

  Adolf had gone on to ascend to power after their bout at Trinity. His attempts at gaining prestige through the German military had seemed successful at first. However, the political climate of the day was not ripe for him, and he had been cast into prison, though this was brief.

  When he emerged, malcontent was sweeping Germany. They had suffered in the first world war due to the Treaty of Versailles and were eager for a leader who would restore Germany’s former glory. Adolf had promised to do exactly that.

  With the current war it had seemed very much like the way was open before him. Brody and Cole had combed the scriptures, particularly those regarding the Beast of Revelation, wondering if Adolf might be the fulfillment. Opposition which should have come by common sense alone, failed to materialize again and again. Adolf’s power and fame grew exponentially

  He drew in other nations with him, Italy and Spain, and more lately Japan. On every hand, sovereign nations around him fell to his will, sometimes without even one shot fired. Still, there were those that opposed him. Britain took the lead in the beginning with France joining and ultimately, surprisingly, Russia.

  For a time, the United States had kept out of the matter, leaving it to those across the Atlantic. Neutrality had been the opinion of the day for years. However, a surprise attack by the Japanese, two years prior in December, had ended that position. The United States had immediately entered the war. And, though not apparent at first, Adolf’s power had begun to wane steadily from that time on.

  Cole searched through the windows, looking to find if there was a contingent set around the house. He saw no one prowling the grounds. No liers-in-wait among the shrubbery. No hunched individuals creeping across the manicured lawn.

  Going to the door, Cole peeked outside through a side window. The feet hovering just above the ground was his first clue that these were not simple salesmen—not human callers at all. To have sprites visiting was a strange thing.

  According to Brody, the sprites had taken up in the Amazon Jungle. Their queen, Luxana, had led them to this remote wilderness in order to live out their lives far from society and the world’s growing problems. Certainly, Cole could see their point with the state of the world being as it was.

  To Cole’s knowledge there remained no animosity between Brody and the Queen of the Sprites. Still, it paid to be cautious, even after so long a time. Sprites were dangerous Descendants, capable of turning a person’s mind against them.

  Brody had related to Sadie and Cole the time when he and Oliver James had come upon two sprites within Oliver’s home in Highgate. One of those sprites had been the future queen, Luxana. She had nearly forced Brody to put a bullet into his brain, all the while desiring to do it because he felt it would make her happy. Such is the compulsion sprites can wield against even the strongest minds. Only angels are said to be impervious to their charms.

  It had only been Oliver’s impeccable timing that had saved Brody’s life. After having dispatched the other sprite in the house with a python strangulation, he had arrived to find Brody with the pistol pressed against his temple. He had barely had time to kinetically force Brody’s hand away when the trigger was pulled and the shot fired. A near miss, thankfully.

  Brody’s subsequent mercy toward Luxana had moved her to such a degree that she eventually turned on her master, Grayson Stone. When next she caught Brody in her mental snare, instead of killing himself, she had ordered him to use Malak-esh to end Stone’s life. Truly, mercy and grace had won the day.

  But neither of these sprites appeared to be the queen. They were dressed in plain looking clothes, the sort worn by folk in this area of the country. Button-up off-white shirts and beige pants with brown leather shoes. They looked about as threatening as a couple of boy scouts.

  Cole reached out his hand and produced, from nothing, a pair of sunglasses possessing mirrored lenses. It had been discovered that charms like those employed by sprites could be warded effectively with lenses that reflected their own beauty back at them. This did not diminish their power, nor did the lenses keep you from seeing them. However, the glasses did tend to block their view of your eyes and work to discomfit them by casting their own reflections back instead.

  Donning the sunglasses, Cole opened the door with a smile. The two diminutive male figures appeared to be standing upon the doorstep. However, his keen vision saw them for what they actually were: sprites hovering nearly three inches off of the ground.

  This was all very weird to be sure. They made their best attempt to seem wholesome and unthreatening. But with sprites, with their unending flat affects, they only managed to come across as creepy.

  When they saw the mirrored lenses of Cole’s sunglasses, he noticed a shudder run over them like cold chills. They glanced at one another, unnerved by his appearance, possibly unsure how to proceed with whatever business had brought them here in the first place.

  Cole decided to save them any trouble attempting to beat around the bush. “Sprites,” he stated right off. “Now, why would you be here in the United States knocking on my door? Surely, you know who I am and probably who else lives here. So, out with it. What do you want?”

  Admittedly, this wasn’t the most polite way t
o answer the door. Downright rude most would say. But Cole was in no mood. Brody had never recovered his full health, and Sadie was ever frustrating him being gone all of the time in her quest for revenge. If he had a fight ahead of him today, then he wanted to just get on with it.

  “Does Brody West live here?” one of them asked.

  Cole stood there for a moment before coming to the conclusion that it didn’t matter telling them at this point. Obviously, they knew he was here. How else could they have found them in the middle of nowhere?

  “He does,” Cole replied. However, he remained standing in the doorway, peering at them through his mirrored sunglasses, unwilling to ask them in or move out of the way.

  They glanced at one another again. The other spoke up this time. “It is imperative that we speak with him. Our tribe has been attacked.”

  “In the Amazon?” Cole asked. He was surprised that anyone would bother. There was nothing there to conquer, no land to take. And, if someone had wanted jungle wilderness for some reason, there was plenty to go around. The only other reason that came to mind was revenge, but he couldn’t imagine who.

  The sprites answered his question with a simultaneous nod.

  “Our queen, Luxana, was killed in the attack,” the first said.

  “Do you know who it was? Why they attacked?”

  Again, they nodded in unison. The first said, “It was Adolf Hitler.”