The Tale of the Blood Diamond (36 page)

Her child had similar DNA running through his body. This was his stock, what he came from, and it baffled her that they didn’t barrage her with a bunch of questions. They acted in the ‘know.’ In her line of work, that’s what you did when you wanted to find out more about a suspect or possible ally. You asked questions, you observed, you waited and you instigated in order to obtain a reaction.  She wanted to reach out and say something, but instead, she bided her time, watched them cluster together, some seemingly in hot debate. They were speaking in their native tongue now, which only aided in her perplexity.

Her sister-in-law, the only one of them in Xzion’s absence that made her feel as if she had a lifeline to sanity, was nowhere in sight. Jayme wrapped the blanket tighter around her form. They kept it bristly cold in there; she could clearly see her breaths each time she opened her mouth to speak. It didn’t matter anyway. What would she ask? For a translation?

Jayme sighed with relief when Cxeza burst in the room.

Everyone turned and looked at her. She commanded attention with her mere presence.

“Kitfi! Juilpgi ing gurtz Bosi.”

Murmurs and loud chatter commenced.

Jayme had had enough. She leapt from the cold, hard slab of a bed and screamed out, “What’s going on? What did you say?”

Her sister-in-law looked at her and they exchanged a quiet understanding.

“Jayme, I said the Lyalts are here, and they wish to speak to us.”

Jayme slumped back down on the bed. Her face was surely melting right before everyone’s eyes.

“This has gone from bad to worse…”

“I don’t know about that,” the woman stated as she stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. “Bosi said he has important information.”

“How do we know it’s not a set up? The fact Bosi was even on board with this proves he is untrustworthy!” one of the soldiers protested, and others joined in agreement with his declaration.

“Aton contacted me.”

The room came to a hush.

“No.” Cxeza shook her head. “This is different.” She looked over her shoulder at Jayme. “Jayme, you wish to go home, no?”

Jayme raised her head high as she ran her hand along her pant leg. “No. I’m going to see this through. I don’t expect to see Yogi or Winnie the Pooh…but I’m good.”

“Who is Yogi?” someone questioned amongst whispered banter.

“A chubby, brown cartoon animal who enjoys periods of extreme gluttony via picnics and telling others he is not the average bear.  The children of Earth enjoy him though his popularity has steadily decreased in recent years due to newer cartoon themes, advanced character portrayals and modern illustrative technologies,” Cxeza snapped, her tone serious, as if the information was somehow crucial to her personal development.

Jayme nodded and grinned so wide her cold ass face hurt as the woman looked back over her shoulder and winked.

“I took your advice…I’m learning,” she mouthed.

Jayme looked down into her lap, unable to stop smiling. Maybe Cxeza wasn’t so full of herself after all…

Xzion and Zahar’s laser beamed eyes scanned the perimeter of the structure.

“He’s in the upper left hand corner, block seventy-eight. Bedroom is approximately one hundred and fifty feet in length. There is no weakness to the structure. One female Yuledrake, one of his concubines, is with him but she is leaving the room. He is sleeping.” Xzion’s glare darkened until the light was extinguished.

“We have to go up fifteen flights. Let’s climb the wall.”

“If we climb the wall versus breaking inside, we risk being seen.”

“It will be faster. You must move quickly once you’re in. If we break inside, he will be alerted of our presence at least one minute and twenty-four seconds earlier. A lot can be done in one minute and twenty-four seconds…”

Xzion nodded in agreement and hitched his body to the solid, dark gray stones. They needed no rope, no pulleys, no boosts. It was the Zarkstormian Warrior way. He chuckled internally as he made his way up the damned thing, reminiscing about the last time he’d climbed a wall…to spy on his growing addiction, his attraction to the love of his life…

“Why do you smile right now? What’s humorous?” the warrior asked gruffly while he grunted and maneuvered his big body around as if it were light as a feather.

“Oh, nothing…just nothing,” he said, unable to remove the goofy grin from his face.

“Must be a woman.” The man sniffed as he dug his fingers around another stone. “That would be the only reason I’d smile…your great grandmother.”

Xzion’s grin widened. “Yes, I’d imagine so. And, you’re right.”

They left it at that. There was nothing else that needed to be said or shared. The man had to know, all of this was in fact for his Jayme, and for that little boy that innocently now slept in Aton’s grand home, under the man’s unwavering eye. Aton lived alone and few people stepped foot in his palace, but he was elated to transport young Zachary to his residence. Zachary…the best present a human, a lovely woman by the name of Officer Jayme Khrome, could ever give a Zarkstormian…

They reached the top; Xzion waited a couple of seconds for the warrior to join him. Not winded in the least, each man nodded respectfully to one another.

“Now.” Xzion relaxed a bit, his head beneath the window to where fates would change. “How would you like to enter, Great-Grandfather?”

“I will go first. Security will rush in, and we will fight.” He said it as if he were speaking of the breakfast he had earlier. Xzion understood the nonchalant stance, yet he still found it slightly comical. He may as well smile again, because in a few short moments, there would be nothing to laugh about at all.

Before he could form another thought, a burst of glass echoed in his ears. Through the rain of shards, he ducked and covered his eyes, then entered the window, crunched down, his steps grinding the glass into dust. Jatorn leapt up from his resting position, baring his fangs. He growled something in his native tongue, but they both understood the fiend loud and clear, for they heard the security alarm blaring as well, followed by an onslaught of what sounded like a million feet pounding the damn ground. He could kill ten, twenty, hell, even one hundred Yuledrakes all by his lonesome, but this was more…
way
more. He and the old warrior, stood back to back, their weapons drawn, their eyes booted and ready while Jatorn screamed of being ambushed and tricked. What nerve…

They waited, the stomping growing louder and louder and then…Xzion saw it. His heart slowed to an even beat as his eyes narrowed. There, on a hearth above a roaring fire mantel place was the head of his dead friend, his eye plucked away and the dried, bloodied tendons falling from the deep-set darkness. He no longer felt like himself…actually, that was incorrect. He felt like himself all right, a ‘self’ that existed before Jayme entered in his life. He was once again a motherfucker that no longer gave a fuck. Everyone was about to feel what he was feeling, too…

The bedroom door burst open and in poured an avalanche of Yuledrakes dressed in royal regalia. He felt his grandfather press his shoulder into his back, signaling him to move in his opposite direction. Five Yuledrakes immediately raced towards him, guns spewing and fangs in full view. Xzion ducked and dodged, and slid backwards between them. He sliced them all at the kneecaps, causing them to tumble and fall like bricks from a bulldozed building. Then as they sighed and moaned, he finished them off, going straight for the hollow of the ribs. He quickly looked to his side, checking for his great-grandfather, but didn’t immediately have him in his vision through all the commotion. Then, he heard a guttural roar. The big man was on the ceiling, now spraying the bastards like roaches. Xzion smirked. He caught Jatorn making his way towards the busted window but the bastard appeared to second-guess it, considering how many stories high the motherfucker was.

Zahar emitted a loud grunt of pain when a bullet pierced the side of his gut. The man worked through it and immediately fell to the ground, making the damned place shake and crack open like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. He charged the group, working his sword in one hand and his laser in the other, and sliced them into bony, perfectly serrated pieces that collapsed to the ground in a silver-blooded mess. More Yuledrakes entered, spilling forward, almost tumbling on top of one another as they showed their fangs, held their weapons high and prepared for another show-down. The old man climbed up the wall once again, taking his previous station. The new entourage looked up at him in utter confusion. And then, their attempts to back away were much too late as a bright, crimson light caught dust particles in its path. The enemy fell like snowflakes on a cold, pitch black night. Only this was Jatorn’s damn bedroom, his odious master suite, in which a battle of epic proportions, two Zarkstormians versus thousands of Yuledrakes, had commenced. Xzion looked up at the old warrior clinging to the ceiling, then back towards the door as more Yuledrakes piled inside the place, oblivious to the fate that awaited them.

Focusing on the new avalanche of victims, he joined forces with the blinding glare of rubicund light, picking them off one by one until the damned floor barely had a clear spot in sight. Square inch by square inch, freshly dead Yuledrakes lined the wooden boards like frosting on a bloodied cake. Ten minutes and forty-two seconds later, the Yuledrake Army was officially defeated…

Zahar slowly slid down from the wall, crashing to the ground in a thunderous blow. Without words uttered, he understood his grandson’s wishes and kept his sights towards the entranceway, just in case they had any more visitors to contend with. The old man heaved and ho’ed, looking beyond exhausted, but he’d fought a damn good fight, and Xzion would remain forever grateful. He had no time to thank the man just yet though for a new surge of hatred welled deep within him, frothing, brimming like bubbling poison from a witch’s cauldron…

Xzion was full of energy, his spirit renewed, as he approached Jatorn. He stepped to him like his name was, ‘I wish a mothafucka would’. The coward bent at the waist in response, cowering in the cold, dark corner like the spineless degenerate that he was.

“Get up!” Xzion commanded. He wanted him to look him in the eye.

Jatorn slowly got to his feet. Initially, he still appeared pensive, afraid, shuddering in his ghostly pale skin. Then, on a dime, like a switch inside the beast had been ignited, his jaws extended, dislodged and showcased the mother of fangs, glistening with trails of freshly produced saliva. He lunged towards Xzion in one last attempt to save his miserable life. Xzion grabbed the bastard by the neck, squeezing the damn life out of him, then, before it was too late, he let go…

“Where is Fyiat’s eye?!”

Jatorn stood a bit taller. His fangs slowly retracted and a smug smirk graced his ashen face.

Without hesitation, Xzion let his eye zone in on the man’s left hand and sliced it off. Yuledrake blood spurted out and the bastard’s fangs partially sprung as he let out screams so shrill, it blew Xzion’s damned hair back.

“Tell me or the other one comes off, too! I can make this a slow torture, removing all of your body parts, one by one. It’s your choice!”

Jatorn calmed down and looked over to the far left side of his room, at a desk that appeared to be made of costly naturally tinted green glass. Zahar stormed over to the table, shattering the damned thing. He pried drawers and cubbyholes open until he happened upon the eye. He retrieved it and placed it leisurely into a small pouch tied with a leather string around his neck.

“It doesn’t matter what you do now.” Jatorn laughed, his cerulean eyes growing weary, despite his maniacal taunting. “I’ve already sent orders to have the Earth destroyed …you’ll never make it back in time!” He laughed harder and harder, banging his head against the damned wall as he fell into a total state of delirium. “It’s a shame it has come to this.” He shrugged, darkness now clouding his irises as his life force began to fade. “I guess I still win. It all works out.”

Xzion didn’t dare allow the worry that bolted inside of him like an erupting volcano to show. Instead, he pushed for more information.

“But what about your precious diamonds? The ones you like to grind into a glittery pulp and snort? Only Earth has the kind you really prize.”

Xzion noticed out of the corner of his eye Zahar slip ever so quietly out of the room…

“We have some…not as many as we’d have liked, but it will do.”

“Yes, I heard about your little heist in Russia. Too bad all that effort will go unrewarded.” His eye glowed brighter, highlighting the fucker’s body. Then, and only then, did the horror inside of Jatorn return to public view. His body trembled and his eyes pleaded for mercy.

“Can’t we work out a deal?” he offered, hanging onto a slither of a chance.

“I’m not a betting man, and you’re not worth the smallest of risks.”

Xzion held the savage to the wall by his neck then took his sweet time, to slowly, agonizingly, slice him from the tip of his head down to his damned feet. The fiend screamed out, bellowed, cried until he couldn’t anymore. Like freshly painted leaves painted in bright platinum, he collapsed into a wet heap.

Xzion turned slowly away from the gory sight, semi-satisfied. He walked towards the door, he realizing not only had Zahar left, he was long gone. As he exited the large estate, all along the staircase, on each and every floor and doorway lay dead Yuledrakes. He continued out into the front courtyard, and the blood bath went on. His great-grandfather had left a deathly trail, clearing the way for his grandson to return to Zarkstorm as easily as possible. The entire city appeared to be dead, but Xzion knew better. Some were still alive, hiding out, watching him —waiting until he was long gone so that they may pour out, plot, mourn and start afresh. There were also the ones still on Earth to contend with, and more importantly, the ones given orders to destroy the planet.