Podcast appearances and mentions of katrina love

Back Home, One week later.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.There is something worse than waking up and not knowing where you are: you could wake up and not know who you are.Note: World Events Stuff ~ aka Why things are happening in Cáel's lifeThe phone was from Iskender. His boss, Oyuun Tömörbaatar (OT), the former UN ambassador from Kazakhstan and now the informal and unrecognized UN representative and chief diplomat of the Khanate to the same august body, wanted to talk with me, immediately. OT wasn't being diplomatic at the moment, that would come later.{Now this is going to get convoluted}Any inquiries to the Khanate that didn't also include immediate official recognition of the Khanate currently were being steered my (and Hana's) way. For all the behind closed doors crap, he had me, his loyal ass-monkey mutton-head. I held faint hope that this latest meeting would work out to my benefit. For the meeting, I traveled light, only Naomi (the Amazon) and Chaz (British SRR) watched over me.Now fathers who know me, hide their daughters. I'd earned my 'scoundrel' reputation. T. Sarangerel, OT's daughter, was in the room when Iskender ushered me in. She gave me an uncertain look, I shrugged and she smiled. It took me 3 nano seconds to figure that out, OT was scoping me out as a potential son-in-law. I was in Temujin's Inner Circle and a man who he trusted (a rarity). Any union with me would strengthen OT's clan's standing in the new regime.The genetic footprint Temujin, and his immediate family collectively, had put down in the 13th and 14th centuries CE today was vast. He needed that to make his plans for the internal reorganization of the Khanate work. The old republics would go away, to be replaced by a system akin to the Byzantine 'themes, the re-organization of regions based on the recruitment of the Tumens.The Khanate was aiming for an 'Autocratic Republic' ~ a term invented in the 19th century. My use of this terminology was based on my gut instinct, Alal's host of memories involving every form of governance, and my experience with human nature. That clued me in to what Temujin was up to, his Greater Plan. He wasn't going to form a false-front government. He was going to retain the decision-making powers and do so openly, thus 'Autocratic'.He also planned to have a bicameral legislative branch. The Upper House would be based in Tumens and bureaucratic leadership, intellectual standing, religious sects, and tribal entities. This body would be based on merit, not primogeniture. The Lower, main chamber, would be a democratically-elected assembly (aka a democratic republic) that advised him on policy matters, thus 'Republic'.All the power would remain in the Great Khan's hands and would be exercised by his genetic descendants (which some geneticists estimated as being as high as 25% of the Central Asian population.) Marrying into that extended family would be easy, the 'family' itself would have a vested interesting in supporting a state that benefited them.Men and women could exercise power in the government through marriage alliances, identical to the manner Hana was working through me. Being surrounded by very populous countries in various states of belligerence, empowering women wouldn't be an issue since every willing mind and pair of hands mattered. Outsiders who shone through could be offered a spouse and brought into the ruling elite since polygamy was permissible.In the Khanate there would be universal compulsive suffrage (everyone 18+ was legally required to vote) to decide on the representatives in the new legislative body. Everyone was expected to fight, so everyone voted. It would be modeled on the Duma of early 20th century Imperial Russia. Unlike the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II, Temujin would be much more attentive to the voice of the people, in the Information Age, he had to.Or so I hoped. I spewed forth my ideas to OT who didn't agree, or disagree with my vision. Perhaps Temujin and I did share a bond that went beyond obligation. OT then pulled a 'Pamela'."He told me he knew immediately you were his brother when you and I shared that vision," he commented out of nowhere."His words: You (Earth and Sky) are the old. He (meaning me) is the new. He (me again) will show us the way." My, that was nice, obtuse and not at all helpful. What did OT want? My good buddy, the Great Khan, wanted to cash in on Hana's and my sudden popularity. His most pressing need remained 'time'. He needed to have a cease-fire in the wings when his offensive resumed the next day.The Earth and Sky had moved, well, the Heaven and Earth to get the Tumens and their accompanying national armies up and running after only a two day respite. Thanks to me, Manchuria was a mess. The Russians had carried out my 'Operation: Funhouse' with mixed, mostly positive results.Dozens of smaller Chinese military police units along the border went, 'inactive' was the term most often used in the media. They didn't disarm, yet they didn't fight the Russians either. They sat back and let events unfold. The issue wasn't the Chinese's willingness to fight and die for their country. It was the schizophrenic government in Beijing.The PRC didn't want to wage a war with the Russian Federation at that moment. The Khanate was the priority. There were two fundamentally incompatible courses of action favored for dealing with the Russians:One large group advocated a passive Option A: let the Russians step in and shield the three remaining provinces making up Manchuria that were still in Chinese possession. Later, China would use military, economic and political means to edge the Russians out, once the Khanate was dealt with.A sizable faction favored a more aggressive Option B: play a game of chicken with Vladimir Putin. Tell the Bear not to come across the border while threatening him with a bloody and pointless (for him) guerilla war if he did intervene. Events on the ground were not providing a lot of support for that school of thought,However, this split at the highest levels of leadership left the local and regional commanders to try and muddle through as best they could. To the local commanders defending the Amur River side of the Chinese-Russian border, common sense dictated that they not oppose the Russian crossings, because the Russian 35th Army would kill them.All their military units had gone west to the Nen River line. With no heavy weapons and little air support, the People's Armed Police (PAP) (paramilitary) and the Public Security Bureau (regular police) units would be wiped out for little gain.Russia's GRU (Military Intelligence) sweetened the pot by allowing the police units to remain armed and in formation. It could be argued that they weren't even committing treason. At any time, they could throw themselves into the battle, or form the core of a resistance movement. 'Conserving your strength' had been a hallmark of the Communist Chinese struggle against the Imperial Japanese and Nationalists forces from the 1920's until 1945 and it had served them well.For the party officials, civil authorities and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Army Air Force (PLAAF), and Army Navy (PLAN) who had gone with Option B, things weren't working out. In the north of Heilongjiang province at Morin Dawa/the Nen River line, the regional commander of the ad hoc forces facing the Khanate decided to duke it out with the Russian 36th Army as well. He was boned from the get-go.The PLAAF's overall command and control had been badly disrupted in the first few hours of The Unification War and had never fully recovered. Of the 22 air regiments that the PLAAF had started the war with in the Shenyang Military District (NE China), only 5 remained as effective formations flying, on average, a meager 20% of their original complement of advanced Shenyang J-16's, J-11's, Chengdu J-10's and Xian JH-7's aircraft.Replacing their aircraft losses meant sending up aged Shenyang J-8's (rolled out in 1980) and Nanchang Q-5's (in 1970) to fly and die in droves fighting their technologically superior Khanate foes. To add insult to injury, China's fleet of 97 Su-30MKK/MK2's (built in Russia) had suffered numerous suspicious mechanical and electronic failures, rendering them either flying coffins, or space holders in bomb-proof shelters.Furthermore, of the forces arrayed in the far north, only two of the five air regiments were responding. Two of the other three had begun displacing south into the Beijing Military District and preparing to defend the capital city. The fifth formation had another problem, North Korea (, more on that later.)In opposition to those two Chinese air regiments (roughly 60 aircraft of mixed types) stood seven complete and fresh Russian air regiments (over 400 front-line aircraft) and that didn't include the regiment and elements of the Far East Naval Aviation which was ALSO watching North Korea (, again more on that later.) The latter was of small comfort to the forces trying to hold the already compromised Nen River line.Behind those valiant troops, along the much more defensible Amur River line, the commander of the key city of Heihe sided with the Option A group and let the Russian 35th Army cross the river unopposed. By the time the PLA commanding general of the 'Nen Force' (the 69th Motorized Division and the subordinate 7th Reserve Division) figured that out, he was already in a shooting war with the Russians. So his supply lines weren't in danger, they were lost.The final indignity took place at Zalantun. The commander of the 3rd Reserve Div. had died during the attempt to recapture Zalantun. His replacement died when his helicopter was shot down as he was coming to assume command. In the absence of these officers, the divisional chief of staff told his men, including two hastily hustled forward mechanized brigades, to put down their arms. That meant 'Nen Force' was completely cut-off and surrounded.One battalion of the 36th Russian Motorized Brigade (yes, too many 36's running around) disarmed the Chinese troops while the rest, plus the 74th Independent Motorized Brigade raced for the prize, the city of Qiqihar. The last major mechanized formation of the 36th Rus. Army, the 39th MB was following them. However, instead of manning Qiqihar's defenses, the Chinese garrison in that city was waging war on its own populace.It wasn't only in Qiqihar; chaos reigned throughout Heilongjiang province. The Provincial Head of the Communist Party, Wang Xiankui, supported Option A. The Provincial Governor, Lu Hao, went with Option B. Both figures were rising stars in the PRC. Wang had ordered the still forming Reserve Divisions and the PAP units to disperse, thus avoiding any untimely confrontations with the Russians.Lu, without consulting Wang, ordered the same forces to launch a violent crackdown on all dissident forces, specifically all racial minorities. (It turned out that Lu was also a member of the Seven Pillars and his witch-hunt was aimed at getting the Earth and Sky organization operating in Heilongjiang).For the men and women on the other end of those phone conversations, there was no 'right' answer. Lest we forget, their organizations were already degraded by the Anthrax outbreak. Both men were powerful and represented China's future leadership, so if the person in charge at the ground level obeyed the wrong one, they could be assured of being roasted by the other.Some did try to do both, repress and disband at the same time. That meant that in the process of making mass arrests among an already war-fearful and plague-fearful populace, the law enforcement infrastructure began disintegrating.The problem with Lu's/7P's plan was that there was no 'revolutionary' organization to round up. That wasn't how the Earth and Sky operated in North-East China. They remained in tiny sabotage and reconnaissance cells. While they were scurrying for cover from the police crackdown, an opportunity presented itself.The afflicted minorities were getting furious with their treatment. These minorities saw themselves as loyal Chinese, yet they were being dragged out into the streets, put in detentions centers and (in a few cases) summarily executed. Being less than 10% of the overall population, resistance had never crossed their minds. It seemed all that those defenseless people could do was pray for Russian intervention forces to arrive.Within that mix of fear, betrayal and rage, the E and S discovered a way to start the dominos falling. The small, well-armed and well-trained E and S cells began ambushing police detachments. Weapons from those dead men and women were turned over to the pissed off locals before the cell went off to stalk the next police unit.Wash, rinse and repeat. It became a perverse and bloody case of wish fulfillment. Lu and the 7P's had been looking for an insurrection and they started one. Even though a miniscule portion of the population was involved, from the outside looking in, it reinforced the Putin Public Affairs initiative that portrayed Putin (and his army) as coming in to restore order to a collapsing civil system, which he was helping disrupt.From Moscow, the PRC's indecisiveness looked like Manna from Heaven. For the massive numbers of Russian soldiers riding through the Manchurian countryside, it felt like they were rolling into Arkham Asylum. Unlike the NATO countries' professional armies, Russia remained a largely conscript force whose normal term of service was only one year. These unseasoned troops could never tell if the local military, military police and police would attack until they rolled up on the Chinese units.At the start of that Day One of Operation: Funhouse, the Russian ROE (Rules of Engagement) was 'Ask and Verify'. It was tactically advantageous for the belligerent Chinese forces to lie about their intentions, then begin shooting at the Russians when they got close enough to hurt them. By Day Two, the standard front-line Russian soldier had adjusted that ROE to 'if they look at us wrong, light their asses up'. By Day Three, the officers had stopped trying to enforce Moscow's ROE orders.That was fine for the combat and rear echelon support troops because both the Chinese and Russian governments had another series of problems and they all centered around Pyongyang and Kim Jong-un's declaration that North Korea would intervene as well, without letting anyone know who he was 'intervening' against. To keep everyone guessing, the North Korean' People's Army was massing on all three borders, facing off with the PRC, Russia and South Korea. To prove his diplomatic intentions, Kim pledged to only mobilize half of his reserves, merely 4,250,000 extra men and women to go with his 950,000 strong standing army.It didn't take a military, or economic genius to realize the North Korean's chronically 'near death' economy was stampeding off a cliff. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was in the middle of an oil crisis and Kim was increasing their fuel consumption by 400% while decreasing his workforce by 10%. To put it in perspective, the US unemployment was around 6%. Now imagine that in one week's time it would become 26%. One week, no severance packages. Would the population become unsettled?But wait, it gets better. The Secret War was colliding with the Real World in more places than Manchuria. Setting aside the assassination attempt (Grrr) of Hana Sulkanen, my fiancée, six Nipponese elders (two women and four men) appeared in the personal quarters of the Japanese Prime Minister on the first full night of 'Funhouse' and relayed their urgent requests.Those six were the Head of the Six (formerly Seven) Ninja Families and they were there at, my urging. Cause I'm an idiot and requiring the deaths of Romanians in my personal crusade obviously wasn't enough. Now I was asking the Japanese Defense Forces (JDF) to pony up as well. So take a deep breath and put on the hip-waders.You might be wondering why I would want the JDF, see, there was part of Operation: Funhouse that was hitting a predictable snag, namely the Korea People's Navy Force (KPNF) and the uncertain determination of the PLAN:The KPNF's vessels were rather old, small and crappy. They also had a love affair with anything that could launch a torpedo and they listed over 700 of these floating deathtraps (only 13 of which could be classified as surface warships) and the fanatical crews to take them into battle.The PLAN's numbers were far more realistic and the fleet generally more modern. Only their North (18 surface warships) and East Fleets (22 plus 5 'elsewhere') could play any role in an upcoming FUBAR, and both fleets were heading out to sea, mainly to avoid the sporadic, but increasingly effective Khanate air strikes.The FU to be BAR'ed was the Russian Far East Fleet (RFEF) (6 warships strong, ) that had seized on this crazy idea (per my suggestion) to sail south, around the Korean peninsula so they could land elements of the 55th Guards Red Banner Marine Brigade (the 165th Marine Regiment and the 180th Marine Tank Battalion).Theoretically they were going to be the 'Southern Shielding Force' that would interpose itself between the Khanate and Beijing. It should surprise no one that the RFEF's flotilla was unequal to the task of taking their destination, the port of Qinhuangdao, by amphibious assault. Fortunately for the Gods of War (which did not include me), there were five other navies involved.Meanwhile, South Korea was having kittens because their always crazy northern kin were slathering on the insanity. (In how many Buddhist countries do people flock to the temples and pray that their neighbor attacks someone, anyone else, but them? That wasn't a religious conundrum I wanted to deal with.) N.Korea mobilizing meant S.Korea had to mobilize, which sucked down on their GNP as well.Besides, N.Korean dams and coal-powered plants kept the lights on in Seoul. Erring on the side of caution, the S. Korea (aka Republic of Korea, ROK) Army suggested calling up only one million of their three million person reserve force in order to assure Cousin Kim that this was a purely defensive gesture. It didn't work. Kim Jong-un castigated the ROK for antagonizing him, despite his declaration that he 'might' feel like invading the South in the immediate future.Into the emerging crisis, the ROK Navy could sortie nineteen small surface ships. Japan's Navy wasn't up to its old imperial standards, but could still deploy 45 surface warships. The 800 lb. gorilla in the room was the core of the 7th Fleet stationed at Yokosuka, Japan, the USS carrier George Washington and her 14 escort vessels.If the George Washington was the gorilla, RIMPAC 2014 was King Kong. 22 nations, 50 ships, including the USS carrier Ronald Reagan were engaged in war games in the Central Pacific. With them were 5 vessels of the PLAN, had Kim Jong-un just kept his mouth shut, this wouldn't have been an issue. Hell, if the Khanate had not come into existence and launched its Unification War, but he had and they did,To show the US was taking this escalation seriously (without tipping their hand that they knew about Funhouse, Carrier Strike Group One (CSG 1) (the Carl Vinson +10) was rushing across the Pacific from San Diego. CSG 3 (the John C. Stennis +2) was being assembled hastily so that they could rendezvous with CSG 1 ASAP. So many brave souls running toward the danger, sometimes I hate myself.So now does it make sense that I found myself in a room with a US Senator tasked with riding herd on me?Anyway, there were the other three navies still unaccounted for, Taiwan / the Republic of China (ROC) (22 surface ships), Vietnam (7) and the Philippines (3). Taiwanese involvement was easy to explain, the PRC refused to acknowledge them as an independent country and probably never would.The Vietnam People's Navy was tiny in both numbers and tonnage. Five of the vessels were 1960's Soviet frigates. What Vietnam did have was a huge grudge against the PRC. The PLA invaded Vietnam in 1979 and devastated the northernmost provinces, killing as many as 100,000 civilians.The PLAN had walloped the VPN in 1974 (technically South Vietnam) and again in 1988. Out in the South China Sea were two island archipelagos; the Paracel (occupied by a small PLA garrison and claimed by the PRC, Vietnam and the ROC) and Spratlys Islands (disputed by Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, the PRC, the ROC, and Vietnam).The Philippines had a grand total of three frigates (all between 50 and 70 years old). 99% of the time, they faced a hopeless struggle enforcing Philippines' South China Sea claims, except they were now experiencing that 1% where the PRC found itself in a life and death struggle. Even then, the PLAN's South Sea Fleet was hands-down the biggest player with 26 surface warships centered on the Carrier Liaoning.Except (and there always seems to be an 'except') virtually all the PLAN's naval aviation had gone off to fight the Khanate and it wasn't coming back, ever. In the air, the Philippines was next to useless. What did they have of offer in the struggle for the South China Sea? Bases. The ROC and Vietnam had much more to bring to the table.The Vietnamese People's Liberation Air Force (VPLAR) had about 50 front-line aircraft and 175 nearly obsolete models ~ the same models the PLAAF was now piloting. The ROC Air Force could put up 325 almost-new fighters that were now superior to their opponents on the mainland. Why would I give a shit?Things cascade. The Khanate Air Force took a two-day long deep breath as Putin's 'Policeman that only looks like an invading army' started their intervention. Forty-eight hours later, the Khanate started the fourth stage (the first lunge, defeat the PLA's counter-attack then the second lunge) of the campaign.Their initial air power was still skating on thin ice where maintenance was concerned. They need more time to thoroughly rest their pilots and bring all their top-flight equipment to 100% working condition. Against them, in two days the PLAAF's assets increased by over 250 fighters.In turn, the Khanate had added their constituent state air forces plus nearly 80 new cutting edge air planes and 25 drones. Phase Four saw rolling airstrikes all along the forces massing in front of the northern and central Tumens. For a few hours, the PLA thought they knew what was going on.They were wrong and this was where my meeting with OT came in. Jab with the right, cut them down with the left. The left in my case was Tibet. Yeah, Tibet. Economic value = not nearly enough. From the very start of the war, a small number of seemingly inconsequential air strikes had seriously eroded the PLA and PLAAFs combat power in the Tibetan Plateau while leaving the roads, bridges and towns intact.Common military logic dictated that the Khanate had to punch their way further east into Qinghai (to the south) and Gansu (to the north) provinces. That was where the population and industry where. Farther east were even greater numbers of people and factories and the Khanate forces in the North hadn't been strong enough to threaten to cut off the Qinghai-Gansu front. Then the Russians showed up and the Khanate forces threatening that flank doubled overnight.The PLA hastily reinforced their northern flank, using troops from their strategic reserves. The move resulted in incredible attrition by airpower to the freshly equipped formations. The PLA was about to get flanked, but not from the north. Southwest of Qinghai was Tibet. A third of the Khanate's mobile forces now swept around in a huge left haymaker to the south.My job? I needed the 'Free Tibet' forces in the US and UK to provide public and moral support to the Khanate move. As Khanate Special Forces seized crucial bottlenecks in Tibet, they needed the locals to keep their 'liberators' informed of PLA presences and undermine any attempt to create a guerilla movement.The five Tumens dedicated to being the Schwerpunkt (point of maximum effort) of this flanking maneuver were going to be on a tight timetable if they were going to surround the PLA forces in Central China.My plan was to convince the Tibetans that the PRC's 55 years of occupation was coming to an end and the Great Khan wanted to sign a 'Treaty of Mutual Respect' (my invention). This would require both the Khanate and Tibet to recognize each other's right to exist the moment a cease-fire was reached. That was it. No 'armed presence', or 'mutual defense' agreements.The treaty would be formally signed in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, when the city was safe ~ as determined by the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile, CTA). Riki came up with an additional sweetener and proved she was quickly adjusting to our group's extra-governmental capabilities.

Putting lives back together after the battle.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.Either you embrace Change and are destroyed by it, or you resist Change and are overwhelmed by it. What is your choice? (The Politics of 'Not' Being Dead)The rest of the trip was made in silence. They dropped us off at the edge of Miercurea Ciuc, home base of the 61st Mountain Troops Brigade, of Professor Loma and from whence all this craziness had originated. The meeting was already awkward before I arrived. It only got worse. Where to begin? Well, Russia, the United States, the UK, Romania, Hungary and Ireland were now all interested parties. And I had gained two personal distinctions:1.) Not only was I now heralded (and not really joking anymore) by some sources as Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege, I was thereby re-awakening old nationalistic and territorial fears. Hungary didn't want a Prince, yet they did have an anemic Monarchist party. I might not be a Hapsburg (the last royal house of Hungary), but I could possibly be misconstrued as a long-lost Árpád scion (first King and founder of the Hungarian state), which would be even better.A crisis was looming in my ancestral crucible. It seems I already had a webpage in Budapest and six hundred "friends" within 24 hours. Worse, they had some pictures of me. Besides being 'of regal bearing' in the descriptions, I was sexy-hot and a soldier of fortune, a modern day 'Wild Geese, (Goose?)' who was wanted for questioning in a, or perhaps multiple, murder(s) involving either a duel over a woman's honor or killing a dozen armed gangsters who prayed on young innocents newly arrived to the big city.I wasn't alone. My trusty companion was A.) an ascetic Jedi Mistress (my own, personal Yoda), B.) an ancient witch schooled in the necromantic arts (apparently the reason I couldn't die), or C.) a Cold-War Era SMERSH (too much James Bond) assassin repaying an old debt to the descendent of an anti-communist partisan she'd killed years ago, eerily close to the truth for once. That, plus the TEK investigation, were Hungary's main points of concern involving me.2.) I was now a person involved in significant events for half a dozen nations on the world scene.Let's start with Romania. Okay, foremost, I was responsible for the single deadliest day in modern (post-WWII) Romanian Land Forces history. There was no covering this up. Close to one hundred men and women had died in combat, and then you added the forty-some dead Amazons, many of them apparently tortured, and this was a political and public relations nightmare.No one doubted their troops behaved heroically. That wasn't the problem. The political conundrum was how could they explain Ajax and his fifty seasoned killers penetrating into central Romania with no one being aware of the danger? A few politicians wanted to blame Székely nationalists (by that, they meant the ethnic minority who 'vaguely' wanted Transylvania to rejoin Hungary), except they had me, the Hungarian Prince, leading the charge.Life would have been so much easier for them if I had died. Yes, I could read the minds of those politicians. Screw a girl, then her younger sister, and then his wife, who all say they love me, and you'll recognized the emotional intent a father directs your way. (I'd only done that once, and once was enough.) I was getting that vibe again.Unfortunately for them, I wasn't dead and three big time foreign governments (and Ireland) seemed really curious about me, my performance and my mortality. So dragging me out back for a firing squad wasn't going to happen. Riki Martin of the US State Department was there and she told me a representative of the US Military Mission was on his way up to debrief me. Russia's sexy military attaché was still on site and looking happy for some reason. Flaviu, who had some experience with me, was soon to be gone; replaced by some person who had some serious lettuce before his actual name and didn't know me from didly. Not good.The UK had one of their diplomats coming up as well, just so I didn't get lonely. They weren't driving up with the Irishman, or the American. No one considers their carbon footprint in a crisis, I swear. But wait! It gets better. My Romanian Special Force dudes had brought the rest of their company (around a hundred new buddies) with them, they seriously didn't want me to get homesick and wander off (because, you know, I liked living and freedom).The Romanian army shouldn't have worried. It seemed that there were some US Army Rangers with NATO in Kosovo, Albania, or Bosnia and Uncle Sam was expressing a desire for them to 'stop by'. Maybe they could share their C-130 with the British paratroopers who were equally concerned about my well-being. I just hoped everyone was going to play nice when the Spetsnaz arrived. Putin was suddenly (and surprisingly to me, anyway) my new pal. I had a feeling I'd soon be discovering my secret Russian heritage if I wasn't careful. I was thinking maybe I could squeeze an Order of Lenin, or a Hero of the Soviet Union out of him. I heard they both looked nice, were obsolete and came without an actual pension.If Katrina wouldn't let me write off this calamity as PTO, I was going to be irate. I was on the verge of having a large family to support after all, unless you considered me marrying a billionaire's heiress to be compensation enough. The only group involved who weren't trying to actually see me was the Khanate.Temujin most likely had some shamanistic mojo that would let him know if I croaked. That bit smacked of paganism, so it was kept under wraps because he had to appear dutifully Islamic for the masses. Still, some koumiss would have been nice. Heck, right then I could have gone for an 'atta boy', perhaps even a 'two thumbs up'.Oh yeah; the general of the 4th Romanian Division wanted me to stop by when I had the chance (if I didn't, he'd send men to kill me, or so it was insinuated). The 61st Mountain Troops was part of his division's combat command and if the General Staff went looking for someone to crucify, he was making damn sure it wasn't going to be him.It occurred to me that I could send a handsome-looking Spetsnaz (if there was such a thing) to go in my place. They were brother Slavs, right? I was sure that between the 'Fall of the Berlin Wall', Moldavian Independence and Romania joining NATO, they would have much to discuss. Out of the blue, Pamela smacked me on the back of my head, Jethro Gibbs' style. My 'more-evil Russian doppelganger' idea must have been poorly thought out.Before I could implement that silliness, or trigger the big brouhaha, there was a preamble: I had three compatriots. Of greater importance, I had three heavily armed/gravely-serious bodyguards who wouldn't surrender their weapons and/or abandon me. So I thought "play nice" thoughts to myself.Diplomacy, sovereignty and legality all reared their ugly heads. I wasn't really an Irish diplomat. My paperwork was still valid, but the Romanian government hadn't permitted my entry into their country under the standard diplomatic protocols. Ireland wanted to talk to me about that, why was I running around armed and killing people in two Central European countries? I was acting more like an Irish adventurer from the 17th century, than a genteel civil servant from the 21st.Then there was the niggling little complication that involved me, my friends and our criminal possession of military-grade hardware. Chaz had the dubious excuse of being an official British government agent on assignment. That meant he could hope for a prisoner exchange within the next decade. Rachel and Pamela were private citizens with painfully sketchy proofs of US citizenship.When the Romanian legal system finished buggering them, it would be off to Hungry and its serious inquiry into all the dead bodies we'd left in our wake. Who was I kidding? What I was really worrying about was how many members of the Romanian penal system would die when they escaped. Their flimsy identities gave no clue to how dangerous they actually were. Hell, they'd beat me home.I had the added difficulty of Ireland and their questions about who the fuck I was and why I had their gold filigree on something I didn't deserve sitting snugly in my back pocket.So first off, this new band of 'Eagles' wanted to disarm and separate us."Don't insult me," I scoffed. "I am your Prince. Don't make me explain it to your widow.""I'm not married," the Lieutenant snarled back, daring me."Well, rush out and marry somebody. I haven't got all day. We don't want me to be caught in an idle boast now do we?" I grinned. Verbal sparring apparently wasn't in his repertoire."What?""Shut the fuck up, Carl," Chaz blithely inserted himself into the conversation."But you don't even speak Romanian," I countered. "How do you even know what I said?" The Romanians didn't know English, but they knew Carl. The tension between us ebbed."By the expression on the officer's face, Hercege," he winked. "It's universal to the brotherhood.""Who is he with?" The officer questioned me."You and he are the same," I answered."You cannot go any farther armed," he returned to his mission parameters."I don't envy you going in and telling the Colonel to come out here, but so be it," I held my ground."We could kill you and take them off your corpses," he studied my reaction."You are the second handsome man to tell me that today," I shook my head. "I'll tell you what I told him: 'you sure are cute, just not my type'." Pause then laughter."You are a madman," the lieutenant snorted. "I'll go talk to the Colonel."I was a jerk, loved maidens and was a master of bullshit. Did that make me a modern day Minotaur? The lieutenant came back out, then ushered me inside; Riki had to wait for the moment. He motioned my team come along. In the staff room of the 61st were a handful of officers and several suits."Mr. Nyilas," the Colonel gazed upon me. "I don't know what to make of you.""You and my Mother both," I mumbled. Despite the somber atmosphere, a few of the men and women let their moods lighten. They didn't hold my levity against me. I'd been there, on the battlefield and if humor was how I dealt with the experience, so be it."Ha," the greying man mused. "It is wholly my fault that I disregard most of the information you supplied my staff. You were unerringly accurate in your assessment of our enemy's capabilities. I know my men and I know how good they are. Veteran commanders can barely describe what my troops endured. You warned us and I didn't believe you. I was wrong and my men died because of it," he sighed."Sir, I do not believe you could have done anything else and succeeded," I interrupted."Succeeded? Is this what you consider success?" he hardened."Absolutely, Sir. Had you been slower to respond, those men would have most likely come here, to Miercurea Ciuc, and you would have fought the same battle, except your civilians would have been caught in the mix," I lied.If Ajax had escaped he'd have hunted me down. The location would have been irrelevant to him. How he knew where to be was a question for later and something to be presented to smarter, more experienced minds."Perhaps," he allowed. "They were heading north when we encountered them.The Alal in me was going back over the plan. It had been sound."Sir, you had every reason to doubt my military experience and to believe I exaggerated the threat. I was right and I take no joy in that, nor do I think anyone can hold your decisions against you," I stated.Now he gave a bitter laugh. Yes, they could hold all the deaths against him."We both know your men and women didn't die for their country, they killed for it. Quite frankly, I believe they killed some of the most vicious creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth. Fuck them for taking so many of us. Pile their bodies up and burn them," I suggested."They deserve no more Romanian soil than a spot to inter their ashes," I concluded."You do not sound like any diplomat I've ever met," the Colonel regained his gruff exterior."I'm not. I'm a fraud. I know as much about Ireland as I do about being a prince," I confessed. "That said, I didn't come here to kill anyone. I came to save lives.""How has that worked out for you?" a sitting woman in a suit questioned, in Romanian. She was slender, waspish and didn't sound comfortable speaking English, though she knew enough to get by."I am not a fortune-teller. I don't know how this is going to work out," I said."That's not what I asked," she prodded."Yes it was," I corrected her. "You wanted to know if I thought the price of your dead countrymen was worth the life of me, my friends and the lives of your countrymen I came to save. I can't measure the promise of those lives against the loss of all the dead. Don't play games with me. I'm have a degree in Philosophy and I eat morally ambiguous people like you for lunch."Pamela laughed aloud and lively."Kimberly and Katrina would be so proud of you right now," she chortled."I don't think you grasp the deep pit your find yourself in, Friend" the suit stayed chillingly calm."Oh, I think we all know we both screwed the pooch big time," I smirked. "The difference is me and mine are all happy to be alive after two of the most trying, fun-filled days of our lives. You want to throw us in prison. The Hungarians want to throw us in prison. I'm sure if I get back to the States, they will want to put us in prison too. Have I missed anyone?""I'm glad you will confess. It will make it easier on us," she grinned like sexy weasel."Wait," Rachel put a restraining arm on me. "I've wanted to say this for some time." To the weasel, "Blow it out your ass, dipshit.""Rachel, you don't know what she said," Pamela faux-gasped."I don't know the words, but I know what he meant," Rachel glowered. She missed Charlotte so much, she was willing to court pain and death. "I want to go back in time and slap her mother repeatedly for not strangling her in the crib. Is that succinct enough?""I apologize for ever meeting you, Rachel. I've brought you to a bad end," I gave her a tender look."It's okay. I never thought I'd live long enough to sleep with you anyway," she smiled back.Phifft, sigh. It was so sad that I recognized the sound of a low-caliber, silenced round."Listen up, dipshit," Pamela snickered. "Good one, Rachel. If you don't believe the next one is going through your skull, you clearly haven't been listening to us. You are fucking with the wrong monkeys. You have this bizarre idea that if I kill you, your government won't replace your worthless, bullet-riddled hide with someone we find more agreeable. My grandson sent in motion a half million combatants a few hours ago, he nearly died leading your soldiers against your nation's enemies and you want him to kiss your shoes as if you matter at all in the grand scheme of things?" she snarled. "Think again."No one was moving because Pamela had her silenced 22 Beretta out and pointed at Weasel's head. The SF's were caught flat-footed, as was everyone else. No guards came rushing in because the closed doors further muffled the sound. "I think this is a good time for us to get a drink," Chaz advised as he slowly reached out and lowered Pamela's gun hand.It was Pamela's gunboat diplomacy yet again. She hadn't meant to kill the women. Hell, she'd been a random target of opportunity. What Pamela had done was clear up the doubts in the room. Everyone on the staff could self-consciously let themselves off the hook for not being in the front lines, risking themselves with their comrades. Thanks to Pamela, they too had confronted violence.'Crazy' Grandma had fired off her piece and everyone sighed with relief when Chaz got her to lower it. I was pretty sure Chaz was in on this dangerous game. It resided with the Colonel as to how to resolve this hiccup in our dispute."Mr. Nyilas, why don't we take a walk outside, just the two of us?" he 'requested'.I nodded because I'm not always as dumb as I look. He was letting my people off with incredible temperance and I could honorably send them away. They'd scoped out the scene and believed I'd be safe enough. He, in turn, had an excuse to take a step away from his political watchdogs."I think that is for the best," I nodded. "Do you want me to leave my guns behind?""No, Mr. Nyilas, we might run into trouble out there and one of my Captains has suggested you are a man who can take care of himself," he replied. That was very nice of him indeed. If I did do something stupid, he had a ton of troops about who would make my regrets rather temporary. I decided to behave as if I had a passing acquaintance with sanity.His first questions were about the fighting at the ruins. I peppered our exchange with my interest in what had happened to the advance force of the 22nd. It was bleak news, yet the Colonel felt a sense of relief. He was coming to accept the lethality of his enemies, which in turn, led to an understanding, if not acceptance, of the carnage his men had been subjected to.He was in a cycle of context, grief, context. He'd gambled on me and men died. Once the battle was joined though, his soldiers had done precisely the right thing under considerable stress. He could be proud without dishonoring the dead. Only Pamela and I had engaged Ajax earlier. Only I had talked with the man.The Colonel had to look into my eyes to get the spark that led to understanding the mind and ruthlessness of his opponent. The name 'Ajax' never came up. That was more than a rational mind could accept at the moment. He knew his men had fought and killed the best and that helped him cope a tiny bit. Our interview ended when the first of the unwanted guests arrived.Only when I walked inside did it occur to me that this had been my first soldier to soldier chat. We had respected one another and discussed matters like men who knew the score. That was depressing in its own right. It was well passed nightfall when we went back inside. In our absence, Riki had started to redeem my existence. My salvation lay in Romantic Americana Symbolism.Translation: I was a Horatio Alger, a working class kid raised by a widower father, who earned a scholarship to a quiet New England college, graduated near the top of my class and gotten an excellent job (salary and benefits not disclosed). That was the was the first part of the Americana, proof positive that America was still the land of opportunity and a place where poor children could still reach the highest levels of society (umm, okay?).The second Americana Part: my Father had been murdered in a case of mistaken identity. Those heavily-armed foreign corporate/rogue governmental-sponsored terrorist mercenaries (their exact origin was shrouded in double-dealing misinformation) had ruthlessly murdered my Pa to cover up their error. Like any true Son of the American Dream, I had sworn vengeance.The Symbolic Part: My compassionate, understanding government (the good governmental servants of Republican Democracy, not the bad, hires the covert, secret, black-bag, unaccountable private contractors/ pawns of the Wall Street Elite bureaucrats) allowed me to participate in a multi-national taskforce. These selfless guardians of the freedom had formed a coalition which had hunted down the villains.With the priceless assistance of two Central European countries, who currently had to remain nameless (cough: Hungary and Romania), we'd achieved a final, violent confrontation in which my allies and I had emerged bloody, scarred, yet victorious. Once more, free men and women had answered the call of duty and some had made the ultimate sacrifice.See, I had a good government that cared enough about me to let me become a gun-toting menace to the civilized world. Like a Hollywood Western hero of the 1950's, 60's and 70's, I had taken personal revenge against the forces of wickedness, exit the railroad tycoons and cattle barons, enter the shadowy world of private security forces and uncontrolled corporate capitalism.

A day in the life of rural Hungary.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.'Here be Dragons' wasn't always a tourist gimmick."I didn't say you could have a drink," the Vizsla commented."Oh, my apologies," I shrugged. I put the stein on a nearby table and waited."Have a seat," she directed. I came up to her table and examined the three empty chairs. I held back until she pointed to the chair opposite her. I sat down, but didn't make eye contact. Instead, I examined the various paintings and photographs on the walls. It was an old place."You killed Matthias, even though you knew he worked for me," she uttered."I can confirm that information to be correct," I looked her way. That, wasn't what she expected."Why?""Why what?" I countered. There was a method to my madness; this was going to be a lesson in competence, and what happens when you don't respect it."Why did you kill Matthias?""I needed a reason?" I tried to look pensive. "Maybe I didn't like the cut of his facial hair?""Do you think this is a joke?" she replied dryly. "The Black Hand always avenge our own.""Damn," I looked perplexed. "No one told me that when I arrived. Can we call Matthias's extermination a 50/50 bad call, both ways?""Matthias was my cousin," the Vizsla continued."My condolences," I sighed. "The next Black Hand douche-bag the Amazons waste, I'll have them ask if he's related to you first. How's that?""You are so not likely to have that opportunity," she pointed out."Oh," I laughed, "you are so wrong about that.""You are far stupider than I had been informed," the Vizsla's eyes narrowed."Nope. You and your cast of 'Dumb and Dumber' have been treating us like idiots since we touched down at Ferenc Liszt International, so I'm pretending to be that simpleton sock-puppet just for you, Vizsla. You've added to that by heaping disrespect and derision on my people," I grinned."You tried to have me and my entourage murdered and Matthias paid the price for that. Everyone knows I'm here. And after your bungled attempt to have me killed, no one is going to believe you did anything but murder me, if I don't show up eventually. Now do you prefer the stupid me, or the brighter than normal me?""If you think acting like a smart-ass is somehow endearing, you are mistaken," she let me know."Whatever," I shrugged. "You called this meeting. What do you want?""Beyond killing one of my lieutenants, I wanted to know what you are doing here?" she studied me."I would like to leave now. I'm wasting my time here," I responded."I want answers," she pressed."You have been given the answers to both your talking points, Matthias died because of your orders and I am here looking for three lost Amazon bloodlines," I replied."That seems bizarre," the Vizsla expressed her doubts."Bizarre? You are talking to the sole male Amazon House Head in three thousand years," I reminded her. "Besides, you only just now finished telling me how the Black Hand look after their own. The Amazons are the same way; we have lost kin who need to be made aware of their background.""What do we do about Matthias?" the Vizsla asked."In all honesty, had he not personally threatened to stab a member of my team, I would have settled for kicking the crap out of him. He put a knife to Ms. Martin's throat. That assured his death sentence. I think the Host will be willing to accept my hypothesis that Matthias was acting on his own initiative, which should settle the matter."And just like that, the expediency of the Black Hand shown forth. The truth of the matter was that he had acted on the Vizsla's orders. Unfortunately, that would have meant my side would have come after the Vizsla and she would have had to avenge his death, lots of needless bloodshed. So Matthias posthumously became a rabid dog gone rogue and one who ended up crossing the wrong people. No vengeance required by anyone. We could get back to business."That is settled. So, what do you want from your new allies?" the Vizsla inquired. A certain level of cold-blooded ruthlessness had been required to achieve her spot in the Black Hand. Likewise, honesty was the best policy when dealing with casually lethal people. They didn't like self-important asses wasting their time."I need to find an individual named 'Branko'. He has kidnapped a young lady who is one of our lost Amazons. We don't require any aid, but if you could leave Selena with us, it would be appreciated," I requested."What are you going to do when you catch up with this 'Branko'?" she questioned."I'd like to say I am going to buy her back, but I think we both know that is a pipe-dream. He's not going to like me interfering in his business, so I'm going to kill him, and any other bastards who are in close proximity," I confessed. She studied me for over a minute."Do you wish a piece of advice?" the Vizsla said."Of course," I nodded. It cost me nothing to acknowledge her vastly superior experience."Take a step back," she advised. Seeing that I didn't understand, "If you recall every single death by your hand, you will go mad. You don't possess the detachment of a true killer, Cáel. Not every member of the Black Hand is an assassin.Your driver, Josef, is from a long line of Black Hand members. He doesn't have what it takes to get close and personal in order to kill a human being, so he drives and provides security. He still matters and serves a necessary function." That was almost nice of her. The advice was based on her decision to keep me around as a useful tool. Going nuts would derail that."There is the life we wish to lead, and the life we must lead, Vizsla," I recalled. There was so much there, whirling around in my skull, it took me all this time to find the link I was looking for. Recall every single death by my hand, "On January 26th, 1847, the Black Hand Chapter House of the Wolf in Verona was wiped out, there were no survivors.""If you say so," she regarded me oddly."Yeah, look into it. Then come back to me when you have the right questions," I stood up. "And 'Branko'?""I will relay information on this individual to Selena. We should have something by the time you get back to Buda," she got out before one of the bodyguards came running our way.He had his H and K MP5 out and was in deep conversation with his ear piece."Our two spotters failed to respond correctly," he told the Vizsla in Hungarian. She gave me another quick once over."My people?" I rose slowly.The Vizsla gave the man a subtle hand gesture. Seconds later, pushing Alkonyka ahead of them, Pamela, Selena and Josef came running through the door. Pamela and Selena had our duffels. Two more Black Hand materialized from a back room.The Black Hand was actually a small outfit. Each Chapter had two or three houses, each with four or five true assassins and maybe six times that in support personnel/recruits in each location. That meant the entire Black Hand organization numbered less than 1000. They had several thousand peripheral contacts across their sphere of Europe and they could purchase some sort of private security given time. But their best protection was their hidden nature and small size. That also meant what we had was what we had. There was no Black Hand SWAT team on the way.Working with hand gestures alone, the Vizsla was directing us to a trap door behind the bar. Josef's phone rang. He hesitantly answered."It is for you," he offered it to our host. She took it. Halfway through the caller's diatribe, she shot me a suspicious look."Why don't you ask him?" she stated, then handed me the phone."Hello Nyilas. Do you know who this is?" the man on the other end stated, in Mycenean Greek."Yes, I do. What do you want? I'm kind of busy here?" I grinned. It was laughing at death all over again."I can relieve you of your pressing schedule. You and the other Amazon step outside and I'll make it quick.""No can-do Studly," I smirked. "If I go out there, it is going to take a while.""I sincerely doubt that.""Don't sell yourself short," I jibed. "I figure clipping off those bull-sized testicles of yours is going to take some work. But I do promise that after I make you a eunuch, I'll use a condom when I bend you over and make you my bitch too. Was there anything else you wanted to know?""No. I think we have a mutual understanding," he laughed. "I'll be seeing you soon." He hung up."Who was that?" Vizsla inquired. She wasn't alone in her curiosity."Ajax," I beamed confidence. I was confident my tenure on this Earth was ending real soon."I think we should be leaving," Vizsla suggested."Selena, help Alkonyka get her sister back," I requested. "I'll catch up when I can. Pamela, you do what you feel you need to do. Vizsla, they are after me, so I'm going to keep them busy while you get away," I explained.No useless 'you don't have to do this' nonsense. She knew the score, I wasn't a member of her outfit and she wanted to live. She did do me one favor. She gave another hand movement. Selena slit Josef's throat in a surprise motion.He didn't die right away. Selena's slash made bleeding out inevitable, but he'd be a while in dying. Odds were, that only Vizsla and Josef knew in advance where we were meeting. Whatever payoff the Condottieri had put in his bank account wasn't going to do him any good. Selena bent over his still-thrashing body and removed his pistol."I will bring you Angyalka Lovasz," Selena pledged. Pamela and I were gearing up. Ajax and his buddies were going to be coming for me any second now. Alkonyka gave me one more worried look before she vanished into the secret basement. "Don't be late," was the last thing Selena said before going down into the darkness. Pamela made sure the trap door was covered up.Lust and Bullets"We've used Butch and Sundance," Pamela checked her L42 Enfield Sniper Rifle. It was the weapon Pamela had trained with and used for longer than I'd been alive, old yet very effective even today."Heat?" I offered up. "You can be De Niro and I can be Kilmer.""Nice. Michael Mann really had a way of killing people," Pamela grinned, then pumped her eyebrows. "Too bad I end up dead in this one.""We'll avoid airports, you should be safe," I joked. Three explosions rocked the building, shooting glass throughout the place. Fortunately, Pamela and I were hiding behind the bar."Let's go," she whispered over the din. Charging out the front door seemed pretty suicidal to me, but Pamela's copious battle lore was something I had the utmost faith in. I respected her judgment and followed along. There was a method to her madness. Two 40 mm grenades had taken out the two cars parked in front. A third launched grenade had blown open the door.The petrol in the cars equated to flaming wreckage and a huge smoke screen. It was broad daylight, no night vision goggles. The flames made IR useless and the smoke temporarily obscured regular vision. The machineguns going off around us scared the crap out of me. It was my old buddy, suppression fire: they weren't shooting directly at us.Metaphysically, Ishara was dueling with Ares. There was a low stone wall, a little over a meter high, that separated an adjacent field from the inn's gravel parking lot. Right as we got to our side of it, three of Ajax's boys came up on the other. Pamela and I remained perfectly still, crouching tightly against our shelter.Two knelt and fired several bursts from their H and K HK416 (Wow! Germany's newest killing machine, they looked slick) into the closest open windows while the third one fired a grenade in. Again, we remained perfectly still. We were about two meters from those three. The drab color of our hastily donned dusters, the congested air and our stillness combined to save us from their notice.The second after that grenade went off, the three vaulted the wall and rushed the building. From the cacophony of the battle, they were storming the building from several directions at once."Quick, go find that guy with the machinegun," Pamela whispered over a feral grin. How was I going to do that?The old fashioned way, I leapt over the wall and ran away from all the flames, explosions and the continuous widespread fusillade of assault weapons fire. I was partially bent over as I ran. I'm still a big guy though. The machine gunner was in a shallow dip in the meadow 30 meters away, on the edge of the woods.He saw me, shifted his MG4 (fuck Ajax and his crew for having the best Bang-Bangs) minutely and unleashed hell my way. In hindsight, the 1st round flattened against my duster as it impacted my upper left thigh. Round #2 hit the duster again, coming below my vest, but hitting my belt (every bit of leather helps).The #3 556 mm slug hit my vest due south of my belly button (Fuck!), # 4 landed a few centimeters up and to the right, taking in both the duster and my ballistic vest. The #5 round clipped my lower side of my right ribcage. The resulting force sent me spinning back and to my right.Honestly, as I landed hard on my back (no rolling with the blow this time), I thought a midget mule team had kicked me in the guts. Apparently, I made a convincing mortally wounded human being. He stopped shooting and Pamela got pissed.I learned a few things at that moment: you do not get used to being shot; you can never appreciate the value of good body amour enough; you can never understand the true value of a sniper until your life is totally in their hands; and damn, Pamela was exceptional. Pamela put a bullet through his nasal cavity in that split second between him exposing himself with his muzzle flashes and deciding to put a few more bullets into my prone form.Pain dictated that I lie where I was. Survival instincts overrode that. I went to my side, pushed up and resumed my crouched stance. Then I was running once more until I could throw myself beside his corpse. I was stunningly calm. Machineguns, snipers, I had to cover Pamela's run across the meadow. I didn't stay by the dead gunner.I grabbed his weapon, some spare ammo and quick-stepped it to the wood line. I rapidly assessed the best spot that could provide cover from each flank. That was where I went down, cradled the device and started shooting at any muzzle flash I could see. The moment I opened fire, Pamela began her own sprint.Unlike my mad dash, Pamela took evasive maneuvers, serpentine, which worked out well when one sniper figured out she wasn't one of them. He/she had two shots at her before she dove past me. Her mien was one of intense, emptiness? She gave me a quick pat-down to make sure I wasn't gushing blood, took a deep breath and then smirked."Come on, Dummy!" she laughed. "We still have a shot at a sequel.""Shot, sequel, you are a laugh riot," I wheezed as I stood, abandoned the MG4 and joined her as we both ran deeper into the woods. A few shots zinged past us before Ajax's crew realized we were in full-on flight mode. They weren't going to waste the bullets.This was the point where archaic and modern warfare diverged. In the olden (pre-Pamela, ow! How did she know what I was thinking?) days, when your enemy broke and ran, it was relatively easy to run them down and slaughter them in their panic. If a few men tried to stem the tide, they would be quickly overwhelmed.After the invention of rapid-fire rifles, that changed. Suddenly, headlong pursuit could be incredibly costly. All it took was a small, resolute band to find some sort of hard cover and they could buy minutes, or even hours, for their retreating brethren. Sure, if you were willing to pay the butcher's bill, you could storm their position.But you had to understand, each defender could fire and work the bolt action in under three seconds. You reloaded your magazine with a prepared clip ~ maybe five more seconds. Ten men could put 150 bullets down range per minute as long as their ammo held out. Sending men into that kind of firepower was murder; very few troops could sustain their attack under those conditions.Ajax's resurrected Mycenaean's were tough enough to do it. Ajax's problem was their finite number. Despite catching Ajax off-guard with Pamela's mad plan, her ungodly skills and a great deal of my pain, we had only managed to kill one so far. The great unknowns were terrain (we didn't know where we were,) and my luck.As Pamela and I ran through the forest at a good clip, we began to make out a specific background noise. It was a river. Not a creek, stream, waterfall, or dam, a river."Did you pack your jet ski?" Pamela snorted."I left it in the car. You said it was so '1990's'," I panted back. A few more footsteps and,

Asian Wars BrewingBy FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.[World News]It was the happenstance of another conflict that encouraged Turkish solidarity and Khanate action, the Crimea. Russia had opened a serious door to the Abyss by annexing the Crimea from the Ukraine by force. Technically, Russia had violated Ukrainian sovereignty by seizing that region.The Russians (with tacit support from China) put forth the political notion of 'lost territory'. Thus Vladimir Putin had unwittingly 'green lighted' the greatest consumption of 'lost territory' in the history of mankind. Following Putin's reasoning, all Temujin was doing was reuniting the widely separated pieces of the Great Khanate. His invasion of Xinjiang and Nei Mongol were also part of that policy.The 'Carolina Reaper' spice in this chili was a group called the Crimean Tartars. It didn't get too much press in the West, but in the spring of 2014, the Crimean Tartars, a Turkish ethnic minority, attempted to do to Russia and the new Republic of Crimea what those two had done to the Ukraine. They declared their own autonomous state within the Crimea.Russian security forces quickly squashed that movement, and in doing so, managed to incite the Turkish Republics and the minority Turkish populations living inside the Russian Federation. It was a low grade irritant to the Turkish people that would, in time, have dwindled into being yet another indignity, much like the Uyghur struggles for independence. By the dictates of Fate alone, it was the right irritant at the magic time for the Khanate.The Turkish people were being reacquainted with the clarion call of Pan-Turkish Nationalism. It was an idea that was over 100 years old and rather discredited in most circles, treated as an anthropological discipline, but not as a political ambition. But there were now three igniters for the Khanate Phoenix.The dismissive treatment of the Crimean Tartars was the smallest spark, yet also the most crucial in that it reminded your average Turk that for 100 years, they had been the victims of secular, oppressive regimes, the Soviets (Russian) and the Communist Chinese. That oppression was still living its fifteen minutes of fame.The second factor was the boogeyman of the West that had been burning bright-hot over the past twenty years, the Islamic Identity movement. It wasn't just fanatics running around the Syrian Desert, or the Afghan/Pakistan border. It was a strong undercurrent in the Muslim world that recalled the halcyon days of the Caliphate.The original Mongol Khanate hadn't championed any religious doctrine. It had been the Mongol-Turkish successor states that had turned Islam into a weapon to strike down their enemies. That was the history that Temujin and the Earth  and  Sky were embracing. This was both a jihad and a struggle to reassert their ethnic identity.The Russian Federation had arrogantly discarded Turkish appeals. Turkish nationalists were incensed, but they were never big fans of Russia anyway. It was the commuters on their way to work who found this utter dismissal to be insulting. It was the Imams who spoke out against still more sectarian oppression. It was the journalists who wrote a few scathing articles about the new Russian imperialism.When that tiny core of Earth  and  Sky seized power in those four countries, their power was more ephemeral than substantive. The important factors working against them were that they had relatively little power in those countries and no organized political support. (They had been a secret society, after all.) What they did have going for them was an antsy, dissatisfied public and an on-edge military.Remember, the Chinese had launched a series of apparently unwarranted attacks into their nations only forty-eight hours ago and had given these countries some trumped up claims of combating terrorism. The militaries of Kazakhstan and Mongolia discovered that they were at war before sunrise. Not knowing the score, unengaged PLA border units began clashing with their Mongolian and Turkish counterparts.In War as in Love, the same rules held true. The quality of your 'game' was secondary to who approached the girl first. If the girl was on the prowl, you were the answer to her desires. Unless the second guy to show up was remarkably superior, she'd stick with the one who recognized her qualities first.Girls are not nearly as shallow and superficial as guys would like to believe. Unless she's looking for a three-way, she'll take the guy she feels is the least likely to stick with her for the night, rather than become a date-jumper herself. (If she is a party girl, all bets are off.) For the militaries of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, they were about to be that 'second guy' to get to Lady Victory if they didn't get moving.If they hesitated much longer, they knew they'd get clobbered. The unknown person talking to them from the Ministry of Defense was saying that their countries were at war. Shots were being fired. If those generals and colonels had believed there was still time for rational discourse, they would have realized they were engaging in madness.But every second that passed increased the likelihood of planes being caught in their bunkers, runways being cratered, their troops being caught in their barracks and their reserves left unarmed in their homes. The Khanate was broadcasting that a State of War existed. The legitimate governmental infrastructure hadn't adjusted yet, so those militaries went into 'pre-emptive' strike mode.[End World News]So the UN was meeting in Special Session, trying to figure out what had gone wrong in Central Asia. The UN representatives of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan didn't know what was going and as seasoned diplomats, they kept their mouths shut. Only four people in the UN knew the real score.One was my old friend, Oyuun Tömörbaatar, Kazakhstan's Permanent UN Representative. He was fresh off the jet back to New York and most likely, the Khanate's silent ambassador. The other three didn't include the US. No, two of them were Sir Grant, Her Majesty's Representative, and David Donoghue, Ireland's Representative and member of the Illuminati, the O'Shea faction.There also was yet another 'slight problem'. The former Mongolian Representative seemed to have vanished and his Youth Panel Advisor was handing over his own bona fides, which no one at the UN could confirm because the Mongolian Capital, Ulan Bator, was in the midst of a regime change. Until then, Tuguldor Batjargal could speak and talk, but not vote.That news wasn't all that relevant to the Amazons. To the US and the Brits, it was critical. The US Cabinet was still assembling and had no specific orders for their UN Ambassador yet, so it fell to the United Kingdom to make the first move. From the minimal expressions Delilah and Chaz were slipping our way, the Amazons were getting 'Brownie Points' with at least one world government.I had little doubt I was gaining status in Temujin's eyes too. I had delivered diplomatic contact in less than eleven hours, even if it was the British, and not the Americans, putting forth the first feelers. I was soul-sick looking over at Katrina and Elsa. They respected my pain by not congratulating me on a successful diplomatic stratagem.St. Marie had already honored my initiatives by agreeing to send help to the ninja. I doubted such a mission was in the Amazon War Plans Manual. In their past, Amazons always fought alone. Even allies were little more than different factions fighting the same enemy. In the past two weeks that had changed.By my interpretation of events, the Augurs had bound us to the Earth  and  Sky. By conception, I was tied to the Illuminati. I had manipulated my birthright via Vranus to intertwine the blood of House Ishara with that of the 9 Clans. Was I making a difference, not only within my Amazons, but to the World at large?Maybe I was. I would have been happier if I wasn't being such a spaz, stumbling from one encounter to the next, hoping I was doing the right thing. I would have settled for doing the least harm. To survive this, I had to get back to my roots, ambitious playboy. I was going to let people down because of my sexual ambitions. Okay.If I suddenly began to embrace traditional Western morality it was going to break me. I had to prioritize. I was giving women, trapped in the ghostly place between the outside World's secularism and Amazon spiritualism, immortality. I had two unborn daughters and one unborn son who might actually want me around as they grew up."Cáel?" Helena beckoned me. I hadn't heard her come in. I had no idea she was here, which implied another disaster had befallen people in life I cared about. She foisted a box on me. It was wooden, about 30cm x 30cm x 10cm. It had a simple latch that I flipped so that I could look inside. Inside was,"We, the Isharans, decided that if you are going to make a pledge to this outsider woman, then you should give her something of us," she explained. "We were unaware of you making other arrangements, so three of us examined a few of the artifacts Krasimira had transferred to Havenstone and decided on this."I put the box down on the side table. The necklace inside was beautiful, fragile and ancient-looking."It was the gift of a Parthian princess to an Isharan Emissary from, we think it is from the 2nd century," Helena explained. She meant 2nd century CE.The artifacts transferred must have been from the repository of the Amazons, location unknown, that had been held in the Isharan vaults. My House had anticipated my mind-splitting day and selected an engagement gift for Hana Sulkanen."The small selection of rings was unpromising, so, we figure she knows you are unconventional," Helena shrugged.I began crying. I hugged her, then motioned Buffy over to share in the 'family' moment."You are getting married?" CIA Officer Cresky ruined the mood."Yes. I proposed marriage to Hana Sulkanen and she has accepted, but circumstances interrupted my search for the ring," I interlaced deceptions with the truth.I did not mention the timing of the arrangement in order to buy Hana some time to prepare for the CIA rectal probes coming her family's way. I had forgotten the company I ran with."Officer Cresky, if I may?" Chaz spoke in a smooth, yet lethal intonation. "I suggest you circle-file that bit of data." Cresky looked his way, still so sure he knew better than the rest of the room."Very well," Chaz nodded to Cresky. "Before you trip over your own arrogance, think about what we are doing here? Highly equipped mercenaries operating without concern for legal prosecution, bio-terrorism on a scale to rival the European colonization of the Americas, and a military conflict on your soil involving perhaps seven hundred well-armed, experienced light infantry and Special Forces, does any of that ring a bell?""Thank you for that summary, Mr. Whoever-You-Are," Cresky smirked. That lasted about two seconds before FBI Agent Vincent stepped over and landed a painful Gibb-slap (that is from NCIS) to the back of Cresky's head. "What the fuck!" Cresky spat as he stood up, spun around and began to draw down on Vincent.Whoa, we are a fast crowd. Cresky's sixth sense kicked in just in time to realize every Amazon, two of the three Brits, two of the Illuminati and Virginia all held guns pointed at him. Vincent hadn't even bothered to defend himself."Everyone put their guns away," I stated calmly."Let me shoot him," I added with a vicious gleam in my eye. "I've got diplomatic immunity.""Good point," Delilah responded gleefully. "Chaz, go get some of those curtains. We'll used them as a drop cloth. I'll call housekeeping.""I like this plan," Buffy jumped in. "I think we can stuff his body in the refrigerator.""I'll make sure to leave a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door when we leave," Helena finished up our murderous conspiracy. They weren't done with Cresky. Color Sergeant Chaz Tomorrow strode purposefully to the closest drapes and yanked them down with no effort."I'm afraid I can't let you do this," Vincent extended a palm to Chaz.I couldn't begin to describe how stupid that was, had Chaz not been a consummate professional. He dropped the curtains, moved past Vincent and returned to his station by the MI-6 leader who was continuing an unbroken telephone conversation. No sooner had we re-holstered our firearms,"Sulkanen eh?" Senior Field Officer George Cresky looked back at me.The entire time Deidre, Riki, Javiera, Katrina and Captain Moe were on their phones, giving and receiving information from their various organizations. That explained the lack of refereeing from the people with authority, unless you counted on me to be in charge. No one was. The ATF guy had open his laptop and was streaming some data with Elsa looking over his shoulder.The ICE agent was playing phone tag with his brethren in Arizona. They were trying to figure out who all those dead Chinese guys were and how they had gotten into the country, with all their freaking armory. With old Jonas still waiting for his bail hearing, the ICE guy was also juggling the Homeland Security inquiries that Javiera couldn't deal with at the moment."George," I shrugged. "I'm not going to threaten you. It is pointless. You think you are the smartest man in the room. I think you are the fifth smartest and that's only because I've recently experienced a lobotomy that gifted me with five thousand years of life experiences. My money is on Katrina being smarter than Javiera, but I don't really know her yet.""Who do you think is fourth?" George scoffed."Riki, of course, moron. I only rate her below Javiera and Katrina because she even remotely believes I might be Irish," I chuckled."No, I don't," Riki corrected me in a brief interlude in her phone conversation."What about me?" Delilah mused."If you were smarter than me, you would be halfway to Heathrow by now," I pointed out."Damn it!" Delilah snapped her fingers, conceding me this round."Agent Loire, I see you aren't arguing with him," Virginia prodded her colleague."I learned some time ago that I don't need to possess the highest IQ to get the job done. Smart people screw up just as often as dumb ones," Vincent related. "I'm a big believer in common sense and the remarkable ability for most people to ignore it.""Thank you for that wisdom, Sir," I bowed to Vincent. "I'm glad today hasn't been a total waste.""You are saving lives," Virginia brought up. By the looks I was getting from the 'talkers', they agreed with her. I didn't."By all means, when I've actually saved a single soul, let me know," I countered unhappily."Wakko Ishara," Wiesława got my attention, "we need to be going."Making it to Hana on time was on my wish list, so I gave the various female authorities a quick acknowledgement, grabbed the box, and then made for the door. For a split second, I almost made it out the door with only two bodyguards (Wiesława and Saku), almost."Cáel? Where do you think you are going?" Buffy inquired.I was head of a First House of the Amazon Host, a Prince of Hungary, a diplomat from the Pugnacious Nation of Ireland and, a prospective sex toy to the Illuminati."Run for it!" I urged my two companions as I raced past them."Son of a Bitch!" Buffy yelled after me. "Get him!"I really am a bad influence on most of the people I meet. And the three of us were safely ahead of the pack until I had to stop to pound on the elevator button. The reactions of Nikita and Skylar saved me. Nikita put her hand on her piece and took two steps my way. Skylar turned the other way, trying to figure out what we were running from.Buffy collided with her, became tangled up and they fell over together. Helena, coming right behind Buffy, leapt over those two and ended up impacting with Nikita. Helena landed face-first on Nikita's back. Wiesława, Sakuniyas and I fled into the elevator and hit a button for a lower floor."What are we doing?" Wiesława inquired in a nervous tone."I don't want to walk around with a freaking army, Wiesława," I confided. "I want to have a bit of intimacy when I meet with Hana.""Why didn't you tell our sisters that?" she reposted."Would they have listened?" Saku snorted. "Amazon, would you have listened if he insisted you stay away?""I, " Wiesława looked from Saku to me then back to me. "No, but why are we running away from his 'First'?""Child, this oddity I understand," Saku studied me. "Before battle, we would kick the heads of dead enemy scouts around to ease the tension. It was a nonsensical thing to do before facing death. Whatever else I dislike about this one," she gave me a sign of her approval, "he does not shy away from the fight, nor deludes himself into thinking a fight is not coming.""He is easing his nerves," she concluded."That is the nicest thing you've ever said about me," I gave her a respectful nod."I was wrong to doubt you were the grandson of Alal," she explained. "That was one of the things that drew me to him, I loved battle too much and he loved it not at all. We complimented each other."The elevator opened up on the tenth floor and off I ran. The Odd Couple was on my heels."Where are we going?" Wiesława asked."The service elevator. There must be fifty people in the lobby waiting for us and I'm not pulling a Butch and Sundance," I huffed. Those two didn't get it. Pamela would have.Not only did I have to find the service elevator, but I had to find someone in Facilities or Housekeeping because this elevator wasn't for guests and had its own key code. I found the elevator first. The doors opened. It was Pamela."How the?" I huffed as I jumped on board."Rachel fitted you with a tracking device, Chumley," Pamela joked. The four of us were heading down into the bowels of the hotel and, hopefully, an unguarded exit."Damn it!" I groused. "Tennessee, you need to keep me abreast of such things.""Don't Tux your tail between your flippers and waddle away," Pamela chortled."This isn't nearly as much fun when they don't get it," I reminded her."Be patient," Pamela snickered. "I'm sure their curiosity is eating them alive."

Promises To Keep. In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected.. Note to readers: There is a bit of mangling of the Iliad going on. My apologies to Homer and the countless singers before him who carried the Iliad down through the dark centuries until the Greeks figured out how writing works. “Never judge a friend by what they give, but of how much of themselves they give.” (From the floor of Katrina's office) First thoughts,  I was on the floor where I had fallen, surrounded and being manhandled in the tenderest way. That was a romantic means of relating to my mummification. Those little Band-Aids that had been applied when I woke up from my coma had failed the 'Cáel is a Smeckle-head' test. All the crud they had pumped into my system and amperage they had channeled through my muscles was not the same as eating and exercise. Having a sexual romp with two ladies? My Goddess made plans for my body that my caloric bank account couldn't afford, thus me passing out. Unlike my time with Miyako and Estere, I had a feeling my two sofa-buddies were ovulating. Fatherhood was on the way. How my infant would survive the continuous poisonous assault on the augur's lymphatic system was beyond me. Her guardian, let's just say I dealt with sneaky bitches/Dot on a regular basis and leave it at that. "He is awake," Tadêfi alerted the room. "You must leave so I can deliver my message to him in the privacy he requested." "I am almost done," a different Amazon voice stated. She was the medico dealing with my wounds. By the aroma, she had slathered on two coats of the healing goo that was becoming as comfortable to my nostrils as my soap-on-a-rope. A few more rounds of adhesive tape and the exodus from the room began. I hadn't opened my eyes because I was unprepared for the looks of anger, disappointment and concern surely leveled my way. The door shut and my eyes opened. "The Conqueror, the Champion, the Friendless and the Foe have all escaped the Land of the Endless Black Sands and returned to the Sunlit Realm," Tadêfi whispered upon my lips. Huh? That was it? Seriously, four freaking titles without, And here came the rest, faces. Faces with eyes and eyes with a purpose. Names, not names I wanted to hear at the moment. Bad fucking news all around. It couldn't be something helpful like the identity of the next High Priestess, No, that would be good fucking news. Okay, time to turn this frown upside down. I could make this work for me. How, I wasn't sure. "Thank you," I responded to Tadêfi's plea of understanding. Outside of having impregnating sex with me, the Sex-Master, Timothy was going to Nerf-shoot me for that, she'd endured spiritual, mental and physical grief and torment to be with me here today. She waited, kneeling beside my head. "Kiss me," I requested. It was a moist act, full of compassion and understanding. I racked my mind for the names and their importance. "Who was Shammuramat?" "I don't know, but this helps, right?" Tadêfi expressed her need to make the reward for the sacrifices to make sense. Five dead sister-augurs. They had to find that son-of-a-bitch! "Tadêfi, we are back in the fight," I grinned. "You and your sisters have given the Host a mighty weapon in the upcoming struggle." I knew that to be true because I knew who and where the Conqueror was, I knew he wasn't ready to be revealed, his enemies were closing in and he was ignorant of that fact. I was going to have to rain on his parade to save his life. The five augurs hadn't died futilely. The Weave of Fate had shielded the man and it took the augers' fanatical devotion to cut the threads and expose the truth the Host needed most. The Champion, hell, I knew who he was. I chuckled. Tadêfi was confused. The Champion was coming to kill me, me and a bunch of other Amazons, because blood feuds tend to run both ways. The Foe. He was easy enough. Granddad. The Bastard just wouldn't stay dead. I had a clue to what was going on now. I wasn't sure how useful that knowledge would be. Still, knowledge is knowledge. That thing crawling around inside my brain? No help there. That left Shammuramat. That name was familiar. Even when I finally placed it, I didn't understand her role in things. Why her? "Krasimira," I called out. I struggled to sit up and with Tadêfi's help, I did so. The Keeper and two guardians entered as well. One, Sikia, hovered over her companion/augur. "What is the link between Shammuramat and the Host?" I inquired. I saw no recognition in the Keeper's eyes. "She was the first ever "independent" queen of a nation-state, Assyria." Krasimira sat on the sofa and retrieved her tablet from inside her robes. She began working with the electronic history of the Amazon race. "9th Century BCE," I added. Slowly others migrated back into the room. Buffy, Katrina (not good and not happy), Elsa (really not good) and Desiree. Pamela leaned against the door sill, neither in nor out. Katrina sat behind her desk. The phone came out and whispered conversations began in earnest. I had shoved us straight into a war which looked like a free for all at the moment. No one trusted anyone. No one could afford to. I had to change that. The only saving grace was that it appeared no Secret Society had planned for the Protocols to abruptly end a week and a half ago. "Ah, I found it," Krasimira spoke up. Because I'm me, it was at that moment I finally realized that someone had put me in my biking shorts in an effort to provide me a modicum of modesty, with the benefit of blood being smeared on the inside. "She abandoned the Host, she was put under a death sentence for killing her twin sister who was chosen to lead House Anat over her." "Anat?" I queried. "The other dead First House," Krasimira sighed. "They were renowned for their berserkers. Some would drape themselves in the entrails of their enemies in the midst of battle to increase their ferocious appearance." "Oh, how sweet, what was Ishara known for?" I was surprised I'd never asked. "Ishara were the emissaries of the Host," Krasimira informed me. With the Amazon practice of killing embassies sent their way, the extinction of my house made much more sense. "What does this mean?" Desiree took charge of matters since Katrina was still busy on the phone. In a few short weeks, Desiree's prestige had definitely increased. Katrina was her sister in more than name now. "Where to begin,  Fine, why don't we refer to the Mycenaeans by their proper Amazon name?" Everyone but Buffy was glancing about nervously. "You used the name, didn't you?" Elsa rubbed the bridge of her nose, dreading the response. "Yes, " I answered. "Because no one warns him of shit," Pamela huffed. "You assume an Amazon education with no basis in reality. You act like he grew up with our fairy tales and phantasmal histories. Everyone in this room, but Buffy," she acknowledge my First, "knew he spoke our language and the accompanying risk. Still, no one warned him." "You didn't warn him," Desiree skewered Pamela with a glance. "Not my job, Buttons," Pamela chuckled. "I relish the rest of you being made to look like idiots too much to be useful to Cáel unless it really matters. So he invoked an ancient malediction. What is the worst that could happen?" "I'm going to make a huge deductive leap, am I the reason the Achaean hero Ajax and his boys are back from the dead and coming after us for some Ako-level vengeance?" I groaned. (That's the 47 Ronin for us Westerners) Silence. "That's not your fault, Sport," Pamela snorted. "Mano-man, was I a dumbass for doing nothing. I'll take the blame for that one ladies. Damn Cáel, you would have to pick the Unconquered One, wouldn't you?" "Who is this guy and why does he hate us?" Buffy interjected. Pause. "Our ancestors poisoned his wine so that, in his angry haze, he mistook his own men for his enemies and slaughtered them all, back during the Trojan War. Afterwards, he committed suicide in anguish over his crime, Death opened his eyes at the last, he saw our treachery and managed to curse us as he died," Krasimira informed the lot of us. "And my using that word brought him back? That sounds, weak," I grunted. "The word would not have been enough," Tadêfi comforted me. "There must have been some sort of rift in the curtain of Reality that allowed the others to slip through. I don't understand how, oh no," she gasped as the pieces came together. "I'm willing to believe that was the price of doing business," I petted Tadêfi's cheek. "Please enlighten us," Elsa grumbled. "I need to find the Earth  and  Sky ambassador and set up a new meeting. Using what Tadêfi has gifted me with and the sacrifice of her fellow augurs, I can secure an alliance for us if only I can make up for the whole stunt Troika played," I grinned. "Any ideas?" "We could call them," Pamela produced my phone. "Seems some lady named Hana Sulkanen has been trying for days to get in touch with you. She hunted down the owner of the necklace, they talked about your current physical state, courtesy of Odette, and the owner of the necklace has expressed a continued interest in meeting you, and only you. It would appear that they really don't trust the rest of our merry little band since your first disappearance." Hana, and here I had killed her step-brother, the one she despised. An unexpected benefit of civil discourse, my People's chance of survival had doubled. Pamela lobbed my phone and I caught it. "What of the other two?" Tadêfi pushed down on my euphoria. "Was the Foe dead as well?" A quick look at Pamela told me she knew the answer to that. "The Foe is complicated," I lied. "His return was an inevitability, so we count that as a draw. The Champion, bad news. Let's put Shammy in the 'maybe' column and the Conqueror is a win for our side." A Berserker Queen, fresh from the Underworld, who we were honor-bound to kill,  or the 'other lost heir to a dead House' that was going to make us cobble together some nonsense to bring her back into the fold. If I wasn't the male leader of a spiritually significant All-Girls social club/paramilitary outfit, I might have been daunted by my prospects of achieving the latter. "The thing going on inside your head?" Elsa asked. That explained her presence. My mental capacity was still suspect. Was I still me? Could I flip out with no warning? "It is still there. I still have no idea what happened to me, or what the results might be. This means I'm going into battle wounded and that's that," I stated. "Are you acting in the best interest of the Host," Elsa studied me. "I am not sure," I confessed after half a minute's introspection. "So many of you are fuck-nuts; I'm not sure what acting responsible is for this set," I added jokingly. "As it stand, you lack the authority to pass judgment on me, Elsa. I promise you that if I feel I'm losing control, I will turn myself in." "Saint Marie would feel better if you stayed here," Elsa insisted. "Is the SD declaring war on House Ishara?" Buffy rose to the challenge. "We (by that she meant my fellow Isharans) have discussed the matter and talked to our best neuroscientist. She cannot definitively tell us Cáel isn't Cáel, so there is no reason to constrain him." Whoa. In our best prospect's educated opinion I was not-not me. Legions of English teachers weren't going to like that. "I have the answer for that," Katrina spoke up. "I owe Cáel and I would pay that debt now. He expressed a desire to see my niece, Aya. Do you still wish that Cáel Ishara?" "More than ever, but the Council is meeting," I sighed. "Buffy is your (dead word spoken), your apprentice," Katrina suggested. "Appoint someone to stand with her." That was more than good advice. Buffy was a woman and, to those who knew of her, as fierce an Amazon as ever lived. That was what Katrina was telling me without telling me. "I choose Daphne Pile, if she will accept, to stand by Buffy's side," I announced. Buffy would need someone who was passionate for my cause and who spoke Old Kingdom Hittite. Buffy still didn't, and the chance of the Council speaking English on her behalf was non-existent. "That is Daphne of House Cotyttia," Pamela corrected me. Who Cotyttia was? I had no idea. I was stupid to think Daphne's actual Amazon surname was Pile. Daphne wasn't even around. Executive Services was functioning fine without me and that meant Daphne had a work queue. "The Thracian Goddess of Sex, Orgies, War and Slaughter," Krasimira gracefully filled in my ignorance. Another whoa, why wasn't she my matron goddess? Tadêfi hauled off and slapped me. The action seemed to take everyone, Tadêfi included, by surprise. "I don't know why I did that," Tadêfi wailed out in despair. I did. It didn't take telepathy to figure out what I had been thinking. To prove my point, Pamela laughed. I cupped Tadêfi's jaw. "Worry not," I cooed. "I had that coming, Dot Ishara," I dodged another one, "isn't happy with me right now." Recall, Tadêfi was hooked up to an old-fashioned party line with the Beyond. "Animaniacs," Pamela snorted. "I so love you. It is my deep and abiding pleasure to have you as my Grandson." "I'm not your grandson," I countered. "Well, I say you are. Now be quiet and accept the shame," Pamela's eyes danced with amusement. "That makes me, Daphne and Brielle incest," I pointed out. "Amazons don't have an incest taboo," Pamela retorted. Duh. They are all women, no chance of seven fingered, Cyclops babies. "Ah, women, misunderstanding and pain, Buffy, would you check out Quebec and see if I'm still wanted in that province for bestiality. It could be important later," I commanded. "Bestiality?" only one woman failed to mutter, sputter or exclaimed. "The complainant in question is not that pissed at you anymore," Katrina's rolodex mind kicked in. "I believe she expressed a desire to question you about some missing accoutrements though." My splitting headache meant I had to think about that, ah yes, her dress uniform. It was/had been Canada Day, thus her having an official function and thus me cheating with the girl from across the hall in the Mountie's bed. I'm an idiot alright and my ability to keep an eye on the clock needs improvement. My last image of her, frothing at the mouth (she was a tad more possessive than I had anticipated) as she screamed out insults in Quebecois French concerning my lineage, personality failings and the treasured parts of my anatomy. She punctuated various parts of that deranged episode by hurling articles of her clothing over the border at me as I turned (once I had good Ole US soil/pavement under my feet) and tried to get us back together. Yes, I had them, just not in my Box of Failed Romances. Acting on hopes of reconciliation, I had the uniform dry cleaned, placed in a dress bag, and the boots polished; both currently occupying space in my closet. At least the Alburgh-Noyan Crossing guards (it is a dual Canadian-American post) appreciated me evading/begging forgiveness long enough for them to see her in only her bra and panties. I imagine they didn't normally get much excitement there. "Katrina, " I began. "Yes, Maya forgives you too, though she scored an 'At Risk' for reliability. Anais sounded genuine," Katrina related. Anais was the Mountie. Maya was the Guyane Française university student from across the hall, the one I was caught cheating with. I had told her I was Anais's brother. Maya was also a super-exceptional cook. "Cáel Ishara, who are these women we are talking about?" Sikia demanded. 'We', that didn't take long. We were now a 'we', which in Amazon meant 'male, you're my property'. "I have a sideline job as an Amway distributor," I replied. "I give crappy customer service." "You give awesome customer service," Katrina riposted. "That's the problem." "Sikia, you are not the first Amazon Cáel has stuck his dick into. You are probably not the tenth," Elsa dripped with frustration. Quick count: Rhada, Buffy, Oneida and Gael, I was only going to count the penile-vaginal penetrations. "They are only numbers five and six, thank you very much," I defended myself. "So much for your 'intern, no sex' policy," Desiree muttered. "Cut me some slack, I work with stone-cold, Olympic level athlete foxes 24/7," I griped. "I am a sexual being too, I have needs." "What about the 'End of Internship' hunting shindig?" Desiree pulled a flawless 'Katrina'. "Oh, it is still on. With my 'do or die' learning curve, it is going to be so much more fun," I grinned. "And, okay, no more Amazon sex until then, sorry Rachel." "Except for house members," Buffy insisted. "No exceptions," Elsa demanded. "I'll keep an eye on him," Pamela resolved the issue. "No more Amazon boinking for him." She was such a liar. She was also a highly accomplished liar because everyone bought it. On with my life. Stage one: exit Katrina's office. Done deal, no problems. Stage two: set up meeting with the Earth  and  Sky. They wanted to meet on their ground. Since I was the uncertain factor in these negotiations, I agreed. I was bringing one, Pamela raised four fingers, four people with me. Who? Outside of Pamela, I had no idea. Stage three: going to medical and putting on my business suit, it was a new one and very, very nice. I was moving up into serious majestic magnate territory. I also picked up buddy number two, FBI Special Agent Virginia Maddox. Why had I chosen a federal agent to accompany me to a meeting between two secret societies? I hadn't a clue. Sometimes you have to roll with these things. In the lobby, I picked up number three, Delilah, Mom's MI-6 operative/baby-sitter. Compassionate, caring people were surrounding me all the time. It gave me this sensation of a 'down home' environment no matter where I went, if down home was Gaza, or Donetsk. I think my entourage/lifestyle observation teams had grown to encompass six cars. I was in no condition for riding my bike, so that recourse was denied me. Taxi? One, most were hard-working stiffs like my family who didn't deserve to be caught in a noontime, drive-by assassination attempt. Besides, with my luck I'd meet the guy from Qatar again, the one with the sister with cute eyes. That reminded me, I gave Nicole a call. "How are you doing?" she quickly inquired. "Good," I lied to a past master of shattering perjury. Pause. "I'm surrounded by girls with guns, tailed by your clients, some part of a Federal Task force and some people who I don't know yet. Hold on." I put my hand over my phone. "Delilah, are you packing heat?" I asked softly. She opened her jacket revealing paired revolvers in shoulder holsters. I didn't recognize them so the Brit gave me the 4-1-1. "Ruger Alaskans," she grinned. Bing! Now I recalled them. The girl who taught me to shoot once read some reviews of that beast on her laptop while I gave her a slow, passionate screw from behind. She became all hot and bothered, wiggling, squirming and generally having a grandiose time with my cock deep within. I repeat, this girl really loved guns, a huge cerebral G-spot for her. Oh yeah, the Ruger Alaskan is what you get if you are worried about Grizzly bears popping their heads through the tent flaps late at night. Delilah was probably packing 4 80's. Her guns would turn 250 kilograms of pissed off ursine into an excellent throw-rug in about two shots. In an urban environment,  well, maybe she thought the New York Giants were actually giants, or something like that. Two were overkill, unless you expected someone needing to borrow one. "Just checked. I remain the only one unarmed in my personal carnival of carnage, " my words trailed up to an unintelligible mumble. I was mumbling because suddenly four handguns were casually offered up for my use (Tiger Lily was holding one over her shoulder as she drove), in the same way you'd offer up some Nicorette to a man jonesing for a smoke. Rachel was kind enough to hand me my familiar Glock-22 and Ruger 38 caliber with their accompanying holsters. Two spare clips followed, then I stashed the lot. I scratched my calf. It took me a second to realize I was reaching for my pistol. No, not the one at my hip, or my ankle, but the one, in my boot? "Now that you've been handed firearms of dubious origin, can I get back to questioning you," the FBI agent intruded upon my ruminations. "We were discussing that list of people that are visiting a morgue instead of a court room. What can you tell me?" "Bye Nicole. Miss you. Being interrogated by a blonde FBI lady with a whips scar on her eyebrow and eyes that could scare a badger back into its hole. Later," I cut of my lawyer's fierce demand that I keep my mouth shut. "Nothing useful that wouldn't implicate myself and others in a criminal conspiracy," I answered her. "There is no way I'd name anyone else I suspect of involvement. I feel no guilt over what has happened, so no remorseful confession, and that is based on my belief that cosmic justice has been achieved." "You can't create lists of people for execution," Maddox persisted. "That negates the whole justice system and the principle of innocent until proven guilty." Wow! Except for the two of us, every other person in the car snorted their derision of Maddox's presumptive naiveté. "Do you even believe the tripe spilling from your pie-hole?" Delilah mocked Maddox. "I'm in law enforcement. That means I enforce the laws, not interpret them, or choose which ones I want to obey and which ones to ignore," Virginia fought back. "Love, that's crap and you know it. You are an agent of the US government. You bomb, drone-strike, overthrow lawfully elected governments and assassinate in your nation's best interests," Delilah countered. "You selectively enforce your Constitution when it suits you." "I'm law enforcement, not the military or foreign affairs. Know the difference," Maddox glared. "The pay master is the same,  you willingly collect your thirty pieces of silver; get off your high horse because you are in the shat now, Agent Maddox. I haven't known this crowd an hour and I know for a fact that you are the only US citizen onboard," Delilah chortled. "I don't know their bleeding nationality, but I doubt it is on the UN Charter." Maddox turned to me. "That was succinct and rather accurate," I murmured. "Special Agent Maddox, I have the sneaking suspicion that you are with us because FP (federal prosecutor) Castello feels you can handle this, Umm, unusual set of circumstance. I promise you this, it is going to get worse." "Why don't we test this quaint theory?" FBI Lass challenged us. "Jail, bail, and I'm waking up in Rio de Janeiro in two days," I sighed. "I have a few thousand in the bank, live in a hole and own my father's home, when it clears probate. Only you know I'm flight risk. A dozen people will vouch/lie about my character and that's that. All you've succeeding in doing is making enemies when you need friends." "There is still a matter of multiple people dead under suspicious circumstance," she said. "Imagine for a second that Cáel admits to creating a hit list," Pamela began. "He would never give up the names of the other people involved. He didn't kill anyone, or say 'kill them'. Now what? You still have an abysmal case to put before a judge. Add to that, the mitigating factor of a raped girl. You get to break her down until she's a cooperating witness because she's the only one who can provide you with Cáel's motive," my mentor continued. "Good for you and your team. She gets to betray the man who tried to save her. Cáel promised horrific retribution if any of those in the now-dead crowd hurt her. That is rather unlike him, he normally forgives when given the least excuse. I don't give a damn about women's rights, or the rights of rape victims. I really could give a shit about human rights for that matter. Wronging me is the surest way to early retirement. It is not a matter of strong versus weak, or right versus wrong. What matters to me is who I can trust. I don't know you, thus I don't trust you. I trust your government to be so much chicken shit. I base this on the lack of public torture and execution. I want the families of dying criminals paraded in front of those cock-suckers before the condemned finally perish in agony. I want to see thieves get their forearms hacked off, trial by combat, and respect for your elders. I want to see public officials being sacrificed upon the altar of Jehovah when they leave office. I want to see a system of justice with a soul, not law books thicker than an aircraft carrier's hull. A government 'of the People, by the People, for the People' should be the sole guiding force for your culture and we both know that's never going to happen. I admire your soldiers; not because they are brave and combat effective, they are. I admire them because they are fighting and dying for elected officials and a population that can't locate Afghanistan, or Iraq on a map, can't tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim, and thinks 'Pashtun' is an exotic piece of furniture. I admire them because they are better human beings despite you, not because of you," Pamela was coming to her crescendo. "Basically you people, by that I mean most of the human race, are dangerous in your idiocy, arrogance and pride in your ignorance. Not one of you should be allowed to use weapons, or play with fire. For you, unrestricted voting is a crime right up there with inventing, disease prevention, bilingualism and anything that perpetuates your educational system." "Lady, why are you so angry with the world?" Maddox studied Pamela intensely. I wished her luck with divining and then unwrapping that lady's mind. "I hold dear to my heart anyone's hunger to learn, honesty when it hurts and love no matter what the cost, so I find myself alone most of the time," Pamela grinned. "Above even those, I adore humor in the face of ridicule, condemnation and adversity. You can dodge bullets and parry knives. Humor always strikes home," she finished. "It is the perfect weapon." "Liar," I smiled. "You like high performance automobiles too." Did she? I didn't know. "Only with a 2X4 pressing the accelerator as it races toward the lip of a canyon," Pamela bantered back, "with Ursula K. Le Guin strapped in the back seat." "Who?" I inquired. "She's an author. I take exception to some of her work and unwillingness to appreciate the fusion of exceptional feminine characteristics with power positions," Pamela answered. "And your critique of her life's work is an exploding car at the bottom of a cliff?" I smiled. "Starting uncontrolled wildfires and littering, two of my favorite activities," she laughed. "I'll stick with blondes and brunettes, and red- and raven-haired, bald has its own appeal, green and purple have their own kink going on, " I joked. "Wait! We were talking about people being murdered and you two are cracking jokes?" Maddox rumbled. "I had a dream about tying them together with nylon cord and tossing them off the back ramp of a transport aircraft, and watching them fall, and fall," Rachel sighed dreamily. "Atta girl," I play-punched Rachel's shoulder. "What is your part in all of this?" Maddox turned to Rachel. "I'm the head of his bodyguard detail," Rachel gave her confession of the damned. "And you want to kill him, " Virginia struggled to keep up. "Given time, you will too," Rachel promised. "According to his pre-employment records, only one woman he's had a sexual relationship with hasn't wanted to at least hurt him," glaring at me, "badly." "The nun doesn't want me dead!" I vocally protested. "It is so wrong that you are proud that of over 200 women you've slept with, TWO have not, at some point in knowing you, wanted to maul you and one of those is in the 'forgiving' business," Rachel chastised me. Virginia had an answer for my madness. Her phone came out and she hit speed-dial, work. "Ms. Castello, this is Special Agent Maddox, do you have a moment?" Virginia calmly asked when she finally wrangled my current-favorite fed's attention. "You do now? Thank you. I'd like to know what the fuck have you done to me? This assignment is nuts. Either I'm part of some elaborate prank, or I'm in an S U V with escapees from the looney bin." Ten seconds later Maddox gave me the phone. "Stop it. I've upheld my end of the bargain, so behave," Javiera ordered. Man, she'd shot me straight to the core and we hadn't even slept together yet. Clever, clever girl. "Yes Ma'am," I swore. "I'll do my best to buffer Special Agent Maddox from the truth." "I'll have to accept that," Javiera conceded. "Give Maddox the phone back." A brief conversation later and Maddox was no better off than when she started. Thankfully we parked in front of the Kazakhstan Consulate in New York, giving us all an excuse to face facts. Maddox was feeling compelled to ask questions she didn't want the answers to, and that we didn't want to answer. Saved by work. "Kazakhstan Consulate? Why are we here?" both Virginia and Rachel asked. "Oh! This is going to be good," Pamela leaned forward excitedly. "Change the course of human history," I answered with a great deal of confidence I didn't feel. See, I had knowledge critical to the Earth  and  Sky. That knowledge was also something they wanted kept compartmentalized, so they might take exception to it being possessed by an outsider. Oh,  so that's why Pamela earlier insisted on four ladies being with me, so we could shoot our way out if things turned ugly. I hugged my mentor. "Thank you, Pamela." "You are coming along nicely, Mr. Potter," Pamela patted my cheek. "Your praise leaves me suspicious, Professor Snape. Besides, if I'm going to die, it helps me to know you'll go first ." "That was uncalled for," Pamela chided me. It was the 'Snape' role she rejected. "Snape gave up his life for Harry, Dumbledore died for Draco," I countered. "Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that," Pamela shone with joy and pride. "You act like I have a choice," I sighed. "Touché," Pamela nodded. "I see what you mean about these two," Maddox addressed Rachel. "Oh my God," Delilah laughed. "You wove Harry Potter into a life and death conversation and it made sense. I am probably going to die, but I'll die knowing I have lived." "Not you too?" Maddox glared at Delilah. Rachel just shook her head. We exited the car, settled ourselves out. Rachel took point, Delilah took one flank while Pamela took the other. By happenstance, I ended up in the middle, yeah right, with Virginia covering my back. "You stay here," Pamela put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "You'll need to lead the team in if someone 'pumps up the volume'." Interesting euphemism for 'when people start killing people'. "What are we doing today?" Miyako 'appeared'. She'd been walking down the sidewalk toward us, the Kazak Consulate was a townhouse, but her presence hadn't registered. "I require your pledge of silence on what is to transpire. No death is intended," I stated calmly to Miyako. "I didn't know you were versed in ninja contracts, much less spoke Japanese?" Miyako responded. Blink. "I didn't know I spoke it either, " I mumbled. "No sweat," Pamela tried to hustle us along. "He's a quick study." Yeah. I didn't feel it apropos to point out I hadn't heard myself speaking Japanese, or understood that my words had some secret meaning. "How important is this to my people?" Miyako asked. Now that I was paying attention to it, I could make out that she was speaking in her native tongue. "If they don't think we can be trusted to not speak of what is to transpire for a week, they are going to kill us," I related my suspicions. "My mind and heart are joined in this decision." "I give you my pledge," Miyako nodded. She looped her arm in mine. "Does anyone care to enlighten me?" Maddox prodded. Whoa. It seemed that, beside me and Miyako, only Pamela spoke Japanese. "Special Agent Maddox, no matter what, don't give up your gun, when we say run, run, and shoot to kill because they will be trying to kill us," I informed her. "Does the term 'extraterritoriality' mean anything to anyone here?" Maddox snapped. Her nervousness was totally understandable. I stopped at the top of the steps, looking over my shoulder. I nodded. Pamela, Delilah and Miyako nodded as well. "Hold on, I can't believe I'm saying this. Does anyone have a back-up I can use?" Maddox groaned. Rachel quick-stepped forward and handed over a 22 automatic pistol then a spare clip with a smooth, practiced motion that suggested that SD swapped weapons all the time. Maddox didn't miss the casualness of the gesture. The firearm and magazine disappeared. "Fine, we will never discuss the laws we just butchered, ever, and if I die and any of you make it out alive, I will seek revenge at whatever cost FROM WHEREVER I AM," FBI girl growled. "One of us," Pamela smirked at me as I touched the doorbell. It opened promptly. We weren't on a crowded street, we were on their stoop and a security camera was pointed right at us. We were invited in and two rather Caucasian-looking gentlemen (Kazaks are a mixed bag of Turks and Cumans) were waiting with the doorman. They looked tough in that they took personality lessons from saddle leather. "You will place your weapons there," the more charismatic of the two spoke up. He was pointing to a side table that looked large enough for the task. "No," was the most courteous response I could muster. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look much like he was breathing, or blinking either. "Go," he pointed to the door. I looked to Pamela. "Well, that didn't take long," I grinned. I felt out the necklace under my shirt and pulled it over my head. "Please return this to its owner in the spirit it was given." He took it. The doorman opened the door and out we went. Rachel was back in our GL550, using the door as possible cover. She said we could take our seats and away we rolled. Maddox looked apoplectic. She had prepared herself for the Wild, Wild West, not a doe-see-doe at the door. In her mind, I had wound her up for nothing. My phone rang. "Cáel Ishara, there seems to have been a diplomatic miscommunication," a male native Turkish-speaker said in heavily accented English. "The person you are meeting must be approached in the spirit of peace." "No, I understood you perfectly," I assured him. "We aren't the Brownies, or the Girl Scouts, Buddy. I don't know, or trust you and you don't know, or trust me, yet. I will compromise though. I will respect your traditions. I will enter your home unarmed. In turn, everyone in the building will line up outside on the street except for the person I'm supposed to meet. Is that acceptable?" Pause. "Do you hate these people, or like them?" Maddox grumbled. "With you, I can't quite tell." "That would not be acceptable," the man finally responded. "Perhaps an alternative. You come in, alone yet armed." "Nope. Due to the efforts of people far smarter than me, I know pretty much who I am meeting, so I am either very rude, insane, or bear a message that is worth my life," I countered. "Your personal safety is guaranteed," was the counter-offer. "That is a false promise, not because you lack honor, or respect for me, but because you are from a wise and noble lineage with a historical propensity of cutting to the heart of any problem." By that, I meant they'd cut my heart out. "What I expect is for every one of you to hold the future of the Earth  and  Sky above any such concepts as personal promises, hospitality, and honor. I am even putting my faith in your willingness to put the survival of the Earth  and  Sky over your own well-being," I riposted. "If the message is so crucial, you should be willing to come alone," back at me. "It isn't important to me," I stated. "Listen, a war is about to break out. Unless we both want to be found all alone in the outhouse masturbating when the headsman comes, one of us has to blink. Today, it is you. Tomorrow you may be able to return the favor and mess with my head." Pause. "Your koumiss is getting warm." "We'll be right there. We apologize for the delay. Traffic is murder these days, or a close facsimile thereof," I gave a little back in the humility department. "Tiger Lily, " "On it, Ishara, Wakko Ishara. I've been circling the block," Tiger Lily had anticipated my antics. Sure, I acted like I had no game plan, but I never wasted people's time. Maybe if I developed an actual game plan I could do even better. "Wakko Ishara?" it was Delilah's and Maddox's turn to share a 'what the?' moment. "May I explain the sacred names?" Rachel requested of me. "I have a feeling these two might become a fixture." "By all means, Rachel. Our trust runs deep," I trusted Rachel with more than my life; I trusted her with my future. "Wakko, as in you're the nutty one?" Delilah made a stab at our arcane nomenclature. If you use small words does that make it gnomenclature? Pamela winked at me, psychic twin grandmother powers activate! "We need complementary rings," Pamela remarked. Sweet! "Cáel Ishara is differentiated as Wakko Ishara, Ishara, first of House Ishara, is Yakko Ishara, and, " Rachel began. "The Animaniacs? Your code names are the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot?" Maddox gasped. "You are beyond nuts." "And the Goddess Ishara is named, by House Ishara and House Ishara alone," Rachel made some warding appeal against divine punishment, "as Dot Ishara." Maddox's face shown with disbelief. "Following Cáel Ishara into battle has been one of my greatest pleasures," Rachel stared at Maddox. "I never knew insanity could be so liberating, or that laughing at death could be such an aphrodisiac." "When did you two go into battle?" Delilah wondered. "In a morgue, fighting to retrieve the body of his fallen father so that our enemies could not desecrate it," Rachel explained. Ah, the walls of Troy, fighting over the spoils of the dead. "You mean when I face-planted?" I grinned at Rachel. "Even without a weapon, your instincts were good, forcing our enemy to commit to multiple angles of coverage even though your efforts were foiled by a footing failure. Your rushing their leader was even more heroic in that you were unarmed and using your body as a decoy, knowing your enemy's superior skill would stop him from shooting you," Rachel smiled my way, sex. "Let me get this straight," Miyako finally spoke up. "You charged an enemy unarmed then stumbled and failed. They were armed?" "Yes, with a 3 57 Magnum revolver and a 10 gauge sawed-off automatic shotgun, in tight confines and close range, oh, and no cover." Maddox replied, then to me, "I read the report." "Then you repeated the action a few minutes," Miyako. "Less than a minute later," Maddox clarified. "A minute later, wow! You are as fearless as we've heard. Please don't die before we have a baby," Miyako gave me a quick hug. If you cover a zeppelin with uranium paint, can it still fly, or does it sink to the center of the Earth? Ninja babies, We had returned to the stairs at the Consulate. This time the door swung open upon our approach. "Is there some drug you are all taking to bask in this shared fantasy life?" Maddox mumbled. "One of us," Pamela retorted. "One of us." "One of us," I joined in. It helped cut the tension. The bodyguards were present right where we'd them last time. They ushered us up the stairs to a second floor sitting room that ate up half the floor. There were two men there; radiating that subtle assurance that a half-dozen killers were close by. The man standing was Iskender, the E and S emissary from Dad's funeral. I broke all decorum, strode to the man, locked arms, hugged him tight and patted him on the back. "Thank the spirits you are here," I whispered, "all this lack of dick is making me a bit stir-crazy." "Ah, yes, it is good to see you again too," Iskender imparted as we broke our embrace. His boss, the guy on the sofa, shot me and my Kyrgyz buddy a sharp look. The Main Man was clearly Mongolian and must have thought blank, white walls exhibited too much empathy. "Koumiss," the boss offered. I sipped it from a simple, yet regal drinking mug that probably hit the kiln 200 years ago. "Mare, or yak?" I inquired as I handed the cup around. Iskender came first, but it was clearly my intention that we all partake. It was more a matter of the host's pledge of sanctuary than me wanting to share the koumiss. It tasted like thin, lightly chilled, bitter beer with a vanilla-almond milk shake-chaser. "Mare, of course. Please sit," he offered. He defined the suggestion by slipping off the sofa onto the layered carpet rug. He was semi-reclined, so we followed suit. "We should pray for the protection of the spirits," was the suggestion that wasn't a suggestion. It was his itinerary. He clapped his hands and from beyond a curtained partition came this really sensual Mongolian chick carrying a large brass bowl. She flicked her eyes at me and an instant connection was formed. She liked to bark like a dog under the full moon, okay, I'm not sure where that came from. "Nice woman," I told the leader. "She looks like she has seen many winters." Whoa! Where the fuck did that come from? I got a shocked reaction from Iskender. The Leader looked pissed, if a flake of paint on the white wall indicated anger. The girl blushed like what I said was an incredible turn on. "She is my daughter," the Leader pointed out. Way past swallowing my foot. My ankle was tasty. "My name is Oyuun Tömörbaatar. My faithful Iskender, you know. This is my daughter T. Sarangerel. She is studying at N Y U and is not entertaining marriage proposals at this time," he slapped down his boundaries. Somehow 'I only want to sleep with her' didn't sound like the right response. Wait! Saying his 'daughter had many winters' was a marriage bargaining opening move. What the fuck! "What I meant was that surely many men have died trying to come before you," I back-pedaled. More happy looks from the daughter. More paint peeling from the dad. Pamela made sure more koumiss was going around. Getting drunk could hardly hurt at this juncture. Sarangeral placed the bowl between us. It was filled with clear, cold water undoubtedly collected from a mountain-fed glacier. "Let us cleanse our hands in the water so that we may speak with clarity," O. Tömörbaatar said. We dipped our fingers and, for a second, I saw him. Not 'O', but HIM. "It is good to finally meet you Ferko Ishara Cáel Nyilas," the man said. My Spidey senses told me he was feeling less 'good' about this meeting every second. "How can your people and mine better get along?" 'Let me impregnate your daughter', would probably get my skull split open. "No time for that," I replied. "I know where HE is. The Seven Pillars have found a way to search the Weave and are closing in. You must act with haste." Whether it was disbelief, or old schooled Ku Chun in the art of gambling, the older man gave no outward reaction. "Where is he?" O. Tömörbaatar asked in a gentle tone. "I can do you one better," I steeled myself for the unknown forces I was invoking. I put my hands on the bowl's lip and looked in. Several seconds later, he did as well. For a moment, nothing. It was like a ripple in reverse. The first earth tremor I barely noticed. The ripples grew and grew until I felt the whole row of townhouses would come crashing down. Wind snapped the locks on the windows, flinging them wide open and tearing at the curtains like streamers in a hurricane. Then we saw HIM clearly. HE stopped driving this old, beat-up Peugeot and was pulling to the side of a desolate stretch of highway. HE could sense something yet couldn't pinpoint the source of his unease. We definitely got the impression this wasn't his first taste of this experience, the Seven Pillars. He was young, maybe my age. He looked like an educated man turned vagabond/boundless traveler. HIS eyes, his eyes had a depth that were a microcosm of what I'd glimpsed in Ishara, Dot Ishara's unshielded glance when we first met. All lingering doubts vanished in my mind. "I know that place," O T muttered, his eyes fixated on the only feature in the vacant expanse, a road sign, in Chinese. Yikes. "I know that place." The image faded. Our meeting venue was intact. Whatever I felt transpire, I had shared with O. Tömörbaatar alone. "You have work to do," I stated as I cleared my throat. "I will leave you to it." I stood. "What do you wish for this gift?" O T reached out and touched my sleeve. "When the time comes, maybe you can help us," I replied. "A man who asks for nothing can expect anything," O T smiled for the first time. "Go." I did not take a fear-free breath until the cars started up and we pulled away. He'd let us live. Even with that priceless piece of magical insight, he'd let us live. "I'm still stunned we got out alive," I sighed. "I wasn't really sure he'd take the news as well as he did." No one said anything for a minute. "Why would he have killed us?" Delilah inquired. "You, I understand. I don't know what you communicated to that young lady, but the old guy wasn't happy about it. He was going to kill us over that?" Pause. "What did the rest of you see and hear?" I looked around the cabin. Pamela appeared worried. "I didn't know you spoke Chagatai," Miyako smiled at me. "You are full of surprise. I only caught a word, or two, and none of it made sense." "MRI," I groaned. "Magnetoencephalography," Pamela said in the same breath. "Mine is better, Boyo." "What is going on?" Rachel upped her alertness level. "We need to take Cáel to a hospital that has a Magnetoencephalography device," Pamela insisted. "He's spontaneously speaking languages he didn't know moments earlier, " Maddox put things together first. The rest nodded at her assessment. "We'll need to have his records from Havenstone sent over as a baseline." Poor Virginia, the absurdity of my life was sucking her in. "I'll call Katrina," Rachel informed us. I was a mental case once more. At least my input was still being solicited. "How many guns do you have on you?" Pamela zinged me. The answer was obvious, two. My Glock and my back-up. That didn't seem right. "Ah, two?" I responded. "Yeah, something is happening to your muscle memory as well," Pamela shook her head. "What exactly does that mean, and what's wrong with Cáel's brain?" Delilah studied the group. "It means he could spontaneously pull out his gun and start shooting us?" Pamela confessed her uncertainty. "I don't know. We'd better figure out which impulses are his guiding light right now before that happens." "I don't even know how to begin reporting this," Maddox muttered. "Cheer up. Our Cáel is still currently in charge. Did you appreciate how he lured in that young Mongolian girl? That's classic Cáel," Pamela comforted the crowd. I was saved from a straightjacket because I was a 'Playa'. (Meadowlands Medical Center in far off New Jersey) I'm not political. For me, that means I am completely and utterly dedicated to whatever doctrine that the cutest political campaigner in front of me endorses. Fifteen minutes on the internet and you can fake it like a pro. Be careful to be with the winning team when the results come in. Nothing makes a political chick go wild like sneaking into the candidate's office and screwing her on the newly elected/re-elected figure's desk. Let her scream out her idol's name. Odds are neither of you will be welcomed back afterwards anyway. Why politics now? Javiera called some people. I had a sneaking suspicion that someone I knew and trusted got in touch with my 'Aunts' as well. All I knew for sure was the Hospital's Administrator's phone began ringing off the hook and I'd become the hospital's number one priority. The hospital staff was visibly irritated with the clout raining down on their heads for about an hour. Once they digested my Havenstone records, all of that changed. Holy 'Published in The New England Journal of Medicine', someone had drilled a micro-surgical hole in my skull in the middle of a wrestling match with no resulting cerebral scarring. THEN this unknown device shot into my skull with pinpoint accuracy and pumped a ghastly amount of energy into my cerebrum. They were fascinated. They were so fascinated I heard two medical technicians mutter about where the Zombie Survival Guide could be found. They triple checked my vital signs, again. I was still as much alive as when I checked myself in. There was a rumor that a fire ax disappeared from a stairwell close by, but not one confessed to the deed. I was speaking in languages I had no reason to know? They were surprised I could contain my mouth drool. It was somewhat disheartening to hear three seasoned physicians discuss what probable scenarios could explain me still being in a non-vegetative state,  or alive for that matter. Some poor nurse had to ask. "Do you feel an unnatural, interest in human brains?" she whispered when she though no one was close by. "I'm not sure what you mean," I whispered back. "I always respect a woman's intelligence. Sex is a cerebral passion. What's the point if you can't communicate with your partner?" Pamela slapped me upside my head. That disturbed just about everybody else in the vicinity and my mentor was promptly exiled from the room. I was curious about what havoc she was perpetrating on this establishment. My condition had gotten her past all the heavy security and I knew without seeing that someone high ranking had misplaced their ID badge. Maybe Pamela was the love-child of Batman and Cat woman. Before you think that's comic fanboy talk, recall what my life was like at that moment. Tests ensued. The staff decided that Havenstone employed a bunch of quacks and snake charmers. Two hours later, they found out they were wrong. Larger battery of tests, same results. I was the second coming of Christ, back from the dead, or a zombie living in a convincing state of denial. Some folks wouldn't let that go. Pamela had proved to be prophetic. Her pet gizmo finally provided a new picture of what my neural pathways were up to. If there is any doubt, 'I've never seen that before' is not what you want to hear one of North America's experts in the field of neuroscience say. The first educated opinion was that I suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that meant I was hit in the head a lot. Normally that diagnosis comes in the midst of an autopsy. I was having paralytic seizures. They had me juggle a squeeze-ball, then two and finally three. My perfect performance frustrated them. Women find relatively simple carnival tricks to be seductive. Pluck a card from a girl's bra gets you both to some dark corner, hungrily looking for the rest of the deck, I speak from experience. Next up at bat: 'I was possessed', I shit you not. Holistic medicine was right on board with the team. Was I influenced by a supernatural power? Yes I was. So claimed the majority of people on Earth. Did I receive specific instructions? Yes, and so did practitioners of Voodoo/Vodun on three continents. I added that I attempted to evade said instructions when I could. Did I have 'evil' impulses to hurt myself, or others? Huh? For starters, my matron goddess was more of a 'fucker' than a 'fighter' and her instructions were always suitably vague, the same way a Philosophy professor would give you a ten word pointless sentence on Friday and expect you to have a 250 page doctrine on Monday morning. That hit home. Too many normally smart people take a philosophy class in college hoping for an easy-A. Some teachers love dissolving those delusion, sitting back and watching your hopes and dreams of task-free weekends go down the drain. The more obscure the discipline, the more perverse the desire. That is why you always pick a teacher of the opposite gender (if in doubt, use a gay/lesbian test) and keep 'sex for grades' on the menu. Was I suffering from optical illusions, or phantom noises? Straight to the point, yes, I saw and talked with ghosts. So did the Long Island Medium, the casts of Ghost Hunters, Paranormal Witness plus George Anderson and Chip Coffey. To my credit, I didn't do it for profit, or in order to influence people. Was I seeing ghosts now? I was in hospital, so odds weren't bad. I had every non-ghost raise their left hand. No ghosts. Was my paranormal dementia pre- or post-brain trauma? Did seeing a college student being called before his class and successfully accused of plagiarism on his senior thesis, turning him into one of the Restless Dead count? No? My 'disputed' abilities were all post-college employment, thank you very much. Did the ghosts possess me/tell me to do things? I was not possessed and, discounting sexual bondage and my current work venue, had never been possessed. From my limited exposure, ghosts wanted to not be alone in the afterlife, to be guided to a final resting place with others of their kind/family/friends. None had taught me languages, asked me to steal something, or kill anyone. Had any done so, I would have denied them. Such actions were immoral and I could still freely differentiate between right and wrong. I preferred to commit wrong on my own initiative and making me do good was a chore most sane people abandoned after a few days. I took a Rorschach test. The results were predictable because I had taken old 'R' several times before. Just like every other time, I'd mixed up sexual innuendo with a psychological test to seduce the test-giver,  everything reminded me of intercourse. I changed it up with this girl. I gave her numbers. Sometime after I was long gone, they were going to figure out the ink blots were numbered after whichever erotic positions from the Kama Sutra I was reminded of at the time. I knew that wasn't being helpful and I was certain I wasn't a brain specialist. I also knew Rorschach wasn't the key to solving my woes. Final remaining hypothesis, I was utilizing 30 % of my brain capacity with three independent patterns emerging, not the usual 5 %. For that to work, my brain had to be oozing out my ears because brains generate a terrific amount of heat. My temperature was a steady 37.3 C (99 F) and my ear channels were free of obstruction. Hey man, cleaning your ears is quick and easy. Don't risk turning off a date with misfortunately located ear-hair and wax. How was my brain shedding the heat? Their solution, let's do a Spinal Tap. No way. I'd seen that band and they were all extremely fucked up, even for old guys. I wasn't going down that road. They insisted. I suggested that I consent to the procedure with the condition that I received no pain killers/sedatives of any kind and I got to grab and hold onto the testicles of my two, current, least favorite doctors. When they realized I was deadly serious and immovable on the issue, they came up with a new plan, no Spinal Tap. Gutless sissies. Into this vacuum of information, a brainstorm emerged (besides my inexplicable one). They would talk to me, no more interrogations, an actual verbal exchange. They couldn't come over and start flapping their gums like some punk rock band with no talent. They were suddenly worried about 'concerning' me and 'agitating my unstable state'. I pray to Goddess Ishara that one day soon they play back the tapes of their early hours working on me and pay close attention to my facial expressions of shock, horror, fear and depression as they clearly and openly talked about me as if I was the Fiji Mermaid. But hey, a few of them were kinda cute, so in the final analysis all that emotional trauma worked its way out. Hospital highlights: (Understand, I was lying on a table while various specialists prodded and talked about me as if I wasn't there. To strike back at reality, I throbbed my penis every time this cute Parasitologist looked at it. Finally ) Female Chief of Neurosurgery: "Did anyone think to study changes in is body's nervous system?" (Guilty looks all around) Neuro Surgeon: "What are all these needle marks?" Havenstone Medico, "Those are muscle stimuli insertion sites. They kept his musculature from atrophying while he was in a coma." Neuro Surgeon: "Let me get this straight. This man had a lightning bolt go off in his head and part of your healthcare regimen was to run a constant current of electricity throughout the rest of his body." (Scathing looks at the Medico from everyone else, jackals) HM: "He has retained excellent muscle tone." Neuro Surgeon: "Have you even taken the Hippocratic Oath?" HM: (offended) "Of course not, he's Greek." Neuro Surgeon: "What does my patient being Greek have to do with anything?" HM: "Not him (pointing at me). Hippocrates, he was a Greek. Cáel is Magyar/Irish Gaelic." Neuro Surgeon: "Helpful, that's not. He seems to have a great deal of bruises and scarring, some of it certainly received over an extensive period of time. Is this your work?" HM: (in a positive note) "No. It has not been my pleasure to spar with Cáel yet." Neuro Surgeon: "Isn't he a bit, big for you?" &

Of Funerals and Families; Part Two. In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected.. “Birthed by stars, in immortal light, so why do we assume we pass into Darkness.” A maniac conducted the orchestra, while every section fought for dominance without a thought to the opera unfolding under its twittering cacophony. That is how it felt as I steeled myself for the service, but my musings were a fantasy. I had a swirling company of my twenty inductees, two Amazons, plus Rachel's detail and Esmeralda coordinating all the traffic. Pamela was absent. Buffy was the one in charge, deciding who got how close and under what level of scrutiny. The presence of law enforcement was made obvious by our vigilance, with mutual hostility being declared. The government was catching up with how they'd been screwed over. They couldn't prove a thing yet, although they had missed an entire day trailing after me. They also had new leadership. Pamela had expelled Theodora with the simple application of Conflict of Interest. Nicole and Pratt had joined me in my suite, so I was suitably armored when the Feds made their next run at me. I had stepped up in the world, so I was rewarded with a new attack plan. Her name was Assistant Federal District Attorney Javiera Castello, and two seconds of eye contact made precisely transparent what a hurricane she was going to bring to my life. Sex? Oh yeah, she was already figuring what penitentiary to send me to so she could make monthly visits. An impressive dicking wasn't going to save me this time. She was professional, polite and courteous concerning my mourning without being false. Theodora's strategy assumed I was the man who graduated from Bolingbrook a few months back. My history was clear and muddy enough to be real. I was what my documentation said I was; until Havenstone. Theodora had waved the flags and charged the barricades only to discover too late that my defenses weren't manned by a lone yahoo with a bow and arrow, but with mortars and machineguns and her troops had been scattered, her plans shredded. Javiera had my measure now. I was a Prince. Of what, she didn't know yet. She was going to find out. Not out of some fatalistic curiosity, but because that's where the bread crumbs led. Dad was what he appeared to be, that plot of land was relatively worthless and two groups of professional killers had fought and died dragging my father either away, or to safety. I work with some scary-smart ladies. "Ms. Castello, would you care to travel with me to the service?" I turned to her at the last moment. I was a clever puppy, good with women and I wasn't trying to be a politician. Javiera took my gesture for what it was; an olive branch. I was offering to be less of an obstructionist, and she was willing to forgo retribution for my earlier stunts. Five minutes down the road in the stretch limo, I could see the question eating Javiera up inside. She was honoring my melancholy; I could almost hear Dad saying, 'Son, you have company' as a persistent reminder to his petulant teenage slacker that I was a member of the Human Equation. "What do you want to ask me?" I gathered my civility to the fore. Nicole shifted so that we were making eye contact. "Is there a limit to how many questions?" she started off with. I didn't say 'One and that was it'. "I've been told it will take us thirty-two minutes to the cemetery," I looked at my watch. "That gives us; twenty-six minutes," I offered. "Why all the hostility?" led the charge. "A variety of people consider my life to have some value. For a few it is personal. For most, they attach a more esoteric price tag on my existence," I replied. "That is vague enough to be useless," she gently scolded me. Oh, I could see that both Javiera and Nicole were about to play Nutcracker with my heritage until it was the consistency of warm peanut butter. "I am the member of not one, but two secret societies," I kept steady eye contact with her. Yes; there was that look I was slowly becoming accustomed to; that one that conveyed 'what you said made no sense, so why aren't you lying to me?' "Which ones?" Javiera rebounded quickly. "Perhaps we should discuss this at a later time," Nicole reposed. "Nicole," I patted her knee, "how would you feel if you got Javiera murdered?" "That thought shouldn't even be;” she stated. "Nicole, I'm worried enough about you. People know I like you, so they may not kill you for looking in the wrong trash bin," I explained. "She doesn't even have that rather tenuous screen." "Was it one, or both secret societies that shot and killed your father?" Javier continued. "Without a doubt it was an accident. The all-female group was simply scouting the location out as part of forming a contingency plan," I said. "The other group showed up to kidnap my father to interrogate him; I'm not going to tell you why." "The first group identified themselves and the second group began shooting. In the process of grabbing my father, they shot him three times. In the process of taking him to one of their cars, the living lady engaged them in a final firefight. They abandoned my father and left." "You seem to know a great deal about what happened," Javiera noted. "I've seen the footage the first group took from their helmet cams," I told her. "Is there any way I could see that?" she prodded. "By no human means I can think of," I shrugged. "Feel free to ask that extremely venomous lady sitting next to you. Her name is Rachel," I made the introduction. "She remains under the impression that killing people around me will somehow save me from myself," I added. "I not only trust her, I trust her with the lives of my daughters." "You don't have any children we are aware of," Javiera wondered. "Rachel knows what I mean," I gave a lopsided grin. Rachel knew alright. I wasn't asking her to save me with that statement. I was asking her to save my future. "What is with all the women? I'm a believer in gender equality. You seem to lack any male employees, period. Is this a permutation of a harem?" Javier opened another line of investigation. Rachel and Buffy quickly snorted their amusement then returned to their not-so-subtle aggression. I was sure my chauffeur, Tiger Lily, was snickering it up too, beyond the glass. Sigh. "That was uncalled for," I frowned at the Fed. "Five Google searches and you should know all about Havenstone's hiring practices. Ask what you want to ask. Don't try to trick me. I am definitely not in the mood." "Why are you in charge; a male over Havenstone employees that certainly have more skill and experience at; just about everything?" Javiera came clean. "Put on your hip-waders," I groaned. "This is going to suck." I waited until I had her undivided attention. "A long time ago, I killed a group of really bad people," I grunted. I could see that she wasn't buying it despite her interrogation senses saying I was being truthful. "When I say a long time ago, I mean about 2500 years ago." Sigh. "Before you start tossing Thorazine at me, all you need to accept is that every one of those women around me believes that to be true." "So this is a cult?" Javiera inquired bravely. "Put it this way. I'm sure you practice a martial art of some kind. You probably have a chromatic belt that you are rather proud of. It will not help you. These women are professional killers. I'm pretty sure there are a dozen unidentified corpses that could be attributed to these two." I already knew that Buffy killed some guys. Rachel? She was a team leader, so I was willing to have faith in her ability to remorselessly end another person's life. Javiera must have volunteered for my personal fiasco. "Are you being held against your will?" she looked so vigilant and intent. "I can get you out." "No," a dry chuckle. "I'm; not good; getting by. There is no way in Hell I'm leaving Havenstone. I can hardly kill all the people responsible for my father's death if I did that." "If you seek personal vengeance, I will be forced to bring every legal power to bear to stop you," she felt bound to threaten me. "Don't stop being you on my account, Ms. Castello," I finally managed a smile. It was sincere and Javiera knew it. "Who? Maybe I can catch them before you do?" she offered me an escape clause. "You will know it when you see it," I took a deep breath. "Do not try anything at the funeral," she warned me. "Law enforcement will be all over the place." She really wanted to screw me in prison. I knew those things. "I'm not going to kill them there," I assured her. "They will be the ones running for their lives though." "How is that going to work?" Nicole finally broke my silence. "I have 27 ladies willing to kill on my command," I exaggerated. "When I tell those men I know they were responsible and that they should run for their lives, they are going to run for their lousy stinking lives." "But you are not going to give the order to have them killed," Javiera stated. She was getting my measure now. "No, but they don't know that and being horrible human beings, they will assume that I will have them murdered over my father's grave," I turned positively wolfish. "They will run and they will keep running because of you and yours, Javiera. They won't have guns because they don't want to be arrested," I finished. "Why are they afraid to be arrested?" Javiera was putting the puzzle together. That was our deal after all. "I can have repeated, heavenly sex on a train with a nun," I confessed. "I'm pretty sure I can arrange to have a scumbag killed in prison." "I think we can both agree my client is under a great deal of stress at this time," Nicole intervened. "I think we can agree your client is not Al Capone, much less Osama bin Laden," Javiera allowed. "I still think he is exceedingly dangerous." "Dangerous? Dangerous is dating in this town," I groaned. "Went out late last night to a dance club, met two sweet girls visiting the Windy City, stepped outside and they tried to kill me." "Do these two count as 'public'?" Buffy snarled. She meant Javiera and Nicole. Pratt was in another car and the only others with us were Rachel and me. This was going to hurt. "No," I sighed. Wham! The Charlie Horse from Hell! "That's why you have bodyguards, you jerk," Buffy nearly cried. "Ah; we were with him," Rachel tapped Buffy's upper arm. "Oh." Long pause. "I; I apologize," Buffy said sheepishly. "I had no idea you were getting smarter." That was probably the best apology I was going to get. It was still my fault. "You do it out of love, Buffy," I rubbed my arm. Buffy gave me a heartbreaking smile. "Was that domestic violence, or assault?" Javiera snarled. "Neither one is allowable under Illinois law." "It is a Human Resources Team-building tool," I lied. "In some places it is called Obedience Training, or Negative Reinforcement." "I have never seen another human being take a beating like Cáel can," Rachel complimented me. "He is also incredible in the bed room," Buffy added on. Javier didn't know what to make of the menagerie of 'not-normal' women who hung around me. She locked eyes with Buffy. "I mean Really fantastic," Buffy licked her lips. Nicole nodded in agreement. "I can't use any of this," Javiera muttered after several minute of silence. "It is all a type of shared delusion; with fourteen dead bodies attached to it." "Ah, the guy with both femoral arteries shot out made it? Whoa, we've got some top notch surgeons in this city," I nodded. "Yes. As opposed to those two men who had their heads shot off," Javiera added bitterly. Reminding her that poor Horace of the Burnham PD had done the deeds was pointless. "Who died?" I attempted some reciprocity from Javiera. She'd read through every public aspect of my life and had talked to me for less than ten minutes. She excelled at her craft; punishing lawbreakers. "I conclude you know the name of the three dead women and the one living one," she began, "because we haven't a clue who they really are. Their cover identities aren't perfect. We simply can't get anything about them behind the fallacy of their existence." She waited. "If you can help us put the wounded woman in some sort of shared protective custody, I can probably 'suggest' that she be more cooperative," I counter-offered. Rachel nodded. "The eight other bodies at the house;” Javiera shook her head. "Four were dead and by that I mean reported dead from four to nine years ago. The rest; Hell, they were all twisted fucking savages. Every one of them had Interpol warrants out for them, for questioning. No accusations seemed to stick to them: misplaced evidence, dead witnesses and falsified death certificates." "Does this mean anything to you?" Javiera paused to get some more information. "Yes. Reference the men running for their lives," I nodded. "Cáel?" Rachel cautioned me. "This is not something you can rush into." "Actually, it was you who clued me in, Rachel," I looked at her. "Given an opportunity to have only one gun of a given type, would you choose one you knew intimately, or a totally random one?" was my rhetorical question. Professionals trained with a large variety of weapons, yet every Amazon I had met had a preferred weapon; one that if they could have it with them, they would. "The Zastava M2," Rachel nodded. "It is not used in too many places and only Peru in this hemisphere. Someone really loved that gun; enough to bring it from whatever killing field where he was currently employed to my home," I said. "Since the other likely culprit passed on a chance to kill me last night, I am sure enough to pick a fight." (Holy Cross) It had to be odd in so many ways for the people who knew Dad and, to a lesser extent, me. They gathered by the graveside. It wasn't much. Dad had been cremated as had Mom. They had these small granite markers; no headstones for them. They had been so much in love. All they wanted is to be laid to rest, side by side. Mom had insisted on cremation. I thought I knew why, but it had done no good. The true oddity was obvious. The islet of normalcy was the small funerary party with me. My Aunt; my Father's Sister; was here and somewhat in shock. She and Dad hadn't been close; so much unsaid. When my Grandparents died, Dad was only nineteen and Stella was sixteen. Stella's lifelong friend had moved to Maryland a few months previously. Stella reached out to her friend, her friend's parents talked to Dad and Stella went to off to be a mariner. Seeing her occasionally as I was growing up was the extent of our relationship. The priest did his thing. I wondered what Christ thought of this mystic fur ball that was the amalgam of my life. My hope was that he was quietly urging me to do the right thing. The Padre finished, the co-workers and neighbors came by to give their condolences and then ran the gauntlet. The gauntlet? Yes, the herd of Amazons, O'Shea kin and four other clumps of people who I didn't know, yet undoubtedly would soon. Selena and Miyako were present along with a third female who looked luscious in a burqa-shaped covering and a diaphanous veil. Javiera, Pratt and Nicole were somewhat out of place with their lack of arrogant lethality. A limo driver came to take Stella away. "I have some issues to deal with, Aunt Stella," I comforted her. "Vér a vér." It had been ages since she'd heard Hungarian so she wasn't sure what I meant, but she knew it was bad. One of my O'Shea aunts was coming my way until the menace of the closing Amazons halted her. The others had no clue what they were about to behold. I doubt outsiders had ever been privileged to witness anything like it. This was a declaration; it was my mission statement. Ishara did not hide. I took off my coat, folded it, placed it on the damp grass then knelt on it. Buffy stepped up with the bowl of incense and followed my 'coat to keep your knees clean' stunt, sitting perpendicular on my right. Helena followed suit on my left, placing a shroud over my head and leaned over the bowl. Gamble number one: the incense lit up instantly. Gamble number two: it really did burn my eyes; no more Desiree slapping me around. I was sure she'd be heartbroken. Gamble number three: while using my nifty little Amazon blade to gather my tears, I managed not to cut myself. The inductees were much more impressed when they realized what I was doing under my head covering. The next step had me pulling back the shroud, standing up, and striding over the burning bowl of incense. Helena called out the first name. The lady didn't need any prodding. The Amazon walked over to my coat and knelt. Helena wrote down her name and handed her the slip of paper. My Keeper motioned to the bowl. The first applicant placed her named slip of paper on the embers. The simple message flashed up and was consumed. That was unlooked for. I declared her old self dead. With my tears, I opened her eyes to our ancestral history and with blood, I brought her into our future. She had entered House Ishara. She wasn't the only one crying either. What Rachel and her team thought was unknown to me. They were being hyper-vigilant. Esmeralda kept stealing glances our way. Things went along with joyous solemnity until the fourteenth woman, Alicia, knelt before me. Helena handed the paper over, the Amazon dropped it on the incense and nothing happened. I was about to move on to the next part of the ritual when I caught sight of that. Buffy, Helena and the lady were all staring at the offending bit of tinder. I bent over and, with my index finger, pushed it into the embers. Nothing; no heat, or fiery consumption. I put some spit on my finger and pushed again. This time it burned me. The paper was fine. Damn it; 'Come on Ishara!' I screamed mentally. 'Can't I have a simple bit of theater without you mangling someone's dreams?' There was no supernatural scolding, or retort. "Alicia, Ishara believes you have not yet finished your walk outside our House," I consoled the woman; Alicia Holt. As she stood up, faced gripped with disbelief, Buffy rose and took her away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alicia shoot me a poisonous look. Buffy had anticipated this and was making sure the woman didn't make a scene. The last six women were even more nervous than the previous thirteen. Thankfully, Ishara was accepting of the remainder and we all transited to the group celebratory hug. Act one has passed safely, Act two had an unexpected bump and here came round three. The 'dignitaries' started swooping in. Outside of the O'Shea's, none of the guests wanted to have another group behind them, or hemming in them. Two of the groups held back and since one was composed entirely of Asians, I was betting the other group was the Egyptian Rite. One of my now four aunts came forward. My small crowd of Isharans gave her barely enough room to approach the grave. She placed a green rose upon my Mother's small marble marker. I wondered what my Mother would have thought of her sisters finally finding her; green rose? Who made green; probably the same sick son of a bitch who made female clones of himself? The other three followed suit, placing the roses in a radiating sunburst on the small piece of marble. Through the wall of Illuminati security came; the Missing Link. Oh My God. I had heard of V-chested males, but this was insane. I swear his upper arms were as big as my thighs. The problem was the hips and legs of the body didn't match-up to the torso, arms, neck (or lack thereof) and shoulders. The upper, steroid-addicted half belonged to a two meter tall giant. The lower half belonged to, maybe, a subpar man of a meter and a half This monster didn't have a receding hairline (actually, he did); he had a receding forehead. In homo-sapiens, if you roll a marble off their heads, it drops and hits the eyebrows. On this guy, it was a gentle ski-slope all the way down. "This is your Uncle Carrig," Brianna; I thought it was Brianna; made the introductions. I dialed up my Irish. Carrig meant; meant; 'rock'. Not 'the Rock' as in Dwayne Johnson. No, it meant 'rock' as in 'lump'. I had an Uncle Lumpy. How the fuck was I going to explain this at the next high school reunion? The answer was obvious. I'd parade out my four lava-stoked volcanic aunt-hotties and no one would be able to see old Uncle Lumpy over their sexual radiance. Perhaps being created in the form of a disfigured Neanderthal made Lumpy furious with the world. That might be why he wanted Grandpa to stay dead. Maybe; oh hell, Lumpy had serious family issues, as in he wanted to hump my aunts who only wanted to hump me. "Hello Uncle Carrig," I started out. "Thank you for; " "Shut up," he sneered. "I came here to see your whore of a mother one last time, not listen to your prattle." "Carrig, don't," Fiona intervened. "He is family." He took a deep breath. "I know why all of you want him in the Family," he snarled at his sisters. "Behave, or leave," I relayed in a far calmer voice than I felt. "I'll leave when I'm good and ready," Carrig turned his hate back on me. He put a finger to his nose and cleared his sinuses. The resulting sputum he launched at my Mother's tiny rock reminder was dead-on the money, gooey, white and full of phlegm. I looked at that defilement. This red-hot poker of rage seared through my mind. Instead, I laughed. It started as a stuttered utterance but grew and grew into a rich, resounding conquest of death and despair. "Wow, Unc; that was kind of pathetic," I chuckled. "It is impossible to imagine you ever breathed the same air, much less hold any genetic resemblance, to the greatest criminal mastermind of the past millennia. Seriously, spitting on a piece of stone was the most your orangutan-like, sloped-headed pea brain could come up with?" "After that (cough) brilliant bit of diplomacy, he's probably glad he's still dead and didn't have to witness your infantile blunder," I added. He was getting pissed; torn between his desires to pummel me, rip me to shreds, or storm off like a raging King Kong. "You know, when they killed Grandpa, they told me he made a noise like a stuck pig," I mirthfully met his hateful glare. "For a moment, they thought they'd killed the wrong man." "They suspected you and Granddad were in the next chamber, him ramming you up your sissy-ass for the umpteenth time because you are nothing but a ball-less wonder of a cast-off eunuch," I kept taunting him. "Then they recalled that you always squealed like a piglet, not a full grown boar, so they completed their mission and left," I refused to flinch before his vile hatred. "You think you are funny?" he leaned in and hissed. "I think you need a breath mint; and I am hilarious," I grinned. "I also think I'm the son Granddad always wanted, not you." That was me being mean; really mean. "We are not done," his eyes narrowed. "Take your pulse," I mocked him. "When it stops, we are finished. Until then, brush, use mouthwash and floss between meals. Your halitosis is truly offensive and worse, I think you are aware of it, yet still you refuse to respect other people's personal boundaries." "We should go brother," Deidre beckoned. She couldn't hide her amusement at his discomfort and humiliation. Uncle Carrig pivoted and back-handed her. Deidre went flying, but my idiot kinsman didn't have long to savor his win. I hit him with two lightning blows. My first thought was that I had dislocated a few of my fingers from hitting his jaw. Wasn't there a Bond villain like that? Carrig turned on me, a feral fury brimming just beneath the surface. "That's a breach, you cocky, snot-nosed punk," he sneered. Mass carnage was in the offing. "You remain painfully ignorant, Uncle Carrig," I took a half-step back. "Take your punishment now, or later," he coughed. "It makes no difference to me." "First off, Carrig, timing should be a poignant concern. Second, you have only now expended a great deal of your meager brain power convincing everyone here we are related; kin; O'Shea's," I explained. "Also, can I have my knife back?" "Knife?" he blinked suspiciously. "Yeah, the knife I left in your chest," I pointed. I said I hit him twice. Uncle Lumpy looked down and, sure enough, my handy little 10 cm blade was between his second and third rib on the right side. I hadn't wanted to kill him. I had wanted to hurt him and apparently failed at that; while sticking a blade almost up to the handle (Amazon personal blades have no hilt) into him; "What; how?" Lumpy was slowly clueing in that he might be in some trouble. "Brother," Brianna stepped up; shooting me a sultry, 'bend me over the closest headstone and bang me like your Goth prom date' look. I actually didn't go to my prom, Goth chicks are fun and Brianna didn't have panties on. Trust me; I have ESP concerning such things. Of more immediate concern; "Carrig, don't pull out the knife," she placed herself between us, facing him. "You will bleed all over the place." "I'm about to ram it down his ass through his throat," he snarled, clearly educationally challenged. I'd left the blade there for that very reason; not have him fountain blood all over the gravesite. "How long is the blade?" Brianna asked me. She already knew the answer. "10 cm," I was polite, "as is the knife every other Amazon carries." "Reach around and pull out the blade when I tell you," Brianna requested. "I will keep pressure on the wound." I had serious doubts she had an MD associated with her name which meant she knew something I didn't. I also had a more pressing conundrum. Per instructions, I was about to be pressing against Brianna's backside with the added benefit of a free hand. "So, do you want me to pat them, or give them a good rub?" I whispered to Brianna. I'd let he decide what treatment her ass was about to receive. "I figure if I reach around and massage your breasts, Carrig will lose it." "Cáel, take a firm hold. Be doubly sure you are ready before we begin," Brianna instructed. It wasn't the Di Vinci Code, but Carrig wasn't about to conquer a Denny's Kid's Menu (it has little games on it) anytime soon either. Brianna wanted double penetration and, in the name of renewing family relations and my inability to resist any available woman for more than a few days, I complied. Then the horror came crashing in; I hadn't had sex all day and it was almost 10 am. "Don't move, Uncle," I cautioned him. I used those words to conceal the sound of Brianna's skirt zipper going down. I used my other hand to gingerly grab my weapon; the knife; jeesh. Brianna spread her legs wider so that the tension kept her apparel from slipping down. My free hand went inside and got to work. Fortunately, Brianna's hands pressing above and below the wound distracted Carrig from her cute, precious whimpering noises. I must be a total dick. I was stroking my aunt/clone mother with two fingers and teasing her bunghole with my thumb while pulling a knife from my uncle's chest. What is wrong with me? For that matter, Ishara could stymie the ambitions of some poor 'Runner', yet decided her prime minion doing this was a good thing? I work for some screwed up people; dead and alive. "Okay, I'm about to do it," I warned them both. Brianna was kind enough to roll her hips forward and ass up for more direct access. The blade came out, two fingers thrust into her depths, Carrig grunted more in annoyance than any physical distraction and Brianna gasped with piteous need. Before Carrig could start to connect A to B to C, I withdrew my fingers and zipped Brianna up. As I started to withdraw, Brianna acted like my loins were velcroed to her posterior. "Bad Girl," I quietly gave her a risqué reproach. She let me go. Then it hit me like a meteor; I had caused Brianna to orgasm, and hard, with one touch. In fact, she was still roughly riding through it. The mental discipline needed to mask her arousal was impressive. She had no control over her aromatic qualities, Lumpy's nostrils were working fine and his hateful, beady rodent-like eyes latched back on me. "I'm going to kill you," he screamed. Carrig definitely wanted to screw his sisters and they had certainly been denying him. I was curious how that had been accomplished. As he shoved Brianna aside, my suspicion about the seriousness of my wound to his chest was confirmed. I hadn't punched through his heavy corded muscle tissue; with a 10 cm blade. Fuck a duck. If Uncle Carrig got those horrifically huge paws of his on me, I'd be paper-mâché in a hurricane; turned into veal; the very tenderized kind. That wasn't going to happen because of a little factor called crowd density. Most notably, he was in the midst of a passel of Amazons invested in my well-being. A sliver of the O'Shea family dynamic took hold. As usual, it sucked to be me. The four O'Shea ladies rallied around Carrig, cautiously pulled him back then ushered him into the steely embrace of their security. Why did that mean it sucked to be me? In a momentary visual exchange, I understood what Lumpy instinctually sensed when he showed up today. His reign as the place-holder for me was coming to an end. The second my Aunts recruited me over to their side, he was a goner. Obviously they had all the real intellect on that side of the clan. Poor Lumpy merely stomped around and acted like the socially maladjusted homicidal maniac he was. Once the journey to Grandpa's house began, he would cease to have any value whatsoever. Behind his animalistic, dull eyes, we shared that. Tragically, but most likely by design, Carrig couldn't develop a new set of skills to adapt to the situation. The best example I could come up with was; Imagine the last of the super-large amphibious predators confronting the first of the true dinosaur apex carnivores. Somewhere in that tiny amphibian brain, it knew it was screwed. Evolution simply hadn't left it an 'out'. It couldn't get bigger, faster, or more ferocious. It had maxxed out those traits for that model. Nope, it was toast and nothing could save it. As I processed that, the rest of that train of thought came tumbling down. Lumpy was a dead man. He'd hit one of his sisters in front of me which was precisely what they wanted. Deidre hadn't come by my place on Monday to warn me that Uncle Blockhead was trying to kill me. She was prepping me for the knowledge that they had killed Lumpy; to save me. Those incestuous nightmares had trotted Uncle Carrig out like a Barnum  and  Bailey Sasquatch, to loud acclaim and fanfare. Before I could do some in depth research/check to see if this was the 'real' Sasquatch, he would vanish aka be killed to save me. Well played ladies. They should have taken into account I worked for Katrina Love. Katrina undoubtedly played three-dimensional chess on-line so she could lure out the true Vulcans trapped on Earth. My aunts' straw man wasn't going to cut it. Back to the reality that included my father never again enjoying my meandering thoughts over dinner. Back to the other curious 'real' players as they moved in, having soaked up my ceremony and our O'Shea family struggle. If there as a benefit in that misadventure, it was the look on the faces of the two most distant groups. The ambassadors had on their poker faces. I was two decades away from having a chance of deciphering them. Foolish mortals, both groups had brought women with them though. That was not to imply that women can't keep secrets; they are among the experts. It wasn't secrets they were defending though; it was the interaction between Brianna and me that opened them up. If you are a woman and you see a man bring a different woman to orgasm with his fingers in under ten seconds and you are NOT intrigued, you have been sexually neutered. Even if you are a lesbian, you want your lover to pick up that technique. From the level of interest coming my way, I could tell what their bosses/associates really thought of me. The lady who was already thinking how to pull me aside at the reception was also projecting that I had piqued her co-workers, despite their feigned disinterest. The one who was plotting out how to disguise herself as a maid, so she could hide in my bathroom closet until I came in for a shower this evening. Then the feigned interrogation/instructional demonstration could begin, which told me they had chosen to not leave Chicago today despite previous travel plans. The three assholes won the social dare contest and approached me next. They were cool, somewhat disdainful and not a party to the murderous program that led us here today. They were still Condotteiri, thus my enemies and slayers of my Dad. "Mr. Nyilas," a smooth talking Canadian male began, "I wish to pass on the condolences of; " "I know it was you," I broke in. The Canadian; Ottawa, I thought; stopped talking, allowing me to vent. "You killed my father, you fucks. Now here is your 'I got drunk and stuck my cock in a meat grinder only to discover some other moron plugged it in' bullet to the brain. I am not only Cáel Nyilas, I am Cáel Ishara and Cáel, grandson of Cáel O'Shea," I narrowed my vision to menacing slits. "I will let you figure out which Goddess is Ishara as well as the convoluted genetics that has resurrected male Amazons. I want you to know that my father was the Head of House Ishara. You killed a Factor of the Illuminati, the 'Voice' of one of the Nine Clans, one of your own Generals, a Grand Master of the Egyptian Rite, a Ba Wang of the 7 Pillars, or a Chosen Son or Daughter, of Earth  and  Sky "That's right," I let the fear sink in. "This goes beyond a breach, Dumbass. You BROKE the Truce and have ended the Protocols by killing an Amazon leader. I'm sure claims of ignorance by your Generals will be taken for the empty blathering they are. It is time for your blood to soak the sacred soil of my father's place of entombment." Having buried him and his two cohorts in a rockslide of truth, my final bluff passed unrevealed for the empty threat it was. I could see by the looks in their eyes. Amazons didn't care about law enforcement. They would kill those three, vanish into the surrounds then slink back to their secret compounds. It was how the Condotteiri thought Amazon's worked. "Or," I grumbled, "Are you going to make me and my sisters hunt you down and work for it. Killing you with our knives is going to be;” I was saying when their retreat began. I was going to say 'messy'. Those three took a half-dozen steps back then ran for it. Now the stage was fully set. The three members of the Nine Clans came next. I took a totally different tone. Selena stepped up to speak, bowing as she started to speak. "We wish;” she started. There was a lot of interrupting going on today. "Please do not bow to me," I requested softly. "We have fought and it seems inappropriate to me that, without there being a martial decision, we cannot be sure who should be more respectful to whom," I suggested. Selena quickly switched gears. She and her two female companions were now openly staring at me. "My Sith Lady is most likely preparing for trouble at my most vulnerable point," I told Selena. "I'm much more trouble than I first appear," I added. A hiccup in the conversation took place. "You are the male Head of an Amazon House; how?" Selena questioned. "My father and the fathers before him carried the genes of the original Ishara. When Her daughters died out, the legacy fell to me," I explained. Really smart girls; really, really smart girls. "You do not have any daughters, so your first born daughter will be the next Head of your House," the Hashashin noted quickly. "Of any line?" Ah, the siren call of 'please have unprotected sex with me, Mr. Studmuffin. Not only will I walk bow-legged for a week afterwards, I'll have a political tool to use for a lifetime.' "Yes, that is true. Please understand, unless you can catch a thrown tomahawk with your feet, I can't say you are at the top of the list," I sighed. "Speaking of the acrobat of my dreams, how are you doing Miyako?" I knocked away at the barrier between our respective groups. I could hardly be considered an Amazon if I wasn't stacking the odds against the Condotteiri, now could I? On came that child-like Nipponese girl's smile that made me want to double-check her ID for proof of age. "It is recovering nicely. Thank you, Ishara-sama," she smiled warmly. "May I see?" I inquired. Miyako nodded so I went down until I was balanced on the balls of my feet. She deftly slipped out of one of her shoes, placed her foot on my knee then began rolling up the pants leg until the bandage was revealed. In the past few hours my medical knowledge had not increased one iota. I was pretty sure that Miyako knew what this doctor's visit was really all about. I gently massaged her leg from ankle to knee, examining it for flaws and weaknesses. I received some manna from Heaven when I stumbled upon a muscle spasm in her foot arch. I worked it out in under thirty seconds and she gave me a musical murmur of relief when I was done. I put her shoe back on and rolled down her trouser leg. "I would still like you to see our medic if you could spare the half-hour," I offered as I stood. "If it would ease any misconceptions about our first encounter, I will do it," Miyako changed her mind from last night. My next neural misfire was 'Did I pack enough condoms to do all these girls I've been promising to fuck since I got here?' "Estere Abed," the thinly-veiled applicant to be the mother of my first child introduced herself. I was at my father's funeral, I'd been hit with the realization that my incestuous aunts are going to emasculate the uncle I'd just met before they kill him, and I was talking to a woman with skin the color of well-seasoned Oak, eyes as dark as expresso-roasted coffee beans (so deeply brown they were almost black), a pale turquoise, virtually transparent pretend-burqa, with inner, skimpy clothing bits keeping her barely street-legal and visualizing what our daughter would look like. "I am of Kurdish extraction," she lowered her head minutely. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Not only was a-bed something I was seriously considering with this woman, Estere was a Kurdish name of Old Persian extraction. It meant Ishtar; who was the advanced incarnation of Ishara. Bitch; aimed up at my Matron Goddess and Ancestral Mother turned Dominatrixes of my soul. "How; how mystically convergent that is," I grumbled. "I apologize. Me and my matron Ball-buster are exchanging psychic barbs at the moment. Had you somehow predicted this would have happened, I would be happier. With my luck though, this is accidental from the perspective of the mortal plane, thus a point of incredible annoyance to me right now." "Do you often talk to your ancestors?" Estere inquired politely. "Only after I've done something bad," I groaned. "Usually my Goddess is short on instructions yet always ready with 'I told you so'." "How can she chastise you for doing wrong if she fails to give you direction?" Estere was so sincere. I had to keep in mind she was a professional librarian with the nasty habit of misfiling people's lives. "I can tell you don't deal with the Spirit World much," I gave a sad grin. "The last time she gave me a prod, I was staring down a life sentence in a dog cage; after I was condemned, not before." "You escaped," she reminded me with a sparkle. I gave a harsh laugh. "No; no, I didn't," I said. "I'll prove it." I lashed out at Estere. She turned my strike aside and was about to do something I assumed would be unfortunate for me when she restrained herself. "See, Estere, you've been doing this most of your life. I'm a college kid who had a good fortune to meet and be guided by a series of stellar women." She nodded. She didn't understand yet she wanted to remain sympathetic. "I'm playing catch up in an incredibly lethal chess match," I continued. "My advantage is I'm not fuck-nuts crazy like the rest of you people. I don't mean to insult you. I simply want to make it clear how I feel. All the societies are spiritually malformed blights on reality; evil, twisted and predatory." "But you like us," she observed. "I'm going to Hell," I risked much by brushing her nose with my finger from brow to the edge of the veil. "I might as well enjoy the journey." Since I returned with all the fingers I started out with, I could tell she appreciated my caress. Our other guests were getting restless, so I had to end our interaction there. A lone man approached. He looked to be a Turkish/Mongolian mixture and he was uncomfortable with the way the situation had developed. I doubt I had offended him. It was much more the scope of this informal meeting had gone way above his pay grade. As he was from the Earth  and  Sky, the Amazons' hostility simmered. I countered that by being as civil as possible. The emissary, Iskender, gave his condolences, I thanked him for his respect and entered into a small conversation. When he figured out who the Magyar were, he smiled. Iskender was a Kyrgyz, a Turkish people from Central Asia, and we bonded over our male progenitors having saddled up on our nomad ponies, making Eurasia tremble. I was putting forth the effort to make him feel welcome. That was the message for him to take home. Not all the Amazons were going to have their knee-jerk reaction to the E and S's goal. Next came the Seven Pillars, mainly because the Egyptians seemed ready to wait for the grass to devour them before coming my way. Now I had to pillage the vaults of my crafty interpersonal skills to do this correctly. Two men, endowed with as much racial supremacy as Ursula, if not more, introduced themselves. Slight bowing, polite English and the proper, rehearsed words flowed from their mouths. They didn't look down on me; the reason being that behind their perfect civility, they considered me and mine to be inconsequential. The nice female of an indeterminate South Asian lineage had that haunted look of someone made to do horrible things just to survive. A flash of the macabre dumped a memory of her strangling homeless people in some back alleys with barbed wire; so it would hurt them both; training, Seven Pillars style. "Thank you for paying your respects at my father's grave," I started. They hadn't, btw. "I only ask for two things, please," I added humbly. "May I see her palms for a moment?" I asked the man. The woman was clearly a servant; some sort of Palace Guard/Fuck Slave. The leader nodded. The girl was never consulted. Her hands came forward and they rolled so that I saw the scars on her palm; screw you, Ishara. I don't want to care about her. My day planner was more than full with anguish as it was. No answer. "I appreciate it," I smiled. I waited, keeping eye contact. "Was there something else?" the leader finally gave in. "Oh yes," I smiled and nodded. "Don't get in our way. Behave, stay put on that rotting, rubble pile of a decadent and faded civilization you call Heaven and let us do what needs to be done." "Is that clear enough, or do I need to send you both home with your irradiated testicles in jars?" I kept politely smiling and nodding. I was threatening to make them eunuchs with the bonus of having their precious genetics rendered useless. The girl was giving off minute reactive tremors. That was okay. I had been anything, but quiet. Twenty Amazons were ready and willing to make my threat a reality. I wasn't sure how they would break into Fermi Labs for the radiological material, but their resourcefulness never failed to amaze me. The two guys from the Seven Pillars were standing there, not sure what to do next. I had insulted and threatened them; emissaries. Didn't they realize Amazons had been killing poor bastards entreating them for peace for several millennia? "Beat it," I snapped with authority. "I'm done with you. Take my words back to your masters and pray they excuse your gutless reaction. Don't let the airport hit you in the ass." Ugly American? I was the God Damn Bearded Woman/Dog Boy American and their facades were finally fraying around the edges and not the least because going home and telling their bosses my exact words was going to be; well, the positive spin they put on it had better be impressive. They left with their confident poise while the Egyptians approached with a bit of trepidation. Calling me erratic and volatile was being overly kind. My bet was the older male was in charge, but my age and lusty actions convinced them to put the younger woman forward. The younger male bodyguard wasn't even paying attention to me. If the shit went south, he knew he was a goner. "Greetings Cáel Ishara, it seems," she offered my hand to shake. In Old Kingdom Egyptian he said; "May the Blessed Isis bring understanding to this greeting," I countered. Both she and the old man blinked. The rest was in the Egyptian of Ramses and Seti. "It is wonderful to see you speak our sacred tongue; or a close proximity," she smiled. Not only was she generally happy, she was also pretty sure a very unfortunate confrontation was not in the offing. The bodyguard knew of the language but not enough to make out what was being said. The young lady and old man were more than happy to switch to this rare form of communication. We chatted. Things like funerary rites, thoughts on the afterlife and the role of the supernatural in the modern world all came up. No secrets were exchanged and we actually went over some ancient jokes and ribald tales. Buffy's coughing brought us out of our reverie. They taught me the proper Egyptian Rite greeting and farewell, departing in peace. The Amazons were stirring. It was time to head to the cars then on to the wake. "I do not understand you," Javiera grumbled. "You insulted multiple people, including threats of death and dismemberment. You struck and stabbed; something, but not before he knocked a women nearly three meters. I am not even sure that; relative of yours qualifies as human." "I don't know how to approach you and that woman/aunt/whatever," she continued. "Was that incest, public sex, or sexual assault since I didn't hear her give permission for you to do; that?" Whoops; jealousy. Nicole was a half-step back so she could hide her insidious smirk. She already knew I was a bad, bad boy. "I don't know if this makes it better, or worse, but that; those women are not just my aunts. They are the genetic duplicates of my mother and if you think it is funny that they look to be about my age; you wouldn't be alone," I sighed. "Is your mother dead?" she seethed. "Normally, I would take a Death Certificate, mortuary report and a grave marker to be enough. Not with you." "When I was seven years old I saw her very sick in the hospital. I never saw her die, or the cremation, so with my crazy life I'm not going to swear that she's no longer of this Earth," I confessed. "The only one who would know for sure would be; " "Your father," Javiera answered. I began crying all over again. That was it. When I wanted someone dead, I was going to personally put a stake in their hearts, starting with me. This shit has gone down the rabbit hole. In that transitory micro-burst, I flipped. Not to crazy. I had spent my life believing in what was real; working out, girls, books, literature and art; things I could touch and feel, even if it was the air escaping my lungs as words, notes and sounds sprang forth. Now I had to take things on faith. Not 'faith' as in the calculated possibilities which is what most people really meant. I had to accept that there were things beyond my senses that I could not measure, or codify, and move my life forward understanding the total lack of a solid foundation I was basing my actions on. I needed to see Aya so much it hurt. "Are you going to arrest me?" I hiccupped. I was done bawling like a bereft child for a while. "For what?" Javiera snapped. "If I took this insanity before any judge I know, I'd be on Administrative Leave, if not out of a job altogether." "Oh yes," Nicole winked at me. "I was so looking forward to parading out the four identical aunts and the uncle/part-primate." Javiera shot Nicole a dirty look. "We need to go," Buffy reminded me. The only snag was the FBI guys, backed up by some Chicago PD, who intercepted Javiera as she walked with me to our limo. She had to separate for a minute to assure them she hadn't been kidnapped. After some rumbling, we were gifted with one FBI 'bodyguard' for Javiera. That was laughable. If a psychotic fit seized us, there would be two dead government officials instead of one. "Did you really stab that guy?" Special Agent Street Moslin asked once we were on our way. "My family believes in tough love," I muttered. "What sort of organized crime outfit are you with?" was next. "Pre-teen beauty pageants," I sighed. "You wouldn't believe how cutthroat they are." "It is a crime to lie to a criminal investigator," he countered. "And if this was an interrogation," Nicole sizzled, "you would have to Mirandize him." "He has already been Mirandized," the puppy yipped. "Oh? On the charge of Criminal Conspiracy to commit; clarify the charge for me," Nicole grinned. Street looked to Javiera. "What? Special Agent Moslin, consider yourself to not know a damn thing about what is going on and proceed from there," Javiera informed him. The poor bastard looked perplexed. "I will put your situation in context. The woman to my side (Rachel) is about to slit your throat. The woman (Buffy) next to Ms. Lawless is going to snap your neck. They do not give a crap that you, or I, are federal agents. The issue is not what will you do, it is which one gets to you first," Javiera glared at him. "Clear?" SA Street wasn't done yet. "They will get away with it because I suspect they already have such a contingency worked out," Javiera educated him. Javiera was yet Another really clever lady. "Call for our back-up vehicle, pull into a private driveway where you cannot legally follow us, abandon the vehicle, get picked up and leave the city on a private aircraft to another nation," Rachel sounded bored. That was so nice of her to assist Javiera out that way. "Thank you," I told Rachel. "That was very helpful of you." "I want the male to shut-up," Rachel answered. "He's grating. Worse, he's making me wish Pamela was with us and that is so wrong." I held up a finger to forestall Street. "Honestly Dude, she's is not messing with your head. She wants you to shut up, so please be quiet," I urged him. I conceptualized the assessment he was making. Crap. "Guy, whatever workout routine you think gives you the edge is what she does to warm up in the morning," I pleaded. Street had the 'she's only a girl' look about him. "Her combat training is with live rounds, real weapons and a plethora of scrapes, cuts and broken bones. I have little doubt that she's killed people, some in cold blood." "You being Top Shot at the local range and a Judo Champ isn't going to cut it," I emphasized. "You think she's some kind of Special Forces operator?" he mocked me. Javiera and Nicole got nervous. I didn't. Beginner's Amazon Psychology; male opinions do not matter. Rachel and Buffy weren't insulted because he was a chattering chimp and nothing more. "Have you ever heard of an all-female Special Forces unit?" I prodded. "No," he snorted. I kept staring; and staring; and then the idea began creeping in. "Where do you train?" Street looked at Rachel. Rachel was looking at him, not 'at' him. "Please Rachel," I requested. That was really for Javiera's benefit. "Physical training started at age five, weapons training at nine, survival testing at twelve, craft training at fifteen, and acceptance at nineteen," she rattled off in a monotone. "I am thirty." "What is 'craft training'?" Javiera inquired. "Learning to kill people and destroy things," she began. "My specialties are small unit tactics, security operations, electronic countermeasures and Recon Sniper," Rachel replied. "I am an accepted close combat trainer and handheld weapon expert. Do I need to explain any of that?" Pause. Street snorted. "Do you ever sleep?" Street joked. Rachel looked to me then rolled her eyes. "Yes. Six hours; every day unless duty intervenes," she said. "Right; so, what martial arts style do you practice?" he asked. "Not one you have ever heard of," Rachel took a deep breath. "Try me," Street entreated. "I've practiced with several." "Male, do I look like I enjoy talking to you?" Rachel glared. "To alleviate your obvious confusion, I do not. If you wish to lower the hostility level, hand me your pistol and the sap at your back. Your possession of said weapons in the presence of Cáel complicates my job. This is almost as irritating is restraining myself from taking them from you like the infant you are." "You think you could?" Street challenged her. "I was with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan." "Special Agent Moslin, she doesn't care. You might as well have told her you were a weekend security guard at an amusement park," I reasoned. "In her mind, being born with a penis renders all your accomplishments so much hyperbole; kind of how her having tits lowered your respect for her as a fighter." That successful ended that diversion. (The wake) Life was wonderful. I walked in the door of the Marshal Fields Jr. Mansion, Charlotte pulled me into a vacant side room and handed me a secure phone. She mouthed the name of the person on the other end. "Hayden," I sighed to my High Priestess. "Ishara (not using my first name was a bad sign), I have heard a report that you have declared war on the Condotteiri," she gave me the 'I'm going to skin you alive' purr. "Yep and I urinated on the Seven Pillars too," I confirmed. "Don't worry about the Illuminati. I've got that alliance sown up." "I'm going to have a member of the Nine Clans give me my first born, Ishara daughter, so that prospective alliance looks good as well," I added. "I even managed to be diplomatic with Earth  and  Sky. It is not even noon yet either. No need to thank me. Knowing you are thinking passionate thoughts about me is enough." Charlotte looked like her eyes were going to bug out. "We are clear on the fact that there are fifty two other houses in the House, aren't we Cáel?" Hayden murmured. "Hey now," I reposed, "you said to not pick a fight inside Havenstone. You didn't say anything about these sons of bitches on the outside. I also added nineteen new members. Ishara rejected one who I now think was a closet Man-hater's man-hater." "I want you to come back to Havenstone immediately and keep your mouth shut," she commanded. "The Council will be rightly furious." "With me?" I asked. "Of course with you," Hayden growled. "With the aid of the Federal Assistant Attorney, I received computer discs with extensive and sensitive data on Havenstone, including pictures and locations of Sydney and Marilynn, your daughter and granddaughter," I lied. "The feds seized the Condotteiri's private jet." Silence. "What? Why am I only now hearing of this?" Hayden inquired with a deathly calm. "Do you want me to work with the feds to finish hunting down those last two killers while I send someone back with the data?" I persisted. An oddly longer pause. "Katrina insists there is no data," Hayden seethed. "Of course there is no data," I snapped back. "Unlike you, I'm loyal to EVERY MEMBER of the Host, not just the ones I approve of! If I had something that important, it would be on the way to you, if not already in your hands. My House Head has been murdered. Support me; don't support me. It doesn't change that reality. You have lowered your worth in my eyes, Hayden. We will talk of this when I return." And I hung up. Charlotte kept gaping at me. "Do you think I was clear enough, Charlotte?" I asked her. "Yes Ishara," she whispered. "I doubt a single ancestor misconstrued your wrath." That stopped me in my tracks. A rank and file Amazon using my house name was perfectly acceptable. A Council 'equal' saying it was the equivalent of your pissed Mom yelling out your entire name. "You agree with me?" I blinked. "Had it been Fatima, Beyoncé, or Ngozi there would be no debate," Charlotte answered. "I don't like you; okay, beyond your physical magnetism I do not like you. You are still the Head of House Ishara and we believe that the ancestors move through you." By 'we' I imagine she meant Rachel's SD detachment. A social paradigm presented itself. Amazons were surprisingly democratic for such an ancient society. Their bonds of sisterhood gave them greater liberty than any other group I'd heard of. All could take their grievances to the highest authority. They could hate me and die for me at the same time, in the same way Charlotte could be honest at that moment. I was her superior in rank yet her equal in blood. "You realize that if you tell Buffy about this she'll beat me black and blue," I teased Charlotte. "No can do, Ishara," she chuckled. "She's your sister and, quite frankly, you wove this disaster and if anyone deserves to remind you of the trouble you've wrought, it is her." "I would call you a heartless Amazon, but that's kind of redundant," I glowered playfully. I couldn't hide with Charlotte in the side room forever. It was my father's wake after all. Out I went and there was Buffy waiting for me. "We have a problem," Buffy murmured to me as I headed to the main reception area/family room. "There are some questions concerning your Aunt Stella and the Ishara legacy." "Thank God," I muttered. My crisis was momentarily sidelined. I moved into the gathering, letting Helena and Buffy bring the Amazon to my corner. "Quick and easy," I stated as the last one j

Of Funerals and Families; Part Two. In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected.. “Birthed by stars, in immortal light, so why do we assume we pass into Darkness.” A maniac conducted the orchestra, while every section fought for dominance without a thought to the opera unfolding under its twittering cacophony. That is how it felt as I steeled myself for the service, but my musings were a fantasy. I had a swirling company of my twenty inductees, two Amazons, plus Rachel's detail and Esmeralda coordinating all the traffic. Pamela was absent. Buffy was the one in charge, deciding who got how close and under what level of scrutiny. The presence of law enforcement was made obvious by our vigilance, with mutual hostility being declared. The government was catching up with how they'd been screwed over. They couldn't prove a thing yet, although they had missed an entire day trailing after me. They also had new leadership. Pamela had expelled Theodora with the simple application of Conflict of Interest. Nicole and Pratt had joined me in my suite, so I was suitably armored when the Feds made their next run at me. I had stepped up in the world, so I was rewarded with a new attack plan. Her name was Assistant Federal District Attorney Javiera Castello, and two seconds of eye contact made precisely transparent what a hurricane she was going to bring to my life. Sex? Oh yeah, she was already figuring what penitentiary to send me to so she could make monthly visits. An impressive dicking wasn't going to save me this time. She was professional, polite and courteous concerning my mourning without being false. Theodora's strategy assumed I was the man who graduated from Bolingbrook a few months back. My history was clear and muddy enough to be real. I was what my documentation said I was; until Havenstone. Theodora had waved the flags and charged the barricades only to discover too late that my defenses weren't manned by a lone yahoo with a bow and arrow, but with mortars and machineguns and her troops had been scattered, her plans shredded. Javiera had my measure now. I was a Prince. Of what, she didn't know yet. She was going to find out. Not out of some fatalistic curiosity, but because that's where the bread crumbs led. Dad was what he appeared to be, that plot of land was relatively worthless and two groups of professional killers had fought and died dragging my father either away, or to safety. I work with some scary-smart ladies. "Ms. Castello, would you care to travel with me to the service?" I turned to her at the last moment. I was a clever puppy, good with women and I wasn't trying to be a politician. Javiera took my gesture for what it was; an olive branch. I was offering to be less of an obstructionist, and she was willing to forgo retribution for my earlier stunts. Five minutes down the road in the stretch limo, I could see the question eating Javiera up inside. She was honoring my melancholy; I could almost hear Dad saying, 'Son, you have company' as a persistent reminder to his petulant teenage slacker that I was a member of the Human Equation. "What do you want to ask me?" I gathered my civility to the fore. Nicole shifted so that we were making eye contact. "Is there a limit to how many questions?" she started off with. I didn't say 'One and that was it'. "I've been told it will take us thirty-two minutes to the cemetery," I looked at my watch. "That gives us; twenty-six minutes," I offered. "Why all the hostility?" led the charge. "A variety of people consider my life to have some value. For a few it is personal. For most, they attach a more esoteric price tag on my existence," I replied. "That is vague enough to be useless," she gently scolded me. Oh, I could see that both Javiera and Nicole were about to play Nutcracker with my heritage until it was the consistency of warm peanut butter. "I am the member of not one, but two secret societies," I kept steady eye contact with her. Yes; there was that look I was slowly becoming accustomed to; that one that conveyed 'what you said made no sense, so why aren't you lying to me?' "Which ones?" Javiera rebounded quickly. "Perhaps we should discuss this at a later time," Nicole reposed. "Nicole," I patted her knee, "how would you feel if you got Javiera murdered?" "That thought shouldn't even be;” she stated. "Nicole, I'm worried enough about you. People know I like you, so they may not kill you for looking in the wrong trash bin," I explained. "She doesn't even have that rather tenuous screen." "Was it one, or both secret societies that shot and killed your father?" Javier continued. "Without a doubt it was an accident. The all-female group was simply scouting the location out as part of forming a contingency plan," I said. "The other group showed up to kidnap my father to interrogate him; I'm not going to tell you why." "The first group identified themselves and the second group began shooting. In the process of grabbing my father, they shot him three times. In the process of taking him to one of their cars, the living lady engaged them in a final firefight. They abandoned my father and left." "You seem to know a great deal about what happened," Javiera noted. "I've seen the footage the first group took from their helmet cams," I told her. "Is there any way I could see that?" she prodded. "By no human means I can think of," I shrugged. "Feel free to ask that extremely venomous lady sitting next to you. Her name is Rachel," I made the introduction. "She remains under the impression that killing people around me will somehow save me from myself," I added. "I not only trust her, I trust her with the lives of my daughters." "You don't have any children we are aware of," Javiera wondered. "Rachel knows what I mean," I gave a lopsided grin. Rachel knew alright. I wasn't asking her to save me with that statement. I was asking her to save my future. "What is with all the women? I'm a believer in gender equality. You seem to lack any male employees, period. Is this a permutation of a harem?" Javier opened another line of investigation. Rachel and Buffy quickly snorted their amusement then returned to their not-so-subtle aggression. I was sure my chauffeur, Tiger Lily, was snickering it up too, beyond the glass. Sigh. "That was uncalled for," I frowned at the Fed. "Five Google searches and you should know all about Havenstone's hiring practices. Ask what you want to ask. Don't try to trick me. I am definitely not in the mood." "Why are you in charge; a male over Havenstone employees that certainly have more skill and experience at; just about everything?" Javiera came clean. "Put on your hip-waders," I groaned. "This is going to suck." I waited until I had her undivided attention. "A long time ago, I killed a group of really bad people," I grunted. I could see that she wasn't buying it despite her interrogation senses saying I was being truthful. "When I say a long time ago, I mean about 2500 years ago." Sigh. "Before you start tossing Thorazine at me, all you need to accept is that every one of those women around me believes that to be true." "So this is a cult?" Javiera inquired bravely. "Put it this way. I'm sure you practice a martial art of some kind. You probably have a chromatic belt that you are rather proud of. It will not help you. These women are professional killers. I'm pretty sure there are a dozen unidentified corpses that could be attributed to these two." I already knew that Buffy killed some guys. Rachel? She was a team leader, so I was willing to have faith in her ability to remorselessly end another person's life. Javiera must have volunteered for my personal fiasco. "Are you being held against your will?" she looked so vigilant and intent. "I can get you out." "No," a dry chuckle. "I'm; not good; getting by. There is no way in Hell I'm leaving Havenstone. I can hardly kill all the people responsible for my father's death if I did that." "If you seek personal vengeance, I will be forced to bring every legal power to bear to stop you," she felt bound to threaten me. "Don't stop being you on my account, Ms. Castello," I finally managed a smile. It was sincere and Javiera knew it. "Who? Maybe I can catch them before you do?" she offered me an escape clause. "You will know it when you see it," I took a deep breath. "Do not try anything at the funeral," she warned me. "Law enforcement will be all over the place." She really wanted to screw me in prison. I knew those things. "I'm not going to kill them there," I assured her. "They will be the ones running for their lives though." "How is that going to work?" Nicole finally broke my silence. "I have 27 ladies willing to kill on my command," I exaggerated. "When I tell those men I know they were responsible and that they should run for their lives, they are going to run for their lousy stinking lives." "But you are not going to give the order to have them killed," Javiera stated. She was getting my measure now. "No, but they don't know that and being horrible human beings, they will assume that I will have them murdered over my father's grave," I turned positively wolfish. "They will run and they will keep running because of you and yours, Javiera. They won't have guns because they don't want to be arrested," I finished. "Why are they afraid to be arrested?" Javiera was putting the puzzle together. That was our deal after all. "I can have repeated, heavenly sex on a train with a nun," I confessed. "I'm pretty sure I can arrange to have a scumbag killed in prison." "I think we can both agree my client is under a great deal of stress at this time," Nicole intervened. "I think we can agree your client is not Al Capone, much less Osama bin Laden," Javiera allowed. "I still think he is exceedingly dangerous." "Dangerous? Dangerous is dating in this town," I groaned. "Went out late last night to a dance club, met two sweet girls visiting the Windy City, stepped outside and they tried to kill me." "Do these two count as 'public'?" Buffy snarled. She meant Javiera and Nicole. Pratt was in another car and the only others with us were Rachel and me. This was going to hurt. "No," I sighed. Wham! The Charlie Horse from Hell! "That's why you have bodyguards, you jerk," Buffy nearly cried. "Ah; we were with him," Rachel tapped Buffy's upper arm. "Oh." Long pause. "I; I apologize," Buffy said sheepishly. "I had no idea you were getting smarter." That was probably the best apology I was going to get. It was still my fault. "You do it out of love, Buffy," I rubbed my arm. Buffy gave me a heartbreaking smile. "Was that domestic violence, or assault?" Javiera snarled. "Neither one is allowable under Illinois law." "It is a Human Resources Team-building tool," I lied. "In some places it is called Obedience Training, or Negative Reinforcement." "I have never seen another human being take a beating like Cáel can," Rachel complimented me. "He is also incredible in the bed room," Buffy added on. Javier didn't know what to make of the menagerie of 'not-normal' women who hung around me. She locked eyes with Buffy. "I mean Really fantastic," Buffy licked her lips. Nicole nodded in agreement. "I can't use any of this," Javiera muttered after several minute of silence. "It is all a type of shared delusion; with fourteen dead bodies attached to it." "Ah, the guy with both femoral arteries shot out made it? Whoa, we've got some top notch surgeons in this city," I nodded. "Yes. As opposed to those two men who had their heads shot off," Javiera added bitterly. Reminding her that poor Horace of the Burnham PD had done the deeds was pointless. "Who died?" I attempted some reciprocity from Javiera. She'd read through every public aspect of my life and had talked to me for less than ten minutes. She excelled at her craft; punishing lawbreakers. "I conclude you know the name of the three dead women and the one living one," she began, "because we haven't a clue who they really are. Their cover identities aren't perfect. We simply can't get anything about them behind the fallacy of their existence." She waited. "If you can help us put the wounded woman in some sort of shared protective custody, I can probably 'suggest' that she be more cooperative," I counter-offered. Rachel nodded. "The eight other bodies at the house;” Javiera shook her head. "Four were dead and by that I mean reported dead from four to nine years ago. The rest; Hell, they were all twisted fucking savages. Every one of them had Interpol warrants out for them, for questioning. No accusations seemed to stick to them: misplaced evidence, dead witnesses and falsified death certificates." "Does this mean anything to you?" Javiera paused to get some more information. "Yes. Reference the men running for their lives," I nodded. "Cáel?" Rachel cautioned me. "This is not something you can rush into." "Actually, it was you who clued me in, Rachel," I looked at her. "Given an opportunity to have only one gun of a given type, would you choose one you knew intimately, or a totally random one?" was my rhetorical question. Professionals trained with a large variety of weapons, yet every Amazon I had met had a preferred weapon; one that if they could have it with them, they would. "The Zastava M2," Rachel nodded. "It is not used in too many places and only Peru in this hemisphere. Someone really loved that gun; enough to bring it from whatever killing field where he was currently employed to my home," I said. "Since the other likely culprit passed on a chance to kill me last night, I am sure enough to pick a fight." (Holy Cross) It had to be odd in so many ways for the people who knew Dad and, to a lesser extent, me. They gathered by the graveside. It wasn't much. Dad had been cremated as had Mom. They had these small granite markers; no headstones for them. They had been so much in love. All they wanted is to be laid to rest, side by side. Mom had insisted on cremation. I thought I knew why, but it had done no good. The true oddity was obvious. The islet of normalcy was the small funerary party with me. My Aunt; my Father's Sister; was here and somewhat in shock. She and Dad hadn't been close; so much unsaid. When my Grandparents died, Dad was only nineteen and Stella was sixteen. Stella's lifelong friend had moved to Maryland a few months previously. Stella reached out to her friend, her friend's parents talked to Dad and Stella went to off to be a mariner. Seeing her occasionally as I was growing up was the extent of our relationship. The priest did his thing. I wondered what Christ thought of this mystic fur ball that was the amalgam of my life. My hope was that he was quietly urging me to do the right thing. The Padre finished, the co-workers and neighbors came by to give their condolences and then ran the gauntlet. The gauntlet? Yes, the herd of Amazons, O'Shea kin and four other clumps of people who I didn't know, yet undoubtedly would soon. Selena and Miyako were present along with a third female who looked luscious in a burqa-shaped covering and a diaphanous veil. Javiera, Pratt and Nicole were somewhat out of place with their lack of arrogant lethality. A limo driver came to take Stella away. "I have some issues to deal with, Aunt Stella," I comforted her. "Vér a vér." It had been ages since she'd heard Hungarian so she wasn't sure what I meant, but she knew it was bad. One of my O'Shea aunts was coming my way until the menace of the closing Amazons halted her. The others had no clue what they were about to behold. I doubt outsiders had ever been privileged to witness anything like it. This was a declaration; it was my mission statement. Ishara did not hide. I took off my coat, folded it, placed it on the damp grass then knelt on it. Buffy stepped up with the bowl of incense and followed my 'coat to keep your knees clean' stunt, sitting perpendicular on my right. Helena followed suit on my left, placing a shroud over my head and leaned over the bowl. Gamble number one: the incense lit up instantly. Gamble number two: it really did burn my eyes; no more Desiree slapping me around. I was sure she'd be heartbroken. Gamble number three: while using my nifty little Amazon blade to gather my tears, I managed not to cut myself. The inductees were much more impressed when they realized what I was doing under my head covering. The next step had me pulling back the shroud, standing up, and striding over the burning bowl of incense. Helena called out the first name. The lady didn't need any prodding. The Amazon walked over to my coat and knelt. Helena wrote down her name and handed her the slip of paper. My Keeper motioned to the bowl. The first applicant placed her named slip of paper on the embers. The simple message flashed up and was consumed. That was unlooked for. I declared her old self dead. With my tears, I opened her eyes to our ancestral history and with blood, I brought her into our future. She had entered House Ishara. She wasn't the only one crying either. What Rachel and her team thought was unknown to me. They were being hyper-vigilant. Esmeralda kept stealing glances our way. Things went along with joyous solemnity until the fourteenth woman, Alicia, knelt before me. Helena handed the paper over, the Amazon dropped it on the incense and nothing happened. I was about to move on to the next part of the ritual when I caught sight of that. Buffy, Helena and the lady were all staring at the offending bit of tinder. I bent over and, with my index finger, pushed it into the embers. Nothing; no heat, or fiery consumption. I put some spit on my finger and pushed again. This time it burned me. The paper was fine. Damn it; 'Come on Ishara!' I screamed mentally. 'Can't I have a simple bit of theater without you mangling someone's dreams?' There was no supernatural scolding, or retort. "Alicia, Ishara believes you have not yet finished your walk outside our House," I consoled the woman; Alicia Holt. As she stood up, faced gripped with disbelief, Buffy rose and took her away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alicia shoot me a poisonous look. Buffy had anticipated this and was making sure the woman didn't make a scene. The last six women were even more nervous than the previous thirteen. Thankfully, Ishara was accepting of the remainder and we all transited to the group celebratory hug. Act one has passed safely, Act two had an unexpected bump and here came round three. The 'dignitaries' started swooping in. Outside of the O'Shea's, none of the guests wanted to have another group behind them, or hemming in them. Two of the groups held back and since one was composed entirely of Asians, I was betting the other group was the Egyptian Rite. One of my now four aunts came forward. My small crowd of Isharans gave her barely enough room to approach the grave. She placed a green rose upon my Mother's small marble marker. I wondered what my Mother would have thought of her sisters finally finding her; green rose? Who made green; probably the same sick son of a bitch who made female clones of himself? The other three followed suit, placing the roses in a radiating sunburst on the small piece of marble. Through the wall of Illuminati security came; the Missing Link. Oh My God. I had heard of V-chested males, but this was insane. I swear his upper arms were as big as my thighs. The problem was the hips and legs of the body didn't match-up to the torso, arms, neck (or lack thereof) and shoulders. The upper, steroid-addicted half belonged to a two meter tall giant. The lower half belonged to, maybe, a subpar man of a meter and a half This monster didn't have a receding hairline (actually, he did); he had a receding forehead. In homo-sapiens, if you roll a marble off their heads, it drops and hits the eyebrows. On this guy, it was a gentle ski-slope all the way down. "This is your Uncle Carrig," Brianna; I thought it was Brianna; made the introductions. I dialed up my Irish. Carrig meant; meant; 'rock'. Not 'the Rock' as in Dwayne Johnson. No, it meant 'rock' as in 'lump'. I had an Uncle Lumpy. How the fuck was I going to explain this at the next high school reunion? The answer was obvious. I'd parade out my four lava-stoked volcanic aunt-hotties and no one would be able to see old Uncle Lumpy over their sexual radiance. Perhaps being created in the form of a disfigured Neanderthal made Lumpy furious with the world. That might be why he wanted Grandpa to stay dead. Maybe; oh hell, Lumpy had serious family issues, as in he wanted to hump my aunts who only wanted to hump me. "Hello Uncle Carrig," I started out. "Thank you for; " "Shut up," he sneered. "I came here to see your whore of a mother one last time, not listen to your prattle." "Carrig, don't," Fiona intervened. "He is family." He took a deep breath. "I know why all of you want him in the Family," he snarled at his sisters. "Behave, or leave," I relayed in a far calmer voice than I felt. "I'll leave when I'm good and ready," Carrig turned his hate back on me. He put a finger to his nose and cleared his sinuses. The resulting sputum he launched at my Mother's tiny rock reminder was dead-on the money, gooey, white and full of phlegm. I looked at that defilement. This red-hot poker of rage seared through my mind. Instead, I laughed. It started as a stuttered utterance but grew and grew into a rich, resounding conquest of death and despair. "Wow, Unc; that was kind of pathetic," I chuckled. "It is impossible to imagine you ever breathed the same air, much less hold any genetic resemblance, to the greatest criminal mastermind of the past millennia. Seriously, spitting on a piece of stone was the most your orangutan-like, sloped-headed pea brain could come up with?" "After that (cough) brilliant bit of diplomacy, he's probably glad he's still dead and didn't have to witness your infantile blunder," I added. He was getting pissed; torn between his desires to pummel me, rip me to shreds, or storm off like a raging King Kong. "You know, when they killed Grandpa, they told me he made a noise like a stuck pig," I mirthfully met his hateful glare. "For a moment, they thought they'd killed the wrong man." "They suspected you and Granddad were in the next chamber, him ramming you up your sissy-ass for the umpteenth time because you are nothing but a ball-less wonder of a cast-off eunuch," I kept taunting him. "Then they recalled that you always squealed like a piglet, not a full grown boar, so they completed their mission and left," I refused to flinch before his vile hatred. "You think you are funny?" he leaned in and hissed. "I think you need a breath mint; and I am hilarious," I grinned. "I also think I'm the son Granddad always wanted, not you." That was me being mean; really mean. "We are not done," his eyes narrowed. "Take your pulse," I mocked him. "When it stops, we are finished. Until then, brush, use mouthwash and floss between meals. Your halitosis is truly offensive and worse, I think you are aware of it, yet still you refuse to respect other people's personal boundaries." "We should go brother," Deidre beckoned. She couldn't hide her amusement at his discomfort and humiliation. Uncle Carrig pivoted and back-handed her. Deidre went flying, but my idiot kinsman didn't have long to savor his win. I hit him with two lightning blows. My first thought was that I had dislocated a few of my fingers from hitting his jaw. Wasn't there a Bond villain like that? Carrig turned on me, a feral fury brimming just beneath the surface. "That's a breach, you cocky, snot-nosed punk," he sneered. Mass carnage was in the offing. "You remain painfully ignorant, Uncle Carrig," I took a half-step back. "Take your punishment now, or later," he coughed. "It makes no difference to me." "First off, Carrig, timing should be a poignant concern. Second, you have only now expended a great deal of your meager brain power convincing everyone here we are related; kin; O'Shea's," I explained. "Also, can I have my knife back?" "Knife?" he blinked suspiciously. "Yeah, the knife I left in your chest," I pointed. I said I hit him twice. Uncle Lumpy looked down and, sure enough, my handy little 10 cm blade was between his second and third rib on the right side. I hadn't wanted to kill him. I had wanted to hurt him and apparently failed at that; while sticking a blade almost up to the handle (Amazon personal blades have no hilt) into him; "What; how?" Lumpy was slowly clueing in that he might be in some trouble. "Brother," Brianna stepped up; shooting me a sultry, 'bend me over the closest headstone and bang me like your Goth prom date' look. I actually didn't go to my prom, Goth chicks are fun and Brianna didn't have panties on. Trust me; I have ESP concerning such things. Of more immediate concern; "Carrig, don't pull out the knife," she placed herself between us, facing him. "You will bleed all over the place." "I'm about to ram it down his ass through his throat," he snarled, clearly educationally challenged. I'd left the blade there for that very reason; not have him fountain blood all over the gravesite. "How long is the blade?" Brianna asked me. She already knew the answer. "10 cm," I was polite, "as is the knife every other Amazon carries." "Reach around and pull out the blade when I tell you," Brianna requested. "I will keep pressure on the wound." I had serious doubts she had an MD associated with her name which meant she knew something I didn't. I also had a more pressing conundrum. Per instructions, I was about to be pressing against Brianna's backside with the added benefit of a free hand. "So, do you want me to pat them, or give them a good rub?" I whispered to Brianna. I'd let he decide what treatment her ass was about to receive. "I figure if I reach around and massage your breasts, Carrig will lose it." "Cáel, take a firm hold. Be doubly sure you are ready before we begin," Brianna instructed. It wasn't the Di Vinci Code, but Carrig wasn't about to conquer a Denny's Kid's Menu (it has little games on it) anytime soon either. Brianna wanted double penetration and, in the name of renewing family relations and my inability to resist any available woman for more than a few days, I complied. Then the horror came crashing in; I hadn't had sex all day and it was almost 10 am. "Don't move, Uncle," I cautioned him. I used those words to conceal the sound of Brianna's skirt zipper going down. I used my other hand to gingerly grab my weapon; the knife; jeesh. Brianna spread her legs wider so that the tension kept her apparel from slipping down. My free hand went inside and got to work. Fortunately, Brianna's hands pressing above and below the wound distracted Carrig from her cute, precious whimpering noises. I must be a total dick. I was stroking my aunt/clone mother with two fingers and teasing her bunghole with my thumb while pulling a knife from my uncle's chest. What is wrong with me? For that matter, Ishara could stymie the ambitions of some poor 'Runner', yet decided her prime minion doing this was a good thing? I work for some screwed up people; dead and alive. "Okay, I'm about to do it," I warned them both. Brianna was kind enough to roll her hips forward and ass up for more direct access. The blade came out, two fingers thrust into her depths, Carrig grunted more in annoyance than any physical distraction and Brianna gasped with piteous need. Before Carrig could start to connect A to B to C, I withdrew my fingers and zipped Brianna up. As I started to withdraw, Brianna acted like my loins were velcroed to her posterior. "Bad Girl," I quietly gave her a risqué reproach. She let me go. Then it hit me like a meteor; I had caused Brianna to orgasm, and hard, with one touch. In fact, she was still roughly riding through it. The mental discipline needed to mask her arousal was impressive. She had no control over her aromatic qualities, Lumpy's nostrils were working fine and his hateful, beady rodent-like eyes latched back on me. "I'm going to kill you," he screamed. Carrig definitely wanted to screw his sisters and they had certainly been denying him. I was curious how that had been accomplished. As he shoved Brianna aside, my suspicion about the seriousness of my wound to his chest was confirmed. I hadn't punched through his heavy corded muscle tissue; with a 10 cm blade. Fuck a duck. If Uncle Carrig got those horrifically huge paws of his on me, I'd be paper-mâché in a hurricane; turned into veal; the very tenderized kind. That wasn't going to happen because of a little factor called crowd density. Most notably, he was in the midst of a passel of Amazons invested in my well-being. A sliver of the O'Shea family dynamic took hold. As usual, it sucked to be me. The four O'Shea ladies rallied around Carrig, cautiously pulled him back then ushered him into the steely embrace of their security. Why did that mean it sucked to be me? In a momentary visual exchange, I understood what Lumpy instinctually sensed when he showed up today. His reign as the place-holder for me was coming to an end. The second my Aunts recruited me over to their side, he was a goner. Obviously they had all the real intellect on that side of the clan. Poor Lumpy merely stomped around and acted like the socially maladjusted homicidal maniac he was. Once the journey to Grandpa's house began, he would cease to have any value whatsoever. Behind his animalistic, dull eyes, we shared that. Tragically, but most likely by design, Carrig couldn't develop a new set of skills to adapt to the situation. The best example I could come up with was; Imagine the last of the super-large amphibious predators confronting the first of the true dinosaur apex carnivores. Somewhere in that tiny amphibian brain, it knew it was screwed. Evolution simply hadn't left it an 'out'. It couldn't get bigger, faster, or more ferocious. It had maxxed out those traits for that model. Nope, it was toast and nothing could save it. As I processed that, the rest of that train of thought came tumbling down. Lumpy was a dead man. He'd hit one of his sisters in front of me which was precisely what they wanted. Deidre hadn't come by my place on Monday to warn me that Uncle Blockhead was trying to kill me. She was prepping me for the knowledge that they had killed Lumpy; to save me. Those incestuous nightmares had trotted Uncle Carrig out like a Barnum  and  Bailey Sasquatch, to loud acclaim and fanfare. Before I could do some in depth research/check to see if this was the 'real' Sasquatch, he would vanish aka be killed to save me. Well played ladies. They should have taken into account I worked for Katrina Love. Katrina undoubtedly played three-dimensional chess on-line so she could lure out the true Vulcans trapped on Earth. My aunts' straw man wasn't going to cut it. Back to the reality that included my father never again enjoying my meandering thoughts over dinner. Back to the other curious 'real' players as they moved in, having soaked up my ceremony and our O'Shea family struggle. If there as a benefit in that misadventure, it was the look on the faces of the two most distant groups. The ambassadors had on their poker faces. I was two decades away from having a chance of deciphering them. Foolish mortals, both groups had brought women with them though. That was not to imply that women can't keep secrets; they are among the experts. It wasn't secrets they were defending though; it was the interaction between Brianna and me that opened them up. If you are a woman and you see a man bring a different woman to orgasm with his fingers in under ten seconds and you are NOT intrigued, you have been sexually neutered. Even if you are a lesbian, you want your lover to pick up that technique. From the level of interest coming my way, I could tell what their bosses/associates really thought of me. The lady who was already thinking how to pull me aside at the reception was also projecting that I had piqued her co-workers, despite their feigned disinterest. The one who was plotting out how to disguise herself as a maid, so she could hide in my bathroom closet until I came in for a shower this evening. Then the feigned interrogation/instructional demonstration could begin, which told me they had chosen to not leave Chicago today despite previous travel plans. The three assholes won the social dare contest and approached me next. They were cool, somewhat disdainful and not a party to the murderous program that led us here today. They were still Condotteiri, thus my enemies and slayers of my Dad. "Mr. Nyilas," a smooth talking Canadian male began, "I wish to pass on the condolences of; " "I know it was you," I broke in. The Canadian; Ottawa, I thought; stopped talking, allowing me to vent. "You killed my father, you fucks. Now here is your 'I got drunk and stuck my cock in a meat grinder only to discover some other moron plugged it in' bullet to the brain. I am not only Cáel Nyilas, I am Cáel Ishara and Cáel, grandson of Cáel O'Shea," I narrowed my vision to menacing slits. "I will let you figure out which Goddess is Ishara as well as the convoluted genetics that has resurrected male Amazons. I want you to know that my father was the Head of House Ishara. You killed a Factor of the Illuminati, the 'Voice' of one of the Nine Clans, one of your own Generals, a Grand Master of the Egyptian Rite, a Ba Wang of the 7 Pillars, or a Chosen Son or Daughter, of Earth  and  Sky "That's right," I let the fear sink in. "This goes beyond a breach, Dumbass. You BROKE the Truce and have ended the Protocols by killing an Amazon leader. I'm sure claims of ignorance by your Generals will be taken for the empty blathering they are. It is time for your blood to soak the sacred soil of my father's place of entombment." Having buried him and his two cohorts in a rockslide of truth, my final bluff passed unrevealed for the empty threat it was. I could see by the looks in their eyes. Amazons didn't care about law enforcement. They would kill those three, vanish into the surrounds then slink back to their secret compounds. It was how the Condotteiri thought Amazon's worked. "Or," I grumbled, "Are you going to make me and my sisters hunt you down and work for it. Killing you with our knives is going to be;” I was saying when their retreat began. I was going to say 'messy'. Those three took a half-dozen steps back then ran for it. Now the stage was fully set. The three members of the Nine Clans came next. I took a totally different tone. Selena stepped up to speak, bowing as she started to speak. "We wish;” she started. There was a lot of interrupting going on today. "Please do not bow to me," I requested softly. "We have fought and it seems inappropriate to me that, without there being a martial decision, we cannot be sure who should be more respectful to whom," I suggested. Selena quickly switched gears. She and her two female companions were now openly staring at me. "My Sith Lady is most likely preparing for trouble at my most vulnerable point," I told Selena. "I'm much more trouble than I first appear," I added. A hiccup in the conversation took place. "You are the male Head of an Amazon House; how?" Selena questioned. "My father and the fathers before him carried the genes of the original Ishara. When Her daughters died out, the legacy fell to me," I explained. Really smart girls; really, really smart girls. "You do not have any daughters, so your first born daughter will be the next Head of your House," the Hashashin noted quickly. "Of any line?" Ah, the siren call of 'please have unprotected sex with me, Mr. Studmuffin. Not only will I walk bow-legged for a week afterwards, I'll have a political tool to use for a lifetime.' "Yes, that is true. Please understand, unless you can catch a thrown tomahawk with your feet, I can't say you are at the top of the list," I sighed. "Speaking of the acrobat of my dreams, how are you doing Miyako?" I knocked away at the barrier between our respective groups. I could hardly be considered an Amazon if I wasn't stacking the odds against the Condotteiri, now could I? On came that child-like Nipponese girl's smile that made me want to double-check her ID for proof of age. "It is recovering nicely. Thank you, Ishara-sama," she smiled warmly. "May I see?" I inquired. Miyako nodded so I went down until I was balanced on the balls of my feet. She deftly slipped out of one of her shoes, placed her foot on my knee then began rolling up the pants leg until the bandage was revealed. In the past few hours my medical knowledge had not increased one iota. I was pretty sure that Miyako knew what this doctor's visit was really all about. I gently massaged her leg from ankle to knee, examining it for flaws and weaknesses. I received some manna from Heaven when I stumbled upon a muscle spasm in her foot arch. I worked it out in under thirty seconds and she gave me a musical murmur of relief when I was done. I put her shoe back on and rolled down her trouser leg. "I would still like you to see our medic if you could spare the half-hour," I offered as I stood. "If it would ease any misconceptions about our first encounter, I will do it," Miyako changed her mind from last night. My next neural misfire was 'Did I pack enough condoms to do all these girls I've been promising to fuck since I got here?' "Estere Abed," the thinly-veiled applicant to be the mother of my first child introduced herself. I was at my father's funeral, I'd been hit with the realization that my incestuous aunts are going to emasculate the uncle I'd just met before they kill him, and I was talking to a woman with skin the color of well-seasoned Oak, eyes as dark as expresso-roasted coffee beans (so deeply brown they were almost black), a pale turquoise, virtually transparent pretend-burqa, with inner, skimpy clothing bits keeping her barely street-legal and visualizing what our daughter would look like. "I am of Kurdish extraction," she lowered her head minutely. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Not only was a-bed something I was seriously considering with this woman, Estere was a Kurdish name of Old Persian extraction. It meant Ishtar; who was the advanced incarnation of Ishara. Bitch; aimed up at my Matron Goddess and Ancestral Mother turned Dominatrixes of my soul. "How; how mystically convergent that is," I grumbled. "I apologize. Me and my matron Ball-buster are exchanging psychic barbs at the moment. Had you somehow predicted this would have happened, I would be happier. With my luck though, this is accidental from the perspective of the mortal plane, thus a point of incredible annoyance to me right now." "Do you often talk to your ancestors?" Estere inquired politely. "Only after I've done something bad," I groaned. "Usually my Goddess is short on instructions yet always ready with 'I told you so'." "How can she chastise you for doing wrong if she fails to give you direction?" Estere was so sincere. I had to keep in mind she was a professional librarian with the nasty habit of misfiling people's lives. "I can tell you don't deal with the Spirit World much," I gave a sad grin. "The last time she gave me a prod, I was staring down a life sentence in a dog cage; after I was condemned, not before." "You escaped," she reminded me with a sparkle. I gave a harsh laugh. "No; no, I didn't," I said. "I'll prove it." I lashed out at Estere. She turned my strike aside and was about to do something I assumed would be unfortunate for me when she restrained herself. "See, Estere, you've been doing this most of your life. I'm a college kid who had a good fortune to meet and be guided by a series of stellar women." She nodded. She didn't understand yet she wanted to remain sympathetic. "I'm playing catch up in an incredibly lethal chess match," I continued. "My advantage is I'm not fuck-nuts crazy like the rest of you people. I don't mean to insult you. I simply want to make it clear how I feel. All the societies are spiritually malformed blights on reality; evil, twisted and predatory." "But you like us," she observed. "I'm going to Hell," I risked much by brushing her nose with my finger from brow to the edge of the veil. "I might as well enjoy the journey." Since I returned with all the fingers I started out with, I could tell she appreciated my caress. Our other guests were getting restless, so I had to end our interaction there. A lone man approached. He looked to be a Turkish/Mongolian mixture and he was uncomfortable with the way the situation had developed. I doubt I had offended him. It was much more the scope of this informal meeting had gone way above his pay grade. As he was from the Earth  and  Sky, the Amazons' hostility simmered. I countered that by being as civil as possible. The emissary, Iskender, gave his condolences, I thanked him for his respect and entered into a small conversation. When he figured out who the Magyar were, he smiled. Iskender was a Kyrgyz, a Turkish people from Central Asia, and we bonded over our male progenitors having saddled up on our nomad ponies, making Eurasia tremble. I was putting forth the effort to make him feel welcome. That was the message for him to take home. Not all the Amazons were going to have their knee-jerk reaction to the E and S's goal. Next came the Seven Pillars, mainly because the Egyptians seemed ready to wait for the grass to devour them before coming my way. Now I had to pillage the vaults of my crafty interpersonal skills to do this correctly. Two men, endowed with as much racial supremacy as Ursula, if not more, introduced themselves. Slight bowing, polite English and the proper, rehearsed words flowed from their mouths. They didn't look down on me; the reason being that behind their perfect civility, they considered me and mine to be inconsequential. The nice female of an indeterminate South Asian lineage had that haunted look of someone made to do horrible things just to survive. A flash of the macabre dumped a memory of her strangling homeless people in some back alleys with barbed wire; so it would hurt them both; training, Seven Pillars style. "Thank you for paying your respects at my father's grave," I started. They hadn't, btw. "I only ask for two things, please," I added humbly. "May I see her palms for a moment?" I asked the man. The woman was clearly a servant; some sort of Palace Guard/Fuck Slave. The leader nodded. The girl was never consulted. Her hands came forward and they rolled so that I saw the scars on her palm; screw you, Ishara. I don't want to care about her. My day planner was more than full with anguish as it was. No answer. "I appreciate it," I smiled. I waited, keeping eye contact. "Was there something else?" the leader finally gave in. "Oh yes," I smiled and nodded. "Don't get in our way. Behave, stay put on that rotting, rubble pile of a decadent and faded civilization you call Heaven and let us do what needs to be done." "Is that clear enough, or do I need to send you both home with your irradiated testicles in jars?" I kept politely smiling and nodding. I was threatening to make them eunuchs with the bonus of having their precious genetics rendered useless. The girl was giving off minute reactive tremors. That was okay. I had been anything, but quiet. Twenty Amazons were ready and willing to make my threat a reality. I wasn't sure how they would break into Fermi Labs for the radiological material, but their resourcefulness never failed to amaze me. The two guys from the Seven Pillars were standing there, not sure what to do next. I had insulted and threatened them; emissaries. Didn't they realize Amazons had been killing poor bastards entreating them for peace for several millennia? "Beat it," I snapped with authority. "I'm done with you. Take my words back to your masters and pray they excuse your gutless reaction. Don't let the airport hit you in the ass." Ugly American? I was the God Damn Bearded Woman/Dog Boy American and their facades were finally fraying around the edges and not the least because going home and telling their bosses my exact words was going to be; well, the positive spin they put on it had better be impressive. They left with their confident poise while the Egyptians approached with a bit of trepidation. Calling me erratic and volatile was being overly kind. My bet was the older male was in charge, but my age and lusty actions convinced them to put the younger woman forward. The younger male bodyguard wasn't even paying attention to me. If the shit went south, he knew he was a goner. "Greetings Cáel Ishara, it seems," she offered my hand to shake. In Old Kingdom Egyptian he said; "May the Blessed Isis bring understanding to this greeting," I countered. Both she and the old man blinked. The rest was in the Egyptian of Ramses and Seti. "It is wonderful to see you speak our sacred tongue; or a close proximity," she smiled. Not only was she generally happy, she was also pretty sure a very unfortunate confrontation was not in the offing. The bodyguard knew of the language but not enough to make out what was being said. The young lady and old man were more than happy to switch to this rare form of communication. We chatted. Things like funerary rites, thoughts on the afterlife and the role of the supernatural in the modern world all came up. No secrets were exchanged and we actually went over some ancient jokes and ribald tales. Buffy's coughing brought us out of our reverie. They taught me the proper Egyptian Rite greeting and farewell, departing in peace. The Amazons were stirring. It was time to head to the cars then on to the wake. "I do not understand you," Javiera grumbled. "You insulted multiple people, including threats of death and dismemberment. You struck and stabbed; something, but not before he knocked a women nearly three meters. I am not even sure that; relative of yours qualifies as human." "I don't know how to approach you and that woman/aunt/whatever," she continued. "Was that incest, public sex, or sexual assault since I didn't hear her give permission for you to do; that?" Whoops; jealousy. Nicole was a half-step back so she could hide her insidious smirk. She already knew I was a bad, bad boy. "I don't know if this makes it better, or worse, but that; those women are not just my aunts. They are the genetic duplicates of my mother and if you think it is funny that they look to be about my age; you wouldn't be alone," I sighed. "Is your mother dead?" she seethed. "Normally, I would take a Death Certificate, mortuary report and a grave marker to be enough. Not with you." "When I was seven years old I saw her very sick in the hospital. I never saw her die, or the cremation, so with my crazy life I'm not going to swear that she's no longer of this Earth," I confessed. "The only one who would know for sure would be; " "Your father," Javiera answered. I began crying all over again. That was it. When I wanted someone dead, I was going to personally put a stake in their hearts, starting with me. This shit has gone down the rabbit hole. In that transitory micro-burst, I flipped. Not to crazy. I had spent my life believing in what was real; working out, girls, books, literature and art; things I could touch and feel, even if it was the air escaping my lungs as words, notes and sounds sprang forth. Now I had to take things on faith. Not 'faith' as in the calculated possibilities which is what most people really meant. I had to accept that there were things beyond my senses that I could not measure, or codify, and move my life forward understanding the total lack of a solid foundation I was basing my actions on. I needed to see Aya so much it hurt. "Are you going to arrest me?" I hiccupped. I was done bawling like a bereft child for a while. "For what?" Javiera snapped. "If I took this insanity before any judge I know, I'd be on Administrative Leave, if not out of a job altogether." "Oh yes," Nicole winked at me. "I was so looking forward to parading out the four identical aunts and the uncle/part-primate." Javiera shot Nicole a dirty look. "We need to go," Buffy reminded me. The only snag was the FBI guys, backed up by some Chicago PD, who intercepted Javiera as she walked with me to our limo. She had to separate for a minute to assure them she hadn't been kidnapped. After some rumbling, we were gifted with one FBI 'bodyguard' for Javiera. That was laughable. If a psychotic fit seized us, there would be two dead government officials instead of one. "Did you really stab that guy?" Special Agent Street Moslin asked once we were on our way. "My family believes in tough love," I muttered. "What sort of organized crime outfit are you with?" was next. "Pre-teen beauty pageants," I sighed. "You wouldn't believe how cutthroat they are." "It is a crime to lie to a criminal investigator," he countered. "And if this was an interrogation," Nicole sizzled, "you would have to Mirandize him." "He has already been Mirandized," the puppy yipped. "Oh? On the charge of Criminal Conspiracy to commit; clarify the charge for me," Nicole grinned. Street looked to Javiera. "What? Special Agent Moslin, consider yourself to not know a damn thing about what is going on and proceed from there," Javiera informed him. The poor bastard looked perplexed. "I will put your situation in context. The woman to my side (Rachel) is about to slit your throat. The woman (Buffy) next to Ms. Lawless is going to snap your neck. They do not give a crap that you, or I, are federal agents. The issue is not what will you do, it is which one gets to you first," Javiera glared at him. "Clear?" SA Street wasn't done yet. "They will get away with it because I suspect they already have such a contingency worked out," Javiera educated him. Javiera was yet Another really clever lady. "Call for our back-up vehicle, pull into a private driveway where you cannot legally follow us, abandon the vehicle, get picked up and leave the city on a private aircraft to another nation," Rachel sounded bored. That was so nice of her to assist Javiera out that way. "Thank you," I told Rachel. "That was very helpful of you." "I want the male to shut-up," Rachel answered. "He's grating. Worse, he's making me wish Pamela was with us and that is so wrong." I held up a finger to forestall Street. "Honestly Dude, she's is not messing with your head. She wants you to shut up, so please be quiet," I urged him. I conceptualized the assessment he was making. Crap. "Guy, whatever workout routine you think gives you the edge is what she does to warm up in the morning," I pleaded. Street had the 'she's only a girl' look about him. "Her combat training is with live rounds, real weapons and a plethora of scrapes, cuts and broken bones. I have little doubt that she's killed people, some in cold blood." "You being Top Shot at the local range and a Judo Champ isn't going to cut it," I emphasized. "You think she's some kind of Special Forces operator?" he mocked me. Javiera and Nicole got nervous. I didn't. Beginner's Amazon Psychology; male opinions do not matter. Rachel and Buffy weren't insulted because he was a chattering chimp and nothing more. "Have you ever heard of an all-female Special Forces unit?" I prodded. "No," he snorted. I kept staring; and staring; and then the idea began creeping in. "Where do you train?" Street looked at Rachel. Rachel was looking at him, not 'at' him. "Please Rachel," I requested. That was really for Javiera's benefit. "Physical training started at age five, weapons training at nine, survival testing at twelve, craft training at fifteen, and acceptance at nineteen," she rattled off in a monotone. "I am thirty." "What is 'craft training'?" Javiera inquired. "Learning to kill people and destroy things," she began. "My specialties are small unit tactics, security operations, electronic countermeasures and Recon Sniper," Rachel replied. "I am an accepted close combat trainer and handheld weapon expert. Do I need to explain any of that?" Pause. Street snorted. "Do you ever sleep?" Street joked. Rachel looked to me then rolled her eyes. "Yes. Six hours; every day unless duty intervenes," she said. "Right; so, what martial arts style do you practice?" he asked. "Not one you have ever heard of," Rachel took a deep breath. "Try me," Street entreated. "I've practiced with several." "Male, do I look like I enjoy talking to you?" Rachel glared. "To alleviate your obvious confusion, I do not. If you wish to lower the hostility level, hand me your pistol and the sap at your back. Your possession of said weapons in the presence of Cáel complicates my job. This is almost as irritating is restraining myself from taking them from you like the infant you are." "You think you could?" Street challenged her. "I was with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan." "Special Agent Moslin, she doesn't care. You might as well have told her you were a weekend security guard at an amusement park," I reasoned. "In her mind, being born with a penis renders all your accomplishments so much hyperbole; kind of how her having tits lowered your respect for her as a fighter." That successful ended that diversion. (The wake) Life was wonderful. I walked in the door of the Marshal Fields Jr. Mansion, Charlotte pulled me into a vacant side room and handed me a secure phone. She mouthed the name of the person on the other end. "Hayden," I sighed to my High Priestess. "Ishara (not using my first name was a bad sign), I have heard a report that you have declared war on the Condotteiri," she gave me the 'I'm going to skin you alive' purr. "Yep and I urinated on the Seven Pillars too," I confirmed. "Don't worry about the Illuminati. I've got that alliance sown up." "I'm going to have a member of the Nine Clans give me my first born, Ishara daughter, so that prospective alliance looks good as well," I added. "I even managed to be diplomatic with Earth  and  Sky. It is not even noon yet either. No need to thank me. Knowing you are thinking passionate thoughts about me is enough." Charlotte looked like her eyes were going to bug out. "We are clear on the fact that there are fifty two other houses in the House, aren't we Cáel?" Hayden murmured. "Hey now," I reposed, "you said to not pick a fight inside Havenstone. You didn't say anything about these sons of bitches on the outside. I also added nineteen new members. Ishara rejected one who I now think was a closet Man-hater's man-hater." "I want you to come back to Havenstone immediately and keep your mouth shut," she commanded. "The Council will be rightly furious." "With me?" I asked. "Of course with you," Hayden growled. "With the aid of the Federal Assistant Attorney, I received computer discs with extensive and sensitive data on Havenstone, including pictures and locations of Sydney and Marilynn, your daughter and granddaughter," I lied. "The feds seized the Condotteiri's private jet." Silence. "What? Why am I only now hearing of this?" Hayden inquired with a deathly calm. "Do you want me to work with the feds to finish hunting down those last two killers while I send someone back with the data?" I persisted. An oddly longer pause. "Katrina insists there is no data," Hayden seethed. "Of course there is no data," I snapped back. "Unlike you, I'm loyal to EVERY MEMBER of the Host, not just the ones I approve of! If I had something that important, it would be on the way to you, if not already in your hands. My House Head has been murdered. Support me; don't support me. It doesn't change that reality. You have lowered your worth in my eyes, Hayden. We will talk of this when I return." And I hung up. Charlotte kept gaping at me. "Do you think I was clear enough, Charlotte?" I asked her. "Yes Ishara," she whispered. "I doubt a single ancestor misconstrued your wrath." That stopped me in my tracks. A rank and file Amazon using my house name was perfectly acceptable. A Council 'equal' saying it was the equivalent of your pissed Mom yelling out your entire name. "You agree with me?" I blinked. "Had it been Fatima, Beyoncé, or Ngozi there would be no debate," Charlotte answered. "I don't like you; okay, beyond your physical magnetism I do not like you. You are still the Head of House Ishara and we believe that the ancestors move through you." By 'we' I imagine she meant Rachel's SD detachment. A social paradigm presented itself. Amazons were surprisingly democratic for such an ancient society. Their bonds of sisterhood gave them greater liberty than any other group I'd heard of. All could take their grievances to the highest authority. They could hate me and die for me at the same time, in the same way Charlotte could be honest at that moment. I was her superior in rank yet her equal in blood. "You realize that if you tell Buffy about this she'll beat me black and blue," I teased Charlotte. "No can do, Ishara," she chuckled. "She's your sister and, quite frankly, you wove this disaster and if anyone deserves to remind you of the trouble you've wrought, it is her." "I would call you a heartless Amazon, but that's kind of redundant," I glowered playfully. I couldn't hide with Charlotte in the side room forever. It was my father's wake after all. Out I went and there was Buffy waiting for me. "We have a problem," Buffy murmured to me as I headed to the main reception area/family room. "There are some questions concerning your Aunt Stella and the Ishara legacy." "Thank God," I muttered. My crisis was momentarily sidelined. I moved into the gathering, letting Helena and Buffy bring the Amazon to my corner. "Quick and easy," I stated as the last one j

Of Funerals and Families; Part One In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected.. “Victory is neither pointless, fleeting, nor soon forgotten. It is yours.” I have been warned that my Uncle wants me dead. My Aunts want me for; other things." "What do they want?" E asked. It was the whole 'men as a true asset' problem for her. "The whole repository of nefariousness;” Pamela started to explain, but then, "Double Word Score!" Pamela and I exclaimed excitedly then 'high-fived'. Yes, you spiteful Cosmos, I had found my soul-mate and she was a near-octogenarian with a macabre sense of humor; who also had a telepathic ability to know my mind. E looked totally lost in the exchange. "Yes; the whole repository of nefariousness was created to be sterile," Pamela picked up the conversation. "Which makes the very existence of Cáel here very noteworthy; virtually inexplicable," she mused. "What have the labs at Havenstone think of this?" Rachel worried. "I refused to go back in for any more tests," I met her gaze. "But it could be important," E joined in. "I will make it easy on you both; I'm a horrible person. I'm the Head of House Ishara and I elect to not put my fate in the hands of the same people who leaked my very existence to the Illuminati during the first set of tests," I stated. "Which is why I'm here in Chicago burying my Father, in case any of you missed it." "Certainly knowing what is going on is more important than the risk of further exposure," E persisted. She got kudos for sticking to her guns. "Esmeralda, I work for Katrina Love, Head of Executive Services," I responded. "By that I mean I have this nifty little glass table in a corner of her office. Me stressing over my genetics isn't really important. Katrina is on the case and I haven't been out of college for two months yet. If the difference between Havenstone getting in a fight with the Illuminati and keeping the truce is my blood sample, she'll let me know," I added. "As far as Ishara is concerned, Havenstone had an information leak that got a house member killed." "Do you have other family?" E inquired hesitantly. "Blood kin? Not in this country and certainly not anyone I could name," I sighed. "I case you are wondering, there are a grand total of three members on Ishara's roster." "Is the rest of your family safe?" E was trying to sound upbeat. "Safe? Of course they are not safe. They both work for Executive Services, Esmeralda. They were 'Runners' who I inducted into Ishara. They are Amazons of the Host and that means never being safe this side of the cliffs. Friday morning I presented them to our ancestors and they were welcomed as equals; as sisters to those who have the blood of Mycenaeans on their hands," I turned to look out the window. "What was it like?" Tiger Lily inquired. "The induction." "If you are looking for a vision of a stone hall with thousands of war-like Amazons holding me in judgment, you'll be disappointed," I recalled. "I had to create the ceremony from scratch; ash, tears and blood. "I felt strong enough about that instinct I let Desiree slap me until I cried enough tears. With Desiree's knife, I cut myself, they cut themselves and our blood mixed," I finished. "That is not how it is done," Rachel corrected me. "No," I stopped. "It is not how you do it. House Ishara has come back from the void that waits for all those who are dead and have no one living to recall them," I explained. "We are not the other Houses. We are both Love and Oaths and there is a lack of respect for each of those virtues in this World." "I never considered Amazons as overly romantic, but we are true to our oaths," Esmeralda was starting to bask in the openness of the exchange. "I do not doubt the integrity of anyone in this vehicle, except for me," I gave her a weary grin. "The failure of oaths is mine. Ishara was bound by an Oath and has failed in her pledge. You are wrong about the romance and I am sure you have misunderstood my definition. I live for the day when no sons are sent to the cliffs as newborns; Love, Esmeralda. Love." The hush pressed upon us until Tiger Lily pulled up in front of the Hotel Burnham. Rachel, E, Charlotte (from the second GL) and I went in. I wave the others back as I went to the desk. Rachel and Charlotte had grey duffel bags with 'stuff' inside. E had my minimal kit. "Cáel Nyilas with Havenstone," I introduced myself. Yes, I was in 'prison' gear. "Director Nyilas; welcome to the Burnham," he recovered quickly. "Which rooms do you wish to use?" Thank you, Helena, no I'm a damn Director. He twisted the screen so I could see the list. Eleven doubles and a Lakeview Executive Suite with two adjoining Deluxe Suites. "We'll use those," I indicated the Executive/Deluxe/Deluxe. "Very good, Sir," he nodded. "Will you be ordering room service? I'm afraid the Atwood restaurant has closed for the evening." "Sounds like a plan," I looked at his name tag, "Steve, or do you prefer Mr. McCabe?" "Steve will do fine, Director;” Steve started. "I will make it easy on you Steve," I sighed. "Call me Cáel. All this Director crap is for the benefit of people I barely know. I am here, in my hometown, to bury my Father; who was murdered yesterday." Steve paled. "The FBI gave me these spiffy duds. If any law enforcement shows up asking for me, give me a ring first." "Nyilas; from Burnham? I read about that," Steve seemed bemused. "The day shift Assistant Manager is from Burnham too." How wonderful, I thought sarcastically. Steven sensed my waning interest. "Your keycards, Sir; Cáel and my sympathy for your loss." "Steve, never miss a chance to tell your loved ones how you feel," I took the cards. "That is my biggest regret with my Dad. I didn't think about it the last time we talked." Steve gave a final nod. I rejoined my group and headed for the elevator. The rest was a tired blur. The rest of the group showed up, including Pamela. I called Nicole to tell her the situation then called Timothy despite the late hour to make sure he was okay. Timothy informed me that two 'psycho-chicks' stopped by as a kind of 'meet and greet'. I hit the small hotel fitness center with Mona, the fourth member of Rachel's team. It helped. What helped more was the constant reminder that I worked with smart people. Mona's mother was dead as well, killed on an undisclosed mission with the SD when she was ten. She could understand my sense of grief and confusion. We didn't cry and hug. It wasn't something she could do with a man. Give a decade, or two and she might come around. Instead, "Thank you for Constanza," Mona said quietly to me as we exited the center. "I measure a person's life in the lives we save; as well as the ones we take," I enlightened her. Before that moment, I didn't really consider killing people to be all that praiseworthy an endeavor. Today I had been in a situation where my life had been in immediate danger. I was glad the other guy ended up dead. Since I was prepared to keep acting stupidly, I was grateful for those who would murder people so that I could remain both noble of purpose and alive. "She is close to me; she helped me grow up after Mom was gone," Mona opened up a tiny bit. "Aren't you a bit angry with me?" I asked. "Initially, I was very angry. Then I heard your words and I knew you spoke the truth of the matter," Mona exhaled. "She should have died. She deserved death for what she said." "No one;” I started to comfort Mona. "For a member of a Faith that exults in the harshness of martial conflict, you spend an inordinate amount of energy struggling to keep people alive," Mona noted. "I'm glad I helped deal with those Latin Kings now. It was a mission worth doing." "What?" I stumbled. "Didn't Buffy tell you?" Mona regarded me. She smirked. "Yeah, we hunted them down late Sunday night and into early Monday morning. I doubt the few who escaped will ever be back." "Why haven't I; anybody heard about this?" I worried. Mona looked at me somewhat perplexed. "Cáel of Ishara, we always take the bodies of murder victims, cut them up, place them in large drums of acid and ship them to Canada," Mona informed me. "Ah; thanks for telling me that. Let's both agree to not let Buffy know that I know, okay?" I requested. "She'll get an inordinate thrill thinking she knows something I don't." "As you wish, Cáel of Ishara," Mona nodded gravely.  (Tuesday Morning) Sexual addiction is somewhat like military service. It requires you to be alert to your surroundings, think on your feet, follow procedures and; most crucial to me; shows you how to remain functional with minimal sleep. In this case, five hours sufficed to clear out my cobwebs and make me incredibly horny. All of that was despite the layers of upsetting news being placed before me. Executive Services had gone over the feed from the four SD members. Inadvertently, Dad had fought on the 'right' side. The team leader died first. Her back-up put two men in the grave and wounded a third before they tossed a grenade on her. I looked at Charlotte as she gave me the news. We both had a 'what the' expression on our faces. Grenade? I kept doing my calisthenics. The second two-Amazon group killed three attackers on their side of the building then charged the back door. I wondered if Mom's Garden Dragon was okay. It was like a Garden Gnome, except it was a Dragon. Mom was odd that way. The attacking group had blown the front door and entered the first floor. The Amazons in the back decided to shoot out the lock instead. While transiting the kitchen moving forward, the second group took fire; from a Zastava M 21. I was confused. "It is a modern Serbian weapon," Charlotte filled in the blanks. "Dad was killed by Serbians?" I muttered. "No," Charlotte sighed. "No he wasn't." Another look from me as I started my standing push-ups. "That team member was wounded. The shooter was taken down by both of our teammates. At this point, three other attackers moved from your front room to the dining room, pinning our team down. That was when your father broke cover and assaulted the attackers. He had this large lamp and cracked it over the right shoulder of the closest man," Charlotte stated. I knew that light fixture Charlotte was talking about. It was a floor lamp, nearly two meters tall, made of glass and bronze. My physique was from my Father; broad shoulders and powerful arms. That 'large lamp' weighed over 30 kg and, powered by my father's upper body strength, I was betting the guy who was on the receiving end had have some of his bones snapped. "The man screamed in Bulgarian, his two companions turned to see what was happening and the Amazons advanced by fire toward your father," Charlotte continued. "Your father swung again," she looked at me, "connecting with the man's chest. In response, the other two shot him three times. He fell. The second team pressed forward, killing the man your Father wounded and wounding another. The last unhurt Amazon was killed trying to get to your Father while the survivor was concussed by the use of a second grenade. We don't have the video of what happened in the interim. When the last Amazon began moving again, the two remaining attackers had dragged your father out the front door. She pursued and fired. She wounded the undamaged attacker; and one of her bullets ended your Father's life. She was wounded in this last exchange of fire. The two men helped each other to a vehicle and left." I kept working out as I made an acceptable collage of my misery. "Does she know?" I whispered. "Does she; the Amazon? Her name is Sabina. I don't think she's been informed yet," Charlotte answered. "Unless it becomes necessary, don't tell her that her bullet killed my Father," I sighed. "The only thing that is important to me; to Ishara; is that she gave her all as did her sisters. My Father was killed by the men who first shot him. Had they escaped with my Father, they weren't taking him to a hospital, so he was as good as dead anyway. That is all that matters." "Yes Ishara," Charlotte responded with quiet reverence. Knowing nothing of Security Detail's procedure and tradition, I had tossed out an excuse to spare a valiant woman a terrible piece of news. Charlotte's demeanor suggested to me that it would be a kindness conveyed. A few minutes later, Rachel and Tiger Lily came in from their suite. Mona had been my guardian while I slept so she slept now. This was our signal to shower and put on some clothes before the group went downstairs for breakfast. Pamela presented herself as I was getting dressed. Esmeralda's arrival signaled our migration to the ground floor Atwood restaurant. As everyone glided into the elevator, I had a nostalgic moment for Odette. A normal, non-lethal, happy young lady. This all-encompassing seriousness around me was crimping my efforts to find the silver lining in this personal calamity. Ten seconds after exiting the elevator, Nicole angled toward us then we proceeded to breakfast. It took a little jockeying and refereeing by me to get the seating arrangements set. Nicole was on my left then Pamela. Rachel and E were on my right. Charlotte and Tiger Lily were across from me as orders were taken. "How are you holding up, Cáel?" Nicole put a hand on my lap. I had no immediate reply. "Lonely. Sad. Alone. Bereft of anger; it is pointless. I want to scream, rage, tear things up, throw things across the room and hear them shatter; but not really," I confessed. Suddenly, a strange essence infused my core. "No, that's wrong. I am not alone. We have suffered more, lived through worse and never wavered even in the face of death," I said in a ghostly whisper. That was really the last thing I wanted to say. Its origin was from an enigmatic corner of my mind I was resisting venturing into. 'Taking oneself to the cliffs' made a whole lot more sense suddenly. The Amazon prepared her daughters and granddaughters for her absence. She volunteered to make that trek. In her heart, she called out to her Ancestors to prepare them to accompany her on that final journey. That all sounded like comfortable spiritual mumbo-jumbo, safely quoted by a rational man under duress. The abyssal rift in that psycho-babble, makeshift patch over my emotional pain was I felt Vranus and Ishara standing at my shoulders. Vranus because his seemingly endless quest was finally resolved and he and his descendants would at last be welcomed into the halls of their kin. With me, he had succeeded and brought his people home. There was still the matter of the rest; the three sons of Arinniti and the elder warrior. Holy Crap; they were still out there, waiting to be shown the path home. My 'Evenly Holier Crap' moment was feeling the weight of the eyes of Ishara upon me. Not Ishara, the matron goddess of this; my House, but that ancient Amazon who had surrendered her personal name to oblivion to give her followers a sense of unity. No female was solely 'her' daughter; all the women of the house were equal in birth and station. It was that Ishara who stood at my shoulder and, beyond some perverse desire to look behind me to see how sexy she was, I felt I had her; not approval; her mandate. We had to be held to our oaths and would die to a woman (and man) for them. We were to give the Host a second chance to make things right. There would be no retreat. It was not in the Amazon psyche to fight the relentless, remorseless and bloody battle; to risk everything on victory with no thought of failure. It was not something guys were accustomed to, but had been the doom of men down through the ages. Whether too romantic, too stubborn, or too bound to our brother's in arms, men had embraced hopeless causes before; mostly perishing without fanfare yet with the exceptional impossible victory to give us hope. From time immemorial, male kin of the flesh and spirit had piled their corpses one upon the other, refusing the verdict of combat for the sake of brotherhood and every imaginable ideal. It was hardly a trait worth sharing with the sisters. They would understand the pieces; not the result. My lack of political ability would not be disability. I simply had to learn to fight; a lot better than I did at that moment. The echoes of this message inside my head, the chilled air that filled my lungs and balance restored to my heart was bizarrely unfrightening. It would be an affirmation of the 'first directive' oaths all the houses had sworn. It wasn't my place to raise all the 'Runners', or even a single one. It was my duty to initiate the 'Worthy', no matter their number. My actions were mine. I would not shame the other houses. I would not consider their prestige at all. It was not my place in the same way it was not their place to tell me what I could and couldn't do. It was a divine 'Go get 'em' and it felt pretty, freaking awesome. "Cáel, are you okay?" Nicole asked in a worried tone. She squeezed my thigh. I looked down at my hands. I was okay. "Nicole, I have the blood of Ahhiyawa champions on my hands. I feel it's sticky, sickening ichor and smell the copper-laden, metallic odor," I smiled. "I think I'm going to be just fine." "Who?" Nicole was even more concerned. "Someone who screwed with me a long, long time ago. They are all dead, but don't worry about the bodies showing up to bother anyone," I grinned. All the full-blooded Amazons had been very still. The word 'Ahhiyawa' appeared to scare them even more than my haunting actions. To the Amazons, the Ahhiyawa were the Mycenaeans in the time of the Iliad. The problem seemed to be that I had never heard any member of the Host use that term and I was suddenly curious as to why. "You seemed to have went away for a few seconds," Nicole joked lightly. "You do appear better rested, which is good. What is on the agenda for today?" "Get my Father's body, prepare for his cremation, arrange for the last Roman Catholic Church we attended to send somebody to the service and prepare my parent's plot," I ran down. "I imagine the police and feds will want to contact me again," I piled it on. "I want to see my home if the forensic guys let me. What do you think will be aimed at me?" "We'll check up on any family attorney you may have had along with probating your father's Will, if he had one," Nicole assured me. "As for the authorities, let's see what kind of warrants they are asking for before we move beyond a 'denial' defense." "Denial, as in me claiming I didn't do anything because, ya know, I didn't do anything," I gave her a sleepy smile. "How about we eat first?" We ordered, drank our coffee, tea and juices while remaining largely non-communicative. It wasn't until the food began arriving did I realize I'd 'misplaced' Pamela once more. As I tore into a big slab of ham, I looked over my surroundings for the first time. I gave myself a mental pat on the back when I spotted Pamela then the 'big picture' kicked me in the nuts. Pamela was dressed as a server, coasting about the room, filling drinks, getting appetizer and performing the tedious little chores that waiters and waitresses had to pull off flawlessly. The other wait-staff noticed Pamela, but since she was making their jobs easier and not taking their gratuities, they ignored her. They probably thought she was some industry expert. The plates were being cleared away when Pamela returned, back in normal clothing. She dumped a pile of ID's on the table. Nicole picked them up. "Chicago PD; Organized Crime Taskforce," Nicole read off then glanced to Pamela. "ATF, Homeland Security, FBI, FBI, Chicago PD; Homicide, Federal Marshall and Federal Marshall." "What?" Pamela said between bites of her veggie omelet. "I took their identification, not their wallets. Do you want me to go back for those too; and their keys?" "No. We have risked Mr. Nyilas' freedom enough for one meal," Nicole shot back. She took Tiger Lily's empty plate, dumped the ID's on it then covered the pile with her handkerchief. "Hello," this officious young lady greeted us. I'd been distracted by Nicole's malfeasance so I missed the hotel's new Assistant Manager's approach. It was turning out to be a great morning for visitations from my past. This ghost was much younger than the last ones. Our eyes met. It was easy to see that I was the man in charge being the only man at the table. "Director Nyilas, I hope everything is going well for you and your staff this morning," she smiled. "I would also like to convey the Hotel Burnham's condolences at the passing of your father. I too was born and raised in Burnham." I already knew where she'd lived most of her life. Most critically, I very strongly recalled where she'd gone to school; all 12 grades plus K. "Cameron Sanders," I stood and extended my hand across the table. "You look familiar." Of course she looked familiar. Cameron had publically ground my soul into the grit that ants stepped upon. Her verbal rejection had been a pivotal moment in my life. After that day, I had taken responsibility for my life both anatomically and academically. Recall how I had said I was once a 'nobody'. Here was living proof. Cameron and I had gone to the same schools from Kindergarten through our senior years. We'd even shared classes and it wasn't like I could be confused with all the other 'Cáels' we'd gone to school with; because there weren't any. The same goes for 'Nyilas'. I'd been shifting the boner in my pants for three solid years because of Cameron. She had been hot in high school and she was even better looking now; Brooke hot. For a second, my confidence wavered. In that heartbeat, I realized she was just another woman and I was no longer that guy. "Where you an upperclassman at Thornton Fractional North High School?" she queried. "Hmm; do you recall Jenny Forrester?" I countered. Cameron knew her African-American rival, no doubt. The tweak in her smile said as much. "I'm going out on a limb; you look like a DePaul girl." Cameron's eyes twinkled. Her eyes flitted down to where her class ring normally held court. She had taken it off for work neutrality. "How did you guess?" Cameron tilted her hip suggestively. Sex. "So I'm right?" I reposed. I had 'guessed' right because Cameron crowed about her decision to go to DePaul over all her other offers. "I have some family business to take care of, Cameron," I nodded. "Can we catch up later today and figure out where we've intersected before this morning?" Translation: I'm going to screw you. Not 'I want to', but 'I will'. I could normally figure out a woman in an evening. I had a three year backlog of data on poor Cameron. My Pivotal Goddess was an 'upfront' girl. Her façade was bravado backed by the fear of not measuring up; not being good enough. My mistake in High School was approaching her, hat in hand. Cameron felt best when someone took the tough choices away from her. If she didn't lead, she couldn't fail by her way of thinking. Dad had stood by me that night when he came home from work. I was a broken wreck of a teenage boy. Dad hadn't told me to toughen up and he hadn't been sympathetic. All he wanted to know was what I was going to do about it. What was 'I' going to do, as if I could be the master of my own fate. That was my Dad. The next day I started working out, eating better and taking better care of myself. He was dead; still dead yet my feelings over that had evolved. He was with my ancestors now, waiting for me and my sons and daughters. Looking at it that way, he wasn't really gone at all. "I'll see what can be done," Cameron smiled. I was going to eat her up. "Oh yeah, this plate was mistakenly delivered to my table," I indicated Pamela's illegal haul. "Could you see that it gets where it needs to go after we are gone?" Cameron shot me a sultry smile without even giving her task a casual glance. A hideous tip (kudos to Odette) was added to our over-priced bill and the ladies and I retired to our rooms. It was routine heading to our room. Mona waved us to silence. Then the 'bug hunt' began. Like every Amazon persecution of opposing 'life forms', they didn't play fair. The Amazons had placed electronic surveillance in the room before they left so when unwelcomed guests showed up while we ate and Mona 'slept' we could watch where they placed their goodies in our rooms. This was not a matter of throwing a fit and tossing the electronic devices down the garbage disposal. Oh no, not in Amazon battle lore. They found out what frequency your device was broadcasting on and backtracked it. According to Tiger Lily you can use a source point and a handheld device to triangulate the receiver. Then the fun begins. First, keep the original signal going. Put a subroutine of; oh, all kinds of credit card fraud in this case with the video file then call the appropriate law enforcement agency to bust the place. The subroutine would have no point of origin, so the Amazons would be safe. The spying agency would have a headache on their hands. Credit card fraud would require them to confiscate all the equipment because the threat posed was real, even if the tip was now suspect. This was the Amazon equivalent of fixating the enemy at one point; surveillance; while making their real move on another; the funeral. The average Amazon funeral was a private affair. My Security Detail was modifying plans for an Amazon dignitary's attendance of another Society member's funerary rites. Halfway through the deception plan, Special Agents Brock and John showed up at our door. With two law firms (Pratt's and Nicole's) dancing on their foreheads, they were being polite today and inviting me down to be questioned. I asked for Detective Lisa and Investigator Horace to be there. One: I didn't dictate who investigated me. Two: they were under Internal Affairs review. I agreed with 'one'; I would say 'nothing' to any number of highly qualified law enforcement operatives. I might give answers to the two I had mentioned. 'Two' was none of my affair. They could hope for some answers when they chose the review would be over. I was more than happy spending a lifetime not talking to them. Legalize was tossed around to the point Nicole yawned, pointed out none of them were attorney's with the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois; damn, that's some letterhead, and they could make no deals, grant no immunities, on their own. There was no talking to be done except for the ass-reaming the Court of Appeals was going to give both the Federal attorney who applied for the surveillance warrant and the judge who signed it. Low and behold, phones began ringing. As a patrol unit was making a raid on a room three floors down, a series of shots rang out. A gun battle ensued between the three armed men in the room, the two patrolmen (women actually) and the entire misfortunate event was caught on NBC Channel Five news. Occasionally I forget I work for fundamentally viciously sick fucks. My 'team' had sent the cops and the news crew to the spot and even supplied the ignorant housekeeper with the room card-key for the cops to break in with; a hotel room is not a private dwelling. Cops break in, do their 'freeze, we are the police' thing, but before the three feds in the room could reply, 'their' computer audio equipment let off a sound of bullets firing and ricochets echoing across the room. Nature took its course after that. The feds drew and both sides began shooting. No one died, but one ATF guy was going off to surgery. They would have all earned Purple Hearts if they had been in the military and a commendation no matter what; had two law enforcement agencies not shot each other up. The chase was on for the news crew who was desperately trying to get their station to show the footage before the feds grabbed the memory cards. Despite having had no part in that fiasco, Nicole immediately clued in that the moment our two feds ran off to help their comrades it was our time to leave. Did we go to the vehicles we came in? No. That would have exhibited a lack of paranoia my guardians would have found appalling. Two new car waited a block away. Had I been better at this game, I would have noticed the lack of functioning traffic cameras around us. Instead, I went begging to the local diocese of the Catholic Church. I plead my case. Mom and Dad were devout, raised me to be a devout Catholic yet when my Mother died, my father had never gotten over the trauma and me, being a young man, hadn't explored my spirituality yet; but I promised I'd get right on it when I returned to New York. The priest who handled the end of life stuff for the Church was sympathetic. He gave me the name of a local priest near my home I could talk to on my return. He also told me that he'd received a moving letter from a nun in Uganda about a deeply spiritual moment she had shared with me years ago, so he was onboard with giving my Dad a Catholic send-off. I wasn't sure if that was a sign to never touch a wannabe Nun again, or a reminder that nun's gave incredibly positive feedback on their sexual misadventures. I went with the latter. A few more calls, the choosing of the proper crematorium and I was through with the first part of that ordeal. Next came the funeral notification and invites. The Union would send some of Dad's closest co-workers and several neighbors said they'd show up as well. Flowers, clothes, wake; well, it couldn't be in my family home. The forensic team was gone and it was free for me to wander through, but the bullet holes and blood might put a damper on the ambience. In the midst of my worries, I got a call. A polite man named Winchell Sokolowsky offered me the Marshal Fields Jr. Mansion for my personal use. If there is any doubt, Chicago is Not the city of good Samaritans, the overly polite, or even the casually kind. Chicagoans pride themselves on being tough. We have plenty of good people who help out, volunteer and try to make life easier for their fellow man. That does not encompass giving a random stranger use of a multi-million dollar mansion. If I hadn't already been living in fantasy land, I'd have been busy figuring out which one of my few male friends was pulling this prank of on me, but no. "Can I inquire about the source of this largesse, Mr. Sokolowsky? Take in mind the incredible likelihood of a government agency most foul listening in," I cautioned him. "A family friend," he responded with an amused snort. Yeah, cause my Father's funeral was all chuckles for me. Since crab-women weren't likely to know owners of mansions, this had to be my aunts. Woot. "Thank you sir. My security people will be over to sweep the place before the city, state, or federal governments can crank out another search warrant. Thank you again." "That is not unexpected," Sokolowsky replied. "Until then." Rachel looked at me as if I'd done something absurd. She may have been right. "Did you just accept shelter from an individual we do not know; except that he is certainly part of the Protocols?" she stared at me. "Come on now," I chastised her. "It's for a funerary wake. I'm not taking three hundred of the lads out for a stroll, chasing savages up the Little Big Horn, or an Irishman deciding that Oliver Cromwell is a man of his word." I leaned in and winked to Rachel. "Besides Charlie; I got an angle." Pamela, who just happened to be walking by, gave me another high-five. Rachel was really learning to hate/dread those moments of synergy between Pamela and I. "I am not allowed to kill you and I am afraid I can't kill Pamela, but please don't think I don't want to do both," Rachel ratcheted up her displeasure. "Torn into itsy-bitsy pieces;” Pamela started. "And buried alive!" I finished. Another high-five. "You two are both insane," Rachel despaired. "That's the spirit," Pamela and my comeback to Rachel was in synch once again. To prove I wasn't heartless, I hugged Rachel. She froze, arms at her side, caught between warring impulses. I maneuvered her arms around until her hands rested on the back of my hips then rested mine on the small of her back. "Rachel, I cannot go back to a safe, faceless existence," I whispered as I planted tender kisses on her forehead. "To do so would be a betrayal of; me; Ishara." Rachel let go of her emotions and rested her head against my shoulder. "Why couldn't I be tasked to do something sane; like fight drug cartels, Maoist insurgence, or corporate hit squads in the Amazon?" she sighed. I moved my hands to her ass and gave them a nice fondle making sure to slowly grind her waist against my hips. Humping her would have been a mistake. That was sexual. I was giving her a bit of physical appreciation and nothing more. Rachel tilted her head up, I brought mine down until we were nose to nose. "Promise me you will try to stay alive, Cáel," she sounded almost mournful. "I will make a deal with you," I stated. "If I make it back to New York alive, you will consent to have sex with me." Rachel was confused, suspicious yet aroused. "None of this 'one hour' in some dormitory, or nunnery cell. I want everything; a light meal, some quality touching time and a minimum of two rounds of orgasmic sex." "Ah; not a scratch," Rachel counter-offered. I nodded, kissed her nose and she felt as if she'd won something. Rachel got ready to take us to our next stop. Pamela slipped past me. "Like shooting fish in a barrel," she whispered. I had never used that term out loud before. "That's what I would say," she clarified. She was my evil psychic twin grandmother. It was through a tireless group effort that I made it back to the Hotel Burnham at 4 p.m. Cameron made a show of being busy when I first came back. I was willing to be patient. While she puttered around, I flirted with the desk clerk and one of the baggage attendants; pale skin, blonde hair with freckles and light brown skin, black hair in a Nubian weave. This was the 'professional' lure. By presenting myself as a 'Man's Man' and garnering female adoration, I was clearly not (yet) that into her. The pressure was on her and Cameron didn't like pressure because pressure equated to the possibility of failure. Her advantages which were obvious to every other observer were not certainties to her. Contest time. "Director Cáel Nyilas," Cameron interrupted my joke to the two ladies, "I'm finished up for the day." I gave a quick smile to the women I was about to leave then turned on my personal demon. "Should I wait in the lounge until you change?" "No," I waved off her objections. "You can come up to my suite and then we can go to your domicile for you to change for a night out." Quick visual clue update: she lived at home with her parents yet dated enough that it wouldn't be awkward. It also showed me that she was uncomfortable about going to my room. She wasn't so enchanted she would do something stupid. I had the answer to that. I had made it a public declaration. Not only did my hovering troop had the news, so did her front desk. Nothing bad could happen to her if everyone knew where she was; right? On the elevator ride up it was just me, Cameron, Pamela and Esmeralda. The rest travelled on ahead. She took one rear corner so I took the other. I then let my leather-soled shoes slide down the carpet, lowering my overall height compared to Cameron. At some point, I began back-spinning my feet, pretending to be on the edge of falling on my ass. I smiled at Cameron and her eyes sparkled at the vaudevillian gesture. Know your prey and I knew way more about Cameron than was healthy for any girl. For instance, she loved Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton; more of a Keaton girl. She giggled then came to my rescue. She was wrapping me up in her arms while mine stayed safely away. "You are a bit of a joker," she teased me. "Your beautiful smile makes all that effort worthwhile," I truthfully pledged to Cameron. She sighed so contentedly. Behind her back, Pamela was loading a two-barreled hunting device, aiming at some surface-based, above ground structure with an open top and gave it both barrels while avoiding the imaginary back-splash. 'Looks like herring for dinner,' she mouthed with a wicked grin. Esmeralda was soaking it in. Hadn't I pounced on Rachel a few hours earlier? I was definitely hooking Cameron and reeling her in for some sexual deviant purpose; and Pamela was mocking the whole situation. E turned and faced the doors. "You seem like a really nice guy," Cameron murmured. "I mean that in a good way." "I can't see you as any way, but truthful and kind," I met her cherished countenance. "I imagine even harsh lessons are difficult for you to deliver." There; she had one last chance to figure out the poor schlub she'd crushed at the start of our senior year was me. "Being a leader can be very tough," she moped as she pressed into me. My mumbled offerings of affection and her savage reprisal had never registered with her. I was going to eat her alive. "How about I take care of you tonight?" I requested. She hesitated, not out of fear, but confusion. "Completely relax and I'll make the decisions for this one night. Your mind will be free to enjoy and discard at your pleasure." On most levels, Cameron was seeing this as a date. She was a 'dating' girl. She didn't give up the goodies until date three, if I was exceptionally good; date four, or five otherwise. I was about to dispose of that with a clever case of role reversal. My two staffers vanished as I entered my lakeside executive suite. A splendid view I thought I'd never be able to afford the last day; The 28th of December. I had enough money for a flight and a date picking me up at the airport. Bolingbrook had an inordinate amount of students stay the holidays and, by tradition, the graduating class hosted a New Year's Eve party for those students and the staff. I had told Dad about Havenstone and my infinitesimal chances of that kind of job. That was it. He patted me on the shoulder. There was no pressure to come back to Burnham after graduation if I didn't have a job lined up. It was my home if I needed it. So much was unspoken between us. I could tell he was proud; college; good grades; popular; happy. I shouldn't have taken for granted we'd get a chance to talk later. Back to the joy at hand. "So, what's it like working with your Dad?" I dropped into our causal conversation. I was in the bedroom, door open; really? Why do they put doors on those things? The 'Daddy' question could be taken two ways and I trusted Cameron to take it the worse way; and to be pissed. "My Father didn't get me the job here!" Cameron stormed in and insisted with a nice spirited mare stomp of the foot as emphasis. I 'just happened' to be naked, half turned away and a nice, highly suggestive pair of men's underwear in my hands. "What do you mean?" I was clearly confused. I turned a bit more toward her. Now she could almost see everything. "You; you have scars all over your body," she moaned. "I am a warrior, Cameron. This is the kind of man I am," I gave her a fierce, dominating gaze. "I fight for what I want and I brutally defend that which is mine. Who did you think I was?" Had Cameron been a fighter, that would have been the point she left the room. She was all up-front, bravado and a superior façade over an insecure, parentally driven trophy for their mantel place. My anger faded. It wasn't her fault I couldn't read her signs four years ago. I was still going to fuck her to the afterlife and back, but this time I'd be doing it as an informative journey. "I don't know anymore," Cameron tried to rally some sort of coherent rampart. "Come here," I beckoned her with one hand (the one without the underwear). Cameron shook her head. "Cameron, please believe me, there are things my staff would let me get away with; rape is not one of them. I won't touch you anywhere unless you give me permission." If you are a girl in the room at this point, you are toast. I just made it safe to touch my naked body. Sure, you have clothes on; for now, but not for long. Why? Women desire sex about as much as men do. Unless you are a vapid fashion model with substance abuse issues, men with non-disfiguring scars are an aphrodisiac. Add to that a hard-forged physique and men, sex is there for the taking. "I; uh;” she kept taking baby-steps forward. "I; Pam; Pamela is it?" "Yo," Pamela answered in a bored manner, knife in hand, then, "Whoa now!" she pointed her knife at my equipment. "Sheath that, young man. Put it under wraps right now." "I'm grown man, Pamela," I griped. I also put on my underwear. "Pluck the freaking pebble out of my hand, bitch, and then I'll call you an adult," Pamela sneered. Looking to Cameron, "Anything else Miss?" "No, thank you; no, wait. What do you do for Mr. Nyilas?" Cameron asked. "I'm his psychic medium," was Pamela's sage reply. That supernatural bogusness made Cameron happy. It shouldn't have. "Yeah, I kill his enemies then interrogate their souls," Pamela added with a nod. "It is highly rewarding work." Cameron's mouth gaped. "How about I shut the door and give you two kids some privacy." "What does she really do?" Cameron whispered to me. Part of me wanted to say 'she told you'. "She's my masseuse," I lied. I started putting my pants on (forgetting my socks) then fell/sat on the bed. Cameron came to my bedside. I rolled on my back and highly exaggerated the effort it took to pull them up. Cameron began giggling. "Hey, these are my 'skinny' slacks. I wouldn't laugh at you if our positions were switched." "Really?" she teased me. I laughed and she laughed along. "Cameron, think about it. I'm shirtless and definitely bra-less. I'm pretty sure I'd be too distracted by a multitude of your other assets to snicker," I countered. Cameron blushed and smiled. Ah, the visual image in Cameron's head was her, with jeans, racy panties and nothing else on while I hovered over her, relishing her attempts to conceal her charms. I shuffled back on the bed and resumed pulling my slacks up. Cameron followed, right into the danger zone. "Wait;” she put a hand on my abdomen. "What caused that scar?" So I told her. Okay, I gave her an abridged version of the truth. Fine, I lied like a big dog. I had the amazing habit of stumbling across women in need of saving. I bled for their virtue and honor, racked with intense pain before a violent victory was seized by my masculine hands. I was sure that Pamela and Rachel were hiding just outside the door, retching into waste baskets over the layers upon layers of my tripe. Around wound twelve, I was sure if I had asked Cameron to wear little lamb ears and a bell around her neck, she would have; had one been handy. To be fair, I wasn't fighting off legions of Green Beret. I was doing one better. I was using thinly-veiled caricatures of her High School enemies and nemeses. I was revealing their wickedness and pummeling them for their evil ways. There is a precious look a woman has when she miraculously discovers she is going to have the intercourse she's wanted yet somehow not recognized that need for until that moment. Cameron had that look, straddling me, skirt hiked up to her waist and vulva riding my cock (two layers intervening). We were out of wounds. "The rest are covered up," I explained in a predatory voice. Yes, Cameron was going to have sex and she had no control of events whatsoever and I hadn't even laid a hand on her yet. "Where?" she was suddenly baffled. "Pants," I kept it short and to the point. Cameron looked over her shoulder She reluctantly started to dismount so she could get to them so I made my move. I grabbed her hips in mid-dismount and rotated her around to reverse-cowgirl. Cameron began tugging off my pants with my legs raised high. My stomach crunches kicked in and I leveraged my torso up as well. I deftly moved her skirt up and went straight to the ass massage. Cameron's head shot around, eyes fearful. I had broken my word to not touch her without permission. Yes, I had lied to a girl; Now, I kissed her right on the lips, expertly delivered a delving French kiss and moved one hand to her right breast for an aggressive fondle. Cameron was really getting into it. Her nipples were highly sensitive. Her ass was humping like an over-eager sorority girl pole-dancing on Amateur Night. On cue, Cameron broke free and flew off the bed. "What; you; I thought we were going out?" she whined. She was horny as hell and didn't want to be held accountable at it. "Why are you running away?" I reclined back, solely in my underwear now. I was using my 'I'm disappointed in you' voice. Yes, I was 'guilting' a girl into having sex. Duh. I would never coerce a woman, or take one not in her right mind; that's using forces beyond her control. Guilt? Guilt has a foundation squarely in a woman's mind, just like humor, romance, common interests (feigned or not) and horniness. Girls can control guilt just like any other psychological trigger. It is called being shameless and I ought to know. Remember guys, it cuts both ways. Don't think so? You've had a girlfriend three whole months to the point she's staying over a night or two a week. One night, after your (hopefully) second round, you both discover it is that time of the month. 'Babe (or whatever pet name she has saddled you with), can you run to the store and get me some tampons and pads?' That, by the way, was not a question. She, for hygiene reasons, can't put her clothes on and go out herself. So, you go out to the Quick-Mart at 2 a.m. praying to God that none of your buddies are on a late night beer run and see you with your; stuff. You are not doing this for sex. She's not feeling 100% at the moment. Why are you? Guilt. She was at your place, making your Baloney Pony happy and this happened. You could send her out to the store. Not only is she not the only woman out there, many women understand guys getting freaked out about menstrual products. No, you feel guilty and risk the ridicule of your peers because it is your fault and you are not a dick-wad. And why did she ask you to do something that has nothing to do with you? Women are equally aware that guilt works, Baby. Back to our tale; "I'm not running away," sounded empty coming out of her mouth. "You said; touching." "I think you gave that option up when you crawled on top of me," I leered. "I clearly want to be with you, Cameron. You have given every indication you want to be with me, so I ask you again, why are you suddenly running away?" I kept after her. "I don't want to have sex; right now," again, she sounded weak. "Whatever happens, I go back to New York in two days," I met her shaky gaze. "You can set a time table if you like. The actuality of my life is relentless. I have things to get back to. If you are going to go, then go. I'll head out alone tonight, get a few drinks, come back early and grab some shut-eye," I shrugged. I went searching for my pants. See, she wasn't some random fuck. I wasn't leaving to replace her; making her a failure. I was hemming her in. I had the timeline. I had made my desires clear. There was no negotiation so while she appeared to have choices, she didn't and she knew it. For a girl who had spent so much effort working hard to not disappoint the main masculine figure in her life there was only one thing to do. "I don't want you to think I ever do anything like this," she propped up her morals while stutter-stepping back to the bed. "I feel I have a connection with you." Ah; the 'I have a connection with you' excuse. It would have been so appropriate if she actually remembered me. I pulled her onto the bed, went through the obligatory trying to push me off then we were back to the kissing and humping. Cameron turned out to be a 'use me' girl. That does Not mean abuse, it means she gets off being a responder to her partner's sexual directions. Caress her cheek, jaw and throat and she'd cup my chin, or massage my chest. Cameron was smart and a quick-learner. Her problem was a lack of a sense of adventure and an aversion to taking the lead. With the phantom applause of a hundred other male 'losers' who went to Fractional North High School, I ‘did' the queen who had been beyond us all only four years ago. The erotic twist to all that was with every sense of triumph and pleasure, Cameron mimicked me. Certainly we were both having a memorable time. I had to touch, lick, knead, and fondle every inch of Cameron's body. We both explored our nipple fetish, sixty-nined and engaged in some anal play; no penetration. I completed my first sojourn with the removal of the condom and the blowjob that had been the fantasy of countless hours in my home's upstairs bathroom. Cameron didn't just swallow; she savored and looked like she wanted more. Normally I cuddle beside my partner post-coitus. With Cameron, I lay on top of her at eye level. I put enough weight on her to let her feel pinned without real discomfort. "I have a confession," I gave her a sweaty-faced grin. "What?" she asked then gave me a peck on the lips. "We went to school together; same grade and everything," I enlightened her. "We even talked once." Cameron didn't know what to make of that. "I'll put that in perspective though. Do you believe that if you do something you do your best? Do you believe in craftsmanship?" "Cáel, you are scaring me," Cameron frowned. "Fifteen seconds and you can go," I conveyed with as much calm as I could. "Answer my question." "Okay; yes, I believe in doing your best. I believe in craftsmanship," Cameron played along. "Your words; 'never in a million years'." I related and waited. First there was the uncertainty and fear of the odd course our relationship had taken. It took a few seconds because so few pieces of the puzzle fit. "Cáel Nyilas; it was you; start of senior year; I had been," she muttered. Then came the real fear. "You must hate me." "I thought about it," I said, "but that isn't really me. See, you helped create me. Truth be told, you were only the catalyst. I did all the work." "A great many women helped. They were never a replacement for you. I was taught better than that by my first lover," I continued. "Still, I would be totally different if you hadn't casually annihilated my self-worth that September day." Pause. "Do you like the results?" "You really don't hate me;” Cameron was coming around. "It was high school. We all screw up in high school. According to a few studies, if you don't make a mess of high school, you are destined for failure," I related some real information. "You are getting hard again," Cameron gasped back to being okay with things between us. "Perhaps I should have warned you," I grinned wickedly. "I'm a sex addict." "Hey, Sex Addict!" Pamela shouted into the room. "There are some people out here to see you." "Good people, or bad people?" I shouted back. "Worse," Pamela replied. "The kind of people that want something from you." That was vaguely unpromising. "Cameron, take a shower and we'll talk about dinner when you get out. I think I need to take care of this," I sighed. Off went Cameron to the shower and on went my robe. In the main room, with a variety of levels of sexual tension, were sixteen women I didn't know. The Hotel Burnham has very nice suites, but they are not ballrooms. The room was pretty crowded, with not enough chairs and wall space getting sparse. They were all Havenstone women and I was willing to bet the average age was thirty-five; not my normal crowd. At least I knew why they were all there. Pamela suspected. Rachel and her team were clueless. "Hi, I am known as Cáel Nyilas," I greeted them. "A short history lesson and things will make a great deal more sense, so please be patient." The crowd was not pleased. I was a male and to a woman, the ladies had repudiated the world of men. They were all 'Runners'. It was the presence of Rachel's group that was keeping them civil at this point. "Twenty-five hundred years ago, as the Second Betrayal was ending, there was a small group of males who had proven themselves to the Amazon Host, taken into houses and their names were written on the Amazon Rolls," I started off. "Two of those males and three male children of one of the houses survived the massacre the female Amazons inflicted on their kin." That bought me a moment. Slaughtering your own babies, even male babies, wasn't something they would shrug off. "Well, if you know your Amazon politics, you know that the children of an Amazon who dies while in service of the Host becomes a member of the Host; so on and so on." The implications were sinking in as was the nervousness. "One of those men was a young warrior named Vranus of House Ishara. I am the sole surviving heir of Vranus. We are also here for the burial of my Father, who was murdered Sunday night. The next bit of Amazon politics. House Ishara was an extinct First House," I continued. "Oh shit," was uttered from half-dozen lips as they moved to the next, obvious step. "The succession to the Head of House for any House is elevation by your peers, accepted ritual combat and; the oldest surviving member of the House," I added. "By the Seven Martial Goddess; don't you have to be female? I mean; We are Amazons!" one of the 'Runners' yelled in disbelief. "Do you plan to add more males to your House?" one of the senior members growled. "Two things; it should not bother you one way, or another, and it is not MY House. It is the House of my Ancestor, Ishara. If this is going to be a problem, you are in the wrong room," I met her hostile glare ember for ember. That one headed for the door. "Wait," a fellow 'Runner' grabbed her arm. "You can't be going along with this Marsha?" the departing Amazon snapped. "I don't know this one, but I trust Buffy," Marsha countered. "Ok ladies, so that we are clear," Pamela sighed. "The next one of you to insult the Head of House Ishara, I am going to drag into the other room, kill you and cut you up into giblets for room service to take away," Pamela sounded positively disinterested. "I am not afraid of you," the departing one glared. "That would be a serious mistake," Rachel interjected quietly. Deep breath from me. "Listen, this is a highly improbable incident. I am not asking anyone to embrace the society you have rejected. In fact, I admire you for the strength it took to transition. I also ask you to accept the fact that I DO NOT want to be here, doing this, with any of you," I made one last effort. "Quite frankly, you man-haters scare me; being a man and all. You seem to think I have a choice in any of this. I don't. I am the heir of Vranus. I am the last known living descendant of the Amazon who chose the name Ishara for the sake of her house's unity," I stated. "I don't want to do this, but I'm not the kind of human being who runs away from my responsibilities." "Okay; Cáel of Ishara, why are we here?" Marsha said as she kept the other one from leaving. "Sixty years ago, the Amazon Houses swore an oath to the women who joined their cause. They lied to you. They have not kept up their side of the bargain. They have refused virtually all of you entry into the status as true, full-blooded Amazons," I explained. "And now you are going to rectify that; injustice?" the senior one kept mocking me. "Fine; you and me; one last chance," I sighed. "Look around you. Who do you see? The prettiest, the most pliable, the most power-hungry? If you can point out one woman in this room that doesn't deserve to be a Full-Blooded Amazon, leave now." "You didn't choose any of us," she responded. "Exactly!" I shouted. "I didn't choose any of you to be in House Ishara. Buffy Ishara and Helena Ishara did. Why? Because I don't know any of you, or your sacrifices and worth to Havenstone. I gave that duty to the two; and only two; member of House Ishara who would know who was the most worthy to be in a First House." "We are here to be inducted," one of the silent Amazons voiced with a dream-like quality. "Yes. Barring being rejected by Ishara, you will be inducted at my Father's graveside tomorrow morning," I stated clearly. "How many?" Senior questioned. "This time; twenty," I answered. "I have no agenda and no set number of 'Runners' to be inducted into House Ishara. It doesn't work

Oh My God! All their clothes vanished. What was I to do?In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand.Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected..“Living every moment like it is your last is less attractive tomorrow.”(Still Wednesday)Katrina had left for wherever she snuck off to; I suggested to Aya it was a game room, Aya suggested it was as torture chamber; only to return when the next turn of the screws came. I was informed I had a visitor coming up by the name of Libra Chalmers plus a guest. Quickly enough they appeared. The guest turned out to be Brooke Lee."Who are these two?" Aya glibly spoke as the two Vassar girls walked into the room."Hello Libra," I greeted my almost date from last night. "Hello Ms. Lee," I said to Brooke."It's Brooke," Brooke smiled at me; she was hungry and scenting around for something remarkably like me."I'm happy to see you; oh; this is my guardian and protector, Aya Ruger," I made the introductions. "No lie, Aya has been keeping up with my workload while I've been on 'light' duty. Aya, this is Libra Chalmers and Brooke Lee, both from Vassar College. Brooke is Trent's friend and Libra had mercy on me Tuesday night and kept me from being a 'fifth' wheel.""I'm actually Trent's fiancé," Brooke corrected."Fascinating," I lied. Oh fuck, that was Not good."Cool. I'm happy to see the both of you, but what brings you to my office today?" I continued."Well, I showed up to ask for Trent and Libra asked for you," Brooke gave a sly smile."The thing was," Libra picked up the tale, "they were looking up Trent, but the front desk knew exactly who and where you were; so we came here first." My mind was busily working out how to pull Aya aside to give her a friendly warning when Katrina waltzed in."Ladies, this is my boss, Katrina Love, Head of Executive Services for Havenstone," I plastered a smile on my face."Katrina, this is Brooke Lee and Libra Chalmers. I met them Tuesday night," I kept things simple. Doom was impatient."Brooke is Trent's fiancé," Aya chimed in gleefully. She wasn't being malicious. She just didn't know any better. Katrina had been in the process of giving some congenial nods.She stopped and turned on a dime. Damn it."Really?" Katrina's interest was piqued."Yes," Brooke beamed. She brandished her engagement ring in Katrina's face. Better yet, Katrina 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed then spun on me."Cáel, I didn't know Trent was engaged," Katrina pierced me with those lethal ocular devices."Yeah, I bet you didn't," I groaned. "I only found out a moment ago." Trent had lied on his dating survey; slash application to Havenstone. They kinda/sorta made damn sure we had no external female attachments. It meant less bodies to dispose of if things went wrong.I couldn't understand how they missed it then a curious custom/lifeline reared its ugly head."Brooke, that's your 'promise' ring, right?" I probed. "I'm sure Trent would get you a bigger rock for the actual engagement.""Yes," Brooke confirmed. "We've decided to make the official engagement when our families take the Christmas Holiday at Hilton Head."How could I express to Brooke that Christmas with Trent at Hilton Head was a rapidly vanishing dream? Katrina resumed her stroll to her desk."Katrina," I started my appeal. My argument was going to be that 'promise' rings didn't really count even though I knew her omission on his survey/application was bad enough already. Brian was different. If he chose to 'follow his career', she'd shed the prerequisite 17 tears and happily get on with her life. Girls like Brooke came looking and that wouldn't do."No," Katrina didn't even turn around. When she got to her desk, the phone calls began. Brooke was starting to realize something had happened. I gained a level of importance that extended beyond my bedroom sexpertise."Cáel, is something wrong?" Libra took my hand in hers."Trent may have neglected to mention some things during his job interview," I explained."Like?" Libra was getting concerned."Like the existence of Brooke," I answered. See, if Trent had written down his acquaintance to Brooke, Havenstone would have investigated her in the same way they investigated my mentor, Dr. Kimberly Geisler. She had admitted to the length, depth and termination of our affair.The issue of her teaching me anything besides sex had never come up."What?" Brooke grew indignant. Not with Trent, but with me. See, I was still a peon in her eyes and casting dispersions on her guy, who she knew and trusted."Brooke," I sighed, "did any Havenstone personnel talk to you about Trent?""No," she admitted."Every single woman I was ever with was questioned about me and my relationship to them," I explained. "Trust me; that was a really long list." Libra had the answer to that confusion. She pulled out her phone and got a busy signal; that would be Havenstone' now-active jamming devices."What's the number?" I asked Libra. She was momentarily annoyed; then suspicion kicked in. She gave me the number. Caller ID indicated it was Marla, Libra's sister. I gave the phone up."Marla," Libra began, "did anyone from Havenstone Commercial Investments ever talk to you about Cáel?""Umm, is he in trouble because of what I said?" Marla asked."What did you say?" Libra eyed me."I said he was a total asshole who broke my heart and given the opportunity I wouldn't mind watching he die a painful death," she confessed. "Only later did I realize I missed him and felt sorry about what I said.""Do you know if they talked to any of his other former girlfriends?" Libra inquired."I am absolutely sure they talked to at least one other person," Marla mumbled. Her Aunt."Who? I need to talk to them," Libra continued."That wouldn't be wise," Marla responded. "Suffice it to say they didn't give a glowing review either." Libra hung up and gave me back my phone."Cáel, do you have a problem with women?" Brooke glowered at me."Yes, there are so many of them," I shrugged. "That seems to be my main issue.""Cáel, how many women have you been with?" Libra mused."Around 200," I acceded."200! Holy Shit!" Libra gasped. Out of the blue,"Of those, how many have dumped you for cheating only to come back to you later?" Katrina postulated."Around 40," I recalled."That's my Daddy!" Aya crowed proudly."What?" Brooke boggled."Not what you think!" I insisted. "Not what you think!""Aya is my niece," Katrina explained. "Cáel is not her biological father. He is her friend, paternal guide and guardian.""Aya and I are in negotiations about me eventually marrying her mother, but I have assured her that is years and years off," I added."Cáel is not my real Daddy," Aya clarified. "He lets me pretend that he is.""Besides Cáel, does that 200 include the past month?" Katrina diverted the conversation."Well; 200 as in closer to 200 than 300," I grinned weakly."How did you graduate?" Libra followed along."I have a lot of stamina," I pointed out. Tessa Carmichael glided into the room."Brooke Lee?" she greeted the not-here-for-me girl."Yes? Do I know you?" Brooke was getting nervous and snippy."I'm Tessa Carmichael, Director of Human Resources for Havenstone. I handled the final interview process for Trent Grant," she smiled with deceptive warmth. She was furious. I could tell, having a long history with women in such moods."Is that Lee; L-E-E?" Tessa continued."Yes, what is this about?" Brooke persisted."You and Mr. Grant are in a long term relationship?" Tessa asked next."Answer my question," Brooke snapped. Thankfully Tessa wasn't Elsa."Trent lied on both his initial application and then twice in the interview process," Tessa relayed calmly."About dating me?" Brooke was confused."We will explain in a moment," Tessa smiled and patted Brooke on the upper arm.Brooke and Libra were more poised than I believed was warranted. Suddenly, I peeled back eleven days of experience and realized they assumed that Aya's presence was some sort of armor against violence. Whoops. Olympia Shore entered the room followed by Trent. Bright yet careless, he immediately clued in on the crisis."Brooke;” Trent mumbled. Olympia shut the door once Trent was too far inside to run."Trent, what is going on? They say you didn't list me as an acquaintance and somehow that's important," Brooke grumbled."I; um; I can explain," Trent was addressing; the room?"Be at peace, Trent," Tessa took over. This was her job and her fuck-up. "We only need your assurance that your relationship with Ms. Lee was terminated before you signed your contract with Havenstone Commercial Investments." Trent was looking for the right answer that would make everyone happy, but there wasn't one.Had he warned me yesterday that Brooke was his lady, I could have warned Brooke to NEVER come here. Trent hadn't done that because it would have necessitated him explaining to Brooke that he had denied her existence in order to get a cushy job. Trent had deluded himself into thinking he could have it both ways, probably because lying had always worked before."I think there has been a misunderstanding," Trent began. The most important thing in the world to Trent was Trent and he could outfox these backwoods feminists. "I am willing to submit my resignation immediately over this unfortunate mistake." That was a feint. Sadly, the important ladies had zero faith in his words and had already decided his fate. Moron.

Cáel's tombstone: For the love of women, women put him here.In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand.Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected..