Life as a New Hire Ch. 24

"Touché," she acknowledged my above average mental status. Next came a list of names. It took me a few seconds to focus on them.

"Oh, what happened to them?" I inquired.

"What makes you think anything happened to these people?" she parried.

"Oh, I'm betting Javiera gave you a list of names and there is only person left alive out of that group," I felt introspective. "I wonder where Anima is hiding."

"What happened to those people?" she persisted.

"I don't know. I've been napping for the past week, but I'm betting they all met nasty ends," I told her.

"Why were these people murdered?"

"Were they murdered, or are they merely deceased? See, if I give you my opinion, you will have to pursue that line of inquiry which will only hurt one person who has already been hurt enough and save somebody who shouldn't be saved," I explained.

"Why do you get to determine who gets saved?" Virginia pressed.

"As opposed to who? You and Javiera? That's laughable. Why don't you go down the net worth of the families of those unfortunate corpses, then tell me how balanced your justice system would be? Please understand, I don't hold you and your profession in contempt," I met her hardening gaze.

"To prove to me that I'm wrong, all you have to do is honestly tell me that high-priced lawyers, legions of specialists that confuse juries and enormous bank accounts to keep the appeals going indefinitely while the guilty roam about on bail equates to the legal process working fairly and impartially," I reposted.

"That's not the same thing as..." she got out before the door opened and several people traipsed in, including three SD personnel. Last came Troika and she was coldly furious. "I was promised more time with Mr. Nyilas," Virginia protested. She was ignored.

"Ishara, you are coming with us," Troika snapped.

To be fair, the medical attendant wasn't overly torturous as she pulled out the muscle stimulatory aids and applied the bandages. It still sucked. That was ameliorated somewhat by the read I was getting of Troika. I waited for the last restraint to be removed before speaking.

"I refuse to go with you," I stated firmly even as I sat up. See, I needed something to happen that was beyond my ability to obtain.

"Take him," Troika directed two of the SD babes. My captors had gone out of their way to make sure these Amazons weren't ladies I knew.

"Stop," I declared with authorities. "You cannot touch me against my will as that violates Hayden's ban on me entering blood feuds and wrangling me anywhere against my will constitutes a blood feud in Ishara's eyes."

"It is Hayden's order," Troika snapped.

"Has she lifted the ban? If not, these ladies will be breaking Hayden's decree."

Troika harrumphed then gave Hayden a call. For the purpose of this meeting, the ban was lifted. That was what I needed so off I went. I waited until we got in the elevator and were heading up before launching my strike.

Pamela would have been so proud. If Troika had given me an ounce of dignity, I couldn't have pulled it off. As it was, the first stab took her just under the left eye, the second punched through her cheek and spitted her tongue. The third nearly severed her upper lip and then the SD were on me.

"Blood Feud!" I screamed. "You stole from me!" Troika was about to come back at me, knife in hand. One of the SD got in the way. What I had done was illegal - blood feuds needed to be approved...except for one tidbit of law Pamela taught me and it was about to come into play.

"You cannot wound him while he is in our custody, Troika of Šauška," the Amazon protested.

Troika gargled something through the ruin of the left side of her face.

"I will peel off a meter of your flesh for this insult," she managed to oozingly communicate before we reached the top floor. For my part...

"Unhand me."

They didn't.

"Unhand me, or am I no longer Head of House Ishara."

"Do not attack her," the SD leader stated.

"Would you care to explain to me why you are giving me that order?" I mused.

"Please, Ishara," the woman ground out. "Do not attack Troika of House Šauška."

"Very well. I pledge that from this point until the end of this meeting, I will only act against Troika in my own defense," I promised. "Now give me your sidearm."

"You may not bear a weapon in Hayden's presence," the SD leader reminded me.

"I asked for your weapon, not your legal advice," I insisted. Another shot of bigotry.

"I will not. You are not acting rationally," she stated. Troika snorted. That was okay, because I saw an excellent substitute close by. My deviation from the group was so casual, they barely noticed. I wasn't making a fast break to nowhere.

I walked up to the wall and, Vranus be praised, yanked one of a pair of matching battle axes off the wall. Support studs went flying. Like all weapons in Havenstone, this one was real. The SD closed ranks, boxing me in.

"You may not bear a weapon in Hayden's presence," the SD leader was at the end of her patience with me.

"You are incorrect," I glowered. "There are two occasions I may bear a weapon in proximity to the High Priestess. One is in defense of her person. I am not here to defend her." Harder than any kick to the head - they paled then the anger set in.

"How dare you?" the SD leader seethed.

"The proof of the necessity of my action stands before me right now; an Amazon defying a House, a First Ancestor and a Goddess on her own initiative and in defiance of everything her ancestors fought, bled and died for," I glared.

"Give me the axe," the leader insisted.

"No. You will have to fight me for it," I made my stand. She was about to do just that when one of the others spoke. Tears were slowly eking a way down that one's cheeks.

"Step away from Ishara, or I will kill you," she told her leader. "You are wrong and Ishara is right though it sickens me to admit it."

To add to the macabre, one SD trooper aimed at my 'savior' and the fourth aimed at the third. Civil war.

"You know what he plans to do," the leader stated.

"It is not our place," the second Amazon insisted. "I cannot face my ancestors letting this abomination pass."

"He is the abomination," the leader persisted.

"No. The abomination is any full-blooded not of the Council deciding what the Council will and will not do. We now know there were once male Amazons. By the will of our ancestors it was so. Never before have we, the elite of the Host, acted as if we knew better than they," the second Amazon said with righteous conviction.

"Go," the leader mumbled softly. The woman on the verge of killing her was most likely a close and trusted friend. Grappling with that sudden rift between sisters was occupying her mind at that moment, not my escape. I moved around her, keeping out of the line of fire as best I could and went with Troika to Hayden's portal. I didn't thank the woman.

That would have been insulting because what she did, she did for her people and the hundred thousand that had come before her. Finally we rolled out the Old Kingdom Hittite/Amazon.

"See what you have done," Troika hissed. I didn't bother to reply. I was sure, dressed in light green scrubs, I cut a valiant and imposing figure.

"Cáel Ishara, what took you so..." and then Hayden saw it. For a second, St. Marie almost cut me off. Katrina stood up. She wanted to stop me. In her mind, Hayden was one of our allies, but, as I had told her, she (Katrina) didn't get it either. Madi, Beyoncé, Fatima and Krasimira were also present and now highly disturbed.

"Take yourself to the cliffs," I announced clearly as I dropped the axe on Hayden's desk. She had stood at my final approach and bore hate my way. "The Goddess Ishara rejects you and has taken herself from the Temple. House Ishara has lost faith in you. Your insults are lengthy and I do not feel like wasting any more time with you."

"How dare you?" Hayden spat. "All the times I have shielded you and this is how you repay me? You were a mistake from the beginning."

"A mistake we can rectify right now," Fatima snarled. She rose up and drew her knife.

"Excuse me, but didn't we gather here for a different purpose?" Krasimira mused softly.

"Kill him and end the curse," Madi growled.

"Oh...in that case can you kill me first?" Krasimira sighed. "I see no need to postpone the continuation of my chat with my mother." At Krasimira's age, her mother was most likely dead.

"Krasimira, you cannot defend him!" Fatima wailed.

"Defend him? I am not standing in your way, Fatima. I do know that the statue of Ishara fractured and fell into two pieces in the Temple," she related - certainly retelling information they already had. "House by house, we see nothing but the back of those who fought before us. Five of my augurs had shorn their hair and thrown themselves into the fire. I can do nothing except report what I have witnessed.

I cannot appeal to Ishara to lift her curse. I hope one of you can because if you can't and you kill her CLEARLY designated heir we shall all go down to ignoble ends," the Keeper of Records remained serenely poised as she delivered her doom-laden news. "By the way, Troika, what happened to your face?"

"He stabbed me," Troika burbled. "Let me kill the bastard." I half-turned. St. Marie interposed herself between the two of us.

"Cáel, lift the curse," St. Marie demanded.

"Lift your damn curse," Fatima and Madi chimed in.

"Cáel, lift the curse and then we can discuss things," Hayden tried and failed to sound humble.

"If every woman in this rooms fatally slits their own throats in the next fifteen seconds, I'll plead to Ishara to lift the curse," I said. There wasn't a headlong rush to commit suicide. The only one so inclined was Krasimira. I motioned her to stop.

"Well, I think we are done here. I have to go and try and cobble my life back together. You ladies have fun pulling off your 'Thelma and Louise' final act while I figure out some way for House Ishara to survive the upcoming war," I shrugged. Of course they didn't let me leave. Fatima on one side, the Golden Mare in the middle and Troika on the other. She had to be in a shitload of pain.

"Lift the curse. If we are going to war, we need to be whole," St. Marie urged me.

"No."

"Why should I stop these two from killing you right now?" she glared.

"Because he is an Amazon," Krasimira muttered. "You should need no better reason.

Ah...this is why we must die...thank you Cáel Ishara," she concluded. "A terrible sadness has gripped our people for as long as I have been Keeper. I found it lurking in the shadowy corners of my office when I was elevated. I now imagine it haunted my predecessors for some time as well. At least I will pass on knowing the name of our assassin."

"The assassin is right here," Fatima spewed her hate at me.

"You are correct," Krasimira chuckled. "The assassin is indeed in this room. Its name is Amazon. I need a moment, please." She stood and walked to the doors. What she wanted didn't take long at all. "Gun," we heard her request. The magazine fell to the ground. The sole bullet did not follow.

Krasimira walked tenderly into the office as if every step tore like fishhooks at her flesh.

"Take yourself to the cliffs, Hayden," Krasimira intoned as the one-shot pistol fell on Hayden's desk. "I no longer know you." Krasimira took in the whole room. "We show anger when we should show humility.

We are proud of our shame. We are arrogant of our weaknesses. We have heaped insult upon insult on our ancestors yet are now aghast that they turn away from us," she shook her head. Her gaze settled on St. Marie. "I am not one warrior alone, but one of a thousand warriors who have fought before me'...isn't that part of the oath of every member of the Security Detail swears?"

Katrina fell to her knees.

"Please Cáel. Please save us," she begged me. Something was very wrong with that.

"How dare you?" Fatima howled at Katrina. Instead of being ashamed, Katrina's supplicant's face turned first into a grim grin, then one of gallows laughter.

"And that is why we are all going to die," Katrina declared as she stood once more. "We are too proud to ask a man for help. We know what Ishara's curse is doing to us. You clearly don't care. You would rather die than admit that our damn ANCESTORS have placed a male here and now. Open your eyes!" she nearly screamed. "They sent a MAN for a reason - to open our eyes before we kill ourselves."

You scream 'what gives him the right?' Ishara gives him the right. Nothing else matters. What I am asking you is 'what gives you the right to reject Ishara?' because that is what we have done. How could she make her will any more plainly obvious to us? Cáel has never stopped trying to save us and you two want to gut him like a lamb, or (to St. Marie) break his body.

Hayden, I will not place my rejection upon your desk. You have been as much a mother to me as my actual birth-mother. I love you. Since we first met, I have only wanted to make you proud of me and serve your will. What has gone wrong? How have we come to this? You were the one who told me we had to find a way to save our race...and now, when it stares us in the face...

Why can't we accept it? How have I failed you, Hayden? What did I do wrong to not prepare you for this moment? It was my duty to keep you informed in all things and I can find nothing to excuse my failure," Katrina had gone from disappointed to heart-broken. Katrina prized herself on being able to stay ahead of any crisis.

Here, at her greatest challenge, she hadn't been able to help her friend and mentor survive this calamity. I imagine that was the final blow for Hayden. Katrina had risen up through the Havenstone system as Hayden's protégé and had given Hayden her all.

"Until this moment, I have never considered myself a coward," Hayden murmured.

"You are blameless Katrina. In the final analysis, I sacrificed my courage for my life. And now I have neither. I can regain my courage here at the end and be true to the duties I was given," Hayden's resolve strengthened with each word. She took out a piece of paper and created a list. "St. Marie, on this list are traitors to the Host. Gather these Amazons and prepare them to challenge my accusation."

St. Marie stepped forward, took the paper and quickly read it.

"Hayden, this includes a third of the Council!" she gasped.

"I am well aware of who I have accused. Please see to my final command, old friend," Hayden sighed. I could see a terrible weight lifted from her - the cliffs.

"Final..." St. Marie and Katrina groaned.

"Yes. I will dine tonight with my family, then take myself to the cliffs with the dawn. I feel that will be a good end for me," Hayden mused. "Will Ishara forgive me, Cáel?"

"No Hayden. It is not her way, but I will. There will be a place in Ishara's halls for you. I pledge you that," I suddenly felt a sorrowful pit in my stomach.

Into that romantically tragic scene, Krasimira snorted with amusement. Eyes turned to her. Hayden shook her head, held up a hand to forestall the Keeper until she rounded the desk and left her office for the last time.

"Who is on the list?" Fatima stormed up to the Golden Mare and looked over the list.

"I am on this. So are you Troika," Fatima growled. "This is insane. We'll destroy Hayden over this...this...piece of filth."

"I don't care if I'm on it, or not," Madi seethed. "I'm with you."

"There is a small manner of little known law you may wish to be aware of," Krasimira chuckled.

"The ruling of an honorably deceased High Priestess may not be challenged."

"You two are under arrest," St. Marie whipped out her pistol. Being with the SD, she was allowed to be fully armed in the High Priestess's presence.

"What do you mean?" Fatima looked to Krasimira.

"Cael has killed you all and he didn't even mean to," Krasimira gave a dry chuckle. "By his act of kindness to Hayden, which I now think Hayden was counting on, our former High Priestess goes to an honorable death - taken into the Halls of Ishara in death. Unable to challenge Hayden's decree, you are all going to be executed and your names stricken from the rolls.

You will wander aimlessly for all eternity while Hayden will live in the company of her sisters thanks to a man and his love for someone who was clearly his enemy," Krasimira kept snorting at the dark comedy. "Your sole avenue of spiritual survival lies with a man you tried to kill mere moments ago."

"This is insane," Troika shouted and came at me. The room exploded with the sonic resonance of a pistol firing. I may have imagined it, but it appeared the bullet took Troika at the juncture of the right eyebrow, nose ridge and right eye. Whatever the entry point, the .45 ACP slug painted the wall behind her with her grey matter. St. Marie turned quickly on Fatima.

"Troika wasn't on the Council, so I could kill her for attempting to murder someone who was. I can't kill you immediately, but please believe I will put a bullet where it hurts if you don't do exactly what I say," the Golden Mare menaced. The debate was truncated by the four Security Detail ladies storming the room.

Orders were dispensed and the wheels of Amazon society burst into motion. A side effect of my stunt was I had put St. Marie in charge until the full Council could meet to create some sort of Regency Council to pilot the ship. There was zip gratitude aimed my way on her part and I didn't blame her one bit. I was headed out before things got too organized.

I wanted some 'me' time.

"Cáel Ishara, we have not resolved the matter that brought us to this disaster," St. Marie growled. I was at the door. I looked over my shoulder at the Golden Mare, turned back toward freedom and saw Pamela.

"Shoot me," I told Pamela. I was grappling with the horror of what I had just said when I returned to the darkness. MOTHER-FUCKER! I hate women!

(Mutter...mutter...mutter)

I became aware of my hazy, fugue-like dream state. Sadly, it was familiar and undoubtedly going to become even more familiar while I lived.

"Upset with me, Cáel?" she asked.

"You had me tell my friend to shoot me...yeah, Ishara, I'm a little cranky right now."

"The question was rhetorical. I can read your mind," the Goddess snorted.

"What happened to me?"

"She bounced a bullet off your skull. You'll be okay. I am the Goddess of Medicine after all," she reminded me.

"From an era when trepanning was popular. Color me unimpressed. Oh...and I apologize."

"You will get me the fortune cookie next time," she lilted. Something crucial occurred to me.

"Hey! I haven't had sex in a week. That hasn't happened to me in four years."

"I don't think you are ready for that stage of our relationship yet," she tickled my nose.

"Wait...did you just put me in the Friend Zone?" More laughter. "Seriously," I sighed. "Hayden?"

"I forgive you," she soothed me.

"Forgive me? I killed her. That is not okay. Wasn't..."

"No, my Cáel. We are a blood-thirsty society and the ultimate mistakes are answered with the ultimate punishments. I cannot fully express my pride in you for what you did, even in opposition to my will."

There was a pause in our relationship and conversation. I thought she sensed my turmoil and aided me in finding some level of peace. With her kind of entity, I would never be sure.

"What did Carrig do to me?" I asked.

"I don't know." That was not what I expect. Evasion - yes. The ugly truth - no.

"I find the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent deity to be self-defeating," she mused.

"Sort of negates the whole Free Will thing," I bantered.

"Besides, what is the point of beseeching a being that already knows what's going to happen to you and would have saved you if that is what they wanted?"

"Yeah," I groaned sarcastically, "I much prefer the divine ones who randomly fuck with your life because they can, rarely provide useful information and won't even put out on the second date."