Nero, Diamond, Adonis, Pumpkin, and Azara arrived at Crest Manor.
It was the home of the chief of police, and also the site of the charity benefit that they would be ending. Crest Manor was at the top of a hill, near a cliff, overlooking the town of Atlaan. It was in the neighborhood of Ascension Hills, where the rich ran away from the smells and sounds of the city.
Azara pulled the car onto a hill in which they could see Crest Manor from above, where fancy limos and their bored drivers on smoke breaks littered the driveway.
“Why isn’t Alto coming,” Adonis asked.
“He thinks my son isn't here, that I’m using him as an excuse to kill Almuz,” Nero replied.
“Why wouldn’t he be here? We killed all his cops, this must be revenge for what we did.”
Adonis frowned with his eyes, ashamed of lying, deep down he disapproved of the entire affair. He told Nero once that killing everyone wouldn’t change what happened, but still, Nero ran chest-first into danger.
He claimed that if I don’t stop people like that, they’ll continue to hurt innocent children.
Alto’s statement solidified his idea that this was more about Nero than the children.
“We can’t let him get away with this. If he takes one of our own, everyone else will think they can fuck with us. Let’s correct this misconception, ” Azara said.
She popped open the trunk and inside was all that they needed for their short expedition into the jungle. Their plan was to go in and get out as fast as possible. The longer they were inside, the higher the chance someone would see them, and therefore they believed a higher chance someone would shoot the baby.
Adonis and Nero put on bulletproof vests and got handguns while Azara got out her trusted shotgun, whispering to it, how long it had been.
Diamond and Natalia shivered, their thin clothing no longer useful underneath the light snow while shuffling through various dangerous objects to pull out two plasma swords, and started squeezing the handles, adjusting the settings.
Adonis, however, was determined to not need clothing. He took off his shirt, neatly folded it, and put it in the trunk.
“I’m tired of ripping shirts every time I use my wings," he muttered.
“You’re worried about clothes when we’re about to kill a bunch of pigs? Ridiculous,” Diamond replied.
“You’re no different," replied Nero. “You and Pumpkin got all dressed up."
“I can dress however I want," Pumpkin scoffed.
“ Hell yeah we got dressed up," said Diamond.
Pumpkin and Diamond were wearing matching white and black shorts, with sparkling heels, their shirts zebra-striped halter tops. They came, agreeing to Nero’s ridiculous dress code of a terrorist attack.
“If I’m gonna die, my ass gonna be a pretty corpse."
Azara rolled her eyes, and said, “Why wear nice clothes if you’re gonna get blood all over it?”
“Why stand here wasting time when we could have killed Almuz and rescued my baby," said Nero.
Everyone stopped bickering and got back to the task at hand.
Adonis blinked his eyes several times, his brow furrowed deeply, his face more intense, and his eyesight improved. Using his eagle eyes, he could see from atop the hill that there were not many people at the fundraiser, that possibly it might be an easy task.
“There are several security guards posted out front, which isn’t weird, but there aren’t many people here. Maybe this is a trap,” Adonis said.
“How could this be a trap,” Nero asked.
“Jack was and now an entire building is gone.”
“So now we kill them all after we get my son and destroy another building. Perfect plan. ”
Adonis sighed, shook his head, and gave up being the voice of reason for the rest of the night.
“If it really is a trap, we can just call backup as planned so we’re not in there too long. Don’t sweat it, ” Nero said.
They descended the hill overlooking Crest Manor, and came to the front, the row of red palm trees acting as an impromptu gate. Immediately security came out to greet them, and they were prepared, with guns and shields, only the best for their wealthy clients.
“Drop the weapons and exit the premises," announced the first security guard.
“Leave and you get to live," replied Azara. She raised her gun, but before she could shoot the guard started to call for backup.
“We need-”
“Call for backup and you die," yelled Azara.
The guard next to him shot Azara, but it bounced off of her like rubber. The chief guard realized that they were offering him a way out.
“ What do you need, Ursine," replied the walkie-talkie.
Ursine stood weighing the consequences. He could ask for backup but they wouldn’t get there by the time they would still be breathing.
“We need to go on break," replied Ursine. “ We will be back in twenty."
“ Confirmed," replied the static voice.
They watched as the guards ran down the hill, tails between their legs.
“Bitches," said Diamond.
“I don’t blame them," said Nero. “I’m not dying at work. Fuck that. ”
From the palm trees up above, the CCTV captured the arrival of five new guests, and several more security personnel left from the back entrances, recognizing Nero from the several attacks the entire week.
There was little to stop them when they walked down the cobblestone path, and it was so easy that Nero himself started to doubt the validity of his own theory that Almuz had taken his son.
If he did, where was the fanfare, the snipers from above, the helicopters and SWAT vehicles?
They opened the wooden double doors with stained glass windows, so ridiculously tall that only a giant would need it, and entered the lobby. Inside they could hear the event going on, polite claps, and the droning on of a speaker making terrible jokes to keep an audience interested.
A white and yellow stairwell went up from both the right and left sides of the lobby, held up by columns, and underneath was a hallway that led to the main part of the house.
The deeper inside the house they traveled the more it went from an extravagantly decorated home to one that seemed... off.
Instead of vases or plants in the corners, were marble statues depicting people in various sexual positions, pleasuring themselves or other people. They would be any mixture of homo or heteroerotic in nature, and not limited to only two people, sometimes three or four.
There was a small bust of a woman cupping her breasts, water coming out of the nipples, dyed purple to look like wine, a fountain that Dionysus himself would be jealous of.
The paintings were sexual in nature as well, and at one point, everyone stood, soaking it all in, the madness of a man obsessed, surrounding himself in lust continuously, the poltergeist of depravity possessing the house.
On a wall were many, many small frames, of various colors, of different shapes, and from afar, Nero assumed it was a display of insects, as some people would collect and hang on their wall.
The closer he approached the wall, the clearer it became that it was not.
Locks of hair of various colors, shades, and hues, some dyed, some natural, were put in small little frames up on the wall, his trophies on full display.
Whenever visitors would come he would call it modern art at its finest.
The only normal part about the house was that the floor itself sparkled, precious gems and sparkling rocks inserted into various parts of the floor.
Azara laughed nervously while they walked around the halls, whispering to herself over and over.
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?
No one knew what other words to describe what they saw, their limited vocabulary encompassing mainly curse words and slang, and even if they did, what words could be used to understand something... not quite right.
Walking down the hallway, they couldn’t find people but they heard plenty of voices. Eventually, they made it to a hallway leading to the main ballroom. Nervous waiters watched in fear once they saw their guns, many raised their hands, dropping their trays, glasses clattering to the floor, and a few cried.
“Just leave," yelled Nero.
The employees scrambled for the nearest exits.
“He really doesn’t know how to hire them," said Adonis.
“Good," replied Nero. “I can save bullets."
They strolled into the ballroom, their fake confidence masking their fear. No one noticed them when they walked in, as everyone’s attention was turned towards the stage and the entire place was dark save for the podium.
At the center of the stage, where the red podium was, stood Almuz, giving his ostentatious speech.
“So far tonight we have raised 1.2 million for charity," boasted Almuz. “Let’s try to meet our goal of 3 million for the night!”
More polite claps echoed and Almuz waved, knowing that the money wouldn’t go anywhere, that he was only there to continue his grift. Some astral on the other side of the seventh realm could clone items, and it was starting to crash the value of his precious gems, making them now worthless.
Technically the money was going to charity.
The charity of his bank account.
Almuz looked through the sea of faces and noticed something red coming at him very fast. Nero ran up to the podium and started shooting, and Almuz leaped off the stage, rolling to the floor. Everyone ran for the exits, hid under tables, or pushed them over and used them as shields.
Using the fray to his advantage, Almuz ran out the east exit, huffing, puffing, horribly out of shape, wheezing. He saw Nero coming from behind, laughing deep and heavy, smoke and steam coming out of his mouth and nose.
Almuz pushed open another grandiose door to the backyard, down the stairs, and tripped.
It was dark, the cobblestone path and stairs made everything bumpy, and he tumbled to the bottom, twisting his ankle.
He struggled to get up, but by the time he was on his two feet, Nero was there, and he pushed him back down.
“Please don't,” said Almuz. “Let me explain-”
Nero shot Almuz in the head.
His body went limp and fell to the ground, but Nero kept shooting. Shots echoed through the garden as the screams of the charity guests permeated the air, and he didn’t stop, he kept going, holding his breath the entire time.
It wasn’t enough.
He reloaded.
The more he shot Almuz’s lifeless corpse, the better he felt. Specks of blood covered the bottom of his pants and shoes, and he kept going, firing, and finally stopped, once nothing came out, and he noticed that he was shaking, making clicking noises at a corpse.
It dawned on him that he shot Almuz without asking him where his son was, and then he started to scream, he screamed and shrieked, and then it faltered into silence when Almuz’s body changed.
