15 Chapter 15: Maneuvering Serpents

"I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt I died. I dreamt I saw my spirit rising above my body. I literally saw myself lying stone cold on a table. My skin had turned blue. I could see people in the room with me. They were speaking, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. My spirit just kept on rising. Then before I could catch on to what was going on, my hands changed into a pair of wings with long golden feathers. They resembled the wings of a mighty eagle. And like an eagle I went soaring through the clouds, flying higher than where any commercial aircrafts had gone before. In the dream, I knew I was flying to heaven. I felt free...at peace. I was not weak, neither was I sick. I was going to meet my creator. How what joy was on my face. Then something happened...something horrible. I made a mistake. I flew too close to the sun. My wings burst into flames, singeing all my feathers. I started to fall. I was now on my way to hell I believed. Then I woke up. What do you think this dream mean?"

It was Victor speaking; telling the tale of a dream he had the other night. He was in an MRI machine, getting himself scanned. His longtime personal physician, Doctor Singh, was with him supervising the machine in the comfort of his penthouse.

"In western cultures dreaming about death is often seen as an omen that something bad will happen. In India, however, when someone dreams about death, especially their own, it means you'll have a long, rich life. If you are ill and you dream of death, that means your health will improve."

The MRI machine then stopped and Victor came out of it. "Well, Doctor, which is it?" He asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

But Doctor Singh replied only with a petrified stare. He had seen the results from the MRI scan.

Victor sighed and then asked, "How bad is it this time, Doctor?"

"You have stage IV lung cancer. Already it has spread to your bones and lymphatic tissues," the doctor replied.

"That can't be right," Victor responded, sitting upwards on the bed. "I urge you to run the tests over."

"I did; seven times to be exact. They all came back with the same images."

"Singh, I've never smoked a day in my life. How is this possible?"

"It's not. I've been your physician for over fourteen years and your respiratory system was in good shape. In my field of study one just doesn't simply develop stage IV lung cancer overnight. I've never seen it happen in all my life...never."

"It's a curse I'm sure of it," Victor said, laughing ironically with himself. "What's the treatment regimen for this disease...chemotherapy... radiation...a mixture of both?"

"This isn't just some disease, Mr Gable. This is stage IV metastatic lung cancer...the deadliest cancer known to man. It's very aggressive and at this point...incurable."

"So that's it? What, I'm just supposed to throw in the towel and die?" Victor's temper sparked.

"I'm truly sorry, but there is nothing that can be done at this stage besides pain management. It's best to get your affairs in order, Mr Gable while you still can."

"You know what Doctor Singh...you are just like how I see God...useless!" Victor shouted, taking out his frustration on him. "Leave! You're fired! Go back to your shit hole of a country!"

"Mr Gable---"

"You heard me. Get out!"

So the doctor, not letting Victor ruin his day, left with his dignity still intact. He knew within himself that he had done his best for the fourteen years he had spent managing his health. Now it was the end of their journey. Actually, it felt liberating to him. So he smiled while Victor ravelled in his frustration.

As soon as he closed the door, Victor in a temper fit flung his cane aside and flipped over the MRI bed mattress causing a mess. "Urg!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. He soon after lost balance and fell flat to the ground due to him not having his cane. "Father!" He shouted in self-humiliation, calling for the demon, Deimos. "Where are you? I need your help! Father!"

But there was no Deimos that day. No creepy black smoke was coming to his rescue. He lied on the cold floor in his scrubs and shed a couple of drops of tears when he realized that he was alone. There was no Jade; no Doctor Singh; no one to call his own. The only thing he had still was his acclaimed wealth, but even that wasn't enough to fill the huge hole that had formed in his life. This made him contemplate about his entire life and the decisions he had made leading up to this point.

In his moment of self-realization, he was interrupted when out of nowhere twelve holographic monitors popped up in mid-air just above him. On the twelve monitors were the twelve elders of The Family with Victor being the newly installed thirteenth elder. There were three women and the rest were men of varying ethnicity. Apart from the Father who oversaw everything, the elders held the highest position in The Family. Below them were the fifty-plus lower members of The Family, who did not actively take part in any conversation. They were more or less crucial to the overall agenda. These lesser ranked members usually held important positions in society, like judges, government officials, scientists, etc. Captain Briggs and Judas Strange, as well as most of the persons Jade and Merci assassinated, were in this group.

"What do you want?" Victor grumbled.

"Victor, what happened here?" A blond-haired woman asked out of concern for him.

"None of your business. Now, will you all give me some privacy?"

"Victor, what is the status of the sword?" Carlos asked.

"Will you all get off my back with that wretched sword!" Victor shouted. "For heaven's sake, I have more serious things to worry about."

"Carlos tells us that you've had the sword in your possession for days now," a bald man with a Nigerian accent stated.

"How could you've done something like this," the blond-haired woman said. "You know how important that sword is to us."

"He allowed his lackey to run off with the sword. That's what happened," Carlos added, wrongfully accusing Victor.

"Treachery!" A man shouted in response.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Victor?" Another woman asked. "Are these accusations true?"

They all mercilessly bombarded him with accusations after accusations and questions after questions. Little did they know they were getting on his last nerve. His blood boiled in anger and his eyebrows twitched in irritation. But he simply reached for the cane that was on the floor with him and got up. "The Father is a fraud. He tried to heal me, but inherently he may have killed me. I'm done with this. Do you hear me? Done," Victor said, walking through the holographic monitors. They automatically turned around to watch him as he continued to walk away.

"Victor, do not turn your back on us," Carlos warned. "You can't leave The Family. You need us!"

But Victor was done this time. His mind was made up and he kept on walking until he went through the door. The monitors behind him then disappeared.

Some hours later Victor found himself at his office and sat quietly around his desk. His concentration was however broken when Merci entered the room. She wore a casual leather jacket and jeans this time.

"Let me guess, you haven't found her," Victor said with a calmness to him.

"No," Merci replied. "We're considering that she may have already left the city...left the country."

"Wouldn't you like that?" Victor said with suspicion under his breath.

"I do not understand, sir?"

"You promised that you would find her and get back my sword. It has been more than a week now and I have neither your sister nor the sword in my possession. I'm starting to wonder where your loyalty lies. Is it with me or is it with your two-faced sister?"

"Mr Gable, my loyalty is with you. It has always been," she reassured him without a doubt in her voice.

"We'll see about that. Still, I need that sword. Go. Take as many men as needed and scour every square inch of this city. She's still here, Merci. Find her. I need that sword. It may be my only..." He stopped himself. "Just go."

"Yes, sir," Merci walked out not knowing his true reason for wanting the sword.

Victor then looked and noticed that there were a stockpiled of unopened letters on his desk. So he took out a letter opener from out of his desk drawer and started to open them one by one. He opened this one letter that was addressed from the magisterial office; it contained an invitation to the Mayor's Annual Grand Gala event at City Hall. Merci suddenly then re-entered the office and interrupted him.

"You better have the sword with you," Victor remarked while reading the letter.

"I just received a phone call from the security downstairs. Do you know a Terry Reynolds? Apparently, he's claiming to be your long-lost son."

Victor quickly looked up at her with eyes fully alert.

Meanwhile, on a deserted arm of an overhead bypass bridge somewhere, two black cars were parked. Another one showed up and the blond-haired woman wearing sunglasses and a sparkling pearl necklace exited this car. She was the same blonde woman seen on one of the monitors at Victor's penthouse. She was not a young woman nor did she looked too old; probably somewhere in between. The very classy-looking woman then entered one of the other cars that were already parked at the scene. In the back sat Carlos and the Nigerian man that was also seen earlier on the monitor. She joined them in sitting down, but in the seat facing them.

"You wanted to see me," the woman said after she took off her sunglasses to reveal her naturally green eyes.

"Moira, my darling," Carlos said, greeting her with a kiss on both of her cheeks. "So nice of you to join Theo and I."

"Meeting like this is dangerous, Carlos," Theo acknowledged.

"I agree," Moira replied. "Some would say, shady."

"You two are the only ones I can trust in The Family. After all, we've been friends since Yale---"

"What do you want, Carlos?" Moira immediately asked, stopping him and his cunning words.

"As we all know Victor is becoming a serious problem for us and our plans. He was idiotic to lose the sword in the first place. We've tried for some many years to get Step One off the ground and now that's almost a reality."

"One of the main reasons why Step One took so long to get off the ground was due to insufficient funding and resources," Theo added. "That was all corrected when we brought Victor into the mix."

"True. But what has he offered since then? I'll tell you, trouble and mayhem. He has gotten a detective involved, who is still at large with a thumb drive that he was assigned to retrieve. He went behind our backs in pursuit for the sword that he allowed one of his assassins to take. He has threatened on several occasions to pull out and leave The Family. Don't you see? He's losing it. He's too old for this. In his current state, he's a threat to us all."

"Look, Carlos. I see what you're trying to do here," Theo said. "You want us to turn on Victor. You know the others will listen to you once they know we're backing you; that is why you've arranged to meet with us first. But the jury is still out on what we're going to do about his little misconduct this morning. Surely the verdict may not be as extreme as immediate expulsion."

"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of us putting the sick old bastard out of his misery," Carlos said. "In just a few more days Step One will be completed. We do not need him anymore."

"Are you seriously suggesting we kill a fellow elder?" Moira rebuked.

"Yes and you both should want the same if you wish to keep your stakes in the new world to come," Carlos said. "Tell me. Haven't you questioned his sudden rise to elderhood? Or how Father seems to favour him the most? What's so special about him? Sure he has a lot of cash, but so do we. We all represent the wealthiest families in the world and our entire wealth when combined equals his. Through our sacrifices over the years, we've so far secured a spot on the ark for ourselves and for those we choose to carry with us into this new world. But I can tell you now without a shadow of doubt in my mind that all that is up for grabs with Victor pulling the strings. Unless we take matters into our own hands right this minute and get rid of him, we have no place in his vision for the new world."

The two began to look amongst each other and just as Carlos had hoped, he grabbed their attention.

"For us to be a part of this you must vow to keep this a secret between us," Moira said. "None of the other elders must know about this."

"This will be our little secret," Carlos replied.

"How do you plan to take him out when he has all these assassins around him twenty-four/seven?" Theo doubted.

"As it turns out, he has them sweeping all across the city in search of the sword. Tonight is the only chance we may get to kill him."

"And there is no chance this will come back around to bite us in the ass?"

"Relax, Theo, my boy. This is foolproof. By tomorrow he will be dead and Father will realize what wonderful children we are," Carlos said with a sinister grin.