Book 1: The Rebirth of the Aztecs

Chapter 4 Part 2: Blizzards in the Jungle

Cohen stomped forward down the smooth stone path, his feet finding their way through the moss covered ground with ease. Unlike the silver spooned aristocrats enjoying their murder fantasies in the jungle Cohen was a man of the wilderness. Like the original movers of power in the primordial creation. One with the source of his magic and wealth, mother nature’s natural madness. The god of this world had many servants in rebellion to the tyrant creator, and mother gia in her chaotic birth state would always be queen in the trillionair’s book.

Edward knew these paths better than a comanche sulking through the Texas plains for his next victim. The chaotic mother had given him many gifts on top of his original abilities honed through a childhood separate from his peers. They feared him for his confidence, and manhood. So they hated him. Still, the dark one they served was a pragmatic sort in the end. Edward Cohen produced results where the vile and weak kneed connivers failed.

Thinking on the wretches that rived, and screeched at the diamond mine inheriting tycoon's rising through the ranks of more senior and lasting bloodlines made Cohen smile like an imp in the night. Silent as a wraith stalking a vampire did the woodsman disguised his passing as he glided through his jungle lair.

Few of the elite would live permanently in their wilderness retreats preferring the bustle and sacrifice opportunities of the cities and ilk beneath the rust sweating towers. Cohen found the metropolises stifling, and what entertainment or power the rituals gained in those concrete hives of humanity paled in comparison to the veins of old world chaos that roamed the deep wilds. A man just had to be more adventurous to find the paths of the pagan and witch of ancient days.

Kiss for his part kept up with the master woodsman without breaking a sweat or staining his pretty suite. Even his servant was traversing the woods with the effortless grace of immortals on the prowl. One foot in the world three feet in the unseen realm. With their relentless passe the three figures filtered through the crying and suffering surrounding them in the night, and were soon crossing through a secret passage in a cliff face to appear in clearing surrounded by rock and ancient dark trees stretching into the sky with thousands of piercing branches.

A series of glass domes rose from the jungle floor. Each panel was the size of a semi truck, and every inch of glass was covered in fog. The glass sweated like a martini on a Sahara excursion, and vines created natural camouflage over the hidden facility. This was Edwards inner sanctum. His hideaway from the world and god himself.

The only security here was on the outside of the building on the path leading in. The surrounding jungle was teeming with experiments, and other genetic messes both new and old set loose or even binded to land to keep even guests far from the hideaway. Inside the domes was a world all to its own. A place only Edward controlled. His world. His empire. There he was god, and even Kiss would have a run for his money contenting with all the spells and automatic defenses woven into the architecture of the site. Here Edward Cohen was the master, and no one else.

The visible security wasn't phased by the strange guests or the sound of horror filtering in from the woods. They were veterans of war and of this place. The captain was Cohen’s own half brother. The trillionaire could thank his unique skills and assets on him and their half mother. Capable woman in both intrigue and woodcraft. A rarity to say the least.

“You want backup little E?” Cohen’s half brother asked in his fatigues and battle rattle. Torri was leaning on the door frame of the guard barracks, the lights of a million security monitors shining out from the dark room beyond him. Edward shook his, and passed by without a word. Tonight was all business until Kiss was off his territory. A lion may be a lion, but he wouldn’t be master of his pride long if he didn’t respect the snake’s poison.

Kiss grinned wide with those shark fangs of his illesting a few curses and such from the other guards, but not from Torri. Most of the denizens, guardians, and watch dogs on this island had been caught, trained, or mastered by the hunter. Witches sent golems and demon beasts of all kind against their rivals and enemies alike. That’s what witches did. Torri Cohen had crushed more spirits and machinations officially allied to their own magi and clans than he had from the legions of the holy ones. Could Kiss kill him? Probably, but Torri wouldn’t make it easy.

With that the three cultists passed through the front hatch, past layers and layers of steel and insulation, an airlock, and finally a massive stone arch lifted from a temple to Shiva deep in the Indian wildlands. The Vampire stopped at the sight of the arch. Cohen felt warmth in his bones at the symbols of his mistress making a being even as fearsome as Kiss pause.

Without a word Cohen opened a hidden side door so Kiss and his servant didn’t need to pass under the arch. An unnecessary courtesy sure, but Edward was a businessman when he wasn’t a woodsman. Deals were his fascination on a good day.

On the other side of the arch was another world. A blowing blizzard blew through rising evergreen trees so laden in snow they were almost indistinguishable from the snow drifts rising high around them. A single path cut through the snow onto an outstretched cliff with an overhang shielding the path from the constant blowing flurries. Beyond that was light at a far tunnel while holographic walls depicted the Himalayan mountain range in the distance. The effect was almost perfect. The best money could buy, and it was just good enough for Edward to pretend he was climbing mountains again as a boy in the hidden monasteries of Tibet.

Cohen stripped as he walked, dropping his robe and business casual sports jacket and tailored shirt down a shoot to be laundered for later. He went all the way down to his skivvies and breathed in the frigid air. His monk training kicked in, and the communed demons fed his body as he walked through the bone rattling cold unphased.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Kiss said as he hovered next to the trillionaire leaving no footprints in the snow as he walked,” I’ll be keeping my suite on.”

Cohen snorted in agreement, and led his way deeper into his lair. It was nice to have an excuse to come home early. Tetepare island was all his, but this was the heart of everything. Money, power, and spells all under these domes kept Cohen’s world in his control. One thing spat in his eyes of course. A tiny island wannabe nation state halfway across the globe. The last of dying race of western american man who stubbornly would not die, and now they’d had the temerity to strike back. Kiss better have a very violent plan in mind or Edward would be sorely disappointed.

The Story Will Continue Every Monday

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