"So, what brings you to Olympus, sir?"
The captain asked Al, shooting several nervous glances behind him, to where he stood, trying to seem menacing.
"Business," Al replied curtly. He too was nervous, distinctly aware that a police-craft could catch up to this private boat at any time. He needed to keep up his tough demeanor, lest the captain gather his courage to call someone.
"Business you say? I often have business there. I give tours to tourists in the summer to help earn money for my family," The man rambled, putting extra emphasis on the word, 'family.'
Al sighed, feeling sorry and a little pity for the quivering man.
"Look, I just need a ride to Olympus on the mainland. Then, you go your way, I go mine and we never have to see each other again."
The man fidgeted, biting his lower lip, appearing to be nervously building up his courage to do something.
"Y-you do realize that we can't drive to Olympus, right?" He bleated out, finally.
Albert blinked in surprise, and burst out laughing.
The man reddened, but seemed mollified at Al's reaction.
"Y-yes," Al chuckled, wiping a tear from his cheek.
" I know Olympus is inland. I just need you to get me as close as you can."
"Ah, in that case I can drop you off near Olympia. It's the only place nearby that I can get to on a single tank."
"That'll work," Al said, inwardly wondering where Olympia was and how close it was to the mountain.
"Well, you'd best take a seat then, it'll take a few hours until we arrive. If that, uh, works with you of course, sir?" The captain added, as if he thought that he had been too forward a moment before.
"Okay, let me know when we get there," Al said, eager to step away from the captain and drop the act for a few minutes.
Al stepped out from the covered bridge and descended the stairs, choosing a seat in the aft of the boat. This was the place with the least amount of rocking and swaying and the only place he could stay for long periods of time without feeling queazy. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the wind against his face and the salty smell of the spray kicked up by the propeller. The warm beams of sunlight against his skin warmed his skin and, coupled with the rhythmic thumping of the sea slapping against the hull of the ship, put him into a gentle sleep.
--
Al slipped his blade underneath the sternum of another soldier, relishing the feel of blood gushing out over his fist. Al grinned, watching the eyes of the soldier grow dim before reclaiming his knife from the corpse by kicking it to the ground.
He glanced around, straining his eyes to look through the curtains of smoke. An elephant sized monster was crouched by the rubble of a felled skyscraper, feasting on the corpse of child it held between two massive, yet almost skeletal, hands. Al laughed and effortlessly called a flood of numen through his body and propelled himself forward, eager to hunt more prey. As he ran, Al sent tendrils of numen into the ground ahead of him and summoned several stone spires out of the concrete, piercing into the rubbery red skin of the demon, but not injuring it seriously.
The demon roared and tossed the corpse away and snapped the spires in two with a single swing of its arms. It was just pulling them out of its skin when Al struck, his blade slicing through its flesh in a way that the stone could not. The demon's innards were revolting. The second his blade pierced the flesh a smell akin to that of a garbage-dump permeated the area and its intestines flopped out of the new opening, covered in oily brown blood.
The demon howled in pain and slapped Al away with one of his stone spikes. Air rushed past him and he punched a hole in a plume of smoke as his body hurtled backwards. A second later, he crunched into the body of a car, showering him with glass and causing the car alarm to bleat to life. Albert hopped back onto his feet, unfazed, eying the surroundings hungrily for his prey. With an air of brushing lint of a coat, he ripped a couple of the larger shards of glass from his flesh, which knit itself back together almost immediately after.
Power rushed through him.
He was Numen incarnate.
He sauntered back to where the demon was and noticed that it had taken the chance to run. It knew it was outclassed.
Not that it mattered to Al. He could sense its presence from the twisted and dirty stream of energy that it left. Plus, the horrible smell of its blood. Hell, he probably could find it just based on that. Wrinkling his nose, Al followed the trail. It won't have gotten far. It probably just went to find some other demons nearby.
The surroundings became a blur as Al dashed through the remains of the city, past monsters, demons and a group soldiers of unknown origin looting a building. Soon, the city passed behind him and he followed the cracked and warped asphalt until it led him to the coastline. This demon had gotten farther than he thought, but it wouldn't save him. Al could sense it in an old, 'colonial' styled house up ahead that was more or less undamaged.
"All you've done is chosen your burial grounds," Al laughed in a voice that was both his and something alien.
Al stepped over the splintered wooden door that half-hung on its bottom hinge and entered the place, spotting the oily bloodstain trailing up the stairs easily. He followed the blood, twirling his dagger in his hand. The house was dark, a normal human wouldn't have been able to see more than a foot in front of them. Luckily for him, he wasn't normal. The house around him was as bright as if lit by a full moon. Al entered the room to his right and found the demon, hunched over and bleeding, holding the necks of a man and woman in front of him.
"More food? The glutton," Al thought amusedly, stepping into the room with his dagger raised.
"No more running tubby," Albert called mockingly, enjoying the way that the demon's charcoal eyes were pinched in fear at the sight of him.
It held the bodies higher, as if offering them to him.
"What, are you giving me that in exchange for letting you live? I'm not like you demon, I don't eat humans. Stringy, dirty things."
The demon's pinched eyes wrinkled as it smiled a smile filled with dagger teeth..
"Not eat, live. You leave me, they live," the demon said in a surprisingly whistle-like and high pitched voice that sounded as if a tea kettle had grown the ability to talk.
"Why should I care if some random-"
Albert took a look at the two, the woman was a slender brunette with short hair and green eyes that were almost popping out of her head in fear, but she was unable to say anything with the demon's turkey-sized hands clutching at her neck. The man was unconscious, but he was asian and wearing a familiar looking plaid suit with padded shoulders. His wire-frame glasses had slid down his nose and nearly fallen off his face. A face that was chubby looking despite his slight frame.
The demon had his parents. His heart-rate raced, and his feeling of power faltered for a moment but fluttered back to life in an instant. His head, however, felt as if it had split into two.
"You bastard," Al said in his strange mixture of a voice.
"Let them go."
"Kill them then."
He spoke both at the same time, his voice splitting into its component parts, his original voice speaking one, this newer, more alien, part of his voice the other.
"Ok, I kill one to show serious," The demon said, and his father's glasses fell to the floor as the demon pressed a thumb against his neck and broke it as easily as one might break a toothpick.
His father's limp corpse dropped to the ground and a pool of ochre blood leaked from the break and onto the antique carpet that he had purchased at an auction one time. He had to smile his sheepish smile and stutter that the carpet was priceless and worth far more than what he had spent and that he had gotten a bargain. His mother wasn't ever able to stay mad at him after that. But now, he would never smile that smile again.
The world was red. Albert was no more, he was only rage and power. He rushed forwards, ready to finish gutting the creature and then the world jerked and faded away.
--
Albert opened his eyes, knife outstretched as it was in the dream, only inches away from the captain of the ship, who had snuck up on him unawares carrying a trundle of rope.
"I-I-I was just waking you up to ask if you wanted lunch," the man stuttered, hastily shoving the rope behind his back.
"With rope?" Al asked quietly, filled with rage and his heart still racing from what he had dreamt.
"I-I-I, well rope is a necessary for any sai-" He stopped as Al poked the tip of his dagger into the flesh of his neck, causing him to breath in a rattily breath and squeak in fear.
"Do you think I'm stupid? Turn around, take me to the mainland. If not, I'll gut you and leave you for the sharks to eat."
"Yessir, right away sir!"
The captain ran back to the helm, gently rubbing at his neck.
Albert arched his neck back and took deep breaths, trying to clear his head from the dream. It had seemed so real. The ruined cities, the monsters, the corpses, the demons, even the smells.
Not only that, but he himself was the biggest strange thing about the dream. He felt as if he were someone else. The thrill of battle and joy of the hunt was euphoric. And his decision at the end. Was the him that told the demon to kill his parents the real him, or the alien him? The image of his father's broken form and the muffled screams from his mother flashed through his mind again.
Al shook his head.
"No, I wouldn't- I won't think of that again."
He wouldn't need to try and distract himself, as the heavy thudding of a helicopter and the blaring of sirens filled his ears. A police helicopter had caught up and was now circling the ship like a carrion. Not far behind, the prows of three police craft split the waves as they drew close.
"That piece of shit ratted on me!"
Al snarled, some of the rage from his dream filling him again. He jumped to his feet and dashed to the helm.