CHAPTER 59
Billy lost them in the clouds and landed in a wooded ravine where he had left blankets and food, since he could not afford to light a campfire.
He examined the empress. Gut wounds can take hours to kill. He transferred the Millennial Wands as blood loss slowly took her. Given his rage, rape was the last thing he was capable of.
“You’re just a boy,” she said surprised.
He opened his eyes to see her watching him. He had taken off his helmet and the cloth that kept the helmet from digging too much into his scalp. How odd that the Empress Borte would know his face before almost everyone else.
“Tomorrow I turn 16.”
“I know you.”
“You knew me eight years ago in Peking as the Boy Wonder.”
The empress grew angry. “I cried at your funeral. Genghis gave a beautiful speech.”
“Well, that makes up for him killing thousands of members of my family.” He started recording their conversation in case anything good came of it.
“I can’t believe you tried killing him in his own tent. He must have hurt someone close to you.”
“He had my mother gang-raped and his personal bodyguards killed four of my unborn babies.”
She nodded her head in sympathy. “War is such a terrible thing. Will you be the one who stops him?”
“To stop this never-ending global war, I’ll kill everyone who fights for the Mongol Empire. No one who practices genocide as public policy should control all of humanity.”
“I wish this war ended centuries ago.”
That pissed him off. “You’ve killed thousands of quads to live so long, so you’re not innocent. You could have saved one hundred million lives by simply cutting his throat in his sleep.”
“I loved him too much.”
Billy had not anticipated liking her. He felt his rage melt as her breathing grew ragged, patiently recording her last hour alive. His father would have approved of how well she died. Many who live strong, die weak. Literally the last thing that anyone can do in life is die well.
“I’m gonna behead you and feed your body to the wolves. I’ll then collect their excrement. After I turn the Mongol empress into crap, I’ll turn the Mongol Empire into shit.”
The most powerful woman in the world used her dying breath to get the last word: “You must be in more pain than I am.”
Billy desperately wanted to hate her guts, but couldn’t find it in him. Instead, he remembered how kind she was to him as the Boy Wonder in Peking as her Millennials warmed his hands.
Camping alone relaxed him. Even with a million Mongols searching for him. Since coming out as the Red Baron, he constantly worried about being killed in his sleep. The super-quads he trusted the most guarded him while he slept and he only ate food he knew could not be poisoned. Billy tried to get to know those who joined his team -- they assumed because he was such a good leader, but self-preservation motivated Billy. Those recruits who inspired doubts he paired with quads of proven loyalty. Despite the cold, lack of shelter, and terrible food, he didn’t have to worry about assassination when camping alone.
Being alone also let him do stuff that he couldn’t do with others around. He often needed help sleeping, so he projected videos of his ancestors on his father’s side, beginning with a short clip of American Jack looking very different. Generation by generation they passed. His father recorded all that he knew about them, especially how they died. None had ever passed away from old age. He liked his father’s parents very much and wished he could have known them. His father’s beaming face reminded him why the world’s richest kid endured so much suffering. Then he got to his mama.
Billy had compiled a best-of video -- a thousand short clips that defined how he remembered her. Where they went, things they did, battles they fought. The last clip was his favorite, from when he was just three years old. Mama sang a nursery rhyme to help him sleep because he had nightmares of the boogeyman. Her smiling face, soothing voice, and beautiful eyes imprinted on him like a baby duck.
Billy woke up next to the dead empress. He carried her to where they least expected him: the nearby capital. He found his room just as he left it and got to work.
He spent a few days killing hundreds of quads in the street or in stores. He’d enter a tavern or the mayor’s office or the police station and slaughter everyone.
But it was the empress who gave away his location. Her stench brought the manager, who pounded on his door. Billy stabbed the guy right through the door, and left a video wand so the world would know how well she died.
He flew out the window to the local military base, slew the guards, then the few remaining administrative officers, logistical air mules, and the ill. Everyone else, apparently, was out scouring the vast steppe for him. He took their wands and money before burning the place.
Sex can be better than battle, but battle lasts so much longer. And while nothing beats the moment of orgasm, nothing compares to taking a human life. Especially the lives of those he hated.
Billy fought a disorganized enemy all night. He disappeared before dawn to take a nap fifteen minutes away, before starting up again around noon. He could tell they found the empress by how well organized they became. They tried to swarm him, so Billy had to fly high enough to fight only a dozen at a time. Furious at the death of their beloved empress, they continued flying up to him, but could not overwhelm him at that height. He disappeared in the dark to eat and nap, then returned after midnight to ambush the patrols. Rapid reaction units chased him, but could not catch him, so he fireballed everything flammable.
Billy repeated this for two more days before a shrieking alarm captured everyone’s attention. He flew higher to see a looming shadow on the horizon. That was Genghis Khan, so Billy left, having delivered his message.
Hulagu’s last daughter -- already an old lady -- held out a video wand as soon as the Khan reached the hotel entrance. He watched it in silence as he stormed up the stairs and burst into the room. There, in the bathroom, lay his wife in the tub, covered in snow.
“This is how they found her,” his great-granddaughter explained. “Her clothes had not been removed and I could not see any violence other than the stomach wound.” She paused dramatically. “Um, he put a pillow under her head and covered the rest of her in a blanket. She looked like she was napping. I don’t understand why that monster didn’t do any of the terrible things that he threatened. Instead, he returned her body, at great risk, instead of beheading her and feeding her body to the wolves.”
Genghis had no answer to that. He couldn’t figure this guy out. If he understood the Baron, he’d have killed him long ago. Which was, in part, why Billy did it: to mess with his head, to get under his skin, and to inflame his emotions.
The funny part was, Genghis didn’t even know yet that he was going to Europe.