Enemy

"Don't you little fuckers wear condoms anymore?"

My stupid shit of a grandson squawked and ducked to avoid my swipe at him.

'Apparently not' Daemon whispered in my ear. I was going senile and the fucker still managed to sound smug.

"Shut up", I muttered. Grunting as I swung too high and nearly lost my balance.

"What?" My shitty grandson said as he caught me before I fell.

HA! Idiot. I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and whacked him with my cane, the bastard too close to me to dodge.

I kept whacking him but inside I started getting my head together. This one was going to be a real doozy, and I'd need all my resources to even pull this off.

It was time to come out of retirement.

"Grandpa please!" Eustace (more like useless, stupid kid) cried.

I stopped whacking the little shit and took a deep breath.

The outer world slowed. My inner world... opened up for me.

Hello old friend.

It hit me like a sack of bricks. The familiarity of it. It wasn't real, but sometimes memories are more real to us than anything the real world can throw at us. And this place in my head... my mind palace. It was build on memories.

I entered through the gate of my third eye, Daemon at my side, and with every step a decade fell off of me.

The marble flooring echoed my steps throughout the castle as they went from the doddering stumble of an old man to the confident steps of a king at his prime.

The cobwebs lifted. Oh god they lifted, and I suddenly saw how the years had affected me now that they weren't weighing me down.

I was a fool, to not use this more often. And to not touch it in years? Blasphemy. But all sins can be repented, and in this world I was not a sinner asking for forgiveness but a god, standing triumphant over his kingdom.

Redemption would come later.

Recompense would come now.

The vibrant hall, lined with paintings and scrolls of my valuer ended, and opened up into a cavernous throne room, long shadowed hallways leading to corners of my psyche unknown along the sides, and at the very end, a throne of shadows and blood, dripping with oil begging to be set alight; the seat of my power salivating at my return.

There stood an oaken table spanning the length of my throne room and already my subjects were coming, streaming in from the long hallways, from the very corners of my mind. Forgotten enemies, lost lovers, friends and family alike. They were all dead, and they were coming.

They bowed to me as I passed them. Daemon was no shadow behind me now, but a knight of red and black at my side, his presence coalescing and shivering as his power solidified at my side, once again in our domain. My right hand man, my advisor, my.... executioner.

We walked, and in my hands materialized a massive glaive, dripping golden tears at my return, it's corrosive essence pooling at my feet and scoring the table at my passing. My armor came next, a legion of my first brood, skeletal soldiers rising from the ground and kissing my feet before clawing their way up my form and resting over the baby blue hospital gown the nursing home had given me. A massive were-lion skull slithered over my spine and came to rest over my face, and suddenly it felt like home again.

The steps of Daemon at my side was accompanied by the thud of the shaft of his bardiche and the clinging of the chain of his flail. He was finding his footing again as well.

Good... he'd need it.

And so we reached the throne. And I ascended.

The steps were slick with oil.

It mattered not.

This was my world

All else merely resided in it.

I turned around at the top. And sat down on my throne.

The world turned to light as the oil caught fire. Daemon came to my side and stood next to me, both hands on the top of his long-axe. And everything clicked into place.

The fire spread down the steps and across the table, until the hall was cloaked in the flickering light of my majesty. Some of the fire coalesced above my head in a fiery halo of a crown a meter high, the heat making the very air shimmer.

I was home again.

And all my subjects were here as well, spread below me.

Enemies I'd conquered. Allies lost in battle. Assassins sent to kill me and pawns I'd picked up to make it easier to play the game.

They would rise at my will, appearing to ford any obstacles that crossed my path.

Today, they would slay another who'd dared to raise their eyes at me and mine.

A worm foolish enough to spit in my face. The face of a god. A king.

A Monarch.

Someone had trifled with my grandson.

Worse. Someone had trifled with his girlfriend... who was with child.

My legacy...

And they would soon find out what happened to those who trifled with my legacy.