Dealing with the Devil...

His voice was smug as it echoed inside my head. “So you finally want something from me do you? Is the prodigal son returning home?”

I tried to put as much sarcasm in my mental voice as I could manage. “Hardly that, you prick. But I am ready to listen to any proof you have on Drakaar and what his intentions will be.”

His dry chuckle almost tickled as it resonated. “Well, Dracaar’s intentions are what they always are. He and his ilk have always had the same goal.”

“What’s that?”

“I could just tell you, but I’m not sure if you are ready yet. I don’t know if you are truly capable of comprehending the danger you and your friends have placed the rest of humanity in.”

“Well, why don’t you try me, you condescending prick?” As usual, he was finding ways to push my buttons. He knew me too damn well.

“Why should I?”

It was time to turn the tables on him. “Drake, you mean you’d just give up so easily after being beaten? I’m surprised at you. You spend five thousand years tracking down and defeating Drakaar and his compatriots and you are ready to throw it all away after one tiny little defeat? Here I am, offering to take on your old foes to make you out to be the hero again, yet you turn your nose up at it.”

He was silent for a moment. “Don’t think that you can play me as easily as I have played you, Rusty.” He sighed, a strange sound to come from a disembodied voice in your head, I might add. “But I do appreciate the attempt. If you want my help, which at this point can consist solely of the information I can give you, you’ll have to do three things for me.”

“Oh? I can hardly wait. What do you want?”

“First, I want you to promise to take up the fight that I can no longer continue with.”

That seemed obvious, for some reason. “Well, I have pretty much offered that, haven’t I?”

If a disembodied voice can sneer, Drake sneered. “Yes, but I want an oath from you will take on these foes, an oath as strong as the one you swore to see me destroyed.”

I laughed. “I hate you so intensely that I don’t think that it is possible to hate someone else as badly. That might be a hard oath to take.”

“Nevertheless, I will have that oath before I give you what you want.”

“Alright, so what else do you want? You did say three things, right?”

“Yes. Second, I want you to tell my story through your blog, exactly as I show it to you, without editorial comments, and without omissions.”

This was a little surprising. I knew that he had read my blog once he discovered that I was keeping one, as he used it against me on a number of occasions. That was one reason that I delayed certain posts and altered some ‘facts’, in an attempt to keep him off the trail for a just a little while longer.

“You want your story to take over my blog?”

He laughed. “Hardly. But I do want a series of dedicated posts where you tell the story of my life, of my existence throughout the milennia, without any of your snide comments and asides. Feel free to tell your own versions of events as you see them, but have a section dedicated to my tale.”

I hesitated briefly before prompting him to continue. “And third?”

“Third, once y story is told and you have committed yourslef to the struggle I can no longer fight, I want to meet your daughter, Alexa.”

“Whoah. What makes you think that I am going let you anywhere near Alexa?”

“It is something that you will have to agree to, or I will not help you.”

“Well, that’s a damn dealbreaker. I’m not letting you near Alexa. Period.”

Again, if a disembodied voice in your head can smirk, Drake smirked. His voice was smug as he responded. “Very well. But know this, Jason. Without the knowledge and the experience that I carry, your daughter will not live to see her third birthday.”

“I don’t have to listen to your threats anymore, you bastard.”

“I am not the one who threatens you or your family, Rusty. Alexa is more special than you can possibly know. Drakaar may not know she exists yet, but when he does learn of her, she is doomed. He and his kind will not let her live. If she were to come fully into her powers, to become fully aware of who she really is, she will change this world and all of humanity forever. That is a threat that Drakaar will not tolerate to exist under any circumstances.”

“We protected her from you, we can protect her from them too!”

His laugh was hauntingly hollow. “Rusty, whatever you may have thought about me, know this. The forces that will gather around your daughter as she grows will be far beyond anything I, or any associate I ever employed, could hope to command. If you don’t know how to face these creatures, if you don’t even know the nature of the threat they pose to her, you and your friends will have no chance against them.”

He sighed. A damn voice inside my head sighed! “Think on this for as long as you like Rusty. I shall not speak to you again until you have decided. Accept my conditions, and I will try my best to give you the tools you will need to face these foes. Refuse them if you like, but you will likely be giving up your only chance to see your daughter grow into the being that she was born to be. You may well be consigning all of humanity, such as it is, into an eternity of slavish servitude. The choice is yours.”

With that, the bastard shut up.

I didn’t decide at that time.

True to his word, he didn’t speak to me until I told him I was ready to make a decision...