Chapter 4 War God

• Hermes drove into the street where Steve’s birthday party was located. He watched in his dark shades through his side mirrors unsuspectingly as the wealthiest people in the city arrived at the venue.
• He came down from his car and walked towards the venue like he was part of the guests.
• The guards stopped him as soon as he reached the front and asked for his invitation card. Hermes reached into the pocket located at his chest area and presented it to the men. The real owner of the card was bundled in the booth of his car. The men let him in.
• Ivan’s hit-man took leisurely steps in a way nobody could suspect him till he got to the elevator. He pressed the buttons that he knew would take him to the top floor of the high rise, where the party was.
• Hermes walked into the lively but chill music. The kind of music that was typical of wealthy people parties where they only served only wines and miniature foods that barely filled their stomach.
• Hermes took a glass of wine from a tray that one of the servers’ tray. Hermes went about, looking for Steve amidst the crowd but couldn’t find him.
• When he saw that he couldn’t do it without talking to someone, he found a lady sitting alone, with a glass of wine in one hand and her phone in the other hand. It was Vera.
• Hermes knew it was her and acted like he was a stranger. He suddenly wore an approachable smile as he greeted her.
• “Hi,” Hermes said, “please where can I find Steve?”
• “I don’t know where he is. Ask one of his slaves.” She said without raising her head.
• “Slaves?” Hermes asked, confused and lost.
• “Servants or whatever.”
• Hermes thanked her and continued looking for Steve. He thought to himself that Steve might be in a room. So he left the room to find him in one of those rooms. He found a server who had a tray suspended on his shoulder in a way that it stood on his hand like it was glued to his hand. Hermes stopped him and asked where Steve was, the lanky young man pointed to a room at the end of the hallway.
• Hermes thanked the man and walked to the room. As he approached the room, he could hear him make noises like he was talking to someone over the phone.
• Hermes knocked on the door, but Steve didn’t respond as he was drowned in his noise. Hermes knocked again, Steve responded and asked who it was.
• “It’s me,” Hermes said, hoping he wouldn’t ask who.
• “Jonah?” Steve asked, “come in, I have been fucking waiting for you.”
• He opened the door and saw Steve turn his back to walk to the window side, cussing at the caller. His eyes saw the lines of cocaine he had laid in three strips on the table, with a rolled dollar bill to sniff it. Hermes closed the door behind him and stood with his arms crossed on his groin, waiting for Steve to finish his call.
• Steve turned around to see the supposed Jonah that had I just come in but saw that the huge man in suit and dark shades standing in front of him wasn’t Jonah.
• He told the person on the call that he would call back repeatedly, then he hung up the call.
• “Who the hell are you?” Steve asked.
• “I’m the grim reaper, I have come to take your soul. Say your last prayer,” Hermes said without breaking a smile.
• Steve had a startled face for a while before his mouth gradually spread into a smile then into a jerking laughter, as he moved across the room to pour himself a drink. Hermes spread his suit his suit to show Steve the gun tucked in his trousers.
• It was at that moment Steve knew that Hermes meant business. He raised his hands in surrender and pleaded to him not to kill him and offered him money.
• In that moment when Steve continued to plead profusely to him, Hermes heard something but couldn’t hear clearly. He told Steve to keep quiet as he wanted to hear clearly.
• Hermes heard footsteps approaching the door. Hermes instantly told him to dismiss the person as he held the door handle firmly and leaned against the door, knowing the person would want to enter.
• His suspicion was right, the person tried to open the door. The voice behind the door told Steve to open the door; Hermes’ penetrating stare told Steve what to do.
• Steve replied to the person who happened to be his mother that he would be out soon.
• “The guests are waiting for you,” she said.
• “I know, I will be out soon,” Steve said with an almost trembling voice.
• His mother lingered some few seconds at the door before they heard the sound of her stilettos hitting the ground, receding away from the door.
• Hermes stood upright from the door when he knew she wasn’t coming back. Hermes began to walk towards him slowly because he knew he couldn’t go no where but jump from the window, which would have made his job easier. Steve began to take steps and began to beg.
• “Who sent you?” Hermes asked, “was it…Vera?”
• Steve said with great trepidation when he mentioned those words, which made Hermes stop in his tracks for a while, then he resumed going towards him.
• Steve had been Vera’s number enemy and she didn’t know. Vera was the CEO of a company that was in competition with the company owned by Steve’s father, where Steve himself was the CEO too. His insatiable father called him a disappointment and compared him to Vera as her company began to grow exponentially under her regime, while their company went down. His father was making plans of merging his company with Vera’s family company. Steve knew his father would place Vera at the top position of the company if that happened. Steve hated Vera from then on and wanted her dead at all cost but his plans to have her dead all failed. A work done by Ivan “Please don’t kill me!” He said, “is it money you want? I’d pay triple of what she paid you.” Steve said as he fell on the ground and began to crawl on his back.
• Hermes brought his pistol from where it was tucked, and attached a silencer to the pistol. He removed the gun’s magazine and pulled out a bullet, then brought it to Steve’s face. It was a god-killing bullet.
• “You thought I didn’t know what you are?” Hermes said and gave him a mischievous smile.
• “What?” Steve said with a petrified expression. Hermes immediately returned the bullet into the magazine and slotted it back in the pistol.
• Bang!
• The bullet sunk into Steve’s head before he could make a complete sentence. Blood flowed from beneath Steve’s head, where his eyes stared blankly and his mouth hung open. Hermes saw as a little smoke billowed from the hole the bullet bore in his head and said:
• “Shit!”
• Hermes cussed like he had made a terrible mistake, one that was irreversible. Ivan didn’t only send Hermes to kill Steve because he threatened Vera’s life. He had thought Steve was one of the new gods.
• The gods could only be killed with weapons made from a special kind of silver. The colour of the blood that the gods ever bled was in gold colour. The blood Hermes saw flowing from Steve’s body was red, like every human blood.
• He cleaned the pistol with a cloth and placed it into Steve’s stiff hand. He stood from his body, walked out of his room and the building without anyone noticing him.
• At the party, Vera’s mother met her daughter at a corner and went to pull her from her seat.
• “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for Steve?” Catherine asked almost angrily.
• “I can’t see him anywhere, mum,” Vera said, grunting exasperatedly.
• “Look,” she said, slightly pointing at Steve’s mother standing somewhere near, “that’s Mrs. Anderson, let’s go and ask her.” She pulled Vera as she came to Mrs. Anderson’s front. The two old women greeted each other and air-kissed each other. Catherine, with a pinch made Vera greet Mrs. Anderson. Then she proceeded to ask her where her son was.
• “He will join us soon,” she said and told the women to excuse her.
• Mrs. Anderson walked to the door of her son’s room, knocked on the door and the door creaked open a little. She opened it calling her son’s name repeatedly and getting no response. Her eyes roamed room and saw the cocaine first on the table, knowing instantly her son had relapsed into his old habits. She turned away from it and saw something at the corner of the room.
• Her heart began to pound hard as she took very slow steps towards what she saw, that she was unsure of at the distance she was away from it. The more steps she took towards, the more the spectacle before her became clear. Her mind told her that what she saw was a dead body. She stopped in her tracks as her feet stepped in the pool of blood.
• The blood wasn’t what stopped her, it was the sudden realisation that hit her like a tidal wave that the lifeless body she was seeing at that moment was Steve, her son.
• She saw his dead eyes not making any motion to look at her as she came closer. He was dead.
• The next thing, she did in a split of seconds was let out a very loud scream from the dungeon of her belly. It wasn’t long when a stampede followed. It began to get louder as it approached the room.
• Vera was still lost and was about to follow the multitude that scurried off as they heard the scream. In that minute when she was contemplating on whether to go after her mother whom had gone after them or stay — a call came in from her secretary. She picked the call and said she couldn’t talk at the moment but her secretary continued talking anyway.
• “Ma’am, you won’t believe it. The anonymous Angel investor is at it again.” She said excitedly.
• The secretary had already seized Vera’s attention at that moment. The secretary told her that the anonymous angel investor, as usual, had sent someone to give a seed to the company. Vera had always wanted to meet this person for years and felt that moment was the best moment to meet him.
• “Stop him for me, I will be there as quick as possible.” She said to her secretary and ran out of the building. She then went into her car and drove away.
• She was halfway at her office when her secretary called and said she had tried hard to stop the man but didn’t wait.
• “It looks like the anonymous angel investor doesn’t want to be known,” the secretary said to Vera.
• Vera got to the secretary and collected the envelope the messenger of the anonymous Angel investor had dropped from the secretary. On the envelope, there was something written on it but her eyes slipped it as she ripped it open and checked the cheque.
• There it was, scribbled in a cursive handwriting, “two hundred and fifty million dollars only” sat on the long line of the cheque.
• She checked the name of the issuer, it was a different name like all of the ones she had received from the anonymous Angel investor over the years. He never used the same name on every cheque.
• “He or she doesn’t really want to be known,” Vera said as she looked at those letters.
• “Uhm, there’s a message to you on the envelope,” the secretary said to Vera.
• “Show it to me,” Vera said as she raised her face to look at her secretary. Vera’s pupils dilated as she read the cryptic message:
• “5 x 5 x 5 = 25”
• The word, “Your anonymous Angel investo r ” was scribbled beneath the numbers.
• “What does this mean?” Vera asked as she raised her head and stared into space.