THE SON OF ELI

CHAPTER 6: WHEN SALI RIPS

The force had slammed Anya Kem into the curved, comfortable sofa at the far end of the room. Once again, Eli felt rage by the expression of pain and horror on his wife's face. His inability to prevent Sali from hurting her made his wrath sizzle.

Her buttocks were on the sofa, but her hands and legs were grovelling on the floor. Her movements were impeded by the bulge of her pregnancy, making it hard for her to sit get up fully. Eli Kem hurried over to her side and helped her sit up. He wrapped his arms around her and looked at Sali with fierce dislike.

"What do you want, Sali?" he asked grimly.

"Ah, little brother, what sort of welcome is that?" Sali Kem asked as he lowered himself almost gingerly on the edge of the bed. "When was the last time I saw you? Ten years ago to the day, I will wager, when you came to the funky prison on my birthday! You know family is important to me, hm? Time to catch up on old times."

The king tried to get to his feet, but his wife wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down beside her as she shook her head lamely, her panic close to hysterics. He ran a gentle hand down her face.

"Cut the crap, Sali," he said as he looked intently at his brother. "There's never been love lost between us. You forget that you tried on two occasions to run me through with a matchet the day you butchered my father!"

"Oh, stop the fuckery!" Sali said coldly as his purple eyes glared at them. "Your father made a w***e of my mother. Scroll law says the first son is always the Heir Apparent, no? Basically, you took my inheritance and slammed me into prison. You owe me, little brother!"

"I owe you nothing!" Eli said with repressed fury as he looked at that strange-looking being with eyes narrowed to slits. "First son with the queen, Sali. I gave you an option to rule with me, but you wanted to go on a killing spree and take the throne forcibly. You brought your judgement on yourself, so stop blaming others for your mess! Own up to your s**t!"

"Eli, my love!" Anya said desperately and tried to draw her husband's face to hers but to no avail.

The two brothers glared at each other.

"Well said, Eli, well said," Sali said with a twisted grin. "But guess what, little brother, here I am, and there you are! I daresay you were having dreams of the sweet kind, no? Sweet dreams about that child in Anya's stomach coming out to be what, the next king? Which reminds me, how come she's pregnant after being unable to bear children for the last twenty years? She's a tad too old to be having her first child, don't you think?"

"Where are you going with all that, Sali?"

Sali Kem got to his feet and rubbed his freaky fingers together as his horrible eyes fixed on his brother's face.

"New world order, little brother," he said quietly. "You have been judged and found guilty. That throne no longer belongs to you and yours."

With a little grunt, King Eli Kem got to his feet.

"Are you threatening me, Sali?" he asked coldly.

"Yes, little brother," Sali replied, his voice equally cold. "Of course, I'm threatening you. You owe me, and you know me, man, I don't write off debts. Never have, never will. I'm going to carve out that baby from your wife's womb and eat him whole."

"Oh, God!" Anya whispered, terrified, and that was when King Eli's hand went under his robes and pressed the hidden knob that sent alarm systems vibrating and ringing around the palace, alerting his security detail and transmitting his current location. He had never seen the need for the small gun Sey always insisted he kept strapped in his waistband, and only wore it when he had to go out. Anya did not like the idea of him wearing a gun around anyway, so he never really carried it.

But since the appearance of that horrible alien, he had decided to carry it with him in case the need arose. The king reached behind him and brought out the gun as Sali glided towards him.

Anya covered her ears and averted her eyes when Eli pointed the gun at his brother and fired rapidly. He fired until the eight bullets left the clip and only harmless clicks sounded as he continued to press the trigger with mounting horror!

He had aimed the gun at Sali's forehead. He knew how ineffective bullets had been on the people with the Lebedev Syndrome, but he had hoped it would buy him time until help arrived.

The bullets smashed into Sali's forehead one after the other.. and plopped down lethargically one after the other until the eight bullets were on the floor.

Sali looked down and shook his head sadly.

"Did you aim for the centre of the circles?" he asked softly. "Certainly not a bullseye, is it?"

His purple eyes were a shade darker now, and his face was crueller as he seemed to glide towards the king.

"Anya, get out of here!" the king shouted and hurled himself at Sali.

Anya got to her feet and dashed for the door. Sali reached out, caught his brother by the front of his gown and threw him at Anya! Eli smashed into his pregnant wife, and they sprawled on the floor just as the door blasted open, and Commander Sey came in with an automatic weapon in his hand. Seven palace warriors came in with him.

A fierce roar escaped Sali's throat as Sey and his men opened fire. King Eli Kem shielded his wife as they crawled towards the far end of the wall.

Sali simply vanished from where he was standing and appeared behind Sey. He gripped the commander and sank his teeth into the back of his neck and yanked it off! The commander crashed to the floor with a muted scream locked in his throat. He was trying to touch the back of his neck as blood fell down his back but to no avail. Sali grabbed another warrior by the arm, spun and threw him with such brute force that the man's skull cracked open when he smashed head-first into the wall!

Bullets fell off Sali's body as he moved like a spirit, grabbing a warrior and smashing him down before stomping on the man's head and mangling it to a messy pulp! He held another by the neck and pulled out his arm. There was a nasty sound of flesh separating as he practically pulled out the man's arm from its socket and tore it right off his body!

The warrior sat on the floor was screaming hysterically and staring at the geyser of blood that was forming a neat little pool on the floor. Sali Kem vanished and appeared in front of a huge, muscular warrior, grabbed him by the neck and lifted him. His many fingers dug into the man's neck and mangled it as his left hand slammed into the man's stomach and dug in. His fingers went through material and flesh like a drill, and he bunched up a handful of the man's intestines and ripped them out!

The warrior's scream of sheer agony caused the two remaining warriors to pause. Sali regarded the mixture of intestines and flesh in his hand with mild curiosity and dropped it on the floor. It made a flatty splattering sound, then he reached into the man's belly again and grabbed more intestines and pulled them out again. When he dropped that handful, one of the warriors – a younger man – collapsed on the floor in a faint.

Anya was screaming and holding her husband with horror around the same time that Commander Sey's body began to puff up, then exploded off his skeleton!

"Don't watch, my love, don't watch!" the king said desperately as he shielded her face against his shoulder. Behind them, the last warrior turned and fled from the bedroom and more bodies began to explode as dry bones littered the floor.

The queen was quivering as she brushed a thick Venetian curtain off the wall to reveal a secret door behind. It was a steel electronic door with no handle. It had a small, square panel in the wall that operated its codes.

"No, darling, not that door!" the king said desperately and tried to pull his wife back, but she was too much in a terrified panic to pay heed to him. Her fingers flew over a lighted panel as she punched in the secret code, and the door slowly slid to one side to reveal a room beyond.

The queen crawled through the secret door.

King Eli looked back desperately and saw that Sali Kem was walking towards him with his hands and lips smeared with blood and his face twisted into a demonic mask of hatred.

"Lock the door!" the king cried in anguish. "Seal it!"

"No, Eli, come on in!" Anya screamed desperately. "We'll be safe here!"

"No! Too late! Seal it up!" the king screamed.

"No, no, my love, come in, come in!"

Suddenly, a wiry little man with sparse grey hair appeared behind the queen. He was wearing a doctor's white tunic over his jeans and polo-necked T-shirt.

He rounded the queen with fear on his face and pressed a knob beside the door; it began to slide close.

There was a flash of purple and Sali disappeared from the bedroom and appeared in the room beyond. Seeing that the monster was inside the secret room, King Eli Kem stuck his hand into the doorway to prevent it from sliding shut.

He rolled into the room and got to his feet.

There was great fear on the face of the king as he looked at the back of the monster.

"Jesus Christ of Nazareth!" Sali Kem said with deep shock as he stood surveying the secret room. "What is this? What kind of blasphemy is this? This is an atrocity! This is sin! No, this can't be!"

"Leave him alone!" Queen Anya screamed shrilly as tears of agony fell down her face. "Leave my son alone!"