beheading

Take this message to your people, you obsequious little worm,_ I murmured. __nyone who lays a hand on Jordan Amador will have to answer to me. Now do me a favor and go to hell.__ removed my sword from his hand and then decapitated him. His severed head tumbled across the floor like a wayward bowling ball. Good riddance.I set my sword aside, found a stool in the corner, and climbed up in front of Jordan. Her handcuffs were attached to a huge meat hook bolted into the ceiling. I lifted her off of it with great care, unsure if she had the strength to stand. As soon as her arms were free, she looped them around my shoulders and pressed her face against my neck. She was trembling, but not crying. I sank to the floor and cradled her in my lap, breathing out the last of my anger now that she was safe. ___ sorry,_ she mumbled in a small voice. ____ so sorry, Michael.__ snorted. __hat the hell do you have to apologize for? You got kidnapped. Pretty sure that__ not your fault.__he shook her head, her words partially muffled as she pressed her face against my shirt. __hould__e been stronger. I could__e gotten you killed.___y Heckle and Jeckle here? Not likely.__ shaky laugh rattled through her. She slid her fingers into the hairs along the nape of my neck and hugged me tighter. I knew from experience she didn__ want me to see her face because she knew she was only seconds away from breaking down. No one would ever accuse Jordan Amador of being a crybaby, not if she could help it. It was a ridiculous notion at best, but I indulged her anyway. __hank you.___ust doing my job. But you__e welcome.__ smoothed the sweaty hairs away from her forehead enough to kiss it. She didn__ move away. We stayed there for a while without speaking, just clinging to each other until we felt strong enough to separate.

I might have known better, nothing is what everybody wants, the world runs on that law. Personally, if I could, I would instigate Meat-Axe Day, and out of the goodness of my heart I would whack your head off with a couple of others. Every man should be allowed one day and a hatchet just to ease his heart.

For all the enlightened nations that profess a loyalty to liberty, democracy, economy and all the rest, there has long been a readiness to look for a chosen one; as Carlyle pointed out, even the French, those great anti-venerators, those relentless beheaders of Great Men, worshipped Voltaire.

I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgements must be based on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.