Free Emerald Death by Bill Craig

created in Atlantis before the dawn of recorded time.  The greatest wizard in Atlantis, Oshram Kadella, had not only created the emerald, but had stored in it the life force of ten thousand people, enough to make him immortal.  Ironically, immortality had not been Kadella's goal; he knew the toll that magic was taking on his body, on his soul, so he had taken it and fled Atlantis, vanishing into the jungles of a giant uncharted continent: Africa. 
    It had taken Ragnarok more than two millennia to track the emerald down.   Now it was within his grasp once more and he would not allow it to escape him again.  Captain Hawkins had stopped him the last time... one of only a few who had been a constant thorn in his side.  Ragnarok dropped into a seat and looked backwards in time….
     
                                        *****
     
                Paris , France   1925
                Among the elite of Paris, he was known as Dr. Alfred Rodgers, an expatriate scholar, combing the archives of the Sorbonne for esoteric knowledge.  Only his acolytes knew his true identity.  But somehow, a stranger had found him.
    Ragnarok spun towards the door of the laboratory as it crashed open.  A man stood there, a brown leather pilot’s jacket hanging open over a black turtleneck shirt, dark brown jodhpurs tucked into knee-high jackboots.  His dark brown hair was cropped close to his skull giving it almost the appearance of a dark skullcap.  “Ragnarok!” the man said, and it sounded like an accusation.
                “Who are you?” Ragnarok asked, shocked at the man’s impudence. 
                “I’m the guy they sent to stop you!” the man snapped, stepping into room.
                “Come no closer,” Ragnarok said, picking up a beaker and drawing back as if to throw it.
    The man whipped something from off his belt and hurled it in less than an eye blink.  Pain erupted from the hand holding the beaker, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass and the splash of liquid raining down on the floor.  Ragnarok looked at his hand, his eyes growing wide.  Three of his fingers were missing and the flesh of his hand was bubbling and melting away.  He could hear someone screaming, and almost laughed at their misery before he realized it was him.  Then a fist slammed into his face, throwing him backwards. 
                It was only after he had hit the ground that he saw the nametag emblazoned across the left breast of the pilot’s jacket.  Hawkins.  Focusing his energy, Ragnarok channeled it through his ruined hand, healing the wounds as a burst of magical energy blasted towards the intruder.  The red bolt of energy struck the intruder in the chest and rocked him backward.
                But the strange attacker wasn't out of the fight by any means.  He grabbed a steel chair and sent it flying with unfailing accuracy, to slam Ragnarok backward against the wall.  It was only then he saw the hatchet embedded just above where he lay, still dripping red gore.  That was what the intruder had thrown at him that had cut off his fingers and ruined his hand. 
    Anger boiled up in him.  He would have his revenge!
                Power blasted out from his good hand, knocking Hawkins across the room.  Two other men entered, one a giant, the other shorter and whipcord thin.  The giant roared and charged across the room.  Ragnarok fed on his anger, using it to draw power from the air around him.  He focused it into something hot and hateful, and then blasted it out at the charging giant.  The man crashed into and through the wall, sending up a cloud of plaster dust and splinters.  But the clumsy attack had been merely a diversion, distracting his attention from the third member of the group.
    The smaller thin man moved forward chanting something.  Ragnarok fired a second blast, but instead of vaporizing the man,