by Jamie Hawke
Caught by the two brothers as they flew up, partially shifted between swan and human. We were soon on the ground again and running. I realized my team was ahead of us, Hekate and the other newcomers taking up the rear.
“Get out of here!” Sekhmet said, motioning as she slid across the ground, fiery blades cutting through a sphinx and setting it aflame.
I did as she commanded, no questions asked. More dark forms appeared in our path, Shades and several men with the heads of dogs, but we made mincemeat out of them and were through. Turning, I saw Sekhmet go full lioness mode, tearing through one more of them and then leaping to meet Isis mid-air—the two pummeled down as Bastet made it through the doorway, and then Sekhmet was right behind her.
Isis was up and coming in fast, Sekhmet leaping and Bastet hissing. A clawed hand reached out for Sekhmet’s tail, and then Sekhmet was on our side, Bastet letting out a sound like a high-pitched meow. Isis slammed up against a translucent purple barrier.
She stood glaring at us, blood still dripping from her one arm, and opening her mouth to yell—but no sound made it through.
“She’s trapped,” Sekhmet said, returning to her humanoid form with the lion face. “That barrier will hold her… for now. She’s not strong enough to break out on her own.”
I turned, pulling up my screen to quickly assign my new prana, but just as I was finishing Elisa said, “We’re not done yet.”
Sure enough, more of those monsters—the men with dog faces, some wearing loincloths, others hanging out for the world to see—were approaching. I closed my screen and charged, no hesitation in this moment. The last thing I wanted was for Isis to somehow break out of there.
“Weaken them,” Hekate said, “but keep as many alive as possible.”
“You’re not making sense!” I shouted, already stabbing through a mummy with my sword and then kicking it off.
“Just do it!”
I growled, backing off and working on disarming them instead, making non-lethal strikes when possible, while the others worked their magic.
“Now!” Hekate said, and she stepped forward with hands extended. Green tendrils shot out into the surrounding throng of monsters.
“You fight for me now!” she declared, and then pulled. Sure enough, the green snapped back, hitting monsters on the way and leaving those of the undead variety with green, glowing eyes. “Attack your brothers and sisters! Destroy those who I have not claimed!”
The skeletons and mummies turned on the others, to the point that the winged beasts and other animals soon tucked tail and fled. We gave chase, Pucky shooting down a good number of them, my prana points coming in hot and fast to the point that I’d just leveled up to six, and Sharon was howling in victory.
It finally calmed down, and Hekate’s converted warriors trickled back over to us, where they stood, awaiting their next command.
“We have our army to keep this place under our control,” Hekate said. “They’ll guard the barrier from this side… at least as long as I’m alive. You’re welcome.”
“I’m impressed.” Elisa stared at her in awe, then turned to Sekhmet. “And you’re sure the barrier will hold Isis and… him?”
“I can answer regarding her, but he… let’s hope he’s not wakened.” Sekhmet turned to eye the scepter in Red’s hand. “You were saying, about the scepter? I’ll have it back… whatever the cost.”
“The cost,” Red replied, “is that you two help us track down a newly-reborn Legend. King Arthur, to be exact. And Morganna—though she’s been absorbed by Riak.”
“Mother of Shades,” Sekhmet said, sharing a look with the cat. “Yes, we can help you track these two, for the price named.”
“How do we know she’ll stick to her word?” I asked.
“She’s bound to it, for one,” Hekate said.
At my questioning look, Elisa explained, “There are certain deals you can’t undo without paying a great price. In this case, she’d be impacted by the darkness. It would change her—and while some people can handle a bit of darkness, I have a feeling she’s had enough in her life.”
The cat curled up around my leg, looking up at me and purring.
“I know,” Sekhmet said to the cat, then turned to me. “They’re all correct. Being down here as long as I have, and close to… to what was once my lover but is now the farthest thing from love I can think of, has changed me. I have no interest in joining the fight again, but I will not abide in the shadows.”
“You’ll help us track these two down, then be free to go,” Red said. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Sekhmet said.
Red stepped forward, shook the goddess’s hand, and handed over the scepter. Sekhmet sheathed her blades at her back, took the scepter, and held it close as if reunited with a long-lost lover.
“It has a power?” I asked.
“Because of it, I’m able to go with you.” Sekhmet lifted the scepter and, as she did so, a shimmer of light passed over her face, transforming her so that—while she still had lioness-like features—she had a woman’s face now, and a damn beautiful one at that. Her jade-green eyes stood out even more with the way they were framed by dark eyelashes. This, combined with her smooth skin with high cheekbones made her the epitome of Egyptian goddess.
But she didn’t stop there. Turning to the hallway, she stretched out her arm with the scepter as if it was an extension of her arm, and a ray of light shot out, filling the hall until it was as if glowing stones paved the way.
“If anyone makes it past our little army out there, courtesy of the witch, well…” Sekhmet grinned, indicating her handiwork. “They’ll have to find a way through this, and that would take some powerful magic indeed.” She paused for a moment, glancing over. “You don’t happen to have my sun disk, do you?”
“Not yet,” Elisa said with a wink.
At the ‘yet’ part of it, Sekhmet looked very intrigued.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now,” Sekhmet replied, turning to me and holding out an arm for the cat to leap into. “We track down some evil reborn Legends.”
The sparkle in her eyes told me that, as much as she’d been against fighting in this war, the thrill of the fight was alive within her.
“And put on your shirt already,” she added with a laugh. “I’m sure your ladies would hate if I tore off the rest of your clothes and took you right here, but I’m damn close to doing so. Damn close.”
She turned and started walking, leaving the rest of us to stand there awkwardly for a moment, processing that.
“Oh, right,” I stammered as I tugged my shirt out of my pocket and dressed as I ran to catch up.
36
Our first goal was to get out of Egypt, but only when we had a destination. Our first step on that journey was to find a town with a railway station and that meant trudging across the desert at night, freezing if not for the warmth of the light Sekhmet cast upon us with her scepter. If she had the disc, she told us, we wouldn’t even notice the chill on the air.
“Before, when you said going dark was like being in a dream,” Sharon started walking closer to me, eyes looking lost in thought, “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think that’s right. Not for those of us who’ve been there longer, or those who don’t know the difference. Some were born into darkness and have never left it. Imagine, if you will, being born into a ‘dream’ and not knowing what reality is. For many, it’s like that—they don’t know what’s considered just, or right, and the idea of doing anything other than what you’ve been raised to do seems impossible.”
“I get it,” Pucky said, walking up on the other side of Sharon and wrapping an arm around her, too. “My sister fell to the darkness. I’ve tasted it, and come back.”
“Will…” I started. “I mean, do you think Riak’s able to?”
“Come back?” Pucky stared out at the night, at the silhouette of Hekate where she walked slightly ahead of us. “I think she could, but don’t think she
will. The problem is…” She glanced over to Hekate, and then Sharon. “It’s tough, once you’ve crossed certain lines.”
Sharon cleared her throat, Hekate glancing back with a look of contempt.
“What, you want a list of our transgressions?” the witch asked. “Because fuck that.”
“Of course not,” Pucky replied. “I was simply—”
“Simply judging us for the wrongs of our past,” Sharon said, but then held up a hand to Hekate. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve done what we’ve done, regardless of how we were externally influenced. And be honest, at times you embraced the darkness—you more than most, perhaps.”
Hekate shrugged, looking smug in the thought, and then nodded. “I’m a murderous bitch, but now I’m your murderous bitch. Doing ‘horrible things’ in a war is only horrible when done by or for the other side, no?”
“No,” I said, finally taking a stance. “Someone in war can torture, and it’s wrong. You can attack innocents, kill children to scare off your enemy. Wrong. Killing someone when taking them prisoner is an option? Wrong, ninety-nine percent of the time. But you’re right, you’re on our side now, and my thought on that is it’s awesome—but only if you’re going to do it the right way.”
Hekate looked affronted, but Sharon was smiling, as if I’d just said the most brilliant thing ever. I worried about Chris going off with the witch, but figured Elisa knew what she was doing if she was pairing them up. Or hoped she did, anyway.
We kept walking, changing the discussion to more about strategy, how we were going to use our various skills to attack when we found Morganna, and how Arthur might have more vampires at the ready to face us. I asked about garlic and stakes and all that, expecting them to laugh, but Elisa simply nodded and said, “They’re in stories because we put them there. We have to prepare you Normies somehow.”
It was almost morning by the time we reached a small town with a train station, and by then I was more than ready to pass out. The village wasn’t more than a few dozen buildings, most looking like shacks and some with gates made straight out of the ground. A couple of people gave us weird looks but kept walking, and I remembered that Red’s cloak worked to keep us seen in the way we wanted to be seen, and Pucky’s horns weren’t visible to others. It was likely a safe assumption that they weren’t seeing Hekate as a witch or Sekhmet as their lion goddess or whatever she was either.
Sekhmet explained that Bastet would need time to do her tracking ritual. Luckily we found someone who, on seeing who wanted it, agreed to rent out their house to us. They vacated and went to stay with a neighbor while we took possession. Once inside I took a few steps, appreciating the simplicity of the mud-brick design, then saw a bed, dropped onto it, and promptly passed out.
It was still very early morning when I woke, the moon still in the sky though moving closer to the dunes in the distance, stars sparkling overhead like I’d never seen them in my life. A warm breeze ruffled my hair and I stood there for a moment, enjoying it, before walking on. Two more steps and I had to pause to stretch my back. The pile of blankets and hard pillow weren’t exactly what I was used to, but at least we’d had a bed instead of the train car I’d expected when we reached here.
I got up and went out to the courtyard where I knew Bastet had been working, but found her still at it, moving about as Sekhmet performed a sort of meditation, sitting still as could be, her face that of a lioness again and glowing slightly. Patterns had formed on the ground, indicating the level of magic this whole situation took to accomplish.
Not wanting to interrupt, I made my way back toward the bed but noticed Pucky standing in the hall by the front step. As I approached, I saw that she was watching a form on the steps.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, stepping up next to her.
She looked startled to see me but then smiled, took my hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s Sharon. She’s been sitting out there for over an hour. I’m… worried.”
I frowned, then moved up next to Sharon and sat, Pucky coming a moment later and sitting on the opposite side.
For a moment, we all sat in silence until finally, without even a sign of having seen us, Sharon said, “I’ve just been staring at the stars—lights in the darkness, right? Like me, now… like us.”
“Wouldn’t you say it’s more like the Legends are small patches of darkness in a world of light?” I asked.
“Maybe….” She finally looked at me, pensively, then turned to Pucky and nodded before looking back out at the sky. “Depends where you put humanity on that scale, I suppose.”
“That’s the difference between Myths and Legends,” Pucky explained, upon seeing my confusion. “Legends see humans as a parasite on this earth, or as a disease that needs to be eradicated.”
“And you don’t?” Sharon countered.
“We tend to think of them as more like self-destructive cute little bunnies.”
“Excuse me?” I scoffed, not sure if she was joking.
“You can’t deny that humanity is responsible for putting our planet on this trajectory toward ruin,” Pucky said. “Myths see it as our role to protect humanity from itself… and from the Legends.”
Sharon sighed. “I’m trying to come around to that way of thinking… but it’ll take time. You’re hunted by agents so long… your worldview becomes jaded.”
“You’re not alone there,” Pucky said.
“Yeah?” Sharon turned to her, then me, a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. “Without you two, I don’t know what I’d do. Thank you.”
She turned back to the stars, resting her forearms on her legs.
Pucky leaned back, making eye contact with me, and gave me a nod. I shrugged, not sure what that was for. She motioned this time with a nod toward Sharon, still leaning forward between us. I frowned, not getting it, so this time Pucky puckered her lips, then started moving her tongue as if frenching someone.
She wanted me to make a move on Sharon! I blinked, confused, but she took my hand and started rubbing it up and down Sharon’s back. A moan escaped Sharon, and when she looked up at me, it was clear her mind was in the same place as Pucky’s.
Fuck it.
I leaned in, gently caressing the side of her face with my hand, and ran my lips across hers. It was a brief kiss, a tender one to test her, to see if she was ready. When I pulled away, she came back in for more—definitely ready. Now her lips were pressed firmly to mine, her tongue tasting me and teasing, having fun with it.
When she came up for a breath and smiled, she went rigid as Pucky’s hand found her chin, guiding her back around, and then Pucky leaned in and kissed her too.
Sharon didn’t react at first. Her back straight, her hands frozen where they’d been on me. But then she started moving her head, one hand on my leg, the other accepting Pucky’s, the two moving their fingers along each other’s as if making love.
I had to admit, it was hot.
“This is an every time thing?” Red said, and we turned to see her standing there, cloak whipping about in the wind. “Her?”
Sharon pulled away, then stood to leave.
“Wait,” I said, and stood too. “You certainly didn’t have a problem last time.”
“My… lust took over,” Red countered.
“What is it you have against her? I mean, aside from your fairy tale history—”
“Which isn’t really even history,” Pucky pointed out, leaning back and still breathing heavily. “Don’t forget, Sharon’s not the original.”
Red frowned. “Of course.”
“So…?” Pucky persisted, and Sharon was looking at Red now, curious.
“I… I’m not sure,” Red admitted. “Maybe it’s just that—maybe it’s an association with the original. I don’t know—but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Pucky stood, shrugged, and walked over to Sharon, taking her hand and placing it over her heart, just at the edge of the top of her breast, exposed by a low-cut sh
irt. “But you can give her a chance.”
Red arched an eyebrow, then turned to me, waiting to see what I would do.
“Me?” I asked, then glanced between her and Pucky. “We have our team. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, and if you don’t feel comfortable here… Well, I think it’s worth having a conversation about.”
“A conversation?” Red’s frown was replaced with worry. She took a step to leave, looked back at Sharon’s hand resting awkwardly at the top of Pucky’s breast, and said, “Well, if Sharon thinks she’s ready now, and we’re going to truly indoctrinate her, don’t you think we should… I don’t know, do it somewhere more formal?”
“And invite Elisa,” Pucky said, wrapping her arms around Sharon’s waist and pulling her close. “Yeah?”
Now Sharon was starting to look slightly overwhelmed, but she nodded. “If you all say so. I mean, I’d hate to impose.”
I laughed, totally not having expected it to take this turn, but not fighting it. We got up and went inside, where we found Elisa waiting for us. It was interesting to see that Sharon turned to Red, already expecting it to be like last time. The latter blushed, then smiled, and stepped forward to start kissing her, the two running their hands over each other. This was a team, and I liked the way our teamwork and sharing was going. If all the talk of getting down hadn’t already gotten me hard, this would’ve.
When Sharon started taking control, the first to slide a hand up Red’s skirt, it got even more interesting. But I wasn’t here just for a show, so I turned to see Pucky and Elisa both standing there, watching me with seductive grins, waiting.
I wasn’t sure where to start, still thinking I might offend them if I went with one over the other, so I simply stepped forward. They stepped closer, pulling me between them, both kissing my neck, undressing me, caressing my chest, my ass, my cock.
We were all naked then. Pucky’s lips found mine, her tongue teasing me, and then it was Elisa, and then they were kissing each other, hands still on me.
