Going Deep

by L. J. Vickery

  The only thing going the gods’ way was that, with their own morphing, they equaled the new demons in size, and remained stronger. Dagon proved this point. He got close to a particularly hoary ghoul and punched through its extra thick hide. He pulled out the lumpish heart where this type’s life essence resided, and the monster collapsed at his feet. The only problem? The fiends had caught on. They steered away from the immortals, attempting to draw the gods out of their tight circle.

  Don’t break formation. Marduk was insistent that the main goal here was not to kill as many monsters as possible, but to get Holly to safety. They backed successfully in the proper direction. Dagon grew anxious. Where the hell was Huxley?

  He breathed hard, once, then got smacked in the head with a high volume transmission.

  All to Dagon! There was no mistaking Erra’s voice.

  Shamash must have gotten the GTS tuned in to the all-Erra channel, and his orders couldn’t have been clearer. They planned to rush Dagon in an attempt to break through the gods’ defenses.

  I’ll take them. Dagon snarled in response. Close the circle behind me and move backward. Dagon kept the transmissions from Holly, who would not like it when she figured out what was happening. But by the time she’d gleaned his intention, she’d at least be safe.

  You’re sure about this? Marduk questioned.

  Shit. The thunder god knew it was the only way, but now he sounded reluctant to let Dagon take the fall? Forget it. No takesies-backsies.

  I’m sure. Keep her safe. He turned his obsidian eyes to Marduk. I trust you with my mate. Dagon whipped around to face the onslaught.

  Fuck this! Anshar’s voice penetrated the turmoil. I’ve just gotten my cousin back, and I’ll be damned if I let you go this way. I’m with you, Dagon, whether you like it or not.

  And risk the life of your Chosen? Dagon voiced what needed to be said. You forget that by jeopardizing your immortality, you also endanger hers. I am not yet mated. My life is easily forfeit.

  He felt Anshar’s inner struggle, and tears came to his eyes as Lenore added her support. Whatever you want, lizard-man. If you want to go down swinging, then down we’ll go…right with you.

  Dagon felt the warmth…the love he’d been missing for so long. It would have to sustain him for the rest of eternity. He shook his head at Anshar, reminding his cousin of the danger. Good. He had been correct. Anshar couldn’t do it. It was too deeply seated in his cousin’s psyche that his prime duty was to protect his mate.

  Dagon got a mental apology then smiled for one last time at his cousin. Until we meet again.

  The demons rushed.

  The next minute passed in agonizingly slow motion. Dagon stepped out to meet the fiends. Holly screamed. Huxley squealed the tires of the SUV as he spun it into place. The gods surrounding the women moved them quickly backward. Tess and Lenore dragged Holly into the vehicle and across the seat as she fought desperately to get to Dagon.

  Curses ripped from her throat as the door closed behind her. She scrambled to her knees on the seat and wrenched around, looking backward, reaching…reaching her arms as she reacted with horror. Dagon saw it all, but did nothing to stop the unfolding events.

  He was down. The bad guys had him ringed in.

  The invisible immortals who had helped save his Chosen stood watching and then—each giving his own kind of salute—dissolved one by one into mist. Holly wailed… Dagon heard it, and battled on. She sobbed, and it resounded deep in his chest.

  Oh God! Help him! Help him, please!

  His serpent eyes turned to her, and he hoped she didn’t see the bleakness that rose from his soul. Holly’s fingers opened and closed toward him. Huxley dropped the vehicle in gear and sped around the corner.

  Dagon was glad Holly never saw his final moments, skewered to the ground by his enemies.

  But he felt her heart…like his own, and they were both slowly breaking.

  Chapter Five

  “Holly’s been really quiet.” Lenore rested her head on Anshar’s chest as she lay with him in their bed. They’d only just settled into their new roles of husband and wife, and it was still a novelty to be naked and completely at ease with her god. She sighed and curled a finger into his blond locks. “Tess can’t even get through to her.”

  Holly’s twin goddess-sister and her brother Huxley had told Holly the previous night all they had amassed about their adoption, but she’d shown little interest or curiosity. It was obvious to everyone that her mind remained far away.

  “Can you blame her for being miserable? I know how I’d feel if you got taken away from me.” Anshar smoothed Lenore’s long platinum tresses over her bare shoulders and shuddered.

  Lenore raised her head to look in his face. “Speaking of feelings…how are you doing with Dagon’s disappearance?” They hadn’t spoken about much as they’d prepared for bed last night. He had to be thinking about it. Lenore had sensed he wasn’t quite ready to talk, but they hadn’t even made love. Instead, they’d held each other in that way you did when something bad happened that you had yet to process.

  Lenore understood how awful Anshar felt during those last minutes in the alley. Of all the gods, he and Marduk had taken it the hardest, leaving Dagon behind; Anshar losing his cousin, and Marduk lamenting that his Chosen’s twin would never know the deep bond that could have been hers.

  Anshar didn’t answer her question but instead reached for Lenore, drawing her up and onto his long, hard body. She rubbed her breasts across his scars as her brow puckered.

  “You’re still harboring a secret, husband.” She poked at his chest. Lenore gave Anshar a temporary break from his Dagon-fretting, but she was also curious. “You never told me how you got these.” She ran a nail over one of the four angry marks.

  “Self-inflicted.” Anshar sighed. “When I came out of my serpent rage and saw my parents dead…well…I thought I’d killed them, so I rent my own chest.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I almost succumbed to total blood loss, but Dagon found me and got help.” Anshar paused, deep in thought. “I lived with him and his family for many years after that. It was his steadfast friendship that kept me from trying to kill myself again, and his acerbic wit that gave rise to my own sarcastic sense of humor.”

  “He’s meant a lot to you, hasn’t he?”

  “He has,” Anshar admitted. “I can’t say I like the way this all ended.”

  “It does seem unfair, how he’d just turned good guy and found his Chosen, only to have everything snatched away.”

  “There’s a saying about our eventual fates at the hand of those who rule us: the gods, they play. And the gods really played my poor cousin.” Anshar brought his hands down the sides of her breasts.

  She didn’t need much encouragement. That, and the tumescence that grew and hit just the right spot—her aching clit—told her he was ready to bury his troubles, and his hard cock, for a while.

  Lenore rubbed up and down against his shaft, having insinuated herself between his legs. She tapped a long, pink fingernail on his silver bicep cuff. He’d always used its barbed interior to warn him of the change into his alter ego.

  “Don’t you think it’s time we take that off?” She quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “I don’t remember it bothering me last time we fucked,” he answered with a grin. “Besides, I’m so used to it now, I’m sure my serpent just considers it part of foreplay.”

  Lenore flicked his nipple and then went in for a little bite. “I’ll give you some foreplay…” It was a good long time before the roaring in the bedroom stopped rattling the house.

  Lenore was ready to doze off again when she got a head-call from Tess.

  Meet me in the kitchen.

  She pecked Anshar on the nose. “Girl stuff. Be back shortly.”

  He mumbled something unintelligible as she got up and slipped on shorts and a T-shirt. It was good Lenore headed for the kitchen. Her stomach decided she was ravenous.

  Misting in, she wasn’t sure if
she was more surprised at seeing Holly at the table, or that the devastated twin was actually talking with something close to enthusiasm. She’d been so morose since Dagon’s disappearance it had been painful. Lenore crossed her arms. What was up?

  “Come eat.” Holly beckoned to the table where one of Tess’s ubiquitous omelets sat on a plate, waiting.

  “Something’s shaking,” the blonde goddess addressed Holly, moving to a chair and then picking up a fork to point it. “I can tell.” She took a mouthful, sat back and waited.

  “You’re right,” Holly agreed. She’d given the whole situation with Dagon an enormous amount of thought. He was actually all she could think about. In the short time she’d known him, he’d become everything to her…her reason to breathe, and she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—spend her life without him. When he’d been taken by those beasts, she’d felt a physical pain in her chest like her heart had been ripped out. Or at least half of her heart. And since that moment, all Holly wanted, with a soul-deep yearning, was to have that missing half back.

  “What would you say if I asked you to join us on a road trip?” She looked up from under her lashes at Lenore. “A really long road trip.”

  Holly was certain that Lenore was always up for an adventure, but wondered how Anshar would take it. Come to think of it, how would the boss-man feel about Tess going? She had to ask. “Tess, have you talked this over with Marduk?”

  Bingo. Tess’s chin dropped to her chest, and she pushed eggs around her plate as if it was a vocation. “He’ll come around,” she mumbled to the plate.

  Lenore snorted, with an impish look on her face. “Yeah. I’m sure of that.”

  Holly wanted to cheer. Lenore had made up her mind. The spunky goddess forked a healthy amount of eggs into her mouth. “Okay. So where are we going?”

  Holly lit up with hope and excitement. She’d already talked to Tess. Her idea was possible with the help of a certain king and queen whose acquaintance she had yet to make. Now all she needed was a posse. She got up from her chair and hit Lenore with words—she was sure—that the blonde never expected.

  Holly grinned, evilly. “To the Underworld,” she imparted, and then she quietly left the room.

  ****

  Ereshkigal paced and seethed. But what could Nergal do about it? Nothing had gone as she had planned and his queen was not pleased. She confronted him as he completed an endless pile of paperwork in a grotto off the main cavern. Whipping around to face him, she got right to the point.

  “I suppose you found it entertaining to intervene?” she threw out.

  “I did no such thing.” Nergal pushed himself back from the never-ending mountain of papyrus. When would souls stop getting themselves into trouble? The Underworld was fast becoming overcrowded, and the scads of forms to be filled out threatened to drown him.

  The king spun his chair and regarded his wife. “This was none of my doing. Erra took everything upon himself, and I did nothing to encourage him.” He smirked at his wife. “But neither did I hold him back,” Nergal admitted. “I actually think him quite cunning.”

  Ereshkigal clearly disagreed. “That’s not the word I would have used.” She glowered at him. “We have a potential Chosen on Earth who no longer has her man. I’d call that a very poor outcome.”

  Nergal rubbed his forehead. His romantic Ereshkigal wasn’t one to stand by and see opportunities for true love extinguished.

  “Plus, you breached the rules of our agreement,” she argued.

  Nergal rolled his eyes. This ought to be good. “And how did I do that, my love?”

  She looked righteous. “Listen carefully to the stipulations to which you acquiesced.” Eresh peered down her regal nose. “Each god was supposed to be presented with his Chosen, at which point he would prove he could keep her safe. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. I recall that as being true.” Nergal couldn’t see where this led, and he was a little distracted by the outfit Eresh wore today. She had draped her exquisite body in a semi-sheer black dress that barely covered her thighs. It split down the front, almost to her belly button. Every time she moved, the material threatened to offer a glimpse of nipple, but so far had only given him the enticing roundness of one breast.

  Thank the devil Eresh was too worked up to notice where his eyes focused.

  “It was agreed that if a god could keep his woman from harm, he would be allowed to perform the amulet ceremony…although it went a little awry with Anshar,” she allowed, “but that’s neither here nor there since it worked out in the end.”

  Nergal only half listened. Gods, his wife was an enticing woman. If she would only lean a little to her left and turn slightly. She talked, and he remained distracted.

  “You have to agree that nothing could be more selfless than the way Dagon sacrificed himself to keep Holly safe.” She paused, dramatically. “And safe she is.” There was a succinct nod of her head. “If we are to go by the letter of the law, the two of them are entitled to be together right now.”

  Nergal tilted his head. Perhaps a different angle…

  “Are you listening to me?” Ereshkigal’s eyes sparked.

  To prove he was, Nergal straightened up, played back his wife’s diatribe in his head, and responded appropriately. “What you assert is impossible.” He waved his hand, dismissively. “Dagon is no longer viable.”

  Eresh leaned a little to her left and turned ever so slightly. Ah. Lovely. The view was just what he’d been looking for. A beautiful, soft breast. Now what had she asked again? What nuances had he missed? Oh yes, Dagon. Something about him having proven something with his sacrifice. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me what you have on your mind.” He coughed, and discreetly rearranged his dick as she bent over to grab the arms of his office chair. Her dress gaped open even more. Nergal fought to keep his tongue in his mouth.

  What! She had the audacity to pat his cheek. Really? His queen straightened and moved around him to the desk at his back, pushed his scrolls aside and settled her beautiful ass a few inches from the edge. He swiveled in his chair and slunk down, eye level with her crotch, and caught his breath. For the second time in just days, Eresh spread her legs, giving him a good long look at where her panties ought to be.

  “I do, my dear Nergal. I have a few things in mind, and you will listen well.”

  As if that remained possible with the view in front of his nose.

  His queen continued. “Not only did the rebellious god refuse to hand Holly over to Erra and the PP, he joined forces with the Blue Hills gods to protect her. He sacrificed himself to the Underworld to do so. Now he will be battling demons daily to prove his love.”

  Nergal sighed. He’d finally figured it out. Ereshkigal’s new pet project was to get Dagon hooked back up with his Chosen. Her argument? That by protecting Holly when the pair had been topside, Dagon had more than fulfilled his requirements. Which proved―at least to his wife―that he deserved to have the woman as his mate.

  “I’m not certain I like where this is going.” Nergal faced his wife, eyes to crotch, wishing she wasn’t using sexual enticement to get her way.

  “You may not dislike it either.” Ereshkigal preened.

  The king could feel a flush move up into his face as Eresh rearranged the folds of her dress so that her bare behind now sat squarely on the papyrus he had been working on. She leaned back a little, supporting herself on a stack of scrolls.

  “Proceed.” Nergal had little hope of completing any more intake forms this afternoon. Her enticing, womanly scent would get all over everything.

  “I’ve been eavesdropping on the women at the Blue Hills,” she began, “Tess, who is the Chosen of Marduk and also the twin sister of Dagon’s Holly…”

  Nergal noted, annoyingly, that Eresh already labeled Holly Dagon’s.

  “…and Lenore, who has become one with Anshar, have agreed with Holly that the three should come to the Underworld to rescue Dagon.”

  Nergal raised his eyebrows. Here was a pie
ce of news he hadn’t expected. Holly was obviously a more determined human than he realized. That she dared to brave the depths of hell to retrieve her god was unusual, yet commendable. That she convinced the two newly minted goddesses to accompany her? Sheer genius. At least from his perspective.

  Nergal felt the need to point this out to Eresh. “If the three women come here, I have the opportunity to capture and imprison them all. Three for the price of one, if you don’t mind me saying so. If I do this, if I win all three, then Marduk, Anshar, and Dagon would be beyond even your help.” Nergal put in the last to see if Ereshkigal had any future plans up her elegant sleeves.

  “I realize that, my dear.” She scooted around and purposely spread her legs a little wider. “I believe that the love Dagon’s potential Chosen holds will be enough to keep her and her companions safe. I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”

  It had been thousands of years since his wife had let him have such a good opportunity to gain the upper hand, or let him get such a long glimpse of her pussy. Her pride had been hurt from his many rejections so long ago that she had shut him out completely…until now. Why had he rejected her all those years ago? In his aroused state, he could barely believe he’d been such an idiot. He could almost envision leaning forward this very minute to taste her.

  Some part of him still in control answered. “I think you’ll lose, my dear.” In fact, Nergal was certain of it.

  “If I lose,” Ereshkigal lowered her voice seductively, and moved one hand up and under her dress. She dipped one finger between her legs. “I’ll pleasure myself for you.” She opened her wet folds. “And I’ll let you watch while I make myself come.”

  Nergal could only stare in fascination as she withdrew a glistening digit.

  “If I win.” She leaned forward, almost close enough for a kiss, but instead brought her finger up between them and rubbed her essence on his lips. “You will use your mouth to bring me to completion…my husband.” She said the last as a taunt before she closed her legs and sprang from the desk, graceful as a jungle cat.