The iPod was gone.
Three
There was a single moment of paralytic terror.
Then Liam looked around desperately and, once more, being from Earth saved his hide. Not because Earth had taught him anything in the vein of spotting pickpockets - growing up in relatively crime free suburbs had in fact quietly smothered that instinct in the crib - but because his pouch didn't hold coins, it held an iPod in a plastic Ziploc baggie. Two things that no one on Purgatory had ever seen before he had arrived on the scene.
So, the thief was standing only a few feet away, looking utterly perplexed as she held up the baggie with a pair of fingers. She was short and very young looking – if Liam had to guess, he'd have said she was between ten to thirteen years old. Her dark brown hair was long and bedraggled, and she had none of the signs of otherworldly ancestry that would have marked her as an elf or a goblin or any of the other weird races of Purgatory.
She was dressed in homespun rags and bits of cast-off clothing. He recognized a Coptic kilt, the fur jacket of an Aesir, and other scraps.
“Hey!” Liam shouted, pointing at her. “Thief!”
The pickpocket snapped her gaze away from the iPod she held, her eyes widening with fear. She turned and she ran into the crowd, people stepping to the side. A few did reach for her, but others simply wanted to get out of the way. A distant part of Liam could hardly blame them. A six foot something giant with a sword as big as their bodies was charging at them.
He'd have gotten out of the way too!
The thief made immediately for an alleyway, leaping and jumping over a fruit stand. She grabbed onto the support strut that kept the lighting fixture over the stand in place – the crystal smashed to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. The sudden darkness almost made Liam lose her, but he spotted a flash of movement and chased after.
She was running up some stairs, moving nimbly. Quickly.
But Liam had gotten a lot of cardio done during his time in Purgatory, adding to what hadn't been the body of a slacker back on Earth. He sprinted up the stairs, taking advantage of his longer legs. He grabbed at the back of the thief's rags as she darted around the corner, but his fingers only managed to graze some furs. She did squeak loudly as she disappeared into a narrow building. Liam followed and almost recoiled at the stench. Pressing through he found that they had entered yet another large paper-mill. Vats of burbling white liquid were set into the ground, and women with long handled wooden poles shouted at the two of them, pausing in their stirring to shake their fists.
The girl ignored them as she sprinted up the stairs that lead to the second level of the mill. Liam, thinking fast, headed for the front door, shouting as he went.
“Sorry! Apologies! Sorry!” He ducked under a pole swung at his head, then shouldered the door open. Out front, he saw that his guess had been good: The thief had gotten to the second story window and thrown it open. She leaped onto a rope that stretched between buildings and started to run along it. Liam grabbed a stone from the ground that had chipped off a piece of pavement. He hefted it – but hesitated.
He couldn't kill her.
The girl got to the far side of the rope, having run with the adroit skill of a gymnast. She turned and-
And blew a raspberry at him.
Liam threw the rock at her, snarling.
The rock missed her as she ducked. She stood to blow another raspberry, but then noticed that a shadow was being cast behind her, flung out by the myriad lights of Olimurias.
Liam grinned savagely and started for the building. The thief turned slowly around and saw that the rock had been caught. Caught by Meg. The Valkyrie stood as tall as she could, her wings mantling behind her like a fearsome cloak as she looked down at the girl.
The girl gulped.
Meg crushed the rock between her fingers, letting the ground up stone drip between her fingers, pattering onto the roof.
Liam – his hair matted with bits of feather and a single egg yoke dripping from his left shoulder – burst onto the roof, panting. He was chased up by loud, energetic shouting in several languages. He slammed the door shut, and listened to the thump thump thump of other eggs. Gasping for air, he looked at Meg and the thief. Meg had her hand on the girl's shoulder and was keeping her rooted to the spot more through sheer personality than any strength.
“Look what I caught,” Meg said, cheerily.
“I-” Liam gasped. “Think-” he gasped again. “You-”
“Give us the iPod,” Meg said.
“Tha wot?” the girl asked, her voice thickly accented, even with the magic that Liam used to translate the languages of Purgatory.
“The thingy,” Meg snapped, pointing at the baggie. The girl sighed, and held it out to Liam. He yanked it back and was about to put it into his belt-pouch when he heard a faint rasp of wood on stone. Meg, shaking her head, focused on the thief. “I have half a mind to-”
“Look out!” Liam shouted, springing between Meg and the doorway.
But his gallantry was unneeded.
The stone thrown to the ground by the dark shape that had emerged onto the roof wasn't aimed at either of them. It struck the rooftop and shattered. Crackling energy flowed from every nearby lighting fixture – the crystals within guttering, then dying. The entire rooftop plunged into near total blackness, lit only by the distant lights that weren't effected by the stone's detonation. Liam blinked, trying to get his night vision as fast as he could as the dark shape advanced towards him. It moved without a sound save for the faint rasp of... of what?
It wasn't the right sound for cloth.
But his instincts screamed that he was in danger. His blade twitched and he managed to deflect something sharp and fast rushing towards his face. Unfortunately, this left himself entirely open and pain seared along his right arm. Then his left, then his shoulder. The attacks were fast and darting in the darkness. He heard Meg moving, then heard her cry out in pain.
But the pain wasn't merely the pain of a blade cutting into flesh. Liam's head spun and he staggered, trying to swing at the darkness. Delenn rushed through air, cutting nothing. The knife cut along his skin again, slashing at his hip, his shoulder, even his back. Nothing deep, but every cut burned and seared with fire.
Poison, he thought before falling to one knee.
The blade that touched his throat was deadly sharp and he couldn't do more than breath thinly through his lips. They felt swollen and numb. He wasn't getting enough air. His eyes went unfocused and even the dim light of the city seemed far, far too bright.
The blade tensed and Liam knew that he was going to die.
Then...
Then the blade drew away, leaving no mark. No score.
Liam hit the ground, his eyes narrowed. He felt something being tugged from his fingers. He knew that it was important, but he couldn't think why. As it was taken away, his hand reached out – and he felt another's fingers. He couldn't remember her name.
He just knew he had to never let go.
* * *
Liam's eyes fluttered open as a surge of magic flared through him. He could see, very faintly, Tethis leaning over him, her hands on his chest. Then his eyes closed again.
Time passed. He drifted here and there, sometimes hearing worried voices.
The clearest memory was that of a soft, slightly rough fingertip sliding along his cheek. A damp cloth padding across his chest. A voice, speaking musical Coptic.
“My, my, my.”
It had been female. Husky. Almost a purr.
“So, my theories are right. Nutrition is a factor...”
What an odd thing to hear, dangling between life and death.
The same strange, clinical words that were echoing in his ears when Liam woke for real. His body was splayed out on a large, comfortable mattress. A soft, silken sheet had been drawn over his body and the air felt delightfully cool. He looked around himself, trying to draw in the room. There was a large balcony to the left of him, looking out at the g
littering jewel that was Olimurias at night. Distant cities flecked the sky like stars. The room he was in was beautifully crafted of wood and stone. Celtic designs were worked into the edges of the doorway leading into the corridor beyond, and two of the three walls that weren't dominated by doorway or by balcony were graced by bookshelves.
They were not filled by the standardized books of Earth – but rather a wild hodgepodge of folios, scrolls, tomes, atlases, lacquered boxes that were marked with Nordic runes, stone tablets, and even a few papyrus sheaves contained in wrappings of leaves and tied tightly by string. A few of them were laid out on a table, with stones keeping them open to the right pages. A tiny crystal set in a brass tracery of limbs and grasping hands provided light – pale and soothing – to the room and the books.
Liam shifted in the bed and noticed he was nude, save for a loincloth. His arms looked as if they had been decorated by a painter who had a knife and a deep, abiding frustration. He hadn't been scar free before, but he counted at least five across his arms, and a few more along his shoulders. He frowned, rubbing his thumb along them.
Why hadn't they been healed? Other wounds he had taken had been healed so cleanly by Tethis' magic that he didn't scar.
He heard the faint sound of paper rasping against paper from the adjoining room. Liam's brow furrowed – and he remembered the figure coming out of the darkness. There was nothing here to say that he hadn't been captured, that this wasn't the safehouse of some agent of an enemy God. Now, he didn't expect a servant of Aries to own a room that had this many books, but he could have been wrong. They might have been books about warfare. And so, he quietly swung his legs off the bed and padded to the table. He picked up one of the paperweight stones, and hefted it in his hand. It was sturdy enough and while he might not have been a powerhouse like Meg, he was fairly sure he could hit someone and stun them if he had the drop.
He planned to get said drop.
He crept towards the doorway leading out of the room. The rasp of paper came again, from another doorway that linked to the hallway that separated the two rooms. He darted from his doorway to the space beside the other and peeked around the corner, stone grasped in his hands.
Sitting in the room was a stunningly beautiful woman – for all that she was also one of the most alien Liam had seen. Her head was that of a jackal's, with high, pointed ears that stood at attention to either side of her head. Her hair was cropped and framed her head expertly, with the edges so straight that they looked like they had been marked with a ruler. Her body was curvy and slightly muscular, covered with a short, downy looking fur that was black and luxurious. It shone in the light of her reading crystal, and as her hand moved to turn the pages on her book, Liam could see that shine ripple across her, accentuating her form. She was dressed in a single piece dress with golden clasps that kept the slender straps around her shoulders, and the front hung slightly open.
She was so engrossed in her book, her tail gently wagging behind her on the stool, that she was unaware that, by leaning forward, her dress belled outwards and revealed the deliciousness of her tits. They looked perky enough to hold a quill up between them, and had a startling flash of color: two golden rings, piercing her nipples, with a slender golden chain connecting them.
Liam felt his cock hardening in his loincloth as his mind immediately went to the idea of catching that chain in his teeth and tugging and tugging – gently pulling back until she couldn't take it any more.
She turned the page again and Liam shook his head. He slid the stone behind his back, trying to not look like he had been considering braining her, then coughed.
“Ma'am?”
The girl jumped so high that Liam wouldn't have been shocked if she had bashed her head into the ceiling. Her hand went to her chest, unwittingly pushing her dress back over her breasts, and she looked straight at him with golden flecked eyes. Her ears slowly flattened as she frowned at him, paw resting on the top of the book, which had been knocked on its side by her sudden jerk.
“Master Vanderbilt,” she said, her voice reproachful. “You scared me.”
Liam coughed. “You can call me Liam, Miss, er...”
The woman smiled at him. Her teeth were very sharp.
“Neb,” she said. “Neb Maatre, priestess of Anubis.” She shook her head. “I'm sure you have a great many...” She trailed off, her eyes widening.
Liam blinked, and then remembered something. He had become used to being around people who were utterly casual in their nakedness that he had completely forgotten that he was wearing a loincloth. A loincloth covering his junk. A loincloth while he was at half mast by seeing a gorgeous jackalgirl's titties. His cheeks flushed bright red and he clapped his hands over his crotch, flushing even more when Neb merely looked more shocked.
“Sorry!” he stammered. “W-Why don't I get dressed, uh, then you can answer me some, uh, questions?”
Neb jerked her head up, her eyes meeting his. She nodded, mutely.
Finding his clothes didn't take much time and once he was dressed and sat down across from Neb, she seemed more composed, though Liam did notice that her nipples were hard as rocks, poking out against her thin dress. He decided to not mention that. And he made a commitment to himself that he wouldn't glance down at them.
“I found you,” Neb said. “Well, that is, I was buying some new books when I heard that little urchin shouting for help. I came to where you and your, ah, friend were wounded and, well...” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.
Liam glanced down at her nipples as her shift was drawn tight across them.
“I tried to help you until your other friend arrived. Tethis?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Thanks. So, why was that thieving urchin shouting for help? And where did she go?”
“Aithene, she said her name was. As soon as I started using my magic to keep you alive, she ran off. I think she was scared you'd been going to die.”
Liam nodded, rubbing his chin. “Uh, where’s Meg and the others?”
“Downstairs,” Neb said, standing up, and adjusting her dress with one paw. “Come on, you might as well get some food too.”
* * *
As Liam came down the stairs in the building, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Tethis and Meg. He could hear the faint sound of Meg's pacing and hear the same frustrated tone that she used while he was trying to explain something that seemed obviously stupid to her. To her credit, that tone held more shades to it than mere frustration. No. It was a fine wine of irritation, spiked with the occasional hint of contemplation.
Because, usually, once she had calmed down and thought everything through, Meg was willing to admit that something made sense, even if she had dug in her heels earlier.
“It's the same reason why I cannot just bring people back to life,” Tethis was saying. “The metabolic processes need to be used; you cannot merely reverse them when it comes to toxins and poisons because the toxins and poisons remain in the body.”
“Why don't they just come out, then? Huh?”
“Same reason why-”
Liam came down the stairs and saw Meg exactly where he had expected her, standing before a window, her arms crossed over her chest, her face set in a fierce frown, her wings mantling. Tethis was seated on a cushion that had been laid out before a crackling fire-pit that sat in the center of the room. Liam noticed that the fire-pit was surrounded by a series of tiny gemstones that glowed and throbbed in time with the crack and snap of the flames. The air didn't smell smokey, and the heat seemed to be diffused smoothly through the room. No sparks went beyond those crystals.
Considering the number of parchments, scrolls and books he saw strewn about, he felt no little relief.
“Liam!”
Meg cut Tethis off by beating her wings once, sailing across the room, and tackling Liam with her now classic arm-leg-wing hug combo. Liam, by this point, had gotten fairly good at readying himself for the impact of a muscular valkyrie. Whatever Tethis had done
to cure him had left him with enough strength that he simply staggered backwards and leaned against the wall as they locked lips. Meg's tongue plunged into his mouth and her sex – hot and wet and oh so very exposed by her shift riding up around her hips – pressed against the crotch of his kilt. Her hands slipped along his back and the kiss went on and on. For just that moment, the rest of the world melted away and Liam was once more back in the jungle, with nothing but the sight of Megara emerging from the water.
Her breasts, glistening.
Her body inviting.
Her eyes – those electric blue eyes – promising a lifetime, a world of…
Not just pleasure. A world of everything. Adventure and excitement. He had known, right then and there, that he'd never have a dull day with her. He might not have many of them.
But, he thought, his hand cupping her ass gently, fingers caressing the folds of her rump, I think I'm okay with that.
“Ahem.”
Meg kept kissing him, but he could feel her grin as her lips and his met, her tongue sliding out of her mouth and into his, playing and caressing his, circling around and around in the lazy pattern that she used on his cock.
“They, uh, always get like this when Liam almost gets crippled by doing something stupid,” Tethis said, her voice studiously affectless.
“That wasn't my fault the first time!” Liam glared over Meg's shoulder. “That was you fucking up the teleport altar.”
“It's not my fault you were carrying something that makes the Ancients' magic go haywire,” Tethis muttered.
Neb – who had been watching all of this – shook her head. It was fairly hard to tell, under all that black fur, but Liam was pretty sure she was blushing up a storm. Her nipples remained hard enough to cut glass. He grinned ever so wickedly, whispering to Meg: “Nips.”
With that single word, Meg looked – first – down at herself to check her shift, then back. There were some advantages to having electric blue eyes that essentially had no irises: it was hard to tell where you were looking, if you were careful. Neb didn't seem to realize that Meg was checking her out – and definitely didn't hear Meg whispering back to Liam.
Riposte (Purgatory Wars Book 2) Page 6
