Riposte (Purgatory Wars Book 2)

by Cobolt, Dragon

  “Nice.”

  Liam winked at her.

  Then, sadly, reality did as reality was wont to do and came crashing back down. Liam set his lover down and looked around the room. Still no Delenn. He hadn't been more than ten feet from his sword – one of the most powerful personal weapons in Purgatory – since he had arrived. To not see it was making him feel a deep sense of disquiet. He rubbed his palms together and looked at Meg.

  Meg bit her lip, her wings drooping.

  “They're gone,” she said.

  Liam felt hollow. He slowly walked over to one of the free cushions and lowered himself backwards. He laid back until the cushion was supporting his back like a beanbag. “Both of them?”

  Meg nodded, mutely.

  “Fuck,” Liam said. He looked into the fire, frowning.

  Silence dominated for a few moments.

  “Who would have stolen it?” Tethis asked.

  “The better question is who wouldn't. Any god would want their hands on it, right?” Liam asked. Meg walked over and plopped herself down in his lap, her fingers caressing his hair. She nuzzled his neck, her body pressing to his as fully as she could manage without smothering him. Liam smiled, knowing she was trying to comfort him. And damn it all, it was working, though maybe in a way that would turn Neb from blushing to incandescent. Liam shifted slightly under Meg's weight, trying to get his hard member to rest somewhere comfortable. Meg moved with him and suddenly, his bulge was slotted against her ass.

  All things considered, a good place to be.

  “Aries is still smarting from the ass-kicking you gave me,” Livanna said, suddenly speaking up from the corner of the room.

  Liam tensed rather than jumping and dislodging Meg, but it was a close run thing. He had forgotten how still and quiet elves could be when they wanted to be. Liv stepped forward into the light, her arms crossed over her chest. “He'd want anything you have. That sword, definitely.”

  “Anubis is not involved,” Neb said, with some certainty. She smiled down at Liam. “It is not in his nature – he measures the souls of men and women. How could he do anything to unbalance this?”

  “Fair,” Liam said.

  Meg rubbed her chin. “Apollo is a possibility. And Odin. Odin is a big enough nerd and just enough of a dickhead to be totally fine with stealing a library contained in a hunk of metal and play-stick.”

  “Plastic, honey,” Liam said, distractedly.

  “Whatever,” Meg said. “We might as well call it, uh, what did you call it once? Ungettium.”

  “Unobtanium,” Liam said, his eyes unfocused as his mind raced.

  Meg slapped the top of his head with her hand, looking cross.

  Liam shook his head. “Tethis, how did you cure my poisoning?”

  Tethis licked her lips. “Neb helped. She's actually quite good at both divine magic and arcane magic.”

  “What are those?” Neb asked.

  “It's a distinction Liam introduced,” Tethis said, sounding quite proud of him. “And extremely useful. The Ancients used arcane magic – foci crystals and internal energy to produce effects that seem to be hard-coded into the universe – and we use divine magic by calling on the gods. That's mutable and flexible, but it requires patronage and said patronage to be offered.”

  “Then there's me,” Meg said, lifting up one arm and flexing slightly. “I have fucking superpowers.”

  “That's catchy,” Neb said, sounding curious. “I like that. Superpowers.”

  “Copyright, Liam Vanderbilt,” Liam said, pointing at them. “You all saw it, I said it, that makes it law.” He grinned, then Meg slapped the back of his head.

  “I can always kill you,” she said, with her own smile. “Then it becomes my copyright, if I understand these things properly.”

  “I beat her.” Liam jerked his thumb at Liv. “I can beat you.”

  “I'll sit on your face,” Meg said, sagely. “You'll not even fight back.”

  “Ahem!” Neb coughed so hard her glasses were almost knocked off her snout. “So, Liam, you were asking, uh, about how I – well, we – cured your poisoning. Essentially, I called on Anubis to weigh your spirit. As you were a good person, he was willing to hold you above death's door while Tethis here located the poison and drew it forth from your body. Once it was freed, your body healed naturally – with some boost from her magic.”

  “Well, uh, I'm flattered,” Liam said, blushing. “I always hoped that my heart would weigh as much as a feather.”

  “You-” Neb blinked, shaking her head. “You know of such things?” She pointed at his chest. Liam looked down. His crucifix – so easily forgotten, as it became as warm as his body remarkably quickly – hung there, glinting faintly in the firelight. He put his hand on it, gently. Like a man probing a tooth, he felt his faith, tensing, ready for it to be missing. But still, he felt that deep, abiding sense that there was something there. He smiled slowly.

  “I'm Christian,” he said, quietly. “Not an idiot. Also, I saw all of the Mummy movies.”

  “Mummy movies?” Neb asked, quietly, sounding baffled.

  Ignoring her, Liam looked at Tethis. “Can you find anything?”

  Tethis frowned, her ears twitching backwards. She slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “See, I need to have part of something to find it. I found the poison because, well, Liv found some of it soaked into your clothes. She thinks it had dripped from the attacker's blade.”

  Liv grinned smugly at Liam.

  “Since I don't have any part of your iPod, I cannot find it. And I cannot find your sword. Delenn is made of this, uh, steel, and Purgatory doesn't even have iron.” She shook her head slightly. “We're out of luck.”

  Liam sagged slowly back into his seat. He started to work through the mechanics of searching through a city as big as this, with as many ships coming and going as it had every day, with just a pool of talent five people deep and a purse of gold that was already being strained to the edge of what would be profitable. Was it even any use getting the iPod back if there wasn't any gold to pay sages and scribes?

  And worse, there was another ticking time bomb hanging overhead: If the people who had stolen the iPod didn't know how batteries worked, then...

  He tried to not imagine them turning it on and tapping away at the screen as the irreplaceable batteries lost more and more charge. Then, worse, his nightmare veered towards a scene that had been screamingly funny in a movie: two clueless idiots, looking at a computer, then whispering: The files are in the computer.

  He shook his head. He didn't even have backups – and even if he had, they'd be on the Cloud and-

  And...

  The Cloud.

  His eyes widened and he sat up.

  “Told you!” Meg snapped her fingers. She had been speaking and he hadn't even noticed. “Told you, a mind like Themistocles this one.”

  “Didn't Themistocles lead his own side into an ambush, let the enemy encircle them, then tell them: Well, we better fight really, really hard, guys?” Liv asked, her voice snide.

  “Yeah, but it worked,” Meg said, sounding defensive.

  “Shut up,” Liam said, distractedly. He stood up, pushing Meg off his lap, and strode over to Tethis. “Okay, Tethis, this is going to get weird. Do you know what light is?”

  Tethis blinked.

  Then, slowly, as if humoring a child. “Yes, Liam. Light helps us see.”

  Liam laughed, quietly. “Okay, I deserved that. But what if I told you light was an object. Like water or like that wall?” He pointed at it. “It's not exactly the same, but light is made up of things. Tiny things, they're called photons, and they move through the air. My hand blocks them, see?” He held his hand up, casting a shadow on the wall. “Now, these particles are very, very tiny, and there are lots of different kinds we can't see. And one of those is radio waves – and radio waves are what my iPod uses to talk to other iPods.”

  Tethis looked completely lost.

  “If the bad guys are trying t
o get into the iPod, it will be sending out little signals trying to conne-”

  “Oh!” Meg sprang to her feet. “I get it. But we need radio waves.”

  “That's the best part!” Liam said, beaming. “Radio waves are just a special name for light that is going really, really fast or really, really slow or something.” He paused. “No, it's more like a beating drum – I think radio beats more quickly than light. I don't know, it's complicated and I don't have my physics text book.”

  Tethis' eyes widened. “Yes, that could work. Neb, do you mind helping me work out the basics?”

  Neb looked uncertain.

  “I've helped you already, but...” She paused. “Magic, especially the magic of the Ancients, is still a lot of unknowns. We might end up getting hurt or worse.”

  “Neb,” Meg said, her voice soft. She stepped over, taking the paws of the jackalgirl, looking into her eyes. “The iPod contains so much information. Knowledge. Medicine.” She paused. “It can jump us forward centuries and guide us past the worst mistakes. Liam's told me of Earth. There are things that people can do if they are unaware of the dangers. Weapons that can be made, mistakes that can wreck planets. Whole worlds could burn if people aren't told. Your God prizes learning, doesn't he?”

  Neb considered. Her eyes – such an amazing golden hue - softened.

  She smiled.

  “I did always read about adventures,” she said. “It'll be nice to be in one.”

  * * *

  The spell was less than dramatic.

  Tethis had closed her eyes, breathed in, then exhaled a small glowing ball of light. Then, following that light, the group had set off. Liam wasn't entirely comfortable going into a fight carrying a short sword. He had trained with them a few times – they were fast, accurate weapons, and he knew that the Roman Empire had essentially conquered a good chunk of the world using nothing but an iron gladius. But still, he couldn't help but feel it was a downgrade from a steel longsword.

  Maybe that was because it was.

  He was dressed in the armor that Liv had been lugging around for almost the entire trip: a bronze chest piece, leather shoulder guards, and gauntlets of his own design. Working bronze to protect knuckles and fingers like that had been expensive, but Sobek had seen the use in having your hands protected in a sword fight and been willing to pay through his alligator’s nose for it.

  Megara went with nothing more confining than leather – her javelins in a hip carrier. She held one in her hand, tossing it from palm to palm as they strode through the streets. Tethis walked without armor, and looked increasingly nervous as the glowing orb brought them closer and closer to the less impressive looking part of Olimurias.

  Liv was dressed similarly to Liam, though she had a short, stabbing spear and a shield and a helmet that protected her face. Liam would have thought seeing her armed again after the last time she held a weapon would be unnerving but she walked with a quick, darting confidence that made her seem more cat than armored warrior. Watching her - knowing they were going into battle together - comforted him. She glanced at him as they crossed another intersection and into a collection of large, dimly lit warehouses that loomed over the roadway. The orb flew into the side of one of the buildings – shattering apart and vanishing the instant it touched the wall. Liam shook his head slowly.

  “So, plan?” he asked.

  “Let me do my job,” Meg said, her teeth flashing white in the dim light of the night. She tensed and, with a rush of motion and a rustle of feathers, shot into the air. She wheeled around, soaring about the top of the warehouse. When she had come back down, her wings cupping the air and canceling her motion down to almost nothing, she nodded.

  “There's a window at the top – counted twenty six people in there. One of them, though,” she said, pausing, “She's different. Looked to be in charge – dressed in a feather cloak.”

  “Raven feathers?” Liv asked.

  “I think so, why?” Meg looked at Liv, brow furrowed.

  Liv pointed with her spear. “Because she's flying away.”

  The entire group spun and looked. Meg's mouth opened in a quiet O, while Liam swore. A dark form was winging through the air, soaring towards the other side of the city. Liam frowned. “That didn't look like a valk-”

  “It wasn't,” Liv said, her voice so certain that no one in the group even thought about arguing. “It's a vaspjarramuninn.”

  “Gesundheit,” Liam muttered.

  Liv, by now used to Liam saying things that made no sense, looked down from the sky to the others. “A shroud of Muninn.”

  “Odin's raven?” Liam asked. “Shit, she's a fucking skinwalker?”

  “Yup,” Liv said. “Put the cloak on, become a raven. Useful for a spy.”

  “Or an assassin,” Meg growled, her wings spreading.

  Liam grabbed her shoulder. “No. Don't kill her.”

  Meg looked at him, eyes disbelieving. “She tried to kill you!”

  “No, she put her blade to my throat, poisoned me, and left me alive to be found. Not sure why, but she did,” Liam said, shaking his head. “We want her alive to figure out what she knows, and because if we know her, we know what she does. Kill her, she gets replaced.” Liam tapped his temple. “And knowing that is half the battle.”

  Meg scowled. “Fine. But I'll wound her later. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “We have an opportunity, we hit them, we get the iPod back, we get the sword back. If they're there,” Liv said, nodding.

  “Twenty six warriors is a lot of people,” Neb said, nervously.

  “The solution is simple,” Tethis said, rubbing her hands together. “You call on the darkness of the grave to blind them. I give us the ability to see in the dark and-”

  “And we Batman them. Got it.” Liam swept his sword back and forth, looking around for a door. “Liv, you're with me. Meg, take the window and look out in case any of them have infravision.”

  Meg snorted, her wings spreading.

  “One of these days,” she said, “You need to tell me what infra is.”

  Then she sprang upwards, her wings pumping, javelin in her hand.

  “Ready to make some noise?” Liam asked, looking at Liv.

  She grinned. “Let's make pappy proud.”

  Liv hit the door with her heel. Strength, imparted by her semi-divine heritage, shattered the locks and sent the doorway careening inwards, the wooden hinges splintering with the rebound impact. The door hit the floor and a half dozen men and women snapped their heads around. They were clustered around the crates that filled the warehouse, leaning against the walls, sitting on makeshift seats made by smaller boxes, playing dice. They gaped, clearly not expecting this. Then Tethis slapped her palms together behind Liam.

  Everything became too bright.

  Then everything shifted down in color and hue and Liam saw the people before him staggering. A few of them, though, were unaffected and moved straight towards him and Liv. They were elves, and they had swords. He met the first sword with his knuckles, punching the flat of the sword and sending the blade biting into the ground. His gladius speared through the elf's shoulder and neck, grating against vertebrae. While he might not have steel, he still had a good foot of muscle and fifty pounds of muscle over most people on Purgatory.

  The elf hit the ground, quickly joined by another as a javelin flew down from the window and pinned her.

  One of the humans who had been blinded by the darkness spell flailed with a club in Liam's general direction. Liam stepped out of his way – and then held up his arm to stop Liv as she stepped over to impale him on a spear. She glared at him, and for a second, they stood close enough to be kissing. Her nose almost bumped against his, and her breath puffed out against his face. Electricity sparked and Liam snarled, shoving her back.

  A red-skinned woman with a tail was clumsily drawing on an amulet. As the amulet settled around her bared shoulders and dangled between her smallish breasts, she suddenly looked straight at Liam
and then drew a bow from the ground. The short, recurved bow put an arrow into the air just after Liam flung himself flat behind a crate. Another human stumbled over him and started to try and stab him. Liam kicked out at the figure's crotch.

  As she was, well, female, this did slightly less than Liam would have wanted. It still distracted her as Liam scrambled to his knees, keeping himself low. He peeked out and saw the red-skinned woman – the Lillin, he reminded himself – nocking another arrow. Then she ducked backwards into her own set of cover as one of Meg's javelins slammed home.

  Liam shook his head and tried to look around the battlefield.

  There!

  His iPod sat there on a table, where several people had been standing around it. One of them was still there, a human holding a bronze sword with a kind of nervous terror, his shoulders hunched, his head snapping around at every call and shout of pain and fear.

  Liam scrambled up and leaped over the crate, just avoiding a wild swing by the girl he had kicked in the cooter. The man with the sword swung at him; Liam parried, punched him in the gut, then grabbed the man's head and brought it smashing into the side of the crate. The man hit the ground, stunned.

  Liam heard something whistling.

  He turned.

  A javelin shot past his nose, so close it almost cut him, so fast it ruffled his bangs.

  When he blinked, he saw that the arrow sent his way by the recurved bow had been pinned to the ground, sheared completely in half by Megara's throw.

  Once again, Liam wasn't sure if he was intensely aroused or intensely terrified of Megara. He didn't have time to reflect on it. He turned, grabbed his iPod, then flung himself backwards over the crate. As he landed, three arrows – all fired in rapid succession – buried themselves in the crate, wall behind him, and one of the warehouse's support struts. It seemed the Lillin – who had darted back into cover before he could see where she was – had decided to go for numbers, not accuracy.

  He peeked out and saw that Liv was locked in battle with two elves, both armed with clubs. One smashed against her shield, another against the back of her head, knocking her helmet off. Liv staggered, and fell to one knee. Then with a roar of animal fury, she stood and brought her spear up and underneath the man's armored chest piece, impaling him from belly to neck. He staggered backwards and she snatched up his club, spinning and braining the other elf.