Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga)

by Anna Erishkigal

  "I have Doctor Halpas on the radio, Sir," Eligor said. "He asked what kind of injuries he should prep for?"

  Lucifer felt nauseous as he poked at his lover's entrails.

  "I'm no medic," Lucifer said. "But he was stabbed in the abdomen with something large. Probably a spear."

  Eligor relayed the information.

  "Sir," Eligor said. "He wants to know if his intestines have been ruptured?"

  Lucifer grimaced as he poked at Jamin's belly.

  "I can see his intestine," Lucifer said. He stared at the gaping wound which no longer seemed to ooze much blood. Even he knew that was a bad sign. "Yes. I am certain he's got a ruptured bowel. He's almost bled out, and I have no idea what kind of blood he even needs."

  Eligor relayed the information, and then added the fact that Lucifer had seven or eight objects embedded into his wings. Lucifer tilted one white wing forward and was surprised to see it was true. He'd been so focused on saving his lover that he'd perceived the weapons to be little more than bee stings.

  Hope flamed in his chest as the Prince of Tyre came into. He bent to whisper in Jamin's ear.

  "We're almost there, mo ghrá," Lucifer whispered in his ear. "See? We're almost there, and then my doctor will save you."

  Jamin murmured something, but his words were so faint he couldn't even hear him. It didn't matter, for he could feel what his lover felt, and he knew his lover only lingered here for him.

  Strong. He needed to be strong or Zepar and his men would devour him alive. But Eligor? He stared up towards the cockpit, and Eligor's eyes met his in the reflection of the windshield.

  “Sir,” Eligor spoke low enough so only Lucifer could hear him. “You may want to ask the wife of the Angelic you tried to kill to help you. She’s an Earth healer, and from I've seen, a very good one.”

  "An Angelic … I tried … to kill?" Lucifer asked. A sense of vertigo made the situation seem all the more unreal.

  "Colonel Mannuki'ili's wife, Sir," Eligor said. "You took her hostage. After he … I'm not sure what he did wrong, Sir. You never told me."

  "Mikhail … has … a wife?" He wondered if perhaps he had slipped back into his delusionary state. "But he's … Seraphim."

  "His wife is from the same village as your … friend," Eligor said. "It's one of the reasons, I suspect, you supported the lizards to recapture it for him. Your, uh, friend is, um … he's in tight with the lizards."

  So now he was a crazy … gay … rebellious … Shay'tan-supporting traitor?

  Jamin stirred. He opened his dark eyes, and whatever doubts Lucifer might have had were gone.

  "I don't care if she does a rain dance," Lucifer said. "If it will increase his chances, I want her in that operating room the moment we step foot upon my ship."

  “But Sire,” Zepar said, his voice pliant and helpful, “you tried to kill her husband. She will kill him, not heal him.”

  "Ninsianna's husband is still alive," Eligor said. "If you bring her that news and promise to free her, she will do whatever it takes to earn her freedom."

  "Ninsianna?" Jamin whispered. His hand shook, and then he moved to touch Lucifer's temple. Words were not necessary. Whoever this woman was, Jamin felt she could help them.

  “She will be no help!!!” Zepar shook with anger. “This … toy … is nothing to you. Why do you insist on this ridiculous course of action??? You are putting all of our plans in jeopardy!”

  “What plans?”

  Zepar stumbled over his own words. “N-nothing, Sire.”

  Lucifer glanced back at the two stone-eyed goons, the ones he didn't trust any more than he trusted Zepar. They were three against just him and Eligor, but thankfully Eligor was the only one who knew how to pilot a ship with such a badly damaged engine.

  He remembered a lesson which Abaddon had forced him to learn as a little boy.

  "Eligor," he spoke low. "I want guards at the door the moment this shuttle sets down. Pop the hatch before you even land. Don't arrest them, for I'm not certain what's going on, but make sure there are people loyal to me there just in case we run into any sort of trouble."

  Eligor nodded, and then began tapping a message silently into his broadcast system. That done, Lucifer turned his attention back to the man who, even now, inspired him to fight back against the crushing migraine which threatened to plunge him back into oblivion.

  “Lucifer,” Jamin murmured. “How did you find me?”

  "I felt your death-wound," Lucifer said. "I could not leave you there to die."

  "You can feel me?"

  "Yes," Lucifer said. "A Seraphim can always feel his mate."

  Jamin gave him a weak smile, although what amused him, Lucifer had no idea.

  “I can feel you too,” Jamin said.

  “Hang on, mo ghrá. We shall get you fixed up in no time.”

  For the first time since the day his mother had willed herself to die, Lucifer prayed. He prayed to She-who-is to spare the life of his lover.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Chapter 105

  February: 3,389 BC

  Earth Orbit: Prince of Tyre

  Ninsianna

  Inside Lucifer's harem, twenty women sat around a table and contentedly ate breakfast as though it was perfectly normal to eat fruit and bread with a Sata'anic lizard. Lerajie burst into the room. The Angelic with the pink-speckled wings glanced wildly around the room, and then strode straight towards her, his expression anxious.

  "Ninsianna! Come quick! Doctor Halpas needs you!”

  The other nineteen women screamed and scurried back into the cracks and crevasses of their bunks like naughty little mice who’d just been caught stealing emmer from the temple granary.

  "Lerajie," Ninsianna scolded him. "What did I tell you? Tuck your wings against your back so they don't think you are him!"

  She glanced over at the ebony-skinned female, Lucifer's first wife, and the only woman who'd refused to come out of her shell. This morning, for the first time, she'd coaxed the woman to come sit with them at the table, and now she was back in her bunk, rocking and making finger-gestures over her head.

  "There's no time for this!" Lerajie said. He grabbed her elbow and tugged her upwards to get her out of her seat. "We've got incoming wounded and we need your help."

  Ninsianna heaved her swollen abdomen up out of her chair and splayed her hand protectively over her womb. She met Lieutenant Apausha’s gold-green gaze. The lizard’s long, pink tongue snaked out of his mouth, tasting for the tiny magical message-carriers he called pheromones which enabled his species to spy on other people’s emotions.

  "Wounded?" Ninsianna said. "Why would your healer want to see me? I've never even met the man."

  She had, however, met his medical supplies, which Lerajie and the other crewmen had begun pilfering so she could build up a respectable healer's basket. Was he angry at her? Had one of the men been caught? And if he had, would he turn her over to the Evil One for punishment?

  "Lucifer asked for you specifically," Lerajie said.

  Ninsianna swooned. Oblivious to her distress, Lerajie strode over to her bunk and lifted up the blanket she used to hide her basket full of pilfered medical supplies. He turned around, his eyes eager, and gave Ninsianna a disapproving look when he saw that she had sat back down.

  "The Evil One?" Ninsianna stammered.

  Lerajie held out his arm so she could take his elbow. She shot Apausha a look which communicated 'help me,' but the lizard was in no position to do anything, for he was just as much a prisoner as she was.

  "This is great news!" Lerajie's pink-speckled wings fluttered like a butterfly which had just lit upon a flower filled with nectar. "Eligor said to make sure you understand that everything hinges on healing Lucifer's lover."

  “His lover?” Ninsianna spat. “Who'd he go and break now?"

  "That's just it," Lerajie said. He leaned closer to her ear as he tugged her down the hall. "It's not a woman. It's another man. He comes from the exact same village as you."
r />   "Assur?"

  Lerajie turned a corner and practically wrenched her arm out of her socket as he jerked her to a halt, though not intentionally. Six armed Angelics, every one of them men who'd developed attachments to a woman in the harem ran past them, their expressions intense as they slipped their firesticks onto their hips. Something big was happening, and the very energy of the place had shifted.

  "Assur?" Lerajie said. "Oh, I had no idea what your village is called. All I know is Eligor sent the man’s name."

  “Who?”

  Lerajie shepherded her down the hall, glaring at anyone who dared get too close to her.

  “Eligor said his name is Jamin.”

  “Jamin?” Ninsianna stopped. “What's he doing here?”

  While Jamin had turned her over to the Evil One, since that day there had been neither sight nor mention of him. When she’d asked the Angelics, none of them had ever even heard of her former fiancé.

  “They are … lovers?” Ninsianna asked.

  A bit of light-headedness made her feel as though she'd imbibed too much beer. Jamin? And another … man? Not even if She-who-is had sent her a vision declaring it would be thus, not for all the universe would she have believed that eventuality would come true!

  "Yeah,” Lerajie said. “He dragged us all the way back to Earth to buy him out of Sata’anic conscriptment. Cost him a pretty penny, too.” Lerajie jerked her down another one of the long, labyrinthal corridors which doubled back upon itself and seemed to make no sense. “He and Lucifer are cut from the same cloth, if you ask me. Eligor said that Lucifer himself fought his way into a battle, alone, to retrieve him after he was wounded.”

  “What battle?”

  “Oh? The Sata’an Empire just invaded your village,” Lerajie said.

  "Invaded?" Ninsianna sputtered. “I thought your Alliance was the enemy of the Sata’an Empire?”

  “I thought so, too,” Lerajie said. His brows furrowed together, perplexed. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I've just been keeping my mouth shut and looking for an opportunity to get you off of this ship.”

  "Wait a minute?" Ninsianna cast off his grip. "Why would I help either one of them? Jamin betrayed me, and Lucifer had my husband killed!" She backed up against the wall. There were two guards in the hallway she did not know, and they both eyed her, more curious than hostile.

  "Because your husband is still alive," Lerajie said excitedly. "Somebody took out the fuel induction carburetor of the subspace ramjet with a pulse rifle. Lucifer promised that if you save his lover, he will free you. He will let you go back to your village and ask the lizards to leave you alone."

  Little of what Lerajie said made any sense, but hope and terror blended together into a fine mess of emotions; love and hatred, freedom and apprehension.

  "Why? Why would Lucifer let me go?"

  "Because he caught him," Lerajie laughed. "Don't you see? For two hundred years every female in the galaxy has tried to catch the heart of the alpha-male, and it turns out it wasn't a she he searched for, but a he who was his one true mate!"

  Angelic's believed that all spirits searched for their one true mate, a spirit who would bond with them and make the journey through eternity at their side. Ninsianna was too pragmatic to believe in such nonsense, but Lerajie believed it, and so did every other Angelic on this ship. It was a belief system she'd manipulated to entice these men to feel empathy for the women in the harem.

  “Lucifer is incapable of love,” Ninsianna snorted.

  “That's what we thought," Lerajie said, "but it turns out we were wrong. Lucifer went into a firefight, unarmed, to retrieve your young chieftain when he fell, and he took eight arrows in the wings to carry him out of there rather than fly to safety himself."

  Her husband would rescue her from a firefight, of course, but she had to agree that that type of behavior did not seem typical for the Evil One.

  "It's some sort of trick," Ninsianna said. "Jamin must hold some strategic value for him?"

  Lerajie sighed.

  “Sometimes, you just have to accept love in whatever form the goddess gives it to you,” Lerajie said. “Isn’t that what you’ve been telling us for the past few months?”

  Her manipulative words … come back to haunt her…

  “My first instinct is to tell Lucifer to go to hell and let Jamin die," Ninsianna said. "Both have caused great misery to my people." She gave him an indignant sniff. "I shall think it over."

  Lerajie wheeled on her. His fingers dug into her biceps as he pressed her against the wall, his blue-green eyes sparkling with anger.

  "Their shuttle is due in ten minutes,” Lerajie said. “You’d better have your answer then, because I can tell you right now, Chosen One, if that man dies, the raid the Sata’an Empire has launched upon your village will be nothing compared to Lucifer's wrath when he avenges his lover's death!”

  “But you attacked us,” Ninsianna said. “Of course we defended ourselves.”

  “Right now,” Lerajie said, “the lizards are just trying to quash your husband's army so the Sata’an Empire can annex your wheat fields. Lucifer doesn't have a lot to do with that, or care, other than the fact his lover wanted his village back and Lucifer was inclined to give it to him. But I've served Lucifer a long time, Ma'am. He ain't been right in the head lately, that I’ll agree. But when he's pissed, the man pursues his payback with vengeance that not even you can fathom. If Lucifer’s lover dies, he will strip every female of child-bearing age off of your planet and then he will wipe your village right off of the map until not even a trace of it exists to remind him of his loss."

  They reached the infirmary. Lerajie left her at the door.

  "Doctor Halpas is a good man," Lerajie said. "Zepar ordered us to keep your people segregated from his patients."

  Ninsianna slipped inside the room. Three Angelics rushed about, all of them men, all of them with the blond hair and white wings that every Angelic possessed with the exception of her husband.

  Her husband…

  The reality of Lerajie’s words began to sink in. Mikhail was still alive? Why didn't she feel anything? Why did she, in fact, almost feel a little angry? Apprehensive? Sulky? Was it because she had let go of him and begun to move on to different goals? Goals that involved a far wider scale than the tiny village of Assur? No. She was nervous, that was all.

  A white-winged Angelic approached her. He was an older man, refined, and if he'd been human she might have guessed late fifties, though amongst Angelics, she knew he must be far older to have so much gray mixed into his blond. In his hand he held heart-listener and a tray with assorted of metal implements.

  “Aha! You must be Ninsianna! I had no idea we had a human healer on the ship. I am Doctor Halpas. I have just spent the last ten minutes listening to Ruax sing your praises!"

  Doctor Halpas’ face was sincere, and his eyes were filled with that same authority she associated with her Mama. She could see why the Evil One would want to keep this man unaware of her existence.

  "I'm not sure what assistance I can give," Ninsianna said, "but the man who is injured? Once upon a time I knew him."

  "A patient’s will to live is an important aspect of any triage situation," Doctor Halpas said. "Especially in a frightening situation such as a primitive culture’s first exposure to modern medicine. I will place you at his head and hopefully it will reassure him.”

  He took her by the shoulders and led her into the healer’s room.

  “But before we begin,” Halpas continued, “we have to get you scrubbed up to prevent the spread of germs. Just follow that nurse into the washing station and we will get you changed into some surgical threads."

  Germs. The tiny animals which Mikhail had explained were the true cause of most illnesses, the substance she’d always perceived as a type of putrid green infection. It was the same energy she associated with the Evil One. No germs! She scrubbed her arms with the soap which burned, determined that no germs would attach themselves to h
er body! One of the nurses handed her a blue dress. It gave her trouble because it had not been designed for a woman who did not possess a pair of wings.

  As she dressed her head spun, and in her mind she kept asking why. Why why why why why? Why had She-who-is sent premonitions she would be captured, and then done absolutely nothing to prevent it? Why send her here to heal the women? Why send her to manipulate Lucifer's men into falling in love with them? Why?

  Because she was supposed to -be- here, that was why. Here. She was supposed to be here. Surrounded by allies right in the middle of the Evil One’s stronghold.

  From the other side of the curtain the door slammed open and the room filled with the sound of raised voices as a group of people argued.

  "It's better if you wait outside, Sir," Doctor Halpas said.

  "I'm not leaving him."

  Ninsianna's heart palpitated at the sound of compulsion contained within that voice.

  "But you will simply be in the way," Doctor Halpas said.

  "I'm not leaving him," Lucifer said. "And you do not possess the rank to order me to go."

  A metallic object clattered onto the floor as the people in the room positioned the wounded where he needed to go. The sterile, white room, the bright lights and peculiar instruments, the stench of antiseptic, and the fact the healers possessed wings instead of carried spears made no difference in a house of healing. These were the sounds she had grown up with, the sounds of a band of warriors carrying in a wounded comrade, and the familiarity of those sounds fortified her in stark juxtaposition to the terror in her heart.

  "Very well, then," Doctor Halpas said. "But you will need to stay out of the way."

  Ninsianna grabbed at the curtain to prevent herself from collapsing onto the floor. Lucifer. Was here? And so was she. And they wanted her to help him? How? How could she do this? How could she face the man who was the incarnation of all that was evil?

  She peeked through the curtain. Lucifer stood before her, exactly as he'd looked before, impossibly tall, beautiful, and white, but instead of a sneer, the expression he wore was frantic. She could still sense that crushing darkness all around him which fed upon the emotions of others, but it could not get in. It could not get in, and it was angry!