by C. M. Kane
Zeus grimaced. He knew Tannan was right of course. The main problem with being immortal was boredom, so when anything unusual, out of the ordinary, or even slightly interesting occurred, they all tended to latch on to it like a tick on centaur’s rump.
‘Where is she now?’ he asked.
Tannan knew immediately who he was talking about. ‘She’s almost crossed the mountain range and is sleeping. Commander Vesh has her in his sight now. She will not be lost again.’
Zeus nodded in satisfaction. ‘Excellent. Well, if I’m going to have to face Poseidon and Hades I better be in a good mood before I start, because I’m pretty damn sure I won’t be when I finish. Well done, Tannan, go get some rest but be ready to join me again in a couple of hours. Oh, and send in a couple of nymphs on your way out.’ He paused a moment in thought, his powerful body already stirring. ‘I think the redhead and the blonde tonight.’ Zeus nodded to himself. ‘Oh, and signal the pavilion that I will be back in a couple of hours and will have something to discuss with them all, and don’t forget to tell that idiot brother of mine I shall need to speak to him at the same time.’ He settled back on his bed to wait.
Tannan nodded. ‘As you wish, my lord,’ he said, and left the room.
Two and a half hours later, and in a much better mood, Zeus strolled back into the pavilion, noting that things had certainly deteriorated since he left. Odin seemed to be passed out on a settee, while Thor had Baste on his lap and was trying to shove his tongue down her throat by the looks of things. Isis sat in a corner with Persephone, talking about who knew what so he ignored them. He walked over to Hades who had a flagon of mead and was watching the red-haired man who Zeus had seen earlier, get his gut sliced open by a short brown-haired man. Kudos to the redhead though, he managed to stick his knife in the other mans side before he died.
Hades turned from the death scene playing out before him with a somewhat bored expression. ‘So what’s the big announcement? And why are so many battle cruisers floating around this shithole?’
Zeus raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s good to see you too, brother.’
Hades grinned and walked forward, holding out his arm and Zeus grasped it. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘That it has,’ Zeus said, surprised at how genuinely pleased he was to see his brother.
‘So what’s going on?’
Zeus held up his hand. ‘Wait until Poseidon arrives and I will tell you.’
Hades glanced over at Odin and Thor. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
Zeus shrugged. Before he could reply a door glided open and Poseidon stalked in, he looked straight at Zeus. ‘Brother,’ he said caustically, ‘throwing a little party and not inviting me? I’m hurt.’ On hearing Poseidon’s voice Thor immediately came up for air and looked over, tensing when he saw the large sandy-haired god.
Zeus smiled at his brother. ‘If it were a party you would have been invited, but it seems the very act of my coming to watch this Island has got a plethora of you overly excited for some reason.’
Poseidon shrugged noncommittally. ‘When the Olympus travels to a realm in full battle readiness then others tend to wonder if something more is going on, especially here.’
Odin shouted something incoherent and came awake with a start, his hand automatically reaching for his sword when he saw Poseidon standing there.
Poseidon glanced over, saying in a bored tone, ‘I wouldn’t if I were you one eye. Not unless you want to join your son.’
Thor leapt to his feet in outrage, inadvertently dumping Baste onto the floor in front of him as he stood. ‘You dare!’ He shouted as he took a step forward, reaching for a massive intricately engraved war hammer which was strapped to his belt.
This would have looked intimidating if he hadn’t got his foot hooked in Baste’s skirt and tripped, pulling her skirt up to her waist revealing her naked lower body as he fell. By the time he had untangled himself from a now irate Baste - who seemed to be intent on punching any and every inch of him she could reach - Odin was standing, ready to face off against the trident-wielding god. Hades’ hand moved to rest over the hilt of his sword and he nodded to Persephone who moved quickly to the door, dragging a clearly reluctant Isis with her.
‘ENOUGH!’ Zeus thundered. Everyone turned to him. Zeus’s temper could be extremely volatile, and when he lost it no-one wanted to be in the same room. Things tended to get very dead, very quickly. ‘If I see one more sword drawn I will personally take the arm holding it myself. Is that understood?’ he bellowed, before things could deteriorate further. When he realised he now had their full attention, he continued in a quieter tone. ‘Very well, I will tell you the real reason I am here.’
Isis grinned. ‘I knew it,’ she said as she moved back to the settee.
Zeus cast her quelling look and she silenced immediately. ‘It seems that one of us might be interfering with this Worlds Island.’ The gods exchanged confused looks.
‘It’s forbidden,’ Baste said. ‘We all know that it’s the one, level playing field each planet has for their criminals. Why would any of us interfere?’
‘That is what I want to find out.’ He then proceeded to relate every bit of information he had, including the tracking of the jumper.
Poseidon raised his eyebrows clearly intrigued. ‘So we have ourselves a little mystery, interesting. You say you have some of her on a vid?’
Zeus nodded to Tannan, who swiftly brought up the original temple prayer. Isis screeched with laughter while Baste looked shocked at the girl’s temerity. Hades and Poseidon just stood there grinning.
Poseidon turned to him. ‘And you didn’t kill her? The girl has backbone, I’ll give her that. I was going to offer to kill her for you myself, after the crack about us all being mean and petty, and not liking any of us. But I’ve never heard anyone, bar Loki, Hades and myself tell you to go screw yourself …. Which means that I think I like her, I am confused though, why would anyone volunteer for the Island, especially someone as young as that?’
Zeus looked at his brother. ‘That’s why I came here, to find out. She’s remarkably clever and resourceful, hence her staying ahead of Vesh for so long, I think she’s got something in mind to do down there, it’s what that’s the mystery.’
‘Tell them about the orange thalien,’ Thor said, grinning.
Zeus nodded to Tannan who explained what she had done and then, with great delight, showed the WLE vid. For the first time in centuries Zeus listened as Poseidon laughed, first at the red, elven commander and then harder at the orange thalien. ‘What the hell did he have covering his eyes?’ he said as he calmed down.
Zeus shrugged, this whole fiasco had been worth it, just to hear his brother’s mirth again.
Well it was until his Poseidon turned to him and stated, ‘Well, if she survives, I want to train her for my staff. I could find a thousand and one uses for the girl.’
He definitely wasn’t happy at this unexpected turn of events and decided to nip it in the bud before it could escalate, especially when he saw the others mulling over his brothers statement. ‘I’m sorry, but I have her earmarked for Tannan to train aboard the Olympus, if she proves suitable.’ This all looked to be news to Tannan but he quickly schooled his features back to impassivity.
‘So where is she now?’ Odin interrupted before a new fight could break out over where the little mortal would end up.
Tannan switched back to the console and brought up the main screen again, conveniently leaving a picture of the orange thalien in the corner.
‘She has just reached the foot of the mountain, my lords and ladies.’ The assembled gods walked over and sat themselves down on various settees.
‘She’s very dirty,’ Isis said casually. ‘I can’t even see her face under all that grime.’
Tannan explained what she had been doing and the gods nodded in approval. Zeus watched carefully as Poseidon leant forward slightly, studying the girl. Persephone gasped as a tall brown-skinned man erupted from the bushes and at
tacked, they watched the brief but brutal fight closely.
‘Impressive.’ Poseidon narrowed his eyes. ‘But what was that hand signal at the end?’
Baste let out a snort of derisive laughter. ‘I believe it’s a Terran sign for “Up Yours”.’
‘You mean she just insulted us again?’ Zeus asked.
Baste smiled. ‘If she thinks we’re watching, then yes.’
They continued watching as she made her bag, loaded it and continued on.
When she stopped and started vomiting, Isis smiled. ‘Her first kill. She lasted longer than I did before I lost the contents of my stomach.’
After Tae continued on and nothing else happened, the gods once again turned to the wine and mead. Thor and Odin returned to their respective ships, Thor with a very forgiving Baste in tow.
Poseidon turned to his brothers. ‘And where, pray tell, is Ares in all of this? If anyone was going to turn up to this little gathering I would have assumed it would be him, all these gathered battleships equal a potential for war, yet he seems quite conspicuous by his absence.’
Zeus stood again. ‘I will let you two worry about that. The woman is sleeping so I will return to the Olympus to rest. I will see you both in a few hours?’ Poseidon and Hades both nodded.
‘Until then, brother.’ Poseidon lifted his flagon of mead in salute.
Zeus nodded and left, Tannan following closely behind. Once they were inside the jumper and on their way back to the Olympus Zeus turned to him. ‘Well that went far better than I had dared hope.’ He smiled. ‘If Poseidon can learn to laugh while Odin and Thor are in the same room, and while they’re both still alive, then perhaps there’s hope for a renewed friendship between them after all.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Tannan said, his tone and thoughts sceptical as they flew swiftly back to the Olympus.
CHAPTER 26
She couldn’t sleep. No matter what she did or which way she sat she was uncomfortable. She thought she had dozed lightly a couple of times, but she continued to feel things crawling over her, and some kind of hard lump in the tree kept digging into her left butt cheek, regardless of which way she shifted. If Brohan thinks sleeping in a tree is even remotely feasible then he’s never bloody well tried it, she thought irritably. In the end she gave up, reasoning that if she wasn’t sleeping, she might as well be walking. Hopefully if there were any predators nearby they would be asleep when she passed. Tae gathered up her bag and climbed down, then after looking up at the stars to get her bearings, she set off again.
Although not as hungry anymore, she figured she had five protein bars and nine Salsify roots left, and perhaps three days to go, so she decided on a protein bar now and the roots a little later on after she reached the river and could wash them properly. If she couldn’t find anything else on the way then she would have enough for two protein bars a day which was more than either Brohan or she had budgeted on. She knew she had been lucky that the brown-skinned man had not eaten more.
It was perhaps another three hours before the sky began to lighten and she arrived at the river. Looking at the slow moving current from the safety of the trees, she judged that she should be able to cross easily, despite her fatigue. From where she stood the water appeared to be reasonably shallow so there wouldn’t even be much swimming, which meant she could drag her bag across with her. She looked to the sky and the coming dawn, the clouds were finally breaking up, it looked like it might be a beautiful late-summer’s day. That’s when she heard the laughter.
After taking out the spare knife for extra protection, she dropped her bag quietly behind some shrubs and crept downstream. She had moved behind some bushes at the edge of a small clearing just as she saw the man, his back was to her and he was doing something to a woman who looked to be asleep from her vantage point. Tae heard whimpering and realised there was another woman there, as well. What the hell?
The man stood up and turned toward some rocks to the left of him and Tae followed his gaze. There was a second woman sitting on the rocks facing the river with her hands tied behind her back. She looked like she was desperately trying to ignore what the man was doing. Despite her efforts she kept looking back every now and then, only to start making small whimpering sounds as tears flowed freely down her filthy cheeks. The man was smiling, as if in delight at woman’s distress. He was carrying something towards her, holding it out, as if in offering, his smile turning into a mad grin.
‘Lilith demands,’ he crooned. Tae looked back at the sleeping woman and to her horror she realised that one of her lower legs were missing, just a bloody stump remained, she felt her gorge rise in her throat and quickly looked back to the man. He was carrying the dead woman’s left hand and, after raising it to his mouth, he began to eat, the woman on the rocks screamed.
Tae held her hand over her mouth as she turned and hurried quietly back to where she had come from. As soon as she reached her bag she fell to her knee’s and started dry-retching violently. He was eating her, and had been for a while by the look of it. She shivered in both shock and horror as she now remembered who he was. He was the survivor of the last criminal batch to arrive on the Island before her own lot had arrived. Valaria had pointed him out, he’d started to scream to Lilith, an obscure vampire goddess, during his last couple of kills, as he had slowly descended into total insanity.
It now looked as if he’d graduated from being just drenched in blood to eating his victims. Tae vomited again as she tried to get the sight of the man, and what she’d seen, from her mind. She wiped her mouth and looked at the river, perhaps if she went upstream a mile or so…. She couldn’t move, something inside her wouldn’t let her take that first step. She kept thinking of the other woman, being forced to watch, to endure what that sick bastard was doing, knowing her time would come soon. It dawned on her that her time on the Island wasn’t only about saving Jase and her mother now, it had also become about her, and what type of human being she was. She knew that something vital inside her, something that made her Tae, would die if she didn’t try to do something. Despite her mission she knew she had to somehow put an end to this horror otherwise, even if she did survive, she never be able to live with herself.
But what can I do? She thought. The man is obviously insane, as soon as he sees my knife he’ll attack, and he’s a hell of lot larger and stronger than I am. Hell, he could have been doing this for a while, because he sure as hell doesn’t look weak or starved. So how can I get close enough to kill him with-out being attacked, and how can I kill him if I can’t bring a weapon with me?
Then she had a crazy idea, and the more she considered it, the more it made a strange kind of sense. She knew what she was about to attempt was insane, but she simply couldn’t leave the woman with him.
Having made up her mind she stripped off her clothes, piling them neatly with the bag before putting her hair beads carefully on top. Squaring her shoulders she turned and walked to the river. After a brief hesitation at the water’s edge she entered slowly and walked out until the water was just over her mouth before she ducked her head under and washed the muck from her arms, hair and face. She then started moving carefully downstream with only her eyes slightly above the water. When she was almost to them she saw him start to turn around, as if sensing someone. She ducked under, then raised her head and slowly walked forward, as if she were born of the river itself. He saw her almost immediately, dropping the hand he was chewing on he grabbed a knife and stood staring at her, waiting. She continued to walk slowly toward him as if she were totally unconcerned.
Tae focused her eyes on his with a burning intensity, making sure she kept her face free from the fear she felt. By the time he looked above her and finally noticed she had no vid-ball she was to her waist in the river. His gaze quickly returned to watch her approach, staring avidly at her body, fixating on it as the water ran down her in small streams. Over the last day her hair had once again grown to hang at her waist and the water now plastered it to her back and shoulders. He co
ntinued to look at her, as if mesmerised. When she reached the edge of the river she stopped and cocked her head to the side, he took a step toward her, seemingly confused by the fact that this random female had just emerged naked from the river to join him.
‘Who are you?’ He asked in a surprisingly feminine voice.
Tae moved her head and looked coyly at him. ‘You do not know me?’ she asked as if in surprise. ‘Yet I have heard you call to me with every sacrifice you have made. I have whispered to you in your dreams.’ She looked at him as if puzzled, then looked at the knife. ‘Is this how you greet me when I have travelled so far to find you?’ She dropped her fangs and smiled.
He shuddered, ‘Lilith?’
She took another step. ‘My love,’ she whispered.
He dropped the knife and stepped forward, his arms reaching for her. She walked into them raising her hands to his chest as he continued to stare at her. ‘I never thought,’ he began.
‘Shhh,’ she said, softly as she nestled against him, her arms wrapping around his back holding him firmly as her small claws lengthened in readiness.
Tae felt him tremble as his erection pressed against her body, she nuzzled his neck, instinctively finding the best position, and then with a sudden ferocity she bit down hard, straight into his jugular, her fangs sinking deep.
He screamed in shock and began to thrash against her, which only served to aid her efforts.
Unfortunately Tae had other, more pressing problems, for as soon as his blood hit had her mouth, a part of her that had never existed before sprang to life. A primal urge to drink him down became almost unbearable as it warred against her rational mind. It was almost more than she could bear. With a feral snarl she twisted her head from side to side, using her fangs to quickly rip out his throat before she lost all coherent thought. She felt the arterial spray drenching her face and body as she let him go and stepped back, it was almost her undoing. She clenched her fists, digging her small claws into her palms to stop herself from reaching out to snatch him back to her, until finally, the pain from her claws digging into her hands bought her back to her senses. He had stumbled backward away from her, falling to the ground whimpering in pain and shock, as she stood looking down at him hungrily. He stared at her, watching his life’s blood dripping down her body, until finally, the quick loss of it caused him to lose consciousness. Tae continued watching silently as his vid-ball emitted the blue scanning light and then turned to her. She raised her head glaring her defiance at it before she spat on the ground in disgust, just before it turned and zoomed away.
