by Thomas Duder
Puck, the Fae jester lordling, in the form of a black faerie cat known as a Cait Sith, had flexed his own little bit of luck and had leapt from Frank's limp form through an open window, landing with a bounce before making his escape down to the ground at the kind of speeds only other gods could obtain.
Where he witnessed Frank land with a sickening thud, crushing a car before bouncing off of it, cartwheeling through the air before he landed once again with a smacking sound and rolling to a halt in the soft grass that broke up the cement that surrounded Babel.
Frank hissed again, ignoring Dash as the Troll asked him why he was all bandaged up. Gervais leaned back in his chair, for all intents and purposes having taken over the safehouse they were currently bundled in, lost somewhere in the barrios of Hollywood. Looking like any other low-income homes, Gervais Saint Germain had been bundled up by Cool Drive, a mobile restaurant and black-market art dealers, before being deposited in the safehouse in a jumble of motion and muscle, narrowly escaping the shutdown of The Shop itself.
The two young men had grinned and laid out the plan that the Shop had crafted - to not only flush out which the body Karsiel resided in out into the open, but to also disrupt its carefully-laid compulsion upon the entirety of the Business sector. By doing so, the Shop could then challenge the creature to war, all while allowing the Spook Squad and IRS to put a freeze on Babel's extensive holdings and resources.
Not only had Frank and Dash neutralized the Angel's abilities to use his own people against them, but they had safeguarded those resources that were once unarguably Gervais's.
That Frank would have to die, even for a few seconds, was something no one had seen coming.
Gervais whistled, taking in the sitting room they currently inhabited, antique couches and chairs wrapped in plastic surrounding a table of notable worth, "What I don't understand is how you got out of there. You mentioned that you had somehow survived a breathtaking, terminal fall, and yet you were certainly unable to leave on your own."
Frank chuckled wickedly, "True, true. I gave Puck permission to enter The Shop whenever he wanted."
Gervais lifted both eyebrows this time, "You mean you forgave the Fae lordling his earlier transgressions?"
"Pranks," Dash explained, "He wouldn't stop pulling pranks on us 'til we damn near clipped his wings."
A black cat, curled up in Gervais's lap and all but unnoticeable until then, opened up one dazzling green eye and spoke in plain English, "I don't have wings."
Frank frowned at Puck who merely stretched in Gervais's lap, suffering slow, warm pets, "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, in forgiving him I was able to take him under the jurisdiction of the Shop...and since we were gonna enact the Thirteenth Clause, I figured it would give him the ability to change form and help get me the fuck out of there.
I was right."
Puck chuckled, his eyes closed as he wriggled in Gervais's lithely muscular lap, presenting his belly and chest for the older man's slow petting, "And now you are honor-bound to help me, your friend and ally, to save Oberon from the Unseelie Sidhe as my kind turn from light descending to darkness rising."
Frank grunted, sipping his tea lightly from an ancient teacup, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were gonna do that anyway, you Faerie fuck."
The sitting room caught Frank's eye as he regarded their surroundings. The owners of Cool Drive had chosen well, but there was something that raised red flags within Frank’s paranoid mind. During his battle with Karsiel, Frank had noted the weakness of the Angel's precognitive abilities. "Angel of the Warning Shot," the creature had been granted the powers of limited Foresight and Foreflex. Not only seeing the immediate future but also having the ability to change it to its whims, making it an incredibly powerful foe when combined with an Angel's range of powers, abilities, and obscene physical strength.
Despite that, the weakness was that it could only foresee the immediate future when it pertained to it. It would have to drive through every neighborhood in Neo-Los Angeles before it would be able to find them, and it couldn't have its precognitive abilities on at all times or it would be too drained before finding them.
Frank considered his arm, broken by the Angel after it had caught up to him during their Tulpa dog fiasco. He had underestimated his own healing factor, and had narrowly escaped from the prank with his life.
"Anyway, its morale has to be at a breaking point now," Frank chuckled, "Especially since it's wasting money hiring mercenaries as well as bounty hunters and keeping them on standby for the Walpurgisnacht Jam."
Gervais nodded, hearing his manservant, butler and bodyguard, Alouicious Dempsey, washing dishes in the nearby kitchen, "And this Walpurgisnacht Jam is a pre-determined night of combat, some ritual covered in the Thirteenth Clause, eh?"
"Well, since we're ipso-facto signed in as part of the Pact of Pantheons," Dash explained, his tricky memory not hindering him for once, "We get to challenge someone to combat, our champions and allies against theirs. By stretching it out like this and not saying which night it will be, we're gonna seriously fuck with his head, especially since he's only now learning that he doesn't have our friends and allies as tied up as he thought they were."
"It's ITS own fault," Frank frowned at Dash, noticing how he had already forgotten about which gender pronoun to use when it came to Angels, "It underestimated us, and now it's gonna pay. It's fighting us on OUR home turf, and that's where it's gonna hurt the worst."
Gervais chuckled, regarding his empty teacup for a mere moment before Alouicious glided into the room, pouring more of the delicious, loose-leaf brewed tea into his cup. Looking quietly at the Shopkeepers, both nodding, he replenished their cups as well before walking back towards the kitchen area of the small, two-bedroom home. Wearing a rose-colored vest, white button-up shirt, and black slacks, Al was the very model of manservant efficiency, a vow of silence binding his tongue for his honor's sake.
Gervais smiled, "I am especially glad that my friend, Alouicious, has come through and survived such an adventure with you. He seems to have learned much from you both already."
Dash chuckled good-naturedly, gripping his teacup gently with massive thumb and forefinger, each hand and foot six times the size of a normal humans. Despite that, he delicately handled the teacup and poured the tea directly into his mouth, past row upon row of shark-like teeth, his very throat bearing round after round of bladed edges, small tentacles with claws and sharp blades at the ends, a veritable gateway to hell itself.
Frank nodded, "Al's a good boy. His boxing is good, and his driving was exceptional, so I heard. Anyway, I can see why you have him on the payroll - not only is he great at what he does, but he was also able to withstand the Angel's voice, yeah?"
Gervais nodded, setting his teacup down and crossing his legs at the knee, sending Puck cascading to the floor to pad his way under the table, "Indeed, indeed. That was a pleasant surprise, though I do believe it is because of his principles. His loyalty to me is quite strong, and very valued."
Al, from where he stood in the meager kitchen, washing the dishes, visibly smiled and glowed from their analysis. Though he owed a debt of loyalty and gratitude to Gervais Saint Germain, the true lord of The Brownstone Group, the greatest financial group in the entire world, it was the praise he had earned from his heroes and idols, the Shop, that threw him into silent ecstasy. Unable to take it all, he set himself further to washing the dishes by hand with renewed speed and vigor.
Noticing this, Dash laughed and slapped his knee. Though Gervais, Al, and Frank wore what they always wore, Dash had a separate Bug Out Bag prepared with a special selection of clothes tailor-made for his inhuman frame. Of the two Cool Drive owners, it was James Weng, the artisan and black-market dealer, who knew clothes and fashion the best, though none could fault Andy for his exceptional cooking and epicurean craftsmanship.
Dash grinned, thoroughly happy with his red turtleneck and black jeans, the belt a super-thick strap of leather with a red buckle bearing the insignia of [TROLL
* POWER] keeping it closed tight on his muscular waist.
Frank, noting how Dash was displaying himself, grunted, "Stop preening, jackass."
"Right-o, Boss!"
Frank sighed and continued, "Anyway, in order to complete the ruse, we had to power down The Shop to bare minimums. But the Walpurgisnacht Jam, yeah...that. As members of the Pact, we have to have certain names and titles and other yadda yadda, all dating back to Pre-History and The War and shit. So, we decided, if we have to have an official pants-off dance-off mamma jamma of a slobberknocker, why not just call it something cool?"
"Walpurgisnacht Jam is a great name, don't you think?" Dash interjected, all smiles, "Ain't it cool?!"
From the kitchen area, Al nodded vigorously, agreeing with them both. Gervais, from an older generation, merely chuckled good-naturedly, his easy-going gaze taking in them both with a lazy acceptance.
"Well, well, well, well. A new generation has superseded what was cool and what is not," he stood up slowly, stretching his lanky, muscular form, sheathed as it was in his specially tailored gray three-piece business suit, his vermilion shirt and gray tie of the finest quality and cut, "I, for one, will be glad when we can get back to business as usual."
Bidding his charge and champions a good night, Gervais set about to find the master bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was a small affair, but had its own bathroom where he had immediately erected an altar to his prime deity, a higher god of necromancy and mercantilism. In a previous adventure he had earned his god's respect and vice versa - though he was his high priest, their relationship was built more on respect than outright worship.
Still, an altar and summary offering of gold was never frowned upon by his erstwhile, extradimensional god.
Dash poked Frank in the side, making his smaller friend yelp, "Say, bro, are you SURE you're okay? I mean, you did die."
Frank frowned at Dash, one of the few creatures living or undead who could poke him and get away with it, "Yeah, yeah. It sucked, but I did die for a few seconds. I just don't remember exactly anything from it, which is weird...you'd think that the Pantheons would have a field day trying to claim me for their own."
Dash nodded, stroking his scaled chin as he took up his best Sherlock Holmes pose, "Well, Odin himself said that you're a paper tiger. Or was it plastic kitty? Cheetah? It might've been a cheetah."
Frank sighed, pulling out his smartphone with his left hand and choosing amongst his contacts, "Hey, chief? Does this place, this safehouse, look familiar to you?"
Dash looked around, blinking, "Uh...no? Yes? Kinda. No."
Frank frowned at Dash before walking out towards the backyard, leaving Dash to his own thoughts. Shrugging to himself and immediately unable to recognize any of his own thoughts, Dash went inside to mess around with Al. Entering through a side path, Frank took note of the backyard yet again, hating that a new puzzle had presented itself in the middle of such a tense situation. The fence that surrounded it was constructed of plain, brown boards, the tops shaved to allow a quick exit.
By Frank's lights, it also allowed for a quick entrance. A properly-planned and manned strike team would come at every side, including underground and from atop.
Concluding his business quickly, he gazed about the small garden lining the edge of the backyard itself, the center of it dominated by an apple tree twice his age. Patting the trunk lightly, he went back inside, finding Dash and Al cheerfully exchanging bad jokes and stories.
"And it was around then that Frank is all, 'Well, if it'll save the human race, I'll give you some D.' Then he hit her with his Delta Hook and knocked her the fuck out!" Dash slapped his knee and chortled as Al laughed, both hands clenched over his own mouth to stifle it down, well aware that Gervais noted such things in his sleep.
Frank grinned, taking a seat next to Al, "So, the vow of silence isn’t quite over, huh?"
"Eh?" Al blinked, calming down at the mention of his recently broken vow. Smiling wanly, he set about serving them both more cups of tea, stirring cubes of sugar into his own before answering slowly, his voice clear and even, "I...just not around Master Saint-Germain. I cannot bring myself to do that just yet. It was my own pride, my own lack of control, which led to such a predicament."
Dash blinked, sipping at his tea, sweetened with milk and sugar, "I don't think so. So, you thought they had the upper hand on me - it happens, bro. A lot. I don't think either me or Frank would hold it against you, right, Boss?"
"Speak for yourself," Frank grinned viciously, "I, for one, welcome any upper hand against anyone. But eeeeeeh, I s'pose Dash speaks for both of us on this one."
He waved a hand at the squirming Aloicious, chuckling, "Don't worry, don't worry!"
Al frowned but drank demurely from his cup.
Frank, seeing how unsettled the young valet was, sighed and continued on, "I was just jokin', kid, Joookiiiiing. Look, we understand honor, and how the value of it is determined by the individual, y'know? In this case," he noted how Al looked up at him from over the rim of his teacup, hanging onto every word while trying to act nonchalant at the same time, "You fell off the horse. That ain’t so bad, m'man. Just shut up and get back on it. If GSG hisgoddamnself didn't notice it, then you're in the clear by the books that matter.
Somethin' to chew on, youngblood."
Al set down his cup, looking to the side as he contemplated Frank's words. Glancing back at Frank, Al gave a mischievous grin and quietly nodded.
Leaning over to slap Aloicious on the shoulder good-naturedly, Frank nodded towards the front door, signaling to Dash that it was time to leave. Leaving the dishes to the quiet butler, the Shopkeepers strolled outside to take in the sun-drenched California day once again. Frank, putting his shades on, groaned slightly to himself as he finally admitted that he still hurt.
Dash, staring directly into the sun (simply because he could), muttered loud enough for Frank to hear, "Just remembered why this safehouse looks familiar to you, bro."
Frank grunted in response.
Dash, taking it positively, nodded and hooked his massive thumbs into the pockets of his pants, continuing on, "Cool Drive. We stashed them here the first time before they got formed. We also used it for Grease Monkey once."
Frank sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his shades, "We've used this place more than once. That makes me incredibly nervous. Let's call Mesmer in and get these two moved. Not tonight, like fuckin' now."
Dash mulled it over visibly. Frank, seeing this, sighed and questioned, "What...what's wrong?"
Dash nodded, "We don't normally make mistakes like this. Think it's part of some plan of some sort?"
Frank, about to remark, considered it as well. Closing his jaw with a small click of his tongue, he finally responded, "Belay that last order, Chief. Keep 'em here. If nothing happens, if something happens...either way, this is the last action before the Jam. Karsiel wouldn't even be payin' attention to us that much, not with his resources cut this badly. But there is..."
Dash watched as Frank trailed off, his Overdrive-fueled leap of logic kicking in. Hissing to himself, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his good hand harder, "Fuck. Shit. Shitfuck."
Dash nodded wisely before remarking with sage gravity, "Penis."
Frank grumped, "Fuckshitpenis is right, bro. C'mon, let's go. We gotta wrap things up before tonight and, gah. 'Black mage needs sleep badly.'"
****
She moved in mysterious ways.
Frank panted, kissing her hard and drinking from her deep, feeling her undulate against his large body, caressing him with her entire form as she rode him. He smirked, recognizing the situation for what it was - her hands gripped at his chest, his shoulders, before her nails dug into his back, their edges beginning to blur.
She was pale, her long, blonde hair a fan against the darkness that surrounded them, twinkling lights in the distance reminding him of their true location: Psychic Space, the dimension created by the millions of sentients that currently exi
sted and the billions before them.
She panted and arched her back, succumbing to his hard sucking, matching her thrust for thrust as he dug his fingers into the small of her back, the tops of her buttocks filling his strong hands. Clenching his teeth down onto her nipple, he took his fill of her, taking in as much of her breast into his mouth before clamping down hard onto her with his teeth, sadistic desire causing him to grind against her even as he bit her harder.
She cried out his name, again and again, her form blurring almost completely at the edges as she bled into him and onto him, the merging of two psychics running out of control in the space they were the most comfortable in.
For a moment, Frank almost forgot who was biting whom, the feeling of her teeth against his neck a minor confusion as he felt the comfortable rush of her presence suffuse into his.
****
Frank grunted as he woke up, his body refreshed from his sleep, even as his psychic mind had been incredibly busy. Thinking back to the situation, he stretched his entire body, drenched from the sweat of wonderful exertion and post-coitus afterglow.
He also realized he wasn't in his four-poster bed but, rather, Dash's hammock-bed - at least his feet were. The rest of him was on some bedding and comforters on the floor. Looking up slightly, he watched as a wonderfully full bottom swayed from side to side, the lissome figure wearing only his apron - Dash's would've been far too small for the young man.
"Hey, I know that ass," Frank grumbled aloud, catching the young man's attention. Frank grinned as he took in the sight of his lover, one of the Five Survivors of the Fall of Perris. Assuming a much more refined seat on the floor, Frank watched as Jack Guin turned off the burners on the stove and made his way gracefully before Frank, falling to his knees with his forehead touching the ground.
Frank grunted, holding out a finger. Jack, relishing in the ritual, took his Master's hands with both of his, small and short-fingered, and leaned forward to suckle at the tip of the offered finger.
