by Laura Wylde
He acted surprised that I would even mention it. “Of course.”
They weren’t interested in the bronze wall. They weren’t interested the civilization that once lived here. All they wanted were four stone carvings. “Do you think they are here, or in Hyperion’s Cave?” I asked after the team had swept some kind of magic wand, I suppose, through the interconnected chambers until we arrived at the one with the tunnel.
This team didn’t just have a physical advantage over the archeologists. They had the most sophisticated looking equipment I had ever seen. Orson and Heath both have a collection of various silver devices so compact, they could drop them all in a woman’s handbag with room to spare. And the wands. I would have loved to have seen them up close. They were a polished mahogany color with engravings etched into the sides. A thin green beam glowed from the ends when they were activated. They didn’t look modern. They looked very old, or very other-worldly.
“We should start here,” said Orson without looking up from a cellphone sized device he held in his hand. “Hyperion had ten children – six sons and four daughters. The sons would be buried close to him and the daughter, outside the circle, as they were young and had not yet found husbands. They can be awakened by an immortal who loves them, but the sons can only be awakened by Hyperion.”
“Maybe they’ve already been awakened,” I suggested. “Maybe they were awakened eons ago.”
“They’re here,” Orson said positively. “Heath detected the presence of molecular spatial distortion, a byproduct of Titan coding. There is also a resonance…” He looked at his recordings again. “There’s somebody in Hyperion’s Cave.”
I tried to reach the tunnel first, but Orson slithered through ahead of me, followed by Heath. When Barnaby tried to go through next, I pushed him aside and wriggled through. Before I had even reached the hole, I knew something was different. Eerie, blue-green lights were flashing against the walls of the cave. I pulled myself through. Orson and Heath were standing just two feet away from me, blocking my view. Barnaby was pushing his way in behind me, so I just let him propel me forward. Heath caught me before I got too far out front.
My eyes followed theirs from the lava pit to the bronze wall. I knew, without being told a thing, that I was witnessing a horror unlike anything this world had ever seen. There was an almost visible vibration coming from the wall. Another reality overlapped this one. I saw the flashes of another race, another time so ancient it survived only at the base core of memory.
Overlapping, I saw where we were now and I saw Dr. Schneider, although he no longer looked like the Dr. Schneider I had set out with on this journey. He was partially turned away from us, toward the wall and he was chanting what an untrained ear would have taken for gibberish, yet it wasn’t. There was syntax, rhythm, pauses. He was touching spots on the wall where the etched symbols shifted and glowed, synchronizing with his chants.
He must have been there all night. His hair dripped from his head, his clothes dripped tiredly from constant movement and sweat. His eyes were wide and mesmerized, never noticing with each tongue, a fine mist wavered out from one of the symbols and began slowly revolving. I don’t believe he had any consciousness at all of what he was doing. He had been seized by a foreign, malignant spirit.
I could barely watch this unworldly sight. His hands moved faster and faster, orchestrated by a will that was not his. The symbols lifted into the air, shifted and glowed, emitting their fierce light. The shimmering mist was thickening. It poured from behind the wall into the open air, slowly congealing. I tried to get his attention. “Dr. Schneider! What are you doing?”
He had gone mad. He licked at the sweat trickling down his face, his eyes fixed intently on his strange ritual. “I can’t stop! I can’t stop! I’ve got to see. I’ve got to know.”
“No!” The command roared out of Barnaby’s mouth in blaze of rolling fire. The mist surrounding the doctor scattered in all directions for precious seconds, breaking the trance. He turned away from the wall and gazed at us with wonder. The mist gathered in one corner and began solidifying into something shapeless yet menacing. I leapt across the space from the tunnel to the wall and tackled Dr. Schneider in a football hold, wrestling him to the ground.
The half-formed specter whipped around us in silent rage. A face was forming. Hatred flooded from its eyes. “Hit it with another firebomb,” I yelled at Barnaby. A six-foot arc of fire shot through the air, passing through the effervescent form with no noticeable effects beyond hindering its ability to finishing transforming.
It was solid enough though to blast a frozen breath of air strong enough to send me hurtling to one corner of the cave. The mist began congesting again into a serpent’s body with a human head. The body coiled around Dr. Schneider, squeezing him slowly, while the head shouted, “Off-spring of Zeus, where is your father?”
Schneider was on his knees, his face white with terror. “I’m not descended from Zeus. I’m sure I am not,” he choked out.
“Sorcerer! Man of letters! Where have you hidden my children?” It shouted into his face.
He grabbed at the thing around his neck, trying uselessly to pry it loose. “I don’t know. I don’t have them.”
The thing was killing him. I crouched and calculated my distance. Rising quickly to my feet, I did a handspring and landed both feet at the distorted head. The creature snarled, drew back a solidifying arm and knocked me across the cave in a series of somersaults. My back slammed against the cave wall, knocking my breath out and giving me a few stars. I shook my head to clear it.
Whatever that thing was, it was furious. It grew until it nearly topped the ceiling of the cave and shook the doctor like a rag doll, before throwing him on the ground, roaring. Dragon powers didn’t seem to do much good against it. It was impervious to fire, water, blades and Heath’s brute strength. Crushing the professor underfoot, it roared, “where are my children?”
Damian grabbed my arm. “Get behind my back. Don’t argue. You can’t take him.”
I crouched behind him. He had his Captain America shield up. “If he solidifies, we can take him down,” Damian explained while backing slowly toward the tunnel. “In his powder form, he can’t get past the shield.”
The rest of the team were edging toward the tunnel behind us, under protection of the shield. “Who is laughing about my armor now?” He shot off at Barnaby as he slinked by. Barnaby saluted, squinted, turned into a human and slipped into the tunnel.
Damian went through last. He held his shield in front of him the entire time while the beast screeched with fury. Once on the other side, he jammed it into the entrance of the hole and blew a hot stream of metal around it, sealing it shut. “I don’t know how long that will last,” he said. “But it will give us some time. We’ll have to call in some favors.”
From the other side, I heard a long, mournful howl. “Artemis! Come back! I’m sorry, Artemis.”
I felt goose bumps crawl up and down my back and a chill touch my heart. “What is that?”
“Let’s go,” said Damian, grabbing my arm roughly. “We’ll tell you along the way. We don’t have time to waste.”
They didn’t say anything along the way. They changed back into dragons to fly out of the cavern. I climbed on Heath’s broad, steady back and felt him strain to gain lift then fly out of the cavern. Once we burst into sunlight, we kept on flying until we reached a secluded area close to the resort. I could get used to this mode of transportation easily. The only thing better would be having wings of my own. We ended up back at the patio where we had started our morning. “Sit down,” said Barnaby. “I want everyone to sit down. We need to talk about this.”
Orson
We all sat down and flung back our chairs to show that we were thinking. Irene spoke first. She was remarkably composed for a human who had just gone on an excursion with four dragons, gone through a clash with a Titan and witnessed the murder of her employer. She should be shrieking, falling apart. Instead, she looked puzzled.
“What did I see?”
Barnaby cleared his throat. “That would be Hyperion. The doctor let him out.”
Reality was sinking in slowly. “He killed Dr. Schneider.”
“Yes, he did.”
Something was struggling in her face, as though struggling to recall the face of someone who looked familiar. “He called me Artemis.”
Barnaby was punching information into his AMP report. He looked up long enough to mutter, “he is looking for the descendants of Zeus. He wants to take his revenge on them.”
“Where are the stone carvings?”
“We have them.”
She was silent, trying to take this all in. I spoke up. “Irene will have to move in with us. We can’t let her stay alone. If Hyperion believes she is Artemis, he will come looking for her.”
“We can’t stay here, either,” said Heath factually. “It’s too populated. If Hyperion wants a fight, I don’t want it in the middle of the city. We should move to the far side of the island. Someplace more isolated.”
Barnaby didn’t answer until he texted AMP and received an answer. “They said to sit tight tonight, and we can fly out in the morning. They are putting us on a private estate.”
Damian scoffed and put his arms behind his head, rocking back until his chair was dangerously close to collapsing. “So, other than running away to hide, does anyone have some ideas?”
I looked out at the sea; the beautiful blue sea; shimmering in the distance. “He’s a god, Damian. We need a strategy.”
He picked at his teeth with a metal straw. “Aren’t you friends with that fellow, Triton? Isn’t his daddy a big wheel, like Poseidon or something?”
Triton! That stuffed bag of tuna fish. I’d rather hobnob with oysters than visit his royal pain. I sniffed and continued staring out at the sea. “He’s an intolerable prick, especially now that being half-fish and half-human is all the rage. Anyway, what can a water god do about Hyperion?”
Damian was being a prick. He rocked his chair back and forth, a maddening clicking coming from the protesting legs. “He could tell us of any weaknesses Hyperion might have.”
They were all looking at me expectantly. I didn’t like dealing with gods or half-gods. They were vain, self-indulgent and contemptuous of mortals – even mortals with a life-expectancy of eight hundred years. You can’t kill a god. You can only send them to another world and lock the gate behind you. We had to find a way to send Hyperion back to Tartarus. Poseidon probably knew a way, but it was doubtful his affected son knew how to add two and two together to get four. Still, I supposed it was worth a shot. Triton did have his connections.
It wasn’t an easy decision. As the lord of the sea, he owed me nothing and if he did me a favor, I would owe him for the next one hundred years. “I’ll check up on him in the morning when we reach Sitia,”
Damian scoffed and let his chair settle heavily into place. “Why can’t you do it tonight? Do you need a special invitation?”
He was trying to make me lose my temper. It’s what he likes to do, he and the rest of the barbaric tribe. It wasn’t really that hard to do. Dragons only understand two things well - fighting and beautiful women. Sometimes, it comes down to fighting for beautiful women, something I’m not opposed to doing. “You’re awfully anxious to get rid of me today and I think I know why. We’re holed up here for the whole afternoon and evening with Irene. You figure it’s a good opportunity to finish what you started while you were drunk. Just so you know, she came to me first. You’re runner up.”
Damian threw a blade at me and I ducked it easily, coming up to land a solid side kick against his chest. We were ready to go at it blow by blow until Heath cleared his throat and rumbled in his big bass tones, “I think I was probably the first one she screwed. It was just a quickie.”
We had been concentrating on blocking each other’s moves, but Heath’s words made us both stop and stare at him with astonishment, our face-off abandoned. We weren’t nearly as astonished as Barnaby. I hadn’t known it was possible, but his sour apple face looked wounded, and his eyes sagged. “You screwed everybody except me?”
All eyes shifted to Irene expectantly. She fiddled with the band at the back of her head, releasing her ponytail in a blue-black cascade. She shook it back and reached across the table to take his hands. “I was going to get around to it. You’re just hard to get alone.”
His red hair looked like it would burst into fire. He looked at his freckled wrists, then pulled his hands loose and waved them in the air. “I can be alone. Can’t I be alone, mates? In my bedroom?”
Fair was fair. If she was willing to pass her treats around, who was I to judge? She didn’t belong to me. I hadn’t even been first. I sprawled across my bed, wondering how much alone time we should permit before declaring our rights to getting better acquainted with our new team member.
I figured fifteen minutes was a long enough time for polite etiquette. I’m sure fifteen minutes was all she had given me. Heath and Damian didn’t count. Heath’s had been a quickie at the end of a rope, in the darkness of a cavern and Damian had been drunk. Fifteen minutes was the fair allotted time.
I slipped out of my bedroom and glanced down the hallway. It was empty. I stole over to Barnaby’s door and turned the knob gently. It was already partway open. I opened it a bit more and peered inside. Heath had beat me to it! He had tiptoed up to the bed where Barnaby crouched over Irene, kissing her breasts. Her legs were up and locked around his back.
Heath undressed quietly and sat down next to them. He curved one massive arm under Barnaby’s head, pillowing it, and ran the other down Irene’s back, stopping appreciably at her round, firm butt and cupping one cheek in his hand. A muffled voice came from Irene’s throat. “Hello Johnson.”
This was more than I could take. We’re lusty fellas. Born and bred that way. It keeps our gene pool secure because there are few female humans and demi-goddesses that don’t want to take a romp with us. I’m not bragging. It’s just the facts of life, the way it’s impossible for sea-faring men to stay away from sirens. That’s why you get some of these morphed-out creatures like gorgons and sea monsters – not to disrespect my race – but that’s how we are. We’re lusty.
I took off my clothes right there in the doorway and joined the threesome, curving around to the other side, feeling Irene’s lush body slowly relax and spread out as Barnaby came inside her. He rolled over and let her sprawl. My lips moved down her damp arm and kissed the sweet, perky breasts. She moaned, her legs opening wider. I kissed my way to the black velvet mound, nuzzling at the clit.
Heath held her breasts in his giant paws, rolling the nipples, causing them to stand at attention. He slid under her back, his impression Johnson touching my tongue. I pressed it against her lovely little beaver, licking the folds surrounding his shaft. Her hands reached down and found his cock, working it frantically as it slipped inside and out again. With a cry, she turned over and straddled him, burying his cock deeply inside.
She was sitting on top of him, riding him for all he was worth. Getting on my knees behind Heath’s head. I reclaimed her jiggling breasts, sucking first one, then the other, holding them close together. Even as Heath was climaxing, she grabbed my cock and began fondling it, rubbing the swollen head, kissing and licking it, her hands sliding up and down. She squeezed my balls and I almost burst into a waterspout.
I no longer knew what position I had taken. I was all over her and she was all over me. We twisted and twined. I closed my eyes as waves of ecstasy rolled over me. It felt like I was being touched by a hundred hands. I heard a steely voice in my ear. “This is almost like climbing into bed with two women.”
My eyes flicked open. Damian had joined us. He stroked back my hair and kissed my neck. It was an odd sensation but not unpleasant. He was almost shy about it, as though it was something he had wanted to do for a long time. His finger traced the line of my jaw, then traveled down to my private parts. “I’ve always wondered what your skin felt li
ke. Whether it was cold or warm. It’s warm.”
I don’t normally enjoy satisfying the curiosity of men, but after the romp I had just been through, I couldn’t really criticize Damian. He was just taking up where the rest of us had left off. If he found it necessary to make observations about my body, I would just have to chalk it up to one of Damian’s more peculiar traits.
“Don’t stop because of me,” he whispered, urging my union with Irene but managing to stay in the circle. He continued kissing me, but he clutched my face and held it close to Irene’s, kissing us both. It was a complete turn-on. Dark, mysterious Damian, a dangerous cave archeologist and me, while my already satiated mates looked on. That waterspout erupted bigtime.
Afterward – long afterward - we sat on the bed, half-dressed, wondering if we should discuss what just happened. It was awkward. We spent most of our time quarreling with each other when we weren’t working a case. Well, even when we were working a case. It seems the main policy in our relationship had been we agreed to disagree. Yet there was something incredibly tender in the way we had responded to each other while making love to Irene.
Damian was in a corner with some of that metal goo he coughs up to mold into things. Barnaby was leaning against the headboard, legs stretched in front of him, belching smoke rings. I had plopped in an armchair. Our escapade had gotten me so heated; I was blowing water steam. Heath was sitting in the middle of the bed with Irene, who had slipped back into her panties and bra, but that was it. “Who are you?” He asked. “We don’t really know anything about you. You haven’t cried or screamed or done any of the things women normally do when faced with the unknown.”
“I’ll keep it simple,” she answered. “My father is an exobiologist and a caver. Our home is near Carlsbad Canyon. I’ve spent my whole life caving and going on expeditions. They weren’t all wild goose chases, but they don’t make those files public, do they?”
