by Laura Wylde
Barnaby
Sure, I was mad at Orson. He had pumped himself up with his self-importance and neglected to give me vital information. I was mad enough to steam his ass. But I didn’t want him to leave us. When we had gone to bed that night, I thought it was all good. Sure, we were still pissed off, but not so much at him anymore. We had all pressured him into making that royal visit. We were all eager to do whatever it took to send Hyperion back to Tartarus.
It was a strange evening of lovemaking. I could feel Irene’s hands sliding over me, holding my cock and guiding it into her. I could taste her sweet flavor, smell her desire, but I could also taste sadness. I could sense regret. What was odd was I felt this same regret in Damian. I felt almost like I was comforting the two of them. I had never known Damian to regret anything. I held him as close as I held Irene.
The evening blurred as we tried to cover an unspoken sorrow. I felt a sense of loss I didn’t understand. It had nothing to do with the violence of the day. It was something Irene wouldn’t share, yet we felt it in every touch.
We included Damian. I’m sure we did. It was unthinkable to leave him out of the circle. Yet, we didn’t notice when he left us. We were sound asleep, crowded close together.
I woke with a persistent pat-pat around my face and the blankets. I mumbled and sat up. Irene was pawing anxiously through the covers. Her long hair scattered around her face, partially covering it and the gown she had thrown on slipped from one shoulder. She kept muttering over and over, “where did he go?”
She had wakened all of us. Damian wrapped a sheet around himself and moved to an armchair, plopping down. Heath gripped his big, curly haired head. “Ouch. Oh, I’m still sore. I feel like I collided with a Boeing 707. What’s up, god killer?”
“Very funny,” she said, pulling the hair out of her eyes and pushing it back. “It’s Orson. I can’t find him anywhere. I thought maybe he had gone back to the pool, but he wasn’t there. I’ve searched the whole house and the stables, too. The centaurs said they haven’t seen him.”
Damian was flicking a blade, catching the handle each time and concentrating on giving it a few more revolutions in the air before catching it again. “I saw him talking with Astir before he went into the pool last night. Maybe Orson said something to him.”
She bounced and flung her arms around. “Why didn’t Astir speak up? Would it have been hard for him to say, oh, I was talking to him earlier. He had some kind of burr up his ass.”
The blade flicked again, and he snatched it, rotating it through his fingers. “Maybe he doesn’t have a burr up his ass. Maybe he just has a lot on his mind and wants to spend some time alone.”
She put herself together, pulling a thick robe over her gown, which was a little disappointing. The gown had a wide, scooped neck and when she moved around, you could see her pert little nipples. She tugged at Damian. “Let’s go talk to Astir. Maybe he knows where Orson went.”
I watched Orson slouch off with Irene, meek as a lamb. She really did have us wrapped, but what the hell. Women like that only came once a century. I doubted anything would come of it but if those two wanted to waste their time talking to horses, I didn’t care. Orson’s disappearance disturbed me more than I wanted her to see. At least, playing detective would keep her from dwelling. It would keep her busy and keep her from noticing that I was worried, too.
I told them I needed to contact headquarters and get a full assessment on the damages. I buried myself with my laptop so she couldn’t read my face.
All of us have taken off before without warning. We’re a bunch of hot-headed fools. We’d distance ourselves, let off some steam, then come stumbling home, usually roaring drunk. This was different. It wasn’t about an argument. It was about shame. Orson is emotional. He takes things straight to heart. It’s hard to say what he might do if he really felt he had dishonored the dragons. I closed out my thoughts and contacted the director.
I thought we were going to get our butts chewed out for letting Hyperion slip through our hands, but damage control indicated they were satisfied. There had been two other village massacres near the mountain base and one at a resort along the Heraklion Coast. There had also been a string of murders within the city of Heraklion. They had all been a few hours apart, there had been no fingerprints, no point of entry, no identifiable weapons and no motives. They abruptly stopped when Hyperion disappeared over the ocean. It was the Director’s belief Hyperion was killing off the human bloodline of Zeus. As far as they were concerned, the case was closed, and we could get on with our lives. The only thing left was to bury the cave.
I wanted to find Orson that much more quickly, just to let him know we had been redeemed. We weren’t failures. We were heroes. The only one still in the room was Heath, but he was excited enough for two or three people. He swooped me up in a bear hug I could seriously have done without, then remembered we were short on staff. “We need to find Orson!”
He strode so fast, I had to scramble to keep up. I had no idea the walking beer tank could move that quickly. Irene and Damian were still at the stables, talking with Astir. Neither of them looked very happy. Damian studied the ground in front of me. “Astir thinks Orson may have gone to the palace to confront Triton.”
I groaned and rubbed my nose, trying to prevent smoke from coming out of it. “AMP doesn’t want us stirring up the gods any more than we have already. You pick a fight with Triton - you pick a fight with Poseidon.”
He looked at the sky. He stared at the ground. His eyes wandered over to where Irene was still talking to Astir and twisting the knot on her robe. “I’m going after him,” said Damian suddenly.
I tried arguing with him. “Did you hear what I just said? We’re supposed to stay out of it.”
I could have been talking to the wall. Without another word, he sprouted his wings and off he flew. After a few seconds of indecision, Heath flew off behind him. Irene grabbed my arm before I could react and shook it. “Take me with you.” What could I say? She is our princess, our queen, the object of our slavish devotion.
“I’m a little more streamlined than Heath.”
“I know. Take me with you.”
She turns my brains into mashed potatoes. I did a quick transformation and offered her my back. She climbed up clinging to the spikes running down my neck. “Hang on,” I told her.
I tried to keep my speed down, but in no time, we were zooming out to the shoreline in a search for disturbances in the water. I’ll tell you one thing. Irene’s a good rider. She stuck on like glue.
We couldn’t find anything unusual at all at first, just the usual fishing boats, cruise ships, tourist crowds and other assorted water sport lovers. Far over on the west side of the island, in the most deserted region, we saw what appeared at first to be a very large school of fish swimming toward the shoreline. There could be only one reason for such a strange sight. I pointed ahead with a ball of flame. “Over there!”
The fish had been moving in fast. They made a long, wide vee in the water, attracting others until it looked like a rainbow parade, with every color, size and shape of sea animal imaginable. Less than two miles from shore, the head of the school turned and began lashing out at the others. The water began boiling with fighting fish, making it difficult to see anything at all. Irene shook one of the horned spikes on my head. “Look!”
At the tail end of the school were two sea serpents. They were snapping up some of the stragglers and were generally having a gay old-time creating carnage. I whistled for Heath. “Take Irene with you, will you? I’m going to barbecue a couple of serpents.”
Damian was intently watching the chaos below us. “I’m going down there. I have a feeling Orson is in the middle of this.”
“I want to go down there, too,” said Irene.
I belched a little friendly fire. “Now, why do you want to go down there?”
“Orson’s down there. I want to help.”
My scales quivered with exasperation. “Your powers don’t
cover underwater acrobatics.”
“I know that, but I still want to help.”
I hesitated. Damian was already cutting like a knife into the water, undoubtedly finding a few sea nymphs to wrestle. Heath was too heavy bodied to swim and fight in dragon form. I could leave Irene with him and still be safe. I eased over until I was flying just above Heath’s brontosaurus sized body so Irene could slip safely from my back onto his.
Irene blew me a kiss as she settled into place. I honestly thought, for a few seconds, that Irene wouldn’t be a part of whatever was happening below us. Heath wouldn’t join the fight underwater because he couldn’t swim in dragon form. He wouldn’t be able to protect her. If he couldn’t protect her, he wouldn’t fly her in.
I didn’t get off that easily. Just as I was turning to chase me some serpents, I heard Irene say, “You can fly just above the water then change into a human. We can both drop down at the same time.”
He was going to agree. I just knew it. He was nothing but vanilla pudding in her hands.
I flew off, once again irritated that nobody ever followed the rules. The rules were, if you spotted a sea monster creating havoc, you destroyed it. There were no rules regarding getting into the middle of a fish war. Damian was probably right, though. Orson was somewhere in the middle of it.
Heath
I had the perfect excuse for not going into battle and Irene punched a hole in it. I’m a brawly dude. There was no doubt about it. In human or dragon form, I made a formidable combatant. It doesn’t matter how strong you are though in the water. It’s about being the best swimmer. In human form, I swam as well as a human, but not the kind that wins championship medals. In dragon form, I was a battleship with a missing rudder. I didn’t know how well Irene could fight and swim, but apparently, I was about to find out.
Even up close, it was difficult to make out what was happening. The water was in too much of a frenzy, but I did see the humped back of a water dragon, and then another. I nodded to Irene. “He’s here.”
I skimmed over the water until we were just a few feet above it, then changed. We dropped down at the same time. I could scarcely believe what I saw. I’m a cave dragon. I live an austere life by Orson’s standards. My room is a collection of dead things; skulls and bone fragments, pinned butterflies, artifacts writhing with ghosts. His looks like an art collector’s, with a taste for vibrant colors. Now I could see why. There was every color imaginable waving in flashing tails and wriggling bodies. There were shapes and sizes I had not dreamed were possible.
There were giant seahorses; over six feet tall. They were rearing up, slashing at the water while some merpeople tried to lasso them. I saw three water dragons, all in different shades of ice green to lavender with silvery tints wrestling with the merpeople. They twisted around each other, slapping with their tails and snarling. The dragons appeared to be defending the seahorses and the merpeople simply wanted to lasso the sea horses and were really pissed off the dragons were in the way.
I finally spotted Orson at the front. He was being chased by several sirens and a scaly, green monster. To get to him, I would have to get through an entire swarm of sea nymphs. They were taking advantage of the confusion by latching on to anything that had a penis. I tapped Irene’s shoulder. She had been wheeling around in the water, looking for something to fight, but it really seemed a shame to pick on any of these creatures. Their quarrels weren’t with her.
She saw that Orson hadn’t planned to stick around, either. He was paddling for shore as fast as a sea dragon can go that has a couple of passengers trying to ride him. The creature from the Black Lagoon was getting closer. We saw something jet black and shining skim over the water, a few nymphs clinging its tail. Damian was getting closer too.
I couldn’t change back into a dragon while still in the water. I was just too heavy. The only thing to do was plow through the way Orson was doing. I set off swimming for shore with Irene keeping pace beside me. The nymphs found me. They began grabbing me all over my body; my arms my chest, my legs, my buttocks, their hands sliding everywhere, torturing me in their quest for pleasure. I was trying to ignore them, but they had ripped off my clothes and were licking me everywhere below the waist. I groaned and swam harder.
If it had not been for Irene, I probably would have ended up drowning in an orgasm among twenty sea nymphs. She began that cat-fighting thing girls do when they are defending their man territory. She grabbed one by the hair and punched her. Still holding her by the hair, she grabbed another and knocked the two heads together. She bit, gouged, pulled hair, kicked and punched in the boobs like a little dirty street fighter.
The one thing we provided was a distraction. The more nymphs there were chasing me and Damian, the fewer there were holding Olson back from reaching shore. Damian’s main concentration was the green monster. He was a horrible looking thing, with vampire-like teeth and boils. It saw Damian coming and turned to him, hissing. Damian reared back with a blade and the creature swooped at him with a clawed hand. He ducked aside and slashed out, leaving a cut trailing across the monster’s arm. It stomped in the water and roared, waving at him with both arms. He caught Damian hard enough in the ribs to give him a spin, but he straightened out and dove back in, both daggers slashing. The creature slumped into the water.
All that was left was getting to shore before the nymphs dragged us down. They hung on like leaches. Five hundred yards from shore and I was about to give up. Even Irene was tired of tossing around sex-crazed water sprites. I will never be unsympathetic with Orson’s tales of horny underwater women again. I gave a little whimper, feeling it was surely the end, when Barnaby showed up with his flame-throwing exhibition.
Barnaby had their attention. They saw those balls of fire zooming toward them and dived under water like bats out of hell. He coughed out a few more flames to let them know he was serious, then flew to the beach and waited for the rest of us to come in.
“How was it?” He asked when I reached shore.
“The greatest torment I’ve ever gone through,” I panted. “It was horrible. Hands all over me. Touching me you-know-where.”
He had changed back to nerd-looking human Barnaby. He blinked at me with an owlish stare. “I know where?”
“You know, everywhere. Even the private places.”
“How do you take it?” Groaned Damian, rolling toward Orson. “I didn’t want to hurt them but how do you get them off you? Is there some kind of repellant?”
Orson was building a little sandcastle between his feet. He seemed happy to be on land and in human form again. “It’s not usually this bad,” he said. “Things are a little lawless right now.”
Barnaby’s ears perked up. “What happened?”
“Anarchy. Complete anarchy.” Orson looked at us as though he wasn’t sure we wanted to hear the woes of the water world. He was our good buddy. He fought for us on land. Why shouldn’t we champion him in the water?
He built some little spires and poked holes for windows. “Triton left with Hyperion. The water dragons and the merpeople are fighting over the palace. The squids want them to hold parliament or they will tear the palace down. It’s complete chaos.”
“Bullocks!” Said Barnaby. “I’m going to have to file this in our report. Triton’s gone? The underwater world has no government? I imagine we’ll have to give a red alert for fishing boats.”
“We will,” said Orson soberly. “Things are completely out of control.”
I noticed that Irene was getting restless. “We should get back to the house,” I suggested. “We’ve got some things to wash off us.”
I don’t know how a woman feels whose four dragons have been gang-raped by ravishing creatures, but I think it can’t be good. She rode my back on the way home, pressing against my neck and laying her head there. There was something very possessive about the way she held on. I was doing my best to look gravely wounded, but secretly, my heart was singing. She cared and would fight as fiercely for me as I would for her
.
I knew she was sad though, because she didn’t say anything, not even when we got home and scrubbed ourselves raw. We tried to cheer her up by helping her bathe, but it only half-cheered her. We dressed and sat in the living room, catching each other up on what we had learned. It was getting late and we were getting drowsy after a day of excitement, when Orson sat up suddenly. “Oh! I almost forgot. Hyperion didn’t take his daughters with him.” He pulled out a leather bag and set it on the coffee table.
Irene’s brilliant eyes flashed, and her lips parted into a smile that showed all her perfect teeth. “You have the sisters!”
I didn’t understand her joy. It was enormous. She sparkled all over. “What will you do with them?” I asked.
She squeezed the leather bag in her hand and thought about it. “I will cherish them.”
Dragons are known to be thick-headed and I’ve probably got one of the thickest there is. I don’t pretend to understand anyone, least of all women. Once Irene had the four sisters back, she really was happy. It seemed she just snapped her fingers and a cloud that had been hovering over us all day was suddenly gone. After the hideous brothers, I had no idea why she would want the four sisters.
If she was happy, I was happy. Barnaby brought out some real dragon’s brew. It tasted somewhat like a hot, spiced peppermint Schnapps, mixed with pomegranates and grapes. It had a kick like a pissed off mule. I was happily exploring my newly inebriated state when I heard Orson ask Irene teasingly if she would like to know what it was like to be attacked by water nymphs.
I was just drunk enough to think this was an excellent idea. She had seen the struggle! She had joined the battle! “Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be one of the victims?” I asked her.
She sniffed haughtily. “There were twenty nymphs after you. Only four of you are going after me? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“But each of us is worth five nymphs,” I promised.
