by M J Marstens
Ugh.
Kill me now.
Behind us, the inmates are growing restless.
“This way, everyone!” I order, urging everyone towards the cart.
Dev looks apprehensive, but no one questions me and does as I’ve directed. Clearly, they know I have some tricks up my sleeve. Aside from having a magical hammer, I have a magical cart, too. Well—my father does. Like Mjölnir, the cart will stretch to accommodate the number of passengers and Tanny and Tangy never feel a weight change.
“Climb in!” I yell, “Quick! And don’t touch the goats!”
Dev looks a little panicked as the cart begins to grow as more demis pour in. I join him at the helm.
“Thank you,” I whisper for only him to hear.
I feel someone press up against my back.
“Don’t thank me yet, princess,” Lover whispers right back, clearly not caring that I wasn’t talking to him.
I elbow him and Bi-Polar chuckles.
“Handy little chariot you have here, Fuck-Off,” he compliments me.
“It is, isn’t it? Bet you didn’t think you could cram so many convicts into it, did you?” I joke.
“Makes me wonder what else you have that will stretch to accommodate lots of things,” he teases right back.
“I have somethi—” Lover starts, but I cut him off before Dev can shove him over the edge.
“Tanny, Tangy—to freedom!” I shout and Dad’s beloved goats take off.
I have no idea where freedom is, but Tanny and Tangy are smart. They’ll know where to take us.
Hopefully, it’s somewhere with a room where I can privately drown in my embarrassment.
12
Dev
I have to remind myself that demigods can’t be killed without magic. No matter how much I want to toss that Lover character overboard, I’m not going to be able to actually get rid of him. According to what Val’s told me, he’d just be pissed and come back with a vengeance.
Per my massive amounts of research—aka listening to Val’s stories about slights dating back to childhood and realizing she can’t let go of the time her sisters called her Chicken Little for screaming that the sky was falling after she rode through a storm with her dad—demigods hold onto a grudge. Mullet man would probably survive the fall through the universe and find a way to haunt me with bad haircuts or something for the rest of my days.
I sigh and drop my annoyance at that Tiger King wannabe pressing against Val’s side. She kissed me, I remind myself. And it was a fucking epic, way beyond friends type of kiss.
I let myself daydream of that as I hold the reins absently, not really doing anything as the goats pull us up above the clouds and navigate themselves, just like they did on the way here. Once I’d hitched up the cart, it was like they read my mind and knew what I wanted to do.
If this is Thor’s job, he has it pretty good. Sit, back, relax, let the goats do the work for you and toss out a lightning bolt every now and again.
It kind of reminds me of my boss. I’m pretty sure he plays games on his phone most of the day, but every couple hours he’ll stretch his legs and come peer over your shoulder, jolting you to attention.
As the cart lurches through the golden sky of Duat, I turn away from the horny bastard with yellow underwear and toward the Egyptian dude who looks like a guard standing on my left. I eye his outfit speculatively. There’s not a lick of the prison-orange that Ra seems to have embraced with the other prisoners. Instead, this guy is wearing armor with a white sheet underneath, giving me a whole “Walk Like An Egyptian” vibe. Ra is fucking Egyptian. Suspicion makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. What the hell is this guy doing here?
I move to stand between armor dude and Val, who can sometimes be too trusting. It makes me wonder what this guy might have said to get her to take him with us. He came in with some other dude who also wasn’t dressed like a prisoner. Why are they here? Are they going to give these poor demis a taste of freedom then just wrench it away? Are we actually safe? Or is he one of Ra’s lackeys? I reach into my pocket and finger the love arrow I still have in there. It’s not much of a weapon, but it’s the only one I’ve got. I tilt my head as I look into the Egyptian guard’s kohl-lined blue eyes. “What were you in for?”
“I’m Khepri. I’m a guard. Or was.”
Val leans over with a grin and pats Khepri’s chest. “He helped us escape.” She pulls back and leans on me almost like a girlfriend would.
My nerves sizzle like bacon.
Her touch is as delicious as bacon.
I might be hungry. I did skip dinner and technically go to hell and back (if Duat can count as hell) in order to help Val.
I give a wan smile in Khepri’s direction and he extends a hand toward me. I still don’t trust him completely. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I push the reins over to my left hand so we can shake, my suspicion muted but not quite gone as he keeps talking.
“I’m a former sun god. Retired. Now, I’m just a god of shit.” His grip is firm without being that dick-move intimidating, crush-your-bones type.
“By shit you mean …” I hope that’s just a metaphor.
“Feces.”
Gross. Ugh. I retract my hand and shove it in my pocket, wiping it off on the material inside and hoping he’s not a ‘hands on’ kind of god. Why would he be a former sun god but keep the shit powers? It’s one of those questions you can’t ask out loud but will forever stick in your head when you look at a person, silently judging them.
Khepri grins like he knows what I’m doing, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he says, “Actually, I hate Ra. I only took this job to help the Demigodling escape. I knew every route out but never did think to steal another god’s weapon. Or release everyone in order to cause enough chaos that my intended target could get away. That was all this beauty’s idea.”
I look down at said beauty and she smiles up at me.
Pride fills my chest. I’ve always known Val had so much more to give, and not just because she is part goddess—because of her goodness. I squeeze her against me again, before releasing her so she can turn and answer a question from one of the former prisoners.
I turn back to the front and look out. We trundle through Duat’s sky until the yellow fades to the pitch black, diamond-scattered expanse of space. At first, I’m a little concerned about the whole death-by-suffocation-and-space-ice thing, but the cart does its magic thing and an invisible bonnet pops up over the sides that blurs my view a bit. We don’t die, so it kind of feels like the supernatural equivalent of Oregon Trail. Actually, that’s not true. If this was Oregon trail, the demis in this wagon would be dropping left and right from cholera and snake bites. Instead, behind us, Asteio is shooting wine through the air and a lot of pre-orgy action is happening. If Oregon Trail had looked anything like this, I would have been playing that game twenty four/seven instead of mocking my older brother for the fact that he liked retro computer games with subpar graphics.
I glance at a nymph who is currently naked and wrapping an arm that’s transforming into a tree limb around the back of a guy with some deer antlers. When her nipple pops out of her top, I quickly turn forward again and next to me, the guard, Khepri, laughs. “Prudish?”
I hate how my neck and ears get flushed. It fucking sucks. “Orgies have never been my thing.” That’s a total lie. I love orgy porn. But you don’t talk about that shit. That’s the kind of secret you lie about to your significant other and take to the grave. Oh, and you make sure you’ve deleted all that crap long before you croak. Nothing sends a funeral straight to hell faster than your loved ones’ discovery of your secret fetishes.
Khepri nods. “I can agree somewhat. Sex with complete strangers has never been as good. There needs to be chemistry. Your... girlfriend...” he trails off, clearly prying for more information.
My heartbeat quickens as he says the word I’ve wanted to assign to Val for years. But I just raise a brow. She’ll have to define o
ur relationship. I’m here for whatever it is. But I hope that kiss ... that jet-fueled, sonic boom of a kiss, is a sign that this Khepri dude is right.
He leans forward conspiratorially. “She’s pretty sensitive, isn’t she?”
My lips press into a thin line. This guy has already talked about smelling Val’s desire. No way I’m going to talk with him in detail about Val in a sexual way, especially when I don't even know those answers myself. Soon. Soon. I hope. I cross every finger I’ve got. But though I hope to find out, I’m definitely not going to kiss and tell. So, instead, I change the subject.
“What exactly are your powers?” I ask.
His resulting grin is huge. “I’m so glad you asked.” Khepri raises a tanned hand and snaps, his kohl-lined eyes crinkling at the edges in what could only be called an evil grin. Behind me, the demigod with the antlers shits his pants. And not just a little. We’re talking trumpet-loud explosions that cause a lump in the back of his pants.
Dammit.
My eyes widen and I swallow hard. Thoughts of taking Khepri on disappear in a flash as the nymph woman tries desperately to disengage her tangled branches from deer-shit guy.
Khepri grins. “I’m not a huge fan of that guy. Most of the prisoners were in for bogus charges. Or because Ra hates them. But Aidan, son of Cernunnos1 over there likes to chase maidens through the forest and rut them in beast form while they’re still human.”
I scrunch my eyes. “Don’t a lot of gods do that?”
“Yeah, and if I could imprison all of them, I would. Those poor women are traumatized for life. I mean, just imagine being forced to make love to a bull, give birth to a baby minotaur, and then have to care for it.2”
I nod. “Good point.” He’s right. My pity for shitstain dissolves. Anger takes its place.
Khepri gestures out at the sea of prisoners. “On the other hand, most of these halflings are innocents. In particular, the Demigodling.”
"What? Who?" I'm lost as my eyes scan over hundreds of people crowded into the back of the wagon.
The Egyptian god of shit points a tanned finger over at a bald guy who's currently making out with another dude with ... grey goat legs? Is that Asteio?
They break apart and I can see that it is. Both men are breathing heavily. Asteio's goat tail is wagging madly. And I definitely raise my line of sight so that I don't see if he's got a goat boner or not. There's no eyewash station on this wagon and I would definitely need one if I saw something like that. The goat dick. Not a guy dick. Guy on guy … that’s another one of those take it to the grave type of guilty pleasures.
Suddenly, I feel like an idiot for all those years I was secretly jealous, worried about Asteio’s friendship with Val. I'm an insecure jerkoff. I can admit it to myself at least.
I wave weakly at Asteio, who grins and does some finger guns in my direction, shooting wine right into my mouth and making me sputter.
"Shit, Asteio, warn a guy next time, will you?" I choke out. The wine that makes it into my mouth, and not onto my shirt, burns as it goes down. The ancients definitely have lower standards when it comes to alcohol than we do now. Asteio's wine tastes like rubbing alcohol.
Val leans around me and wags a hand at him. "Yeah, no choking my Dev."
Ah, shit. She called me hers. Yes. A little fire lights up in my chest. It crackles and jumps, sparks flying between us.
I swallow hard.
Damn. I still have a hard time believing she’s staring up at me like that. Tenderly. My fucking heart is a rainbow-colored, cheesy-as-shit 1980s Lite-Brite. My head’s a teenage girl with a side ponytail and scrunchie watching Pretty in Pink and swooning.
I want to kiss Val for an eternity.
Why does this moment have to be happening in front of a million other demis? I’m about to pluck Val off her feet and kiss her again despite the audience, but there's a beautiful Phillipino demigoddess wedging herself between us only seconds later.
Talk about a moment ruiner.
I have to contain my glare as she introduces herself.
"Hi, I'm Tala. And I'm not sure if you know this, but I can feel the sun hot on our trail."
I glance above us at the dark depths of space. I don't see anything but a ton of stars winking in the distance, and maybe a shadow that's a black hole. I definitely am not interested in finding out about that though. I’m just seconds into enjoying my existence completely and I’m not quite ready for it to end. I pull the reins slightly left so we give that sucker wide berth.
My eyes return to the petite woman with the serious expression.
"Excuse me?" I ask Tala, gesturing at the sky above our magical, transparent wagon bonnet, "but I think you might be mistaken. There’s no sun near here."
The woman brushes her black hair backward and rolls her eyes at me. Of course she does. I'm just a puny human. Tala focuses her gaze on Val's grey-blue eyes. "My father is a sun god—"
I look over at the yellow-undie man with the sun on his crotch. "Is everyone's damn father a sun god?"
Asteio chuckles nearby and uses a goat hoof to paw the floor of the wagon. “There are a shit ton of sun gods, aren't there?”
Lover gives a shrug, drawing his long hair in back over one shoulder and then flexing his pecs in an alternating fashion, right then left. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m offended anyway.
Val shushes me, but then she puts an arm around my waist before I can get upset by her actions. It's a smart move, because my brain basically starts to power off when her hand nears my right front pocket. It's the closest she's ever been to my dick and my body's suddenly overheating, picturing her hand sliding just a bit farther.
I try to look away and get myself under control, but that Khepri guy is there and he just smiles knowingly. If he can smell Val's orgasm, can he smell the fact that my cock is currently lubing up with precum just from a simple touch?
I hope not but I don't look at him because I don’t want to find out. I let my eyes drift back over to Lover, whose gaze is narrowed on me and Val in what I assume is jealousy. Guess his tittie dance didn’t get the reaction he wanted. Too bad. I pull Val harder against me. (Gods, it feels good to finally touch her the way I want.) I then try to tune in to whatever this Tala girl is saying.
"My dad is always trying to eat my mom and me," Tala explains, playing with the ends of her black hair.
My lip curls in disgust.
Lover steps forward until he's shoulder to shoulder with Val on the other side. Then he reaches out and taps Tala's shoulder. "Are you talking about ... incest?"
Tala sticks out her tongue. "Ew. Gross. No. Cannibalism. My mom tricked my dad into eating some of my siblings so now he's pissed and trying to eat us."3
"That's disappointing," Lover replies.
I'm not sure if he's disappointed by the lack of incest or the Silence of the Lambs style family dynamic. To me, both seem pretty damn horrific. I pull Val harder into my chest, glad that her father actually seems to love and care for her.
I can't help leaning down and placing a little kiss in her hair.
Val glances up at me with a soft smile that shoots right through my heart, piercing it more fully than any damn love arrow ever could. Her look only lasts a second before she turns back to Tala as the woman continues, "I can sense when my dad's coming for my family. I can feel him now. He's only a couple light years away. He must know that I've left the prison—"
"It's probably common knowledge by now," Khepri, the guard, interrupts. "Ra will know you all have escaped. He'll have spread the word."
Somehow, what was a minor conversation between Tala and Val, morphs into an address to everyone. When Khepri started to speak, a hush fell over all the demigods and stretched back across the wooden cart, which feels like it's currently the length of a football field, though I know that's a messed up exaggeration created by my imagination. The announcement about Ra cues a giant, 1950s style gasp from the crowd.
Then a chorus of squawks, curses, and worried shri
eks go up.
"What are we going to do?"
"I can't let my mother find me! I just can't!" An Indian god worries the ends of his handlebar mustache. He'd totally give off a Snidely Whiplash, cartoon-villain kind of vibe if he weren't hunch-shouldered and quaking right now. But, currently, he's not living up to his mustache's potential for evil.
(This is why I've never grown a mustache without a beard too. I can pull off a hippie look but I don't have enough badass evil villain in me to pull off a solo mustache.)
My contemplation is cut off by the panic surging through the demigods here who have more parental issues than the Lannisters from Game of Thrones.
"You're worried about your mother?" A tall woman with green skin yells at the mustache man. "My father wants to drink my blood to restore himself!"
Oh shit. The cart starts to waver as a panicked stampede forms and demigods rush around like headless chickens, bemoaning their impending doom. It does not help things when a comet streaks by.
I put two fingers to my mouth and give a loud-ass sports whistle, the only thing I actually learned from playing baseball for one season when I was nine.
The demigods all freeze and look at me. I look down at Val, who blinks. “Calm them down,” I whisper.
It has to be her. They won't listen to me. She's the one who freed them. She has to take the lead here. I slide my hand down to give her a supportive tap on the back only to find that Lover's hand is back there, shoved into one of her jean pockets. He may or may not be kneading her ass.
I wanna punch that fucker then, but I restrain myself because this is Val's big moment. And I don't want to undermine her in front of her peers. And for some reason, she’s letting him do that.
Does she think it’s me?
Gods, I hope so. Partially because that would mean ass rubbing is on the table and partially because the thought of sharing her … ok, well, that goes in the hidden spank bank too—that thing is getting pretty full, I realize.
Val clears her throat and raises her voice. "Look, everyone, we're going to help you. I got you out, and I'm not going to just let your relatives entrap you again."
