There was a single moment of paralytic terror.
Then Liam looked around desperately and, once more, being from Earth saved his hide. Not because Earth had taught him anything in the vein of spotting pickpockets - growing up in relatively crime free suburbs had in fact quietly smothered that instinct in the crib - but because his pouch didn't hold coins, it held an iPod in a plastic Ziploc baggie. Two things that no one on Purgatory had ever seen before he had arrived on the scene.
So, the thief was standing only a few feet away, looking utterly perplexed as she held up the baggie with a pair of fingers. She was short and very young looking – if Liam had to guess, he'd have said she was between ten to thirteen years old. Her dark brown hair was long and bedraggled, and she had none of the signs of otherworldly ancestry that would have marked her as an elf or a goblin or any of the other weird races of Purgatory.
She was dressed in homespun rags and bits of cast-off clothing. He recognized a Coptic kilt, the fur jacket of an Aesir, and other scraps.
“Hey!” Liam shouted, pointing at her. “Thief!”
The pickpocket snapped her gaze away from the iPod she held, her eyes widening with fear. She turned and she ran into the crowd, people stepping to the side. A few did reach for her, but others simply wanted to get out of the way. A distant part of Liam could hardly blame them. A six foot something giant with a sword as big as their bodies was charging at them.
He'd have gotten out of the way too!
The thief made immediately for an alleyway, leaping and jumping over a fruit stand. She grabbed onto the support strut that kept the lighting fixture over the stand in place – the crystal smashed to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. The sudden darkness almost made Liam lose her, but he spotted a flash of movement and chased after.
She was running up some stairs, moving nimbly. Quickly.
But Liam had gotten a lot of cardio done during his time in Purgatory, adding to what hadn't been the body of a slacker back on Earth. He sprinted up the stairs, taking advantage of his longer legs. He grabbed at the back of the thief's rags as she darted around the corner, but his fingers only managed to graze some furs. She did squeak loudly as she disappeared into a narrow building. Liam followed and almost recoiled at the stench. Pressing through he found that they had entered yet another large paper-mill. Vats of burbling white liquid were set into the ground, and women with long handled wooden poles shouted at the two of them, pausing in their stirring to shake their fists.
The girl ignored them as she sprinted up the stairs that lead to the second level of the mill. Liam, thinking fast, headed for the front door, shouting as he went.
“Sorry! Apologies! Sorry!” He ducked under a pole swung at his head, then shouldered the door open. Out front, he saw that his guess had been good: The thief had gotten to the second story window and thrown it open. She leaped onto a rope that stretched between buildings and started to run along it. Liam grabbed a stone from the ground that had chipped off a piece of pavement. He hefted it – but hesitated.
He couldn't kill her.
The girl got to the far side of the rope, having run with the adroit skill of a gymnast. She turned and-
And blew a raspberry at him.
Liam threw the rock at her, snarling.
The rock missed her as she ducked. She stood to blow another raspberry, but then noticed that a shadow was being cast behind her, flung out by the myriad lights of Olimurias.
Liam grinned savagely and started for the building. The thief turned slowly around and saw that the rock had been caught. Caught by Meg. The Valkyrie stood as tall as she could, her wings mantling behind her like a fearsome cloak as she looked down at the girl.
The girl gulped.
Meg crushed the rock between her fingers, letting the ground up stone drip between her fingers, pattering onto the roof.
Liam – his hair matted with bits of feather and a single egg yoke dripping from his left shoulder – burst onto the roof, panting. He was chased up by loud, energetic shouting in several languages. He slammed the door shut, and listened to the thump thump thump of other eggs. Gasping for air, he looked at Meg and the thief. Meg had her hand on the girl's shoulder and was keeping her rooted to the spot more through sheer personality than any strength.
“Look what I caught,” Meg said, cheerily.
“I-” Liam gasped. “Think-” he gasped again. “You-”
“Give us the iPod,” Meg said.
“Tha wot?” the girl asked, her voice thickly accented, even with the magic that Liam used to translate the languages of Purgatory.
“The thingy,” Meg snapped, pointing at the baggie. The girl sighed, and held it out to Liam. He yanked it back and was about to put it into his belt-pouch when he heard a faint rasp of wood on stone. Meg, shaking her head, focused on the thief. “I have half a mind to-”
“Look out!” Liam shouted, springing between Meg and the doorway.
But his gallantry was unneeded.
The stone thrown to the ground by the dark shape that had emerged onto the roof wasn't aimed at either of them. It struck the rooftop and shattered. Crackling energy flowed from every nearby lighting fixture – the crystals within guttering, then dying. The entire rooftop plunged into near total blackness, lit only by the distant lights that weren't effected by the stone's detonation. Liam blinked, trying to get his night vision as fast as he could as the dark shape advanced towards him. It moved without a sound save for the faint rasp of... of what?
It wasn't the right sound for cloth.
But his instincts screamed that he was in danger. His blade twitched and he managed to deflect something sharp and fast rushing towards his face. Unfortunately, this left himself entirely open and pain seared along his right arm. Then his left, then his shoulder. The attacks were fast and darting in the darkness. He heard Meg moving, then heard her cry out in pain.
But the pain wasn't merely the pain of a blade cutting into flesh. Liam's head spun and he staggered, trying to swing at the darkness. Delenn rushed through air, cutting nothing. The knife cut along his skin again, slashing at his hip, his shoulder, even his back. Nothing deep, but every cut burned and seared with fire.
Poison, he thought before falling to one knee.
The blade that touched his throat was deadly sharp and he couldn't do more than breath thinly through his lips. They felt swollen and numb. He wasn't getting enough air. His eyes went unfocused and even the dim light of the city seemed far, far too bright.
The blade tensed and Liam knew that he was going to die.
Then...
Then the blade drew away, leaving no mark. No score.
Liam hit the ground, his eyes narrowed. He felt something being tugged from his fingers. He knew that it was important, but he couldn't think why. As it was taken away, his hand reached out – and he felt another's fingers. He couldn't remember her name.
He just knew he had to never let go.
* * *
Liam's eyes fluttered open as a surge of magic flared through him. He could see, very faintly, Tethis leaning over him, her hands on his chest. Then his eyes closed again.
Time passed. He drifted here and there, sometimes hearing worried voices.
The clearest memory was that of a soft, slightly rough fingertip sliding along his cheek. A damp cloth padding across his chest. A voice, speaking musical Coptic.
“My, my, my.”
It had been female. Husky. Almost a purr.
“So, my theories are right. Nutrition is a factor...”
What an odd thing to hear, dangling between life and death.
The same strange, clinical words that were echoing in his ears when Liam woke for real. His body was splayed out on a large, comfortable mattress. A soft, silken sheet had been drawn over his body and the air felt delightfully cool. He looked around himself, trying to draw in the room. There was a large balcony to the left of him, looking out at the glittering jewel that was Olimurias at night. Distant cities flecked the sky like stars. The room he was in was beautifully crafted of wood and stone. Celtic designs were worked into the edges of the doorway leading into the corridor beyond, and two of the three walls that weren't dominated by doorway or by balcony were graced by bookshelves.
They were not filled by the standardized books of Earth – but rather a wild hodgepodge of folios, scrolls, tomes, atlases, lacquered boxes that were marked with Nordic runes, stone tablets, and even a few papyrus sheaves contained in wrappings of leaves and tied tightly by string. A few of them were laid out on a table, with stones keeping them open to the right pages. A tiny crystal set in a brass tracery of limbs and grasping hands provided light – pale and soothing – to the room and the books.
Liam shifted in the bed and noticed he was nude, save for a loincloth. His arms looked as if they had been decorated by a painter who had a knife and a deep, abiding frustration. He hadn't been scar free before, but he counted at least five across his arms, and a few more along his shoulders. He frowned, rubbing his thumb along them.
Why hadn't they been healed? Other wounds he had taken had been healed so cleanly by Tethis' magic that he didn't scar.
He heard the faint sound of paper rasping against paper from the adjoining room. Liam's brow furrowed – and he remembered the figure coming out of the darkness. There was nothing here to say that he hadn't been captured, that this wasn't the safehouse of some agent of an enemy God. Now, he didn't expect a servant of Aries to own a room that had this many books, but he could have been wrong. They might have been books about warfare. And so, he quietly swung his legs off the bed and padded to the table. He picked up one of the paperweight stones, and hefted it in his hand. It was sturdy enough and while he might not have been a powerhouse like Meg, he was fairly sure he could hit someone and stun them if he had the drop.
He planned to get said drop.
He crept towards the doorway leading out of the room. The rasp of paper came again, from another doorway that linked to the hallway that separated the two rooms. He darted from his doorway to the space beside the other and peeked around the corner, stone grasped in his hands.
Sitting in the room was a stunningly beautiful woman – for all that she was also one of the most alien Liam had seen. Her head was that of a jackal's, with high, pointed ears that stood at attention to either side of her head. Her hair was cropped and framed her head expertly, with the edges so straight that they looked like they had been marked with a ruler. Her body was curvy and slightly muscular, covered with a short, downy looking fur that was black and luxurious. It shone in the light of her reading crystal, and as her hand moved to turn the pages on her book, Liam could see that shine ripple across her, accentuating her form. She was dressed in a single piece dress with golden clasps that kept the slender straps around her shoulders, and the front hung slightly open.
She was so engrossed in her book, her tail gently wagging behind her on the stool, that she was unaware that, by leaning forward, her dress belled outwards and revealed the deliciousness of her tits. They looked perky enough to hold a quill up between them, and had a startling flash of color: two golden rings, piercing her nipples, with a slender golden chain connecting them.
Liam felt his cock hardening in his loincloth as his mind immediately went to the idea of catching that chain in his teeth and tugging and tugging – gently pulling back until she couldn't take it any more.
She turned the page again and Liam shook his head. He slid the stone behind his back, trying to not look like he had been considering braining her, then coughed.
“Ma'am?”
The girl jumped so high that Liam wouldn't have been shocked if she had bashed her head into the ceiling. Her hand went to her chest, unwittingly pushing her dress back over her breasts, and she looked straight at him with golden flecked eyes. Her ears slowly flattened as she frowned at him, paw resting on the top of the book, which had been knocked on its side by her sudden jerk.
“Master Vanderbilt,” she said, her voice reproachful. “You scared me.”
Liam coughed. “You can call me Liam, Miss, er...”
The woman smiled at him. Her teeth were very sharp.
“Neb,” she said. “Neb Maatre, priestess of Anubis.” She shook her head. “I'm sure you have a great many...” She trailed off, her eyes widening.
Liam blinked, and then remembered something. He had become used to being around people who were utterly casual in their nakedness that he had completely forgotten that he was wearing a loincloth. A loincloth covering his junk. A loincloth while he was at half mast by seeing a gorgeous jackalgirl's titties. His cheeks flushed bright red and he clapped his hands over his crotch, flushing even more when Neb merely looked more shocked.
“Sorry!” he stammered. “W-Why don't I get dressed, uh, then you can answer me some, uh, questions?”
Neb jerked her head up, her eyes meeting his. She nodded, mutely.
Finding his clothes didn't take much time and once he was dressed and sat down across from Neb, she seemed more composed, though Liam did notice that her nipples were hard as rocks, poking out against her thin dress. He decided to not mention that. And he made a commitment to himself that he wouldn't glance down at them.
“I found you,” Neb said. “Well, that is, I was buying some new books when I heard that little urchin shouting for help. I came to where you and your, ah, friend were wounded and, well...” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.
Liam glanced down at her nipples as her shift was drawn tight across them.
“I tried to help you until your other friend arrived. Tethis?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Thanks. So, why was that thieving urchin shouting for help? And where did she go?”
“Aithene, she said her name was. As soon as I started using my magic to keep you alive, she ran off. I think she was scared you'd been going to die.”
Liam nodded, rubbing his chin. “Uh, where’s Meg and the others?”
“Downstairs,” Neb said, standing up, and adjusting her dress with one paw. “Come on, you might as well get some food too.”
* * *
As Liam came down the stairs in the building, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Tethis and Meg. He could hear the faint sound of Meg's pacing and hear the same frustrated tone that she used while he was trying to explain something that seemed obviously stupid to her. To her credit, that tone held more shades to it than mere frustration. No. It was a fine wine of irritation, spiked with the occasional hint of contemplation.
Because, usually, once she had calmed down and thought everything through, Meg was willing to admit that something made sense, even if she had dug in her heels earlier.
“It's the same reason why I cannot just bring people back to life,” Tethis was saying. “The metabolic processes need to be used; you cannot merely reverse them when it comes to toxins and poisons because the toxins and poisons remain in the body.”
“Why don't they just come out, then? Huh?”
“Same reason why-”
Liam came down the stairs and saw Meg exactly where he had expected her, standing before a window, her arms crossed over her chest, her face set in a fierce frown, her wings mantling. Tethis was seated on a cushion that had been laid out before a crackling fire-pit that sat in the center of the room. Liam noticed that the fire-pit was surrounded by a series of tiny gemstones that glowed and throbbed in time with the crack and snap of the flames. The air didn't smell smokey, and the heat seemed to be diffused smoothly through the room. No sparks went beyond those crystals.
Considering the number of parchments, scrolls and books he saw strewn about, he felt no little relief.
“Liam!”
Meg cut Tethis off by beating her wings once, sailing across the room, and tackling Liam with her now classic arm-leg-wing hug combo. Liam, by this point, had gotten fairly good at readying himself for the impact of a muscular valkyrie. Whatever Tethis had done to cure him had left him with enough strength that he simply staggered backwards and leaned against the wall as they locked lips. Meg's tongue plunged into his mouth and her sex – hot and wet and oh so very exposed by her shift riding up around her hips – pressed against the crotch of his kilt. Her hands slipped along his back and the kiss went on and on. For just that moment, the rest of the world melted away and Liam was once more back in the jungle, with nothing but the sight of Megara emerging from the water.
Her breasts, glistening.
Her body inviting.
Her eyes – those electric blue eyes – promising a lifetime, a world of…
Not just pleasure. A world of everything. Adventure and excitement. He had known, right then and there, that he'd never have a dull day with her. He might not have many of them.
But, he thought, his hand cupping her ass gently, fingers caressing the folds of her rump, I think I'm okay with that.
“Ahem.”
Meg kept kissing him, but he could feel her grin as her lips and his met, her tongue sliding out of her mouth and into his, playing and caressing his, circling around and around in the lazy pattern that she used on his cock.
“They, uh, always get like this when Liam almost gets crippled by doing something stupid,” Tethis said, her voice studiously affectless.
“That wasn't my fault the first time!” Liam glared over Meg's shoulder. “That was you fucking up the teleport altar.”
“It's not my fault you were carrying something that makes the Ancients' magic go haywire,” Tethis muttered.
Neb – who had been watching all of this – shook her head. It was fairly hard to tell, under all that black fur, but Liam was pretty sure she was blushing up a storm. Her nipples remained hard enough to cut glass. He grinned ever so wickedly, whispering to Meg: “Nips.”
With that single word, Meg looked – first – down at herself to check her shift, then back. There were some advantages to having electric blue eyes that essentially had no irises: it was hard to tell where you were looking, if you were careful. Neb didn't seem to realize that Meg was checking her out – and definitely didn't hear Meg whispering back to Liam.
“Nice.”
Liam winked at her.
Then, sadly, reality did as reality was wont to do and came crashing back down. Liam set his lover down and looked around the room. Still no Delenn. He hadn't been more than ten feet from his sword – one of the most powerful personal weapons in Purgatory – since he had arrived. To not see it was making him feel a deep sense of disquiet. He rubbed his palms together and looked at Meg.
Meg bit her lip, her wings drooping.
“They're gone,” she said.
Liam felt hollow. He slowly walked over to one of the free cushions and lowered himself backwards. He laid back until the cushion was supporting his back like a beanbag. “Both of them?”
Meg nodded, mutely.
“Fuck,” Liam said. He looked into the fire, frowning.
Silence dominated for a few moments.
“Who would have stolen it?” Tethis asked.
“The better question is who wouldn't. Any god would want their hands on it, right?” Liam asked. Meg walked over and plopped herself down in his lap, her fingers caressing his hair. She nuzzled his neck, her body pressing to his as fully as she could manage without smothering him. Liam smiled, knowing she was trying to comfort him. And damn it all, it was working, though maybe in a way that would turn Neb from blushing to incandescent. Liam shifted slightly under Meg's weight, trying to get his hard member to rest somewhere comfortable. Meg moved with him and suddenly, his bulge was slotted against her ass.
All things considered, a good place to be.
“Aries is still smarting from the ass-kicking you gave me,” Livanna said, suddenly speaking up from the corner of the room.
Liam tensed rather than jumping and dislodging Meg, but it was a close run thing. He had forgotten how still and quiet elves could be when they wanted to be. Liv stepped forward into the light, her arms crossed over her chest. “He'd want anything you have. That sword, definitely.”
“Anubis is not involved,” Neb said, with some certainty. She smiled down at Liam. “It is not in his nature – he measures the souls of men and women. How could he do anything to unbalance this?”
“Fair,” Liam said.
Meg rubbed her chin. “Apollo is a possibility. And Odin. Odin is a big enough nerd and just enough of a dickhead to be totally fine with stealing a library contained in a hunk of metal and play-stick.”
“Plastic, honey,” Liam said, distractedly.
“Whatever,” Meg said. “We might as well call it, uh, what did you call it once? Ungettium.”
“Unobtanium,” Liam said, his eyes unfocused as his mind raced.
Meg slapped the top of his head with her hand, looking cross.
Liam shook his head. “Tethis, how did you cure my poisoning?”
Tethis licked her lips. “Neb helped. She's actually quite good at both divine magic and arcane magic.”
“What are those?” Neb asked.
“It's a distinction Liam introduced,” Tethis said, sounding quite proud of him. “And extremely useful. The Ancients used arcane magic – foci crystals and internal energy to produce effects that seem to be hard-coded into the universe – and we use divine magic by calling on the gods. That's mutable and flexible, but it requires patronage and said patronage to be offered.”
“Then there's me,” Meg said, lifting up one arm and flexing slightly. “I have fucking superpowers.”
“That's catchy,” Neb said, sounding curious. “I like that. Superpowers.”
“Copyright, Liam Vanderbilt,” Liam said, pointing at them. “You all saw it, I said it, that makes it law.” He grinned, then Meg slapped the back of his head.
“I can always kill you,” she said, with her own smile. “Then it becomes my copyright, if I understand these things properly.”
“I beat her.” Liam jerked his thumb at Liv. “I can beat you.”
“I'll sit on your face,” Meg said, sagely. “You'll not even fight back.”
“Ahem!” Neb coughed so hard her glasses were almost knocked off her snout. “So, Liam, you were asking, uh, about how I – well, we – cured your poisoning. Essentially, I called on Anubis to weigh your spirit. As you were a good person, he was willing to hold you above death's door while Tethis here located the poison and drew it forth from your body. Once it was freed, your body healed naturally – with some boost from her magic.”
“Well, uh, I'm flattered,” Liam said, blushing. “I always hoped that my heart would weigh as much as a feather.”
“You-” Neb blinked, shaking her head. “You know of such things?” She pointed at his chest. Liam looked down. His crucifix – so easily forgotten, as it became as warm as his body remarkably quickly – hung there, glinting faintly in the firelight. He put his hand on it, gently. Like a man probing a tooth, he felt his faith, tensing, ready for it to be missing. But still, he felt that deep, abiding sense that there was something there. He smiled slowly.
“I'm Christian,” he said, quietly. “Not an idiot. Also, I saw all of the Mummy movies.”
“Mummy movies?” Neb asked, quietly, sounding baffled.
Ignoring her, Liam looked at Tethis. “Can you find anything?”
Tethis frowned, her ears twitching backwards. She slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “See, I need to have part of something to find it. I found the poison because, well, Liv found some of it soaked into your clothes. She thinks it had dripped from the attacker's blade.”
Liv grinned smugly at Liam.
“Since I don't have any part of your iPod, I cannot find it. And I cannot find your sword. Delenn is made of this, uh, steel, and Purgatory doesn't even have iron.” She shook her head slightly. “We're out of luck.”
Liam sagged slowly back into his seat. He started to work through the mechanics of searching through a city as big as this, with as many ships coming and going as it had every day, with just a pool of talent five people deep and a purse of gold that was already being strained to the edge of what would be profitable. Was it even any use getting the iPod back if there wasn't any gold to pay sages and scribes?
And worse, there was another ticking time bomb hanging overhead: If the people who had stolen the iPod didn't know how batteries worked, then...
He tried to not imagine them turning it on and tapping away at the screen as the irreplaceable batteries lost more and more charge. Then, worse, his nightmare veered towards a scene that had been screamingly funny in a movie: two clueless idiots, looking at a computer, then whispering: The files are in the computer.
He shook his head. He didn't even have backups – and even if he had, they'd be on the Cloud and-
And...
The Cloud.
His eyes widened and he sat up.
“Told you!” Meg snapped her fingers. She had been speaking and he hadn't even noticed. “Told you, a mind like Themistocles this one.”
“Didn't Themistocles lead his own side into an ambush, let the enemy encircle them, then tell them: Well, we better fight really, really hard, guys?” Liv asked, her voice snide.
“Yeah, but it worked,” Meg said, sounding defensive.
“Shut up,” Liam said, distractedly. He stood up, pushing Meg off his lap, and strode over to Tethis. “Okay, Tethis, this is going to get weird. Do you know what light is?”
Tethis blinked.
Then, slowly, as if humoring a child. “Yes, Liam. Light helps us see.”
Liam laughed, quietly. “Okay, I deserved that. But what if I told you light was an object. Like water or like that wall?” He pointed at it. “It's not exactly the same, but light is made up of things. Tiny things, they're called photons, and they move through the air. My hand blocks them, see?” He held his hand up, casting a shadow on the wall. “Now, these particles are very, very tiny, and there are lots of different kinds we can't see. And one of those is radio waves – and radio waves are what my iPod uses to talk to other iPods.”
Tethis looked completely lost.
“If the bad guys are trying to get into the iPod, it will be sending out little signals trying to conne-”
“Oh!” Meg sprang to her feet. “I get it. But we need radio waves.”
“That's the best part!” Liam said, beaming. “Radio waves are just a special name for light that is going really, really fast or really, really slow or something.” He paused. “No, it's more like a beating drum – I think radio beats more quickly than light. I don't know, it's complicated and I don't have my physics text book.”
Tethis' eyes widened. “Yes, that could work. Neb, do you mind helping me work out the basics?”
Neb looked uncertain.
“I've helped you already, but...” She paused. “Magic, especially the magic of the Ancients, is still a lot of unknowns. We might end up getting hurt or worse.”
“Neb,” Meg said, her voice soft. She stepped over, taking the paws of the jackalgirl, looking into her eyes. “The iPod contains so much information. Knowledge. Medicine.” She paused. “It can jump us forward centuries and guide us past the worst mistakes. Liam's told me of Earth. There are things that people can do if they are unaware of the dangers. Weapons that can be made, mistakes that can wreck planets. Whole worlds could burn if people aren't told. Your God prizes learning, doesn't he?”
Neb considered. Her eyes – such an amazing golden hue - softened.
She smiled.
“I did always read about adventures,” she said. “It'll be nice to be in one.”
* * *
The spell was less than dramatic.
Tethis had closed her eyes, breathed in, then exhaled a small glowing ball of light. Then, following that light, the group had set off. Liam wasn't entirely comfortable going into a fight carrying a short sword. He had trained with them a few times – they were fast, accurate weapons, and he knew that the Roman Empire had essentially conquered a good chunk of the world using nothing but an iron gladius. But still, he couldn't help but feel it was a downgrade from a steel longsword.
Maybe that was because it was.
He was dressed in the armor that Liv had been lugging around for almost the entire trip: a bronze chest piece, leather shoulder guards, and gauntlets of his own design. Working bronze to protect knuckles and fingers like that had been expensive, but Sobek had seen the use in having your hands protected in a sword fight and been willing to pay through his alligator’s nose for it.
Megara went with nothing more confining than leather – her javelins in a hip carrier. She held one in her hand, tossing it from palm to palm as they strode through the streets. Tethis walked without armor, and looked increasingly nervous as the glowing orb brought them closer and closer to the less impressive looking part of Olimurias.
Liv was dressed similarly to Liam, though she had a short, stabbing spear and a shield and a helmet that protected her face. Liam would have thought seeing her armed again after the last time she held a weapon would be unnerving but she walked with a quick, darting confidence that made her seem more cat than armored warrior. Watching her - knowing they were going into battle together - comforted him. She glanced at him as they crossed another intersection and into a collection of large, dimly lit warehouses that loomed over the roadway. The orb flew into the side of one of the buildings – shattering apart and vanishing the instant it touched the wall. Liam shook his head slowly.
“So, plan?” he asked.
“Let me do my job,” Meg said, her teeth flashing white in the dim light of the night. She tensed and, with a rush of motion and a rustle of feathers, shot into the air. She wheeled around, soaring about the top of the warehouse. When she had come back down, her wings cupping the air and canceling her motion down to almost nothing, she nodded.
“There's a window at the top – counted twenty six people in there. One of them, though,” she said, pausing, “She's different. Looked to be in charge – dressed in a feather cloak.”
“Raven feathers?” Liv asked.
“I think so, why?” Meg looked at Liv, brow furrowed.
Liv pointed with her spear. “Because she's flying away.”
The entire group spun and looked. Meg's mouth opened in a quiet O, while Liam swore. A dark form was winging through the air, soaring towards the other side of the city. Liam frowned. “That didn't look like a valk-”
“It wasn't,” Liv said, her voice so certain that no one in the group even thought about arguing. “It's a vaspjarramuninn.”
Liv, by now used to Liam saying things that made no sense, looked down from the sky to the others. “A shroud of Muninn.”
“Odin's raven?” Liam asked. “Shit, she's a fucking skinwalker?”
“Yup,” Liv said. “Put the cloak on, become a raven. Useful for a spy.”
“Or an assassin,” Meg growled, her wings spreading.
Liam grabbed her shoulder. “No. Don't kill her.”
Meg looked at him, eyes disbelieving. “She tried to kill you!”
“No, she put her blade to my throat, poisoned me, and left me alive to be found. Not sure why, but she did,” Liam said, shaking his head. “We want her alive to figure out what she knows, and because if we know her, we know what she does. Kill her, she gets replaced.” Liam tapped his temple. “And knowing that is half the battle.”
Meg scowled. “Fine. But I'll wound her later. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“We have an opportunity, we hit them, we get the iPod back, we get the sword back. If they're there,” Liv said, nodding.
“Twenty six warriors is a lot of people,” Neb said, nervously.
“The solution is simple,” Tethis said, rubbing her hands together. “You call on the darkness of the grave to blind them. I give us the ability to see in the dark and-”
“And we Batman them. Got it.” Liam swept his sword back and forth, looking around for a door. “Liv, you're with me. Meg, take the window and look out in case any of them have infravision.”
Meg snorted, her wings spreading.
“One of these days,” she said, “You need to tell me what infra is.”
Then she sprang upwards, her wings pumping, javelin in her hand.
“Ready to make some noise?” Liam asked, looking at Liv.
She grinned. “Let's make pappy proud.”
Liv hit the door with her heel. Strength, imparted by her semi-divine heritage, shattered the locks and sent the doorway careening inwards, the wooden hinges splintering with the rebound impact. The door hit the floor and a half dozen men and women snapped their heads around. They were clustered around the crates that filled the warehouse, leaning against the walls, sitting on makeshift seats made by smaller boxes, playing dice. They gaped, clearly not expecting this. Then Tethis slapped her palms together behind Liam.
Everything became too bright.
Then everything shifted down in color and hue and Liam saw the people before him staggering. A few of them, though, were unaffected and moved straight towards him and Liv. They were elves, and they had swords. He met the first sword with his knuckles, punching the flat of the sword and sending the blade biting into the ground. His gladius speared through the elf's shoulder and neck, grating against vertebrae. While he might not have steel, he still had a good foot of muscle and fifty pounds of muscle over most people on Purgatory.
The elf hit the ground, quickly joined by another as a javelin flew down from the window and pinned her.
One of the humans who had been blinded by the darkness spell flailed with a club in Liam's general direction. Liam stepped out of his way – and then held up his arm to stop Liv as she stepped over to impale him on a spear. She glared at him, and for a second, they stood close enough to be kissing. Her nose almost bumped against his, and her breath puffed out against his face. Electricity sparked and Liam snarled, shoving her back.
A red-skinned woman with a tail was clumsily drawing on an amulet. As the amulet settled around her bared shoulders and dangled between her smallish breasts, she suddenly looked straight at Liam and then drew a bow from the ground. The short, recurved bow put an arrow into the air just after Liam flung himself flat behind a crate. Another human stumbled over him and started to try and stab him. Liam kicked out at the figure's crotch.
As she was, well, female, this did slightly less than Liam would have wanted. It still distracted her as Liam scrambled to his knees, keeping himself low. He peeked out and saw the red-skinned woman – the Lillin, he reminded himself – nocking another arrow. Then she ducked backwards into her own set of cover as one of Meg's javelins slammed home.
Liam shook his head and tried to look around the battlefield.
His iPod sat there on a table, where several people had been standing around it. One of them was still there, a human holding a bronze sword with a kind of nervous terror, his shoulders hunched, his head snapping around at every call and shout of pain and fear.
Liam scrambled up and leaped over the crate, just avoiding a wild swing by the girl he had kicked in the cooter. The man with the sword swung at him; Liam parried, punched him in the gut, then grabbed the man's head and brought it smashing into the side of the crate. The man hit the ground, stunned.
Liam heard something whistling.
A javelin shot past his nose, so close it almost cut him, so fast it ruffled his bangs.
When he blinked, he saw that the arrow sent his way by the recurved bow had been pinned to the ground, sheared completely in half by Megara's throw.
Once again, Liam wasn't sure if he was intensely aroused or intensely terrified of Megara. He didn't have time to reflect on it. He turned, grabbed his iPod, then flung himself backwards over the crate. As he landed, three arrows – all fired in rapid succession – buried themselves in the crate, wall behind him, and one of the warehouse's support struts. It seemed the Lillin – who had darted back into cover before he could see where she was – had decided to go for numbers, not accuracy.
He peeked out and saw that Liv was locked in battle with two elves, both armed with clubs. One smashed against her shield, another against the back of her head, knocking her helmet off. Liv staggered, and fell to one knee. Then with a roar of animal fury, she stood and brought her spear up and underneath the man's armored chest piece, impaling him from belly to neck. He staggered backwards and she snatched up his club, spinning and braining the other elf.
Well, almost braining.
More “teething” really, considering that the man rolled around on the ground, clutching at his hideously distended jaw. Liv didn't leave him long – she lifted her foot, to bring it stomping down on his throat.
Meg's voice.
“Back exit!”
Liam ran towards the exit, narrowly avoiding getting an arrow in the ass. He saw that two of the humans had managed to get to the door and were fumbling at it. One of them held something in a cloth bundle that was exactly the length of his sword. He ran towards them and they spun to face him. He quickly saw, in their stance, that they were beyond the domains of Neb's darkness spell. Meanwhile, his own vision started to white out as Tethis's spell remained strong. Panting lightly, he lifted his sword.
“I am Liam Vanderbilt,” he snarled. “I defeated a daughter of Aries in single combat. I survived a trip through the Ancients' tombs. I've slain basilisks and I've fucked angels. Do you really think you have a chance?”
The men were silent.
“Shit,” one rasped, his voice rough, as if he had been slashed across the throat at least once in his life. “She didn't pay me enough for this fucking crap.”
A muffled clunk sounded as something hit the ground. The vision enhancing spell had left Liam looking into a searing whiteness that blotted out everything. He heard the door slam a moment later. Once they were out of sight, he sagged in relief.
He staggered forward, kneeling down, fumbling.
He felt something cold and metallic pressing to the back of his neck.
“Gotcha,” a soft voice – feminine and demonic – hissed.
Liam slowly lifted his hands. “Kill me and she won't let you get five blocks.”
“That's why you're coming with me,” the voice said, sounding amused.
“You do know we just want the sword, right?” Liam asked, his hands still raised. “You go out that door and let me go, and Megara won't give a fuck, right?”
The woman was silent for a bit.
“...Oh.”
The door opened a moment later, then slammed shut. Liam shook his head. It pounded from the overdose of light his eyes were receiving. He closed them and felt the pain ease as he grabbed his sword. It felt good to hold her again. Almost as good as holding Meg again.
Almost.