“Finally!” Meg leaned back and put her feet up on the curved table that was set out before her chair. She wiggled her toes, her wings closing taut around her shoulders. “An airplane that’s an actual improvement on flying my own butt somewhere.”
Liam was the one pacing now. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”
Tethis and Fizit were both poring through every piece of cultural information that could be crammed onto laptops and iPhones and PDAs in the short time between the information about Sun Wukong and Coyote hit the White House and the President’s decision to call for an immediate emergency meeting of the United Nations. Liam had thought that would have been a fairly easy trip, since the United Nations meeting hall had been in New York. But for some reason, the meeting was being called in Geneva and the President had looked quite dire when Liam had asked why the United Nations had relocated from New York.
Apparently, it was part of the ‘we don’t like to talk about it’ that covered every major political decision made between Liam leaving for Purgatory and coming back to Earth.
“What’s not to get?” Meg asked. “I mean, honestly, I’m a bit more surprised that you’re surprised. There’s the Hindu pantheon, the Chinese pantheon, the Native American pantheons – that’s ons, multiple.” She ticked them off with her fingers. “Whatever the Russians were worshiping at the time... And while a lot of gods got mashed into Purgatory, there was no way that a single Christian sect located in the freaking Middle East could grab, I don’t know...” She looked at Fizit.
“Quetzalcoatl,” Fizit said, not looking up from her laptop. She was, apparently, into the Aztecs.
Meg looked back at Liam, grinning. “I mean, looking at it from a strategic and tactical perspective, landing multiple times or trying to take advantage of multiple proxies increases the risk of discovery and a bunch of very angry gods deciding to knock your ship out of high orbit. And while the Ancients were powerful, we know that they had their limits. Considering how the Purgatory experiment went for them.”
Liv scowled at Meg. “I always forget you’re fucking smart.”
“That’s how I caught this guy,” Meg said, cheerfully, jerking her thumb at Liam. “Lure him in with the titties. Then make sure he can’t escape with an elegantly argued philosophical treatise.”
“I remember some minor strangulation being involved too,” Liam said, rubbing his throat in remembrance at Meg’s reaction to him being Christian.
“Kinky,” Fizit said, dryly.
Liam frowned.
Meg lifted one leg and gently prodded at Liam’s chin with her toe. This had the side effect of causing her skirt – she had put it on as part of her ‘going to meet the United Nations’ ensemble – to ride up, exposing more and more of her gloriously bronzed and athletic thigh. Liam tried to catch a glimpse of her panties, and not entirely for perverted reasons. For one thing, he’d rather know she was going commando now, and not when she flashed some UN delegates from Iran or something.
“So, the question you should be asking is not, why are there gods on the Earth? The question you should be asking is, why did you have no idea until now?”
Liam frowned. He started to pace back and forth, his brow furrowing. “I wish that the gods had agreed to the requests for genetic sampling,” he said, quietly. “We could have done some studies...”
When Liam swung around to start pacing the other way, he saw that the rear section of Air Force One had gotten a new guest. The President was walking in, brushing aside some of the dangling beads that separated sections. Apparently, the newest model of Air Force One was at least twenty percent bigger than the previous one, allowing for the creation of several discrete sections, for different kinds of administrative and diplomatic activity. For most of the flight from Washington D.C, the President had been sequestered in the communication and information part of the plane, on the phone.
“No luck,” she said, shaking her head. “Your friends vanished and according to the DHS, they’re not even sure they’re still in the country anymore.”
“They weren’t my friends,” Liv said, frowning. “Sun kept trying to get into my panties and Coyo didn’t even show me his face.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Fizit said, closing her laptop. “Considering the relationship between the United States and literally every single Native American tribe.”
The President bristled. “And what does that mean?”
“It means what it means,” Fizit said. “Whatever you may feel, Coyote is old enough to remember the genocide. I’m surprised he isn’t still taking potshots at you.”
Liam held up his hand. “Not helping, Fizit.”
Tethis, though, snapped her fingers. “Ah! Ah! Ah!” She sprang up. “Amanda! Er, uh, Madame Minister! Prime President!” she shook her head. “Lady Deinhardt!” She flushed, hard.
The President smiled at that last one. It was hard to not think of her as Amanda with that smile dancing across her lips. “I kind of like that last one.”
Tethis blushed even more. “Do you have a white board?”
A few minutes later, they had gathered in one of the meeting rooms in the second story of the plane, with Tethis standing on a chair so she could reach the white-board in the room. She uncapped a pen, then drew a stick figure on it. Since she was Coptic, it ended up looking more similar to a hieroglyphic than the cartoony style that Earth artists used. Smiling, Tethis labeled it as Coyote.
“So,” she said. “Coyote is born. Or, more accurately, a human being who becomes Coyote through a feedback cycle is born. He acts like the legend, or legends are told about him, which feeds into his God Node...” She drew more stick figures, then arrows from their heads to Coyote’s head. “And thus, his power grows which causes his legend to grow.” She drew lines out again to the human stick figures. “This power sustains him in the face of catastrophic bodily harm – every god on Purgatory can return to a site of their power after body death, after all.”
Liam nodded. Amanda shook her head slightly. “But you said several of your gods died?”
“Exactly. If their, uh, site of power is destroyed,” Tethis said. “They can’t reform there. We’re not sure, uh, what makes a god’s site of power. Temples are involved, priests, rituals. But, obviously, no god wants to reveal the secrets and a great deal of them aren’t curious about it. They’re trapped by their own narratives. The G-Node rewrites their memories and personalities to match the legends told about them.” Tethis licked her lips. “But what happens if...” She leaned forward, almost falling off the chair – which had the byproduct of thrusting her butt into Liam’s face thanks to his position at the end of the meeting room table.
Tethis wiped out the stick figure worshipers of Coyote, then the arrows.
Fizit nodded. “He’s still alive, but there goes his power base. And that’s also a recursive cycle. As people die, he loses power. As he loses power, they lose faith.”
“But wait,” Amanda said, slowly. “Population growth on the Earth means that there are still millions of Natives.” She looked at Fizit. “You’ve been reading up on them, how does that compare to when Coyote was throwing lightning bolts?”
Fizit’s tail twitched. “Estimates vary. But if we split the difference, there are the same number of Native Americans now as there were before Columbus.”
“So why isn’t he still a goddamn superhero?” Amanda asked, frowning as she looked at Tethis.
Tethis frowned, considering. She tapped the pen against her chin, not seeming to realize she had just added a few fresh black splotches to her green skin. “It’s gotta be an issue of bandwidth.”
“Bandwidth?” Amanda asked, her brow furrowing. “What, there are too many Christian callers for the Coyote worship to get through?”
Tethis shrugged. “We don’t even know what the transmission medium freaking is. It can’t be electromagnetic, or else you’d have noticed it by now!”
“Fair,” Amanda said, shaking her head.
“So, Sun Wukong has, comparatively, more worshipers. I mean, a fraction of billion people in China, even a nominally atheist China, is still a lot of people.” Tethis nodded. “Hence why, apparently, Sun can fly around on a cloud and twat people with a metal staff while Coyote’s primary ability seems to be throwing bricks through car windows.”
“Also,” Fizit leaned in. “There’s another thing to remember: Coyote, as far as I can tell, was more of a living object lesson. Not really someone you beseech, like Ares.”
“There is that!” Fizit said, pressing her palm against the cap of the pen. Only now did she realize she hadn’t capped it and cried out. “Auh!”
Amanda rubbed her hands along her face.
“So, I get to go to the United Nations, most of whom have gotten into the habit of laughing at the President of the United States, and tell them that not only are there aliens and gods on another goddamn planet, but there are also gods walking around their backyards without them even knowing about it? What’s next, King Arthur kicking in the door to Buckingham Palace? A walking, talking Krampus, ready to start kidnapping kids to extort their parents for worship?” She shook her head. “Ares might be the least of our goddamn problems in a few months.”
“I doubt that,” Liam said, frowning. “How many attacks did we leave behind?”
“Four,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “Three were just bank robberies and one was an attempted prison break. No one else has tried to take over a town.”
Yet hung unspoken in the air.
The door to the meeting room opened. Liam had to admit that Simone looked damn good dressed as a Secret Servicewoman. The suit was well tailored and she exuded a sense of deadly efficiency, even without the kidney holstered semi-automatic pistol being visible. Her sunglasses were off, but her earpiece was in. “Madam President, Ambassador Vanderbilt,” she said. “Our escort just radioed in. They think they detected something.”
“Something?” Amanda asked, her face settling as she stood. “Do they have any more detail than something?”
“It’s an intermittent bogey, ma’am,” Simone said. “I think we should all get to the seats and strap in.”
Liam stood, feeling adrenaline buzz through his body. Not for the first time, he was happy that Mom and the kids were being left at the White House. According to the last text he had gotten before they had dropped out of contact, Brax was in love with one of the beds, and Marion had finally stopped fussing. Liam followed Simone as they headed for the seats. They had just arrived at several rows of seating when the PA crackled and the pilot spoke.
“All passengers, be aware, we have two definite bogies. No, three.” There was a pause. “Ten, actually.”
Liam frowned, then looked out the window. His heart started to race as Simone strapped herself in – after making sure everyone else was in. Tethis was starting to pull out one of her crystals. She whispered quietly, performing the delicate passes with her hands that were required for the casting of magic. Liam looked over at Meg, who was looking like she wanted to tear open the nearest door and go out swinging. He took her hand and squeezed.
A moment later, the pilot said: “Uh, all bogies are gone. We’re trying to reaqui- hold up.” With the preternatural calm that pretty much all pilots seemed to attain at all times during their careers, the pilot continued. “A rather large storm has appeared directly ahead of us. Looks like serious chop – with thunder. Lightning. Rain.” His voice was tight. “We may have some turbulence everyone.”
Liam craned his head.
Outside of the window, he could see that the entire eastern horizon had become consumed by a roiling wall of blackness. Jagged lightning crackled through the storm clouds, while sleeting rain – and what looked like hail – pummeled the Atlantic ocean below. His eyes widened.
“Magic,” he whispered.
“No shit, partner,” Amanda said, laughing. But it was a nervous, strained laugh. “I’ve only seen your friend Tethis’ showing off and even I can tell that.”
Liam felt his stomach drop out inside of him. On Purgatory, he had gotten used to being in control, in at least some way, some shape. He had been strapped to tables with mad cut lists ready to bear down on him with knives and torture implements. But his muscles and his wits could be leveraged against that. He had seen armies on the march, but he had had armies to call upon and his friends at his back. But in the small, relatively placid environment of Purgatory, he had forgotten just how unforgiving nature – even nature given a mystical steroid injection – could be. He was strapped down in a thin tube of aluminum and plastic, his fate entirely in the hands of some air force pilot whose name he didn’t even know.
Or, more accurately, in the hands of engineers and designers who had been tasked with building Air Force One.
To his left, a sudden bolt of lightning smashed home. The barely visible spec that was Air Force One’s port escort, an F-16 fighter, exploded into a flare of brilliant orange that was, a moment later, consumed by the clouds.
“You’re a fucking dick, Ares,” Meg snarled, her hands squeezing the arm-rests so tight that the plastic and metal groaned. But now, the wings were catching the turbulance. The whole plane rocked up and down, shuddering. It slewed left, then juddered back right, the wings twisting and groaning. The superstructure screamed and Liam closed his eyes as flashes of strobing lightning flared through the walls. Next to him, he was barely aware of Tethis’ incantations growing louder and louder and louder.
Right now, all he could do was pray.
And it was definitely not to Ares.
***
Well. Major Thomas O'Neill thought. And here, I thought I had seen everything.
His hands held the controls while his copilot, Captain Williams flicked on the radio and spoke the expected words into it. But Air Force One wasn’t just getting hammered with a storm that had gone from placid blue day to Cat-1 hurricane in record time. It was also getting jammed. O'Neill didn’t know for sure what was causing it, but it the effects were clear. All the navigational software and communication gear gave back was a snow-field of static. Even the altimeter and other plane-based sensors were going crazy. According to his HUD, Air Force One was flying sideways, backwards, and without half her engines.
“Guess we’re flying it by the seat of our pants, Williams,” O'Neill said.
“Ground control to Major Tom...” Williams muttered as she grabbed onto her yoke.
“Don’t start, Amy,” O’Neill said, flatly.
That was when the lightning bolt slammed into the cockpit wind shield. O’Neill barely had time to cry out in shock before the bolt hit him, defying every law of physics he had ever known in his life. But that was not the end of the impossibility. Rather than burning through glass and his own damnfool head, the lightning bolt wormed along the skin of the plane, arcing and coiling and twisting. Electrical pops and crackles filled his ears and he blinked away splotches.
“Everything working?” he asked.
“Are we dead? No?” Williams said. “I think we’re good.”
O’Neill gulped. “I guess God decided we de-”
Air Force One was struck four more times, one after the other after the other after the other. The distant screams from the passenger sounded more alarmed than in pain. O’Neill wanted to join them – his plane had just been hit five times by lightning and take roughly as much damage as it took from flying through a light drizzle. If his instrument panels didn’t tell him anything useful, his hands sure did. And he could still control the plane – after a fashion. There was a lot of stress on the wings and the fuselage, but the lightning wasn’t blowing out electrical conduits or frying metal components.
“We might just get through this damn thing!” Williams said, laughing – nearly hysteric.
O’Neill pursed his lips.
Ahead of them, a bubble had appeared in the air. It was a swirling sheath of lightning, shrouding three figures. All of them were winged. Their feathers were midnight black, almost invisible against the raging chaos of the storm, but they beat in unison as they soared towards the plane. Somehow, they came up slowly, as if they were going nearly the same speed as the plane, or as if Air Force One had suddenly come to a near perfect stop, buffeted into place by the screaming, tearing winds.
“You just had to open your mouth, Williams,” O’Neill snarled, his knuckles going white on the controls.
The leader of the winged people was a woman. Her clothes looked as if they had come right from a sword and sandals movie – a toga wrapped around her breasts, glued to them by the fierce wind and the soaking rain. Her hair was a silver cascade that billowed around her, a nimbus that would have reached her chest if it had lain flat. Her wings were a strange contrast to the white wings of the other two; her’s were a brown and black mixture like a falcon’s. She wore a belt, but whatever had been attached to her hip was in her hands now. She beat her wings as her two fellows – also women – chanted. Their lips moved, but their words were lost in the gale of the storm. They pointed at the front of Air Force One and the clouds exploded away from the cockpit window.
“Holy Christ,” O’Neill whispered.
They had just opened a tunnel of pure, clear air between them and the plane.
The woman with the object in her hand twisted it, then flung it forward. It slapped into the window.
It was a chunk of C4 with a timed detonator fuse on it.
Major O’Neill’s last words were as prosaic as any in his life.
“Ah fuck.”
***
Roar.
Crsssh.
Roar.
Crsssh.
Liam’s eyes slowly opened. His head pounded. His back ached. He felt like at least one of his knees had been wrenched violently out of alignment. But he was alive. And a bright, noon-day sun was beaming into his eyes. For a moment, he could imagine that he was on Purgatory, in the middle of some adventure. He rolled slowly onto his back. And instead of seeing the vast expanse of a jungle or distant city, he instead saw endless blue sky and the brilliant heat of a real star.
His eyes closed and he let out a ragged sigh as his leg screamed at him – furious he had dared to jar the knee he was now fairly sure had been dislocated.
He tried to piece together what had happened.
He could remember Tethis’ increasingly loud chanting. He could remember Liv standing up, her hands spread as she shouted: “Not this time, you fucker!” at least five times, coinciding with every single bolt of lightning that had struck Air Force One.
He could remember her smoldering and smoking by the time the plane started to-
Peel apart.
Liam forced himself to sit up. He failed. So, instead, he craned his head around, to try and get an idea of where he was. He was on the beach of an island. A chunk of Air Force One had landed next to him, buried in the sand. It was barely recognizable as a plane anymore. It looked like a curved mass of metal, blackened along one edge, with a snarl of cables thrusting from part of its internal components. He could hear the roar of the surf, but little else. Liam tried to get his palms underneath him, shoving himself into a more upright position. The pain that shocked through his knee was enough to draw a ragged ‘Fucking ow!’ out of him.
“Liam!”
That was exactly the voice he wanted to hear. His lips skinned back into a huge grin as Tethis came running over the ridge of sand that separated where he had landed from the rest of the island. She had rolled her shirt sleeves up and torn a rather significant chunk of it off her belly, so it was now more of a midriff exposing halter-top than an official looking under-shirt for a representative to the United Nations. Her breasts bounced fetchingly as she skidded down the ridge, her feet almost slipping from under her in her excitement to get to Liam. She rammed into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him as her breasts mashed against his head. Liam laughed, leaning into the cushy gobliness.
“Are you okay?” Tethis asked. “Meg didn’t grab you, but one of her wings are broken, and-”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Can you get this?” he nodded to his knee.
Tethis nodded. “I can – well, partially. I can speed the healing process.” She reached into her fanny pack – Liam wondered where she had gotten that – and tugged out one of her magic storage crystals. It glowed, but only fitfully. She sighed. “I burned through a whole crystal to cast the slow fall spell on us. I’m not exactly energy efficient when it comes to non-healing magic.” She shook her head. “So, I have to stretch this out to cover you, the aides, the President, Fizit, Meg, and the pilot.”
Liam nodded. “So, the pilot made it? What about the co-pilot?”
“Oh, uh, not our pilot,” Tethis said, her ears drooping. “She ejected from one of the F-16s right before the lightning hit it.”
Liam frowned, slowly. “Cast on my leg, Tethis.”
“Sorry,” Tethis said, seeing his expression.
Liam laughed. “It’s not you, Tethis.” He smiled, squeezing her rump. She squeaked and laughed, her ears flicking up. “It’s the fact that we all landed on this island. Even a pilot in a plane almost a mile off.”
Tethis frowned. “You think the storm herded us here?”
“I bet once Ares wants, he’ll be back around to play with us,” Liam said as Tethis knelt down. She placed her palms on his knee, magic glowing. Liam hissed quietly as he felt his knee settle ever so slightly. Tethis then started to work on the more physical tools of her trade, pulling a pair of scissors from her new fanny pack. She cut another strip from her shirt, leaving it even more scandalously exposed, and then started to fish out bits of metal from the pack.
“In a day, you’ll be able to take this off,” she said as she bound up Liam's knee. “You’ll be good as new!”
“I will remind myself that, normally, a dislocated kneecap takes months of physical therapy.” Liam said, groaning as Tethis stood and grabbed onto his arm. She had to throw her entire weight into dragging him to his feet, and when she had managed it, she ended up on her rump. Thethis stood, brushing herself off with a laugh.
“I spoil you normally, I know,” she said, cheerfully.
Liam limped back to the base camp with Tethis and breathed a slow sigh of relief. Meg was looking crotchety at her wing being splinted out, but Fizit, Amanda, Simone and the two Presidential aides were looking fairly calm. Fizit was speaking to Amanda, while Simone was checking her pistols and the other firearms that had been salvaged from the wreck. The aides were the ones who looked like they were the least comfortable with their situation. The younger one was shivering, her knees drawn up against her chest, while the older one was patting her back gently.
The F-16 pilot looked as if she had had the worst landing – her legs were laid out in splints and she was laying on her back, glaring at the sky. Her flight uniform looked ripped and torn, but no one had tried to take it off and replace it with something better.
“Liam!” Meg exclaimed, springing to her feet.
“Good to see you’re alive,” Amanda said, her eyes actually lightning up as she looked at Liam. Her eyes swept from his face to his feet in a single smooth motion and Liam actually saw her tongue dart along her lips. Liam looked down at himself.
Somewhere during the descent, his shirt had gotten torn off.
He hadn’t even noticed he was shirtless.
He was so used to it!
Liam felt a bit awkward, suddenly. He limped carefully over and sat down next to the pilot. “You-”
“My spine’s broken,” she said, angrily. “How the fuck do you think I feel, Ambassador Vanderbilt?” She paused. “Sorry, Madam President.”
“We’re all in a tough situation, Captain,” Amanda said, her tone light.
“Ah,” Liam said, then looked at Tethis.
Tethis gave him a thumbs up, then mouthed the words ‘two days.’ Liam shook his head in slow wonder. That was a facet of Purgatorian life he wanted to see brought to Earth as quickly as possible. He looked back at Amanda and Fizit and Meg. Then his brow furrowed. “Where’s Liv?”
“Right here,” Liv said, a shadow announcing her arrival. Her feet touched down to the ground next to Liam as she settled down.
“What did you find?” Amanda asked.
“I flew for ten minutes in each direction,” Liv said. “And saw nothing but water.” She shook her head. “No sign of the bastards.”
“Did you ever get a look at them?” Liam asked, looking at the pilot. She shook her head mutely. Her glare hadn’t abated.
“So, Ares has us penned up,” Meg growled. “Just in time for us to miss a big United Nations meeting. Now why on Earth would he want that?” She looked at Amanda.
“Well, since I was going to start bringing a resolution about to organize a multi-national effort against his nascent cults,” Amanda said, dryly. “I imagine he might take offense at that.”
“You’re not thinking 'holy shit, we’re fucked' enough, Madam President,” Meg said, her hands going to her knees. “Ares didn’t convince a fuckton of people on Purgatory that he was the one True God because we’re a bunch of idiots, you know?” She shook her head. “Liam has told me that he can read minds. If he doesn’t have a way to influence them, then I’m an elf. And now, there’s a collection of your world leaders in one area, without a demigod, a hero, or mage in sight to protect them from that. Hell, even if his plan is only to show up and kill everyone, that’s bad enough.”
Amanda rubbed her temples. “Jesus Christ, Obama had it easy.”
Liv stood. “Then I guess it’s up to me,” she said. “I got to get my ass to Geneva.”
Amanda frowned. “And you know where Geneva is, and the correct protocols to get in and not just get your ass shot off?”
Liv scowled. “I can catch bullets, Amanda.”
“That’s President Deinhardt,” Amanda said, her voice flat. Liv looked at her. Then she looked at Liam. Then she looked back at her. Liv smirked.
“Right. President Deinhardt. I can catch bullets. I don’t give a shit what the UN guards do.”
“Uh, Liv?” Liam said. “Kicking in the door is a real great way to get absolutely no one to listen to you. That’s exactly what Ares wants.”
“Arrgh!” Liv snarled, then kicked hard at the ground. “Fine!” She started to pace. “Fine!” She closed her eyes. “What would Brax do? He’d...” She paused. “Get allies. I do know the way to the White House. I can go there and tell General Sung what’s happened. He can send a message to Geneva, and sends rescue for you.” She nodded.
“You know the way to the White House? From here?” Amanda asked.
“I’ve been there before,” Liv said, shrugging. “I just go back the way I came.”
Amanda looked skeptical. Liam shrugged and spread his hands. Superpowers, that shrug seemed to say. We can figure it out later. But before he could say anything more, Liv apparently decided that that was enough talk. She shot into the air with a backwash that sent a plume of sand roaring outwards towards the thin copse of trees that made up the island’s center. As the pattering sound of sand sliding off leaves finished, Amanda shook her head.
“Well, what do we do till then?” she asked.
Fizit stood. Her hands went to her shirt and she causally slipped it off and over her head. Her full, perfect breasts bounced and jiggled as she rolled her shoulders in a slow, graceful arc. Her hands went to her leggings and she undid the belt and the button and zipper in a flurry of thumb twists. Her pants hit the ground a moment later and her gloriously curvaceous body shimmered like emeralds in the noon-day sun. She groaned quietly. “Holy shit, I almost feel warm...”
Amanda was gaping at her, her eyes wide as saucers. Liam tried to get his mouth working.
Fizit snorted. “I’m going fishing,” she said, shaking her head. “Perverts.”
“R-Right...” Liam said, slowly, watching as Fizit walked towards the beach. She rolled her hips with every step, setting a delicious jiggle through her full rump. Her feet sank into the surf and waters rushed around her ankles and her calves, sluicing up her shins, adding a glittering sheen to her scales. She lifted her arms above her head, then dove into the water with a fluid grace. Liam crossed his leg over his other leg, wincing as he jostled his knee somewhat. But it was worth it to hide his sudden erection from the President of the freaking United States of America.
Amanda herself looked as if she was reconsidering some facets of her personality.
“W-While we wait for that,” she said, her Texan accent coming in thicker than ever. “Uh, Missy!” She looked at the younger aide, who had stopped shivering and started to blush nearly as crimson as her maroon pantsuit. “Why don’t you start gathering us some firewood?”
“Yes, uh, Madam President!” Missy said, standing shakily.
“You could bounce a quarter off that ass,” the other aide whispered, seeming to be in a daze.
“Martin,” Amanda said, her voice growing more controlled and significantly less amused. “Why don’t you start getting stones for the fire pit?”
“Yesmadampresident!” Martin said in a single, quick slur. He staggered to his feet and took off at a run.
With the campsite now reduced to Liam, the President, Meg, Tethis and the pilot, Liam tried to find some words to say after that display.
“I got to ask,” Amanda said, slowly. “Are all women on Purgatory like you?”
“Oh, no, some are real sluts,” Meg said, cheerfully.
“Meg!” Tethis exclaimed.
“You’re the one intimating that being a slut is bad by getting offended by my terminology. I offered no value judgments. Those were brought by your-” Meg started.
“I think that’s literally the only time I’ve ever know you where you used the word ‘slut’,” Liam said, grinning as he wiggled his fingers at Meg.
Meg scoffed.
“To answer your question, Amanda,” Liam said. “Women on Purgatory are, uh, more, er, uh, less concerned with two things on Earth that might put a dampener on anyone’s ardor: Sexually Transmitted Diseases and pregnancy. Most people on Purgatory can’t fertilize one another without sophisticated magic.” He shrugged. “And they didn’t have Saint Augustine shaping their early religion into an anti-sex platform.”
Amanda nodded, slightly. “And what about you?”
Liam blinked. “What about me?”
Amanda smiled. “We’re about a thousand miles from any paparazzi, I might as well take advantage of my chance to ask all the questions I’d never get to ask in normal circumstances.” She leaned forward. “How did going to Purgatory change your view of relationships?”
Liam’s cheeks flushed.
“Okay,” the pilot said, a slow grin spreading across her face. “I changed my mind. Breaking my spine was the best decision I made today.” Her voice was weak and still tinged with bitterness, but Liam took some heart at her attempt at humor.
Liam paused. He actually took a moment to consider his own feelings. Coming home, seeing his mother’s reactions to his new relationships - they had awakened feelings long buried on Purgatory. One of the nice things about an endless string of pressures was that he had next to no time to worry about any of them. He sighed, slowly. “To be honest?” he said. “Part of me really is worried that a part of me is broken.” He tapped his forehead. “Can I see any relationship as anything more than just when I eventually get to plow them?”
“Yes,” Meg said.
Liam blinked and looked at her.
Meg sighed. “I’m your wife, honey. And thus, I am far smarter and more perceptive than you.” She tapped her nose with a cheery grin. “And you may fuck each of us. But you treat us different. Liv, you guide. Me, you rely on. Fizit, you scheme with. And Tethis, you pet.”
Tethis flushed. “I beg your, I, that, we, hey!” she spluttered.
“You used sex as a diplomatic weapon with Neriad, and under a kind of duress with Mary – then, later, as a way to cement an alliance,” Meg said, shrugging. “I think it’s these Earth people who are stupid enough to collapse sex into one thing. Like you can subdivide a ‘type’ of relationship the way you classify a genus.”
Liam smiled. “Thanks, Meg. I knew there was a reason why I married you.”
“Yes, my tits, we know,” Meg said, grinning impishly.
Amanda, whose cheeks had never quite dipped below ‘flushed’ for the whole conversation, laughed. “This is going to sound right foolish,” she said, her Texan twang adding a delicious color to her words. Liam hadn’t realized just how he had missed various English accents until he had them back. Years of having everything translated via spell had left everyone sounding repetitively ‘Hollywood’ in their accents. “But it reminds me a bit of how I manage Washington. Everyone has a different touch, and you have to wear different masks with them.”
“Some people call that lying, you know,” the pilot said. “Madam President.” She added a moment later when she realized that Amanda was scowling at her.
“She’s delirious,” Liam quickly pitched in. “From the magic.”
“Yeah!” the pilot said, nodding.
Tethis’ objections were muffled by Meg’s uninjured wing wrapping around her.
Liam shook his head, his grin fading as he looked from Amanda’s face to the horizon. Fizit emerged from the water at that moment, her body sleeting with salt water, her long feathered hair dripping as she flipped her head. Liam wondered if she knew how many Bond girls she managed to replicate in that single movement. Though few girls in extravagant spy thrillers were allowed to emerge from the waves completely in the buff. And fewer than them were scaled in emerald and gold. And even fewer of them were carrying still wriggling fish.
“Dinner,” Fizit said, grinning toothily at them.
“Damn straight,” Liam purred.
And out of the corner of his eye, he could see the President of the United States looking real damn jealous. If only for a moment.