Cattin'
Around Chapter 14
Target: Richelieu Factor
(Author’s
Note: The idea for Doctors Adams and Stevens comes from a book I read
about a decade ago called Engines of Creations. It’s about how
nano-technology will change the world.)
It had been one hell of a couple years since that
mission in Alaska. Emory and I managed to grab some "us" time
between missions but we were both still way too busy to be able settle
down together. Mom was starting to make certain noises about
grandchildren even though Wynn was still underfoot. Actually,
according to dad, he'd already started breaking hearts not only where
they were living in Uppsala but in Alfheim as well. There was
some interesting rumors also floating around among the other magecats,
and I was starting to worry for my little brother.
About two years before the turn of the millennium,
Doctor Green dropped a bombshell on the transhuman community. She
really was the top in her field when it came to transhuman genetics,
physiology, and psychology, and when she had something to say, people
listened- except for this time. What she had to say was at least
quickly swept under the rug if not outright suppressed in some areas.
It did cause a fundamental shift in the UN's approach to
transhumans that would have repercussions for half a century.
It would seem that she had found scientific evidence
to back up what many of us were already suspecting. The genetics
for increased strength and durability- what are colloquially known as
"bricks" or "tanks" or "powerhouses" line up with the same genetics for
same sex attraction in males at a rate approaching eight-five percent.
That kind of information would cause a fundamental
shift in how many people in the West saw masculinity. Later it
would be confirmed that the same applied to energy manipulators but to
a lesser extent.
Also it was at this time that a little boy of my
acquaintance made it clear that he was not quite a little boy any more.
He'd grown into a handsome young man, evidently gotten a
boyfriend, and stopped drawing pictures of Japanese mecha for his mom's
refrigerator and instead had actually built a suit of it. Now,
Kevin Murphy and his boyfriedn Jake Lee had joined those who'd chosen
to step up and make the safety of those who can't defend themselves
their own personal responsibility.
His debut mission was saving Commander Heller's ass when he
got knocked out cold by Russian Winter while standing in for Rainbow
Warrior on Paraforce 1. Actually most of the team got neutralized
by that particular mad Russian jotun. Kevin stepped in and
stopped the frost giant from destroying a building and fought off his
pet cold-drake, Rus. (See file: Summer Snow).
The best part about it was his mom got to see him
action up close without realizing it was her son. They were
living in New York at the time and her company M-7 was starting to
really be successful, but she was still in the field on big missions.
She was right there in the thick of it when he showed up and
kicked major jotun butt.
Doctor Green opened another of her schools. She
already had the Pacifica School out in California- that's the one Mom
and Dad considered sending me to- and it was turning out some fine
transhumans. I found out through General Presley that the rumor
about UNIPACT Prime trying to kidnap some of those kids was true.
Evidently half of a class went rogue to rescue the other half,
and left a UN base in the Saudi Desert in flames; and did it under the
noses of British tank division. (See file: A Gathering of Gatherings)
This new school was based out of England and was
evidently designed to train students who were "politically sensitive".
There were only three of them and they were all descendants of
Strikeforce Liberty from World War Two. One of them was my Aunt
Beatrice's- you know the magecat, Tigress- son. That made him my
cousin. He was a handsome young man with blond hair and the
bluest eye's I'd ever seen. According to the file General Presley
had on him, he put all the rest of us to shame in the strength
department. He took the codename Cobalt-Blue.
Fighting alongside him were Phantasia, a really hot blonde psi
that had a reputation for doing what it took to save lives. She
was also the Duchess Orkney and the third cousins of the Heir Apparent
to the British Throne. The third was a cyber-psi named
Cyberstar who had a reputation for being mean and vicious in a fight.
They called themselves Liberty's Legacy.
At the turn of the millennium Paraforce 1 dropped a
bombshell on everyone. Moonwind, the shrinking winged scientist
retired from the team in protest of the fact that the government was
trying to confiscate the patents he'd developed while a member of the
team. Evidently there was a clause in his contract that let him keep
his patents, but the current administration was trying to renegotiate
it. It was a big mess and put the team in an uproar, and he left
the team before the change of administrations. The quiet little
guy evidently could put up quite a fight when he wanted to. (See
file: A Gathering of Gatherings)
Then something happened that sent me into a
tail-spin. Actually it almost destroyed poor Gates. I was exactly the
wrong person to send in to deal with it, but I was the person the
General sent. In early August Gates woke up to a screaming
from Kevin's bedroom. When she got there, she found a very
frightened Jake Lee freaking over the fact that he'd awakened to find
Kevin dead in the other bed- actually, they'd been sharing a bed, but
neither Gates nor I knew that at the time. Kevin had a six foot
polymdium steel spike driven through the top of his head and down his
spinal column.
I was the third person Gates called, the first being
the police, and the second was Jake's parents. I literally left
Alec's bed to charter a flight to New York. When I got there and
finally got Gate's calmed down, we started hunting. It took us a
week before we found out who was responsible: Richelieu Factor.
From there we sort of went berserk. I'll be the first to
admit too: I was the sane one.
By late August we'd taken out about a dozen of
Richelieu Factor's top assassins. Most of them died from a .50
caliber round through the skull, a snapped neck or the occasional
disembowelment. Now don't get all offended on me. I've
never made any bones about the fact that I can, will, and have killed
in the line of duty. This was just a good warm up for what was
going to happen in a few years when the UN started trying to kill or
kidnap all of us. By mid September we were playing havoc with
their forces and they were seriously on the run.
Evidently we got somebody's attention in Washington,
because in the middle of tracking down an assassin who'd been assigned
to kill two young scientists, Emory showed up. We were staking
out the apartment that the two men shared in San Medilla, California.
It was a sleepy little town somewhere between Santa Barbara and San
Diego. Evidently the targets were a couple of wunderkinds like
Kevin and were making all kinds of splashes in the bio-technical and
theoretical physics fields. Somebody had hired Richelieu
Factor to make sure they didn't complete their latest projects, and the
Factor had sent one of their top agents, one with which both Gates and
I were itching for a rematch: Serpenterra.
We were in a little motel in a rundown area of town
called Grant City. It was an area that looked liked it could use
some serious renovations and not the kind of place you'd expect two
scientists to live. I later found out that the place they were
staying had more of a sentimental value to them than anything else.
It had been a safe haven for them when they'd been on the run as
kids and they'd never left it.
I'd always wondered what a meeting between Emory and
Gates would be like. Of all my lovers, and there were quite a
few, only Gates had anything close to the same kind of connections to
my heart that Emory did. And to be honest, I think a lot of that
came in through Kevin. The idea that someone had slipped into a
fifteen year old kid's bedroom and killed him in his sleep just hit me
in all the wrong places. Especially since I knew and liked the
kid.
My mage senses told me Emory was coming long before
the teleport into the hotel room was complete. Without
looking up from the window where I was watching a dark clad form creep
across the rooftop of the building where our scientists lived I said,
"She's one of the good guys, Gates."
I heard the sound of the hammer of Gates' LAR Grizzly
Mark V being eased back into place followed by Emory's voice, "General
Presley is concerned that you're stirring up the rats' nests."
"And what's your concern?" I asked as I watched the
figure on the far roof begin to pick the double padlocks on the door
leading downstairs.
"That there's a nest of Kheltian soul-breed making
their way up the outside of this building now," she said.
"What?" Gates asked.
"Somehow the Kheltians have become involved," Emory
asked.
"Trey never told me exactly who or what the Kheltians
are," Gates told her.
"They are a degenerate race who claim to be descended
from intelligent raptor-like dinosaurs. According to legend and
lore, they were partially responsible for the fall of the Atlantean
Empire," Emory told her.
"Looks like we've got a sneak thief on the other
building," I said as the second lock fell away from the door where our
mysterious figure was working. "Do we deal with the Kheltians or
do we take out the thief first? They could be a distraction to
keep us from the assassin assigned to kill Doctors Adams and Stevens."
"We do both," Emory said fiercely. "I'm not
here to bust your chops for taking out a bunch of assassins. I'm
here to lend a hand, and the bureaucracy be damned. It's about
damn time someone put Richelieu Factor in their place."
Suddenly I could detect a very strong skunk-like
odor. I was reminded of the smell around my dad's pond during the
cottonmouth mating season when I was growing up. I looked up and
said, "Company's here."
Before either woman could respond, my view out the
window was suddenly obscured by the form of a giant lizard like
creature scaling past on its way to the roof. I turned and looked
at Emory and asked, "What was that all about?"
"I don't know," she said. "I thought they were homing
in on you two."
"Let's get to the roof," I replied heading toward the
door.
Murphy looked out the window and asked, "What about
the guy picking the lock across the street?"
"You stop him, we'll deal with the Kheltians," I told
her.
She looked over at Emory and I could see that
something was passing between the two women, something I could not
understand. She nodded to the petite blonde and followed us up.
As we burst out onto the roof and skidded to a halt,
an old foe was awaiting us. The tall, reptilian form of
Serpenterra was giving orders to the Kheltians. I smiled
and realized that I'd fought this snake woman twice in the past, once
alongside each of these two women. I looked over at Gates and
said, "Gates you go after your first target; Emory you take the
Kheltians. Serpenterra is mine." Without waiting for a
confirmation, I roared into the night and charged toward my quarry.
"Is he always like this?" Gates asked Emory.
"You wouldn't believe," Emory told her. "It's
part of his charm."
I didn't catch the rest of the conversation because I
bowled past two Kheltian warriors who were stunned by my roar- and yes
a tiger's roar CAN stun its prey- and hit her with a shoulder-block
amidships.
We went flying through the three and half foot wall
that surrounded the roof top and flew out over the street and landed in
small park across the way. I didn't let go and I
shifted into my normal form instead of my battle form- I didn't want to
have to maneuver around the trees in the park. It was best to
keep this fight at normal size. Also, I'd already made enough
noise with that roar, there was no use in waking up the other half of
the neighborhood- the fat lot of good that thought did. As we hit
the ground, I drove my shoulder into her midsection and then rolled
off, satisfied with the loud "whoof" she made as the impact forced the
air from her lungs.
Rolling to my feet and facing her, I grinned to
myself. So far, none of the assassins we'd fought had put up much
of a fight. This was going to give me a chance to work off some of the
anger I was feeling. The whole night had a red tinge to it-
partly from the reds and golds of the maples in the park and partly
from the beast rising in my soul. To my left the streetlights
made neat little glowing points in a rising fall fog coming off the
Pacific Ocean.
She came to her feet and lashed her tail behind her
angrily, stirring up the grass and leaves. She hissed at me and I
could see her deploy her fangs. I'd read her file and knew those
things could inject a venom that was a hundred times more powerful than
a Taipan.
I flicked my
wrist down and felt the charm on my bracelet drop into my hand.
“Vaxa!” I snarled and felt Isstonn grow in my hand.
She took one
look at the blade and I saw just a bit of fear in her eyes. We’d fought
before, and she didn’t like the cold it generated. And of course
the last time we’d fought, I’d been blinded by one of Neutron’s energy
blasts to my eyes, so I wasn’t fighting at my best. This time we
were fighting on more equal terms.
Suddenly,
the ground under my feet began to tremble. I wasn’t about to be
caught in another block of rock. I leapt at her -sword ready.
Last time I saw her, she was working with a rogue weretiger
rapist who was about to sacrifice a baby to summon dark forces into the
body of a friend. It was Emory who faced off with her then- with
her mage gift at half power no less. I had also had the tiger
literally ripped into the forefront of my soul by the Dark Mother to do
her bidding. This time it was just going to be claw to claw, fang
to fang, sword to body. Nobody else was going to interfere- I
thought.
As I came
down in front of her I took a powerful two hand swing at her
midsection. She was as fast as a snake and lashed out with her
own claws. I felt them rip across my chest and sting as they bit
into my flesh. That answered a very important question: She was a
nocturnal- a simple set of transhuman claws would not have penetrated.
To quote Ricardo Maltalban from my all time favorite movie: “So
much the better.”
I spun, and
saw her stop to concentrate on something. Back!
a small voice in the back of my head screamed. Without thinking,
I obeyed and danced backwards to watch a geyser of hot steam suddenly
shoot up from where I would have been if I’d charged. She was
definitely living up to that second r in her name.
With a smile
I began to slash at the air and to sing. As the blade cut
the air, the runestave formed between us:
“Þat
kann ek it þriðja
ef
mér verðr þörf mikil
hapts
við mína heiptmögu
eggjar
ek deyfi
minna
andskota
bítat
þeim vápn né velir
Þat
kann ek it níunda
ef
mik nauðr um stendr
at
bjarga fari mínu á floti
vind
ek kyrri
vági
á
ok
svæfik allan sæ”
I watched as
the runestave began to glow between us. It was supposed to block
her ability to manipulate the earth. As soon as it went off, I
knew it hadn’t worked. There’s a certain feeling when you use a spell
if it’s successful. There’s also a feeling you get when a spell
is broken- usually a very painful backlash of power. That’s why
sorcery and blood magic is so tempting; sorcery uses none of the
caster’s own magic, and if it is broken, the back-lash is taken by
person whose blood was spilled to cast the spell. But there is an
entirely different feeling when a spell just doesn’t work. It
sort of feels like swinging at fastball and getting nothing but air.
She grinned
at me and growled at me. “What’s wrong magecat? Discover
something doesn’t work with me?” She crouched as if to leap.
I just
grinned and showed my own fangs. “It’s okay,” I replied. “I
can just cut off your head and hang it on a post somewhere.”
My answer
seem to startle her because she didn’t come out of the crouch into the
expected leap. Instead she tilted her head at me sideways, the
fin on top of her head collapsed back against her body and then opened
again. “I thought you were one of the good guys?”
“I’m a
Northman, and a follower of the Gods of the Aesir and Vanir. I do
what’s necessary to fulfill My Lady’s commission. You’ve become too
great a threat to allow to live alongside civilized human beings,” I
told her as we danced around each other looking for an opening.
It slowly became clear that this woman, this creature was a
seasoned warrior.
She smiled
and nodded her head, “Then maybe this will be a challenge after all.”
“I’ve
already beaten you twice,” I said.
“You had
help those times,” she countered as we stalked each other in a circle
looking for an opening. I had a healthy respect for those fangs.
She had enough magic to her that she could penetrate my skin.
Whether or not her poison would effect me was still up for grabs.
So far, few were capable of it, but there was no sense in taking
a chance.
A lightning
stroke from the clear hot night onto the building in the background
told me that Emory was dealing with the Kheltians. I had a good
idea about what was going on up there. She didn’t. I watched as
her eyes darted out over my shoulders. I acted. I stepped
in with a lunge that was second nature to me. In the last minute
she saw the danger and reacted. Suddenly the ground swallowed her
up as she sank into the turf. But my stroke wasn’t completely a miss.
Instead of catching her chest, I felt it hit her skull and then
slide back long the base of the spines of her fin before finally
penetrating that membrane. As she fell into the earth, Istonn
sliced the fin just behind the second spine from the base of her skull
all the way upward and out. I could see the frost build up on her
head. Talk about brain freeze!
Spinning
around, I looked for wherever she might resurface. I listened to
the night. In the distance I could hear the hissing sound of the
Kheltian language as they battled Avalon. More closely I could
hear the sounds of crickets and katydids as they filled the night air
with their angry buzzing calls. It was just a small sound- probably a
root of the nearby maple tree snapping as she passed through the
ground. I spun in time to see her come bursting out of the earth
at me, fangs deployed.
I reacted
instantly. I sidestepped and swung low at her legs. She twisted
in mid-air and lashed out at me with her thick tail. I
missed her leg but felt the tip of my blade slice into the tail along
its length imparting its frost. She hit me like a Buick, picking
me up and slinging me across the park and into one of the smaller maple
trees. It snapped under my weight.
I rolled
backwards and came up on feet, in the best tradition of a certain
starship captain. I could see where I’d cut her, and the ice was
forming on her tail. I could also see where my blade had
completely disconnected the fin on her head between the first and
second spines. The left side of her face was covered in frost,
and the skin was already dying. Too bad it didn’t penetrate
her skull.
I could feel
myself beginning to bruise from the force of her blow. I hadn’t
been hit like that since Krieger beat me to a pulp in my own backyard.
Which by the way, at the time I firmly planned on a
rematch. My ears were still ringing from the force of her attack.
I shook my head and smiled. “At this rate, we could be at
this all night,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good
fight. Most of you assassin types are deadly when you get the
drop on somebody, but go down too fast in a straight up fight.”
Again, she
stopped and gave me that weird head turn. I was beginning to
think that it was something cultural, which meant that might be more of
her out there. My mage senses suddenly flared.
Someone had just used a major spell in the area, and it didn’t
have Emory’s signature to it. I looked around to find out
who. I caught the scent of something behind me, the same skunk like
scent as before.
I leaped
straight up as a nasty eldrich bolt passed through the space I’d
occupied less than a second before. The tree on the other
side of the park it struck withered and died before I even hit the
ground and crouched low.
What I saw
made my blood run cold. Kheltians weren’t known for their use of
magic. Most any of them that had anything close to magic were the
soul stalkers, a subspecies that could suck the life right of an
opponent. They were supposedly barely intelligent and had to have
a handler. But the one I saw now was bigger than a regular soul
stalker and had a definite intelligence to him.
He looked
like a bipedal wingless dragon as he stalked toward me, his hands
crackling with eldrich energy. “It’s about time you showed up
Bob. What took you so long?” Serpenterra asked.
“The
unexpected arrival of another time-traveler,” the Kheltian mage said.
Looking at me, he asked, ‘You’re Runeclaw, Robin Greenbough?”
I nodded and
my eyes darting back and forth between him and Serpenterra. “I”m
Runeclaw,” I answered. “You’re name is Bob?” I asked
incredulously.
He smiled
with a toothy mouthful of fangs and said, “I know. Sort of disappointng
isn’t it. One would expect a mage born of Imperial Line of
Hesperia to have more grandiose sounding name. Something like
Elevarth, or even Dragonisti, would be more regal, more imposing.
But Bob it its. My mother was not very immaginative, and I
was the runt of the litter. She named me Bob because my
head was so big that it constantly bobbed up and down when I was just a
hatchling.” He sighed and I watched the energy disappear from his
hands. He continued, “Believe it or not, it’s an honor to meet
you,” he said. Then turning to Serpenterra, he said. “This is a
fight you cannot win, Serpenterra. You will not kill him this
night, even with my aid.”
“What are
you talking about?” she demanded. “There are two of us, now.
He’s a single mammal!”
“I know his
fate, Serpenterra. It is not to die this night,” Bob the
Kheltian mage said.
Suddenly
the night air was lit up by a flare from Avalon. I glanced up to
see her descending from the clear night sky. In the distance, I
could see Murphy running toward us at full speed with that deck gun she
calls a pistol out and ready. “That’s the son of a bitch that
shot those boys!”
The Grizzly
barked twice, the sound echoing through the night like a cannon.
I watched the two rounds slam into Bob’s chest. Even at
several hundred pounds and armored with thick scales, I could see where
they penetrated the thick hide. I knew Murphy was using Teflon
coated rounds.
I moved in
to finish him off, with Isstonn but with a wave of his hand, he was
gone. Only his words echoed in the night air. “It’s time to
leave Serpenterra. Our mission here has failed.”
I turned to
see her nod, and she disappeared into the earth. One of these
days I was going to finish a fight with that bitch one way or another.
Emory landed and asked, “What the hell just happened?”
“That
overgrown lizard showed up and shot both the scientists with some kind
of energy bolt. They were both dying on me when the guy from the
roof showed up and injected them with some kind of miracle drug.
The big holes in their chests began to heal almost immediately,”
Gates said.
“You just
left them with him?” I asked incredulously.
“He told me
that the mage was after you! That you were in danger,” Murphy
replied.
“We were
talking. He didn’t want to fight me, he even told Serpenterra
that she couldn’t win,” I told her.
“Looks like
she got a few good licks in,” Emory said stepping up and running a
finger down the deep gashes across my chest left by her claws.”
“She’s a
nocturnal,” I said. “Otherwise they’d have healed by now.”
Emory nodded
and said, “We’d better go and check on your scientists.”
I nodded and
headed toward the building in the distance. I also wondered why
the police weren’t showing up. We’d made enough noise to wake the dead.
It didn’t take us long to get to the top floor where the
two scientist were up and around and talking to a third man.
Okay, if
these boys were scientist, then somebody had rolled Billy Cranston,
Lucas Wolenczak, and Wesley Crusher into one kid and then divided him
in half. They couldn’t have been out of their teens yet and both were
looking at their bare chests in amazement. Another dark-headed
man in his early twenties was talking to them. “You have to be
careful. The colony uses the energy released through breaking molecular
bonds to do what you want them to do. That causes heat to build
up inside you as a waste product. If you keep using them at that
point you can kill yourself and the colony, unless you find a way to
get rid of the heat.”
“Exactly
what are you talking about?” I demanded from the door.
The tall
dark-haired man that looked like he had a considerable amount of
Amerind in him, smiled at me. His face lit as if he knew me.
“Lor... Commander Greenbough. Good, someone I can trust.”
“You can
trust?” I asked. “Who the hell are you and why were you breaking
into this building?”
“To save
Doctors Adams and Stevens,” he said. “My name is Delsin Storm.
You don’t know me- yet. I’m from the future.”
“The
future?” I asked incredulously.
He smiled
and said, “My parents said you’d be hard to convince.”
“Your
parents?” I asked.
He shook his
head and said, “You haven’t met them yet. You will in a few
years. You don’t know it, but you’re going to be very
instrumental in training the next generation of transhumans in the
world.”
“Right,”
Emory said next to me.
“Don’t
laugh. In case you haven’t noticed, Trey has a way about him that
young people are naturally drawn to,” Gates said. “Especially
young men.”
Delsin
laughed and said, “You can say that again.”
“We can
vouch for the fact that he saved us Runeclaw,” one of the boys finally
said. I could hear a sense of awe in his voice. At the time
I thought it was because they’d just almost died and this Delsin guy
had saved them. “We were both dying. We literally had holes
in our chests the size of a basketball when Delsin showed up and
injected us with a nanite colony.”
“Nanite?” I
asked.
“Microscopic
robots designed to heal them, change their bodies, and keep them alive
until the information programmed into them will be needed to save two
galactic civilizations from the Kheltians in the far future,” Delsin
said. “Until then, they’re going to need someone to watch over
them.” He looked over at Gates and said, “That’s where you come
in.”
“What makes
you think that I want to take care of a couple of superpowered whiz
kids barely out of short pants?” she asked snarkily.
Delsin gave
her a long look and said, “Because for me, you’ve already done it.
Because you’re going to keep doing it all your life. It’s
who you are. It’s what you are. This attack is going to cost them
their jobs with UCSM. Trust me, you can put them work at M-7 and
all three of you become wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.”
I watched as
Murphy considered what he said. “Exactly what kind of work do you
boys do?” she asked.
The two
young men looked at each other. “We’ve been studying how
technology can interface with both baseline humans and transhumans.”
“Like Doctor
Wells research in the seventies?” she asked. I was surprised that
she knew about that. It was highly classified and had only ever
been attempted on seven people. Only two of them were ever very
effective agents. I’d recently met the first one. He was
okay for an Air Force colonel.
The boys
looked at each other and I could see where something was passing
between them. Finally, they nodded and one of them said, “It’s
only related to his research in a round about way. What we are doing is
as far beyond Wells’ work as neuro-surgery is beyond a band aid.”
I could see
the wheels turning in Murphy’s head. Finally, she pulled out a
cell phone to make a call and stepped out in the hall. I chose
not to eavesdrop. She was still hurting over Kevin’s death. Hell,
I was still hurting over it and wanted to kill some more agents from
Richelieu Factor. I’d gotten wound up in the fight
with Serpenterra and the adrenaline was still surging through my body.
Delsin
looked at me and said, “There’s more Mr. Greenbough.”
“What” I
asked.
“You
remember the vote in the UN that caused the US to divest itself of all
military personnel?” he asked.
I nodded my
head. That was the reason I was working with the DNA now and not still
an officer in the Navy. Nobody could figure out why neither
the US, Britain, China, nor Russia vetoed it. “Yeah, what of it?”
I asked.
“They used
telepaths to make sure the vote went the way they wanted it to. Those
telepaths are being held against their will in Romania. You need
to get them out and prove to the world that the vote was rigged,” he
said. “I’ll give you the location.”
“I’ll have
to get it approved through General Presley,” I told him.
“I know,” he
said handing me a CD. “You’ll need this information. Take
care of this disk, you have no idea how much trouble we had finding the
right format. You’ll have another job to do first, but don’t
forget about this one.” I gave him
a questioning look, but he just shook his head. “I’m not saying what it
is. But you are going to have your hands full very soon.”
“Exactly
what do you know?” I asked.
“A great
deal sir, but I can’t tell you right now,” he replied.
I turned to
Emory and she shook he head. “I can’t read him without battering
down his shields.” She smiled and added, “And starting a psychic
battle with him wouldn’t be a good idea right now.”
I nodded and
asked, “What about those two?”
She smiled
and sent telepathically, ~Trey,
sometimes you are so dense it’s not funny. They’re awed by
meeting you. Not by meeting Murphy or me, but by you. Of course
some of the things they are wondering are kind of funny. You
really do need to find something to wear other than that loincloth.
There are points where it leaves nothing to the imagination.~
I felt
myself blushing at the thought, but got my mind back on business.
“Okay, we can’t leave them here, Bob the mage might come back and
try to finish the job.”
Delsin shook
his head and said, “He won’t be back. His mission failed.
His job was to recover the nanite colonies. They’ve been
implanted where they belong. In the distant future the data
they contain will be used to protect trillions of people, and to that
end they will keep these two alive.”
“You mean
we’re immortal now?” one of the boys asked.
“Pretty
much,” Delsin said. “But don’t go and get any ideas. Immortality
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Just ask my parents. After
a while it gets boring.”
“Exactly who
are your parents?” I asked.
He shook his
head and said, “Uh uh. Not gonna tell. You’ll know them
when you see them. You’ll teach both of them what it means to be
a hero.”
“Okay, I’ve
got a retrieval team coming to get you boys.” Murphy said coming back
into the room. “If you want it, you’ve got a job with M-7.
We’ve even got labs for you to do all the research you want.
You get substantial royalties for whatever you come up with and I
get first shot at manufacturing it. That sound fair?”
“Define
substantial,” one of the boys said. I was impressed.
“Ten percent
of net profit,” she said.
The second
one shook his head and said, “Ten percent of gross profit, or twenty
percent of net.”
“Fifteen of
net,” Murphy argued back.
The two boys
looked at each other and nodded. “Agreed,” one of them said.
“Welcome to
M-7, Doctors Adams and Stevens. Get your stuff,” she said with a
wry smile. “Cassidy will be here within the hour to pick you up
and make sure you get to our Atlanta headquarters without any issues.
After that, we’ll work on getting the rest of your belongings
shipped back east.”
And so we waited and we talked. Turns out the boys really
were whiz kids and had finished their doctorates before they were
fifteen. They had also been kicked out of their homes for being
gay, and had lived on the streets for several months. They’d just
gamed the system, not hard to do when your IQ started with two and you
could fake documents fairly easily. Most schools were willing to
not look too closely at those documents and certificates as long as
they got those kinds of scores.
By the time
we’d seen them off with Murphy’s personal assistant, Cassidy it was
well past midnight. I looked over at that flea bitten motel where
we’d been staying and shuddered. I then turned to the two women
with me, both of which were eyeing me and each other suspiciously and
said, “I don’t know about you ladies, but I am not going back there.
There’s nothing there I need and I want a comfortable bed without
insect company.”
Murphy
raised an eye and said, “Are you implying you’ll have another kind of
company?”
I shrugged
and replied, “Not implying anything. Either or both of you are welcome
to join me.” I know, it was gutsy. Emory could fry my brain
and Murphy could almost match me in strength. But I was tired, I
was stoked from the action and frustrated because the fight ended
before I was ready. And I’ll be honest with myself. I was
horny. I’d been sharing Gate’s bed now for over three weeks, but there
had been no sex involved; just holding, just cuddling, and just
comforting. She was a friend, yes a friend with benefits, but a friend
first, and she needed that from me. If she came to my bed
tonight, I was making it clear that there would be more than just
cuddling. “It’s up to you two.”
To my
surprise, Gates looked at Emory and said, “I could go for a good piece
of tail right now. How about you?” She then ran an arm
through Emory’s.
“Surf and
turf. How lovely,” Emory replied and patted Gates’ arm in an
unspoken message that she really wanted to play tonight. The two
began to walk off. Emory turned her head to face me and asked,
“You coming?”
An hour
later we were settling into one of the most expensive hotels in the
city. I was tired of chep no-tells, I was tired of fast
food, and I was tired of being cramped. I didn’t care what it
cost. The investments I’d made over the years had been very good
and I wasn’t hurting for money. It was time I treated myself and
the two most important women in my life- short of Mom that is, but you
guys know how it goes with Momma- to some of the finer things.
Now I’ve
been involved in a few menage a trois before, but all of them have
always been with the genders weighted in the other direction.
There was that liaison with Onyx and Crimson back in Alaska, and
of course I still hooked up with Tommy and Tanya regularly. They
were married now, and he was a Brigadier General in the Marine Corps
but they still liked to play.
I went
directly to the rather large bathroom and started the hot water in the
huge spa-style garden tub. I wanted a bath and a soak first. I
stank and I knew it. As I stripped and dropped the loincloth on
the floor, I thought about Emory had said. Maybe it was time I
went for something a little less revealing. I shuddered at
the thought of spandex though. Maybe I could talk to Murphy about
alternatives. Her company was turning out some pretty interesting
combat gear.
A low
whistle came from the door as I bent over to test the bath water.
Emory and Gates were standing there both buck naked and
bare-assed. They were a dichotomy of sizes. Emory doesn’t even
clear five feet, and is built like a sylph with her long blonde hair
and fine lines. Murphy on the other hand is bigger than I am, towering
over me by a good six inches and I’m six two. She’s built like an
Amazon with strong muscular lines and flaming red hair. Emory
barely reached the top of Gates’ enormous breasts. Both had
neatly trimmed pubes, Murphy’s in a fiery red strip just above her sex,
and Emory in a neat blonde triangle. “Hmm, the turf looks good,”
Emory said.
The two of
them standing there was enough to wake the dead and I was far from
dead. I smiled and slid into the water feeling my dick grow hard.
“Surf is just what this little red cat ordered,” I replied.
“Trey
Greenbough, there are a lot of words to describe you, but little isn’t
one of them,” Gates said coming into the bathroom. Turning back
to Emory she asked, “What say we wash each other’s backs?”
Emory smiled
and as she followed her in said, “Sounds good to me.”
It was a
good thing I hadn’t filled the huge tub completely full. By the
time we were all in, the water was just a few inches below the top.
Much to their surprise, I set out to actually washing. “I
think we’re being ignored,” Gates said.
“You two
feel free to start without me, but first I’m going to get clean.
I smell like a skunk after tackling Serpenterra. You
don’t want to get anywhere near me until I”m clean,” I told them.
“Maybe we
like you stinky,” Emory teased.
“I don’t
mind being stinky with my own smell, or with sex, but this is
disgusting,” I told her. “I think she was in season.”
Murphy looked at me questioningly. I smiled and said, “She
smells like a water moccasin during mating season- which isn’t too
different from a skunk.”
She crinkled
her nose and said, “Oh.” Then turning to Emory she said, “We
could always scrub him down good.”
I just
smiled and handed them cloth. “Feel free,” I told her standing so
my dick was sticking in her face.
She took the
soap and got the cloth good and covered and then began to scrub my body
with it. It wasn’t long before Emory was joining her, and I was
loving all the attention as my dick stook straight up and hard as a
rock. While Gate’s gently cleaned the blood that had
matted in my chest from Serpenterra’s claws, Emory began to wash around
my dick and balls. I could feel her gently pull the foreskin back
and run the edge of the cloth around the corona of my glans. It
felt exquisite.
Gates stood
and ran her fingers along the wounds and asked, “Shouldn’t you get
stitches for these?”
I shook my
head and said, “They’ll close on their own. I heal fast, even
nocturnal caused wounds. It’s the way my Goddess designed me.”
I didn’t tell her that they hurt like the dickens though.
Suddenly she
moaned and leaned into me. I glanced down and could see where
Emory had backed up and had her face buried in Gate’s pussy from
behind. “Ooh, somebody wants to get started,” she said.
I watched as
Emory pulled back and said, “I’ve been wanting to try this for years.”
I gave her a
strange look and said, “You’ve eaten pussy before.”
She smiled
and said in her perfect English accent, “Yes, but not as a woman.
This is the first time I’ve ever tried it like this. I like
it.”
“Oooh,”
Gates said again spreading her legs wider. “Nobody’s ever gone
that deep with their tongue before.” I knew at that point that
Emory was cheating, using her shapeshifting powers to get deeper than
she normally would have.
I began to
knead Gate’s substantial breasts as she reached down and started
stroking my cock again. I had been dancing a razor’s edge between
desire and frustrations for the last few weeks- not wanting to pressure
Gates while she was mourning Kevin. I loved the boy like a little
brother, but I was still a man, and Gates was one hell of a woman.
I felt the tiger in my soul come a little closer to the surface.
Before it totally took over I traced a rune along my stomach with
a claw and sang a spell in a whisper. When I finished I turned
her around and bent her over at the waist saying, “Then let’s
make it interesting for both of you.”
She bent her
knees slightly to give Emory better access, and bring her body down to
a level where I could reach her. I slid my dick into her pussy
alongside Emory’s tongue. It was an unbelievable feeling. My dick was
wrapped on one side by the hot muscles of Gates’s sex. On the
other I could feel Emory’s elongated tongue all the way up to the tip
of my dick. As I began to thrust in and out of Gates I felt her
tongue curl and uncurl around its length.
The
need that I’d kept under tight control for the last three weeks was
roaring to the surface. I felt myself begin to shift under the
influence of the lust I was feeling. My tail extruded from the base of
my spine, and my ears flowed to the top of my head and became cat-like.
My thrusts became stronger, more intense as I started to pound
away at her pussy. I felt Emory pull out next to me, unable to
physically handle the raw power of the pounding of mine and Gates’
loins. Instead she changed the angle of her attack and began to
lick along Murphy’s slit and flick at the nub of flesh at the top.
Occasionally, I’d feel it at the base of my dick or around my
balls.
Gates
shuddered under the oral ministrations combined with my cock pounding
in and out of her from behind. I could feel her legs clamp
down as her body was wracked by wave after wave of pleasure. That was
all it took. I was on a hair trigger anyway, and I blasted a huge
load of cum deep inside her.
Now
when I say a huge load, I mean a huge load. It wasn’t just two or
three teaspoons full that most guys generate under the influence of a
powerful orgasm. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
It felt more like I was pissing inside her than cumming. It
literally began to run out of her in streams of white creamy man juice.
There was probably at least half a cup. I was just glad
that I cast that spell just before I entered her.
I looked
down and saw Emory staring up at me, her face covered in both mine and
Gates’ juices. She was smiling hugely as she said, “I know you’re not a
one shot wonder, and that was just enough to get my motor running.
Let’s take this to bedroom.”
I smiled and
pulled her up to me and kissed her seriously. Yes we were playing
with someone else, but this was the woman I was going to marry.
I’d do anything in the world for her. As we took time
to dry off, my dick never got the least bit soft. I knew this was going
to be one of those long transhuman endurance-fueled sessions. The
load I’d just blasted into Gates hadn’t even taken the edge off.
I stopped
long enough to pull the mattress off the bed and lay it on the floor.
There were going to be some serious lovemaking tonight, and I knew that
the hotel bed would not stand up to the pounding. It was better
to simply move the mattress than damage the bed. I lay Emory down
on the mattress and entered her in one even stroke.
I looked
down as the head of my dick disappeared into her tight pussy. I
could feel the muscular rings of her sex begin to massage against it.
I knew it was her way of reminding me that there were things she
could do to me that no other woman in the world could. She
wrapped her legs around the small of my back and began moving against
me. Before long it wasn’t clear who was fucking who.
Gates
stepped up in front of me and presented her dripping pussy to my face.
I could see the whiteness of my own semen suspended in the clear
seminal fluid as it clung to outer labia and small hairs above her
pussy. I briefly wondered if she’d been “trimming” in
anticipation of us “hooking up” at some point on this mission.
Without hesitation, I leaned in and began licking my own juices
from her pussy. “You always did have a very talented tongue,
Trey.” Then with a smile, she added, “However, I think Emory has you
beat.”
I wasn’t
going to argue, I just kept licking as my hips thrust in and out of
Emory. She grabbed my head with both hands and held me
tight against her sex. I drank in the heady aroma of her juices
mixed with the taste of my own cum. It was sweet, salty, and
musky all at the same time.
Emory began
to buck her smaller form against mine thrusting her hips up to meet
with surprising force for such a small woman with not enhanced
strength. She was making sure that I met her needs as well.
That wasn’t a problem. I was still horny as hell and was
loving every minute of it.
It wasn’t
long before I had both women trembling against me. Gates had
spread her legs wide so I could get my own tongue deep inside her.
And yes, I cheated just like Emory did. She was right, it
was an unbelievable experience. Meanwhile I kept up a slow and
strong thrust and drove my cock deep into Emory and then would pull out
until just the head of my dick was inside her. I loved the way
the muscles of her pussy would roll my foreskin over the head of my
dick as I pulled out, and then would push it back as I entered her
again on the deep downstroke. She described it as a “little
catch” along the way of the thrust. I felt her and
Gates both clamp down on me and begin to tremble. Emory unlocked
her legs and pushed up hard against me from the floor. Gates on
the other hand grabbed me by the ears at the top of my head and smashed
my face against her sex.
When she let
go, and backed away breathing hard, I leaned down over Emory and
kissed her, letting her taste Gates on my lips. Suddenly her
tongue darted into my mouth and along the edges of my fangs. I
pushed her blonde hair away from the sides of her head and ran the
fingers of one hand along the pointed tips of her ears. She
moaned into my mouth and I felt the pressure in my balls begin to build
and started thrusting harder.
I could feel
the sides of Emory’s pussy begin to spasm against my cock again,
knowing that I’d sent her into a second orgasm. That was all it
took. I thrust twice moe and then buried myself balls deep in her
and blasted another equally huge load into her. I could feel it
run out of her body and soak my own copper tinged pubes. I pulled her
to me and and wrapped my huge arms around her tiny form.
Rolling over, I held her tightly against my body as I continued
to spasm inside her.
When
I finally came down from that one, I realized it had barely taken the
edge off. I was still horny and ready go. Glancing over at the
clock, I realized we’d been making love for over an hour and I was
still rarin’ to go as they say. Emory lay against my chest
for a few moments and then said, “You’re still hard.”
I
smiled and said, “You were the one who commented about my not being a
one shot wonder.”
“What’s
up Trey? she asked.
“You
mean besides about eight inches of my cock that’s buried in you?” I
asked. She nodded and a I shrugged. “I’m just horny,” I
told her.
She
smiled and said, “Good.” Looking up at Gates she said, “You want
some more of this? I think I want his tongue this time.”
“We’re
gonna wear that boy out,” Gates said with a smile.
“I
don’t think so,” Emory replied as she pulled off me and I felt more of
my own semen puddle on my stomach. With the grace born of her Fey
and Alfar heritage, she slid around to present her slit to my face.
“And he’s definitely not a boy anymore.”
Without
missing a beat, I began to delve my tongue deep into her sex.
Again, I cheated so I could get deep inside her. I was
loving the taste of my own cum. I’ll admit. There have been times
when I’ve met my own needs. I already have the extra spaces in my
spine of a cat, so I’m a hell of a lot more flexible than most other
men. That means I can literally blow myself, and have done it on
occasion. But Freyr’s gift had other uses than just battle. When
I felt the need for a good fuck and there was nobody else around, I can
and have used the power to create a shapeshifting copy of myself and
swapped blowjobs or even fucks. It’s actually a very intense
feeling because of the link I share with my duplicates. So
yes, I’ve developed a definite taste for my own cum, especially when
it’s mixed with someone else’s juices. I hate to waste a drop of
it, and there was a lot not to waste for some reason this night.
As
I licked Emory from front to back, and then entered her with my tongue,
I felt a strong hand grasp my still raging cock. I heard Gates
say, “There’s no use in letting such a nice piece of meat go to waste.”
I felt her lower herself on my dick and set her weight down on my
hips. I could feel her rocking back and forth.
At
one point I felt her lean up off my dick while at the same time Emory
pushed her pussy back deep onto my tongue. I realized that they
were kissing, and since I had my head buried between Emory’s legs I was
missing it. Still I didn’t care. I was in heaven as Gates
rocked back and forth on me.
I
decided to cheat with her as well. She was a big woman- not
overweight, but just massive in stature. That applied all over her body
and the angle she was using was grinding her clit against my pubes and
the top of my dick, there wasn’t as much pressure against my dick as I
liked. So again, I used my shapeshifting power. My usually
eight inches of cock stretched and swelled to something that would have
made the studliest porn actor blush in shame. “Oooh,
I think I like sex with shapeshifters,” Gates murmured.
Of course with my elongated tongue buried in Emory’s pussy,
I couldn’t answer, but I did begin to thrust harder up into her.
By
now the edge was far enough off my need that I was able to sit back and
enjoy the dual rocking natures of my partners. I don’t know
how long I lay there pinned between them, my tail lashing back and
forth against the mattress. I know that both Gates and Emory came
at least twice more each as we made love. Finally,
Gates rolled off me saying, “I need to rest. I can’t take much
more of that monster.”
“I
can,” Emory said as she pulled herself off my tongue. With a
quick motion, she whirled around and mounted me again as Gates
stretched out next to us. Emory lowered herself on my
“enhanced” dick slowly and began riding up and down its length.
By a factor of sheer size, she was smaller than Gates, and
therefore much tighter on me. It was a very intense feeling as
she was obviously enjoying the feeling of being fuller than she was
used to.
It
wasn’t long before she was bouncing up and down on me, riding my dick
like there was no tomorrow. This time I had no warning of any
build up to her orgasm. None of the usual small bites to her lower lip,
none of the cute little faces that she usually experiences showed up.
This time it went from a build up to an explosion of energy that shot
through her body. Suddenly she threw herself down on top of me,
bit deep into my shoulder and screamed into the muscle.
I
felt her pussy spasm around my dick and that and the bite was all I
needed. It set off another massive load of cum blasting from my
dick, deep inside her body. It started somewhere behind my balls
and tunneled its way up my spine, through my ass, and out the end of my
dick in one wave of pleasure after another. Finally I was
getting some relief from the almost animal need that had risen to the
surface of my soul in the bath.
We
lay there for a long time, my dick still buried deep inside her.
After a while, we looked over to see where Gates had fallen
asleep next to us. With a smile, I turned Emory over and we began
to move against each other again- this time long and slow.
We ended up making love three more times that night before
falling asleep on the cum-soaked mattress.
Sometime
just after dawn, Emory’s phone went off. I rolled over and pulled
it from her purse and saw the number. General Presley! I opened
it and touched the answer key. “Emory Northmore’s phone.”
“Greenbough,
I need you and your English Rose at the Pentagon now! It’s a
Class One Emergency.” Class One? I wondered silently. That
meant foreign invasion. What the hell was going on?
I
looked at the clock and saw that it was just past six thirty am.
“We’ll be on the first flight out of California.”
“No
you won’t. You’ll use whatever powers you’ve got to get here
within an hour. All flights over the US are grounded.
Nobody but the military is flying anywhere.”
“What
are you talking about, General?” I asked.
“Turn
on the television, Commander,” he said.
I
grabbed the clicker, pointed it at the television and hit the power
button. I didn’t even have to look for the channel. The
image of a plane flying into the Twin Towers in New York was on every
channel. In shock, I said, “We’ll be there within an hour.”
I closed the phone and went to wake Emory and Murphy. It
was time to go to work.