Number of the Beast (Paladin Cycle, Book One) (29 page)

Amy shrieked. She shoved him aside and
jumped to the floor. Underneath the bed, she rearranged her
sneakers toe-to-toe.

Sprawled on his side, he
patted the bed. “Hurry up and get that sweet ass back
here.”

She pouted. “Tell Mr.
Hokey Pokey to hang the heck on.”

“
Don’t work that way,
baby.” He thumbed at his bare chest. “Pilot.” Then pointed to his
erect cock, impatiently twitching. “Copilot.” Shane wrapped his
hand around his cock and stroked up and down, spreading precum
along the length. “And I don’t converse with my dick.”

Her eyes rolled to the
ceiling, as if in deep thought. Bringing her gaze slowly back to
him, Shane could almost see the light bulb above her blonde head
before she said, “But Carmen said that all guys talk to their
penises, so it has to have a proper name.”

He continued stroking
himself. “Debating Carmen’s infinite wisdom of cock wasn’t really
what I pictured us doing tonight.”

She crawled toward him, an
angelic smile on her face and the devil in her eyes. She lay on the
bed beside him. As he crawled over her, she asked, “So no Hokey
Pokey?”

“
You cannot name my penis
after a children’s dance. It’s just...fucked up.”

She laughed. “How about
Colonel Zen?”

“
Random. But better.” He
leaned down and suckled her neck, tasting and smelling those spiced
peaches as if she’d bathed in the pulp. With a tilt of his head, he
gestured to the side of the bed where Amy had rearranged her shoes.
“Baby, I’m gonna eat you alive. And I don’t need any superstitious
ritual to make you scream.”

“
I never
scream.”

From the
nightstand, Shane grabbed
Bastet
. He waved it like a scolding
finger. “You ever scream for him?”

“
Oh mercy! Put that away.”
Amy grabbed for the toy. “And Bastet is an Egyptian goddess, not a
‘him’.”

Shane held it out of her
reach. “Mmm. That’s some handy info. Maybe I’ll let her join us.”
He flashed a wide grin. “But I want you to myself for round one.”
He tossed the vibrator to the side before tugging her panties down
her legs. Twirling the silk undies, he tossed them over his
shoulders. The panties caught on the antlers of a deer head Shane
had killed last winter, joining a lacy bra and chemise.

Shane shoved his aching cock against
her slit. Kissing her deeply, he waited until she squirmed against
him before thrusting.

Hard.

Fast.

His mouth covered a hard pointy nipple
while her hands traced the contours of his ass and slid up and down
his naked back.

When her
shoulders stiffened, tensed, the first telltale sign she was about
to climax, he ground his pelvis against hers and sent a silent
thank you:
To Aunt Carol, love Colonel
Zen.

# # #

Standing on the edge of the sea, Isaac choked and
coughed. Blood and amber vomit poured from his gaped mouth and
pooled at the massive two-headed wolf’s scaly seaweed-dripping
paws.

Galmoria dismounted. “Did my baby catch a nasty
bug?” She sauntered closer.

With the back of his hand, he wiped spittle from his
lips. He wanted to snarl at her, let her know the fight had fled
him. But his broken, shallow breathing and hammering heart
prevented him from making any sound but a gruff grunt.

Galmoria’s boot slammed into his chest. He splayed
onto his back. A jagged shell clipped his right shoulder.

More blood and venom drooled from his lips. He
managed to crawl to his knees. “I w-will...have y-you.”

Galmoria gripped his shoulders, her fur-covered
groin at eye level.

The most stringent essence he had ever scented
raided his nostrils. Isaac grappled her legs for support.

“That’s it, my cub.” Galmoria moaned as she swiveled
her sex against his face, smothering him between her dripping
folds. Her insidious nectar mixed with the salt water stung the
back of his throat like tiny insect pincers.

Whimpering, Isaac jerked away. He balanced on his
hands and knees and spat. “Never will I...pleasure you.” His
canines flashed.

The back of her hand felt like a stone axe smashing
into his cheek. With a puny grunt he rolled onto his back
again.

Galmoria dug her heel into his chest, grounding
against his Narkush stone that hardly held any glow. “You disgrace
Mother, little Isaac. Such a weak and puny cub.” Her fangs shot
over her lower lip.

Little resolve remained in his mind, and none in his
body. Vostrict’s deadly cocktail weakened his muscles, turning them
rigid, burnt and frost-bitten. His teeth chattered as an icy fever
captured his body.

With a talon, Galmoria pointed to the sky.

In the lavender clouds, a visage formed of Ira
sitting on a bed next to a fevered Lynn. Sweat drenched his mate’s
hair and her face was flushed, eyes closed. Isaac heard her soft
purr.

Galmoria smiled at Ira. “Hello, dear. I command you
to kill that pathetic whelp.”

“N-no,” Isaac uttered, hoarsely.

Galmoria snarled. “Don’t sass Mother.”

If Ira killed Lynn it would mean his own death,
death by synchrony. It was not death that he feared most, but to
watch his twin perish would be more punishing than any physical
suffering Galmoria could inflict.

With Lynn enraptured in the throes of her
metamorphosis, she would be helpless against Ira who acted under
Galmoria’s influence now.

His brashness to conquer Galmoria had led him to
mount Vostrict and take enough poison to kill an adult Minotaur,
and now he and his twin would pay for his foolishness and
impatience.

Galmoria nodded skyward. “End her!”

Ira drew a slim blade, turned to Lynn and ran it
through her abdomen.

Galmoria bellowed with laughter, her heel twisting
into Isaac’s chest.

Isaac felt no pain. In his soul, Lynn’s life-force
remained true.

Closing his eyes, he feigned a final breath.

“My poor, poor, child.” Galmoria removed her heel.
“You might have made a fine replacement for Adela.” Standing over
him, she kicked at his ribs.

Isaac’s claws snatched her ankle, jerked and
twisted; the bone snapped, and Galmoria toppled to the ground
beside him. Shrieking like a vulture, Galmoria clawed with her
talons. Isaac absorbed her blows, gritting his teeth, and wrapped
both hands around her slimy throat before he twisted. Her shrieking
stopped.

Paralyzed, her lips pursed like a drowning fish.

From behind, Isaac crept over her, his front to her
back side, his cock against her asshole. He gazed toward the
sky.

Ira grinned. She held her blade up. It vanished, a
phantom knife.

Galmoria writhed beneath him, her head lolling on
her shoulders. Before her broken neck could heal, he knotted his
fingers in her hair and yanked her head backward. Empty, doll-like
eyes met his.

“Look upon my face when I fuck you like the demon
whore you are.” Isaac’s blood and pus covered cock stabbed into her
vile black hole.

The sea-wolf howled at the purple heavens.

“I hate you, Mother.”

# # #

By the illumination of the small night light, Amy
watched his silhouette, black cowboy hat and broad shoulders, rock
back and forth. When she wrapped her legs around his waist, opening
herself up, he rewarded her with a deep groan.

Her mom once said men weren’t worth a damn and to
invest in lots of batteries. But Aunt Carol had told her the right
man would know how to reach those special spots that no plastic toy
could touch. And every girl needed that deep touch every now and
again—that was what Aunt Carol had said, even though she’d never
married.

Amy’s nails dug into his back. The deeper they
buried, the harder he pounded. Her sex milked him as she exploded
with orgasm. His cock snug, she relished in the feel of his bulk
and masculinity, grateful he’d been the one to take her virginity
years ago.

With a feral growl, he nipped at her earlobe.

Her legs quivered as she crossed her ankles around
the small of his back. A moan was all the response she could
manage. A high-pitched rolling moan.

Lifting his upper body, he gazed down at her. “I
love you, Amy Rae Baker.”

Through some cosmic force that Atticus’ knew nothing
of he’d been dropped inside of a lusterless world with only various
spectrums of gray. The sign in front of the building read
REEP’s.

The doors slid open. A person dressed in a long
unwavering robe clouded in smoky hues exited the building.

The figure came closer. His skin attempted defiance
of the gray world through a ghastly slate-blue complexion.

Atticus rushed forward.

Rourn held up a red alder wood staff that had also
retained its color. “All is going according to the correct path.
But you are in grave danger now. We must hurry.”

A metallic grinding sound penetrated the stillness.
From mid-air, white rifts tore open. Arachnid creatures dropped to
the ground with muffled clangs. Slender arched legs kept barely
kept their bulbous bodies from scraping the ground.

“Time Reavers!” Rourn sprinted, waving Atticus
along. “They must not get to you or else they will trap you within
a timeless cycle.” He raised his staff in the opposite direction of
the general store. “We must make haste to the temporal gate.”

“Screaming lotus!” Atticus raced after Rourn who
appeared to glide over the ground. “You committed the unpardonable
sin! Why?”

“No time to explain.” Rourn waved him along.

Behind, Atticus heard the clanking sounds that could
have been mistaken for rusted gears, but it was the screeching of
the bizarre spider-urchins.

As fast as Atticus ran—and he could run fast—the
world only crept by, like grains of sand sifting down an hourglass.
Grain by grain.

They paused at a traffic light blinking black and
white. The wind swayed a STOP sign as effortlessly as it would
flutter leaves of an aged spruce. The metal pipe creaked in long
drawn out whispers.

The air was dense on this plane. Atticus grimaced,
heaving for a breath. He wanted to drill Rourn for answers...to so
many questions. Well, actually one question. Why?

But instinct told Atticus that Rourn had not jumped
from that ledge to dodge his duty to the Order. He was not a
traitor or a coward. He had reason. Something deep and innate
screamed this logic to Atticus.

Instead of asking why, he asked, “What do you mean
by everything is going according to the plan?”

“The multiverse consists of our own world, time, and
galaxy and the worlds, times, and galaxies of every other possible
timeline. I have seen a dozen worlds since my transition. A world
where Germany controls all facets of global life; a world where
electricity was never invented and the church ruled a dark age
America with an iron fist...well into the 21st century.”

“What does Germany and the church have to do with me
or the Beast?”

“Everything and nothing,” Rourn said. “We must
maintain the correct timeline for certain events to be triggered.
If things do not happen in certain accordance the future of our
universe could devolve into a dystopia of interstellar
proportion—worse than anything ever written about by Herbert or
Asimov.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. Just know that the Dark Trinity has a
plan to save our universe which will save his universe as well. He
has contacted me from a distant world from a distant future within
the same space-time plane that we preside in. If we fail in our
mission to keep the timeline proper then his fate is as terrible as
ours will be.”

A small army of spindly mechanical Reavers appeared
around them. They disappeared only to reappear seconds later, but
this time much closer.

A spider lunged on Atticus’ thigh. Fangs pierced,
lodging painfully deep into his flesh and dragging him through thin
air.

Gray got grayer.

As if he weighed no more than a slice of parchment
paper, he felt himself falling...floating...until his feet touched
solid ground once more.

He stood on the terrace of a ziggurat surmounted by
a chalk-white limestone temple. Though wisps of smoke trailed from
bronze censers spread about the terrace, Atticus detected no
fragrance. Buildings composed of sandalwood and dark grainy basalt
sprawled around the mighty pyramidal structure. And all those
buildings were aflame, crumbling and collapsing.

Men, some in loincloths, some naked, some still
donning headgear of nobility and military, hurried about in an
erratic manner while others embraced, kissed, and caressed each
other. They ignored the city falling down around them. The only
thing they seemed to care for was each other’s flesh. Crude short
swords and curved blades laid scattered on the unpaved streets,
along with shields and various pieces of leather armor.

Near one ruined roughly worked wall of cyclopean
stones, Atticus spotted a man on his knees before another man.
Atticus tore his sights from the abomination only to spot another
man inserting his entire forearm inside a young girl squatted in
front of him, her bare back splashed with blood!

On enormous wings, ascended a black winged-cat that
would have surely sent a fearless wyrm flying away with its tail
between its legs. The cat’s sudden shrieking brought the buttress
of another building to join the heaps of burning rubble sprawled
into the streets below. Billows of undulating smoke and dust
swelled upward to meet the blanched heavens above. Head first, it
soared high toward the smoke screened sun, embodying both
breath-taking regalness, and hellish horror.