Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (141 page)

Entire worlds sprang from the primordial goo with a twist of his hand, endless stars and the universes which birthed them, planets, oceans, animals and people. He showed him what it felt like to create two species and pit them against one another just to see which one would be the victor. He showed him species he'd shaped exclusively to hunt, for the hunt amused him, and others he'd shaped as prey. Entire universes grew, but he hungered for more until the building blocks had been consumed. He ate the galaxies. He ate the stars. He ate the planets. And he ate the creatures he had created to give him an endless supply of food.

A low shudder rumbled in Jamin's loins. It rippled through his body, ultimate power, and he did not shrink from it, but stared into the fire unflinchingly as Lucifer found his release.

Lucifer collapsed on top of him. Jamin realized he was no longer fucking the woman on the table, but some time ago they had moved away from that one to fuck the other twelve. All thirteen of them lay unconscious, and some appeared as if they might not be breathing.

Jamin wept, for the withdrawal of power made him feel like an empty shell. Lucifer caught his breath, his expression tender as he withdrew his cock, dripping with spent seed.

“My dear sweet prodigy,” Lucifer crooned, gentle now as he caressed the claw-marks on his gouged abdomen. “You are everything I have ever searched for in a mate."

He led him over to a bed which had been set up in the corner and lay him down into the softness of his snow white wings.

"This vessel requires sleep," Lucifer said. "But come morning, we shall go back to your village and
take
what is rightfully yours. Would that please you, my dear sweet boy?”

“Yes,” Jamin sobbed.

"Sleep, then," Lucifer said.

And it was so, for Jamin had neither the strength nor anger to fight the command which took hold of his mind.

* * * * *

The Amorites carried him across the desert, wracked with fever from the infection caused by Aturdokht's arrow. He pleaded with the goddess of his mother to take him, and give to Shahla back her baby, for he was sorry, and he wanted to make amends.

'Jamin.'

He nestled closer into the warm flesh and soft, white wings which surrounded him. He felt so weak, he could hardly move.

Cold, blue lips touched his, returning to him his former strength. As they did, he remembered the promise he had made to Ki in the desert.

'Circumspector...'

Jamin opened his eyes and gazed upon the sleeping Angelic who lay completely vulnerable in his arms. He was still naked, although at some point Moloch must have healed the gouge marks he'd inflicted. His knife had been cast off someplace within the room. He shifted, trying to escape Lucifer's grasp so he could find it.

'Chol beag,'
Lucifer whispered. In sleep, his features were not ruthless like the creature who had led him into the fire, but tender, almost feminine in its beauty, the face of a boy whose features had been squared off by manhood. He cradled Jamin in his arms like he was a precious lover and tucked him further into the warmth of his wings.

Jamin spotted the knife. He reached for it, his hand patting along the floor until at last he felt the familiar hilt slide into his hand.

Lucifer opened his eerie silver eyes.

Jamin froze, praying Lucifer would not intuit what he was about to do. If he was to kill him, he wanted to kill him in his sleep, so quick that Moloch wouldn't realize it until it was over.

"It is you," Lucifer's voice filled with awe. "The man within my dreams."

Jamin's hand trembled. This was not, he understood, the version of Lucifer who
had fucked him until he'd bled. This was the vessel. The one Ki wished him to free before Moloch could finish consuming his spirit, for a dead spirit could be reborn, but a consumed one? Jamin had seen in his vision what Moloch did to those he begat for food.

Lucifer touched his face as though he was the most beautiful person in the world. He spoke in Galactic Standard, not Ubaid as the Devourer of Children had done, but Jamin had learned enough that he could just, barely understand the words.

"Each night I have dreamed of you," Lucifer said. "I dreamed I fell, but then you caught me and I was not frightened anymore."

Jamin stared into those beautiful silver eyes.

A beautiful, silver star, imprisoned and betrayed…

A silver star, surrounded by fire which threatened to consume it…

Morning star… 

A small, white feather caressed his cheek. He looked into the treasure box, into which he'd placed his wish…

"I promised I would not hurt you while you were weak," Jamin said. His hand trembled with the knife. "I cannot do it. I have committed so much evil that I find I no longer possess the stomach for it."

Lucifer tilted his head forward and hesitantly kissed him.

Jamin felt the image project into his mind, but it was not a violation, but a question.

'Can you see me? Can you look into my eyes and see my soul?'

Jamin trembled, and then he kissed him back.

"
Yes," he said. "I can see you are a different man."

The song he had heard in the desert grew louder, but it was not the goddess who made his heart sing this time, but Lucifer. The
real
Lucifer. The shattered remnant of Ki's twice-devoured son.

This time, it was
he
who made love to Lucifer,
gentle as he caressed him up to an orgasm. Lucifer arched his back and cried out as Jamin helped him find release, and as he did, he felt the soft, white light of his soul reach out and cradle him, wishing to make him his. As their spirits intertwined, Jamin saw it. He
saw
what Moloch had done to his offspring and was repulsed by it. If that was the cost of power, he rejected it. He would not let Moloch do that to Lucifer again.

Sweaty and spent, he collapsed onto Lucifer's beautiful, flawless flesh. Tears welled in Lucifer's silver eyes and slid down his cheeks like a cleansing rain.

"If this is a dream," Lucifer said, "then please, never let me wake again."

He enveloped them both into the shelter of his wings and fluffed his feathers until they were both warm. It was now dark outside, and they had many hours until the dawn.

"Sleep," Jamin whispered to him. "Sleep, and I will bide my time until the next time you awaken."

He curled up in Lucifer's arms and stared into the darkness. What should he do? Kill him now, when the man had found a little peace? No. He could not do it. He'd been given a mission and twice he had failed. If he could not put the man out of his misery, then he had to protect him … but how? How could you protect someone from a mind-reading demon who could seize possession of your body?

Jamin drifted off to sleep.

Cold, blue lips touched his.

'Oblitus…'

In his dreams, he tucked the memory of what had just happened into the treasure box and shut the lid, just like his mother had trained him to do since birth.

~ * ~ * ~

February: 3,389 BC

Earth: Village of Assur

Mikhail

He sat across the chessboard from the small, dark-winged Angelic. Beside them a timer counted out the seconds until the boy had to make his move. The boy did not speak, but then he never did.

"
Tá sé do bhogadh, Gabriel," Mikhail said. He pointed to the timer. "Tá tú beagnach as am."

Those sullen blue eyes were angry because he did not yet understand the game. With a chubby little hand, he picked up his black bishop and made an L-shaped move across the chess board to capture Mikhail's white queen.

"Mo banríon!" Mikhail pointed to the black bishop. "Ní sin an tslí go bhfuil píosa fichille ceaptha a bhogadh."

He stared at the timer ticking at the side of the chessboard, counting out the seconds until he could crush his opponent. The boy's lower lip quivered as he projected an image of him being -mean- directly into his mind. With a chubby arm, the boy stood up and swept the chess pieces onto the floor.

The whistle of an impulse engine as it shifted from forward-thrusters to VTOL cut into his subconscious.

There was a knock upon the door.

"Mikhail!" Mama called, her voice filled with terror. "Tá muid faoi ionsaí! Tóg Gabriel agus é a fháil amach anseo!"

The door crashed open.

Mama screamed...

Mikhail woke up from a dead sleep. Those were
Alliance impulse engines! He rolled out of bed. A lifetime of training caused him to grab his boots, his pulse rifle and his sword as he headed for the door.

"Needa!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "We've got to go!"

He burst into her bedroom and dragged her out of her bed, not even pausing to wrap her up in her shawl-dress, but picked her up and carried her, naked beneath her blanket as he bolted towards the stairs. The walls of Immanu's house shuddered as the ships flew overhead. Needa shouted and hit at him, thinking he was an assailant. He leaped down the stairwell, wings flared instead of taking the steps, and thumped down onto the floor, dropping his mother-in-law into a heap.

"Get out of here!" He shoved her towards the front door. "Now!"

He heard the hum of a pulse cannon charging as it prepared to fire. Needa yanked the door open.

"Mama!"

He leaped towards her and tackled her out the door, flapping his wings as hard as he could to get some distance between him and the house. Blue-white light from a pulse-cannon shot through the sky and vaporized what used to be Immanu’s home. The shockwave from the explosion knocked him out of the air. Instinctively, he covered Ninsianna’s mother with his wings to shield her from the flaming debris.

They both lay there, staring at the sky.

“My gods….” Needa whispered, too shocked to move. The spacecraft maneuvered to the next house and begin to surgically take out similar targets all over the village. “You spoke of it … but….”

Mikhail patted out a small fire which had taken spark on some of his feathers, and then grabbed his pulse rifle, the one he'd been saving for a rainy day. He took aim at the small, civilian Alliance transport vessel nicknamed a ‘devil cruiser’ because of the single pulse cannon included in its design, and aimed for a spot he knew such ships were vulnerable. Devil cruisers were not gunships per se. They were not hardened targets. Wealthy merchants used them to fight their way out of a tense situation if they got jumped by pirates.

Clicking a prayer for clear headedness and true aim, he waited until the devil cruiser banked towards his position, exposing the underbelly. He took aim at a spot immediately before one of the engines where he knew a stream of plasma ran just under the hull, and fired. The pulse rifle’s blast was moderate, just barely punching through the metal plating and whatever lay underneath it, but the punctured stream of plasma feeding the engines was enough to knock that engine out of commission.

The ship began to spin out of control. An explosion rocked the wounded engine as the pilot shut the engine down and used the second engine to limp out of there. In space, the devil cruiser would have been able to keep maneuvering on just one engine, but in the gravity of a planet as large as Earth, it was all it could do to remain airborne. Lucifer would not risk his own personal devil cruiser to cover a Sata’an invasion. That vessel was done fighting for the day.

Needa stared at the modern weapon she had watched her son-in-law carry for a year without using with an awestruck expression while he checked the power charge. There was, he prayed, enough for one or two more shots. He took aim at a second, smaller Sata’an ship armed with a rail gun and fired for a spot he knew that class of ships was vulnerable.

That ship, as the first one, could not maneuver effectively within a planet's atmosphere on only one engine. Sata’an protocol was to abandon the ground troops to fight to the death or win rather than allow a key asset to fall into enemy hands. The second ship moved away from the village, also done for the day.