Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (51 page)

"Okay buddy. Listen to me? If Furcas and Pruflas come back they'll just dump you out the airlock, so you gotta do something for me, okay? You've got to snap out of it."

He rubbed the man's arms, his chest, his torso, trying to get some circulation going. What the fuck had Lucifer done to the guy? Well, done besides
fucked
him? There were no bruises. No scratches. Unlike the women who looked as though they'd been beaten to a pulp. The two females screeched in terror when he stepped towards them.

"Shut the fuck up!" Eligor shouted at them.

The two women sobbed, holding each other's hands. He felt a momentary bit of remorse for their sorry condition, but he was more worried about the one that was hardly breathing. The last thing he needed was to cover Lucifer's ass for murder!

Who could he trust to keep their mouth shut? Lerajie? Fuck, no! Ruax and Procel? Yeah. They were dumb enough not to notice anything was amiss and smart enough to keep their mouth shut even if they
did.
Yeah. They could stash this guy in the empty room next to the harem.

Eligor paced back and forth, ignoring the frightened twitters of the two terrified females. Okay, he could do this. Have Ruax and Procel dress the new ones up nice like they always did. The two got off on that kinda shit, dress the women up like dress-up dolls. Then, if this dude died, he could just claim the guy had injured himself in his private room. Yeah. That'd work
.
It was better than bringing him to Zepar's fucked up secret back room like they'd done to the ebony-skinned man, the one they'd foisted off on the Leonids.

Eligor queued up his comms device and summoned the two meatheads who, at the moment, were babysitters for Lucifer's harem.

"Ruax, Procel," Eligor called. "Meet me outside the Prime Minister's chamber. Oh, and bring a gurney."

Twenty minutes later, all three 'problems' had been efficiently pawned off on somebody else. Lucifer, thank-the-gods, had enough common sense to stay in his bathroom. There would be enough gossip going around the ship that Lucifer was AC/DC without him opening his mouth and tipping off Ruax and Procel that he was also bonkers.

Eligor moved about the room, removing all evidence of the crime. Sheets … changed. Blood … he wiped it up best he could. Liquor bottles … who the
fuck
had resupplied the man with the good shit? He'd spent the past few days watering the stuff down 'cause he figured alcohol and whatever antipsychotic shit Zepar had loaded into those syringes wouldn’t mix well. Yeah … it must have been the booze. Everyone knew that alcohol and drugs didn't mix.

He was beginning to see why Zepar acted like such a fucking prick all the time…

He rearranged the bottles, noting which ones he'd need to sneak back in and dilute later, before it occurred to him Lucifer had been in the bathroom an unusually long time. Bonkers or not, Lucifer was his boss. It did not behoove him to treat his employer like shit.

"Sir?" Eligor knocked on the door. "Mr. Prime Minister? It's me, Eligor. Are you okay?"

The sound of muffled sobbing filtered through the door. Okay. He'd been
here
before. Although at least this time Lucifer didn't appear to be shitfaced. Eligor knocked again.

"Sir, I took care of it for you," Eligor said. "They're all gone."

The door cracked open. Lucifer peered out, his eyes red-rimmed from crying. Or maybe that was just because he was hung over from too much partying the night before?

"Is he going to be okay?" Lucifer asked. His eerie silver eyes glittered with tears.

Eligor considered lying for him, but if the dude was falling off the deep end, the last thing he needed was another enabler.

"I don't know, Sir," Eligor said. "Whatever shit you guys were smoking last night, it seemed to have done a number on him."

"I can't remember," Lucifer mumbled.

"What?"

"I said I can't remember," Lucifer said. He opened the bathroom door the rest of the way. Steam rushed out from his recent, very lengthy shower. The bed sheet had been cast onto the floor, abandoned in favor of a clean, white towel wrapped around his waist. His wings dripped water, a luxurious waste on a spaceship where every drop needed to be recycled.

"What
do
you remember, Sir?" Eligor asked.

Lucifer moved over to sit down on his bed. He made eye contact, his hands clasped under his chin as though in prayer.

"I remember you coming in yesterday morning to give me my shot," Lucifer said. "After that…"

'After that, the good twin disappeared and your evil-ass twin brother made his appearance,'
Eligor thought to himself. He hastily covered that thought with background noise about all the shit he had to do to get this fucking room cleaned up. The sound of his own blood running through his veins began to hum in his ears. Thump. Thump. Thump. This shit was getting weird.

Lucifer pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

"My head hurts," he mumbled. "It feels as though there's this great vice crushing against my head all the time."

"And how often are you having these blackouts, Sir?" Eligor was unable to keep his voice from warbling. Fuck.

"Lately?" Lucifer asked.

Eligor nodded.

"Most of the time."

~ * ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.12 AE

Sata'an Empire: Hades-6

Emperor Shay'tan

Shay'tan

The old dragon paced back and forth, his not-quite-corporeal muscles bulging with tension as he stared into the gigantic hologram of the galaxy. Blue triangles blinked on his side of the border.
His
side! Never before had the
Destroyer
had the audacity to cross over into
his
side of the border unless Shay’tan had crossed into Alliance territory first.

“What do you
mean
he just defeated my war fleet!” Shay’tan howled. “Abaddon was outnumbered six to one!”

Flames shot out of his gullet. Admiral Musab ducked behind the fire shield they’d installed so his generals could apprise him of the latest reports from the field. Musab was not a cowardly lizard, but the man did not wish to be cooked alive inside his skin.

“He came at us as though he was pursuing rabbits,” Admiral Musab said. "He did not stop. He did not veer. And when we blew to hell his frontrunner ships, the second tier hit us, and then the third, and then the fourth. We weren’t able to get out of his way.”

Damantia!
The
Destroyer
had always been an aggressive son-of-a-bitch, but this? This squandering of both side's lives? Shay’tan hadn’t waged this kind of war since … since … since Hashem had abandoned the Alliance to fend for itself and left Lucifer in charge to teach him the Alliance didn’t need no measly
god
to take care of them.

Shay’tan sat back on his haunches and pressed his paws into his temples, cognizant of the tiny lizard with a sledgehammer who’d taken up residence inside his brain. Calm down. He needed to calm down. The days when He-who’s-not had encouraged him to incinerate everything in his path were countless eons in his past. The only reason She-who-is let him stay in the material realm was because it tickled her fancy to keep a dragon as a pet.

Oh! Why hadn’t he just given up on mortals and joined his brethren in the stars? He didn’t need this aggravation! Where were they now, those ancient dragons?

He stared out the hole in the roof that was, unfortunately, on fire again. The stars blinked back at him. When the dragons had abandoned this universe to fend for itself, She-who-is had taken pity on them and turned them into nebulae, the birthplaces of countless stars. He wondered if
she
had made it there, after Moloch had stolen her from him? Did she smile down on him, watching him struggle to safeguard the empire he had built for her instead of incinerating it as a dragon was meant to do?

He realized his fires had calmed.
She
had done that. Taught him to cool the fires so he could hold a mortal form.

He looked to where Admiral Musab stood behind the fire shield, his silver protective suit giving him the appearance of a primitive, space-walking astronaut. It gave him an idea.

Shay’tan began to laugh.

Admiral Musab peeked around the corner.

“Does something amuse you, Your Majesty?” Musab asked.

Shay’tan held his fist in front of his snout and focused upon it until it resembled a claw instead of the fire She-who-is had created him to be.

“So Abaddon thinks Shemijaza had the human homeworld all along? And that Lucifer accidentally ceded it to me when he punished the Third Empire by turning their remnants over for subjugation?"

“I wouldn’t know
what
he thinks,” Admiral Musab said. “But from the way he’s coming after us, yes. He really
does
think that planet lies somewhere within the boundaries of Shemijaza’s old Third Empire.”

Shay’tan examined the map of the galaxy which spun deceptively peacefully on its axis. It was forbidden to use his ascended powers to gain an advantage in a mortal war, but it was not forbidden to use what traits She-who-is had endowed him with naturally. Holding out a remnant of the roof-tarp in his clawed hand, he concentrated, and then puffed out a tiny pillar of flame onto his own, fireproof hand. As a fire elemental,
he
was impervious to fire, but the tarp? The tarp burst into flames.

Shay’tan chuckled from deep in his belly. It was a most un-dragonlike sound, one he had fostered and learned to relish over the course of countless eons.

Admiral Musab peeked out from behind the fire shield.

“Does Your Majesty have something planned, Sir?” Admiral Musab asked.

Shay’tan calmed the fire which erupted from his back and cooled it into a pair of leathery wings. He curled his tail around himself and held it out towards Musab as though he held out a rope.

“Abaddon always said he wanted to go grab the dragon by the tail,” Shay’tan said. “I think it’s time we granted him his wish?”

~ * ~ * ~

December, 3,390 BC

Earth: Mesopotamian Plain

Jamin

The Sata'anic shuttlecraft shuddered and buckled like a canoe tossed around a white-water rapid during the height of the rainy season. Jamin bent over, eyes closed, taking deep breaths as he forced his stomach to remain calm. He was absolutely determined that, this time, he would not humiliate himself in front of General Hudhafah's men. The musky stench of sweat and anticipation was hard to ignore. They
all
stank of the fear which preceded any military action, even a battle as one-sided as the one they were about to engage in now.

Out. Hold. In. Focus on your breathing. That small, quiet voice his mother had taught him to pay attention to as a little boy whispered wisdom he had long ago learned to suppress. Be kind to all people. Pay attention to the whispers of your intuition. Always keep a piece of yourself a secret, son, so that none may know who you really are. She called it his treasure-box, that place where he kept part of himself locked away, the part only Ninsianna had ever been able to reach. It whispered to him at inopportune times.