Chapter Twenty-Three
It hadn’t been a dream. Douglas came out of his stupor, looking up at bright, hospital-type lights, and―yup―surrounded by huge males. If he hadn’t gone totally gaga over Emesh, a number here could certainly turn his head. Emesh. He sat up quickly, and dizziness overtook him. Gentle hands laid him back down.
“Don’t get yourself worked up, Douglas.” The kind words came from a tall, knockout of a woman whose delicate pale skin glowed, her face surrounded by the most glorious fall of copper curls Douglas had ever seen. Hell, if he weren’t gay, here was another person of interest. Why did everyone who caught his eye appear bigger and better than life?
“I’m Dani-Lee, and I’m the resident physician. You collapsed from exhaustion, and I’ve got you hooked up to an IV of fluids, so you’re not going anywhere for a while.”
Sure enough, Douglas looked over and a line snaked into his arm. Anything medical usually creeped him out, but how could you argue with those liquid brown eyes gazing down at him so caringly? One would think he’d suddenly become someone special. Douglas shook his head to clear it.
“Emesh.” His mouth felt filled with glue, and he swallowed convulsively a few times to moisten his membranes while memory flooded back. He looked around accusingly. “He called you.” His eyes couldn’t find Enten, so he singled out an extra-large dude who looked to be in charge. Thick, dark hair, a patrician nose, and a glare that screamed ‘boss’ pegged him as the one to take the heat. “And you didn’t come. I heard Emesh. Before he went quiet. He spoke in that head-talk thing, and none of you answered. Why the hell not?” Douglas worked himself up. “And why are you fucking here when you should be on your way to Leverett to find him?”
“I’m Marduk, and I’m in charge,” dark-haired guy qualified calmly. “We’ve been to your cabin and back. There is no sign of Emesh at your home, so obviously, Trask has him. We left Enten there with a few of our men, watching.”
“What?” Douglas looked around, incredulous. “How long have I been out?”
He plunged his non-IV hand into his pocket and extracted his cell phone. Looking down, he shook his head. What were these guys trying to pull? He hadn’t been down more than ten minutes. He rose to a sitting position, cautiously this time, and turned his phone to the head asshole, canting his chin toward the numbers. “Ten minutes, dickhead. You want to explain?”
Marduk raised his eyebrows before making a questioning gesture to the doctor. She shook her head. “He’s not ready to hear things yet. Give him a couple of hours.”
“Can’t happen, Dani. We don’t have a couple of hours.” Marduk rebutted. “We know what Trask wants, and we need Douglas’ help.” Most anyone would be easily intimidated by the giant guy’s hard attitude, but coppery curls stood right up to her boss.
“I said no.” She crossed her arms over her lab-coated chest. “He’s not going to be any good to you if he falls flat on his face.”
Douglas regarded the interplay carefully, not understanding the nuance, but was highly impatient. Douglas wanted answers, but more, he wanted action. He agreed fully with the Marduk-dude on this one and let them know it.
“That bastard Trask has my…has your man, and we need to find him. If you don’t get to him fast, I can’t vouch for the safety of any parts of his anatomy.” He hoped his glare equaled Marduk’s.
“I agree,” the big man sighed and rolled his shoulders. “We have to get him out ASAP, but we need your help, and you only get the whole picture when Dani says you’re ready.”
“Dammit, I’m ready now.” He looked at several big guys who inched closer when he attempted to swing his legs out from under the blanket that covered him. What the fuck? They all danced to the doctor’s rules? Douglas propped some pillows, instead and settled back, uneasily. “Fine. I’ll stay put, but you need to give me answers. Right the fuck, now.” He would only back down so much. He narrowed his eyes and looked around.
“Why didn’t you answer Emesh when he called? You might have given him some hope or some last-minute instructions…or told me what the fuck I could do.” He ran out of steam. Now that he said it, it sounded a little ridiculous. What could they have done? They’d been over a hundred miles away. To give him his due, Marduk―another God-awful name―didn’t regard him like he’d gone nuts. He instead, launched into an explanation.
“We were in the process of rescuing Addie-May,” he admitted, looking regretful, “and were off the grid.”
This had Douglas sitting upright again, a look of fierce anger tightening his jaw. “Shit. That Nergal guy,” he ground out. “He took her? I knew he was bad news.” He turned his snapping eyes up to Marduk. “Did you get her? Is Dorian okay?”
An undercurrent of snickering passed around the room before Marduk answered. “Yeah. They’re both okay, and…commiserating over their experiences.”
“I get it.” Douglas had been around the block, and knew when sex got discussed in oblique terms, be it male-male or female-male. Reading the room, he had no doubt Dorian was working off some tension right about now, but he still wanted to know the details.
“Did you kill that Nergal character?” he asked.
This time a lot of gasping and choking noises sounded around the room.
“Uh. No. It wasn’t Nergal’s fault. As a matter of fact, the guilty party reminded us more of Dr. Trask.”
Now, Douglas gasped as Marduk once again turned and raised his brows at Dr. Dani. This time he must have gotten what he wanted because he turned back with a twisted smile.
“You’d better get comfortable because I’m about to give you a lot of information that’s going to be―”
Before he could finish, Enten appeared next to Douglas’ bed. Appeared.
“What the hell?” Douglas didn’t hallucinate the guy. One minute Marduk hovered solitarily, and the next, Enten stood to his right.
“Hold that thought,” Marduk put up a calming hand. “First let me tell you what happened with Addie, then we’ll fill you in from there.”
Douglas looked back and forth between Marduk and Enten, then around at the other males in the room, and finally, at the doctor. Dani stepped up, the only one to let him know he wasn’t going crazy.
“Yes, Enten appeared out of thin air, and no, that’s not the most peculiar thing you’re going to hear, so lay back, and try to relax. If you start having trouble with what Marduk tells you, I have some meds I can shoot into your IV to calm you down. Give me a sign, and dreamland will be yours.”
That would absolutely, one hundred percent not happen. As long as the drip stayed saline, Douglas kept cool, but with Trask, he’d been given one ‘gorp treatment’ too many ever to trust anything like that again. The doctor looked the most normal and sympathetic out of everyone in the room, but he still couldn’t put his mistrust aside. He’d have to swallow whatever they told him, as calmly as possible.
Some of the guys looked like nothing more than dogs about to be thrown an unexpected bone, all jazzed up and slathering over some imminent entertainment. No doubt about it. Some advanced government shit would be revealed to him, and the group fidgeted, giddy with anticipation. Obviously, not many civilians were privy to whatever intel he’d receive. All indications pointed toward the info fucking him up good. But what choice did he have? He had to help save Emesh. Douglas made up his mind. He’d hear them out. But after, would they recruit him, or kill him? He’d find out. Douglas turned his attention back to Marduk and nodded curtly.
“Go ahead. I’m ready.”
“Addie fell into the clutches of a non-human, an incubus, a species also in Trask’s biological makeup.”
Okay. He hadn’t been expecting that. Douglas closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He’d always called bullshit on the fanatic’s claims of government suppression of information on aliens and other creatures. He figured he might be about to lose that innocent belief.
“Go on,” he mumbled, and settled down, uneasily, for Marduk to continue. He’d forcibly suspend his disbelief for a moment.
“This morning, after breakfast with the que…with her friend, Ereshkigal, Addie decided to go for a little walk. In dangerous territory.” Marduk clearly censored information, but he figured the big guy would feed him as much as he thought he could take.
“She took a couple of guards with her but shortly thereafter got intercepted by an individual whom she believed to be Dorian. It was not Dorian, but an incubus who, in passing, had picked up on her sexual need for her husband, and transformed himself into a near-exact replica of her fantasy. That’s what incubus do.”
Douglas snorted. He fought the urge to interrupt and lost. “If I believe you, and let’s say for the moment I do, that’s nothing Trask ever did. If he attempted to put on a face to entice me, he got it dead wrong.” The venom as he spit out Trask’s name was unmistakable.
“That’s because Trask is also part Vampiric demon,” Marduk explained in a straight up tone that had Douglas nearly agape.
Did the big guy just say vampire?
“He feeds better on fear rather than pleasure during sex.”
Right. Check-mark that box.
“So, here Addie walked, following a man she believed to be her husband for a little afternoon tryst when she became suspicious. You see, Dorian had only been to this particular…area once before, and after an hour, Addie-May deemed it impossible for him to know where he was headed. So, she left us a trail.” Marduk gave a small chuckle. “Are you familiar with the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth?” he asked.
Yes, in fact. Douglas had watched the glorious 1950’s Technicolor version many times as a kid.
“I always loved it.” Douglas relaxed into the story. “Don’t tell me. She left initials carved into the rock.”
“She did, indeed. And a good thing, too because when she started taking a closer interest in the Dorian-look-alike, she also noticed he didn’t sport a silver dagger earring, something the Dorian she knows would never remove. Upon closer inspection, no hole existed for the earring, either, and that’s when she became positive it wasn’t her husband dragging her through Hell.”
A plethora of coughs erupted behind Marduk, but Douglas didn’t know why. Had it been the use of the term ‘Hell’? He had no problem with that. Douglas had been under the less-than-tender ministrations of one of these fucked up incubus guys and calling the situation Hell? A frigging understatement.
Marduk cleared his throat and continued.
“She quickly deduced she dealt with an incubus, so she played to his vanity, sent him visions of things that would supposedly entice her to his bed. She managed to hold off against the powerful pheromones his type emits to keep their prey stimulated.”
Now Douglas did hold up a hand to stop Marduk. He needed to take that last statement in. He needed clarification.
“You say they have some kind of smell…that makes you…want them?”
“I am,” Marduk concurred. “And it takes the knowledge of who they are to combat it. Luckily, Addie figured it out in time and realized why she felt the way she felt.”
Douglas choked back a sob that rocked his body, and Dani hovered over him instantly.
“Are you okay, Douglas?” She laid a hand on his pulse, and he knew she’d find it off the charts. Shit. The way he felt right now, he might explode. He needed to get something off his chest that built like a pressure cooker, and even though of an intimately personal nature, he figured these guys had probably investigated him from the colon on out. So, what more could shock them? Douglas spit the words from his mouth as if ejecting poison.
“Sometimes when Trask did…things to me…I enjoyed it,” he rasped. “I thought I was a sick bastard, just like him.” He closed his eyes and raised his head agonizingly to the ceiling. “I hated his fucking guts and always wondered how I could get…hard with him even standing in the same room as me.” He took a deep breath. If Marduk spoke the truth, the perverted, sexual longing hadn’t been inside Douglas at all. He looked up at Marduk with clearing, hopeful eyes. “Are you saying I had no choice? I didn’t…respond of my own free will?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Marduk’s powerful stance and surety let Douglas know he didn’t spew bullshit. Douglas opened his mouth and gulped in air. If anybody could be believed, he wanted it to be this guy. His gut told him to trust.
“Thank you,” Douglas said, so quietly it might almost have been missed. “I wanted to kill myself every time he finished with me, but never more than those times where I actually responded. I hated myself for it and could never understand…my reaction. Thank you,” he said again, loudly this time. Douglas fumbled a hand toward Marduk, who took it in a solid clasp.
“Not your fault, brother.” The large man hadn’t actually teared up, had he? Douglas had little time to wonder because Marduk kept on with Addie’s story.
“When Addie’s dismissed guards came upon Dorian and Nergal having breakfast, they realized they’d left Addie with an imposter, and everyone mobilized to search. When Dorian found Addie’s carved initials, he called on us to join the hunt.” Marduk turned regretful eyes toward Douglas. “That’s why we didn’t hear Emesh. We were all out of range when he called.”
“What’s your range of communication?” Douglas asked. He’d wondered at that but hadn’t gotten around to asking Emesh.
“We’re good for ten miles, under normal circumstances, and unlimited distance if we’re in range of a satellite dish we can piggy-back off. That all goes to shit if you’re underground, though.”
Underground? Oh, yeah. Caves, a-la-Saknussemm.
“So, Addie had been taken underground where you have no coverage?”
The large individuals exchanged glances again.
“You could say that,” Marduk acquiesced. “But right now, aren’t you interested in the rest of the story?”
Douglas was no idiot. Marduk led him away from certain information, but in fact, his curiosity as to how the men got Addie out of the incubus’s clutches needed assuaging. Funny how he didn’t fight the idea of a boogieman type enemy. He gave Marduk a silent go ahead.
“Addie managed to slow the creature down quite a bit. She made him stop to cook lunch over a fire, she feigned fatigue. In the end, after playing several hands of cards, she became desperate, and complained of diarrhea, due to the nature of the meal they’d eaten.”
This produced a lot of laughing from the crowd. Right. Nothing better than a scatological red herring.
“During one of her pretend bathroom breaks, we finally located Addie, hiding behind some rocks, and counting to a thousand. Dorian scooped her away, but since the incubus had already imprinted on Addie, he couldn’t let her go. We didn’t want to kill him since he only did what incubus do, in a place where his type is indigenous and allowed to follow their natures.”
“Imprinted?” Douglas let the rest go, picking up on the term. He didn’t like the sound of it. He liked even less, Marduk’s knowing nod.
“We’ll talk about that later,” the guy informed him. “But as to the end of the story, Nergal has a succubus friend who has been trying to seduce him for years.”
“Succubus?” he asked.
“A female of the species,” Marduk informed.
“I heard her tail made it a few inches up his ass one time before he totally freaked.” This interruption came from a smirking, blond, pony-tailed guy who looked like he didn’t take much of anything too seriously.
Douglas wanted to see if he could shock him. “Doesn’t sound bad to me,” he interjected and got the surprised gulp he angled for.
“Oh yeah.” Blondie colored up. “I forgot.” He coughed and recovered nicely. “You and Emesh.” An amused leer came back to his face. “So, have you guys done the nasty yet?”
Douglas took his turn gaping and luckily, about six of the big hulks next to the mouthy one took it upon themselves to smack him around until he begged for mercy.
“Don’t pay any attention to Anshar,” Marduk assured him. “Half his brain is on sex at all times.”
“Only half?” Anshar scoffed, then added, “And yours isn’t?” He immediately ended up on the bottom of an impromptu pig-pile, still speaking, “If I had a buck for every time the compound erupted with thunder and lightning…”
“Enough, Anshar. Let me finish, so we can go get Emesh.” Marduk eyed the bag of fluids that dripped into Douglas’ arm. Apparently, he’d been timing his story, so Douglas would get the full benefit of rehydration before getting out of bed.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” he shot a quelling look at Anshar as if daring him to interrupt.
The blond quieted, but his eyes still twinkled with mischief.
“Nergal has this succubus friend, and I don’t know what he offered her," ―an outright guffaw from the bottom of the pile― “but she agreed to take on the look of Addie and have sex with said incubus for the good of the realm.” Marduk ended his story with a flourish.
“Addie got swept away to safety by Dorian who, by that time, figured out because of what happened, he had to be his wife’s biggest fantasy, and,” Marduk looked at his watch, “I do believe they’ve been proving that point, ever since.”
Now a lot of smiles emerged in the room, tempered only when Marduk mentioned Emesh again.
“We had only just returned when you started blowing that infernal horn of yours. It took a few minutes to find you, but Enten got a head-full of your pleas which gave us a location, and now, we’re ready to get moving.”
Douglas sucked in a big breath. He had lots of questions before they left, but the first had begged to be answered since Marduk’s first words.
“How is it that you’ve already been to Leverett and back, and why did my brother-in-law appear out of thin air?”
“You know,” a female voice answered, “you guys have a bad track record when filling Chosen in on this shit.” All heads turned to the door, and Douglas became astounded at all the stunning, differently sized, and varying degrees of pregnant, women who stood in the doorway. One of whom was his sister, Glory. Damn, she waddled fast for the size of her belly, and no one had ever looked so good. He held out his arms, trembling.
“Douglas.” She wept copiously by the time she got to him. “I couldn’t stay outside the room any longer.” She looked apologetically at Marduk, right before she threw herself onto her brother’s chest. “I know they wanted to tell you everything and make sure you didn’t go nuts, but Lenore thinks it’s better if the women take over,” she sniffed, and hugged Douglas, kissing him all over his face until they both laughed with joy.
He caught a glimpse of his mother over Glory’s shoulder and blinked, clearing the tears in his own eyes. Maybe another half dozen or more women graced the room, but he had to hold Glory, and then his mother, before he met them. He needed to feel the reality of them. Especially his sister after so many years of only imagining her growing up. God, it was good to see her. Several minutes passed before she eased back, and Douglas placed a hand on her belly.
“Twins, huh?” he smiled up at her with his whole face. “Emesh and Enten part two?”
Glory laughed right along with him. “I couldn’t ask for anything better.” She ducked her head and kissed him again, then stepped back, reluctantly as his mother came in for her hug. “As much as I want to keep you to myself, there’s business to accomplish,” she sighed. “We had a conference in the hallway, and the women all agreed the guys suck at indoctrinating new members into the…club.” She grinned over her shoulder at the males to let them know she didn’t fault them for it. “So, we voted, and Candy going to be the one to tell you everything.”
Groans came from the men as they picked themselves up off the floor.
Glory ignored them. “She’s got a no-nonsense way with words and gets right to the point. Candy?”
A petite, dusky colored female with more muscles than Douglas had ever seen packed into such a small frame, stepped forward. Her dark hair stood off her scalp, spiked short, and her violet eyes sparkled mischievously at him. Yeah. He’d probably follow her anywhere. Umm, sure, he did males, but he wasn’t dead. He must have sent the thought on the semi-public head channel because a possessive growl sounded in the chest of a guy with golden braids.
“Calm down, sweet cheeks,” the woman who’d been introduced as Candy chastised the guy. “I’m going to talk to him, not fuck him.”
Whoa. That cut straight to the heart of things. Douglas blushed. He’d have to keep his little brain-asides to himself.
“Okay, handsome. Here’s what Emesh has been too chickenshit to tell you.”
Emesh? Chickenshit? Douglas bit his tongue.
“We’re not government operatives.” Some dissension broke out behind her. “Okay, some of us are, but over and above that, what we really are, are immortals.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for his reaction.
“Immortals,” Douglas reiterated, not getting it.
“Yeah. Gods, goddesses, warlocks, witches.” She gestured, and a couple of oddly shaded guys move forward. “Lauernley.”
Douglas swallowed. Whatever that last one meant, these guys were blue.
“The original thirteen males who lived here before the rest of us are ancient Mesopotamian gods, having been sent to the Underworld…Hell…for various transgressions.” Candy quirked her head to one side. “Emesh must have told you he’d been sent away for being gay.”
Douglas conjured a scant nod before she continued.
“Well, the rest of the gods had similar trumped up shit against them that had them banished, too. Needless to say, they spent a bunch of time in Hell fending off demons. But thanks to the Underworld queen―Ereshkigal―who has a tender spot for the big lunks, they ended up back on earth.
“Happy ending? Not quite. These fuckers screwed up again, got turned invisible and left to rot on earth. But now, drumroll please, if they all find the person of their dreams, they not only get to have their bodies back, but they get to stay on terra firma forever.”
She didn’t let up, and Douglas found himself in danger of passing out again.
“Emesh didn’t have a body until you came along. You’re his guy…but I’m sure you already figured that out. We who are Chosen to these idiots react like our heads have been bashed in the first time we meet them.”
Douglas mumbled his agreement.
“And have you seen his light-up shoulder?” she asked.
Douglas’ head nodded affirmatively on its own accord.
“Good. That’s his god-amulet. Until you mate with him, which means you get half of it, he’s only visible when you’re within a hundred yards of him. That means, as soon as you took off from your cabin, Emesh went invisible.”
Douglas assumed he felt relief, but the shock of everything Candy said had him doubting his reactions.
“That’s right, but don’t get too excited. It doesn’t mean Trask can’t see him. Most Underworld demons, incubus, etc. can spot an invisible being. What it does mean is Trask can’t hurt him. He can touch him…”
Candy must have read Douglas’ mind again because her words became graphic. “… and yeah, he can torment him by stuffing things up his ass, but Emesh won’t feel it,” she informed him, somehow thinking that made Douglas feel better.
“Interaction without tactility, I believe the gods call it.” She looked around, but most of the guys had eyes on the ground. Apparently, Douglas thought, none of them liked the picture of things up anybody’s ass.
“So, what else do we have?” She tapped her bottom lip, going over the list. “Incubus, gods, other immortals, invisibility, amulets, Hell…”
Had she covered everything? Nope. Definitely not.
“Duh. How could I forget? We can move from place to place by misting out.” Candy snapped her fingers. “Western Massachusetts in seconds. California in twenty minutes. Get the picture? And Anshar mentioned thunder and lightning when our hunky leader and his wife fuck? That’s because he’s the god of storms.” She got impish. “Emesh is the god of summer, hence his innate ‘hotness,’ and although we don’t know what other surprises he might have up his sleeve…or his dick…I’m sure you’ll find out. And you better share,” she added cheekily.
The color crept up into Douglas’ cheeks remembering Emesh’s sparkly light up come. He changed the subject before his brain let that little tidbit slip.
“Okay,” Douglas found his actual voice, “let’s say I buy into this. I need to know more about the incubus thing.” He looked back to Marduk. “You mentioned something about imprinting.”
The god’s lips thinned out. Not good.
“Yeah. Trask has had you under his control. So, for that reason, you’re imprinted on him. That means he’ll do whatever he can to have you again because his body craves you on a cellular level.” He looked around. “We’ve all discussed it. Since he can’t get any satisfaction from Emesh, there’s only one reason he’s holding our summer god.”
The pause became significant, but Douglas had already intuited what Marduk meant.
“Trask wants me back, and he’s using Emesh to lure me in. Therefore, we need to make his wishes come true. With me as bait, we find Emesh.” Douglas shuddered but didn’t hesitate. “I agree. When do we leave?”