Earth, Sun, and Moon Saga Ch. 05

She only drank for a minute before pulling away. She was a clean and almost dainty eater, with not a drop being wasted. He watched as her face flushed with color, her pale cheeks growing almost rosy.

"Thank you," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "I needed that."

"You're welcome."

"Tuck me in?"

Edward took her hand and kissed it. "You sleep. We'll visit the museum in the morning and see what we can find. We'll be here when you wake. You can trust us."

"There's that word again. But alright."

Edward left and found Gwen in the main bedroom on the second floor. His mistress had long ago invited him to share her bed, back when his relationship with her evolved from orphaned boy to full-fledged apprentice and lover.

He understood that his relationship with Gwendolyn was unconventional. She'd found him, or rather, he'd found her when he was merely ten years old. Starving, homeless, his parents both dead from a cholera outbreak, Edward had stumbled into the isolated homestead looking for food. She'd caught him during an ill-conceived attempt at theft. Gwen had not only fed him but taken him in. She was not his mother, that she made clear, but she had looked after him, even educated him, when the rest of the world didn't care whether he lived or died. He long ago vowed he would spend his life returning that favor best he could.

Gwen undressed completely and slipped into the bed with a stretch and a sigh. She did appear younger than before their journey; her body was a bit thinner, the lines of her face tighter, and the droop to her breasts was almost nonexistent. This backward aging was somehow due to the fight with the highwaymen and magic Edward couldn't begin to understand.

He worked at his own clothes, partially undressing, but sleep was the farthest thing from his mind.

Gwen sensed this, as she always did. "Dear, you're wound tighter than a spring. Worried?"

"I don't know. All this--" he motioned around them. "It's not what I expected. You've told tales of the supernatural and, though I did believe you..."

"It's different now that you're actually seeing it."

"Precisely. And now we're in a fight I barely understand against an enemy that's barely seen..."

Gwen sat up, allowing the covers to fall from her large breasts. "You should talk to Asari."

"How come?"

"Asari is very wise despite first impressions. She's also easier to talk to than Lenore."

"I was hoping you--"

Gwen held up her hand. "I'm always here for you, dear, but I'm tired. Besides, you need to experience more of the world than just what I have to say. Despite my magic, I'm still only one person. Go talk with Asari. I assure you she won't mind. And when you're done, come back to bed and warm me up."

Edward nodded. It was little use arguing with his mistress. He long ago grew to trust her instincts on most matters.

He found Asari in what Lenore had called the water closet. It was much bigger than a mere closet and seemed to be where all of the indoor plumbing ended.

The room was dominated by a large clawfoot tub in the center. And in the tub lay the selkie.

"Oh, hello," Asari said when he entered. She was nude again and in her mermaid form. Her shiny, iridescent lower half was partially out of the tub. Her hips down was a mesh of green and blue scales that ended in the broad fan of a tail, still dripping water on the porcelain tile floor. Her upper half was the real attention-getter though. He was immediately distracted by her features; her long golden hair, her cute, curious face, and her slim, well-muscled torso. Her perky breasts just crested the water's surface as she lounged in the tub.

"Uhh, hi," Edward said, feeling like a right idiot. He felt his prick stir at the sight of her and he mentally chastised himself for having such a one-track mind.

"Did you want to take a bath too?"

"No, I can wait. Gwen sent me to talk to you. Said I should ask you for advice."

"About what?" she asked, innocently.

Edward thought for a moment. "About three days ago, I thought I understood the world better than almost any man living. I'm an apprentice to, who I thought, was the strongest being alive. She helped me unlock the secrets of magic and nature. But now... Well, there's a whole wider, hidden world that I've only glimpsed at. You, for example. She'd never told me about your kind."

"Yeah," Asari agreed, nodding. "That's nice of her. Humans hunting us was not a fun time. Although, now that I think about it, smashing their boats against rocks with our voices was probably not fun either."

"Like the sirens of myth?"

"We're not a myth." Asari playfully flicked her tail at him, spraying him with water. "Does that feel like a myth?"

Edward smiled despite himself. "I guess not." He sighed, sitting down at the vanity. "I'm just worried. I'm afraid I'm not ready to face what comes next."

Asari shrugged. "You're probably not."

"Yes. Thanks."

"No, I mean, you're not ready because you haven't faced it. And you won't know you are ready until after you do. So don't worry about being ready. Readiness is stupid. You can't be ready for everything all the time. So don't be. Be in the moment."

"So just react?"

"No. Reacting is still just trying to force readiness. Flow." For emphasis, she swirled water with her finger, spinning it and pulling a small orb off it out of the tub with unseen magic. "Water doesn't react. If there's an obstacle, it flows around it. If it's blocked, it builds pressure until it breaks through. It doesn't concern itself with being ready. It just is."

"Be water," he whispered, nodding. "Gwen told me you were wise."

"She's the wise one," Asari insisted. "I just swim around most of the time."

Edward nodded and stood. "I feel better. Thank you for the advice."

"Hey, where are you going?"

"I'll leave you to your soak. I better get to bed."

Asari scowled at him. "No. You owe me the toll."

"The toll?"

"Gee, Gwen didn't tell you about my kind, did she?" Asari huffed in annoyance. "If you ask for a selkie's council it must be given. The price of that council is the toll."

"Alright, what do I owe you?"

"You're a man so you owe me your essence."

"What do you mean--"

Then she grabbed him.

Asari lept almost halfway out of the water and hooked a hand in Edward's pants, dragging him back to the edge of the tub. Before he realized what she'd intended, she already had his trousers half undone.

Edward may not have known about vampires or selkies until a few days ago, but the look of lust she gave him transcended species.

She had him in her mouth before he could protest and once he could, he didn't want to.

She sucked him hungrily, moaning as if his prick was the cure to her starvation. He grew hard in her mouth, his cock apparently as surprised as he was to be getting this kind of attention.

It wasn't difficult to figure out what she meant by his male essence. She sucked him with furious determination, reaching around his waist and hugging his hips to her head as she swallowed him deeply.

She took his entire length with ease, her tight throat swallowing him until her nose was nestled in his pubic hair. She held him there for a long moment before releasing him, his cock slick with saliva.

"I can taste your magic," she said. "It's warm and savory."

Then she plunged down again.

She took the lead by guiding his hips, pushing and pulling him until he got the message. He pulled out and directed her to hang her head out of the tub to where she was looking at him upside down.

"You want my essence, creature? I'm happy to oblige, ye."

From this position, he speared her open mouth, sinking until her throat bulged and his balls hit her nose.

She moaned around his shaft and a tremor ran down her tail, splashing water onto the floor.

Even though both Lenore and now Asari were able to easily deepthroat him, the similarities ended there. Lenore had been wanton and aggressive in blowing him, delighting in pushing him to the edge and pitching him over it. Asari was instead eager and almost greedy.

He thrust in and out of her throat, quickly becoming mesmerized by the bulge appearing and disappearing. Asari seemed to surrender completely and stopped trying to guide him with her hands. Instead, she started pinching her own nipples, making herself moan and whimper with a full mouth.

Edward took that as his queue and grabbed her spectacularly perky tits for purchase and began earnestly fucking her face.

It did not take long for him to cum, doing so with a curse and a grunt, withdrawing almost entirely. Ash stopped him, sucking strongly. She pursed her lips as he came, slurping every drop of cum she could.

"Mmm," she moaned, licking her lips. "That was yummy!"

Edward was surprisingly breathless now and had to brace himself against the tub. "You give really good advice."

"Thank you! Come back any time."

He left the selkie to sleep in the bathtub and returned to the bedroom. Gwen was fast asleep and, remembering her request, he unclothed and slipped under the covers, pulling her into his arms. She nuzzled against him.

"Did her advice help?" she asked, not opening her eyes.

"I think so. You're right about her being wise." He couldn't help but grin. "You could have warned me about the toll, though."

"What toll?"

"You know, the price for asking a selkie's council? A man's essence?"

Gwen looked at him, confusion clear on her face. "What are you talking about?"

"She said--" The realization finally hit him. He sighed, now feeling foolish. "Nevermind."

Gwen sleepily pieced together what he was trying to say and chuckled. "Oh, she tricked you, didn't she? Sucked you off?"

"In my defense, I've never met a selkie. She made it seem like some ancient custom."

That caused Gwen to laugh harder. "Oh, it's her custom all right. She absolutely adores men. She'd live off cum if she could."

Edward still felt foolish. "Still, you could have warned me."

"Where's the fun in that?"

***

The front of the British Museum was built as a callback to the height of imperial Rome. Its horseshoe shape was ringed with tall marble columns and stone reliefs that reminded Gwendolyn of the fourth iteration of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the so-called eternal city.

She found it hideous.

It was an epic monstrosity in a city full of monstrosities. She couldn't understand why that empire of rapists and slavers was so damn compelling in the so-called modern world.

"Woah, it's so beautiful!" Asari said, her eyes wide with wonder.

The three of them arrived at the museum in the midmorning. They were dressed in the best finery Lenore had at the townhouse. Edward and Asari, neither used to wearing the stiff restricting clothing of the upper class, shifted uncomfortably. Gwen was more used to it, having moved in the circles of the gentry many times in the relatively recent past.

The citizens of London were under the spell of what the newspapers were calling Egyptmania and it was shown in the crowds of the museum.

People were everywhere and, from the upper classes in their top hats and exquisite dresses to the middle classes wearing the nicest, albeit worn, outfits they owned, everyone seemed entranced by the artifacts contained within. They flowed into the museum in a great herd and Gwen and Asari each grabbed one of Edward's arms and let him lead.

"Remember," Gwen whispered. "You're Lord Prescott, the Baron Powis, on holiday from Wales. Don't talk too much."

"Wait, who am I supposed to be again?" Asari asked, pulling at her dress.

"You're his cousin, Lady Catherine Howard. You're a bachelorette and Edward here is your chaperone."

Asari nodded. "I've never had one of those. Ooo, does that make Edward and I kissing cousins?"

"I don't think we ever kissed," Edward said, dryly. He led the ladies past the entrance. "And you're, don't remind me, Lady Genevie, a spinster aunt of the family."

Gwen put a hand to the forehead dramatically. "I'm afraid it's true. At the decrepit age of twenty-nine, I've no hope of finding a proper suitor." Then quieter said, "I'll just have to make do with all the sex without the marriage."

Asari giggled and shook her head. "I don't understand human customs like that."

The museum was vast. Multiple wings with huge rooms spanned every time in history. Busts of famous conquerors, statues of beautiful women, jewelry, weapons, and tools from ancient Greece to Norway graced ornate and expansive rooms.

Gwen could tell the other two were awestruck. Edward had never visited a large city before and Asari, well, as much as she claimed she didn't understand humans she certainly had an affinity for them.

Gwen forced them to move on to the famous Egyptian room.

"Room" was a bit of a misnomer though as the Egyptian room was a long, wide hallway, lined with artifacts on either side. Several giant stone heads of long-dead pharaohs towered over patrons while smaller items lay in glass cases. Sarcophagi lay on elevated tables and were in various states of preservation.

"I am not picking up on any sort of magic from these objects," Edward said with a frown. He leaned over a display case of bronze spearheads, some elaborately decorated.

"Nor am I," Gwen agreed.

She'd perhaps taken it for granted that she'd be able to sense the magical energy coming off whatever artifact was anchoring a god to their plane of existence. She reminded herself that, though she'd been able to sense something similar before, it had been many years since. Besides, it was only by seeing the symbol of an ankh burned into the hand of a dead vampire that they were able to, at least marginally, connect the attacks to this museum.

"I'm afraid this is a dead end," Gwen said with a sigh.

Asari was dilly-dallying, staring raptly at one of the entire frescos that were no doubt liberated from a forgotten temple to be displayed here.

Gwen and Edward turned to retrieve their wayward companion but she wouldn't be pulled away.

"Hey, that's the crocodile I saw!" she said loud enough that several patrons turned to stare at her. She was pointing to a fresco of several flat-looking people wearing loincloths and engaged in some sort of ritual. The creature she was pointing to had the head of a crocodile, the front of a lion, and the hind parts of a hippopotamus. It sat off to the side of a set of scales while a dog-headed man seemed to be using them. A kneeling man, possibly the poor soul from whose tomb this came, looked on.

Edward read the inscription, "This panel depicts the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the underworld, Anubis, weighing the heart of the recently deceased while the chimeric goddess Ammit looks on. It is thought that Anubis weighs the deceased's heart against the feather of truth, Ma'at. If the heart is heavier, Ammit devours it, cursing the dead to an afterlife of damnation."

The three were silent for a long moment while they processed this revelation independently.

All three noticed that Anubis was holding an ankh in one hand.

"Well, this is less than ideal," Gwen said.

"It doesn't even make sense," Asari said. "Of course a heart is going to weigh more than a feather. That system is rigged."

"I wonder how much a vampire's heart weighs?" Edward asked. He turned to her. "We ought to reconsider convincing Lenore to flee. And we might want to follow her."

Gwen scowled. "I agree with you but Lenore would rather die. This isn't merely personal for her."

"And what about us? Are you ready to die for her?"

Gwen didn't hesitate. "Yes. And I know that doesn't make sense. I found her much the same way I found you. Only she was recently turned, thrashing about in the night. I helped her adapt to her abilities. Her creator didn't care to stick around."

"Alright. What can we even do about this?" he asked. "Some ancient god has just reappeared and decided that Lenore and her kind are to be eradicated? It doesn't make any damn sense. How could we possibly begin to fight that?"

"Gods may be immortal but they're not invincible. Their connection to the earthly plane of existence is tenuous at the best of times. Their temples and sacred artifacts tether them to our reality and their worshipers help them manifest. When gods walk the earth, they do so in the guise of a human or sometimes an animal. They stay hidden. Concealed. Only revealing their true form when they think no one is watching."

"So go after their temples, their artifacts, or their worshippers." Edward motioned around them. "Obviously, there are no temples of Anubis and Ammit here. And I don't see any artifacts of them either."

"Could they be somewhere else?" Asari asked.

Asari looked around the immediate area. She spotted a man in khaki clothes fussing with one of the display cases.

"Excuse me, museum slave, is there more Egypt stuff in the back?"

The man turned and looked at her quizzically. "I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry, I forgot my manners." She thrust out her hand to him. "Cat Howard. I'm in town trying to get hitched."

"I... see."

Gwen and Edward caught her before she could say anything else. Gwen turned Asari away.

"What?" she protested. "I'm just being sociable."

"My apologies about my cousin," Edward said, tipping his tophat. "She's fascinated by Egypt. A medium once told her she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra if you can believe that."

"Quite alright, sir. Funny, my sister must have been to the same medium." The khaki'd man was shorter than Edward and sported a handle-bar mustache, which appeared to be the style. "Although to answer her question, no, we do not keep any artifacts in the rears. All of that was sold to pay for the museum's recent expansion."

"Sold? I would think these items are near priceless."

"Wish it were so, good chap. But it's highly fashionable these days to own a mummy or two. The dandies of London need something to spend their shillings on."

His last statement gave Edward pause. "Would you happen to know who might have had a special interest in procuring artifacts about Egyptian gods? Specifically, Anubis?"

The khaki'd man looked him up and down. "Who might I say is inquiring?"

"Edward Prescott, the Baron Powis." Edward tipped his hat again. "I'm on leave from my estate in Wales."

"My lord," the khaki'd man said, giving a perfunctory bow. "Nicholas Carver, at your service. I think the gentleman you might want to inquire about is Lord Henry Vane, Duke of Cleveland. He's been buying anything he can about Anubis and some other deities. He's a prime benefactor of our work here and, as a result, takes first pick from the expeditions he funds. Rumor has it he's looking for a cure to death itself or some such rubbish."

"Pray tell, Mr. Carver," Edward hazarded, "Does the honorable duke keep a residence in London? I would love to make his acquaintance if merely for the briefest tour of his personal collection."

"He does," Nicholas said with a chuckle. "But he keeps all that under lock and key, he does. He hosts unwrapping parties though. Your cousin might be thrilled by that. Come to think of it, he's hosting one tonight. Some noble woman's sarcophagus arrived yesterday."

"Unwrapping party?"

"Sight to behold those," Nicholas said, sneering. It was clear he didn't approve. "Like I said. He funds the expeditions, he gets the first pick. His price is he defaces a four-millennia-old mummy by having his man perform a live autopsy on it. It's quite the event."

"I see." Edward tipped his hat again and bid Nicholas good day.

"Anything useful?" Gwen asked when he returned.

"It depends if you like parties."

***

When Lenore woke, she found her guests in the kitchen.

Asari was wearing one of Lenore's fancy dresses and standing relatively still while Gwen modified it to fit herself. Edward sat nearby organizing an assortment of magical ingredients, each in their own glass vial.