Earth, Sun, and Moon Saga Ch. 09

Hey, y'all! Dakota here with a new chapter in my smut-laden series about a guy who teams up with a few sexy supernatural beings to do battle with ancient gods. This is essentially a serialized novel, so I recommend starting at the beginning to avoid unnecessary confusion.

Returning reader? Great to see you again! This chapter picks up immediately after the last and introduces us to a couple of new characters (both were hinted at previously). I hope you enjoy!

Much love to my supporters here and so, without further ado:

Inside James Faraday there exists a switch.

He discovered it first during basic training and then, later, during his clinical rotations in paramedic school. The purpose of the switch was to turn off his emotions, to deaden them so that he could do what needed doing so that he could think through the blood and the smoke and the gunfire.

He learned the hard way that throwing the switch comes with a price. He could throw it part way, like he had many times before, no worse for wear.

Throwing it all the way, however, was no small thing. But he would throw it in an instant if he had to.

The last time he threw the switch was when his helicopter was shot down outside of Aleppo. For forty-seven minutes, he was the sole provider on the ground. Miraculously he sustained relatively minor injuries. His crew, people he'd known for years, were not so lucky. They lay dead all around him. With his weapon at his side, he dragged bodies out of the wreckage, seven in total, making an impromptu triage area.

Captain Lucius Harlow had fought like hell to keep the heavy HH-60 Pave Hawk in the air after the Chinese-made shoulder-mounted rocket hit their rear rotor. In doing so, he managed to slow their uncontrolled descent by about 40 kph, lessening the resulting impact significantly but not enough.

Besides James, the only other survivors were Harlow and Senior Airman Thomas Mateus, a fellow PJ. Both were grievously injured.

Harlow was badly burned, his left arm and leg mangled from the crash. He was barely conscious.

Mateus was somehow worse. Despite his helmet, he'd taken a nasty blow to the head. Blood trickled from his ear.

With the rest of the crew dead and beyond saving, James focused all of his attention, all of his skills at stabilizing his two friends.

He'd thrown the switch.

Even as the enemy bared down on them. Even as his own injuries caught up to him. Even as help seemed impossibly far away. James took all the fear, rage, pain, and guilt and turned them off. He would not be the one to fail Harlow in his time of need. He would not let emotion stop him from stabilizing Mateus.

And he hadn't.

Harlow survived, losing his lower leg but keeping his arm. Mateus lived too, but the traumatic brain injury left him permanently changed.

James was called heroic but he felt nothing of the sort.

Later, after receiving a silver star for valor and an honorary discharge, he realized it wasn't as easy to feel again. Not just happiness or joy, but anger and sadness too. It was as if a bit of color was pulled from the world. When he threw that switch, he could come back. Just not all the way.

He imagined that if he ever threw that switch all the way again, it would be the end of him. He couldn't come back from that a second time.

Now, with Lenore at his feet, her chest cut open by Anubis' blade, with Gwendolyn either dead or close to it, and James surrounded by the god of death on one side and a giant cobra on the other, he felt his body calm. He felt the familiar rush as epinephrine flooded into his bloodstream, his fight or flight reflex enveloping him like a suit of armor.

James threw the switch all the way.

***

His first shot tagged Anubis in the knee. The god howled as he fell to one leg, nearly dropping Gwen's limp body.

James sidestepped just as the cobra's jaws snapped closed next to him, and he let loose a three-round burst in its face.

The cobra reared up, crashing into the ceiling with a wet thunk, and sending plaster raining down.

James moved with deadly purpose.

On him were his two side arms, the Glock, and, shoved in the pocket of his jacket, the big revolver. He'd also shoved the combat knife in his belt. That morning he'd electroplated the knife and several magazines worth of rounds with silver.

The silver-plated bullets seemed to hurt Anubis and the snake but it still felt like he'd brought a pencil to a knife fight.

Two more shots into Anubis, hitting him square in the chest. A lesser soldier would have hesitated, what with the god holding a hostage, but James knew his aim was true.

Hesitation meant death.

Spinning, he unloaded another three-round burst at the cobra. It hissed horribly, backing down the hallway, and giving James just enough breathing room to get to Lenore.

He slung the rifle down at his side, grabbed her by the belt, and drew the Glock.

He kept firing as he dragged her back. Two rounds at Anubis, three at that fucking cobra. Anubis finally wised up and held Gwendolyn close to his body, no doubt tired of being shot.

Fuck.

He had to separate him from Gwendolyn. She looked dead or close to it from where he stood but Anubis wasn't acting as though she were dead. And he would know.

James dragged Lenore about ten paces away, out of the thick of it, and then shot three times down the hallway. The cobra, no doubt some sort of god, hissed and backed up even further. He switched back to the Door Kicker and holstered the sidearm, firing another three-round burst down the hallway.

James charged Anubis.

He unloaded the magazine into him, aiming for any exposed piece of flesh he could. In seconds, the god's arms and legs were riddled with punctures, driving Anubis back down to his knee and causing him to drop the limb body unceremoniously on the broken glass of the kitchen floor. The god snarled and barked at him but was at least temporarily stopped.

He still held the golden blade, inwardly curved like a sickle. James shot him in the arm and then kicked at his hand, sending it clattering across the floor.

He switched to the Glock again, seamless in the transition, to free up a hand.

"Why the long face?" He popped Anubis in the head for good measure, jackknifing that stupid jackal snout to the side.

James lunged for Gwen, aiming to grab her by the corset. She was unconscious but breathing. She was alive.

Before he could grab her, James was yanked violently backward.

"Where do you think you're going, ssstud?"

The thick body of the snake wrapped around his waist and lifted him off his feet.

He was instantly upside down, the Glock pinned to his body. Breathing suddenly became impossible.

"You're rather feisty for a human," the cobra said. It glared at him with slitted yellow eyes, one at a time, studying him with each turn of that massive head. "My father sssaid you'd be a issssue."

The snake tightened around him. Every time he exhaled, he couldn't breathe as deeply. It was suffocating him. He couldn't speak.

"Not sssso tough now, are we?"

There was a wet pop as one of his ribs broke. James screamed and the snake constricted him tighter. Another rib broke.

James tightened his grip around the Glock. With it pinned to his side, there was no way of knowing where it was pointing. The barrel could be pointed at his dick for all he knew.

Fuck it.

He squeezed his hand as hard as he could, firing anyway.

The slide moved against his belly and the cobra screamed. He kept firing until he fell.

James dropped seven feet, landing on his shoulder, and felt a thunk as it dislocated.

Icy fire flowed down his shooting arm from shoulder to his hand and he couldn't hold onto the Glock, letting it drop unceremoniously. He couldn't pull up the rifle either.

"Ugh," was all he managed to grunt as he stood, cradling his arm, his lungs finally able to draw air.

Anubis was gone and so was Gwendolyn.

He screamed, guttural and raw, and unsheathed the silver-plated combat knife off-handed.

He stood between Lenore and the cobra.

"Like I sssaid, feisty!" the cobra teased, hollow fangs extending. "It's a sssshame, human. I kind of like you."

"I thought you wanted to dance." James held up the knife. "Come on then."

There were worse deaths, he supposed.

The snake lunged.

And then the world exploded again in a scream.

***

James woke only seconds later.

Asari was dragging him by the ankle. He looked over and saw she was dragging Lenore too.

"Lemme go," he said, not hearing his own voice.

"We have to go!" Ash insisted.

"I can stand," he said, his voice hoarse. "I can walk." He pulled away from her and stood, trying to get his bearings. He had a blinding headache. "Fuck. What happened?"

"I used my outside voice."

"What?"

"I yelled at it."

The cobra lay dazed, coiled around the grand piano in the foyer, trying to lift that massive head.

"Wait," James said. "He's got Gwen!"

"I know," Ash said, trying to pull him along. "But we have to go! I'm pretty sure that stupid snake is a god and it isn't going to be out for long."

James was too hurt to argue. He could barely think.

Together they dragged Lenore toward Ash's pool room.

"We need to get to the boat," James said.

"There's no time," Ash said, sounding frantic as she began searching her dresser. She made a relieved squeak when she found the vial and pushed it into James' hand. "Drink this, right now," she ordered.

"What is it?"

Ash's face was suddenly in front of his. She kissed him and said, "James, do you trust us?"

"Yeah."

"Drink it."

He tipped the vial back and swallowed the sharp-tasting liquid in one gulp.

"Okay, now what?"

She pushed him into the pool.

Cold salt water immediately burned his eyes and throat as he struggled to swim. The rifle, still slung over his shoulder, was weighing him down. So were his boots and clothes. He dropped the rifle but found he was still having difficulty treading water with cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder.

Ash tossed Lenore's limp body in and jumped in after. Before he could say anything, she grabbed him and pulled him under the frigid water.

Lenore didn't need to breathe. He did. He was instantly struggling against Ash, trying to get back to the surface.

She held him firm. Damn, she was strong.

In her true selkie form now, her iridescent blue-green tail kept them steady while she held him. Grabbing his head in either hand, she made him look at her. Asari was even more beautiful underwater. Her eyes took on a lavender color as her blonde hair flowed around her like a halo. She was nude, her pert breasts weightless in the water. James wondered, absurdly, if she owned a seashell bra.

She kissed him.

And blew water directly into his lungs.

James choked, inhaling water against his will, and began coughing, then convulsing. The salt water burned his chest and his vision blurred as his brain screamed for oxygen.

Then he took another breath.

His chest moved water in and out of his mouth and, although the sensation was harder than breathing normally, made more so by his cracked ribs, he was breathing.

He could breathe.

It hurt and it was hard to push water out when he exhaled but he was breathing.

Ash, with a satisfied smile, kissed the tip of his nose and pulled him and Lenore down.             

At the bottom of her pool was a gate leading to a tunnel.

She pushed Lenore's body into James' arms, opened the gate, and then pulled him through.

James had another bout of panic as they traveled through the narrow, dark tunnel. He focused on holding onto Lenore as Ash pulled him along.

He tried visualizing a straight line from the house to the coast and realized this tunnel was likely about half the length of a football field. He wondered if Gwen used magic to build it or if it was a team effort by the three women over an impossibly long time. How much could three supernatural beings accomplish if they had a hundred years' worth of free time?

When the tunnel ended and they were in the open ocean of the sound, Ash kept hanging on to him. The water here was colder and now murky; taking on a greenish hue from the reflected sunlight of the surface. They must have been about thirty or forty feet deep and they were surrounded by a kelp forest. A family of harbor seals wove around the long, tangled strands of kelp, hunting and playing, and paying little attention to them.

James would have been in awe but every breath reminded him of his broken ribs. Lenore floated lifelessly as he held her and he was already trying to prepare himself that she was dead.

Because she didn't breathe there was no way of knowing if she was dead or just in some form of vampiric unconsciousness. She hadn't burst into flames or dust or whatever they normally do in the movies, so that was a positive sign.

Ash pulled them into the mouth of a cave on the far side of Sunstone Island. Temporary darkness enveloped them again before reaching the cave's interior. Then she pulled them up.

James surfaced with a sputter and cough.

It was a grotto, a bubble of air under rock. Stalactites and stalagmites—James couldn't remember the difference—lined the walls. It ought to have been entirely dark inside, but the whole interior glowed an iridescent green from fungi growing all around them. Lights too, he realized. Colorful Christmas lights hung from the ceiling and James realized the grotto was decorated like the clubhouse of an adolescent latchkey kid; posters, magazines, pillows, and bits of memorabilia surrounded them.

He climbed out first but had to pause to cough water out of his lungs. Ash helped him pull Lenore out of the water and they set her on the flat stone floor of the cave.

He wanted to attend to her, needed to but he had to fix his fucking shoulder first.

Sitting with knees up, he interlaced his fingers together over his knees, then leaned back. The move stretched out both arms at the shoulder joint. As he did this, he shrugged his shoulders. He felt his shoulder reduce, the ball slipping back into its socket. The relief was instant.

He gave his arm a tentative move, making sure that everything was working.

Ash was inspecting Lenore's injuries. Her leather jacket had taken a significant amount of the slash but her ribcage was cut through and open, pale skin curling back revealing gray meat inside.

James could fix her.

"She needs blood," he said. "Will that be enough to heal her?"

"I don't know," the selkie admitted. "I've never seen her this bad."

James reached for his knife. Surprisingly, it was still on his hip. He must have resheathed it during their escape but he didn't remember doing that.

The silver blade shimmered in the odd green glow of the grotto but James didn't hesitate.

He sliced open his wrist, going as deep as he dared without severing tendon. The pain and blood came fast and hot, and he let the first drops drip into Lenore's slack mouth.

"Drink, baby," he whispered. "C'mon, drink. You can do it."

There was no reaction.

He rubbed his wrist across her open lips. "Please, baby. Drink. C'mon."

Blood filled her open mouth until it dribbled out obscenely.

"It's not working," James said. "We have to close her up somehow. You don't have a suture kit by chance?"

Ash shook her head. She peered down at her sister, brow furrowed in concentration. James thought she might be in shock at seeing Lenore so terribly injured.

"Fuck."

He held the blade flat against her chest, at the beginning of the deep laceration. Lenore's skin still reacted to the silver. It hissed like bacon cooking on a hot pan. When he removed it, he saw that the wound was a little smaller, open flesh replaced by burned tissue.

If her skin was still reacting, that was a good sign. James allowed himself to hope.

"Help me hold her wound closed," he said to Ash, who complied immediately. With Ash pushing either side James made short work of closing the wound. He used the knife like a soldering iron, burning the flesh together. He couldn't do much about the bones underneath; from what he could tell, her sternum was cracked diagonally, but he figured it was better than nothing.

He was still bleeding, and he tried getting more blood in her mouth and down her throat.

Still, there was no reaction.

The switch, so purposefully turned off, flipped again.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he was finally, completely, overwhelmed. It had been less than a half-hour since Anubis crashed into the house, and his adrenaline rush was finally gone.

"I can't," he said to Ash, barely above a whisper. "I don't know what to do."

Ash nodded solemnly. She held her hand out for the knife. "Here. Let me try."

She made a cut to her palm, bright red blood oozing out. It seemed to shimmer in the underground light. She dripped a few drops into Lenore's already blood-filled mouth, then she moved to smear blood across the now burnt flesh of her chest.

James watched, tears streaming down his face, as the burns faded, leaving untarnished skin behind.

Ash sighed. "I hope this makes us even," she said to Lenore. "You better be nice to me after this."

Then she painted her own lips in blood like it was some grotesque lipstick, then bent over and put them to Lenore's, more like mouth-to-mouth than a kiss.

Light, a kind of which James had never seen, illuminated Ash's skin. For an instant, it was so bright that she appeared translucent, and ended so fast that James was entirely unsure of what he just witnessed.

Lenore sat up and screamed.

***

Contrary to popular myth, vampires dream.

At least Lenore always had.

Dreaming allowed her to form memories, to learn, to process the world on a night-to-night basis. But it didn't allow her to forget.

Lenore remembered everything.

She remembered so much that it sometimes threatened to drive her mad.

Humans were lucky that they could forget. They could forget last week, forget what they had for lunch, forget their anniversary.

For her, memory was like a giant locked filing cabinet: every night, every waking moment of her undeath was neatly organized, and able to be recalled at a moment's notice should she have the need.

Her dreams often unlocked that cabinet, spilling old memories across her subconscious.

In this one, she stood on the wall of her father's castle. No, that wasn't right. It was the wall that cut across the land, so old that no one knew who built it. Moonlight kissed the stones and she realized she was dressed in a sleeping gown. She had no idea how she ended up there. She was far from her home.

She was hungry.

She was more hungry than she'd ever been in her entire life. It was worse than starving. It was tearing her apart from the inside out.

She couldn't remember how she came to be there because that was her last human memory. A memory within a memory, recurved on itself.

She'd been attacked by something dark, by something with teeth and promises. Pulled from her bedroom chamber, from a life she could barely recall. Now she was here, blind with hunger.

With thirst.

Another figure was by the wall, not on it but walking alongside it. He was distant and beckoned to her like a beacon. She could hear his heart beating in his chest, a steady pump moving a river inside his body.

A river of blood.

She didn't so much as stalk him as she charged, bare feet slapping across the worn stone of the wall, her stained nightgown fluttering in the moonlight. He turned, confusion turning to horror as she leapt on him, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head to the side.

It was inside him. Blood so rich and filling that to not drink, to not rip this man apart to get to it was as unthinkable as not breathing.