Earth, Sun, and Moon Saga Ch. 12

Ammit locked her ankles behind him and pulled him deeper, stretching her back as he did.

"Yeeessss..." Ammit moaned, drawing out the word in a long pur.

With each thrust, that pur went deeper, until it was a steady hum from her chest.

Pain, sharp and sudden, flashed across his back and James realized Ammit was scratching him. He gritted his teeth and saw the playful challenge in her golden predator eyes.

She scratched him again and he felt a trickle of blood run down his lat.

Not so gentle after all.

He grabbed her elbows and wrestled them back, pinning her wrists over her head and pressing his weight on them. Because of course her human hands were capped with fingernails like small knives.

She pushed against him, threatening to overturn him, to topple him, and he thrust down into her in response, trying to fuck her into the forest floor. Each thrust was harder than the last and it was this tempo that was keeping her fight at bay.

Ammit was challenging him for dominance in some way that only lionesses and hippopotamuses understood, her persona pulled across time and biology to confront him with the understanding that if he let up now, she'd probably kill him. Or something close.

Fucking Egyptians, he thought. Why couldn't he have resurrected Aphrodite or one of those sexy Greek nymphs? Instead, he was balls-deep in a demon who wanted to eat his fucking heart.

Still, his climax was close, made clear by the fact that James was turned on by the danger. That was something he might not have admitted before a few days ago.

She tried biting him, coming dangerously close to his shoulder, and he'd had enough. He yanked away and hooked an arm between her locked legs, breaking her hold. Then he flipped her over, momentarily pulling out, before plunging back in.

With her now facedown, he could safely avoid both her teeth and claws. She pushed back against him with a desperate mewl, lifting her ass high.

He held her down by the shoulders and railed her in earnest now. Ammit made noises like a jungle cat and he wasn't sure if that was good.

The folds of her sex milked him with every thrust. He could feel her cunt grab his cock like a clenched fist, holding him still for a moment before releasing him. James realized, not without a touch of horror, that if he came first, Ammit might not be all that forgiving. He wouldn't get a second chance at this.

He reached around, exploring her sex with his fingers as he took her from behind. He felt the small pearl of her clit, and took it between his fingers. Rubbing it, perhaps rougher than he might otherwise, caused Ammit to buck under him in a sudden frenzy.

Her feline mewl became a human scream. "Yes! Yes! Fuck me like I'm human. Fuck me like you nGgff! Don't stop! Don't ahhHH!"

Her orgasm rolled over her and she shuddered like a dog shaking off water. Warm fluid rushed out of her and around his cock, spilling onto the leaves and pine needles under them.

The fires, which were crackling nicely when he began the unbinding, had fallen to smoldering embers. Now they roared upward; twin columns of stout flame as if fed from an unknown source of fuel.

James finally released his own floodgates. He grabbed the back of her head, digging his fingers into her thick black hair, and, pulling her head back, folded her spine into a C as he came.

Ammit's orgasm continued. Her skin, an ever-changing patchwork, went into overdrive as James came inside her. For a moment, her entire back erupted in golden lioness fur before patches of grey and scales and human skin came forth again.

James pulled out, a trail of cum still connecting them, and fell backward on his heels. He looked up at the sky and, pulling in a deep breath, howled.

He howled like a wolf and his voice echoed off the trees.

If someone asked him why he'd howled, something so uncharacteristic of him, he wouldn't have had an answer.

It just felt right.

Ammit, her breath heaving, turned over to regard him.

"The contract is bound, my lofty heart."

***

Reggie Lawerence woke up as he normally did: hungover and with wet pants.

He sat up and immediately felt around for the familiar feel of the plastic bottle. He found it buried in the sleeping bag. The fifth was still about a quarter full of vodka. He unscrewed the cap, took a long swig, and recapped it. He swished it around his mouth, as if he still cared about oral hygiene, and swallowed. The familiar burn already started to quiet his angry nervous system.

Too long without enough alcohol and the shakes would start. Reggie didn't need that shit. Not now. Probably not ever.

He lurched to his feet, not needing to put shoes on because, hey, he slept in them. It was overcast and foggy outside the dilapidated shack he'd been calling home for the last few months. He took his morning piss not ten feet from where he'd slept, in the sand of Picnic Point Park.

Since the summer he'd been wandering this area like an errant ghost. Panhandling was reasonably lucrative this way and there'd been only a few times he hadn't had a fresh bottle by noon. This park was also minimally traveled, and he'd found an abandoned outbuilding near the train tracks that ran parallel to the small park. That had been his impromptu house for the last several months.

As he drained his bladder, he looked out into the water. Low fog limited visibility on the sound and he yawned lazily, alternatively scratching both his beard and his crotch.

Some asshole was paddleboarding out in the foggy water, he realized.

Yuppies were always doing weird shit like that. Maybe he'd get hit by a boat. Reggie smirked at the thought.

He tucked his dick back into his urine-soaked pants but continued to watch the figure out on the water. There was something about it that just didn't sit right with him.

The figure was standing on his board but wasn't holding a paddle or anything like it. He had a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, which was also strange.

Probably some rich asshole with one of those motorized surfboards, he thought. Reggie had seen that on the news once.

The yuppie was returning to shore, seemingly done playing around in the water.

Reggie was about to turn away, his mind already thinking about taking another sip or three of the vodka, when the paddle board climbed out of the water.

It was no paddleboard.

The yuppie hopped off it and the thing, some sort of big animal the likes of which Reggie had never seen, shook itself dry. The guy held his hands up in annoyance at being splashed and the thing snapped its jaws at him.

Instead of running away screaming, as Reggie was about to do, the guy patted its snout affectionately and it was only then that Reggie realized the thing had the head of an alligator.

But that wasn't right. It was roughly the size and shape of a grizzly.

He didn't know what he was looking at. Just when his hungover brain started putting the pieces together, the animal changed.

It reared up on its back legs and then shortened, and thinned. Hair disappeared. That alligator skin vanished. Then Reggie wasn't looking at a beast of some sort but at a naked woman.

She was long and supple, with strong legs and full tits and she honestly reminded Reggie of his high school girlfriend, Amber Chisholm, whom he dated long before vodka ever touched his lips.

The yuppie unzipped the duffle and handed the naked woman clothes. She held a t-shirt in front of her in clear confusion and the man had to help her guide her head and arms through the holes.

Watching her put on pants might have been sexy under normal circumstances but Reggie was frozen still.

Once she was dressed she turned and looked right at him.

Not good.

Reggie was so used to being invisible in his daily existence that it didn't occur to him that he was standing out in the open, only the three of them on the beach.

"You there!" the beast woman said, pointing at him.

He wanted to scream, or at least run, but he couldn't move.

Reggie had never been much in the way of voluntary when it came to camping and didn't have experience with animals beyond dogs and the occasional raccoon. But he'd been to the zoo. He'd walked through the big cat house in the early evening when the leopards and panthers were active.

That's what this woman looked like. She looked like a panther that had zeroed in on him.

"You there!" she repeated. She was walking toward him. "Vagrant man! What is the name of this section of land?"

"W-what?"

The man who'd rode in on her was busy messing with the duffle bag. He didn't seem to be paying attention to him.

"Are you telling me we have arrived in the uncharted wilds?" the woman asked incredulously. "I am told we are likely somewhere north of a big city. My companion has requested the precise name."

"This is, uh, Picnic Point Park. In, um, America."

"Hey, see if he has a phone we can borrow," the man called out.

"Though you have but meager possessions, do you have an object such as this?"

Reggie did. It was even partially charged. He pulled it out of his wet pants and handed it to her. She looked at it confused, holding it with two fingers, then walked it over to the guy.

The yuppie made a short call with Reggie was still frozen in place, held there by the panther woman's gaze. He then stood and walked the phone back over to him.

"Thanks, man," the guy said. "You're a real lifesaver." Then to the woman, "C'mon. The cab will meet us at the entrance."

The woman turned away and Reggie thought that was it. That was all. But she turned around and fixed him with those predator eyes again. Those eyes bore into him and he knew she could see him. See all of him. See the shame and the guilt and the anger and the grief. See the broken promises and selfish appetites. See every moment he felt, past, present, and future. But especially the shame. Yes, all of that pesky little feeling.

That golden gaze unraveled him.

"See you soon, little heart."

Then she walked away.

And Reggie, hot tears streaming down his face, swallowed hard.

The bottle was forgotten.

***

The cab dropped them off in the warehouse district about two blocks away from the address where Lenore originally tracked the museum collection.

"Okay," James said. "You need to stop saying weird shit to people while we're in public. I know this is the Pacific Northwest but you're being strange even for here."

"What do you mean?" Ammit asked. "I simply inquired how that land carriage could move without horses."

"No, you said, and I quote, 'Cab-slave, what magic do you know that makes such a thing sail as if on the river?'"

"Same statement."

"And stop calling people little hearts. It sounds threatening."

Ammit glared at him. "Have it your way, Jaaames."

The goddess had finally adapted herself, finishing her transition to her human form. She looked out of place in Ash's borrowed clothes--a bright pink t-shirt and cropped jeans with colorful flowers stitched to them. With her razor-straight black hair and generally murderous affect, she looked like Serial Killer Barbie.

Their plan, if it could be called that, was to get to the warehouse, sneak in, and try to rescue Lenore and, hopefully, Gwen too.

James did a circuit around the warehouse looking for an easy way in. He didn't expect resistance other than the odd security guard but this place appeared to not have one.

The docks of the warehouse were open and only a few workers were milling about, taking a smoke break at a small picnic table in a small patch of grass off to the side.

Ammit followed him through an open gate. James, with the duffle bag slug over his shoulder, had his hand inside, ready to unleash the Door Kicker when the time was right.

They slipped through an open side door without being seen.

The warehouse was empty.

There were crates stacked near the loading dock and, though it looked like people had been here, almost no one was here now.

The offices near the rear of the big, open building seemed a likely place in which to hold prisoners.

While James hugged the wall, his training to move through cover fully ingrained, Ammit strutted out in the open like a murderous pink beacon.

The office door was open and James entered, sweeping the whole room with the rifle.

Empty.

"They're not here," James whispered. "We missed them."

A noise from another nearby office caused him to swing the rifle around and elicited a dangerous smile from Ammit.

"Don't attack until I do," James whispered. The last thing he wanted was for Ammit to tear apart some workers on their lunch break.

He approached the door, readying himself.

He pulled the door open and threw himself inside.

Directly into a wall of smoke.

He coughed once. "What the fuck?" was all he managed.

"Argh!" a figure yelled in a battle cry, charging him from the side. They held some sort of hose in their hands and James threw his elbow at them. They went sprawling with a surprised squeak. A decidedly female squeak.

"Angelica?" he asked.

"James?" she replied from the ground, just as confused.

"James?" another voice asked from just outside the office.

"Ash?" James asked, backing out of the office.

"Little hearts," Ammits growled.

Ammit and Ash faced each other, squaring off just outside. It appeared the two had made a bit of a trap for them, with Angelica waiting inside and Ash waiting outside, ready to attack from the rear. It wasn't bad tactics, actually.

James helped Angelica to her feet, waving away the smoke to disperse it. She was wearing a giant contraption as a backpack that made her look like a goth Ghostbuster.

"They're friends," he said to Ammit. "We don't eat our friends."

"I know the smell of this one," Ammit said. "She is of the sea."

"Well, I don't know you. You smell like snake poop." Ash retorted. Her hair was floating, which James now knew was a clear sign she was getting ready to attack.

"Nope," he said, waving his arms and getting between them. "Big misunderstanding. We're on the same side."

Ash relented, her hair floating downward.

"Hey, wait a minute," she said, her anger spiking, "Are those my clothes?"

***

It took a solid twenty minutes to compare notes.

While James was busy unbinding Ammit, Angelica and Ash had found a use for the silver nitrate.

The black backpack was really a fog machine hooked up to a portable battery bank, the kind powerful enough to jumpstart a car. Angelica explained she stole the fog machine from someone's front yard and then bought the battery and hose from a nearby auto parts store.

"And then you put the silver nitrate in it?" James asked. He had to admit he was impressed with her resourcefulness.

"Well, you had said that you wanted to put it in the air. The bottle said it was an aqueous solution. That means it's suspended in water."

"That was clever," James said. "Real clever. But I'm glad you sprayed me with it and not Ammit."

The goth girl beamed at the compliment. "It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. It took a minute to fill that room. It's not exactly an offensive weapon."

James looked over the contraption again. "We can improve it. But that was about as good a test run as we could hope for."

Both of them had noticed Ammit staying far away from the open office as the silver-infused fog dissipated. When James asked, Ammit told him it seemed 'hot' in there but didn't elaborate further.

"What are we going to do?" Ash asked. "They've got Lenore. Gwen turned on us. Why would she do such a thing?"

"I don't think she did." James told them about the message she'd magicked onto his chest. How it led him to resurrect Ammit. "I think she's relying on us to rescue them."

"If she can do the things you told me about, why would she need our help?" Angelica asked.

"It'd be her against two gods and this Edward guy. I think they believe she's helping them. With Ammit here, we're evening the odds. That fog machine is good too."

"But we don't know where they went," Ash said.

"I believe I know," Ammit said. "London was the perfect staging ground before. It likely is now too."

"Fuuuck," Angelica said.

Ammit looked around at the dismay on the other's faces. "Is that far from here?"

"Other side of the planet," James said. "You're sure about that? They wouldn't have relocated?"

"We spent a long time preparing the ground in that city. It is doubtful my former patron would have wanted to start anew elsewhere. He is nothing if not efficient."

"We could catch a flight," Angelica offered. "It's short notice but I have savings."

"There's no way we'd be able to bring the weapons we'd need," James said. He motioned to Ammit and Ash. "Besides, putting these two in an enclosed space with a bunch of civilians for a transatlantic flight seems... suboptimal."

"Sub-what?" Ash looked up. She'd stopped paying attention.

"So how do we get there?" Angelica asked. "We have no idea how much of a headstart they have."

James' mind turned through the options, none of them good. If only they had access to a private plane--

"I need a phone," he said. "There's someone I need to catch up with."

Annnnd, scene! If you enjoyed this chapter, please make sure to rate it, leave a comment, or send me a message. I may not respond (due to time constraints), but I DO read all of them! I know it sounds lame and cheesy but you guys make this worthwhile.

Exes and ohs,

Dakota