Temple Dog Ch. 01: Inanna's Hope

He parked in front of their house at 2am, just as he came in her mouth. It was one of the most intense orgasms he had ever experienced as she swallowed rope after rope of his cum, moaning with every blast.

Since he had driven her straight here and not taken a roundabout route, she also cleaned him with her tongue afterwards, and tucked his member back into his pants before kissing him on the cheek and thanking him for the lift.

He fumbled around until he found his business card, and gave it to her, telling her for the same payment, he would take her anywhere in the city she needed to go, with no problems or questions.

She smiled and made a show of placing the card into her bra, and walked to her parent's house with her hips swaying seductively as she smiled at him over her shoulder before disappearing inside.

The cabbie had to find an empty parking lot to relax in for a few minutes before turning his sign back on, and looking for the next fare. So far, it was a damn good night, he thought with a shit eating grin.

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"MOM? PAPA? ARE YOU HOME?" Akilah shouted into the house as she walked upstairs to their bedroom.

Lights came on in her parent's bedroom, and moments later, her father came out in his bathrobe, looking disbelieving at the impossible presence of his daughter.

"Akilah? How? You are supposed to be in Iraq. The dig at the ruins of Uruk? You were there, yes?" He asked, confused.

"Papa, get Mom! We don't have much time! Gilgamesh has appeared, and he is going to kill our bloodline as punishment for my tossing a wrench into his plans!" Akilah said rapidly.

The blood ran from her father's face. Akilah's family were descendants of a long line of the Lady's followers. They had kept her small temple in their hometown until local fundamentalists had become aware that they weren't just historians, but actually followers of the ancient religion. He knew the significance of the return of Gilgamesh.

"Gilgamesh is in the human realm? And he knows our family?" He asked, stunned, as Akilah's mother came out of the bedroom, hearing the tail end of the conversation.

Akilah picked up the receiver of her parent's cordless phone and dug out the scrap of paper from the staff sergeant. She quickly punched in the numbers and waited as the phone rang, noticing as she did that the area code did not appear to be one from the United States.

"City of Innsmouth emergency line. How can I help you sir or ma'am?" A female voice with a vaguely European accent asked.

Innsmouth? Had Bug Man played the cruelest of jokes on her in her time of need? She knew that it was a fictional town created by Lovecraft in the 20's. And not a nice one.

"Hello?" The voice asked after several seconds.

Hell, she needed help. If this was a joke, there was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath.

"Yes. My name is Akilah Hadi. U.S. Army staff sergeant Phil Bugman gave me your number, and told me to ask for emergency refugee status." She let out in one long breath.

"I see," the woman responded, "please tell me everything you can."

With her parents there listening, she told the quickest version she could with the most detail, informing the operator that there was more, but a hostile divinity was after them and she did not know how long they had.

"Understood, Ms. Hadi," the woman told her, "your family has been granted temporary refugee status. We will be at your residence shortly to get you resettled as quickly as possible."

"Umm...how long will it take for them to get here?" Akilah asked, knowing somehow deep in her soul that they did not have much time.

There was a knock on the front door. It was 2:30 am.

"They should be there now, Ms. Hadi," the strange woman answered.

She nodded, and her father walked over to answer the door. He squeaked in surprise, drawing Akilah's gaze to the door. Her jaw dropped.

The scene outside of the front door did not match the scene out of the living room window, even though there was less than 10 feet separation between them. From the window, the row houses on the opposite side of the street could be seen, packed against each other.

The view through the front door was of a large ranch style house sitting on at least an acre of property, with an honest to gods Mediterranean Cypress tree in the front yard. And many more visible in the mid morning light behind the house.

A crew of 12 identical men in workman's coveralls and a woman with a clipboard and a phone operator headset stood waiting for an invitation into the house.

"Come in, please," Akilah's father said, standing back and motioning them in, his jaw hanging open.

As they entered, the woman, with the same accent and voice as the one on the phone motioned Akilah to hang up, then turned and gave clipped instructions for the workers to move everything from this house to the one visible from the front door.

Akilah was speechless. Even for a priestess with mystical powers who has actually communicated with her deity, these past 72 hours were just too unbelievable and fantastical.

In unconscious mimicry of her dead lover, Akilah intoned "What the fuck?"

"Ms. Hadi, the woman called her as she approached, "I am Olena Honcharenko, from the City of Innsmouth emergency services. My workers will move everything from your parent's house to your temporary new domicile. Pending clearance for permanent residence, your family and belongings will either be moved to a new home, or stay in this one. Payment in services rendered to the City can be made for either option."

As she spoke, the 12 workers moved at almost inhuman speeds, individual workers lifting couches, tables, and dressers with no help, and fully loaded. Nothing fell out of or off of any item, as the workers carried everything from the house and out the door to the other house with great alacrity.

"As soon as the last of your belongings have been moved and we are in the safety of Innsmouth, we will start to process paperwork to determine your final refugee status." She continued.

"And how long will it be before they are finished?" Akilah asked, wonder in her voice.

"Number 9, ETA on the move?" She asked a worker carrying her mother's china cabinet, fully loaded and perfectly balanced, towards the door.

"About 10 more minutes, ma'am!" The worker answered happily, no signs of strain in his voice from the load he was carrying.

"There you go," Olena answered happily.

Akilah's mother had been brewing coffee during all of this, while her father just numbly followed workers around the house, jaw hung open in disbelief. Her mother came in from the kitchen and started handing out mugs of coffee to Akilah, Olena, and her husband. The workers she offered cups to all politely declined.

Just as the last box was being brought through, Akilah heard a distorted version of Jeff's voice, colored by malice, call out from in front of the house.

"I FOUND YOU, WHORE! COME OUT, COME OUT! I WANT TO PLAY IN YOUR FLESH! I'M GOING TO RIP NEW HOLES IN YOUR BODY AND VIOLATE THEM UNTIL I'M BORED OR THEY'RE TOO LOOSE" his horrible altered voice yelled.

NO! The blood drained from Akilah's face.how had he gotten here so quickly?

"I take it this is your new stalker?" Olena asked.

"Yes. Wearing the body of my dead lover," Akilah sobbed, her mother coming to hold her.

"Number 4," Olena called to the last worker coming through the door to do a final check of the house, "there is unwanted company outside. Kindly go ask him to leave."

"Yes ma'am!" He responded cheerily, walking toward the living room window.

"We should get going," Olena said, pushing the family towards the door, "Number 4 will probably not be able to hold him, and we should be gone and close the door before he gets in here."

As they walked through, Akilah asked "what are you doing? Gilgamesh will slaughter him and take his soul!"

"Oh, he is only an Emergency Services worker. We can just replace him tomorrow," was the nonchalant answer.

"What? You can't do that! Is he a slave?" Akilah demanded, having seen this monster fight in the most disturbing way.

"Slavery is against the law in Innsmouth, with the exception of willing sexual submissives who have volunteered to a dominant!" Olena replied sharply, "we do not condone or tolerate forced labor of any kind, of any race or species here!"

She closed the door behind herself, cutting off Number 4's escape route to Akilah's horror.

"Rest easy, Ms. Hadi. You don't know all the facts yet," Olena said in a gentle manner after having left a worker to die.

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Number 4 opened the front door and stepped to the porch, looking at the young man with the maniacal face.

"Sir, this house is private property, and the residents have politely requested you vacate the premises. Failure to comply will result in consequences of which the residents will not be held responsible for. Have a great night!" He said, loudly and cheerily, waving to the angry young man.

Gilgamesh dashed up to the nondescript worker, looking like an average Caucasian blue collar worker, and picked him up by the throat.

"You do not speak to me, worm! I am a god, not some insignificant vermin! I will now crush your spirit and consume your life force. Feel fear in your final moments!" The beast in a man's flesh declared, as he crushed the throat held in his hands.

It...crunched, like a coke can being crushed, yet the eyes remained open and focused on him with no apparent discomfort.

"Well, then! I guess it's a good thing I'm not alive, isn't it?" He asked in a cheery voice, "since you failed to win your prize, please accept this lovely parting gift!"

With that, number 4 pulled the pin on the thermite grenade held in his right hand,just as his head fell off of his shoulders, in a shower of sparks.

A female voice now came from Number 4's torso.

"At the tone, the time will be...FUCK YOU... o'clock." The female voice said, with the "fuck you" being in Number 4's voice.

The grenade erupted in several thousand degree flames just as a "Beep" sounded from the torso, quickly melting Number 4 to a puddle, then burning through the pavement and into the water main of the area, and beyond.

Gilgamesh was burned severely,losing the arm that had been holding the...robot...Jeff's brain told him, and leaving burns across most of his body. Had he not tapped into the Bloodstream to raise a shield, he had no doubt he would have been as completely destroyed as the construct.

Odd. His brain told him these...robots...were products of fiction. There should not be technology to create anything like this. Yet, it had existed.

Tossing aside raising questions in his mind, he entered the front door of the house, now burning from proximity to the thermite charge that had detonated on the porch. As the sounds of sirens rapidly approached, Gilgamesh strode through the house looking for those he would punish for being related to that hussy that loved this body.

To his rage, he found nobody. The house was barren. They had escaped! HOW?

The one armed man covered in horrendous burns howled his rage to the sky as he stormed from the flaming house. He would wear her father's body and rape her with it! He would cut extra holes for the old man to rape, and he would make his soul watch as he did it!

Gilgamesh walked in circles plotting his punishment, ignoring the police cars and fire trucks that screeched to a halt inches from him.

As a firefighter approached him in the mistaken assumption that he was a victim, she absentmindedly snarled and snapped the man's neck with his remaining arm and tossed the corpse onto the police car with annoying flashing lights.

Muttering all of the dark and horrendous punishments four thousand years of practicing torture allowed him to imagine, he was distracted by....

Blam! Blam!

The 2 cops in the car that had just been impacted by a firefighter's corpse panicked. The driver pulled his service weapon and just started shooting the one armed murderer, while the passenger grabbed the shotgun and started to pump round after round of buckshot into him.

It...drew his attention. The rounds hit him multiple times, but they watched in horror as the bullet holes sealed and healed, and his arm was regrowing as they observed in sickened fascination.

He seemed to almost teleport to the driver, and casually backhanded the officer's head backwards, instantly snapping his neck fatally. He then grabbed the corpse and heaved it at the shotgun armed passenger.

As the officer tried to untangle himself from his dead partner, Gilgamesh leapt over the car and came down with his foot stomping the unfortunate man's head so hard, the pavement buckled and cracked, the remains dripping from his foot.

The firefighters that had witnessed this event all ran back and took cover in their truck, watching him through windows and trying to avoid being seen. Snarling at this cowardice, Gilgamesh focused his rage and used the Bloodstream to crush the firetruck like a tin can, bursting all of its occupants and sending fuel flying out, which came in contact with the burning house and went up in flames, spreading the budding inferno even further.

Snarling, Gilgamesh whirled away to find transpiration. It was time to leave this place. He would find a place to relax and enjoy himself until he could find HER.

He had heard the talking air...the radio...speak of ethnic cleansing and war in a place called Yugoslavia. That sounded fun. He would go there and partake in some cleansing.

He saw a house with the lights on. He kicked open the door, finding a man in his 30's trembling, a streak of urine running down his pajama legs, with his pretty wife cowering behind him.

"You," he said, pointing at the man, "take me to the port!"

The man cried and shook his head negatively, whimpering "please, no! Just go away!"

Gilgamesh stopped the man's heart with a punch to his chest, sneering.

"You," he said, pointing to the wife, "will take me to the port, yes?"

Crying and standing in her own puddle of urine, she quickly nodded her head. He grabbed the keys out of her hands and had her take him to their vehicle.

It was a minivan, at which point Gilgamesh told her "I will drive, you will guide me. And entertain me as we go! You remind me of someone. Who? Ah, yes, young Akilah"

"What have you done to Akilah?" She whimpered, as the van pulled away and drove in the direction of the port, while more police and fire trucks arrived.

"Nothing yet. However, I am in a sharing mood, so I will show you!" He cackled, as he grabbed the back of her head and jammed her face onto his crotch.

"Please me, and I may let you live!" He demanded, smiling as the terrified woman unzipped his pants while sobbing.

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Olena explained to Akilah that the Numbers were not human. They were artificial contracts controlled by their creator, who made them expressly to serve the town in varying capacities. Therefore, Olena had NOT left an innocent man to be killed by Gilgamesh.

It was also important he be kept out of the house for a brief time after they left so any trace of the portal they had used to get here could fade quickly. To allow a beast such as that to know where they had gone, and where this place was could not even be imagined.

The paperwork for refugee status took hours to complete. The number of questions, and provided options, was mind boggling and mind NUMBING.

Please state the nature of the threat you seek refuge from:

Religious, supernatural

Religious, no supernatural

Necromantic (seeking a sacrifice)

Undead

Government black lab

Corporate black lab

Other (please write on back of form)

The whole thing went on like that. For 8 pages. Akilah had almost fallen asleep in the middle of it multiple times.

The following morning, after an hour-long nap, she woke to sobs and cries of shock from her parents. The news was on (how did they get local news channels here, wherever here was?), And it was terrifying.

"A man identified as U.S. Army corporal Jeffrey Zacharias is wanted for multiple homicides, arson, grand theft auto, rape, desertion, kidnapping, assault and many more crimes. The corporal set fire to a house in Chicago early this morning, then killed 2 police officers, destroyed a fire truck somehow killing all firefighters aboard, then murdered a neighbor before kidnapping his wife. Her body was found this morning outside the Port of Chicago. Police say she was violently sexually assaulted before being murdered.

"Authorities say Corporal Zacharias should be considered EXTREMELY dangerous, and if you see him, flee the area and contact your local police. Again, do NOT approach this man" a picture of Jeff, his non smiling boot camp picture, was shown on the screen, "if you see him, leave the area immediately and contact local police IMMEDIATELY!"

Akilah and her family watched, horrified. They sobbed to know police, firefighters and a neighbor had all been killed by a monster who had been after them.

Once the news story had broken, they were informed that they had been granted permanent status immediately.

Akilah's parents opted to move to a different house nearby while Akilah stayed in the first house, as she was pregnant and the space would be good for a growing child.

Akilah's mother would work at the local hospital as a nurse, keeping her career mostly the same, with small changes. Her father, being a trained archaeological processor, would work in the town record hall, as the town was unbelievably old,

Akilah would focus on her pregnancy for now, get to know the city and its inhabitants, and had until the baby's first birthday to decide what she would do for the city.

The city had a population of around 4,000. It fluctuated, sometimes dropping to 2,000 and at one time had held as many as 8,000. Some people only stayed until their emergencies were over, others put down roots and became fixtures of the community.

The city was laid out in a grid, and seemed to follow the ancient Sumerian ideal of one third of the land being for residences, one third for business and industry, and one third for parklands and gardens.

It was on a small peninsula, the water on all 3 sides beautifully clear, with what looked like hints of buildings deep below the surface of the water. The ripples from the wind almost made it seem as if people swam from building to building.

The city was beautiful. Construction styles varied, some modern, some architecture from the 60's, and older. The town center held a proud structure built in the old style of the first civilization, bud brick and sturdy. That was the town hall, where the Council met. Cypress trees grew everywhere, vines and shrubs, and natural gardens abounded.

From what she had seen, the city's economy was entirely barter based. Things were bought on an exchange system, or paid for with acts of labor. It was a very old economic system, and it seemed to work for the town.

The city itself had money. It was how new construction materials and resources were brought in. They just saw no need to introduce it to an economy that worked as it had for a very long time.

She wandered, taking in the views, the residents going about their daily routines. She saw produce stands with vegetables from all over the world, the food given freely as the farmer's payments for just about everything they needed.

She walked until she reached city hall. She found Olena inside, who waved to her and came over.

"Getting the lay of the land?" She asked in a friendly manner.

Akilah nodded, "it's beautiful here. Peaceful. But...where is HERE?"

"I'd tell you to wait for the naturalization course, but I try not to be a bitch," she smiled, "the city had a different name until recently. We rescued some college kids a couple of decades back. They had wound up on the wrong side of a pack of vampires, and didn't want to be dinner.