Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (50 page)

“Wait!” Lerajie said. He glanced around furtively, that being a first for the blabbermouth, and then leaned forward as if he wished to whisper a secret. He would have pulled it off, too, had the nitwit not practically shouted his next words across the room.

“She asked for a needle and thread!”

Eligor cocked one eyebrow. They’d both been present at the Parliamentary building when General Abaddon’s wife had starting talking
.
Speculation had been rampant ever since Lucifer had returned from his little coup d'état. Either Zepar had shoved a microphone up the woman’s ass, or humans were every bit as smart as
they
were. Eligor knew it was the latter … and was grateful despite the moral implications that presented. Personally, he wasn’t into fucking something that didn’t have enough sense to give him a little post-coitus chatter.

Then again, whatever that contraption Zepar was building in his office, the thing that looked like an android…

Curiosity aroused, Eligor decided to take the bait. He sat back down.

“What made her talk to you?”

“Nothing,” Lerajie said. “I was outside standing guard, minding my own business, when I heard this tap at the door. I opened it ready to shoot, figuring it was the Sata'anic lizard, and there she stood, pretty as you please, and asked if I could go fetch her a needle and some scissors."

Eligor raised one eyebrow. "You're fucking with me!"

"No, really," Lerajie said. "She said one of the women was injured and she wanted to stitch her back up."

"And you suddenly learned to speak an Earth language … how?" Eligor scoffed at him.

"She spoke in Galactic Standard," Lerajie said. "Clear as day."

Eligor glanced around the room and noticed everyone had fallen silent. They all knew Zepar had started giving him more privileges ever since he'd bailed out Lucifer's ass.

"Keep your voice down," Eligor hissed. "You want to get us both shot out an airlock?"

Lerajie glanced around and noticed for the first time they were the center of attention. He tucked his pale, pink-speckled wings against his back, duly chastised, and leaned forward to resume the conversation.

"There's a betting pool going around," Lerajie whispered in an exaggerated stage whisper which was anything
but
quiet. "To see who can get her to speak again."

"Stay away from her," Eligor jammed his finger across the table into Lerajie's face. "Whatever you've got in mind, don't do it. Zepar's already got you on his 'most necessary crewman to send into a firefight' list."

Lerajie fell silent. Eligor jammed his fork into the grey-green substance that was
supposed
to replicate steamed greens, but had the consistency and taste of shredded paper.

“When’s your next shift guarding the harem?”

“Don’t know,” Lerajie said. “Zepar’s got me doing all kinds of strange shit ever since he elevated you to babysitting duty. You’d a thought he’d assigned us to watch the puppet-prince together.”

‘Fat chance,’
Eligor thought to himself.

“You got a big mouth,” Eligor picked at his fingernails with his fork. “Start keeping it shut and pretend you ain’t looking at shit, and after a while Zepar will forget you’re a bleeding heart pansy.”

Lerajie choked on the cup of
caife
he was taking a sip out of at the moment. His wings flared, flinging feathers into the food tray.

“Watch it,” Eligor growled. He picked a long, red-speckled feather out of his mashed tubers, but honestly he was done with them. He was just grumbling for the sake of grumbling. He waited for Lerajie to catch his breath, though. Just to make sure he wasn’t really choking. Lerajie turned red, but kept right on breathing. Nope. No such luck. Guess he was stuck with the man for a little while longer.

Lerajie blew his nose then picked right up where he’d started. Man! Didn’t
anything
deter the guy from his soapbox?

“She really
is
pregnant,” Lerajie said. “Based on the other ones, I estimate she’s four or five months along.”

“So Lucifer grabbed one he already knocked up before,” Eligor shrugged. “Big deal. Is she pretty?”

Lerajie's eyes sparkled. "She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

“Did she say anything else?” Eligor asked.

“Nope,” Lerajie said. “As soon as I gave her the medical supplies, she said 'thank you' and slammed the door in my face.”

Eligor's comms pin beeped. Not his regular pin. The
other
one. Eligor groaned.

“You better get that,” Lerajie said.

His expression unreadable, Eligor stuck the speaker in his ear so he could find out what the fuck Zepar wanted.

“This is Eligor.”

“Eligor?" The voice wasn’t Zepar’s, but Lucifer himself. There was a high-pitched, panicked sound to that single word, as though it was the younger version of Lucifer that Eligor had been around long enough to remember and not the flaming asshole he’d become in the intervening years from too much power and not enough give-a-shitedness from his adoptive father, Hashem.

“Sir?” Eligor asked.

“Eligor … I need you.”

Eligor suppressed a groan. What now? Had the puppet prince run out of liquor again? Well he’d be damned if
he’d
feed the man’s addictions. Something wasn’t right about Lucifer, and the last thing the man needed was the only man left on the ship he trusted leading him down the garden path and waiting for him to implode.

“I’ll be right there, Sir,” Eligor said.

He got up and grabbed his tray.

“What about the human female?” Lerajie asked. “What you going to do about her?”

“Nothing,” Eligor said.

“Maybe you should ask Lucifer?”

“The last thing that woman needs is anybody directing Lucifer’s attention to her,” Eligor said. Anger gurgled in his veins, anger he’d suppress if he was talking to anybody but Lerajie, the closest thing he had to a friend. “Think about it, man? Lucifer’s got some serious mojo with the mind, man.
That’s
what’s fucking up the women. His mojo is too powerful for them or something.”

“What mojo?” Lerajie asked. He raised one eyebrow. Despite his liberal bent, Lerajie was a man of science.

“Nothing,” Eligor grumbled. He grabbed his tray and stalked off to dump it into the wash bucket, splattering uneaten mashed tubers and vegetables everywhere. He jutted his wings straight out behind him as he stalked through the ship to Lucifer’s quarters, where no doubt the man was waking up with the mother of all hangovers.

He ran smack into Zepar in the hallway with all of his dirty-winged glory.

“Where you off to, Eligor?” Zepar gave him that sloe-eyed stare that Eligor had learned meant the man was trying to read his mind.

Impulse drive in the shuttle has a check engine light on. Gotta go check it before we need it again. Last thing the Prime Minister needs is to get stranded in the middle of East Buttfuck. Zepar would have my head on a platter for sure.

“Just hurrying back to my quarters, Sir.” Eligor deliberately told him something incongruent to the fake thoughts he had running through his mind.

Zepar shut his eyes and sniffed, and then gave Eligor a malicious grin.

“Well then, carry on then, Eligor,” Zepar said. He added, “oh, and when you’re done, could you do me a favor. Go down to the launch bay and run the Prime Minister’s shuttle through another circle check. You never know when we might need it in a hurry.”

Eligor pretended to give him a grateful look, the kind a guy might give when he’d been let off the hook for something that might get him into trouble.

“Yes, Sir,” Eligor said.

He watched as Zepar wheeled an overloaded cart down the hall, filled to the brim with bits and pieces of stuff he’d scrounged up from gods-only-knew where. With no supply chain this far out into the uncharted territories, not to mention the fact that so far as the Alliance was concerned, they’d all been blown up during Lucifer’s clever little stunt to get back at his immortal father, it wasn’t like they could simply swing by the nearest hardware store.

As soon as Zepar turned the corner, Eligor resumed his trip down to the Prime Minister’s suite, where Furcas and Pruflas, the two goons who always shadowed the Prime Minister at Zepar’s bequest, were once again conspicuously absent from guarding his door. That only meant one thing. Zepar had sent them back to the planet, under the Sata’anic lizard’s noses, to grab more humans for his men.

When was
he
going to get
his
promised wife?

Eligor scratched his balls. Who the fuck would want
him
for a husband? Huh? No one... If the alpha-stud had been forced to resort to taking them against their will, what chance did
he
have.

He punched in the access code and ran his eye through the retinal scanner, which had been expanded to give him unfettered access without having to first clear it with Zepar, knocked twice, and then stepped inside.

What … the …

“Eligor?”

Lucifer stood butt-naked in the corner, a bedsheet held up to cover his genitals as if it was a shield. On the floor in the opposite corner huddled two women, naked, disheveled, and reeking of blood and semen.

Eligor took a step closer and the women screamed. Okay. So the puppet-prince had taken a few more wives? Wives who, by the looks of them, were just as mind-broken and stupid as the other women in the harem. What else was new around here?

And then he saw the third one in the bed. Lucifer pointed as though he was afraid. This one … wasn’t moving.

“Oh, fuck!” Eligor said.

He rushed over to the bed, ignoring Lucifer’s incoherent babbling. Now he’d done it. The stupid ass had gone and killed one. He grabbed the shape tangled up in the sheets, rolled her over, and…

“Fuck!” Eligor yelped.

‘She’
had a muscular build and a bushy, dark-brown beard.

“I – I – I don’t remember,” Lucifer stuttered. He pulled the sheet tighter around himself. “I woke up and…”

It’d been a long time since Eligor had been forced to play medic, but training kicked in. He shoved his fingers into the man’s jugular, searching for a pulse.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck!
What the fuck had Lucifer gone and done?

The man’s flesh was cold, but there was a weak, faint heartbeat. Shock. He’d seen it enough times to recognize the symptoms. Eligor grabbed Lucifer’s luxurious satin comforter, doubled it up and threw it over the man to get his body temperature up, then grabbed a pillow and shoved it under the man’s feet. As he did, the scent of just what Lucifer had been doing with the man wafted up to him. Blood, semen, and shit. Aww, man! Fuck! He didn’t want to know this shit about his boss!

“I didn’t … I didn’t,” Lucifer’s white wings were flared like he was about to take off.

“Sir!” Eligor said, anger bubbling in his veins. “He needs a doctor! You can’t just sweep this under the rug!”

“Is he … is he still…?”

“Alive? Yes. Barely,” Eligor said.

Lucifer’s wings settled against his body. He wrapped the sheet around himself like a toga and stepped closer. The two women began to scream. Lucifer stuck his hands over his ears, as though the sound was more than he could bear.

“Please,” Lucifer said. “Make them stop. They’re … they’re…”

‘Sentient,’ Eligor thought to himself. ‘And you left just enough of them –in- there when you fucked with their minds to get them to agree to your little ménage au trois that you can –hear- it now, you dumb fuck. You can hear it in their voices, now that you know some of them are sentient like General Abaddon’s wife.’

Lucifer looked at him with his eerie silver eyes, his expression horrified. Eligor knew the guy could read his mind even better than Zepar could, especially now that he wasn’t shielding his thoughts.

“I'm sorry,” Lucifer’s voice was the strangled cry of a little boy. “Help me, Eligor. I don’t know what to do.”

Eligor looked down at the poor schmuck laying catatonic in the bed. The two women, he bet, would recover. This guy, he wasn’t so sure. But either way, if word ever got back to the Emperor about
any
of what they were doing, or even Emperor Shay’tan, fuck, now that they were officially in Sata’anic territory, they were all screwed.

"Zepar…"

"No, please!" Lucifer pulled the sheet closer around his body, as if the guy gave a fuck about running around butt-naked any
other
time. "I don't … I don't…"

Lucifer's eyes picked up the light and shone so bright it looked for a moment as if they had turned white.

“I’ll take care of it,” Eligor snapped at him. He pointed to the bathroom. “Go get cleaned up. Let me deal with this. My way.”

Lucifer stumbled towards the bathroom, dropping feathers as he went. Eligor slapped the human male lightly on the face, trying to get him to respond.