Rock Hard (31 page)

All those possessive pronouns
, Tess sent to him.
I must be more out of it than I think…or your elevated testosterone is talking.

Marduk snorted. There was no time to waste being amused. He had a scumbag to take care of.

“Hux?” Marduk didn’t have to ask twice. Huxley gently gathered Tess into his arms.

“Come on, big sister. Your man needs to take some frustrations out on the bad guy.”

Tess sighed. Yup, it was just a hormone issue.

Marduk stormed to the other side of the truck.

“Drop him,” he ordered Enlil, who reluctantly obeyed. The circle of gods closed in, quietly placing bets on what Marduk would do next.

Gage leaned against the vehicle, bleeding from the nose.

“Don’t hurt me,” he cried. “I’m already injured!”

Marduk brought a fist forward and smashed it into the broken appendage. Gage screamed and his hands went to his face. Marduk whipped out again with a wicked right to the ribcage. It gave with an audible crack and the gods all responded with the appropriate, Oooh! A little money changed hands with nods of “I told you so’s,” but all bets were off as Marduk backed up and encouraged Gage to go.

“Run, asshole,” he growled.

Gage looked at him through a haze of blood and tears.

“Run, I said!” There was no mistaking the purpose in Marduk’s voice, and Gage struggled to put one foot in front of the other.

“What are you going to do?” he blubbered. “I’m hurt! I’m helpless.” He turned and stumbled a number of feet away, but, as he pretended helplessness, he reached into his jacket. With a sweep and a throw, he spun his long hunting knife across the void, hitting Marduk’s chest, directly over the heart. It buried to the hilt.

“How do you like that, fucker?” Gage looked momentarily triumphant, but his grin faded as Marduk didn’t even flinch.

“Did they not tell you what I am?” Marduk’s growled. He looked disgustedly down to where the knife protruded and plucked it from his chest.

Gage’s eyes grew wide in disbelief.

Marduk played thunder around his head. “Now I’ll tell you our new game.” The god moved forward, stopping inches from a now trembling Gage. Using the human’s knife, he slowly flicked each and every button off of Gage’s shirt.

“You will run,” Marduk said. “And every time I catch you, I will carve a mark deep into your skin. Like this.” Marduk flashed out with one hand, gripping Gage’s wrist to hold him in place as he brought up the other and cut a deep score four inches long on Gage’s chest. Blood welled up.

“You’re crazy,” Gage screamed. “Do you see that he’s crazy?” The terrorized male appealed to Hux and Enlil, unable to see the satisfaction on ten other faces.

“I’d do what he says,” threatened Enlil. “Or I’ll finish you off right here, and it won’t be nearly as sporting.”

“Tess!” Gage was desperate now. “You can’t let him do this to me! Tess, help me, please!”

Tess kept her eyes closed and her face pressed up against Huxley’s shirt. Marduk knew she didn’t want to see anything, but wouldn’t stop what was about to happen. If the gods hadn’t rescued her, it would be her body being carved up right now, not this prick’s. There would be no sympathy from her to change Gage’s fate.

“Run…now.” Marduk’s voice came out a lethal whisper, and Gage stumbled off the road onto a trail that led up to the gorge.

Marduk was quickly upon him. “Not fast enough!” He tripped the man and flipped him over on his back, making another deep mark in his skin. “That’s two,” he gloated without mercy, kicking Gage back to his feet and making him run again. The action was repeated five more times before Marduk felt the bulk of his ire start to ease.

Gage looked back at the changing Marduk and saw him breaking into particles. Marduk heard hysterical laughter bubble from the male’s throat. There was no way the human could know what was happening, but Marduk sensed his prey’s relief. The bastard thought he was going to make it. He believed he was going to get away. Let him have hope, Marduk smiled with malice. It would make the reality that much more potent. Gage yelled back at the mist where he’d last seen Marduk.

“Fuck you!” He began stumbling up the trail. “I’ve won and, when I come back for the girl, I’ll make sure there’s nothing left of her for you. Do you understand?” His feet were making faster and faster progress toward the canyon. He thought he was going to escape and eventually come back to haunt Tess again. The male was so wrong. Marduk’s lips curled in satisfaction as he followed his unsuspecting prey. The path became steep, and the drop into the gorge was only inches away from Gage’s feet.

Enlil,
Marduk called.
Help me with the wind.
He brought his own thunder and lightning from the sky. Marduk strode forward, unseen by his enemy.

Dumuzi! Wrap the infidel with vines.
Marduk would make sure his revenge was complete before seeking the man’s death.

Tendrils rose from the dirt at Gage’s feet, grabbing at his ankles and crawling up his legs. They twisted him and dragged him to the earth, baring his chest to the elements. Marduk towered unseen over the bound man.

“Count them!” Marduk’s voice rumbled across the sky. Gage obviously heard the words as if they were all around him.

“Who said that?” he sobbed, not receiving an answer. “C-c-c-count what?” Gage looked around, seeing no one, frantically attempting to loosen his limbs. “How is this happening?” The whites of his eyes shone large in his bloody face.

“Count the marks I’ve made.” Marduk was enjoying this.

“I don’t know! I…somebody help me!” Gage screamed.

Enlil’s wind ripped what was left of the shirt from the writhing man’s body, revealing an eagle tattoo on his shoulder with the word “Justice” inscribed on a banner clutched in the bird’s talons. Marduk’s face lit up with a sinister glee. He knew what he had to do.

Dumuzi, I need you again!

The god appeared instantly by his side.

Will you call upon your friend, the great eagle, and bid him finish my task?

Dumuzi, friend to all animals, saw into Marduk’s head and understanding dawned. He nodded.

It shall be done.

The two were joined by all the brothers. They waited silently on the rain-soaked path, the thrashing male at their feet. Within minutes, up from the chasm below arose a great predator. Gage became aware of the eagle as it neared and shrieked to witness the seven-foot wingspan back lit by flashes in the sky as it moved closer.

“No! No!” he screamed into the desolate night.

Score him five more times!
Marduk had Dumuzi command the magnificent creature, impervious to Gage’s cries. The gods watched dispassionately as the eagle sunk talons deep into Gage’s flesh, destroying the mocking tattoo, the pain causing shrieks to be ripped from the doomed man’s throat.

When the eagle finally took wing, Marduk said, “We’re done here.”

He looked around.
Ninurta. Shift the ground and weaken the soil where he lies.
When it was done, Marduk had only to concentrate a shaft of rain on the loosened dirt and, with a slow roll, a look of terrible understanding passed over the horrified man’s face. The mud sloughed away, and Gage disappeared into the crevasse. He screamed all the way down.

The gods misted back to where Tess lay still in Huxley’s arms. They felt no joy at what they had done but, when Marduk told her it was over and she gave a nod, they felt a certain satisfaction. Gage would never be able to hurt her again.

Enlil was the first to speak as Marduk relieved Hux of Tess’s slight body, and they all came to the realization that she wasn’t going to be riding a motorcycle home. “So Tess, just how many times will we be calling 911 for you?”

She rolled her eyes, which was about the only thing that didn’t hurt, and retorted, “I’m beginning to think it’s my lucky number.”

There was a quick clean-up of the scene—truck swallowed by earth, vines sucked back into soil, and blood removed from Marduk, whose back had nearly healed , his chest wound not far behind. Nothing a shirt wouldn’t cover.

They agreed that her partial truth to the authorities would involve a kidnapping by Gage. There was already a record of his first brutal attack on file, which would support her story of being beaten and flung from his truck as he fled. All she needed to say was that Gage neglected to take her cell phone and she had called her brother and friends after being dumped, and they, in turn, had called 911.

Many hours later, she was tucked into her warm bed, having given the same story to her father. Her injuries were actually less severe than the gods had thought—bruised ribs and no stitches necessary.

Tess fell into a deep sleep with a smile on her face, comforted by the knowledge that Marduk kept a cramped vigil from a small armchair tucked under the dormer in the corner of her room.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dagon’s trip had proven most fruitful and he was quite pleased as he materialized in front of the cabin mid-morning the following day. His sense of satisfaction took a sharp nosedive when he opened the door and saw…no Matthew. His ire rose as he noted that the door to the storeroom was slightly ajar, and he erupted in rage when he realized that his valued prisoners were gone.

Incompetent! Imbecile!
He snarled and threw things about the cabin. Had Matthew been caught by surprise? If so, then where was his body? His second in command had better be dead, or Dagon would make sure he would be—and soon.

Dagon’s anger clenched hold of his guts like a living thing.

Almost immediately he tried to backpedal. He couldn’t afford this right now.
Stop!
he ordered, but it was too late. Black scales ripped from within his golden skin, covering his back and chest. His face elongated into a hideous fanged snout and dorsal fins rose up out of his spine. Dagon tried frantically to find a calm spot in his head, but he was helpless to interrupt the transformation. Minutes went by, and finally Dagon rose to his enormous new height. Now complete, Dagon was larger by half from what he had been before.

He tore at the walls penning him in and making him feel caged. He ripped the door off its hinges with a snarl. For hours he would be the monster, the serpent of the sea over whom he had little control. He would bellow through the forest in a furor of semi-lucid violence. He hadn’t turned in millennia, but now his anger had gotten the better of him. The human was at fault, but in the end, the defeat was his own, and it was just one more reason to hate the fucking Blue Hills gods. The part of Dagon’s brain that remained rational knew it would be several hours before he regained his former self.

****

Dagon was in the middle of nowhere when the scales dropped away and he returned to his god-like body. Calm now, he thought of all the ways he would kill Matthew when he misted back to Plymouth, in three, two, one…

“You’re alive,” Dagon hissed in Matthew’s ear as he eased the knife under his chin. “But not for much longer.”

The new pupils in the room stopped listening to Lenore’s latest lesson and watched, horrified and entranced. His female employee turned to see what had derailed the group’s attention, then snapped into heightened alertness. The irate god saw the anger in her eyes.

“Dagon! Leave Matthew alone!”

Dagon snorted. Lenore was obviously feeling powerful from her latest hand-to-hand win against one of his over-sized recruits and wasn’t sparing a thought to the fact that she was ordering an immortal about. He’d put her in her place. Coldly in control, Dagon gave his most evil smile and pushed the tip of his knife into Matthew’s neck, drawing blood.

“You’re not helping, Lenore,” Matthew said between gritted teeth.

Dagon sneered and addressed the bold female. “You defend a man who let my captives escape.” He sized up Lenore, who was slowly moving closer. Dagon held a cautious posture. He’d interrupted her kicking some ass with the big guys under her tutelage, and she was still pumped. He’d hate to fight with her, and possibly lose two of his top people today. “Did Matthew tell you that we had captured Marduk? We had the god along with the woman you helped…save.” He backed away, lowering his knife and wiping it absently on his now torn jeans, (complements of his previous size change) to defuse her. He was rewarded with a sharp glance from Lenore that quickly cut to Matthew. Now he would get some answers.

Dagon addressed his man in charge. “Before I kill you, I would like to hear how this happened. Enlighten me. How did the pair get away?” The entire room’s rapt attention was focused on the answer.

“I don’t know,” Matthew ground out from between clenched lips.

“What was that?” Dagon willed himself to remain unflustered.

“I said, I don’t know,” Matthew proclaimed, to a few nervous coughs from the fledglings who had seen enough of how this group worked to know that Matthew was in big trouble.

Lenore interfered again.

“It was my fault,” she postured. “I called Matthew and ordered him to come back to Plymouth. Your new group was giving me…problems.” The fresh eyes in the room began looking everywhere but at Dagon.

The serpent god listened to Lenore, but his attention never left Matthew. “You obeyed an order from Lenore, but disregarded my command to keep the prisoners under watch! You left the girl, Tess, and her god alone, believing that they wouldn’t find a way to escape?” Now the knife was back. This time pressed into Matthew’s flesh, right below his right eye. “Explain!”

“I didn’t leave them alone,” Matthew stated emphatically. Sweat was beginning to bead up on the blond man’s face; that and a tic in his cheek were the only two things revealing his fear. “Lenore had called the girl’s ex-boyfriend. He showed up and promised he would keep an eye on them until I returned. “

Dagon focused on the eye vulnerable to his blade. “Well, you were wrong,” he hissed.

Lenore’s clasped hands came down on Dagon’s wrist, startling him and knocking the knife to the floor. Matthew spun away in that instant, and Lenore pulled him across the room. The two stood together, poised to take on the vengeful deity.

Dagon slowly got control of himself. It wouldn’t do to have the serpent make an appearance now. He spread his hands innocently in the air to either side of his body. “This is what you want?” He moved his feet toward Lenore and got in position so that he could backhand her into Matthew, taking them both down, but something stopped him at the last minute.