Grapeshot Pantheon Page 10

  “Are you Captain Marvel?” he asked.

  The look in his eyes made Liv pause. She desperately wanted to kick this fuckers head in for what he had done – what he had tried to do. Part of that was fury. But a bigger part was guilt. She had done things for Ares, in the long, thoughtless time when she had just been his daughter and hadn’t thought beyond the next brawl. In another time, another life, could she have been one of those assholes, aiming guns at an entire village?

  Kicking the man once more, crushing his head like a grapefruit, ripping him in fucking half, though, would break something in the kid’s eyes. And for just a moment, she saw her own daughter looking up at her. How she might look in a decade, at least.

  “No,” Liv said, her voice husky. “I’m Liv. Liviana.”

  The doors to the gymnasium exploded inwards – kicked in by a stampede of armored officers. They sprinted for the prone bad guys and started to bellow orders at them. Plastic handcuffs were brought out, and Liv saw the people in the auditorium sag with relief. But more than a few kept looking at her.

  Then the kid she had been speaking too beamed. “Go Liviana! Wooo!”

  Liv flew up and away, flushing, as the other kids started to cheer, then chant. “Liv! Liv! Liv! Liv! Liv!”

  She fled.

  ***

  Liam stepped onto the roof of the Watergate Hotel, looking around slowly. There, on the very edge of the roof, was Liv. She had ditched her ‘enthusiastically borrowed’ weapons and was looking across the sweep of Washington DC. The city was shockingly short to Liam’s eyes. Apparently, some law about not building higher than certain monuments. Liv wasn’t looking at any of them. She was just looking into the broad sweep of the Potomac, her knee drawn up against her chest, her other leg dangling.

  “I got your text,” Liam said.

  Liv grunted.

  Liam walked over to her. “Fizit wants to give you every medal that Babylon can mint. Mary is in agreement.” He smiled. “The President wants to give you a commendation in public.”

  “And in private?” Liv asked, not looking away from the river. The lights of the city glittered in it, turning it into a rippling inverse of the night sky.

  “In private, she wants to tear you a new asshole,” Liam said, slapping Liv on her back. “But I don’t. You saved a lot of lives.”

  Liv nodded.

  “He’s on Earth,” she said.

  “How?” Liam asked.

  “He’s got to be listening in on our radio communications-”

  “Oh, no, I got that,” Liam said. “There’s no other way the LAJC whackos could have intercepted the ATF and FBI. But how did Ares get past every defense we have on Babylon’s gate and every defense on the Cheyenne complex gate?”

  Liv sprang to her feet. She started to pace back and forth before Liam, glaring at the air before her. If she noticed that she was ‘walking’ on thin air, Liam couldn’t say. Her hands went to her blue hair, tugging at it as she growled quietly.

  “I don’t know!” she said. “Maybe he just flew here.”

  “Flew?” Liam asked. “GPS tracking put you at three hundred KPH. Impressive, but that’d take like a thousand years. Assuming you can’t get any faster in space. Which, to be fair, you may.” He shook his head. “And Ares still has to breathe, right?”

  “I don’t know!” Liv spun to face him. “Maybe he built his own gate! We did!”

  “We had access to...” Liam paused.

  Liv scowled. “To the Endless Mine, yeah.”

  Liam’s eyes widened fractionally.

  A memory flashed in his mind, from near the end of the War of the False God, when he and Brax had finally slain Sysminor.

  The room had clearly been designed to do something – but someone had come through and made it into something else. A bed had been laid across a table that looked designed for conferences. A few chairs had been uprooted and placed aside, leaving room for a training dummy. A chair was planted before a flower-like pod of crystal spheres that pointed outwards in every direction. A sleek helmet of crystal wafers sat on a small pedestal, with a shield bearing a lambda leaned against the wall beside it. Beyond both of those was another door, leading into a room that held a teleport shrine.

  Liam’s brow furrowed. “Sparta?”

  “Ares,” Brax said.

  “Ares lives in the control center of Purgatory,” Liam whispered. His palms pressed to his face. “God fucking damn it! Why didn’t I realize it before?”

  Liv put her hands on her hips. “How would that help him?”

  “A central command center would get reports on things,” Liam said. “I bet that’s how he knew to find the fucking Endless Mine in the first place! And when we used it to build the gate, all he’d need to do is mark down the schematics and then recreate it on his own. He has wizards and his own powers. And his gate doesn’t need to be re-usable. If it just gets him here, he can run rampant!”

  Liv sighed. She floated forward and set her feet down on the edge of the roof. Wind whistled past her as she looked at her feet. Her hands rubbed on her shoulders. “Cool. We know how he got here. Or at least, we have an idea. But that doesn’t change the fact he’s here and I have no idea how to find him. He’s been learning what his new powers can do longer than I have, Liam. And he has believers now. It’s not like those, those... what did you call them?”

  “Liberation Army of Jesus Christ,” Liam said.

  “What a stupid fucking name,” Liv said, her face twisting. “But they’re in jail, aren’t they?”

  “Awaiting trial, yeah,” Liam said.

  “And they’re not going to stop worshiping Ares. They were willing to kill for him.” Liv’s tongue darted out, flicking along her lips. “They’re still a win for him.”

  Liam took Liv’s hands.

  “That’s not the only thing bothering you, is it?” he asked. “That’s why you’re brooding on the fucking Watergate instead of coming back to the White House.”

  “Is that what this place is called?” Liv asked, then scowled at Liam’s snort. “Does it matter?”

  “No, not really,” Liam said, shaking his head as he squeezed her hands. In times like this, he could forget the ways that Liv was changing. The ways that her powers had grown and altered. The ways that they had drifted apart and come back together. He could just remember the irritable girl who had tried to kill him, then make his life miserable, then became just another puzzle piece in his weird, messed up life. He smiled at her. “Come on, Liv. You saved every hostage, and took every bad guy alive. That’s enough for the President to almost forgive you for running off.”

  “You said she wanted to rip me a new asshole,” Liv muttered.

  “I said almost,” Liam whispered, leaning forward to playfully wiggle his eyebrows at Liv. Liv rolled her eyes while smiling.

  “It’s...” Liv pulled her hands away from Liam. Liam let her float away and start to pace again. “It’s the way the kids reacted. They saw me like I was some kind of... not a god.” She shook her head. “One of them called me Captain Marvel, whatever the fuck that is.”

  “She a superhero,” Liam said. “And, I guess, so are you.”

  Liv snorted. “Superhero. What, like Hercules?”

  “Kinda,” Liam said, nodding. “But Hercules was a Greek hero. Big flaw, tragic end, that kind of thing. A bit arrogant and self absorbed too.”

  Liv shoved him and laughed. “Thanks, dipshit.”

  “I said kinda!” Liam rubbed at his chest, shaking his head. “Modern superheroes are more selfless. Helping the innocent, fighting things that normal police and armies can’t, that kind of thing. Saving kittens from trees.” He smiled. “There are some movies I can show you. A lot, actually.” He paused. “At least thirty of them.”

  Liv looked away, turning back to face the Potomac.

  Liam stepped up to the very edge of the building. He reached out, putting his hands on her shoulders, then drew her close. His arms slipped around her and he held her in the war
m, muggy evening. His nose pressed to her neck and his lips tasted a faint tang of grit and plaster. He didn’t care. His tongue darted out and he slowly licked her, squeezing her even tighter. Liv squirmed. “There’s no way I can possibly live up to that.”

  “Hey, we’re used to superheroes fucking up by now,” Liam murmured softly. “Watchmen cleared the way for you and Man Of Steel reminded everyone.” He shuddered convulsively. “Ugh. I can’t believe I just compared those two things, even tangentially.”

  Liv snorted, then leaned forward. She kissed him, gently, on the lips.

  Then she kissed him less gently. Her tongue swept into his mouth and her legs lifted, then locked around his hips, her heels crossing over one another as she ground herself against him with a fluid, almost snake-like undulation of her spine. Her hands clutched at his shoulders and it was all Liam could do to not topple off the side of the Watergate hotel. His hands cupped and squeezed her ass and Liv broke the kiss only after Liam was sure his lungs might explode.

  “What was that for?” he asked, laughing.

  “Post combat adrenaline,” Liv murmured. “And because... thank you.” She flushed, looking aside. “For everything.”

  She unlocked her legs, flying backwards.

  “We should-”

  Liam grabbed her ankle. Liv looked back at him. Liam grinned and knew that she let him drag her backwards onto the roof and into his arms.

  He didn’t care.

  Her legs wrapped around his hips and her mouth found his. After so many times, he knew the shape of her mouth like the back of his hand – but there was always some new marvel to feel when kissing a demigoddess. This time, it was the crackling electricity that seemed to surge from her every pore, tingling along his tongue, buzzing up and down his spine. When Liam opened his eyes, he could see that a pale light was shimmering from between her lashes. Liv kept her eyes closed, lingering in that kiss for a decadent length of time. When she did finally break, though, she wasn’t panting. Her tongue darted along her lips, leaving behind tiny flowers of electrical current.

  “New trick?” Liam asked, his voice rough and ragged.

  “Not sure,” Liv said, her hands going to her shirt. She started to tug it up and over her head, revealing the bra that she had been forced into by the requirements of United States culture. She grumbled, then touched the bra. It shivered, then crinkled, then fell from her body in a crumbling, caking mass. Liam laughed, having to brush the bits of crisped bra-material off her sides, leaving black smears along her pale skin.

  “You could have just taken it off,” Liam said.

  Liv snorted. “Then you boring pukes would have just gotten it back on me somehow. Now? Now the beast is dead.”

  Liam laughed, then dove in for his attack. He kissed her neck, bit, licked, nuzzled. His lips and tongue left a trail of glistening wetness, while his teeth left tiny hickies that faded by the time he reached her nipple, sucking on her eagerly. He was able to be rough with Liv, and Liam took advantage of that. He tugged his head back, his teeth catching around her nipple as Liv hissed between clenched teeth – a pleased hiss. Liam wondered if she knew how much she sounded like Fizit at that moment.

  Liv unhooked her legs and flew back. As she hovered backwards over the roof, Liam stepped after her, reaching for her. But Liv needed her space to skim down her jeans. Her thumbs hooked under the edge of her waistline, her hands splaying outwards as she smirked at Liam. Despite her eagerness, she took her time pushing her jeans down. The button strained and the zipper creaked as Liv’s hips and hands ran up against their skintight nature. The button lost. It lost hard. It pinged off across the roof like a bullet, skittering off the rooftop and bouncing off an air conditioner that thrust into the dark evening night like a looming troll.

  Liv had caught her panties with her thumbs as well. As the jeans reached the midpoint of her thighs, Liam could see her moist sex. She was completely hairless there, in a way that he had never seen rivaled on Earth – Liv didn’t shave, she simply didn’t have body hair. It had never existed, and it never would. From time to time on Purgatory, Liam had missed public hair... but then he’d get a glimpse of a delicious pussy like this.

  Liv kicked one leg and her jeans puddled on the rooftop as she pressed her back against the wall of an outcropping stairwell. Hovering there, she looked like a girl in a porno who had had her partner digitally edited away, leaving her splayed open and ready for some cock. Liam gulped and hurried forward. He actually had to undo the button on his pants. His finger pushed on the zipper and the faint rasp of it was lost under Liv’s eager purr.

  “Come on and fuck me already, Ambassador.”

  Liam’s cock sprang free from his boxers and he didn’t waste a second more. His hands gripped onto Liv’s hips, more for the pleasure of feeling her silky skin than anything else, and his cock slapped against her thighs, then ground against her sex. She felt so deliciously smooth – nearly friction-less with arousal. His cock’s head spread her lips and Liv bit her lower lip to keep her voice soft.

  Liam slammed into her. Hard.

  There were advantages to fucking a woman who could fly. Liam had always needed to focus both on his thrusting and his grip, every time he had fucked a girl against a wall. Unless she had her feet on the ground as well, of course. But now? Now he was able to look into Liv’s beautiful face as it twisted with the pure bliss of his cock while also focusing entirely on how he was plowing her – not needing to spare a thought for keeping her weight up onto his hands, nor how the rough surface of the wall she was being fucked against would grind against her back.

  Since, after all, she was also superhumanly tough.

  “Liam!” She hissed, then bit down on his shoulder, her legs locking around his hips. Her body undulated, moving with a snake-like grace as she started to use her flight to not only keep herself up, but to actually fuck back against him. As her legs tightened, and he felt the pure strength that radiated in those limbs, Liam experienced a thrill that he hadn’t felt in quite some time.

  Fucking Meg often reminded him that she could bend bronze with her bare hands.

  But Meg had been born that strong.

  She had enough control to squeeze him from tip to balls with just enough pressure to give Liam knee-melting orgasms.

  Liv had started off as a demigoddess and progressed. She was something new now.

  And Liam had no idea if she could control that when…

  Well.

  Orgasming.

  Don’t think of Superman, don’t think of Superman, don’t think of Superman, Liam thought as he thrust. Liv’s cunt clenched on his member as if it was a fist, squeezing and trapping him as her juices dripped along his balls and started to patter onto the rooftop. Her whole body quivered as she nuzzled against his neck and the feeling of danger mingled with the pleasure of feeling her orgasm – pushing Liam over his own edge. He thrust deep enough to hilt himself inside of her, his balls clenching taut. He spurted into her, filling her to the brim. Soon, her juices were joined by his cum, adding to the soft drip drip drip sound that filled the air as the two looked into one another’s eyes, panting heavily.

  “I needed that,” Liv panted.

  “Always happy to serve,” Liam said, grinning.

  “So...” Liv closed her eyes. “Oh. Right. There was something else that I wanted to ask you before we get to the White House.”

  Liam smiled. The last time they had shared a moment like this, the question had been something unexpectedly tender from Liv. Liam wasn’t entirely sure if he gave good advice when it came to squishy emotions and romantic feelings – but since his gut had led him to a wife, several semi-permanent lovers, and a massive string of one-off flings, he supposed that he wasn’t completely hopeless when it came to the emotional advice angle.

  “Who the fuck is Sun Wukong?” Liv asked, her brow furrowing.

  Liam blinked at her.

  “I beg your what now?” he asked.

  “You know. Annoyingly smug. Kinda
cute. Has a staff, magic flying cloud.” Liv shrugged, rolling her head back to rest against the wall. “I thought the Ancients nabbed all the gods, but I guess they missed some.”

  Liam gaped at her.

  “Liam?” Liv opened an eye.

  Liam continued to gape at her.

  Liv sighed, looking irritating. “Liam, close your mouth, or I’ll stick my cock in it.”

  Liam closed his mouth before remembering Liv didn’t have a cock.

  Chapter Six

  “Finally!” Meg leaned back and put her feet up on the curved table that was set out before her chair. She wiggled her toes, her wings closing taut around her shoulders. “An airplane that’s an actual improvement on flying my own butt somewhere.”

  Liam was the one pacing now. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

  Tethis and Fizit were both poring through every piece of cultural information that could be crammed onto laptops and iPhones and PDAs in the short time between the information about Sun Wukong and Coyote hit the White House and the President’s decision to call for an immediate emergency meeting of the United Nations. Liam had thought that would have been a fairly easy trip, since the United Nations meeting hall had been in New York. But for some reason, the meeting was being called in Geneva and the President had looked quite dire when Liam had asked why the United Nations had relocated from New York.

  Apparently, it was part of the ‘we don’t like to talk about it’ that covered every major political decision made between Liam leaving for Purgatory and coming back to Earth.

  “What’s not to get?” Meg asked. “I mean, honestly, I’m a bit more surprised that you’re surprised. There’s the Hindu pantheon, the Chinese pantheon, the Native American pantheons – that’s ons, multiple.” She ticked them off with her fingers. “Whatever the Russians were worshiping at the time... And while a lot of gods got mashed into Purgatory, there was no way that a single Christian sect located in the freaking Middle East could grab, I don’t know...” She looked at Fizit.