37 - Meeting The Crew
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The Vertas had been in the increasingly-cramped space for over twenty minutes since Koli had made the call. The already tense atmosphere had taken a turn towards impatience.
The voice on the other end of the line was distant, but clear enough. When they'd exchanged looks, everyone shook their heads in unison.
No one except Koli had met this male.
Mariketa broke the growing silence first. "I thought you said it would only be a few minutes, Koli?"
"Sorry I'm late, everyone."
The voice seemed to echo from all four corners of the room. The males bulked, their bodies ramped for a fight.
Koli called, "Byron?"
Byron's voice answered from overhead. "Koli, you've been a bad girl. Lying ain't nice. What's going on?"
"Show yourself!" Melanthe shouted.
Thank Grim for the cloak's properties. The Queens of Illusion and Persuasion were hard customers to beat without his aura and his cloak active. "Uhhh. No," he chuckled. "I prefer not to succumb to persuasion at the moment, Queen Melanthe."
The Sorceri queen twisted around in confusion. "How did you-?!"
"Don't ask, I'm not telling, yet. What's the big deal? This is a whole lot of firepower in a very confined space."
"Who are you?" Lachlain shouted.
"Just a guy, King of Lykae. And you didn't answer my question."
Koli spoke up, "Byron, I'm sorry, but they heard from some of the others you were trailing Valkyries and nymphs. They wanted to talk to you."
"Talk? I've got a couple divisions' worth of muscle sitting in those males. Fellas, relax. I ain't a threat to your wives or mates. Okay?"
"Then why are you trailing them?" Lachlain asked.
"I wasn't. Not them specifically."
"Then who were you specifically trailing, 'just a guy'?" Mariketa asked. Her eyes had turned to mirrors while she touched her pocket mirror, going over the area. "And how come I can't find you?"
"There's only one here that'll see me. And she isn't looking. Neomi. Up on the balcony."
They all saw the ethereal phantom wife of Conrad swivel. Then she shot to her feet and backed up two steps when she caught sight of his outline. "Mon Dieu."
"Lord bless you too, Neomi," he raised up a hand and waved to her.
She put a hand over her heart by reflex. Conrad snarled, ember eyes flaring. "You dare speak to my Bride like that?"
"Wroth, you've been doing great on the sanity thing. Please," Byron implored. "No threat to your Bride intended. I'm trying to be civil. Just gave her a wave, that's all."
"Enough!" Malkom Slaine roared up to the balcony. "Show yourself!"
"Show myself?" He scoffed. "Now why would I do that, Slaine? So you folks can try tracing and snatching at me? No, thank you."
Lucia the Huntress shouted up, "Are you a Pravus spy?"
Even shrouded, he felt his eye twitch. He let the sneer show in his voice, "Tch. Nope."
Like Hell I'll ever help those fugly bastards and bitches.
"Then what?" the mahogany-haired Valkyrie followed up.
"Look, ask me some specific questions," he answered.
"I did, you idiot," Mariketa shouted. "Who specifically were you trailing?"
Sigh. Well, truth first.
"Phenїx Ever-Knowing."
The Valkyries shot to their feet, shrieking curses. The manor trembled with lightning strikes outside.
"Phew! Ladies, I thought I'd heard it all over there, but damn! Y'all are imaginative on the cussing."
Annika screeched, "Where's our sister, you bastard?!"
"She's safe, queen. Also, not a bastard, I'm a dick. Get it right."
Neomi stepped forward carefully. She was looking him over. "You are no phantom, monsieur."
"Nope. Good eyes, there, Madame Wroth. Listen, I left her safe, but Phenїx is... well, she's kinda drunk-passedout right now, soooo... how can I help you?"
"Wait," Holly Woede spoke up. "Nїx never passes out, not even on an intoxispell,"
"Oh, you need proof?" he chuckled, projecting his voice down next to Holly. "Make you a deal, Ashwin-Woede. Vow to the Lore for the next fifteen minutes y'all won't harm, capture, or otherwise try and kill me by any means, I'll show you what a drunk Phenїx looks like!"
Regin shouted, "I wanna make you eat a trash lid first!"
Ahhh, Regin.
He glanced over at her berserker husband. He floated his voice in a circle around them and the Valkyries.
"Declan, your wife is so wild and crazy, it's insane." Then he turned his voice to the rest of the coven. "Kaderin, Myst, Daniela, Lucia, I have zero comprehension on how your covens survive her antics.
"Oh, and Radiant One," he grinned. "You're welcome for the bead shower I sent ya on that night on Mardi Gras!"
The girls were biting their lips and eyeballing their glowing sister and bestie. As the last surviving member of the Radiant Ones, she glowed under strong emotions, especially in combat, victory, or in lust. That night on Mardi Gras, they had just won a particularly vicious skirmish, so he'd heard.
Regin had been glowing a storm. Then she'd flashed about a dozen college guys from LSU while walking down Bourbon Street. A sudden downpour of Mardi Gras beads had covered her from head to toe.
Regin shrieked, "Oh! You asshole!"
"Not an asshole, I'm a dick. And you wore those beads all night, don't lie. See what I mean?" he chuckled.
Several guffawed. The truth was she'd taken the whole lot back to her home with her husband and arranged them like Christmas lights the rest of the year.
Declan wrapped his arm around his blushing wife and roared, "Alright, Byron, ye sound like you got some military in ye. What's the deal? Level with us, dammit!"
"Okay. You want it level and straight? Your leader is about to hit the big time, ladies and gents."
"Wait," Myst Wroth interjected. "What?!"
"I'm the guy giving her a lift to her ascension."
"Are you for real?" Chloe MacRieve shouted.
"Very much for real, Miss Chloe. She's fast-tracking to her ascension. So, y'all can cool the jets a bit? If she ascends here on Earth, there's risk of fallout."
"You vow that to the Lore?" Malkom called out.
Honorable type that he was, he would want assurances like that. The vampire demon had a thing about it. He liked the new family he was growing to be a part of.
Problem was, Byron preferred to go on pure honesty, without relying on vows. He had enough on his plate. Then he sighed to himself.
He flung off his cloak's transition and appeared. Half of them took a step back at his appearance.
Byron lifted his cowl and looked down at them, "Which part, vemon, the ascension, or the fallout?"
The entire group stared at him a long moment. Then Lachlain stepped forward. "You're no' like any Lorean I've seen, Dekker."
Mm. They knew his full name.
"Might be because my species was extinct, there, King," he replied.
Lothaire's ancient red eyes narrowed like he was inspecting a possible meal. He stepped forward. "I might know of you."
Byron eyeballed him. The vampire was a major threat if he wanted to be. Easily as strong as Phenїx herself. Still, perhaps he had some memories from all those years of drinking ancient immortals dry.
"Does this look familiar, Enemy of Old?"
He unslung the scythe and held it up. All stared at the blade. A few looked to the angelic demon in their midst. Thronos shivered, stating, "That's not one of ours."
"No," Byron agreed. "It isn't. And I know most of you can sense what this metal is made to do."
Lothaire tensed slightly, "Blyat! You only have one shot in that!"
"No," he answered firmly.
The vampire's eyes narrowed. "What?"
"The Scalpere Deus scythe is the seventh true dieumort to be created and wielded by immortalkind. It doesn't expend like the Banemen's. They cracked the code for a single-shot derringer. This," he shook the blade. "Is an ancient nuke. I break it down simple enough for you?"
He lowered the scythe.
"Tell us the truth," Rydstrom called. "Why would you take Nїx without informing us? Why do you carry that... Scalpere Deus?"
"Because someone else is out to off her," he explained shortly. "There's hundreds of thousands of primordials, and also tens of thousands of demideities in all of Creation. Plenty of evil bastards among them. I hunt them."
"Who in the Lore hunts demigods?!" Chloe MacRieve exclaimed.
Newcomer to the Lore that she was, she was adjusting well as a succubus to her mate and the situation.
Byron shrugged, "Falcifer. Scythe-bearing ones. Better name, reapers."
Regin waved that off, "You're bullshittin'."
He pinned the blonde Valkyrie with a look. "Trust me, Reginleit, I do many things. But I don't lie about my kind or my mission."
Garreth MacRieve, Lucia's husband, quirked his head in curiosity. The werewolf was peering at Byron as though he were a new puzzle. Or a trap. "Why no' have us join ye, lad?"
"Join me where?"
"With Nїx," Garreth supplied.
"Ever been to an ascension, Dark Prince?" Byron sighed and set the scythe on his back. "This isn't like you and Lucia hunting that bastard Cruach. There's a big risk that when Phenїx ascends, her spiritual power will wipe your souls out your physical shells."
He pinned them with a look and gave a quick jaunty salute, "I think she'd want y'all safe."
"Aye, and we're old enough to handle it," Bowen MacRieve mentioned. "How old are ye?"
He shrugged. "Thirty-four."
The dumbstruck looks were almost as priceless as Nїx's had been. Some seemed to think he was lying. Cadeon was the first to recover. "You're a bleedin' whelp!"
"Age doesn't count here. My kind is designed to tangle at that level. I can handle it," he pointed at the rage demon. "Can you, Kingmaker?"
"Is what he sayin'... even real?" Uilleam MacRieve asked.
Lothaire shrugged. "What I can recall, it sounds... true. But you are the first I have ever witnessed return to the Lore in millennia."
"Same," Conrad stated. "The last I heard of reapers came from an ancient smoke demon."
"Well, it doesn't surprise me. But as for the first returning, your estimate is off." Byron nodded. "Not millennia. Try two eons."
For a few seconds everyone in the room went silent, processing. Then Lachlain called, "So you are here to escort Phenїx?"
"No. My kind is here to balance out evil entities. We can choose to assist certain deities or demideities. Currently, that's Phenїx."
Annika asked, "Why do you call her that?"
"It's the name she'll carry as a goddess."
Emmaline MacRieve raised a palm, "Assuming all of this is true..."
"It is," he affirmed.
"Why can't we help? Isn't there a place we can assist?" Emmaline asked.
He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Say prayers, make calls, Queen of Lykae. Hekate, Lamia, Hela, and a few others. Aim for the light deities, fertility ones. They're a better shot. And if any of them feel like giving you guff, tell'em one of Death's own asked you to."
"Wait," Lucia called up. "Death?"
Byron lofted his brows and thumbed the cowl for emphasis.
"Does this outfit make me look like a milkman to you, Lucia?"
They were staring around at one another in disbelief. No surprise. Even among the Lore, his kind had gone on as merely a figment of the imagination for so long they had guttered into the realm of true myth.
Then again, so had vampire demons, and yet here in the very room, one stood.
"Why would you help her?" Sabine asked in a huff. "What's in it for you?"
He shrugged, "Nothing, Queen! It's my duty."
Elizabeth Ann stepped forward. "That's a load of horse shit! Your heartrate went up. You like Nїx."
Oh, boy. He would have to deal with the vampire senses of the Appalachian girl who now also helped rule Dacia. Lothaire wouldn't give two craps. Her? Very different story.
She had gained some renown for fixing family and others, and she had taken courses on mental health and psychology, so she would pick up on hints. Sure, she'd been trying to help reassimilate the Dacians back into the Lore.
But a reaper did not need that kind of attention. He shrugged, "Who wouldn't? She's helped all of you, hasn't she?"
"That's not what she meant!" Melanthe shouted. "You like her like her."
Melanthe, wife to Thronos, and a bleeding-heart romantic who had gone through hell keeping her sister alive. Yeeeesh. If she got it in her head that he liked Phenїx...?
Byron smirked, "I'm just a reaper. Don't go putting ideas where they can't exist."
"Liiii-aarrrr!" Lucia called in a sing-song tone. "You have the same look on your face my werewolf does for me."
He glanced around at the males. Then he thumbed around the room.
"Hey. Fellas, are they always this willful about finding romance in others?"
"Yes," the males uttered.
He smirked and bit down a laugh on his lips before looking back at Loa's cousin, "Koli, that vow not to talk about me is rescinded. And I took the curse off that same night I reaped that rapist."
Koli rubbed a hand over her throat. "You killed him?"
"Told you. You'd be surprised what I can and will do."
"You're the first to return," she murmured. Her face lit up and she pointed. "That's why you didn't want me talking about you!"
"I did just recently transition. And you cutting yourself on my blade?" He wagged his brows with a gentle smile. "Kinda would look bad on my resume, don't you think?"
Loa's cousin shivered at that. "It could really kill me?"
He shook his head for reassurance. "Only if I willed it so, and you were innocent. Just plain curious. Not a surprise. But I can't let others just walk off with this," he tapped the scythe's haft for emphasis. "So, I keep it on a high security setting, so to speak."
Chloe called up, "Wait. You can really kill gods with that?"
"Yes."
She followed up, "You threw away Bertil, we had Sabine interrogate him. He says you attacked her."
Ah, Sabine could talk to animals. Huh, he hadn't known that. He scratched his head a bit, "I didn't exactly have another option at the time. I'm here to keep her safe. But I had to do it on the fly. This really wasn't how I expected to go about this."
He looked over at Sabine. "Uh, Queen, can you tell the bat I'm sorry? Like, really sorry. Tell'im his mom's okay, too."
Nikolai Wroth spoke up, "Cloaked as you were, you could kill anyone, couldn't you?"
"If I wanted to be an asshole about it, sure. But I'm not. I'm here to be a balance against egotistical bastards. I follow regulations given to my species."
Declan tilted his head, "Regulations?"
"Rules of engagement. I can't just go offing deities willy-nilly. I have to catch them in the act of an atrocity that's worthy of reaping, or I have to already have clearance."
"What kind of clearance?" the berserker asked.
"Either there's a historical record back in my home realm that I can follow up on, or I have to receive a summons from the pantheons. We call it a deathbrush."
Myst pondered, "So what do you have on Nїx?"
"Historically, nothing. She's good. But someone in the pantheon wants a piece of her. Not to mention whoever else she's pissed off while gettin' y'all together."
Kaderin shrugged, "That's a pretty long list, Byron. And you're saying you're escorting her, but you're not in love with our big sis?"
Byron snorted. Back to the love angle. "What I think and what I know are two very different matters entirely, Kind Hearted."
"You do care about her!" Mariketa called.
He threw up a hand over his head, "What part of duty do y'all not understand? Boys!" He gestured to the Wroths and Declan. "You served, you did time, you know the drill. Back me up here."
"Really, tres mal, faucheur," Neomi intoned. "You're blushing like my vampire did when he first saw me. Perhaps fate is smiling on you."
The fact he was blushing really hurt. Damn, he was that readable? He snorted out a breath to regain equilibrium.
"Missus Neomi, sorry, you really don't understand the logistics here," he grunted.
"No, we understand them just fine, and you get to be the one with the equipment for my aunt, apparently," Holly shouted.
He peered over at the Fury Valkyrie, "What equipment?"
"Your dick, dumbass," Sabine shouted.
UGH!
Now he really hated this whole line of questioning. "I got a mission," he rolled his shoulders out a bit and gazed around the room. "And besides which, I already know what drove her nearly insane."
"What?" "Huh?" "What do you mean?"
That was at least a dozen voices asking as one. He peered over them all for a moment.
"Y'all never asked what made her go into foresight?" When dead silence greeted him, he answered, "She peeked at her future mate and saw his death. That is the fate that she's been trying to change the last quarter of an eon!"
Eyes flickered around the room amongst themselves. Clearly, no one here had been aware of that fact.
"Yeah. And y'all called her fucking nuts. Imagine seeing your mate's end every second of twenty-five hundred years."
The males rubbed their chests or swallowed... the females were snatching at their hearts, throats and mouths. The silence there was now beyond deafening.
"So," he finished. "If I were her mate, which is impossible at best, least I'm forewarned."
"Reaper, you're a terrible liar," Holly spoke up. "You show us a dieumort, admit you can ambush anyone. But you're escorting her? And you blush like a schoolboy. Fess up, you care about Nїx!"
He shook his head with a chuckle. "You Valkyries sure like saying fate is a fickle bitch..." He pinned them with a look. "My fate is to end every fickle motherfucker that goes evil. That's pretty much all."
"Then why escort her?" Malkom asked.
"Cuz it's my job, Slaine," he growled.
Garreth asked, "Is she still in the foresight?"
"No, I had to deaden it. She puts out a vibration that's easy to trace when she's in."
"Is she lucid?" Sebastian asked.
"Yep."
"Has she shown interest in you?" Lucia asked.
"Huh?"
"Has she hurt you?" Emmaline rapid-fired.
"Uhhh... yeahhh? We had a fight there in the beginning. Where are you going with that?"
Annika shot up, "Wait, you fought with her, and you're still whole?"
"She clocked my nut a good one," he admitted. "Slashed me up a bit. I got enough kills and experience, I heal fast."
Regin popped on her heels happily. "Ohhh, she reeeally likes you, then!"
Da what?
"Uhhhhh," his head tilted. "No. My nut would disagree."
Carrow asked, "Have you been naked around her at all?"
He swallowed and shook his head ferociously, "Yeesh, you Valkyries and witches are some imaginative ones. Been less than twenty-four hours, y'all."
"She did see, don't fucking lie!" Mariketa giggled while leaning on Bowen. "You're blushing again, Dekker!"
God, help me. He took in a breath.
"I had a..." he stopped and shook his head. Do not tell them about that coldass waterfall and kisses. He grunted out, "I was busy catching demon-fish. Don't have spare clothes at the moment. Maybe she peeked!"
Daniela Wroth spoke up, "You ate with her?!"
Okay, this was ridiculous. "Oh for the love of God, guys!" He turned to the males. "Will you–"
Holly interrupted, "Well, why were you catching fish?"
"There are some demon pumas, I like'em!" he threw up his hands emphatically. "What's wrong with givin'em some food?"
Myst shouted, "You're a cat guy?!"
Huh?! "Why?"
"She loves bats and cats, Byron!" Lucia replied.
"Oh."
"I guess he's too young to figure that out," Neomi mentioned.
Did they really have to remind him how much younger he was to them all? Grim, help him. I'm not that young, dammit.
Regin called, "Tell us you haven't felt any attraction for her, vow it to the Lore!"
He huffed, wanting to strangle the blood rushing to his face. Vows. These Loreans did not know. Then he cleared his throat.
"Really, Regin, making a vow over something that petty? No dice."
"Reaper," Bowen stated. "You got her scent all over you."
Of course he did. Less than twenty-four hours with the demigoddess, and he'd damn near died four times. So what?
"Well, that happens, MacRieve. Fight, dragon, immortal killing ice hell-plane!" He grinned goofily and threw out his arms. "You know, near-death shit. Just an average day in the life of an immortal, from what I can tell."
"That's the way o' it, Dekker," Garreth called up. "And ye still wear her bonny lipstick!"
He slapped over his mouth with a rub. "What...?! No, I don't!"
Lofted eyebrows and knowing smiles met him.
Shit! Bad slip up! "Aw come the fuckin' Hell on!" He pulled for his cowl.
"FREEZE!" one female voice ordered.
His eyes widened when the compulsionhit, and his gaze locked on Melanthe. Ohhh, no. Not this.
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