"ASTARTE!"
The goddess cringed when she heard the roar. "Yes, Sire, right away," she replied as she caught and gently lowered the unconscious body of the woman to the rock shelf a few feet below the lip of the cliff. "Don't move until I return," she instructed the woman's spirit, needlessly, since time would not begin again for Kate and her abductors until Astarte reappeared on the scene.
As soon as Kate was safely settled, Astarte appeared before Amun, the ruler of all gods and goddesses. "You're late," he thundered.
"Yes, milord. I had to see to the woman, to be sure she was safe from harm."
"You little bitch!" screamed the other entity in the marble-walled cloud chamber. "Look what you did to me!" he shouted, waving his member at her.
With a small smile, Astarte replied, "You should be careful, Ra, where you put that thing; it might get hurt."
"You little...!" the god shouted, charging across the chamber.
"RA!" boomed Amun. "Settle down. What in all we hold dear is going on? Astarte, did you bite Ra's staff, and if so, why?"
"Where is that little snip? Amun, I want her banished. She tried to take my place with my husband!" The woman entering the chamber, screaming her demands may have been beautiful, but it was hidden by her anger and carpiness.
Amun looked at her, rolled his eyes and sighed. He looked at Astarte and smiled. She was indeed a delight to look at. "Madam, be quiet," he replied forcefully to the newcomer. She looked at him, disbelief on her face.
"But, Amun..."
"Neffi, may I remind you, you are only a demi-goddess, here by virtue of your relationship with Ahknaten, who in the panoply of the gods is among the lowest. Even Ra, your chief advocate among us, is barely above the one you are berating, whose duty, by the way, is to teach men and gods how to best treat their women, in bed and elsewhere. If you do not settle down and let me get to the bottom of this, I will banish you from this realm.
"Now, Astarte, what is going on?"
Quickly, communicating as only gods and goddesses can, she apprised Amun of the nature of the struggle she was having with Ra and Nefertiti, and their actions toward the humans she was involved with. Upon hearing of what had happened to Kate, his countenance darkened. Ra and Nefertiti began to back out of the room.
"Is this a true account of what has passed among the three of you?" he snapped at the retreating pair. They stopped and looked at each other, realizing there was no evading the god king, now their inquisitor. They nodded.
In a strangely quiet and gentle voice, he mused, "You attempted to annihilate her by kicking her off a cliff? What? No pestilence; no plague of locusts? No flood; no famine? Ahhh, where are the weapons we called upon in our youth; where is the imagination, the ingenuity of the gods today?"
Suddenly Ra and Nefertiti felt the thunder bolt of his wrath pass through them. "How many times must I remind you, the humans are off limits. We may control everything else on this miserable little speck of dirt, but we may not interfere with their lives or their fates," he thundered, his voice shaking the marble halls surrounding the quartet.
"But Astarte..."
"Did what your spell commanded her to do when you sealed her in that icon: reward whoever set her free. Do you deny it?" Ra ruefully shook his head no.
Amun turned to Astarte. "Is the woman safe?"
"Safe enough at the moment. Her attackers are leaving her for dead, but rescue will be easy. Their punishment is certain."
"What of the lad, and their future?"
"Gideon, her son, is doing well, and I am about ready to alter our relationship so that, to him and the humans I have met through him, I am only a dim memory. I will follow his fate, and protect him when I must so that he achieves all his fate allows. As his personal goddess, this I must do, thank you, Ra," she said, with a small bob and curtsy in his direction, smiling. "His mother, the woman, will need some help to heal; I will see to that.
"Otherwise, their futures look promising. It feels like Kathryn is descended from one of us. She is strong, bright, and determined. She is beautiful, sexual, and loving. She can also be hard and demanding. She is not a woman many would want to tangle with.
"You are lucky, Ra," Astarte said, looking at the Sun god, "that it was I controlling her jaws when you were bitten. I saw in her mind the determination to remove the head of the staff responsible for her pain." Ra shuddered, reliving the encounter, now knowing his attacker's intent..
"Very well, Astarte. Return, and do what you must to finish with them as quickly as possible. You two!" Amun rumbled, looking at the ancient sun god and demi-goddess. "You are banished from the top of Olympus until I feel a need to see you again, nor may you go below the third tier of the mount. You will have nothing to do with the humans. If I hear of you interfering with their lives or fates again, I will banish you to the far side of the Styx, forever. Do I make myself clear?"
The couple nodded, fearfully, knowing Amun was not finished with them. "Further, I am limiting your abilities to self protection, and obtaining food, water, and shelter, the way the humans must. You must grow your food, dig for water, build your shelters, and you may protect yourself and each other from harm. Now, go!"
"Sire," uttered Ra, in a plaintive voice, holding up his disfigured staff.
With a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, Amun softly replied, "You wanted to experience what your human felt. Then experience it. As your human heals, so shall you. Whatever sensation his member experiences, so shall you. All the joy, and all the pain. Live with it, brother."
Dick and Harry hurried to the edge of the cliff. Peering over it they saw Kate, lying face down on an outcropping rock ledge about six feet long and not much wider than her hips. Shrubs growing out of the cliff wall impeded their view, as they seemed to impede any attempt to climb the wall.
"Serves the cunt right," growled Harry. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
"Harry, are you crazy? We can't just leave her there. That's murder!"
"Listen, Wuss, and listen good. Tonight, we, note that, 'we' kidnapped a woman, using bodily force, and raped her. Whether or not your prick came within ten feet of her, you can be charged with rape because you, what's the term, yeah, aided and abetted in the kidnapping. In the commission of a felony, all participants are equally guilty of all parts of that felony. I learned that when I was on the Grand Jury last year.
"So, if you want to go to prison for life for kidnap and rape, you go down and save her. Personally, I'm gonna leave her there until she rots."
"Shit, I don't know. Maybe you're right. Nobody saw us with her. We can dump her stuff on the ledge with her. You get her purse and clothes out of the car; I'll turn it around." He glanced down at Harry's crotch. "How you going to explain your dick?"
"I'll confess to my wife I had too much to drink tonight because I was dicked off at little Katie there and picked up a pro who got angry when I got rough thinking about the good doctor Davies." Harry pulled the rear door open and gathered the remnants of her clothing, and her purse. He paused a moment before sweeping her cell phone into the bag. "What the hell," he thought. "Nobody gets any reception up here," and carried the purse to the edge of the cliff and dropped it, watching it land half on her shoulder, half on the rock. He laughed, "Good luck, bitch."
Dick had turned the T-Bird around and was waiting by the road. Harry jerked the front passenger door open, and Kate's trolley, with her papers and computer fell out into the ditch. He shrugged and stepped over it into the car. Dick stepped on the gas and sped down the hill to the city.
As soon as Astarte saw the car pull out onto the road, she appeared beside Kate, gently waking her, helping her turn to sit on the ledge. She handed Kate her bag, asking, "Can you use your communication device here? We need help to get you back to the city."
"I don't know," Kate slurred, her face swollen from the blow she had received from Harry when she bit him. "It looks like there isn't any reception up here."
"What do you need? Don't try to explain it to me; just think about what it is."
Kate thought about how cell phones work. Astarte looked at the images Kate had generated and made certain connections. She offered up a silent prayer. "Mother Isis, I need a favor..." A moment later, she said to Kate, "Try your device now."
