Team, 113

“Nadya Ovenbrook is trying to destroy the universe,” Derek Arkhewer told them as they followed him down a long hallway dotted with round doors. “I don’t think she realizes that’s what she’s doing, but she is.”

“What does she think she’s trying to do?” Cal asked, mostly curious what Derek’s answer would be. House Arkhewer was the name of the noble house that oversaw Ech’kent in Cal’s world, and it was probably just a coincidence that Derek was also named that.

“Well, I can’t read her mind and we’ve only met once. But from what I’ve seen, I think she thinks she’s going to go back in time and stop Armageddon.”

Cal frowned. “Why would she want to do that?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Joey asked. “Her world got destroyed.”

Team, 104

After a few seconds, everyone else joined Cal at the top of the hill, looking down at the metal city with him. “Wow!” said Ray, hopping from foot to foot, tail straight up in the air. “Where are we? I’ve never even heard of a city like this!”

“Me either,” said Sully, rubbing his arms. His disguise was down, and so was Mick’s. “Elves used to have some pretty kickass cities, but they didn’t look like this.”

“Could the Clock have taken us way into the future?” Travis asked.

“Or way into the past?” Mick added.

“The stars are wrong,” Beatrice muttered.

Team, 86

“I appreciate you letting us have access to your Vault,” Cal said, as the mage from the academy led them across the grounds to a small building at the back. “I know it’s not normally open to the public.”

“It’s not,” the mage agreed. She was a dark-haired, pale woman named Diana. “But when the prince writes the archmage and requests his retainers be allowed immediate access to our collection, there isn’t much room to say no.”

Gavin really was useful for something other than organizing orgies, who knew. Actually no, Owen had organized the orgy, which made bossing people around the only thing Gavin was useful for. “I hope he wasn’t too demanding. I only told him he could help because I figured you’d say no to him anyway.”

“You weren’t actually counting on getting access to the Vault?” Diana asked. “I was of the impression that it was important to your work.”

“It is,” Cal told her. “I just wasn’t planning to ask for permission.”

Team, 79

“How do you think they got that skeleton in there?” Joey asked, bouncing from foot to foot as they walked back to Gavin’s house. “It’s so fucking big!

“They probably took it apart,” Mick told him. “And rebuilt it inside the museum. Without any flesh on them, there’s nothing to hold bones together anyway, so they would have had to use wires for it.”

“How did they know which bones went where?” Joey asked. “If I had to put together a whole giant monster skeleton I think I’d accidentally put the dick bone in the nose since bones all look the same.”

“You just practice a lot.” Mick was just as excited as Joey, and he’d bought more souvenirs than any of them as they’d left the museum. “And they have all those fossils to use as a model.”

“Also, dicks don’t have bones in them,” Cal reminded Joey.

Strip Search

“Okay,” Cal said, looking out the window at the run-down old building. It had been a bookstore in the late fifties, but it was clearly abandoned now, covered in graffiti, and it was marked on Cal’s map. He resisted the urge to take that map out. He knew they were in the right place.

He had the worst feeling there was going to be nothing here. Again.

“Okay,” said Beatrice. “Hopefully this place isn’t a bust too.”

“Probably will be,” Arky muttered.

“Wrong attitude,” Cal said, getting out of the van. “Don’t be negative.”

Team, 73

“Okay,” said Cal, taking a breath as he looked up at the shady warehouse. “Let’s go, guys.”

Sully held out his hand, and though Cal didn’t see anything obvious, he nodded after a second, and they all moved forward, confident that the illusion he’d put up on the area was enough to keep them hidden from any passing guards or naval officers. They approached the building together, Lillian and Mick out front.

Cal hung back with the others, including Darby, who was scowling at the building. “Once the hole in the wards is open, I’ll pick the lock and get us inside. We don’t go in heavy unless there’s something that needs hitting.”

“There’s going to be,” Beatrice said, arms crossed. “There’s no way the only security they have is some magical woo-woo on the outside.”

Delayed Gratification

Archimedes Menner was that kid who spent the whole of the end of gym period watching the other guys change and openly stared at the guy next to him at the urinal. And sure, everyone did those things sometimes, but he did it like perving was his religion. Cal wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he peeked in his neighbours’ windows, too.

He was not the guy Cal would have chosen to hang out with, especially after he’d walked in on Cal sucking Joey off the other day in between classes, but they were stuck with him, because he was Mathilda Marlowe’s…secretary? Slave? Cal wasn’t sure. But he was annoying, and now he was following them around when she didn’t feel like it as they investigated secrets on various of the properties that she’d suddenly acquired.

There were a lot of them, and they all seemed to have secrets. The map that Cal had found in that building before the class trip had pointed toward several of them, and now they were investigating them all.

Team, 72

“Hi,” Cal said, crouching down in front of the footsteps that were approaching him.

The footsteps slowed, then stopped. And slowly, a very young boy, no more than five years old, came into focus. He blinked at Cal. “Hello, mister.”

“My name’s Cal,” Cal said. “What’s yours?”

“Daddy says I shouldn’t tell my name to strangers in case they’re bad people,” the boy said, thumbnail in his mouth as he rocked from side to side.

“Okay. Where is your daddy?”

“He’s at the harbour looking at the boats,” the boy told him. “He told me to wait here until he came to get me.”

“When is he coming to get you?”

“Tonight. He said he wouldn’t be very long.” The boy looked at Cal from the corner of his eyes, apparently too shy to make proper eye contact.

Cal nodded. “How long have you been waiting for him?”

Team, 70

The bumps on Mick’s cock rubbed Cal’s lips as he bobbed up and down on it, Mick helping by thrusting up into Cal’s mouth, making sure his balls touched Cal’s nose every time as he sucked Cal down in exchange. To Cal’s right, Wes was sitting almost upright and holding Travis almost upside down as he gagged Travis on his cock and sucked Travis’s in return, and on Cal’s left, Sully was flat on his back doing his best not to choke while Joey thrust happily into his throat, though Cal was sure Joey was putting just as much effort into his own sucking.

Owen had just come and told Cal that they were getting ready to leave, which didn’t leave them a lot of time to decide between a pre-journey snack and a pre-journey orgasm, until Joey had had the idea to combine them.