Immortal, Insatiable, Indomitable

“Is that all you got, you fuck?”

“And we thought a Lokian deserved ten of us, thought shifting was a big deal. All he did was expand. Like a hot-air balloon.”

“Is that how your dick expands, too?”

“Seems Lokian is code for Pussy.”

At his silence, they attacked again. After more direct hits, the thugs got confident, swarmed around him. He had dozens of openings to rip throats and sever limbs and heads. He took none.

He had to give it to them. They w

ere quick and creative. They pulverized body parts overlooked by most. His feet and hands were favorite targets. They wanted to cripple him before they killed him. He let them do whatever their twisted appetites for inflicting damage could belch up.

In seconds he was bathed in blood, his left arm all but hacked off, his chest and abdomen punctured in vital areas, his skull fractured. His consciousness was wavering from the pain. He didn’t feel the healing kicking in.

Had Loki heeded his request? Would he finally die?

He fell to his knees. He didn’t want to get up.

He was ready.

A booted foot kicked his head with enough force to almost take it off his shoulders. Snickers phased in and out of his awareness.

“Is it me or is he enjoying this? You one of those wimps that get off on being abused?”

“But we ain’t gonna abuse you, pussyboy. We gonna kill ya, and drink your Endowment.”

“What Endowment?”

Rowdy laughter burst out.

They weren’t just vicious, they were assholes. One thing an Asgard-Endowed didn’t do, mortal or immortal, was humiliate a fallen enemy. Odin should be ashamed of granting such scumbags even the power he wiped off his ass.

He could smell what they’d paid for the Odinforce. Their very lives. They were rotting. Not in flesh yet, but their souls had long putrefied. To them, his Endowment must have smelled like raw meat to a pack of starving hyenas. They thought they could gorge on it and revive themselves. A misconception that held no matter how many millennia passed without one successful incident of anyone absorbing a Lokian’s, let alone an Original’s, Endowment. Yet power-addicts kept telling themselves they’d succeed where others had failed.

“Hey, hey…look what the cat dragged out.”

“Say, isn’t that piece of ass from back in the club?”

What were the bastards talking about?

He raised his head, could see nothing. One eye was soaked in blood, the other swollen shut.

But he could smell. Her.

The mortal woman. She was here.

His heart, which that had slowed down to almost a standstill for the duration of the attack, detonated. What was she doing here?

He snapped a crushed hand to his eye, wiped away blood.

She stood two dozen feet away, as tall as most of his attackers, her hair a rioting flame around her shoulders in the eddying wind, her outfit flapping around her lush frame. And she hadn’t simply stumbled out at the wrong time. Not judging by her confrontational pose and the pipe in her hand.

Another boot whacked his head. “Yo, pussyboy, she one of your Lokian sluts? You sure pick ’em stupid. She came after you like a bitch after her master.”

“Can’t be for his hot-air dick. He must have her hooked on some Asgardian dope.”

“Too bad for her. She got a good look at all of us.”