She replied, “That could help.”

  Well, I had over an hour to kill, and Rose could keep me on course. No time like the present.

  It was just after three forty-five, and quite dark when we arrived at the volcano. It was also dark, no moon that early Monday morning, but I was sure the volcano would give us plenty of light when it erupted. Of course, it would also spew ash into the sky, so the best result would be to carve that ravine for the lava, and take out the Sphinx, before it erupted.

  Of course, I had night vision with my HUD, and I was sure Alyssa had a spell to enhance vision.

  I also had a cold weapon, it worked by firing a beam of sorts at minus two hundred and fifty degrees Celsius, and it would also gather and flash freeze nearby water vapor around the target, not to mention all that water inside of a body. That may have sounded horribly dangerous, but it was no more dangerous than plasma at five thousand degrees, or a rail gun that launched projectiles strong enough and fast enough to shred a tank, and like my other weapons it would adjust its strength to my target’s remaining energy to avoid a kill.

  Of course, I could override that safety with a concerted thought to kill. I never would for supervillains, but mutated monster animals that saw humans as crunchy snacks were a different story.

  We flew around the volcano to the other side, and then I heard her start to chant in Latin. I hovered behind her and to the side, and I waited for the show. The spell was a long one, which probably meant the results would be spectacular. It seemed to work that way, the bigger the result the longer the spell took, and I wondered if that was more about her limits to channel the vast energy she held, more than anything else. She had larger channels than anyone I’d ever met, to use energy, but she still had limits.

  Crack!

  There was a large booming crack, and a rumble of crunching and grinding stone filled the air. I watched as a vast break halfway down the mountain opened and widened, which created a wide and deep ravine that would route the magma into the empty valley instead of in the small town nearby.

  “Not bad,” I said dismissively.

  She giggled, clearly nervous and grateful about her display not aweing me.

  “Thanks.”

  The mountain rumbled.

  “I don’t suppose you just moved up the eruption timetable?”

  She said, “Oracle didn’t say anything…” she trailed off as a mass of ash and smoke exploded up into the air.

  We were buffeted by a minor pyroclastic wave of heat, but our shields easily held.

  I said, “Yeah, I hear he doesn’t say everything, helps things work out okay.”

  She sighed, “You might be right.”

  Another deep rumble as we, perhaps unconsciously, moved back to put more room between us and the volcano. Then it exploded and sent a sheet of flame into the sky, and magma started to spit and rise above the edge of the caldera.

  There was a loud unhappy roar as the sphinx shot up in the sky. It didn’t really look like a sphinx, it was ugly, instead of beautiful and fantastical. But… the wings on the bulky body, and the huge misshapen head of a huge cat, along with a long-wicked tail covered in spikes was slightly reminiscent of the creature of legend.

  It was also on fire.

  It flew in a couple of tight circles, and then gave one more unhappy roar before it spread its wings and blasted off south.

  “That’s our cue,” I muttered, as I kicked in my gravity drive and took off after it. Fortunately, it was only going about three hundred miles an hour.

  “Let me do a flyby before we start attacking it, maybe it won’t try to eat me when I get close enough to determine the best spot to hit with my scanners.”

  A small lie for our headsets, just in case the government was listening. My scanners could determine its strength, and its general set of powers, but it couldn’t see the pattern of energy, only my direct power could do that.

  She replied, “Not funny, don’t get eaten, or I won’t talk to you.”

  I laughed, and kicked in enough speed to close, while my mind begged the thing not to notice me. My scanners told me it was S-class, with power the equivalent of about fifteen typical A-class supervillains. It was also obviously an energy creature, one of fire, but I had no doubt it was also ridiculous strong and resilient. I wasn’t sure what would be more dangerous, the mouth, tail, or it’s fire.

  “Maybe I should’ve gone with a stealth option.”

  She giggled, “Pay attention, stop making me laugh.”

  “Will do, maam.”

  I poured on a little more speed, and as I closed within fifty feet or so it roared warningly, and then turned its head toward me. The stasis spell I had to freeze supers in place would never work on the thing. It was at least twenty feet tall from paws to its back, another five feet or so to the crown of its head, and it was perhaps sixty feet long including the tail. The spell would never cover it all.

  I slid to the side when it spat a warning shot at me. I assumed it was a warning shot, the fireball was only about a foot in diameter. Clearly, this thing hadn’t turned into a human hunter, it was almost a shame to have to kill it. I could only imagine if it found a city, it would go on a tear because it’d lost its home.

  The tail lashed out at me when I got in range, and I mostly dodged it, but got hit in a glancing blow as I rolled by one of the large and sharp bony spikes that was at least two feet long. I tried to adjust for the spin as I rose up slightly, and I tried to fly over it. The heat from its flaming skin was enough to start draining my personal energy as the suit’s shields compensated.

  I started to read the energy, when it did a roll, and one of its back paws struck out in a blur. It felt like getting hit by Bash, times five, as I rocketed away from it while my inertial dampers and gravity drive tried to compensate.

  My heart pounded, and my head throbbed, as the healing ring kicked in. It hadn’t broken my shields, but the impact had definitely rattled my brain and body before the dampers could compensate. It’d also taken a large chunk of my energy, a little over ten percent, as I backfilled the enchantments. Well, Rose did, I just fed the power to her, she routed it.

  When I felt like I could talk without distress, I reported.

  “His brain is about two thirds back in the main body, right in the middle.”

  She replied, “Got it.”

  She started to mutter in Latin, as she shot up into the sky and forward to get above the creature, but this time I suspected it was her that was covering with nonsense Latin phrases, just in case people were listening on the other end. Because she was still chanting when she lifted her hand and an incandescent white bolt of pure energy shot from her hands. The thing was vast too, relatively, over a foot in diameter and as long as a javelin.

  It was a marvel she couldn’t make them any smaller, her energy blasts. I had no doubts about her story, cutting that man in half and vaporizing a good portion of his torso. It struck the Sphinx in the back, and the creature roared in pain as it went through it like a hot knife through butter. The bolt hit the ground beneath us, and it exploded taking out several trees. In fact, I suspect she’d rather destroyed her old mansion, and just hadn’t mentioned it last night.

  Holy crap. Not that I’d ever let her see that awe, I’d rather die.

  “Umm, close. Try again about a foot back. You just missed the critical area.”

  Unfortunately, she wouldn’t get another free shot, as the wound closed up in seconds as the Sphinx cut a tight circle, rose in altitude, and went straight for her. It roared, and it shot out a large blast of fire. Her shields brightened as she disappeared in the torrent of flames, and I let out a soft sigh when she shot out of the top of the flames to get an angle of attack.

  The Sphinx didn’t make that easy though, it adjusted as well, determined to close with the White Witch.

  I lifted my gauntlet, and I fired a cold ray at it. It wasn’t a constant ray, more like a two second pulse. It strafed the Sphinx’s flank, and it put out the flames there as the side of its body was covered in ice.

  That really pissed it off, and the ice exploded into steam as its side exploded into fire. It turned toward me instead.

  Which was the plan, I rocketed off at that point, acting as bait. Turned out the sphinx was faster than we thought, three hundred was apparently just its preferred cruising speed. Regardless, I was still much faster, and we were going just over Mach one towards the ocean.

  My flight was rather erratic, as I jigged from side to side, and up and down, to avoid the rather large fireballs it was shooting my way. That first one definitely had been a warning shot, the equivalent of a growl, because these fireballs were huge and easily a yard in diameter.

  It wasn’t long before I heard more chanting, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see a second energy pulse. That time she nailed the right spot, and a large foot and a half hole of vaporized flesh was made from the incandescent bolt of energy, including the creature’s brain.

  There was no coming back from that, the brain couldn’t regenerate, at least not in its entirety, and the fire around huge sphinxlike creature went out like a candle in a hurricane, as it fell from the sky.

  “Nice.”

  White Witch replied, “Couldn’t have done it without your distraction.”

  “That’s me, great for bait.”

  She giggled, “Let’s go home.”

  I agreed with the sentiment, but I wasn’t quite so sure I felt that way about the building we lived in. It still felt a little like living at work to me. Especially with the audio bugs in our laundry, kitchen, work out, and entertainment rooms.

  “Good plan.”

  She added, “We should make it back just in time to work out.”

  Huh, I guess I was up for the day then, good to know.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day was a little rough, but not too bad. We worked out together and had breakfast. Millicent told us our adventure counted toward that day’s patrol, so we skipped that whole thing on Monday. Which was just as well, because my storage POD arrived just after breakfast.

  It took a lot of the day to get rid of the plain and ugly government furniture of just the bare necessities, as I moved my stuff in. Dark brown leather sofa and loveseat, a couple of lightly stained end tables, a matching wood coffee table, and my widescreen LED television filled up the living room nicely.

  There also might have been a game console involved.

  The basic twin bed the government provided was replaced by my larger queen-sized bed, and of course my dresser and matching night tables, which were dark stained. At least the calm beige walls matched with all my stuff, so no worries there.

  Last but not least, I put up my clothes, and put two different outfits into my amulet. A different one for both casual and business casual dress. I usually changed those out once a day, or at least the one I wore if not both, and I was happy to get back to that.

  After a long hot shower to relax my muscles, I took a short nap. It still didn’t quite feel like home, but at least it was my own stuff, and that felt a lot better to me. I’d been understandably exhausted, after only getting three hours sleep, flying three hours with a fight in between, the workout, and unloading all my stuff.

  I woke up around five, and quickly dressed which took care of my bed head, as well as my clothes. I had on a dark green pair of Dockers, black shoes, and a dark blue collared shirt, a different one. I could feel the reactor against my senses, so I had no doubt Alyssa was in her apartment, and I walked down there and knocked.

  She opened the door, and then smiled faintly as she looked me up and down.

  “Dinner?”

  I nodded, “I was thinking dancing too, if you’re up for it?”

  It was obvious we’d moved past the whole friendship idea last night, even if things were still new. Hell, I hadn’t even kissed her yet, but we’d held hands and been emotionally intimate.

  Point was, adding dancing to our normal evening meal together made it obviously a date. I didn’t want there to be a question in her mind about that, and it was a subtle enough way of getting it across without being so obvious as to say the actual words.

  Her brown eyes sparkled, and I could tell she’d worked to suppress a wide grin down to the light smile that graced her face.

  “That sounds wonderful. One second.”

  She didn’t go anywhere, just muttered a spell, and she was suddenly standing there in a red tube dress that was barely on the right side of scandalous. It reached mid-thigh on the bottom, and covered most of her B cups, but showed more cleavage than anything else I’d seen her wear. Outside of her super suit, of course.

  It also hugged everything in between, tightly. She was a vision in it, not to mention the black sandals with three-inch heels.

  “You look stunning, exquisitely stunning.”

  She lost her hold on it, and grinned for me, “Thanks. That looks fantastic on you, too.”

  I smiled.

  We wound up taking her car, something I could afford but hadn’t bothered with. I supposed I should at that point, since I couldn’t leave the building in my super suit without being on the clock, which is why we didn’t just fly over there and quick change back.

  There was a good number of restaurants within walking distance of our building, but no clubs. We went down to the strip for that, and I let her pick out the place. I was the man, I’d made it a date, and set the parameters, but I knew she knew the area a lot better than me, especially the strip which I really hadn’t seen yet. At least, not on the inside of the casinos.

  She’d grown up in Silver City.

  We went to one of the better casinos, that had both a seafood buffet and a club. I enjoyed some large prawn with cocktail sauce, crab claws, lobster, seafood bisque, and a salad bar that had more square feet than my bedroom.

  The conversation over dinner, as usual, was almost effortless, although the flavor of our flirting banter had slightly changed, less teasing, and more promising, if that makes sense. Not crude at all, just the tone of it.

  She truly was stunning, her petite body was tight and curvy, perfectly proportional, and sexy as hell in that tight red dress. But, it was the highly animated and excited expression on her angelically beautiful face, and the obvious joy in her warm brown eyes that had me totally enthralled. She was thrilled to be out with me, on a true date, and I felt the same way about her. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her face, she was intoxicating.

  That was nothing to how I felt with her soft supple nubile body in my arms, and her body against mine, when we moved to the club. Enthralling, spellbinding, beguiling, and devastatingly alluring all came to mind.

  As for the casino itself, it was nice. In a word, swanky. Lots of chandeliers, fancy multi-pronged wall lights, and stuff like that. I truly couldn’t recall all the details, because my eyes were glued to Alyssa for most of the night.

  Of course, we didn’t do much talking at the club, the music was too loud, but we did plenty of talking with our body language, facial expressions, and the way our bodies moved against each other’s. it was a fantastic night, our first date, and I’d never forget a moment of her on that night for the rest of my life. It was invigorating, and forgive the pun, but I was truly under the spell of her smile, the joy in her eyes, and the way she looked at me that night.

  No more hiding, no more pretending, as we reveled in each other’s company.

  The sexual tension on the drive home was almost palpable in the car, and the scent of her drove me crazy.

  “I had a great time tonight,” she shot me a quick smile before her eyes returned to the road.

  “Me too, I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  She gave me a questioning look.

  I replied, “We just… mesh, so well, effortlessly, and you were simply breathtaking tonight.”

  She grinned, “I know what you mean. I don’t remember the last time I’ve smiled or laughed so much. I feel, invincible, and a little out of control, when I’m with you. And not because of my abilities.”

  I laughed, “Me too.”

  She asked, “Have you ever been in a serious relationship before?”

  I nodded slowly, “Twice, in college. Not as easy or natural as it is with you, or as fast, why? You?”

  She shrugged, “I haven’t been, for obvious reasons. I was just wondering how much of this is real, and how much of it’s just…” she broke off and blushed.

  “Hormones and excitement?”

  She giggled naughtily, “Yes.”

  I replied, “Both I think, we have a lot of common ground to stand on, and the more I learn about you the more I admire you. Chemistry isn’t a bad thing either, as long as it doesn’t stand alone, it’s even necessary.”

  She nodded, and bit her lip alluringly, “I know what you mean. I think you’re right.”

  She pulled over and parked the car, and she gave me an excitedly heated and anxious look as we got out of the car.

  We headed back into the building, and I claimed her hand as we got into the stairwell. She squeezed mine back, and her hand was warm in mine, as we climbed to the third floor. The sexual tension between us was almost insane, and perhaps it was my imagination, but I swear I could feel the heat radiating off of her tight sexy body.

  She unlocked her door, and she squeezed my hand again as we moved inside. She trembled slightly in need, when I pulled her into my arms right inside the door, and I looked into her eyes. She was breathless, and she leaned up a little on her toes, and bent her head up, as I lowered my head toward hers.

  I don’t remember ever feeling like I did then, ever before. I was as hard as a rock, that dress, her beautiful face, and the looks she’d given me all night had been driving me crazy.

  She consumed me.

  I sighed softly, as our lips met for the first time, hers were soft as silk, and conformed to mine as we worked to find our own kiss. The rhythm and movements that would be ours and only ours.

  She sighed too, as we found that rhythm, and her arms went around my neck, as her body melted against mine and I pulled her snugly against me. I had one hand rested on her thin waist, my other hand cupped her cheek, and moved around to the back of her neck.