Chapter 25

... There had to be at least 40 vampires, all in bat form, who were flying around and trying to escape. Any bat that flew within reach was snatched out of the air and chomped on by a wolf. This was only a momentary setback for the bat, since it revived almost immediately and was back flying soon after that. We were going to lose the battle if we could not find a way to kill these vampires permanently.

Then I remembered a key fact that had slipped my mind—the stake through the heart! Our torches were nothing but straw that had been wrapped in tarry rags, and straw was just another form of wood, so why not stab a downed bat through the heart with a piece of straw? I shifted to human form and picked up a torch.

It took only a moment to rip off the wrapping rags and break loose a straw. Griffin had just dropped a bitten bat, and I grabbed it up before it could revive. I poked its chest with the sliver of straw hard enough to penetrate its skin. The bat let out a screech as loud as a full sized human would have and went completely limp in my hand. It worked!

I mentally told everyone what I was doing, so they joined in the party. About half the group remained in wolf form and captured the bats while the other half did the stabbing routine with the straw. Within half an hour, we were down to chasing the last few bats that were still free. Finally, we had finished the job. Meanwhile, the last search crew had joined us, reporting that there were no other bats to be found.

We relaxed and waited for daylight. At dawn, the ever versatile Herlo and Tarsy formed themselves into sacks with legs. We filled them with the "dead" bats and hauled them out to the sunlight. The bats were turned into dust with a big POOF and our job was done.

We returned to town to tell Orlu, the priest, what we had done. He was very grateful and sent us on our way with a blessing from Utu, the Sun God. We discussed the situation among ourselves and agreed that there must be more vampires than just these in the vicinity, so we spent about six months going from town to town, finding and killing vampires. I doubted that we got them all, but we surely must have made a big dent in the vampire population.

We were not getting nearly as many calls from our Mentors, so I guess that we were doing pretty well on our own. However, since we were in the vicinity, the Mentors suggested that we visit Greece. Some of the beings there, such as the satyrs, were inclined to get out of hand and cause trouble, not because they were evil or anything like that, they were just inherently selfish and did not consider the feelings of others. So I loaded everybody up, and we headed south.

The people of Archia were struggling to hold on against the pressure of the enemy. They had fought as long as they could against their foe, but had finally been pushed behind the city wall. They had been desperate to break the siege; finally, one of the town elders had come up with a plan.

A nubile female was sent as an envoy and as a "sample" to the local tribe of satyrs living in some nearby woods. The proposed agreement was this: if the satyrs would join in the fight against the enemy besieging the town, all of the women of the town would agree to be impregnated by the satyrs. This was an attractive offer, since the satyrs were all male, and the only way they could reproduce was to mate with a humanoid female, such as a nymph, or, less often, a human female. The women of the town had agreed to this plan because they knew that they would be taken as slaves by the conquerors and all of their men, whom they loved, would be killed or sold as slaves to other towns. Besides, the satyrs all had big cocks and knew how to use them!

After all of the satyrs had sampled the woman, they agreed to the plan. The woman had to put up with the sampling by the satyrs for nearly a week, and she was an exhausted mess. The satyrs were not stupid, so they had not harmed the woman, but she'd had so many orgasms in that time that she simply was a basket case.

Several other tribes of satyrs had heard of the offer and were anxious to get in on the deal, so it was a formidable army of club-wielding half men/half goats that descended upon the attackers besieging the town. The agreement only called for driving off the attackers, not killing them, so there were few fatalities during the fight, but the satyrs did win the day.

The satyrs had such a reputation as lovers that the rescued women were not at all reluctant to live up to their side of the bargain. Thus, there was a monumental celebration and sex orgy to mark the end of the war. The satyrs didn't want to leave until every eligible human female had been impregnated by at least one satyr. The orgy lasted several days, with some of the women waiting in line to revisit a particularly satisfying satyr. The men got a little pissed at this, but what could they do—an agreement was an agreement?

This was the start of something that nobody could control. The satyrs left after a few days, but promised to return in seven months when the young satyrs would be weaned. The men were glad to see the satyrs depart, though many of the women were a little sad. Seven months later, the adult satyrs returned for their children and took them away to be raised like any other satyr.

About a year later, the satyrs began to feel the need to reproduce, and what would be easier than another visit to Archia. The satyrs were not the type to negotiate anything—when they wanted something, they just took it. One day, Archia was overrun with satyrs wanting only what satyrs usually wanted. All of the men and a few of the women were unhappy, but there were too many satyrs to argue with.

When they left, every available female between the ages of 12 and 67 had been penetrated at least once by a satyr. Grandma Tridrachus was heard to say that she was available any time a satyr wanted her; that was the first time in 26 years that she had been penetrated, and never by such a big cock. She hoped to be around when the satyrs visited the next time. It was not recorded what she said when she turned up pregnant!

Seven months later, the satyrs were back to pick up their offspring, and several of the town elders could see trouble ahead. Normally, a satyr had trouble finding a suitable mate, so there were only two or three young ones born every year, but there were now 60-70 young satyrs born each year, since there were a lot of human women available, and none had any problems carrying the fetus to term. Within a couple of more years, at this rate, there would be more satyrs in the vicinity of Archia than there would be humans, male and female. Something simply had to be done!

Prayers to Apollo, the patron god of Archia, did no good, so some brave soul turned to Zeus, himself, in desperation. Strangely enough, Zeus was in a mellow mood, probably too much ambrosia, and promised to see what he could do for the poor sufferers in Archia. That's when he remembered that he had heard of a great hero and troubleshooter named Vilkatas. Zeus cast around and found the Vilkatas clan on the road to Greece.

In his usual flamboyant manner, Zeus suddenly appeared in front of me as a man about 25 feet tall. I was forced to skid to a halt, and 200 strong feet traveling at 160 MPH skidding to a halt raised a mighty cloud of dust. A slight breeze was blowing in the right direction, and Zeus got exactly what the deserved—a face full of dust and a god-sized coughing fit to go with it.

Once Zeus had got control of himself, he said, "I am mighty Zeus, and I have a task for you!"

I was a bit peeved at his high-handed action and attitude, so I said, "I don't give a shit who you are, you should learn that a little courtesy goes a long way."

Nobody talks to Zeus like that, so he fired off one of his lightning bolts at my head. I had not yet shifted out of my conveyance shape, so I made a pretty big target that even a pissed-off god couldn't miss. Fortunately, Herlo was alert and quickly formed a conductive canopy over us, grounded to Zeus' foot. The lightning bolt struck the canopy and was diverted directly to Zeus' big toe. I think that it may well have been the first time that Zeus had ever felt the effect of one of his own lightning bolts. We had time to get ourselves sorted out by the time Zeus had stopped hopping around on one foot.

Just as Zeus was getting rid of the pain in his foot, another equally imposing figure showed up, standing next to him. It was a woman, laughing as loud as nearby thunder and slapping her knee. I said to her, "Good day, Madam. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"