Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 105

"That's one way to wake up, I suppose." Ingrid watched Ratu in fascination as the naga held out her hand for Cerulea to land on. "Well?"

"Patience." Ratu studied the fairy and noticed she was a little banged up. "Are you okay?"

Cerulea nodded, then paused to straighten an antennae. "I found Mike! And the fish girl and Opal and Daisy!" She pointed off in the distance. "And a whole lot of skeletons!"

"I figured." Though Ratu's voice was calm, she was inwardly relieved almost to the point of tears. "Is he okay?"

Cerulea bobbed her head violently. Olivia joined them moments later. Maybe it was the smell of burning feathers or the hissing noise Ratu made in the back of her throat at them when they came near, but the birds chasing Olivia scattered long before the cave's entrance. Either way, the fairies were safe.

"Mike said to meet him at his property." Cerulea stood tall and put her hands on her hips. "He's going to walk the long way to get there."

"What's the long way?" asked Ingrid.

Cerulea responded by sticking out her tongue.

"Hey." Ratu jostled the fairie, who crouched down and held on for dear life. "Which way is he going?"

Cerulea shrugged. "I don't know, but he has a way to make it safe. He wants us to take a different way and avoid the boneheads."

"Boneheads!" chimed Olivia, and the two fairies high-fived each other.

"They're like children," muttered Ingrid.

"In some ways, yes." Ratu pulled out part of a granola bar she had saved. Cerulea's eyes bugged out of her skull as she snatched it and fled into the cave, chased inside by her sister. Quetzalli shouted at the fairies, her angry words followed by a loud electrical pop as she had probably zapped someone. "It might be safer to climb back up and take the original route. It won't be long before Francois stumbles onto Mike's location."

"How do you figure?" asked Ingrid.

"Experience. If the undead walk below us, then Francois is looking there for Mike. Maybe he hopes to resurrect him, or perhaps he wants to make sure he's dead. Based on the rules of the Great Game, the ownership of Mike's land is up for grabs if Francois can take him out."

"The great what now?"

Ratu frowned, staring down into the jungle. Mike, where are you? She wished she was down there with him. Francois had fled before them last night and would think twice about confronting Mike in the naga's presence.

"If Francois kills Mike, everything Mike owns is supposed to go to the Captain. That's probably why he made his move last night. If not, he would have had to attack mid-day and in the Order's presence." Ratu walked back into the cave and heard Ingrid scrambling on the rocks behind her. "I can use this tunnel to take us further into the mountain and bypass any stragglers up above. It will take us a bit longer to get where we're going, but we should be able to travel unnoticed."

"Then why not do that before?" asked Ingrid.

"I had no intention of making your people aware of the full scope of my abilities. Also, now that I'm actually inside the mountain, I can feel its veins and know they can take us to our destination. We shall walk where no mortal has traveled before, straight to the heart of the mountain."

They were near the back of the cave now and discovered Quetzalli sitting on a rock and eating the bird that Ratu had torched. She had already plucked most of the feathers, and had crumbled a granola bar into seasoning that she had sprinkled on the top. The dragon looked at Ratu and Ingrid, then broke the bird in half down the middle and held out a portion.

"Breakfast?" she asked.

Ratu took the offering and sank her fangs into the still tender meat. She looked over her shoulder at Ingrid, then pulled off the leg and held it out. "Flash fried," she said. "So it should be safe for your consumption."

"No thanks," said Ingrid. "I'll stick with the bug bars."

"Suit yourself," said Ratu, then stuck the leg into her mouth and swallowed it whole.

Opal was frantically signing at Mike, her fingers and hands moving so fast that she occasionally forgot to hold her form, her digits often melting through each other. She was walking ahead of them, her eyes on the forest while her arms were backward so she could communicate with Mike.

"What is she going on about?" Leilani finally asked from behind Mike. She was bringing up the rear of their entourage, her eyes constantly scanning the trees.

"She's catching me up on the last season of True Blood. I haven't had a chance to watch it." Television was largely a thing of the past for him. Even before his children had come along, his time had been limited. Now the only opportunity he ever had to watch shows or movies was if somebody else wanted to see them.

"What's True Blood about?" asked Leilani.

"Vampires. I started watching years ago because I had a huge crush on Anna Paquin." He moved to duck beneath a leaf, but the tree shifted the branch out of the way. "Thank you," he said, patting the tree.

"How is it that you're doing that?" The mermaid had to duck as the branch sprang back and almost took her out.

"Well, once upon a time, a nymph blew me in the bathtub of an old house. Now I talk to trees. It's a long story." He looked over his shoulder at Leilani and saw that she was annoyed. "No, really. I would get into it, but I still don't know you that well."

"I hardly think that's fair," she said.

"You were almost murdered by a man who's been banging your maternal line for generations."

Leilani scowled, then looked at Daisy. "Is he always like this?"

Daisy, who sat on top of Mike's head, shrugged.

"I find myself at a disadvantage," grumbled the princess. "Since you are all speaking in sign language."

"Well, Daisy doesn't technically hear like we do, it's all the vibrations she picks up through her wings. As for Opal, she can't vocalize. Well, she can, but..."

To help him make her point, Opal's face melted back through her head and she opened her mouth wide as if to speak. A cavity formed in her chest as she pulled in air, then tried to condense it through a pair of modified vocal chords. The sound rested squarely between a pinched balloon letting out air and a whoopie cushion.

"Oh." Leilani made a face. "I'm so sorry."

Don't worry about it, signed Opal, which Mike repeated.

"So why is she telling you about this show?" asked Leilani.

"We were watching it together for a bit. She's been in recovery and I made sure to go hang out with her." His lips quirked into a grin as he thought of all the times she had pulled him into her tub. "But I missed the last season because of my son. He and I were struggling to get along, but we had a breakthrough of sorts. The last thing I wanted was to undo all of our progress by stepping away."

"Mmm. Relationships among merpeople can be tricky. Many of us don't know who our fathers are, so it becomes a communal affair to raise the children. Naturally, this means personalities can clash, especially if a father has decided that a specific child is his own. Or worse, numerous men claiming parentage of one child."

"But you knew yours?"

Leilani nodded, her eyes drifting to her spear. "For the royal line, it's important to avoid such confusion. When a princess or queen decides to become pregnant, she will limit her lovers in such a way that there can be no question. We do this partially to avoid imbalance--we do not want one man fathering most of the royal line and gaining the ear of the ruling class by parentage alone."

"The way you mentioned him earlier, is he...gone?"

She nodded. "We are warriors, Caretaker, and assist where we are needed. Many years ago, something attacked an oil platform in your Gulf of Mexico. My people went with the Order to figure out what happened, but none of them returned. There are things in the depths that haunt even us, Mike Radley."

Mike shivered. "Dare I even ask?"

Leilani was walking by his side now, her face grim. "There's a tradition among our people where we do not name the things that terrify us. To speak those names aloud would inevitably summon them from their dark slumber."

"You're talking sea monsters and not interdimensional beings, right?" He thought about the Outsiders, and how they were constantly pressing against the edges of reality in the hopes of sneaking a bite.

Leilani stared forward for several moments, then shook her head. "I would prefer we do not speak on this topic any longer."

"I think that's fair." He turned his attention forward to see that Opal was signing once more. "No, I haven't heard any news about Winds of Winter, I warned you about starting that series." Opal was very much into books, which meant putting her e-readers into ziplock bags to keep her from ruining them. Her hunger for them was a direct result of having Beth's memories up to the moment of her own creation, and Beth was a fan as well.

Opal had spent a long time during recovery trying to come to terms with the idea that she was essentially a Beth clone. Her experience with the horsemen of the Apocalypse had left her in a fragile state, and the inability to go see Beth's parents as a form of comfort had left the slime bereft. Ratu's big rule for several months was to never leave Opal alone for any extended length of time. The naga had been worried that the slime girl would simply give up on living and disassociate. These gaps of time were filled by regular visits from almost everyone, even Beth. She and Opal got along well enough, but Mike sometimes wondered if there wasn't some sort of hidden resentment on Opal's part.

After making a full recovery, Opal had finally been able to begin pursuing who and what she was. Ratu had assured everyone that there had never been a creature like Opal before, so the path would be long and emotionally treacherous. Mike enjoyed their time together, which was usually just spent talking about the world.

But on the rare occasion Opal got her tendrils on him...

Daisy perked up on top of his head, then beat her fists on his scalp to get his attention. Mike put up a hand for everyone to stop, and even grabbed one of Opal's hands to keep her from moving any further.

"Daisy hears something." He gestured to the nearest brush, which split apart to reveal a rocky alcove they could squeeze down into behind the branches. As a unit, they all moved inside, but Opal was the easiest. The majority of her body squeezed back into her magical decanter, which Mike held in one hand. The bushes closed up just as bony legs filled his view.

It was skeletons, at least three of them. Wordlessly, they wandered through the area, hollow sockets surveying the rainforest as they continued on their way. Mike waited nearly twenty minutes before asking the forest to move aside so they could get out.

"Patrols are getting thicker," he noted, turning back to help Leilani.

"We are close to your property. The Captain is trying to find you."

"Honestly? He'd better hope he doesn't." He held out his arm and allowed Opal to ooze out of her bottle until she touched the ground, at which time her body formed. "I'll give him the Mike Radley Special."

"The Mike Radley Special?" Leilani blinked at him. "What's that?"

"Great question. But it will be spectacular, unexpected, and really annoy him, I'm sure. I can't wait to think of it." He gestured ahead. "Let's keep moving."

The sun climbed steadily upward into the sky, visible only through gaps in the canopy. Mike and the others were able to easily hide from the skeletons. They made no effort to conceal their passage, which often required a sharp blade to hack away the brush. The undead seemed to be on autopilot, more like drones than independent thinkers. When he studied them properly, he noticed that they didn't have souls. It gave him small solace that these walking corpses weren't harboring tormented spirits, which also meant that they were essentially unthinking drones.

Still, the moment he watched the corpse of a child wander past, its eternal gaze resting upward on the trees, he knew in his heart that he would absolutely take the opportunity to rid the world of Captain Francois.

His shoulder itched, and he tried really hard not to pick at it. Tiny chunks of dried ooze flaked away as the wound healed, leaving behind raw, pink skin. His whole arm burned, as if the nerves were reconnecting. If he didn't know better, he would simply think he had pulled a muscle in his sleep.

Leilani conversed with him often, mostly about what things were like in the continental United States. She had a pretty good idea what island life was like, but stuff like big cities, skyscrapers, and highways fascinated her. On more than one occasion, he felt the desire to offer to show her someday, but didn't want to get her hopes up. Until he knew more firmly where she stood, he would keep his guard up.

Still, he had a good feeling in his gut about her.

Cerulea came to check in with them again and let them know that Ratu et al were making slow but steady progress. Apparently they were tunnel hopping. During a quick break to relax, Mike had checked in with Kisa, who was grouchy from being up all night watching the small army in their front yard and was now trying to catch a nap in Lily's room in Paradise. Apparently Jenny had made quite the impression on the SoS, and they were re-evaluating their relationship with her. Zel had forced Callisto to go home to the greenhouse, which had made him quite angry with his mother. Eulalie and Sofia were doing overtime monitoring the external communications of the Order while Tink watched Grace.

As for Death, apparently the Reaper was currently standing outside of the Order's tent and staring at them menacingly. The Jabberwock had moved itself closer to the tent, unseen by the Order, in case it needed to intervene. Everyone inside the house was getting restless as they waited to see what happened next, but Mike was hoping the SoS would get bored and leave.

Even now, Eulalie was trying to get in touch with someone higher up in the SoS in order to offer them the money to do so. Sadly, despite their willingness to murder people for cash, they were surprisingly ethical about not turning on their employers. Eulalie was also having difficulty finding another group willing to chase them off. It had been briefly floated that they should call the police, but Mike was fairly certain that would just spell trouble for whoever came out to investigate.

The longer he was out in the rainforest, the more he missed the comforts of home. He knew that a large part of this sentiment stemmed from the fact that somebody was in his yard just waiting to murder his entire family, but Hestia had made it clear to everyone who asked that unless he allowed them entry, they would not get in. Time, space, and reality itself would bend in order to hinder whatever they tried.

While he had faith in the goddess, he couldn't help worrying about the situation. His anger for the Order and the SoS sat behind a locked gate in his mind, and he was hesitant to let it out for even a second. His magic did not respond well to murderous intentions, and even thinking about it made his right arm itch. Right now, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. But when he got home?

He scratched his right arm, trying real hard to unclench his fists.

With the heat of the island trying to sap away his strength, Mike was forced to drink water that Opal had stored for him. Whenever they reached a river or lake, Leilani purified the water for his consumption. He would cup his hands and drink greedily, sighing at the taste of crisp, cold water on a hot day.

Opal, being a slime, absolutely reveled in the island's humidity. Her pearlescent luster was particularly shiny right now, and her curves had thickened as a result of the extra liquid in her body. She had used their first stop at a body of water to demonstrate her ability to take on additional water, which she allowed Mike to suck out through her fingertips like she was a living Camelbak.

For whatever reason, Opal stored this water in her breasts. Mike was fairly certain she had done it to screw with him. He was having several impure thoughts about Opal, and would have acted on them already if not for Leilani's presence and the fact that skeletons were hunting for him.

Guided by the pull of his property, he and the others ascended the mountain, trying to avoid open areas where they would be exposed. They finally achieved a height where the ocean became visible through gaps in the canopy, and Leilani paused more than once to stare wistfully outward. He wasn't certain what thoughts were going through her head when she did this, but she cut a rather attractive figure with the wind blowing through her blue and green hair, sunlight scattering through the sea glass beads braided into it.

As the day ran on, they had to stop for more breaks. With nothing to eat, both Leilani and Mike were dragging pretty hard. They had tried to arrange for one of the fairies to bring them a granola bar or something, but the birds on the island had become a huge problem and the fairy sisters were unable to safely fly fast enough while carrying something.

This meant harvesting local fruits. The forest, sensing his need, directed him to small banana trees, lychee, and even some papaya. Leilani taught him how to peel back the skin of the lychee, juice running down her chin as she took a big bite. Opal, who didn't need to eat, stuffed some of the leftover fruit in her body where they floated around like banana slices in jello. This allowed them to carry a small food supply with them as they continued their climb.

Scaling Haleakalā in this manner would have taken days if not for Mike's control over the forest. Control wasn't even the best word for it--he asked politely and they moved for him. In fact, he wondered if they were just grateful to have someone different to talk to. There was a sense of curiosity from the flora, as if he was a unique creature on exhibit.

This also made him ponder the nature of his land's location. How in the hell was anybody supposed to get there? In Oregon, anyone could walk right up to the property, but would get dissuaded or disoriented at the last moment. According to Dana, outsiders couldn't pierce the visual veil there, which made it slightly different than what happened at home. If he stood naked in his front yard, his neighbors would absolutely see him, but either the geas would clothe him or their attention would simply wander.

Even the property in Ireland had been easy to get to. A short car ride had made the trip almost instantaneous. However, the creatures dwelling within had been extremely hostile, and he had chosen to simply let the matter rest for now.

But out here? There was simply no way to easily get to the place. The Order had implied that they had been able to get to the edge of the property, but even that had taken a team of survivalists. What sort of secrets lurked on the side of the volcano? Would the guardian recognize Mike's authority, or would he become the target of a different attack?

"Seashell for your thoughts." Leilani's voice snapped him back to reality.

"Really? A seashell?" Mike smirked. "Do your people use them as currency?"

"We rely on the barter system. The ocean is our mother and provides all, so why would we need to hoard wealth? There is little we can't find on our own."

"And you think humans like seashells?"

Leilani scoffed. "We've watched millions of you collect them off the beach. For decades, my people wondered if you weren't using it as currency. For tide's sake, you even named one of our creatures a sand dollar."

"That reminds me. Someone said that you owned the land that Paradise was built on, but you gave it to the Order."