Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 044

"If he didn't, you would never see me here at all, unless he commanded me." Lily's face was suddenly serious. "You can tell a lot about a man by how he treats those beneath him. For all intent and purposes, I am completely beneath him."

"That's true. I guess he could make you do whatever he wanted."

"And I've given him opportunity to. And he simply doesn't. I want to know why. That's why I keep coming back, and it's also why I don't mind helping him."

"Does he know you are murdering people at bars?"

"Yeah, well, a girl's gotta eat. We have a mostly unspoken arrangement where I don't give him the details and he seems to trust my decisions." Lily let out a sigh. "Besides, it feels kind of nice being able to pick what I want at the buffet."

Dana nodded, letting it go. "At least you have options now."

Lily smiled. "Every soul tastes different, but even the soul of the shittiest human is like the sweetest candy, and..." The succubus cocked her head, as if listening to a distant sound.

"You okay?" Dana asked.

"Gotta go see a man about some sand." Lily winked and vanished in a stinking cloud of sulfur.

Dana coughed, waving at the air in the room. With no proper ventilation, she knew the scent would linger. Grumbling to herself, she lit some scented candles to help overpower the stench. By herself once more, she sat back down on the loveseat and turned her game on again. The minutes went by, the night dragging on, her sleepless mind holding onto every detail of every minute.

Her avatar charged into a cave, only to get massacred by a pair of hidden enemies. The screen turned dark, displaying the words You Died once again.

"I wish," she muttered, then hit continue.

--

So many thoughts were running through Beth's mind that she couldn't stop to count them.

First, the excitement of someone new coming to the house. When he had first pulled his head off, it had taken everything inside of her not to scream with joy. She should have been unsettled, scared, or maybe even sick to her stomach, but all she could think about was how interesting he was. A man who could remove his own head, how awesome was that?

Second, the dullahan wore tight leather armor across his body. Straps and buckles were located everywhere, and she got the impression that he was ready to ride into battle with those sinister dark eyes of his if he had to. This wasn't just someone who sat around, this was a creature ready to pick a fight. She wasn't super familiar with dullahans, so wondered if he would have interesting stories to tell.

It didn't hurt either that he looked like a far sexier version of Edward Scissorhands, minus the scissors. Only his hands and his face were uncovered, and she couldn't help but wonder if his skin was just as pale as his face beneath all that fabric. A dark mysterious stranger had appeared in their front yard, and she wanted to know more about him.

Mostly though, she needed to get to know him for unselfish reasons. Right now, he was their only link to the faerie realm, and he could be an invaluable source of information. The fairies they already lived with were a separate species of magical creature with no information on the fae realm, so Beth planned on pumping Sulyvahn for any information— without being too obvious, of course.

And that would mean being friendly. She didn't mind friendly.

When she stepped outside, she pulled the door behind her shut so hard that it rattled in the door frame. Sulyvahn was giving the home a hard stare when Beth stepped outside, but his features softened at the sight of her. He gave her a playful bow as she drew closer.

"Good evening to ya, Lady Beth." His thick, Irish accent sent playful chills down Beth's spine, and she couldn't help but notice the leather armor he wore was rather tight across his shoulders. He shook his shoulders and popped his head free, catching it with the hand nearest his chest. Dark mist poured from his open neck, flowing around Sulyvahn's head like a waterfall. "I am your humble servant."

"You're not my servant. That's not how things are done here." She smiled, and bent down with her hands on her knees to be eye level with him. "Besides, we would rather be friends than your employers."

"Yer a softer touch than the man of the house, that's for sure, and for certain." He put his head back on and smiled. "And definitely not squeamish either."

"Oh. Were you trying to make me squirm?" Beth arched an eyebrow at him, touching her lower lip with the tip of her finger.

"Aye, a bit. Trying to have a wee bit of fun, the lord of the house seems wound a bit tight. Thought it would be good for a chuckle."

"Nah, Mike's a good guy, he's just worried about Cecilia." Sulyvahn's smile faded slightly, so Beth changed subjects. "But enough about her. I would love to learn a little about you."

"Me?" Sulyvahn pointed at himself, genuine surprise written across his face. "Well, now, I don't know that I've ever been asked to talk about myself."

"Here." Beth stepped forward and slid her arms around his bicep, leading him toward the start of the hedge maze. The muscle in his arm wasn't as thick as Asterion's, but it felt plenty thick enough when she squeezed it. "Let's walk and talk. I would love to hear more about being a dullahan."

Sulyvahn approached the maze with a lopsided grin on his face. "Well, let's see. The banshee are a fine lot, but they're joined to family bonds, Cecilia being one of the exceptions. However, foreigners and exiles don't warrant the family treatment a banshee can provide, so it's my job to go and collect. I would ride my horse across the hills and through the bogs, collecting the souls of the departed before they could wander off. Met plenty that weren't ready, but I can be persuasive."

"Interesting." Beth squeezed his arm and led him into one of the longer paths that would take them to the sundial. "How does one go about persuading a spirit to move on?"

The dullahan broke into a huge grin. "Allow me to show ye!" He slid his arm out of hers and yanked his head off, black smoke spilling out of his neck. With his free hand, he reached into the gap and pulled out his own spine.

Beth felt her stomach drop, watching the vertebra exit the neck hole one at a time until his entire spine was now outside of his body. Sulyvahn gave the spine a flick and it expanded, the bones now dangling loosely from a cord made of the same smoke that leaked from his body. He cracked the whip over her head and she felt a paralyzing chill wrap itself around her.

"What do ye think?" He did a couple more practice strikes, and she could hear the bones rattle against each other every time he allowed the whip to coil in on itself. "Those I can't reach, I can catch."

"Wow. I really wasn't expecting that. May I?" She moved closer to examine the whip, which Sulyvahn presented for her inspection.

"Look, but don't touch. You won't like how it feels," he warned her.

"Fair enough." Her fingers hovered over the whip, and she could feel the immense cold coming off of them. "But I get the impression that you're trying to make me squirm again."

"Maybe a little," Sulyvahn admitted. "You don't spend your whole life running down spirits without wanting to be properly appreciated by the living. Truth be told, I rarely get to hunt these days, not since the Roman Catholics invaded Ireland. Everyone seems to have their own method of dying that doesn't involve the old ways, but I do occasionally get to chase down an atheist who dies on our soil. Always a gasser, chasing down some poor eejit who thought they were just gonna spend eternity in the dark and all."

"So do you escort the dead to the afterlife, too?"

"A bit. Toss them all in the wagon and ferry them over. Not as nice as a personal escort, but dullahans weren't made to be polite." Sulyvahn gave the whip a shake and the bones locked together once more, forming back into a spine.

"How can you stand up straight without your spine?" Beth asked.

"Never said it was mine." Sulyvahn's head grinned as he shoved the spine back into his neck.

"That's a little disgusting, to be honest."

"No harm in it." Sulyvahn put his head back on, the smoke vanishing again. "I'm made of much sterner stuff than a couple of human bones."

"Indeed. What are you made of, exactly? I mean, you were created to collect wayward souls, after all. Is that dangerous work?" They continued onward through the maze, Beth keeping just a step ahead of the dullahan.

"Hmm. There's an interesting question. I don't know what I'm made of, exactly. I just existed fully formed one day, so I'm afraid that's a secret the queen keeps to herself, if she even knows. As for danger, aye, I've run into my fair share."

"Like what?"

"There are creatures out there, beings that feast on the souls of the departed. Sometimes they collect them just to keep them locked away, feasting on their misery. Others tear the soul apart, reducing it to sparkling shreds. There's a reason creatures like me exist, and it's to ensure a proper departure from the mortal plane. Let's just say that I've run into a scrap or two by collecting something else's prey."

"Whoa. Like what kinds of things?"

"Things that know when they're spoken of, lass, so I shan't say more about them." Sulyvahn smiled, turning his eyes to the sky. "It seems unusually warm for this time of year."

"The house seems to have its own weather."

"Oh? You don't know for sure?"

"There is very little about this place that we know for sure. In fact, the news that the queen has an agreement to shuttle Caretakers to the other side is one of the few facts that we have."

"Aye. Every soul is special in its own right, but from what I've heard, a Caretaker's soul is a rare thing indeed, and it can't be left to wander around."

"Oh, really?"

Sulyvahn nodded. "Never seen it for myself, but our dear Cecilia has been ferrying souls exclusively for this house for many centuries now."

Beth frowned. "It can't have been that many. The house was built less than two hundred years ago."

The dullahan's eyes sparkled. "I assure you that this place is far older than the foundation on which it's built. I'm a little surprised that you don't know more about the place."

"Yeah, well the spell that protects it has a memory component. It's a bit frustrating, but nobody who lives here can remember anything until Mike unlocks it."

"Now that's fascinating. Would explain why Cecilia would never say much about the place. Would drop off her charge and then wander back to the mortal realm."

"Does she drop off souls in the faerie realm?"

"Not quite. She passes through it on the way to... wherever." Sulyvahn grinned. "You have to understand that the world beyond the veil is complicated. Beings like us all have our own road to walk, but the destination is the same."

"Beings like you?"

"Collectors, psychopomps, whatever we're called these days. When the world got bigger, we would run across each other on occasion." Sulyvahn stopped in front of the sundial. They were at the center of the maze now. "Not very useful at night, is it?"

"Makes a good centerpiece. Sort of ties the whole yard together, don't you think?"

"Looks old." Sulyvahn crouched down, his eyes on the dial. "Wonderful craftsmanship."

"We like to think so. So I was wondering—" Beth was cut off when a white van pulled up between the lions, the driver hopping out and then opening the back. Sulyvahn faded into a black mist as the delivery man wandered into the front yard, his eyes moving across the massive yard. His eyes locked on Beth, and she rushed out of the garden maze to meet the driver halfway.

"Bit late to be out, isn't it?" Beth asked, immediately suspicious.

"Priority delivery from Lance Ferguson." Once the driver was close, Beth recognized him as Marco, one of the legal secretaries from the office. His short, dark hair was spiked up, and he had shadows under his brown eyes.

"Marco, I barely recognized you out of your suit! What are you doing delivering packages for Lance?"

Marco gave a grin. "This is a special occasion and Lance wanted to make sure that Mr. Radley got his belongings back." He gestured to the van on the road. "Do you remember the storage unit that had some stuff auctioned off? Lance hired a private investigator and was able to track down and recover some of it. I've been on the road for the last couple of days bringing them right over." He looked over her shoulder in disbelief. "I've come out here a couple times over the years and always seem to forget just how big the property is. Want me to help you take them inside?"

"Um, no, Mr. Radley isn't home right now and he's doing a remodel in the front hall." The lie slid right off her tongue. "But we can stack them next to the door, and when he gets home, he'll let me know where they can go."

"Yeah, sure thing." Marco went back to the van and slid open the door. "So you seriously moved in with this guy? Seems like a strange career move."

"He has a lot of assets and needed someone full time. The house is bigger than it looks. I've got my own room and everything. I hardly even see him some days."

Marco twisted his face in disbelief, but kept his thoughts to himself. Beth had heard through the rumor mill that some of her former coworkers thought she had become a gold digger. While it stung a bit, she was too busy living the dream in a monster house to worry about what others thought of her.

There were six medium-sized boxes in the van, so Beth had Marco pull up the driveway first. The freshly poured pavement went all the way around the maze, passing near the porch, and she was able to help him stack everything up by the door.

"Sorry Lance made you drive out here for this. I'm surprised that he didn't just have it Fed-Exed or something."

"Yeah, well, he didn't trust anyone else to do it. You see, this stuff has been bouncing around ever since the sale."

"What do you mean?"

Marco grinned and pointed to a thick stack of shipping labels on one of the boxes. "When the lot got auctioned off through New Castle, all of it got shipped to some place in Colorado. All of it except for a small batch of items that ended up in Seattle. And then Atlanta. And then San Diego. For whatever reason, it keeps getting lost in the system. Must be some sort of major glitch with the barcodes or something. It would eventually get found waiting in some warehouse, and then shipped off again. I don't know how, but Lance got ahead of the game and made a call to the guy who bought the stuff and offered to buy it back. Guy was happy to have the money, since his shipment never came, so here we are."

"That's really weird. All of these boxes kept getting lost? Why not just one or two?" Beth eyed the shipment with curiosity.

"Yeah, well..." Marco stared at the boxes for a few seconds, an odd look in his eyes.

"Something up?" Beth asked.

"I'm just tired. Been driving for the last few days and sleeping in the van. Lance didn't want me taking my eyes off of them, not even for a second. Nothing but fast food and all that, and long hours on the road."

"That all?"

Marco twisted his lips up, then let out a sigh. "Just exhausted, frankly. I'm that kind of tired where you get a little jumpy, maybe even feel like you're being watched. A couple of times when I was trying to sleep, I swear I heard something moving around back there. Like boxes moving, that kind of thing. Freaked me out is all."

"Yeah, I bet it's exhaustion. When I get really tired, I see shadows sometimes. Happened all the time in college, actually. Tell Lance thanks for me, will you?" Beth walked Marco back to the van. "And thanks for bringing these by. I really do appreciate it, and it was nice to see a familiar face."

"Yeah, no problem. Lance is paying me mileage and overtime, so I was happy to go on a road trip, make some bank, and... see a familiar face as well." Marco opened the door of the van, his cheeks red. "Take care, Beth."

"You, too." She waved at him as he backed down the driveway, which passed between the lions. Once he was gone, she turned her attention back to the boxes.

"Seemed a decent chap," Sulyvahn said, reappearing next to her. "What was that about?"

"When Mike inherited this house, some of the objects inside were mistakenly sold at an auction. I spent weeks trying to track everything down, but it was all bought by a thrift store, so it had been sold already. Now, apparently, some of the stuff has come back." She shrugged at him. "So that's a surprise."

"Providence is a fickle—"Sulyvahn froze, then leaned to the left to look around Beth. "Well, now. You don't see that everyday."

"See what?" Beth turned around to see that the six boxes were no longer stacked. Instead, they were now scattered across the front porch, and the one closest to the door was balanced perfectly on one of its corners, rotating in place. Beth took a step toward it and jumped when it tipped over and slammed against the wood of the porch, the contents rustling inside.

"Looks like you've some unpacking to do." Sulyvahn winked, then vanished once more into an inky mist, leaving Beth alone on the porch.

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! I certainly had a lot of fun getting my players ready for what's coming up, as well as spending a bit of time with Dana and Naia. I wrote that scene based off of a sensory deprivation chamber fantasy, only taken to a bit of an extreme. It was also fun for me to write Lily again, I certainly miss my murderous little mistress.

I absolutely love the comments I've been getting from people on the character of Death, and how so many of you have your own voice for him. He is quickly becoming a favorite of mine in terms of how he interacts with the others, and keep those comments coming! I love hearing from you, even when I don't get a chance to respond.

If you haven't already, check out The Last of Her Kind here on Lit which is a spinoff novel that takes place in the same universe as HFHM (and will feature a familiar face). This is the last time I will plug it on the main storyline, but I wanted readers to know it existed.

Take care of yourselves, and I'll see you next chapter in the Dreamscape!