Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 055

Excited, she tucked the book under one arm and headed for the backyard. Once outside, she saw that Tink and some rats were busy uncoiling a large portion of wire, using a pair of large planters to help lay it out straight. Naia was in her fountain talking to Lily, and Abella was standing at the back of the yard, staring through the open gate.

"What the fuck were you doing?" Lily curled her lip in disapproval, and Beth held up the book.

"I think I found something, but it can wait."

"I don't think it matters. Naia doesn't know anything about a contract." Lily lowered her voice dramatically when she spoke next. "This surprised nobody."

"Be nice. Naia, are you sure you don't remember any sort of contract with the faerie queen? Maybe a golden scroll, like the one Mike has, or mention of sending a banshee to watch over the family."

Naia shook her head. "I'm really sorry, but I don't. Maybe Sofia would know, or someone else, but important documents and water don't tend to mix well."

"Annoying, but fair." Lily grabbed Beth's hand. "C'mon, let's go see what old One-Eyed Winona has to say."

Beth was about to turn away when she heard Naia gasp. Tink dropped her tools and froze in place, startling the rats that were helping her. Over by the gate, Abella turned to look over her shoulder, her stone features wide in surprise.

The nymph had gone deathly still, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she gasped for air.

"Lily, what's happening to them?"

"I don't know." The succubus spun about, her horns appearing over her head, but there was no enemy to be seen.

Tink let out a shriek of anger and picked up the hammer closest to her and threw it into the side of the house, where it busted through the siding and stuck. Abella's face turned somber and she turned back to the gate to resume her vigil. Naia, on the other hand, was turning translucent, ripples going up and down her body as her form wavered.

"Naia, please, what's going on?"

Naia looked at Beth, her lips twitching. A single tear ran down her cheek.

"She...she was my sister. How could I forget my sister?" Her eyes met Beth's, and her body became translucent. "Oh, Emily, how could you?"

Naia fell to her knees and clutched the side of the fountain, which was now overflowing onto the ground in time with her tears. Beth set the book somewhere dry and then stepped into the fountain, doing her best to comfort the nymph.

And, much to her surprise, so did Lily.

Kisa sat on the edge of the roof, her legs dangling over the side. She had been up here for most of the day now, listening to an mp3 player that Tink had scrounged up for her.

The electricity on her floor was out due to repairs, and she had discovered a perfectly lovely spot on the roof to stretch her legs and soak up some sun. The music on the mp3 player wasn't anything great, but it would do for now.

Ever since Tink had given her the record player, she had found a purpose other than lounging about, a reason to live, to breathe. In between songs, she could recall memories of the old man who had helped her. His face was a constant presence during her moments of peace, and while it bothered her that she couldn't remember who she was, it bothered her even more that she couldn't remember him.

But she did remember that he had taught her how to dance. It was something he had learned from his home country, and it was what he had taught at the rec center. It was her hope that maybe dancing would help her to reconnect with the past, to give her the answers she so desperately craved. Whoever she used to be may be gone, but the person she was when she danced still existed.

Of course, her peace had been interrupted when Death had come up to watch her. The spooky specter was content to sip his tea and watch, and when she asked him if there was somewhere else he could be, Death had explained that he and Mike had engaged in a long chat about personal space after some important meeting.

Once she explained to him that dancing was also private (sometimes), Death had pulled a children's book from the depths of his robe and was busy looking through the alphabet, but he did not leave. Happy that he would at least keep to himself, she had danced some more, albeit not as enthusiastically as before.

The events of the house were like a foreign entity to her. The urge to dance called to her from the moment she woke to the moment she slept, and other than a couple of check-ins with Tink, she was perfectly fine being the ever-elusive feline of the house. She needed to work through so much of her own drama first, that she felt like this approach was perfectly fine.

However, her mp3 player had died almost twenty minutes ago, and she was deliberately leaving her earbuds in and pretending to be listening to music so that she wouldn't have to talk to Death.

The earbuds didn't quite fit her ears correctly, so the sound of Tink's shout followed by something slamming into the house was perfectly audible. Crouching down, she crossed the roof on all fours and looked into the backyard.

Naia was crying in the fountain, and Beth and Lily were busy trying to console her. Curious, she leaned over the edge for a closer look, but movement in the yard caught her eye.

When she turned her head, she saw a dark figure move past Abella and then disappear through the gate in the backyard and vanish in between the trees. It was a man, but that was about all she could tell. A growl escaped her lips, and she kept her eyes on the spot where he had disappeared.

"I say, this is a bit dramatic, is it not?" Death had crouched down right by her side, and she startled, then nearly fell. Her scrabbling claws caught the roof in time to keep her from falling free.

"You nearly killed me just now!" She told him through gritted teeth.

"False. I nearly collected you. There's a difference." He held up the children's book to show her a picture of an X-Ray next to the letter X. "I am struggling with this letter, because I don't know if I am looking at a picture of bones or a portrait of myself. Would you assist me?"

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, she was about to tell him no, but realized that if she didn't help him, he was likely to go downstairs and ask someone who could see him for help. She figured that now wasn't the best time, so turned her attention toward him.

"Here, let me show you." She took the book from him and led him away from the ledge, Naia's cries vanishing on the breeze. "Have you ever heard the term, 'X marks the spot'?"

Death stopped in his tracks, a giant smile on his face. "Did you just make a map analogy? I love maps!"

Kisa sighed in exasperation.

Mike sat and chatted with Amymone while Yuki sat in the corner of the yard on a chair made of ice. After coming outside, the kitsune had announced that she needed some time to think and process what she had seen, so he had left her alone.

Amymone was curious how everyone in the house was doing, so Mike answered her questions as best as he could. When the conversation about the others became thin, she asked him questions about book series that she had been reading and if he knew how they had ended.

Unfortunately, he did not. He had never been much of a reader for a bunch of reasons, and she was visibly disappointed when he couldn't tell her anything about the books. Still, she seemed happy to chat with him about anything and everything, and it was only after he checked the time on his phone that he decided he may need to move things forward.

He excused himself and walked across the yard to where Yuki sat. She was on her throne with Daisy on her shoulder, and she was wistfully looking at something in her hands.

"Hey." He put his hands in his pockets and waited. If his phone was correct, evening was well on its way, and he had no idea if this place had nocturnal cycles as well, or if it stayed the same. It also occurred to him that he should have asked Amymone about it, because it would have given them something with actual substance to talk about. "What are you looking at?"

Yuki lifted her hand and flipped the object over. It was a tarot card with a man and a woman standing apart from each other, and the word LOVERS was written on the bottom.

"When I made this, I had it in my head that I would use it on Emily." She turned the card around so she could see it once more, and then rubbed her eyes with her free hand. "I had this weird fantasy that I would use it on her, make her fall in love with me once again, and then leave her ass in another dimension to pine over me."

Mike nodded. "I guess that's only fair."

She groaned, and leaned forward in her chair. "That's probably a lie, though. I was so angry and full of rage, that's what I wanted to happen. But knowing me, I may have used it and just pretended like all was forgiven, at least until the next time she pissed me off. It's hard to say. I was a different person in the tower, after all."

She meant it literally and figuratively. Emily had taken some of Yuki's magic by removing her eye, and when Mike had put it back, most of Yuki's rage had left her.

"So it makes someone fall in love with you? Seems kind of..." He tried to think of the best word for it, but couldn't. Trying to talk ethics with a three-hundred-year-old fox spirit who had a broken heart wasn't a battle he thought he could win. "Powerful," he finished.

"Indeed. The magic is much like the card, so it's interpretive." She spun the card between her fingers and tucked it in her sleeve like a magic trick. "It's meant to seek out feelings related to love. Things like passion, loyalty, even friendship. Then it amplifies them, and overrides negative emotions."

"So it doesn't just make them super horny or anything?" He felt the phantom itch of mandragora pollen in his collar and scratched it.

"No, nothing like that. Not that it matters, because I don't feel like making anyone fall in love with me. What could easily be the most powerful card in this deck ended up being a giant waste of my time."

"Well, maybe not. You never know, right?" Realizing he had no evidence to back this up and that he was only saying it to make her feel better, he changed the subject. "So, I spoke with Amymone for a bit, and learned that she has absolutely no idea how to deal with our dog problem. You don't happen to have a card in there that makes you super strong, do you? Cause apparently Hercules choked the shit out of one until it passed out, and I'm not even sure how to go about doing that to something with three heads."

"You're lucky this one doesn't have more than that." She pulled her cards out and fanned through them. "I don't know, I might be able to get creative, but I wasted so many of my good cards trying to smash you into paste."

"Must not have been that good," he told her with a grin. "Because I assure you that I am quite smashable."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Was that...did you seriously just make a joke about your sex life?"

"According to the others, my skill set is primarily getting real lucky or fucking my way out of trouble." He shrugged, then took a seat on the ground. "Figured I would work on not needing to do either, but apparently I'm always going to be in over my head on every problem. For example, did you expect a three-headed hellfire-breathing dog today? Because it wasn't on my Bingo card."

"How about running into your dead ex who gave away a part of her soul to protect you, only to ruin your life?" Yuki slumped in her chair. "On the one hand, I'm glad to know that it wasn't something I did. But on the other hand, she royally fucked everything up, and she did so in my name. Everything that happened was because of me."

"No, absolutely not true." Mike scooted closer and took her hand in his. "My mom used to get blackout drunk all the damn time and blame me for the dumbest things as a kid. How she treated me was the reason we kept getting bounced from place to place, and I was convinced for so many years that I was the problem. After several years of therapy, I was finally able to accept that her actions were not a reflection of me, and the same goes for you, Yuki. I know we don't have the full story yet, and most likely never will, but whatever she thought she knew was coming, she should have trusted you and the others with it and seen if you were up to the task."

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty." She blew an errant hair off of her face, then sighed. "For example, we shouldn't have come to the Underworld now that we know that Fido has a hard-on for eating people who shouldn't be here."

"I should have brought dog treats or something." He stood and brushed the dirt off his pants. "I'm thinking our best option is to run. I can tell if we are running toward or away from danger, and I'm guessing that the reason we ended up here is because our route home was cutoff. That damn dog can't come in, so we should find out if it wandered off first. If not, let's cut across to the other side and get a good head start."

"And then what?"

"Follow my gut." He patted his belly, giving her a grin. "It will take us home or somewhere equally safe. That's the hope, anyway."

"Ugh." She stood and tilted her head from side to side, then stretched. "Running seems like a stupid choice, but it's the only one we have—unless we want to try and send Daisy out. I don't know that she could even find her way back. At least you're a good runner. I was a bit surprised, to be honest."

"Yeah, that's a recent thing." He followed her to the back of the house, and they stood just outside the open gate. The woods were still filled with an ominous mist, but they were quiet.

They sent Daisy on a quick perimeter sweep. When the fairy returned, she informed them that there was no sign of the hellhound, and Mike hoped that meant that it had wandered off. With tentative steps into the mysterious wilderness, he felt no sense of incoming danger, and chanced a quick look back at the house.

Up in the window, Emily appeared briefly, her hand against the glass.

"Let's go," he said, then moved forward with purpose. Yuki kept up with no problem, and once they were far enough away, they stopped in between a pair of large trees to get their bearings.

Mike closed his eyes and thought of home first, and then Naia. He was part of the house, and even her, and he wondered if he could use that to guide him. It reminded him of the time Lily had tried to kill him in the Dreamscape, and his magical bond with the nymph had saved him then, so why not now?

He concentrated on Naia, and felt a sense of sadness overcome him. Had something happened at home? The world around him was eerily quiet, and he could almost picture her fountain in his mind. Except it wasn't just her that he saw. It was Lily, too, and Tink, and even Abella. They were all clustered together by the fountain, around Naia, their voices like faint whispers in the wind.

The sensation was little more than a tickle, but he felt it somewhere to the right and turned.

"This way," he said, and moved forward. Yuki followed him for a while, and then took point, her eyes scanning the mists. Dark figures wandered about as if lost, and the few times he came close enough to make out any detail, they simply vanished from sight.

"They are damned," Yuki told him, her nose wrinkled. "I can hear them calling to each other, but nobody answers. It's a bit unsettling."

"Then let's get out of here so you don't have to hear it." They continued onward for what felt like hours, and the tickle became an itch, right between his eyes. They said nothing, which helped Mike concentrate on home, and the itch was becoming a pressure in his chest now, as if his heart was being tugged on by strings.

"I think we're getting—" he started, but then a cold feeling descended on his gut, and he saw the dark shapes in the fog disperse and vanish.

Somewhere in the mist, heavy footsteps crunched on leaves, and the sudden intake of air through the beasts many nostrils was like nails down a chalkboard.

Mike pulled out his phone. Yuki put her hand on his shoulder, and when he looked at her, he saw the fear in her eyes.

Setting an alarm for sixty seconds, he looked around the forest, trying to track where the sniffing was coming from.

"What are you doing?" whispered Yuki.

"Buying us some time," he whispered back. "The alarm will go off and draw it in."

"Oh." Yuki pulled a card from her sleeve and took his phone. "Here, hold on."

She blew on the tarot card and it hovered in the air. She put the phone on top and then summoned tiny little ice clamps to hold it in place. Mike pushed the start button and watched as the card and his phone zipped away into the woods. He wondered if insurance would cover loss in the Underworld, but figured he would just order another one. Hopefully Quetzalli hadn't fried out his computer since he left, because that's where the most recent backup of his phone was.

The sniffing came closer, and the blazing eyes of the Cerberus twinkled in the mist like stars. It was coming closer, and he and Yuki hid behind the trees to buy themselves a few more seconds.

The distant tones of his alarm echoed through the mist, and Cerberus charged toward it, kicking up dirt and leaves that splashed against the trees they were hiding behind. They both waited until it was some distance away, and then broke into a run.

What started as a jog soon turned into a sprint, and he was surprised how easy it was to breathe. Yuki turned into a fox and ran by his side, her tails twirling about as if they propelled her. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the growling of Cerberus, followed by the snapping of teeth.

The phone went silent.

The sensation of home was even closer now, and the trees seemed to be spreading apart. However, the sound of heavy paws behind them grew louder, and he took a look over his shoulder to see a pair of eyes glowing in the mist. Cerberus was on their trail once more, and it was going to be a race to the finish.

Yuki started zigzagging behind him, leaving a frosty trail that sprouted into low ice walls punctuated with spikes. He heard Cerberus crash into them and roar, which caused him to grit his teeth. The damn thing was fast, and he suspected that his luck was about to run out.

His heart pounded in his chest, fueled by terror. He realized now that the sound of paws was no longer behind them, but off to the side. It occurred to him that they were primarily running a straight line, and it looked like Cerberus had caught on.

Glowing eyes appeared in the mist to his left, and a giant ball of fire formed beneath them. Unable to dodge, he dropped and slid. A jet of fire carved its way through the trees where his head had been, and he managed to stumble back to his feet in time to leap forward and dodge another blast.

Yuki formed a massive ice wall between him and Cerberus. Another blast of fire melted a clean hole through it, and was followed by a thick, shaggy head. Massive teeth were the only thing Mike's brain processed, and he bolted forward.

Cerberus roared and crashed through the ice wall, sending chunks of it everywhere. A large piece caught Mike in the small of his back, and he let out a gasp of pain before falling to the ground. He rolled to his feet, and suddenly Yuki appeared between him and Cerberus.

"Go!" She shouted, then fanned out her tarot cards with one hand and summoned up a volley of ice. All three heads were now focused on her, and their jaws opened wide to reveal fire that swirled and danced among their teeth.

Mike tackled her from behind, causing the concentrated fire blasts to tear the forest apart above them. Her ice magic spiraled outward, sending icicles in every direction, and her tarot cards fluttered about like falling leaves. The smell of burning hair filled the air, and when he rolled off of her, he saw that a giant chunk of her hair had been melted away.