Satyr Play

"Stupid Wyrm! I didn't kill your kin for the ability. It was chained in a pit of its own filth, wings savagely cut from its back by its Human captors." She glanced at Stanley's face to ensure he heard yet another atrocity the Humans were guilty of. She turned her attention back to the Dragon. "Can you imagine its misery? It wanted to die, but its chains prevented even this escape. I bargained with it. Its form-altering ability in exchange for the perception of an eternity of bliss before it expired. It most gratefully accepted."

Stanley felt himself relax as once more he heard that his Baba was capable of compassion and the ring he wore wasn't the product of murder.

Walter was confused but still enraged. "The Humans must still die!"

"Why does he keep saying that? What has he done to me?" Stanley asked.

"I believe the Wyrm would like you to use the ring once more to launch the cursed spell," Baba said and saw the excitement flare in the Dragon's eyes. "Stanley, don't touch the ring," she said, and he nodded, wide-eyed. Baba looked at his hand and smiled. "A rather elegant Sympathetic Magic spell. I expected nothing less."

"What?" Stanley started, surprised by her words.

She gave him an annoyed look, then closed her eyes and moved her open hands over his body. She felt the tug of magic. Someone was attempting to unbind a spell from Stanley. She grinned widely when she opened her eyes again and saw a hint of frustration on Mab's face. Most would simply see a calm and impassive expression but Baba had centuries to learn her opponent's tells. Mab was furious.

"He told you it would be safe, didn't he, and your failsafe release just failed," she cackled at the Queen.

Glaring at her murderously, Mab neither confirmed nor denied her words. Baba just shook her head in amusement.

She looked back at the young Succubus. "What does your seer-sight see of the curse Stanley is bound to now?"

Marisa closed her eyes and shook her head as she didn't want to see the death bound to him so tightly.

"Girl! Open your eyes and tell us." Baba commanded, and Marisa gasped as she felt the weight of the compulsion settle on her. She looked at Stanley's worried expression, opened her sight and gasped. There were two paths! The finality of death was there still, sucking all of the light and warmth from the room until she moved her perception to the new path. There was a glimmer of warmth and the possibility of happiness there. It was still greatly overshadowed by the first, but it was growing. Marisa clamped down on her sight and moved her eyes to Baba gratefully.

"Speak only of the curse!" the witch said sternly.

Marisa jumped and nodded obediently. "It's linked to his ring. If he changes back to a Human, he dies. All Humans die."

Baba Yaga smiled and walked towards the Queen. "Well, aside from Stanley's death, which I would take very personally, the outcome of the curse seems like a win for the Hidden Races, doesn't it? No more Humans. The Earth could be allowed to heal so the membrane to the realm of Magic would heal and open as it was. Life would certainly become better for most of the Hidden Races. Not all, but certainly, the Fae would benefit. But how could this spell on Stanley reach every Human on the planet?" she asked, staring Mab right in the eye.

"Our Global Overlay spell," the Queen ground out between her teeth.

"Yes, that. That would let the Dragon's spell find all Humans, every single one, and target them all at once," Baba said, nodding thoughtfully.

Stanley looked at his hand in fear. He tried to remove the ring but discovered it wouldn't come off.

"It's permanently attached, boy. The bone ring is bound to your own skeleton. I couldn't have it falling off, now could I?"

"Baba, take it away! Stop the spell!" he cried out.

"I can't. The Dragon's Curse is very cleverly designed. It's embedded in the marrow of the ring itself, which is bound to you."

"What... what if I cut my finger off?" Stanley gasped out.

Baba's eyebrows went up in surprise. She admired his strength to even contemplate the act.

"The ring could still be turned as long as it is bound to part of you. The curse could be launched... though the one who turned it would likely be killed due to proximity. Who would you trust to keep the finger? Before you ask, I won't take it."

Stanley looked at the people gathered around him. Some were sympathetic, but others looked like they seriously wanted him to spin the ring. Especially the two Fae agents with the Queen.

Baba saw their enthusiasm, too. She turned to Stanley. "Something else to note. The Fae's overlay spell is now permanently bound to you, as the Queen has just discovered to her dismay. As we speak, your magic is becoming unalterably interwoven with the Fae's spell, reworking it. By now, it's likely fully integrated."

"WHAT?!?" Queen Mab exclaimed.

Baba gave her an amused look. "Oh yes, didn't the Wyrm tell you about that? The boy's not linked to the same realm of Magic as the rest of the Hidden Races. His Magic is wild, chaotic, and incompatible with the old Magic. It's far stronger and tends to bend the old Magic to its will."

"That overlay is keeping my people alive as this world is poisoned by the Humans! The Fae protect the secret of all of the Hidden Races! Without us, they'd be exposed, and the Humans will kill them all!" Queen Mab raged.

Baba turned to Stanley. "You have been given an awful power. If you spin the ring to return to your Human form, you will die, but you will also take all the Humans on the planet with you. Do this only if you wish to save the planet from the Humans. Personally, I find them to be closer to a viral infection than a sentient race. Remember, the Humans took your parents from you. They exterminated your entire race as well as others. If you do this, you will protect the Hidden Races... except those who rely on the Humans for sustenance and reproduction." She looked over at Camila, who was watching them with the Detective sleeping on her lap.

"Wait!" Queen Mab snapped angrily. "Now that he's bound to it, what effect will his death have on the Overlay Spell?"

"Ah, you're finally catching on. I was starting to think you'd lost your edge." Baba grinned evilly at the Queen. "Ask the people who maintain your precious spell."

Mab was staring daggers at the witch. The very air between them crackled with violent potential energy. Finally, she muttered something to her agent, Kelshard, and he quickly rushed from the room to make a call.

"While we wait for confirmation, I have to decide what to do with this naughty Dragon," Baba said, turning back to Walter. He shot his wings forward to strike the witch, but—she wasn't there. Freed of her control, Walter sprung into the air and flapped hard to get altitude. He would strike her with his fire from above.

Sigrid felt a pat on her arm and looked to see the crone smiling up at her.

"He's all yours," Baba said simply.

The Valkyrie grinned broadly and leapt upwards. Her huge, brilliant wings snapped out to beat effortlessly to lift her higher in the sky. Her armor and weapons shone with a pure white light as she chased after the inky black Dragon.

Her heart soared with righteous joy. This was right. This needed to be done.

-=-

"WHAT... THE... FUCK!"

The remaining people in the clearing turned and looked back towards the hallway and saw an injured Fae being gripped around the neck and held against the chest of a Human in a rumpled brown suit.

Morris was holding his gun out, swinging it back and forth as he tried to grasp what he saw.

A creepy old woman smiling at him.

A fish man.

A little girl with fluttering insect wings.

A red-bearded dwarf out of some nerd's wet dream.

A huge red-haired wolfman!

FUCK ME! Was that a huge fuckin' spider lady?

Then he spotted Harmon lying down with his head on the lap of a sexy woman... thing! His partner had a smile on his face, so maybe she fucked him unconscious?

A second sex kitten was hugging a horned freak with furry legs and hooves. The face, though... it looked fam—No!

"Stanley Garin?" he asked incredulously.

"Hi, Detective Morris," Stanley replied, keeping an eye on the swinging gun.

"Start—start talking!" Morris yelled at him.

"I have no idea where to begin. How could I possibly describe what you're seeing in terms that make sense to you? Shit, it doesn't make sense to me at times," Stanley sighed and saw Morris was looking a little less freaked out. This was a good start.

"Okay, how about I just start knocking off a few freaks, and we'll see if the answers get easier." His eyes were pulled to the spider, and he aimed his gun at her. Shit! He hated spiders, and this was a big one. It would be very satisfying to kill it.

Stanley released the sexy chick and stepped between him and the spider, holding up his hands. That pissed Morris off. He would have shot him, but he wanted answers first.

"Please, I'll give you a quick rundown of what's happening! Just please don't shoot anybody!" Stanley begged.

Morris noticed the old bitch frown when she heard Stanley. So, she didn't like hearing Stanley beg? Too fuckin' bad.

"You last saw me in my human disguise. The big guy flying around up there is my lawyer. He really hates humans, so he fucked me over big time by putting a curse on my method of disguising myself. If I change now to become human again, the curse will kill me and all humans."

Morris looked at him as Stanley waited. "So, you're saying you're stuck looking like a freak?" Morris asked skeptically.

"A Satyr, yes."

"A freak," Morris growled.

"Okay, a freak," Stanley said to keep him calm.

The old woman frowned once more.

"What is your fuckin' problem, you old hag?" Morris growled. Then he spotted his prisoner moving his lips as if talking with someone. He smacked his gun against the man's temple. "Did I fuckin' say you could talk?"

He looked back at Stanley with a mad grin. "You know, nothing you've told me so far explains shit, so why don't you just go and change back into a human so we can have a nice sane conversation," the detective suggested.

Stanley blinked. Didn't the detective hear what he said? "I-I can't change. It's like I told you. I change, I die, every human dies. You die."

"He can't be allowed to change back as that would kill him, and he is keeping my people alive," a seriously scary-intense chick with a regal bearing said as she approached. Morris almost jumped out of his skin as he hadn't seen her before.

The old woman looked at the approaching woman in surprise. "What?"

"Yes, it seems the alterations to the global overlay are complete, but it's not failing. Indeed, my people can no longer maintain it, but the spell continues to work and, if anything, appears stronger. Thank you, witch. For the first time, your manipulations might have actually benefited us. Stanley has become even more important to us. The Fae must protect him at all costs." The regal woman glanced up and then at Stanley.

"Stanley, take four large steps backward now," she told him. He immediately did, pulling Marisa with him. The old crone, grumbling under her breath, stepped away as well.

Morris was pissed off at how stuck up the intense bitch was as she stepped back as well. She was doing that whisper thing again, and his rage flared. It was time to put a slug in someone's head. She looked like a perfect volunteer.

-=-

Walter was becoming exhausted. He was so out of practice, and he was old. Even for one as long-lived as his kind could be, he was old. The Valkyrie showed no signs of slowing or weakening. The skies they flew in were limited as they were merely a memory. He had to veer away from the edges as he felt them approaching, and each time he did, he felt the cursed woman gaining on him. He might be faster than her in a straight flight but he didn't have the space.

If he couldn't outfly her, he would go on the offensive. He coiled his neck back to rapidly spit fireballs at her, but she dodged and twisted through the stream of missiles then shot forward.

Panicking, Walter blasted a huge gout of fire, then radically altered his vector while hidden by the cloud of fire. He felt his wings strain painfully. While it was his magic that gave him flight, it was his wings that assisted in his maneuverability.

He couldn't pull off this move more than once, but that's all he needed. He swung his tail in a wide sweep to hit the Valkyrie as she burst out of the flames right... THERE!

The heavy tail swung through the dissipating fireball to hit—nothing! Once more, his muscles strained to compensate for the efforts he was making. He twisted and tried to look in every direction as she wasn't hard to find with that obnoxious glowing. He sailed in a circle frantically looking for the Valkyrie, but she was nowhere to be found. Could... could he have knocked her from the sky with the fireball? He scanned the clearing below, but she was not there. She fell into the forest?

His eyes locked on Baba, and he forgot about the Valkyrie. He still had some of the extra power from his link. He shot downward, preparing to spit fire at the crone. If he could cause enough chaos, he might have a chance of escaping this damn trap.

Too late, he heard the high-pitched scream of wind ripped apart by the Valkyrie's wings as her attack came out of the sun. He wrenched his body badly as he twisted at the last second to put his claws between them, but it was her spear that greeted him. The point drove through his chest and punched out the other side, through his spine. He felt the moment his lower half lost sensation and his wings lost coordination.

Walter wasn't too far above the clearing but was now in freefall.

-=-

Morris swung the gun's muzzle back towards the snooty bitch giving orders. Fuck, he hated bossy chicks! This one needed to die. No one would talk to the cops about what happened down here, so there was no need to resist his natural impulse.

He grinned in anticipation, then screamed in pain as the goon he had in a headlock bit down on his arm deeply. Blood spurted as sharp-pointed teeth punctured a vein, and Morris felt his left hand go numb as intense pain shot up his arm. His right arm was being pushed upwards, spoiling his aim at the woman. Glancing up at his gun, he just had time to see the sky filling with the body of the falling monster.

He didn't have time for another scream.

The Dragon's body slammed to the ground, crushing the detective and his hostage.

Huge white wings beat the air as Sigrid settled down feather-light on the chest of the huge beast. She took a grip on her spear and wrenched it from the wound, blood spurting from the hole as the pierced heart drained Walter's blood into his chest.

The Dragon struggled to lift its head to look at the Valkyrie standing on him. He coughed lightly and blinked his glazed eyes. "You... are just... a puppet... of the witch."

Sigrid smiled. "I didn't do this for her. I'm taking your life for what you did to Stanley and Meixiu. What you've done to him is beyond evil, but we will see it undone. What you did to Meixiu? She was just a child! She told me. She told me the horrible, sick things you forced her to do. I do this for her... this is HER VENGEANCE!" Sigrid bellowed as she drove the point of her spear into Walter's skull, between his eyes into his brain. There was just a quick flash of terror before the life drained from the large eyes. Sigrid kicked his snout as she yanked her spear free. She flicked the gore from the weapon, then put it away. Leaping from his chest, she sailed gracefully down to the ground and took a moment to give thanks.

"Put the light show away."

Sigrid glanced over at the squinting crone, then put away her armor, the clearing dimming significantly.

"Nicely done," Baba said to the Valkyrie as she walked slowly past. She climbed onto the Dragon's chest as the rest watched in surprise.

The witch pulled some large ornate scissors from the pocket of her apron and proceeded to cut her way into the Dragon's chest cavity. The sight of the old woman sinking deeper into the body was horrifying, as was the sound of bones breaking.

They heard a triumphant cry from inside, and the witch crawled back out of the steaming hole, clinging to a large circular ring of black bone. She was covered in blood and bits of Dragon flesh. As she crawled back down to the ground, the blood and flesh soaked into her clothes and skin, so she was clean by the time her feet touched the ground.

"Stanley, come here! I have a new ring for you,"

"Are you mad?!? Absolutely not!" Queen Mab cried.

Baba glared at the Queen. "You are partially responsible for spoiling his disguise, so you have no say in how he protects himself from the Humans now."

"Spoiling? The ring is a doomsday weapon!" Marisa exclaimed. "You have to find a way to remove or defuse it!"

"I don't have to do anything, girl!" the witch snapped.

Stanley's mind was reeling. All he'd wanted was to have a quiet life working with tech. Now, he was being told he was a doomsday weapon. The device that made it possible for him to have that peaceful life was now the trigger to ending it all. He didn't want so much responsibility! It wasn't fair, but... since when had his life been fair. "Baba, I don't want another ring," he said.

The witch turned her scowl on the Satyr. "And how will you hide your true self from the Humans? They will kill you. You understand this?"

"Yes, Baba, but to have two rings, one which just returns me to my human state and the other which kills me and every human—"

"And Fae," Queen Mab insisted.

Stanley blinked at her, then nodded. "The danger of spinning the wrong one would be too great."

"Stupid boy! I taught you left from right on my knee when you were just an infant!" Baba growled.

He smiled. "And I will always love you for your lessons, for saving me, and for raising me to be the man I am today. You'll always be my Baba."

She stared at him, then snorted in frustration as she stuffed the bone ring into her apron pocket. "I'm keeping this for when you come to your senses." Then she eyed him closely. "How will you survive in the Human world?"

"There is no need. Stanley will come with me and reside in luxury for the rest of his days," Queen Mab said with a satisfied smile.

"Thank you, but no. A luxurious prison is still a prison," Stanley said firmly, drawing a grin from the witch.

"We have to protect you! The fate of the Fae depends on it!" the Queen insisted.

"Taking my freedom is not the same as protecting me! I have a life! A really good one. I want to live it. I-I deserve to," Stanley growled.

Baba Yaga looked pleased and turned her eyes to the Queen expectantly.

"What?" Mab growled.

"How are you going to repay my Stanley for your betrayal and reward him for how he is healing the Fae?" she asked smugly. She was enjoying having the Fae Queen in her debt. Well, Stanley's debt.

The Queen locked eyes with the witch, and her jaw muscles jumped. She wanted so badly to kill her, but the old woman was not so easily dispatched. A thought came to her. "We will give him a glamor," Queen Mab insisted.

Baba rolled her eyes at the Queen, who stiffened at the insult. "Did you not hear the point about Stanley's Magic being incompatible with the Fae?"

Marisa switched back to her Human glamor, then paused it again as Baba turned to her. "Inspector Heriahn was able to create one for me, and I'm linked to the new Magic now. Maybe it will work with Stanley?" she said timidly as the witch watched her with a menacing eye.

"How did this Fae manage against the new Magic?" the witch asked quietly.

Marisa looked away. "Not well."

"That is not your concern, witch. To do this properly, Stanley will need to come with me to my home—for a brief interval only!" she clarified for Stanley, who looked like he was about to protest.