“After we feed the Mandragora, we can sit down and figure out how to get your goggles back.” Mike bit into his omelet and let out a sigh of contentment. A nice warm breakfast went a long way to ensuring that the day would go well. “How does that sound?”
He looked up to see Tink practically inhale the rest of her food. When she was done, the goblin threw herself out of her seat, then ran through the kitchen, and down the stairs. Seeing no need to rush, he took his time eating. She soon appeared with a map in her hands, which she unrolled on the table.
“Is that a map of the Labyrinth?” Mike asked, staring at the odd symbols that covered the old parchment.
“Most of it. Some places unchartable. Tink find map long ago. We use now to find where cow fuck sleeps, and then!” Tink slammed her fist into the palm of her other hand. “Knock out cow fuck, get goggles back!”
“I hope it’s that easy.” Mike stood up to look closer at the middle of the map. A swirling symbol had been drawn in the center of the labyrinth proper. “What’s this about?”
Before Tink could answer, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it.” Not like he had a choice, honestly. Tink grabbed the map and quickly disappeared back into the basement with it. Mike whistled softly to himself, scanning the front room on his way through. True, half the furniture was busted up and out on the curb right now, but what was left looked really nice.
Mike opened the door. On the porch was a delivery girl, her hat pulled low over her face. She was holding several bags, with a couple more on the floor.
“May I come in?” she asked.
“You sure can.” Mike was kneeling to pick up the bags on the porch when he felt a cold sensation in his stomach. Without thinking, he threw himself to the side, catching just the flash of light off of a dagger. He jumped to his feet in time to avoid another slash which would have caught him in the face.
“Shit!” Mike lost his balance and fell on his butt.
The delivery girl ripped off her hat, and her clothes shimmered and transformed into long, black robes. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, revealing eyes filled with anger. “Hold still!”
He recognized her now. It was Sarah, Elizabeth’s daughter. She ran at him, blade held high, only to stop when Cecilia appeared, arms outspread. Momentarily stunned, Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and then she slashed at the apparition.
The blade cut through Cecilia’s dress, and blood blossomed over the material. Cecilia grabbed at the wound with both hands, then slowly held them out in front of her face. Shocked, Cecilia stared at the blood on her hands, arms shaking. Sarah laughed.
Cecilia screamed, letting loose the full blast of her howl. Sarah’s hair and gown billowed away from her, and she grabbed her ears, sinking to her knees in agony.
Then, sparkling light coating her body, Cecilia burst into fog and disappeared from sight.
“Cecilia!” Mike cried out, lunging forward with a potted plant he had grabbed from the edge of the porch. He hit Sarah in the face with it, shattering the pot and scattering soil and dead plant chunks everywhere. She slashed at his legs, the knife slicing through the fabric of his pants and biting into his leg.
“Fuck!” Mike fell, doing his best to tuck and roll and failing miserably. His legs splayed out sideways and he ended up rolling off of the front steps and tumbling face down onto the cobblestones below. He smashed his nose into the walkway, immediately tasting blood.
Sarah grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head back while shoving a knee in his back to hold him in place. He saw the flash of metal before his eyes, the knife coming for the exposed flesh of his neck. Mike closed his eyes, unable to process what was about to happen.
There was a whoosh of air, followed by the sound of flesh smacking stone, and the weight was off of him. Mike’s face smashed into the ground once more, a result of his attempts to resist Sarah’s pull. Rolling on one side, he saw that Abella had Sarah airborne, her talons around Sarah’s back. Sarah was hollering at the gargoyle and slashing at her with her knife. Surprisingly, blue blood flowed from Abella’s wounds. Attempting to keep the upper hand, Abella dove into the soft dirt of the yard, flattening Sarah beneath her.
“Abella!” Mike stood up, wiping blood off his face. Running toward the pair, he was caught off guard by the blast of light that knocked Abella off of Sarah. The gargoyle flew through the air and crashed into the railing of the porch.
“Is that the best you have?” Sarah asked, aiming her wand at Mike. Her lips moved soundlessly, the air around them saturated with magic. Mike wanted to run, but all he could see was Abella’s crumpled form on the porch. He had to get to her.
Cecilia reappeared right behind Sarah, her torso a bloody mess and her face a mask of anger. Mike saw her chest expanding, and covered his ears.
The scream made his ears ring, even through his hands. Sarah flinched, and the resultant blast of light from her wand spiraled across the yard like a firework, crossing the tall stone wall and striking a large tree in the neighbor’s yard. For just a second, the thirty-five foot tree glowed blue before exploding into a hot mess of sparks and wood.
Sarah stabbed at the banshee with her knife, but Cecilia had faded from sight. Raising the wand once more, Sarah’s lips twisted into the beginnings of her next spell.
Not wasting any time, Mike sprinted for the side of the house. Green sparks scattered all around him, exploding into the stone wall as he rounded the corner.
When he reached the door to the garage, he frantically fumbled with the latch and lifted the door just enough that he could roll under it. As he did, he caught a glimpse of Sarah’s slender legs as she turned the corner of the house. He jumped to his feet and ducked around the boxes, but was caught from behind by the blast of energy that crumpled in the door, scattering boxes and books in every direction.
This was it. He was done for. Heart pounding, he listened as Sarah stepped into the garage.
“Where the fuck are you?” Sarah asked.
Shifting slightly, Mike realized that he was hidden beneath a large portion of the garage door, a narrow gap allowing him to see his attacker. Sarah’s wand glowed at a hiss from her mouth, a sickly green color that she cast across the mess she had made. Breathing out gently, he held perfectly still.
With a wave of her wand, she sent tiny blasts through the garage, scattering papers everywhere.
Mike flinched, biting down on his lip to keep quiet. He was trapped.
“Fine. Keep hiding. A few more minutes of your bullshit is fine by me.” Sarah was carefully stepping over debris, her feet occasionally slipping on paper. Her eyes scanned the dark recesses of the garage, and Mike was relieved to see that she was more interested in the back where Tink’s staircase was.
Tink. He hoped the goblin was in the house. If she had gone down to her lair, there was nothing he could do to help her.
“You found it, didn’t you?” Sarah blasted a rather lumpy pile of books. “I bet you did. That’s why you are running. Not because you are scared, but so that you can use it against me.”
Mike had no idea what she was going on about, but he prayed inwardly that she would head for the stairs in the back.
“That’s right. That’s how you defeated the succubus, probably turned her into a pile of dust. Even an amateur like you would be capable of such a feat.” The wand was in one hand, but she held the dagger in the other. Her eyes were now on the back wall. Satisfaction crossed her face, and Mike guessed that she could now see the staircase. “I wonder where you could be hiding?” Crackling energy surrounded her body, and she disappeared from view. Footsteps on concrete revealed that she was going down below.
Mike had to move fast. He quietly slid out from beneath the door, then promptly slipped on a small piece of cardboard, crashing into the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he then bolted through the side door, slamming it shut in time for it to be blasted off its hinges, catching him from behind and blowing him across the garden.
Expecting a fac
e full of rocks, Mike belly flopped into a large wave of water that was waiting for him. As he coughed up water, slender hands pulled him away from the shattered door. He had landed in the fountain, and Naia was helping him up.
“Ah. I wondered when I would get to meet you.” Sarah trained the wand on Naia now. “We heard all about you from Garrett.”
“I’m not above drowning you, little witch.” Naia summoned a giant ball of water. Sarah fired a burst of magic, but it detonated inside the ball, spraying water everywhere. Naia quickly summoned it once more. “And you’re going to have to make up some new tricks if you want to make it out of here alive.”
“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” This time, a blinding light emanated from her wand. Floating into the sky, it cast waves of devastating heat downward. The water boiled around them, and Naia’s face fell.
“Mike, you need to get out of here!” She helped him to the other side of the fountain.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry, the water can’t hurt me.” She practically shoved Mike out of the fountain, steam already rising from its edges. Sarah was already skirting the short wall, looking for a clean shot. “But it can hurt her.” Water tendrils rose up, boiling hot and whipped at the angry witch. When they made contact, the air around Sarah flashed green, revealing a magical shell that protected her.
“Oh no,” Naia said, covering her mouth in horror. She summoned a massive water wall and sent it at Sarah, but it ran around her with no effect.
“You’re harmless as long as I stay out here.” Sarah pointed her wand at Naia, the tip of it glowing the same green as her protective barrier. “And now you can’t go back in.”
Mike looked at Naia, then at Sarah. He needed a plan, some way to get either the wand or the dagger from her. As he looked around for inspiration, he saw that someone else already had a plan—in the shape of a ball-peen hammer.
Tink burst out of the bushes, hammer raised high. When she neared Sarah, she swung the hammer for the side of her knee. The witch’s green shell flashed, knocking Tink head over heels. With a dramatic wave of her wand, Sarah lifted Tink into the sky and cast her toward Naia’s boiling fountain.
“No!” Mike screamed. Naia waved her hands to the side, and the fountain’s water lifted outward, forming a giant wall. Arms outstretched, Naia caught Tink and both of them tumbled to the marble floor.
“And now you freeze it.” The mystery orb vanished, and a blast of blue light from the wand caused the hot water to freeze and expand. The water wall was nearly ten feet high, the surface warped like a funhouse mirror, scattering oblong images of Naia and Tink in every direction. Sarah smirked, leveling her wand at Mike. “Strange. I expected to see far more of your menagerie out here.”
“You know about the creatures here?” Mike asked. Again looking around the garden for a weapon, a shield, some way out of this mess, he finally saw something that could help.
“Of course I know. Garrett spoke of them many times. We used to have them all written down in a little book, but the geas really is all powerful.” Sarah’s eyes flashed. “Time to die, Mr. Radley.”
“Wait!” Mike held up his hands. “I want to make a trade!”
“Trade what? All you have is your life, and not for long.”
“Hear me out. If you kill me, this place goes up for sale, yes?”
“And?”
“The geas takes over. Even if you kill me, you can’t go back inside the house to find the you-know-what.” Mike swallowed, hoping that she couldn’t tell how full of shit he was.
“You’re full of shit.” Sarah’s eyes narrowed, but Mike noticed that she hadn’t blown a hole in him yet.
“No really, think about it. I invited you in, right? Well, if I die, the current owner of the house hasn’t given you permission to enter. Clearly, I don’t have it on me. Therefore, you’re stuck out here, and you have to do this all over again with the next owner, which will mean waiting for years. In fact, my current will leaves everything to my next of kin, which means you will have to wait at least a couple of years while they try to dig up another distant relative.” He was lying through his teeth, but after so many days inside the Dreamscape, he felt like his logic had been sharpened to a fine enough point to convince her. “And if you kill me, that will have to wait until after the murder investigation. Unless I disappear-then it’s a seven year wait to declare me legally dead.”
“I can wait,” Sarah told him, but now he could see she was full of shit. Her thumb circled the hilt of the dagger. She was eager to move forward with the kill, yet he still lived.
“Here’s the trade. If I take you to it, you let me live. I walk away, no questions asked.” Mike nodded. “Like that, you get everything you want. I get everything I want.”
“There’s no way you walk away from all this with everything you want,” Sarah said.
“Okay, fine, I walk away with the money! This place, I sell it to the Society. You and yours mine it for its secrets. It’s been nothing but trouble for me. Look!” Mike pointed at his face, then his leg. “I haven’t even been here a week, and all I get is fucked up. Do you know how long I spent trapped inside a dream with that succubus?”
“How did you escape?” Sarah asked, instantly suspicious.
“I slept with the you-know-what under my pillow.” God, he hoped that made sense. “I moved it this morning because I didn’t want the others to know I had it. I was afraid they would use it against me.”
Sarah appraised him for several seconds, obviously trying to decide what to do. Then, “Take me to it. Walk slowly.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Mike turned around, his hands in the air. “I’ll take you right to where I hid it.” He walked toward the back of the yard, careful to step around the questing vines that had plastered themselves against the house. He could hear her behind him, the constant humming of her magic promising a quick and messy death. As he chanced a look back, she shook her wrist violently. Sparkling gems struck the grass and buried themselves beneath the soil.
Taking a deep breath, Mike continued leading her to the greenhouse.
“MIKE.” ABELLA PUSHED the broken planks off of her and shook the debris off her body by flexing her wings. The front porch was a complete mess, and one of the support pillars was now off kilter, the roof above it bowing dangerously. Growling, Abella smacked the support with her tail, shoving it back in place. “Mike!”
“He’s not here.” Cecilia appeared. Her dress was stained, her blood sparkling in the sunlight. “I’ll look inside.”
“I’ll go up.” Abel pointed toward the sky.
Cecilia walked through the siding of the house and vanished from sight.
Abella jumped off the porch into the yard and tipped over dangerously. Her equilibrium was off, likely a result of the magical blast that had knocked her out. Shaking her head, her sensitive ears picked up shouting out back. With a powerful flap of her wings, she soared up. She circled as she rose, casting her eyes to the ground. The house had three turrets, each one reinforced with steel beams to support the weight of her body. The tallest of these was sufficient for her to regain her breath and see the whole property. The garage looked like a tornado had gone through it. Paper was scattered out of it in all directions. In the garden, a giant wall of ice surrounded the fountain. From inside it came the cries of her friends.
Abella didn’t bother with landing properly - instead, she crashed in the middle of the fountain, splashing cold water everywhere.
“Abella!” Naia hugged the gargoyle, squeezing her harder than she thought possible. “Get us out of here!”
Looking around, Abella noticed that Tink was out cold, tucked carefully into the small basin of the fountain. “On it.”
She charged the nearest wall of ice and crashed into it like a wrecking ball. From above, she had seen that the makeshift wall was nearly two feet thick, but stone was stronger than ice. She had soon knocked a hole in it. As she stepped out into
the yard, she cracked her knuckles, ready for round two with the witch.
“Not inside,” Cecilia said, appearing from the second floor of the house and floating down.
“Are you sure?” Abella asked.
“No sign anybody has been through there.” Cecilia looked at Naia. “Any ideas?”
Naia contemplated the question, gazing off into the distance. “I think... I think I sense him toward the greenhouse.”
“Well then, let’s look.” Abella walked around the corner of the house, Cecilia close behind.
Suddenly the banshee stopped and knelt by the grass, touching the blades with her hand. “He’s been here.” Plucking a blade, Cecilia showed it to Abella. It was stained with blood.
“I’m going to kill her.” Abella fluttered her wings, her brow furrowed in anger. “I’m going to rip off her head and shove it up her ass.”
“I’ll keep her alive while you do it,” Cecilia offered. They moved with purpose, the greenhouse coming into view, the vines of the Mandragora draped all over the yard.
When they came near the greenhouse, the ground exploded around them, large figures of stone and earth rising around them. In the center of each one’s forehead was a single, gleaming gem. Abella folded her wings before her just in time to absorb the blow from the first one, which knocked her back. Cecilia tried to phase through another, but a casual swipe from a stony arm knocked the banshee aside, through the bushes and the house wall, and into the kitchen.
There were five of the figures, each one nearly ten feet tall. Abella stood, glaring at them as they moved in front of the greenhouse, taking up their posts.
Cecilia reappeared next to her.
“Rock golems,” Abella said, casting a glance at Cecilia. “Guarding the greenhouse. Mike is in there, all right. Can you just go through them?”
The banshee shook her head. “No. The gems in their head magically ward them. I can’t phase through them. Let’s regroup with the others, ‘cause we’re going to need a plan.”
“We’re coming, Mike!” Abella called, then turned and ran to the fountain.
Radley's Home for Horny Monsters Page 25
