Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 103

When had the lines become so blurry? He had done questionable things in the name of preserving the balance, but had he ever been as cold as Sister Laurel? Did the Director know? No, that was a stupid question, of course he knew. The Order had gone through changes, this was true, but Cyrus certainly didn't recognize the monster it had become.

He fingered the edge of the wand beneath his coat. If he were to trigger the protective wards of the house right now, would they come for just him, or would they destroy everybody in this tent? No, he remembered now. The home's defenses would take him down and nobody else.

What about Darius? Could he put an arcane blast between the man's eyes? Looking at the mass of men before him, he realized he would just be cutting off the hydra's head. How many could he take down with him? Would it be enough to stop them?

His heart pounded in his chest as he slid his hand around the wand beneath his coat, trying to figure out the best way to target multiple people before they took him down. Was he really prepared to do this?

"I'm back," Eulalie said in his ear, and he loosened his grip. "Just checked with a higher power. Let them come, it will be fine."

Stunned, Cyrus released the wand. He wanted to argue, to warn the girl that she didn't know what she was going up against, but he had to trust that Eulalie knew better than he did. Was someone waiting just beyond the front door to take down the SoS? What power did the house have access to?

"No, really, it'll be okay." The Rat Queen's voice was reassuring, confident even. "Apparently the geas has it covered. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show."

Cyrus let out a sigh, which caught Laurel's attention. She wandered across the room to stand by his side, her arms crossed as she spoke quietly.

"You good?" she asked. "Because you can leave if you want."

"I'm okay. Besides, I'm here as a consultant. You may need my advice."

"Your current position is more ceremonial than anything else. If you wanna bail, I'll cover for you." Her voice was soft, and if he didn't know she was a backstabbing bitch, he would be fooled into thinking she cared.

"Oh, I could do this all morning. It's just...the kid comment hit me wrong, that's all. I know these guys are vicious, but to think they would take money to kill a kid..."

"Some of us have done it for free." When Dirk spoke from the other side of Cyrus, the old man flinched. He hadn't even noticed the mercenary approach.

"For free?" Cyrus whispered.

"All of us are ex-military," Dirk said, his jaw set. "When your country asks, you deliver. Some of us liked it, some didn't. That's part of what makes us the Sons of Sin, you know the deal."

"But you charge extra." Cyrus shook his head in amazement.

"It's to pay for the extra therapy," Dirk replied. "Most of these guys here are already dead on the inside, they just want the money to enjoy what little time they've got left before going out in a blaze of glory. It's hard to enjoy yourself if your job messes you up on your days off."

"What kind of therapist do you have that can talk you through...that?"

Dirk shrugged. "Mine lives on the East Coast and we video chat every other Tuesday. Some of us just snort mountains of cocaine. We're kind of a judgment-free organization like that."

"Hmph." Cyrus stared down at his feet and realized that both Laurel and Dirk had noticed how distressed he was. If he had pulled his wand, he may have only gotten a single shot off. He was getting sloppy. "It just took me by surprise."

"Don't worry about it." Dirk placed a hand on Cyrus' shoulder and squeezed. It may have looked friendly from the outside, but the grip was borderline hostile, meant to convey a very different message. "That's why you hire guys like us, to do the things you don't want to."

Darius was still wrapping up his orders, tasking his different teams with code phrases like Beat the Meat and Freeze Tag. The picture of the house was now replaced with a bank of screens, each cluster belonging to a separate team. As cameras were switched on, Cyrus found himself viewing the inside of the Command Center from a dozen different angles.

"Okay, boys, it's time to earn those paychecks. The team that finds any primary asset gets two months off, paid."

"Hooah!" shouted the SoS as they exited the Command Center and took up their posts. Darius stayed behind and stood with his arms crossed with his gaze on the wall projection. An assistant helped fit him with a fancy headset that he attached to a device on his belt.

"Teams check in," he said, and a nearby speaker crackled to life.

"Alpha team, in position." There was a brief pause before the next team checked in. A camera drone hovering overhead captured the six teams as they formed a semi-circle just past the porch. The men of the SoS drew their weapons as they prepared to storm the house.

"What a bunch of chodes," Eulalie said. "I feel like I'm watching a Call of Duty fan film."

Cyrus wasn't sure what that meant, but he was holding his breath as Alpha team advanced, weapons drawn. One member of the squad was carrying a metal net with disruptive runes on it. If the banshee made an appearance, it would burn her like fire.

"Are we a go?" asked Alpha leader.

"You have my permission to enter." Darius studied the data stream without blinking, his fists clenching and unclenching. And what was with the weird phrasing?

When Alpha team made it to the door, the squad leader jiggled the handle, confirming that it was locked. His team spread out, guns aimed at the windows.

"Porch secure," said Alpha leader. "Time to force entry. Beta team, proceed."

The Beta team came running up with a battering ram. Alpha spread out, their backs to the exterior as Beta team used the ram on the door. It took them several good whacks before the door splintered in. Someone reached through the hole to unlock the door from the inside.

"Cats and mice," said Darius. The other teams swarmed the porch as Alpha and Beta team ran inside the door. On the big screen, Cyrus watched a hurried sweep of the first room. The furniture was covered in drop cloths and the living room looked much smaller than expected. No lights were on in the home, and there was no sign of movement.

"Clear," whispered Alpha leader as both teams moved away from the foyer to make room for the others. "Next team, move in."

Delta squad moved in and immediately went up the stairs. Beta team was conducting a sweep of the small office just to the left of the doorway. Furniture was moved out of the way by the first teams to make room for the next, and the house was quickly packed with mercenaries and members of the Order.

Nobody was home. There was no movement whatsoever within the house. Over the course of an hour, Cyrus watched with immense pleasure as the SoS methodically searched the home from top to bottom. Every door was opened, and every dresser was checked. It was as if nobody had lived there in years.

Darius was staring so hard at the wall that Cyrus wondered if the canvas would somehow tear under the man's baleful gaze. Darius was particularly interested in having Epsilon team open a closet door after shifting the knob in a certain pattern, as if it would somehow trigger a secret opening. When nothing yielded results, he finally commanded a retreat and waited for his men and the Order to return.

Laurel was one of the first to make it back, and she looked like she was going to be sick. She immediately spoke to Darius in hushed tones, and the man listened with his head tilted toward her. When she finished, he looked away as if deep in thought.

The men of the SoS packed into the Command Center, many visibly frustrated. One man had stolen a doll with a porcelain face from one of the rooms and was busy inspecting it when Mads snatched it out of his hands.

"Are you fucking crazy?" he asked before throwing the doll out the door.

"It's just a doll," the man countered with a shrug. "Thought my niece might like it."

"Nothing in that home is what it seems," said Darius, his voice cool. "And it would seem that our attempt to breach it has yielded zero results."

"It must have been an illusion." Laurel raised her voice to be heard over the low murmuring. She turned her attention to a mage nearby. "Did you attempt any dispels while you were in there?"

"I did, Sister Laurel." The mage gestured up at the wall. "I would also like to point out that the home clearly has at least three floors from the outside, but we couldn't find a staircase past the second."

"And it was way smaller on the inside," said a nearby SoS merc. "I counted paces and it was less than a third of the size. I'm more inclined to believe that what we see from the outside is the illusion."

While leadership conferred privately, the men and women inside the tent chatted amongst themselves, sharing theories and experiences. Laurel looked on with visible frustration while Darius stared at an image of the home. Every now and then, the man raised a hand to his cheek as if to twirl an imaginary strand of hair.

The low din of the Command Center was interrupted by an eerie howl from outside. Weapons were drawn as something large brushed by the side of the fabric walls, causing the structural rods to groan. Runes ignited, lighting the darkened space as protective wards activated.

Darius held a finger to his lips for silence, followed by a series of hand signs. The squads shrank inward, weapons pointed out. Cyrus realized that they intended to shoot outward if something tried to come in, so managed to squeeze between two of the squads for safety. A few men in the center of the circle had their weapons pointed toward the ceiling, in case something dropped from above into the middle of the group.

These were men ready to shoot their way through anything that came at them. The room had become tense as mages summoned magical auras to surround themselves and those nearby. The cloth flaps of the Command Center pressed inward as if something was testing the perimeter, then moved away.

Outside, somebody giggled.

"Ring around the rosies," it sang, the voice feminine and childlike. It came from above, causing the mercs to aim their weapons upward. "A building full of pussies. Assholes...assholes...you should have...KNOCKED!"

The whole structure shuddered as if caught up in a violent wind. The SoS held their fire, but tightened up their formations. Cyrus crouched down and drew his wand, his breath coming in jagged bursts.

Over the sound of the fabric being wrenched about, a chorus of voices sang. The words were unintelligible, but accusatory. It sounded almost like children singing, but there was a malevolent energy behind their dulcet tones.

"Sir?" Dirk's eyes were focused on the front door.

Darius licked his lips, then turned his attention to the projection screen. "I need eyes outside," he said. Someone behind Cyrus turned around to get on the computer, and the display of the house disappeared. Black screens appeared, all of them displaying the same two words.

No Signal

"Cameras are all down," muttered the operator. "Drones aren't responding either. We're in the dark."

"I need a volunteer." Darius scanned the room and a few hands went up. His cold gaze swept across everybody and finally settled on the man who had brought the doll inside. "You."

"Fuck me," muttered the unfortunate merc as he rose from a crouch. He turned to the man at the computer. "Beta Zero Seven."

The operator clicked through some menus, and the merc's camera came online with B07 highlighted in the corner. The mercenary crossed the room and adjusted his helmet straps before hunching forward by the door. He flipped his M-4 carbine to full auto and nodded to another SoS merc who stood nearby.

"Ready," he muttered and pushed his way out the flap, weapon raised. The other mercs sealed the flap behind. Cyrus turned his attention to the monitor and felt his stomach clench at the sight of a single doll sitting on a wooden chair about fifteen feet away. The merc turned left and right, revealing that other than the doll, there was nothing else outside.

"Is that the entity from before?" Mads asked. Laurel studied the screen for a moment, waiting for the man's camera to stop sweeping back and forth and focus on the doll.

"It isn't," she replied. "That looks like the one you threw out of here, doesn't it?"

"Sir." The merc's voice crackled over the speaker. "It's holding something."

Cyrus looked again and realized that the doll in the chair was holding a piece of paper. The merc's breath hitched as he moved closer, then knelt down to pick up the paper. The night vision made the letters hard to see.

"What does it say?" asked Darius. The merc's flashlight clicked on, revealing letters written in calligraphy.

"It says 'Tag, you're it.'" The mercenary was about to say something else, but his vision abruptly shifted and he was yanked off his feet. He screamed in panic, and the sound of gunfire filled the air. The SoS ducked as bullets ricocheted off of the enchanted flaps of the Command Center.

"Alpha squad! Form up and--" Dirk didn't get a chance to finish as the mercenary was thrown through the front entrance of the Command Center. He crashed into Alpha Squad, who been prepping to go. The men of the SoS were quietly barking orders to each other as the Order looked to Laurel for instructions. The room went still as a solitary piece of paper fluttered through the air, falling like a maple tree seed. Laurel, who was nearby, snatched it out of the air and studied it.

"Tag, you're it," she muttered. "It's what the doll was holding."

"It says something else on the back." Mads took the note from Laurel and flipped it over. He frowned in confusion. "You can keep her? Keep who?"

Alpha Squad tried to help the mercenary to his feet, but he was clutching his ass in agony. They lowered him to the ground and rolled him onto his side. That's when Cyrus saw the cloth limbs dangling from between the man's legs.

"Oh, fuck me," somebody muttered as a flashlight was clicked on. The mercenary on the floor wept softly as everybody stared at the doll that had been shoved halfway up his ass.

The sounds of the forest had quickly become lost in the cadence of beating drums. Mike and the others were running uphill now, eager to get to the next plateau where Wallace and one of the scouts waved frantically.

With Ingrid on his back, Mike's lungs worked overtime as he somehow sprinted past members of the Order, the mage clinging to him for dear life. The jungle below them had filled with the rustling cadence of marching warriors.

"C'mon! We've got a clear spot up here!" Wallace disappeared from view once Mike got closer. By the time he finally crested the rise, he let out a gasp of relief to see that a few trees had been cleared already and white rope was being strung between others as the Order set up a defensive perimeter.

"You can put me down here," Ingrid said. "I have no idea how you did that. It's like you're part horse or something."

"Centaur, actually." He fought back a grin when Ingrid touched her pocket with a frown. "I'll be back."

When he made it back to the top of the trail, he could see that Ratu and Quetzalli were in the middle of the pack. The naga seemed to have no trouble keeping pace, but Quetzalli was struggling with the extra weight of Mike's bag. Jogging back down the path, he quickly reached the pair.

"You go ahead," he said to Ratu as he took his bag back from Quetzalli. The dragon looked relieved. "They're setting wards up top."

"On it." Ratu took three steps forward and her features melted away as she formed into a massive snake with Ingrid's bag in her jaws and her own strapped to her back. A few members of the Order stepped aside as the naga shot past them, her slithering form quickly ascending to the plateau.

"Maybe we should have ridden on her," Mike muttered to himself, wondering if that would have worked. "Are you good?" he asked Quetzalli.

"I'm better, but..." she looked over her shoulder. Leilani was dragging behind, pain written in her features as she struggled. The Captain watched her intently, but didn't seem inclined to help out.

"Shit," Mike muttered, noticing flickering lights in the forest below. They looked like torches between the trees. "You go on ahead. I'll see if I can't help Leilani."

"Watch your back," she muttered, then resumed her climb, sweat pouring down her back. He watched her for a moment to make certain she would be okay, then continued down the trail to Leilani and the Captain.

"What's the hold up?" he asked once he was close enough. Francois threw him a dirty look, but said nothing.

"It's me," groaned Leilani. "My legs are not accustomed to climbing such a steep trail. It feels like they're on fire!" Her eyes widened as a distant horn echoed across the terrain. "They are coming for me," she whispered.

"Can't you do something?" asked Mike, his eyes on Francois.

"Like what?" Francois countered. "I am unable to carry her, if that's what you are asking."

"Then I can do it." Mike got ready to abandon his bag, but Leilani waved him off.

"You don't understand," she replied. "My people, our bodies are built for the depths. We weigh more than a human does."

"My guess is somewhere around 140 kilograms," added Francois. "So more like carrying two people."

Mike paused and thought it over for a moment. Carrying Ingrid had been difficult, but doable. But could he have carried two of her? Maybe if he hadn't already carried somebody else.

"Damn," he muttered. "Night Marchers, they're spirits, right? Ghosts?"

Francois shrugged, sweat pouring down his forehead. "Essentially."

"Is there any way to chase them off?"

Leilani shook her head. "No. They usually ignore humans if you bow before them and avoid eye contact. Not true for my people, though. The Night Marchers are warriors from a different time, and are unaware that we are no longer enemies. If you're traveling with me, they will show you no mercy, you have to get away!"

"Francois? That sword of yours work on spirits?"

The Captain scoffed. "Of course not. And even if it did, there--"

The man danced to the side as a spear shot toward him, clattering hard against a nearby rock. He scowled in frustration at a dark shadow below that disappeared into the woods.

"There are too many," he replied.

"Go." Leilani fixed both of them with a stare, then reached for the trident she carried on her back. "My fate is mine alone."

"I will tell your people it was a warrior's death." Francois did a mock salute and turned to sprint up the trail.

"Some guardian he is," Mike muttered with a shake of his head. "Put that thing away. There will be no last stands here."

"My legs, they feel so wobbly." Leilani's voice wavered. "I don't think I can climb any further."

"Move your ass, princess." Mike stepped past her, his eyes down on the forest. He sent his thoughts out to the woods, begging them for help. Below, the trees rustled as if the wind was pushing through them. Though the jungle couldn't slow their pursuers, it could tell him where they were coming from.

"Mike, I--" Leilani let out a cry when a dark shadow stepped from behind a cluster of rocks about fifteen feet away. The shadow had haunting eyes that flickered. As the spectre solidified, it looked like a man who had been dipped in clay.

Mike sang the banshee's dirge, careful to keep his voice low so it wouldn't carry up the hill. The shadowy form rippled like water struck with a pebble, then vanished from sight, dropping a spear onto the ground. The spear turned into mist and faded away.

"What just happened?" Leilani demanded. "Were you singing?"