Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 109

One of the knights stepped away from the group to stand behind Ingrid.

Mike nodded. "It sure is. I came here to help, even after learning that you intended to screw me over. I gave some of your people the benefit of the doubt, like Ingrid here. She's a good person, even though she works for a shit company."

"Take him to Captain Francois, please." Mohan turned back to watch the monitors. "I will ask him to meet you all on the docks."

"What, you're not even going to take me out yourself?" Mike actually laughed as the remaining knights and mages formed a circle around him and guided him toward the elevator.

"Of course not, Mister Radley." Mohan turned to look over his shoulder with a smile. "To do so would acknowledge that I see you as my equal. Frankly, you are beneath me, and the Captain has promised he would cooperate with the razing of your home once he has taken possession of it. After all, he has no use for the property. His love is for the sea."

Ingrid took a step toward Mike, her hand going for her wand. Mike made eye contact and shook his head.

"Well, guess this is the last you'll ever see from me," he said. "Boy, oh boy, you got me good." He took a deep breath and cycled his magic, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Someone jabbed him in the side with their weapon. "Is that a wand, or are you just happy to see me?"

As a group, they filed into the elevator. Mohan looked over his shoulder, a wry smile on his lips. The door closed, leaving Mike alone with his escort. Down below, the poolside bar was on fire and a merwoman was using pool water to put it out.

A mage tapped the bottommost button, labeled B.

"It's weird that this place has a basement," Mike said. "Or is that where you're keeping Bigfoot?"

"Shut the fuck up." Someone pressed a wand into the small of his back.

Mike snorted. The Director couldn't be reasoned with, which was a relief in some ways. That meant he no longer needed to waste his time trying to be nice. He looked at the men and women to his left and right and smiled when he saw how tense they were. He didn't know if they were afraid of him, of the situation, or were displeased with the orders they had just received. Ultimately, it didn't matter.

He had maybe fifteen seconds, which was about ten seconds more than he needed. Mike cleared his throat and tried to keep his face straight.

"So before we begin, is there anybody who wants to get off?"

It was in that single moment that he found bliss. At least three people turned in his direction, either in recognition, disbelief, or curiosity. Somebody actually scoffed. Weapons were pressed against him, to remind him that he was, in fact, their prisoner. Mike dipped his head and closed his eyes, a beatific smile plastered on his face as he released his magic.

The elevator cabin hissed with energy as hundreds of blue and purple streamers of light burst free from him, spreading outward like tiny spiders. They vanished immediately upon skin contact with his captors, the men and women of the Order gasping in surprise as their entire bodies were suddenly overwhelmed with erotic energy. When the magic attempted to jump back into Mike, he forbade its entry and commanded it to move in a cycle.

As one, the occupants of the elevator came. The cabin filled with screams and moans of pleasure as the knights and mages stumbled back and forth, many of them dropping their weapons. Someone tried to stab Mike, but he took a casual step backward to dodge the strike, then grabbed a mage by her elbow to point her wand at the ceiling as it went off, causing the ceiling of the elevator to freeze over. Eventually, the men and women of the Order sank into a pile of bodies on the floor, clutching at the railings and each other for support. Just as the moans died down, his magic cycled again, starting the process anew.

Mike pushed the Lobby button and the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened wide and he stepped forward, careful not to stomp on someone's outstretched hand. The people in the elevator groaned as his magic finished its tenth cycle. Mike turned to look back and was surprised to see a tiny mote of golden light hovering just in the doorway. Out of habit, he held out his palm and the light fell onto his skin and vanished like a melting snowflake.

"What did you do to them?"

Mike turned to see Aurora standing there, nervously clutching a wand. Her hands shook wildly as if she might blast him at any moment, but his magic told him the truth. She was frightened, true, but certainly not any danger to him.

"Some asshole hit all the buttons and they had to get off on all the floors." When he realized that Aurora didn't get the joke, he cleared his throat and continued. "Honestly, they'll be okay. It's nothing that some chocolate and maybe a Gatorade won't fix." Mike stepped toward Aurora and pushed the wand away. "How do you get to quarantine?"

"Quaran--" Her dark eyes sought out his own. "How do you know about quarantine?"

"Your boss is sending Ingrid there. There are also a few people from the mountain expedition locked up as well, including Wallace. They got in late last night and the Director hid them away. He didn't want them telling everyone the truth about what happened on the mountain." There was a dull thud, followed by a groan. Mike looked back to see that someone's arm was preventing the door from closing. "Excuse me a second."

Mike pushed the hand into the elevator which allowed the door to shut. "Say hi to Bigfoot for me," he said as the door closed completely. When he turned back to face Aurora, she was pointing the wand at the ground. "Is there a way to get there that doesn't involve the Director's office? I'd rather avoid him, if I could, he seems grumpy."

"There are...secret tunnels throughout Paradise."

"I fucking knew it," Mike muttered.

Aurora stared at him for several long seconds, then nodded her head. "I'll go get Ingrid and the others. You go ahead and...um..."

"Thanks." Mike walked past the hostess and narrowed his eyes as he pulled out his phone and texted everyone at the house. Up ahead, the sounds of battle in the lobby had died down. When he stepped out into the rotunda, it was to see Ratu sitting on the edge of the fountain, her hair and kimono soaking wet.

"Well?" she asked.

"It went poorly," he replied.

"How poorly?"

"The Director is a naga named Mohan." Mike felt the temperature in the lobby escalate rapidly as Ratu's eyes dilated. "He's apparently been looking for you for quite some time and got real excited when he learned you lived at the house. However, he got pretty butthurt over the fact that we've been holding hands, and the whole situation at the house is about getting even with me."

"Is he still alive?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Not for long." Ratu rose and stormed off toward the elevator. "Leave him to me."

"The elevator's enchanted!" he shouted at her back. "You might have trouble finding it!"

He heard the loud rumbling of stones being broken apart, but Mike wasn't concerned. Ratu was one of the most powerful people he knew, and this was her fight. Well, for now anyway. He needed to find Beth and Kisa first, then go rescue Ingrid. After, they could all beat the Director's lanky ass together if needed.

Using his mental link with Kisa, he jogged in her direction.

Across the world in front of a different bank of monitors, Eulalie Weaver sat in a web sling hammock of her own design, made just this morning in fact. Supported from below by so many gossamer threads, it was easy for her to shift positions along the massive bank of keyboards and screens in order to maintain watch on the exterior of the house.

Her drones had been shot down over the week, but small cameras and microphones had been easy enough to install pretty much everywhere with both Tink's help and the rats. There were almost no gaps in coverage, and she stared at over ten different monitors at once with her arachnid eyes. Sure, some of them were no good for the visual spectrum, but she would at least detect movement on the screens.

Over her ears, she wore a special headset that Tink and Dana had designed. It had some sort of 3D audio and a chipset that took in all the separate microphone inputs from around the home, filtered them, and recreated the audio as if she was standing near whatever camera she had selected.

She grabbed a handful of Cheetos and shoved them in her mouth. Down below, a rat shook its head in frustration at the amount that tumbled free from her lips. Still, waste not, want not. It picked up the crumbs and put them into a bowl that the rats would share later.

"And here we...go..." Eulalie did her best Heath Ledger impression as she watched five different tactical teams emerge from the command center, guns, swords, and wands at the ready as they circled around the house. She tapped the mute button on her microphone and spoke.

"Here they come," she said. "I count thirty on the north side and forty on the south. Twenty are hanging back. They've got guns trained on the roof. I have yet to identify explosive ordinance."

A sinister voice chuckled through the headset, creating feedback on the line.

"Cold front to the North. Round up those cowboys!" Jenny giggled and took in a deep, rasping breath. "Let's get a three for one sale for those fellas by the greenhouse!"

The garage door opened slowly as the mercenaries arrived. They fell into a defensive formation, briefly revealing a man carrying a large munitions box toward the rear.

"Designating a priority target by the garage." Eulalie sent a screenshot to everyone's phone. "This one is carrying explosives."

"I've got him." Yuki's voice was calm and collected as the garage door lifted high enough to reveal a small grouping of homunculi. They were created by her tarot cards, a collection of men and women built from wood and metal. As one, they crouched down and charged forward toward the mercenaries.

"Contact," one of them shouted as six of them took a knee and opened fire. The homunculi cared not for bullets, and likely would have cut down the firing squad if not for the knights who suddenly swapped positions with the gunmen. Yuki's summoned creatures initiated attacks with swords and staves that were quickly deflected by the swords of the Order.

Yuki stepped forward from the garage, her tails whipping behind her in defiance. The SoS didn't know it, but this was little more than an avatar created from ice and snow. The false kitsune raised her hands and sent forth a horrible frost that clung to the assailants like glue.

Screams of alarm came from the south side of the house, and Eulalie turned her attention to the appropriate monitor. The SoS had just made contact with Cerberus in their human form and had immediately opened fire. The hellhound wasted no time transforming, letting out a triple-throated howl that actually caused three of the men to flee in terror.

Hellfire rained down on the attackers, but the mages were there to intercept. Magical shields were raised to divert the flames, but a couple of them burst immediately. The damage was instantaneous as smoldering mercenaries screamed and tried to crawl away. One even ran for the safety of the greenhouse, ducking inside the front door as if the glass would somehow protect him.

"Never had a chance," Eulalie muttered, noting that the injured people were already being carried to safety. Though Jenny had been gung-ho to annihilate the SoS along with the Order, they had taken a vote as a family and elected to avoid killing them outright. Not only would killing the mercenaries leave a huge mess for them to clean up, but they risked starting a long term feud with both the Order and the Sons of Sin.

That, and the activity around the Radley house had already raised some suspicions. While monitoring the chatter of local authorities, Eulalie had heard Mike's name dropped more than once, and she was fairly certain the Order was the only reason the cops hadn't come to investigate. The official cover story on record was that this was an advanced training exercise for the military, but some of the higher-ups were starting to suspect something more sinister. If the police did decide to show up, there was a very real fear that innocent lives would be at risk.

Eulalie turned the volume down. Some of the screams were threatening to blow out her headphones. She looked at the men and women by the garage. While they had isolated several of the homunculi, it seemed like they weren't making very much progress.

"I expected more." Narrowing her human eyes, she studied the monitors. Yuki's ice clone was on top of the garage now, sending a cascade of ice down on her attackers. Cerberus had successfully routed the other squadron, who were piling up against the wall at the edge of the house.

Something was off. The moment she thought that, Yuki's ice clone exploded, followed shortly by the crack of a different gunshot. The homunculi were suddenly tackled to the ground and hacked to bits with machetes. Out in the front yard, the third team was using ladders to get up to the roof.

"Frosty is down. There's trouble up top. Can somebody topple those ladders?"

Cecilia burst through the front wall of the second story, shrieking at the top of her lungs. One of the mercenaries jerked backward, causing the ladder to tip away with him. Shots were fired at Cecilia, but they passed harmlessly through her to pockmark the siding of the house. The group at the garage had entered through the open bay door and were making their way through the structure toward the fountain. When they shoved open the side door that led to the backyard, it was to see Sulyvahn standing there.

"Yer not welcome here," he said just as they opened fire. The bullets hit the dullahan, but had no effect. Chuckling, Suly grabbed the top of his hair and yanked, pulling his head clean off his body. The mercenaries flooded out of the door as Suly reached into the hole of his neck and pulled out his own spine. "And now I'll flay the flesh off of ye."

They opened fire again, but not before Suly caught a man with the spine whip, tearing both the mercenary's tactical vest and the flesh of his arm free. Mages moved ahead and somebody shouted, "Switch to silver!"

To the south, Cerberus harassed the assailants there, playfully chasing them into corners and swatting them with massive paws that broke bones. Even though the retreat looked chaotic, Eulalie spotted a pattern early on.

"Can somebody check on Cerberus?" She frowned when she noticed someone drop an iron stake in the ground. "What the hell is that?"

Shadows crept across the ground, breaking free of the mercenaries and grabbing hold of the iron stake. It was only now that Eulalie saw the other stakes that had been planted in the area. Cerberus growled and chased a man away from the wall only to slam into an invisible barrier and fall on the ground. The iron stakes glowed white hot once the spell was completed. Flames licked along the ground as a massive sigil constructed of fire and shadows appeared.

"Fuck! Cerberus is trapped. We need somebody to break the sigil."

"I'm on it," said Sofia through the headset.

At the command center, a second wave of people appeared, all of them establishing a perimeter around the tent. Sulyvahn was busy attacking the group out back, but they had superior numbers and several passed right by him. The wall of ice halted their progress, but the group was prepared. They took cover behind a massive shrub and then tossed some grenades at the frozen structure.

Eulalie turned the headphones down for a moment to mute the explosion, then raised the volume afterward. "We have a breach by the garage."

"MINE." Jenny's voice was filled with static.

"Not yet." Eulalie cleared her throat. "Let's see if we can scare them off first." That had been part of the agreement, after all.

"NO FAIR!"

"I am on it." Abella stepped out from her hiding place nearby and grabbed a man by the back of the neck. He let out a yell as she picked him up over her head and slammed him into the ground. When his buddies turned around to see what had happened, she threw him. Guns were lowered to avoid shooting their comrade, and Abella folded her wings up and stepped around the nearest ice wall to avoid the counter attack. By the time they came around the corner, it was to see a statue that Tink had carved this morning depicting Abella hiding behind her wings like a shield. A mage ran forward and strapped a collar around the stone statue's neck.

"Cease fire," she shouted as she ducked beneath the extended wings and slapped what looked like a weight-lifting belt around the statue's waist. "Gargoyle neutralized!"

"Clever," muttered Eulalie, watching in interest as the statue was left behind. Cyrus had gone over potential capture protocols involving the different cryptids, but hadn't known what mechanism they might use mid-battle with so many different factors. She would have to ask him what sort of enchantment they had on those belts. "Fake Abella has been captured. We need token resistance."

"MINE!"

"Not yet."

"I've got her." Yuki stepped out of the iron gates, the hot winds of the underworld at her back. She summoned an icy sphere into her fingers, then fired it at the men nearest Abella. When the magic struck, they cried out in agony and fell to the ground, ice climbing over their bodies.

By the greenhouse, Sofia sprinted forward, sword in hand. Her purple eye flashed like a strobe light as she shifted and dodged out of the way of attacks, moments before they came. A mercenary got up to point blank range and aimed his shotgun, but when he pulled the trigger, all that happened was a click instead of a bang.

Sofia smirked and punched him in the face so hard he crumpled. She picked up the shotgun and pumped the action hard, ejecting a jammed shell. Once she got to the first iron bar in the ground, she grabbed hold of it with her free hand and yanked. The sigil brightened in an attempt to hold together. Without looking, Sofia pointed the shotgun over her shoulder and fired, causing a man with a rifle aimed in her direction to duck.

The sigil burst, and Cerberus hopped over Sofia, sheltering her from further gunfire as they ran back toward the house together. Sofia shoved open a window and crawled inside, gun still in hand. Cerberus leapt away, tail wagging and eager to resume the fight.

Out back, Yuki continued to protect false Abella while another squad navigated the ice walls and made their way to the fountain. Massive roots burst from the ground, tripping them up as they drew near. The SoS retaliated with phosphorous rounds that caused the roots to pull away.

Up on the roof, the third group took position and opened fire on Yuki. The kitsune summoned walls of ice to protect herself from blades and munitions alike, then backed toward the underworld. A group of knights came in from the sides, swords drawn and spectral body shields blazing. Behind them were a pair of mages and some mercenaries. When they drew near, Yuki stepped through the iron gate. Her attackers followed.

"Can't be helped," Yuki muttered through the comms, the connection across dimensions making her cut in and out. Already, screams of panic were followed by gunfire through her headset. "Was hoping they wouldn't follow me in."

Cerberus howled on the lawn, then made their way toward the command center. Eulalie smirked as the hellhound got within range of the tent and blasted the structure with hellfire. The surrounding area turned to ash, but the command center remained intact.

"Guess the old man was right about the enchantments on that thing." Eulalie grabbed another handful of Cheetos and stuffed them in her mouth. She wondered how Cyrus was doing. Ever since losing contact with him, she had pored over property records in the area he had disappeared, but supposedly all of it belonged to either the government or the Bureau of Land Management. Satellite photos of the area revealed nothing, and her attempts to get recent data from government satellites had been rebuffed. The tracking bracelet they had given him was perfect for pinpointing his location, but only worked if he was within a mile of either the home or Yuki.