Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 111

"Typically only a few hundred years," replied Ratu. "Though some do live to be a thousand, depending on their magical abilities. They may also live much longer if they're able to ascend."

"I see." Titania's eyes locked on Mohan. "Have you achieved immortality?"

"Not yet." Mohan sneered at Titania. "My family will come looking for me. Anything you do to me will fall on whoever can be punished. By hurting me, you only serve to bring harm down on the Caretaker and his family."

Titania nodded, then looked at Mike. "That was the truth," she declared. "I'm afraid I will have to do something different."

Mike took a step back from her. Everyone else but Amymone did the same. The dryad actually squeezed herself into a narrow gap in the trunk of her tree.

"Mohan of the Navaratna Clan, I have decided to give you your heart's desire. You are sentenced to spend the rest of your life here with Ratu Radley, whereupon you will either ascend or die of old age."

Everyone's jaw dropped, including Mohan's. Ratu stared in shock at the fae queen, her hands trembling.

Mohan leered at Ratu, then let out a laugh. "Did you hear that, Upala? Even the Queen of the Fae sees that my claim is...hold on, did you say Ratu Radley?"

"That is who she is, for better or for worse." Titania unfolded her arms and lifted Mohan by the head with her upper arms while her lower ones held his body. He squirmed in her grasp as Titania spun him around to face Ratu.

Mike watched in horror as an eerie mana formed around Mohan. It had no color he could discern and was little more than an iridescent fog. The naga opened his mouth in a silent scream as he twitched in Titania's arms, then eventually went still. The scales on his body rippled wildly, his skin growing loose and sloughing off in chunks.

"What's happening?" asked Kisa.

"The rest of his life." Titania's eyes blazed with fury as chunks of snakeskin fell away from Mohan. "To him, we are near motionless statues as I feed him just enough magic to stay alive, his mind unable to properly connect with his body as roughly ten years pass for every second that I hold him. I did forget that naga like to shed, so this part is a little disturbing."

Mohan's open mouth sagged as he started to visibly age. Ratu gestured for Mike to approach, then grabbed him around the waist and pulled him close.

"Kiss me and make me yours," she whispered, then pressed her lips against his. Mike grabbed her by the waist and dipped her dramatically so that her hair draped like a curtain behind her. He nuzzled the top of her chest, one hand cupping her breast, then slowly worked his way up her neck until their lips met once more. She clung to him tightly, forcing Mohan to watch for hundreds of years as another man did to her what he could only dream of.

When Mike finally broke the kiss, it was to briefly see the misery highlighted on Mohan's face. The naga's eyes were bloodshot, his mouth open and drooling. In a matter of seconds, his body shriveled up and then turned to sand, leaving behind just a skull in Titania's hands and a serpentine skeleton that fell to the ground.

"It appears he failed to ascend. The Fae will let his clan know that he passed away of old age getting exactly what he wanted," Titania declared, then turned to Zel. The centaur took a cautionary step back, but the fae queen simply held out the skull and placed it in Zel's hands. "At no point was he physically harmed on your property. Now that my claim has been settled, you may have him."

Zel contemplated the fanged skull in her hands, her eyes wide and nostrils flared with fear.

"Oh, I nearly forgot." Titania gazed at the men and women hanging from Amymone's tree. "Some of these people are also guilty of breaking Hospitality. I am also displeased with the ones who attempted to capture and harm Cecilia and Sulyvahn. However, since these men and women were captured in battle, they are very much your prisoners. As such, their lives belong to you." She surveyed the mortals with the eyes of a predator. "Would you like me to take care of them for you?"

Mike stepped forward and stared hard at the men and women dangling from the tree. They looked upon him with pleading eyes.

"Can any of you take me to my children?" he asked.

Most of them simply stared in horror. A few of them nodded enthusiastically. Mike looked at Titania.

"Those ones are lying," she stated as if bored.

The Caretaker stared at his home's attackers for several long seconds. "Last chance. Does anybody here know where my children are?"

Nobody answered this time. Mike looked over at the queen of the fae.

"Your majesty, I must decline your generous offer to take care of them for me." He waited until he saw the light of hope in their eyes. These people had attacked his home and were directly responsible for the loss of his children. There was a time and place for mercy, but this wasn't it. "Instead, please consider them a gift. Freely given."

There was no dramatic exit. One second, Tatania stood next to him, contemplating the people hanging from the tree. The next, she and their captives were gone as if they had never been there at all. Flowers bloomed all along Amymone's branches where they had hung, the blossoms spiraling down the trunk to form a circle around it.

Lily stepped out from behind the tree and let out a whistle. "There's a very short list of things I'm scared of," she said. "That lady is definitely second on the list."

"If she's number two, what's number one?" asked Kisa. She was also staring at Mohan's skull.

"I must have screwed up my makeup this morning," Lily muttered as she patted her cheeks. "Because apparently I look like a fucking idiot."

"You could have just said it's a secret," Kisa said with a glare.

Mike looked over at Zel, who still held Mohan's skull. When their eyes met, he couldn't quite figure out all the emotions raging behind her gaze. Not knowing what to say, he turned his full attention to Eulalie.

"You have a plan?" he asked.

"I do," she said, then looked at where Titania had been. "That...I didn't imagine that, did I? What just happened, it almost feels like a childhood memory rather than just moments ago."

"You get used to it," Beth said, then made a face. "Kind of."

"You should have asked her where the kids were." Zel's voice had a chill to it that made Mike shiver.

"The queen be kind, in her own way." Suly stepped in with a shaking head. "But askin' her fer favors is ne'er a good idea. T'would be a good chance she'd take yer kin in trade fer that information, or bring 'em back herself after a hundred years."

Zel stared at the skull in her hand, then dropped it on the ground. "What's the use of any of you?' she whispered, her voice trembling as the tears came. She galloped toward the greenhouse, rapidly wiping her eyes.

"Should you...go after her?" Eulalie asked.

"No," Mike replied, the hole in his own heart throbbing painfully. "There's nothing I can say to bring her peace. Now is the time for action."

Eulalie nodded. "Cyrus was recruited for some away mission by the SoS," she said, then pulled out a paper map of the area with a red circle on it. "I lost his signal here. I'm banking on the assumption that he was taken where the kids went, so I put together a team to go after them."

"Who?" He looked at the people already gathered.

"I sent Bigfoot, Dana, and Jenny. Bigfoot can teleport the team between the trees, so they should be there already. He can also communicate with the forest. Dana is there because she has the nose of a bloodhound and won't show up on a thermal camera. Jenny is there for backup." The Arachne cleared her throat. "Well, and we were all too afraid to tell her no."

"Is that it?" asked Mike.

Eulalie blinked and shook her head. "No. I also sent Yuki and Death. Yuki is there to counter that witch I saw and whoever summoned the demons."

"And Death?"

The Arachne nodded. "He's the perfect scout. Can't be harmed and has already memorized three different topographical maps of the area. If anything is off, he'll surely notice."

"What about Cerberus? They're an actual hell hound."

Naia frowned on the edge of her fountain. "They had to go back to the Underworld," she said. "Demons started coming through the gate when they sensed all the...deaths occurring. We had to lock the gate behind them."

"I see." Mike looked across the yard and then back at Eulalie. "Where's Tink?"

"Sobbing uncontrollably in the house." Eulalie frowned. "She's also doing something weird with a bunch of sniper rifles."

"Yeah, I'm gonna go check on that." Kisa hopped to her feet. "Unless you need me here?"

"Go." Mike sat on Naia's fountain and put his head in his hands. "Is there any way I can catch up with them?" he asked. "Help them look?"

Eulalie shook her head. "You could, but you shouldn't. There are so many of them and they're all armed. You weren't here when...they wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in you on sight."

"That's right. I wasn't here." Mike stared at his feet. "I should have been."

Soft fingers caressed the back of Mike's neck. Naia placed her lips against his ears and whispered, but the words resonated with the power of a goddess.

"I need you to come with me," Hestia told him. "It's a matter of grave importance."

Mike lifted his head to see that he was suddenly alone. Behind him was a majestic fountain, spraying water high into the air. When he stood, it was to see that he now wore Hestia's body in the garden of the gods. Their shared mouth opened, and it was Hestia that spoke through it.

"Another player wishes to speak with you."

Cyrus stood over the toilet, his hands braced against the stall walls as he contemplated the mess in the bowl before flushing. Wiping some puke off his mouth, he walked to the sink and turned it on. Bending forward, he turned his face sideways beneath the spigot and rinsed his mouth out first before sucking down some cold water to help settle his stomach. He let the liquid run across his cheek, turning into little rivulets that flowed off of his beard like tiny waterfalls. When he stood, he grabbed some paper towels from nearby and used them to pat his face dry. Upon lowering the towels, he saw his reflection staring back.

With trembling fingers, he touched the heavy scars hidden beneath his stubble. Some decades back, some of his contemporaries in the Order had asked if he had become lazy with his personal appearance, or was trying to grow into the crazy old man look. The truth was far simpler. When his stubble was long enough, it was harder to see the patches where hair didn't grow or to notice the deep gouges that lined his face, the product of being bitten hundreds of times by a tidal wave of spiders.

Cyrus rubbed his eyes. While they were closed, all he could see was the little girl in the cell. Around fifty years ago, he and his partner Jeffrey had been tasked with hunting down the last Arachne, a mission that he thought had been a mixed success. The target was killed, but Jeffrey had died in the process while Cyrus was left with an experience that often woke him up cold and sweating in the middle of the night. There was a sinking dread that followed the sensation of something tiny walking across his skin, and now he simply couldn't shake it.

His heart pounded in his chest so hard that he actually worried about having a heart attack. Taking several deep breaths, he attempted to enter a meditative state and calm down, to gather his wits and figure out what came next.

"Okay, the little girl is either...what you think she is, or it's just some freaky illusion." Cyrus kept his voice low and his words vague, just in case the bathrooms were bugged. The ring in his pocket only contained so much mana, and he would probably need it later. "So which is it? Are you losing your shit, or did you see what you saw?"

She had been strong, unreasonably so. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but the pieces were slowly coming together. The girl had hissed at him, and couldn't walk on two legs. Was it an enchantment that had hidden them? He thought back to the Order's file on Callisto Radley. The boy had been human when they had taken photos of him at the park with his father, but he was clearly a centaur now. So they had the magic to do so, as it were.

He had carried her down to her holding cell, unaware of the danger. At any moment, she could have cracked him open like an egg, or sank her teeth into his neck. His heart was racing once more, and he let out a groan as he clutched the bathroom sink. Looking at his reflection, all he saw was a frightened old man, a poor fool officially in way over his head.

Sighing, he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. What did he do now? The answer had been obvious, but that had been before learning that Mike Radley's daughter was an Arachne. The creatures were little more than murder machines, apex predators that only feared fire and starvation.

Who had her mother been? It couldn't have been the same Arachne he had once hunted, she would have died of old age years ago. The logical conclusion could only be that she had reproduced, and that this child was her descendant. Were there more of them? He tapped his fingers on the sink, then thought back to his last conversation with the Oracle where he had asked if the Arachne were still around.

The Oracle had gotten annoyed, but did eventually answer that no Arachne currently existed on Earth. But now that he thought about it, that was an entirely different answer than saying they were extinct.

"You hairy motherfucker," he mumbled, closing his eyes. The Oracle liked toying with people. It was something he did to pass the time, most likely. That last conversation had been a little tense, and Cyrus couldn't remember the exact words they had exchanged. But there had been something else.

The Oracle had asked about Mike Radley, had wanted to know if he would see past the moth-like exterior and treat it as a person if given the chance. That had been the gist of it, anyway. At the time, Cyrus hadn't known for sure what kind of person Mike Radley was, but the words came back to haunt him like a ghost.

"I think he's a good man. Better than you or I deserve, that's for certain."

"Damn." Cyrus stared at his reflection. For the first time in a long while, he hated the person looking back.

Mike Radley was indeed a good man. After months of observation, Cyrus had no reason to doubt that fact. And right now, a good man's children were locked away in a secret facility, perhaps lost to him forever.

Grace was an Arachne. She had come along solely to protect her brother, which was atypical of her kind. The only time she had even fought Cyrus was to keep from being put in a cage away from her brother.

Good men brought out the best in people. Perhaps Darren had brought out the best in Ana. Mike's children were certainly a reflection of him. Maybe it was time for Cyrus to bring out the best in himself. He took a moment to tidy up his appearance, then left the bathroom and headed back to the containment area. Grace sat in the exact same position he had left her, her unblinking gaze following Cyrus as he moved. Callisto had pressed himself against the glass closest to Grace, and it was clear that the boy had been crying.

Laurel and her team were down there now, the group using tables near the holding cells to go over some documents. Cyrus passed by, pausing long enough to see what had their attention. Several of them were questions the Order wanted answers to. Most of the team was busy crossing some out while altering others so that the questions would make sense to a child.

A pair of knights were prepping medical kits for blood collection. Cyrus narrowed his eyes at this, but said nothing. Now wasn't the time, he needed to pick the right moment.

"I'll be back in about fifteen minutes," he said, making sure to address Laurel directly. "Do not start without me."

"Of course not." Laurel's reply was cool as she raised her eyes to meet his. "You're in charge, after all."

He nodded and walked away, then paused at the edge of the group. "That applies to everybody. Anyone who decides to start without me will answer directly to Darius and the Director."

Cyrus noticed that several members of Laurel's team suddenly had difficulty looking in his direction. Traitorous bastards, he thought as he headed for the elevator and went upstairs. He went to the infirmary first, and was pleased to see that it was empty. There were kits identical to the ones downstairs, and he popped one open to look inside.

Drawing blood from a cryptid wasn't done for medical purposes. It was how the Order could tag and properly identify a creature. Once Callisto and Grace had their blood taken, the Order would forever be able to track their whereabouts. Also, it meant that Grace's identity would be discovered. His own reaction had been bad enough, but the moment the others learned the truth...

He tried not to think about it. After stuffing his pockets with a few emergency essentials, he stood where no cameras could see him and used the syringe and four vials to draw his own blood. He struggled to find a good vein, a task already made difficult by only having one hand. Checking his watch, he saw that eight minutes had already passed.

"Fucking hell," he muttered as he fumbled with the vials. Once they were full, he slid them into his pockets and put the kit back. It wasn't like they were expecting to abduct any more magical children in the next couple of days.

By the time he was back in the detention block, only eleven minutes had passed. Laurel stood outside Callisto's cell, arms crossed as she watched a pair of knights wrestling with the centaur. Grace had scooted against the wall of her cell, her face pressed against the glass and her human eyes intense. Cyrus had no doubt in his mind that she would come to her brother's aid. Was the girl powered by instinct, or was it actual, familial love?

"You two." He pointed to the guards at the entrance to the cell. "Are you deaf or just incompetent?"

They looked at him in puzzlement.

"Did you not hear me say that they were not to start without me?" Cyrus walked past them in a hurry to intervene. "Or did I simply get the dumbest fucking gun jockies the Sons were willing to hire? "

They muttered something behind his back, but he ignored it. Laurel had turned briefly toward him with a look of cruel amusement. Cyrus walked past her, too, then into the cell with the knights.

"C'mon, kid." One of the knights had managed to pin Callisto against the glass while the other tried to grab the centaur's back leg with a syringe in her hand. "If you'd cooperate, we'd be done already."

Cyrus cleared his throat. Both knights looked at him.

"We've got this," said the man pinning Callisto.

"Step away from the centaur." Cyrus squared his shoulders and filled his voice with iron. "Both of you. Now."

When the knights ignored him, he took a step forward and slammed his heel into the side of the man's knee. The knight's leg crumpled, causing him to lose his grip on Callisto. The centaur bucked, kicking the other knight in the stomach before moving away.

"What the hell--" Laurel's voice cut off when she noticed the wand pointed in her direction. Cyrus looked over his shoulder at her, their eyes meeting through the shimmering air surrounding his wand.

"I was hired by the SoS because you are unstable and incompetent. The real reason they brought you here was to keep you from fucking up the operation at the house." Cyrus turned to face the knights, who had moved to surround him. "I don't hold it against you that your superior gave you bad orders. How long did she wait before directly contradicting me? Was it after the elevator doors closed? Or did she count to ten first? Syringe, now." He held out his free hand.