Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 023

Some time passed, and the bell rang. The room filled with shadows again, shadows with fiery eyes. They milled about in fast forward, keeping up with the distorted time. Mike wondered if their movements were random, or if every shadow had a schedule it would follow for all eternity.

The bell signaled the start of class. In their haste to get out, they tipped over the recycle bin, scattering cans and Gatorade bottles across the floor. They picked themselves up off the floor, but heard Baba Yaga holler with rage on the floor above them.

"Go!" Mike entered the gym, his feet pounding against the polished wooden floors. The bleachers were folded away, giving them a clear line to the door at the far end. Behind them, Baba hollered once more, and the doors to the locker rooms filled with shadows that chased after them. Mike tipped over a basketball cart, hoping it would slow their pursuers. His heart was in his throat, and he could hear Ratu gasping just behind them. He chanced a look back. The swarm of shadows was close on their heels, and Baba Yaga's ugly visage had appeared in the entrance, her lips curled into a snarl. Looking forward, he grabbed at Ratu's hand, sprinting forward for the last ten feet.

Shoving the bar down, Mike pushed on the door with his whole body. He hollered in triumph when it opened, expecting his feet to hit the concrete of the basketball courts.

What he didn't expect was for the world to tip over. Clutching the bar with one hand, he held onto Ratu with the other. The gym rotated, Mike and Ratu dangling over open space. The shadows fell against the back wall, splattering into dark mist.

"What's happening?" Mike yelled. He could barely hear himself over the world folding in on itself.

"The artifact!" She yelled back. "This is where Baba Yaga's magic intersects with it!"

Straining to hold on, he looked down again. The back wall of the gym collapsed, the school folding in on itself. Doors, halls, and stairwells closed in on each other, the wood of the gym splintering and floating around the room. Desks crashed through the room, windows shattered, and Mike could hold on no longer.

His fingers slipped free of the bar, and they fell. Gravity warped, and instead of crashing to the ground below, they fell at an angle. Striking the hard surface of the gym floor, Mike let go of Ratu, and watched her slide away in a completely different direction.

Colliding with a pile of desks, Mike slid to a stop. The massive room he was in was a giant cube made of the entire school folded up. Stairs and doorways were scattered in every direction with no logic in their orientation.

"Mike?" At his name, Mike looked up. Ratu was standing on the ceiling, which was at least thirty feet up.

"What sort of David Bowie bullshit is this?" Mike muttered, disentangling himself. Surveying the room, he saw that the gym door was now halfway up the far wall, turned sideways.

"That's still the exit," Ratu said. "If we can get through the door, then we will be out of Baba's spell."

"That is correct." The thick voice made them both look back. Standing in a large doorway was Baba Yaga. She was upside down to Mike, on the same floor as Ratu. "But bad little children must be punished."

"Get to the door, Mike!" Ratu ran away from Baba, the old witch's metal leg clunking against the ceiling while she followed behind. Mike tried to keep track of them, but Ratu disappeared through a doorway.

Mike ran across the floor, passing through a doorway of his own. The room inside had a slight curve to it, and Mike realized by the time he was climbing through a broken window that the door was now at a forty five degree angle to him.

"So fucking weird," he muttered, careful not to cut himself. He was on a flight of stairs now that terminated on a small platform. A doorway was within jumping distance, so he leapt across. Beneath him, Ratu was on the wall hiding behind a column. Baba Yaga was sniffing the air, moving in on her.

"Hey!" Mike waved his hands. "Hey, over here!" Baba stopped just short of Ratu's pillar, her watery eyes focusing on Mike. "Anyone ever tell you that you look like a potato fucked a bag of ugly?"

Mike expected a lot of reactions, but Baba Yaga ripping up a floorboard and hurling it at him like a javelin was not one of them. He moved away from the ledge, running up a flight of stairs when Baba's hand gripped the ledge, pulling herself into his reference frame.

"Oh shit." Mike was at the top of the stairs, and it was a wall. With Baba closing in, he leapt off the side toward another platform below. The platform turned out to be the ceiling of another part of the room, and he ended up crashing into a pile of toppled lockers, the muscles in his back and neck tightening up.

"Mike!" Ratu was on the wall above him. "She's right behind you!"

Moving quickly, Mike was barely on his feet when Baba crashed into the lockers, her meaty hands clenching and then opening, revealing dirty fingernails. The air was thick with the smell of stale tobacco. Running away from her, he saw a sideways door in the wall. Using a desk, he climbed into the door frame and pushed the door open. As soon as he crossed the boundary, gravity shifted and he fell onto the floor of the newest room, his stomach protesting.

"Urgh." Covering his mouth, he stumbled forward, trying to regain his bearings. Baba's ugly face appeared in the door, but a trash can fell from above her, knocking her to the ground.

"Keep moving!" Ratu cried out, and he heard the pattering of her feet, and then the slamming of a door.

Passing through another door, he ran up a twisting flight of stairs and ducked through a window. Baba Yaga was now twenty feet above him, shaking her fists as he disappeared through a set of double doors. He spotted Ratu through an open door, but she was sideways, trying to fit between a pair of lockers. Baba came close to nabbing him when he opened a door that she was on the other side of, but he was able to climb the stairs behind him faster than she could. Another time he spotted her below him, and he dropped a trash can on her. It arced through the air, gravity shifting before colliding with the witch and knocking her down. Mike was getting the hang of this place, but still had no idea where the fuck he was going.

Descending a set of stairs that terminated over open air, he realized that he was looking straight down at the exit. The door was thirty feet straight down from him, and Ratu was almost there.

Baba Yaga dropped down in front of Ratu, nearly crushing her. Ratu screamed, falling backward onto the ground, and Baba grabbed her by the front of her dress, her huge hands nearly encircling the struggling girl.

Baba sniffed Ratu's face, a toothy grin spreading across her face. Opening her mouth wide, she lifted Ratu into her maw, the naga's head easily fitting between her teeth.

Ratu screamed.

There was no time for thought, only action. Mike jumped off the stairs, arms across his chest and feet down, his body a human missile. His stomach jumped into his throat, and the distorted gravity of the room fought over which direction to take him. His fall provided plenty of velocity, and he collided solidly with Baba, knocking her and Ratu onto the hard wood of the gym. They slid across the floor together, Baba's hands grasping for purchase.

"Go!" He cried. "Get out!"

Ratu stood up on wobbly legs. Baba was only a few feet away, struggling to get her metal leg under her. Ratu grabbed onto his wrist, her legs pumping hard to pull him toward the exit. Mike's whole body was numb from the collision, and all he could do was watch the witch rise and the naga strain, wondering who would be faster.

"I'll use your eyes in soup," Baba mumbled, shuffling toward them. Mike's legs twitched, and he started pushing against the floor with the heels of his feet allowing Ratu to pull him even faster. "I will tan you and use your skin as a blanket. I will make sausage out of your guts."

His eyes stuck on the witch, Mike heard the clicking of the gym door's bar behind him. Focusing all his attention on arm that Ratu wasn't pulling, he lifted his hand and flipped Baba Yaga the bird.

Freezing cold air flooded the room when the gym door opened. Baba covered her face against the blast of air, and Ratu pulled Mike through. The world distorted all around him, and they both tumbled through space.

-

Mike blinked. It was dark again, or he had actually gone blind this time. He tried to snap his fingers, but he had something lodged in between them.

"Ratu?" He asked. A little ball of fire burst into existence in front of him, slowly expanding to light the room. They were inside the ice cavern, and Mike was holding the silver tongs in his hands. They had melted almost to his fingers. Surveying the room, there was no trace of the box or the dangerous artifact within it.

"Did... did we win?"

"Yes." Ratu lay on the other side of the chamber, her body limp against the wall. "We escaped. You grabbed the artifact and held it into the candle's flame, and it was consumed, blasting us apart."

"I don't remember any of that," he said.

"And you might not. Even through the goggles, viewing a part of an Ancient One is dangerous." Ratu closed her eyes. "We have been unconscious for some time. The tunnel has collapsed. I think I hear the others coming for us, but they will have to follow the path we made."

"Are we going to run out of air?" Mike asked. He hugged himself with his arms.

"No. I can feel a cool breeze through here." Ratu sighed. "But I am afraid that we will freeze."

Mike nodded, his teeth beginning to chatter. "Can't you make us some fire?"

"I am exhausted," she explained. "This ball above us is all I can manage."

Why was she so exhausted, wondered Mike. "Is it because of the fight with Baba?"

"No. It's because I'm a snake." Ratu smiled weakly. "I am cold blooded. We have been here so long that my temperature has dropped, and we are surrounded by millions of pounds of ice." She waved her hand, the ball of fire drifting toward Mike. "It isn't enough to keep me warm, but it might help you last until the others come. It will keep burning for a while."

"That's ridiculous." Mike stood, his legs wobbling weakly beneath him. "I did not just rescue you from Baba Yaga to have you die of hypothermia."

"There's nothing you can do."

"There are three things I learned as a Boy Scout that will always stick with me." Mike wobbled across the cold chamber. "The first is to spread out your arms and legs in case of quicksand. The second is to cut away from yourself when using a pocket knife." He sat down next to Ratu, wrapping an arm around her. "The third is that you can beat hypothermia with skin-to-skin contact."

"It's not that simple. We can share body heat, but I don't generate my own. Your body isn't warm enough for both of us."

"It's worth trying." Mike pulled his shirt off over his head. Ratu smiled weakly.

"I didn't think you had those in the real world too," she said, looking at his scars.

"Some wounds are spiritual and physical." Mike pulled his pants off. "I think we can use our clothes like blankets to keep warm."

"You certainly aren't shy." She fiddled with the ties on her clothes. "You don't find it odd to be undressed like this in front of me?"

"Please. I've known you since we were kids." This elicited a laugh from Ratu. "Here, let me help you."

"It's so cold..." Ratu's lips were blue in the fire's light, her fingers going limp. Mike opened up the front of her kimono, revealing that she wore nothing underneath. The scales of her body were dark, the pattern shifting constantly across her stomach and breasts.

"How big is this thing?" Mike asked, unfolding the kimono further. It was easily the size of a king size bed sheet, and it kept getting bigger.

"It's magic," she said. "It becomes part of me when I'm a snake, so stretches to..."

"Ratu?" Mike shook her, then slapped her cheek, her crown falling off her head. "Wake up! Shit..." He laid a portion of the kimono out, folding it onto itself several times to keep them both off the ice. Grabbing the naga by her arms, he pulled her into the middle of the folded cloth, then pulled everything in, layering the fabric all around them. Her eyes fluttered constantly, Mike rubbing her arms and sides quickly to warm up her skin. "C'mon, stay awake. I can hear the others, they're getting close!"

Ratu smirked, her eyes closed. "That's a lie."

Mike swallowed the lump in his throat. "Now why would you say that?"

"Because I was lying to you when I told you the same thing." She sighed. "You feel so warm against me."

"I'm a hot blooded American, that's me." Her skin was freezing. Mike pulled her against his chest, her rigid nipples brushing across his skin. "You don't think they're coming?"

"I don't know." She buried her face in the crook of his neck. "Mmm... so warm."

"I'm glad you think I'm warm." His teeth chattered as he spoke. "You should wrap your legs around mine, maximize contact."

"Or I could do this." He felt her legs shift beneath him, melding together and wrapping around him like a giant rope. Her body elongated, pressing against his thighs and all the way down to his feet. She drained the heat from his legs, making Mike think of a cold bath. He pulled the kimono in tighter, hoping to lock in even more heat. As it was, only his face and the top of her head were exposed. The little fireball hovered over them, casting a soft glow on the walls of ice around them.

"Is that b-better?"

"Much."

"G-good." Mike squeezed her. "B-but we should k-keep talking."

"What about?"

"A-anything. We c-can't fall as-sleep. Gotta k-keep busy."

"Tell me more about the house. And the others." Ratu's voice was quiet. Mike rubbed her arms vigorously, and told her all about how he had come to the house. He would stop frequently, and she would ask him questions. Neither of them spoke for very long, making sure that the other hadn't dozed off. The ball of fire above them slowly diminished for a while, but eventually stabilized. Mike's limbs finally warmed up a bit, and Ratu responded by coiling around him even tighter.

"How much of you is a snake?" Mike asked, his chattering finally under control.

"My waist down. Why?"

"Just curious. Can it be any combination? Human head, snake body? Snake head, human body?"

Ratu laughed at the last one. "I suppose. Naga don't spend a ton of time experimenting with transformations that serve no purpose."

"So why not all snake? You could have wrapped yourself all around me, warmed up even faster."

"I could have. To be honest though, it felt really good to be held by somebody else. I've been on my own down here for years, but before I came here, I was always alone."

"Why?"

"All sorts of reasons." Ratu rubbed her face against his chest, her long hair brushing against his sides. "It made me think of happier times is all."

"Uh..." His body finally warmed up, Mike began to experience a rush of blood somewhere else. "Yeah, I get that."

"Asterion is nice enough, but not very good company. And those damn fairies drove me nuts." Shifting coils around his legs felt like giant hands massaging him, causing his cock to twitch beneath his underwear. She raised her head, her eyes meeting his. "I don't know if we'll survive this, but even if we don't, you saved my soul from Baba Yaga. That's a pretty big deal."

"Not really. I mean, I think you would have done the same for me. You did do the same for me. You dragged me out the exit."

"Only because I needed you to destroy the artifact. An act of survival on my part. You took a big risk for my sake, and now I owe you."

Mike chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I just did the right thing."

"Interesting." Ratu moved her face closer to his. "You are an interesting man, Mike Radley."

Mike opened his mouth to respond, but Ratu's lips found his. Her tongue slid along his upper lip, and he realized that it was forked. Surprised, he jerked his head back, breaking the kiss.

"But... why?"

"I might die down here with you, and that's your only question?" Ratu grabbed his face with her hands. "Consider this the start of a debt repaid."

Mike tried to protest, but her mouth found his again, a kiss that tasted of green tea. He kissed her back, his fingers running gently across her shoulder blades and down her back. By her waist, he could feel her skin transition completely to slightly bumpy scales.He traced them with his fingers, marveling at how smooth they were.

"Do you like how they feel?" She asked, breaking their kiss.

"I really do," he replied. "They feel soft and strong at the same time."

"You'll find that most women are that way." He could feel her fingers sliding down his stomach, teasing his waistline. Her coils loosened, allowing her hand to finish its journey, gripping his hardening cock. "Oh wow, you're huge!"

"You're being generous," he said.

"No. I've taken many lovers." She stroked him with a firm grip. "Was it this big before the soul swap?"

"Yeah. It hasn't gotten any bigger."

"Amazing. I have to see it." She slid out of view, and he could only see her form beneath the fabric of the kimono. As she shifted, she kept letting in cold air, so Mike took his hands off of her to hold the fabric in place.

"Can you even see it in there?" Mike asked.

"We don't always see with our eyes," she replied, with a sudden emphasis on her ess sounds. Her mouth was warm against his flesh, but he suddenly realized it wasn't her mouth he was feeling. Her tongue had wrapped itself around his cock like a gigantic ribbon, squeezing him like a set of hands trying to wring him dry. He groaned, his hands clenching the kimono tightly.

"I'm thurprithed," Ratu mumbled. "Motht men don lath thith long."

"Well, I'm not most men," Mike replied. "I uh, also had sex earlier."

Ratu made a noise. When Mike didn't respond, she repeated it. He realized she was asking 'when?'.

"Before we got here," was all he said. He didn't feel the need to tell her with who or how many times. Fighting back a grin, it occurred to him how his world had shifted. A month ago, he may have sex a couple times a month if he had a girlfriend who pestered him about it. The prospect of intimacy had terrified him.

Now? Now he was having sex multiple times a day with multiple partners. It wasn't something he did out of pride or lust. It was simply the relationship he had with the others. His view of sex had gone from something absolutely terrifying to something fun and exciting. It was a way to bond with the women of the house, something that all of them enjoyed in their own way. He knew he owed quite a bit of his current mentality to the nymph soul stitched onto his, but it also occurred to him that he had found something that made him profoundly happy. It was as though a part of his life had been missing, and he was suddenly free to explore it.

He moaned, giving himself over to Ratu's magnificent blowjob. The pulsing sensation had shifted, and he couldn't tell what she was doing. Lifting the fabric, there wasn't enough light to see by. He pulled the goggles down off his forehead, discovering that one of the many lenses allowed him to see that Ratu had unhinged her jaw and was sucking the entire length of his cock into her mouth, still wrapped up in her tongue.

"Oh shit!" Hearing Mike, Ratu winked at him, and slid her mouth even farther. Her throat was bulging with the effort, but she didn't seem to mind in the slightest. Below his waist, he could see that she had wrapped him up completely with her lower body.

She gargled something at him, her whole head bobbing up and down. Mike let go of the kimono, staring at the icy ceiling above them. His body temperature had climbed enough that he was finally getting warm again, and Ratu was examining every square inch of his cock with her tongue. He felt the pressure build in his cock, but sent it away with a thought. He was in no hurry to finish.