Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 049

An aura of electricity surrounded the dragon, and feathery wings stretched wide as it jumped into the sky. Thunder rolled over the coliseum, and they watched as Quetzalli disappeared into the clouds above.

Behind him, he heard Beth humming the theme song of The Neverending Story.

His suit was torn in multiple places, and his shoes squished when he walked. Beth's outfit was a mess as well, but at least most of the dirt had come off in the dragon's mouth. "Well, guess we're ready to see the queen," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Unless you need a minute to fix your makeup or something."

She rolled her eyes at him and started down the path without a word. He did a quick jog to catch up, his shoes squeaking beneath him.

The fae gave them a wide berth, muttering to one another as Mike and Beth passed. The path led them inside the coliseum and terminated into a small, stone bridge. The coliseum had a giant, multi-tiered garden along the inner wall that bustled with the activity of well-dressed faerie folk. The mountain that the building was carved into had three waterfalls that fed into a river system that ran through it and around a small, flower-shaped stone island in the middle.

The bridge was the only connection between the island and the rest of the structure. The perimeter of the coliseum went silent as the fae watched them step onto the island. On the other side of the island was a throne. To its left was the shattered remnants of what may have been a second throne. On the right, sitting on a swing within a large metal cage, was Cecilia.

"Cecilia!" When Mike called to her, the banshee looked up, hope and horror etched on her face. He wanted to go to her, to rip open the bars of the cage with his bare hands, but decorum was required in the court of the faerie queen, and the last thing he needed was to bring down the wrath of the court.

That, and he would look pretty stupid trying to rip apart the bars.

There was a murmur from the surrounding crowd, and he turned around to see a large mass of golden butterflies made of light descend from the outer rim of the coliseum. They swirled around Beth and Mike, then spun into a circle above the throne. When they came in to land, they slowly melted into each other, forming in the tall silhouette of a blonde woman with pointed ears and a gold circlet on her head. Massive gossamer wings unfurled behind her, then settled like a cloak over her shoulders, and many of the fae briefly bowed or took a knee.

"So you came for her." When the queen spoke, he could feel a wicked energy wash over him. Her skin practically glowed with power, and her voice was suffused with magic the likes of which he had never felt before. Though she was beautiful, as he met her gaze, he could sense the cruelty behind the facade.

"Your Majesty." He bowed deeply as well. It was one of the few customs that Sofia had coached him on. "I have come today to discuss the imminent release of my friend, the banshee Cecilia."

There were scattered chuckles amongst the throng of fae, and many of them leaned forward with intense interest.

"I see. Tell me, Mike Radley, do you honestly believe you are in any condition to address the court?"

He sighed. "No, Your Majesty, but your land is as deadly as it is beautiful." Flattery was a weapon in his arsenal now, and he would have to be careful with any words that he spoke. "I'm afraid that we encountered many of your subjects who were uninterested in letting us pass without incident."

"Indeed. Did you know that they did so by my order?" When the queen walked, she shimmered, and she moved away from the throne.

He nodded. "It was explained to us that we were unwelcome."

"And yet you came anyway. How... delightful."

"Please, Your Majesty, the path was difficult, and I only hope to secure the release of my friend." He debated dropping to his knees and begging, but knew it would only serve to amuse the queen. Then again, if amusing her was all it would take, he would do it.

"And what have you to offer in exchange for her release?" The queen sat down on her throne and held her hand out. A sprite appeared to deliver a crystalline glass of wine, which the queen took and set down on a nearby table.

"Your Majesty, I was under the impression that Cecilia was being held captive on account of some crime she may have committed. As such, I have brought my attorney to—" when he turned to introduce Beth, he froze.

Beth's face had gone completely slack, her eyes unfocused and a stupid grin on her face.

"Beth?" He waved his hand in front of her eyes, but she didn't move.

"Your friend suffers from a serious case of being a simple mortal." The queen took a sip from her glass. "Do you really think a mere human could gaze upon the visage of the Queen of the Fae without losing herself in my beauty?"

"Beth!" He tried to grab her shoulders and give her a shake, but she moved away from him and toward the queen. A pair of winged guards landed between him and the queen, their spears held up in warning.

"This one interests me." The queen stood from her throne and approached Beth, who had kneeled down and was openly sobbing with joy. "She has much potential, even as a human."

"Don't touch her." He meant to sound tough, but his voice squeaked a little. When the queen put her hand on Beth's head, the lawyer rose and ran across the bridge to the edge of the court and stood with a group of nobles wearing light blue robes.

"I touched her. What now, Radley? Are you going to come over here and seduce me?" The queen batted her eyes dramatically. "Or maybe you plan to leave and come back with more of your friends? Maybe some of them will be like you, able to see past the glamour and function, but then what? Will you declare war on our kind?"

Beth. She was supposed to be his secret weapon, the smart one capable of talking him out of trouble. Now she was caught up in a spell of obedience or a charm. She was practically hanging off the neck of a handsome fae with translucent wings and a toothy grin. He and his cohorts were luring her to a nearby table of food where one of their servants had already poured a glass of wine for her.

His eyes met Cecilia's, and he saw raw panic reflected in them. He had overstepped, and Beth was about to pay the price. Without warning, his magic came to life, surging up inside him. He needed to do something to break the spell, and he knew just the thing.

He took a deep breath.

"Seems like she's about to make the choice for you, Caretaker." The queen smirked. "Maybe now you'll—"

Mike unleashed a shriek of rage that caused most of the court to cower in alarm. It was the high pitched wail of a banshee at first, but then became warped and distorted. The glass in the queen's hand shattered, spraying her with wine, and Beth fell to the ground clutching her ears.

When the shriek ended, Beth pulled the earplugs from her pocket and shoved them in her ears, then huddled on the ground with her hands over her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mike, I can't look at her!" she cried. "I'm so sorry, please forgive me!"

While Beth huddled on the ground, the faerie queen's wings extended behind her and she hovered about a foot off the ground. Golden light enveloped her, and her eyes flickered with magical sparks.

"How dare you!" she yelled, pointing her wine-stained hand at him. "You dare to shout in my court!"

The room had gone silent, save for the sound of a few faeries drawing weapons or placing bets. The tension in the room was so thick that the mists around the edges moved away from the center, as if giving the gods themselves a better view of what was about to transpire.

Mike rubbed his throat. He had yelled so hard that it was raw, and when he spoke, there was a scratch in his voice.

"How dare you." He pointed a finger back at the queen, fire blooming in his cheeks and his whole body tensing up. "You accuse me of impropriety when you just stand there being a capital cunt about all this."

The collective gasp from the room sounded like the tearing of fabric, but he ignored it. The queen's face froze in shock.

"How dare you speak to the queen in such a manner." This was from a lordly looking fae on the edge of the court, a man in silver garments with a crown of roses around his head. He held a wooden staff with roses embossed along its length and his silvered hair was nearly waist length.

"Stuff it, Legolas." He felt the fire in his cheeks spread across his body, and the gears of his mind cranked rapidly. Maybe it had been a huge mistake to come here, but if he was about to go down in flames, he was going to give everyone a piece of his mind. Time seemed to slow, allowing him the opportunity to choose his words. "The grown-ups are talking now. Why don't you go play with your flowers?"

A mixture of laughs and boos filled the air, and Mike held up his hand for silence. The faerie lord had vanished behind some of his cohorts, and Mike's gaze swept the room, then landed on the indignant queen.

"I came here to have a civilized conversation with you, Your Majesty. You forced me to trudge through your land for a couple of days, encouraged your subjects to kill me, and then mock me to my face when I finally arrive. So what exactly do you expect from me?"

He ripped off his tie and threw it on the ground, where it landed with a splat. "Do you want to humiliate me in front of all your subjects and look like the big tough bitch that everyone talks about? And you must be so proud of yourself picking on a mortal! Bravo!" He started a slow clap, and fought a grin when a couple of unseen fae joined in. "If you were so scared of me, you should never have sent your spy to come see me. I would never have thought to come here in the first place, so bravo again." He clapped his hands a couple more times then stopped when an errant thought occurred to him.

Sulyvahn had said he had been forced to come because of an agreement the queen had. The queen ensured that every Caretaker was spirited away to the afterlife, but if she disapproved of one, why not just have them killed?

"I suggest you—" she began, but he butted in.

"You know what? When we came here, we took so much care to be respectful. My friend had books on etiquette and faerie law, and we deliberately left any weapons at home. Do you know how easy iron is to get in the human world? And not just any iron, but official cold iron. I could have that shit delivered to my door in hours, get it blessed by a holy man, whatever. I could have come here with a small army. Did your spy tell you that? No, I chose to assume that you weren't a huge bitch, despite being told otherwise by more than one person. So who is disrespecting who? I came with every intention of kindness and civility, but you turned your land against me, and for what? Because the banshee is my friend?

"Check this out! I brought nothing but simple protection charms and some gifts." He pulled out a bag full of polished stones. "I heard your kind like shiny things, so I brought these to trade for directions. Guess I don't need them." He dumped the bag in his hands and threw the stones in a wide arc toward the lords and ladies. Some of the pebbles landed in the watery ring, but the others bounced along the ground, and he noticed that several of the fae servants now stared with intense interest at the rocks. "I came as a friend of the fae, and you treated me as your enemy. So I'm no longer begging forgiveness, Your Majesty. It doesn't matter if you don't like me, I'm loved by many others. So unless you are planning to smite me or something, you need to tell me right now what I can do to take Cecilia home with me. She is a part of my home, and is very missed, and I would go through Hell itself to get her back."

"Enough!" The queen's wings swung down and a hot wind blew across the court, scattering some of the flying servants who cried out in alarm. She floated off the ground, her aura expanding around her, giving her the appearance of a tiny star. "You are an abomination, Caretaker. You stole faerie magic, and suffused it with your very soul, and for that, I would kill you."

"Then do it. Let's see the brave queen smash the puny mortal." He raised his arms and turned so everyone could see him. "I'm just a defenseless human, after all, so show everyone how brave you are, Tinkerbell! Blow me away!"

There was a collective groan from the crowd as the fae scrambled over each other to get a better view of what was about to transpire, but the swirling mists suddenly closed in on them, leaving Mike and Beth alone with the queen of the fae. He turned to face her, and saw that her face was contorted in a mask of rage.

She summoned a swirling ball of fire, light and shadows with her hands and held it over her head. It sizzled and popped like water on a hot skillet, and Mike took a step toward her.

"Oh please. What are you gonna do with that?" He stepped between her and Beth, just in case. "I've already figured out you can't directly hurt me."

The queen's face fell in shock, and the ball of magic popped like a bubble, sending a wave of crackling energy along the ground.

"How?" she asked.

"Simple. Somewhere out there is a written agreement meaning that you provide my home with an escort to the afterlife. I'm willing to bet that there is a clause in there that prevents you from getting rid of Caretaker's you don't like, and from directly commanding your subjects to harm him or her."

"You can't know that."

"Ah, but I do. You said you would kill me for what I've done, and yet, I live. Why is that? Why have us dumped in the middle of the woods and trick us into walking into those stupid bird things instead of just blowing my head off the minute I arrive?"

"The slaugh are not birds," she corrected him.

"Whatever. Why not just have someone give me shitty directions and trick me into going home? Or have Sulyvahn bring me here directly so you can bash my head in for laughs? 'Cause you can't do it, and you don't want the others to know that their all-powerful queen can't smash a measly human. You were hoping I would have an accident while I was here and could move on with your day." He knelt down by Beth and gave her a shake. She was motionless now, and he gave her another concerned shove. "What did you do to her?"

"The mist has put her to sleep. I was hoping it would do the same to you, and I would be rid of your presence, but it appears that you have developed quite the resistance to it. It's a defense mechanism made for humans, but clearly you have strayed too far from your own humanity. Do you even know what you have become? Because I do not, and I have seen the very mists of Creation itself. You are new magic, and I do not like it one bit." She slumped down in her throne and scowled. "So I'm afraid we are at an impasse, Caretaker. I could send you back home, but I fear you would darken my doorstep once again to humiliate me further."

"You're right. I would. So let's try again. I want Cecilia back, and I won't stop until you give me what I want." He crossed his arms. "And don't even think about threatening Beth again. The Rat King is very close friends with her, and I bet I could convince him to chew enough holes in this place to collapse it."

The queen laughed. "You threaten me with planar oblivion? You think very highly of yourself."

"We've done it once already. A demon took her from us, so we blew up his dimension."

"I doubt that..." She inspected him closely now, her eyes searching his. "I cannot believe it, but somehow you speak the truth."

"I do. Cecilia appears unharmed for now, but if you decide to punish her on my account, I will dedicate my life to swiss-cheesing this place. If you think I'm beyond caving in your kingdom, then look again."

"Foolish child. I would never harm one of my own." The queen seemed genuinely upset at the idea, her pale cheeks darkening. "It is not her fault that she was tricked into a dalliance with a mortal."

Mike shook his head. "There was no trickery involved. It just happened and it was mutual. The thing about the magic was an accident, and I'm sorry if it offends you, but you need to move on. Now tell me what you want from me so that I can move on, too."

She gave him a hard stare for nearly a minute, but he didn't back down. He had gambled on the queen being unable to hurt him and had no other ideas on how to get the queen to listen.

"Do you love her?" the queen asked. The question caught him off guard, not just because of the content, but how the queen asked it. There was fear in her voice, but he couldn't imagine why that would be.

He chose his words carefully, fully expecting a trap. "I love her as I do the others in my house. I'm still learning about those feelings myself, and my situation is quite unusual, but yes, I do."

"I see." The queen stared him down for several moments, contemplating his answer. Suddenly, her face blossomed into a sinister smile. "Okay, then."

She clapped her hands, and the loud boom that came from them blew the mist away, revealing the entirety of the court once more. Excited cheers and jeers could be heard from every direction as the fae awaited what would come next.

"This mortal claims that he loves the banshee Cecilia, and would walk through Hell itself to get her back. Seeing the honesty in his heart, I have decided to test his worth." She pointed a finger at him, a sneer on her face. "Henceforth, you are banished from entering the fae realm by any means from your world until you can complete this task, Caretaker Radley. The faerie realm lies parallel to many dominions, the Underworld included. Should you find a way to enter my court via the Underworld itself, I will allow you to leave here with your dear Cecilia."

"Leave unharmed. You will allow us all to leave unharmed. And intact." he added.

He hadn't been expecting this, and realized that he had somehow been played. It was likely an impossible task, but he was willing to bet it was the only way she would let Cecilia go. The court was now an animated throng as coin exchanged hands and the fae debated the potential outcome.

"And I want this agreement in writing."

The queen rolled her eyes and summoned a scroll from midair and tossed it to him. He caught it and opened it up to look. It seemed straight forward, and guaranteed the banshee's release and safe passage for both of them if he could come back to the court by way of the Underworld.

"Guess I'll be seeing you soon. I agree to the terms." His name appeared, scrawled in golden ink. He looked at Cecilia, whose face was crestfallen. "I'm coming for you."

She nodded her head, then wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Oh. And one more thing." The queen raised her hand for silence, then clenched it into a fist and yanked it down. The sky ripped itself apart, and a large shape slammed into the ground next to Mike, thrashing about in confusion.

It was Quetzalli.

The dragon roared in pain, and a sickly blue aura surrounded it, followed by the sizzle of electricity. The horn on its head glowed with power, summoning lightning from the sky. The boom was deafening, and Mike covered his ears.

"Hey, stop it!" he yelled, then ran to the dragon. A blast of lightning scorched the ground near his legs, so he halted his advance.

"Let it be known that he is to receive no help from any fae, or any other creature who wishes to remain in these lands. I wasn't clear enough with my prior orders, so let it be known that what is about to transpire is an act of leniency on my part." She turned her eyes on the dragon. "Since you seem to like humans so much, why don't you go and live as one?"

The blue light ripped through the dragon, shedding feathers and scales in every direction, and the beast roared in agony. Mike covered his face and threw himself over Beth to protect her from the swirling dragon bits, clenching his teeth in pain as he was buffeted by tiny stones that swirled about. The light was diminishing, revealing a huddled figure in the middle of where the dragon had lain.