Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 078

Finished with his tale, Cyrus moved to sit on a seat that had been carved into the wall. He had been grateful to stand after such a long time driving, but now his legs hurt and he needed to sit. Furniture of any kind wasn't allowed in the Oracle's chamber. For the longest time, it was feared that the Oracle was telekinetic and could free itself with a heavy enough object. Ever since the day of its capture, however, it had shown no talent for telekinesis.

However, Cyrus was not alone in the idea that the Oracle was simply playing a long game where each move was decades in the making. Not knowing how long the Oracle would live, it was simply better to take extra precautions.

"You weave a good tale, Master Cyrus." The Oracle turned around, his large wings brushing against the glass. "But for the life of me, I am uncertain what this has to do with your question."

Cyrus felt a yawning pit in his belly and he swallowed the lump in his throat. "While I was...a guest of this household, there was a woman there."

"Maybe I don't know your question after all." The Oracle snorted, causing the mists to swirl. "Could it be love after so many years?"

"Do you remember when you would answer all my questions with stupid poems? I far prefer that to your sense of humor." Cyrus tightened his lips. "The woman who held me captive...her voice was familiar. And she wouldn't let me view her, never directly. I suspect that she isn't what she said she was."

"Surely it couldn't be the woman who gave you those scars."

Cyrus touched his face and shivered. Hundreds, if not thousands of spiders had attacked him at the command of an Arachne he had hunted back in the early seventies. He had lost his partner in the fight, but the creature had been destroyed.

Or, at least, so he thought. While wiping down Murray's house, he had discovered odd footprints that had raised all of the hairs on his neck. If the Arachne had survived, she would be well over eighty years old, which was far older than one should live.

Which meant she had reproduced.

"It couldn't be her," he replied. "But what if she had offspring?" If Eulalie really was an Arachne, that also meant that her sister who had died was probably an Arachne herself. Was Mike Radley hiding a nest of them?

The Oracle tsked at him while tapping a long digit against the glass.

"I can only see what is or what will be," it replied. "If you want answers about the past, then open a history book."

Cyrus stood and smoothed out his shirt. "Fine, then. I'll be direct. Are the Arachne gone or do they still walk the Earth?"

"And what would you do with this information? Would you gather a holy crusade and set forth to stomp them out? Or perhaps your new perspective would give you pause?"

"It shouldn't matter to you what I do," Cyrus retorted angrily. "What we do with the answers to our questions is none of your damned business."

Crimson eyes glowed brightly in the fog as if studying him. "Maybe what you do with yourself matters more than you could ever know, Master Cyrus. Perhaps your new...enlightened state gave me a false sense of familiarity."

"You're stalling." Ultimately, it didn't matter. If the Oracle chose not to answer, he wouldn't. During those rare occasions, he would either go quiet or simply refuse. As long as the Oracle kept talking, it meant an answer was coming.

"Then here is your answer." The mists thickened and pressed against the glass as if trying to pass through it. Some of it squeezed out of the mechanical speaker. Cyrus made a mental note to mention it to maintenance once he was done. "You fear the past, but your time is better spent looking to the future. But you will never fulfill your destiny as long as you continue looking over your shoulder."

Destiny? Cyrus snorted, but said nothing.

"On the fate of the Arachne, know that not a single Arachne walks this Earth."

Cyrus frowned. "That's only a half answer. That could mean that several Arachne are alive and well, and you know it."

The Oracle sighed. "I tire of this topic, but fine, I shall humor you. At this very moment in time, no Arachne nor its eggs exist on Earth. Does this please you?"

Cyrus could hear the sneer in the Oracle's voice. It would bother him more, but he was so flooded with relief that he didn't really care how he was spoken to. More mist drifted from the speaker, curling in on itself like a snake.

"This is good news," he replied, then turned to walk away. "I'll let them know you behaved."

"Like the animal I am, right?" There was a coldness to the Oracle that Cyrus hadn't heard in a while. "Tell them I want more mystery novels this time. I'm tired of action books, they're too predictable."

"I don't know how you read with all that shit in there." Cyrus put his hands on the door.

"And you assume that we only see the best things in life with our eyes." The Oracle slapped a hand against the glass. "Master Cyrus?"

Cyrus paused, then looked back at the Oracle. "What?"

"I have a question for you." The anger was gone, and the mists had thinned out. "If this Caretaker you spoke of were to find such a wretch as myself, do you think he would have locked me away?"

Cyrus shook his head in frustration and moved to leave.

"Please, answer me!" The Oracle slapped on the glass again, desperation in its voice. "Does such a human exist that could see past all that I am? Would he sit with me as you do, yet without these walls to confine me?"

Cyrus paused, then let out a sigh. When he turned around, he was surprised to see that the Oracle had pressed itself against the glass, as if to see him better. It was a hideous sight, seeing all of the creature at once. It looked to be in poor shape, but Cyrus knew better.

The damned thing seemed to shapeshift at times, but never in a measurable way. It was always a humanoid with a pair of large wings and glowing eyes, but that was where similarities ended. Sometimes the antennae would be much longer and thin, or short and furry. Its wings would droop and drag behind it on the ground, but now they stuck out and fluttered as it moved. Decades of researchers had studied this demonstrable evidence of the Mandela Effect, but progress was greatly hindered by the fact that files and pictures would alter themselves to match the current variant they could see. Any sort of research based solely on shifting memories and opinions would inevitably lead nowhere, but the Order was determined to keep trying.

"I don't know," he replied. "Not because I think less of you or him. But if I were to guess...I think he's a good man. Better than you or I deserve, that's for certain."

"I see." The Oracle sounded relieved as it moved back from the glass. "If given the opportunity, I would so love to meet him."

"Fat chance," Cyrus muttered as he let himself out. His escort waited for him outside, and they led him to a room where he could spend the night before setting out in the morning. As sleep came for him, he kept going over his conversation with the Oracle.

No matter how many times he replayed the words, he knew the Oracle had gotten the better of him. He just couldn't figure out how. As he tried to tease out what he had missed, a random thought surfaced.

He had forgotten to mention the broken speaker to maintenance. Shaking his head, he reached for the nearby landline to let someone know.

The forest was alive in a manner that Abella had never experienced in her centuries of life. The trees rustled their branches at her in greeting as Nirumbi children circled their base, playing a game that involved two sticks and a stone. Up above, a tiny cluster of sprites watched with great interest.

Ever since Mike had awakened the forest, fae creatures had returned to the land. Some of them had been in a state of hibernation, surviving deep within the soil. Others had migrated over from the fae realm with the blessing of the Queen. It was part of a treaty he had signed with the Queen, allowing her people a place to stay outside her realm as long as she devoted defenders to the border. A tribe of rock trolls now patrolled the edges of his property and reported directly to Bigfoot.

Walking past the fairy glade, she approached the large spider's web in the middle of a clearing. Ensnarled twenty feet above, Leeds glared down at her with a malice that nearly radiated heat.

"You look comfortable," she told him.

Leeds spat at her, only to be zapped by one of the many sprites supervising him. The sprites were humanoid in shape, and carried little rods that fired bursts of magic that caused a terrible burning sensation. Leeds flinched, his lips curling up in pain.

"So is today the day?" he asked. "After so many weeks, has the Caretaker decided what is to become of me?"

Abella shook her head. "I'm just here to move you," she told him, then nodded to a group of nearby gnomes. They gave her a salute and scrambled up the trees that supported the web. Using sharp blades, they cut the ropes in a manner that had Leeds sink to the ground as if in slow motion. Once he was within reach, Abella slapped a silver collar around his neck.

"What is this?" he asked.

"You tell me," she replied. Ratu had made it to keep him from ducking into the shadows and escaping. Suspending him in the air had prevented this, but keeping the area well-lit every night had been a time intensive endeavor.

Leeds regarded her with anger, then grunted. "You know I can't read your mind, don't you?"

Abella nodded. She had wondered for a long time why he had taken special care to remove her before the fight. Originally, she thought it had been her strength he feared. But after much discussion with the others, it was the fact that she had figured out that he couldn't read her thoughts. Without knowing what was going on in her head, he couldn't predict her actions, nor use them against her.

It was also the reason she had been sent to move him.

"This way." She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him to his feet. The webbing that Eulalie had wrapped him in lasted for a few days at a time. These strands had another day of use at most, and a couple ripped free. Grabbing hold of a loose (but strong) strand, she pulled him forward.

It didn't surprise her when Leeds fell onto the ground and went limp.

"If you expect me to behave, you are wrong," he explained.

"Suit yourself." She grabbed him by the tail and dragged him through the woods. Just beyond the clearing was a tiny shed without any windows, and she stopped just short of the door.

"Is this to be my new home?" he asked sarcastically. "You are locking me in a porta-potty?"

When she opened the door, a blast of cold air blew across her skin. Leeds recoiled at first, then tilted his head for a better look.

"I don't understand," he said.

"You will." Abella grabbed him by the wings and threw him through the portal on the far wall. When she followed, she found him biting at his bonds in a last-minute bid for freedom. They now stood in a small yurt with no windows and a flap for a door.

"Where have you brought me?" he demanded.

"I'll let the Caretaker explain." With a smirk, she wrestled Leeds onto a nearby gurney made of steel. Ratu had enchanted the cuffs to clamp down on his limbs, and Abella was soon pushing him through the leather flap and outside. They were on a rocky trail, surrounded by steep cliffs.

"Where is he?" Leeds snorted and fog billowed from his lips. "I would have him see me like this! Come see your own cruelty, dammit!"

"Oh, he's busy. Sorry, I almost forgot." She knelt below the gurney and turned on the speaker that sat on the bottom. It was plugged into an old mp3 player that had been duct-taped to the back of it.

"Hello, Leeds." Mike's voice crackled to life through the speaker. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person to see just how wretched you are, but I have been busy with important things."

"He lies!" Leeds laughed hysterically. "He is afraid of me and cannot bear to watch my execution! Not that it will work," he hastily added.

"I will try to keep this brief," Mike continued. "You see, you took something from me that can never be replaced. You were inside my head, saw how much she meant to me, maybe even how much we meant to each other."

"Kiss my ass, Caretaker. Wait, where are we?" Leeds craned his head to look at the rocky overhang that blotted out the sun. The overhang became a cave, eight feet tall and cut in a perfect circle. It descended at a gentle angle, and Abella clicked the button on the side of the gurney that turned on the headlights that Tink had made for her.

"You are a complicated man, Leeds. Brought into this world and cursed with a human soul while wearing the body of a hideous beast. If I had been cursed as you, would I have done the same? Would I have gone out of my way to cause pain and suffering? It's not something I can answer, but I will say this: if I had, then I deserved whatever I had coming."

Leeds struggled against his bonds as Abella knelt down to pause the audio.

"Why don't you just dip me in holy water and get it over with? Oh, that's right, I'll be back in a couple of days," Leeds yelled. "You had a chance to destroy me, do you know that? YOU COULD HAVE ENDED ME! I felt all that dark, beautiful power, and you WASTED IT!"

Abella winced once the shouting was too loud. She slapped Leeds hard enough that the gurney teetered.

"You are too noisy," she told him. "Now it's my turn to speak, and you're going to listen. Understand?"

"What the fuck are you about?" Leeds asked, one wing popping free. Abella paused long enough to clamp it down to the gurney, then continued her descent. "I don't give a shit what you have to say."

Abella raised a hand in warning, and Leeds became quiet.

"When you trapped us in that cave, I thought my life was over. In the process of trying to save someone, I nearly died," she said.

"I wish you ha--AAA!" Leeds cried out when Abella hooked her fingers into his nostrils and pulled.

"My wing was busted, I could barely move. I slipped in and out of consciousness from the pain." Abella relaxed her fingers a bit. Satisfied that Leeds would be quiet, she continued.

"Velvet and I had a brief but complicated relationship."

"I'm aware." Leeds replied softly. "I could see inside her head."

"That's right, you could." The house had discussed Leeds' ability to read minds. In their discussions about what to do with him, they knew that he would try to manipulate them using their own thoughts. However, it had been brought up that Leeds needed to feel superior to whoever he was dealing with. At best, he was a narcissist, and they would use that to break him.

"If she had left me behind, maybe she would have made it out and lived. It's not really my place to say." Abella kept her gaze on the stone walls of the corridor. She was afraid that if she looked at Leeds, she would be unable to continue speaking. "I know that I wouldn't have survived. My kind aren't invincible."

"Does this discussion have a point?" he asked.

"She spent the rest of her life dragging me free of that mountain. I owe her my life, and that's not a debt that's easily repaid. Maybe it's a kind of poetry that I am pushing her killer down into a mountain."

Leeds groaned. "Please don't tell me you're about to get weepy."

"I am not." In fact, she wanted to say more on the subject, to tell him that her path to salvation was about to become his path to damnation.

But she knew better than to ruin the surprise. He would have plenty of time soon to contemplate this conversation. The subject of Leeds had been hotly debated, and Mike's plan had been complicated.

"I don't understand," Eulalie had argued early on. "Why can't you just force him through a hell gate, like you did with that priestess lady? He could suffer for all eternity in there, why go through all this extra effort?"

"Because Leeds is a demon," Lily replied. "His soul will suffer while he's there, but he could be summoned back someday. It could be never, or it could be next week. Is that a risk we want to take?"

After some more back and forth, Eulalie had finally realized the brilliance of Mike's plan and agreed. Since she was constantly securing him in her webs, Ratu had used an amnesia spell utilizing a glass jar and some marbles to steal those memories away. They didn't want Leeds extracting the information from her.

Abella arrived at the end of the corridor. Leaning against the wall was Ratu, a glowing light hovering overhead as she paged through the Grimoire.

"What do we have here?" Ratu kept her face solemn with the greeting, her scales shifting over her skin. "Is this that little troublemaker I've heard so much about?"

"Please." Leeds started laughing. "You can act tough, but someday, I'll come for you, too. I'll come for all of you! Maybe it'll be when you're asleep, or maybe I'll wait until that little egg of yours hatches! That's right, I know the sister has it!"

Abella jammed her thumb into one of Leeds' eyes. While he screamed in pain, she knelt down to hit play on the mp3 player as she stopped squeezing his eye.

"Leeds. I want you to understand something about me. All my life, I've been told that forgiveness is the answer. I should forgive my mother, I should forgive my ex-girlfriend, I should forgive that friend in college who stole my credit cards. You should be aware by now that humans make entire movies about the power of forgiveness."

"Oh, please forgive me, Caretaker, I need it so bad!" Leeds jerked his head away and tried to spit on Abella. "Did he forgive you for failing?"

"There was nothing to forgive," she replied, then held up the player and pressed play again. The next part of the message was too important not to be heard.

"They say that you should forgive, but not forget," Mike continued. "That there's a lesson to be learned from all of this by the people on both sides. But you know what? I'm so fucking tired of being the better person. I'm tired of living with the pain of your deeds, and being expected to measure up to a higher standard.

"So here's what I'm going to do. Since I can never forgive you, I'm going to forget you. We all are. Once this message is done, I am meeting with a man from the Order and he is going to wipe away our memories of you."

"Wait, what? The Order?" Leeds looked from Ratu to Abella. "There's no way you have contacts inside the Order, those guys are assholes. If they knew you existed, they would come down on you and..."

"A deal was made," Abella replied. "It doesn't matter if you believe it or not. Once we're done here, we will forget you as well."

In fact, there was no such deal. Mike had no intention of cheapening Velvet's death by erasing his memories of her killer, but that wasn't the point. They needed Leeds to believe he had been forgotten, because it would make what came next a thousand times worse.

"You can't forget about me!" Leeds puffed up his chest on the gurney. "I'm the Jersey Fucking Devil! So that's it, you all are going to lock me away? In a cave? You're all insane if you think this won't stop me."

Abella noticed that Leeds' collar had flashed a couple times, and now glowed as if heated. She hit play on the mp3 player and then helped Ratu remove Leeds from the gurney.

"There are so many things I want to say to you," Mike continued. "But why bother? In just a few minutes you will mean nothing to me. Reduced to little more than a Wikipedia page and shitty truck stop merch, nobody will ever give a fuck about you ever again."

The speaker went silent as Ratu and Abella shoved Leeds up against the wall.

"You can't do this to me! You can't...what's your story?" Leeds asked, looking at Ratu. His eyes glowed, but his face faltered. "You're...different. It's like you're hollow inside."