Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 093

"I'm not entirely certain he's not just the tumor talking." Reagan tapped one of her temples. "But believing in Death is way easier than Santa. Everybody dies. Santa? He only shows up in shitty movies."

"Then why write him a letter?" Lily crossed her arms. "If he doesn't exist, I mean."

"Why do people pray to God when their kids are dying?" Reagan rolled her eyes. "Because they hope someone cares. Me, I'm not so sure the guy is real, and if he is, he doesn't give a fuck. I certainly haven't seen any real miracles around here. When a kid gets better, it's always because of doctors and medicine. Yeah, people will call it a miracle, but it's usually just a matter of statistics. But when that kid dies? It was apparently their time and we just aren't smart enough to know God's plan or some shit. What a fucking double standard."

"Okay, I like this kid." Lily wasn't usually comfortable with talk about the G-man, but the kid was making some good points. "So you figured Santa was a better bet than sky daddy. Makes me wonder what you asked for."

"It's not important." Reagan cleared her throat as if to change the subject, but Lily used her tail to snatch it out of her hands. "Holy shit, you have a tail?"

"I've got a lot more than that. Would you like a dramatic reveal?" Lily didn't wait for an answer. She did a little pirouette, her wings unfurling behind her as her Christmas pajamas melted into her usual corset and mini-skirt. She did a dramatic bow, her horns sliding forward through the skin of her skull just beneath her hat. "What do you think?"

"Bitchin'!" Reagan crawled forward in her bed, the wires from her heart monitor catching on Death's hand. "Can I feel your wings? They're so pretty!"

"I, uh..." Lily smiled, her cheeks suddenly warm. She almost didn't notice when Death pulled the envelope out of her tail. "Yeah, sure, kid." She extended her wings, allowing Reagan to feel them.

"They remind me of my dad's leather jacket." Reagan pushed her face into the fold of one wing and inhaled. "Oof, doesn't smell the same, though."

"I was forged from hellfire. Your dad's jacket came from a farting cow."

"You're the one that smells like farts," Reagan grumbled. This elicited a hearty laugh from Death, who had managed to untangle his fingers from her wires. In the process, he unplugged the monitor, causing the eerie whine to fill the room.

"We won't be needing that," he declared, flicking the machinery off with a finger.

"So does this mean you can fly?" Reagan let go of Lily's wing. "Is that a scorpion's tail? Do you sting people with it?"

"I can. It is. And I have." Lily sat on the end of the bed. Reagan scooted away from her to make room and picked up her forgotten sketchpad. "I'm a type of demon known as a succubus."

"Really? Like, the sexy kind?" Reagan picked up one of her pencils, the room now filled with the sounds of graphite on paper. "You eat souls, right?"

"She does." Death leaned over to see what Reagan was drawing. "It's quite disturbing."

"But you seem so nice." Reagan paused in her scribbles. "I didn't think a succubus could be nice."

"You seem to know an awful lot about demons. Are schools finally back to teaching the basics?" Lily asked.

"Nah." The scribbling resumed. "I've got a lot of down time. I used to read a lot, but it makes my head hurt, so now I just stream movies and shit. May have spent a bunch of time contemplating my immortal soul, cause, well..." she gestured at the room around her. "I've got a lump of cells the size of an egg in the middle of my brain. You question a lot of things when the end is near."

"Well, what do you want to know?" Lily sat on the edge of the bed, her tail sliding beneath the bed to tickle Reagan's foot. The girl laughed, squirming away from her.

"All sorts of things. For instance, since you're a demon, it means that heaven is real! What's it like?" Reagan turned her full attention on Lily, hope in her eyes.

"Not something I actually have an answer for. Never been there, cause I'm a demon." Lily tapped her horns.

"But I thought demons were just fallen angels?"

Lily winced. "Yeah, well I'm...complicated." She wasn't about to get into her past with just anyone, much less a teenager.

"Got it. Does that mean you don't know what God's like?"

"Reagan." Death patted the girl's knee. "I understand why you're asking, but Lily really isn't comfortable speaking on all things heavenly. It gives her gas."

"Oh, right, I'm so sorry!" Reagan blushed as Lily scowled at the Reaper. "I must look like a total bitch right now."

"It's fine, I get it." Lily waved her off. "You just found out that your soul gets to go somewhere after you die. That's a pretty big deal. Me? I already know that my ultimate destination is a coin flip between Hell or the Void. If I have enough souls under my belt, Hell won't be so bad. The Void, though? Oblivion at its worst."

"Oh, I know! Where does Death live? He refuses to tell us where he's staying, always talks about how he lives with his best friend in a house full of monsters." Reagan stuck her tongue out at the Reaper. "Bet she'll tell me."

"That's actually true, but I can't say much about it." She threw a dirty look at Death. "He probably shouldn't have told you that much, honestly."

"It is okay, Lily." Death held up his hand, then curled his fingers down until only his pinky remained. "For we have entered into a contract of the highest order; the pinky swear."

"Jiminy Christmas, what am I going to do with you?" Lily sat on the other side of Reagan. "But yeah, an entire family of magical creatures, all under one roof."

Reagan's eyes brimmed over with tears, and she wiped them away with her thumbs. "Sorry if I'm a bit emotional. I've always wanted to believe in something other than all this, you know?"

"I get it, kid. It's nice to have something to believe in." Suddenly conscious of just how tiny the girl was, Lily shrunk herself down to better fit next to Reagan. Movement in the corner of the room revealed Spirit Mike leaning against the wall with a grin on his face. "Or someone."

And so they talked. Death was quiet, save for a few interruptions. Reagan talked all about her parents, and her baby sister who was going to be eight soon. There was a girl at school that Reagan was super into, but she hadn't seen her since last spring. Her school was a couple of hours away, which meant she rarely got visitors.

The whole time she spoke, her hands kept moving across the paper. Whenever Lily tried to peek, Reagan would tilt the sketchpad down, a sly grin on her face. "No snooping," she would declare, occasionally sharpening her pencils. Little colored shavings appeared all over her bed, which Death would meticulously collect and deposit in the nearby trash can.

They were in the middle of talking about Reagan's favorite show when the girl wrote something with a flourish in one corner. She carefully removed the paper from her sketchpad and handed it over to Lily.

"Do you like it?" she asked, her tired eyes suddenly hopeful.

It was a portrait of the succubus. She was mid-laugh, a hand in front of her mouth and the skin around her eyes crinkled up. The stone necklace Mike had given her rested on her chest, Lily's hand hovering just above it. Behind her, an aura of light filled the rest of the picture. Even though she had horns in the picture, it was a candid moment, making her look surprisingly human.

"I...love it." Lily looked over the top of the drawing to see Reagan's eyes brimming with joy. "Can I have this?"

Reagan nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. "I think it's my best work. What do you think, Death?"

"I will admit I am quite jealous." Death grinned at his friend. "This is very well done."

"Thank you." She balled up her fists and took a deep breath. Her lower lip trembled as she squeezed the blankets on her bed. "I'm ready now."

"Ready for what?" Lily asked, but the moment was quick, like a match catching fire. There was a flash of light, and Death stood over Reagan's bed, his bony fingers clenched together above her body.

"What the fudge? What the fudge?!?" Lily slid backward off the bed, clawing at her hat in horror. Reagan's sparkling eyes had already gone dull, her pupils dilating. "What did you do, Death? What did you do?"

The Reaper turned toward Lily and held up Reagan's soul. It was the brightest golden light that Lily had ever seen, flitting about like a trapped bird in his clutches.

"I knew the moment we arrived," he told her, lowering his hand. "There's a saying mortals enjoy, one about knowing that Death has entered the room. For the first time ever, I was allowed to experience that sensation for myself. I had entered the room, not as myself, but as my job. We are frozen in a single moment, and that moment just so happened to be Reagan's last."

"But why? WHY?!?" Lily almost balled up her drawing in frustration, tears now running down her cheeks. Steam rose from them as her body temperature climbed, hellfire now coursing through her veins. "Why would you do this to me? Why not just come up here, do your darned job, and then go?"

Death hung his head in shame. "I will admit that the deception was not for Reagan's sake, but my own. I am supposed to be impartial, to allow these things to pass as they should, but..." He turned to Reagan's corpse, her cheeks still glistening with moisture. "I needed a friend."

"She was your friend, you nutjob!" Lily picked up the remote to the television and threw it at him. It bounced off his cloak and fell to the floor.

"I meant for after." Death placed his hand on Reagan's head. "You see, I spent many hours with this child and got to know her. Though she was destined to die so young, she treated me with genuine kindness. I knew that it would be a struggle to take her."

"Then why take her at all?"

"The tumor in her head ruptured a nearby vessel. She would live only until the time lock was lifted. Even if I could have kept her around, she would be comatose, trapped in a place of eternal darkness until I came to claim her once more. Though I am the final mercy, I..." He removed his hand and contemplated the dead teen's soul in his other. "I don't know what happens to any of them, you know? Her parents will mourn her loss, but there is a chance they will see each other again. But what of me? Am I destined to sit and watch as the universe comes to an ultimate end, and then sit alone in a darkness of my own? What of the friends I made along the way?

"You see, my dear Lily, it has occurred to me that when I say goodbye, it is forever. I was grateful to be here for her final moments, but she will go on in her own way."

"But why are we even here?" Lily slumped into a nearby chair, clutching Reagan's drawing to her chest. "She wrote a letter to Santa, what about that? Weren't we here for this? What's even the point if you were just going to take her?"

Death pulled the envelope from his robes and held it up as if it was made of glass. He slid his finger beneath the adhesive and ripped it open, pulling out the paper within.

"Dear Santa," he began, the fire in his eyes dimming. "I know this might sound ridiculous, but there's something I want for Christmas. I wrote you a lot when I was younger, but I will admit that I've stopped believing. Sorry if this hurts you in the polls.

"Anyway, things aren't looking good for me. The doctors keep saying that every day is a gift, but I know the end is coming. I'm not afraid, not since I met my new friend. He's a big fan of yours. I hope you..." Death stopped for several moments, then cleared his non-existent throat. "I hope you get to meet him someday in a non-official capacity."

"Oh, Reagan." Lily shook her head and continued sobbing.

"If I could have one gift this year, it would be that you help my parents and sister once I'm gone. They've lived with me and my broken head for so long now, that maybe they've forgotten how to be happy. I don't know what that would look like on your end, but I feel like someone owes me a miracle. Please help them find happiness again. They deserve it.

"But if you happen to be in a giving mood, there's something I want for myself. When the end comes, I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to do it in front of my family. I kind of want to go out on a high note, if that makes sense. I don't care who you send, it could be an elf, or even a reindeer. When I die, I know I'll already..."

Death went silent, then handed the note to Lily. She took it from him and found the part where he had stopped.

"I know I'll already have one friend there, but wouldn't mind making just one more before I go." She didn't bother reading the rest, it was too hard to see through her tears. It was like she had lost control over her body, her head pounding as if it would burst from within.

Death stood by the hospital window, Reagan's soul in his outstretched palm.

"Goodbye, Reagan." He gave the soul a little flick with his fingers, as if tossing a coin in the air, and it was gone. The room seemed dimmer now, as if the color had been sucked out of it. "May your slumber be restful."

"I hate you," Lily whispered. "I hate you for doing this to me."

"I know." Death moved over to the side of Reagan's bed and took a moment to tuck her in. He reconnected all the wires to her heart monitor, the silence shattered by the eerie tone of Reagan's death.

"Why bother?" LIly asked. "She's not in there, you know."

"You are correct." Death turned to point at the clock. "But you see, it is not technically Christmas Day."

"So?"

"In thirty years, when Reagan's sister wakes up on Christmas Day, she will never have to think 'this is the date of my sister's death.' When time resumes, I wish for them to find her sometime before midnight." Death moved toward the doorway, then paused long enough to steal one of the pictures that had been tucked away beneath some of the others. Lily couldn't be sure, but she was fairly certain the subject of the artwork was wearing a dark robe. "I would like to get some air, if you don't mind. I'll be on the roof."

She watched him go. When she was certain he was far enough away, she moved to sit on the side of Reagan's bed.

"You okay?" Soul Mike asked from the corner of the room.

"No. Not really." She knelt down and kissed Reagan's forehead. "Though I knew you but for a moment, I shall remember you for a lifetime." It wasn't hyperbole either, because demons couldn't lie and she never wanted to forget.

She pulled out the sketch Reagan had given her, torn about whether to take it with her or leave it behind. Her tears splashed on the drawing, and she tucked it away. It was interesting how something so light could feel so heavy in her hands.

By the time she caught up to Death, he was standing on the edge of the roof with his scythe out, leaning on the handle for support. Moving to stand next to him, she handed him Reagan's letter.

"I didn't know if you wanted to keep this," she told him.

"I would, actually." He accepted the letter and it vanished into his robes. "I feel an ache inside my body that I am unfamiliar with."

"That's called grief."

"Ah." He stared out at the lights of the city. "I do not like it."

"That was a terrible thing you did to me."

"It was, and I am sorry. Do you have Reagan's drawing?"

"I do." She pulled it out. "Why?"

"I think she captured your likeness very well. It was a gift of hers. To see what lies beneath. You may act tough and be rather crude at times, but you are a kind soul."

"I'm not ready for an emotional circle jerk."

Death turned to look at her. "What is a circle jerk?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Ugh. It's never tomorrow." Death raised his hand, and the sleigh emerged from the clouds above. It seemed unsteady, as if Cerberus was pulling it through turbulence. Once the hellhound landed, they turned into their human form and put their hands on their hips.

"The sleigh is getting tough to pull," Cerberus said. "It feels much heavier."

"It shouldn't be." Death frowned at the sleigh. "We are still delivering personal visits, the magic should sustain it."

There was a loud pop, and Christmas Present appeared next to them.

"Quick, let me see the list."

"Why are you teleporting here?" Lily asked. "Won't the Krampus figure out where we are?"

"It doesn't matter. This is more important." The spirit took the list from Death and scrolled through a few names. "Hold on, I'll be right back. I need to check on something."

With another pop, she left them behind. Death looked at Lily and shrugged.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she told him.

"As do I." Death moved to sit in the sleigh. "I believe we'll find out why very soon."

Lily didn't join him. Instead, she moved to the edge of the building and pulled out Reagan's drawing. She curled her fingers around the edges, ready to summon a little hellfire and reduce it to ash.

"Are you really sure you want to do that?" Soul Mike asked from the shadows. "Once it's gone, you will never get it back."

She paused, the flames hovering just beneath her fingertips. "Why would I want to keep something that hurts me so bad?"

"It's just a piece of paper, Lily. I think it scares you that she saw through the facade, to the woman underneath the monster. You're worried that it makes you weak, that the pain you feel means that your strength is fading. A weak Lily can't protect her family, now can she?"

"Shut up," she whispered.

"But you've eaten enough therapists to know the truth. Grief and sadness don't make you weak. You can't sharpen a sword by only hammering one side of the blade, silly." He came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her waist. "So don't burn that, at least not yet. Let Reagan's last gift to the world survive just a little bit longer."

She scowled, then relaxed into Mike's arms. "I hate having you inside my head sometimes," she told him.

"I know," he replied. "It really is a pretty picture of you."

"It is," she whispered, wiping the new tears off of the paper before they could soak in. She held it against her chest, absorbing it into her body where it would be safe for now. After all, she could always burn it later, right?

There was a burst of light, and fiery sparks showered the rooftop as Christmas Present tumbled from up in the sky. The spirit was covered in scratch marks, and there was blood all over her outfit.

"Holy heck, what happened?" LIly ran to the giant's side. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not." Christmas Present's face was bright red, her eyes brimming with anger. She held something up in her hands and laughed. "For future reference, I can apparently teleport this much of another being."

It was the head of one of the Yule Lads, his features slack. Christmas Present dropped it onto the roof.

"They're taking the children," she said, her gaze on the bloody head as it dissolved into smoke. "The ones we were supposed to visit, and the ones we've already been to. It's how the Krampus is draining the magic away. The gifts are bad enough, but by taking the children, it's like we've done nothing at all!"

"What is he planning to do with them?" Death asked, a dangerous tone in his voice. Whatever warmth the air held flitted away like leaves in a hurricane.

Christmas Present turned toward the Grim Reaper. "With the Yule lads' involvement, my bet is...he's going to let Grýla eat them."

Lily gasped, her wings fluttering behind her in shock.

"I see." Death turned toward the sleigh. "I did not expect such a development. Every move he has made has served to undo the goodwill we have poured into the world, but this? It is an act of pure evil and I shall not allow it."

"So what do we do?" Lily asked. "We can't just go in there guns blazing. One, we don't have any guns. Two, we don't know where Grýla is keeping the children. Does anyone here even have a plan?"