Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 097

Greetings, one and all! I have returned to bring you the next installment in the Horny Monsters series! That's right, Book 7 begins now!

New reader? Hey, welcome! I write my stories as chapters in what has become a lengthy series about the Radley house. Lots of monstergirls, lots of sex, and a shit-ton of plot and lore. If you've skipped the first six books and the 2.1 spinoffs and don't care, then this is the place to begin!

Returning reader? Welcome back! I am so excited to start this story with you! Some of the plot elements I have spent years setting forth will finally be allowed to weave together, so if you haven't touched Last of Her Kind of Dead and Horny yet, now would be a great time to check them out!

Going into the new year, I will likely be alternating D&H 2 with HFHM 7. Some plot elements from D&H 2 will enrich the HFHM 7 experience is all, so feel free to ignore Lily's series and hope she doesn't suck your soul out through your anus for doing so (but some of you are into that, no judgment). Anyway, this is just a reminder that I schedule posts and you can see them in my bio, so check there if you are trying to figure out life plans and all that.

I couldn't have come this far without my readership on Lit. Your likes, comments, and feedback (which I keep finding stuffed in my spam folder, sorry!) have helped get me to where I am today. For that, I will be eternally grateful to all of you. I hope that I've grown as a writer and truly provided the reading experience that you deserve.

By the way, this story takes place 1.5 years after Book 6, so be prepared to meet a couple of new characters :)

Okay, that's enough gushing from me. It's time for

A Family Outing

Mike knelt at the bottom of a slide, his hands on the cool metal. The hot summer day had been chased off by a sudden thunderstorm summoned up by the dragon Quetzalli, who sat in human form on a nearby swing. The playground was empty now, save for Mike's family. At the top of a slide, a young boy stood nervously eyeing the slide.

"C'mon, Callisto, you can do it. It's actually a lot of fun."

His son shook his head nervously, causing lanky hair to blow across his face in the breeze. "It's too scary, and I'm too high!"

"C'mon, you should try it." Mike patted the slide again. "That bracelet Ratu gave you will only last another hour, and then you'll have to wait for her to recharge it."

Callisto held up his wrist to look at the bracelet. What appeared to be a simple slap bracelet was in fact a magical device that the naga Ratu had crafted to grant Callisto a human form. The boy was actually a centaur, and had spent the past year espousing interest in learning how to walk on two legs and spend time in the human realm. Over a month had been spent planning this outing, and other than climbing to the top of the playground and freezing in place by the slide, the centaur had done nothing else.

In truth, the bracelet wouldn't have worked if Callisto hadn't accidentally shapeshifted into a human close to his first birthday. It had scared the shit out of Zel, his mother, and the rest of the herd. It wasn't something he could control, and Ratu thought it was leftover magic from the time Mike had knocked Zel up while she was in a human-esque form. Like his mother at the time, Callisto had human-esque legs with horsehair and toes that were pinched together like hooves, which was why he wore long pants even though it was summer. His shoes were custom enchanted to look like sneakers. The tail that had been pulled through the back of his pants was a dead giveaway that he wasn't quite human.

His half-sister Grace emerged from beneath the slide, her hair dangling as she clung to the bottom of the metallic surface with eight slender spider legs. She scowled at her brother and tapped on the metal sheet hard enough that she put a divot in it.

"Even your sister wants you to go." Mike looked at his daughter. "And you need to fix your skirt if you're going to climb upside down like that, young lady."

Grace bared her fangs at her father and slunk back into the shadows beneath the slide. He was happy to see that she used the velcro on the front of her skirt to reattach it to her legs. Just because she was an Arachne didn't mean she could go around showing everyone her underwear. Her aunt Eulalie was already talking about making her wear shorts all the time.

If anyone was in the park, the sight of Grace would have terrified them to the core. Her lower body was that of an orb weaver spider, but she was still small enough that if she crouched down, she could pull her skirt over her legs and pass for a normal child in public as long as she kept her additional eyes hidden behind her bangs. They had brought her to the park in a wagon through a magical tree portal, right after Quetzalli had gone ahead and summoned enough thunder and lightning to scare away anyone lingering around. Abella and Mike had scoured the area to make sure it was empty first, and then a perimeter of magical wards had been established around the entire park. If anybody wandered in, Mike would know.

Taking them beyond the protective boundaries of his magical home was a huge risk. After much discussion amongst the adults, it had been Eulalie who was their biggest advocate. As an Arachne who had spent her entire life locked away from the outside world, she was worried the disconnect would create a line of "us vs. them" in the children. The last thing Mike wanted was for his kids to fear the world he had grown up in.

"Try sitting on your butt first." Mike patted his own behind for his son's benefit. "You know, that gross thing under your tail."

This made Callisto smirk. Even though he was a centaur and they pooped openly, there was something about human butts that often put the kid in hysterics. It must be a universal thing.

Callisto carefully sat near the edge of the slide, his fingers gripping the edges tightly. Tentatively, he slid forward, his fingers squeaking against the metal. Once his whole body was on the slide, Grace popped over the side and bit her brother's fingers, causing him to release his grip on the sides and slide down screaming.

Mike caught Callisto at the bottom just as Grace disappeared back under the slide. "You did it!" he cried with excitement, lifting his son up and hugging him tight. Callisto was stuck somewhere between joy and terror, so Mike set him on the ground and held up his hands. "High five, bud!"

The centaur gave him a high-five, then looked down at his fingers. There were little red marks, but no punctures. Mike put his hands on his hips and walked over to where the slide and playground connected.

"Gracelynn Penelope Radley, what have I said about biting your brother?" He peered under the slide and saw that she was crouched upside down beneath it. The Arachne hissed at him from her hiding spot.

Mike tilted his head to one side and frowned at her, unafraid. Eventually, Grace pouted and held her arms out for him. He helped her down, and she moved over next to her brother and butted her head gently against his chest.

Callisto hugged his sister. The two of them were close, despite their differences. Lily often referred to them as the Leg Brigade. The two of them were inseparable whenever Callisto came to the house for a visit, and it wasn't uncommon to hear Callisto's hooves on the hardwood floors as they chased each other around. Tink had even made him special rubber hoof covers to keep him from slipping and damaging the hardwood floors.

Mike walked with both of them over to the teeter-totter and showed them how it worked. Callisto asked a bunch of questions, but Grace remained silent. At eighteen months, she was non-verbal, which wasn't that uncommon among Arachne. Her aunt Eulalie didn't have a whole lot of information to go off on, but apparently Grace's mother, Velvet, had been the same way as a child.

As Callisto and Grace bounced up and down on the teeter-totter, Mike smiled. Shortly after Grace's hatching, Callisto had become insanely curious about his little sister. However, his strange fear of Mike had prevented the two of them from playing together. It had become clear to Mike that Callisto saw the world in a very different way than anyone else did, one that nobody quite understood yet. Play dates between siblings slowly turned into special father-son moments that helped bridge the gap between them. Mike had asked Callisto once about why he used to be scared, and the boy had simply shrugged and said it didn't matter, because he didn't remember why anymore.

The trees rustled above Mike, though there wasn't any wind. He tilted his head to listen. Trees didn't often use words, but the ones in the park had grown up around humans and could sometimes speak in stilted sentences rather than stray thoughts and feelings. Words and images entered his mind and his brain worked overtime to decipher them.

Someone had entered the park. There were at least three people, and they were headed directly for the playground. Mike frowned, realizing that whoever was coming had bypassed the protective wards he had helped place. That meant trouble.

"We have company." He frowned at his children, then looked at Quetzalli. The dragon was already sliding an enchanted napkin ring over her horn, which rendered it invisible. Abella emerged from the trees, her wings wrapped around her body like a cloak. She cocked her head to one side.

"I can hear four of them," she said. "What do you want me to do?"

"If they bypassed the wards, they know we're here already." He bit his lip and looked at the kids. "Take Grace."

"Come, hatchling." Abella opened up her wings, revealing the stone body beneath. Grace was unnervingly quick, crossing the playground in seconds and leaping onto Abella's body. She wrapped her wings around the child and moved back into the trees, becoming motionless. To a casual observer, she was nothing more than a statue, the Arachne hidden from view.

Callisto looked up at Mike.

"Where do I hide?" he whispered, tucking his tail down the back of his pants.

"Nowhere." Mike knelt and ruffled his son's hair. "You're safe here with me. If something happens, you know what to do."

Callisto nodded, fingering the bracelet on his wrist. He wasn't a stranger to the odd happenings at the Radley house. Typically, the danger was fairly minimal, and it wasn't any different here. If a fight broke out, he had plenty of aunts to run to as a safety net.

Mike sent a mental note to his familiar, Kisa, at the house. He felt her mind touch his, and then she was gone. Help was already on the way.

Three men and a woman appeared through the trees, all of them wearing business suits and looking like Secret Service agents. Two of the men wore slightly longer coats and had protective auras about them. He immediately suspected that they were knights of the Order. The Order was an international organization dedicated to keeping the boundaries between the magical and non-magical world intact. Other than Cyrus, a retired mage, Mike had never dealt with any of them.

"Mike Radley." The blonde woman leading the group gave him a friendly wave, unaware that he could see her soul. It typically manifested as a fractal in most people, and he had learned how to read the shifting colors within to some degree. Right now, he saw deception with a healthy dose of caution. This was a woman who was ready to cause trouble if she needed to.

"Who?" he asked, playing dumb.

"I'm not here to do this dance with you." She took off her sunglasses, revealing a pair of emerald green eyes that glowed. He could see the magic in her soul, slithering between the moving shapes like an ethereal serpent. This woman had some serious magical chops, and she clearly wasn't afraid to show it. "My name is Ingrid. I'm here regarding one of your properties."

Now this was a surprise. It had been well over a year since someone had hassled him about the properties that he owned. There was a giant patch of land in Oregon that had become a refuge for Native American mythical beings. Some land developers there had tried driving him out by building near his land, not realizing that Bigfoot had zero qualms about dismantling their machinery.

Then there was the castle in Ireland, but his only attempt to visit it had been disastrous. He used to get offers to buy it regularly until Eulalie had wiped its existence from the internet. Not an easy thing to do, but the Arachne was a master coder. Now if someone looked it up by name, they got sent to a fake website that tried to sell them timeshares.

There was also a forest in the caldera of a dead volcano in Hawaii. Mike hadn't visited it yet, but only because there was no easy way to get there. He had sent Beth some time ago to check it out, but between the landscape, the locals, and the super thick vegetation, there was no easy way up the mountain without hiring a guide. Typically, he used portals that magical rats could chew to travel long distances, but the exit had to be inside a structure that they knew about.

"I'm afraid all inquiries regarding my properties need to go through my attorney."

Ingrid held up a manilla folder. "Mr. Radley, this is a matter of some importance. I represent an organization whose sole purpose is to protect the mythical creatures of this world from, well, humans."

"Huh. I can't believe you guys openly admitted mythical creatures exist." Mike studied the woman and her companions. He knew more about them than they were willing to let on. Their sole purpose wasn't protecting cryptids, but maintaining the order between the magical and non-magical realm by whatever means necessary. "I kind of figured you would give me the run around and talk about weather balloons or politics."

"We've been watching you for some time now. We are aware of the mythical beings living in your home and felt it was prudent to be honest. That, and the storm earlier was definitely a magical anomaly, so why waste time beating around the bush? We call ourselves the Order." Ingrid shook the folder. "Would you please look at these?"

He scowled at her, then reached for the envelope. If they were going to attack, his magic would warn him first. "We don't have a problem, do we?"

"With you? No." Ingrid shook her head. "Our main purpose is to maintain peace and secrecy. Based on our research, this is the first time you've left your property since moving in almost three years ago. You only ended up on our radar due to a local investigation."

"What sort of investigation?" He took the envelope from Ingrid and undid the string holding it shut.

"Local cabal of witches were digging into your affairs, but they blew themselves up. That's where we found notes and things about your home and its previous owner, a woman named Emily." Ingrid looked down at Callisto. "Is this your son? He looks just like you."

Mike pretended to be more interested in the contents of the envelope than Ingrid's question. Callisto already knew better than to answer--his mother Zel had drilled it into him that he was never to speak to someone outside of the house without permission first. The only outsider he ever got to chat with was Cyrus, and it was on strict orders to be friendly and never mention his sister. Cyrus was still under the impression that he had killed Grace's grandmother decades ago, and for good reason. If the man ever learned that he had failed to wipe out the last Arachne, he would probably lose his mind.

He pulled a handful of photographs out of the envelope and frowned. "This seems a little dramatic. Why not just send me an email or something?"

Ingrid shook her head. "I can't say much, other than someone has been monitoring our systems. You are an unknown quantity, Mr. Radley, and we would rather you stay that way."

"I see." It was the first thing she had said that he could truly agree with. Quetzalli moved up by his side, sliding her arm around his.

"Are you Mrs. Radley?" Ingrid asked.

Quetzalli smiled and shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Mrs. Radley is at home. I'm just helping out today."

The pictures had been taken with a drone and were in black and white. Mike wondered about the lack of color until he saw a label in the corner that said infrared imaging. The first image was of a road that was torn apart by a mudslide. The next few photographs were buildings that had been hollowed out by fire. He had been handing them down to Callisto, who studied them with intense interest.

"Don't show him the last couple," muttered Ingrid. "It may be upsetting."

Mike didn't quite understand why when he got to them. It took him a moment to put together what he was seeing, a beach covered in men and women lying in the sand. However, instead of legs, they all had beautiful fins, and they were scattered about as if lounging. Finally, he spotted it. Several of them were staring at the sky, eyes wide and slack jawed. These were merfolk, dozens of them. They were dead.

"What caused this?" he asked, looking up at Ingrid. Quetzalli was staring at the images, her fingers now digging into his arm.

"We don't know. However, we do know that whatever did this came from a piece of land you own, then returned there when finished." Ingrid tilted her head to one side. "The Order is prepared to buy the land from you, so that we can go in and investigate. We've spent the last month trying to access the land, and think that whatever is keeping us out is similar to the geas on your home. We assume that a transfer in ownership will allow us unrestricted access to investigate."

This made him smirk. Nothing was similar to the geas on his home, not anymore. "Well, it's not for sale, no matter how many zeros are on the end of that number."

"I'm afraid we need to act on this, one way or another. We are responsible for the safety of the merfolk colonies throughout the islands, and this is a tragedy we never want to see again." She pulled another manilla envelope from her inner coat pocket and handed it over. "Inside this is a monetary offer and all the paperwork required to seal the deal today. This is the carrot, Mike Radley, and a rather generous one. I would like to warn you that you won't like the stick."

"My dad's not afraid of you," Callisto said.

"Maybe he should be." This was from one of Ingrid's lackeys. The man fixed Callisto with a hard stare, but the child yawned, suddenly disinterested in the conversation. It was also possible that Callisto hoped Mike would forget that he had spoken to a stranger.

"Cal, can you go play with Aunt Que for a moment?" Mike watched as Quetzalli escorted Callisto over to the monkey bars, then turned back to Ingrid. "So let's cut the bullshit. You're here for my land and intend to either buy it from me or take it."

Ingrid nodded. "I think you understand the situation rather well."

"Well, for reasons I can't go into, I'm not going to sell it. And you can't really take it, either." He held up his hands defensively as her lackey folded his coat back to reveal a knife in his belt. "This isn't a tough guy thing, I promise. It's complicated."

"Explain it to me." Ingrid's eyes were suddenly hard.

"Magically complicated. If I could, I would." This was only partially true, but they were outsiders and didn't need to know his life story. "But what I can tell you is that I have a duty to the land and whatever resides there. So instead of all this talk about the stick and carrot, how about secret option three? I go out there and help you figure out what's going on, then we put it right together. Your colonies stay protected, I get to keep my land, and your higher ups can spend the money they saved on Bigfoot spray."

Ingrid frowned. "I'm not sure that would work."

He shrugged. "Either way, might want to run it by your bosses. But you should know that I'm involved now. I intend to investigate the problem and solve it, with or without you."