Home for Horny Monsters

Hi, all! Annabelle Hawthorne here with yet another installment of "If I wasn't writing this, I would probably be day-drinking."

(Not really, cause we're all out of wine right now)

New reader? Hi, and hello! This is a story about a guy who got a blowie from a nymph in a bathtub. Now, a few years later, we're battling evil in Hawaii and Pele herself has made an appearance. So pretty much the plot progression of any book series that goes past 6 novels, right? You can go ahead and dive in, but I'd highly suggest binging the first 108 chapters (and three spinoff novels) while foregoing all your responsibilities for a few days.

Returning reader? Welcome back!!! When I logged in today to post this chapter, I saw that there are now officially over 10k of you! Wow!!! I've enjoyed my literary journey with all of you here, and I hope to keep dropping HFHM content in the years to come. Your enthusiasm keeps me strong, your comments give me life, and remembering to drop stars for me has helped so many others find my story. I really do think you are some of the best readers in the world.

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Snake in the Grass

The moment Mike stepped through the portal, a sinking sensation hit him in the gut. He pushed open the closet door and looked at the room he was now in. The nearby bed was far larger than a king mattress, making him wonder what sort of person or creature used this room. He moved to the side to allow Ratu, Leilani, and Ingrid to come through behind him. Leilani eyed the portal with suspicion, while Ingrid leaned in to study it.

"I should have guessed," she muttered, running her fingers along the edges of the portal. "You've been one step ahead of us the whole--"

Lily shoved her way through. "If you think I'm going to stand around in some abandoned shack in Oklahoma, you've got another thing coming." The portal from the cabana had been routed through a second location to avoid any of the Order following it back to Di's location.

Mike reached out mentally to Kisa. He only picked up a few pieces of information, but they were enough. "The Captain is here. He came for Beth to get to me."

"That fucking squid." Leilani clutched her trident. "I'll stab him myself."

"It might not be necessary." Mike was already moving toward the exit. He stuck his hand in one pocket and pulled out his bracelet. It had a soft glow to it. "Looks like we arrived just in time. Leilani, you need to get to your people and let them know the Captain betrayed you. I can't imagine anyone will stop you from speaking with your mother."

"Got it."

"Ingrid, you're with me. We need to find the Director and convince him that I'm still on the level, and then--"

"Murder him!" Lily held up a knife and grinned.

"No, not that." Mike frowned. "Maybe that. We'll see. Ratu, we'll probably need your magic to get there."

The naga bowed her head slightly. "I shall be at your side."

"As for you." Mike tossed his bracelet to Lily. "Since they're tracking me through that bracelet, I'm afraid I must ask you to sow some chaos."

Lily cackled and transformed into a copy of Mike. She did a pirouette before exiting the suite, and the others followed. Lily and Leilani moved together while Ingrid led Mike and Ratu in a different direction.

Down the hall, he heard his own voice singing "I want to be an airborne ranger!" followed by the sound of breaking glass.

"Daisy, Cerulea, Olivia." He waited for the three fairies to emerge from his shirt and hover in front of him. "Go find your sister. Run interference for Beth and Kisa." He held up a hand, and all three of them landed on his outstretched fingers. "No mercy."

The fairies shot off like tiny rockets, leaving colorful trails behind as they entered the HVAC system. Their giggles vanished moments later.

"Somehow, those two words are the scariest you've ever said." Ratu covered her mouth with one hand and laughed.

"I'm the guy who left Jenny in charge of my house." Mike took one last look at the vent. "They can burn this place down for all I care."

"Ahem." Ingrid gestured toward the nearest stairwell. "The Director has a private elevator we can access near the lobby. I assume he's in his office monitoring your current location and feeding it to the staff along with the Captain."

"Well at least we'll know where to find him." Mike allowed Ingrid to take the lead. "I don't suppose we'll get to take a secret tunnel to get there, will we?"

Ingrid pushed open the door to the stairwell. "What are you, twelve?"

"Secret tunnels are like wine. The older they are, the better they get."

"Until they turn into vinegar and fall apart," added Ratu. When Ingrid gave her an exasperated look from the next floor down, the naga shrugged. "Tunnels are sort of my thing."

When they got to the bottom of the stairwell, Ingrid opened the door and stepped outside. Mike passed through the opening and threw himself forward, tackling Ingrid to the ground. A trident flew over both of them from behind, embedding itself into a nearby concrete pillar. Two merfolk were standing next to a hot tub, and one of them was still armed.

"Hey, wait!" Mike put up his hands. "Leilani is alive, she's headed--"

The second merman lifted his trident and cocked his arm back. A fireball struck him in the face so hard that he flipped over backward and landed in the hot tub. When the remaining assailant tried to flee, Ratu stomped a foot on the ground, causing the decorative cobblestones to shudder beneath him. He tripped and fell on his face, then went motionless.

"Guess he didn't have his land legs yet," Mike said. When Ratu gave him a dirty look, he shrugged. "What? I knew you weren't going to say anything."

"How can you joke at a time like this?" asked Ingrid.

"Oh. That's easy." Mike stood and helped Ingrid up. "It's either make stupid jokes or vomit from sheer anxiety. One way or another, something's coming out of me."

"That hardly explains the rest of the time." Ratu narrowed her eyes at him, then smiled. "Or do you always experience anxiety?"

"Maybe it's so bad in the future that it reaches back in time and affects my current behavior?" He looked at Ingrid. "Where to?"

"That way." Ingrid pointed across the deck. "If there are merfolk here, I'm guessing they've got people all over."

"Of course they do." Ratu coughed into her hand. "That's because there are plenty of fish in the sea."

"Oh, that was a good one. How did it feel?" asked Mike.

"Regrettable. Like I have given something up that I can never regain."

"That would be your dignity," Mike explained. "It's why dads make those jokes. We have already paid the price, so we may as well cash in on the investment."

Ingrid groaned and started running. "C'mon, let's find some of my people."

There was the sound of breaking glass up above, followed by two members of the Order falling through the sky and landing in the pool with a splash. Lily-Mike stuck her head out the window.

"The windows are too breakable," she screamed in his voice, then disappeared inside. "I'm going to leave this place a bad review! None of the furniture is nailed down! Zero stars!"

The people in the pool scrambled for safety as a couch got shoved out the window. It tumbled gracefully, shedding its cushions before landing in the pool, one of the arms breaking off.

"We really were out of our depth," muttered Ingrid as she took them toward a side door. "I still can't believe she's a succubus."

"Living with her is never dull," said Mike. "But she has a good heart. Don't tell her I told you that, though."

"Why?" Ingrid opened the side door and they all stepped inside.

"She'll take it out on all of us." Mike chuckled. "How much further?"

"We just need to get through the..." Ingrid trailed off, her eyes on the group of people up ahead. Sitting in the plume of the lobby fountain was Princess Kailani herself. She was surrounded by her council and some soldiers, all of whom readied their weapons. The princess narrowed her eyes immediately at Mike.

"So, Caretaker--"

"Your daughter is alive," Mike said, cutting her off. "She was heading out into the bay to tell you that the Captain is the real enemy."

"You lie." The princess sneered at Mike. "My daughter may yet live, but she is likely under your thrall. For that's what you do. Francois explained it all to me. You seduce, you manipulate, you--"

Ratu sent a wave of fire forward, which was captured by a rising wall of water from the fountain, summoned by one of the merfolk. The naga's skin rippled, revealing gemstone scales that pulsed with power. On her kimono, the dragon circled hungrily in excitement.

"We don't have time for diplomacy," she said. "You two go! I'll try not to kill her."

"Be careful," Mike said. Ingrid led him through the lobby as tendrils of water formed above the conflagration and crashed down onto the tile.

Ratu casually stepped to the side and summoned a jet of fire that turned the tendrils into steam. A determined grin appeared on her face and Mike watched as her magical aura expanded. A sphere of fire formed around Ratu, driving the merfolk further back into the fountain.

"C'mon!" Ingrid yanked on Mike's arm and the two of them ran. They circled back behind the lobby toward a nondescript wall. Ingrid put her hands against the smooth stone and sent out a pulse of magic.

"Simple illusion," she said just as the wall shimmered in Mike's vision. Suddenly, the outline of the elevator door was obvious, and a keypad on the side was now visible. "Once you know it's here, you can find it whenever."

The elevator was made primarily of glass and looked out toward the ocean. Mike followed Ingrid inside. There were only three buttons, and Ingrid pushed P for the penthouse. The elevator whirred to life and climbed slowly toward the top of Paradise. Down below, merfolk and Order personnel ran toward either the lobby or the tower building where Mike's master suite had been. Out in the bay, Captain Francois' ship sat at the end of the dock, eerily devoid of life.

"That thing is probably packed full of skeletons," he said with a frown. "After we speak with the Director, we'll probably have another fight on our hands."

"But Francois won't have the element of surprise this time." Ingrid pointed down below. "And once Leilani speaks with her mother, we'll have the advantage of numbers. I know my people won't stand for an undead invasion, no matter how much they hate you."

"I hope you're right." Mike turned toward the door of the elevator and frowned. "Why is this thing so slow?"

"Protective wards." Ingrid tapped on the glass. "This elevator isn't visible from outside and is shielded against attacks of all kinds. We don't want our VIPs worrying about their safety."

Mike studied the magic swirling around the compartment. "I call bullshit," he said.

Ingrid laughed. "Okay, fine, you got me. It's slow on purpose. Gives people a chance to look down on Paradise, but we're told to tell them the other thing."

"Can't believe you tried to feed me the company line," he muttered, but wasn't angry. In fact, he noticed that Ingrid's smile was genuine.

"Old habits die hard," she admitted as the elevator stopped.

When the doors opened, it was to the sight of a circular room that was about thirty feet in diameter. A bank of monitors was installed on one wall with a desk beneath it. A man in a three-piece suit stood under the monitors, his hands behind his back as he studied a video feed of Ratu down in the lobby. The merfolk were trying to use the water from the fountain to diminish the naga's flames, but she was shifting her fire wall in such a manner that the merfolk were now targeting an area about fifteen feet to her left.

"Sir." Ingrid stood at attention next to Mike. "It's urgent that we speak."

"Such a simple deception," he said, his gaze never wandering from the video screen. "Yet profoundly effective. A tactic you seem to be fond of as well." The Director looked over at another screen which depicted Mike launching himself down the hall utilizing a rolling chair and a fire extinguisher. A knight attempted to intercept Lily, but the ensuing melee was lost in the extinguisher's foam. When the foam settled, the knight was on the ground, unconscious.

"It was necessary," said Mike. "We need to speak with you about the Captain."

"Hmm." The Director turned his gaze toward a screen with Captain Francois and a merman. They were running toward a stairwell when a sparkling blue light shot across the floor in front of them. Both of them slipped on a glittering fluid and crashed into the door itself. "I must admit I expected him to be far more competent. Is it hubris that causes him to hold back? Fear of retaliation?"

"Sir, he's the enemy. Captain Francois ambushed us up in the mountains and--"

"I'm aware." The Director sighed and looked down at something in his hand. "Your partner testified to this late last night."

"Wallace?" Ingrid blinked rapidly, stunned. "He's alive?"

The Director turned to face Ingrid and nodded. "He and a few others have been in the infirmary under a strict quarantine since last night. I can only keep their story under wraps for so long, which necessitated allowing the Captain to come onto the property and take one of yours, Caretaker."

"You knew." Ingrid's features hardened. "I don't understand."

"Humans typically don't." The Director turned to face the monitors once more. "The rarest of gems are forged deep beneath the earth in a crucible of fire and pressure over the course of hundreds if not thousands of years. The most precious things in the world are worth waiting for, and I have waited far too long for this moment to allow that which is most precious to me to slip through my fingers once again.

"And so I deceive, much like she did. Unlike her, I seek to repair that which has been broken and I have been a patient man. Last time we met, I faltered. I was weak in a moment when I should have been strong, I lacked commitment to my ideals. I believe you Americans have a saying for this. I choked at the finish line. It was a matter of poor planning on my part. I needed to be better, to be stronger the next time we met. How could she respect me if I wasn't even strong enough to bring her home?"

"Sir, that's--"

The Director made a slashing gesture with one hand and Ingrid clutched at her mouth. She moved her lips, but no sound emerged.

"Such a simple spell," he said, turning to face them once more. Beneath his chin, dark scales rippled as a smile crossed his face. "To nullify the vibrations of the air itself before it can travel further than the lips. It is a more precise version of a spell we use to prevent earthquakes."

"You're a naga." Mike blinked and shook his head in disbelief. What was a naga doing running an entire branch of the Order? Did the organization itself know?"I still don't understand why you're doing this."

"It should be obvious, Caretaker." The Director sneered. "After so long, I finally meet you face-to-face, the man who stole my beloved treasure from me."

Ingrid looked at Mike in exasperation, but he shrugged.

"No, seriously, I have no idea what he's talking about." Mike held up his hands. "I haven't stolen anything from anyone."

"Don't play dumb!" The Director held up the object in his hand. It looked like a Polaroid photograph of Ratu and Yuki at a restaurant. "But since I have to spell it out for you, perhaps my name will ring a bell. I am Mohan."

"Um, okay." Mike narrowed his eyes at the picture. "Wait, is that Taco Palace?"

Mohan, the Director, blinked twice, his eyes turning yellow. "That's right. My name is Mohan."

"Okay, Mohan."

"THE Mohan." The naga's voice was magnified now and a heavy presence filled the air.

Mike winced. "Okay, THE Mohan. My ears aren't broken."

"Surely she's mentioned me." The Director gestured over his shoulder. Ratu was now moving across the lobby, her kimono sweeping out behind her as she danced with the flames. Two of the merfolk were lying just outside the fountain now, steam rising from their bodies.

"Nope." Mike crossed his arms. "Never once has she mentioned your name."

The Director opened and closed his mouth like a fish and his eyes flashed. "You're...not lying. She never once mentioned me?"

"I've never heard her say your name." Mike pointed at the picture. "Where did you get that?"

Mohan snorted. "My people spent weeks looking for you. Imagine my surprise to discover that someone in your household used your credit card to order something called a Royal Feast. And even though it is but a photo, naga recognize their own. It was serendipity that brought us together, you see, and so I altered the plan. "

"So that's what this is about? You wanted...Ratu?"

"She hasn't told you her true name?" Mohan chuckled. "But of course not. Though your relationship has been...carnal in nature, this is further evidence that you are little more than a fling, a distraction."

Mike heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Eight men and women now stood there, swords and wands in hand.

"Wait. Let me get this straight." Mike pointed at the screens up top. "You want her back, whatever. That's between you and her. But what about what's happening at my house? You're threatening my family because of it?"

Mohan snorted. "It is a matter of honor, Caretaker. You have dishonored me by consorting with my betrothed. For that alone, I would take everything from you."

"Holy...fucking...shit." Mike's jaw hung open. "You're doing all this just to get back at me? Because you're petty?"

The Director narrowed his gaze. "This is hardly petty, Caretaker. She was my world, and you stole her from me. To let this injustice go unpunished--"

"Seriously, you guys too?" Mike looked at the knights and mages behind him. "This naga just admitted he's putting your lives and mine at risk because he's mad that I live with his ex-fiance."

"SHE IS STILL MY BETROTHED!" The Director's fist balled up and his face shifted, scales dancing all along his sharpened features. Mike averted his gaze as a powerful gust of wind struck him. Mohan hissed, his tongue flicking out.

Mike sighed. "You're pathetic."

Mohan made another slashing motion with his hand. Mike felt the spell take hold around his face, saw how the air shifted and weaved in front of him. With a slashing motion of his own, he sliced the spell in two.

"So I take it this means you're not going to call off the people in my yard?" Mike asked, turning his attention back to the Director.

"That reminds me." Mohan pulled a phone from his jacket and tapped the screen. It rang once before somebody answered. "I have the Caretaker in custody. He won't interfere. Proceed with the mission."

"You're a piece of shit!" Mike's magic boiled up within, ready to break free. He took a deep breath and addressed the men and women behind him. There was some uncertainty on their faces, but they had been conditioned since childhood to obey the chain of command. That wasn't something he could simply undo, no matter how fucked up the situation was. "I want you all to know that I'm sorry. If you have any friends or family at my house, I can't guarantee their safety anymore. It never had to come to this."

They barely reacted to his words, but looked a little nervous.

"Ah, but it did." Mohan adjusted his tie, his features suddenly more human. "Sister Ingrid, you will be taken to quarantine for your safety and properly debriefed. As for you, Mike Radley, this is the end of the line."