Home for Horny Monsters

Welcome back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, because I've decided to drop this a week (or so) early. With holidays coming up, I know I'm gonna get busy, but wanted you to have something fun to look forward to this week.

New reader? Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games!

We've got monster girls you want, honey, and the plot's never the same

But there's a lot that's going on, and it might not make much sense

you should start at the beginning, honey, and then we shall see you hence

(or just do what you want, I'm not your parent. Also, this concludes my music career)

Returning reader? The beatdown continues! This is the second to last chapter of book four, but don't you fret! I intend to wrap things up as nicely as possible and then prep your eyeholes for book five, which will start releasing either late this year or first thing next.

I won't bore you with a recap, because shit is going down! Let's jump right in, shall we?

Battlegrounds

The technicolor clouds of the Dreamscape parted as Mike fell through them, and he flipped himself over in an attempt to finally stick the landing on the beach. For a moment, he thought he had it, but at the last second his feet swung out from under him and he slammed into the ground hard enough that the beach crumbled beneath him. He fought to stay above the flowing sand that rushed in to fill the gap, and was busy pinwheeling his arms when a golden ray of light broke through the sky above to illuminate him.

The fairy queen descended slowly, her diaphanous wings spread out behind her. The regal attire she had worn in the court had been replaced with resplendent armor that glistened in the light of the Dreamscape. The clouds parted, and a choir of angels hummed a battle hymn as she landed on the beach, her bare feet pressing into the sand.

She looked around the island, her eyes scanning the water, then turned to look at the house and frowned. Curious, he followed her gaze and saw that the house was in a state of disrepair that made no sense, and the roof of his porch had collapsed.

"And so we see the inner workings of your mind," she said. "I can't say I'm disappointed. This is roughly what I would expect from a mortal."

"Yeah, well—"

He tried to pull his foot out of the sand and fell on his face, getting a mouthful of grit. There was a rush of air, and a strong hand grabbed him by his other leg and yanked. He was pulled free of the sand, and now dangled upside down in front of the queen. She seemed bigger than she had been just a second ago, and his breath caught in his throat when another pair of arms unfolded from her torso.

"Let's see what you're made of, Caretaker." She spun in place and hurled him through the air, and he careened across the beach and then slid across the sand.

He bounced over an errant boulder and landed in a tide pool, which caused the crabs inside to stand up on their hind legs and flee. A fat starfish cartwheeled behind them before performing a belly flop off of a large rock on the shoreline. Mike was almost back on his feet when she grabbed him by the hair and yanked him backward, then slammed him into the ground and placed her foot on his chest.

"Feel free to wake up when you're ready," she told him, then held up a hand full of purple fire. "But try to last. I want to carve you up first."

Pain radiated through his body, but now that he had a moment to concentrate, he was able to disperse most of it. She had gotten the drop on him, that was true, but this was his Dreamscape, and he refused to let her get to him.

He caught movement off to his side and saw a crab within reach. The damn thing was wearing a top hat and a monocle, but he grabbed it by the face and smirked at the queen.

"Feeling crabby?" he asked, then threw the crab at the queen.

When it hit her in the face, it exploded into hundreds of tiny crabs, each one wearing a top hat or a monocle. She jumped away from him and shook herself off, the tiny crabs scurrying away in a hurry once they hit the ground. When she stomped on them, they burst into smears of blue and pink paint.

"Is that all you have? Mortal puns? Stupid jokes?" Her arms and torso were covered in red and white paint smears now, and Mike suppressed a grin. When she tried to rub it off, it just created long streaks of grime that sparkled when the light hit the smashed monocles just right.

"I'm just trying to buy myself some time," he said, then struck his best martial art pose. Though inexperienced in the art of self defense, he dug into the mental intent of the act, and felt his mind connect with the beach around him.

When the queen ran toward him, he swept his hand dramatically in front of him. The sand of the beach erupted, blasting into the queen and smashing her into a grove of nearby palm trees.

He dramatically made a fist, and the beach followed suit. It was almost ten feet across, and as the queen pulled herself out of the trees, it slammed into her hard enough that one of her wings crimped, and he heard her shout something he couldn't understand. He summoned another sand hand and then put his palms together, willing the beach to grind the queen like a stone in a rock polisher.

A blast of lightning hit him in the chest and blew him across the ground. He tumbled backward and landed on his feet, raising his hands for the inevitable followup. It was another blast of lightning, but he summoned a steel rod from the sand, and the lightning hit that instead.

"So, maybe I was hasty," the queen muttered, her upper body free of the sandy prison. She had her fingers pointed like a gun at him, and a nasty looking storm cloud swirled overhead.

"Did you think this would be easy?" he asked her.

The queen ignored him, her eyes scanning the beach. He sent another sand fist at her, but she raised her own hand and created a barrier of stone. He tried a stone fist, but she countered with a piece of paper that covered the fist and caused it to implode.

"Clever girl," he muttered with a hint of annoyance.

"I am older than the Dreamscape," the queen said, then summoned a bubble to surround her. "What you do here is nothing more than cheap parlour tricks compared to its true potential. I thought I could pressure you a little at a time, make you think you had a chance, then frustrate you to no end."

"So you're toying with me."

The queen smirked. "I believe the cliche you would use is 'blowing off steam.' I have taken your measure, Mike Radley, and know what you are capable of."

Mike lowered his hands. "So...does that mean you give up?"

The queen rolled her eyes. "Your arrogance is tedious."

"It isn't arrogance. I am going to win."

"You have no idea how sad it is that you believe that." The queen vanished, then appeared right next to him. "I'm tired of listening to you."

A band of metal slammed against his mouth, and when he tried to pull it free, she yanked his hands away and then slammed him into the ground. He grunted, and she lifted him up and threw him hard into a nearby palm tree, causing the tree to snap and fall. Even though his pain was diminished, he was in agony as the bones of his body shattered and healed in seconds. She paused to lift him up, her extra hands pinching his face as if he was a cute child.

"I wanted to hear you beg, but this is far more entertaining."

She grabbed his skull and slammed him into a nearby rock. The rock broke apart, so she summoned an even bigger rock. He whimpered when he saw it, and when she smashed through him, his whole body distorted like jello, then bounced back into shape.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to do this to you," she growled, then grabbed his arm and yanked it off. He stared in horror as she tossed it away, and then yelled when she grabbed the new arm that had formed and repeated the process.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus, but her onslaught continued. He was her hammer, and the whole world had become a nail. He was so distracted that he was unable to bend his own Dreamscape to his will. He reached out to try and find Naia, his ace in the hole, but she was centered in the middle of the house. Until the queen decided to go inside and smash some furniture with his head, he would have to hold on.

The queen was now over twelve feet tall and was casually smacking him into trees. He let the pain wash over him, his mind holding onto the idea that his real body was perfectly fine, and that nothing she did to him would leave lasting harm.

"You dare to defy a queen in her own court?" She slammed him into the ground, then pressed his face into the sand. "You miserable miscreant. I have lived many thousands of years on this plane of existence, and no creature would dare to say the things you have!"

She emphasized her point by picking him up and flying across the beach like a stealth bomber, only she shoved his face into the sand, using the beach as an industrial sander. When she lifted him up, she scowled at his appearance, then dropped him and stomped him into the ground hard enough that the world went black as he was buried beneath a foot of sand.

When she pulled him back out, she was still ranting, but in a language he didn't understand. The sand beneath her feet was turning black as if scorched with heat, and she lifted him into the sky before slamming him down again. However, the longer she went, the easier it was to disconnect his mind from the sensations of his body. After another couple of minutes, he was only along for the ride as she took out her frustrations on him.

At some point, she must have noticed, because her assaults were now less ambitious, and she finally tossed him in the sand.

"It's that damned succubus," she told him. "I was aware she was training you, but no mortal should have a grasp on this place like you do."

"Mmph," he replied. It wasn't a very kind thing to say to a queen, but he figured it was lost in translation anyway. He stood on wobbling legs and yanked at the metal on his face. It didn't come off, so he held up his right hand as if he was wearing a sock puppet and mimed talking with it.

"You fucked up bringing me here," he told her, his voice coming from his hand. "If I give up, I die. You can slow time, trap me here, but I'm aware that this isn't my body. My real body is with Cecilia, and even if you trap me here forever, you'll be trapped, too. So you can slap me around, set me on fire, whatever, but it's far better than the alternative. Your show of power is meaningless, Your Highness, because this isn't air we're breathing, there is no fucking spoon, and you have no real power here."

The queen's face turned a dark green and she took several deep breaths, her eyes radiating with power.

"You will regret this," she said, and the air on the beach went still.

"Wakka wakka, bitch," he said with his hand, then gave her the finger.

When she teleported this time, she picked him up by his skull and pressed her fingers into his eyes. The assault on his mind was immediate, and he felt her tear through his memories as if desperately seeking a page from out of a book. His memories appeared and disappeared in a flash, and she aggregated many memories of his mother, literally ripping them from his head and tossing them onto the beach where they expanded and formed.

They were all yelling now, and the screams felt like knives against his flesh. He fought to tune them out, but now they were descending on him with raised hands and shrill cries. The queen dropped him onto the ground and he tried to fight back against the copies of his mother that attacked him, but it was no use. They were taking turns screaming in his face, and he could see their words appearing in the air before slamming into him and sinking into his skin.

It felt like he was on fire, and suddenly he was stuck in that burning car with his mother once more, the one that had killed her and left him with a lifetime of scars, literal and emotional. She screamed in agony as he tried to fight his way free of his seatbelt, for he was hanging upside down as dripping gas from the car ignited. The other memories of her kept pushing him back in as he tried to escape, their fingernails scoring his skin. Panicking, he sank his hands into the roof of the upside-down car, willed it to bend like clay, and then tried to dig his way to freedom. The hands grabbed his feet and pulled him back inside the car to allow the flames to consume him.

A strong hand grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out, and it was the queen. She snarled and threw him into the sand nearby, and he tried to squirm away, but his mother found him again.

"Did you think I wouldn't use her against you?" the queen asked as she stomped toward him. He tried to scramble away, but his mothers were grabbing at his clothes and pulling him in every direction, their words now written on his skin.

Worthless. Disgusting. Nasty.

When he read the words, they swirled around, feeling very much like ants. In his fight to be free, he shoved his hands deep into the sand and felt something brush against his fingers.

When the queen grabbed onto him, he held onto the object out of reflex. As she dragged him free, he pulled a door wrapped in thick vines from beneath the sand. It had an ornate doorknob with a very big keyhole beneath it.

"Oh? What have we here?" The queen pushed the door away and it lifted up as if suspended by wires, then hovered above the sand. She looked at Mike, then looked at the door. Even with his mothers screeching at him from every direction, he had no trouble hearing the queen's voice.

"Mmph," he replied.

"I sense...hmm." She placed a hand against the door, then looked at him. "This was generated by your mind, wasn't it? It's an anxiety. You know what's behind this door, don't you?"

He shook his head vehemently, very much aware that she knew he was lying.

"Anxieties are a fickle thing. They tend to trap you in your own personal hell until you wake up." The dark green of her skin was fading, and she now wore a huge grin. She grabbed the door with her hand and started turning the knob. "I can't wait to see—"

She was cut off by the surge of water that blasted the door open and sent Mike, his mothers, and the queen tumbling across the beach. Now free of the queen, he kicked his feet and swam sideways along with the flowing current of bathroom water that had created a raging river that ran out into the ocean. Once free of the river, he sprinted toward the house, knowing it was his best chance at freedom.

There was a cry of rage from the beach when Mike reached the front yard, and he was almost to the door when he was tackled from behind. The two of them crashed against the shattered remnants of the porch, but Mike was able to grab a plank and smack it against the queen's temple. She snarled and took the wood away from him, and he sent his mind and heart into the home, hoping he was close enough to summon Naia. The part of her soul that was bound to him had all of her power here, and he knew she would be able to help.

"Enough!" The queen picked him up and slammed him against the nearest wall, choking him with two hands while pinning his arms with the other two. Her body was dripping with sewage, and the curls of her hair had come undone, making her look like a drowned rat. "If I have to spend the next hundred years in here ripping you to pieces, I will!"

"Mmph!" he called out to the house, hoping that Naia would hear. Already, the memories of his mother were beginning to circle the yard, their words reaching out to him like clawed hands. He had no offensive plan, and his defenses wouldn't hold up against the emotional assault of his mother for much longer.

The queen leaned in close, revealing that her teeth had become fangs.

"I will chew your goddamn face off," she whispered in rage. "I will run my fingers beneath your skin, I will—"

Her eyes went wide and she leaned back to reveal that a thick, black tail had wrapped around her throat, choking her off. When she shifted to see her attacker, Mike was surprised to see Lily standing there.

"Oh, you must be the new girl," Lily said. "Sounds like you're into some kinky shit. The safe word is chucklebunny, by the way."

Lily pulled with her tail, and the queen let go of Mike. The queen put her hands at her hips and drew a quartet of golden blades that appeared from nowhere.

"Treachery," she growled. "No outsiders are allowed!"

"Mmph mmph, mmph," Mike agreed, even though he was glad to see the succubus. Had she simply waited in the Underworld, and had now stepped in to intervene? And where was Naia?

"Hardly." This voice came from the side of the house, followed by the sound of hooves on stone. Zel appeared, and she held what looked like a golden scroll in the air. "According to the terms of your agreement, his entire soul is eligible for this contest. After all, that's why you're able to use his own mother against him, isn't it?"

"What? How?" The queen looked at Zel, then Lily, then Mike. Behind him, he heard movement in the house, and looked over his shoulder to see Ratu appear, carrying a large ball of fire in her hand that pulsed hungrily.

"It's complicated," Ratu informed her, and then threw the ball of fire.

🏚️🏚️🏚️

Beth realized she was holding her breath, then let it out in a quick burst. Marco's face was covered in black lines that looked like bulging veins, and she wondered if her former co-worker was even still alive.

Kisa, on the other hand, looked just fine, save for her crystalline blue eyes and the necklace around her neck. Beth recognized it right away; it was the same necklace Ratu had been studying.

"Well?" Marco pointed his wand at Kisa. "I can assure you, no matter how many lives she has left, she won't survive a direct hit from this."

Up on the roof, Abella stood with her fists clenched, her eyes now on Beth, awaiting instructions. Far above the house, the fairies had descended, most likely for a closer look. The spirits had pinned Sulyvahn against some bushes, and he had dropped his own head on the ground.

"You have nowhere to go," Beth said. "Right now, your castle is under siege by demons."

"I'm aware," Marco replied. "I'm aware of everything. I've been watching everyone in this house for the last month, following your every step, predicting your every move. I put ideas in your heads, allowing you to go about your days thinking you were in control."

"You couldn't have known Lily was bringing an army," Beth protested.

"Please. Even chaos is predictable. She was aware that I told the fairie queen when he was coming. I knew she would go with him, which gave her the opportunity to round up some friends on her return trip. Nothing that happens here happens without my approval." His tone was smug, and she had never seen a shit-eating grin so big. "All they will find in that tower is a bunch of delays."

Kisa looked over at him with disapproval, her mouth twisted into a grimace. Her left hand moved to the necklace, touched it briefly, then went back in the air.

"So you knew about Samhain?"

"Poor, simple Beth. Who do you think dropped that book in front of you?"

She gasped. The pieces were coming together, but she wasn't about to admit it. Something was going on with Kisa, maybe something the shadow couldn't predict, and he seemed very eager to chat about it.

"That was you?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"Of course it was. I've been watching all of you ever since the box was opened." He tucked the book under his arm and took a step forward. "This place used to be my home, and I know all of its secrets. Granted, I have to wait until the Caretaker discovers them, but once they do, I have years of insights to pull from. Once this useful meatsuit delivered the box containing the observatory, I knew that the Grimoire would be mine again. All I needed was time."