Dead and Horny

Hi, all! Annabelle Hawthorne has returned for the next chapter of...of...

*checks notes*

Dead and Horny! My disaster lesbian saga!

For new readers, this is book 3 of a spinoff series based on Horny Monsters. To catch you up, once upon a time, Dana was murdered and turned into a zombie. Now she has a werewolf girlfriend and is planning a data heist with a haunted doll, a mage, and a succubus. That's a bit reductive, but the summary of prior events is longer than this chapter. If you have a weekend to burn, start in Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 001 and we'll see you in a few days.

Returning readers, welcome back! My publishing schedule has been CRAZY busy this year, but I'm still doing my best to make sure I'm sharing some of the fruits of my labors with you all. Make sure you are checking the release schedule in my bio to stay up to date on rough release dates so that you can keep up on the story.

Or leave and come back in a few years to binge it all at once. You do you, boo.

(Editor's note: this book happens concurrently with the events of Home for Horny Monsters Part 8)

While book three of D&H is still in the beginning stages, I just want to say how much I appreciate the positive comments I got from people excited to see it continue. It takes a lot of time and energy to get these done, and I wouldn't still be here without your support and enthusiasm.

I also couldn't give you as clean of an experience without the beta team. Thanks to the Mikes, the Pastor, the Dragon, and Zing. Special thanks to Lit's TJ Skywind for the assist, and anyone else I may have forgotten here (I have too many projects with different readers is all). If you meet any of these people in person, buy them a beer or make sure they're staying hydrated.

Speaking of beer, I hear they have some really good beer over in

Switzerland

The streets of Lucerne were bustling with activity. Locals and tourists milled about, oblivious to Ingrid and her partner, the two of them overlooking the lake. Named after the city itself, Lake Lucerne sported a few boats that puttered through the middle.

Despite the beautiful alpine scenery and the semi-jovial atmosphere of the people, Ingrid was in a properly foul mood.

"Ah, c'mon, cheer up." Lily elbowed her gently in the side. "I'm way more fun than dog-girl, anyway."

Upon arriving through the rat portal, the group had been briefed on the location of the data center. Despite the historical architecture of the city, it had been thoroughly modernized. The data center that the auction house used was hidden beneath another one that aggregated climate data from around the world. If not for the surge in electrical usage prior to each auction, Eulalie would likely still be trying to hunt it down.

After the briefing, Eulalie had promptly announced that Ingrid would be paired with Lily on this mission. Her argument that Tasia and Dana would be worthless on a stealth mission compared to a shapeshifter had held plenty of merit, but it didn't mean Ingrid had to be happy about it.

On the plus side, it had meant that Dana and Tasia were babysitting Jenny. That doll gave Ingrid the fucking creeps.

"Have I ever told you I like it when you brood?" Lily turned around to lean her back against the railing. She wore a white sweater and had her hair plaited into a pair of long braids, making her look like the very epitome of a Swiss girl. Every few blocks, Lily had made subtle changes in an attempt to blend in better with the locals. "You have the best pouting face."

"You've never seen me brood," Ingrid replied in irritation.

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Bitch, please. My whole job in Hawaii was to make you brood. Do you remember that night at the beach bar?"

Ingrid scowled at the memory. At the time, the Order had thought Lily was little more than a side piece intern for Mike and the succubus had capitalized on it. Yet another in a long line of mistakes that she needed to put behind her.

"I'd prefer not to dwell on it," muttered Ingrid. "The whole point of all of...this," she gestured at the city then continued, "was to move forward and actually do some good in the world."

"Ah, you're on a redemption arc." Lily turned and leaned over the railing as if looking into the water. She wiggled her leggings-clad ass at the people walking past, and a few of them stared. "I love to see some good character development."

"Do you ever stop running your mouth?"

"I need to keep it stretched and lubricated. Got a man at home with a big dick. It's like trying to swallow the bottom of a baseball bat." Lily pantomimed the act, her throat actually bulging out as she gargled air.

Ingrid blushed at the memory of Mike. Even though she hadn't seen the guy in months and nothing had happened between them, he had featured very heavily in most of her sexual fantasies of late. When she and Wallace had been partners, they had hooked up whenever the need struck. Her current team was, sadly, dick deficient.

The succubus paused her phantom blowjob and sniffed the air. She turned toward Ingrid and grinned.

"Not a word," muttered the mage, painfully aware of how aroused she had become. "And I know it's not a scent thing, so you can knock off the act. You're not Tasia."

"Now that brings up a question of my own. Has Tasia ever smelled it?" Lily leaned in close. "What all can that girl smell, by the way?"

Ingrid shrugged and looked away. "If she ever does smell anything, she's polite enough to keep it to herself."

"Booooring. I--" Lily was cut off as her phone and Ingrid's buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked. "Looks like we're up, swamp pants."

"I fucking hate you," muttered Ingrid as she leaned away from the railing. "I don't know how Dana put up with this for so long."

"Eh, it's a perk of being dead inside." Lily stuck her hands in her pockets and strolled away from the railing. "I'm also her portable snack shack."

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"I could explain it, but it wouldn't be

polite

." The two of them moved into the city, keeping an eye out for a man named Ludwig. He had just left his shift at Sky Climbers Data Processing, which was the data center above the one they needed to access. Eulalie was fairly certain the guy actually worked for the auction house and had it on good authority that he went to the same bar for dinner after each of his shifts.

It didn't take long before both Ingrid and Lily had eyes on the man. He was tall and lanky with a scar on his chin and a patchy beard. If Ingrid had to guess, the guy was probably just one of the data nerds who worked at the center. They tailed him from half a block back, one of them on each side of the street. Ludwig was oblivious as he walked over a mile to get to a place called

Hüsli Av Öl

. Ingrid heard him greet the bartender as the door shut behind him.

"So what's the move?" whispered Lily from behind, causing Ingrid to flinch. She hadn't even sensed the succubus cross the street behind her. "There's no way a guy like that will believe two women are interested in him."

Ingrid sighed. "Is this the part where you tell me that I'm the ugly one, so I should go flirt with him?"

"Hell, no. Girl, you're a catch." Lily swatted Ingrid's tight butt playfully. "You engage him in conversation and he'll think something is up. If anything, I should be the one to undertake Operation Ugg-ems. What are we thinking, Jennifer Gray before the nose job? She was hot in that 'she would probably settle for me' kind of way."

"What? No." Ingrid scowled. "For starters, if our guy is legit, he'll immediately suspect any woman coming onto him." She opened her mouth to continue her line of thought, then closed it when she remembered who she was talking to.

"Wait, did you almost let some actual personality slip out?" Lily laughed and took Ingrid by the hand. She had shifted her facial features and now looked like she could be Ingrid's sister. "C'mon, let's hear it. For starters means there's something else you wanted to say."

"No." Ingrid pulled her hand away. "There wasn't anything else," she lied.

"C'mon." Lily dropped her voice. "Say it or I'll moan."

Ingrid's eyebrows threatened to climb off her face. "You wouldn't."

"I'll even add an 'oh daddy' to it." Lily made her lips into an O. "I'll do it right in front of

everyone

."

Sighing, Ingrid crossed her arms and looked at her feet. "Second...nobody puts Baby in a corner."

"Ha!" Lily snatched Ingrid's arm and pulled her along. "Isn't Patrick Swayze a dream? So many beans have been flicked to that man, he could have started his own coffee chain."

"I still hate you," muttered Ingrid.

"That's because we're in the midst of an enemy to lovers arc. You get a few drinks in me and I'll go down on you like a billionaire's submersible."

Ingrid narrowed her eyes. "That thing imploded."

"Just like my last long-term relationship. He was a billionaire, too, if you account for inflation."

"I...what?" Ingrid shook her head. "This conversation is pointless. As I was saying, our boy is going to be immediately suspicious of any woman who shows interest in him, ugly or otherwise. So instead of going around it, we should lean into it."

"Now you're talking dirty. What's the plan?"

"We could just roll in as a couple of hot tourists looking to get some sucker to pay for our drinks. That would give us an in. Maybe he'll roll with it, buy us some beers, and let us flirt with him. You just need to get close enough to mind meld with him, right?"

Lily nodded. "But we need to get him in a dark corner first so that nobody is the wiser when I knock him out. Unless you want to shove your hand up his ass and use him as a puppet."

"For a moment there, I thought you were serious," Ingrid mumbled.

"I'm a demon and cannot lie." Lily pulled Ingrid toward the front door of

Hüsli Av Öl

. "C'mon, let's see what sort of hometown advantage we're dealing with."

When they stepped into the bar, the immediate smell of hamburgers and beer washed over them. Ingrid inhaled deeply, then let out a quiet sigh. Her stomach grumbled in protest, begging her to just take a peek at the menu, maybe talk Lily into splitting an appetizer with her. Then it rebelled, realizing that Lily would probably take more than her fair share. No, it would be better to just get her own order, maybe see if they'd top it with cheese, holy shit, was that guy eating some brisket? What was the German word for brisket, she could order it off the--

A sharp elbow in her side snapped her back to the job at hand. Lily took Ingrid by the hand and pulled her toward the bar where Ludwig sat. The man already had a beer and was staring at a small tablet, deep in thought. When they got to the bar, Ingrid saw that the man was holding an ebook reader she didn't recognize.

They split up, sitting on either side of him. Ludwig didn't look up, he was too engrossed in whatever he was reading.

"Hey there." Lily leaned forward and flashed a grin at Ludwig. "What are you reading?"

Ludwig didn't even look up. The man's focus was complete. He picked up his beer and drank some of it, his eyes locked on his book.

The bartender came over and tapped on the counter to get their attention. When he spoke, it was in Swiss German. "What are you having?" he asked, or something similar. Ingrid's German was good enough to understand him.

Lily fired off an order so fast that Ingrid couldn't follow. The man nodded and left, leaving them alone. Ludwig tapped the screen, changing to the next page.

Scowling, Ingrid leaned back to look at Lily over Ludwig's hunched shoulders. All that talk about a plan had gone out the window. "Now what?" she mouthed.

"Puppet time," Lily replied silently, then reached over and stroked the back of Ludwig's hand. The man flinched, looked up at Lily, then started to slump forward. Ingrid let out a laugh like she'd been told a joke, then hugged Ludwig from the side to keep him from face planting. Beneath the fabric of Ludwig's shirt, Ingrid felt Lily's tail slide into place, holding him up.

Ludwig's hand dropped to the counter, but to anyone looking, the man had hunched forward and was still engrossed in his book. When the bartender came back and slid a plate of sliders that Ludwig had obviously ordered earlier onto the table, he gave them all a questioning look.

"He just read the sad part," said Ingrid in stilted Deutsch. "Of his story."

The bartender didn't look totally convinced as he walked away. Ingrid winced and looked over at the succubus. "Do you have it?" she asked.

Lily's face was frozen in a fake smile as she stared at the countertop. "Almost," she whispered. "Right front pocket of his jacket."

Ingrid slid a hand into the man's coat and pulled out a blank keycard. "Anything else?"

"Key, but I've got it already." Lily's eyes went crossed. "This fucker is so boring, damn. He keeps a spreadsheet on his computer that keeps track of his clothes. It's like I'm digging through the boring parts of the matrix just to see...aha!" The succubus took her hand off of Ludwig and propped him upright. His fist was now pressed against his forehead to keep him from tumbling over. "We need to go."

"Kay," was all Ingrid could say. She had crammed a slider into her mouth and was fumbling with a second one. The two of them made it outside without any issues, then casually walked away from the bar and toward the center of town.

"Don't be greedy," said Lily as she snatched the other slider out of Ingrid's hand. She took a bite and let out a loud mmm. "These are really good."

Ingrid finished chewing her slider and swallowed it. She regretted not having something to wash it down. "Are we good to get in?"

"Yeah, but there was a hitch. He's a data nerd, like we suspected, but the front office equivalent. The guy monitors data streams from a glorified reception desk out front. If there's any trouble with the equipment, he calls in a special contractor to work on it."

"That's weird, right?"

"Not as weird as that slash Warhammer fiction he was reading." Lily laughed. "There's no possible way you can gape an asshole like that."

"Ugh, why can't you be normal?"

"This

is

normal for me, Ingrid. I don't hide it like other people do." Lily licked the grease off her fingers as the duo moved deeper into the city toward the data center. It was almost fifteen minutes to their destination, a small, nondescript building with no windows on the outside. The two paused around the corner from the data center while Lily sent an update to Eulalie.

"Give me the card," said Lily. Ingrid handed it over and the succubus stepped into an alleyway and emerged looking just like Ludwig.

"That's unnerving," Ingrid said.

Ludwig/Lily waggled their eyebrows, then held out an arm. "Wanna take a tour of my workplace?" they asked. "You can blow me outside the server room."

"Please don't make this creepier than it needs to be."

Lily snorted, then led Ingrid the rest of the way. They walked into the lobby of the building and were spotted by a security guard who obviously recognized Ludwig and waved.

"It's my cousin," Ludwig/Lily said in Swiss German. "Giving her a tour of the stacks."

"Have fun," replied the guard.

Ingrid was led to an elevator. Once inside, Lily transformed back to normal and stuck the key into the panel, then tapped a button labeled B2.

"Aren't you worried that we'll get spotted?" asked Ingrid.

"There's no cameras at all in the basement," Lily said. "Our last obstacle is some older woman who does the night shift. This place is typically run with a skeleton crew. They just need to make sure the information they have is secure, then delete it after all the payments have gone through."

"No cameras? That doesn't sound very secure."

"No shit." Lily leaned against the wall and crossed her arms as the elevator descended. They were going far deeper than a normal basement. "There are a bunch of red flags, but I can only go off of Ludwig's memories. The man has worked here almost a decade and never once gone beyond the entryway. I'm half expecting to discover that there aren't any servers and that Eulalie made a mistake or something."

"So a data center with almost no employees?" Ingrid shook her head. "I don't like it."

"Either way, the evidence still points to this place belonging to the auction house, so hopefully Eulalie can find something she can use. Besides, we only need to get inside long enough to snap some pics for the rats to chew a tiny portal for our girl to hook directly into their system." Lily pocketed the key. "In just a few more seconds, we're gonna meet the night crew. She's armed, by the way."

"Armed with what?" Ingrid stepped to the side before the door opened. Lily had already transformed back into Ludwig and was waving their hands frantically.

"Apologies," they said to someone Ingrid couldn't see. "I forgot something."

"You got on the elevator with someone," said a female voice.

"She's my cou--" Lily shot forward so fast that it looked like she teleported. A gun went off, followed by the sound of a heavy weight hitting the floor. Ingrid pulled out her wand and stepped around the corner to see Lily on top of the desk, huddled over with her wings spread. An older woman was held in her tail like a python stealing a child.

"We okay?" asked Ingrid.

"Bitch almost hit the panic button." Lily dropped the woman on the floor and then crouched over her and put fingers to the woman's temples. After a couple of moments, she swore and stood up.

"What's wrong?"

"Two things. One, she doesn't seem to know anything more about this place than Ludwig did." Lily moved to the desk and started rummaging through it. "And two, she knits hats for orphans."

"What does that mean?"

"It means she fucking knits hats for orphans. Ludwig cranks it to Warhammer porn. This woman watches

Murder She Wrote

while cranking out clothing for kids without parents. I'm fucking hungry, and it turns me into a real bitch." The succubus pulled another gun out of the desk and tucked it away. "C'mon, we've only got about twenty minutes before she's up."

"That's really short."

"She just started her shift. The woman had like three cups of coffee. This is Switzerland, they've got the good shit here." Lily leapt off the desk toward a featureless door inset behind it. "Or maybe it's the speed she just snorted."

"I thought you said she knitted hats for orphans." Ingrid knelt down to inspect the woman. She looked to be in her forties.

"I did. She also snorts speed, likes how it makes her feel young again. Doesn't like that it causes her to grind her teeth, which is why she has veneers. Do you want to keep talking about her life choices or do you want to find some proper nerd shit?" Lily moved to the door and pulled the card out of her pocket. "Oh, shit. She has a card like this one, too. Can you find it?"

"Got it." Ingrid pulled the blank card from around the woman's neck. "Why do we need it?"

"This door requires two cards to get in." Lily gestured toward the wall closest to Ingrid. "Secret scanner about waist height."

Ingrid frowned and waved the card around the wall while Lily did the same on her side. "I've got a bad feeling about all of this."

"Maybe this is where they keep all the hats she knits." Lily smirked and the door opened to illuminate a long hallway. At the other end was another door. "Okay, no hats. Just your general weirdness."

"I'm starting to think Eulalie sent us on a wild goose chase." The two of them walked into the hallway together. Lily shoved her way forward, her head on a swivel as she studied the area.

"You might be right, except for this." Lily pointed to the corner of the hallway. Bundles of wires had popped out from the ceiling and now ran above them toward the door on the other end. "Whoever designed this place clearly had a hard-on for brutalism. I feel like we're walking into a modern dungeon."