Hi all! I am back from vacation and ready to share with you the next chapter of Home for Horny Monsters!
New reader? Welcome! This is a story about a magical house and some horny monsters. This is the 5th novel in the series, not counting both spin-offs. There is plenty of sex and mayhem prior to this, so you may want to bounce back to Chapter 1 and start there.
Returning reader? Welcome back, I missed you! I've been hard at work writing and editing, but know you're gonna have a lot of fun with this chapter. To catch you up, Mike nearly died, Beth is having a doozy of a day trying to outwit 3 out of 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Abella made some peace with Velvet.
So what comes next? It's time for us to come
Back from the Brink
Time was meaningless for Mike as he slipped back and forth into consciousness. Though no longer on the edge of death, his limbs were heavy with pain. He would sometimes close his eyes for a second only to open them and see that the occupants of the room had changed.
Yuki was a constant presence, either changing his bandages or fussing over him. He saw Quetzalli only briefly; the dragon looked like she had fallen ill. Abella sometimes watched through the window, and actually came in a couple of times to sit with him. Of Dana and Bigfoot, there was no sign.
And then there was Velvet. She fed him soup when he was awake, encouraging him softly with her words. She was a constant presence, both when he was awake and in the Dreamscape. His weakness chased him even there, and she would hold him on the beach while he rested. Trapped in a state of perpetual exhaustion, he clung to her presence like moss to a rock.
Velvet was helping him eat some beef stew when he heard a loud crash, followed by banging. Yuki left the room with a worried look on her face.
"What is that?" he asked. It occurred to him now that he had heard the same noise numerous times during the day. His mind was finally clear enough to ask about it.
The Arachne sighed and put down the can of soup. "That would be Dana," she explained. "She's going feral. Yuki has been using magic to freeze her in place so that she doesn't break out of the pantry."
There was a loud bang, followed by screams of panic. Something heavy thudded against the wall, and he heard Abella swearing.
"I should go help," he muttered, but even he didn't believe the words. His legs were like jelly. From the brief moments he had seen his own body when the blankets were lifted, he looked slightly emaciated. Much of it was from water loss, his fever had caused him to sweat so much that the sheets had been changed multiple times.
The rest was pure calorie loss. Yuki had stuffed him full of every curative potion that Zel had sent with him. His body had fought to regenerate tissue damaged by the poison, and the process required energy. Though his bond with Tink had given him resistance to poison, it apparently wasn't strong enough to just brush aside the toxin that the Nirumbi used. The wound from the arrow had also managed to nick a lung, which made breathing in deep more than a little painful.
"Abella has it under control," Velvet explained. "She's the only one that can't get scratched or bit."
At least we hope so,
Mike thought. The idea of Abella turning into a zombie was a terrifying thought.
The cabin went quiet. Eventually, Yuki came back in, her face twisted into a mask of anguish. When she plopped down next to the bed, she let out a sigh and then leaned forward onto the bed.
"That bad?" he asked.
"Eating the Nirumbi triggered something in her," she stated. "Shortly after the battle, she was mostly herself, but the poison was still doing its thing. She's crazy strong right now, it's almost like feeding on living tissue caused her to bulk up. We think that if we can get her some of her usual food, she may revert, but..." Yuki gestured at him. "You're in absolutely no condition, and likely won't be for days."
He sighed. Maybe his magic could get him up, but he definitely couldn't participate while barely able to move. Sometimes staying awake was too much of a chore for him.
After a bit more soup, he shared what he had learned from Titania with the others. Yuki went pale and left for a while with Bigfoot to check out the perimeter of the barrier. Velvet and Quetzalli took turns giving him food and water as his strength returned. He could finally raise his arms a little, but the effort left him exhausted.
When Yuki and Bigfoot returned, they came and sat down next to Mike. The Sasquatch's face was serious, which was a rather frightening sight.
"How bad are we fucked?" Mike asked.
"We are trapped." Yuki had taken out her tarot cards and was flipping through them. "It's a powerful spell that took quite some time to set up. It could be disrupted from the outside, but we can't get word out."
"Can't we just use my phone?" he asked.
"No." Yuki frowned while fidgeting with her tarot cards. "It was broken when Leeds attacked Abella in the woods. We checked already. And Dana's is missing. We think it was in her pocket when she ran out into the woods."
"Shit." Mike closed his eyes. What options were left to them?
"I feel..." Bigfoot said, breaking the silence. "That I owe a massive apology to everyone here."
"How so?" Mike opened his eyes. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Bigfoot groaned and leaned against the wall, his arms folded across his massive torso. "I did, actually. I am fairly certain that I am the reason that Leeds is here in the first place. He and I have a rather sordid history, and he holds a grudge better than anyone I've ever known."
"What happened?" Mike asked.
"We were very close friends for many, many years. His behavior toward humans was never friendly to begin with, but I was forced to act when I found out that he was tormenting and killing humans in secret. We fought for many days, and I finally crushed him under a large rock. I didn't know it at the time, but he can't be killed. Two days later, he ambushed me in the middle of the night. He almost killed me, but the forest came to my aid by sending a massive buck to tackle him and break his concentration. I snapped Leed's neck, and he was mist once more."
"So, he always comes back?"
Bigfoot nodded. "Always. He went missing for a while, and I discovered later that he was able to take over the Pine Barrens. The land and its creatures were no longer on my side, so I fled to the west coast. We've avoided each other ever since, but I suspect that I may be the main reason he came. I have no idea how he learned that I was here."
Yuki groaned. "I do. Years back, when Emily and I first met him, she asked if he would be interested in moving somewhere safe for cryptids."
"And Emily told him about me?" Bigfoot pulled at some tangled strands of hair that hung from his face.
"She told him about the house first. When he didn't seem interested, she mentioned the cabin. Said that if it was good enough for Bigfoot, then he would be right at home."
"What did he do?" asked Mike.
"That's when he trapped us in the Everglades. Emily tried to jump us out using magic trees, but we learned later that he could read our thoughts. He stayed ahead of us and chopped down any of the trees we could use. There weren't many to begin with. Every time we got to the edge of the Everglades, the shadows would push us back in." Yuki looked at a card and then shook her head before tucking it back up her sleeve. "One day, we wandered out. It was like he had gotten bored, or something."
"How do you defeat someone who can read your thoughts?" asked Mike.
"You either act without thinking or do something he can't avoid." Bigfoot mimed stomping on the floor. "He was distracted while fighting you, so I got the drop on him. What I can't understand is how he got the Nirumbi to team up with him. He is well known, but not well-liked."
Based on his brief experience with Leeds, Mike wasn't surprised to hear this at all. Leeds had mentioned taking the cabin and its land away from him. Maybe it was as simple as offering them a private sanctuary if they helped him take it by force. But more than just the Nirumbi had gotten involved. There was the Wendigo and the snake thing that Abella had encountered. If all of these creatures were so powerful, why follow Leeds in the first place?
Thinking back on their fight, the devil had been fairly uninvolved for most of it. He was mainly content to disrupt and allow his troops to do the dirty work. Did he have low magic reserves? Was he just a big pussy? There was a missing piece to the puzzle, and Mike really wanted to discover it.
There was another loud bang, but this one was accompanied by the sound of things falling to the floor. Bigfoot jumped up and left, followed by Yuki. There was a lot of screaming shortly after, followed by the temperature of the cabin dropping dramatically.
Curious, Mike tried to slide his legs off the bed and take a peek, but he couldn't even lift his hips off the mattress using his arms. Frustrated, he had to sit and listen as everyone shouted at each other. Emery bolted into the room, a worried expression on his face.
"Is everything okay?" Mike asked.
"Dana has broken down the door of the cupboard," he explained. "They are chasing her through the cabin right now. It's my job to protect you in case she shows up."
Mike grimaced. The little imp looked like he would struggle to fight his way out of a mouse trap, but he had learned long ago that he shouldn't judge based on appearances.
Dana crashed through the doorway and landed on the floor, her features frozen in a snarl. She looked up at him and hissed.
"Eep," Mike whispered. He saw that she was missing her pants.
Emery dive-bombed Dana, and she swatted at him with frightening speed. Velvet's torso came through the door and grabbed the zombie by the ankles after tossing down a shredded pair of pants. Velvet yanked and threw Dana back into the living room. There were several more crashes before he heard Abella join the fight.
"She is quite strong," Emery muttered, fidgeting with his hands like an overgrown fly.
"Apparently." He didn't realize that Dana was capable of such a display.
"Hold her!" shouted Quetzalli, and there was a crackle of electricity, followed by Bigfoot howling in pain. The smell of burnt hair flooded the cabin. "Sorry!"
After another crash, the house went quiet. Yuki walked through the door, her hair disheveled and her shirt torn.
"We need to talk about our zombie problem," she said and sat down on the bed with a sigh. "I thought it could wait, but that was really bad. I'm worried that she is slipping away. For a bit, she was at least cognizant, but now? I really don't know."
He nodded. "I know what you want, but..." He waved his hand at his legs. How was he supposed to help feed her if he could barely move? "I'm not in any sort of condition to...produce."
