“Could she have? If she was successful?”
Naia shrugged. “All I know is that the secret of the house was put here by the one who built it. I want you to imagine having the power to create a multidimensional haven for monsters from scratch but feeling the need to hide something there so that nobody could ever find it.”
“If he didn’t want anyone to find it, then why leave clues?”
“An interesting question.” Naia smiled. “Maybe it’s like King Arthur’s quest for the Holy Grail. Only the worthy shall find it.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about these things. How do you know so much?”
“This house was built around my spring. I was here when this place was created, and I will remain until it falls apart. Or my spring gets choked off.”
“Let’s see if I have this straight.” Dana watched Naia pet the large rubber duck on the head. “Something is hidden here that only Mike can find. So I won’t be able to retrieve it. My only option is to find a way to make Mike let someone into the house, but he isn’t even here right now.”
“Sums it up.”
“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Dana hollered. “He killed me! I can’t die, and I can’t move on to be with Alex.”
“Do you really think that’s even an option?” Lily asked. She had remained silent throughout Dana’s tale, her arms crossed and one foot kicking water in the fountain. “Daryl may claim to be a man of his word, but I know him. There’s a trick up his sleeve. He knows that the task he gave you was likely impossible, and I can’t see him putting in so much effort on a limited return.”
“It’s probably kindness.” Zel was examining a vial of Dana’s blood. “The black witch is trying brute force, targeting our strength. The sandman tried trickery, targeting the mind. This guy sent in a girl Mike knew as a human. She’s one of us now. My best guess is that he thinks Mike will try to help and will compromise the safety of the house to do it.”
“And you think Mike would actually do that for me?” Dana asked. “He barely knows me.”
The women, except for Lily, all looked at each other and nodded.
“He would,” Cecilia said. “Think of his bond with each of us. If he knew that Dana was denied an eternity with her true love in the afterlife, he would try to help any way he could. Especially since this is because of him. This is an attempt to lure Mike out of the home.”
“Mike would go outside to confront him.” Naia frowned. “He wouldn’t let Daryl come in, but I know he would at least talk to him. What is Daryl capable of?”
“Hmm.” Lily tapped her nails on the side of the fountain. “His specialty is magic involving the flesh. He tends to favor necromancy, but that’s a by-product of his gifts.”
“So a trap has been laid,” Cecilia said.
“Maybe we should spring it,” Naia suggested. “Without Mike.”
“But what about me?” Dana cried. “If I don’t deliver Mike, I’m stuck like this!”
“The alternative is worse.” Lily shook her head. “Think about the process. He spent time researching you, hunting you down for this specific purpose. Why go through the effort? Let me tell you something else about Daryl. He’s a grade A asshole. When he snaps his fingers and your soul leaves your body, you won’t be headed for the happily ever after you think you are because you’ve been damned. And once you’ve been damned, you don’t get preferential treatment in the afterlife.”
“But it isn’t my fault!”
“No, it isn’t. But luring Mike to his death can be. By becoming damned, every action you make is carefully scrutinized. He isn’t controlling you through magic. This is akin to being handed a bomb and told to detonate it in a shopping mall. You know what the repercussions are now, and no amount of do-goodism will spare you the cost on your tarnished soul.”
“Speaking of the afterlife.” Cecilia hovered before Dana, taking Dana’s fingers in her own. “Tell me more about what you experienced there. Something doesn’t sound right to me.”
Dana told her the story again, glossing over her lovemaking with Alex to when the world fell apart.
“Does that sound right?” Naia asked Cecilia.
“Hard to say. I feel like I’m missing something.” Cecilia shook her head, her hair floating eerily. “Each person’s journey is different. It could be correct, but I can’t say for sure.”
“She isn’t talking about the fucking,” Lily announced, splashing the water with her foot. “Maybe the detail is hidden there.”
“But…I guess I’m not comfortable sharing that.” Dana hung her head. “I’m not sure what good it would do to tell you.”
A moment of silence passed. Naia looked at the others, a knowing look on her face.
“I’d better go check out front,” Cecilia said, then vanished.
“I have some tests I would like to run. In the garage.” Zel bowed out, her hooves clipping harshly against the stones as she left.
Dana looked at Lily. The succubus had crossed her legs, leaning forward expectantly.
“Tell me,” Naia said, the water swirling up behind her. Tiny water globes spun free of the surface of the fountain, drifting lazily around Dana. The air suddenly smelled of lavender and sunscreen, taking Dana back to her reunion with Alex. “Share the moment. I would love to hear how her lips felt against yours.”
“I…I guess it couldn’t hurt.” Dana went into great detail, pausing for several seconds between the most intimate moments. Something about Naia was both motherly and sisterly, and she felt like she could tell her anything without being judged. Lily, on the other hand, wore a mask that she couldn’t see past. It reminded her of a doctor examining a specimen. Dana had always been uncomfortable discussing her sexuality with others, but Naia smiled at the right moments and gave her space at others, and the single tear rolling down her cheek when Dana described losing Alex again made her wish that she was capable of her own tears.
“Well?” Dana asked.
Naia was smiling, but Lily wore a frown.
“It sounds like you miss her a lot.” Naia rubbed Dana’s arm affectionately.
Dana nodded. “I do. I would do anything for her.”
“Sounds like she would do anything for you.” Lily smirked. “I wonder. What would you say if I told you that the afterlife you saw wasn’t real?”
“Of course it was real. It was the same night we had together all those years ago, except this time it was on the balcony.”
“Nope. Wrong.” Lily crossed her arms. “It wasn’t, no matter how badly you want it to be. This is how Daryl works. He manipulates you using your own weaknesses. Fortunately for us, he has his own weaknesses too.”
“It actually happened.” Dana stood, her fists balled at her side. “And unless I help him, I will never see her again.”
“Naia.” Lily raised an eyebrow. “By now, even you should be able to see it. I can, and I don’t even have to be inside her head.”
Naia shook her head. “Is it always the direct approach with you?”
“We don’t have time for niceties.” Lily leaned back. “Okay, let’s see if I can help you understand. If the afterlife was real, then everything you saw really was a carrot dangled before the horse. But consider this—once you’re dead, you’re dead. Your spirit can be called back, but it can’t be made to stay. The number one rule of the afterlife is that it can never be truly known. Bringing a spirit back intact would take a tremendous amount of power, god-level stuff. There’s a reason that shit is saved for messiahs and rock stars.
“This fantasy of yours was custom built by Daryl.” Lily uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “But you need to convince yourself, or you won’t believe me. He isn’t a mind reader, so he had to fill in the gaps somewhere. A seam in the dream, as it were.”
“I don’t understand.” Dana shook her head, placing her face in her hand
s. “How could it not be real?”
“You want it to be real.” Lily’s voice was cold now. “It’s called denial. You’re dead, not stupid, so think harder.”
“Lily!” Naia scolded. “This is hard for her.”
Lily huffed. “Yeah, well excuse me if I’m impatient. Daryl made a mistake. Can you spot it?”
Dana frowned, thinking back. There wasn’t anything obvious, at least not right away. Alex had seemed so real, and so had the setting. The feel of her skin against her body, the way their lips touched. The rhythm of Alex’s body above hers.
“Fuck.” Dana scowled at the ground. She had been fooled. After so many lonely months, the feel of Alex’s body against hers had distracted her, had made the deception possible. She knew she should be undergoing a whirlwind of emotions right now, but most of them had been stripped away. Anger was one of the only things she had left, yet even that had been muted.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. He’s had years to get good at it.” Lily stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on Cecilia. Naia, you can hug her or whatever it is you do to make people feel better.” Lily placed a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “Later, when you are feeling particularly murderous—come talk to me.” Sashaying dramatically, she disappeared through the back door and into the house.
“Tell me about it,” Naia said.
“One time, we got drunk and started making out. Alex thought it would be sexy to watch some porn.” Dana laughed. “We tried to imitate one of the scenes. Alex ended up hurting her back, and I pulled a muscle in my thigh. It was more amusing than sexy, but it was the last time we tried scissoring. Well, second to last time.” She smiled. “A wise man once told me that you should try everything twice, just to be sure it isn’t for you.”
“Yeah, well, some people like it. I do.” Naia smiled. “ I strongly suspect that Daryl was close by, watching your dream. That’s how he knew when to pull you out.”
“What an asshole.” Daryl had tricked her, and when she finally found a way to accomplish what he had asked for, he would allow her to die, her soul moving on to whatever damnation she had earned for it. He was a man who had not only stripped her life away from her but her very soul. It was one thing to kill her, but to strip her of eternity?
Somewhere deep inside her mind, she felt the dam break. Anger, white hot, flooded through her body. She stood and brushed off the back of her pants, then pulled her hair out of its ponytail. After shaking her hair free, she pulled it back and redid the tail, tighter than before. She knew if she were alive, she would be able to feel her pulse in the stretched skin of her forehead.
“Where are you going?” Naia asked, worry on her face.
“Where do you think?” Dana walked toward the house. “I’m going to talk to Lily.”
The Labyrinth had taken on a chill that Mike couldn’t seem to chase away. Cerulea explained that they stood in a passageway that circled a chamber with a frozen lake inside. Rubbing his arms for warmth, he caught himself staring at Sofia’s ass. The cyclops had said very little to him after Carmina had arrived, and he was in a minor state of disbelief over what he had done to her in the chamber. It was as if a part of him had briefly awakened, taking charge of both of them. While he’d had total control over Sofia’s restrained body, he realized that maybe he hadn’t had total control of himself.
Carmina, breathless from flying at full speed, had announced to them that there was good news and bad. The good news was that she had found Tink. The bad news was that she was being held in a cage at the center of the Labyrinth.
It had taken some digging, but Mike had gotten Carmina to spill that she was the captive of someone referred to as the lady of the Labyrinth. Carmina and Olivia floated ahead of them now, taking them on a secret route to the lady’s chamber, while Cerulea sat on Mike’s shoulder. Mike and Sofia had decided that the best plan of action was to sneak in and appraise the situation for themselves, to which the fairies had revealed that there was a small tunnel that overlooked the room. They used it often to spy on their captor in hopes of finding a way out.
The fairies stopped, then quickly doubled back.
“Why did we stop?” Sofia asked.
Olivia and Carmina hovered over by the wall, their lights illuminating a rough stone in the wall.
“We can slip through here,” Carmina said.
“But you will need the button,” Olivia finished.
Sofia gave the stone a shove, and a side passage opened without a sound, a narrow fissure that revealed a circular tunnel that also went uphill. Mike and Sofia moved into the tunnel, and the wall closed behind them.
The tunnel soon became steep enough that Mike spent most of his time watching his footing. Sofia seemed to have no trouble, though he did see occasional flashes of light from her eye and she would change direction. Mike followed behind her, wary of more than a few loose stones on the path. He knew that a tumble would result in a downhill slide, and some of the sharper stones made him wince at the thought of cutting himself up in the fall.
The glowing moss on the walls suddenly vanished, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Cerulea and Carmina lit the path ahead, and Mike stayed in Sofia’s shadow. Olivia landed on Sofia’s shoulder, then flew back to land on Mike’s.
“We’re getting close,” she whispered.
Mike nodded, trying to breathe a little more quietly. Olivia’s light went out, and Carmina led them the rest of the way, floating close to the floor. The tunnel now curved dramatically onward, like a spiral staircase. A golden glow from ahead lit the tunnel, and Carmina extinguished her own light before landing on Sofia’s shoulder to sit with Olivia. Mike followed the cyclops, who was now crouching as the tunnel grew smaller. Soon, both of them were hunched over, walking carefully. The stone floor had smoothed itself out, and the ceiling dropped again. They were both crawling when holes in the stone wall appeared, revealing a view of a giant chamber beneath them.
Up above the chamber, an enormous yellow gemstone the size of a garden shed floated, held to the ground by several thick chains that hooked into natural stone towers at the chamber’s edge. Mike could feel the gemstone’s warmth, making him think of a sunny day on the beach.
Lily. The thought of her came unbidden, triggered by his own memory of how they had met. Trapped inside a dream and surrounded by the literal ocean of his mind. He wondered if she was doing okay. Shaking his head, he shifted his thoughts to Tink and Abella, who needed him now. He didn’t know if Sofia would ever apologize for getting them into this mess. Then again, if he had come with them, maybe he would have fallen prey to the traps in the Labyrinth. In fact, if not for the fairies, he would probably have died long ago. Whatever they had done to make Emily so mad, they didn’t deserve to be locked up here.
The glowing gemstone illuminated the chamber. Piles of treasure had been shoved in the corners like junk, chests of coins and gemstones alike. Several areas contained long tables with implements that made Mike think of a mad scientist’s laboratory. The chamber seemed to be equally divided in two. One half had a large structure toward the back. It looked like a miniature version of a pagoda, maybe something that would be seen on a miniature golf course, about twenty feet tall. A long table covered in food made Mike’s stomach grumble in protest. He felt like he was looking into someone’s dining room.
“There,” Sofia said, elbowing him and pointing. At the end of the table was a small metal cage. Huddled inside it was Tink, legs pulled to her chest, face buried in her knees.
“Whoa!” Sofia yanked Mike back into the tunnel. Without realizing it, he had drawn the dagger, sliding through the hole before them. “I know you’re feeling heroic, but it’s a twenty-foot drop from here.”
“Take us down there,” he whispered.
Cerulea hopped off his shoulder to walk in front of him. The tunnel they were in dipped down in several locations, and Cerulea led him to one tha
t seemed lower than the others. Upon a quick inspection, he estimated that it was maybe fifteen feet from the edge of the hole to the ground. Mike lifted up the fairy and put her back on his shoulder.
“I’ll lower you down,” Sofia said.
He turned around and grabbed onto Sofia’s hand. The cyclops held tightly to him, lowering him from the opening. She slid out of it to lower him farther, and he pressed his feet against the stone wall of the chamber in order to better control his descent. He was about six feet up from the ground when he let go and landed in a crouch, his heart pounding.
Sofia pulled herself back into the hole and disappeared into the darkness.
Mike crossed the huge chamber, seeking shelter behind piles of gold. Moving closer to one of the tables, he saw a crystal orb on a pedestal sitting next to a gem-encrusted wand. Once he was across the gap in the middle, he moved closer to the cage, his eyes on Tink. She was motionless, and it wasn’t until she sighed that a tremendous load lifted off his chest.
Approaching the food table, he saw Tink lift her head, her nose in the air. Sniffing around, she turned to face Mike, who was almost twenty feet away. A large smile broke out on her face, followed immediately by a frown.
“Tink hates the Labyrinth,” she whispered. “Tink wants to go home and never come back.”
Radley's Labyrinth for Horny Monsters Page 28