“You can run. That’s about it.” Lily ducked when a panel ripped itself free of the house, the chunk flying over her head. “I don’t care how powerful this place is, she’s going to take it down.”
“Naia.” Mike glared at Lily. “Naia can’t run, and I won’t leave her behind. I won’t leave any of them behind.”
“How romantic.” Lily stepped back into the house, and Mike followed. “And I suppose you have a plan?”
“I—” Mike was cut off by a thunderous boom. The multicolored lights from the geas cracking cast ominous shadows through the front room. His housemates were all looking at him, expecting an answer. He looked out the window just as rain came, large drops glazing the glass. Across the yard, slow shapes lumbered along the edges, hiding among the bushes. “What are those?”
“Hmm.” Sofia moved to the window, squinting. “It looks like several men. Identical in stature, each one wearing the same white suit and walking with a cane.”
“That would be Sebastien. The guy who sent the homunculus made of sand.” Lily shook her head. “Kali by herself would be more than a match for you. But with him helping, she has the power of an entire coven on her side.”
“All we need to do is activate the house defenses, yes?” Mike turned to Tink. “Once I activate the console, how long until the defenses turn on?”
“Fast.” She nodded, her ponytail bobbing.
“What are the defenses?”
“Lion statues.” Tink let out a small roar and pawed at the air. “Smash any who cast bad spell, but must activate from…from…” She scratched her head. “Tink forget word, but husband know right away. Goggles tell.”
“Okay, so the goal is to turn on the lions, activate a whatsit, and then go turn it on.”
“You’re so naive!” Lily grabbed Mike by the shoulders and shook him. “How are you going to get past the snakes? Or the storm? Or the pissed off vodou priestess with all her little oogey-boogeymen?”
“Or the Colonel Sanders chorus line from Hell? Honestly? I don’t know. But this isn’t about me being in charge. This is about all of us working together.” Mike looked at each of them. “We just escaped from a Labyrinth. Yesterday, I got into a fight with a child-eating witch while trying to incinerate some elder god’s foreskin. Every step of the way, I had somebody’s help. And I know we can figure this out if we all play to our strengths. So instead of worrying about what we have to face, let’s take a moment to focus on what we have.”
Another blast roared through the house, and pictures fell off the walls. Everyone looked outside, the sky now a technicolor hue.
“She’s using her spirits to multicast,” Cecilia said. “Their voices add to hers. She summons a storm to keep us within while she makes trouble without.”
“Which means she is worried about what we are planning.” Mike put his hands on the window, then slid the goggles over his eyes. He could see the faint blue lines that made the triangle in his yard with the circle in the middle. Unfortunately, the circle wasn’t very far from where Kali stood. “I need to activate the runes that Naia mentioned before I can summon the console. The first spot is on the porch steps, so that one is easy. However, the other two are at the base of the lions, by the entrance. I have to connect the magic of the house to the lions. Apparently they are part of the defense mechanism.”
“How do we get there?” Beth asked.
“I’m the only one who needs to get there. Let’s see—yard full of snakes, strange storm overhead, douche in a white suit…” Mike’s train of thought derailed when another boom shook the house.
“Wait. I’ve got it!” Beth touched Tink on the shoulder. “I need a pen and paper, quick!” Tink disappeared, then quickly returned. Beth drew a rough map of the yard and explained her plan.
“That’s absolutely insane,” Mike said. “It puts everyone here at risk, including yourself, and has a very low chance of succeeding.” A grin spread across his face. “And I think it will work.”
Beth beamed, and they huddled up, speaking loudly to each other over the roar of magic gathering outside.
Through the eyes of her serpents, Kali watched the storm on the lawn from various vantage points, which included her own body standing in the middle of the yard. Fearing outside interference, she had placed them all along the street, knowing that their thermal vision would see any living thing that came near her. Up above, the vortex swirled, lightning arcing through the clouds. The geas resonated with her magical blows, her magic taking years off her lifespan to manage the tremendous energy required to keep up the storm while cracking the protective barrier of the house. She had centuries to burn and could always acquire more.
However, from the street, the storm was contained. The skies grew darker with every crash of magical thunder, but the magic of the home somehow contained the maelstrom, giving the appearance of a thunderhead building up above. A neighbor four houses down was out mowing, oblivious to the magical battle nearby.
“The perimeter is clear,” Sebastien told the snake riding his shoulder, his words magically reaching Kali’s ears. He was over by the garage, crouched out of sight. It was difficult to maintain a consciousness that permeated so many beings, but the spirits around her neck were helping her. The large python near her feet kept watch on her physical body, making certain she wouldn’t be interrupted. Another distraction during the dangerous part of the spell could finish her off, and she intended to live until tomorrow.
Behind her, in the bushes, another Sebastien waited. In case the snakes failed, it was his job to protect Kali long enough to finish her spell or escape.
The snakes hissed as the front door of the house opened. Through their eyes, she saw Mike Radley emerge, a ridiculous pair of goggles on his head. He stood at the top of the stairs, weird lenses sliding back and forth across his eyes. He waved his hands in the air. The spectral trail of his fingers activated floating runes, symbols that danced away from him and sunk into the ground, vanishing from sight.
The snakes gathered at the foot of the steps, hissing. Kali sensed their anger at the magical barrier that prevented them from swarming the house and attacking her enemies. Once the geas was broken, she intended to send them in to incapacitate the occupants of the home with their venomous fangs.
She would let the high priest decide what to do with the occupants of the home. She shouted into the sky with one of her many voices, causing thunder to answer her. The light rain whipped itself into circles, but Kali knew better than to flood out the home—she feared giving the nymph any more water to work her magic on.
The snakes slithered across each other, bouncing off the barrier on the steps. A large figure stepped in front of Mike, gazing across the yard. Kali couldn’t see who it was at first, but with another crack in the geas, the woman came into focus. Nearly eight feet tall with a single eye, the cyclops swung a blade that unfolded itself. In disbelief, Kali watched the cyclops step into the yard and casually behead the snakes closest to her without even looking, the blade whipping about and catching them midstrike.
The swarm moved toward her, and her movements became a dance, her eye glowing with its own inner light. Mike followed close behind, and no matter how many snakes moved toward her, she always pushed Mike out of their way, her sharp blade bringing a quick end to the slithering beasts.
Kali’s face twisted in concentration, and she pumped energy into the storm up above.
The blast of lightning blinded her, even through her closed eyes. When her vision cleared, she saw that the bolt had scorched a large mark in the yard, burning snake and grass alike.
Several yards away, Mike stood in the open, his fingers making more trails of light in the air.
“How?” she demanded of the storm, grabbing one of the heads on her necklace. How had they been fast enough to dodge a bolt of lightning? It made no sense. She summoned the Iwa hidden within the skin pouch, a spirit being
made of teeth and fangs, then hurled it at her prey with the mental command to attack.
The Iwa’s spherical body expanded as it flew through the air until it was roughly the size and shape of a rottweiler. It opened its mouth wide, revealing fangs like a sinister Pac-Man, and reached forward with claws that were tipped with inch-long talons. The cyclops placed herself between Mike and the Iwa, killing a couple more snakes before raising her blade defensively. The snakes were closing in, hissing in anger, and the Iwa let out a high-pitched shriek as it closed the distance between itself and Mike.
A rock struck Kali in the shoulder. Growling, she turned her attention back to the house. Beth, the estate agent, stood on the stairs, but something was wrong. Her eyes were the inky black of a moonless night, and the large stones below the porch were levitating into the air, then flinging themselves. A goblin jumped the railing behind her, moving left and toward the garage that sat slightly behind the main house.
“Keep going,” Sebastien said, placing two of himself between Kali and Beth. His sandy body easily absorbed the blows of the stones, reforming after every strike. The snakes had moved away from the porch to avoid the cyclops’s blade, allowing Beth to descend and fire from along the trellis. Beth and the goblin were moving toward the garage, and Sebastien closed in on them. Kali’s attention shifted as she noticed Mike through the eyes of her snakes. He was running toward the stone wall at the edge of the yard, and the cyclops was calling out his name.
The Iwa dived at the cyclops, causing her to stumble and roll out of the way, her sword coming up defensively. She wouldn’t reach Mike in time.
“I have you,” Kali hissed, commanding the snakes to attack. She could taste his flesh in her mouth with every strike, her heart pounding in exhilaration as the venom flowed freely from their fangs. They constricted around his body, pinning him in place. Sebastien sprung from the edge of the yard, using his cane to push Mike against the ground.
“Oh God!” Mike screamed in agony, rolling in the grass. Kali’s mind moved into the serpent on his chest so that she could see the defeat in his eyes. “It hurts so much, oh God, it hurts! I’m so fucking hard right now!”
What?
Mike stuck out his tongue at the snake on his chest, his eyes flashing yellow. “Wanna see my boner?” A scorpion’s tail burst free of his pants, striking Sebastien hard enough that he exploded into sand. Mike shifted into something smaller, becoming a little girl in a gymnastics outfit, wearing thigh-high boots. The snakes fell free of her smaller form, and Lily sprang out of the way just as hundreds of pounds of solid stone crashed into the ground, smashing the mass of snakes that had been there.
Kali cried out, her hold on the spell faltering when the connection was violently severed from so many snakes at once. The cracks in the sky glowed, and the rain she had been holding back started to fall. Shaking her head, she opened her own eyes to see a woman with large stone wings stand up from the impact crater in the grass. Snake mash fell from her stony skin, and her glittering dark eyes radiated hatred.
The gargoyle flicked a snake head off her shoulder, then flared out her wings. This scattered snake chunks everywhere, and Lily (who stood nearby) cried out in disgust.
“Rock beats slithers.” The gargoyle grinned, and Lily groaned.
Kali saw movement back at the house and turned to see that the goblin had pushed open the garage door. Out came a woman and Mike on a horse.
No. It was Mike riding a centaur, his arms wrapped tight around her midsection. Stunned by this development, Kali watched the centaur race along the outer perimeter of the yard, taking a wide turn to leap over the nearest Sebastien and cave in his skull with her hooves. He collapsed into a pile of sand, the grains vibrating as he struggled to pull himself together. He had warned Kali that the regenerative properties of his homunculi would be slower with his presence spread so thin, and now she was seeing it in action.
“After them!” She yelled the command with her mouth and her mind. The snakes shifted directions but couldn’t keep up with the centaur. She looked into the maelstrom above, commanding down bolts of lightning to chase them.
The centaur was now dodging back and forth, Mike tilting dangerously from side to side. The Sebastiens chased after them, but one of them got captured by Lily, who tangled up his feet with her tail. She had returned to adult size but now wore a mixed martial arts outfit replete with hot-pink gloves that matched her boots. She forced Sebastien to the ground, then used an armbar hold on him, stretching his arm backward until it snapped. He exploded into a small sandstorm, then re-formed a few feet away.
The sky split open up above, and a technicolor hole formed in the geas. Through her multivision, Kali could see the storm clouds escaping into the real world, the guy mowing his yard running inside in alarm. She commanded the snakes scattered through the yard to return—she needed them by her side.
The Iwa cried out in agony. The cyclops had slowly retreated from it, and the spirit was now closer to the gargoyle. Still covered in the blood of the snakes she had crushed, the gargoyle put the being into a headlock and smashed her fist repeatedly into its face. The cyclops speared it from behind with her blade, the finishing blow causing the spirit to flee back to its plane of existence, its contract with Kali officially broken. The smell of damp mud and ozone filled the air.
“No.” Kali’s voice was barely a whisper, and she pulled two more heads from her necklace, summoning the dangerous Iwa trapped within. They unfolded from their leathery spheres into angry orbs of madness, ready to rip and tear.
How had this happened? Somehow, despite her planning, she hadn’t been prepared for Mike’s counterattack. He had somehow organized these creatures into a well-oiled machine, and together they had put her on the defensive, no longer able to continue ripping apart the home’s protective spell.
“Take him down!” she yelled, then cast away the angry Iwa. They rocketed through the air, but one was tackled by the gargoyle. Kali commanded the winds to pick up, the turf around her ripping into the sky. The gargoyle rolled across the yard, punching the Iwa in its angry, howling mouth. The cyclops moved to assist, so Kali set the lightning on her once again.
A funnel cloud had formed, the swirling mass threatening them from above. Kali used her magic to hold it together and maintain a feedback loop. She was bolstering the storm’s fury with spellcraft, much like pushing a child on a swing. Utilizing its energy for magic was child’s play, but if the funnel fell, it would ruin everything. Shingles ripped off the roof and spun through the air.
“Fuck!” One of the Sebastiens exploded into sand when a car tire blasted through him. The other Sebastien ran toward the porch, holding his cane like a sword. At the car, the goblin was busy removing another tire for Beth to throw. Beth was pirouetting, her pointed fingers guiding shingles down from the sky that smashed into Sebastien and kept him from getting any closer.
Where on earth had Beth obtained the ability to do that? Kali gathered her snakes around her to keep an eye on the yard in every direction. With Sebastien occupied, she monitored the heat signatures of the combatants all around her. Nobody would be able to get close without her seeing them coming.
Summoning up a wicked wind, she was able to deflect the next projectile that came her way. The technicolor hole in the sky was already shrinking, her attention pulled away for too long. She took the last two shrunken heads from her necklace and threw them to the ground, commanding the spirits within to protect her. The gargoyle stuck her hands inside of the monstrous maw of the spirit she had been wrestling with, then ripped it apart. The cyclops was fighting Sebastien, who had drawn a sword out of his cane. Sebastien had decades of sword mastery, yet the cyclops easily dodged his attacks, slashing away at his limbs.
The gargoyle was headed toward Kali now, and one of her spirits met it head on. The combatants snarled and rolled across the yard, tearing up the turf beneath their slashing claws. Lily was tryin
g to fly toward her, but the wind tossed her out of the sky, and she crashed into Beth. The goblin swung a small club at Sebastien’s knees, causing his legs to explode and send sand everywhere.
The centaur had reached the far side of the yard. Pinned in by the fence, her back hooves lashed out and knocked the spirit chasing her to the ground, and she galloped away. Undeterred, the spirit managed to grab Mike by the back of his shirt and pull him off the centaur.
Finally. She sent the mental command to the spirit not to kill him. The spirit obeyed, pinning Mike to the ground so Sebastien could reach him. He drew his blade, pressing it against Mike’s chest.
“Everyone, stop, or I’ll…” Sebastien’s eyes grew wide as Mike’s body unfolded like a piece of origami. Arms and legs covered in blades whirled around, reducing Sebastien to a pile of sand.
Kali’s mind jumped into a snake long enough to see that this Mike was, somehow, a mannequin dressed in his clothes. The mannequin’s limbs folded down, and it crawled like a crab, slashing the ground with multiple blades that protruded from its body.
“Where? Where is he?” Her consciousness spread out across the yard, her remaining snakes swiveling their heads. The rain had grown thick enough that the others had become lost in the storm. Frustrated, Kali looked through the eyes of her snakes and called down lightning on anyone emanating heat. The cyclops was able to dance away and quickly returned to the porch. The goblin pulled Beth to safety, and the centaur took shelter back in the garage. The gargoyle had pinned the Iwa to the ground, and Lily was caught up in a vortex of wind that caused her to tumble through the air.
“Where! Where are you?!” Kali shrieked.
Colored runes appeared all across the yard, focusing on a point twenty feet in front of her. The ground split open, revealing a large stone sundial that rose from beneath. Giving up on her snakes, she looked to the skies, wondering if he was about to descend from up above. Where was he going to come from?
Radley's Labyrinth for Horny Monsters Page 38