by Hadena James
The call for suggestions had already gone out. Some had been offered and all seemed just as improbable as the ethereal giving up its secrets to us via post-it notes. As the original second floor sank into the ground, making the windows vanish, the house suddenly stopped. With a great final shake, it came to rest upside down. The front door that had unceremoniously tossed us out now opened back up.
None of us moved. It wasn’t just that the house had flipped upside down, or that it had tossed us out, it was that it seemed happy upside down and beckoned us to enter the topsy-turvy structure. If houses were capable of pride, I would have bet money that it was proud of itself.
“Well?” Pendragon said after we had stood silently gaping at the open door for an extremely long time.
“I’m thinking,” I answered.
“I think it wants to give us a tour,” Ba’al said.
“Yeah, that was sort of what I was thinking as well. Is it just me or did my house just bury itself like a dog getting comfortable on a large pillow?” I asked.
“It sort of did, yeah,” Eli said.
“Is it possible that some semblance of Cerebus became connected with the house through magic?” I asked.
“It’s unlikely,” Pendragon answered, “but not impossible. Anything is possible on the island.”
“Can you check the magic in it?” Eli asked me.
“I know what magic is in it,” I snipped back. I also knew that none of Cerebus’ magic had been shoved inside of it. It was too extreme for me to control in that way. My mind drifted to my brothers and I glared at them.
“Uh, no,” Nick answered, “we do not fool around with Cerebus’ magic, so don’t even think about accusing us.”
“Okie dokie,” I shrugged, “so what the hell happened?”
“I’m back to believing it has something to do with you,” Anubis said.
“My brain is topsy-turvy so our house is as well?” I frowned.
“Something like that,” Anubis answered.
I considered that. Perhaps something had happened to my brain during the re-creation of my body. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing ever to happen to me. After all, my skin had rotted off several months ago.
Actually, on the weirdness scale, the house burying itself roof first into the ground was about a four. My brothers resurrecting our long dead uncle in a moment of magical instability ranked about an eight. To get weirder, I would need to be eaten by a dragon while casting a spell of protection that caused me to be unable to cut my way out.
As I thought of this, my mind returned to the concept of geld. I didn’t know the exchange rate for the large shiny gold and silver currency. Dollars didn’t seem to exchange at a one to one rate, if it did, everything I had seen on the island was incredibly cheap. I shook my head again, trying to clear the thoughts of geld.
The sun rose while we stared at my house and the air began to warm around us. The island was climate controlled. Some areas were warm all the time, some were cold all the time, and some were hot. Near the city, it was warming from a lovely sixty degrees to a mild seventy degrees, another beautiful day in paradise where houses turned themselves upside down and buried their roofs in the ground.
I was still reluctant to give the house the benefit of the doubt. There was something sinister about a house burying itself upside down. The door could beckon all it wanted but my feet were staying firmly planted on the grass outside.
A noise behind us made me turn around. A dragon had ambled up and was sunning himself on the black stone walkway that led from the city to the prison. He seemed thoroughly uninterested in why we were all standing about looking at my house.
After another hour of my house not doing anything, I took a deep breath, knowing we were going to have to go inside eventually and it might as well be now.
The furniture looked like an airplane had crashed into it and most of it had been shattered. Wood and metal was splintered all over the living room and chunks of ceramic were smashed into unrecognizable clusters. The only thing that wasn’t destroyed was the TV and the grandfather clock, both of them being attached to the walls. The feet of the grandfather clock were now attached to the ceiling with the hands spinning wildly; moving backwards and forwards at incredible speeds.
Anubis stumbled into the decimated wreck of our living room. He picked up a few things and tossed them back into the pile. In time, the furniture would repair itself.
“Ah,” Anubis said, coming to stand next to me. His gaze followed mine and we stared at the grandfather clock. “Is there more metal in the roof than in the basement?”
“Beats me,” I shrugged.
“We should check,” Anubis said as he walked back outside.
This comment meant nothing to me. He might as well have been hinting at me in Greek. I didn’t know how the clock spinning and the house flipping over connected. However, I followed him outside.
“...could be,” Lucifer was saying as I stepped back out into the sunlight.
“Could be what?” I asked.
“It’s possible that the nature of the island and the magnetic force it generates has flipped the house over,” Pendragon said.
“Oh,” the pieces sort of fell into place. The arms of the clock might be affected by magnetic force. However, with silver being a non-magnetic metal, I wasn’t entirely sure why it was affected.
“Silver is still a conductive metal,” Ba’al whispered to me. “Because of this, it tends to be repellent to magnets. So, if the basement has more silver in it than the roof, it is possible that it flipped because the basement was repelling the ground.”
“Gotcha,” I whispered back.
Before the matter could be discussed anymore, a ripple appeared in the air near me. Alex fell through the portal, landing on his hands and knees. His vibrant orange skin was tinged with a darker color and his breathing was erratic. He stayed in that position for several seconds, grappling with getting over the sickness brought on by portal travel.
Alex was the only child of Fenrir’s to have survived the First Elder War. He had his father’s build, broad and muscular. If his hair hadn’t been brown, his skin orange or his eyes the color of amber; he might have passed for a Viking god. However, his mother was a Lycan as well. None of her DNA made her wolf, but it did make her a tiger of sorts. When Alex shifted, he resembled an extra strange wolf with feline paws and stripes.
“Hello,” I said after Alex regained his breath.
“There’s a giant ass,” Alex paused, “thing running around Washington DC, eating politicians.”
“That’s bad,” I ran into the upside down house and grabbed my spell book, Ezra, from the toppled bed.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” My mother’s voice held an edge to it. I whirled around to face her.
“To battle off the giant ass thing eating politicians,” I answered.
“No, you are not. You just got back to the land of the living and you haven’t had much sleep in twenty-four hours.”
“I took a nap,” I protested.
“Your ‘nap’ doesn’t count,” my mother actually used finger quotes on the word nap. I felt myself blush.
“You know, I’m over thirty. You have to learn to trust me at some point and start treating me like an adult and not just your daughter.”
“Actually, I don’t,” my mother answered.
“Seriously, Elise, I have to go do this kind of stuff.” My mother stiffened at the use of her name. She held her head high, but her lip quivered.
“You could be hurt.”
“Everyone could be hurt. At least, I’m immortal.”
“There are things that will kill you, Brenna.”
“I know, but I have to grow up and I can’t do that with you and Dad hovering around me all the time, trying to keep me from danger.”
“We’ve already lost one daughter,” a tear slipped down her cheek.
“And you will always run the risk of losing another, but that doesn’t chang
e what I can do and what I have to do. It’s time to grow, for all of us,” I gave her an awkward hug and charged out of the house.
On the lawn, a few beings were huddled around the portal. Anubis had his head stuck through it. I couldn’t imagine how it felt. Portal travel was rough and it usually made me feel disoriented. I didn’t think sticking just my head through it would make the feeling any better.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” Alex said. He seemed to turn green a little at the thought. I could sympathize.
I stepped through the portal.
Chapter Eight
The portal was kind enough to deposit us directly on the White House lawn. It took less than a second for the Secret Service and anyone else with a gun to open fire on us. Bullets tore into us, most of them from automatic assault rifles, making it impossible to heal as quickly as we were being shot.
We did our best to ignore the gunfire and the beings who were shooting at us. The fence was directly ahead, along with a gatehouse and a tank. We stopped moving and stared at the tank. Sure, we’d survive it, but it would hurt like hell.
The tank fired and the large caliber shell hit Ba’al in the chest. His feet left the ground. The world seemed to slow down and become deathly quiet. Time stopped.
Eli grabbed the injured gargoyle and dragged him out of the line of fire. His chest had a gaping wound in it, but Eli and Samuel instantly began healing it. Time restarted.
There was a moment of stillness, despite the restarting of time. Everyone seemed confused. Just as the tank fired again, Lucifer shouted something.
This time, Rachel was quicker. Time froze again, and the shell hung in mid-air, inches from Alex and Fenrir. The Elders could move with time frozen, but it was cumbersome without magical help. Olivia and Nick grabbed hold of the Lycans and yanked them out of the way of the shell. Rachel restarted time. My father, who had been shouting, lost his words in the frozen time. He looked confused.
The gunfire shifted and the tank began a laborious turn. It crunched the asphalt under its treads, turning it into chunky rubble. My gaze followed the movement of the guns. Obviously, we were no longer the worst threat.
The thing on the other side of the fence sort of looked like a troll. It was big, wide, and stood on two legs. That was where the sort of stopped, everything else about it screamed dragon. It had shiny blue scales, a row of small horns on its long snout, wide nostrils that flared with each intake of air, black eyes, and a long tail that knocked over cars as it swished.
Dragons didn’t stand on two legs. However, what benefit was gained by crossing it with a troll was beyond me. Dragons were smarter than trolls were, although trolls were faster and not as lazy.
It bathed the fence in fire and the electrified iron sizzled as it melted. The tank fired again and hit the dragon/troll in the stomach. The shell fell to the ground. The creature didn’t even seem to notice it.
“That’s the thing!” Alex shouted.
This shout seemed unnecessary. I was sure we were all of the opinion that it was indeed the “thing” that Alex had said was terrorizing the nation’s capital. Furthermore, I was positive that I didn’t have a clue of what to do with it. Dragons were nearly immortal and I didn’t know what sort of rules applied to hybrid dragons.
The melted fence was setting the lawn on fire. The tank was now retreating from the heat and tearing up more of the road around the front of the White House. Rachel froze time again as I grabbed hold of Anubis who stood next to me.
“I don’t know what to do about this,” Rachel said.
“Freezing and unfreezing time isn’t the answer,” I told her. “You’re going to screw up the passage of time for the people in this city at this rate.”
“We need to know what it is before we can attack it,” Anubis said. “Someone grab the other Overlords.”
My siblings each grabbed hold of an Elder. The Elders began to move and talk. Lucifer gave my sister a disapproving look, but said nothing. Elders weren’t affected by time the same way as humans were, but it wasn’t pleasant to be in slow motion.
“It appears to be a dragon and a troll,” Ba’al said.
“Or a wyvern and a troll,” Gabriel countered.
“Or any other combination of the above with other DNA tossed in for good measure,” Fenrir trumped them all with that proclamation.
“Well, we have to do something about it,” Alex said, “since it is eating people.”
“Pity she didn’t use Cerebus in its creation,” I said. “Is there any way to get a DNA sample broken down and worked up before it eats the entire population on Capitol Hill?”
“Maybe,” Levi said, he looked at me. “There’s something different about you.”
“Yes, I have a body,” I said. “DNA?”
“Of course, sorry.” Levi, with Daniel holding onto him, walked over to the “thing” on the White House lawn and touched it. He placed his hands upon it and all the wounds healed. This brought a chorus of groans that Levi deftly ignored.
“Well?” Lucifer asked as his brother turned back around.
“Sorry, it didn’t work,” Levi answered. “All I did was to make him stronger.”
“Wait!” Rachel suddenly shouted, stopping everyone that was about to breathe. “What about Dad? He can manipulate DNA.”
“Only in the unborn,” Lucifer said.
“Or in sea creatures,” I said giving him a look. The story of Elder creation included my father plucking out evolved beings from the sea when he was supposed to be fishing.
“That has never been repeated,” my Uncle Abaddon said.
“We need to unfreeze time,” Eli pointed to his wrist. We all looked at the imaginary watch he was tapping.
“Any suggestions?” Rachel’s tone was desperate.
“Eli, come with me,” I started towards the dragonish thing.
Eli followed about a foot behind me. As I reached out to touch the creature, time began to move again.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. Giant jaws were suddenly clamping down around me. The inside of its mouth was dark. Putrid flesh decaying between its massive teeth was strong enough to make me want to gag. Eli let out a cry. One tooth was piercing his leg. I moved mine just in time to keep from ending up like my brother. The teeth locked together. Cracking and snapping sounds echoed in the mouth as Eli’s leg shattered.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I shoved my hand against the roof of the thing’s mouth. Wounds began to open above me, filling us in a sea of blood. I closed my mouth and eyes and pinched my nose together. I hoped Eli was doing the same.
The creature swallowed and I was washed down with the tide. Being in its stomach did not improve my situation. It was darker and cramped. I tried very hard not to think about what might be in there with me.
Eli hadn’t come down with me. The creature swallowed again and I touched what I hoped was the stomach. I had split open Cerebus once to rescue Levi, so I hoped to inflict that same wound and save myself. After I got out and gained some composure, I would consider rescuing my brother.
The creature seemed impervious to the touch. Now that I was in the dark, alone, it was as if my magic wasn’t working. I tried again and felt nothing. No stirrings of magic, no colors swirled and danced in my mind or in front of my eyes, everything remained exactly the same.
My mind chose that moment to make a mental note to withdraw money from the bank so that I would have something to change into geld. The thought was so random and far out there, even for me, I wondered again if there was something wrong with the brain my brothers had created for me. As I thought about that, I wondered if that was why my magic was wonky.
Could it be that they had created a defective brain that had trouble accessing magic in high stress situations? I didn’t know. I doubted they did either.
I snapped back into the present. I was still stuck in the belly of a creature my sister had genetically engineered and I should stay focused long enough to save myself. My ski
n was starting to burn and tingle. I was being digested. Panic set in. I tried using magic again, and again it failed to work. Panic became terror and I worthlessly beat my fists against the fleshy wall.
The thing began to move and I was sloshed around in the muck. This was possibly the grossest thing ever to happen to me and I couldn’t find an escape plan. I dug my clawed toes into the flesh to stay upright as we moved.
I did a mental head slap. I had claws. I could climb out.
I kept my eyes and mouth closed as the claws on my hands dug into the flesh. The creature made a strange noise. I moved my other hand. Beneath my claws, I could feel wet, squishy, soft material. I forced the thought from my mind. The one time that I wanted to think about something else, I couldn’t.
I reached the top after only two moves. The sphincter at the top of the stomach was tightly closed. My claws scraped at it, trying to tear into the opening. Finally, they found purchase and I forced the valve wide enough to climb through. The creature was now making more noises and they were louder here. The hot wind from its lungs beat against me, drying the goo that I was covered in.
Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed hold of its larynx and yanked as hard as I could. The chunk of gristle, bone, and cartilage came out in my hand. I finished climbing to the mouth.
“Eli, are you alive?” I asked, moving up the tongue.
“Yes,” Eli groaned.
The creature pitched forward and slammed into the ground. Eli screamed, still trapped in its jaws. I was tossed like a ragdoll and hit my horns against its teeth. One broke, scorching the inside of its mouth, Eli, and me. The flames caught the goo on fire. I ran at one of the teeth. It broke off and I exited into fresher air, engulfed in flames. I threw myself on the ground and rolled around until I could no longer see smoke billowing from my body.
As I lay there, letting the cool breeze caress my burnt flesh, I tilted my head back. Several beings were standing at the stomach of the monster. They had sliced it open and the contents had spilled upon the ground. Another cluster of beings was attending to Eli. They pushed and pried the jaws apart before removing him from the mouth.