Visitors

An early dinner had come and gone, and Beth sat in the living room, her eyes fixed on the man in her front yard. Murray was still out there, and every few minutes, someone would crack a window to see if he was still screaming.

Not only was the sound disorienting, but an ominous fact had been revealed later. While the house was closed up, his scream couldn’t be heard, but the outside world still could. A disoriented bird had bumped into the glass, and Tink had braved the outside world to go rescue it. A strong breeze could be heard rustling the bushes, but the noise from Murray only penetrated the home when the door or a window was open.

Ratu, through her crystal ball, theorized that the sound’s disorienting effect couldn’t penetrate the home’s exterior due to the geas. The sound didn’t carry through the crystal ball either, even when Beth took it outside for a minute with ear plugs in. Without being able to hear it, the naga had little to offer in terms of advice.

With no ideas, the household was busy making preparations for whatever siege was coming their way. Sulyvahn had gone through the greenhouse to coordinate with the centaurs, and Sofia had retreated to the Library in hopes of finding information. Eulalie had gone with her, ecstatic to see such a place.

Cecilia hovered by the window, her hands held over her chest. On occasion, she would flicker and vanish, only to reappear minutes later.

The front door opened and Lily came in. She was wearing Mike’s face, and carrying Kisa on her back. When she set the cat girl down, Kisa made a retching noise. “If you cough up a hairball, you’d better clean it up yourself,” Lily warned.

“Eat dicks,” Kisa hissed, then wandered off toward the kitchen.

“Success?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, we totally pretended to turn our magic sundial which apparently doesn’t give two shits about what’s happening out there.” Lily flopped down on the couch, her body reverting to normal. Her arm was still wrapped in spider silk, the wound reeking of sulfur. “You know, he’s giving our resident screamer a run for her money.”

Cecilia chuckled, but said nothing.

“Any word from Romeo yet?” Lily shifted uncomfortably on the couch, trying to find somewhere to rest her arm.

Beth picked up her phone and turned it on. “He still hasn’t read any of the texts I sent him,” she said. She gave it a moment, then turned it off. With no way to charge it, she was only checking every half an hour.

“We might need to find a different way to do it,” Lily said, then looked over at Cecilia. “How about you, dream girl? I know you were popping in and out of his head while you were in fairy land.”

“Tis true,” Cecilia admitted. “But it often took me a long time to connect. I am happy to try, though.”

“Get on it then.” Lily flopped back on the couch, then looked at Beth. “While I was out there, I tried to get a good look at the edge of the yard.”

“And?”

“Nothing. No people, no traffic. It was almost as if—” Lily turned her head toward the office as Death stepped out of it.

“I say,” he announced while rubbing the top of his skull. His hood had been pulled down and he was wearing a giant pair of earmuffs. “That racket is even louder here than it was in the Library.”

“Excuse me?” Beth stood. “You can hear that?”

“Of course, I can.” Death fiddled with his earmuffs. “I was in one of the deeper sections of the Library when I discovered this amazing book about a man named Waldo. It was demanded of me that I find him, and so I got caught up in his many adventures when I heard that ghastly sound.”

“And you didn’t think to investigate?” Lily’s voice had an edge to it.

“Oh, I did. I wandered through the Library for hours, but couldn’t pinpoint its source.” Death approached the window and placed his fingers on the glass. “Ah, I see. So, there’s our culprit.”

“His name is Murray,” Beth explained. “He started doing that and we don’t know why.”

“Well perhaps I can persuade him to stop.” Death stuck a hand in his robe and withdrew a long staff that unfolded into his scythe. The edge gleamed wickedly as he gave it a test swing.

“You’re going to kill him?” Beth asked incredulously.

“Certainly, not! I cannot go around harming mortals, it’s poor manners.” He took off his earmuffs and pulled up his hood. “I merely intend to displace his soul for a moment. It won’t cause permanent damage, but he will likely lose consciousness.”

“Be careful,” Lily warned while holding up her arm. “We don’t know what we’re up against.”

“What do you think will happen?” He placed his hand on the knob of the door. “Do you suppose I will arrive to collect myself?”

He stood there, waiting for a reaction. When none came, he chattered his teeth comically, opened the door, and went outside. Death went halfway across the yard before he stopped and stuck the butt of his scythe into the ground. His eyes blazed with light as he waved a hand around, his mouth moving. Beth, watching through the window, could only pick up bits of what he was saying.

Lily had pressed her ear to the glass of the window. Her face was scrunched up in concentration.

“What’s he saying?” whispered Beth.

“Hard to tell. Something about consent ... wait...” Lily held up a finger. “He’s giving him till the count of ten to leave.”

“Oh dear.” Beth watched as Death dramatically held up a finger, followed by two fingers. Murray seemed oblivious, and when Death got past five, he switched the hand holding the scythe and continued counting on his other hand.

“C’mon, get on with it,” muttered Lily.

Death casually spun the scythe around and placed it so that the curve of the blade was behind Murray’s spine. With a tug, he yanked the blade through Murray’s chest. It passed through the man’s flesh harmlessly, and Murray continued to scream.

“That was anticlimactic,” noted Lily.

Beth felt her heart fall in her chest.

Death swung his scythe again, then repeated the process. When nothing happened, he used the tip of his blade and poked it into Murray’s skull. He even tried forcing the man’s jaw closed, but nothing happened. Death marched back up the house, then tucked his scythe away as he came inside.

“Well?” asked Beth.

“That man has no soul.” Death put his earmuffs back on and walked toward the kitchen.

“Excuse me?” Beth followed him, and watched as he nonchalantly started prepping a pot of water.

“It is rare, but you see it from time to time. Souls are a precious commodity, after all. Why do you think the universe is so keen on recycling them?” Death turned on one of the stove’s burners and set the pot down. “It’s a fascinating subject, really. When your soul passes on, there’s an excess that gets left behind. I’m not entirely certain who’s in charge of that, but—”

“Why wouldn’t he have a soul?”

“Oh, I have no idea. That really isn’t my area of expertise, but there can be any number of reasons. For instance, it could simply be an error. Humans born without souls often find themselves with a poor moral compass. Some of them have become quite famous for their capacity for murder.” Death pulled down a box of teabags. “I always found it fascinating that I would get to meet them so many times, yet never personally collect them. Oblivion is such a strange concept to me.”

Stunned, Beth leaned against the counter. “Are you talking about serial killers?”

“Ah, yes. I had forgotten the term.” Death picked through his tea collection. He had over a dozen tins of loose-leaf tea. “But they are on the extreme side of things. No, I suspect that the mortal in your yard is simply being used as a vessel. His soul has been temporarily misplaced while some other entity uses his body.”

“Like what?” Beth moved around the counter so that she stood next to him. He looked up from his tea bags, revealing the tiny blue fire that sat in the back of his eye sockets. Despite being lit from within, the inside of his skull was darker than night. There was no bone to reflect the tiny lights that he used as eyes. “What kind of entity, Death?”

“A loud one.” Satisfied, Death picked out one of the tins and set it on the counter. “Would you like some?”

“No.”

“Shame. It’s going to get quite busy around here, you really should take the time to drink something.”

Beth grabbed Death by the front of his robes, her hand immediately going numb. “What do you mean it’s going to get busy?” She was practically shouting now.

“Are you still upset with me over your money? I did apologize.” Somehow, he was able to frown, the bones of his face shifting.

She sighed, then let go of his robes. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just freaked out by whatever he’s doing out there, and I feel like you’re not telling me what you know.”

“Oh. I see.” Death looked down at his feet for a moment. “I must apologize, I was under the impression that you had figured it out already.”

Beth put her numb hand on the counter, her fingers tapping impatiently.

“Figured out what?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

“If that man out there is making so much noise that I can hear it from a dimension away, then clearly he is calling out to someone.” Death picked out a teacup and then loaded his diffuser. “Or something. The reason he’s still screaming is that whatever is coming has to come from really far away.”

“Oh shit,” she whispered in horror. She figured that Murray was part of a society plot, but never that he was acting as a beacon. What sort of being took most of a day to travel across the world? And why did they need a beacon to lead them?

Death smiled smugly, then pulled an extra teacup out of the cupboard.

“I’ll make you a nice chamomile. It’ll help warm up your hand. Now would you like sugar or do you prefer honey?”

The door of the cabin creaked when Velvet pushed it open. Inside, she saw Quetzalli sitting on the couch with Bigfoot, who was sitting up.

“Uncle Foot!” She ran to his side and crouched down so he could see her better. “I didn’t know you were awake!”

“Hey there, fluffy girl.” Bigfoot smiled weakly and put his hand on her cheek. “Sorry I worried you.”

“If I had known you were up, I would have come sooner.” It was late, the hour nearing midnight. She had spent all day checking the woods for any further hint of the Nirumbi. Dana had gone with her, allowing the two of them to catch up. It was amazing to hear just how much had happened to Dana in such a short time, and it reminded her more than once of the tabletop games she played with Bigfoot and her sister.

“I haven’t been up long,” he confessed. “Whatever was on those arrows was nasty. The good news is that they won’t affect me the same should it happen again.”

“We’ve had a great time catching up.” Quetzalli had pulled her legs beneath an oversized sweater and held a large cup of hot cocoa. “Did you know that we met before?”

“What? When?”

“Over a thousand years ago.”

Bigfoot stretched his arms and winced. “She was a lot bigger then. She’s a storm dragon, trapped in a human body.”

Velvet’s jaw dropped. When Dana had said Quetzalli was a dragon, Velvet had assumed that she was a hybrid. Bigfoot had spoken often about the elemental dragons that used to control the American continent. The story about the one under Yellowstone fascinated her the most, but he rarely went into details about it.

“It was brief. I stumbled onto one of his meetings and was invited to join them.” Quetzalli sipped at her cocoa. “That was before I started working for the Fairy Queen.”

“Wow.” Velvet could only stare. “Did you have wings?”

“Big ones. I would ride amongst the clouds all day, summoning lightning and bringing rain. Do you want to hear about how storm clouds are formed?”

From the corner of her many eyes, Velvet saw Bigfoot shake his head ever so slightly.

“No, but thanks. I’m probably going back out soon, anyway.” From where she stood, she could smell Mike’s scent. She assumed he was in her dad’s bedroom, and wanted to stay away if she could. “I just wanted to check-in. Can I get you anything before I leave?”

“I wouldn’t mind a beer.” Bigfoot raised his eyebrows hopefully. “And some cheese, if we have any.”

“On it.” She walked to the fridge and opened it up. Her uncle’s beer selection was running low, so she grabbed him an IPA. In the process of retrieving it, her eyes settled on a small cooler toward the back of the fridge. The hairs on her arm stood on end as a sweet scent tickled her nostrils.

With trembling fingers, she slid the cooler forward and opened it. The scent from within was overwhelming. It reminded her of earth, rainstorms, and something slightly floral. There were about ten capped shot glasses, each one filled to the brim with a milky white fluid.

“You okay?” This came from Bigfoot. He was watching her from the couch.

“Yeah, just trying to decide which beer pairs with recently poisoned.”

He chuckled, then turned his attention back to Quetzalli. While he spoke with her, Velvet grabbed a few of the shot glasses and tucked them in her pockets. She was a couple steps away from the fridge when she realized that she had forgotten the beer, so went back.

She stood behind the couch, afraid that Quetzalli or Bigfoot would know what she had done. When she handed over the beer, Bigfoot gave her a huge smile.

“Be careful out there, bug.” He popped the cap off with his thumbnail, then sucked down half the bottle. “Oh, I needed that.” Bigfoot furrowed his brow and let out a rumbling belch.

“I will.” She scuttled away and then out the front door, her heart pounding in her chest. Outside, she saw that Yuki was over by the barn, so she wandered around the side of the house, toward the back. Her fingers had closed on the glass in her front pocket when she nearly ran into Mike.

He was leaning against the back wall of the cabin, his eyes on the woods. It looked like he had been concentrating on something, but relaxed when he saw her.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Oh. Hi. I didn’t think you were up.”

“For just a little bit longer.” He gestured at the night sky. Even through the dim lights of the cabin, the Milky Way blazed in all its glory. “I don’t often get to see the night sky like this. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is.” She took a deep breath and turned her attention toward the sky. A streak of light crossed, and she closed her eyes.

“Making a wish?” he asked.

Her eyes popped open. “If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

“I was just checking. I didn’t want to wish on the same one and steal yours away.” He winked at her, and her heart skipped a beat.

“What would you wish for?” she asked. “Since you aren’t wishing, it should be fine.”

He laughed. “I honestly don’t know. This will sound weird, but I’m pretty happy these days. Can’t think of anything I really want, nothing big anyway.”

“What’s it like? Living at the house?”

“Hmm.” He screwed up his face in concentration. “I’m trying to think of a good analogy for you. I guess it would be like if you had twenty sisters, but you were all different types of spiders. I’m kind of making an assumption, since you look different than your sister does.”

“It’s a fair assumption,” she replied. “Our body type gets determined by where we were conceived and the rest of the colony. The idea is that it allows us to adapt to our environment. My spider body is complementary to my sister’s, and it makes more sense out here. It’s far harder to hide a web from human prey in the forest. People don’t generally wander off trail. Hence why I have a hunter’s body.”

“Human prey?” She heard his voice rise an octave.

“If I hunted humans,” she corrected. “I may be different from my ancestors, but that doesn’t change where I came from.”

“We all come from darkness. It’s our job to rise above it.” The wind caught Mike’s hair and blew it in front of his eyes. His scent permeated the area, which caused Velvet to drool so much that she had to swallow. “So yes, the many-sisters theory. Imagine having that. All the women in the house are different. We also have magic rats and centaurs. It’s always busy, but then something like your goblin war will pop up, and it usually ends with house repairs. Granted, I know nothing about your goblin war, and would love to hear more.”

Velvet relaxed. “There isn’t a whole lot to tell. We discovered a cave system in the distant hills teeming with goblins. They started prowling around the area and even attacked my dad’s jeep one day when he was coming home. My mom tried to contact Aunt Emily, but she never came. Emery said that she had sealed them away, but didn’t know how.

“My dad decided that he and my mom were going to set traps and try to take them out. They were kind of like the Nirumbi, only a bit bigger. The one thing they had that the Nirumbi didn’t was sheer numbers. My parents killed almost a hundred of them in a week, yet they just kept coming. The yard was riddled with spears and flintknap weapons. Goblins are notoriously difficult to kill.”

“I’m aware,” Mike replied. “The one I live with, Tink, has had a bunch of close calls. Almost eaten by a Jabberwock once.”

“A Jabberwock? Like from Wonderland?”

“That’s a long story of my own, but yes.” Mike grinned.

“My dad shot a goblin in the head once. Almost point blank.” She tapped her forehead. “It broke the skin, but that was it. It tried to bite him, so he put the gun in its mouth and pulled the trigger. That finally did the trick. Guns didn’t work very well, but my sword and the traps did. Log traps, boulder traps, you name it. Well, that, and my mom was strong enough to snap their necks if she could get her hands on one. My parents finally got desperate enough that they tried poison. They started with rat poison and worked their way up to something my dad learned about in the military. Uncle Foot was gone almost a week trying to find us a barrel of the stuff. Guess what we learned?”

“Tell me.” There was excitement in his eyes.

“Goblins are immune to poison. There’s actually a part of the forest we aren’t supposed to go to anymore, because my parents found a way to aerosolize the stuff in the barrel. Killed a bunch of vegetation.” She smiled, thinking of her parents working together. The two of them had been an amazing team, but their ruthlessness when it came to their daughter’s safety had been on another level.

“So how did they do it? End the goblin wars?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” Bigfoot had taken her and Eulalie to a cave hidden deep in the woods, with instructions to remain inside until he or their parents returned. “I do know that they found a way to drive the goblins back into their cave, but that’s it. My parents would never tell me what happened, and we knew better than to ask. They did tell me that the goblins were gone for good, so I can only assume they killed them.”

Mike frowned. “Seems a bit extreme, but the only goblin I’ve met is Tink. She’s nothing short of amazing.”

To hear him refer to a creature like a goblin as anything other than disgusting awakened all sorts of feelings inside of Velvet. Would he ever see her as something other than an eight-legged freak? She was perfectly aware that he had a touch of arachnophobia, she could smell his fear when they had first met. That scent had already disappeared, and she wondered if it had to do with the other night when he had touched her.

She thought about the strange moment they had shared. A sexual current had run through her whole body, and it had taken everything in her power to keep her hands off of him. If she hadn’t heard the gargoyle’s arrival, she didn’t know what would have happened.

“The house sounds interesting. Dana told me about your spat with the fairy queen. And did you really tame Cerberus? How did you manage that?”

His cheeks turned red. “Quite by accident. Yuki cast the wrong spell on Cerberus and...” he waved his hands around as if trying to come up with more words, but failed. A yawn escaped his lips, and he rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, I promise that you aren’t boring. Just need sleep. I’m only a weak human after all.”

I don’t think that, she thought. “Have a good night, then.”

“You, too.” He gave her a little wave and then disappeared around the corner. She waited a minute for him to come back, but it wasn’t meant to be.

The tree line was almost a hundred feet from the cabin, but she reached it in moments. Hidden in the darkness of the pines, she pulled out the shot glass in her front pocket and examined it.

It was Mike’s semen. Preserved for Dana as a means of keeping her sane, it contained his viable sperm. Spittle had formed in the corners of her mouth as she pried the cap off, her brain no longer in control of her limbs. She inhaled its scent, and her human eyes rolled up into her head.

Synapses that had never fired before lit up her brain, and she saw flashes of children. They were all daughters, but had Mike’s hair and his goofy grin. She saw dozens of them, each one a possibility. Some were lifting giant stones while others built intricate webs. It was like standing in the middle of a storm, but each blast of lightning was illuminating the future.

“Oh gods,” she muttered, then held the cup to her mouth and sucked down the contents. The cool liquid warmed her belly, and the flashes intensified. Some offspring moved with lethal grace, others struck from the shadows. His children would be powerful, their combined biology a perfect match.

Her mind focused on a little girl who looked different than the rest. Her hair was willowy and twisted about in the wind. She looked up at Velvet with deep brown eyes that were a mirror image of her own father.

She gasped, the shot glass forgotten as it fell and landed in the snow. The image was gone, and she had to see this girl again. Would her child have her father’s humanity, or her mother’s ruthlessness? Without hesitation, she removed the lid of the next shot glass and slammed its contents.

The images came anew, but now she saw the girl standing over a fresh kill. It was a brown bear, and she was sinking her fangs into it. Now the girl was climbing a tree without making a sound. Now she was—

Gone. Blinking rapidly, Velvet hurried to drink the next one. Several minutes passed as she contemplated this mystery child, an ethereal being that reminded her of both Mike and her father. Her heart swelled with pride to see her standing defiantly above a giant chasm with a meticulous web built beneath her.

When she ate the last of Mike’s semen, she had one final vision. It was her daughter, standing inside of a large building filled with books. She was an adult now, and she was standing on the ceiling with her hair hanging below her and a book in her hand. The Arachne looked up and their eyes locked. Startled, Velvet’s daughter dropped her book.

The book fell almost twenty feet before the Arachne reached out with glowing fingers to summon it back to her.

“What is this?” She was back in the forest now, and she knelt down to examine the shot glasses, hoping for just a little more juice. This new Arachne had been using magic! Was such a thing even possible?

She had to know more, to see her offspring again. Was this how her mother had experienced it? Had she seen her daughters so perfectly in her mind’s eye?

What, then, of the others she had seen? For decades, they had spoken about how it would be up to Velvet and Eulalie to decide whether the Arachne went extinct. She was aware that her mother had willingly smashed hundreds of her own eggs to ensure children able to resist the instinct to hunt humans for food. Would she have to do the same?

Her belly churned as she stumbled around the side of the house. She felt drunk, a sensation she tried to avoid at all costs. Alcohol never mixed well with her spider biology, and she felt more sick than relaxed. Only it wasn’t booze that had her all messed up.

It was him. She could smell his scent, sense his presence through the walls of the building. Standing outside her father’s bedroom window, she could see Mike in bed, his face buried in a pillow. The door had been closed and it was dark inside. If she opened the window, she could get inside.

Something shifted at the foot of the bed. She shook her head in surprise, wondering how she could have missed the three-tailed fox curled up at the foot of the bed. She had no idea that Yuki could change shapes like that, though she had wondered. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could become human and walk among them as an equal rather than an abomination?

She was panting, and her heart hurt. Tears formed in her eyes as she watched him shift beneath the blankets. Something inside of her had snapped in the last couple of days, and her entire world now swirled around this man that had walked into her life.

Her mother had warned her multiple times about the drive to mate. It would be an overwhelming urge that would eat her away from the inside as she lost control. However, it wasn’t only Mike that she was fixated on, but the girl from her vision. This unborn child could be her father’s legacy, and she refused to let that die.

If she bit Yuki while she was a fox, would it be enough to knock her out? Maybe she could mate with him, then run away after. If Quetzalli and Bigfoot didn’t catch on...

Uncle Foot. He would know, and he would come looking for her. Eulalie could be made to understand, but her uncle never would.

She let go of the window and ran. It didn’t matter where she went, she just needed distance. The air was cold, and she held her jacket tight against her body as she sprinted through the woods. The long branches of the pines hungrily grabbed for her flesh, but she twisted through the gaps in their foliage with ease.

When she was almost a mile from the house, the trees in front of her exploded as Abella dropped through them from above. The gargoyle’s face was twisted up in anger as she opened her wings wide, blocking Velvet’s path.

Velvet came to a stop, her feet sliding in the snow.

“I saw what you did,” Abella said. She held up an empty shot glass accusingly. “Tell me why I shouldn’t crush you.”

Instead of answering, Velvet bared her fangs and bull-rushed the gargoyle. Abella looked surprised, but held her ground. When they collided, the two of them crashed through the trees and tumbled down a hill.

“Leave me alone!” Velvet didn’t bother striking Abella. There was nothing her fists could do against her stony hide. Instead, she twisted around the gargoyle and pinned her wings together with a pair of her legs while covering Abella’s eyes. Abella stumbled around, her swishing tail pounding through the nearby bushes. Once the gargoyle was off balance, Velvet swung forward and down, executing a throw that tossed Abella into a nearby tree.

On impact, the snow in its branches fell, burying Abella. Velvet scrambled to get away, but the gargoyle burst free and tackled her from behind. Stony fingers closed around Velvet’s neck and squeezed.

“You were ready to fuck him, weren’t you?” Abella’s breath was hot against Velvet’s ear. “And when you were done, you were going to eat him!”

Velvet pulled out her sword. In its collapsed state, she drove it down into Abella’s thigh. Sparks flew when the sword slid across stony flesh, and Abella howled in pain. Velvet twisted around to put the blade between them.

“I was not going to eat him!” she yelled, the blade held to Abella’s throat. “Please, just let me go!”

“No!” Abella’s eyes flicked to the blade. The magical blade was capable of injuring her, and she was wary of it.

“If you think you can choke me out before I use this on you, you’re sorely mistaken.” Velvet’s whole body was tingling now, fire burning in her limbs.

“I’m not worried about a little scratch.” As if to emphasize her point, Abella tilted her face to reveal the large crack that went over her eye. It glittered in the moonlight, as if filled with dark crystals.

Velvet pointed the blade at herself and unfolded it. They were close enough to the ground that the point of the blade buried itself in the snow. The sword tried to unfold, but the handle got caught in Abella’s open mouth and pushed her off the ground.

When Abella let go, Velvet slid behind her and grabbed the sword. She pinned Abella to the ground and placed the tip of the blade at the base of her skull.

“if you try to get up, all I have to do is press.” To emphasize her point, she leaned on the blade. “It’s called leverage.”

Abella went still, her wings relaxing.

“All I want is to leave,” she said. “To get some fresh air, some perspective. You don’t know me, but I’m guessing you know my kind. Well, guess what? I don’t even know my kind. My mother made sure of that, bless her hearts.”

Abella growled down in the snow.

“And you know what else? My mother would want me to kill you. Because despite her enlightenment, she was still a killer, because it’s what she needed to be.” More tears now, hot in her eyes and cold on her cheek as they froze. “And so was my father. He was a killer, too. Never wanted to talk about it, but it’s true. Both of them did it, and they would do it again to keep us safe.