In Hot Water

Eulalie yawned. Her jaw opened wider than her fist before popping, causing her venomous fangs to slide free from their hiding place. Blinking away the sleep, she saw a terrified rat holding a long broom. It was staring up at her from the floor below. She could smell the hot breath of other rodents watching her from the shadows of the Library.

“Did you wake me up?” she asked while cradled in a small web she had built in an abandoned supply closet on the first floor of the Library. Sofia had given her the space as temporary accommodations while they had tried to do research on the weirdo in the front yard.

The rat bolted through the door. Several other rats followed, leaving the stink of fear behind them. At the foot of the door, a tiny blue figure leaned into the opening.

“Sofia said to get you up,” Cerulea squeaked. “She needs you right away.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Eulalie yawned again and tumbled casually out of her web. She landed in a crouch, her legs splaying wide for support. Stepping out of the closet, she smiled at the sight of the enormous stacks of books that stretched impossibly into the sky. Cerulea was nowhere to be seen, but her glitter trail was still falling from the sky.

Her mother would have loved this place. It had every book known to man, and then some. The wide-open spaces were also perfect for climbing, and Eulalie was eager to explore every inch of it once she got the chance.

Outside her room was a giant stack of books that she had gone through last night. They had all been dead ends with nothing of value to offer her.

Wondering what could be so urgent, she walked toward the main lobby of the Library. The giant globe that hovered in place was an absolute marvel to behold, held in place by magic. Beneath it, Sofia stood over a small contingent of rats. She looked up at Eulalie, a look of concern on her face.

“The house is missing.” Sofia’s voice was steady, but Eulalie detected several trembling undertones. There was fear, sadness, and more than a little bit of concern. Each emotion was its own musical chord, and she could hear them all.

“How do you lose a house?”

“The magical book that we use to get there is still here, but it no longer opens a doorway to the house, and all of the rat portals that go there have been closed.”

Eulalie looked at the small crowd of rats, then back at Sofia. “All the portals are closed? We have no way back?”

Sofia shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. The rats are capable of opening portals, but only on the orders of the Rat King himself.”

“I see.” Eulalie walked up to the small group and watched as the rats backed away from her. Each one of them had its own scent, and they all smelled delicious. She narrowed her eyes as she studied them. “Where is this king?”

“I assume back at the house. He is the only one who speaks our language, so even if we wanted them to help us, we have no way to communicate with them.” Sofia looked calm and collected, but Eulalie could hear even more emotions in her voice. Shock. Despair. The cyclops was so caught up in her own feelings that she likely wasn’t processing information properly.

“Let’s not be short-sighted.” Eulalie pulled out her phone and frowned. “We don’t have internet here, do we?”

“None of the companies will give us a good quote.” Sarcasm from Sofia sounded an awful lot like a squeaky violin to Eulalie.

“If he’s the only one who can talk to them, then how did you get them to wake me up?”

Sofia lifted her eyebrow. “I didn’t ask them. I asked Cerulea.”

Eulalie spotted the fairy fluttering overhead. “Can you talk to them?” she asked.

“No,” she replied. “I was trying to use the broom to wake you and they decided to help me out.”

“I can work with that. We need a sequence to follow.” Eulalie pulled a band of webbing from her spinnerets and began weaving. The rats didn’t understand English, but solutions came easy to those who looked for them. “Establish communication with rats. Communicate desire for portal home. If no portal home, then portal somewhere safe, investigate current situation. What does their king look like?”

“You probably saw him. Crown with glasses.” Sofia walked toward her. “What are you doing?”

“Bypassing the language barrier to accomplish our first task. If they can understand situational context, it should be possible to convey our needs.” Weaving a rat with a crown was child’s play, especially done in a chibi art style. When she held up her final product, it was an image of their king in the middle of a tapestry of silken strands.

The rats chittered excitedly for a moment, then went silent as she wove another image. When she held it up, their fear stink faded even further. This image was a picture of her surrounded by food and cartoon hearts. She was certain that Sofia probably had pen and paper somewhere, but her web art was far more precise than anything she could do by hand.

That, and she had a bad habit of nibbling on crayons. It was a childhood habit she just couldn’t break, and she hated having to pick wax out of her teeth.

“What are you doing?” Sofia asked.

“Establishing that I’m not a threat.” Her next image showed her and the king holding hands. The rats looked at one another, but it seemed they were grasping the situation. “Do we have any idea how they figure out where they’re going?”

Sofia shook her head. “If you want somewhere specific, I’m sure they have a method. But it’s something Reggie delegates.”

“Well, we can’t have them taking us just anywhere, can we?” It took her almost an hour, but by the time she was done, the rats were busy gnawing a hole on an open portion of the wall. It didn’t take them long, because she only needed a hole big enough for her hand.

“Well?” Sofia had left and come back with food for everyone. “Any luck?”

“Let’s find out.” Eulalie pulled her phone out of her pocket and stuck it through the hole. On the other side of the hole, she could hear the distant bustle of humans talking to each other.

“That was pretty clever,” Sofia said, looking over her shoulder. “Getting them to gnaw you a hole to a Starbucks.”

“It doesn’t even matter which one, they’re on every corner.” Eulalie connected to the wireless network, as her phone’s reception wasn’t great.

She tapped with purpose, using one of her government accounts to run a search for property records. It didn’t take long to discover a man named Murray who lived right next to Mike.

“Do you suppose he lives alone?” Eulalie asked.

“I have no idea. Wouldn’t someone have come looking if he didn’t?”

“My thoughts exactly.” She pulled up Murray’s address and then searched for a street view. Once she had a picture, she pulled her hand back out and started weaving again. The delicious smell of roasted coffee beans reminded her of her father.

She smiled, caught up in the memory of how he would hold his mug first thing in the morning. He enjoyed how the heat seeped into his fingers, relaxing him.

Once finished with her web, she held up her phone for the rats to see. After they looked at Murray’s house, she showed them a drawing of her and the rats standing inside of it.

As one unit, the rats nodded and found a different spot to chew. A pair of rats worked on closing the hole they had opened.

“We’ll have them scout out Murray’s house,” she informed Sofia. “If it’s empty, we can go through and re-establish contact with the house.”

“And if not, we can observe from a safe distance.” Sofia let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad that you were able to come up with a solution so fast. I’ll admit, I got caught up in the idea that the house had been destroyed. Usually, when a location disconnects from here, that’s the case.”

“There were other places connected here?” Eulalie rubbed her stomach and winced. She was retaining a ton of water as her new carapace expanded. The thin cracks along her legs were the Arachne version of a peeling sunburn, and the edges were beginning to lift away.

“Many. The house is the last one, to my knowledge. It got stuck in my head that something could have happened to everyone, and that I may be here all alone.” Sofia frowned. “I’ve been alone before. It ... was hard.”

“You’re not alone. You have me. And the rats.” She smirked to show Sofia that she was kidding. “We’ll get it figured out, don’t you worry.”

She watched the rats as they chewed. It was a fascinating process to observe, because their teeth did sink into the surface of the wall, but it didn’t seem like the material was being consumed. Instead, a golden, glittery substance was left behind on the edges of the wall as it became a tiny hole and then expanded.

A living room appeared. The hole had appeared beneath an end table, and a few rats ran in to scope the place out. They came back and chittered excitedly at the others, and they continued widening the hole.

Once it was about two-feet across, Eulalie squeezed through. Now inside of Murray’s home, she closed her eyes and listened to her body. The house had a certain stillness to it revealing that nobody had passed through in almost a day. She also could tell that the HVAC system was ancient, resulting in poor air circulation and a dead mouse in one of the vents.

Eulalie moved through the house, examining the furniture. It was old, and most likely inherited. A quick trip upstairs revealed a dusty guestroom and a master bedroom that looked immaculately kept. She tapped on her phone the whole time, accessing her online shopping account.

By the time the portal was big enough for Sofia to step through, Eulalie had scoped out the whole house.

“Place is empty. Murray lives alone, though there was a lot of women’s lingerie in his closet.” Eulalie double-checked the address on her phone and put in her order. “Lots of lace. Very little leather.”

“Can we see the house from here?” Sofia moved to the front window and pushed the curtain back.

“No. The best shot is from the guest room upstairs, and you can only see part of the yard.”

“Wait for night, then?”

“Nope.” Eulalie held up her phone. “I’ve ordered some things from Prime Delivery. We’re in a two-hour delivery window, can you believe it? We used to have to send dad into town to pick up stuff from a locker, four-hour trip after waiting several days just for a delivery!”

“I’m glad you have something to be excited abou—what are you doing?”

“Hmm?” Eulalie had picked up Murray’s router. It was an older model, and she flipped it over. “I’m resetting this router, the password is written on the bottom. When my new laptop gets here, I can do some digital reconnaissance of my own, but I need internet access.”

Sofia sat down on Murray’s couch. She took up a large portion of it, making it look more like a loveseat. “I’m afraid I can offer no help in that area.”

“That’s okay.” Eulalie grinned, revealing all her teeth. “Because I’m already the best there is.”

When Beth walked into the house, she felt a pressure change and her ears popped when the door closed behind her. Tink, Kisa, and Cecilia were watching her from their spot at the window. Jenny was nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell is going on?” Kisa’s eyes were unnaturally wide.

“Um...” Beth shook her head. Now that she was out of the angel’s presence, it was like walking from sunlight into a dim room, but instead of her eyes needing time to adjust, it was her mind. “So ... uh ... shit. Hold on a second.”

She walked past the others, went into the kitchen, and opened the fridge. The food inside was already warming to room temperature, and she pulled out one of the beers Mike had hidden in the back. After popping the tab, she walked back into the living room while drinking it.

By the time she made it back, the beer was nearly gone, and she felt as though she could at least put events in order. Outside, Death was waving his arms dramatically for the three horsemen and Mehkhkahrel. Up above, the swirling mass of eyes and wings watched them.

“Our neighbor Murray is apparently acting as a vessel for the angel Meka ... Mekaka...” She finished her beer. “Mehkhkahrel. I think that’s what he said. It’s his job to do the talking for that thing up there.” She pointed at the winged monstrosity.

“That’s an angel?” Kisa asked in awe.

“It is,” Cecilia responded. “Though I’ve never seen one so powerful.”

“Speaking of, is Lily okay?”

“She went upstairs,” Cecilia said.

“Okay, I’ll go check on her soon. So yeah, that whirling frisbee of what-the-fuck is acting as the judge. Apparently, Death isn’t supposed to fully manifest on this plane of existence unless the Apocalypse has started. So right now, they’re all arguing about whether or not his being here qualifies as the opening of some seal that means we are fucked. Like, on every level kind of fucked.” She was shaking now, and she dropped the can when she tried to set it down. A tiny bit of beer spilled on the carpet. “This isn’t even about the house anymore. This is about the whole world.”

“Oh.” Kisa looked at Tink, then back out the window. “Then it shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Death didn’t come here, he got trapped. That should be simple enough to explain.”

“I hope so.” Beth took comfort in Kisa’s words. “That fog out there? There’s nothing beyond it. The whole time Murray was screaming, he wasn’t just summoning everyone. We’re apparently in a pocket dimension. If the three horsemen had just shown up on our doorstep, then all four of them would be walking the Earth and trigger the end of the world. They’ve been trying to find Death for a couple of months now, and have been breaking down magical barriers across the world in an attempt to find him.”

“Stupid horse fuckers can’t have funny bone man,” Tink grumbled. “Maybe Tink shoot down ugly bird.”

“Tink? Don’t.” Beth pointed at the goblin. “I get the feeling that you would get vaporized, or set on fire or something. You are not to get yourself killed. It would break Mike’s heart.”

Tink grumbled but nodded. “Tink be good,” she muttered. “But not be happy about it.”

“So this wasn’t an attack?” Kisa almost sounded relieved.

“No. It was never about us at all.” She looked out the window and saw that Death was pantomiming using a ViewMaster. “And I hope it stays that way. I’m going to go check on Lily.”

She walked up the stairs, wondering where the succubus could have gone. While there were plenty of rooms to choose from, she had one idea that made more sense than the others.

The door to Mike’s room was closed, but she opened it anyway and walked inside.

“Lily?” Even though she got no response, she walked into the bathroom to make sure. Lying in the middle of the empty tub was a small child with black and red hair. Her arm was bandaged up in silk, and her skin was smoldering. “Are you okay?”

“I was almost vaporized out there,” she responded, her voice tiny. “I came up here hoping to cool off my skin and talk to Naia. She’s not here anymore. I don’t know where she is.”

“Back on Earth is my best guess.” Beth explained that they had been put inside a pocket dimension. “Her spring is underground, so she is still there.”

“Do you think it’s just a huge crater now?” Lily asked. “The neighbors must be freaking out.”

“I don’t know,” Beth replied. She got into the tub and cocked her head. “Why the little kid act?”

“There’s less of me to hurt,” Lily whispered. “I felt like I was on fire. That’s not a sensation I’ve felt since...” she waved her hand dismissively. “Everything hurts, and I can’t leave.”

“Of course not. We’re sealed in a pocket dimension.”

“It’s not that. A succubus can always go to her master.” Lily’s lower lip trembled. “I tried to go to him, to warn him away. It’s not just that I can’t go to him. I can’t feel him! I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, and I can’t feel Naia either!” Her voice rose in pitch as fat tears welled in her cheeks. “I’m afraid, Beth! That thing that’s out there could destroy me with a thought if it turned its attention on the house! We are not even ants to it, we’re like those things that shit on your eyelids while you just go about your day!”

“Hey, now. Shhh.” Beth moved next to Lily and slid an arm around her. The succubus sobbed and rolled toward her. It was just like comforting a child, minus the excessive swearing. “It’s going to be okay, Death is explaining things to them now.”

“We are so fucked,” Lily muttered. “Do you know what the difference between an angel and a demon is? Daddy issues and membership to an exclusive club. That’s it. Angels can have agendas just like demons do. If that thing out there came all this way in order to find out if it’s time for the world to end, then it will stack the deck in its favor.”

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t that be against ... Sky Daddy’s will?” She decided to go with a term that Lily would find acceptable.

“Logic and reason don’t apply to the divine. They are beings that live outside of time and space, they don’t see things the way you do. Why do you think I can take shortcuts through Hell? It overlaps everything, just like Purgatory. I even overlap with myself. How do you think I change shape? I’m not made of flesh and bone, but something else entirely. It’s like that black shit they pulled out of you, it’s pure potential with no direction. Do you know why the universe keeps expanding?” Lily’s voice had calmed a little. “Scientists think it’s some leftover energy, or whatever. It’s because this plane is finite, while others are not. The universe is trying to play catch up to its big brothers and sisters, and will eventually tear itself apart to do so.”

“I so enjoy these chats,” Beth noted sarcastically. “Very uplifting.”

“That thing out there is just a demon who hasn’t pissed off Daddy yet. Does that put anything into perspective for you? If it can smash you into powder while coloring inside the lines, it will do so in a heartbeat. The asshole won’t even be angry while crushing you, it’ll be in such a rush to satisfy Daddy that it’ll take the shortcut.”

“You have a very dim view of angels.”

“Religious politics aside, I can’t help you with this one. Just its arrival almost killed me, and if not for our resident screamer, I’d be gone already. If I step outside of the house, it will probably kill me on sight. Not send me to Hell: oblivion. Gone, poof! You won’t even have dust to put in a jar for Romeo to cry over.”

“Beth?” It was Kisa. She came into the bathroom, a frown on her face. Lily shifted out of Beth’s arms before they could be seen. “Death needs to talk to you.”

“And so it begins.” Lily waved Beth off with a tiny hand. “If you need me, I’ll be in this tub. I’m the new maiden of the bath, here to dispense orgasms and advice.”

“Not looking like that, you won’t.” Beth pulled the towel off the hook and threw it over Lily’s head. “Here’s a blankie so you don’t get cold.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Lily mumbled through the towel as she flipped Beth off.

Beth followed Kisa down to the living room. Death stood in the door, his cowl pulled back. The flames in his eye sockets had grown tiny, and he was fidgeting with his fingers.

“You need me?” she asked.

“Yes, I believe I do.” Death stared down at his feet. He did a little shuffle, like he was trying to kick a piece of dust off the floor. “It seems that I am in need of your legal services, Judge Bethany.”

“Okay, three things. Only my grandmother calls me that, and—”

“She’s dead, yes.” Death smiled sheepishly.

“I’m not a judge, I’m a lawyer,” Beth added.

“I apologize. You wanted your own title, and I thought you would enjoy that one as it is related to the law.”

“Oh.” She remembered shouting after him the other day for a title. “I appreciate the thought, but I don’t want to be called judge anything.”

“Princess? Queen? Barrister?” Death paused to gaze at the ceiling in contemplation. “Supreme court justice?”

“Three. Why do you need a lawyer?” she asked.

“Ah. Well, I thought I would impress upon my siblings and the honorable angel Mehkhkahrel the things I’ve learned since arriving at this. My presence here was quite by accident and never intended to set off the Apocalypse itself. I thought that by showing them how I have indulged in your culture that they would realize that I came to Earth without any malice toward Mankind.”

“Okay.” Beth waited for him to go on.

“It would seem that we have a dilemma. You see, the angel is under the belief that the Apocalypse is at hand, and has stated that my continued presence is proof of such a thing. My siblings, who are very eager to walk the Earth and destroy it, have sided with him.”

“But you were summoned here for a different reason, though.”

“Yes, but they didn’t seem to care. The point of the matter is that the angel has ordered that either I leave this plane right away or allow them to formally open the Seven Seals so they can rain judgment on Earth.”

“Oh. Oh!” Beth’s jaw dropped open. “You can’t leave, can you?”

“I cannot.” Death shook his head sadly. “Until I have collected the soul of the one known as Amir, I am bound to this world.”

“Shit. So where do I come in?”

“Well, the angel was about to pass judgment when I reminded him that it was the law of the land that I get access to an attorney. I also told him that I had the right to remain silent.”

“And he listened?” She looked out the window. The quartet of chaos was standing there, staring at the house.

“This is an angel of judgment. Of course, he didn’t.” Death wandered over to the window. “But he had promised to consider all angles. I informed them that my attorney would have a unique perspective relevant to my case and then held him to that promise.”

Her stomach cramped and she felt light-headed. What would Mike do in a situation like this? She observed each of the horsemen, watching them as they remained motionless. “Your brothers wouldn’t happen to be susceptible to flirting, would they?”

“No. They have no interest in sex. And neither does Pestilence.”

“Pestilence is a girl?” She looked at the rider in the spacesuit and realized it was a high-tech hazmat suit.

“No. They’re complicated, and still figuring things out.” Death led her to the door. “Their identity has been in flux for millennia. In fact, Pestilence is their new name. I think they like it, but it’s hard to tell now that I can’t see their face. When I’m standing really close, I can hear what sounds like thousands of bees buzzing inside. Can you imagine that?”

“Guess I won’t have to.” She put her hand on the knob and pulled. If Death’s siblings couldn’t be seduced, then half of Mike’s typical strategy was already out the window. “Let’s see if we can get lucky.”

The cabin smelled like hot butter and cinnamon. When Mike stepped out of his bedroom, the smell intensified, and he saw Yuki standing in the kitchen. She was ladling oatmeal into a bowl and winked when she saw him.

“Morning.” She smiled knowingly before taking a bite. “There’s plenty left. You should have some to replenish that energy of yours.”

Mike blushed. “I’m guessing everyone heard?”

“Not only that, but you fucked up Bigfoot’s VHS collection. His tapes are all messed up. They have these wavy lines all over them.”

“Oh, shit, really?”

“Yes!” Bigfoot shoved open the bathroom door and limped to the couch. “I had to switch to DVD and I hate it!”

“Why do you hate DVD?” If Bigfoot was not moving like a geriatric patient with arthritis, he would have felt threatened by the angry Sasquatch.

“My fingers are too fucking big for the remote.” Bigfoot sat down with a grunt and held up a black piece of plastic that was dwarfed in his palm. It was clear to Mike that each button would be very difficult for the cryptid to press.

“Where’s Quetzalli?” he asked.

“Using up what’s left of the hot water.” Yuki tapped her spoon on the table. “Your bedroom smells like a fuck-pit, and you’re no better.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t even argue. His stomach was still covered in dry spunk. “I guess I could always take a cold shower.”

“You’ll freeze your balls off.” Bigfoot glanced over his shoulder. The television was displaying the DVD player’s loading screen. “Our water comes from a well. Darren put in a heater, but it’s old. About twenty years ago, you could get a couple of showers out of it. But now?” He shivered. “If you’re in a hurry, you could drop by the hot springs. It isn’t a far walk.”

“Hot springs?” Mike’s mind immediately went to Naia. He wondered how she was doing.

“Yeah, there’s a few. Big enough to swim in. Just don’t try diving to the bottom, they’re deeper than they look. The water gets much hotter and you might pass out.” Bigfoot uncapped a beer that had been down by his feet. “This one time, I was at Yellowstone and saw a guy go swimming in one that was near boiling. Cooked him like a brat, he split open along the sides toward the end.”

“Gross.” Yuki frowned at her oatmeal. “I saw something like that once in Japan. Very unpleasant.”

The front door opened and Dana walked in. Her nose wrinkled and she looked at Mike.

“Oh, wow, that’s strong.” She covered her nose and gave him a wide berth as she moved to sit next to Bigfoot.

A door shut in the cabin, and Quetzalli appeared with a towel around her body and another towel wrapped around her head. She gave Mike a wink and disappeared into their bedroom.

“Maybe I’ll hit those springs.” He stood and moved to the front door. “Where are they?”

“I’ll take you.” Dana stood and moved toward the door. “I don’t want you getting lost.”

Mike grabbed his coat, and they walked outside together. He shivered in the cool air, wondering if the hot spring would be warm enough to counter the chill. Up above, he saw Abella circle for a landing.

“Are we going home today?” She looked unusually grumpy.

“Not yet. Once Bigfoot is up and about, we’ll plan for going home.” He pulled out his phone and frowned. “I’m also thinking that I should head for the boundary. See if I can’t get a signal on this thing.”

Abella rolled her eyes and held out a hand.

“Give it here. It will take you all day to walk there and back. I can do it in a quarter of the time.”

“Thank you.” He handed over his phone. “Let them know that we’re safe. I think our Nirumbi issue is solved.” If that was our main issue, he thought to himself. Whatever had been watching him didn’t seem to be around now. Hopefully it had gone with the Nirumbi.

“I’ll be back.” Abella launched herself skyward in a motion that scattered a flurry of snowflakes in every direction, blasting Mike with icy shards. He brushed himself off and watched as the gargoyle disappeared over the trees.

“She’s in a foul mood,” Dana muttered under her breath.

Mike sighed, but kept his thoughts to himself.

They walked into the forest, exchanging chit-chat. Dana was working her way through a ton of science fiction novels on her phone and was also learning conversational Russian. She also told him about her progress on the telescope, and how she thought it may be operable in the months ahead. The observatory was a room he hadn’t spent much time in. It unnerved him how it looked out on an unfamiliar sky. Sometimes if he stared for long enough, it felt like the sky was looking back.

As they climbed higher, trees thinned and were replaced by rocks. The smooth snowy contours of the forest floor were disrupted by stone outcroppings that looked as if they were fighting their way free of the ice, hoping for just a glimmer of the sun’s warmth. The air was thicker somehow, and he picked up the vague smell of sulfur and other minerals.

This made him think of Lily. He was surprised he hadn’t heard from her yet, or at least heard about her. She had promised to make trouble, and he was sure someone would have called to complain about her by now.

They stepped through a thin gap in the stones and he found himself standing on a ledge overlooking a pool of steaming water. He was about to say something when the steam parted and revealed Velvet. She was floating on her back with her eyes closed, her legs spread out around her like a star.

“Ah, shit,” Dana muttered as Velvet’s eyes popped open. “I’m sorry, Vee. I didn’t know you were up here.”

Velvet’s eyes went to Mike, then back to Dana. He expected panic that he had seen her naked, but was modesty even an Arachne trait?

“It’s fine,” she replied. “I was just taking a dip myself. Had a long night.”

“Yeah, you got in pretty late.” Dana pointed along the sides of the rocks. “There’s a path you can take down to the edge. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll leave you here.”

“Don’t want to be our chaperone?” he asked, only half-joking.

“I’m hungry is all.” She grinned. “Hungry enough to eat a dragon.”

“I like this side of you. Leave a sock on the door until you’re done.”

Dana rolled her eyes. “Any sense of privacy died when you fried Bigfoot’s VHS collection. I wasn’t going to say this in front of him, but he teared up when he saw his Northern Exposure collection was toast. All recordings of the original broadcasts, something about music rights.”