Chapter 9: Heart of the Mountain

Beth stepped out of the elevator and was greeted by the sight of Aurora. The woman had dark patches under her eyes that concealer had failed to hide, her disheveled hair piled on top of her head and held in place by a hairpin with a tropical flower on the end.

“Good morning,” she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. “The Director has arranged breakfast for you in a special location. If you would follow me.”

The woman turned away before Beth could respond. From behind, she could actually see that Aurora was clutching her clipboard so hard that her fingertips had turned white.

Beth was led past the dining room and the exit to the pool deck, then up a short flight of stairs to an outdoor patio she had never seen before. Pausing to take in the view, she realized that the patio itself should have been visible from her own balcony. With very little effort, she was able to see the edges of the illusionary spell that shimmered just beyond the patio’s boundary.

“Well done.” The words came from an Indian man sitting at an ornate dining table. His skin was the color of topaz, and smooth as if he had been carved directly from the earth. Though his eyes were brown, they had an intensity that pulled her in, set beneath a pair of well trimmed eyebrows. The left one had a tiny scar where the hair didn’t grow. His nose was wide with a waxed handlebar mustache beneath. He rose, revealing that he was wearing a full suit despite the warm weather. “Most people aren’t able to see the illusion from the inside.”

“Is this you?” she asked. “Or just an enchanted array of some sort.”

“Come,” the Director said, gesturing at the seat opposite him. “Sit.”

Beth moved to join him, fully aware that he had ignored her question.

“You stood me up last night,” she said.

The Director nodded. “You have my full apologies,” he said. “Though my physical presence is here, I was caught up in an operation in another time zone. Things did not go as expected, so I had to sit down with some of my people afterward to come up with a different approach.”

Beth wondered if he was referring to the house or the attempt on Mike’s life. There wasn’t a way to ask without letting on how much she knew, and she got the feeling that this man was as slippery as he looked. So she looked down at the table setting before her and cleared her throat. “I don’t have a menu,” she said.

“I ordered for both of us.” He smiled, and she felt a brief pulse of magic wash over her. It tried to cling to her body, but slipped across her skin and then dissipated in the air. Uncertain what had just happened, she gave the man a smile as if she hadn’t noticed.

“What are we having?”

He grinned and sat forward in his chair. “We’re going to start with a light fruit salad, followed by a croque madame with some toast. I assume you like mimosas?” Another pulse of magic came off of him. This time, it clung to Beth’s skin like spidersilk, and it took some effort to push it away with her magic. The Director studied her intently, as if waiting for a reaction.

“Who doesn’t like mimosas?” The moment she spoke, a crystalline glass was set down next to her by a member of the wait staff. She looked up to see a man with tousled brown hair and scars along one cheek. The moment they made eye contact, the man’s eyes flashed red and he winked, unseen by the Director.

Lily. If the succubus was there, at least Beth didn’t have to worry about something being slipped into her food. Beth watched as Lily served the Director his own mimosa and then walked back to the kitchen.

“Cheers.” The Director held his glass up, and Beth joined him. They clinked glasses and then sipped at their drinks. They were cool and refreshing. Beth noticed right away that hers didn’t seem to have any alcohol.

“So do you have a name?” Beth asked, setting her drink down. “Or do I just call you Director?”

The Director smirked. “Names are power, so I would prefer that you just use my title.”

“Well, okay then.” She set her drink down and crossed her arms, leaning forward to reveal more cleavage. “I guess that puts us normal people at a disadvantage. Just a quick internet search and you have all our information at your fingertips.”

The man laughed, his demeanor suddenly friendly. “It almost seems intentional, doesn’t it? The amount of information available at one’s fingertips. In my day, you often had to resort to subterfuge to acquire a person’s full name, especially if they were wary of enemy spellcasters.”

“In your day? You look like you couldn’t be a day older than forty.”

The Director ignored her question, his attention shifting to the ocean. She followed his gaze, but couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. He drank some more mimosa, so Beth copied him and pretended she didn’t notice the odd silence. His eyes flicked toward her when she did this, so she went ahead and drank the rest of her glass. The man smiled, his mustache twitching in response.

“These are really good,” she said. The Director snapped his fingers, and Lily reappeared with a decanter. The succubus refilled Beth’s drink, then vanished from sight once again.

“Speaking of information, it’s rather remarkable how little we know about Mike Radley.” The Director leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Another pulse of magic came off of him, but Beth was expecting it. The moment it touched her skin, her own magic churned and shoved it away. Instead of calling him out for his behavior, she smiled and allowed one of her straps to slide down her arm. If she had to guess, he was attempting to charm her or gain her trust, but it was clear he was unaware if the spell worked or not.

She made sure to drink some more of her fake mimosa before answering. This seemed to please the Director, too.

“Well,” she began, taking a moment to examine the rim of her glass. “Part of that is because he was a web developer. I bet he scrubbed his own data from the internet out of habit.”

“I see. If I remember correctly, it was you that found him, yes?” The Director placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward, the fingers of both hands now intertwined to make a single fist.

“It was.” She thought back to that day when she had been at her desk, idly working on something else, and an email had come through from a genealogy service she didn’t remember hiring. She would later check her records and discover that she had, in fact, paid them some months prior to do a search on Emily’s family. They had given her Mike’s phone number and email. She had called him right away, and their conversation had been relatively brief. He had questioned her intensely, immediately suspicious that the whole thing was a scam. Once she provided her credentials, he had sounded intrigued. She promptly sent a copy of the legal documents to his email address, but she wouldn’t forget how the conversation had ended.

“By the way,” Mike had asked. “How did you get this phone number? It shouldn’t be listed anywhere.”

“It’s my job,” she replied, trying not to smirk. Discovering Mike had been nothing but sheer luck, but she wasn’t about to give that away. “And I’m very good at it. I’ll see you soon.”

“So you knew him before he became the Caretaker?”

Beth shook her head. “Hardly. You have to understand, things happen fast at that house. I had only met him one time before he walked inside that place, and the very next day he was a different person. Is he similar to who he was before? In a lot of ways, I think so. In other ways, not so much. We’re getting the best version of him right now, that’s for sure.” She felt like her answers were vague enough that the Director wouldn’t glean anything useful from them.

“Hmm.” The Director stared at her for several seconds, then cleared his throat. “I hear he’s quite the lover.”

She had to hold back a laugh. What kind of comment was that? The Director had spoken so casually that he might have been commenting on the weather or something he had seen on television.

Curious to see where this was going, Beth played the part of the enchanted idiot and started twirling her hair. “I mean, it’s not exactly fair to compare him to anyone else. It’s like telling somebody that a Ferrari is the fastest bicycle in the world, you know? Doesn’t make sense.”

“Beg pardon?” The Director’s friendly mask slipped for just a moment, but he managed to pull himself together.

“Normal people have sex. When you’re with Mike, it’s ... hard to describe, I don’t think a word exists for what he does. You feel him in your body and your soul, like you’ve been magnetized permanently in his direction. I can’t think of a single thing I would deny him in the bedroom, because I know the experience would reshape who I am as a woman and a lover.” She played with her necklace, partially to keep from laughing as she laid it on thick. “I try not to have sex with him too often. It would absolutely ruin me for other lovers, and I want them to have a chance.”

The Director’s mustache bristled and he stared at his drink for several seconds. His shoulders tensed up as he met her gaze but kept his voice cordial.

“And does he share this relationship with every woman in your household?” His voice actually squeaked a little toward the end of his sentence. “For instance, the women he brought here, have they all—”

“Oh, certainly.” Beth nodded eagerly, trying to hold back a grin. Something about Mike’s sex life was clearly getting under the man’s skin and she was happy to put it there. “If not for some basic biology and magic, he would have knocked every single one of us up numerous times.”

The man across from her started breathing hard, his cheeks now tinged with an odd purple color. When Beth blinked, the color disappeared, and the Director was now sitting upright in his chair, hands folded in front of him.

When their food arrived, Beth was relieved to see that Lily brought it. The succubus looked at the fruit salad, then back up to Beth and gave a small nod. Relieved that she wasn’t about to be drugged again, Beth ate the fruit and was delighted at how fresh it tasted.

“Are you okay?” she asked, wiping her lips with a napkin to hide a grin.

“Of course,” he said with a dismissive wave while avoiding eye contact. “I had a very long evening and it’s catching up with me.”

“That operation of yours.” Beth set her fork down and crossed her arms. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m more interested in what happened on Haleakalā last night.” The Director turned his head towards her and she felt his magic flare up as if it was going to consume her. “We lost contact with our people on the mountain not long after dark. I have it on good authority that Mike Radley might be the reason why.”

“Based on what information?” Beth gestured at the food before them. “Also, that’s quite the accusation for somebody who invited me to breakfast and asked about my sex life. Almost makes me wonder if you took issue with my answers.”

“It is my job to oversee dozens of operations at any given time, and this one was extremely important. Late last night, Sister Ingrid contacted me to let me know that they were being pursued but had established a safe perimeter. As of this morning, we’ve heard nothing from the field team. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m suspicious of the Caretaker’s motives.”

“You accused my client, who is both a good friend and the greatest lover on Earth, of being the reason your team stopped communicating with you. I want to know why you said that.”

The Director stared at her, his lips thinning out as his mask slipped away completely. The magical energy around him became chaotic as his pupils began to change shape.

“Sir?” Aurora came up behind them, her features stricken. “We have news from the survey team. You need to come see this.”

The Director wiped his mouth, rose, and left without looking back. As Beth watched him go, Lily came out of the kitchen with a pair of plates. She set them down on the table, her mouth close to Beth’s ear.

“They just got official word that the away team is gone,” she whispered. “No info on what happened, but the unofficial gossip is that we retaliated for what happened at the house.”

“Yes, I’d like another mimosa,” Beth said in case anyone was listening. “And could you have this sent to my room? I think the Director is done with me.”

“Right away, ma’am.” Lily leaned down to pick up the plate, her eyes drifting to Beth’s cleavage. “By the way, nice tits,” she whispered.

Beth watched the succubus go, then turned her thoughts to the ocean. She was starting to suspect that Francois had acted on his own, but why? It was clear the man had his eyes on Mike’s property, but for what purpose? And why act before they reached Mike’s property line?

There were too many questions and not enough answers. Since she couldn’t leave the resort, the only people she could speak to about Francois were Order goons or the merfolk. Sighing inwardly, she waited for her drink to arrive and then started walking back to her room. After breakfast, she would drop by the beach again and see what she could learn from the merfolk.

This time, she wouldn’t bother trying to fuck one.

On her way back, she spotted Aurora hiding behind a pillar on the other side of the lobby. The woman was silently crying into a white dishcloth, gently dabbing at her eyes. Beth turned away from the scene, her thoughts whirring.

The long shadows of the forest sank into the trees as the sun moved higher into the sky. From the mouth of the lava vent, Ratu gazed down at the forest below with a frown. She could feel the dead men below moving, the steady beat of their bony feet grating at her sense as they searched for her and the others in massive numbers.

Though she had no visual evidence, she would easily attest that there were several hundred skeletons searching for them. Not only that, but the mountain itself gave off an eerie pressure, as if it could feel their blight crawling across its rocky skin. She had told Mike before that the mountain was alive, but that had been a gross understatement. It was like they stood on the back of an immense beast that had come to notice them.

“Anything yet?” asked Ingrid from behind.

“No. The fairies are highly unreliable and struggle with timely tasks.”

“Then why the hell did you use them?”

“What other options do we have? Your technology doesn’t work, and I don’t dare risk sending a magical message that could be intercepted.” Ratu turned to look at the woman, who had her back to the wall and was busy eating one of Zel’s special granola bars made of seeds, nuts, and a condensed syrup composed of Mike’s semen. While they weren’t good for filling bellies, they absolutely provided enough energy to get through the day. “It can be very difficult to catch, much less trap a fairy. So while they may be slow, this is far better than nothing. And while they may be unreliable, they are loyal. For many years, they were among my sole companions underground. I would have kicked them out if I could, but found it was easier to make them obey me using fear instead.”

“How kind of you,” said Ingrid sarcastically.

“I admit, my approach has changed. It is far better to rely on respect than fear as the grand motivator. That is something that the Caretaker reminded me of.” That, and something had shifted dramatically for her ever since Mike had saved her life in the ice cave. He had given her a place within his family, even encouraged her to be a part of it. The solitude of the Labyrinth had taught her how to be self sufficient, to be the only person that mattered. But Mike had reminded her that life had more to offer. He made her feel safe.

Right now, she wanted to make him feel safe again. She felt like a failure already for allowing him to be harmed in the first place. Now he was essentially alone, unless he had managed to free Opal.

Still, it wasn’t enough. Ratu felt she should have done better, planned for more. Even now, Mike’s naga-hide armor was folded neatly in her backpack because they hadn’t expected to be attacked so soon. She hadn’t made him wear it because he had wanted to wait until they were closer to the property line, when they expected things to heat up. Without supplies and separated from the rest of the family, he was in more danger than she cared to consider.

“What the hell are in these?” asked Ingrid. “They’re good, but there’s a nutty aftertaste I can’t quite identify.”

“It’s better that you don’t know,” Ratu replied.

“Is it bugs?” Ingrid took another bite. “I won’t be mad if it is. That’s more of a cultural thing. If you’re grinding up beetles to make these, it was a good decision.”

“It’s not bugs.” Ratu turned her gaze back to the forest. In the distance, she saw a bird performing aerial acrobatics in an attempt to catch something. She made a circle with her hands and filled the space with light distorting magic. Holding it up to her eye, she bent the makeshift lens until it brought the distant bird into focus. It was actually several birds and they were chasing a ball of light.

“Olivia.” Ratu looked over her shoulder and into the cave. “Your sister needs help.”

A green ball of light shot out of the cave and in Cerulea’s direction. Down below, Cerulea was dodging in and out of the canopy in an attempt to lose her pursuers. The slowest of the fairies, she barely kept ahead of the flock.

Olivia crashed into the closest pursuer, then broke away and led some of the birds in a different direction. Cerulea ascended in a tight spiral, followed by a massive bird that could easily swallow the fairy whole. As the fairy neared the cave, Ratu summoned a ball of fire in the palm of her hand and flicked it out with her fingers. It struck the bird so hard that its feathers incinerated instantly, causing the torched carcass to sail into the mouth of the cave where it disappeared in the darkness.

Quetzalli let out a shout of alarm. She had been asleep roughly where the bird had landed.

“That’s one way to wake up, I suppose.” Ingrid watched Ratu in fascination as the naga held out her hand for Cerulea to land on. “Well?”

“Patience.” Ratu studied the fairy and noticed she was a little banged up. “Are you okay?”

Cerulea nodded, then paused to straighten an antennae. “I found Mike! And the fish girl and Opal and Daisy!” She pointed off in the distance. “And a whole lot of skeletons!”

“I figured.” Though Ratu’s voice was calm, she was inwardly relieved almost to the point of tears. “Is he okay?”

Cerulea bobbed her head violently. Olivia joined them moments later. Maybe it was the smell of burning feathers or the hissing noise Ratu made in the back of her throat at them when they came near, but the birds chasing Olivia scattered long before the cave’s entrance. Either way, the fairies were safe.

“Mike said to meet him at his property.” Cerulea stood tall and put her hands on her hips. “He’s going to walk the long way to get there.”

“What’s the long way?” asked Ingrid.

Cerulea responded by sticking out her tongue.

“Hey.” Ratu jostled the fairie, who crouched down and held on for dear life. “Which way is he going?”

Cerulea shrugged. “I don’t know, but he has a way to make it safe. He wants us to take a different way and avoid the boneheads.”

“Boneheads!” chimed Olivia, and the two fairies high-fived each other.

“They’re like children,” muttered Ingrid.

“In some ways, yes.” Ratu pulled out part of a granola bar she had saved. Cerulea’s eyes bugged out of her skull as she snatched it and fled into the cave, chased inside by her sister. Quetzalli shouted at the fairies, her angry words followed by a loud electrical pop as she had probably zapped someone. “It might be safer to climb back up and take the original route. It won’t be long before Francois stumbles onto Mike’s location.”

“How do you figure?” asked Ingrid.

“Experience. If the undead walk below us, then Francois is looking there for Mike. Maybe he hopes to resurrect him, or perhaps he wants to make sure he’s dead. Based on the rules of the Great Game, the ownership of Mike’s land is up for grabs if Francois can take him out.”

“The great what now?”

Ratu frowned, staring down into the jungle. Mike, where are you? She wished she was down there with him. Francois had fled before them last night and would think twice about confronting Mike in the naga’s presence.

“If Francois kills Mike, everything Mike owns is supposed to go to the Captain. That’s probably why he made his move last night. If not, he would have had to attack mid-day and in the Order’s presence.” Ratu walked back into the cave and heard Ingrid scrambling on the rocks behind her. “I can use this tunnel to take us further into the mountain and bypass any stragglers up above. It will take us a bit longer to get where we’re going, but we should be able to travel unnoticed.”

“Then why not do that before?” asked Ingrid.

“I had no intention of making your people aware of the full scope of my abilities. Also, now that I’m actually inside the mountain, I can feel its veins and know they can take us to our destination. We shall walk where no mortal has traveled before, straight to the heart of the mountain.”

They were near the back of the cave now and discovered Quetzalli sitting on a rock and eating the bird that Ratu had torched. She had already plucked most of the feathers, and had crumbled a granola bar into seasoning that she had sprinkled on the top. The dragon looked at Ratu and Ingrid, then broke the bird in half down the middle and held out a portion.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

Ratu took the offering and sank her fangs into the still tender meat. She looked over her shoulder at Ingrid, then pulled off the leg and held it out. “Flash fried,” she said. “So it should be safe for your consumption.”

“No thanks,” said Ingrid. “I’ll stick with the bug bars.”

“Suit yourself,” said Ratu, then stuck the leg into her mouth and swallowed it whole.

Opal was frantically signing at Mike, her fingers and hands moving so fast that she occasionally forgot to hold her form, her digits often melting through each other. She was walking ahead of them, her eyes on the forest while her arms were backward so she could communicate with Mike.

“What is she going on about?” Leilani finally asked from behind Mike. She was bringing up the rear of their entourage, her eyes constantly scanning the trees.

“She’s catching me up on the last season of True Blood. I haven’t had a chance to watch it.” Television was largely a thing of the past for him. Even before his children had come along, his time had been limited. Now the only opportunity he ever had to watch shows or movies was if somebody else wanted to see them.

“What’s True Blood about?” asked Leilani.

“Vampires. I started watching years ago because I had a huge crush on Anna Paquin.” He moved to duck beneath a leaf, but the tree shifted the branch out of the way. “Thank you,” he said, patting the tree.

“How is it that you’re doing that?” The mermaid had to duck as the branch sprang back and almost took her out.

“Well, once upon a time, a nymph blew me in the bathtub of an old house. Now I talk to trees. It’s a long story.” He looked over his shoulder at Leilani and saw that she was annoyed. “No, really. I would get into it, but I still don’t know you that well.”

“I hardly think that’s fair,” she said.

“You were almost murdered by a man who’s been banging your maternal line for generations.”

Leilani scowled, then looked at Daisy. “Is he always like this?”

Daisy, who sat on top of Mike’s head, shrugged.

“I find myself at a disadvantage,” grumbled the princess. “Since you are all speaking in sign language.”

“Well, Daisy doesn’t technically hear like we do, it’s all the vibrations she picks up through her wings. As for Opal, she can’t vocalize. Well, she can, but...”

To help him make her point, Opal’s face melted back through her head and she opened her mouth wide as if to speak. A cavity formed in her chest as she pulled in air, then tried to condense it through a pair of modified vocal chords. The sound rested squarely between a pinched balloon letting out air and a whoopie cushion.

“Oh.” Leilani made a face. “I’m so sorry.”

Don’t worry about it, signed Opal, which Mike repeated.

“So why is she telling you about this show?” asked Leilani.

“We were watching it together for a bit. She’s been in recovery and I made sure to go hang out with her.” His lips quirked into a grin as he thought of all the times she had pulled him into her tub. “But I missed the last season because of my son. He and I were struggling to get along, but we had a breakthrough of sorts. The last thing I wanted was to undo all of our progress by stepping away.”

“Mmm. Relationships among merpeople can be tricky. Many of us don’t know who our fathers are, so it becomes a communal affair to raise the children. Naturally, this means personalities can clash, especially if a father has decided that a specific child is his own. Or worse, numerous men claiming parentage of one child.”

“But you knew yours?”

Leilani nodded, her eyes drifting to her spear. “For the royal line, it’s important to avoid such confusion. When a princess or queen decides to become pregnant, she will limit her lovers in such a way that there can be no question. We do this partially to avoid imbalance—we do not want one man fathering most of the royal line and gaining the ear of the ruling class by parentage alone.”

“The way you mentioned him earlier, is he ... gone?”

She nodded. “We are warriors, Caretaker, and assist where we are needed. Many years ago, something attacked an oil platform in your Gulf of Mexico. My people went with the Order to figure out what happened, but none of them returned. There are things in the depths that haunt even us, Mike Radley.”

Mike shivered. “Dare I even ask?”

Leilani was walking by his side now, her face grim. “There’s a tradition among our people where we do not name the things that terrify us. To speak those names aloud would inevitably summon them from their dark slumber.”

“You’re talking sea monsters and not interdimensional beings, right?” He thought about the Outsiders, and how they were constantly pressing against the edges of reality in the hopes of sneaking a bite.

Leilani stared forward for several moments, then shook her head. “I would prefer we do not speak on this topic any longer.”

“I think that’s fair.” He turned his attention forward to see that Opal was signing once more. “No, I haven’t heard any news about Winds of Winter, I warned you about starting that series.” Opal was very much into books, which meant putting her e-readers into ziplock bags to keep her from ruining them. Her hunger for them was a direct result of having Beth’s memories up to the moment of her own creation, and Beth was a fan as well.

Opal had spent a long time during recovery trying to come to terms with the idea that she was essentially a Beth clone. Her experience with the horsemen of the Apocalypse had left her in a fragile state, and the inability to go see Beth’s parents as a form of comfort had left the slime bereft. Ratu’s big rule for several months was to never leave Opal alone for any extended length of time. The naga had been worried that the slime girl would simply give up on living and disassociate. These gaps of time were filled by regular visits from almost everyone, even Beth. She and Opal got along well enough, but Mike sometimes wondered if there wasn’t some sort of hidden resentment on Opal’s part.

After making a full recovery, Opal had finally been able to begin pursuing who and what she was. Ratu had assured everyone that there had never been a creature like Opal before, so the path would be long and emotionally treacherous. Mike enjoyed their time together, which was usually just spent talking about the world.

But on the rare occasion Opal got her tendrils on him...

Daisy perked up on top of his head, then beat her fists on his scalp to get his attention. Mike put up a hand for everyone to stop, and even grabbed one of Opal’s hands to keep her from moving any further.

“Daisy hears something.” He gestured to the nearest brush, which split apart to reveal a rocky alcove they could squeeze down into behind the branches. As a unit, they all moved inside, but Opal was the easiest. The majority of her body squeezed back into her magical decanter, which Mike held in one hand. The bushes closed up just as bony legs filled his view.

It was skeletons, at least three of them. Wordlessly, they wandered through the area, hollow sockets surveying the rainforest as they continued on their way. Mike waited nearly twenty minutes before asking the forest to move aside so they could get out.

“Patrols are getting thicker,” he noted, turning back to help Leilani.

“We are close to your property. The Captain is trying to find you.”

“Honestly? He’d better hope he doesn’t.” He held out his arm and allowed Opal to ooze out of her bottle until she touched the ground, at which time her body formed. “I’ll give him the Mike Radley Special.”