Dead and Horny

Sunset for Dana was a surreal affair on top of the barn. The view was quite lovely as the sun descended behind the distant mountain, and the breeze was strong enough to create little ripples in Bigfoot’s hair, an effect that was magnified by the ripples that traveled across his massive chest.

The sasquatch sipped at his beer and nodded appreciatively. “Lookin’ good, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Uncle Foot.” Eulalie was deftly weaving a long line of spider silk down Dana’s back. She couldn’t feel the needle piercing her muscle, but she could feel the skin being pulled back together as Eulalie worked her magic.

The last couple of days had been like a mini vacation. Between sword dodging lessons with Velvet, the occasional hot spring trip, and going through surveillance photos at night, the days were rolling past quicker than ever. In two days they would be able to leave, and Dana was starting to think that Eulalie’s efforts to find the Dragon’s Seed would be in vain.

However, if nothing else, Dana was a quick learner. Eulalie had to patch her up on multiple occasions, but the wounds came less frequently now, even as Velvet had ramped up the speeds of her attacks. They had even given her a bit of practice with the blade, but her dead girl brain was far better at reacting than attacking. If she got into another spat with a member of the Order, she was far less likely to lose another limb over it.

As for winning? Her memory was photographic, which meant she knew which way to move based on the swing and possible follow-ups. Velvet was murderously fast, and she knew that she wouldn’t be caught off guard again. But unless someone attacked her in a way that Velvet had demonstrated, she was out of luck in that department. Still, the mental exercise of trying to predict the arachne’s movements while relying on her own reactions had done her some good, and it gave her something to process during the long, lonely nights.

Lily had been disappearing in the twilight hours and kept her lips shut on her activities. All she had done was tell Dana that it was nothing to worry about, she just needed some time to think and process some things. Figuring she would be a massive hypocrite to push the issue, Dana had left it alone.

“Okay, all done.” Eulalie moved back and Dana rotated her arms. Her back itched, a sign that the wound was healing, and she put her shirt back on.

“Won’t get me next time,” Dana told Velvet. Velvet was sitting next to Bigfoot, her legs splayed out around her. She held up her own beer in a mock salute and then drained it.

“Blegh.” Eulalie made a face at her sister. “You’re drinking the cheap stuff tonight.”

“I’m drinking to get drunk, which means the cheap stuff.” Velvet held up her bottle and sighed. “Unless you want to share some of your wine with me.”

“Hell, no, you drink five times what I do and then complain about the taste.” Eulalie took the needle she had been using and put it away in a small sewing kit with the word Dana written across the front in black Sharpie. “And then I have to wait a month until Dad can make a trip into town just to refill me. No thanks.”

Velvet frowned at her bottle. “Fine. Guess I’ve got to drink the shit dad doesn’t like.”

“He’s getting picky in his old age.” Bigfoot finished his beer and then picked out another from the multi-pack. “Getting too old to waste his day on shit he doesn’t enjoy.”

Everybody went quiet. Velvet finished her beer and then helped Dana off the roof once the sun was down. While the arachne walked down the sides of the barn, Bigfoot took a casual hop and landed on the ground with a thud, leaving two giant footprints in the dirt. He stopped long enough to wipe them away with his feet, then saw Dana watching.

“Good habit to have,” he explained. 

Dinner was a quiet affair, and Lily returned shortly after, claiming that she had hiked a nearby mountain and allowed herself to get lost. After dinner, they played a board game as Bigfoot left to scope out some shortcuts that would get them back to Montana, and, if nowhere else, home again. Emory fussed over Velvet, who went to bed early on account of all the beer she had imbibed. Eulalie followed shortly after, leaving Dana alone with her thoughts. Lily left long before everyone went to bed, but would inevitably surface in a few hours.

With everyone gone, Dana let herself into Eulalie’s office. There wasn’t a chair at the high-countered desk, so she stood and surveyed the small bank of monitors. Eulalie had multiple rigs running, but the ones Dana wanted only displayed on a few monitors.

Data had been pouring in all week, and now it was time to sift through it again. Eulalie had written a quick program that allowed Dana to load one image per screen and then change every second. She stood and watched as the images filtered in, turning just her eyes as each image popped.

The images displayed had been processed by four different research computers located somewhere in the U.S. Many of the images she saw were simply social media posts, but there were also several surveillance pictures that made her question just how little she understood about how much a private citizen was under surveillance at any given time. Hundreds of images of men and women who wore similar jewelry blurred past, and she only paused on occasion to zoom in or contemplate the nature of the image she was seeing.

Hours went by, and the forest around the house came alive with the sounds of insects and birds. She occasionally heard Darren mutter in his sleep, but those were the only sounds she ever heard in the cabin.

Lily made a brief appearance sometime in the early hours. She kept Dana company for a bit, and then went out to the front room and asked Emory to start a fire. The succubus seemed out of sorts, but you couldn’t solve a puzzle without opening the box, and Lily, contrary to her nature, wasn’t letting anybody touch her box these days.

When it happened, she almost missed it.

It was a social media post, and in it was a picture of a couple of well-known celebrities. However, behind them was a young man leaning forward awkwardly to include himself in the shot. As if by accident, his necklace had slipped free of the confines of his shirt.

She had to rewind to find the image, and just stared at it for a bit. The necklace dangling from his throat looked similar to many other pearl necklaces she had seen (though not very similar to the ‘pearl necklace’ images Eulalie’s search algorithm had returned on the first night). However, the twist in the gold and silver inlay just above the necklace was very close to what had been drawn on the piece of paper she had seen, as well as what Ratu had shown her.

“Hey, Lily?” She waited for the succubus to appear. When she did, she was holding a mug of coffee in her hands, her fingers wrapped tightly around the mug. “I didn’t take you for a coffee drinker.”

“Not usually, but you know how it is. Plenty of time to think, have a certain someone on my mind.” She set the mug down and leaned back against the desk. “Did you find porn? I only go for stuff that’s really kinky or has at least five people. Oh, and rubber gloves are a turn-off.”

“Actually, I found—wait, really? You’re not into gloves?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re watching the wrong kind of porn.” Dana pointed at the screen with the necklace on it. “What do you think?”

Lily looked over at the image. “I think he was better off with his last wife. She wasn’t as hot, but she had that freak-in-the-sheets energy about her.”

“You’re being obstinate on purpose, and I need you to be serious for a few.”

“Ugh, fine.” She turned to look at the screen again and frowned. “Hmm. That’s weird, he seems familiar.”

“Really?” To Dana, he looked about college-age, which would make sense, but was otherwise unremarkable. “How about the pendant?”

Lily bit her lip for a moment and then nodded. “You might be onto something. When was this from?”

Dana checked the timestamp. “Months ago. Almost a year, actually.” It had been a release party in Hollywood, and she did a quick search on one of the other monitors. Lily faux yawned from boredom as Dana got online and looked up images from the party. It took her some time but she was able to spot a few more images of the man and saved them to the desktop.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

“Reverse image search, see if I can find out who he is.” The first couple of searches she did yielded nothing, but the next one pulled up an image from Facebook. She clicked on it and frowned.

“Ugh, that stuff rots your brain, you know.” Lily looked at the page. “His name is Madelline Caldwell?”

“That’s grandma’s name, she posted a family picture with him in it and never learned how to set her shit to private.” She clicked through Madelline’s pictures. “I think this guy’s name is Tristan. When I look through her friend’s list, he isn’t on it, but here’s a picture of him and she’s wishing him a happy birthday.”

“Not surprised. Nobody wants to be internet friends with their grandmother.”

Dana shrugged. “Depends on when you made your page. But here’s something. I think she tagged him in a post, but he’s deleted his profile page since then. Look.” She pointed at the screen.

“Can’t wait to see you at Christmas, Tristan Emilio. I’m not sure I follow.” Lily shook her head. “Social media sounds like a special hell all its own.”

“Not going to disagree with you.” Dana typed in Tristan’s full name and hit enter. She was surprised when nothing recent came up, so scrolled through the search results.

“Is this something we should be asking Romeo to do? He’s really good with stuff like this.”

Dana shook her head. “Don’t want to upset the timeline, or whatever. Maybe it’s something he can help us look into after we get back…wait.” She had scrolled through several pages already and saw something that caught her eye so clicked on it.

“Whatcha got there?” Lily was leaning over Dana’s shoulder now.

“He formed a company in Colorado about nine months back. That shit is public knowledge, apparently.” The page finished loading, and she just stared at the page for several seconds.

“Maximum Dragon LLC,” Lily read out loud. “Absolutely nothing suspicious about that.”

Dana was already typing again, and when the search came back, she just shook her head in disgust.

“Looks like our friend Tristan owns his own porn company.” Lily smirked, then clicked the link. They were taken to a page featuring several nude women which was soon obscured by a virus warning from Eulalie’s computer, and the browser closed, then asked for admin credentials.

“That’s not a surprise. Guess we’ll have to ask Eulalie to look into it for us.” Dana turned in her seat to look at Lily. “But that can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“Oh, I’ve long given up on the idea of a coincidence.” Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “But now that we’ve got some breadcrumbs to follow, why not enjoy just a little bit of peace and quiet? C’mon, they’ve got Labyrinth on DVD. I could use some David Bowie right now.”

“I shouldn’t be watching movies, I need to see what else I can find out! We’ve actually got a lead, and I want to be prepared to move on it.”

Lily scowled, but her face softened. “Okay, how about this? David Bowie is good and all, but what I meant was that I could really use a friend.”

“I…yeah, okay. He’ll still be there in the morning, right?”

“Yeah.” Lily held her hand out.

Dana took it.

---

In the morning, Eulalie was ecstatic to hear that Dana had found a lead and promptly shut herself in her office to see what she could find. Meanwhile, Dana helped Emory make breakfast for Darren. Apparently, Velvet’s cooking skills left much to be desired, and Emory was too small to properly handle a skillet.

Lily sat with Darren at breakfast, but said nothing. Instead, she held her coffee much like he did, and kept giving him the occasional sidelong glance.

After breakfast, Bigfoot arrived to announce that a group of college kids was camping and making a mess on the edge of the property. Darren put on his boots and Lily went with them in order to help, but mostly to break up the monotony. 

Dana suspected Lily might try to get a quick bite to eat, but trusted her to avoid trouble. They had talked for hours all night about Lily’s dreams, and her thoughts and worries. All of it had come pouring out like a waterfall, catching Dana off guard. She had always been bad at stuff like that, but was even more so now.

However, she was a good listener. She kept her mouth shut and did her best to offer advice. Hopefully a snack would do Lily a world of good.

Velvet and Dana did some chores around the cabin, and then went outside to split up some more wood. After swinging an axe for a bit, Dana took a break from that to practice some more swordplay with Velvet. The same strike that had opened up her back yesterday only succeeded in nicking her shirt this time when she saw it coming, and Velvet spent some time discussing technique with her.

“You talk like somebody who has actually fought in battle,” Dana had remarked at one point. “Did you practice a lot with your mom and Eulalie?”

“You assume we’ve led a quiet life here,” she responded with a frown. “What we have now is the culmination of decades of hard work, and this forest has seen its fair share of bloodshed and misery.”

“Like what?” Dana asked.

Velvet ignored her and immediately went back to talking about footwork during a sword fight, then launched a surprise assault. Dana watched the arachne’s shoulders and slid around, the blade hissing through the air as she moved.

Eulalie came out mid-fight to announce that she had found something, so they ended their practice and went inside. When they reached Eulalie’s office, Dana saw that the arachne had different images and websites pulled up on each of her monitors.

“This is totally your guy,” Eulalie said, then pointed at one of the monitors. It was a school ID picture of Tristan Emilio, a small smirk on his face. Next to the image was a picture of a muscular man with perfectly coiffed hair and thick biceps. “These pictures are less than eighteen months apart.”

“Are they really both him?” Dana moved closer to the screen for a better look. The man on the right looked like a movie star version of the man on the left, but they had the same eyes. 

“They are. The man on the right used to be Tristan Emilio, but he changed his name about six months ago, shortly after founding Maximum Dragon. Now he goes by the name Tristan Edge, and he’s a professional porn star, influencer and businessman.” Eulalie clicked on a tab in her browser and an image of Tristan pulling out his cock for a pair of young women appeared. “He kind of came out of nowhere. Started with his porn company first, but then moved into the business world. Makes eerily accurate predictions when it comes to the stock market, I actually found an insider trading investigation that was launched and then dropped shortly after. He made seed money producing pornography and then made some very smart investments to the tune of twenty million.”

“He looks like a douche.” Velvet scowled at the screen, but kept looking at Tristan’s exposed cock.

“Apparently, he’s an arrogant piece of shit, based on some accounts. Tristan Emilio’s identity has been scrubbed, but this newer version of him is rapidly climbing the success ladder.” Eulalie pulled up a sequence of images with Tristan in them. “You’ll notice he’s always wearing a shirt in many of these pictures. Even during his porn scenes, he doesn’t take them off. But if you look close…” She clicked on one of the images and zoomed in. A small bulge in the fabric was visible through a white tank-top. “I’m fairly certain that he is wearing the Dragon’s Seed. It explains the sudden upgrade in, well, everything.”

Dana nodded. “He’s making a fortune so that he can hoard it.”

“That’s the assumption. He is also very hard to nail down. Travels constantly, has no known address. However, I did figure this out.” Eulalie moved to a different screen. “He’s playing the lead in some big budget porno, and I know where he will be for the next few days. You guys will have about three days to track him down, and then he’ll be a ghost again.”

“Well, where are we going?”

Eulalie opened up a map on her screen. “The big island of Hawaii.”

“That’s a really long flight.” Dana felt her stomach clench. “Can Bigfoot take us there?”

“No.” Velvet shook her head. “It’s one of the few places he can’t go. None of his trees were ever planted there.”

“Shit.” It was something she would have to talk to Lily about. How many hours was it on a plane? The idea of being trapped in a metal tube surrounded by the smell of so many people made her hungry.

“You’re drooling,” Eulalie told her.

“Sorry.” Dana wiped her mouth. “So, this guy’s a ghost?”

“Yep. Only reason I found this out was because one of the women he’s shooting with hinted at doing a movie with him. I tracked down her agent and did some social engineering to find out when and where the shoot was. I pretended to be an equipment rental manager concerned about a missing field in the delivery date and address.” Eulalie grinned. “Stated that the information on file was bad and we needed to confirm data prior to delivery or we would be forced to rent our gear to someone else, and that Mr. Edge was not responding to our emails. The agent jumped on the chance to be useful to Mr. Edge, as she called him.”

“Brilliant.”

“Anyway, you all need to get to Hawaii. Uncle Foot can walk you near San Francisco after you get your stuff, and then you can hop a plane. That’s up to you. I’m afraid I can’t falsify plane tickets without setting off a thousand alarms.”

“Right.” Dana looked at Velvet, then Eulalie. A thousand thoughts were running through her mind, but the one that bothered her the most was the realization that she was about to leave the arachne behind. In her brief stay, they had become like sisters to her, and even though she was on a mission of her own, she wished they could come with her.

She wanted to take this moment to express how she felt, to thank them for everything they had done for her. But no matter how hard she reached, she just couldn’t connect with her emotional center. Anything that came out would sound flat and meaningless.

“Thank you,” she told them. “I guess I need to figure out a plan.”

A moment of silence passed, then Velvet put her hand on Dana’s shoulder.

“No reason to do it on your own,” she said. “La-la can look up whatever you need. Let’s talk strategy, send you off in style.”

Dana smiled. There were many things she still didn’t know about the arachne, but one thing was perfectly clear. They were far more human than she was.

---

When the time came to leave, it was the middle of the night. Even Darren was able to stay up late enough to see them off. He seemed to be energized, somehow, and Dana had caught him smiling more than once. The arachne thought that he was just happy that his girls had had some company, but Dana suspected that there was more to it than that.

Eulalie, her eyes full of tears, gave her a big hug that popped her back. She even gave Lily a hug, causing the succubus to grumble. Emory stood nearby with a box of tissues, which he offered to the tearful arachne, and when it was Velvet’s turn, she skipped the hug and gave Dana a fistbump.

“Until we meet again,” she said with a grin, then handed over her sword. “It senses your intent, just imagine it unfolding to use it. This is just a loan. I do expect you to return it to me.”

Dana nodded. “Of course. Thank you.” She hugged Velvet anyway, her hands moving low enough on the arachne’s waist that she could feel the soft hairs of her spider-body press against the back of her hands. Though they looked prickly, they were soft like a kitten’s fur.

“Oh, please, just fuck and get it over with,” Lily groaned from nearby. Velvet let go of Dana and seized the succubus in a tight hug, then whispered something in her ear. Lily relaxed, then surprised Dana by hugging Velvet back.

“You’re welcome,” Lily muttered. It was a question Dana was going to have to ask about later.

When they departed, the girls stayed behind with their father and Bigfoot led them through the woods. The trees seemed to part for him, revealing a trail that Dana didn’t recognize. On her back was Tick Tock in the form of a hiking pack, and she stopped just long enough to put the sword in one of his pockets.

“Don’t swallow that,” she told him. The zipper of the bag folded up into a grin, then playfully bit her fingers as she pulled them back out.

During their march, they stepped between some trees and the temperature shifted, dropping by over twenty degrees. When Dana stopped to look around, Bigfoot stopped too.

“We are now a hundred miles away from the cabin,” he told them. “Are you sure they aren’t looking for you anymore?”

“We’re positive,” Lily answered. “About twenty minutes ago, we stole our motorcycle back and started a fight in the tunnels of the Pit. They no longer have the necklace they used to track us.”

“Good.” Bigfoot turned away and kept moving.

Occasionally they would walk through a campsite with slumbering campers or near a cabin. Despite his huge feet, Bigfoot moved with the grace of a cat, and if they were going to get spotted, it was going to be because Dana wasn’t nearly as graceful as her companions.

The walk from Oregon to Montana took less than an hour as they portal hopped. Eventually they came to the edge of the woods and saw the hotel they had been staying in just across the highway. Lily flew down the road and landed somewhere behind a large pickup truck, then emerged as a frumpy soccer mom. She was in the hotel for nearly twenty minutes before walking out in the shape of a housekeeper wearing Dana’s backpack. She walked down the road for a bit, and then returned to them from the sky, landing dramatically in front of them.

“Mission accomplished,” she said. “Now let’s go soak up some rays, shall we?”

Bigfoot took them back into the woods, and the process of hopping between forests resumed. A two-hour hike got them to the edges of San Francisco where Bigfoot sent them off with a wave of a giant hand, then vanished into the shadows.

Dana, who had turned her phone back on, ordered an Uber. The driver took them to a hotel that wasn’t too far from the airport, and Lily checked them in. Once they were in the safety of their room, Lily let her disguise slip and then fell onto the bed.

“Well that was a hell of a week,” she declared, then picked up the remote for the television. She turned on the tv and started flipping through the channels.

“Now that we’re here, care to tell me how we’re getting to Hawaii?” Dana asked.

“Oh, that. I’m just going to have Beth buy us some tickets.” Lily, who was lying on the bed upside down, looked over at Dana. “First class, if we can get them. May as well travel in style.”

“Yeah, about that. There’s no way I’m getting on that plane without the Order figuring it out. I bet they’re looking for me everywhere. Besides, I’m not really comfortable getting on a plane. What if I…freak out? Even after eating, some version of the hunger is always there, and the last thing I want to do is be locked in a metal tube with everyone stacked together like Pringles.”

Lily shrugged. “Maybe you can come along as luggage.”

“They check luggage. Haven’t you ridden on a plane before?”

“On, yes. In, no.”

Dana didn’t feel like asking for an explanation. “They x-ray everything. They’re looking for bombs, drugs, that kind of thing. Even if I rode in the cargo bay, they would find me before I got in there, and I can guarantee that my presence will raise more than a few alarms.”

“What about him?” Lily pointed at Tick Tock, who sat near the head of the bed. “If we could ride inside that thing through time without becoming bloody smears, do you think he could keep you from being seen on an X-ray?”

Dana dropped her eyes in thought. “What do you think? Is that possible?”

They both looked away from the mimic and heard the clicking of a typewriter. They looked back and saw a piece of paper sticking up like a flag.

Perhaps was written on it.

“So, what, have him turn into a box or something? We could probably do a coffin and just go for broke.”

Dana shook her head. “A coffin would raise too many questions. We need to be inconspicuous. That, and I don’t know the rules for oversized luggage. Maybe just a large suitcase or something?”

“A large suitcase sounds fine, but you’re going to be one very heavy suitcase. Some poor bastard is going to have to heft you onto the plane?”

“What about it, Tick Tock? Any tricks to make me lighter?”

The keys on the typewriter clacked, and the paper shifted up to reveal the mimic’s reply

Eat a healthy diet and get plenty of exercise was all that was written.

“Not helpful,” Dana said with a scowl.

“I have an idea.” A wicked grin crossed Lily’s face. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have much choice. Lay it on me.”

Lily told her the plan, and Dana frowned the whole way through. The succubus had been right—she didn’t like the plan at all. However, it was the only plan they had, so she got on her computer and started looking up weight restrictions of checked luggage. When the early light of morning came, Tick Tock had turned into the largest bag that was allowable on a flight and Dana climbed inside with a look of trepidation. She was in a shirt and panties, and her pants were folded up neatly on the bed beside her.

“For the record, I absolutely hate this,” she said, then handed over the sword. She had unfolded it already, the blade gleaming beneath the overhead lights.

“I know.” Lily took the blade and winced as the handle glowed red hot. “Oh, that figures. Let’s finish this before my hand burns off.”

“Try not to miss.” Dana got on her back and moved to the edge of the bed, her legs hanging over the sides. They had laid out the shower curtain from the bathroom to help contain the mess.

“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” Lily told her, then brought the sword down.

---

Lily strolled into the airport in a bright yellow sundress with a low-cut collar. She had called her friend Beth early that morning to get a flight booked in her name, and currently wore her form. She wasn’t certain if this was something Beth would remotely wear while on a plane, but she was already enjoying the attention she got from her fellow travelers.

Her Uber driver was busy dragging the suitcase with Dana inside. If the math was correct, it was now just short of a hundred pounds after she had cut off Dana’s legs. The sword had made a clean cut with minimal blood, and now both of her legs were stuffed inside of the backpack that Lily now carried. Once they were close to the check in gate, Lily turned around and took the handle of the bag.

“Thank you so much for all your help, Alan,” she told the driver, then planted a kiss on his cheek. “If I could give you more than five stars, I would.”

The young man blushed, then nearly tripped over himself when he stepped back. “Glad I could help.”

“I’ve got it from here, thank you. If I’m ever in the area again, I’ll look you up.” She winked at him. “Bye now.”

Alan waved and ran back out the entrance. Lily turned toward the counter and walked toward the woman working it. Beth’s information was quickly verified, and she got her ticket and then picked up the bag. She pretended to struggle with the weight of it, then set it on the scale.

“Okay, so this is over the weight range,” the agent told her. “There’s gonna be an additional surcharge.”

“That’s fine,” Lily replied, raising her voice so that Dana could hear her. “Sorry my bag is so heavy, it’s a lot of dead weight.”

The agent didn’t say anything, just printed off the packing slip and had someone help her load it onto the conveyor belt. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Lily grinned. “There aren’t any first-class seats left, are there?”

Once away from the counter with her upgraded ticket, she walked over to look at the security line and watched for a few minutes. Dana’s legs were folded up inside of the backpack with little room for anything else, and she needed to figure out a way to get them through without the bag being X-rayed or searched.

She spotted a woman pushing a stroller with a toddler in it and felt the light bulb go off in her brain. Walking away from the security line, she went to the bathroom and found an empty stall to sit in. After pulling the legs out of her bag, she pushed them against her belly and willed the skin and fabric to flow around them.

Her body morphed to hold onto the legs, and when she stepped out of the stall, she was greeted by the sight of a very pregnant Beth in the bathroom mirror. Since nobody was around, she shifted her belly around until it looked right, then added a few pounds around her face and chest.

“You look kinda hot when you’re pregnant,” she told her reflection, then left the bathroom. When she got to the agent checking tickets, the man taking her ticket eyed her with judgement.

“Oh, it’s okay, I’m not gonna pop on the plane or anything,” Lily told him while rubbing her belly. “I’ve still got a couple months left.”

“Shit, girl,” said the woman behind her in line. “You carrying twins or something?”

“Er, no.” It now occurred to Lily that she had no idea how big her stomach should be. “She’s just all legs. You know how it is.”

The look on the woman’s face said that she had no idea how it was, but Lily didn’t care. She checked in and got in line, then tossed her mostly empty bag onto the scanner and went through the metal detector. When she came out the other side, a TSA agent was waiting to hand the backpack.

“Traveling light?” he asked.

“Oh, I love to snack on flights,” she told him, then took the bag. “Didn’t get a chance to buy anything here, might hit up some stores or something.”

He waved her off, and she waddled away until she was out of sight, then found another bathroom. Figuring she didn’t need the hassle of being recognized, she became a version of Beth in one of her work outfits with a white blouse and a pencil skirt. She came out of the bathroom with the legs back in the backpack and headed for her flight.

With almost an hour left, she hit the bar and people watched. She was halfway through her second margarita when she caught sight of a teenage girl sitting on the other side of the terminal with a small backpack by her feet. She sat between a pair of men wearing designer clothes and dark sunglasses.

“Something about that doesn’t look right.”

Mike’s voice startled her so bad that she spilled some of her drink, then turned to see him sitting next to her. He was wearing a pair of shorts and some flip flops and had a drink of his own.

“How are you here?” she asked, then saw a couple of travelers look up in interest.

“Oh, I’m not.” He was also wearing sunglasses. “It’s just you right now, see?” To illustrate his point, he swung his hand through the counter.

“But…but how?” she said, dropping her voice.

“How many years do you suppose you spent in the Dreamscape with Darren?” Mike sipped his drink, then frowned. “Hmm. Apparently, my drink is as real as I am.”

Lily scowled. Those last few nights at the cabin, she had played dress up inside of Darren’s mind. It had given the old soldier plenty of peace, and his health seemed to improve as the week ended. She had been surprised when Velvet had thanked her for it, unaware that the arachne had known what she was up to.

“Hard to say,” she told him. But it had been a long time; long enough for her to accept that the feelings between Ana and Darren had been real. She had experienced affection and kindness in a way that both thrilled and depressed her. By week’s end, she had become jealous of Ana, and the fact that she was fairly certain that nobody would ever feel that way about her had left her angry and depressed.

“Well, it was long enough on my end. While you were keeping him company, I was busy hanging out with his brother. Now that was a weird experience. Point being, we haven’t really spoken lately, and now I’m here somehow.”

“I don’t think I like it,” she grumbled.

“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know why I’m here, but I do know that it happened when you were looking at her.” He pointed to the young woman in the terminal. “Look at her body language. Does it remind you of anybody?”

In fact, it did, but Lily bit her lip. The girl was in her late teens, but her eyes were weary. There was the hint of a shadow below her eyes, covered up with foundation and too much mascara, and the way she sat made her look tiny between her two chaperones. Her eyes were glossy, almost like she was drugged or had simply given up on life.

“Wonder what her story is. I can’t ask, though, because I’m just a manifestation of your subconscious.”

“You would be far less annoying as a cricket,” she told him.

“Perhaps, but then you would ignore me.”

“So, what do you want me to do? Help her?” She scoffed. “Of course you would, you have such a hero complex with every woman you meet.”

“You spent years inside of a man’s head doing a good thing for him with no expectation of any reward.” Mike sat on the counter next to her and crossed his legs. “I think maybe you did a good thing and it made you feel better about yourself.”

“Piss off.” She finished the rest of her margarita and let the alcohol do its work. Unfortunately, it was booze from an airport bar, and she strongly suspected that the bartender had dipped her straw in tequila to make it taste stronger than it was.

“Hey, suit yourself.” With that, Mike vanished, leaving her with her thoughts.

She wanted time to mull this over, somebody to argue with, but she was short on both. The anger building up inside her had no outlet, and her flight was going to board in less than half an hour.

When one of the men got up and headed for the bathroom, she found herself following. She walked behind a pillar in one of the terminals and turned into a man and stayed about twenty feet back. When he walked into the bathroom to use the urinal, she opened up the stall door right behind him and waited for a break in traffic to sting him with her tail.

“Easy, buddy, easy,” she said, helping him stumble toward the stall. A man walking into the bathroom paused at the sight, and Lily patted her new friend on the back. “I told you to go easy on those whiskey sours, you’ll be lucky if they let you fly.”

Once he was in the stall, she propped him on the seat and did a deep dive. It didn’t take long to figure out that he was traveling with his brother as hired muscle, and that the girl was being sedated and trafficked out of the country to be sold to some asshole in China.

While the temptation to rip his head off was strong, she ripped his soul out instead. She filled his mind with fantasies about young women like the one he was escorting, and swallowed him up for all eternity the moment he came. She wedged him in place so that he wouldn’t fall off the toilet, then stepped out of the stall.

“Get it out of your system,” she told him. “I’ll be back in five with some Advil.” She made sure the bathroom was clear and slid out beneath the door. On her way out of the bathroom, she turned into the dead man and made her way back to where he had been sitting.

“What’s in the bag?” asked the dead man’s brother.

“Escorting something else for the boss, last second request,” Lily replied. “You should go, too, while the lines are down. I’ve got the girl.”

His brother shrugged, waited a couple of minutes, then got up to go. Lily waited until he was far enough away and then followed.

She didn’t have to drag him into a stall. He was already sitting in one, and she stung him in the foot with her tail, then used it to slide the latch open.

The process was the same, and she licked her lips when she was done. When she walked out of the stall, she paused to relock the door with her tail, then used a blind corner to become a random woman.

A sense of elation flooded her. This poor girl had been about to spend the rest of her life being raped or worse, and Lily’s actions had changed her destiny. Her own monstrous nature had been used for good, and it generated a feeling of warmth inside her, a sensation she wished she could wrap her arms around and cling to.

When she sat down next to the girl, she didn’t know what to do next. Should she give the girl a hug and tell her the nightmare was over? Should she walk her to a phone and have her call the cops?

In her indecision, she realized that the girl was now staring at her with defeated curiosity. She dug up what she knew about the girl and her abduction.

“Oh, don’t worry about those assholes coming back. I totally murdered them for you,” Lily told her, then patted her condescendingly on the cheek. “Caroline, right? Yeah, so next time an older man convinces you to meet him somewhere to be your sugar daddy, but not to tell your parents, don’t do it. Have some fucking common sense and maybe a modicum of self-respect. It’s a dangerous world filled with sharks who want to eat you alive, and you need to learn how to swim in it. You should probably call home or something, or the cops. I’m afraid I’ve done more than enough to save your sorry ass, today, so it’s time to walk on your own. By the way, you’re welcome.”

“Wha—” The girl’s voice was slurred, but Lily hopped to her feet and wandered to the restroom for one last change back to Beth. By the time her flight was called, the girl was still sitting on her bench, gazing around in confusion. Lily gave her one last look before boarding her flight. There was probably more she could do for the girl, but what little she had done was going to have to be enough.

“Baby steps,” she told herself, then found her seat in First Class.

---

Cyrus sat on the edge of his bed. He was staying in one of the visitor’s dorms, and after the events of the previous night, he had needed a full night of sleep.

It wasn’t entirely clear what had happened down in the pit, other than the fact that they had had to peel more than a few of his students off of the walls. One of them had managed to lock herself in one of the warehouses, but her mind was so fractured that it had taken the combined efforts of Cyrus, Amida and several knights to bring her down and back. She was going to be shipped home for study and, most likely, retire in a care facility.

When Cyrus left his room, Amida was already up, his eyes on one of several screens.

“Master Cyrus.” Amida turned in his chair. “May I get you some coffee or tea?”

“No, thanks. Have you seen Tasia?”

Amida flinched. “She is…in a poor mood this morning.”

Cyrus nodded. “As she should be.” After being attacked by so many of her own, Tasia had taken the escape of the succubus poorly. He wondered if she had slept a wink the entire night.

“Master Cyrus? I’ve been wondering something.”

“Ask.” He sat down on a nearby chair and looked over at Amida’s files. The young mage was looking at papers about the Dragon’s Seed.

“Well, I’ve been looking at some surveillance photos, and I wanted you to see something.” Amida slid the photos from underneath his files. It was a picture of the motorcycle that was currently in the research rooms and the one they had taken from the side of the road last night. “I’ve looked at these several times and have come to the conclusion that they must be the same bike. Is that even possible?”

“It is.” Cyrus said nothing else, curious to hear Amida’s ideas without further encouragement.

“Hmm.” Amida looked at the images. “Based on the temporal nature of the creature under the lake, I am wondering if perhaps the succubus was sent back in time with the motorcycle. The witch, as well.”

“That’s a possibility, but you should know something.” Cyrus cleared his throat, then took the images from Amida. “Any trip through time is extremely destructive to organic tissue of any kind, especially one that may be caused by contact with an otherworldly being. Perhaps the succubus survived, but I sincerely doubt that the witch has. See the condition of this bike? It was embedded in the rock of the tunnel, if I’m not mistaken. The witch may be thirty feet directly below us, merged with the very earth itself. There’s simply no way to know.”

“Oh.” Amida frowned. “I was wondering if we could try and figure out what happened to them if they had actually gone back in time to when the bike was discovered. There was a disturbance here, but everyone thought it was just extra activity from the creature in the Pit. I did some digging and found out that someone stole a car in town that very morning. It got found quite a distance away and may have been linked to another stolen car in that area.”

Cyrus rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I’ll take some tea after all.”

Amida stood and left the room, and Cyrus sat down in the now vacant chair. If Amida was right, then the succubus had survived, and she was officially on the run.

Then again, that didn’t entirely make sense, did it? If they had come for the Dragon’s Seed, then why didn’t she stick around and try to find it. He figured destroying the timeline wasn’t beyond whatever moral code existed in a demon, so why not get the drop on the Order a week ago and raise some hell?

“Master Cyrus.” Amida was back in the room, and handed over a chipped coffee mug full of tea.

“Hmm.” Cyrus ran his finger along the rim of the mug. There were at least three chips missing, but none of them were sharp. “I’m not one to complain, but I’m surprised this didn’t get tossed out.”

Amida winced. “Actually, that was one of the only ones I could find. Tasia lost her temper in the kitchen after one of the knights called her a bitch.”

“That’s not appropriate behavior for either party.” He looked in the cup. “Green tea?”

“It is. The knight who antagonized Tasia got his arm broken in three places by her, and suggested that the least she could do was help put away her dishes. She is still…struggling with how things went down.”

“As am I.” He sipped his tea and looked at Amida’s paperwork. “I’ve been pondering your theory and have a question. You may be onto something about the succubus being caught in a time vortex, but I’m trying to make sense of why she ran away.”

“I think I can tell you that.” Amida moved the files around and then pulled out a slip of paper. On it was a diagram of the Dragon’s Seed. “We discovered that the witch and the succubus went through the items from Unearthly Delights. I believe it’s entirely possible that they know that we don’t have it.”

Cyrus nodded. “So, then I guess it’s mission-failed for our succubus and her witch, God rest her soul.”

“Well…maybe. You see, I had the same idea late last night, and started to wonder. If the succubus went back in time, why didn’t we have issues tracking her earlier this week? She must have been laying low, but where?”

“That is a very good question.” He was curious where Amida was going with this.

“I think she went back to Hell. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. And demons hate going back to Hell. So why bother with it in the first place?” A grin broke across Amida’s face. “Perhaps she’s being used by a coven of witches? I even found evidence of a group of individuals on the east coast who have been under observation for quite some time. There was an old mission file regarding a knight who may have been killed by them via a succubus attack, but there was never enough evidence.”

Cyrus held his hand up. “I’m familiar with that story. Anyway, go on.”

“The succubus is being kept locked away until they can track down the Dragon’s Seed, and then they’ll send someone else out to retrieve it. But how are they going to do it? Magical means, maybe, but that can be difficult. Well, I looked into this group, and discovered that they have connections. The Order has kept tabs on them all this time, but there’s never been cause to do anything about them. I believe they may be using resources similar to ours to try and find the seed.”

“We haven’t even found it.” Cyrus frowned. “Having all the money in the world won’t magically make that happen.”

“While that’s true, here’s the thing. I figured that maybe, instead of looking for the seed, I could find signs that they were looking for it, and then follow them. Hunt the hunter, so to speak.”

Cyrus saw the grin form on Amida’s face. “You found something, didn’t you?”

“I think so. Earlier this week, someone co-opted at least two research computers to look through images and sort through them in order to identify something that looks like this.” Amida reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper. When he unfolded it, it was identical to the other drawing. “Someone uploaded this drawing to both of them earlier this week.”

Cyrus stood, nearly spilling his tea. “What else did you discover?”

“That they stopped looking a couple of days ago. So I had our team try to track down the last batch of images processed and see if we could find anything.”

“And did you?”

“I think so, but it took me and some of the night crew several hours. But we have a name, which I sent it to a clairvoyant down in Mexico. She is trying to track him down as we speak. She always gets good results.”

“Good.” Cyrus felt a surge of pride for the young mage. “This is excellent work. I don’t think even I would have come up with such an idea.”

“You honor me.” Amida stood just a little bit straighter.

“Any chance we tracked where that data went?”

Amida shook his head. “No. It bounced around so many servers and the trail went cold somewhere in Europe.”

“No matter. Retrieving the seed is far more important.” Cyrus sipped at his tea and headed for the door. “You keep working on that. I’ll go break the news to Tasia, and maybe see if I can convince her to be more polite while we’re here.”

A wave of relief passed over Amida’s face. “I would appreciate that, thank you.”

Cyrus walked out into the hallway, a grin fixed on his face. If they could retrieve the seed, he was already planning on a vacation once everything was done. As he moved further along the hallway, he could hear Tasia’s raised voice. She was clearly shouting at more than one person, and he took a deep breath.

“Time to calm the beast,” he muttered, then went to save whoever she was yelling at. Hunting monsters was often far easier than dealing with people.

---

Dana let herself out in the cargo bay and immediately frowned. It was very cold and very loud. If not for Tick Tock shoving some bags aside, she would have been stuck inside for the entire flight.

They had passed through the scanners with no issue, but she froze up when she heard TSA agents doing random bag searches. Luckily, they hadn’t shown any interest, so now she was just reading a book on her phone to pass the time.

It was a long flight, and by the time her phone hit ten percent battery, she turned it off and put it in her pocket. The bay was pitch black, and she had nothing to do but sit and wait, alone with her thoughts.

“This sucks,” she said out loud, unafraid that she would be heard. Her legs felt itchy and she was drooling at the thought of all the men and women directly above her. In the process of sneaking her onto the plane, neither of them had considered the fact that her regeneration would trigger a powerful hunger.

To pass the time, she thought about Alex. How they had first met in the engineering program at school, how Alex had asked her out on a date. Dana had been very reserved when it came to her sexuality, but Alex had helped her to explore that part of herself and grow as a person. Every day was a new opportunity to fill herself with courage and grace, and before Alex had died, she felt like the two of them would be able to accomplish anything.

Now, though, she found herself wondering if Alex would be going through the same thing for her if she had died instead. Then again, Alex probably wouldn’t have fallen into a well of depression and gotten caught up in this mess. Alex had always been the stronger one, and would have found a way to move on.

It was so hard to be abject about any of the things from her old life, because the cold logic of her dead brain struggled to grasp the nuance of emotions these days. Once she was alive again, maybe she would take a proper vacation, cry a bunch, and maybe look into therapy or something.

Thinking about Alex had bummed her out, so she turned her thoughts to the cabin. Ever since she had died, it was the first place she had felt welcome and a part of things, and she attributed all of that to Velvet and Eulalie. Would they be okay there for the rest of their lives, or would they be happier in a home with lots of other people?

She would keep her mouth shut, for now, but only because she had promised their father that she would wait. After only a week, she doubted that she should be making choices for people she barely knew. Still, she had enjoyed the sense of normalcy at the cabin, and wondered how long it would be until she went back.

In the dark, she felt the plane’s descent, so crawled her way back to Tick Tock and got inside. The mimic zipped itself shut from the outside, and she was forced to resume waiting. On the odd chance that she ended up on a plane again, she would get a backup battery at the very least, and maybe download some movies.

Or maybe she would chance flying. At some point, she would have to learn better self-control, especially if she was going to be stuck this way for a long time. The Dragon Seed was the big item off her list, and she wondered if Ratu would be able to figure out an alternative for her.

After the plane landed, she waited in silence as she was unloaded and then taken to baggage claim. Relief filled her when she heard Lily’s voice, and it was another forty-minute ride to the hotel. After an eternity in the dark, she heard fumbling at the zippers, and then she was blinded by light.

“Oh, good,” Lily announced, helping her out of the bag. “Looks like my vibrator survived the trip.”

“You’ll need to put the batteries back in, first...what the hell is this?” Dana, upon sliding out of Tick Tock, looked around the room with her mouth open. It was huge with a hot tub nearby, and she could see the ocean just over the balcony.

“Oh, don’t worry. Romeo can afford it.” Lily walked over to the bar, which was fully stocked with booze. “It’s only a couple grand a night, he’ll understand.”

“Where are my legs?”

“Put them out on the balcony to get some sun,” Lily told her, then pointed. Out on the balcony, Dana’s legs were laid out on one of the chairs, each foot in a pair of sandals. “It’s like looking at the belly of a fish.”

Dana groaned. “Glad to see you’re in good spirits. A little help?”

Lily sighed. “Fine. I wanted to just sit and relax a bit, but no, apparently someone needs help with her legs.” She retrieved them from the patio and tossed them to Dana. “Just make sure you put them in the right spot.”

Once the bones were lined up, the regeneration process began and they locked into place. Lily used the spider silk thread from the sewing kit Eulalie had given them to start the long process of stitching her muscles back together, a process which took about two hours. When Lily finished, she took a step back to admire her handiwork.

“Minimal scarring, but not bad for my second surgery.” She tucked the needle back into its case. “Well?”

Dana stood on wobbly legs, then flexed her calves. “Feels okay. I’m fucking starving though.”

Lily kissed her, passing along a huge glob of sperm which Dana greedily sucked off her tongue. She could feel her entire body wind up like a spring as the magic was distributed throughout her limbs. When the kiss broke, Lily took a step back and wiped her mouth.

“I’ve really only got enough left to do that one more time, so you might want to—”

Dana leapt off the bed and tackled Lily onto the floor, then pinned her arms in place and pulled down the front of her dress to reveal her breasts. Her legs burned as if on fire, the cell regeneration speeding up, and she pulled off her top and threw it onto the ground.

“You’re gonna pay for that dead weight remark,” Dana said, sliding her panties to one side to reveal her labia.

Lily laughed. “Of course I am. Why do you think I said it?”

“You’ve got a big mouth. Now put it to use.” Dana slid forward, burying Lily in her thighs. Later, once the lust had fled, they could strike out and find out more about Tristan. She had never been to Hawaii before, and wondered if they would get a chance to stick around for a little bit. But for now, her entire world was focused on the tongue greedily lapping at her inner folds, and that was going to be good enough.

When she finally came, she dug her fingernails into the bed so hard that she tore the comforter. She rolled on her back with heat flooding through her body, and Lily sat up, licking her lips.

“Way better than the pretzels they gave me,” she said, then used her thumb to push a gob of fluid into her mouth.

Dana snorted. “Just pretzels? I figured you would have weaseled your way into first class and at least gotten a sandwich.”

Lily chuckled, then walked to the corner of the room and picked up a bag that Dana hadn’t noticed before. She reached inside and pulled out a bikini.

“C’mon, dead girl. Let’s go work on your tan,” she said, then tossed them over along with a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses. Her entire body shimmered and she was now in a red and black bikini that matched her thigh high boots. “And no arguments. C’mon, let’s go.”

With reluctance, Dana picked up the bikini and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m not much of a bikini girl, you know. And the scars will look a little—”

Lily tossed a matching sarong her way with a wink.

“I’ve got your back. Forever and always,” she said with a smile. “That’s what friends do.”