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], "pools": [], "description": "The ghost was just the beginning. When the true threat breaks open the floor beneath the cursed cabin, three monster-hunters must fight with all they have to seal the Hell-mouth before it swallows them whole.\n\n[url=http://www.postybirb.com]Posted using PostyBirb[/url]", "description_bbcode_parsed": "The ghost was just the beginning.  When the true threat breaks open the floor beneath the cursed cabin, three monster-hunters must fight with all they have to seal the Hell-mouth before it swallows them whole.

Posted using PostyBirb", "writing": "[b]The Ghost[/b]\n\nThe sliver of moon left in the sky was half-hidden behind a cloud. The night was dark and quiet outside the cozy cabin. It was well past the hour they all should have been asleep, and Sarahi actually [i]had[/i] been asleep, when she felt something bounce against her bestial side. “Hey now,” the Sha’khari yawned, slowly coming awake with a chuckle, “If you two are going to have a go, at least let me—!” She came quickly and fully awake when Kitt bolted upright on the couch, where she’d been sleeping, and both realized Oro was [i]not[/i] reclining against the Sha’khari’s side, like he had been when they settled in.\n\n“It’s here,” the Rabbit hissed quietly, pulling their attention to the ceiling where he was splayed out in a corner, with his hands and feet partially buried in the boards on either side to hold himself in place. Sarahi’s first impression was that he looked like the ghost had possessed him. Then she remembered he was already possessed by something completely different...and that was no comfort.\n\nSomething moved, barely perceptible from the corner of her eye, and Oro pounced back to the floor with fists clenched like he’d just missed grabbing something. “Dodgy little fuck,” the Rabbit sneered, peering around again, “Kitt! Can you get a nose on this thing? Fucker’s doing weird shit to my eyes...”\n\n“Get out!” a high, echoing, female voice seemed to whisper in everyone’s ear at once, “You have to leave! Get out!”\n\n“Make me,” Oro snarled, extruding a bat from his hand. In response to that, the coffee table they’d propped against the wall flung itself at him, narrowly missing Sarah’s head as it passed. It split in two as it hit his back, the remains passing around him like waves around a rock and fetching up against the kitchen cabinets. Sarahi snatched up her spear, and Kitt was already skittering into the kitchen area with nose quivering.\n\nShe searched around for a moment, turning her head this way and that, before leaning into the corner beside the sink with a shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders. She had her hands in front of her belly, though, one cupped under the other fist, pointing her thumb above her head with a little bob. Sarahi quirked a brow at the silent signal, but Oro followed his hunch and thrust his bat at the cabinets above her.\n\nA scream pierced their ears as Gorgorond latched onto something invisible to them, and Oro dragged it down to the floor with his teeth grit and one ear covered. “AAAUGH!! I DIDN’T DO IT!! AUUAAGH! HE’LL EAT YOU AAAAAUGHLL!!” screamed the little Mouse-ghost as she manifested at the bat’s end...with the whole of her right arm apparently trapped inside the wood, and trying desperately to pull free. Spiting all of her efforts, the weapon seemed to be slowly drawing her in, like a french-fry being eaten one nibble at a time.\n\n“Sorry, but the only one getting eaten today is you,” Oro snarled, extruding a second bat from his free hand and raising it to put an end to her screams...\n\n“[i]Wait[/i], Oro!” Sarahi grabbed his wrist, looking nearly as frightened as the ghost, and asked it, “[i]What[/i] didn’t you do?”\n\n“KILL MYSELF!! WUAGH!!” she screamed some more as her left hand, which had been trying to push the bat away, suddenly disappeared into the wood as well, “STOP!!! PLEASE!! IT OPENS AGAUGHNON NEW MOON!! YOU’LL FINISHAUGH RITUAL!!!”\n\nSarahi dropped her spear to seize both of her husband’s wrists, not really certain that pulling [i]him[/i] would do anything to free the agonized ghost but also [i]very[/i] wary of touching Gorgorond directly at the moment. “[i]Oro![/i] Stop it!”\n\nHe gnashed his teeth, barely able to look her in the eyes with his head lowered, while his demon continued to draw the spirit in. “Last time I trusted I ghost,” he reminded her in a quiet growl, “She put us both through Hell! Fuck if I’m making that mistake again!”\n\n“[i]GET OOOUUUT!!![/i]” the ghost shrieked one last time, shaking the whole cabin with her voice. The couch, kitchen table, and refrigerator all hurled themselves at the trio.\n\nBoth bats split down the center, erupting into wide, crushing jaws. They left very little wreckage behind, closing down on the assaulting furniture in a single bite that did not stop until they’d returned to the shape of bats again. The screaming stopped.\n\nIt took Sarahi a minute to force her fingers to relax enough to let her husband go. Her eyes hurt. “Oro...where did she go?” the Sha’khari asked quietly, dreading the answer she thought she already knew. The trembling in his shoulders was answer enough. “Oro,” Sarahi hissed softly through a genuine frown and the beginnings of tears in her eyes, “...I love you. I swear I do. But right now...I’m going to slap you if you touch me. At least until morning.”\n\n“Should fucking slap me every time you lay eyes on me,” the Rabbit muttered through his clenched teeth. His shoulders popped as he lifted his head again, and forced one arm forward, pointing the bat at the far wall. “...Spit her out.”\n\nSarahi blinked, her frown broken, and Kitt tilted her head curiously. Nothing happened, but Oro shook the bat in his hand firmly and repeated, “Spit her out, fucking bastard! I know you can!” Still nothing happened.\n\nKitt tapped a knuckle against the wood, as if knocking on a door. “How about for one of mine?” she asked the outstretched weapon, causing both of her companions to give her confused looks. “Would just the first one do? It’s hard to survive without the second,” she rocked her head thoughtfully, “Obviously you [i]cannot[/i] have the seventh, but I suppose I’m the only one who’d actually miss the fifth...”\n\n“What the [i]fuck[/i] are you babbling about?!” Oro asked as his head listed to one side, not believing a word he was hearing, or what they implied, “How many—-no, fuck that: you can’t just [i]trade[/i] a soul!”\n\nGorgorond disagreed, and announced it by flexing in the Rabbit’s hand, swiping through the little Dog like a popped whip. Kitt went pale for a second (Sarahi did, too, for that matter), though she somehow managed to hold her usual smile, and seemed none the worse for wear as the bat turned rigid in Oro’s hand again.\n\nA disembodied voice went screaming off into the night. Oro threw the bats in his hands through the kitchen window. “[i]What the fuck did you just do?![/i]” the Rabbit roared in Kitt’s face, though he was careful not to touch her. His tongue was telling him that whatever Gorgorond had just taken was [i]fucking delicious[/i], and even Oro found himself wanting a second taste...\n\nKitt...actually looked a little annoyed, crossing her arms under her breasts and frowning at the Rabbit’s ears. “Hey! You’re supposed to [i]agree[/i] to a trade! Which one did you take?”\n\nOro’s ear twitched, and he gnashed his teeth. “He says ‘the third’, whatever the fuck that means.”\n\nKitt tilted her head again, blinking blankly. “...Huh? But we don’t have—”\n\n“Just [i]shut the fuck up[/i]!” the Rabbit snarled, tense and trembling with a growing fury that was not actually directed at her, “I don’t know how they hand out souls where you come from, but in [i]this[/i] world we only get the one, so don’t treat it like pocket change! And if you [i]ever[/i] try to bargain with this fucker again, I will [i]beat[/i] the fucking sense back into you! Understand?” he warned with one fist balled up by his own cheek.\n\nThe threat restored Kitt’s smile, though, and she casually leaned forward with her chin raised, as though waiting expectantly...until Sarahi put both arms around her from behind, gently pulling her aside. “Are you really okay?” the Sha’khari whispered, holding the smaller woman close and rocking just a bit in her own worry.\n\nKitt giggled. “Yep. Even better than I expected to be,” she promised, tilting her chin up far enough to flash a proud smile straight up at the woman above her, “Assuming the demon’s being as honest as Broro, I’ve still got all six I thought I had to begin with,” the little Hound shrugged.\n\nSarahi’s hug around her tightened briefly, and she nuzzled the top of the smaller Dog’s head with her chin. “There is so much I don’t understand about that, I don’t even know where to begin. But—”\n\n“And I don’t even want to hear it,” Oro sighed, rubbing his face as the tension in him finally seemed to release. Stepping away from them both, he made a slow walk back into the living-room, and the corner they’d originally been sleeping in. “Forgotten gods, this whole job’s been such a mess...”\n\nSarahi started to follow him, but was surprised to find Kitt keeping the Sha’khari’s arms held around her and her feet planted. She twisted her head to give Sarahi a more serious look over her shoulder. “Don’t be mad at him now,” she requested quietly, “He was trying hard, you know. Dealing with ghosts is tricky enough, if they have any sentience left, but demons are in a whole other league. You’ll never get anything out of them without [i]some[/i] kind of payment, and you’ll have to be pretty lucky, or pretty crafty yourself, for them to even tell you what it is. I’m a little dubious we know what Broro’s really paying for Gorgorond to be so cooperative most of the time.”\n\n“...Me too,” Sarahi answered quietly. Agreeing with a slow nod, she promised, “I’m not angry anymore. Just worried. Half the time we don’t know what we’re dealing with, really, and the other half...I just don’t want to lose him. To anything.”\n\nKitt took a deep breath through her nose...and smiled again. “Yeah. You’re trying hard, too. I’ll do my best to give you a better idea what you’re up against before it bites you from now on. So,” her smile turned hopeful, “Can I spend the rest of the night next to you and Broro?”\n\nSarahi’s grin finally returned, however reluctantly. “Oh, I’d say that’s the least you deserve after all this...”\n\n[b]The Hell-Mouth[/b]\n\nThey slept until late the next morning, bordering on becoming the afternoon, finally feeling secure in the knowledge there would be no hauntings to interrupt. Most of their meager stock of food had disappeared with the refrigerator the previous night (Sarahi [i]really[/i] hoped they wouldn’t be held personally liable for that), but they made do with a humble breakfast of dry cereal before they got started packing their bags. Kitt assured them both it was still much tastier than a typical breakfast while traveling in her world, but Sarahi expressed doubts about the nutritional quality in comparison. “Is it bad I’m kind of tempted not to tell Mrs. Amalie the job’s done quite yet? I’d love to just relax around this place for an hour or two...and maybe try that hot-tub,” the Sha’khari grinned, though she was already putting the Ewe’s number into her phone.\n\nOro put his hand over the screen before she could quite finish dialing. “I’m not sure it is,” the Rabbit admitted with a reluctant growl, “That new moon’s supposed to be tonight, right?” he asked, directing the question to Kitt. When the little Dog nodded confidently, he decided, “We’re staying. Or I am, at least. That ghost said something opens up tonight. If it does, I’d like to see what it is and close it. Permanently.”\n\nSarahi blinked at him...then sighed as her momentary good mood was replaced with fresh worry. “That’s...probably a good idea, actually. I wish we could have talked to her. It feels like we might have misread a [i]lot[/i] about the situation here, with no way to find out the details.” Backing the property manager’s number out of her phone, she sent a couple of short texts to a different number instead. “Okay, Nayeli and Tuli know not to expect us for dinner...again. I’m asking Johanna if she can find anything about a Mouse who died on this island before the haunting started, too. I’d at least like to know who that girl was, if nothing else.” Tucking the little device back into her bag, she took a deep breath and told herself to relax. There was nothing else to be done until after dark, when they would know for certain whether anything else would happen. “So...hot-tub?” the Sha’khari asked her husband with a hopeful smile.\n\n“You know I didn’t ask Nayeli to bring my swim-trunks,” he answered with a smirk, then began pulling his shirt over his head.\n\nSarahi giggled, then flashed him a sly smile as she followed his example. “Yeah. Neither did I...”\n\nThey’d just finished enjoying a nice, long, intimate soak on the deck behind the cabin when Sarahi’s phone chimed. Quickly finishing with drying her hair, the Sha’khari blinked at the message from Johanna, containing only a link titled “Cheesecot_Case”. Clicking it opened an encrypted document, complete with photos and links to other relevant pages. “Holy...she wrote a whole case-report!” Kitt leaned in close to her shoulder, reading along as Sarahi scrolled through, while Oro waited for one or the other of them to give him a summary. “Huh...so her name was ‘Tina Cheesecot’, apparently. Looks like she was part of an amateur rock band until about a year ago. The band came to this island for a retreat and inspiration...but...” She trailed off, becoming visibly bothered by what followed in the report.\n\n“It was ruled a suicide after a six month investigation,” Kitt noted quietly, “Despite doubts expressed by the fans. It says the band was known for occult themes, both in their songs and album art, and members often claimed to practice sorcery in their free time. ‘All members maintained their innocence following the incident, insisting the rituals they performed over the weekend had been harmless calls to departed spirits.’ They thought that was [i]harmless[/i]? Even amateurs shouldn’t be that naive...”\n\n“Wow,” Sarahi sighed, “She started haunting this place before they even finished investigating her death. Poor girl.”\n\nOro scowled, hardly believing what he was hearing. “So the band goes for a weekend get-away to dabble in magic they probably don’t understand, and—just going on a hunch here—fucking [i]sacrifice[/i] one of their members?! How the [i]fuck[/i] does that get ruled a ‘suicide’?”\n\nFully sympathetic to his suspicions, Sarahi grimaced as well. “It says the other members thought she left before the weekend was over. Apparently there’d been some drama in the group, and she stormed out in a huff. The rest of the band checked out at the end of their stay, and housekeeping even came and did the routine clean-up with nothing out of the ordinary. She wasn’t discovered until the next week, when another guest rented the cabin.”\n\n“...Her own knife,” Kitt muttered, still reading over Sarahi’s shoulder with a more serious look now, “...No fingerprints except her own...are fingerprints a form if ID in this world?...appeared ritual in fashion, but in common form for suicides...” The Dog shook her head, finally leaning back. “You say there aren’t many wizards here, and your priests don’t regularly deal with the undead. Assuming the investigators are ignorant of what rituals actually look like and can do, I suppose it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to come to. We only think differently because we heard it straight from the source herself. But that still leaves us with the more important questions: what ritual were they [i]actually[/i] performing, and why was this girl so against it she lingered here after her death to keep others away from it?”\n\nSarahi winced at something further down in the report, which she was still skimming. Below the sections on the victim and the investigation, Johanna had included profiles on the rest of the band, including what became of them after the incident. “I don’t think we’re likely to get an answer to that. The band broke up after Tina was discovered, unsurprisingly...and then began disappearing one by one. There are missing-person cases open on all three of them, with the most recent being opened just before Deep White, so none of them have been seen since this last winter at the latest.”\n\nKitt rocked her head thoughtfully. “Hard to say what that really means. It could be that they got what they bargained for, and whatever they called on came to collect what it was due. Or they might have botched the whole thing and just set up necrosis in their souls. Either way...no, I don’t imagine they’ll be providing answers to anyone ever again. Odds are pretty good they’re even beyond the reach of necromancy at this point.”\n\n“And that’s probably for the best,” Oro grunted, stretching his arms and popping his neck and clearly nearing the end of his patience for this topic, “Never heard a story involving that stuff that ended well for anyone. Come on,” he motioned for both of the girls to follow as he headed for the door, “Let’s get some lunch and fresh air. We’ll get all the answers that matter to us tonight, then we’re out of here on the first ferry that touches the dock in the morning.”\n\n“That sounds [i]great[/i] to me,” Sarahi sighed, quickly sending a “thank you” message back to Johanna for her time and (thorough) efforts before putting away her phone, “We might even make it back in time to meet Nayeli at the temple.” Her husband grimaced at [i]that[/i] thought...but nodded. Even if he had to wait out on the scalding steps, he was more than ready to see his first wife again, and forget everything about ghosts and vampires and demons for an afternoon.\n\nThe weather [i]tried[/i] to be uncooperative, thick with clouds and humid with the rain that began to fall just as they finished their lunch. Oro just pulled the hood of his hoodie up over his ears, though, while Kitt produced a pair of spare cloaks from her gate for Sarahi (one for her upper half, and the other to drape over her animal half) before throwing her own favorite cloak around her shoulders. In defiance of the rain, they walked several of the trails running around the island, even making the hike out to the old cannon-crowned fort that had given the island its name. Thanks to the weather, no doubt, there wasn’t a single other tourist around as they explored the little site.\n\nThinking it couldn’t hurt for Kitt to know a smattering of local history, Sarahi obligingly read the plaque posted in the center of the circle of antique cannons on top of the fort: “During the War of Reunification, inhabitants of then Little-fish Island swore neutrality in the conflict. However, they would routinely fire on any military units passing through the valley from the two battlements at either end of the island. Three attempts were made to capture the forts, but none succeeded. Although residents claimed this was to discourage the war from lingering near their homes, both sides believed the islanders merely enjoyed any excuse to fire their cannons, thus earning the island a nick-name that would become official ten years after the war ended: Heckler Island,” Sarahi chuckled as she finished.\n\nOro understood exactly what she found amusing: “Gotta love how they leave out that it took ten years to rename because they [i]kept[/i] firing on anything in range, even after the war was over. Fucking idiots kept sinking the boats coming to give them the news.”\n\nKitt just giggled. “Isolated communities can be stubborn like that,” she mused, looking out over the river and surrounding valley from between the cannons. Her nose quivered in that way that said she was reading the scents on the wind, before she took a deep inhale that filled her lungs to the brim. “Gods above and below,” she sighed with a wistful smile, “I thought I’d be used to it again by now, but the sheer [i]variety[/i] of scents here is just a-[i]MAZ[/i]-ing!! Was our old world this rich? Have I just forgotten?” She tested the wind again, smiling with her head tilted back and her eyes closed against the drizzling rain. “No. I’m sure of it. You found a really amazing place, Broro.”\n\nThe Rabbit snorted in contempt, but Sarahi wrapped his arm in hers and leaned against his shoulder before he could make an answer to that. “Yeah,” she smiled, “He [i]makes[/i] it pretty amazing, too.”\n\nOro rolled his eyes, and reminded her, “Flattery is shit. Only thing amazing about this place is that you and Nayeli love it so much. But while that’s true,” he added with a quick kiss to her cheek, making Sarahi hum happily, “I’ll protect it with all I’ve got. Enjoy it as much as you can.”\n\nThey made their way through the damp and mud of the trails back to the cabin as the light began to grow weak in the sky, and refreshed themselves a little with a warm meal of canned pasta and meatballs heated on the stove. Kitt introduced them to the rules for a card game from her world to pass the time. The sun fell behind the horizon, and the clouds continued to hide the stars in the moonless sky, and the rain drummed faintly on the roof above their heads. It was just after midnight, and Sarahi had just suggested bedding down for what was left of it, when Kitt’s nose began to quiver attentively...\n\n“Oh...oh, that’s bad,” she blinked, hunching down on hands and knees above the living-room floor where their cards were arrayed. Just as she was certain of what she was smelling, the boards beneath her hands began to blacken, and the room became noticeably warmer. Oro grabbed the back of her shirt, yanking her away as he rolled to his own feet, and Sarahi likewise scrambled away from the scorching spot.\n\nFlames began to lick between the boards, and Oro called Gorgorond to his hand. “What the fuck am I looking at, Kitt?” he snarled at the hole in the floor that opened up suddenly, swallowing the charred edges of the boards and spewing a hot and vile stench into the cabin.\n\nKitt, surprisingly, had already latched on to Sarahi’s shirt, trying to pull her further back from the hole. “A Hell-mouth! A straight drop into the city of the damned! Stay back!” she insisted, seeming more concerned about the Sha’khari than the Rabbit.\n\nAs if to save her the trouble of explaining, a shadow reached up out of the hole, coiling around as if surveying the space around it...and shot straight for Sarahi. It was a tentacle as thick around as her own body, all a dull, lifeless blue, and every bit of it seemingly made of muscle. Sarahi stabbed it before it could finish coiling around her, blurting out, “What [i]is[/i] this[i]?[/i]!” thoughtlessly as she did so. The appendage resisted her holy weapon for a moment before the luminous tip broke through the thick skin, cutting a long gash in it as the tendril jerked back from her. Much to her surprise, it roared something that almost sounded like words, though she couldn’t quite tell where they were coming from.\n\nKitt actually laughed at the absurdity of the question. “A demon, obviously! What did you [i]expect[/i] to come out of Hell?”\n\n“Hello, cousin,” gurgled a deep voice, sounding suspiciously like it was burping as it spoke the words. Kitt and Sarahi both froze, blinking in confusion at Oro. The lobes of his ears were lined with teeth and curved into matching, lopsided grins. The tentacle rising from the hole in the living-room floor also froze, directing its tip at the Rabbit gnashing his own teeth below his ears. Its tip split open like the petals of a flower, revealing a wriggling swarm of tongues surrounded by a maw and throat similar to Gorgorond’s, and seemed to answer in a slurry of wet vowels and grinding consonants. “Before that,” Gorgorond interrupted whatever it was saying, “For the sake of my vessel here, and insomuch as we are not discussing Hell’s secrets, speak with some local tongues.”\n\nThe tendril closed, bulged as if it were swallowing something, then re-opened with a new collection writhing between its teeth. “Of course, lord-cousin Gorgorond,” it vomited out the syllables as it bowed its tip in deference, “But how are you in this place? I thought you were still recovering in the pit?”\n\nOro’s ears grew even larger, twisting themselves up into mirrored sneers at the question. “Where and how I am is no concern of yours, cousin,” Gorgorond belched in contemptuous tones, “As thirty-first of the ninety-nine, the only question you have right to ask me is ‘how shall I serve you?’. Correct yourself.”\n\nThe coil drew back, and began to slink down into the hole it emerged from, before reconsidering whether that might be construed as disobedience. Bowing its tip almost to Oro’s toes, it asked in clear reluctance, “How shall I serve you, lord-cousin Gorgorond?”\n\n“Very good,” the demon smiled again, “Now explain: why have you opened this gate unbidden?”\n\n“Not I,” the tentacle hastily denied, “Mortals performed the ritual. Well...mostly. The gate was opened and the sacrifice offered, but they neglected to fully account for the ‘willing’ clause.” Its dark chuckle was echoed by Gorgorond, like they were repeating a favorite joke they’d heard too many times but still found amusing. “Killed against her will, the sacrifice was exempted from the oaths...”\n\n“And the door left ajar, so to speak,” Gorgorond mused, “And you’ve already exacted the price from those who opened it without offering. Very good.”\n\nThe creature coiling up from the floor grew still again, seeming surprised. “...The scope of your knowledge is as staggering as ever, lord-cousin,” it complimented hesitantly, careful not to ask the question that was obvious in its thoughts, “Would that I knew the secret of gathering information so far afield in so short a time...”\n\nWhile they were talking, Kitt had carefully pulled Sarahi around behind Oro, as quietly as possible, like she was hoping they’d been forgotten despite the flare of the holy weapon trembling in the Sha’khari’s hands. Oro’s ears bulged out even wider, forcing the Rabbit onto his hands and knees just to make room for them under the roof, and one swiveled around to flash teeth at the pair behind him in a sharp smile. “One mark of a good vessel is that it keeps good informants,” Gorgorond suggested, sounding almost proud...\n\n“Your ‘vessel’ is getting fucking tired down here,” the Rabbit snarled, straining to lift his head against the sheer weight above his neck, “Get to the fucking point or shut your fucking mouths and—!”\n\nOne flange of the tentacle’s mouth slapped flat across his cheek, raking it with teeth that left gashes in the scarlet fur and very nearly claiming his eye. “Impudent wretch!” the monster snarled, “Dare not address a satan in such a way!”\n\nGorgorond, in contrast, sounded quite satisfied as he burped, “Ah...you’re not wrong. He’s terribly rebellious, incessantly vulgar, and neglects to feed me regularly. And yet, another mark of a good vessel is that it makes excuse for its master to get his way...” The ears arched forward, curling around the entire circumference of the room with one arched nearly to the ceiling and the other sweeping the surface of the floor. Gorgorond’s chuckle held a sinister edge as it continued, “You have eaten well recently, cousin, while I am hungry. And now you have dared to strike me,” it pulled the gashed skin away from Oro’s face, making a show of widening and then closing the tears the other demon’s teeth had left in it, “So I will lay claim my rights, now...”\n\nThe monster tried to retreat back into Hell. Oro’s left ear bit into it just above the hole, trapping it in the room. The tentacle roared, and coiled down to bite Gorgorond in return, while the right ear caught it close behind where the tip split to form the mouth. There was a short tug-of-war as Gorgorond seemed to be trying to pull the [i]rest[/i] of the demon into the world, and it simultaneously tried to drag Gorgorond and Oro down into the pit.\n\nSarahi broke the stale-mate: “Fist of Heaven, [i]punish the sinful earth[/i]!” Her spear shot right between the coiled ears, blowing the tentacle in two...and a sizable hole in the roof on the other side. The Sha’khari didn’t have time to feel guilty about the collateral damage. Giving up on retreat as an option, more of the monstrous tendril surged up from the pit, nearly filling the entire cabin and forcing Sarahi to retreat into the hallway. Its entire length began peeling and splitting to form new mouths and writhing appendages, which reached for Kitt and chased Sarahi up the stairs to the loft while Gorgorond wrestled with the bulk of the fiend.\n\nOro was wrenched completely off his feet, dragged around the room by the writhing of the demon in the hole contending with the demon on his skin. “[i]Fucking bast—!![/i]” The squirming bodies rolled over him, cutting off his expletive. Kitt pounced between the tendrils reaching for her, driving both of her daggers down to the knuckles in the monster’s coils. It roared, and heaved to the side, bowing the wall and tossing the Hound into the kitchen, but also rolling Oro back to a position where he wouldn’t be crushed.\n\nSarahi called her spear back to her hand (punching yet another hole in the wall in the process, as it returned from somewhere around the riverbank), wheeling at the top of the steps to slash and stab at the tendrils chasing her. “Fist of Heaven,” she growled once more, slowly backing toward the loft railing while holding the monster at bay, “Punish the sinful...” She spun around as soon as her tail touched the rail, swinging her spear over the side and aiming it straight down through the hole in the living-room floor. “[i]Earth!![/i]”\n\nHer weapon had never been more eager to leave her hands. It drove down through the constrained body of the demon, flooding the pit with light and a string of dull explosions. The coils writhing throughout the cabin snapped taught for a second, then fell limp and lifeless. One of Oro’s ears immediately began eating every scrap left in the cabin, slurping the various tendrils in like noodles, while the other reached down—deep, deep down—into the pit.\n\n“Owow[i]owowowoww[/i]!” Oro hissed, clutching the base of his monstrous ears as the one pulled Sarahi’s spear back out of the pit. As soon as the holy blade was free of the hot shaft, the ground constricted to close off the pit solidly, as if it had never existed. “Augh! Fuck! Drop it already!” the Rabbit demanded, and Gorgorond tossed the weapon into the corner of the room.\n\nKitt rolled back down from the counter she’d landed on, tenderly pressing one of her sides beneath the arm to gauge whether the pain there was a bruise or a break. Sarahi slumped against the loft rail to catch her breath. “Uh... thanks...?” she called down in as much surprise as gratitude, “I’d be pretty put out if he got lost down there.”\n\nBoth of Oro’s ears were slurping in the last of the other demon’s remains, even going so far as to lick the floor and walls with thick, warted tongues, but one sprouted a new mouth along the back of the lobe to answer with a smug belch, “My superiors would never forgive me for leaving such rubbish to litter our beautiful hell-scape.” The spear flared and trembled furiously at the description.\n\n“Yeah,” Oro growled, still struggling to support both of his enormous ears while they finished their meal, “We might be having the same problem with Grayslate after this,” he noted, looking around at the damage to the room. The floorboards had been torn up, leaving a gaping hole above where the Hell-mouth had opened. The cabinets in the kitchen were even more broken than they’d been when the trio arrived, and the living-room bookshelves were now in a similar state. There was a substantial new hole in the ceiling and wall above the loft, and a visible crack running across the whole face of the wall between the living-room and the porch, right to the front door.\n\nSarahi winced a little at all the collateral damage. “Erf...pretty sure we can kiss that bonus goodbye, at the least,” the Sha’khari suggested, “On the other hand, you were definitely right, hon. It’s a good thing we stuck around.”\n\n“Yep,” Oro grunted as he attempted to lift his head. “Are you done now, or just hanging around until my neck breaks?” He was answered by a loud belch, leaving the rank odor of sulfur filling most of the cabin, as both ears shrank back to their appropriate size and became perfectly normal lobes on top of his head again. Oro twisted his head from side to side, popping the strain out of his neck several times, and muttered, “‘S what I thought, fucking bastard...”\n\nKitt approached with a curious look, eying his ears like she’d just noticed their peculiar color today. “‘Thirty-first of the ninety-nine’?” the little Hound quoted, “And you know the count of souls in a body...though you order them a little differently than we do, maybe...while local belief only acknowledges the one. Are you also from Acrura, Gorgorond?” she asked the demon directly. Surprising no one less than her, probably, the demon didn’t even make a pretense of an answer...\n\nAmalie’s chin hung nearly to her knees as she climbed out of her car the next morning. The damages were obvious even from outside, and “repairs” would be so extensive they amounted practically to rebuilding from scratch. Oro leaned against the rail leading up the porch, arms crossed and face set stoically to endure her complains like he used to endure lectures in school. Sarahi grimaced, but took responsibility for trotting out to greet the Ewe. “Eh, yeah, this kind of turned into a mess,” the Sha’khari admitted up front, explaining as much of both the ghost [i]and[/i] the demon as she thought the poor woman might believe. “We are [i]very[/i] sorry about the damage, and totally understand if that comes out of whatever we were supposed to get paid for this job,” she apologized, “For what it’s worth, we can at least guarantee there won’t be any more hauntings, once the place is ready for guests again.”\n\nThe Ewe shook her head slowly, looking around the inside of the cabin now and marveling at the aftermath. “Kita insured your work before Grayslate would agree to it, and we already paid the fee she asked. We’re not worried about any damage...but it [i]is[/i] impressive, I have to say.”\n\n“She...what?” Sarahi blinked, too surprised at this new information to even feel particularly stung by what was obviously [i]not[/i] a compliment.\n\nAmalie looked nearly as confused as the Sha’khari. “You thought...? I mean...” Rubbing her long face and giving the Sha’khari a slightly pitying look, she began again, “I don’t mean to insult you or the work you do. You’re young, and just now getting into a profession...I guess. But surely you realize your line of work is...questionable, to put it politely, right? No one’s going to hire you without [i]some[/i] sort of guarantee they’re not burning their money on a con. Can you imagine if we’d hired you independently, and then had to eat the cost of [i]this[/i] ourselves, on top of your fee?” she made a quick circle with one finger, as if to point to pretty much [i]all[/i] of the cabin at once.\n\nOro, now standing inside the door in exactly the same pose and attitude that he’d been standing on the porch, snorted contemptuously. “Fuck, [i]I’d[/i] be suspicious of whoever [i]hired[/i] us under those conditions. Sounds like a set-up for a law suit.”\n\nThe Ewe nodded quickly, grateful that he seemed to understand. “Now I’ll admit, I don’t know who we [i]could[/i] have hired for this with any confidence, but a handful of teenagers with no history to show would not have even made the list. [i]Plenty[/i] of people trust Kita, though, and she trusted you enough to put her pocketbook behind you.” The Ewe put her hand over her mouth in embarrassment. “Sorry...I didn’t mean anything by the past-tense. Unless and until another guest complains about a ghost, we’re satisfied with this outcome, and I will call it a job well done. If Kita wants to recoup her losses, that’s between her and you.”\n\n“Good enough for me,” Oro shrugged, though Sarahi actually felt a little worse, now that she realized [i]Kita’s[/i] reputation was riding on their work, “So we’re done here, right? I am [i]way[/i] overdue for a nap in my own bed.”\n\nWith another sympathetic nod, Amalie let them load their suitcases in the trunk of her car and drove them back to the dock to board the next ferry off the island.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The Ghost

The sliver of moon left in the sky was half-hidden behind a cloud.  The night was dark and quiet outside the cozy cabin.  It was well past the hour they all should have been asleep, and Sarahi actually had been asleep, when she felt something bounce against her bestial side.  “Hey now,” the Sha’khari yawned, slowly coming awake with a chuckle, “If you two are going to have a go, at least let me—!”  She came quickly and fully awake when Kitt bolted upright on the couch, where she’d been sleeping, and both realized Oro was not reclining against the Sha’khari’s side, like he had been when they settled in.

“It’s here,” the Rabbit hissed quietly, pulling their attention to the ceiling where he was splayed out in a corner, with his hands and feet partially buried in the boards on either side to hold himself in place.  Sarahi’s first impression was that he looked like the ghost had possessed him.  Then she remembered he was already possessed by something completely different...and that was no comfort.

Something moved, barely perceptible from the corner of her eye, and Oro pounced back to the floor with fists clenched like he’d just missed grabbing something.  “Dodgy little fuck,” the Rabbit sneered, peering around again, “Kitt!  Can you get a nose on this thing?  Fucker’s doing weird shit to my eyes...”

“Get out!” a high, echoing, female voice seemed to whisper in everyone’s ear at once, “You have to leave!  Get out!”

“Make me,” Oro snarled, extruding a bat from his hand.  In response to that, the coffee table they’d propped against the wall flung itself at him, narrowly missing Sarah’s head as it passed.  It split in two as it hit his back, the remains passing around him like waves around a rock and fetching up against the kitchen cabinets.  Sarahi snatched up her spear, and Kitt was already skittering into the kitchen area with nose quivering.

She searched around for a moment, turning her head this way and that, before leaning into the corner beside the sink with a shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders.  She had her hands in front of her belly, though, one cupped under the other fist, pointing her thumb above her head with a little bob.  Sarahi quirked a brow at the silent signal, but Oro followed his hunch and thrust his bat at the cabinets above her.

A scream pierced their ears as Gorgorond latched onto something invisible to them, and Oro dragged it down to the floor with his teeth grit and one ear covered.  “AAAUGH!!  I DIDN’T DO IT!!  AUUAAGH!  HE’LL EAT YOU AAAAAUGHLL!!” screamed the little Mouse-ghost as she manifested at the bat’s end...with the whole of her right arm apparently trapped inside the wood, and trying desperately to pull free.  Spiting all of her efforts, the weapon seemed to be slowly drawing her in, like a french-fry being eaten one nibble at a time.

“Sorry, but the only one getting eaten today is you,” Oro snarled, extruding a second bat from his free hand and raising it to put an end to her screams...

“Wait, Oro!” Sarahi grabbed his wrist, looking nearly as frightened as the ghost, and asked it, “What didn’t you do?”

“KILL MYSELF!!  WUAGH!!” she screamed some more as her left hand, which had been trying to push the bat away, suddenly disappeared into the wood as well, “STOP!!!  PLEASE!!  IT OPENS AGAUGHNON NEW MOON!!  YOU’LL FINISHAUGH RITUAL!!!”

Sarahi dropped her spear to seize both of her husband’s wrists, not really certain that pulling him would do anything to free the agonized ghost but also very wary of touching Gorgorond directly at the moment.  “Oro!  Stop it!”

He gnashed his teeth, barely able to look her in the eyes with his head lowered, while his demon continued to draw the spirit in.  “Last time I trusted I ghost,” he reminded her in a quiet growl, “She put us both through Hell!  Fuck if I’m making that mistake again!”

“GET OOOUUUT!!!” the ghost shrieked one last time, shaking the whole cabin with her voice.  The couch, kitchen table, and refrigerator all hurled themselves at the trio.

Both bats split down the center, erupting into wide, crushing jaws.  They left very little wreckage behind, closing down on the assaulting furniture in a single bite that did not stop until they’d returned to the shape of bats again.  The screaming stopped.

It took Sarahi a minute to force her fingers to relax enough to let her husband go.  Her eyes hurt.  “Oro...where did she go?” the Sha’khari asked quietly, dreading the answer she thought she already knew.  The trembling in his shoulders was answer enough.  “Oro,” Sarahi hissed softly through a genuine frown and the beginnings of tears in her eyes, “...I love you.  I swear I do.  But right now...I’m going to slap you if you touch me.  At least until morning.”

“Should fucking slap me every time you lay eyes on me,” the Rabbit muttered through his clenched teeth.  His shoulders popped as he lifted his head again, and forced one arm forward, pointing the bat at the far wall.  “...Spit her out.”

Sarahi blinked, her frown broken, and Kitt tilted her head curiously.  Nothing happened, but Oro shook the bat in his hand firmly and repeated, “Spit her out, fucking bastard!  I know you can!”  Still nothing happened.

Kitt tapped a knuckle against the wood, as if knocking on a door.  “How about for one of mine?” she asked the outstretched weapon, causing both of her companions to give her confused looks.  “Would just the first one do?  It’s hard to survive without the second,” she rocked her head thoughtfully, “Obviously you cannot have the seventh, but I suppose I’m the only one who’d actually miss the fifth...”

“What the fuck are you babbling about?!” Oro asked as his head listed to one side, not believing a word he was hearing, or what they implied, “How many—-no, fuck that: you can’t just trade a soul!”

Gorgorond disagreed, and announced it by flexing in the Rabbit’s hand, swiping through the little Dog like a popped whip.  Kitt went pale for a second (Sarahi did, too, for that matter), though she somehow managed to hold her usual smile, and seemed none the worse for wear as the bat turned rigid in Oro’s hand again.

A disembodied voice went screaming off into the night.  Oro threw the bats in his hands through the kitchen window.  “What the fuck did you just do?!” the Rabbit roared in Kitt’s face, though he was careful not to touch her.  His tongue was telling him that whatever Gorgorond had just taken was fucking delicious, and even Oro found himself wanting a second taste...

Kitt...actually looked a little annoyed, crossing her arms under her breasts and frowning at the Rabbit’s ears.  “Hey!  You’re supposed to agree to a trade!  Which one did you take?”

Oro’s ear twitched, and he gnashed his teeth.  “He says ‘the third’, whatever the fuck that means.”

Kitt tilted her head again, blinking blankly.  “...Huh?  But we don’t have—”

“Just shut the fuck up!” the Rabbit snarled, tense and trembling with a growing fury that was not actually directed at her, “I don’t know how they hand out souls where you come from, but in this world we only get the one, so don’t treat it like pocket change!  And if you ever try to bargain with this fucker again, I will beat the fucking sense back into you!  Understand?” he warned with one fist balled up by his own cheek.

The threat restored Kitt’s smile, though, and she casually leaned forward with her chin raised, as though waiting expectantly...until Sarahi put both arms around her from behind, gently pulling her aside.  “Are you really okay?” the Sha’khari whispered, holding the smaller woman close and rocking just a bit in her own worry.

Kitt giggled.  “Yep.  Even better than I expected to be,” she promised, tilting her chin up far enough to flash a proud smile straight up at the woman above her, “Assuming the demon’s being as honest as Broro, I’ve still got all six I thought I had to begin with,” the little Hound shrugged.

Sarahi’s hug around her tightened briefly, and she nuzzled the top of the smaller Dog’s head with her chin.  “There is so much I don’t understand about that, I don’t even know where to begin.  But—”

“And I don’t even want to hear it,” Oro sighed, rubbing his face as the tension in him finally seemed to release.  Stepping away from them both, he made a slow walk back into the living-room, and the corner they’d originally been sleeping in.  “Forgotten gods, this whole job’s been such a mess...”

Sarahi started to follow him, but was surprised to find Kitt keeping the Sha’khari’s arms held around her and her feet planted.  She twisted her head to give Sarahi a more serious look over her shoulder.  “Don’t be mad at him now,” she requested quietly, “He was trying hard, you know.  Dealing with ghosts is tricky enough, if they have any sentience left, but demons are in a whole other league.  You’ll never get anything out of them without some kind of payment, and you’ll have to be pretty lucky, or pretty crafty yourself, for them to even tell you what it is.  I’m a little dubious we know what Broro’s really paying for Gorgorond to be so cooperative most of the time.”

“...Me too,” Sarahi answered quietly.  Agreeing with a slow nod, she promised, “I’m not angry anymore.  Just worried.  Half the time we don’t know what we’re dealing with, really, and the other half...I just don’t want to lose him.  To anything.”

Kitt took a deep breath through her nose...and smiled again.  “Yeah.  You’re trying hard, too.  I’ll do my best to give you a better idea what you’re up against before it bites you from now on.  So,” her smile turned hopeful, “Can I spend the rest of the night next to you and Broro?”

Sarahi’s grin finally returned, however reluctantly.  “Oh, I’d say that’s the least you deserve after all this...”

The Hell-Mouth

They slept until late the next morning, bordering on becoming the afternoon, finally feeling secure in the knowledge there would be no hauntings to interrupt.  Most of their meager stock of food had disappeared with the refrigerator the previous night (Sarahi really hoped they wouldn’t be held personally liable for that), but they made do with a humble breakfast of dry cereal before they got started packing their bags.  Kitt assured them both it was still much tastier than a typical breakfast while traveling in her world, but Sarahi expressed doubts about the nutritional quality in comparison.  “Is it bad I’m kind of tempted not to tell Mrs. Amalie the job’s done quite yet?  I’d love to just relax around this place for an hour or two...and maybe try that hot-tub,” the Sha’khari grinned, though she was already putting the Ewe’s number into her phone.

Oro put his hand over the screen before she could quite finish dialing.  “I’m not sure it is,” the Rabbit admitted with a reluctant growl, “That new moon’s supposed to be tonight, right?” he asked, directing the question to Kitt.  When the little Dog nodded confidently, he decided, “We’re staying.  Or I am, at least.  That ghost said something opens up tonight.  If it does, I’d like to see what it is and close it.  Permanently.”

Sarahi blinked at him...then sighed as her momentary good mood was replaced with fresh worry.  “That’s...probably a good idea, actually.  I wish we could have talked to her.  It feels like we might have misread a lot about the situation here, with no way to find out the details.”  Backing the property manager’s number out of her phone, she sent a couple of short texts to a different number instead.  “Okay, Nayeli and Tuli know not to expect us for dinner...again.  I’m asking Johanna if she can find anything about a Mouse who died on this island before the haunting started, too.  I’d at least like to know who that girl was, if nothing else.”  Tucking the little device back into her bag, she took a deep breath and told herself to relax.  There was nothing else to be done until after dark, when they would know for certain whether anything else would happen.  “So...hot-tub?” the Sha’khari asked her husband with a hopeful smile.

“You know I didn’t ask Nayeli to bring my swim-trunks,” he answered with a smirk, then began pulling his shirt over his head.

Sarahi giggled, then flashed him a sly smile as she followed his example.  “Yeah.  Neither did I...”

They’d just finished enjoying a nice, long, intimate soak on the deck behind the cabin when Sarahi’s phone chimed.  Quickly finishing with drying her hair, the Sha’khari blinked at the message from Johanna, containing only a link titled “Cheesecot_Case”.  Clicking it opened an encrypted document, complete with photos and links to other relevant pages.  “Holy...she wrote a whole case-report!”  Kitt leaned in close to her shoulder, reading along as Sarahi scrolled through, while Oro waited for one or the other of them to give him a summary.  “Huh...so her name was ‘Tina Cheesecot’, apparently.  Looks like she was part of an amateur rock band until about a year ago.  The band came to this island for a retreat and inspiration...but...”  She trailed off, becoming visibly bothered by what followed in the report.

“It was ruled a suicide after a six month investigation,” Kitt noted quietly, “Despite doubts expressed by the fans.  It says the band was known for occult themes, both in their songs and album art, and members often claimed to practice sorcery in their free time.  ‘All members maintained their innocence following the incident, insisting the rituals they performed over the weekend had been harmless calls to departed spirits.’  They thought that was harmless?  Even amateurs shouldn’t be that naive...”

“Wow,” Sarahi sighed, “She started haunting this place before they even finished investigating her death.  Poor girl.”

Oro scowled, hardly believing what he was hearing.  “So the band goes for a weekend get-away to dabble in magic they probably don’t understand, and—just going on a hunch here—fucking sacrifice one of their members?!  How the fuck does that get ruled a ‘suicide’?”

Fully sympathetic to his suspicions, Sarahi grimaced as well.  “It says the other members thought she left before the weekend was over.  Apparently there’d been some drama in the group, and she stormed out in a huff.  The rest of the band checked out at the end of their stay, and housekeeping even came and did the routine clean-up with nothing out of the ordinary.  She wasn’t discovered until the next week, when another guest rented the cabin.”

“...Her own knife,” Kitt muttered, still reading over Sarahi’s shoulder with a more serious look now, “...No fingerprints except her own...are fingerprints a form if ID in this world?...appeared ritual in fashion, but in common form for suicides...”  The Dog shook her head, finally leaning back.  “You say there aren’t many wizards here, and your priests don’t regularly deal with the undead.  Assuming the investigators are ignorant of what rituals actually look like and can do, I suppose it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to come to.  We only think differently because we heard it straight from the source herself.  But that still leaves us with the more important questions: what ritual were they actually performing, and why was this girl so against it she lingered here after her death to keep others away from it?”

Sarahi winced at something further down in the report, which she was still skimming.  Below the sections on the victim and the investigation, Johanna had included profiles on the rest of the band, including what became of them after the incident.  “I don’t think we’re likely to get an answer to that.  The band broke up after Tina was discovered, unsurprisingly...and then began disappearing one by one.  There are missing-person cases open on all three of them, with the most recent being opened just before Deep White, so none of them have been seen since this last winter at the latest.”

Kitt rocked her head thoughtfully.  “Hard to say what that really means.  It could be that they got what they bargained for, and whatever they called on came to collect what it was due.  Or they might have botched the whole thing and just set up necrosis in their souls.  Either way...no, I don’t imagine they’ll be providing answers to anyone ever again.  Odds are pretty good they’re even beyond the reach of necromancy at this point.”

“And that’s probably for the best,” Oro grunted, stretching his arms and popping his neck and clearly nearing the end of his patience for this topic, “Never heard a story involving that stuff that ended well for anyone.  Come on,” he motioned for both of the girls to follow as he headed for the door, “Let’s get some lunch and fresh air.  We’ll get all the answers that matter to us tonight, then we’re out of here on the first ferry that touches the dock in the morning.”

“That sounds great to me,” Sarahi sighed, quickly sending a “thank you” message back to Johanna for her time and (thorough) efforts before putting away her phone, “We might even make it back in time to meet Nayeli at the temple.”  Her husband grimaced at that thought...but nodded.  Even if he had to wait out on the scalding steps, he was more than ready to see his first wife again, and forget everything about ghosts and vampires and demons for an afternoon.

The weather tried to be uncooperative, thick with clouds and humid with the rain that began to fall just as they finished their lunch.  Oro just pulled the hood of his hoodie up over his ears, though, while Kitt produced a pair of spare cloaks from her gate for Sarahi (one for her upper half, and the other to drape over her animal half) before throwing her own favorite cloak around her shoulders.  In defiance of the rain, they walked several of the trails running around the island, even making the hike out to the old cannon-crowned fort that had given the island its name.  Thanks to the weather, no doubt, there wasn’t a single other tourist around as they explored the little site.

Thinking it couldn’t hurt for Kitt to know a smattering of local history, Sarahi obligingly read the plaque posted in the center of the circle of antique cannons on top of the fort: “During the War of Reunification, inhabitants of then Little-fish Island swore neutrality in the conflict.  However, they would routinely fire on any military units passing through the valley from the two battlements at either end of the island.  Three attempts were made to capture the forts, but none succeeded.  Although residents claimed this was to discourage the war from lingering near their homes, both sides believed the islanders merely enjoyed any excuse to fire their cannons, thus earning the island a nick-name that would become official ten years after the war ended: Heckler Island,” Sarahi chuckled as she finished.

Oro understood exactly what she found amusing: “Gotta love how they leave out that it took ten years to rename because they kept firing on anything in range, even after the war was over.  Fucking idiots kept sinking the boats coming to give them the news.”

Kitt just giggled.  “Isolated communities can be stubborn like that,” she mused, looking out over the river and surrounding valley from between the cannons.  Her nose quivered in that way that said she was reading the scents on the wind, before she took a deep inhale that filled her lungs to the brim.  “Gods above and below,” she sighed with a wistful smile, “I thought I’d be used to it again by now, but the sheer variety of scents here is just a-MAZ-ing!!  Was our old world this rich?  Have I just forgotten?”  She tested the wind again, smiling with her head tilted back and her eyes closed against the drizzling rain.  “No.  I’m sure of it.  You found a really amazing place, Broro.”

The Rabbit snorted in contempt, but Sarahi wrapped his arm in hers and leaned against his shoulder before he could make an answer to that.  “Yeah,” she smiled, “He makes it pretty amazing, too.”

Oro rolled his eyes, and reminded her, “Flattery is shit.  Only thing amazing about this place is that you and Nayeli love it so much.  But while that’s true,” he added with a quick kiss to her cheek, making Sarahi hum happily, “I’ll protect it with all I’ve got.  Enjoy it as much as you can.”

They made their way through the damp and mud of the trails back to the cabin as the light began to grow weak in the sky, and refreshed themselves a little with a warm meal of canned pasta and meatballs heated on the stove.  Kitt introduced them to the rules for a card game from her world to pass the time.  The sun fell behind the horizon, and the clouds continued to hide the stars in the moonless sky, and the rain drummed faintly on the roof above their heads.  It was just after midnight, and Sarahi had just suggested bedding down for what was left of it, when Kitt’s nose began to quiver attentively...

“Oh...oh, that’s bad,” she blinked, hunching down on hands and knees above the living-room floor where their cards were arrayed.  Just as she was certain of what she was smelling, the boards beneath her hands began to blacken, and the room became noticeably warmer.  Oro grabbed the back of her shirt, yanking her away as he rolled to his own feet, and Sarahi likewise scrambled away from the scorching spot.

Flames began to lick between the boards, and Oro called Gorgorond to his hand.  “What the fuck am I looking at, Kitt?” he snarled at the hole in the floor that opened up suddenly, swallowing the charred edges of the boards and spewing a hot and vile stench into the cabin.

Kitt, surprisingly, had already latched on to Sarahi’s shirt, trying to pull her further back from the hole.  “A Hell-mouth!  A straight drop into the city of the damned!  Stay back!” she insisted, seeming more concerned about the Sha’khari than the Rabbit.

As if to save her the trouble of explaining, a shadow reached up out of the hole, coiling around as if surveying the space around it...and shot straight for Sarahi.  It was a tentacle as thick around as her own body, all a dull, lifeless blue, and every bit of it seemingly made of muscle.  Sarahi stabbed it before it could finish coiling around her, blurting out, “What is this?!” thoughtlessly as she did so.  The appendage resisted her holy weapon for a moment before the luminous tip broke through the thick skin, cutting a long gash in it as the tendril jerked back from her.  Much to her surprise, it roared something that almost sounded like words, though she couldn’t quite tell where they were coming from.

Kitt actually laughed at the absurdity of the question.  “A demon, obviously!  What did you expect to come out of Hell?”

“Hello, cousin,” gurgled a deep voice, sounding suspiciously like it was burping as it spoke the words.  Kitt and Sarahi both froze, blinking in confusion at Oro.  The lobes of his ears were lined with teeth and curved into matching, lopsided grins.  The tentacle rising from the hole in the living-room floor also froze, directing its tip at the Rabbit gnashing his own teeth below his ears.  Its tip split open like the petals of a flower, revealing a wriggling swarm of tongues surrounded by a maw and throat similar to Gorgorond’s, and seemed to answer in a slurry of wet vowels and grinding consonants.  “Before that,” Gorgorond interrupted whatever it was saying, “For the sake of my vessel here, and insomuch as we are not discussing Hell’s secrets, speak with some local tongues.”

The tendril closed, bulged as if it were swallowing something, then re-opened with a new collection writhing between its teeth.  “Of course, lord-cousin Gorgorond,” it vomited out the syllables as it bowed its tip in deference, “But how are you in this place?  I thought you were still recovering in the pit?”

Oro’s ears grew even larger, twisting themselves up into mirrored sneers at the question.  “Where and how I am is no concern of yours, cousin,” Gorgorond belched in contemptuous tones, “As thirty-first of the ninety-nine, the only question you have right to ask me is ‘how shall I serve you?’.  Correct yourself.”

The coil drew back, and began to slink down into the hole it emerged from, before reconsidering whether that might be construed as disobedience.  Bowing its tip almost to Oro’s toes, it asked in clear reluctance, “How shall I serve you, lord-cousin Gorgorond?”

“Very good,” the demon smiled again, “Now explain: why have you opened this gate unbidden?”

“Not I,” the tentacle hastily denied, “Mortals performed the ritual.  Well...mostly.  The gate was opened and the sacrifice offered, but they neglected to fully account for the ‘willing’ clause.”  Its dark chuckle was echoed by Gorgorond, like they were repeating a favorite joke they’d heard too many times but still found amusing.  “Killed against her will, the sacrifice was exempted from the oaths...”

“And the door left ajar, so to speak,” Gorgorond mused, “And you’ve already exacted the price from those who opened it without offering.  Very good.”

The creature coiling up from the floor grew still again, seeming surprised.  “...The scope of your knowledge is as staggering as ever, lord-cousin,” it complimented hesitantly, careful not to ask the question that was obvious in its thoughts, “Would that I knew the secret of gathering information so far afield in so short a time...”

While they were talking, Kitt had carefully pulled Sarahi around behind Oro, as quietly as possible, like she was hoping they’d been forgotten despite the flare of the holy weapon trembling in the Sha’khari’s hands.  Oro’s ears bulged out even wider, forcing the Rabbit onto his hands and knees just to make room for them under the roof, and one swiveled around to flash teeth at the pair behind him in a sharp smile.  “One mark of a good vessel is that it keeps good informants,” Gorgorond suggested, sounding almost proud...

“Your ‘vessel’ is getting fucking tired down here,” the Rabbit snarled, straining to lift his head against the sheer weight above his neck, “Get to the fucking point or shut your fucking mouths and—!”

One flange of the tentacle’s mouth slapped flat across his cheek, raking it with teeth that left gashes in the scarlet fur and very nearly claiming his eye.  “Impudent wretch!” the monster snarled, “Dare not address a satan in such a way!”

Gorgorond, in contrast, sounded quite satisfied as he burped, “Ah...you’re not wrong.  He’s terribly rebellious, incessantly vulgar, and neglects to feed me regularly.  And yet, another mark of a good vessel is that it makes excuse for its master to get his way...”  The ears arched forward, curling around the entire circumference of the room with one arched nearly to the ceiling and the other sweeping the surface of the floor.  Gorgorond’s chuckle held a sinister edge as it continued, “You have eaten well recently, cousin, while I am hungry.  And now you have dared to strike me,” it pulled the gashed skin away from Oro’s face, making a show of widening and then closing the tears the other demon’s teeth had left in it, “So I will lay claim my rights, now...”

The monster tried to retreat back into Hell.  Oro’s left ear bit into it just above the hole, trapping it in the room.  The tentacle roared, and coiled down to bite Gorgorond in return, while the right ear caught it close behind where the tip split to form the mouth.  There was a short tug-of-war as Gorgorond seemed to be trying to pull the rest of the demon into the world, and it simultaneously tried to drag Gorgorond and Oro down into the pit.

Sarahi broke the stale-mate: “Fist of Heaven, punish the sinful earth!”  Her spear shot right between the coiled ears, blowing the tentacle in two...and a sizable hole in the roof on the other side.  The Sha’khari didn’t have time to feel guilty about the collateral damage.  Giving up on retreat as an option, more of the monstrous tendril surged up from the pit, nearly filling the entire cabin and forcing Sarahi to retreat into the hallway.  Its entire length began peeling and splitting to form new mouths and writhing appendages, which reached for Kitt and chased Sarahi up the stairs to the loft while Gorgorond wrestled with the bulk of the fiend.

Oro was wrenched completely off his feet, dragged around the room by the writhing of the demon in the hole contending with the demon on his skin.  “Fucking bast—!!”  The squirming bodies rolled over him, cutting off his expletive.  Kitt pounced between the tendrils reaching for her, driving both of her daggers down to the knuckles in the monster’s coils.  It roared, and heaved to the side, bowing the wall and tossing the Hound into the kitchen, but also rolling Oro back to a position where he wouldn’t be crushed.

Sarahi called her spear back to her hand (punching yet another hole in the wall in the process, as it returned from somewhere around the riverbank), wheeling at the top of the steps to slash and stab at the tendrils chasing her.  “Fist of Heaven,” she growled once more, slowly backing toward the loft railing while holding the monster at bay, “Punish the sinful...”  She spun around as soon as her tail touched the rail, swinging her spear over the side and aiming it straight down through the hole in the living-room floor.  “Earth!!”

Her weapon had never been more eager to leave her hands.  It drove down through the constrained body of the demon, flooding the pit with light and a string of dull explosions.  The coils writhing throughout the cabin snapped taught for a second, then fell limp and lifeless.  One of Oro’s ears immediately began eating every scrap left in the cabin, slurping the various tendrils in like noodles, while the other reached down—deep, deep down—into the pit.

“Owowowowowoww!” Oro hissed, clutching the base of his monstrous ears as the one pulled Sarahi’s spear back out of the pit.  As soon as the holy blade was free of the hot shaft, the ground constricted to close off the pit solidly, as if it had never existed.  “Augh!  Fuck!  Drop it already!” the Rabbit demanded, and Gorgorond tossed the weapon into the corner of the room.

Kitt rolled back down from the counter she’d landed on, tenderly pressing one of her sides beneath the arm to gauge whether the pain there was a bruise or a break.  Sarahi slumped against the loft rail to catch her breath.  “Uh... thanks...?” she called down in as much surprise as gratitude, “I’d be pretty put out if he got lost down there.”

Both of Oro’s ears were slurping in the last of the other demon’s remains, even going so far as to lick the floor and walls with thick, warted tongues, but one sprouted a new mouth along the back of the lobe to answer with a smug belch, “My superiors would never forgive me for leaving such rubbish to litter our beautiful hell-scape.”  The spear flared and trembled furiously at the description.

“Yeah,” Oro growled, still struggling to support both of his enormous ears while they finished their meal, “We might be having the same problem with Grayslate after this,” he noted, looking around at the damage to the room.  The floorboards had been torn up, leaving a gaping hole above where the Hell-mouth had opened.  The cabinets in the kitchen were even more broken than they’d been when the trio arrived, and the living-room bookshelves were now in a similar state.  There was a substantial new hole in the ceiling and wall above the loft, and a visible crack running across the whole face of the wall between the living-room and the porch, right to the front door.

Sarahi winced a little at all the collateral damage. “Erf...pretty sure we can kiss that bonus goodbye, at the least,” the Sha’khari suggested, “On the other hand, you were definitely right, hon.  It’s a good thing we stuck around.”

“Yep,” Oro grunted as he attempted to lift his head.  “Are you done now, or just hanging around until my neck breaks?”  He was answered by a loud belch, leaving the rank odor of sulfur filling most of the cabin, as both ears shrank back to their appropriate size and became perfectly normal lobes on top of his head again.  Oro twisted his head from side to side, popping the strain out of his neck several times, and muttered, “‘S what I thought, fucking bastard...”

Kitt approached with a curious look, eying his ears like she’d just noticed their peculiar color today.  “‘Thirty-first of the ninety-nine’?” the little Hound quoted, “And you know the count of souls in a body...though you order them a little differently than we do, maybe...while local belief only acknowledges the one.  Are you also from Acrura, Gorgorond?” she asked the demon directly.  Surprising no one less than her, probably, the demon didn’t even make a pretense of an answer...

Amalie’s chin hung nearly to her knees as she climbed out of her car the next morning.  The damages were obvious even from outside, and “repairs” would be so extensive they amounted practically to rebuilding from scratch.  Oro leaned against the rail leading up the porch, arms crossed and face set stoically to endure her complains like he used to endure lectures in school.  Sarahi grimaced, but took responsibility for trotting out to greet the Ewe.  “Eh, yeah, this kind of turned into a mess,” the Sha’khari admitted up front, explaining as much of both the ghost and the demon as she thought the poor woman might believe.  “We are very sorry about the damage, and totally understand if that comes out of whatever we were supposed to get paid for this job,” she apologized, “For what it’s worth, we can at least guarantee there won’t be any more hauntings, once the place is ready for guests again.”

The Ewe shook her head slowly, looking around the inside of the cabin now and marveling at the aftermath.  “Kita insured your work before Grayslate would agree to it, and we already paid the fee she asked.  We’re not worried about any damage...but it is impressive, I have to say.”

“She...what?” Sarahi blinked, too surprised at this new information to even feel particularly stung by what was obviously not a compliment.

Amalie looked nearly as confused as the Sha’khari.  “You thought...?  I mean...”  Rubbing her long face and giving the Sha’khari a slightly pitying look, she began again, “I don’t mean to insult you or the work you do.  You’re young, and just now getting into a profession...I guess.  But surely you realize your line of work is...questionable, to put it politely, right?  No one’s going to hire you without some sort of guarantee they’re not burning their money on a con.  Can you imagine if we’d hired you independently, and then had to eat the cost of this ourselves, on top of your fee?” she made a quick circle with one finger, as if to point to pretty much all of the cabin at once.

Oro, now standing inside the door in exactly the same pose and attitude that he’d been standing on the porch, snorted contemptuously.  “Fuck, I’d be suspicious of whoever hired us under those conditions.  Sounds like a set-up for a law suit.”

The Ewe nodded quickly, grateful that he seemed to understand.  “Now I’ll admit, I don’t know who we could have hired for this with any confidence, but a handful of teenagers with no history to show would not have even made the list.  Plenty of people trust Kita, though, and she trusted you enough to put her pocketbook behind you.”  The Ewe put her hand over her mouth in embarrassment.  “Sorry...I didn’t mean anything by the past-tense.  Unless and until another guest complains about a ghost, we’re satisfied with this outcome, and I will call it a job well done.  If Kita wants to recoup her losses, that’s between her and you.”

“Good enough for me,” Oro shrugged, though Sarahi actually felt a little worse, now that she realized Kita’s reputation was riding on their work, “So we’re done here, right?  I am way overdue for a nap in my own bed.”

With another sympathetic nod, Amalie let them load their suitcases in the trunk of her car and drove them back to the dock to board the next ferry off the island.", "pools_count": 0, "title": "Guardians of the Mountain 4 - Ghost in the Cabin Pt. 2", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/plain", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "1", "rating_name": "Mature", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "3", "name": "Violence", "description": "Mild violence", "rating_id": "1" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "12" }