Stupid Sexy Cryptids [47, 48]

47: Southward

South pressed her face against the gas station window, watching Mount Olympus burn in the distance like the world's most fucked up bonfire. The orange glow painted the gloomy Pacific sky in apocalyptic hues that reminded her of the Terminator 2 movie poster she'd had on her bedroom wall before the leukemia got her in 1991.

"This is so bogus," she muttered. "So fucking bogus."

She snapped her Nokia open and dialed North's number. There was a small chance that her sister didn’t get to the compound in time to be melted to slag.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five.

South stared at the two livestock lorry trucks filled with coffins stacked like a macabre game of Tetris. A nice collection of humans, drugged up on a cocktail of Rohypnol and ketamine, breathing through the air holes her thralls drilled with father's power tools. 

The aforementioned thirty thralls lay silent and still, filling the third livestock truck, awaiting orders, ready to burst out at a moment’s notice armed with 1920’s unregistered guns.

"Come on, come on… Pick up, you goth bitch," South hissed, becoming worried that she was all alone now.

On the eleventh ring, North finally answered. 

"Heeeeelllllooooo?" The voice was North's but slightly off, sounding too damn cheerful. There was something else in the background too—panting and groaning sounds?

"North? What the fuck are you so cheery about?" South demanded. "And what's that noise?"

"Noooothing's wrooooong!" North's voice sing-songed. "Everything is CIRCLE—I mean, everything is perfectly fiiiiine, indeed!"

"Are your thralls having an orgy or something? Jesus Christ, North, I can hear them breathing all heavy and shit."

"BEAR BREATHING!" The reply came. "Concealment from Scrutimancers! VERY NORMAL BEAR SOUNDS! Shhh!"

"What?" South's eye twitched. "Whatever, I don't give a shit about your weird thrall management, dude. Have you seen this shit? Mount Olympus is totally fucked. Like, on fire fucked. Like, can-see-it-from-Highway-101 fucked."

There was a long pause. Too long.

"Please hold. Noooorth is thinking," North finally said. "Thinking how to escape. There is no escape. There is only NOMS."

"Noms? What the fuck dude? Are you high? Did you snack on one of those Seattle tech bros? I told you their blood is full of microdoses and shit."

"No eating tech bros!" North protested. "Only eating... CIRCLES! I mean... thinking! Only thinking! Think harder, idiot vegetable!”

There was a sound of something hitting something, probably North hitting one of her thralls.

South kicked an empty beer can across the parking lot. "Look, I don't have time for whatever mental breakdown you're having. I've got two trucks full of knocked-out college kids I nabbed from Olympic College Residence Hall at 5 AM this morning.”

“South?” North voiced after a deep pause. “Why… you have two truckfulls of college kids?”

“Grandfather wanted them for the crown ritual. Guess he didn’t tell you the deets about it. Two hundred sacrifices! Took a few hours to pack a hundred into each truck into caskets with thirty three thralls."

“Why?”

“The fuck you mean why? The humans have to be alive when their souls get pulled out to power up the dimensional gate crown. Are you listening?”

“Listening, indeed,” North replied.

"What is wrong with you? Can you, like, stop being a weirdo for five minutes and focus? How drunk are you? Did you see what happened and decide to drown your problems in alcohol again? Is that it?”

"Not being drunk!”

“North,” South growled.

“Okay… okay, confession! I am drunk North. Otherwise, very normal! Everything is... Very bad circle—I mean, very bad NEWS, indeed. Everyone at the compound… Toast! Corpse Seeker orbital strike. Big boom. Much fire. Very dead. North is sad. Having a big cry.”

“It’s not perfect, I admit,” South chewed on her bottom lip. “That was a nice compound and we had lots of nice artifacts in there. But we can recover.”

“Recover?”

"God, you're such a dumbass sometimes," South said. "Like, majorly dense. We're crystalloid fungi, you drunk dipshit. The whole family consciousness is distributed through each branch. Even if their bodies got totally torched, they're still in here." She tapped her temple. "In our heads, in our blood, in every spore."

"But... but they're melty up on pyramid geology," North protested.

"So what? Physical death means jack shit to us. The consciousness patterns are preserved in our crystalline matrices. We’re their branches! I am more converted than you, so I can literally feel Grandfather's memories trying to surface right now, all pissy and demanding." South's voice fell to a bitter hiss. "Gramps always said that you ended up too much of an individual this time around, sis. You’re older than me, but sadly your conversion’s going hella went slower. Too slow. Not enough magical potential in that damned body of yours. Not enough ‘collective understanding’. Is why I got sent to fucking Seattle with my thralls while you went off to grab that potential mageling.”

“Mageling?”

“Yea,” South tapped her chin. “What was his name… uhhh? Clifford? Yeah. Did you get him? Him and his undead dog or whatever?”

“Yes.” North answered. 

“Oh good. He can become the host body for grandfather then.”

“Host body?”

“Yes, you dense goth,” South grumbled. “We need a magically potent body to start to bring grandfather back ASAP. Look, can you drive him over on the Packard to where I am?”

“Drive over… where?”

"Amanda Park gas station, right off 101.”

“Yes.”

“Aight, you better get your ass here, ASAP,” South said. “Make a thrall drive, don't crash into a tree.”

“Okkay! Be there… soon! Don’t do anything to prisoner humans!”

“Yeah, yeah,” South huffed. “I don’t know what the shit to do with them all. We can slice their necks and turn them into thralls together, I guess. It'll be faster with both of us. Just gotta figure out which ones are more magical so we can start to bring our family back properly.”

“No slicing without me!”

“Then you better get here fast, sis.”

The eternal teenager snapped the Nokia shut and shoved it into her flannel pocket. 

Staring at the dreary smoke cloud blooming from Mount Olympus was giving South the heebie jeebies. The Omnid Scrutimancer blood-bound hounds were out there, too close for comfort, busy collecting the melted remnants of her family.

This was fine. They’d gotten away before. They’d get away again. Again and again. An endless chase across myriads of worlds. An endless carousel of reincarnation, of new bodies, of surviving family members bringing each other back via blood.

Now it was her turn.

She remembered herself. Not her teenage self who died in 1991, but the eternal girl. The girl that kept running from world to world. Shifting bodies. The second grand-daughter. The smallest branch.

South ran her fingers through her perfect blonde hair, one of the few perks of being crystalloid fungi pretending to be human. No bad hair days when your entire physical form was just a construct.

She could feel her entire family wobbling at the edges of her consciousness, wishing to be brought back: Grandfather's fury burning brightest, Father's irritation, Mother's cold disappointment, Uncle's sardonic amusement, Cousin West’s concern. They were all there, their patterns preserved deep in the deep crystalline matrix that also made up her being.  

Melted physically out there in the burning valley, crystalline strata reset by the heat of a Corpse Seeker falling from orbit, but not erased, not gone. Backed up inside her. Waiting to be reborn.

Since North ended up inhabiting a disappointment of a body, struggling to remember her past self, it was up to South to bring back the family.

Even now, after decades, North was barely fifty percent functional as a proper crystalloid, kept sliding into human depression cycles, got drunk often and was told to go work at the Yumland market as the cashier by grandfather as punishment. South herself was somewhere around eighty percent crystalline, her individuality deep under question, more of a switch that could be toggled with enough focus.

It would be a struggle for her to bring grandfather back, would likely take years, decades if not more depending on how potent the new host was. Decades, during which she’d have to hide herself and North amidst eight billion humans from the Frontenachii sniffers. 

"Fucking Frontenachii," she spat, staring at the gloomy sky covered in sheets of rolling, drizzling clouds. “Fucking barely magical Earth.”

The dragon assholes had obliterated a century of careful work in one orbital strike. All those empowering artifacts, the crown fragments, the dungeon with almost a century of reinforced wards forged with blood and sacrifice - poof. Gone. Just like that time MTV canceled Beavis and Butthead.

Bring me back, Grandfather’s voice echoed in her skull. Find a suitable vessel. The Clifford boy will do. He's in his twenties, a bit too young perhaps… but I need to manage, restore the Family. 

"Yeah, yeah, I’m on it, Gramps," she said aloud.

At least North grabbed the necromancer mageling. That was something. A start. 

She pulled out a Marlboro Light and lit it with her silver lighter. The smoke curled up into the gloomy sky.

Life was going to suck bigtime. But maybe not entirely…

Until her grandfather returned, South was the family’s Prima. She would carefully build herself an army of thralls starting with the humans in the trucks. Grandfather clung to this dreary, slightly magical valley for far too long, obsessed with his damned Astral radio. 

Once North arrived, South would take the fleet far south, hide in the jungle, maybe take over a drug cartel or two.

Silver lining!

. . .

-=[Ashcroft Clifford]=-

"What deviation?" Galateya demanded, rapidly arriving into the kitchen.

Kawathra glared at Keiy. “It’s nothing.”

“Keiy,” Galateya turned to her gun. “What’s going on?”

“Do NOT whine to your owner about this. Galateya isn't a Datamancer!” Kawathra barked. “Network errors aren’t her prerogative. Such issues are my problem to solve, so please send me the entire report via the neural link. Also, why are you yelling?”

“The deviation is the reason why I’m… yelling,” Keiy’s voice dropped to a more tolerable octave, the entire front of her ‘head’ dotted with red flashes that resembled a heavy blush. “My apologies, Arch-Datamancer. I’ll file the report… normally.”

“Uh-huh,” Kawathra relaxed a bit. “See that you do.”

Galateya looked between the bird girl and the gun who seemed to freeze, simply staring at each other. 

“You know,” she said. “As the potential future Baroness of Earth, I feel extremely uninformed about things here.”

“It’s fine,” Kawathra looked from the gun at the dragon girl. “Just a… database deviation glitch due to the… uhhh… local Aetheric density issues. I’m resolving it. Don’t worry about it. You can't do much about it as Beta-Knight.”

“Become Baroness first, then you can demand all the things,” Nexxali arrived in the kitchen. “I demand pasta!”

She jabbed me. “Feed me!”

My tablet buzzed. I glanced at the screen. North's number. I frowned.

Why would the vampire be calling me when she was supposed to be playing bears with Shady? Did they run into a problem?

"Excuse me a second," I said, heading upstairs. "Important call."

Nexxali and Kawathra followed me up the stairwell like two ducklings.

I looked at the bird and cat. “Do you mind?”

“I want pasta!” The catgirl repeated insistently.

“I am here to assist you with whatever you may require,” the magpie said, staring at me with a devoted expression that bordered on the obsessive. She was probably mentally constructing a thousand charts about my Emperor self.

“Pasta later, I gotta take this call,” I waved at the Datamacer and Marshal to enter my bedroom and closed the door, picking up the call. “Hello?”

"EMPEROR CIRCLE!" Shady yelled from the phone. "This is Princess Aquillianne! Very important Princess business! Indeed!"

 "Shady, why are you—"

"Mushroom vegetable made TERRIBLE phone call!" she interrupted. "South wants North to bring you! For GRANDFATHER POSSESSION!"

"What? Shady, slow down," I said, pressing the tablet closer to my ear. "What's happening with North?"

"MUSHROOM VEGETABLE IS BEING VERY BAD!" Shady yelled. "South called! Said bring Emperor to gas station for GRANDFATHER HOSTING PARTY! Not good circle party! Bad square party!"

Nexxali stared at me with wide, gold eyes, her large, serval ears tilted towards the phone, listening in.

"Grandfather hosting... what?" I repeated. “I don’t understand. What grandfather? The Omnids obliterated the vampire elder with the mountain, no? Listen, can you put North on so she can tell me what’s going on herself?”

“Not possible.”

“Why?”

"Bad North mushroom wanted to tell South square things with her mouth! So I CORRECTED her jaw! Now she makes only mmmmph sounds! Very educational correction! Very silent vegetable now."

"You broke North's jaw?"

"Only a little bit! Temporary circle! She'll heal! Mushrooms always heal! North snack on bear guts, get better later!”

48: Vamp Collection

I heard more groaning protests in the background, presumably North trying to communicate through her broken jaw.

"See? Useless vegetable sounds!" Shady announced proudly. "But I am EXCELLENT translator! Thought hook circle activate! Clarification circle: South, a vampire girl, sixteen years old forever. North’s younger and also older sister! She has THREE BUSINESS CATTLE TRUCKS! First truck: one hundred sleeping college humans in burial boxes! Second truck: one hundred more. Like presents but sad! Third truck: thirty dead-walking thralls with old guns! Bang bang circles! Very concerning fleet of death squares!"

"Wait… North’s sister didn’t get nuked and she captured two hundred students?" I repeated. "Where is she?"

"Amanda Park gas station!" Shady recited, switching to North’s voice for a moment. "South wants to put her grandfather consciousness in mine Emperor body! Make Emperor into vampire puppet! Very rude! Did not ask permission! No consent circles!"

"How does she even know about me?"

"North told her about necromancer Clifford before jaw correction! No, earlier… before she squared on porch with four thralls! I circle trick South that North captured you and your undead dog! Supposed to bring you in black car! But we are BEARS now! In forest! Being very bearish! Grr! But… Can we circle beep soon? Shady wants Emperor circle. Shady sad circle. Forest boring. Educational vampire latin progressing… but Shady… miss Ashy. Ashy… family.”

The Wendigo knew exactly how to tug at my heartstrings.

“Shady… I more or less sorted out the invader situation here. Want to meet me at Amanda Park gas station in a few hours then? Do you know how to use North’s GPS?”

“Shady learn! Shady study North-thoughts hard for comprehension soup! Shady see Emperor at Amanda Park! YAY! No waiting, only circle BEEP!”

I disconnected the call and stared at Kawathra and Nexxali, who had been shamelessly eavesdropping on my conversation with the Frontenachii Princess.

"Right then, team. We have a new job to do," I announced. "There's a vampire with two hundred kidnapped college students and thirty thralls at Amanda Park gas station."

Nexxali's golden eyes stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment, her tail swishing.

"Shady... Shady..." she muttered. "You... you're..."

Her gaze snapped to Kawathra, who suddenly found my ceiling fan fascinating.

"BIRD! You clearly KNOW things," Nexxali accused the magpie. "You know who he is!"

"I know many things!" Kawathra chirped defensively. "I know that the optimal spreadsheet column width is 8.43 characters! I know that—"

"She knows," I confirmed, cutting off what was sure to be a lengthy and irrelevant data rant. "It's fine, Nexy. We can discuss my various job titles later. Right now, we need to save college students from becoming vampire snacks."

Nexxali's mouth opened and closed several times like a fish contemplating existential philosophy. "You're the fucking Emperor of Earth, you cheeky fuck!"

"Among other things, yes," I shrugged. "Currently, I'm also a concerned citizen worried about his fellow humans. Let’s go. We're taking Corpse Seeker Kappa."

Nexxali opened her mouth.

"Vampire cleanup now, follow," I said firmly, heading for the stairs.

We descended to find Galateya and Piotr engaged in a discussion about fantasy books and dragons.

"—surface area to volume ratio would make flight impossible at that size—" Piotr was saying.

"Magic," Galateya countered. "The answer is always magic. Real dragons have Syntropic hearts that allow them to bend reality, confusing gravity. The Eldest dragons are harvested by the Frontenachii to make Corpse Seeker bodies.”

"Hey," I interrupted. "We need to handle something. You two stay here, make yourselves comfortable. There's leftover salad in the fridge if you get hungry."

"Where are you going?" Galateya asked, scales shifting to suspicious oranges.

"Vampire pest control," Nexxali answered before I could. "Very routine. Definitely not taking your Royal consort on a dangerous mission."

Galateya's scales flashed red. "What?"

"Ignore her," I said quickly. "She's still high on catnip. We'll be back in a few hours tops and we’ll be inside a Corpse Seeker."

Before Galateya could protest further, I herded Nexxali and Kawathra outside to the crystalline tank.

Once we'd climbed inside Kappa, I asked, "Is surveillance still disabled? This mission stays off the books."

"Yep," Kawathra confirmed, talons igniting holographic interfaces. "Kappa is still disconnected from Weapon-Net.

"The three of us were never here," Nexxali added, looking at me slyly. "Just like you definitely didn't win my heart by running me over, your majesty. Nope. None of that happened."

"Good," I said, settling onto the crystalline-organic couch. "Kawthy, set course for Amanda Park gas station. Maximum speed. Full invisibility mode on."

"Acknowledged!" The magpie declared. "Adjusting trajectory for maximum velocity.”

The Seeker lurched forward.

My phone buzzed. Again, North's number. I picked up.

"EMPEROR!" Shady shouted. "Update circle! Currently twenty-one-point-seven-eight miles from gas station! Making excellent bear progress! North makes sad mmph sounds!"

"Good work, Shady. We're en route too."

"YAY! We? Emperor brings friends? New… circle members?"

"Something like that."

Nexxali leaned over, practically climbing into my lap to speak into the tablet. "Princess Aquillianne? Is that you?"

"WHO DARES—oh! Voice circle! Who be?"

“That's Marshal Nexxali,” I said.

“Suspicious female! Better not be trying to square my circle.”

“Dang.” Nexxali's tail twitched. "The Princess sounds worse than I do. And I'm high as fuck." She turned to me. "Does catnip work on Frontenachii Omnids?"

I shrugged. "No idea. Never tested it."

“No circling emperor mine!” Shady demanded.

“Yes, yes,” I said. “Relax, Princess. You’ll get to meet our newest entourage soon.”

Through Kappa's view screens and transparent section, the forest blurred into green streaks. We covered the distance to Amanda Park in almost no time at all.

"Target acquired," Kawathra announced as we crested a hill, summoning several screens. "One juvenile female crystalloid, approximately sixteen years of physical development. Three livestock transport vehicles. Multiple thrall signatures in vehicle three."

Below us, zoomed in via one of the screens, a sixteen year old blonde teenager in flannel stood in the gas station parking lot, smoking a cigarette like she had all the time in the world.

"Ramming speed," I ordered. “Don’t kill her, nor convert her, just absorb her. I need her alive for the interrogation.”

“Can do,” Kawathra nodded.

South must have had supernatural senses because she stared straight at us as we shot forward like a supersonic jet. Her eyes widened comically for a split second before—

CRUNCH.

The Seeker's maw opened and snapped shut around her like the world's most aggressive Pac-Man. Her cigarette went flying as she was absorbed into the Seeker making a sound like someone stepping on bubble wrap. 

"Target neutralized," Kappa announced with satisfaction, waving a talon at the vampire girl currently suspended in one of the red, crystalline walls like a bug trapped in amber, mouth open wide in horror.

"Now the thralls," I said.

We plowed through one of the cattle trucks like it was made of cardboard and silly putty. Thirty reanimated corpses rapidly became one very compressed cube of former undead humanity, neatly packed into Kappa's storage compartment.

“Zombie apocalypse handled!” Nexxali observed, grinning at the flesh cube through the Seeker's transparent wall. "He he. This gives us almost enough thralls to make up for my big fat mouth.”

"Tidy," Kawathra agreed.

I watched as Kawathra directed the Corpse Seeker to delicately peel apart the remaining livestock trucks like a kid opening Christmas presents. The crystalline appendages worked rapidly extracting coffin after coffin and laying them out on the grass in neat rows, snapping them open. It looked like the world's most morbid yard sale.

I dialed 911 when she was done.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Hi, yeah, I'm at Amanda Park off Highway 101. There are about two hundred college students in coffins here. They're alive but drugged. Pretty sure they were kidnapped from Olympic College residence halls."

There was a long pause.

"Sir, is this a prank call?"

“No it isn’t. Check with the college campus for missing students.” I hung up.

Another window manifested in the Seeker’s cabin in about twenty minutes of waiting. It displayed… a grisly, dark mass of bear bodies looming at the edge of the forest, staring at us with glowing silver eyes.

"What in the Abyss is that?" Nexxali gasped, her tail puffing.

"That," I said, "would be Princess Aquillianne. Kawthy, project my voice out.”

“Done,” the magpie said.

“Shades, we’re going to grab you,” I called out. “We’re in the Seeker!”

“Yay!” The bear-mass waved a dark, clawed hand.

Kappa's crystalline form stretched and thinned, opening wide enough to accommodate the approaching bear-monster. Shady barely had time to yelp before she was sucked inside along with her vampire-chair cargo.

The moment the Seeker's walls resolidified, Shady was on me like a hurricane of fur, feathers and enthusiasm.

"EMPEROR MINE!" She wrapped me in a hug that felt more like being attacked by a pile of bear corpses. The smell was truly horrendous. North turned her head, glaring at me with tear streaked eyes, jaw dislocated. A bear pelt was draped around the miserable-looking vampire.

"Shady, you're getting bear blood all over—"

"BLOOD! Circle bear blood! Everything better with Emperor penguin bae!" She proceeded to smear more gore across my shirt with enthusiastic nuzzling.

In the distance, I heard sirens. Another window flashed, summoned by the bird girl, displaying police cars entering the parking lot.

"Right, time to go," I announced. "Kawthy, take us to the other side of the lake. Now."

The Seeker shot off just as the first police cruiser crested the hill. I caught a glimpse of an officer's stunned face as he surveyed two hundred coffins laid out like dominoes before we plowed across the lake, directly over the waves, the Corpse Seeker moving faster than the water could swallow us.

We emerged on the far shore of Lake Quinault, the Seeker settling onto a small beach surrounded by towering pines. Everyone piled out, escaping from the extra-smelly princess.

"Princess Aquillianne," I said formally, "may I introduce Marshal Commandant Nexxali and Datamancer Kawathra."

Shady, still draped in six bears like some kind of apocalyptic fashion disaster, tilted her head at them, pulling off her chair with miserable North. Her silver eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Cat circle," she declared, pointing at Nexxali. "Trying to steal Emperor?"

"What? No!" Nexxali protested. "I mean, I—"

"UNACCEPTABLE!" Shady's antlers lowered threateningly. "Emperor belongs to Princess circle! I have DIBS! Ancient dibs!”

“Ancient dibs?” the serval blinked.

“Thirteen-year-old dibs!"

"Thirteen years?" Kawathra's head snapped toward me, talons clicking. "You've known the Princess for thirteen years? That completely changes my probability matrices regarding—"

"Bird circle talks too much," Shady interrupted, then turned to study Kawathra more closely. "Pretty black-rainbo feathers though. Acceptable. Can join circle maybe. After probation. Many tests!"

"Tests?" Kawathra squeaked.

"Yes! First test: Do you think Emperor is best Emperor?"

"Obviously," Kawathra said without hesitation, probably thinking about my supposed divine status. “I am an Arch-Datamancer and I assure your excellence that…”

"Bird! Second test: Can you make spreadsheets about Emperor's excellence?"

"I... yes? I already created extensive data visualizations about—"

"ACCEPTABLE BIRD!" Shady declared. "You pass! Welcome to circle! Cat still VERY suspicious though." She glared at Nexxali.

"I have a collar from Ash," Nexxali offered desperately, pointing at the pink collar with black hearts. "See? That means we're… friends!"

Shady's eyes went wide. She spun to face me, bears swaying dramatically. "EMPEROR COLLARED OTHER FEMALES?!"

I considered my actions. “She was being uncooperative, so I… claimed her.”

"Very suspicious! Must investigate thoughts!" She leaned in close to Nexxali, sniffing intensely. 

The catgirl trembled slightly as Shady’s eyes flashed brilliant silver.

“You like him,” Shady stated. “A lot. Death now or later?”

“He… I’m his hostage!” The serval fell to her knees. “Don’t kill me! I belong to your kobold Administrator, Princess!”

Shady sniffed the cat girl again, silver eyes slitted. “Hrmmmm… you do seem devoted. Still. Touching Emperor mine not acceptable. Almost murdering Ashy too, not acceptable.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t know,” the serval’s eyes filled with tears. “I swear. I thought him a mundane human! I didn’t know that he’s your property, my Lady! He never told me that!”

Shady’s glare fired in my direction.

"Shady, you need to wash off. You're covered in… bears.” I said.

“You told me to dress beartastic, Ash!” Shady growled, advancing on me. “You send me to forest… while you circle with cat! Cat who like you too much for reasonability! You smell of dragon bond! Death now or later?”

I opened my mouth but before I said anything dark claws closed around me. Up became down and then down again. I was flying, spinning through the air. Serval and magpie shocked faces flashed in the distance before the chilling impact.