Hi, all! It's me, Annabelle Hawthorne, with the last and final installment of Dead and Horny: This was cheaper than a mid-life crisis!

To all the fans, thank you so much for your shared enthusiasm and love for this tale. I appreciate bringing it to a close with all of you, allowing us to finally meet at the

Singularity

The house groaned as the gravity in the room shifted. Ingrid slid across the floor toward the far wall away from the painting, keeping her eyes squeezed tight as she did so. Somewhere up above her, she could hear the tearing of fabric and a whooshing sound that reminded her of the ocean. Ingrid slid against the wall and opened her eyes, making sure not to look up at the painting itself.

Lily crashed into the wall not far from her, clutching her head and screaming. She was staring directly at the painting as her body shifted through several different forms at once.

"It's looking at me!" she screamed. "It's looking, it's looking it's--"

Ingrid stared past Lily to see Tasia's unconscious body slam against the wall, followed shortly after by Dana. Jenny came tumbling next, the doll bouncing off a piece of furniture before coming to a stop. A shimmering spectral form appeared, huddled up and crying with her arms around her legs.

"Jenny?" Ingrid crawled a bit closer and recognized that the spirit looked different. "Janey."

Janey looked up at her and held a finger to her lips. "It can hear you."

"Fuck it," Ingrid said, and then the air filled with a bass note so powerful that everyone cried out. It took everything in Ingrid's power not to absolutely shit her pants in blind fear.

Dana stared directly up at the thing in defiance, causing blood to gush from her nose and ears.

"How are you doing that?" Ingrid asked.

"No emotions," she replied, her eyes still glowing. Ingrid noticed now that the zombie's stomach was bulging out from all the food she had consumed. Dana looked down at Ingrid. "Nothing for it to latch onto. It gives me brain damage, but I'm all juiced up right now, so it repairs pretty fast."

"You can look at it?" Ingrid asked in disbelief.

Dana nodded. "For a few seconds," she added. "The painting is still intact, if you can believe it. The thing inside is looking at us right now."

"It's not even outside, yet?!?"

"Nope, but it's trying." Dana winced as another bass note blew, causing the whole house to rumble. "I think that it's only a matter of--"

Eulalie slammed into the ground in between them, her whole body shuddering as she tried to crawl toward the exit. "It's too much," she whimpered, trying to cover her ears and eyes at the same time. "Somebody stop it!"

Dana looked up again and flinched. "It's reaching for us," she said. "But we're too far away. It just pulled in chunks of that dead soldier, too."

"What do we do?" Ingrid had crawled over to Janey and picked up her doll. "There's gotta be a way to contain it."

"As long as it's in the painting...oh!" Dana snapped her fingers. "The Collector trapped it in the painting and transported it in a tube. I think as long as it can't see or hear us, it might be docile. So we just need to roll the painting up and then stick it inside something dark and quiet."

"I left my canvas tube in my other...coat! My coat!" Ingrid yanked at her garment. "It's very dark and quiet inside! Maybe we can fold it up or something?"

"That's a solid idea." Dana looked at the others, then back at Ingrid. "If I can get close, I can stash it in your jacket." She looked at the others. "Eulalie, I need your help."

The Arachne screamed and tried to walk, but couldn't. Lily was crawling toward the door, but kept getting sick and vomiting up smoke. Another bass note sounded, and the room started to shift again.

"It's hungry," Janey whispered in terror. "It wants to devour the living."

"Fucking hell," Ingrid muttered as she tried to shrug out of her coat. The gravity in the room had shifted toward the ceiling, causing loose furniture to tumble all around them. Something crashed into her from above, smashing her against the ceiling. She looked up to see it was a footstool and grunted as she slid out of her coat.

An object clattered on the ground, having fallen out of an interior pocket. Ingrid picked up the pocketwatch she had stolen from Anthony and shoved it into her pants pocket. If the coat was a lost cause, she felt that she should at least return this.

She had brought it in case she needed to track someone. Wincing, she tried to throw the coat in Dana's direction with her good hand.

"Don't look," Dana warned as she moved toward the coat.

"Oh, trust me. I'm--" Ingrid's stomach lurched and she popped up in the air as gravity attempted to completely flip. "Aware," she groaned.

"Can you get the others out of here?" Dana asked.

Ingrid laughed and shook her head. "I can barely get my ass toward the door, much less the others." She looked up at Eulalie and realized that the Arachne was still stumbling about. "Eulalie, what's wrong?"

"Disoriented," she mumbled. "Feel like I'm falling."

"But you can still move, right?" Ingrid tried to crawl toward the Arachne. "With your feet?"

Eulalie closed her eyes and nodded.

"Okay. I need you to get some of your webs around me and the others. Help secure us before--" The room tilted and everyone started to slide.

Tasia tumbled against Eulalie's body. The Arachne snatched up the unconscious woman and rolled her body in front of her, creating a silken cocoon. It was rather eerie how fast she moved.

"I've got Lily," Dana said, picking up the coat. She launched herself across the room and dodged the succubus' flailing tail, then picked her up by an arm and tossed her toward the Arachne. "Catch."

Eulalie snatched Lily in both arms, then wrapped her up in a similar manner. The room lurched again, and Dana started sliding into the corner.

"No, no, no, no," Ingrid wailed, clutching at the ground. A bass note sounded, and she retched as she neared the corner of the room.

Eulalie stumbled vaguely in Ingrid's direction. Dana was already in the corner of the room, and she looked up toward the outsider.

"Don't look," she said to Ingrid. "It can just barely reach up here."

Ingrid slammed her eyes shut and crawled toward Lily's mutterings. As she did so, neon colors bloomed behind her eyelids and formed into angry mouths that gnawed at the air.

"Where?" Eulalie demanded, and Ingrid gasped as an Arachne foot stomped on her arm.

"Here!" She grabbed onto the Arachne's leg and cried out as the world inverted around her. Soft hands deftly wove loops of silk under her arms and around her chest as she suddenly swung out into open air. Above her, she heard the Arachne gasp, and then felt herself fall.

"Shit!" Eulalie cried, and then Ingrid jerked to a halt. She looked up and cracked open one eye to see that the Arachne was now holding tight to strands of webbing, each of them dangling from her grasp.

The room groaned as it stretched. The mage shut her eyes tight and tried to think about anything other than the ominous whispers that formed inside her ears.

Dana slid across the floor, her legs kicking out at debris as it moved with her. Up above, the others now dangled from Eulalie's webs, far away from the grasping tentacles of the painting.

One of the tentacles shifted in her direction. There was no linear movement, it was almost like seeing a laggy video game suddenly catch up. As Dana watched the outsider move, blood vessels burst in her eyes and brain, blood flowing freely down her face as her body rushed to repair the damage.

Repair was probably the wrong word. Her cells were trying to revert themselves to the moment they had been frozen in upon her death. The room around her stank of the color yellow, and the numerous eyes that erupted on the tentacles stared at her in oil-skin vest.

Dana shook her head and backed away from the walnut, her thoughts running like a tennis ball on a sunny boat. Growling in frustration, she closed her eyes to limit her senses, scooting backward until she was far away from the thing.

"Dana!" Ingrid called out to her from up above. "Are you okay?"

The room groaned as the outsider shifted, but Dana didn't dare look again, not until she was back in her right mind. Once she felt like the word salad had passed, she chanced a look into the air and blinked in amazement.

Some of the debris in the room was floating, as if frozen in time. Others were stuck on repeat, falling down and smashing apart, only to reassemble themselves, reverse into the air and fall again. Thin silvery cracks had appeared in the air as the flow of time was so disrupted that it was somehow generating friction against itself.

At least, that was Dana's take on it. One of the silvered cracks was close enough to her that she picked up a table leg and swung it at the temporal disruption. The leg split cleanly and without resistance, leaving the piece that had broken off to hover in place.

Okay, so the silver light was a bad thing, a literal edge of time capable of trapping Dana in a temporal pocket or slicing her to ribbons. Even now, those cracks were appearing and spreading out much like Lichtenberg Figures. Dana did a quick visual sweep of the air in the hopes of predicting their patterns, but they seemed to be random by nature.

Also, the cracks were spreading up towards the others, who still dangled helplessly from Eulalie's webs. The Arachne was no longer screaming, but was now whimpering with her eyes closed.

Lily had become a human pinata of chaos, the succubus changing shapes every few seconds as she gibbered madly up above. She wasn't going to be any help, and Tasia was still unconscious. If she were to open her eyes right now, she'd be looking straight down at the painting and her mind would break.

Dana needed to hurry, but how? She picked up her swords and tried to avoid looking at the outsider. Even recalling her memories of the thing filled her mouth with the taste of dust as mothy thoughts tried to beat their way out from inside her skull.

Moving carefully, the zombie only made it a few feet across the room before freezing in place. Her super enhanced senses were picking up an odd smell in front of her. She knelt down and picked up a chunk of rock, then tossed it forward.

The rock started moving in slow motion as it eroded in the air and turned into sand.

"I can't get close!" Dana shouted, taking a step back as a tentacle swiveled in her direction.

"What's wrong?" Ingrid asked. "I can't look without microwaving my brain."

"There are weird time pockets," Dana said. "Time is running backwards in some, and super fast in others. I can't see them, and--" She leapt backward as the tentacle swung through the space she had just been occupying. Clearly, the temporal pockets weren't a problem for the outsider's tentacles, which had remained intact despite the extreme fluctuations.

"And what?" Ingrid asked.

"They could cut the coat," Dana replied. "Or me, frankly." Suddenly, there was a very real possibility that she might take three steps forward and experience hundreds or thousands of years, frozen in place with nothing but the sweeping arms of a shoggoth to keep her company. "I need a way to see where I'm going."

Ingrid groaned in frustration, then lifted her head in Dana's direction. "Hold on a second. Time is all fucked up down there, right?"

"I believe I already said that."

"This is so crazy, it just might work," Ingrid muttered, then stuck a hand in her pocket. She opened her eyes and stared directly at the wall, then slowly tilted her head in Dana's direction. "Let me know if it's about to move where I can see it."

"Not something I can do," Dana replied. In fact, the outsider was now reaching up toward Ingrid as the painting hopped up and down on the wall. "It's reaching straight for you right now."

"Hold up a sword so I can better see you where you're standing," Ingrid replied, her voice suddenly calm. She held something in her right hand. "I need to know where you are. Make sure you catch this."

Dana obeyed, and the mage tossed something across the room toward her. The zombie actually held her breath as a silvery crack appeared in the path of the projectile, but the object went just above it, the trailing chain severed at the halfway point.

Dana caught the object in one hand, then turned her attention to it.

"A pocket watch?" She frowned, then nodded. "Oh, I get it. I can watch the hand and see how it's moving to gauge temporal fields." It was better than nothing.

"Don't use it for that," Ingrid replied. "It's supposed to show you where you've been. Or, rather, where your target has been. But if time is being weird, maybe it will--"

"Show you where you will be," Dana replied with a nod. It was a desperate ploy, but far better than her plan of hoping not to get bifurcated by the physical manifestation of time itself. "How does it work?"

"You need some of the target's blood," Ingrid replied, then winced when the outsider roared. The whole room shook, and plaster fell loose from the walls. Some of Eulalie's legs ripped chunks out of the wall, causing the group to drop a few inches before the Arachne righted herself. "You put it in the back compartment and wind it!"

Nodding, Dana considered the watch and opened the back. She slid her thumb along the edge of her sword and pressed it into the cool metal of the pocketwatch, then clicked it shut.

When she wound the watch, a pulse of magical energy moved out from her in a circle and she watched as a replica of herself moved in reverse. It certainly was odd seeing her past play out like this, but she was disappointed when it didn't work like Ingrid had hoped.

The outsider's tentacles lashed out in the direction of Dana's image. Coiling like a snake, it circled the magical image's waist and squeezed.

Dana was yanked violently from behind, and was suddenly in the outsider's tentacles. Her nurse's coat withered under the creature's touch, allowing the outsider's false flesh to touch her own. Pain radiated throughout Dana's body as she realized that the watch was no longer in her hand.

The creature had somehow interacted with the past image of herself. Growling, she stabbed at the fiend and was unable to wound it.

"Dana!" Ingrid was up above, back where she had been before the outsider had roared.

"I need the pocket watch!" Dana replied. "The one in your pocket!"

"How did you know--"

"Throw it toward my voice!" Dana grunted as she was slammed against a wall, then yanked toward the painting. Using both of her swords, she jammed them into the wall and managed to catch them on a stud, the magical coat fluttering away from her. Snarling, she held firm, even though the ligaments and muscles in her shoulders were being stretched past their limit. "HERE!"

The pocket watch sailed toward her and missed by about four feet. Dana folded herself in half and opened her mouth wide to bite into the outsider and pierce its flesh.

Could such a being even feel pain? She wasn't sure. But she wasn't trying to hurt it. What she really needed was a few drops of its blood for the watch, and for the damned thing to let her go so she could use it.

Two of Dana's teeth broke before they sank into the tentacle. A hot, black fluid rushed into her mouth and she coughed half of it out of her nose and swallowed the rest.

The world came screeching to a halt as time held its breath.

At first, she couldn't move. It was only her mind that was free to ponder its own existence. It felt like a thousand razorblades were traveling through her veins as she began to shiver in her own skin. That yawning void in her stomach snapped shut, as if afraid to process the outsider's blood any further.

But that wasn't how her body worked. Like a fire slowly roaring to life, her body processed the unearthly delights now sitting in her gut. The edges of reality blurred around her as time unfolded away from her like a paper accordion.

This wasn't what she had intended. All Dana had wanted to do was put the outsider's blood into the watch. As a creature that didn't experience time, she had been hoping to predict the outsider's movements, or gain additional insights into the rifts that were forming.

Now, though, she could see the temporal warps as folds in the sheets of time, each moment a separate page. She looked back at the page behind her and met her own gaze, her mind suddenly in both the past and present as she lived two separate moments.

"Don't talk to that one," said a different Dana. She looked off to the right and saw several of the pages fold over to reveal a version of herself from several seconds ago, before she had bitten into the outsider. "Her mouth is full, she won't respond."

"But so is--" Dana was stunned to discover that her own mouth was free. She didn't so much move her head, but her entire consciousness as she looked around in every direction to see countless reflections of herself, many of them looking back at her with their own dawning realization.

"Try not to think about it too hard," said another Dana.

It felt like she was inside the four-dimensional version of a compound eye, the thought of which immediately killed a portion of her brain.

"Yeah, come over here," said a Dana up above, and Dana's consciousness fluttered forward. "There you go," she said to herself.

"Am I...are we..." asked a Dana with a busted tooth.

"Better not to ask," said another one. "Time isn't linear. That requires it to adhere to our current understanding of space."

"Though they're technically the same thing."

Dana shuddered and looked at a version of herself that seemed to be melting.

"Yeah, avoid that one," said Dana. "Possible outcome."

"That one, too," said Dana, pointing to a Dana that was on fire.

"Is this the multiverse?" asked Dana.

"Nope. Waveform probability of likely outcomes," Dana replied. "When you flip the pages, you can normalize the function."

"Non-euclidean space, non-euclidean rules," Dana added.

Dana clutched at her head and screamed. She was somehow all of them at once, yet still an individual. The accordion of time stretched even further, and she realized that she was looking at different versions of herself from hours ago, even days.

"We need to focus on folding up that painting," Dana whispered from nearby. "There's only so long we can be plugged into something like this before--"

A Dana down and to the left exploded into a mist.

"That," said several Danas.

"How long do I have?" asked a visibly frightened Dana.

"Forever," said some.

"Only seconds," said others.

In that frozen moment, Dana found the strength to grab the thing holding her by the waist and shove. Bones cracked and popped as she slithered free from the outsider while several iterations of her were crushed instead. Scowling at the potential outcome, many others sank their teeth back into the open wound and fed.

Dana felt them all, her mind swiftly organizing the experiences into an order that made sense. It was a feat that would be impossible for anybody else, but her brain was a computer now, able to study these moments at length.

She took a step forward in time and found herself once again snarled by the outsider. A step back found her free once more, and it occurred to Dana that she needed to stop thinking of time and space as something separate.

"She's beginning to believe," whispered one of her doppelgangers. Along the boundaries of Dana's vision, several of her copies had blurred away and vanished, those probabilities no longer viable. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, relishing the fact that this experience was something the world's smartest minds would kill to achieve.

"It could be arranged," said a Dana that was missing an arm. "Start eating Nobel laureates and maybe we'll pick up some of their tricks."

"Don't start eating people," cautioned another. This one was busy stabbing an Arachne. "You are what you eat."

As if to emphasize the point, a gaunt version of Dana sprinted by, foaming at the mouth and covered in blood.

"That's the point, though," One-Armed Dana said. "Achieve a bigger brain by eating the best brains."

"But genius and insanity are two sides of the same coin," replied Cautious Dana. "And we have plenty of the latter right now."

"Skreeee!" shrieked Feral Dana.

Dana took another step and her field of view shifted to the laboratory where she had been vivisected. The moment stopped her in her tracks as she realized she had stepped backward in time by several hours.

"It's all in the wrist," one Dana said as her hand crawled across the floor. "Your soul is stretched, remember?"

"That doesn't help me find that painting," Dana replied.

"Or fold it up," said another Dana who was standing nearby.

"I'm starting to think Lily has it easy," said a third, and then everyone heard the succubus scream from every direction at once. The field of view shifted to reveal Lily dangling from the ceiling, Lily laughing in the car, Lily standing naked in a cave, save for her boots.

"Okay, so maybe dragging you into an acidic lake was stupid of me," said the succubus.

"That's from too long ago," Dana muttered.

"I don't really remember that," said another.

"Heavy metal poisoning." One-Armed Dana had caught up again.

"Could you all be quiet?" Dana glared at all of them. "Why are we so chatty?"

"To make up for all the versions of you who aren't." This came from a Dana who was still in the labcoat, which was intact again. "Honestly, half of us aren't even here. Auditory hallucinations."

Everyone paused and watched as Feral Dana ran by and was promptly snatched up by a tentacle that Dana hadn't seen lying in wait. The zombie bit at the tentacle, but was promptly crushed and pulled toward the painting.

"Not this way," One-Armed Dana said, pointing in a random direction. All of the Danas pointed now, causing Dana to sigh and pick a random direction. Together, they spread out, realities collapsing behind those who wandered into their doom.

On several occasions, Dana wondered how long this strange, timeless effect would last. Those who walked with her reminded her that time was relative. Others pointed out versions of Dana still eating the eldritch being, their skin turning black as they became something else.

Dana saw her futures unfold before her. In several, she turned to dust on a dark, lifeless world. In others, she moldered beneath the ground, trapped under rubble. In far too many, she roamed the blasted landscape of Earth as the dead hunted the living all around her.

Eventually she found herself standing in a dark room with a solitary figure in the middle dressed in white. This future version of Dana had cut her hair into an edgy bob, was wearing an intact, appropriately-sized labcoat and held a blueprint in her hands. Despite being nearly identical in appearance, this one felt more mature, somehow.

She looked up at Dana with a raised eyebrow, as if expecting her arrival.

"Where is this?" Dana demanded.

"Nowhere you can get to if you don't turn around," Mature Dana replied, the smile on her lips somehow blossoming into her glowing blue eyes. "You have a full, amazing life ahead of you, but only if you go back and take care of business."

Dana frowned and looked back. Thousands of iterations of herself were involved in similar conversations with different futures. She rubbed at the dark blood leaking from her nose and nodded as those events all collided in her mind. There were so many things happening right now. Was this how the outsiders lived? Past, present, and future, all at once?

"I'd ask how to fold the painting up, but I'm guessing you'll give me some bullshit about the future affecting the past."

Mature Dana laughed, her cheeks acquiring a rosy glow to them. "You gotta grab it by the corners and fold it in half," she replied. "The outsider will be stuck that way, forced to push against its own body. Super easy, actually. Fold it a couple of times. Then wrap it up in that coat for safe transport."

Dana made a face. "It can't be that easy," she replied.

"It was quite hard, actually." Mature Dana waved a hand dismissively. "Now get going, or this future won't happen."

"Wait." Dana licked her lips. "Can I ask you something?"

"Two somethings," Mature Dana replied. "And that was one."

It was a dumb joke, so Dana rolled her eyes out of habit. "Are you...we happy where you are?"

"Insanely so. Now get." Mature Dana rolled up her drawing and smacked Dana on the head with it. "Before you mess up my timeline."

Dana turned away and found herself looking down a dark corridor that terminated in a distant light. The pages of time rippled as she flipped through them, watching all her possible futures fold themselves back up nicely. Timelines collapsed as she found herself back in the room with the painting, surrounded by the versions of herself that were currently imprisoned by the tentacle.

When Dana tried to stop, time kept flipping, as if she had gained temporal momentum. She watched events play themselves out in reverse as she tried to stop, even going so far as to slam her swords into the ground.

However, she was moving solely through time, and the swords did nothing. She watched her life unfold in reverse now, saw herself consuming the Nirumbi, fighting Tristan Edge, meeting Tasia for the first time, going out on a date with Alex. This one struck her particularly hard as she stared at her former girlfriend's face for the first time through dead eyes that would remember every little detail forever.

Alex Winters, the love of her life. Brown skin with warm undertones of red and orange and dark eyes that made Dana think of twilight, just before the first stars came out. Past Dana and Alex were standing on the balcony of a little apartment, looking out over the ocean.

The two of them held hands as Alex put her head on Dana's shoulder. Two mugs of hot chocolate sat on a nearby table, the steam dying out as the liquid cooled.

"I never expected to feel this way about someone else," Past Dana said, hugging Alex to her side. "Not this early in life."

"You peaked in college, Sparks." Alex squeezed her girlfriend and laughed. "All that's left is graduation, marriage, and getting old while critiquing each other's flannel."

"Bitch. Don't knock my flannels." Past Dana gave Alex a shove and they both laughed. Past Dana went quiet for a moment, then cleared her throat. "Do you...really think we'll get married?"

"Why wouldn't we?" Alex looked at Dana like she was the only person in the world. Dana had forgotten that look, and she quickly tucked it away under lock and key in her mind, to be safe forever.

"Cause your parents suck."

Alex sighed. "Yeah. That part will be tricky. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with them. Only you."

"No more," Dana said, trying to move forward in time again.

"Did you say something?" Alex asked as the page turned, letting Dana move back toward the present. Now she stood in a vaguely familiar kitchen, her body tied down on the dining room table as a man stood nearby, reading from a tome.

It was a variant of Latin, a nasty one. The lights in the room dimmed as he read from his book, his golden eyes thrumming with power. An undead servant stood watch at the door, oblivious to Dana's existence.

It was Daryl, the man who had made her what she was. Dana tightened her grip on both swords and took a step toward him, eager to strike.

"I wouldn't," cautioned a version of her standing in the corner of the room. She was crumbling into ashes and drifting away on an unseen breeze. "You can't change what has already happened. There's a high price for doing so."

Dana glared at the necromancer, then looked down at his implements. Her other self was right. She couldn't change the past. But maybe, if she watched the ritual, she could influence the future.

The body on the table gasped in pain as Daryl threw a net made of light over her and pulled a ritualistic dagger out of his coat. He hummed pleasantly to himself as he slit Live Dana's wrist and placed a bowl underneath her hand.

"It's only until you're dead," he said with a grin, then patted Live Dana on the head condescendingly and left the room. "Wonder if that old bitch has any leftovers, I'm starving."

Dana watched as the past version of herself mumbled in her sleep as the blood drained from her body. Despite being the size of a cereal bowl, the implement collecting Live Dana's blood never overflowed.

She was about to die, quietly and alone. Dana moved to her own side and took her former self's hand and squeezed it gently. Live Dana whispered a single word in response.

"Alex," she said with a smile, then let out a sigh of relief as she passed away. The net made of light flickered as something golden bounced against it. Daryl came out of the kitchen with a sandwich in his hands and rolled his eyes at the scene, still oblivious to Dana's presence.

"Of course you'd do this to me," he said as he took his meal back in the kitchen and turned on the sink to wash his hands. "You'll keep for a few more seconds."

Dana stared down at the bowl filled with her own blood. It smelled like hot tomato soup, with just a hint of blue cheese. When she knelt to inspect it further, she saw that it reflected the ceiling light up above in a weird way that made it look like sparks being struck from a flint.

She couldn't change the past, that was true. But much like the memory of Alex, maybe she could take something back with her, something she had lost long ago. Able to interact with previous versions of herself, she couldn't help but wonder about the blood in that bowl.

"I am what I eat," she whispered as she knelt beside it, her hair dangling away from her face. The smell of her own blood filled her sinuses, and she thought about how her future self had actually smiled.

I want to be me again, she thought. I want to be whole.

With that, she opened her lips and lapped at her own blood, somehow unable to lift the bowl that contained it. Her throat was filled with a fiery heat that spread through her body as she consumed her own blood. Even if it amounted to nothing in the end, she doubted a chance like this would ever come along again.

Her canines flexed and elongated, and she was no longer swallowing with just her mouth. The blood was being pulled into her body in a far different manner now, and she felt something deep inside of her purr with contentment. She drained perhaps a liter of blood from the bowl before staggering back and feeling at her teeth.

Dana wasn't an idiot. These were the familiar fangs of a vampyr. But how?

"You are what you eat," said a copy of her across the room with fresh blood on her mouth. Another version of Dana was lapping at the bowl like a dog, her fangs bursting free so that she could properly feed. All around her, the room filled with different iterations of Dana, each one feeding from the bowl.

"Stop," Dana said, drawing her sword. "There's not enough for everyone!"

A different Dana patted her on the shoulder. "We're not all really here," she replied. "Only one of us is. Probabilities, remember? This will all collapse into one cohesive reality once you return to the present."

"I...knew that," Dana muttered, then turned away from the others as one of them swung her sword at Daryl and fell into the corner where she would crumble into ash. She could feel her grasp on reality slipping, most likely a result of consuming her own blood which had replaced what was currently digesting in her gut.

She flipped the pages and watched as other versions of her went the other way. Their minds touched and coalesced briefly before slipping apart. Entire lives were lived out in the stolen moment Dana now occupied, her brain neatly collecting the information that mattered and discarding the things that didn't.

By the time she made it back to the time and place she was supposed to be, Dana was once more wrapped in that tentacle, her mouth full of eldritch blood.

"Go back to right before it grabbed you," said a nearby Dana, her swords raised to deflect an incoming blow from the tentacle.

"I'll grab the coat," said another, who was standing near the other side of the room. "We're gonna need it."

""And I've got the watch." This Dana was frozen in mid-air as a tentacle passed beneath her.

Dana took their advice and shifted backward just a few moments. The pocket watch was in mid-air, less than a foot from the ground. Time briefly resumed for Mid-Air Dana as Dana managed to squirm free from a tentacle that hadn't completely closed on her yet.

The tentacles waving around the room were busy pursuing different versions of Dana, each one creating a diversion. Dana dropped to the ground and held both swords up in front of her as she stared at the painting itself. The thing threatening to burst free of it still hurt her eyes, but it was a part of her now.

Throughout the room, wrinkles in time now sparkled, ready to slice Dana to bits should she cross them.

"Got it!" Watch Dana slid across the room with the pocket watch in hand as two other Dana's intercepted the tentacle with their swords. She opened the back of the watch and spat a mouthful of the outsider's blood inside, then closed it. "Ready!'

"Coat obtained!" Coat Dana tucked it beneath her arm like a football.

"Forward!" This came from a Dana who was snatched up by a tentacle and pulled through a wrinkle. She split into several pieces and showered the room in drops of blood that hovered in place a foot above the ground.

The whole world vibrated as Watch Dana twisted the dial. Suddenly, shadows of the tentacle appeared everywhere, but it wasn't just the outsider Dana saw. More iterations of herself appeared, most of them in a life or death struggle with the shoggoth as its tentacles split apart and chased them.

Of course. Her own blood had been in her mouth along with the outsider's. Reality began to break down as different versions of Dana were torn apart or destroyed as she moved toward the painting. These versions of her appeared to intercept attacks or create openings as they all moved toward the center of the room.

Nearing the canvas, they began to merge with one another. Dana ended up fused with Coat Dana first, and realized her trip into the past had seen a memory of her first kiss with Alex. Watch Dana was next, and her memories were from the college classes that she and Alex had shared.

As more and more versions of herself combined, the Dana that she used to be returned. Memories of a short life filled with intense bursts of happiness, followed by a period of grief. Others had chased bits of their childhood, those memories now cemented in place.

Dana felt a magical pressure building inside of her. Her heart thudded slowly in her chest as the pages of time disappeared, folding themselves back into a cohesive whole. Once at the painting, a trio of Danas used their swords to strike and break the frame, which attracted the attention of the outsider. They were swept away, leaving ghostly silhouettes behind.

The zombie knelt by the painting, then saw the future as the tentacles shifted to grab her. She moved to avoid the attacks, picked up the corner of the painting and folded it.

A bass note rumbled the entire world as the last three Danas knelt by her side to help her fold the canvas. Grunting with effort, the four of them pushed the canvas together, slowly merging together as the fabric of reality mended itself. There was a squeal of pain that ruptured Dana's eardrums, and then the whole world went quiet as she found herself naked and alone, lying on top of the painting and panting from exertion.

Groaning, she grabbed the other corner of the painting and folded it again. After one more fold, she tossed the coat down and laid the painting inside of it, then wrapped it up tight. In the distance, she heard something squeal, then go silent.

She fell sideways onto the floor as gravity reasserted itself. When she landed, pain flared up her spine.

"Ow! Fuck." Dana winced as she huddled on top of the coat. Her swords clattered to the ground nearby, and she closed her eyes, her brain struggling to fully adjust to the massive influx of information.

Time stopped metaphorically in the manner as her entire life flashed before her, including several potential outcomes. Several were very bad while a few were okay. Memories of the future became enigmatic smoke, and Dana's last glance at it was of an older version of herself with an edgy bob and a labcoat.

Then that, too, was gone. She took several breaths, her heart pounding in her chest as she gasped for air. It was almost a full minute before she remembered that she didn't actually need to breathe. It simply felt right.

Soft footsteps were largely muffled by Lily giggling madly in the corner. Dana looked up to see Ingrid standing over her. The mage held out a hand, which Dana took.

"I can't believe the watch thing worked," Ingrid said, oblivious to the experience Dana had just gone through. The zombie nodded, then picked up the coat and held it tight. Whatever malevolent force within seemed to have gone dormant. The mage picked up Jenny and limped over toward the exit.

"We need to go," Eulalie said. "And quickly." She had already hoisted Tasia over one shoulder and Lily over the other and was moving toward the door. The succubus whimpered quietly as she reached toward a figure none of them could see.

"Don't leave me," she cried. "Never leave me."

Dana caught up with the group and they began their ascent. The main house was destroyed, and they were almost outside when Eulalie cocked her head to one side and frowned.

"My senses are still all messed up, but the air isn't flowing right." As she said this, Tasia's eyes opened and her nostrils flared. She blinked at everybody as if confused.

"I smell gas," was all she said. "But don't hear it."

"The Collector has runes that move air around," Ingrid added. "Like a magical HVAC system. We wouldn't hear gas being pumped because of that."

"Do you think she'd blow this whole place up?" Eulalie asked.

"She is a sore loser," Dana noted, then looked at Ingrid. "You hold the coat, I'll hold you."

Ingrid nodded, then carefully accepted the parcel as Dana scooped her into a princess carry. Eulalie set Tasia down, then ran through the building, closely followed by the others. Together, they scurried through the ruined Kensington estate. Before long, Dana picked up the smell as well. It wasn't quite propane and had a weird vanilla scent.

Eulalie coughed and stumbled. Tasia moved to pass through a doorway and missed, smacking face first into the frame.

"I'm starting to hallucinate," said Ingrid. "Seeing shimmery lights everywhere."

"Hold on to that coat," Dana warned, then flipped Ingrid over her shoulder. She scooped up Tasia over the other shoulder, then ran toward Eulalie. The Arachne looked like she was drunk.

"I can't concentrate," Eulalie said. "Feel funny."

"There's not enough air to breathe," Dana replied. "Use your webs on me so I can pull you."

Eulalie nodded, then stuck her hands down to her abdomen and clumsily made a loop that she wrapped around Dana's waist. She slid another loop around Lily, and then herself. "Go."

"Tee hee, zombie sled dog," Lily muttered as Dana ran. She leapt over busted furniture and sprinted down long corridors, ignoring the rare groan of pain from mercenaries who had somehow survived Jenny's onslaught and now lay dying in the halls from the gas.

By the time Dana had the team outside the building, the others had lost consciousness. She sprinted down the main road of the estate, startling a small group of armed men who had obviously come late. They flinched when they saw her, and a couple raised their weapons in response.

Jenny's laughter filled the air and the men floated up like balloons, pinwheeling their limbs as they rose ever higher. One of them opened fire, but was unable to hit anything as the recoil caused him to spin in place.

When Dana burst onto the main road, people stopped and stared as she ran past. The armed security forces came out of their booths at the sight of a naked woman carrying two people on her shoulders while dragging a massive spidergirl behind her with a hysterical woman who currently had wings.

But Dana wasn't trying to get into Kensington Palace Road, but out, so nobody moved to stop her. She was just clear of the gate when the Kensington estate exploded behind her, the shockwave shattering windows and knocking people down. Dana leapt over a car, making sure to yank the web hard enough that Eulalie would clear the hood, then crouched down behind the vehicle and dropped the others to reel the Arachne in before the wave of heat rolled over them.

People cried out in fright as they ran, many of them ignoring Dana and the others entirely. Eulalie was gasping for air now, and had pulled her body tight against the car to use it as a heat shield. The fireball from the house rose high into the sky behind them, casting azure shadows in all directions.

"Where's our exit?" Dana asked.

"Box truck," Eulalie said, then reached into one of her pockets. "Here."

She handed Dana a cellphone, which was ringing. The zombie held it up to her ear and heard Aurora's voice.

"There you are!" she said. "I was so worried. I just saw you on the cameras before all of them went dead."

"Explosions," Dana replied. "Need extraction, and medical attention."

"For who?"

"Everybody."

"Did you make it to the main street?"

"Just barely. Huddled there right now." Dana noticed some people had come out of hiding to watch the ball of fire rising into the sky. Others were staring openly at Eulalie. "Super exposed, FYI."

"Right. Here is where you need to go." Aurora rattled off a series of directions and ended with the description of the box truck. Dana gave the phone back to Eulalie and picked up the others to begin running again.

The truck was parked only a couple of blocks away, and the few people standing nearby were giving it wary glances. It was unmarked, after all, and someone had just blown up a house. Those glances turned to shock as Dana dragged her entire team toward the back of the truck and dropped Tasia to yank open the door.

Dana set Ingrid down on the truck deck and picked up Tasia to throw her inside. Eulalie and Lily were next, then Dana climbed into the bed and pulled the door down. Ingrid was muttering something as she clung to the coat.

Someone started yelling outside of the vehicle, followed by smacking the side panel. Dana tossed Tasia through the portal first, then picked up Ingrid to carefully carry her through. Once through the portal, she set down the mage and started reeling Eulalie and Lily in.

The back door of the truck slid open to reveal a small group of people who stared in awe at the shimmering portal. A couple already had their cellphones out and recording.

"Stop," somebody shouted as Dana kicked the quick release on her side of the portal. The framing collapsed, causing the portal to snap shut. Letting out a sigh of relief, she leaned against the nearest wall and slid until she was sitting.

Nearby, Tasia coughed. "Did we make it?" she asked weakly.

Smiling, Dana grabbed her girlfriend by the hand and pulled her over, positioning Tasia so that her head was in Dana's lap.

"Yeah," she replied, stroking Tasia's hair. "We made it out."

Taking a deep breath, Dana sat with her girlfriend and waited for help to arrive.

Lily was lying in bed as sunlight streamed through the window. She clutched the stuffed bear against her stomach, sniffling hard as tears continued to run down her cheeks.

She hadn't been the same since coming face to face with the outsider last month. Well, a month in dreamtime, anyway. The succubus was dimly aware that only a couple of days had passed in the real world, but she was far happier recovering in here, in her sleep.

Between her arms, the stuffed animal shifted. It was what remained of Mike's soul, damaged and battered by the direct inspection of an outsider. Even now, the soul was repairing itself. One day, it would be as good as ever. Still, it was going to be a long road.

And she was lonely, cripplingly so. When was the last time she had felt this isolated? She honestly couldn't remember. Ever since Mike's soul had manifested as part of her subconscious, it was almost always present.

Lily felt a distant pressure in the back of her head, and then it vanished. She actually flinched when a pair of arms circled her waist from behind and held her close.

"It's just me," Mike whispered in her ear, and she felt her imaginary heart race. Spinning in bed, she turned to face him.

"Is it the real you?" she asked, touching his face to be sure.

"In the...flesh, I guess." He placed his hand against her cheek, tracing a circle beneath her eye with his thumb. "I heard you were back and would have come sooner, but..." Mike let out a sigh. "Things got too busy and I couldn't sneak away."

"I missed you, Romeo." The succubus sniffled, hating the fact that Mike could see her crying. He casually wiped a tear off her cheek, then pulled the blankets up around them.

"I won't push, but I can tell you're struggling," he said. "Rough adventure?"

She nodded. "You?"

"Yeah. I've been through worse, but..." Mike let out a long sigh. "The Fae aren't a problem anymore, and Tink is safe. The dust has settled."

"Heard that. I suppose congratulations are in order." Inwardly, she seethed with jealousy. "How did you manage to pull that off?"

"Same way I always do. Got lucky. Ended up bonding with an apex predator, gave up some of my magic, and saved an entire village. You?"

Lily sighed. "Tracked down an outsider, got my mind blended, then a witch tried to suicide bomb us."

"The Collector?"

"Yeah. I figured the others already filled you in."

He nodded. "Doesn't mean I don't want to hear your version of events. I like hearing you talk, because I missed you. There were so many times that I thought of you."

"Maybe all the women you sleep with should learn new tricks in bed," she muttered. "Then you wouldn't miss me so much."

"I missed your presence," he replied. "Kept thinking about what you would say or do in different situations. You were like the little devil on my shoulder, goading me on."

"Who was the angel?" she asked. "If I was on one shoulder, surely someone else was on the other."

He shrugged. "Guess I never thought of it that way. Didn't have anyone else riding shotgun. I mean...sure, I missed everyone. I just noticed your absence more. There were a bunch of times I was feeling particularly irreverent."

"Oh. So you missed how naughty I am?" Lily grinned, her hands sliding down his arms and onto his body.

"I suppose. And not just sexy naughty."

"But also sexy naughty?" She gave the waist of his pants a tug, and his clothing popped out of existence. Her fingers played with the skin of his already hardening cock.

Mike chuckled and gave her pajama top a tug. It disappeared as well.

"I'm saying I missed you in all your forms." His hands were gentle against the skin of her breasts, his thumb teasing out circles over her nipple. "Things felt more out of control, somehow, when you weren't there."

"Are you saying we should be exclusive adventure buddies?" she asked. With a thought, she dismissed the stuffed animal in her hands, sending the soul shard somewhere safe inside her own Dreamscape to heal. While she was still upset that it had gotten hurt in the first place, Lily now had the real thing.

"Exclusive for the big stuff, maybe." One of Mike's hands slid down her stomach until it met the smooth skin just above her clit. "I dropped a virgin down a bottomless pit. You would have liked that."

"Talk about throwing a hotdog down a cave." Lily giggled, then transformed the palm of her hand into a mouth and used it to suck on the head of Mike's cock.

Mike groaned, burying his face in her shoulder. "If we're doing sexy tricks, allow me to share one with you," he whispered.

Down below, his hand multiplied. Lily actually gasped as several hands stroked her thighs while another trio teased at her folds. She shivered when a pair of fingers penetrated her, rubbing softly at her G-spot.

The succubus closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "I forgot how good you've gotten here in the Dreamscape." Shivering with delight, she opened her eyes and moaned into his ear. "What are you in the mood for? Who do you want me to be?"

"Honestly?" He kissed the base of her neck and worked his way up. "I just want you. Let's take our time and just, I dunno...be. If that makes sense."

"You mean you don't want to just keep lying in bed giving each other weird handjobs?" The mouth on Lily's palm had grown a tongue, which was teasing Mike's urethra.

"I mean, we could. It would be a throwback to my first relationship." Mike chuckled. "But the operative word there was awkward, not weird."

"You rarely bring up your exes." Lily studied him. "Has someone been self-reflecting?"

"You tend to do that when you're dodging death all day." He shrugged. "But I'm also comfortable talking to you about anything. You've already seen most of it."

"True," Lily admitted. "Your first girlfriend did give weird handjobs." She let go of his cock and dramatically licked the palm of her hand, her tongue briefly tangling with the one there. "You just want to...cuddle?"

"If that's all you want to do, then yes. If you want something else, then I want that. Whatever you need in this moment is what I want for you."

Lily paused for a moment and looked around the room. There was no way for Mike to know that this was the home she had constructed for Ingrid's fantasy, nor that this was the same bed that a dream version of him had fucked the mage on. How could she describe the amount of desire that she had for what normal people shared every single day?

"This'll sound weird," she began. "But could you snuggle up behind me and be the big spoon."

"Of course." Mike shifted and allowed Lily to roll over in his arms. She pulled his arms over her and took a deep breath through her nose, allowing his scent to fill her nostrils. His cock twitched against her butt, and he shifted to pull it away.

"Oh, no you don't," she declared, reaching back to grab it. "I want you inside me, too."

"As you wish." He adjusted his cock and Lily lifted her leg as he slid into her from behind. She gasped as the head of his cock slid along the front wall of her vagina, her dream body stretching to make room for him.

"Fuck, you always feel so good," she cooed, gyrating her hips against his. "I don't want to go fast. Just...um...take your time."

Out in the real world, she became aware of his real body, chastely snuggled up against her own. Time out there had slowed to a crawl as Mike's breathing leveled out. He was fully asleep and in the Dreamscape with her, not just the surface scan he had done to get in. Time stretched before them now, days or even weeks, if she desired.

"How much time do you want?" he whispered in her ear, his cock stretching her out. "I could make love to you all day."

Lily actually felt her heart skip a beat. Warmth flooded her belly, then fluttered around like tiny little butterflies trying to escape. A small gush of fluid inside her demonic womb was followed by a jolt of electricity through her crotch and down her legs. She curled up into a ball and quivered as the surprise orgasm rolled through her in waves.

Mike squeezed her tight from behind, his arm tucked up between her breasts as he continued thrusting. Lily practically melted against him as her orgasm continued, causing tiny flames to dance along her skin. She cried out as another one came out of nowhere, followed by another.

"You...using...magic?" was all she managed to get out.

"Not at all," Mike replied in her ear. "I thought you were doing this."

Lily closed her eyes and pressed her rear against him, urging him to slide even deeper into her core. The room had taken on a surreal quality as her hold on the Dreamscape weakened.

They never once changed position over the hours. Mike occasionally rubbed her belly, ran his hand between her legs to tease her clitoris, or twisted her head to kiss him, but never once fully withdrew. Lily allowed the fantasy of suburban life to play through their bedroom window. Though Mike couldn't see it, their kids were busy playing with a dog out in the yard. The Hendersons across the street were making cookies for the neighborhood cookout this weekend. Lily and Mike were hosting again, as their backyard was the biggest.

The succubus wept. She wept for the life they would never have, and she wept for the love she was afraid to speak aloud, that the universe might decide to pop it like a bubble.

Mike came twice, filling her belly with hot, imaginary seed which she let run down her thighs and onto their 800-thread count cotton sheets. In this dream world of hers, it was somehow more meaningful. Just a perfectly normal man and woman blowing their whole day in bed.

"I could do this forever," she whispered. "Just lie here in your arms and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist."

"We could," Mike admitted. "But then I wouldn't get the chance to take you on an official vacation. Somewhere with a beach and bad people to eat."

Deep inside her core, Lily felt a yawning void of hunger. It had been far too long since she had fed properly. If she hadn't been all messed up, she would have done that right away after coming home.

"Are you really taking me on vacation?" she asked. "Somewhere amazing?"

"Anywhere in the world," Mike replied. "Just you and me."

"What if someone comes after us?" she asked.

"It would be the dumbest and likely last thing they ever did."

"Mmm." She turned to look back at him. "Well, since you're taking me to the beach...wanna fuck my ass?"

Mike laughed. "Absolutely," he replied.

Lily giggled, then moaned as he slowly pulled out of her. She felt a bit of pressure against her asshole that suddenly bloomed into just a twinge of pain followed by waves of pleasure.

"You really are the girl of my dreams," Mike moaned in her ear.

She came again, reaching back to clutch Mike's hand as he filled her up. It really was the perfect fantasy, ruined only by the fact that she still couldn't say the one thing she wanted to tell the man she loved.

Oh well. Maybe someday.

Eulalie's only regret about leaving the Library to help her team was the fact that she hadn't been home to see Mike and the others return from the Fae Realm. Instead, she had slept through everything as the rats and Aurora helped coordinate a proper disposal method for the cursed canvas.

Dana had maintained a constant vigil on the painting while the others were being medically treated for exposure to whatever gas they had all inhaled while fleeing Kensington. Ingrid was also in a cast for her broken wrist and walking on crutches. While soft tissue damage had been healed, her bones would need time to mend properly. The mage had declared that she was going on vacation somewhere nice with alcohol and a hot physical therapist who would absolutely cross personal boundaries with her, but was currently sucked into some Korean dramas that Tink had been watching while a team of rats catered to her needs.

Lily was just lying in bed, trying to sleep off whatever psychological malaise had settled over her. According to the rats, Mike had stopped by to lay with her for a while, but she had not stirred.

Upon waking, Eulalie had taken a platform to the location where they were planning to dispose of the painting. It was an empty room with a box hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Inside the box was the painting, rolled up in a brass tube and welded shut by Tink herself. The interior of the box had a portal on every wall, and the hole the rats had crawled out of on the top had already been sealed.

It currently dangled over another portal in the floor that had been built into a collapsible platform. The edges of this portal were hazy with instability. After much looking and lots of help from Reggie, the rats had found an abandoned pocket dimension roughly the size of a house.

Teams of rats had gone through and swiss-cheesed the place according to calculations from Tink. If the goblin's math was correct, they would have roughly seven seconds to snap the portal shut after the painting fell inside. If it worked, the place would rupture and the outsider would simply return to wherever it came from.

If it didn't work, well...at least it would be a very long time before that thing found its way back to Earth. Eulalie looked up at the box and tried to fight the revulsion and dread she felt for the thing.

Even while sleeping off the fatigue and gas inhalation, she had dreamt about being back in the room with the painting while the outsider had been trying to escape. Her senses had been sensitive enough that the experience was akin to hot needles burrowing beneath her skin in an attempt to pry it free from her skeleton.

She had accidentally gotten into some nasty bug spray as a child, the kind that had a nerve agent in it. Her stronger Arachne morphology had been able to keep her from dying, but her body had been out of whack for days after. This was similar, only now Eulalie had an irrational fear of anything in an ornate, wooden frame. Anytime she saw one, she got heart palpitations and felt dizzy.

The Arachne looked over at Dana, who just nodded.

"I think we're about ready," the zombie said.

Eulalie looked at the lever that would drop it. "Do you want to do the honors?" she asked. "You did all the work capturing it."

Dana shook her head. "If you hadn't come, we wouldn't have made it. Without your help, none of this would be possible, actually. You're the one who is always behind the scenes, working from the shadows to get the job done."

Eulalie smiled. "We could do it together," she suggested.

Dana raised an eyebrow. "It is always more fun to slay eldritch beings with friends, after all." She moved near the lever and put her hand on top of it. "How many experience points do you think this is worth?"

"At least enough to level up." The Arachne giggled, then put her hands on the lever. "Maybe we should take a break after this. No hunting people. Perhaps run a campaign for a week or two. Think Tasia would play with us?"

Dana shrugged. "No idea. You gonna run it?"

"Maybe get Uncle Foot to do it." Eulalie shrugged. "Kind of tired of being in charge of everything."

The zombie nodded. "Especially when others' lives are involved."

Eulalie sighed. "That's mostly it," she admitted. "I don't mind running things from behind the scenes when it feels safe. But this time..." She looked down at her hands and picked at the chipped nail polish that she had mostly chewed off of her thumb. "I just had this feeling that none of you would come back, and that it would be my fault. That...I don't think I could live with it. Ever since Velvet..."

The Arachne took a deep breath, suddenly unable to put her feelings into words. She stood this way for several seconds, the silence broken only by the squeaking of the lever in her hands as Dana pushed it down. The box fell from the ceiling and through the portal in the floor, triggering a sensor that promptly blew apart the wooden frame that the portal had been chewed in.

There would be no way to learn the painting's fate without asking the rats to try and chew a portal to where it had been sent. If they couldn't open one, then the outsider was successfully back where it had come from.

If it did open, there was a chance it would create a devastating implosion. Eulalie would have to trust that the goblin's math had been correct. She had no reason to doubt it.

Either way, it was done. They had tracked down the outsider and sent it packing. Mission accomplished.

"Do you know what would be fun?" Eulalie asked. "A girls' trip. To the hot springs."

"At the cabin?"

Eulalie nodded. "It's been a while since I've gone. Once Sofia is back, maybe I could spend a few days there, reconnect with the past."

"Think we could get Beth to join us?" Dana raised an eyebrow.

"Why? You trying to see her ass in a bathing suit?"

"Maybe." She grinned at the Arachne. "Tasia would appreciate it, too."

Eulalie studied the zombie for a moment, suddenly realizing just how different her behavior was. "You feeling okay?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You seem...more...everything." Eulalie made a circular gesture at Dana.

"I feel more everything." The zombie shrugged. "Ratu wants to do a checkup. Says I seem different, so...yeah."

The Arachne studied her friend. "It's a good different."

"I hope so," she replied, then looked at where the portal had been. "So...helped kill an elder god today. Wondering how I'm going to top it."

Eulalie laughed. "You should go see your girlfriend. Make sure she's okay. See if she wants to go to the cabin."

"Right." Dana walked toward the door. "I should probably introduce her to Mike, now that he's back."

"Are you sure that's safe?" Eulalie asked.

"Why wouldn't it be?" A look of doubt crossed Dana's features. "Wait. Do you think he would...that his magic might..."

"Seduce her? No." The Arachne laughed. "He's hot, I'll admit it. But his magic doesn't work that way. It sort of amplifies what's already there. So even if Tasia thought he was attractive, so what? She only has eyes for you. However..."

"However?" Dana felt her stomach drop.

"Will he try to sneak a stupid dad joke into their meeting?" Eulalie grinned. "Absolutely."

Dana relaxed and let out a small laugh of her own. "At least you aren't cursed to remember all of them. I think I'll take my chances. Dad jokes aren't the worst thing that's happened to me. Besides...I just might be dying to hear a new one." She chuckled and left, waving to the rats.

Eulalie stared at the door her friend had just left through, then looked over at the rats standing nearby. If she didn't know any better, Dana had actually meant that laugh. Running her hand through her hair, she let out a long sigh.

"Good job, everyone." She gave the rats a thumbs up. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," one of them said as the others bowed. Eulalie smiled and watched them clean for a minute before she left. The Arachne took a platform back to the observation room and climbed into her hammock. On one of the cameras, she saw Sofia talking to Aurora at the information desk with a trio of humans in tow.

"Oh, good," she said with a yawn. "The boss is back. Maybe now I can slack off a bit." Leaning back in her web, Eulalie closed her eyes and felt the tension leave her body. It had been a very long couple of days, and she was more tired than she could ever remember being.

Within minutes, she was asleep.

Dana was lying naked on a table as Ratu stood over her, the naga studying a beaker full of a luminescent green fluid. They were in Ratu's Pagoda, deep inside the Labyrinth.

"And?" Dana asked.

The naga just shook her head. "Your impatience alone is indicative of a massive biological shift." She set the beaker down and swiped her hands over Dana as if clearing away cobwebs. The hundred or so acupuncture needles that had been sunk into Dana's skin leapt free of her and promptly disposed of themselves in a portable forge nearby.

"That wasn't an answer."

"Because I don't have one." Ratu handed Dana a robe, which she accepted. Ratu picked up a journal with Dana's name on the cover and flipped it open. "Your status before varied wildly depending on your diet. Consumption of magical semen fed you, but provoked overwhelming feelings of lust and pent up emotions afterward. Your vampyr diet increased physical attributes, such as speed and strength, but didn't elicit emotional states. However, despite my methods of examination, you were always dead."

"Right."

"Allow me to clarify. After feeding, your body would mimic natural movement, such as your heart beating, a pulse, breathing in and out. However, there was no..." The naga paused and chewed at her fingernail. "You weren't alive. It was a facsimile. You were a ghost piloting a meat suit, your soul intertwined with your body on a cellular level."

"Isn't that what I still am?"

Ratu shook her head. "You and I both know that isn't true anymore." She gestured at a nearby seat, which Dana took. The naga sat down across from her, then poured herself a cup of tea. She watched the steam come off of it, then took a sip. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Good, I guess."

"I believe your experience eating the bodily fluids of an outsider, which was colossally stupid, by the way, altered you in an unexpected manner."

Dana cocked her head to one side. "You don't think it was from going back in time and drinking my own blood?"

Ratu snorted. "I want you to sit with your own question for a moment and think about how ridiculous it was. Your continued diet of vampyr flesh altered your morphology to the point where you are able to better process the life energy in blood. Let's add to this that we have no idea what attributes you may have gained from your little feeding frenzy in the Collector's basement--"

"I wrote you a list," Dana offered.

"Which is circumstantial at best." The naga shook her head. "You consumed the flesh of a being that exists outside the rules of time and space, thus allowing you to briefly exist in the same manner. The way you explained it to me is that you were essentially a living probability field."

"That's right."

"Which I had to go ask Tink to explain to me," the naga grumbled, then altered her voice in an imitation of Tink. "Dead hottie become wave function, like perfect tits smashed together, make best outcome!"

"If the shoe fits," Dana muttered.

Ratu rolled her eyes. "You've regained most of your memories from when you were alive, thus helping you re-establish a more complete version of your identity. Consuming your own lifeforce did...something to you on a cellular level. I'm not quite sure what, but it seems to have undone some of the damage of your death. Well, ego death, if we're being specific."

"So what now?"

"What, indeed." Ratu tapped her fingers on the tea mug. "I had ideas before on how to restore you using the Dragon Seed, but I no longer see this as a viable option. The magic of the seed was meant to become an artificial lifeforce, capable of reversing your undeath. Now, however, you've reacquired a portion of your own natural lifeforce, which has placed you down a path I need to study more before doing anything else. Maybe this is just temporary, and you will revert to your undead state in a few more days."

Dana shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "I don't feel any different, though. Usually when I eat something, the hunger comes back, or I feel that energy slowly leaving me."

"That's because that energy was artificial. Just like a donated organ, your body will reject it eventually. But this?" The naga squinted at Dana. "Huh."

"Huh, what?"

"Just a stray thought. Anyway, I have no concerns about your current well being." The naga stood, and Dana joined her. "That will allow me to return to a previous project."

"Does it have to do with that pile of rubble out front?" Dana asked, referring to the small mountain of broken stone figurines.

"It does. I had to turn away from tracking them down whilst working on our Fae problem, but now I can return to my duty. I firmly believe these statues are a product of the Collector, who you said had various entities trapped inside of things. It looks like she found ways to gift them to past Caretakers over the years, essentially establishing an army within our own walls."

"For what purpose, do you suppose?"

Ratu shrugged. "An insurance policy, perhaps? Should the Caretaker move forward in the game, maybe she could swoop in and claim that progress for herself. Or maybe it's a similar situation to what she did at the Kensington estate. A way to burn everything down when she is losing."

Dana frowned. Both of those were good options, honestly. "Do you need any help?" she asked.

"Not currently," Ratu replied. "I have plenty of people helping me locate them right now. However, what disturbs me is that new ones have been found in the castle that Mike brought back from Avalon. Pieces of armor, random decorations, those kinds of things."

A couple of days after returning from Avalon, the home had expanded again. This time, it was the result of Mike bringing back some weird amalgamation of Camelot and other medieval castles that had all been blended together in some pocket world. The main house was still largely intact, though there were now new doors and hallways to explore.

Dana's observatory had been restored to its original location atop of a tower that rose up over the home like an ever watchful sentinel. Abella was constantly giving Mike advice on how to reorganize the structure of the building to better suit their needs, especially now that a family of gargoyles had moved in to bolster its defenses.

It was no longer just a home, but a fortress that promised safety for all of its inhabitants. What had once felt cramped for personal space now had plenty of breathing room for all of its occupants.

Even its newest resident werewolf.

"Well, if you want someone to help you sniff them out, Tasia would be happy to contribute."

Ratu chuckled. "Is she tired of babysitting duty?"

"Not yet," Dana replied. "But her strengths really are geared toward fighting."

"Which we hope to avoid." Ratu let out a small sigh. "I assume she will get her opportunity to shine soon enough. After all, there's always someone coming."

Dana bid the naga farewell and headed to the house through a shortcut portal that dropped her into a small, stone room just off the new rampart. With the addition of the castle, the rats were busy redoing their portal network to make travel between all of Mike's properties much smoother.

Stepping through the massive home, she could actually sense the boundaries where reality had been broken down and stitched back together. Ever since consuming eldritch flesh, she had discovered a new sense for such things, especially the seams between worlds. It felt similar to that tingling sensation she used to get when her foot would fall asleep and wake up, only she experienced it at a distance.

It didn't take her long to find Tasia. The werewolf was out front with Grace and Callisto. The centaur was spending all of his time at the home lately, and had taken to Tasia pretty fast. It was clear that the boy had a small crush on her, which Dana chalked up partially to the fact that Tasia wasn't one of his many adopted aunts.

Currently, Tasia was wearing a blindfold, her hands extended as she sniffed the air and carefully stalked the children. Dana wasn't certain about the rules of the game, but Tasia was now moving toward Callisto.

"You should eat less sausage for breakfast," Tasia declared, and then leapt the last ten feet toward the boy. Callisto took off like a shot, trying to hold back his own laughter. Grace watched quietly as Tasia blindly ran after the centaur, then turned to look at Dana with her unblinking gaze.

"Are you having fun?" Dana asked.

Grace nodded, then looked back at Callisto. "Too slow," she declared, pointing at Tasia.

"She's faster as a wolf," Dana replied.

"Too scary," Grace solemnly declared, clutching Jenny to her chest. The doll had been largely silent upon returning to the house, content to return to the arms of the little Arachne. Ever since her breakdown at the Collector's estate, she seemed hesitant to manifest.

"How did it go?" asked Ingrid, who sat on the swing of the porch, her legs propped up on a small ottoman.

"Doctor said I'm healthy," Dana replied.

"Liar."

"For a dead girl," Dana amended.

Ingrid smirked. "There we go." She smiled at the children. Grace was now running behind both Tasia and Callisto, as if afraid she had been forgotten.

"You just visiting today?" Dana asked.

Ingrid shrugged. "I'm on bed rest until my bones are better. Then maybe some physical therapy."

"Staying for dinner?"

"Mmhmm," Ingrid replied. "I heard that Sofia is cooking something delicious."

Much like Tasia, Ingrid had been offered a place to stay within the walls of the Radley home. Unlike Tasia, Ingrid had declined the offer of a room, instead opting to make a permanent residence in the Library. After a long talk with Mike and Eulalie, Ingrid had decided the best and safest place for her was on the Rat Queen's payroll.

Two demons had been sent after Ingrid since their return. Both of them had suffered grievous harm and been sent packing by members of the house.

Dana leaned on the wall with her arms crossed. "You let your old boss know you moved on yet?" she asked.

"Through unofficial channels," Ingrid replied. "He needed some extra reassuring that this was the right move for my team. It's kind of sad, really. I can tell how much he cares for her, you know? But they can't ever spend any time together."

Dana frowned and thought about her own father. She hadn't exactly treated them well since her death. Maybe she was finally in a good enough place to try and build that relationship back up.

That was a tomorrow problem, though. She waited until Tasia chased the kids closer to the front porch to get her attention.

"I'm headed back to my room," she said. "Do you wanna come with, or stay and play?"

Tasia was currently dragging Callisto across the yard while the boy laughed. Grace was clinging to her back and playfully bonking her on the head with a fist.

"You just working on your telescope?" Tasia asked, pausing to lift her blindfold.

"Tink is already up there, so yeah."

"I'll hang out here for a bit," Tasia replied. "Maybe eat a horse."

"Nooooo," Callisto cried, then broke free and sprinted away. Grace tried to stick her fingers in Tasia's mouth.

"Eat spider," she declared. Tasia playfully nibbled at the Arachne's digits, which seemed to satisfy her.

Dana watched the group tumble off. She and Ingrid exchanged a few more pleasantries before she made her way up to Merlin's tower. Apparently, that was what her rooms used to be before a previous Caretaker had stolen them. This was one of many things Mike had learned during his time in Avalon,

Up in the tower, Tink looked up from a gear mechanism, her face covered in grease. Her belly was still swollen from pregnancy, but the stress lines on her face had vanished ever since Mike had given her the life essence of the Fae to undo her dangerous condition.

"Dead girl back," she declared. "Tink do all work."

"Where's Kisa?" Dana asked.

"Cat girl lazy, want nap." Tink put a handful of grease into her mouth, then chewed on it and spat onto a rod in her hands. She shoved a gear into place, then paused to look up at Dana. With a lewd smirk, she moved the gear up and down as if jerking a dick.

"Glad to see you're feeling better." Dana looked up at the mechanism above. After her return from the Collector's home, she had taken one look at the structure above and promptly disassembled most of it. Without fully understanding why, she had somehow seen all of the mistakes that had gone unnoticed before. Whistling quietly to herself, she took the mechanism from Tink and climbed up the ladder to get it in place.

Up above, a series of metal brackets were holding the device apart, much like retractors during surgery. Part of the bracket unfolded itself into a metal fist, which tapped against itself in morse code.

"She did what with my spanner?" Dana asked.

TickTock replied with more taps.

"Hey!" Dana looked down at Tink. "What have I told you about my tools?"

Tink just cackled to herself, clearly pleased.

"Dirty little goblin," Dana muttered, making a note to wipe all her tools down later. Turning her attention back to Tick Tock, she leaned her forehead against the mimic as she wrestled the mechanism into place. "How are you doing? Good?"

Tick Tock tapped in the affirmative.

"I can't believe I didn't see this before," she muttered to herself. "Spent all those months wrestling with this project when I could have been done in just a couple of weeks. Did you know I was making mistakes?"

Tick Tock answered in the negative.

"Well, at least you weren't hiding it from me," she replied. "I guess I just needed a little inspiration or something. I don't know. Maybe it was something I ate."

Tick Tock tapped something in response. Dana tilted her head to process what had been said.

"What do you mean I have my spark back?"

Tick Tock repeated itself, but was unable or unwilling to elaborate. It didn't really matter,. Dana would probably figure it out later. Speaking of later...

"Hey, Tink," she called. "What would you think if I cut my hair a little shorter? I'm thinking a bob, maybe shoulder length, cut at an angle."

"Tink think dead girl look good," the goblin replied. "Much more fuckable."

"I can always rely on you for honesty," Dana replied with a chuckle.

"Wolf girl fuck dead girl anyway," Tink added. "No see hair while eating pussy."

"Thank you, Tink," Dana grumbled. The little goblin cackled again.

Some things about living in the Radley house would always be chaotic. Dana's life since dying was always going to be complicated. She had accepted that long ago.

But now that Tasia got to be a part of this new life, Dana felt complete in a way that was warm and familiar. Later tonight, after dinner, maybe she and Tasia would go hang out with mermaids or something. The options were limitless, and she no longer felt alone.

Humming to herself, Dana gave some of the gears a test spin, officially in her happy place.

Alexandros was walking to his bed from the shower when a shadow shifted in the corner of his room. With a well practiced motion, he dropped the towel around his waist and slid free a blade that he carried with him everywhere.

"Identify yourself," he demanded, now properly armed, but naked.

An older woman strolled forward from the shadows. "Well, now, Alexandros. I'd say this is no way to greet an old friend, but," her gaze lingering on his crotch. "Perhaps this is exactly how you should greet one."

Alexandros winced inwardly, but kept his emotions hidden. "I was unaware we were friends," he said, collapsing the blade down to the size of a dagger. He set it on a nearby table and picked up his towel. If the witch standing before him wanted to kill him, the sword really wouldn't matter.

"Ah, well. I get that sometimes." The woman Alexandros knew as the Collector chuckled and moved to the nearest window to look outside. "I apologize for not announcing myself, but I wasn't sure if this would be a quiet conversation or an ambush."

"An ambush? Why would I ambush you?"

In the reflection of the window, the Collector raised an eyebrow. "Either you really don't know or you are the best liar the Laskaris family has ever seen."

"You have me at several disadvantages," he admitted. "If you would elaborate for me, I--"

"This is about your daughter." The Collector turned and rotated the broomstick she was holding so that it was horizontal. She sat on it like a chair and pulled out some yarn from a bag around her shoulders, followed by crochet hooks.

"You saw her? Where?" Ever since training Tasia in advanced swordsmanship and battle techniques, he had been careful to keep his physical distance, allowing her and her new team to remain autonomous. It had been several days since he had heard from them, which implied that something rather big had happened.

"I don't suppose you could tell me where she is." The witch held up a patch of fabric, rotated it into position to find the loose threads, then slipped the hooks in and started crocheting.

"I honestly don't know," he said. "Ever since the incident in Florida, she's been on the run." Both statements were true. It was unwise to lie to witches, especially this one. The only reason he hadn't tried to sneak away or outright kill her was that neither were possible. Not only was the woman extremely powerful, but she and the Order went way back. In fact, she often provided beasts for new knights and mages to hunt for practice, though the lower echelons were unaware of this arrangement. In the last century, cryptids had become harder to locate, which meant it was hard to train new people to kill them.

Turning on her now would result in a quick death at best.

"She hasn't tried to contact you?"

"Not to my knowledge." This question here was precisely the reason why Ingrid was in charge of getting ahold of him.

"I see." The woman was no longer looking at him. Her focus was on her crochet. "She is running around with a former Order mage. A woman named Ingrid. Would you know anything about that?"

"Sister Ingrid...well, just Ingrid now. She left the Order after the Maui Incident. I did have a meeting with her regarding her future with the Order, but she chose the path of a private consultant, a freelancer, if you will."

The Collector took in this information quietly, then inspected her threads. Alexandros calmly walked over to his wardrobe to retrieve a pair of pants, doing his best to avoid thinking directly about Ingrid in case the witch tried to read his mind.

"It's interesting how many Incidents the Order has experienced of late," she finally said. "Especially in the last eighteen months. The Florida Incident. The Maui Incident. The Radley Incident."

Alexandros frowned. "That last one isn't really public knowledge," he said.

"Oh, please. You act as if your organization has secrets from me." The witch cackled, clearly quite pleased with herself. "Do you think I haven't read the classified debriefs on all of those? The Order has a leadership problem."

Alexandros nodded. "One I hope to rectify," he added.

"With those men and women in your courtyard?" she asked.

He shook his head. "The Fae Guard are meant for problems that our limited personnel cannot handle," he said. "I have no intention of taking over the Order from within. The Laskaris family are meant to be a guiding hand only in the darkest of times. We are warriors, not leaders."

"You may be the only one who sees it that way." The witch lifted her crochet project to examine it, then continued working. "So you can't tell me anything regarding the whereabouts of Ingrid or your daughter?"

"Last I knew, they were seen around Europe." When the witch looked up at him, he shrugged. "I have people actively seeking them. My daughter is on the Wanted list."

While this was true, he didn't add that he had picked some of the least competent people to do this. The fact that Basil regularly fed them false intel kept his hands even cleaner.

The witch clucked her tongue. "I must admit, I wasn't expecting to believe you. I guess that's one dead end." She sighed. "I don't suppose you have any information about a succubus who might be helping them."

"They are shape shifters," he replied. "Tracking down a succubus is very--"

His phone chirped.

"That's from me," the Collector said. "Go ahead and open it."

Alexandros picked up the phone to see she had texted him an image. It was a woman with black and red hair standing in a stairwell with her legs spread and her tail shoved up between them.

"Ummm..." He coughed into his hand, and looked up at her. "I do know who this is, but I'm not sure how this relates to my daughter."

"Oh, they're working together." The woman grinned sweetly at him. "So where can I find this creature?"

Alexandros badly wanted to lie, but could sense a trap closing in around him. Even a cursory glance at the paperwork from all three incidents the Collector had provided would mention this demon. He supposed she was trying to gauge his willingness to hide information, to perhaps expose him as a Radley sympathizer. But he knew better.

"If it's the same creature I'm thinking of, her name is Lily."

"Lily?" The Caretaker paused and looked up. "Who is her master?"

"Unknown," he replied. "She, uh...has been seen in the company of the Radley family." Anything beyond a cursory glance would share this information as well, but he felt bad admitting it. The last thing he wanted was to throw the Radley family under the bus, but this was cleary some sort of test.

"Interesting. Are you aware that they have an Arachne in their employ?"

"WHAT?!?" This time, outrage escaped him. He cleared his throat and shook his head. "Certainly, they don't," he added. "We even have the Oracle on record saying--"

"That bug has been leading you by the nose for decades," she replied, then tied some knots in her knitting project and slid it onto her head. The hat was functional, but not very decorative. "It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he lied to you somehow. How does it look?"

"Fine?"

"It's a rush job, I know. Lost my favorite one over the Atlantic." The Collector stood and snatched up her broom. "I suppose that you and I have no business to share, then. I'll be on my way."

"Wait." He held out a hand, then quickly retracted it. Alexandros didn't want to be seen as a threat. "Are you...going to the Radley house? I would caution you that even a woman of your immense talents will find difficulty there."

"Oh, I have no intention of bothering Mike Radley," the Collector said with a grin. "That hasn't worked out for anyone who has tried. One doesn't kill a bear by walking into its den, after all."

"You're going to kill him?" Alexandros' voice went up an octave.

"Why would I do that?" She pushed open the nearest window and stared outside. "Let's just say that my son and I finally have a common enemy. It would give us the perfect opportunity to reconnect. With a little luck, I'll be hearing from him shortly." The Collector gave Alexandros a little bow, stepped backward onto the window ledge, cackled and fell out into the darkness.

Alexandros ran to the window and watched a shadow race away through the sky, temporarily blotting out the stars in passing. He shivered, unsure if it was the fact that he was mostly naked by the window, or what the Collector had said before unceremoniously dumping herself out the window.

"Did she say...son?"

And with that, I bid this series adieu. I hope you've enjoyed my murderous lesbian romp around the world, cause I had so much fun writing about all the mayhem, murder, and magic that I could cram into three books of side-story. I appreciate everyone who has dropped in to tell me how much they loved the tale.

~Annabelle Hawthorne