Chapter 27
Timothy
After the previous unexpected visit from Farrow, I found myself hoping he’d turn up more frequently. It was always disappointing to go to bed at midnight on my own and wake up the next day without a visit. I felt like a kid who woke up on Yule morning with an empty stocking.
Although in my case, it was an empty hole.
On what should’ve been his regular day, he didn’t show at all.
I waited up until two am, my anticipation chilling to disappointment and then fear.
I examined the tracker he’d given me, wondering if there was a way to communicate with him.
It didn’t seem fair that I had to wait around for him, though I appreciated the box of groceries that showed up at the door.
I’d barely been asleep two hours when one cat began trying to destroy the house. Something crashed, and a cat yowled.
I swore as I pulled on pants, hoping that the cats weren’t attacking Farrow.
No, he’d have called my name by now, and he wouldn’t have appeared out there; he would’ve stepped out of the wardrobe.
He arrived beneath a kid’s bed in the apartment block and used cupboards to move between rooms and apartments.
What if it was an intruder? How many people knew that the woman who owned the apartment was away?
I glanced around the room, looking for a potential weapon, but all I had were three oversized dildos.
While they might give an intruder a scare, and potentially do some damage if misused, they weren’t the kind of thing I wanted to brandish at someone holding a knife or gun.
However, I didn’t have any other options.
I picked up the heaviest one, at least I could throw it at someone, and cracked open the bedroom door.
One cat hissed, and another was doing that super weird I’m-going-to-fuck-you-up noise.
The third was probably lurking in the shadows, waiting to trip me up.
It was always the same cat I fell over, and I’m sure it was deliberate.
No doubt they gave each other high-fives after messing with me.
“I hate cats,” someone said.
“They don’t like you either,” a deeper voice responded.
I froze in the hallway, my heartbeat drowning out every other sound and echoing off the walls. There were at least two people in the apartment. My gut tightened as I realized there was a terrible third option—that my father had told the hunters about me and they’d found me.
I took a step back, intending to shut myself in the bedroom and barricade the door. Not that a door would stop the hunters for very long. Could I escape through the bedroom window? Possibly, I’d have to climb across to the fire escape, and I was five floors up.
I turned ready to put the half-baked plan into action when something stepped out of my room. I yelped and threw the dildo at the massive dark shape before my brain processed what I was seeing.
It wasn’t human. It was huge and hairy, and it caught the dildo with one hand and chuckled. “Is this all you’ve got?” he growled.
“Timothy Trapping, you’re under arrest for using magic,” a monster said behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder, not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a lavender praying mantis with a very humanoid face.
It was a nightmare. That’s what this had to be. I’d been waiting for my monster, and now my brain had conjured up more monsters. Except I felt very awake.
“Magic?” That was a dumb thing to say. Of course, I knew about magic.
“The golden glow that forms under your bed?” the hairy monster said, still holding the dildo.
“Get him into the bedroom, so we can get away from these damn cats before they grow any braver.” The third monster grumbled from behind the praying mantis.
The hairy one wrapped a massive hand around one of my arms and tugged me into the bedroom. Even though I tried to resist, it was pointless. He tossed me onto the bed, and for a heartbeat, I thought this was all going to go sideways, skid off the road, roll down a cliff, and burst into flames.
Hairy placed the dildo on the bed next to me. “Sit still, sorcerer.”
The other two monsters crowded into the room and shut the door.
This room was full when it was just me and Farrow. Now there was no room even to breathe. I sweated even though I was only wearing track pants.
One of them turned on the light. I squinted and lifted a hand to my face.
“It’s him. The tattoo matches the description.”
“Put your hand down,” the praying mantis monster ordered, and when I didn’t do it fast enough, Hairy did it for me. “Facial recognition confirmed.”
“What’s going on? I didn’t use magic. I made a few wishes.” Yeah, that was technically magic, but it’s not like I was doing magic to hurt anyone. And I hadn’t made any wishes since Farrow warned me.
“Same thing,” Praying Mantis said.
Hairy pulled my wrists together and slapped metal handcuffs of the non-fun variety on them.
“Wait, can I dress? Where are you taking me? I can’t just disappear. I’m house sitting. Who will feed the cats?” How will Farrow find me?
The tracker.
I needed to grab the tracker that was sitting on my bedside table next to my phone and a rather obvious pump bottle of lube in preparation for a fun night.
This was not my idea of fun.
“Don’t worry about the cats. You can make a call from the other side of the bridge,” Hairy said. “As for clothes, they will be provided in prison.”
“What? No, I can’t be arrested. This has to be a mistake.” I wanted to tell them I had a monster boyfriend, but that meant dropping Farrow in the shit, and I didn’t want to point them in the direction of his Steam channel either, as they might add other charges. “Do I get a lawyer?”
The other monster laughed. “What happens to you after we deliver you, I don’t care about. Our job is to identify and catch you.”
Hairy pulled me to my feet. “Which we have done. Do you want your toy?”
There was something about the way he said it that suggested he knew about the channel. “Am I allowed to pack a bag?”
“No,” Hairy said.
“Can I take my phone? Otherwise, I won’t be able to call someone to take care of the cats. It has all my phone numbers on it.”
One of the cats started scratching at the bedroom door.
If it had only been one monster in my room, I might have tried to fight. But three? All of whom were a foot or two taller than me? I didn’t stand a chance.
Hairy nodded. “You may pick up your phone.”
I did, and I scooped up the tracker and put it in my pocket along with the phone, which was super awkward with my hands cuffed together. “If I vanish, leaving all my stuff, the human authorities will look for me. My father will think I’m dead.”
“If we do our job right, everyone will think you’re dead.” Praying Mantis smiled. In the light, they didn’t look that much like a praying mantis, but they did have lots of weird, hard scales covering their body, or at least the bits I could see.
All the monsters were wearing a uniform, even though they seemed to be wearing different versions because they were all built differently. And each piece of the uniform had a logo on it, and what I assumed was their name written in a language I couldn’t read.
Hairy crouched and dragged me to the floor with him. Beneath my bed was the swirling golden vortex, far bigger than I had ever seen it, but then I only looked after Farrow was gone.
Oh shit. They were really taking me across the bridge.
“Don’t try anything stupid, as those cuffs will bounce any magic straight back on you,” Praying Mantis said from the other side of me, where they were now crouched. They placed a limb on the back of my head, pushing me down further.
Then I was tumbling across.
Or at least my stomach was tumbling.
I tripped, but was held upright by Hairy, and when I looked up, I was no longer in the bedroom. I was… I had no idea where I was.
The room was much bigger than the bedroom, pale blue and sterile, and all smooth surfaces. Hairy kept hold of my arm, as if expecting me to make a run for it. Run where?
I was in Farrow’s world, and I had no idea where he lived or how to call him. And if I only got one call, I didn’t want to use it on the cats.