I went out to the porch and sat down with my coffee. The field was dark and quiet, and the portal would open in a few hours. Tomorrow morning I’d be driving into Wapa Lake territory and sitting down with Dracula’s daughter. I wasn’t worried about it, exactly. We had a good case and decent manners, and in the worst case she said no and we kept doing what we’d been doing. But having some backup would be nice, and I was looking forward to having a night off every once in a while.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text from Miller’s number.

  “I assume you know the way into Wapa Lake, but GPS’s don’t work in there, so just in case: The bridge is on County Road 9, half mile past the old mill. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  A second one came right after.

  “Good luck, Becker. It’ll be nice to make you someone else’s problem.”

  I chuckled at that and pocketed the phone. I decided to get a few hours of sleep before the portal fight. Tomorrow I was going to meet the Countess with my party, and I had a good feeling it was going to go just fine. Probably.

  Chapter 17

  The drive took about thirty minutes, no biggie. Just about everything was at least thirty minutes from my place, and Wapa Lake was one of the closest towns.

  Living near Wapa Lake also meant I was already used to the days being shorter than they should be, but actually crossing into the territory was… something else. It was ten in the morning and it looked like somebody forgot to turn the sun on. The temperature dropped about ten degrees over the span of a hundred yards, too, which was a cute little thing to notice. I rolled up the windows after that revelation.

  “So it begins. We have entered her domain,” Elysia said from the passenger seat in a high pitched but ominous voice. Her voice sounded a little off because Juniper was riding inside her body. Twenty feet of snake woman doesn’t fit in a sedan, you see, so the workaround was stuffing Juniper’s consciousness into Elysia’s head while her physical body stayed home in a warded sleep. Elysia had only agreed to it after extracting a formal promise that Juniper would not rearrange the royal furniture, per se, while she was in there.

  Clementine sat in the back seat in her boots and beanie. Her ears were tucked flat under the knit fabric and her tail was curled around her own waist under an oversized coat. Portia was beside her wearing a white blouse and the beret, which had survived the great formality debate. She was also wearing a leash attached to her collar, but it was a very short one and I made her tuck it inside the blouse.

  That was a metaphor for our relationship somehow.

  If you squinted and didn’t think about it too hard, we looked almost normal. Just a normal guy with the physique of a Greek god driving three women so hot that it was frankly suspicious in Los Angeles let alone Bum-Fuck Wisconsin. Perfectly normal.

  The first skeleton appeared about two miles in. It was just standing on the shoulder of the road holding a lantern in one bony hand.

  “Sentries,” Elysia said, and Juniper’s voice came through underneath hers, which was creepy every time it happened. “She knows we’re here.”

  Cool. So the vampire teenager had her own skeleton surveillance network. At sixteen I had a car from the eighties and a C-minus in geometry. Also, Tammy Robinson tried to put a finger in my butt when we made out at the cinema and I’ve never been comfortable in movie theaters ever since.

  More skeletons lined the road as we got closer to the lake. Some held lanterns, some held weapons, and one was holding a phone, snapping a photo of us I was pretty sure. Surreal to say the least.

  We reached the town proper and I got my first real look at Wapa Lake from the inside. The sidewalks had a healthy population of humans, former humans, and things that had never given being human a fair shake. A human woman and her kids was buying ice cream from a cart run by what was clearly a literal demon in an apron. A group of teenagers were arguing about who got to grind a rail on their skateboard next, which was fine, but one of them was covered in fur. I wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be.

  I also took note of the technology, or rather the lack of it. The cars parked along the street were all from the early 2020s or older. The shop signs were neon and fluorescent, nothing digital. A guy walked past my window talking on a phone that I was pretty sure was an iPhone 14, which was about seventeen years out of date. The whole town felt like it had been frozen in time around 2023 and nobody had gotten around to thawing it out.

  A zombie fellow in a peaked cap stepped into the road ahead of us and held up one hand. I stopped the car. I didn’t think running over a cop would be a great start to our diplomatic mission.

  It walked to my window, leaned in, scanned me, scanned Elysia, turned its skull toward the back seat where Clementine and Portia were doing their best impressions of normal humans, and then made a note on a clipboard with a pencil that it had no business being able to hold so damn dextrously. It stepped back and pointed us toward a white Honda Civic idling at the curb.

  “I think that’s our escort,” I said.

  The Civic pulled out ahead of us and we followed it down the main road at a pace that suggested our skeleton driver was in absolutely no hurry. We passed the Pump N’ Go gas station on the left. Pump N’ Go was the best gas station chain in Wisconsin, barring maybe Kwik Trip. I nodded with approval at the welcome sight. “Their hot dogs are fuckin’ sick,” I said, elbowing Elysia.

  “Then those dogs must certainly visit a physician!” Portia exclaimed sadly.

  A block further was a larger building with a familiar sign that made her gasp and press her face against the back window.

  “W-MART! Master! They have a W-Mart! Do you think they have bones?!”

  “Definitely. But focus”

  “I AM focused! On the bones! I like the green ones that are good for my teeth!”

  I sighed. “I brush your teeth every night. You don’t need yet another bag of green dental chews.”

  Across from the W-Mart was a motel called the Weekend Inn, which had a blinking vacancy sign and a parking lot full of cars. The Civic turned left past the motel and there was the castle.

  It was an actual castle in the middle of small town Wisconsin, ill fitted to the block it was supposed to occupy. It had towers, parapets, the whole medieval package, sitting at the end of a short road across from a gas station. I laughed out loud at it, then quickly shut myself up.

  “It’s a little moody looking, but it’s very elegant,” Elysia breathed from beside me, and I felt a spike of raw longing through the bond. “Josh, look at the parapets! When we had our kingdom, we had towers, and I miss them every single day!”

  I nudged her, chuckling as a bolt of inspiration struck me. “Wanna parapet deez nuts?”

  Elysia’s eyes widened. “Certainly. But now?”

  I frowned. That was not what I expected.

  We parked in front of the castle and got out. It was cold, and the whole street had this cozy gothic horror apocalypse vibe that I wasn’t totally mad about.

  A girl that had to be Anya Beaumont was waiting at the front gate.

  She was about four-ten, which made Elysia look tall by comparison. She had long black pigtails past her shoulders, pale skin, bright red eyes, and a school uniform with a plaid skirt, blazer, knee socks, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. She looked like she should be worrying about algebra homework and the homecoming dance, except for the eyes and the little fangs poking over her lower lip even with her mouth closed. They were like two snaggletooth points that made her look permanently unimpressed. She was kinda adorable, honestly.

  An enormous skeleton stood behind her, wearing a cloak. It was seven feet tall at least. It didn’t move or say anything for the time being, so I decided not to ask about it because I was getting the sense that asking questions in this territory would eat up the whole day and make me seem pretty annoying to our impatient-looking host.

  “You’re the Becker dude.” She had a light Romanian accent that made my boring-ass name sound cooler than it deserved. She looked me over the way you’d look at a menu you weren’t excited about. “Your arms are so huge. You and my dad would probably get along.”

  I gave her a meaty thumbs up. “Sounds like a cool guy.”

  “I guess. Come in, or whatever. I took a half day for this, so I need you out of here by twelve or my chemistry teacher is gonna flip.”

  “Yes ma—” I started, and then caught myself because calling a four-ten teenager “ma’am” felt like a weird choice even by my standards. “Yep. Thank you.”

  She shrugged, turned, and walked through the gate without checking if we were following. The cloaked skeleton was following behind her, but he looked back at me and waved kind of awkwardly. I waved back.

  “Do you play Dungeons & Dragons, my guy?” the skeleton said in a scratchy but deep voice.

  I arched a brow. “It’s been a while, but I know how to play.”

  “Fuck yes,” he chuckled. “My name’s Death. Friends call me D-Bone. Me, Joel, Bev, and Hot Randy sometimes go to Hell to play D&D with Justin and Trev. No one’s playing a barbarian right now if you’re interested. Assuming you’re going to be around often.”

  I blinked a few times, a cold sweat going down my back. “Uhh. I mean, I guess I could—”

  “Fuck yes! That’s my guy! I’d shake your hand but sometimes touching people kills them, so you know.”

  “Right,” I grunted hoarsely. “Sounds logical.”

  The inside of the castle was half gothic architecture, half teenager’s bedroom. Stone walls and vaulted ceilings, sure, but someone had hung string lights along the buttresses and there was a beanbag chair in a corner next to an old gaming console. A flat-screen TV from probably 2022 was mounted on one wall, and the hallway had a runner rug that looked like it had been ordered online. And then there was the wall of stuffed bats. The place felt like a girly girl’s dorm room that happened to have gargoyles, and I kind of loved it.

  Anya led us to a room off the main hall with a long table, chairs, lanterns, and a map of the territory pinned to one wall.

  She looked at Elysia and her red eyes narrowed for about half a second. “Two of you in one body. The elf is the host and the snake lady is the passenger? Interesting. It’s weird but cool to meet another magic user, I guess.” She said, sounding interested but definitely not impressed.

  Through the bond, I felt Juniper’s surprise and Elysia’s indignation at being read that easily.

  She turned to Clementine last and sniffed once, quick and matter-of-fact. “I’ve never seen a creature like you. Your curves are, like, fricking wild.” She looked down at her own modestly petite body with a slight frown. “Are you some kind of succubus?”

  “Nope. Just a horse. I had your physique around the time this weirdo first had his way with me and then ghosted me,” Clementine said flatly.

  “Clementine, Jesus, she is a literal baby!” I whispered, eyes wide.

  A massive shape ducked through a side doorway and the room suddenly felt smaller. The shape turned out to be a man, or at least man-shaped, easily six-eight and built from spare parts. His skin was grey-green and stitched in places, and his hands were utterly massive. He was carrying a silver tray with a single crystal goblet on it filled with something dark and fizzy. Frankenstein’s monster came to mind, except this guy had better posture and was apparently employed.

  “Your morning refreshment, Countess,” he said. His voice was so deep I felt it in my chest.

  Anya took the goblet. “Thank you, Ghoulexander.”

  “Ghoulexander, my man!” Death said, elbowing him while Anya took her first sip. “You up for Guess Who after Anya goes to school?”

  The flesh golem butler regarded Death almost at eye level, but not quite. “I only have the Bible edition. Trevon borrowed the normal one and never gave it back.”

  “Ohhh sweet! Virgin blood soda,” Anya said, catching me staring at the goblet. “It’s my thing. Don’t be weird about it.”

  “I, too, have sweet experiences with virgins bleeding,” I offered diplomatically. “Slightly different context, but common ground is common ground.”

  Anya looked over my girls with a quizzical lift to her brow. “They’re virgins?”

  “Not anymore!” Portia said. “Master took care of that.”

  I palmed my face. “Portia, she is an actual infant.”

  Anya made a face, but then turned back to us with renewed focus. “Talk,” she said. “From the beginning. Don’t leave anything out and don’t try to make yourselves sound better than you are. I’ll know.” She took a sip of her blood and waited.

  So I talked. What else was there to do, anyway? Talking was the whole reason we came here.

  I told her about the portal beacon, Black Lazarus, the nightly fights, and how the creatures had been getting more annoying and time-consuming lately. What used to be a quick two-minute job before bed had turned into a whole production that ate up our evenings and left everyone cranky. I also told her that it was possible they would get more powerful in the future, and twenty years from now Black Lazarus would come and the real battle to save the multiverse would happen.

  I also made it clear that Sheriff Miller wasn’t our biggest fan.

  Anya waved a hand. “Some of this is news at least. I figured out most of this about two months ago when my patrols noticed the energy signature was tracking your movements, not your land.” She took a sip of her blood. “It’s actually part of why I agreed to this meeting. Better to have the portal magnet inside my borders where I can keep an eye on it than outside them where sending my minions out becomes a big scandal.”

  I chuckled. “Glad my curse is convenient for you.”

  “It is. Keep going.”

  Anya listened to the rest without interrupting and only spoke when I paused. Her questions were good, too. For a kid, she was astute, clearly showing the experience and instincts of a ruler.

  After I finished, she leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling for a second.

  “So you’re basically a monster magnet,” she said. “And those portals tied to you probably contain untold secrets worth researching.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not big on the magic side of things.”

  She scoffed. “Can you imagine? A dude as jacked as you shocking everyone with a fireball?”

  I chuckled but my girls were all dead silent, waiting for an opening, or maybe hoping they wouldn’t have to say anything at all. I half expected Elysia to make a big show out of castle etiquette but thankfully she seemed to read the room, as it were, when we first got acquainted with the little countess.

  “Here’s what I’m offering,” Beaumont said, putting her goblet down. “I’m going to relocate your property into Wapa Lake territory. The house, the barn, the silo, the fences… Really everything.”

  Anya shook off her surprise and refocused. “Anyway. I’ll move the whole parcel. I can do it myself.”

  Clementine leaned forward. “Relocate how?”

  “Spatial translocation. Your property stays exactly the same relative to itself, it just exists here instead of there. My mom was the most powerful magic user in the history of our world, and now her power is mine. You won’t even need to update your mailing address because the post office in this territory is run by a very nice man and a friend of the family.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, unsure what else to offer.

  “In exchange,” Anya continued, pointing at me, “your party handles the portal fights. My skeletons can not only patrol and clean up, but they can help you out from time to time, maybe even give you a night off every once in a while if you’re good citizens.”

  That was more generous than I’d expected. Nights off. I’d been killing something every single night for months. The idea of just going to bed without stabbing anything first was so foreign to me that it took a second to even compute. I could watch a movie. I could go to bed early. The options were endless.

  “Second,” she continued, “you keep me fully informed about Black Lazarus. Everything you learn, I learn, same day. Third, I get right of first refusal on any portal-sourced artifacts or materials that you don’t need.”

  “We don’t keep many artifacts anyway,” I said. “Black Lazarus is usually pretty careful to just send us monsters without useful stuff. But if that happens, it works for me.”

  “Then this should be easy.” She took a sip of her carbonated blood. “Do we have a deal?”

  I looked at my party. Elysia’s jaw was tight because accepting help from another ruler was never going to sit well with a princess, but Juniper’s calm was holding them both steady. After a moment Elysia gave a tight nod, which for her was about as good as I would get. Clementine shrugged one shoulder, conveying “duh, yes.” Portia’s tail was wagging very hard because she was staring at a skeleton guard’s femur with naked longing, but I figured she was on board.

  “We have a deal,” I said.

  Anya set down her goblet and snapped her fingers.

  I was going to ask what the finger snap was about, but Anya gestured to a nearby window, drawing my eyes. My stomach dropped at what I saw, and my girls all reacted with gasps.

  I could see my house, with the porch light on and the privacy fence. I could see the half-renovated silo behind the barn exactly where Wilkinson had left it. The whole property was sitting in a clearing about two hundred yards from the castle, just off the highway that turned into this section of town. My whole home was no longer an isolated farmstead. It was right across the street from a castle, a motel, and a gas station. Also there was a W-Mart in spitting distance. Not bad.

  “Welcome to Wapa Lake,” Anya said. She was already on her feet with her backpack on one shoulder and the goblet drained. A pair of skeletons fell into step behind her and Ghoulexander ducked through the door after them. “Don’t make me regret this.”