Ask and you shall be answered.  Of course, now I had to act like I knew what I was doing.  Was this a “take me to your leader” moment, or was it a, “I need to know who I’m talking to?”   If it was a video game, they’d offer me the latter so that I could get into the cut-scene that elaborated the actual details of the plot.

I watched the creature undulate for a moment and realized my actual brain’s working was somewhat distracted.

“You know who I am,” I didn’t make it a question.  “Are you prepared to negotiate?”

“If that is what you wish to call it,” she said with that voice of hers.  Her hands rolled down her sides, ending in a brush against her groin, an obscene bridge of flesh brought down to a single entendre and making no doubts as to what she was offering.  I mean, this wasn’t even an, “If correctly viewed, anything is lewd,” scenario.  This was a version of the condemned man’s last sexual fantasy, the kind of opportunity that wasn’t likely to repeat.

Unable to summon a cold shower on command, I pinched myself. “Despite not being a duly designated representative of anything but my own superego, I order you and your people to release your hold on my date, and all other existing beings belonging to my home plane, and to cease any and all supernatural  activity whereupon you should return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.”

“You borked up the quote,” Ed hissed.

I decided it was fair enough to guess that even as many times as I’d seen it, “Ghostbusters” was not used as a training video amongst the hoi polloi of those who travelled Beyond.

The creature laughed, a musical sound.  She had moved only slightly closer to us, and I saw that Maggie had constructed a primitive ward in front of herself.  She held red thread in her left hand, knotted thinly in some arcane tangle.  Golden light shimmered around her, and she changed ever so slightly, growing inches taller, and maybe a little less buxom as she focused on me.  I shifted my stance to try to prevent parts of me from doing the same.  Minus the light, thankfully.  If I ever unzipped to a spotlight, I’d… you know, I really don’t know what I’d do.  I didn’t think I’d really have to make a plan for that, especially if she got within reach.

“Stop that,” I said.  I backed up another step.

“You wished to negotiate,” she reminded me.

“We can do it from a distance,” I said.

“Oh, can we?” She giggled. “I believe you brag about your prowess.”

“I don’t,” Matana said, stepping forward.  Her eyes were shiny and black in the darkness, like reflecting pools with hints of gold.  It was a subtle change, but something in the way she moved had shifted.  I felt the stirring of something Opening, just the faintest trill of power.  Were there hints of fangs, a flash of teeth in the cool moonlight?

A wash of cold wind blew over me.  I thought it was idiosyncratic, but as it touched the skin of the creature, her golden light wavered.  She hissed something in a language I wanted to find beautiful, but was part an erotic gasp and moan, and a chattering of squirrel or rat.  Matana managed a response, or, rather, the thing inside Matana did.  It was like the language itself caused frost in the air between us.

I felt left out of the conversation.  I was about to complain when the creature took a step back and raised her right arm, and with a word that crashed like thunder, light blew out from the seam in the sky.  It was like a package of light unzipping itself, and a house just flopping out.

A house, covered by dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of copulating creatures, in all stages of writhing and denial of gravity.  The creatures were of all colours, shapes, sizes, the similarity all being in the gross exaggeration, almost hyperbole in some cases of their primary and secondary gender characteristics.  It was like any kind of mass of creature, it was uncomfortable, a roiling movement that your stomach wished to emulate.  There was nothing sexual about it, it was like bugs of some sort.  Lights were on inside the house, and the sounds of slapping and slipping were like an uncomfortable applause.

The negotiator took a few steps towards the porch, just drinking in the scene.

“She said you are welcome to fetch your date.” Matana said.  Her eyes were still dark, still glossy, but that change in her had receded.

“Just me?” I looked at Ed.  He had turned around, trying not to be sick.  Maggie was watching with her detached, professional look.  She shook her head.

“Just her,” Matana said.

“There are others within?” I asked.

“What, are you some kind of knight all of a sudden?  Save what you can, who you can.”

“It’s not right.  Where’s the Overseer?”

“We weren’t talking to it.”  Matana shrugged.

“It probably won’t reveal itself until you’re deep within its lair,”  Ed had backed up a little to join our conversation. “It’s how they get you to fight the boss by yourself.  How can you watch that?”

“It’s so much my brain just doesn’t focus on the individual details.  It’s a mass, a morass of…”

Ed made a rude rhyme that made me grin.

“Yeah, that.” I glanced at Magda.  “You have to admit, sex is pretty ridiculous in the first place.'”

“Bro, I thought I was willing to dress up like a clown if it got me somewhere good, but that… that’s not fun.”

“That’s why it isn’t human,” I said.

Matana nodded.  “E is correct.  Is that why you do what you do?” she asked me.

“It’s why I’m not going to be satisfied with just Sylvie.  That’s not human.”

“Of course, neither will be the boss,” Ed reminded me.