Before I could find my voice in those first moments after Ehn greeted me, Persephone stepped past and grabbed his hand with both of hers, enthusiastically shaking it up and down while giving him a bright smile. “Well I’ve definitely been waiting a long time to meet you, Mr. Dragon-Bonded sir. I’ve heard so much about you. But I think some of it was made up. You don’t really have a goat that can eat stars and flies on a rainbow sled, do you?” The whole time, she was still rapidly shaking his hand. Even Cerberus was making excited noises in the background, though I was pretty sure he was just happy in general and going along with the flow.

Ehn paused briefly, taking that in before offering her a small smile in return. “Ah yes, as I said, it’s a pleasure to meet you as well. And no, I’m afraid that although I do have a great many intriguing creatures working with me, I’ve never seen one like that. Do let me know if you happen to locate one yourself.”

“Finders keepers,” she solemnly informed him, finally releasing the man’s hand before stepping back to join me. “If you ask nice, maybe I’ll let you rent them. You know, when I find them.”

Well, if this whole situation had been surreal enough as it was, that would’ve done the trick. Part of me wondered how much of that whole exchange was Persephone just being odd, and how much was her intentionally giving me time to compose myself the best way she knew how.

Whatever it was, it worked at least a little bit. I breathed out, no longer so totally overwhelmed by the sheer power in his aura. Not that it was totally gone, not by a long shot. But at least I was able to speak again. Even if my voice was slightly strained. “Uh, okay first of all, I know you.” Raising my hand, I pointed that way. “You were on that ship back when we were fighting the Whispers. You disabled the traps or whatever. You were there, and… Gehenna didn’t even know you left that time.”

The man offered me an easy smile. “Well I certainly couldn’t allow such a promising asset to die so soon after taking the more troubling, problematic one off my hands, could I? You had just recently taken the Necromancy power from Fah-Seur. I was intrigued and checked in on you now and then. When there was trouble, I did what was needed to make your work somewhat easier. And now, here you are.”

Yup, here I was. And the whole situation was feeling more surreal by the moment. And I noticed he hadn’t addressed the fact that he’d left the Gehenna prison without being noticed. Shaking that off, I replied, “Well thanks for that. I was told that you’d be interested in me visiting for a little while. But then again, I was told by other people that you were in prison, and this place doesn’t really look like jail to me.”

The man looked around the small study before shaking his head. “Well, to be quite honest with you, my actual prison didn’t look much like one either. So you wouldn’t be able to judge just based on this. But no, we are not under the care of Gehenna right now. I thought it best to begin our lessons, and our relationship in general, in a place far away from the rest of my people, particularly the one you have experience with.”

“Kwur,” I acknowledged. “Unless you mean the one you spent thousands of years turning into the biggest piece of shit evil necromancer in the universe. Because from what I hear, he was basically one of yours too.”

Okay yeah, I had definitely gotten over my initial reaction to this guy. The anger in me was winning out a bit over the part that was screaming for me to shut the hell up before I pissed him off.

Ehn, however, didn’t seem to mind. He just inclined his head very slightly in acknowledgment. “Unfortunately, a great deal of pain and suffering is sometimes necessary in order to reach the lofty sort of goals I have in mind.”

Before I could respond to that, Persephone spoke up again. “But you’re not the one experiencing the pain and suffering, Lord Farquaad,” she pointed out flatly. Something told me she had said it before I could so that if he took offense, she would be the one bearing the brunt of it.

Once again, however, the man just nodded after a brief hesitation. “Ah, I’m afraid I have no idea who this Farquaad is, but you are right that I am not the one who suffers the most grief, pain, or loss. Yet there is more to that situation than either of you are aware of. First, however, what would you each prefer to be called? Before we get down to business, as they say, I’d like to know what names I should be using to make you both as comfortable as possible.”

Shoving aside several sarcastic reports that came to mind, I took a breath before telling him to just call me Felicity. I almost said Flick, but that felt too familiar. I didn’t want the guy to think we were friends, so Felicity was the best. Persephone followed my lead and went with her full name instead of Percy.

Ehn bowed to each of us. “Persephone and Felicity it is. As I said, it is a pleasure to meet both of you. I hope in time that you will feel the same, though I understand your, shall we say mixed feelings at the moment.”

With that, the man walked to the nearby door, which opened for him without any gesture on his part, revealing a hallway beyond. “If you wouldn’t mind coming with me now, we have a great deal to get through.”

Well what the hell was I going to do, refuse? I’d already come this far. Sending another message to let Tabbris know that I was still fine, I walked after him, with Persephone and Cerberus right behind me. I knew there was very little either of them could do to help if he had anything bad in mind. As strong as she was, even Percy couldn’t stand up against him. But I still felt reassured by their presence. If he turned out to be an evil piece of shit doing evil piece of shit things, we would go down fighting. We’d probably go pretty damn quickly, but it would still be fighting.

The hallway beyond that study wasn’t very large. There was another door to the right that was closed, but he turned left, moving toward a set of stairs leading down. There was also a large floor-to-ceiling window on the right-hand wall and I looked out of it to see what looked like an ordinary neighborhood street. This house wasn’t even anything all that special. Sure, it wasn’t a hovel or anything. It probably would’ve cost a few hundred thousand. But it wasn’t a castle, and it wasn’t a mansion. It was just a nice house, in a decent neighborhood of what looked like a normal American town. It was a suburb. We were standing in an average house in a suburb somewhere. Of all the places I had expected to be sent, this definitely wasn’t on the list.

Noticing that I had stopped to stare, Ehn paused to look back. “Is something wrong, Felicity?”

“I umm…” I hesitated before starting again. “I thought we traveled a long way from the Fusion School. I mean, I know the sun is a long way from Earth, but I thought we went a lot further than that. Like, across the galaxy further. That’s just an Earth neighborhood.”

The man offered a faint smile. “Yes, you did travel a vast distance. And then you looped back around to come back here. Anyone attempting to follow your trail, who could have had poor intentions, would take far too long to realize the teleportation trail actually ended in the same solar system it began from. If you’re finding your connection to your Seosten sister to be somewhat strained, I’m afraid that is less a result of distance and more a side effect of the shielding I’ve put over this place to prevent others from finding us. Of course, you may feel free to inform her that you are not so far away, but I do still insist on our privacy.”

Uhh, right. Okay, so it turned out I was just a girl walking through a suburban house on Earth with my Olympian-corpse-possessing Revenant friend, giant three-headed robot dog, and an ancient Natural Dragon-Heretic who could absolutely turn this entire neighborhood–no, city into a crater in the time it took someone to scoff and say this would make a terrible sitcom. Nothing I couldn’t deal with at this point.

Turning away from that window, I continued to follow Ehn down those stairs and through the rest of the house. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the other rooms either, as far as I could tell. It was all just… quaint. I glanced around as we went, taking in the casual furnishings as well as several pictures on the walls. Most of them were of an ordinary-looking family. But I didn’t see any of the people in those photos in any of these rooms.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“They aren’t dead, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Ehn said that without looking back at me, as we walked through the short hallway to what looked like the front door. We had just passed a large framed photograph of that same family. “The family who own this house have been out of the country for a month, and aren’t scheduled to arrive back home until tomorrow. We’ll be long gone before then. Or, well–” He turned slightly, just enough that I could see the slight smile on his face, a look that said he had some private joke of his own that he wasn’t sharing just yet. “Close enough, anyway. Now come, I’d like to see how you handle something. Persephone and Cerberus, kindly give Felicity time to handle the situation on her own. It wouldn’t be much of a test otherwise.”

“What?” His words made me blink in confusion. “What situation?”

In answer, the man opened the front door and gestured across that pleasant, if mundane-looking yard, past the quiet street, and toward the house opposite this one. “The man who lives across the street there is what you would call a Natural Incubus Heretic. He’s spent the past two hundred years sacrificing children in order to gradually build up the power he needs to unleash one god-level apocalyptic threat or another. And as of right now, he’s about…” Tilting his head as though considering, Ehn slowly finished. “… Oh, three minutes from finishing the job?”

“What?!” I snapped. “Get over there and stop him if you want the world to keep spinning!”

Flashing me a quick smile, the man replied, “Relax, I was only kidding. He won’t be finished for another few days. But you really should get over there. He has quite the defenses set up, and the further he goes, the stronger he’ll become. Especially now, right on the cusp of his… ahh… ascension I believe he calls it? Every day he becomes exponentially stronger. If I was you, I really wouldn’t want to face him tomorrow. I mean, this would have been a decent enough test a few days ago, but since you took a bit longer to get here… well, now it’ll be quite interesting indeed.”

Wait, was this guy seriously saying that this whole test of his would’ve been easier if I had come immediately rather than spending time with my friends and family? Was this his way of chastising me or something?

No, I honestly didn’t think so after spending another moment staring at him. He wasn’t actually annoyed about the delay. Why would he be? He’d been waiting and planning for thousands of years as it was. Another couple days wouldn’t have mattered to him. No, he was genuinely interested in seeing how I did against this threat, and really did believe that cutting it this close would be an even better test than he had originally planned on. Which made me wonder just how strong this guy I was supposed to stop was now, and how strong he would’ve been if I had come here a few days ago. Or even weeks ago when Wukong first showed up.

Hell, no wonder Sun had been fine with waiting all that time. He probably wanted to let this guy, whoever he was, get as strong as possible too. I could absolutely see him wanting to stretch it out even longer so I could have a bigger fight.

While I was processing all of that, Persephone spoke up. “Flick?” She clearly wanted to know if I needed her to come with me, Ehn’s words be damned.

I thought about it for a very brief second. But ignoring his request that I do this alone probably wasn’t the best way to start off this relationship. Besides, I didn’t think he would actually let that guy destroy the planet or anything if I happened to fail. Whether he’d actually let me die or not was a little more debatable, but hey. At least it meant I only had to worry about my own life.

Besides, he wanted the powerful Necromancy to stay on the table, so I was probably safe…ish.

So, I shook my head. “Stay here with him. I’m sure you guys can find something to talk about.” To Cerberus, I added, “If anything happens to me, help Percy annoy him with that Barbershop Quartet thing you guys have been working on.”

In response to that, each of the three heads, one by one, gave a low howl. Then Percy joined in with her own, before they grinned at me.

After clapping for them, I produced my staff and focused on the man himself. “Anything else I should know, that you’re actually willing to tell me?”

Ehn regarded me briefly before answering. “Well, I didn’t bring you here to this particular threat to test your ability to manipulate sand or change your facial structure. The threat you will face in that house is one of the Necromantic variety. In fact, as soon as you pass the wards he has set up, you’ll find yourself cut off from every other power you have. Your Necromancy will be unaffected, because his must continue to function.”

Well that wasn’t fun to hear. I did a quick double-take. “I didn’t even know that was possible! And this guy can just–he can just do that?”

“As I said, he has worked in this single location for hundreds of years,” Ehn reminded me, “allowing the town to build up around him. You will very much be on his… home turf I believe the phrase would be? ‘Turf’ he has had plenty of time to prepare. You will only be able to use your Necromancy while facing him. I do hope you’re ready.”

“So what if I hadn’t actually asked you to tell me everything you knew about that guy, and just went over there without knowing I was going to lose access to all my other powers?” I found myself asking with narrowed eyes.

His response was a casual, “Well, then I dare say I would have made a grave mistake when I judged you. Which would have been egg on my face.”

Oh boy was there a lot I wanted to say to that. So much, really. But I pushed all that down and simply gave what I hoped was a reassuring nod to Percy and Cerberus. I could do this, right? Yeah. Here went nothing.

Taking a breath before letting it out slowly as I stared at that ordinary-looking house, I braced myself, then strode out to walk down the front steps. I really hadn’t expected to be thrown into the middle of something like this right off the bat, almost before we even said much of anything to each other. But then again, maybe that was the point. I couldn’t assume anything when it came to Ehn.

On my way, I summoned up several of the ghosts I had brought with me. Seth appeared first, standing at the end of the front walk, next to the mailbox. His back was to me, staring intently at the house we were heading toward. Grover appeared beside him a moment later, looking equally intense.

“You guys sense stuff over there?” I asked, assuming they knew the basics about what was going on. The way this whole ghost thing worked was that I could summon them all the way from the Haunted Mansion, but that took a lot more power and time (for me, anyway, Fossor could do it instantly), and they wouldn’t really know what was going on until I brought them up to speed. Or I could bring them with me wherever I went. In which case they basically remained attached to my body in an unformed state until I called on them. And in that case, they were aware of what was going on. Or at least as much as I wanted them to be. Essentially I could turn off their awareness of what was happening if I needed privacy.

It also required a bit of Necromancy energy to hold onto them like this, even in their unformed states. But it was really an inconsequential amount by this point, unless I went nuts and started holding onto hundreds of ghosts to carry around with me at all times.

Fossor could do that too.

“Ohhhh yeah,” Seth confirmed. “Your new pal back there is right. Actually, I bet you can sense it too. At least you could if you weren’t standing in that shielded area.” He waved vaguely toward the edge of the yard. “He’s probably got it set up so nobody notices him here. Especially the guy across the street.”

So, I took another couple steps forward, crossing the invisible line from the house property out to the public sidewalk. As soon as I did so, I could tell what he was talking about. It was like a sudden glaringly bright beacon had been shot into the air, powerful enough to make me flinch reflexively. Yeah, it was definitely coming from the house across the street. It might as well have had a giant neon sign with ‘I Am Practicing Necromancy Using Horrific Human Sacrifices’ on the roof, with a full brass band practicing around it, and a fireworks display in the background. Actually, that probably would’ve been more subtle than this. There was so much Necromantic energy pouring off that house, I couldn’t believe no one else had shown up to do something about it yet.

Then I looked up and down the street, and understood a little bit better. There were several spots that were working together to create another magical barrier around the whole neighborhood. It wasn’t enough to stop anyone from leaving or anything like that, but it did shield this area from outside detection. You’d have to essentially be right on top of the place to notice the obscene amounts of Necromantic energy coming off it. No wonder there weren’t a hundred Heretics kicking in this guy’s door already. He was really good at masking himself. And, apparently, good at a lot of other things too. Between that and that whole ‘not being able to use my other powers’ bit, this was going to be tricky. Which was absolutely why Ehn had brought me here, of course. I was just a little surprised he’d managed to find such a perfect test in this amount of ti–no, that was the wrong way to think about it. He hadn’t ‘just happened’ to find the perfect test in short notice, he’d arranged to have me picked up to come see him because this perfect test existed right now. The timing worked the other way around.

By that point, Manakel’s ghost had appeared somewhat behind me. I sensed him there, but didn’t say anything for a moment while I took all that in. Finally, I lifted my chin and spoke up. “Any advice about how to handle this?” He was the one with all the experience, after all. The whole reason I’d brought him along was so he could help. Maybe not with this sort of thing specifically, but still.

“Yes,” he replied. “Be ready before you ever cross that street. Because he’s had centuries to plan out what to do if someone interrupts him. So you need to be ready to deal with whatever he’s prepared. You can’t wing this one, especially if you don’t have access to anything other than your Necromancy.”

I slowly nodded at that. “Right.

“Then I guess it’s time to start talking about how we’re going to do this.”