The House on Briar Hill, Part Four by Augie Doggie An uneasy luncheon Rinsing the soap off, Joe cranked the water to a stop and pushed out of the shower stall. "Invite my family? Here? For lunch?" Peony had shrunk back down to her regular cat form, was sitting on the counter beside the sink, licking a paw and rubbing it over the wet fur of her head. "Sure. Why not?" Joe grabbed a towel. "Because they want to kill me, you said! Because they killed Aunt Agatha! Why the hell would I want anything to do with those assholes?" "They're your family." Peony looked up at him. "And now that you're Lord of the House, in a very real way, you're the head of that family." "But I don't wanna be head of the family! I don't want--!" "Joseph?" Her voice was quiet, but again it cut right through Joe, made him stop and stare. "Do you trust me?" "Trust you?" Joe swallowed, then quickly forced a laugh. "Hey, when you're all pumped up into Cat-Woman, you could snap me in half with two fingers. I'd better trust you, right?" She just sat and looked at him, her eyes so deep and still, Joe had to turn away, rubbing the towel through his hair with sudden energy. "And if I'm head of the family, I can just shut 'em down, right? Tell 'em to quit screwing people around or I'll cut 'em off at the knees, something like that." For another second, she just watched him. Then she shook her head. "Agatha grew up in this house, was Lady here for more than fifty years, was the most powerful witch in this cluster of dimensions, and she couldn't stop their evil. Balance is the only true law in the cosmos, Joseph, and while the house has given you a great deal of power by accepting you as its Lord, your primary duty is to maintain the Balance." "Balance?" Joe blinked at the cat. "You just told me it's been all evil since way back whenever. What kinda balance is that?" Peony sighed. "Your family subverted the power of the house and turned it toward evil. Agatha began the process of righting that misalignment, began draining the evil that has infected this place, but a hundred thousand years of evil can't be undone in a single century. It _can_ be undone, though, with patience and love and trust." She fixed those deep eyes on him again. "So I must ask once more: do you trust me, Joseph." Joe stared back at her. "This...it's...I..." He couldn't even begin to gather his chaotic thoughts. So he just shrugged. "Yeah, OK, Peony. What the hell?" Her eyes narrowed. "Not exactly the answer I was hoping for. But I suppose it'll do." She jumped down from the counter and padded toward the door. "Now get dressed and meet me down in the kitchen. We've got a lot to do." --------------------- Joe picked up the phone, licked his lips, then clicked the handset back into the cradle. "Tell me again what I'm doing?" Peony sighed from where she sat on the kitchen table, her tail snapping, slapping with a dull clang into Aunt Agatha's blue ceramic fruit bowl. "Just dial the number, Joseph." "But, I mean, jeez, Peony!" He turned away and waved his hands at her. "I haven't talked to any of 'em in, I dunno, maybe four years! How'm I supposed to--" "You pick up the phone, you dial the number." The clang of her tail against the ceramic got louder and faster. "If you don't make the first move, Joseph, they will. And that'll be worse than you can imagine. Right now, you're an unknown quantity, so we strike now, get 'em wondering how much you really know, and they'll never realize you don't know anything." Joe pursed his lips. "Great. I play dumb." "No." Her tail stopped, and that weird cat smile crept across her face. "You play smart. Smarter than you've ever played anything before." Her tail gave another clang. "If you wanna stay alive, that is." "Fine." Joe turned, snatched the phone off the wall, punched in the number he never thought he'd be calling again, heard the line ring on the other end. "But if I end up dead, I'm gonna haunt you. That's all there is to--" He stopped as the phone clicked and a woman's chirpy voice said, "DuPree Accounting. How may I direct your call?" "Elizabeth?" Joe blinked. It almost sounded like his younger sister. "They got you answering the phone?" Silence for a second, then, the chirp gone, the bitter tones he was more familiar with: "Joe? What in hell do you want?" That was Elizabeth, all right, her voice starting to tie a long- absent knot in his stomach. "Nice to hear you, too, Liz. I don't suppose anyone who knows anything's there." "You asshole!" She was suddenly all snarl and hiss. "You sorry fucking son of a bitch! You--" She stopped, a sharp voice behind her barking something Joe couldn't hear. Then muffled, like she was holding her hand over the receiver, he heard, "It's him! Joe! He's--!" The phone clicked, and Muzak came out. Joe turned, leaned against the wall, smiled at Peony. "Liz sounded a trifle upset." "Good. Just remember..." Peony tapped her forehead with a claw. "Smart." "Right." The line clicked again, and another woman's voice came on, tighter, more in control. "Joe. This is a surprise." Lucia, his older sister. "What? A guy can't call his family now and again?" Joe had to struggle to keep his tone light. He and Liz had a nice, open hatred for each other, but he and Lucy, that had been cold war since the day he'd leaned to talk. "Just hearing your voice, Lucy, it brings so many memories crashing back." How much she hated to be called Lucy, for instance.... "Crashing. Yes. My thoughts exactly. What do you want, Joe?" "Mom or Dad around?" "They're occupied with business matters at the moment." Not a speck of emotion anywhere. "Can I take a message?" Joe licked his lips. "Yeah, well, I'm calling from Aunt Agatha's house." "Yes." The phone seemed to grow colder in his hand. "It's a lovely old place, isn't it?" "Sure is. She left it to me in her will, y'know, and I thought this'd be a good time to bury the hatchet. So to speak." Another frosty silence before she said, "Go on." "So I wanted to invite y'all out here for lunch today. Nothing fancy, but just to, well, just to get back in touch." "Lunch." She sounded even more remote than before. "Today." "You can make it, can't you?" A longer bit of silence. "I think I can speak for the rest of the family when I say that we would find no pleasure greater than visiting you this afternoon at Aunt Agatha's house." The way she said it made a shiver tickle Joe's spine, but he kept it out of his voice. "Hey, that's great. Make it about one o'clock. I'll order up some sandwiches, a couple six-packs, the whole nine yards. Tell the folks I'm dying to see 'em again." "Dying. Yes. My thoughts exactly." Then the line clicked and buzzed in his ear. "Damn..." Joe blew out a breath, hung up the phone, and looked over a Peony. "Okay, so they're coming. Now what?" Peony's tail gave the fruit bowl another clang. "Now we get ready." --------------------- "I see." Joe pressed his hands deeper into his coat pockets, a cold October wind whistling past, bare branches rustling all across the top of Briar Hill. "Shitting in the woods is your idea of getting ready." "It is." Peony scrunched herself over the hole she'd dug, and Joe could hear a couple little plops. She turned around, sniffed the hole, then dragged a paw through the dirt, covering the hole up. Joe shook his head. "As long as I don't hafta." "You wouldn't know how." Her ears perked up, and the cell phone in Joe's pocket buzzed. "Ah. The food." Pulling the phone out, Joe punched in the numbers to open the gate, and started back through the trees toward the house. "You gonna shit in the sandwiches, too?" She scampered past him, the dried leaves crackling under her paws. "Now you're just being vulgar." He laughed and followed her out of the woods to the top of the driveway, a delivery truck coming up to the front door. He helped the guy carry the trays into the dining room--sandwiches and salads from Edgar's Deli downtown, the place Mr. Gravicek always ordered from for company parties--gave him a big tip for driving all the way out, buzzed the gate open for him to leave, and by then it was quarter to one. "OK," he said, unwrapping the cellophane from the platters. "Now what?" "Now we wait." She jumped up onto the table and sniffed the sandwiches. "Is that corned beef?" "Best in the state." Joe sat, grabbed one, and bit into it, his stomach a little fluttery. "But how're we gonna play this? How much should I pretend to know? Should I be, like, openly against 'em, or keep up the 'bury the hatchet' routine ?" Peony licked a paw. "Keep things friendly, but let 'em know you're the boss now. Let 'em know you've got a duty to maintain the Balance, and they won't really be able to argue with that." Joe coughed a laugh. "They'll argue anything anytime with anybody." "Yes, but--" She stopped, her ears folding back. "They're here. God, the stink of 'em...." A buzz from the phone in his pocket, and Joe pulled it out, punched the number to open the gate. "I take it they don't know you can talk." "Oh, they know." Her tail had started swishing again, the black of her pupils growing in her eyes. "But I'm sure as Hell not gonna talk to them." The hatred in her voice made Joe swallow. "You're, uhh, not gonna _do_ anything to 'em, are you? 'Cause I wanna be outta the way if you are." "No, Joseph." She heaved a sigh. "As much as I'd like to tear their fucking heads off, I've got a duty to the Balance." Her eyes came up and fixed on his. "You remember that, too." "Right." A car engine rumbling louder outside, and Joe looked out the window to see his parents' Bentley pulling up, the chauffeur hopping out to open the back door. His mother was the first out, every inch of her six foot frame still radiating the aura of a Snow Queen from some fairy tale: ice-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, skin pale and pure, arctic fox stole around her shoulders, silvery sheath dress clinging to a figure that, Joe remembered with a swallow, had inspired more than one incestuous dream when he was going through adolescence. His father followed her out, darker in every way, black suit echoing his eyes, deep behind his wire-rim glasses . Lucy was next, the Ice Princess, always trying to look as cool and commanding as Mom but never quite succeeding, then Liz, her hair a dark, dark red, her eyes a deep, deep blue, her face a mask of barely contained anger. Yep. Joe sighed. Them, all right. He moved out of the dining room into the front hall, took another breath, pulled the door open, and scrunched his face into a smile. "Welcome, everyone. C'mon in." Mom came up the steps first, her eyes narrow and moving. "You'll forgive us," she said, her voice every bit as cold as Joe remembered, "if we don't come rushing in with open arms." Joe held up a hand. "No problem. Check the place over; I know it's been a while since you've been here. But lemme just set your minds at rest about one thing." He licked his lips--let 'em know he was in charge, Peony had said. "I didn't invite you here for anything like what you invited Aunt Agatha to your place for." From the bottom of the steps, he heard a breath sucked in, Elizabeth taking a step back. But Dad was behind her, and he put a hand on her shoulder. Mom stopped on the top step, her face even icier than before. "You know," she said. "Oh, yeah." He waved to the doorway. "Now, we gonna talk out here in the wind, or are you gonna come in?" Another second, and Joe had to blink as a smile curled his mother's lips. _That_ was something he hadn't seen much growing up. "You surprise me, Joe." Her face seemed to thaw a bit, and Joe suddenly found his eyes distracted by movement be low the neckline of her dress. God, her nipples were going erect, pushing out in little mounds that Joe tried his damnedest not to stare at. "I've always liked surprises." She took the last step onto the landing and put one slim white hand on his arm. "Thank you for the invitation, Joe. I think we will come in." The heat of her hand reached all the way through his coat. He swallowed, stepped back, and pushed the door open wider. Mom stepped into the house, and the other three trooped up the steps after her, his two sisters hesitating for just a moment before setting foot across the threshold. His dad gave him a nod and gestured to the door. "After you, son." "Oh, no, dad." Joe wasn't about to turn his back on any of them. "Please, after you." A little smile pulled at Dad's mouth--another thing Joe hadn't seen very often before--and he went inside, Joe following. Liz and Lucy stood in the vestibule, their mouths hanging open, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. "It's..." Liz muttered. "It's like nothing I've ever... The power in these walls, it's..." Joe cleared his throat. "Welcome to the house on Briar Hill," he said. "Lemme take your coats, then we can go into the dining room, have some sandwiches, and talk about a few things." They shrugged out of their coats, Joe hung them up on the hat stand, and they moved to the doorway, Mom first, Lucy at her heels, Dad guiding Liz, her eyes still wide and roaming over the walls. Joe followed them in. "Have a seat, folks, and we'll--" A cry and a hiss from in front of him, and Joe rushed through the hall into the dining room to see his mother in some sort of fighting stance, her hands out in front of her, fingers crooked like claws. Dad loomed up beside her, his hands at his side like some old west gunslinger, his two sisters crouched behind them, and Joe saw that they were all glaring at Peony, sitting at the head of the dining room table giving them her Egyptian statue look. Oh, God. Joe moved past his motionless family, got between them and the cat. "I take it you already know Peony," he managed to say. "Damn you, Joe." His mother's voice was a growl. "What the hell is that...that _creature_ doing here?" "She came with the house." "What?" Her face fell. "You...you're..." The ice came back into her expression, and she straightened out of her stance. "You're in league with her." "Look." Joe held up his hands. "You've got issues with Peony. I don't care about that. All I care about is the Balance, OK?" Dad gave a snort. "The Balance. Don't make me laugh." "Hey." He didn't know why, but hearing Dad bad-mouth the Balance made his stomach clench. He stepped forward and met his father's dark gaze. "You can keep being an idiot about this if you wanna, Dad, but we both know how important this is." "Do we?" Dad didn't blink. "All I know is that you're fucking Agatha's pet monster." It took an effort for Joe to unclench his fists, to take a step back. "Look, Dad--" "No, you look, son." Dad leveled a finger at him. "The Balance is a joke, rules written by spineless herd animals to keep us predators at bay." Mom was all ice again. "You're either with us, Joe, or you're against us." Joe took a breath and faced her. "Sorry, but I don't see it that way." "Then you're a fool." Dad turned and left the room, Liz right behind him. Lucy and Mom stayed for another second, lips curled like they were smelling something rotten, then they turned and headed out into the hallway as well. A small clearing of throat behind him. "Make sure they really leave," Peony murmured. Rooted in place--he'd forgotten just how much their disapproval twisted his stomach--Joe finally got his feet to move, went out into the hallway in time to hear the front door slam. He reached the window at the end of the hall, looked out to the driveway, watched his family get into heir Bentley, the chauffeur guiding the car down toward the gate. His phone beeped to tell him the gate was opening, then stopped beeping once the gate had closed. Another minute he stood there, no movement out among the leafless trees, then he turned and made his way back to the dining room. Peony was sitting beside Aunt Agatha's fruit bowl. "My wards'll make sure they stay in the car, but we'd better take a look." She patted the bowl with a paw. "Fill this with water from the tap, will you?" Numb, Joe picked up the bowl, dumped the fruit out on the table, went into the kitchen, filled the bowl, and brought it back. "Set it down," Peony said. He did, and she padded over. "Look into the water." Her voice was a whisper, a caress at his ears. "Think about them, about their car, about seeing what they're doing. The house'll help you, but you've got to focus its power..." Joe looked, wished he could be there, wished he could hear what they were saying about him, wished he knew whether they really hated him as much as he was sure they did, wished he could-- The water in the bowl began to swirl, to cloud up, Joe staring as it took on a depth, some color, a sound, an image... An image of the enclosed passenger area of the Bentley, his mother sitting beside Lucy in the rear-facing seat, his father and Liz in the back facing forward. "That damn bastard," his father's voice was saying. "If I'd had my--" He was interrupted by Mom groaning. "All the power in that house!" Her eyes closed, she arched her back, her hands clutched the seat. "I can't hold this shape any longer, can't keep my--!" She gave a cry, and her breasts, outlined by the clinging silver of her dress, bulged out, doubling in size as Joe stared, the fabric stretching and creaking. "Oh, yes!" Mom shouted, and her breasts bulged again, the dress ripping down the middle, mountains of flesh filling her lap, nipples like clenched fists pulsing outward. "Oh, my babies," Joe heard his mother whimper. "Mommy needs you..." Lucy dropped to her knees at once, wrapping her arms around Mom's huge left breast and sliding her lips around its swollen nipple. Liz gave a grimace, but she too slid forward to Mom's right breast and started sucking away. Mom gave a groan of relief, Joe unable to pull his eyes from the scene, his father saying, "Well, now that you're more yourself, what're we going to do?" "Do?" Mom seemed taller now, her head almost touching the Bentley's roof as she leaned back and rested her hands--were her fingernails longer? They almost looked like...claws--on her daughters' heads, pressing them deeper into the expanse of her breasts. "Why, we kill him, of course." Dad's skin, to Joe's eyes, was getting redder and redder. "Easier said than done, my dear. If he's truly dedicated himself to the Balance--" "The hell he has." Mom's skin was changing as Joe watched, too, still as snow-white as before, but now it seemed to be cracking, a scaley pattern growing over it. "He's after our power the same as Agatha was, and he'll be just as easy to trick as she was." She stroked Liz and Lucy's hair. "I admit, it's disturbing not to get any readings from him at all, but the house has accepted him, so he must have some hidden strength." Lucy pulled away from Mom's giant right nipple. "You think Aunt Agatha was training him?" Mom smiled, her teeth sharp and jagged, and Joe was sure he could see horns starting to curl through the hair above her ears. "Of course, darling." Mom pushed Lucy's head back into the depths of her breast. "But don't you worry. Mommy and Daddy will take care of him." Mom's eyes, now solid black, moved to look at Dad. "And speaking of taking care of..." She shifted in the seat, opening her legs. "Mommy needs her Daddy right now." Dad smiled, his teeth as nightmarish as Mom's, his face even more so, all red and sharply angled, and the front of his pants began swelling up, his clawed hands tearing the cloth away to reveal three huge red pulsing-- "Oh my God!" Joe smashed a fist into the water, spun away from the table, and threw up all over the dining room floor. Then strong arms were around him, thick fur soft over warm hard muscles, gentle fingers stroking his hair, Peony's voice murmuring, "It's okay, Joseph, it's okay, it's okay..." Joe grabbed for her, buried his face in her sweat cleavage, quivered against her strength until he felt safe again. It took a minute, but he finally got out, "They're not human anymore. Are they?" "Not completely, no." "And they want me dead." "They do." Her arms shifted around him, pushed him away, one big hand cupping his chin and forcing him to look up into her deep cat-woman eyes. "But I'm not about to let that happen. You understand?" Joe swallowed and held her tighter. "So. Whadda we do now?" She bent her head down and kissed him. "Now," she said softly, her lips brushing his as they moved. "We start your training." --------------------------- End of Book 1