XVIII. Inside the Nest.

After a whole day of working in the sewers, and having a fight with those undisciplined weaklings, what Sasha craved the most was to touch his cot and fall deeply asleep. He kept his way to that abandoned car that was his home and ceiling from now. He had to start from something, after all. America was the land of dreams. Something good would come if he worked hard enough, or that was what he was told. 

He stared at the sky above and spotted something that looked straight up out of a horror novel. Bird-woman hybrids covered the night sky and disappeared on the horizon, carrying two figures shining in orange and purple.

Weren't those two the same girls in witch costumes? And those aberrations... could they be, garpiya? Sasha had only heard about them in tales when his dedushka used to take his brothers and him to hunt in the Urals, but to see them first hand... Blyat.

He followed. And to think he had to save those kids once again...

•••

Vanilla opened her eyes Her sore body had trouble spreading and moving among the tight space of beams made of bones, that separated her from the rest of that dark, narrow cave of red rocks.

"...Cookie? Rowie?" She asked to the lonely space, receiving no response. Three cages stood next to hers. Each had sweating and trembling children inside.

"I want to go home..." The same girl in mummy costume they saw cried.

"Please, no..." The boy in the skeleton costume uselessly tried to open the lock.

Damn. She was now totally disposed of every way of defending herself. But they weren't dead already. That was something. She just hoped that Rowie and Cookie would be alright. She looked around. Maybe there was some way to escape from there.

•••

"Raphaela! Come here!"

"Y-Yes, Tabitha?"

"How many of them do we have?"

"Petronella and Minerva counted them. Without the ones that we have already eaten, we have the 12 ones that look the most full of power. They are 14 with the two special ones. We'd have another 13 if those two would not have burned them alive in that school along with many of our sisters." Her tone got angry, dying to get her revenge on that blonde and the raven head.

"They killed them just to not let us feast on them. And they killed many of our sisters. We'll make sure to make them pay." Tabitha stared at the fire In the middle. Where is that annoying trio?"

"Petronella, Griselda, and Minerva? Griselda is dead. Those two kids killed her."

Tabitha kept quiet. She just wondered how many more of them they would have killed if it weren't for her. She was not their leader for nothing.

"Petronella and Minerva must be in the mirror. Ever since they gained beauty they've been more obsessed with themselves than ever."

"Bring them to me. We need them for the main feast. I'll make sure of punishing them for not trapping them when they could."

She looked through the crater. The moon was now shinier than ever. Soon they'd become a step further in evolution. They'd win their plane for all harpies in the underworld, and get freed from that malignant being that had them slaved.

Raphaela winged and left. All harpies could already feel that special moment they had waited for so much coming.

•••

Cookie woke up. Her head spun. "Hey, who is pinching my butt? Is it you, Vanilla?" She looked behind. She was the only one inside that small cage of splintery yellow bones that had her like a sardine in a can. The torch on the red rock wall was the only source of light.

"Vanilla? Rowie?" Her voice echoed, without getting a response. She was alone."O-oh no! Shoo! Shoo! Go away Go away! Nooo!" She shook and bounced inside the beams. A spider crawled towards her.

"What's all this noise? Keep quite human!" A harpie entered the circular cave. Her stink did first before she did.

"There's a scary and frightful monster in front of me!"

"Oh, well. Thanks for the compliment. But we are still going to eat you."

"What? I was not talking about you. A spider is walking towards me!"

"Huh? You dare to say you fear more an insect than us, the mighty daughters of the goddess of the night?"

"Who could fear you? Just look at you. Stinky, Ugly, and angry. I actually feel pity for you." 

The harpy pointed her yellow eyes of red pupils with anger and bitterness. "Agatha? Do we still have that bottle full of spiders?" She screamed through the entrance of the cave.

"Yes!"

"N-No! All but that! You're beautiful! The most beautiful wench around!" Cookie begged.

"Too late human. Enjoy your spider wash before we eat you."

"Nooooo! All but that!" She sobbed and shook inside. Her cage flipped and she got stuck.

•••

Vanilla? Cookie?" Rowie barked. Everywhere he looked at was black. That wouldn't work too much against him, though. With his sensitive ears and powerful nose, he could dispose of his eyes for a while.

He spun on himself. It was a blend of multiple smells coming everywhere. Harpies, human, blood, and... something very different he had never sniffed before. He approached the corner of that dark space. It stumbled as he put his paws on it.

He knew it instinctively. That's how he played when he was even younger, with his brothers and sisters inside the cardboard they were born in. He approached the other side of that confined space and rushed.

He spun in the air as he got hit by the cardboard cage. He hit the dusty ground.

He shook his head. His lightweight absorbed any damage his body could take. Thousands of human objects he didn't comprehend hanged on the walls of that red-stoned room.

There was a box on the ground with different objects on it. He flipped it, and dug into that mess of bargains, using his paws and mouth to take objects away.

Yeah! The sky Empress And Bumbly plushes! Now he only needed to find a way to take the two with him. His mouth was not big enough. He wished he had hands. Vanilla, Cookie, please be well...

The moment every harpy hoped for was about to come. Tabitha reunited all of her sisters on the tallest cornice of that mountain that served as a natural balcony. Its flat and wide surface would be perfect to host them all.

But most importantly, it'd be the best place to release the gigantic Junior from his cage. She could only wonder how his power would multiply after having eaten a portion of those magical humans. They'd be worth more than any of those insignificant kids of dried skin.

"Tabitha! The time's about to come! Do you want us to bring our special guests?" Raphaela approached.

"Do. But bring Junior first."

"Do you want me...?" Her voice quivered. No sane harpy would get near the lacerated beast, a hybrid of many lifeforms.

"No, come here and have some frog tea."

"R-really?" Her eyes glowed.

"Of course not! Go bring him now!"

"Y-Yes Tabitha!"

"Wait!" Her subordinate halted. "Let Petronella and Minerva do it. That's what they deserve for letting them go."

Raphaela put her hand on her chest and took a deep breath. She left flying to the cave above where the transformed harpies would be. Perhaps they could lend her the recipe...

•••

"Come out you insignificant kids!" Two stinking harpies entered the cave with iron beams redden in their tips

"N-No! Please!" The girl in mummy costume begged. The harpies opened her cage and dragged her out. They pinned her on the wall.

"This is what you get for being a naughty girl!"

"aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAGH!" She screamed in agony as the harpies shoved the burning metal on her back. They chuckled with naive amusement.

The rest of the kids cried harder and begged. Vanilla tried to keep herself calm.

They plunged the other three kids out. The boy in skeleton disguise, the other girl in a ghost costume, and a black boy dressed as a pirate.

Was not him the son of one of the Land Residence workers? Vanilla had seen him in the eastern suburb, where the African-American population had their houses and own micro-culture in Merry Oaths.

She closed her eyes and tightened her teeth. The harpies shoved the burning metal on their backs. Their screams made the rocks shook and Vanilla's migraine kick in. Their costumes burned and showed their charred skin, smoking, and bubbling.

"Now you, one eye! or we'll gouge you blind!" They opened Vanilla's cage and dragged her out.

"Wait!" Vanilla yelled. They put her against the wall. "You're gonna ruin a magical costume. Is that what you want?"

"Yeah, yeah. Magical and all."

"You've heard who am I. What does make you think It is not?"

The harpies looked at each other, confused about what to do. "Put it off. Maybe Tabitha will want to take a look at it!"

One harpie grabbed her from behind, put off her hat, and then dragged out her purple robe. The memory of those vagrants that Custos Simia killed kicked in.

The only thing left on her upper body was a small bandage around her chest, accompanied by her underwear and stockings. Vanilla felt like one of the night workers of Red Love's Wine, and almost puked from the harpies' stink in such close distance.

Only until now, she realized how warm that robe was. She trembled and stuttered from the paralyzing cold.

"Now," The harpies pinned her against the wall She closed her eyes and tightened her teeth. "Let's mark you, milky skin!"

•••

"Oh no! That was Vanilla!" Cookie whispered. Her friend's scream rumbled across, mumbled by the rocky walls. Did they just kill her? No, No. Be positive, Cookie. There's always a way out...

"What were we on about?" The harpy returned with a fishbowl full of brown tarantulas of orange paws. She grinned with her pucker eyes.

"P-please no!" Cookie bounced around her tiny, flipped cage. The harpy chuckled.

"What do you think you're doing?! Another harpy arrived and slapped her companion's face. "Tabitha wants them both and you're fooling around! Take her out now!"

"Y-yeah! ...Sorry." The harpy sobbed her face. Both approached and opened her bony cage. Cookie took a deep breath.

Anything but the spiders...

•••

Vanilla! Those monsters must have hurt her! 

Her scream penetrated his chest. Rowie wished he had hands and thumbs. He finished wrapping the two plushies around an old piece of cloth he found in that cave full of trash and bargains. He bit the improvised bag hard and climbed the rocks upward to the exit. His best friend needed his help now more than ever.

•••

After wandering around in those impenetrable forests, Sasha found what was a cave laying on the feet of a mountain surrounded by trees. Despite being a forest, the place felt quite different in ambiance compared to the forest on his motherland, or the Dzhugdzhur Mountains where his father worked for a season in the gold mines.

Well, surely those flying monsters were not the spoiled, easy-lived teens of the Western Country. He swung his baseball bat. It was not a Mosin, but he needed all the power he could gather. But he reserved his main weapon for the climax.

•••

"Vanilla!"

"Cookie!"

Both girls cried.  The harpies dragged them out from two high holes standing in front of each other down to a natural corridor below, illuminated by torches. They pushed the other children behind them.

"Oh no! Your back!" Cookie said.

"These monsters got me..."

"Keep walking, and shut up!" The harpies pushed them to the front. The children cried and begged behind.

They advanced upwards through that dark corridor full of holes on its walls and sides. That cave system was like a giant anthill, with corridors and rooms everywhere. Yellow light twinkled at the end.

"So... this is it, Vanilla?" Cookie asked, with her enthusiasm gone from her face.

Vanilla didn't answer. She kept trembling and moving forwards. Just when you thought you had won and you were powerful, some bastard stronger than you had to appear to kick your ass. The cave widened. Those monsters inundated every cornice, rock, ground, and ceiling on it.