Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (most interesting books to read TXT) 📕

that she no longer had to masquerade as my poor housemate. She’d suggested that I should drive it back from our mission, and I was more than happy to give it a go.

“It’s great,” I said as I steered the big vehicle smoothly up the drive. “Runs like a dream. I can see why you like it. It must have sucked leaving it in storage while we were living together.”

“It did,” she said, “but I had no choice. The mission had to come first.”

I nodded. That was something I understood. At first, I’d been skeptical about becoming the mansion’s Keeper, and about working with the EDI. Now, though, I understood that it was a matter of duty. The mansion was going to help protect the country—and the planet—from destruction at the hands of the Fateweaver. That was a higher purpose, and sometimes in the pursuit of such things, one has to make some sacrifices.

The mansion’s façade was eerie as it loomed up pale out of the darkness. It looked like a haunted house, all trailing ivy and peeling white paintwork. Inside, it was plush and welcoming, but the outside needed renovation. When I had a chance, I would ask Kyrine about it. I’d like to see the outside of the mansion spruced up a bit.

“You’re home,” said Kyrine’s voice in my head.

I jolted slightly, startled. I still hadn’t fully gotten used to her ability to speak directly inside my mind.

“We are,” I replied. “Astrid’s hurt. Can you create a healing potion for her?”

“Of course!” said Kyrine, sounding worried. “Bring her straight inside!”

I parked at the foot of the flight of broad marble steps that climbed up to the great double doors of the mansion’s main entrance. Belinda and Selena got out, and they came round to open Astrid’s door and help her out. I jumped out and took the steps two at a time to open the mansion door.

Astrid was gritting her teeth as her friends helped her up the steps. As the three women approached, I grabbed the door handles and flung the doors open, revealing the warm candle-lit entrance hall.

“Kyrine?” I said out loud into the empty hall.

There was shimmering in the air before me, and the beautiful dungeon avatar appeared. She was dressed in a figure-hugging red dress, her small bare feet visible below the hem. The dress showed me the tops of her breasts, and I could tell she was naked underneath from the way her nipples stretched the fabric.

Apart from her dark red irises, she looked in every way like a human, and yet there was something indefinably different about her. She was not a regular human at all, but the physical manifestation of the powerful dungeon core that lay at the heart of the mansion.

Kyrine looked me up and down, then a light came into her dark red eyes. “You have something for me,” she stated. It was not a question.

“A core,” I said, “harvested from a monster we fought.”

She nodded. “I can feel its presence,” she said, then took a step toward me and turned her face up to kiss me. She was a little shorter than I was, and I leaned down to meet her lips.

A jolt of fire rushed through me with that connection, and Kyrine smiled wickedly as we broke the kiss. Now was not the time to follow that up, however. Astrid needed our help.

Kyrine turned to the three agents as they stepped through the doorway into the mansion. At a wave of Kyrine’s hand, the doors swung closed, shutting out the night. There was a click of a lock.

The entrance hall was warm and bright with the light of a thousand candles, hanging from huge candelabras from the high-vaulted ceiling. It was paneled in dark, old fashioned wood, and the floor was carpeted with thick red rugs. Around the edges of the entrance hall were suits of Eosorean armor on stands, paintings of landscapes and castles, and low couches and comfortable chairs.

I grabbed one of these chairs and hauled it over to the door. Selena and Belinda helped Astrid sit down in it.

“Oh, my dear,” said Kyrine, her voice full of concern and affection, “your poor leg!”

Astrid smiled at her. It was not so long ago the agent had been terrified of the dungeon avatar, and it did my heart good to see the genuine affection forming between them.

Kyrine crouched in front of Astrid, then reached out her hands and held them over Astrid’s left leg. There was a faint hissing noise, and the tattered leg of Astrid’s jumpsuit disappeared up to the middle of her thigh, turning into a faint gray powder which was absorbed into Kyrine’s palms. Next, Kyrine did the same with Astrid’s knee-high black leather boot, absorbing it into her hands.

Astrid’s leg had been badly burned by the Cobra’s Acid Breath, and the pale skin was blistered and raw where the acid had connected. Kyrine nodded her head thoughtfully as she looked at the wound. “Yes, I have just the thing for this. Give me a moment.”

Kyrine closed her eyes and held her hands out, palms upward this time. Above her hands, the air shimmered. Black and gray swirls of dust appeared and coalesced into a shape. Color rippled through it as it solidified.

It was a squat bottle, the size and shape of an ink bottle, filled with a dark red liquid and stopped with a fat cork. Kyrine blinked her eyes open and held out the potion to Astrid, who took it gratefully. Belinda and Selena watched in frank amazement, and I guessed they’d never seen Kyrine manifest an item like that before.

“Thank you, Kyrine,” Astrid said breathlessly, taking the bottle, pulling the cork, and tipping the contents into her mouth.

A red swirling mist began to whirl like a vortex around Astrid’s body before