The Minotauress

But the beast cowered, stepping back.

'Just as I thought,' Dean commented. He twirled the horn-crankers in his hands, clicking, like a fancy butterfly knife. 'You're only the big bad-ass monster when it comes to killing kids. Ain't got the balls to take on a real man.'

It boo-hoo'd further, tears streaming, looking at its mother for comfort.

'KILL HIM!' the goddess shouted. 'What are you? A EUNUCH?'

The beast shook its great oxen head, snot flying. Then it lowered its awl-sharp horns and charged.

Dean laughed with gusto, took one step to the left, and landed the plier onto a horn. With the greatest of ease, then—

kreeeee-CRUNCH!

—he cranked the horn out of the man-animal's head.

'NOOOOO!' the woman shrieked.

'Yes,' Dean retorted. He clapped the horn-crankers, and the horn dropped to the filth-carpeted floor. The half-human thing continued to sob outright, cowering back into a corner of rock, the minuscule penis voiding piss in sheer terror.

'WAIT!' Pasiphae shouted. 'Spare my son—I beg thee!'

'Tongue my balls,' Dean retorted.

'I'll offer a bargain.' Her dead-black eyes somehow glowed. 'I will trade you your lover in exchange for my son. And as further incentive... I'll give you these.' Her bone-shadowed figure fluttered backward, then seemed to pluck something from the rock's cragged face. She pulled out two naked babies—the missing Rundstedt Twins. 'Your lover and the babies—for my son.'

Dean sucked his wad of Skoal, thinking. 'Naaaa.'

'Dean!' Arianne shouted.

'Relax, hon,' Dean assured. 'I'll get you out of here and the twins, and I'll put the drop on this bitch and her pug-ugly bull-looking kid.' He grinned at Pasiphae. 'I know the secret now.'

Pasiphae held the twins aloft. They rowed their chubby arms and legs in the air, goo-gooing and ga-ga-ing. 'I'll kill these babies!' she warned.

'No you won't,' Dean attested, 'because you'll be dead before you can even think about it.'

'What makes you so sure,' her bottomless voice inquired.

'Because, like I said, I know the secret now.'

'And what secret is that?'

Indeed, Dean remembered, some twenty years hence: the bright morning on the ranch and his father showing him how it was done. Their horns are their power, son, he'd told the very young Dean Lohan. So ya gotta take that power, take it right away from 'em...

'Its horns are its power,' Dean repeated to the obsidian bitch. 'But they're your power too, aren't they?'

The shadow-woman just stood there, holding the twins up high. She made no answer.

In a movement too rapid to be properly recorded by the naked eye, Dean twirled in a blur, slapped the horn- crankers on the monster's remaining horn, and—

kreeeee-CRUNCH!

—tugged it out as easily as a candle from a cupcake. Suddenly the lake of filth began to bubble... and Pasiphae began to shriek.

The Minotaur died at once; dehorned now, it shivered in its corner, and in the wink of an eye, it was nothing but a black puddle on the floor. Its atrocious mother took a bit longer, her black scream bursting forth as she melted to a puddle of filth herself. When it was over, the two naked babies waddled gleefully in her stinking liquid remains.

I'd say that does the trick. Dean slipped his horn-crankers back on his belt, then took Arianne down off her hook.

She wept tears of joy. 'I love you,' she said.

Dean smirked. 'Grab the kids, jizz-pot. Let's get the fuck out of this slime bowl.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

By the time Dean emerged from the mine, it was day-break. Camera crews stood in wait. It didn't take long before Dean Lohan was a national hero, thanks to CNN and wire services.

The Rundstedt Twins were happily returned to their redneck mother at the trailer park. Arianne was saved (though still bitching for ice), and the murder spree in DeSmet, South Dakota—though it could never be fully explained—ended as abruptly as it started. Soon johns were cruising main street every night for tricks, and the steady commerce of crystal-meth resumed.

All was back to rights.

Dean, Ajax, and Arianne lounged back on the plush Edgewood sofa of the Lohan Mansion's elegantly paneled den. Mr. Jake Lohan, by the way, remained in the hospital in stable condition but was expected to fully recover in a matter of weeks. During his stay, however, he'd decided to retire from the ranching business, and signed all of his wealth, property, and business over to his dutiful son Dean.

'Hey, Shirley!' Dean cracked. 'Sometime before Christmas, huh? Where're them beers?'

The three of them sat with their feet up on the 18th Century black japanned coffee table, its invaluable finish stained by many previous beer rings. Shirley rushed back in with the beverages, then plopped right down next to Ajax, placing a hand on his leg. Ajax smiled... and got wood.

'Here it is, it's coming up,' Arianne exclaimed, pointing at the big television.

The familiar brunette in the same burgundy coatdress stood in front of the mine opening behind Stoddard's Mill, speaking stoically into a microphone: '... can now breathe a collective sigh of relief in the aftermath of the terrible slew of abductions and murders which have cursed the town for the last week. The most recent, and clearly the most horrific, tragedy—the abduction of the Rundstedt Twins—was foiled this morning by DeSmet native Dean Lohan, who braved the mine's deep depths and saved the twins... '

A video clip showed Dean emerging from the mine's portal, holding both of the Rundstedt Twins in his arms.

'You're a movie star!' Ajax shouted.

'He's always been my star,' Arianne added.

'Dean Lohan,' the newscaster continued, 'moved to Seattle several years ago, and had returned just two days ago to see his father, Jack, the owner of the largest cattle ranch in the state, who was recently injured by whatever