Summoned by Monster Girls

The glowing words in my vision didn’t fade away immediately. They did shift and morph into a new sentence inside the darkened confines of my truck.

Retrieval successful.

Traveler, please stand by for DSR personnel to contact you for a debrief.

After a handful of seconds, just long enough to finish reading it, the words flared and vanished from my view. The only light in the truck now came from the passing headlights of a car.

“That was…I don’t know what that was.” I muttered, patting at my chest and my pockets. I don’t know why I did it. You travel to another world and talk to a bunch of half-animal people and see if you are calm when you come back. Checking to make sure I had my wallet still made sense at the moment.

Something strange caught my attention as the headlights went past, so I reached up to fumble on the overhead light in the cab of the truck.

The two runic marks on my right forearm were still there and I stared at them in confusion.

Black markings stared back at me, indelible and stark. A confirmation of fact to what had just happened.

Tracing them with one finger confirmed that they were slightly raised, like a fresh tattoo, but didn’t hurt anymore. I ran my fingers over the first one, the one that had appeared after Kassandra did whatever it was she did. I could sense a faint, gleeful happiness that I wasn’t entirely sure if I was imagining. Tracing the second one, I got nothing. But running my finger back over the first got that same content feeling in my chest. My musings were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the passenger window.

I didn’t scream in surprise. Nope. Not a single scream happened and no one was there to say otherwise.

I did yelp though, that much I’ll admit to.

With the overhead light on, the reflections on the interior glass made it impossible to see what was outside the truck other than the shape of a person. I was sure it had to be a good Samaritan that stopped to check on the truck. I had no idea how long I’d been sitting there and it was possible it could be another state patrol checking on an abandoned vehicle too. Doing my best to calm my racing heart, I took a breath to respond.

“Sorry, one second.” I called and flicked the overhead light off again to get a look at who stood outside the truck.

What stood outside my truck was definitely not a state patrol officer.

The dim light of the passing traffic showed a woman’s figure, with broad shoulders, full breasts, and long hair. Another vehicle passed in the oncoming lane with high beams on and washed her with light for several seconds. Her skin was a slate blue color that heavily accented the fact that her long, straight hair was the vibrant color of a fresh strawberry. She was wearing a white blouse with the top few buttons open, which was already darkening from the rain still pattering down. She made a motion with one hand to roll the window down and I noted she was wearing long, black, opera-style gloves. The entire time she was smiling gently through the window at me.

The motion broke me out of my staring and I fought with a brief urge to just drive away. Humans don’t have blue skin naturally, or hair that is bright red. But I had just been summoned to another world and talked to three different people with clear animal features to them. I even had tattoos to prove it.

“Whatever, can’t get any weirder. Maybe she’s from the ‘DSR’ or whatever the floating, magical writing was talking about and has some answers.” I grumbled before leaning over to tug on the manual lock of my old truck. The door clunked as the lock disengaged and then clunked a second time when she popped the latch and pulled the door open.

“Excuse me. But are you Liam Cosgrave?” The woman asked in a tone that was a little concerned and quite hopeful. Her opening the door caused the overhead light to come on again and illuminated more of her body.

She had wide hips and a narrow waist tucked into a fitted, black pencil-skirt. The white blouse was soaked through enough to reveal that she either wasn’t wearing a bra, or it was the same color as her skin. Sea-green eyes glittered with concern as she peeked into the truck at me, while her strawberry red hair bounced in a slight curl near her rounded bottom.

“That’d be me. Hop in before you get soaked, ma’am.” I beckoned for her to join me and she did so with a bright smile that held not even a hint of guile. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bit of an issue with being too willing to help people out. But the vibe I got off of this woman was completely honest, blue skin notwithstanding.

Man, how messed up is it that I can glance at a random woman that has blue skin who just happened to appear on the side of a dark road next to my truck and think ‘yea she’s trustworthy’? I thought to myself as the selfsame blue skinned woman carefully navigated up into the passenger seat of the truck. Her long legs were also encased in black stockings that vanished under her skirt. She wore a pair of simple shoes in a dark red that went well with the black of her outfit and had sensible heels on them.

“I am glad that we were able to recover you, Mr. Cosgrave.” The woman said once she was settled onto the seat of my truck and closed the door. She’d produced a flat leather folio case from somewhere while I’d been thinking about how weird my life had been the last few hours. “This whole thing must have been extremely disorienting to you and I want to be the first to apologize for the inconvenience that it must have caused.”

“Uh…” I said smartly, somewhat surprised by her ready apology before even introducing herself.

“What happened to you was a tragedy and likely quite scarring, but I reassure you that the DSR will do what it can to make this right and to ensure that you’ll be able to return to a normal life.” The slate skinned woman’s eyes were filled with earnest concern as she rapidly flipped through something in the folio, glancing up at me occasionally.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal actually.” I tried to reassure her but she was having none of it.

“It was though! Humans aren’t even on the list of approved summons, let alone the fact that you never volunteered to answer a call as such.” She looked up from her paperwork with such earnest concern that I was honestly more confused by this situation than I had been only moments before when confronted by half-animal people. Her forehead wrinkled cutely as she stared at me with such care that it was touching. That let me finally find my feet in the conversation.

“Hang on for a second.” I said quickly, holding up a hand. “Can we start this over? I have about a million questions and while I appreciate your reassurances, I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh..I apologize. My name is Cariad Davies, but you can just call me Cari if you want.” She blushed cutely, her slate blue skin darkening across the bridge of her nose, and ducked her head a bit in embarrassment.

“Okay. Call me Liam then please, Cari.” I asked, glancing out the front window. “So what can you tell me about?’

“About what, Liam?” Cari asked cutely, her nose wrinkling slightly as she gave me another earnest smile.

“About all of this? What the heck happened? Where did I go? What is the DSR? What are you?” I winced slightly as the last question flowed out alongside the rest. “I mean that last one in as least offensive a way as possible. I am just…so confused right now.”

“That is fine, Liam. You have a lot of leeway given what happened to you.” Cari reassured me sweetly before clearing her throat and squaring her shoulders. “I’m happy to answer any questions that you have to the best of my ability! Just tell me where you want me to start.”

Are you single? The thought came floating out of the depths of my caveman brain entirely unexpectedly and I flinched, shaking my head a bit in hopes of shaking the thought away from myself.

“Oh my, I apologize if I am making you uncomfortable, Liam.” Cariad had clearly caught the flinch and her smile fell into a sad expression that tore at my heart.

“No, no, no. It’s not that. I’m not uncomfortable around you.” I reassured her quickly and her smile returned like a sun gleaming off a cool pond. I cast around quickly and spat out the first question that came to mind in an effort to shove us along past the awkward moment. “What is the DSR?”

“Right! You would have no point of reference for us. DSR stands for ‘Dimensional Security and Repair’. The DSR handles the barriers between realities and works to ensure that they remain stable as well as preventing things like: dimensional invasions or incursions, collapse, leakage, theft, or kidnappings.” Cariad ticked these points off on her long fingers as she said them. “Ultimately, we are here to make sure that things keep working the way they are supposed to.”

“And I take it that me getting yanked to another world with no warning to meet a bunch of animal people wasn’t ‘working how it is supposed to?” I asked, being very careful to not sound accusing. Cariad was just so earnest and I didn’t want her to feel bad. I’d worked enough customer service jobs to know that the one stuck helping the angry customer was rarely the person who was at fault.

“Exactly! Humans and Earth are actually on the ‘no contact’ list, as events in your species' history made it a point that your kind did not want to be contacted or travel between dimensions. Religious wars and ethnic cleansing tends to do that.” Cariad gave me a wry smile and I couldn’t help but nod along.

“If you are talking about the Dark Ages and all that, then yea that would be good evidence to avoid contacting us…wait you said something about being on a ‘list’? Am I going to get in trouble? Are you guys kind of like TSA? Did I violate a ‘no fly’ list or something?”

“Not at all, Liam!” Cariad chirped, her smile not fading at all. “You didn’t volunteer or pierce the dimensional membrane yourself, so you were just another victim in the situation. That’s why I’m here, to do my best to fix this.”

“What is there to fix? I’m back…though not sure if I want to be back, honestly.” I glanced down at the paperwork sitting on the bench seat next to me. The officer who had documented the accident had given me a handwritten summary of the event and what to expect, advising that anything else would be mailed to him. It was a stark reminder of the shit that my life was.

“Ah…” Cariad’s chipper voice faded into one of concern and she seemed at a loss for words.

“Nevermind, just me being mopey. Besides, Kassandra said she’d try and summon me back anyway. So maybe I can see them again.”

“Oh that won’t work.” Cariad crushed my hopes in seconds with an assertive tone. “Only Travelers can actually transit between dimensions on the regular. What happened to you today was more akin to someone busting through a wall and snatching you, rather than anything like the normal summoning process.”

“I thought I was a Traveler though? That’s what the glowing words said earlier.” I was mostly talking to myself, but apparently Cariad caught it and her head whipped around fast enough that her hair swung around to land across her chest. The bright red strands were still wet from the rain but I heard a quiet hissing noise as they hit her skin and steam rose up from the point of contact.

“What was that about glowing words?” Cariad demanded, her voice a mixture of concern and hard demand.

“Whoa, how hot is your skin?” I couldn’t stop staring at where the steam continued to rise off her exposed chest at the spot her moist hair was contacting it.

“I'm at normal temperature. That is just what happens when a daemon contacts matter from a stable dimension.” Cariad brushed off my question with a wave of her hand. “I’ll explain it later, but I need to confirm something first though, Liam. You said something about glowing words? Wait, what are those?”

“Yea.” I managed to finally tear my eyes away from her (literally) smoking chest and back up to her eyes to see what the sudden question was aimed at. I met her eyes and blinked in surprise.

Both sets of them.

A second pair of eyes had opened up above and to either side of the first. They were a vivid, electric-blue in color and slitted like Kassandra’s had been. All four of them were fixed on my right arm. More specifically, the black marks on my arm.

“I have no idea what these are. They appeared after I agreed to help two girls in the world that I got pulled to. Kassandra and Rieka. They said they needed a guardian and I agreed to help them out.” I shrugged, holding my arm out to her so she could look at them closer. She bent to look intently at the swirls, which caused her shirt to fall a bit further open and reveal more soft skin. I forced my eyes away and continued. “As far as the glowing words? Right before I was summoned, these fluorescent purple words popped up in my vision and warned me I was being summoned. They said something about alerting the DSR and to not panic.”

“Dear Ancients…you might actually be a Traveler.” Cariad gasped, her left hand coming up to cover her mouth in surprise as she sat upright. Her normal eyes flicked up from my arm to stare at me, while her electric-blue set remained fixed on the marks on my arms.

“Can you fill me in on what a Traveler is?” I asked after sharing a stare with her for several seconds.

The question was enough to shake her out of her fugue and Cariad cleared her throat quickly. Her upper set of eyes closed once more, leaving behind thin lines that marked their lids but nothing else hinted at their existence. I could only tell they were there because I’d been watching when she closed them.

“Sorry about that, Liam. I was just…well, that is…” Cariad paused for a moment to collect herself and took a deep breath before continuing. “A Traveler is a member of an existing race that has made contact with the System and volunteered to transit between dimensions in order to fulfill contracts and agreements. Normally, this is something that we get more advanced warning of, but what you described is one of the ways the System contacts operatives. Give me a moment to check something please?”

“Of course, check away.” I gestured for her to go ahead and fished in my pocket for my phone to check the time.

My phone was the one thing that I’d bothered to invest money in. I didn’t own a computer, or even have the Internet in my apartment. But I did have a decent phone with a good data plan, so it made up the difference. The display on the phone told me it was half past ten at night and I would have to be up for work in about five or so hours.

“Ugh…” I groaned and tossed the phone back down on the seat next to me. This reminded me of the issues getting the truck started earlier and I tried the key again. The vehicle rumbled to life almost immediately, with the radio crackling on before it began spouting off the classic rock station I’d been listening to while driving. I was quick to turn it down, glancing over to check on Cariad to see if she was on the phone, which she wasn’t.

Instead, she was actually cupping something in her hand that I couldn’t see. As I watched, she rolled the window down and tossed it out the window before quickly spinning the crank to close the window once more.

“Okay! It’ll be a bit until I hear back from my boss on the exact details. In the meantime though, I can answer a few of your questions. Also, we don’t have to wait here, you are free to start heading back home. I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than I already am.” Cariad gave me another of her cute smiles and I nodded once, doing my best not to stare.

“Sure…but what about your car? I don’t want to leave it…” I glanced over my shoulder and through the narrow window behind the truck, somehow expecting the, literally four-eyed, woman to have a car parked nearby.

“Oh I didn’t travel here by car. Don’t worry about it, Liam. The most important thing right now is answering your questions and making sure you are comfortable. Especially if you really are a Traveler.”

Deciding not to argue, I shrugged and checked traffic once more before signaling and pulling out onto the rain-slicked road.

“So, just to confirm…that wasn’t a hallucination? You aren’t a hallucination, right?”

“If I was a hallucination, of course I’d tell you I was real, wouldn’t I?” Cariad’s tone was slightly teasing at first before she became serious. “No, it wasn’t a hallucination. You actually were yanked out of your reality by a freak accident and into another one that was not your own. We were able to recover you and draw you back to your native reality only because you did not exit the close environs of the summoning accident. Normally, such an event would have simply fizzled and not gotten far enough to take you. But someone wasn’t paying attention and a mistake happened. Again, I would like to apologize on behalf of the DSR.” Cariad shifted to bow her head to me.

“It’s fine. I’m not hurt and I made it back. Don’t worry about it.” I tried to reassure her while we got up to speed. “Also, could you buckle your seatbelt? The last thing I need is another ticket…”

“The point is that you could have been hurt, Liam. It was still an accident and a problem. The DSR will make it right, though the fact that you claim to be a Traveler will complicate that, though not in a bad way.” She was quick to reassure me while buttoning up the top of her blouse slightly before pulling the seat belt out of the wall and buckling it, being oddly careful to make sure it was tucked against her chest and under the collar of her shirt.

“Okay, but you don’t need to apologize anymore. Apology accepted. I don’t hold it against you or anything, so no need to hammer on it too much.” I glanced over at what she was doing, which reminded me of the whole ‘smoking chest’ thing. “Could you explain why your chest, err…your skin started smoking when your hair made contact with it?”

“Oh! Yes, I did say I would explain that. So it necessitates explaining a few things really quickly to get context. I have to say you are taking this quite well, all things considered.” Cariad said quickly

“Panicking wouldn’t help. So I’m just trying to focus on the facts for now.” I said while nodding for her to continue. She shot me a small smile before picking up where she’d left off.

“So! You are from this universe. You are a native to it and the existence that it represents. I am not from this universe. Or any of them to be exact.”

“Okay, you said you were a ‘daemon’, is that right?”

“Yup! That is exactly what I meant. Daemon’s exist not in a given universe, but between them. We are creatures that inhabit the membrane that separates the universes and keeps them secure. The DSR is one of the most important organizations as it helps to maintain the membrane that we exist in.”

“So you kind of…live inside the walls between worlds? That sounds cramped.” I could only imagine her squeezed into a narrow crawlspace inside the walls of a house. While it was an amusing, and somewhat alluring, mental image, it didn’t look comfortable in my head.

“Oh the dimensional membrane is not that tight. There are dozens of miles of space between different universes, both horizontally and vertically. The DSR works to make sure that the barriers are respected and not damaged since it also endangers our people. Usually, the damage is caused by folks being yanked between dimensions without warning. It’s actually one of the reasons the System was put into place.”

“Okay, so people getting yanked damages the membranes, which is where you guys live. And the DSR is there to prevent that?”

“Yup! But it only damages them when people are pulled through the wrong way. Travelers and people moving according to the System’s guidance follow secure pathways that don’t damage the membranes and can actually work to enhance them and heal damage.” Cariad answered rapidly, her sea-green eyes glittering with excitement.

“Got it, but how does that equate to your skin smoking?”

“Oh, that is because it was being consumed. When a Daemon touches material of a stable universe, it is consumed entirely to energize the Daemon. It’s kind of like…has your science discovered antimatter yet? Sort of like that, but one sided. It’s how the barriers remain solid after all, by consuming matter from the existing universe.” Cariad’s grin was wide as she stared at me, though I couldn’t help the sudden feeling of concern welling in my stomach.

I was sharing the cab of my truck with a being made of antimatter?