Monster (27 page)

He took stock of his surroundings. Wherever this was, it looked like someone had let a minotaur loose in the room. The furniture was upended and broken. A fern in a broken pot lay beside him. There was a huge hole in the middle of the floor.

It was his house.

“Son of a…”

Monster limped over to the refrigerator and found a beer to soothe his dry throat. The clock on the wall read half past nine. He sized up his situation. Or he tried. But he didn’t get any of it. None of the pieces made much sense. There was a woman who could summon and control cryptos (but only in a half-assed subconscious manner), an enchanted stone tablet, a crazy old lady with awesome magical powers. And he was stuck in the middle of it.

He checked Judy again. She was snoring. He prodded her with his foot. She didn’t respond.

The weird tea she’d been drinking and the inebriation rune had taken their toll. The teleport might not have helped either. Nothing to do but let her sleep it off.

He didn’t know if the house would be safe. Lotus would be looking for them. And the stone. He hadn’t forgotten about the stone. It’d gone from white to black. He left it on the spot of burnt carpet where it’d fallen.

Liz would be home soon, and at the moment an angry demon girlfriend ranked higher on his concerns than some crazy sorceress. But the stone or Judy or both had drawn him here, and he couldn’t think of any better place to go.

He considered leaving her on the floor. Not like it made any difference to her right now.

“Aw, screw it.”

He would’ve thrown her on the couch, but it teetered on the edge of the hole. He dragged her into the other room and laid her on his side of the bed. She didn’t stir, just snored louder. Her half-open eyes fluttered, but she wasn’t conscious. Maybe all the mind-altering magic she’d been subjected to had given her brain damage. Although he was pretty sure most coma victims didn’t snore loud enough to scare away dragons.

Where did her power come from? If there was some spell or curse, there had to be a mark on her body. He lifted her up and pulled back her collar to check for one. Then he lifted up her T-shirt. Just up to her belly button. He turned her over and checked her back.

Nothing.

Monster lifted her shirt another inch to the bottom of her bra. Still no sign. It could be anywhere. He might have to strip her naked to find it.

He went to the drawer and activated one of Chester’s spare bodies. “This is getting monotonous, boss.” The gnome unfolded himself in a stretch. “You escaped. I’m impressed. How’d you do it?”

“Beats the hell out of me. I think Judy and that stone did it. I was just along for the ride.” Monster pointed to Judy. “I need you to check her. If she’s human, then there has to be some kind of mark on her body.”

“Will do.”

Monster exited the room, leaving the door open a crack so they could talk while Chester searched Judy.

“What did you call that stone again?”

“A hard-form interdimensional sink,” shouted Chester. “It’s difficult to explain to a purely physical entity such as yourself.”

Monster stared at the stone, still lying where he dropped it. “Try me.”

“A hard-form sink is an object that resonates at a variable actuality rhythm.”

“You know what? Never mind.” Monster had taken only one course in interdimensional theory in college, and he’d failed it miserably.

“All you really need to know is that it’s an anomalous object of tremendous power.”

“And that’s how it teleported us?”

“Could be. It’s not difficult for a hard-form sink to slip around the edges of reality. Though it would have been directed. Unless it was self-aware.” Chester opened the door. “I checked. There’s nothing.”

“There has to be something.”

Monster went into the bedroom. Judy was draped in an awkward pose, still dead to the world. She was also half naked. Her pants were barely to her hips, and her torso was exposed. Monster noticed her breasts, but he quickly turned his eyes.

“Damn it, Chester! Why didn’t you put her clothes back on?”

“I did. All the important ones, anyway.”

“Her tits. You didn’t cover her tits.”

“Sorry. I forgot those were considered naughty.” Chester shrugged. “How am I supposed to keep track of all these arbitrary distinctions?”

“Tits aren’t arbitrary.” His gaze averted, Monster sidled up to the bed and threw the blanket over her. “They’re one of the big differences between men and women.”

“So is an Adam’s apple. But I don’t see you walking around with a turtleneck all the time. I don’t know what the big deal is. You keep saying how much you don’t like her. So what if you see her breasts?”

“Because they’re breasts,” said Monster. “You wouldn’t understand, but we lower biological entities have certain lower biological responses, even if we don’t want them. Seeing naked boobs will trigger those responses, whether I like them or not. And Liz can sense these things. She’ll know I’ve seen foreign breasts now, and she’s not going to like it.”

“It was an accident,” said Chester. “Blame me.”

“I’m planning on it.”

Judy stirred. She rolled over onto her stomach and smacked her lips before resuming snoring. Monster took this as a good sign. She wasn’t awake, but she was getting there.

“There has to be a mark,” said Monster. “Did you check her back?”

“Yes.”

“There are only two options here, Chester. If she’s human, then any magical condition that would give her the power to summon and control cryptos would require some kind of permanent mark on her body.”

“What if she’s parahuman?” said Chester. “Could be wearing a disguise.”

“If she’s wearing a disguise, then odds are that magic would leave a mark as well. Unless it came from some kind of charm or potion. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry, was she?”

“No.”

“I guess we’ll have to do a more thorough check.”

Monster found one of his giant drawing pads and a selection of markers. He also dug out his unabridged rune dictionary. The big one that weighed twenty-five pounds. A layer of dust had settled on it since last it’d been opened. He wanted to do this right.

Chester asked Monster about the stone. “Are you going to just leave that there?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You do realize that this stone tablet may be among the most dangerous objects in this universe.”

“Uh-huh,” said Monster, half listening. “That means it’s probably better to leave it alone. I’m not going to be the guy who blows up the earth.” He thought about it a second. “Well, I’m not going to be the guy who blows up the earth
by accident
.”

“Guess you have a point there. I wonder how that crazy lady got a hold of it. And what she was planning on doing with it. And why she needed Judy.”

“You wonder too much,” said Monster, a red marker clenched in his teeth as he flipped through his dictionary.

“I think this is probably important enough to wonder about,” said Chester. “This is big stuff here. This could be a singular object in your universe, the Rosetta stone for most, perhaps all, of its secrets.”

“I’d just be happy if it could tell me how to keep Liz from gouging out my eyes when she gets home.”

“This is a big deal, Monster.”

“I get it, but that stone and Judy are somehow connected. Maybe if I figure out what’s happening with her, I’ll be able to make sense of this.”

He completed the rune and laid it next to the bed.

“Help me put her on this.”

Monster took her shoulders. Chester handled her feet. The blanket fell away, revealing her naked chest. Monster averted his eyes, not that it mattered now.

“You’ll have to take off her pants,” he said.

Monster turned his back as Chester did so.

“What about the underwear, boss?”

“That can stay.”

Monster felt kind of bad about this, almost as though he were taking advantage of Judy. If she were awake, it wouldn’t seem so inappropriate. But if she were awake, she probably wouldn’t cooperate. He kept his back to her and asked, “Is anything happening?”

“No.”

“Any strange symbols forming on the body?”

“No.”

Monster glanced over his shoulder. Her naked, sleeping form was a hazy outline in the corner of his eye. “There has to be something. That’s a revelation rune. Even if it doesn’t give the whole answer, it should show something.”

“Maybe you did it wrong.”

Monster, keeping his back to Judy, moved around the room and flipped through his dictionary once more.

He heard the front door open.

“Stay here and watch Judy,” he told Chester. “I’ll have to keep Liz from freaking out.”

Monster dashed into the living room and shut the bedroom door. Liz stood perfectly still, her hand still holding the front doorknob as she stared quietly at the gaping hole in the ruined living room.

“Hey, baby.” He smiled his widest. “You won’t believe the day I’ve had.”

Though the air around her shimmered with heat, Liz remained calm. She set down her briefcase, walked around the hole and into the kitchen. She grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. Her hand caused the liquid inside to boil, and the bottle cap popped off the top as warm foam ran down the edges.

“How was your day?” he asked.

Liz took a drink of her beer but said nothing.

“I can explain this. I really can—”

“Don’t bother.”

“But you have to hear this. It’s completely unbelievable.”

“I’m sure it is, and I couldn’t care less. Because I’m through with this, Monster. I’m through with you.”

“What?”

“I’ve been talking to Gary about this, and—”

“Whoa, whoa. Who is Gary?”

“Nobody. Just some guy at work. You met him at the company picnic a couple of years ago, but of course you don’t remember.”

“What the hell does he have to do with anything?”

“Gary gets me. He understands and supports me in a way that you never did.”

Monster struggled to wrap his head around this. “Wait a minute. You’re dumping me?”

“
Dump
is such an ugly word,” said Liz with a forced smile. “But in this case, it’s entirely appropriate.”

“But what about last night? I thought we were back on track. Y’know, with the sex and all that.”

“It was nice,” she admitted. “And I was thinking maybe I was wrong about you. But one good night doesn’t make up for the rest of it. For crap like this. Life is too short.”

“But you can’t dump me. We have a contract!”

“I’m exercising my escape clause.”

Monster said, “Wait, wait, wait. If you dump me, you go back to the underworld.”

“That’s right.”

“You’d rather go back to the Pits than stay with me?”

“It wasn’t an easy choice to make,” she said, “but Gary and I agree that it’s the healthiest choice. You’re not good for me, Monster. I have enough to deal with. I don’t need to add your irresponsibility to the list.”

“I am not irresponsible.”

She finished her beer and tossed the empty bottle into the giant hole in the living room.

“That isn’t fair. It’s not my fault. I was nearly killed today. A couple of times.” He stopped. “Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute. I can’t believe you want to drop this on me today, not after the day I’ve had.”

“Gary said you would try to make this about you.”

“You’re screwing him, aren’t you?”

“Oh, how immature.” Liz shook her head. “This isn’t about sex.”

“You’re a succubus. It’s always about sex.”

“See? Gary told me you never got me. You never tried to understand what was important—”

“Screw Gary. The guy sounds like a real asshole.”

Liz flared and incinerated her chair. She fell on her butt.

Monster smiled. “Did Gary see that coming?”

Standing, she dusted herself off. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to bring me down to your level. But I’m better than that. I’m better than you.” The heat radiating from her body lessened, allowing him to step closer as he tried to come up with a rebuttal.

“You know what? I just realized I don’t give a crap either,” he said. “Actually, I’m kind of relieved. This scene was getting old. You’re so happy with Gary, then go back to Hell. I don’t…”

She squinted at him.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“You were looking at boobs, weren’t you?”

“What if I was? You’re dumping me, aren’t you?”

Liz scowled. “You asshole. You cheating asshole. And to think, I felt bad when I decided to kill you.”

“I didn’t cheat. I just saw some tits. Completely by accident.” He stopped. “Wait. You can’t kill me. That’s against the rules.”

“Oh, yes, but what happens when I break the rules, baby?” She smiled sweetly. “Do you remember what happens then… baby?”