Monster (31 page)

“She’s destroyed a hundred worlds before this one. She killed the dinosaurs. She sank Atlantis. Her manipulations led to the Dark Ages and the fall of Chinese dynasties. She invented the cell phone and created reality TV. All with only one purpose: to hold back the development of the life in the universe. She’s the reason magic is disappearing, because she’s strangled nearly all of it out of the stone.

“She doesn’t even want to do anything with it. By now she should have the power to shape the universe. But she never really learned how to use it properly. Because all she cares about is having it, not using it. She just wants to have it because she doesn’t want anyone else to have it. And every bit she uses is less for her.”

“So if Judy’s such a threat, why hasn’t Lotus killed her?”

“Because Lotus doesn’t just kill the avatar. She uses them first.”

“For what?”

Monster tried to remember, but the information escaped him. Since he had never been intended to be one with the universe, he’d had two choices. He could either go mad or forget. If this was the way the haze worked for light cogs, no wonder they were always so grouchy and frustrated.

“Use her for what?” asked Chester again.

“I don’t know. But I do know we have to stop it.”

“Any idea how you stop an invincible parasitic entity older than the universe?”

“I can’t. She’s unstoppable. Her only weakness is the stone, and she’s had that under her thumb since the dawn of the universe.”

Monster came to a stop, hovering over Lotus’s house. There were more than three dimensions, though the others weren’t much use for anything. But they let him peek around its walls. Just another trick he’d learned from his brief hours of enlightenment, along with the instinct that let him know where Lotus, the stone, and Judy were at all times.

“They’re in there. Waiting.”

“Do we have a plan?”

“It’s all about the stone. When the time is right, when things line up the way they’re supposed to, it’ll all come down to who is holding it. Best-case scenario: Judy is holding the stone at the time of alignment. Worst case: Lotus is holding both the stone and Judy.”

“What happens then?”

“I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t going to be good for anyone.”

“So, get the stone, give it to Judy. Or at least keep it and Judy away from Lotus.”

“Yeah. Now hang on.”

Monster shifted from flying goldenrod to invulnerable blue and plummeted from the sky.

As the time of alignment approached, the haze fell away. Judy realized that magic was real. Again. And she also realized she was getting tired of realizing that over and over again.

She sat on Lotus’s floral print couch with Ed and Ferdinand crowded on either side of her while two dozen cats milled restlessly. Lotus entered with a pot of her enchanted tea.

“Care for a cup, dear?” asked Lotus. “It’ll make this easier.”

“No, thanks,” replied Judy.

Lotus poured a cup and went to the window. “Suit yourself. Such a lovely night.” She picked up the stone. Smiling, she ran her fingers across it. “It won’t be long now.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Why, I’m doing exactly what I promised. You wouldn’t understand, but you will. For one brief moment, when things are aligned, you will understand everything. It won’t last long, but it should be some consolation. And once it’s all over, I promise to give you a nice saucer of milk.” Lotus sipped her tea and smiled. “Won’t that be lovely?”

“You’re going to make me into a cat?”

“Oh, yes. You and everyone else.”

“But… why would you do that?”

Lotus said, “Consider it a reboot. Just something that must be done from time to time in order to preserve the order of things. Every so often the universe develops something, some species or world, that just shouldn’t be. I usually allow things to carry on for a while, but sometimes I must intervene.”

“By turning them into cats?” asked Judy.

“This time.” Lotus laughed. “It’s not always the same. Depends on the situation. But I think this will work out wonderfully for everyone.”

“How does it—”

“Tell me, Judy, are you happy?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question.” Lotus sat in the recliner across from Judy. The silver-haired woman picked a piece of lint off her skirt, crossed her dancer’s legs, and folded her hands in her lap. “Are you happy?”

“That’s not a simple question.”

Ferdinand snorted.

Judy said, “You can’t just expect someone to quantify something as hard to define as—”

“Ed, are you happy?” asked Lotus.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Ed.

Judy glared. “You can’t count her. She’s always happy.”

“Ferdinand, are you happy?”

Ferdinand took a moment to answer, but only because she had to tuck her huge wad of gum in her cheek. “Sure.”

“They don’t count,” said Judy. “They’re not human. Not exactly.”

“You’re right. They’re not. Not exactly. I didn’t change them all the way, because I’m not that cruel.”

Judy glanced at the guards posted on either side of her. Ed batted her big brown eyes. She took a bite of her apple and grinned. Ferdinand snorted, chewing her gum. She half smiled. There was a blank quality in her stare. And Ed’s too.

“Do you know what separates humanity from the other beasts of this world?” asked Lotus. “It’s not the ability to make tools or complex language or any of that other nonsense you tell yourselves. No, humans are unique in all this world because they’re the only creatures that can make themselves miserable. And do you know how you do that? You do it by expecting to be happy. You’re so busy thinking about happiness, obsessing about finding it and why it isn’t where you expect it to be, that you completely miss the point.

“The other creatures of this universe don’t go looking for happiness. They don’t even expect to be happy. They just expect to be, and that’s good enough.”

“You’re crazy,” said Judy.

“Am I? How about your friend Monster? Was he happy? Or anyone else in your life? Can you name anyone who you think is satisfied with their lot in life?”

“My sister isn’t doing too bad.”

Lotus shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m sure there are one or two genuinely happy souls out there. But can you honestly say that you think it’s more than three or four percent? And that’s being generous.”

Judy tried to come up with another example. She thought of Paulie, but he wasn’t much more complicated than an animal. As long as he had a roof over his head and some weed, he was in solid shape. He had no aspirations beyond that.

No one else came to mind.

“Admit it,” said Lotus. “Admit that if tomorrow all of humanity disappeared to be replaced by cats that this would only be an improvement. No traffic jams or pollution, no wars or television shows. Every ridiculous, time-wasting, misery-inducing preoccupation of your species… gone. Just like that. Doesn’t it sound lovely?”

“Oh, very lovely,” agreed Ed.

“But what about the logistics of a world suddenly full of so many cats at once?” asked Judy. “What happens when the cities start crumbling and all the mice are eaten?”

“Trifles,” said Lotus. “Oh, there will be some growing pains, I’m sure, but it’ll all work itself out in the end, and when it does, the world will be a much better place for it.”

Judy thought about it, and it didn’t seem so bad to become a cat. Her life hadn’t been going very well, and it wasn’t as if she had much of a future. But things like that didn’t bother cats. She wasn’t sure how she felt about having a tail, but she did like tuna salad and sleeping in. She wanted to argue with Lotus, wanted to come up with some brilliant reply that countered everything she had just said.

Nothing came to mind.

A blue meteor smashed through the ceiling, colliding with Lotus, who was knocked through the floor and into the basement. The stone flew out of her hands and landed in Judy’s lap. She grabbed it and was struck by a flash of insight.

The stone needed her, and she needed the stone. Her whole life had been leading to this. Things hadn’t been going wrong in her life. She wasn’t a screwup. She just hadn’t known her purpose.

The stone throbbed with a bright blue light.

Ferdinand wrapped her hand around Judy’s neck and yanked the stone from her hands. Ferdinand’s powerful muscles strained and she wrenched it free, taking a layer of Judy’s skin with it. Judy yelped.

“You’re not supposed to touch this.” Ferdinand tossed the stone to Ed. “Keep it away from her.”

“Okeydokey,” said Ed.

The stone called Judy. Lotus was right. The time was near. Nearer than she’d imagined. The culmination of her life, of every life. But the window of opportunity would close as suddenly as it opened, and she needed to be holding the stone before that happened.

Ferdinand dragged Judy to the edge of the hole. They peered into the dim basement.

“Bet Lotus didn’t see that one coming,” said Judy with a smile.

“Is she okay?” asked Ed.

There was no doubt that Lotus was only inconvenienced. But Ferdinand and Ed were right to be worried. Under normal circumstances, one invulnerable blue guy plummeting from the sky would’ve bounced off Lotus like a single drop of light rain. But the balance had shifted. The stone, though still too afraid of Lotus to leave her completely vulnerable, had withdrawn some of its protection. But Judy knew Lotus wasn’t harmed, merely stunned. And that wouldn’t last long.

A paper hummingbird flitted out of the hole. Ferdinand swatted at Chester, who nimbly darted out of reach.

“Judy, you’re here! And the stone!”

Chester folded himself into a mini-pterodactyl and dive-bombed Ferdinand. She grabbed him by the ankle and threw him to the floor.

Chester refolded in such a rush that he ended up tearing off a few pieces of himself. He became a full-size bear, putting the extra effort into folding himself some jaws with a full set of teeth, which he flashed in a grin.

“Roar.”

He wrapped Ferdinand in a powerful embrace.

“Hurry. I can’t hold her for long.” His paper body was stretched to its limits, and his arms were already half torn from the strain.

Judy turned toward Ed.

“Give me that.” Judy took a step forward. The cats intercepted her. They hissed, honked, growled, and screeched at her.

“Get lost.”

A ripple ran through the universe, and suddenly the room was full of fox-faced imps. They filtered from all the unseen corners and shadowy nooks and crannies, from under the couch and smashing through the windows. The army of imps and the legion of cats turned the den into a deafening war zone.

Judy walked through the middle of the battle. “Give me that stone.”

Ed turned and ran.

A sasquatch stomped its way out of the kitchen, and a manticore roared at the top of the stairs. Ed dashed out the front door and was confronted by a full-grown lake horse on the lawn. The crypto wasn’t happy. Not surprising, considering that it was a twenty-five-ton sea creature stuck on dry land. It flapped its flippers and whipped its tail, with little effect. Its head turned in Ed’s direction and growled.

“Give me that stone!” shouted Judy.

Ed’s horse nature took over, and she bolted in a panic down the street.

It turned out that Monster wasn’t completely invulnerable when blue. His kamikaze attack against an unstoppable godlike being resulted in several lost teeth, a broken arm, and maybe some internal injuries.

The only light filtering into the basement came from the hole in the ceiling. He could see in the dark when chalk white, but he was stuck in regenerative turquoise. His broken arm mended and several new teeth pushed their way out of his gums. The pain lessened.

Monster felt around for Lotus. There was a hole in the foundation in a vaguely human shape, but she wasn’t there.

Someone hoisted him by his collar and flung him across the basement. He crashed into a pyramid of cardboard boxes and was buried under a mound of moldy clothes, trilobite fossils, and discontinued soda bottles Lotus had collected over her many millennia.

Lotus grabbed him by the throat. Invulnerable blue didn’t seem capable of stopping her from crushing shut his windpipe. Monster’s vision blurred. He could still be only one color at a time. Shifting to anything else would risk having her tear off his head. But if he didn’t do something soon, she’d strangle him.

Monster turned lightning bolt gray and put both hands on Lotus’s head. He pumped a few thousand volts through his fingers. The electricity surged through the both of them, sending them hurtling in opposite directions.

A few moments of turquoise allowed his throat to repair itself. Lotus was already on her feet, unharmed except for a few strands of sizzling hair and some cracks along her skin, exposing a sickly yellow flesh beneath.

“Who are you?” she asked. “You seem human, more or less. A few tricks at your disposal, true, but I just don’t see your place in this, other than to cause me a few moments of inconvenience.”