Monster (32 page)

“I’m just some guy.” He turned laser-vision peach and unleashed a blast of pure destructive power. The lasers sizzled against her chest. The smell of burning flesh and vanilla incense filled the air as Lotus advanced. He tried to think of something else, but he was pumping out enough force to disintegrate a tank.

Monster stopped, rubbing his burning eyes.

Lotus said, “You can’t stop me. You can’t even hurt me. So why do you keep trying?”

He became superstrong green and threw a punch. She caught his fist and twisted his wrist. He fell to his knees.

“You’re like a bug I can’t squash. It would almost be intriguing under normal circumstances, but…” She offered a bemused smile. “You’re not important. You’re just an inconvenience, a puzzle to keep me distracted.”

She cocked her head to one side and addressed the universe directly.

“How very clever. Taking advantage of my curiosity, I see. You’re getting smarter, aren’t you? But not smart enough. Not by a long shot.”

She vanished.

Monster rose. “Damn it.”

He flew through the hole and into the den above. Chester and Ferdinand, surrounded by clashing cats and imps, were locked in battle. Chester was ragged and torn, barely recognizable in his bear form. Ferdinand punched a hole in his chest and ripped off his head.

Monster came up behind her and put his hand on her back. The sharp shock of magic, like a sting of static electricity, passed between them. Ferdinand gasped as a tail burst out of her pants, and her face lengthened. Fur sprouted on her face.

“What did you… moooo?”

She ripped out of her clothes and fell to all fours as her body twisted and grew.

Monster checked on Chester, who folded himself back into his gnome shape. He went slowly, but bits and pieces still tore off in the process.

“Are you okay?” asked Monster.

“Been better.” Chester stood, but his movements were slow. “Ouch.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s not so bad.” Chester shrugged, and a rip split his back. “The pain I feel is more of a static feedback. More irritating than crippling.” He winced as his paper leg crumpled. “Ow. How do you material entities deal with this on a daily basis?”

“You get used to it.”

The brown cow in the den blew a huge bubble that popped and covered her nose.

“That’s a nice trick, boss.”

A cat shrieked like a banshee as several imps descended on it. A large gray feline trumpeted as it batted aside several attackers. Monster and Chester tiptoed their way through the melee and stepped out into the other room. The clatter of a sasquatch smashing plates in the kitchen and the hungry eyes of the manticore at the top of the steps suggested that the house might not be the safest place.

Outside was safer. The marooned water horse had given up on trying to move and grazed on the lawn. It used its jaws like a steam shovel to scoop out a flower box.

A glittering phoenix picked through some nearby garbage cans. A hairy purple primate with two heads leaped at the bird. The bird responded by self-immolating in a golden flash, sending the ape scurrying away, yelping.

“This can’t be good,” said Monster.

All around the neighborhood, cryptos of every size and classification roamed. A giant feathered serpent coiled on a chimney across the street. At the house beside that one, an eight-foot anthill was spewing raccoon-size insectoids. An amorphous blob with a single huge eye slithered its way over an automobile, consuming it with a satisfied slurp.

A kracken sat in a driveway. A turtle beast, nearly as big as a house, lumbered its way down the street at the breakneck pace of four feet per minute. And a dragon and a drake engaged in an aerial dispute with plenty of hissing and howling.

“It’s the stone. It’s confused,” said Monster.

A flock of pixies flew down to sprinkle sparkling dust on a cat. The feline turned to glass.

“You don’t say,” replied Chester.

“Where’s Judy?” asked Monster.

“I lost her in all the confusion. I thought you had a homing sense.”

“Whatever the stone did to me, it’s fading.”

“Kind of a shoddy enhancement magic, isn’t it?” Chester leaned against Monster to take the weight off his crumpled leg. “I don’t suppose you have the power to mend paper now, do you?”

“Maybe. I’m not really sure. I’m mostly functioning on reflex here.” A slight tingle at the base of his skull told him Judy was near, and a knot in his stomach let him know that Lotus was close by too. But he wasn’t getting directions.

“All the cryptos seem to be coming from that one direction.”

A giant winged caterpillar with a lion’s head dived at Monster. He turned green and smashed it across the jaws. It crumpled to the ground, struggling to clear its head.

“Good enough for me,” said Monster as he ran against the tide of the great crypto migration.

Ed could run farther and faster than any human being, and panic pushed her beyond her ordinary limits. A jellyfish nearly scooped her up in its tentacles. An albino alligator man tried to grab her from a sewer drain. And a small pack of goblins tried to pounce and devour her, only to be left behind in her mad panicky dash. She ran down the street without ever looking back, oblivious to most of the cryptos appearing spontaneously around her, never giving a second thought to them once she was past them.

She just ran.

Somehow, Judy got ahead of her. Ed stopped so abruptly, she fell off-balance and skidded across the street. A speeding car being attacked by a purple people-eater nearly drove over her. It swerved at the last minute to plow through a fence and into a car parked in a driveway.

The neighborhood was in chaos. Cryptobiologicals of myth and legend, many forgotten even by those with the power to remember, were everywhere now. Hairy and scaly creatures of all shapes and sizes were busy fighting each other, chasing humans, or just engaging in general destruction. A two-hundred-pound saber-toothed woodchuck toppled a utility pole with one bite. The power went out, and only the half-moon and aura of the city lit the neighborhood.

“Golly.”

A voice spoke in the dimness.

“Give me the stone.”

Ed thought it was Lotus at first. It sounded a lot like her. Not the voice itself, but the tone, the quiet, assured quality that went with it. But it was Judy, who materialized before Ed. Judy hadn’t changed in any real way. She still looked the same, but an aura of power covered her.

“Give me the stone,” she repeated.

Lotus had trained Ed well, but Judy reminded Ed so much of Lotus that she tried to hand over the stone. It didn’t budge, remaining suspended in space.

“That doesn’t belong to you,” said Lotus, who appeared opposite Judy.

Ed tried to give it to Lotus, but the stone refused to move. Ed released it, and it hovered in place, exactly between Lotus and Judy. Static electricity put a tingle in Ed’s skin and made her hair frizz. Lotus and Judy moved in unison, matching each other step for step, gesture for gesture. They held out their hands. Green and white lightning surged from the stone and into their palms.

The earth rumbled. Terror seized the nearby cryptos. Ed was nearly trampled by a fleeing minotaur. A raging whirlwind swirled around Lotus, Judy, and the stone. Gravity went weird and Ed was drawn toward the storm. A three-headed hellhound dug its claws into the street, but the force ripped it free. The cyclone snatched up the crypto and disintegrated the helpless hound. Chunks of asphalt, fence planks, clumps of grass and dirt, and unfortunate cryptos were swallowed by the storm. Debris was flung in all directions, and what didn’t get thrown out of the storm was consumed by it. Ed grabbed ahold of an SUV door handle as she was lifted off her feet.

The last few inches between the two women and the stone were the hardest. The stone went through a rainbow of colors. Golden lines, hidden runes of ancient power, formed on the women’s flesh.

Monster and Chester stopped at the edge of the gravity anomaly. Monster leaned back and braced himself to avoid being swept up into the void. Chester clung to Monster’s leg.

The world trembled as if it might shake apart. Car alarms blared. Every house and streetlight came on spontaneously and burned bright enough to turn the night into day for a few seconds before exploding.

“So what do we do now, boss?” shouted Chester over the howling winds and grumbling earth.

Monster didn’t have an answer.

Judy and Lotus touched the stone at the same moment. The whirlwind instantly vanished. The ground ceased rumbling, and the stone went black as the runes faded from its face. The force Monster had been resisting faded, and he fell over.

Judy and Lotus stared into each other’s eyes in the eerie quiet. The runes rose off their skin and whirled around them, struggling for dominance.

“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” asked Chester.

“Bad,” said Monster.

A residual connection to the stone remained with him, and he could sense the struggle raging beneath the surface of the universe as Lotus and Judy fought for control. Under the right circumstances, this could be a battle of equals, a stalemate lasting until the end of time. But they weren’t equals. Not quite.

Lotus had the edge. She wasn’t so easily shed. The stone still feared her, couldn’t stop feeding her. Judy had interrupted that flow of power, but it was only a temporary disruption. The balance would shift. Lotus would take control, and she would hijack Judy’s momentary oneness with the universe to fulfill her agenda.

“If we can separate Lotus, we might be able to break the stalemate,” said Monster.

The wind kicked up, and a slight tremor churned the broken asphalt. Judy and Lotus glowed, but Lotus shone just a little brighter. Monster picked his way across the uneven ground.

Ed stepped in the way. “I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t let you interfere. Mrs. Lotus wouldn’t—”

He put his hand on her shoulder. The spark passed between them. Ed whinnied as she ripped out of her clothes and reverted to her equine form. She reared up and bolted down the street.

Transforming Ed had used up the last of the magic the stone had given Monster. He retreated as the gathering power caused the sky to burn while the asphalt glowed beneath Judy and Lotus’s feet. Monster was scarlet now, immune to heat. Either a parting gift from the stone or a lucky break.

“What’s wrong?” asked Chester.

“What am I doing? I gotta be crazy.”

Monster backed away.

“But what about Judy?” said Chester.

“What about me?” replied Monster. “This is her destiny. I’m just some dumbass who got swept up in it.”

“You can’t just run away.”

“Sure I can.”

He turned, but Chester jumped in his path. “Damn it, Monster. You have to stop doing this.”

Monster glanced over his shoulder. Judy and Lotus boiled with power. Nearby fences and lawns caught fire. Chester withered and crinkled at the edges.

“Is this how you want to keep living your life?” asked Chester. “Always making the same mistake, always listening to the instinct of the moment?”

Monster tried to speak, but Chester held up his tattered and smoking hand.

“Let me finish. I don’t know how much longer this body will hold out.

“I’ve been coming to this universe for a long time now, and in all this time, I’ve seen some very stupid behavior. But then I reminded myself that you’re just bags of meat doing the best you can with what you’ve got. And from that perspective I guess you’re doing all right, even if mostly driven by the same selfish instincts that compel all blobs of marginally sentient protoplasm. It’s just what you are, and I try not to judge you for it.”

The fingers on Chester’s right hand started burning. He tore off the limb, tossing it away before the fire could spread.

“You are the most shortsighted, impulsive, and self-centered blob of protoplasm I have ever met. But here’s your chance, Monster. It’s time to prove that you aren’t just one bad decision after another, that you can do what needs to be done when it comes right down to it. It’s time to be more than just a human being looking out for himself. Or you can be just another blob of protoplasm. It’s your call.”

Chester burst into flame. “Damn it, that stings.” He burned away.

Judy and Lotus were ablaze now. White fire danced along their bodies. They weren’t burning, but nothing else could get close without being overwhelmed by the heat.

Though immune to normal heat, Monster was sweating. Every sensible instinct told him to run, even though there was nowhere to go. Chester could abandon his body and retreat to a safe other-dimensional distance. But Monster wasn’t a parahuman immigrant. He was stuck here in this universe, and whatever happened between Lotus and Judy would affect the whole thing.

He wasn’t important. He knew that. He was just some guy caught in a battle between titans. He didn’t see how he could affect that battle either way. It would be smarter to just ride it out and hope for the best.

The fire erupted in a tower of white hot flame. Monster wasn’t blinded by the light, but he shielded his eyes by reflex. In the heart of the column of fire, the silhouettes of Judy and Lotus stood locked in their standoff.