Monster (33 page)

Monster hesitated, unable to either flee or go forward.

He ran through his choices. He could throw himself into the flames and do something. He wasn’t sure what, but he didn’t have time to think that far ahead. Or he could just hide and ride it out.

Chester had been right. That was what Monster always did. He just went with the flow, let life and circumstances push him around. It hadn’t been working out very well, but in this case, going against that instinct probably meant being incinerated in the magical pyre that sealed Judy and Lotus away from the rest of the universe.

He stuck his hand into the pyre. His scarlet skin darkened but didn’t burn. He pulled it out and inspected the limb. Still solid. Moist with sweat, but otherwise not a blackened stump.

“Man or protoplasm,” he mumbled. “Which is it, Monster?”

In the heart of the fire, Judy’s knees wobbled, and a ripple ran through the universe as reality was rewritten. Whiskers sprouted on his face, and fur grew along his arms. He ran his fingers across his pointed ears.

He lowered his head and plunged into the flames before he could talk himself out of it. Though the unnatural heat was stifling, he wasn’t blasted into ashes. He kept his eyes on his goal. Every step was harder than the last as his feet sank into the street, a sea of boiling tar. He had to keep moving or else he’d sink up to his knees. Halfway there, his shoes got stuck, but his shrinking feet slipped loose. His suddenly large clothes fell off as he became a scarlet cat. Lighter and faster, he danced across the sticky tar even as his mind became foggy. But he kept reminding himself that he had to reach Lotus. Even after every other human thought disappeared, he managed to hold on to that one. Claws extended, he hurled himself onto Lotus’s leg just as the tar threatened to drag him under.

Lotus was unaccustomed to pain, having not experienced it in several millennia. But the stone’s protection was gone, and the scratching, biting, hissing feline climbing up her leg took her completely by surprise. Shrieking, she released the stone and whirled, beating at Monster as he sank his fangs into her rump.

The tower of flame disappeared and the sea of tar instantly cooled into an uneven black plain. Judy and the stone burned brighter.

Lotus finally succeeded in detaching the Monster, who was a cat in mind and body now. He hissed and spat, arching his back and raising his hackles. She pointed at him, blasting a stream of fire. It disintegrated before reaching him.

She tried again, but nothing happened. A chill breeze swept over her, and Lotus shivered.

Judy held the stone under her arm.

“That’s mine!” shouted Lotus. “How dare you!”

She charged like a slathering beast. Judy made a small gesture. Barely a flick of the wrist. The tar liquefied under Lotus and sucked her under. She was up to her waist before it turned solid again.

Lotus leaned forward and continued to claw at the air with her hands.

“You can’t have it! You can’t control it! Give it to me before the power drives you mad and you ruin everything!”

Purring, Monster rubbed against Judy’s leg.

“It’s over,” said Judy to Lotus. “Can’t you see that?”

“No! It’s never over! There is a way to things, a natural order! The stone and I are one. We always have been.”

“Not anymore.”

Lotus went limp. She struggled to hold herself together, but she was a parasite without a host. She raised a trembling arm as she stared with burning eyes at the stone. Then the fire fizzled and Lotus disappeared, back to the formless nothingness from which she had been spawned.

Judy felt the universe all around her. A surge of revitalizing power flooded into it as everything that Lotus had been holding on to returned to the stone. There wasn’t much time. Only a few seconds before the alignment would fail and Judy’s perfect communion with the stone would end.

She willed the destruction gone, and the neighborhood was restored. There was no flash, no divine thunder. It was just fixed.

Monster mewed at her feet. Judy scratched him on the head, and she willed him to become whatever he wanted. Human or cat—it was his choice.

Naked, scarlet, and furless, he squatted beside her. He stood and didn’t bother to cover himself. He was just happy to be human again.

“Did we win?”

“We won,” she replied. “Though it isn’t quite over.”

She held the stone before her. Even without the perfect attunement, she would become the most powerful being in the universe if she held on to it. She felt the stone object to this arrangement, but it couldn’t stop her. Nothing could. This power was hers now, and it would take at least another billion years before the stone could try to take it away. And even that wasn’t guaranteed to work.

It was only fair. Her life had been a mess because of what the stone had made her into. She didn’t need to hold the power forever. Just a few years to make up for the annoyances she’d suffered in the name of the greater good. Wasn’t she owed at least a decade of near omnipotence? Maybe two. Was a century really that big a deal in the grand scale of time? She could give it back after she’d indulged herself for a millennium or two, and everything would work out fine in the end.

The stone filled Judy’s mind with a billion years’ worth of memories, of the long, long life of the last creature to covet its power above all else. The power the stone offered wasn’t really good for anything. It could transform every person into a cat, move planets, create universes. But for a human being, it was worthless, a glittering bauble that granted immortality and awesome power but nothing of practical value.

Lotus had lived for ages, but she hadn’t really lived at all. A life span of billions of years, existing for no other reason than to keep existing. That wasn’t living, and Judy should know. That had been Judy’s life for as long as she could remember. Because until today, that was the best she could hope for.

But now it was time for things to change.

Judy threw the stone in the air. It hurtled upward and onward. Now that Lotus was gone, the stone was free to return to its original unformed state. It disappeared in a flash.

She felt human again. And maybe really alive for the first time.

“Is it over?” asked Monster as he slipped into his pants.

“No,” she replied. “It’s only just beginning.”

The next four weeks were busy for CCRS. A surplus of cryptobiologicals had been released during Judy’s ascendancy, and they didn’t just disappear after it was over. Monster scored four times the bags of even his busiest weeks, and he wasn’t the only one. Every freelance agent was working fourteen hours a day in an effort to keep things under control. Monster was no exception, and though he was initially grateful for the extra income, he was beginning to wear down.

It was probably how the kobold got the jump on him. At least, that was what he told himself afterward.

The hairy crypto leaped out of the doghouse and snapped at him. Monster fell in the grass, still wet from the sprinklers. The kobold chuckled at Monster before scrambling over the fence and disappearing.

“I got it!” said Chester.

Monster stood. “Let it go. It’s been a long night, and I’m tired.”

Chester shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

The homeowners stuck their heads out of the house. “Did you get it?” asked the wife. “The thing.”

Monster tugged at his wet pants clinging to his ass and thighs. “It ran off.”

“It wasn’t a dog, was it?”

“No, but it won’t be back.”

“But what was it?” she asked.

“Just a kobold, ma’am,” said Chester, “but there’s nothing to worry about.”

The couple looked at Chester and smiled awkwardly. The response was becoming more common. Neither full incognizant haze nor light incog passing acceptance nor cognizant awareness. But something else.

People were starting to notice magic.

It wasn’t as if all the incogs just opened their eyes and acknowledged it. But Monster caught more of them looking at the cryptos in their midst with a vague acknowledgment that this was unusual, that the sea serpent in their bathtub was more than just a “big snake” and that the vampiric, disembodied heads floating in their attics weren’t just a “bat problem.”

Things were changing.

Magic was getting easier to remember. Even for cogs. It’d been at least a week since he’d had to consult his dictionary. The runes just came to him when he needed them. The cognizant community was abuzz with the discovery that they too had been laboring under their own haze—not as powerful or obvious as the haze on incogs, but still there and still dulling their senses. A fog unperceived by anyone and everyone until it mysteriously lifted. Advanced theoretical thaumaturgists were still speculating about what caused the so-called New Enlightenment.

No one had bothered to ask Monster.

Chester and Monster climbed into his new van. It was new in the sense that he’d just bought it. Otherwise, it was the same white model he’d lost to the kojin attack. There were actually a few more dents, but the air-conditioning worked, so as far as he was concerned it was a step up.

The radio crackled to life. “Monster, I’ve got a call for you.”

He stifled a yawn as he lifted the mouthpiece. “Count me out, Charlene.”

“It’s just a pickup,” replied Charlene. “The caller said the crypto is already contained.”

“So send someone else.”

“They asked for you specifically.”

Monster suspected. He didn’t suspect anything specific, but he hesitated.

“If you don’t want it, I could always let Hardy have it,” said Charlene.

Monster snarled. “Screw that. I’ll take it.”

“The Oak Pines apartments. Do you need the address?”

“No, I got it.”

“Isn’t that kind of a contradiction?” asked Charlene. “I don’t think trees can be both oaks and pines.”

Chester folded his arms and cleared his throat.

“Do you think it’s Judy?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Come on. You can’t tell me you aren’t curious. You haven’t talked to her since that night, right?”

“Nope.”

“The two of you restored balance to the universe,” said Chester, “vanquished an ancient cosmic parasite. You don’t wonder what’s happened to her since then?”

“Nope.”

“You’d think that there’d be some kind of special bond between the two of you. Like old army buddies who have been under fire together.”

“Nope.”

Chester said, “Your universe has just gotten a fresh start, a chance to finally grow into something more. It seems to me that a person with any sense at all would take that opportunity to grow with it.”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Monster as he sipped a cup of coffee.

They arrived at Oak Pines. Paulie was sitting outside his apartment.

“Hey, dudes!” said Paulie.

Monster mumbled a reply and nodded, but kept walking. Judy’s old apartment was still in ruins. Construction had just started.

He found the second-floor apartment Charlene had given him and knocked on the door. A young girl answered.

“You must be the blue guy and the paper guy.” She looked Monster over. “Why aren’t you blue?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” replied Monster.

“We’re here for the cryptobiological,” said Chester.

“Yeah, sure.” Shouting, she retreated into the apartment. “Aunt Judy, the blue guy’s here! But he’s burgundy! Maybe radish-colored!” She plopped onto a couch, stuck in some earphones, and flipped through a video game magazine.

Judy stuck her head out of the kitchenette. “Hey, guys. Come on in.”

Monster stepped inside. “So you moved back here?”

“Eh, the rent is good. And the new manager is actually a decent guy.”

“Who’s the kid?”

“My niece,” said Judy. “She’s staying with me for a while until my sister and her husband settle with the insurance company for the house.”

“Yeah,” said Monster. “Sorry about that.”

“Forget it. You did what you had to. It’s kind of a good thing. Gave me a chance to get to know Nancy.” She walked over and gave Nancy a hug. Nancy half smiled, though she quickly masked it under some artificial annoyance.

“She’s actually a pretty cool kid,” said Judy. “Don’t let the reception fool you.”

“Uh-huh,” said Monster. “So where’s the crypto?”

Judy went to the bedroom and returned with a transmogrified crypto in rock form.

“Thanks. What is it?”

“Naga,” she said. “Just a little one.”

“Are you still having crypto trouble?” asked Chester.

“No, that problem is over. No more subconscious manipulation of the fabric of the universe for me anymore, thank God. I just found this one outside and thought you might like it.”

“Who transmogrified it?”

“I did. I’ve been studying up.” She pointed to a few used magical textbooks on a shelf.

“You’re cognizant now?” asked Chester.