Monster (30 page)

“Makes sense,” she said as she slipped on the T-shirt and noticed Monster. “What’s with him?”

“Do you remember him?”

“Sort of. He’s kind of an asshole, right?”

“He has his moments, but he did rescue you. Right now he’s defying every known law of interdimensional physics by somehow not having his atoms spread across the universe.”

“What did he rescue me from?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you might. Maybe once we fix your memory problem.”

She pulled on her pants and stood. The sudden light-headed sensation made her groan. “I could use some aspirin and a cigarette.”

Chester folded into a bird, flew into the bathroom, and returned with a bottle pilfered from the medicine cabinet. While Judy struggled with the childproof cap, he opened Monster’s rune dictionary.

“I don’t have much practice at this, but hopefully this’ll restore your memory, giving us an insight into what is happening. According to this, I’ll have to draw on your forehead. I hope that’s okay.”

“No, thanks,” she said. “Just point me to the exit and I’ll be on my way. Whatever weird kink you guys are into—and I’m not judging, mind you—I’m just not interested. Not my scene.” She found a crushed pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her pocket and lit up. “It’s been swell, but I have to…”

She sifted through her mental playback of the past few days but couldn’t find any clear memory. Part of this was the haze. The other was the aftereffects of too many cognition-enhancing magics that rendered her mind as intractable as quicksand. She might’ve panicked, except she didn’t have the energy for that.

“Don’t bother showing me the door. I’ll find my way out.” She slipped around Monster’s immobile body. “You might want to drape a tarp over him to keep him from getting dusty. Just a suggestion.”

“I don’t think going outside is such a great idea,” Chester said. “There are people looking for you. It could be dangerous.”

She gaped at the ruined living room. She stumbled over Liz’s blackened femur and kicked the demon’s skull into the pit.

“Uh, yeah, I’m sure I’ll be much safer here.”

The front door burst off its hinges as Ferdinand and Ed smashed their way into the room.

“Run, Miss Hines! Run!”

Chester folded himself into a falcon shape and flew at Ferdinand. He inflicted a few shallow paper cuts to her cheeks, drawing blood. She seized him, crumpled him into a ball, and threw him to the floor. Before he could unfold, Ed stepped on him, pinning him to the carpet.

A legion of cats filtered into the house and surrounded Judy. Pendragon hissed, spitting out fire and roasting the carpet at her feet. Judy retched at the burning smell.

Ed surveyed the demolished room. “What happened here?”

“Who cares?” said Ferdinand.

The giant woman went over to Monster. She circled him, waving her hands in front of his face and prodding him. He didn’t react. She tried pushing him over. He didn’t budge. She tried taking the stone from him. He wouldn’t release it. She punched him in the head and wound up with bruised knuckles. He was unharmed.

Lotus entered. “You’re wasting your time. Leave him to me.”

Judy said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know it has nothing to do with me, so—”

The cats parted and Lotus glided forward. “It has everything to do with you. Though I’ll admit I still haven’t figured out his place in all this.” She waved toward Monster. “But it isn’t his destiny to take my power, and neither is it yours.”

She performed a sweeping gesture and pressed two fingers against Judy’s forehead. Judy’s body went absolutely straight and rigid. She fell.

“What do you want with her?” asked Chester, still trying to squirm his way from under Ed’s heel. “She’s only a light incog.”

“She’s so much more than that,” replied Lotus. “She’s a pretender to the throne, a usurper of the natural order.”

Ferdinand picked up Judy’s frozen body and propped it over her shoulder like a piece of lumber.

“Rest assured, I bear you no malice.” Lotus stroked Judy’s cheek. “Take her to the house.”

“What about the stone?” asked Ferdinand. “Don’t you need it?”

“I’ll take care of that. Now do as I say. This could get… unpleasant.”

“And the paper man?” asked Ed, grinding her heel into Chester.

“Leave him. He’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Ferdinand and Ed left with Judy, leaving Lotus and her army of cats. Chester smoothed his crumpled body, but he didn’t make a move against Lotus. She’d already proven she could destroy him in an instant once before. Not that she would have to bother this time. The cats would tear him to shreds at her command.

Lotus paced several full circles around Monster, speaking as she did.

“I know you think you can stop this, but you really should abandon that foolish notion. We’ve been together for far too long. You should know that we are bound in a way that will never be broken. Your power is my power, and that is the way it will always be.”

“I don’t think he can hear you.”

Lotus chuckled. “What makes you think I’m talking to him?”

She touched the stone, and it trembled. The world rumbled just enough to knock every loose book off a shelf, tip over every row of dominoes under construction, and collapse every house of cards on the planet.

She pulled, but the stone refused to come loose from Monster.

“You’re beginning to make me angry,” she said. “You don’t want that, now, do you?”

The stone hopped from Monster into Lotus’s hand.

“There we are. I knew you’d come to your senses.”

Monster snapped to life. “Wait. You can’t—”

She backhanded him, sending him sprawling.

“I still don’t know why you are here, but I’ve decided I don’t really care either. You’ve proven more troublesome than I imagined, but rest assured, you’ve done nothing to disrupt my plans. The order will be restored, and everything will be as it should be. I hope that brings you some small comfort in your last moments.”

She disappeared.

The cats advanced. Monster and Chester stood at the edge of the hole in the floor with no means of escape. Pendragon licked his lips and snorted a pair of flames from his nostrils.

“I hope you have a plan,” said Chester.

“Actually,” said Monster, “I do.”

Pendragon pounced. Monster slapped the cat aside, but the force of his charge pushed Monster’s foot over the ledge and he fell into the pit with a yelp, disappearing into the darkness below. Chester didn’t hear Monster hit bottom.

“Hang on! I’m coming!”

Chester folded himself into a bird, but the writhing and yowling red cat distracted him. The other felines backed away as Pendragon’s fur fell off in clumps, exposing golden-red scales underneath. His tail grew to tremendous size and whipped wildly. Cats were knocked every which way.

Monster, now a burning goldenrod color, floated out of the black pit and hovered beside Chester.

“How… ?” asked Chester.

“I can fly when I’m goldenrod.”

Pendragon screeched, spitting a torrent of fire in the air, setting the room ablaze. The cats scattered. Several were squashed beneath the giant reptile’s feet and flailing tail. Wings burst from the dragon’s shoulders.

“Since when can you do that?” asked Chester.

“Since about five minutes ago,” replied Monster.

The dragon’s wings and spikes along his back ripped through the roof.

“How did this make our situation any better?” asked Chester as flaming pieces of ceiling pelted them.

Pendragon, the size of a bus in his true form, turned his shiny red eyes on Monster. The dragon snorted but made no attempt to swallow them in his cavernous maw or roast them alive. A thankful purr rolled from his throat.

Monster put a hand on Pendragon’s snout. “Don’t mention it.”

Pendragon’s lips pulled away to reveal a toothy grin. He reared up, smashing his way through the ceiling. With a flap of his powerful wings, he soared into the night sky, but not before an accidental swish of his tail brought the whole house crashing down. The good news was that the rubble smothered the fire.

Ten minutes later, Chester crawled his way to the surface. The climb left him ripped and ragged, but his body was still holding together.

“Boss! Boss!” He started clearing away debris. “Monster, are you in there?”

A blue hand pushed its way free and waved. It took fifteen minutes of hard work to dig Monster free.

“You had me worried for a second there,” said Chester.

“I’m fine. I’m invulnerable when I’m blue.”

Monster slipped in his effort to climb down the small mountain of debris, tumbled and fell onto his front lawn.

“It’s all right.” Monster dusted himself off and sneezed. “Blue. Invulnerable.”

“Since when can you change colors at will?”

“A guy can’t help but pick up a few things when he’s one with the universe.” Monster stood on the lawn and surveyed the rubble that used to be his home. “Man, am I glad my name isn’t on that lease.”

“An apartment and two houses in two days,” said Chester. “That has to be a record.”

“The apartment really wasn’t my fault.” Monster shifted to goldenrod and took off.

Chester folded into bird and soared after him on tattered wings. “Slow down.”

“No time.” Monster doubled back and scooped up Chester.

The paper gnome folded into a monkey and wrapped his arms around Monster’s neck. “What’s the rush?”

“We have to save Judy.”

“I thought you didn’t care about her.”

“She’s okay, but if we don’t stop Lotus, she’ll use Judy to destroy the human race.”

“Hmm,” said Chester. “That is bad. I guess.”

“If she succeeds, I won’t be around anymore, and you’ll be out of a job.”

Chester tucked himself into Monster’s shirt to avoid the wind shear. “Pick up the pace.”

“It’s all about Lotus and Judy,” shouted Monster above the rush of wind.

“What? Judy? The cryptos?”

“Everything,” replied Monster. “The entire universe is just a reaction by the stone to Lotus’s parasitic presence. Because that’s what the old hag is. She’s a leech. And the stone created the universe in order to get rid of her. The whole thing is like a giant immune system. It’s a billions-year-old struggle between the stone and Lotus. Older than this universe. Lotus isn’t as powerful, and all the power she does have is borrowed. But she’s smarter in the short run. That is her advantage. But the stone thinks long term. It’s slow to adapt, a little dumb if you get right down to it. But it moves in ways too large for anyone, even her, to grasp.”

“You’re losing me.”

“Sorry. It’s not easy to explain. The stone was first, but until Lotus came along, it didn’t do anything. It wasn’t even a stone. It was all potential, but without motivation. Then Lotus found it, was drawn to it. She’s not human or parahuman. She’s not anything like that. And as long as she draws power from the stone, there’s no way to stop her.”

“Then why are we trying?”

“Because it was what Judy was made to do. It’s like in biochemistry when an antibody defeats a virus by preventing its ability to bond with other cells.”

“Since when did you know anything about—?”

“Universe bond,” said Monster.

“Right. I keep forgetting about that. Let me see if I understand this. Your entire universe is merely a by-product of a battle of wills between a negligibly intelligent primeval power source and an ancient cosmic parasite.”

“Yes.”

“And Judy is the ultimate goal of this process.”

“Yes.”

“You do realize how crazy that sounds, right?” asked Chester.

“Yes.”

“I mean, I’m a sixth-dimensional non-corporeal entity who has witnessed some pretty bizarre and inexplicable events in the last few days, and even I don’t believe it.”

Monster said, “I know. It’s insane. But it’s the truth. It’s a cycle that’s been going on for ages. Every million years or so, the universe creates a being intended to become one with the stone. That being will have absolute power for a few moments, but that’s just a side effect. The ultimate goal is to sever Lotus from her power. And that’s Judy’s role.”

“But what about all the crypto attacks Judy has been going through her whole life?”

“Misfires. The stone doesn’t think in human scale. It doesn’t always
get
it. And until Judy matures, the communication isn’t perfect. So if she thinks too long and too hard about how much she hates her apartment or her job or her life in general, the universe sometimes responds. But it’s not a perfect process. The stone isn’t smart in a practical way. It’s like an idiot savant. It can subtly guide generations of breeding and even steer events. But it doesn’t really grasp the fragility of life. Most of the time, the avatar is accidentally killed by the stone itself. Or eliminated by Lotus. She’s been working against the universe from the beginning.