Man Made Boy (31 page)

“How do we get them?”

Sophie didn’t answer. Instead, she started climbing the tree.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Of course it is.” She moved smoothly upward from branch to swaying branch.

“I just don’t want you to fall and h—
ouch
!” I said as a bunch of bananas dropped on my head.

Sophie slid down the tree. “Come on, then, there’s a nice spot.” She pointed to a flat rock a few yards from the path. So we settled down and cracked open some bananas.

“I wonder if any of the monsters here ever go outside,” Sophie said as we ate.

“I doubt it,” I said. “You have to remember, most monsters can’t really blend in like you can. Most of us spend our whole lives hiding.”

“You blend in just fine.”

I looked at Sophie next to me, sitting with her legs tucked
under her. The neck of her T-shirt slipped over one pale, freckled shoulder. Her cheeks were rosy in the tropical air, and her blue-green eyes gazed at me with emotions I still couldn’t quite read. She could never understand what it was like.

“I pass as human,” I said. “But I don’t blend. I’m too ugly.”

“Who on earth ever said you were ugly?”

“Nobody needs to say it. I see it in their faces. Shock, pity, sometimes even fear.”

“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps you’re misreading those looks? That maybe it’s not shock you’re seeing, but awe?”

“Awe? At what?”

“At you, you big git!” She punched my shoulder with her tiny fist.

“Come on.”

“I’m serious. Here these humans are, just walking about, living their dull, human lives. And then out of fucking nowhere, this gigantic creature comes striding into their lives with forearms bigger than their heads but a voice so soft and sweet, it could put a baby to sleep. How could they do anything but marvel at such a person? You are like a demigod in their midst and they bloody well know it.”

“
You
weren’t awed.”

“Who says?”

“Well, you didn’t act like it.”

“You think I’d let someone I didn’t know see me off balance?”

“Probably not.”

“Precisely.”

“So now that you know me, what do you think of me?”

Sophie cleared her throat. “You know what I think? That I’m thirsty from all those bananas. And do you know what would be great to wash them down with? Coconut milk!”

She jumped to her feet and climbed a nearby tree. This time I was ready for things dropping on my head and caught the two coconuts that came sailing down. Those would have hurt a lot more than the bananas.

“Damn,” she said as she sat back on the rock.

“What?”

“Just realized. Nothing to open them with.”

“Oh, I can probably do that.” I split the outer layer open and tossed the two pieces aside. Then I took the smaller inner nut in both hands and pressed my thumb against the side until it punctured the shell. “Here. The hole’s a little messy, but it should work.”

Sophie took the coconut from me and lifted it so that the liquid drained into her mouth.

She grinned at me as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “You want to know what I think of you? I think you’re bloody useful.”

That wasn’t exactly the response I’d been hoping for, but I’d take it.

AS WE STEPPED back out into the hallway, Sophie turned in the direction of the forbidden section again, her mouth pursed.

“I wonder what’s down there,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s off-limits for us.”

“I’ll bet it’s a brewery.” Her eyes widened. “Or a pot farm!”

“What?”

“Lots of old people smoke weed! For arthritis or glaucoma or something. It can be quite medicinal.” She smiled mischievously and started walking in that direction.

“I really don’t think we should…” I said.

“Come on, Granny.” She tugged at my arm. “I tell you what, if they have a pot farm, I might be persuaded to stay here after all.”

I sighed and let her pull me along.

It took about ten minutes to get there. But when we turned the corner into the forbidden hallway, it looked just like the other three.

“Bugger,” said Sophie. “Nothing exciting here.” She shrugged. “Well, at least it’s a shortcut back to our room.”

But as we walked, I noticed there was one difference from the other hallways.

“All the doors are closed,” I said.

“What?”

“In the other three hallways, the doors were all open. But in this hallway, they’re all closed. And no windows, either.”

“Huh,” said Sophie.

As we walked farther, I started to notice sounds coming from behind the closed doors. Heavy thuds, or slow scraping, or weird chittering noises.

“Um,” said Sophie. “Slightly creepy.”

“Yeah. Maybe we should, uh…”

“Walk quickly? Let’s.”

We moved into a fast walk.

“This may not have been my most brilliant idea,” Sophie said.

“You think?”

“As long as the doors stay closed, we’ll be fine.”

The sound of a door opening came from behind us.

“Shit,” whispered Sophie.

I heard a sniffing sound and turned back to look. It appeared to be a man poking his head out of the room.

“Sorry we disturbed you,” I called. “We’ll be gone in a minute.”

He sniffed again and cocked his head to one side.

“Boy, I don’t think you should be talking to him!” Sophie hissed.

“What, you think being rude is a better idea?” I asked.

“Let’s just leave him be. Come on. We need to stay calm and act like we’re supposed to be here.”

We started walking again, as fast as we could go without breaking into an obvious run. But then a door opened in front of us and a ten-foot-tall spider crawled out.

“Aaand, let’s go back the way we came,” said Sophie, spinning around.

The man’s head still stuck out of the doorway. He still sniffed the air, staring at us.

“Do you think he’d help us?” I asked.

“Um…” Sophie looked doubtful. Then she glanced back at the giant spider. It was following us. Her eyes widened and she looked back at me. “Couldn’t hurt?”

“Excuse me,” I said to the man.

His mouth opened and he hissed, showing us a row of fangs. Then he moved out from the doorway and it was clear he wasn’t a man at all. He was a manticore, with a lion’s body and a massive, barbed scorpion tail.

We jerked to a stop, looking back and forth between the giant spider and the manticore.

“Oh, God, this is not happening,” whimpered Sophie as she grabbed my arm hard.

More doors opened and other creatures came out. Some of them, like the hydra with seven long dragon-like heads, and the giant cyclops, I’d known about. Some of them, like the creature with the
front part of a rooster and the back part of a horse, or the headless humanoid with a face peering from his chest, I had never even heard of.

“I am so so so sorry,” said Sophie as she clung to me.

One or two I might have taken. Maybe even a few. But they just kept coming from every door. Bats as big as wolves. A wolf with three heads that was as big as an elephant. They looked ravenous and completely wild as they circled around us, hissing and growling and chittering in a way that sounded unmistakably like hunger.

The headless thing with the face in its chest was the first to move in, but the manticore let out a growl and stabbed it in the shoulder with its tail. The thing whimpered in pain and scuttled back. The manticore then drew closer, saliva dripping from its open, fanged mouth.

“STOP!”

The roar was deafening and all of the creatures flinched back. Then the Dragon Lady crashed through their ranks and coiled around us protectively.

“Grab hold!” she said. We grabbed tufts of the coarse fur on her back and she launched up into the air again, shooting down the hallway even faster than we’d gone before. We didn’t stop until we’d turned the corner and gone most of the way down the next hallway.

“Didn’t you receive instruction to not visit that hallway?” roared the Dragon Lady.

“Yes, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault,” said Sophie, her eyes welling up with tears. “I was just…I didn’t know….”

“We’re okay now,” I said, taking her into my arms.

“But I could have gotten us
killed
!” she said.

“Yes, you could have,” said the Dragon Lady. She sighed and
closed her eyes. “I suppose I should have known that you were too young to resist such temptations.”

“Why are they here?” asked Sophie.

“They have to be somewhere,” said the Dragon Lady. “If we turned them out, then the humans would soon hunt them down and exterminate them. Entire species eradicated. No, that is not acceptable. They stay in their hallway, we feed them. It is generally a peaceful arrangement. But you have stirred them up. You both smell too much like humans. Now that they’ve caught your scent, they will start tracking you. I am sorry. You must leave The Commune immediately.”

THE DRAGON LADY gave us some supplies and offered to fly us to our car.

“It’s the least I can do,” she said as Knossos, Rhoecus, and Javier strapped food, water, and a large canister of gas to her tail. “I dislike having to turn you out so abruptly.”

“Well, we kind of brought it on ourselves,” I said.

“Even so,” she said. “And besides, I rarely get out these days. It will be pleasant to taste the night air.”

Once the supplies were securely strapped on, Rhoecus and Javier slid a massive panel back from the outer wall. I could see a black, star-speckled sky, and the fresh smell of desert night air poured into the hallway.

The Dragon Lady let out a rumbling sigh. “Yes, it has been too long. Climb on, little monsters. Let’s be off.”

A few moments later we shot up into the night sky, the thunderous flaps of leathery wings in our ears. I tried to see what The Commune looked like from the outside, but I couldn’t see it.

That’s when I realized how they hid from humans. The whole structure was invisible.

I looked out over the dark horizon as we flew across the desert plains. I felt Sophie’s arms wrap loosely around me, and her cheek press against my back. The wind whistled so loud that I almost missed her say, “Freedom.”

I’d never been this high up in the air before. I’d never seen such an expanse of land stretching out beneath me. The world looked so much quieter up here. I wondered,
If we could just get enough distance, would everything look like that? So simple?
It reminded me of Medusa’s act. That fleeting feeling that there really was a purpose to everything. If only you could hold on to it. But did it really matter if there was some deep meaning to it all? This night stretching out from horizon to horizon seemed, after such a close call, more beautiful than any I’d ever seen before.

All too soon, we landed next to our car.

“I should not stay by the roadside for long,” said the Dragon Lady.

Sophie and I quickly unstrapped the supplies from her back and climbed down. She immediately started to move away from the road. But then she looked back at us.

“Where will you go?” she asked.

I looked at Sophie. She shrugged. “We don’t really know,” I admitted.

“In Los Angeles, there is a group,” said the Dragon Lady. “Not quite as big as Ruthven’s coven, but big enough, and I believe young enough, for you to find a place. They pose as a Hollywood special effects studio. It is run by the person who helped us build The Commune.”

“Who’s that?” asked Sophie.

“The Invisible Man,” said the Dragon Lady. Then she launched herself up into the night sky, leaving a thin line of fire behind her.

We watched her sail off into the distance, her red and yellow scales winking in the moonlight. Once I could no longer see her, I turned to Sophie.

“Well?”

“She’s good at exits, I’ll give her that,” she said.

“What do you think about going to LA?”

“Could be worse.”

“It isn’t much to go on, though,” I said. “She didn’t give us an address. Even assuming it’s actually in Hollywood itself, that’s still probably a lot of ground to cover.”

“True.”

“And finding an invisible man obviously makes it even harder.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You got somewhere better to be?”