Monster (22 page)

Both the Reds pulled out their ticket books and started writing. Monster didn’t even bother arguing as they each peeled off a citation for having an unlicensed animal and another for littering.

The dwarf pointed to a steaming pile of horse dung. “And clean that up.”

“Sure thing, officer,” said Monster with a forced smile.

He did his best to ignore the horse, but it wasn’t going away.

Reluctantly, he finally called the only number he could think of. An answering machine picked up.

“Hardy, I know you’re there. Pick up. I know you’re there. Damn it, pick up the phone, you lazy—” Monster chewed on his tongue as he stumbled for the right phrasing. “Come on, man, you owe me. You’re not still mad about that exploding tire thing? That was just a joke. No big deal. I was just screwing with you. That’s what we do. We screw with each other. You screw with me. I screw with you. It’s all good fun, right? Nothing personal.”

The machine cut him off. He dialed again.

“Give me a break, buddy. I’ve had a really lousy day, and if I had anyone else to call, I would. I just want to go home and I don’t want to take the damn bus. It’s not like you haven’t been an asshole to me in the past, but if you were so desperate that you had to call me for a ride, I’d be a good guy and help you out.”

Hardy’s gruff voice spoke over the line. “Bullshit, Monster. And I ain’t your buddy.”

“Okay, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. But if you pick me up I’ll split the retrieval fee on a winged horse bag.”

Hardy snorted into the phone and made an unpleasant hocking sound. “Where the hell did you find a winged horse?”

“Does it matter? It’s here with me and if you pick me up, you can score it at the same time.”

“Why can’t you score it?”

Monster sighed. “Do you want it or not? A winged horse bag is worth a lot of money.”

“Sure. I want the whole fee, though.”

“No way. I’m only asking for a ride across town.”

“In the first place, I don’t know if I believe you’ve got a line on an unclaimed winged horse. Doesn’t really add up right that you would. In the second, if you’ve got one then just score it yourself and let me get some sleep. And in the third place, I really don’t give a crap. So take it or leave it. You’ve got ten seconds before I hang up.”

“I’ll just keep calling,” said Monster.

“I’ll just unplug the phone,” replied Hardy. “Do we have a deal… buddy?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Just get here soon.”

Half an hour and two more dung deposits later (none of which Monster cleaned up), Hardy pulled up in his truck. He didn’t park but shouted at Monster through the open window.

“Holy crap—you really do have a winged stallion!”

“Yeah, and it’s all yours,” said Monster.

Hardy pulled around the block in search of a close parking space.

The stallion fixed Monster with one of its blue eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. You don’t expect me to trust you, do you? For all I know, she sent you here to kill me. I’ll get on your back. You’ll carry me a thousand feet into the clouds then buck me off. You’ll excuse me if I don’t feel like taking that chance.”

The horse nickered and nodded as if it agreed.

Hardy trundled around the corner. He carried a grimoire as thick as a phone book under one arm.

“Don’t they have a pocket edition of that?” asked Monster.

“I prefer the large-print edition. Easier to read.” Hardy struggled to get the hooks of his glasses under his curved horns and over his ears as he flipped through the book.

Monster settled in. Incantations were Hardy’s magic of choice. Monster didn’t care for spoken magic. One garbled syllable could have unpredictable and disastrous results. He’d given up on incantations in college when something had gone wrong while he attempted to light a candle with a chant. Instead, he’d melted the table they were sitting on. He knew magic had its own logic, but even he didn’t see how a wooden table could melt. From then on, he’d stuck with written magic, convinced that nobody could do anything significant by incantation.

Hardy pulled a large Zip-loc bag from his pocket. He cleared his throat and put his hand on the horse’s muzzle. He chanted in strange, unintelligible syllables for a few minutes. A breeze kicked up, and thunder cracked. The winged stallion collapsed into a mound of fine white powder. A miniature tornado swept up the powder and funneled it into the bag.

“What did you do?” asked Monster.

“Dehydrated it for easy storage,” said Hardy as he sealed the bag. “Some of us are professionals.”

* * *

Monster wondered if Judy was really in trouble, but it didn’t make a lot of sense for her to ask him for help. He couldn’t think of a reason to risk his neck by getting involved. He felt bad for her, sure, but it wasn’t his business. He wasn’t the kind of guy to jump on a winged stallion and ride to the rescue. She should’ve known that. He hoped she was okay, but expecting him to get more involved was just dumb.

Monster had Spaghetti-Os for an early dinner, then tried to watch some television. All reruns. He was too weary to pay much attention in any case. Healing magic always had that effect. It wasn’t hard to coax the body to quickly recover from wounds, but it still played hell with his metabolism. Combined with his lack of sufficient sleep, Monster was drained. He fell asleep on the couch again, and woke up a couple of minutes later. He’d changed from yellow to a painfully bright orange.

Orange wasn’t so bad. He could glow when he was orange. As bright as a spotlight if he put some effort behind it, though prolonged radiance dehydrated him. Not really useful, but it was voluntary and didn’t make his life harder.

He sluggishly rose from the couch and trudged toward the bedroom. He was almost too focused on his bed to hear the gentle scratching at the door. Almost.

It wasn’t hard to figure that this was probably another crypto sent by Judy. He didn’t want to open the door to find out. Maybe if he just didn’t answer the door, Judy would get the hint and seek help elsewhere.

Monster flopped into bed and tried to ignore the steady scratching. It grew louder. He remembered the gaborchends, and how that problem had only worsened until he’d confronted Judy. Maybe if he confronted whatever was at the door, he could persuade it to leave.

Worth a shot.

He opened the front door a crack and peeked outside. It wasn’t a winged horse this time, but a gryphon. It had clawed away most of the paint on the door, leaving a deep gouge.

“For hell’s sake.”

The gryphon screeched and pushed against the door. Monster pushed back, but the beast easily shoved its way inside, aside from some difficulty getting its wings through the door.

“No! No! No!” said Monster. “Forget it! I am not going! Do you hear me? I’m not getting involved.”

The gryphon screeched. Then tore away swaths of carpet with its claws.

“Why me? Why not someone else?”

The beast tilted its head to one side, then screeched again. But this was just a dumb crypto. It couldn’t tell him why Judy had singled him out. It sat on its lion haunches and stared at him with unblinking eyes.

“Fine. Sit there. I don’t care. But I’ll tell you right now, if you’re smart, you won’t be here when Liz comes home. See this circle on the coffee table?” He pointed to a barely visible ring marring the wooden surface, and the gryphon focused on it. “That happened because one time”—he held up his finger and waved it at the gryphon for emphasis—“just one time, I forgot to use a coaster. And she nearly chopped my right leg off at the knee for that. I’d hate to think what she’ll do to you when she sees this mess.”

Gryphons were about as smart as clever parrots, and this one did seem to get nervous for a moment. Its feathers ruffled, and its tail fell limp. But it fixed him with a stare that said, at least as far as Monster could tell,
Buddy, it’s not up to me. I’m just following orders.

Monster considered retreating to the bedroom, shutting the door, and letting the gryphon have the run of the rest of the house. The living room was already a mess after the gaborchend incident earlier. Any more damage a full-grown gryphon might do was hardly noticeable.

The creature gouged its beak into the couch armrest, tearing upholstery and spilling white foam.

Sighing, Monster found a spare rune dictionary, had the gryphon follow him into the kitchen, then used a dry erase marker to draw the transmogrification circle on the linoleum. He stopped short of drawing the last line.

The gryphon chirped, sounding almost disappointed in him.

“It’s not like I don’t care,” said Monster. “It’s just… why should I risk my life for someone I barely know?”

If the gryphon had an answer, it wasn’t sharing.

Monster finished the rune and the gryphon transmogrified in a flash. He picked the stone off the floor, placed it on the kitchen table, and stared at it for ten minutes.

He felt bad, and he didn’t know why.

Chester would probably know. Monster went to the bedroom and found one of the paper gnome’s spare bodies. It was just a long sheet of paper covered with runes. It’d taken Monster a solid week to write them all down correctly. Afterward, he’d just gone to the public library and run off a few dozen copies.

Monster tried activating the new body. The paper folded itself into a face.

“The entity you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later. To leave a message, wait until after the—”

Monster smoothed the paper flat. He couldn’t blame Chester for blowing him off. The gnome had obligations in his own plane too. Monster stuck the paper in his pocket. He’d try again later.

He went back to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. He sat and stared at the gryphon stone while finishing the beverage.

He couldn’t figure out why Judy kept sending cryptos. He was sure their dislike was mutual. She’d even tried to kill him with her subconscious. Sure, she hadn’t tried very hard, but it didn’t mean that he was over it yet. All they’d done since their first meeting was fight and make messes of each other’s lives. Well, bigger messes. She’d even said as much.

So why him?

He decided, guilt or no guilt, he needed some sleep more than anything. Even at his best, he wasn’t much good at this without Chester. Maybe in the morning Monster would have a better grasp on things. Maybe he’d wake up and have it all figured out and know exactly what he needed to do to fix everything. Probably not, but right now he was dry. Some sleep couldn’t hurt.

The house trembled. Monster grabbed the chair to keep his balance. Maybe it was just an earthquake, he hoped, despite knowing better. He should’ve seen it coming. First the winged steed. Then the gryphon. Now this. She wasn’t taking no for an answer.

The rumbling grew more violent. Pots and pans spilled onto the floor with a clatter. The whole house shook with enough force to cause the furniture to shift and bounce. Monster struggled to stay standing.

“Give me a break!” he shouted at the transmogrified gryphon. “Can’t you just find someone else?”

The living room exploded as a giant purple worm burst its way through the floor. The beast unleashed a strangled hissing shriek, splattering Monster with a rain of saliva. A long tongue shot out of its puckering, rounded mouth and snagged Monster by the ankle. He grabbed on to something, anything. But all he found was a kitchen chair, which he ended up dragging along with him as the worm slurped him down.

The creature gurgled. It belched, spitting out the chair, before disappearing into the earth.

Judy sat in Mrs. Lotus’s backyard. Ed had been nice enough to go and buy some beers and pretzels, and together they sat under the early-evening sky. They didn’t talk. Judy had too much on her mind, although she really wasn’t thinking about any of it. Instead, she ate pretzels and studied Ed.

“So what are you?” asked Judy. “I mean, what were you? Before.”

“Before?” asked Ed.

Judy hesitated, wondering if it was bad manners to ask this question.

“Y’know…” She let the question hang, but Ed didn’t seem to get it. “Before Lotus did the thing to you.”

“You mean, the transformation?”

“Yes, that.”

“Horse.” Ed smiled, sipped her beer. “This is yummy, isn’t it?” Judy examined Ed. It was kind of obvious when you knew what to look for. Strong legs, thin face with large teeth, big brown eyes.

“I get it,” realized Judy aloud.

Ed’s blank expression made it obvious she didn’t.

“Mr. Ed was a talking horse,” said Judy. “On an old TV show.”

“Mrs. Lotus doesn’t let us watch TV.”

Judy had guessed that, since Lotus didn’t own a set. It was the only reason Judy was out here in the backyard, watching the evening sky. It was more entertaining than she’d first assumed. The tea was still working its magic, and she noticed things. Like a flock of birds perched on a nearby telephone line. They weren’t birds at all but miniature gargoyles. And the garden gnomes in Lotus’s garden were really alive. They stood very still, but she caught one of them blinking.