Page 2 of Mistletoe (Monsters of the Nexus #3)

Chapter One

Hal

Planet Nexus

Somewhere Outside

Hal woke in the snow with no idea of place or time. Outside. He was outside.

And cold. He should have taken supplies with him, but the monster inside him was impatient and wanted to leave the castle. Now . It did what it wanted.

He sat up slowly, stiff, and his head throbbing. Carefully, he touched the back of his head, where the pain radiated. His fingers came away sticky with blood. Red on green.

Green.

Hal turned over his hands, examining them in the bright sunlight. He knew his appearance was different. He could see it in the way his captor had looked at him, but being kept sedated and restrained prevented him from seeing how different.

Green.

What else? He touched his face, immediately discovering the two tusks jutting out from his lower lip. That he knew. They garbled his words when he attempted to speak and were a source of never-ending frustration.

He didn’t need a mirror. He knew he was a monster. Had always been.

His memories were hazy, but he remembered the shock and horror of the change. Bones broke. Muscles stretched. His thoughts changed, too. He felt different. There was no buffer between desire and impulse. He just did. He craved. He angered. He wanted to be free, but someone had strapped him to a table.

Hal’s hands clenched into fists, ready to strike.

His brother did this to him. Did something to himself, too. The stasis drugs muddled his mind, but Hal had moments of lucidity. The vampire brought him out of sleep, sometimes for a handful of hours, sometimes for days. Draven’s physical appearance had also changed but it made him more himself.

“We are all monsters. We simply do not hide it on the inside,” Draven would say, then subject Hal to needles and scalpels trying to cure him of his monstrosity. No matter how he cut, he could not reverse the mutation.

Hal should have crushed Draven’s skull while he had the chance. He would not make that mistake twice.

Hal stood, his green feet sinking into the snow. The sun was blindingly bright. He was chilled but his monstrous condition tolerated the cold. Still, he didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. Shoes would be nice. His green skin might be thicker and resistant to the cold, but he knew how well a sharp object could slice it open. He did not need his feet cut to ribbons.

He was in the middle of nowhere, an empty plain under a blanket of snow with no buildings and no distinguishing features. There were mountains in the distance. Draven’s mountain.

He listened. There was nothing but the wind. The scent of smoke tickled his nose.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. A year. A decade. Two. He had a new world to explore. First shelter, and then provisions. He’d figure out the rest when he was warm.

For the first time in years, possibly decades, he was himself.

He headed toward the scent of wood smoke.

Emma

West Lands

Mistletoe Farm

The Barn

Something was killing her hens.

The military came through and took everything that wasn’t nailed down, which included conscripting her brother Felix. They slaughtered her sheep and chickens, raided the winter stores, emptied the root cellar, and took every last jar of preserves. They left the goats because, apparently, the military wouldn’t eat goats, and a few hens as a gesture of goodwill. The last thing she needed was a wolver, a grumpy ratite, or some other hungry critter to kill her remaining hens.

And that hungry critter was in the barn.

Emma pushed open the barn door with the barrel end of the shotgun. The latch had been torn away from the door, leaving the useless lock on the snowy ground.

She stood still, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light and listening. She didn’t spy any blood splatter or even scattered feathers. The alarm of a few moments ago seemed to have died down, but she didn’t trust it. Wolvers were vicious, clever little things. They could sit in silence for ages, blending into the shadows, and wait for her to leave before slaughtering every last hen and goat.

They didn’t open locked doors, though.

Whatever was in the barn, it wasn’t a simple wolver. It was something far worse.

“Emma De Lacey, what are you doing with that shotgun?” Agatha De Lacey appeared at Emma’s elbow, apparently materializing out of thin air.

“Not now, Ma.” She lowered the gun, pointing the barrel to the ground. “Something’s got the hens all riled up.”

The wind picked up, stirring Agatha’s hair. She tightened her shawl around her shoulders. Nearing her sixth decade, her once blonde hair was now silver, and fine lines surrounded her eyes.

“Violence is never the answer. We can find a peaceful solution.”

Emma was all for living in harmony and balance with the natural world, but the natural world on Nexus was determined to kill humans. At least it was that way in the West Lands. Centuries ago, when humans arrived on the planet, the original settlers were able to terraform only a fraction of the planet. The settled regions had been shaped by technology for humanity, complete with old Earth plants and animals. That technology never reached the West Lands. It was a frontier region on the edge of civilization, barely habitable and overtly hostile.

She suspected her parents had no idea how difficult life on the frontier would be when they hitched their wagons west. The De Laceys were artists, enchanted by an idealized simple life, free from the burden of the modern, civilized world. They dressed the move up as a conscious change in lifestyle, learning to live off the land and get in touch with nature.

Truthfully, they didn’t have a choice. Her father ran into a spot of bother with the authorities. It was either take up the homesteader offer and live a quiet life away from the capital—and law enforcement—or be arrested.

With that in mind, the prairie had its merits. Plus, the fresh air was good for growing children.

Life in the West Land was hard, and hard work did not always equal survival. No amount of fresh air would change the fact that Earth crops didn’t take to the soil. Native grasses were too tough for cows to digest.

Goats did well enough. Sheep, too, but they weren’t smart enough to keep themselves from being eaten and required constant monitoring. That hadn’t been a problem when Emma could share the work with her brother. She couldn’t expect her mother to help much. Agatha’s time was monopolized by her father. Partially blind, he required her to write as he dictated. Now, Emma was a workforce of one and had to decide if she could afford to keep the flock or sell.

Well, since the military slaughtered all the sheep, it wasn’t a problem anymore.

Beyond her parents’ remarkable lack of preparation, neither had the temperament to bend the wild land to their will. Agatha was a painter; her father, Oscar, a poet. Neither had ever done a day’s hard work in their life. Running a farmstead was more than they could manage. They weren’t bad people, or lazy, just naive about the realities of frontier living. Fortunately, the ratite herds were plentiful enough to keep the De Laceys fed through that harsh first winter.

“Surely whatever it is can be reasoned with,” Agatha said, moving to push past her.

Emma held up an arm to block her mother. “Ma, wait. Do you hear that?”

Something rustled above in the hayloft.

Emma raised the shotgun, ready to blast the monster or beastie or whatever it was.

A cat sprang down with a yowl and scampered off.

“Clover,” she sighed, relaxing her grip on the shotgun.

“You’re so dramatic, my dear,” Agatha said with a very dramatic sigh, patting Emma on the arm.

“I didn’t hear the cat.”

“The chickens are safe. Now, I need your help in the kitchen.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” Emma said.

“Don’t forget that Pa is going to read A Christmas Carol after dinner.”

How could she forget? Every year, Oscar recited the old holiday story from memory, giving it the full dramatic treatment.

Yesterday had been the winter solstice, but those were always fraught with worries. Monsters prowled on the equinox and solstice, when the Nexus energies were at their height. Actual holiday celebrations came the day after, when the Nexus flux waned, and people could relax.

Not that Emma felt much like celebrating this year.

She sighed, slumping against a post, exhausted. Running the farm by herself was an impossible task. She could manage it for now, but she’d need help by the time the snow melted. She could ask around the nearest town, Sweetwater Point, but the pickings were slim. In addition to drafting her brother, the military took anyone fit enough to carry a rifle.

She opened her eyes and spied a cluster of mistletoe wrapped in a scarlet ribbon hanging from the rafter. With a sigh, she leaned the shotgun against the wall, dragged a stool under the mistletoe, and climbed up to pull the decoration down.

Work never ended, and somehow, her parents made it worse. Her mother had decorated every conceivable surface on the farm with the parasitic plant, including the barn. The only green thing available this time of year, her mother had been heavy-handed with the decorating. Garlands. Wreaths. Clusters artfully arranged around candlesticks, making the candles impractical to use.

Now, it was literally coming out of the rafters.

She didn’t need her goats nibbling on the poison berries because her mother’s method of dealing with stress was crafting.

All would be well. All would be well.

Lies.

Nothing good ever happened at the winter solstice, and no amount of mistletoe hanging in doorways would bring her brother back.

When the family arrived at their assigned parcel of land, all the best parcels had long been taken. What remained was more suited for the tall grass native to this part of the world than growing crops.

Except for one parasitic plant from Earth that, for some inexplicable reason, thrived on the alien prairie.

“Just like Earth! This is home,” her mother cooed, despite Earth being nothing more than a memory two centuries in the past. Despite the abandoned farmstead being ramshackle and tumbledown, no other place would do. The mistletoe’s ties to the old-world holiday were too strong.

Emma pulled down the last of the leaves, shoving them into her apron pocket.

There. One problem temporarily averted.

A thump from the hayloft interrupted her maudlin thoughts.

Emma grabbed the shotgun and focused on the sounds of the barn. The goats were in their pen, munching on hay and generally being restless. They were cooped up all day yesterday and today to protect them from being a monster’s snack, but tomorrow, she’d let them out to ramble in the fields.

Something rustled in the loft. Something big. Definitely not a cat.

Emma raised the shotgun, keeping her focus on the loft. “Come on down now, and I won’t hurt you.”

Much. The shotgun was loaded with rock salt, which would sting like the devil. Yes, the military took her bullets, too.

A figure rose from behind the hay bales. Hidden in the shadows, the person was big. Really big.

“Come where I can see ya,” she ordered.

The figure stepped forward, revealing himself.

Emma nearly dropped the shotgun in surprise.

Well, now two things were green in the dead of winter.