Page 10 of My Monster’s Keeper

Becky

W ellsbridge Community Center is a dump.

It’s covered in graffiti, has boarded-up windows, and has more broken glass littering the driveway than grass.

There’s also a funky smell, like musky socks and wet clothes that have sat wet too long.

But it’s the thudding beat of music coming from deep inside that makes me furious on behalf of the residents of Wellsbridge Street.

It is the middle of the day, and I saw an Aged Care facility just down the street, and the beat is so loud I swear my heart is thudding in tune with it. I can’t imagine how people live here with these cretins.

“What is that sound?”

“The war drums of a rival clan?” Wilder glowers at the door and pulls out his machete. “I shall slay them.”

“Perhaps it is the beating heart of a dragon,” Frost murmurs absently. “A fearsome foe.”

Dragons are real? No, focus.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s music,” I say with a twitch of my shoulders.

“Music?” Puppy asks. “Can I eat music?”

I consider his question. “You could try, I guess.”

Stix stands up and, in four of his giant strides, he reaches the shadows of the entrance and vanishes from sight.

Puppy lets out a half howl, half growl and charges after him.

“Wait! Don’t eat anyone!” I shout and race after them.

I don’t reach the door before a vine tears it off and hurls it fifty yards down the street. I skid to a stop and whirl around. “Stop that!”

“Stop what?” Wilder asks with a pout.

I huff and race inside. The polished floor is covered in dirt, to the point where I can barely see the original floor. I pass several rooms, ignoring them when I sense no movement. Where are they ?

I can’t imagine people here, but I’ve stayed in worse.

I hear a shriek. It’s high and filled with terror. I can’t tell if it’s male or female, but I round the corner of the circular halfway and smash into Puppy’s back. He tumbles forward, losing his grip on the gigantic man he’s holding.

“Human, I will eat you,” he warns me and attacks his prey again.

“NO EATING!” I scream.

He punches his claws into the human, and its form dissolves. A mass of writhing tentacles and antennae stretch out towards me, seeking help, I think. I back up quickly and hit another wall of man flesh. Nope, that thing is not touching me. Nope, no way.

“Ah, long have I waited to see a Amshrilleeg,” Frost says in sheer delight. “How fascinating. Puppy, before you eat it, see if you can get it mad. They’re supposed to change colour.”

I need a gun or seven. I’m definitely getting a gun when I get home. Make it angry, the stupid Fae prince says. Jeez.

“Run along, human, Puppy and I will handle this uncivilised creature.”

I almost trip over my own feet while I crane my head around to watch it. “What the actual fuck?”

Wilder grips my arm and marches me deeper into the hall. “Breathe, the Amshrilleeg is a creature that is a merciless hunter. It likes to set up near the water source of its prey and eat them as they come close. It devours everything.”

I whip my head around. “Are you saying it ate all the people who came here for help?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe the prey’s instincts reminded it to run.”

I’d love to give humanity the benefit of the doubt, but it’s more likely that several people have been devoured.

“Stix?” I call out.

A shadow flickers, and then Stix lets out a truly spine-chilling laugh. All the hairs on my body lift as he stretches out of the shadow. A man shrieks again, and I realise this is the one who screamed first. Stix reaches out and grips him by the throat.

“He is human, but he stinks of deceit. He was working with the Amshrilleeg,” Stix says in disgust. “Bringing strangers to feed the starving beast.”

My eyes widen as I take in the duplicity of the moron in front of me. “That’s barbaric.”

“That’s survival,” the guy cries out. He swipes at the snot bubbling out of his nose.

I hope Puppy doesn’t want to eat this one, he’s foul. His pants are too tight, and he’s wearing a band t-shirt with holes through it. The smell coming off him could curdle milk .

“What were you getting out of it?” I ask coldly, circling around him.

Stix’s fingers brush over my lower back, and I have to force myself to keep moving.

“Nothing. Nothing. I swear.”

“Bullshit!” Wilder snaps. “I can smell the lies in the air around him. The stench is as bitter as his piss.”

The man wails again, but Stix shakes him so hard his teeth rattle.

“I took their stuff!” He finally blurts out. “I took their money, pawned their belongings.”

I scoff in disgust. “It would have been a pittance.”

“But at least I got to live, and I had a little extra to keep me going.”

“Going?” Stix asks me.

“Drugs, he was buying drugs with the stolen belongings,” I say in disgust.

Stix rattles the human so hard his neck starts to look like it’s made of rubber.

“I couldn’t get free of that thing. I tried. He owned me. He bought and paid for me.” His eyes narrow to slits. “You’re the rookie cop, aren’t you? I remember seeing your face. You’re bought and paid for, too.”

I stand up straight. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not a thing, and I’m not for sale.”

He jerks away from Stix and backs away from us. “I ain’t going to jail. No way. I’ve seen what lives in those cages. There’s no fucking way.”

“Hey, hey, what’s your name? Calm down,” Wilder says in his most soothing voice. I think the guy sees a saviour in Wilder. Who am I to disillusion him?

“Dale, Dale Esmess.” He sobs and wipes his sleeve across his nose, spreading snot over his face. “I can’t go there. I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and I don’t want to see it. Please, I wish I never saw it, man. I don’t want to be monster bait.”

I frown as Dale’s speech gets louder and louder until he’s hysterically sobbing. He reaches into his pocket.

I cry out, but it’s too late. He swipes the box cutter across his neck, sending a spray of blood further than I could ever have guessed. It pumps a few times, and then the spray slows. His body is on the floor already, but I don’t know how it got there.

“Puppy!” Wilder calls.

I whirl on him, but he holds his hands up and shrugs.

“We can’t leave this here. Evidence of our passing and presence would be easily found.”

I’m reluctant but eventually nod. “Fine, but I’m not happy with the eating. ”

“We know,” Frost says and reaches out to brush his thumb across my bottom lip. My heart slams against my ribs. Conflicting feelings of fear and yearning hit me. He smiles, and I lose track of where the fuck I am. “You look good with blood on your lips.”

The words stump me for a second, and then I realise what he means. I swipe at my lips and taste the metallic taste of Dale. I retch, and once I start, it’s hard to stop. When I look up, feeling weak and minus the contents of my stomach, I find Puppy and Stix staring at me curiously.

I stumble away from the mess I’ve made and then watch in horror as Puppy in his dragon form scurries over and sniffs. He morphs back into his human state and circles around the puddle.

“Another distasteful defense,” he murmurs. “The eating may yet prove tricky.”

I’m getting seriously worried about that one. Just watching him makes me nervous because when he does look at me, which he does often, he stares with an unblinking gaze. And he keeps talking about eating me.

That is not cool.

I walk around, taking note of the rubbish, drug paraphernalia, and alcohol bottles. Stix stays by my side. I follow the flow of the corridors and push open a door at the back of the building. I look at the floor and focus on something peculiar.

There are shoes on the floor. I crouch and pick one up and then start counting all the different pairs. There are forty.

I let out a low growl and stand up, dusting my hands on my jeans. “Forty victims, perhaps more.”

Stix pulls open a desk drawer and closes it. “What are we looking for?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like there’s something here.”

He doesn’t question me, and I appreciate that. I leave the room and find the kitchen. It’s clawed to hell. Like a giant werewolf tore it up.

Puppy drops off the ceiling, causing me to gasp. He smiles, his tongue flicking out, and leans closer to me. “The Amshrilleeg was scared. The stench is like…blood wine.”

Stix inhales and crosses the room on his long legs. He climbs halfway up the wall and inspects a scratch.

“Puppy.”

Puppy’s head whips around, and, in a second, he’s beside Stix, sniffing the nightmare’s fist.

“What is it? ”

“Something tasty, human meat,” Puppy purrs happily. He snuffles at Stix’s hand and purrs.

“Human meat is not tasty,” I growl.

Puppy tilts his human head to me. “Human meat is tasty, and you are human meat.”

The insult and threat isn’t lost on me. “And you’ll be a mystery stew.”

“What’s a stew!” Puppy thunders furiously. He flips to dragon form, and his tail lashes the space, crashing through the drywall.

He bares his teeth and hisses at me. I stick my finger up at him and turn my back on him.

I hear the sound but don’t even get to move a step before Wilder is wrapped around me, his arms bulging as he holds the Grim back.

“Bad Grim!” Wilder bares his teeth, and, to my utter shock, vines peel through the walls like they’re paper and wrap around the weight against my back.

“We don’t eat the Becky human.”

Puppy growls and backs off. Out of the corner of my eye, vines are ripped from the wall and thrown away carelessly.

Stix is still on the walls, inspecting the scratches. Unworried about Puppy’s attack.

Wilder holds me, and as I take a step back, I step on something and roll my ankle, crashing into him. I peer up, my eyes wide, my mouth dry. He is so hard, his chest feels like a wall of warm stone.

I feel a tightening, a tingle, a something that shouldn’t be there, and rip myself away from him.

“Sorry.”

My cheeks are hot. He inhales, sniffing the air. I see the exact moment he catches my arousal in the air. His eyes turn entirely black. And somehow that only increases the strength of the problem I’m having. I find myself back in his arms, mesmerised by that expression of need on his face.

What is wrong with me?

I rip myself free and put the entire length of the room between us.

Wilder hasn’t taken his gaze off me, but just when I think he might do something, he turns on his heel and silently leaves the room.

I lift my hand and press it against my chest. Only then remembering that Stix is still in the room. I peer up at him and find him staring at me with a perplexed expression on his face .

“What?”

“Nothing, poppet.”

His gaze caresses every line of me, and I start shivering and find I’m responding all over again. What the actual fuck is wrong with my body?

I tear my gaze away and stomp out of the kitchen.

“Becky, wait!” Stix shouts out.

But it’s too late, the door slams open, and a terrifyingly huge creature explodes out of it, a thousand teeth in its huge mouth, opened and coming for me.

I’m going to die.

I squeeze my eyes closed and wish that maybe if I was going to get eaten, I’d want it to be Puppy. But, then I think of the Stix, Frost, and Wilder, and I hope that Diablos finds someone else who will treat them well. Someone who will feed them.

Finally, my voice works, a scream tearing out of me.