Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters Book 6)

by Kristy Cunning

  It really is an entirely new beginning, and I don’t even think she realizes that.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely. If you’ll be my bride,” he answers, gloating over his counter offer. “I’ll even let your monster claim me in return.”

  This is madness.

  Even for us.

  “Damn it, Arion, I’m already her mate. If she’s claiming someone—”

  Violet’s eyes cut hopefully to Emit, almost as though she’s been dreading his reaction the worst, for whatever reason.

  Emit’s words die, and his lips move, as though he intended to say more, but didn’t ever actually mean to start speaking aloud in the first place.

  Violet’s lips turn up in a subtle grin, and she looks away. Her smile falls when she seems to remember she’s still holding the head of the queen.

  “I have one more minorly diabolical thing to show you. This one’s all me, though, Anna adored the idea,” Violet says, clearing her throat. “I still consider Anna an entirely different person. I’m putting a pin in the fact she’s somehow an extension of me, because I haven’t ever met that part of me. I’m not even sure I fully buy it. It has too many memories now. Things I could have never seen sometimes pop into my mind like broken snippets of oddly placed memories. That’s been happening more since I woke Vance from the curse.”

  “Gotta love all that blood magic I unintentionally fused you with every time I shoved Hyde back in the box,” Talbot mumbles, while getting comfortable on the ground. “Curse-breaking gypsy freak monster. It’s like you try to call for attention, even while you clearly attempt to blend into the crowd. Devious monster indeed.”

  “Anyway,” Violet cuts back in, “she’s her and I’m me. We’re not the same people. It’s very important you know that.”

  “I’ll play whatever game you want, sweet monster,” Arion says, smile still fixed to his eternally happy face.

  Anna sighs with clear romantic bliss etched on her face, as she floats above him in her original underwear ensemble.

  Violet exhales in annoyance.

  See? Constant contradiction.

  “Women really are just as fucking complicated as I’ve always thought,” Damien observes aloud, seemingly lost in genuine thought, as he studies Violet and Anna.

  “Especially the young ones,” Talbot states in agreement.

  Violet spins on her heel, and we all watch her start walking away, shaking her head as she goes. Her face is burning red, because this is genuinely embarrassing for her.

  She’s still Violet.

  She has that insanely disconcerting monster—to put it mildly—inside her, but she’s still Violet. She can’t even bring herself to really look at me yet. She keeps focusing more on the other three, because she’s always the most worried about what I’m going to have to say.

  Possibly because I’m the one who’s supposed to be in charge of this forever-long shit show.

  “Wow,” Damien says, shaking his head in mild disbelief, even as his own grin becomes more blissful with each passing second.

  “Where’s the vampire beta? I need her help with something,” Talbot says, lifting from the ground.

  Arion snatches him by the collar, pulls him back, and slings him against the wall. “If you’re referring to Shera, you need to know one thing: If she’s harmed while in your presence, I’ll deliver your head to Damien.”

  Damien shrugs. “Fair enough. I’ll fight him on it when you’ve given me a reason to care that much,” Damien tells him. “For now, I don’t trust you enough to put my hat in the ring with this fast fucker.”

  Talbot smirks at Arion with so much arrogance that it makes me immediately uneasy.

  “No need for threats, Mr. Vampyre,” Talbot says, far too at ease under Arion’s threatening look.

  Arion’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

  “The vampire has my protection, simply because she’s too stupidly brave to stay alive on her own. I can respect the loyal type, given the many times I’ve been betrayed. I’m also the protective type. I’m a damn good beta that way,” Talbot says, removing Arion’s hand from his shirt with some strained effort.

  Arion doesn’t strain, which proves he’s not resisting too much. Still, I watch and analyze Talbot’s every move.

  Talbot turns and leaves, and Arion waits until we hear the door shut before he speaks.

  “I really don’t trust him, and he’s much stronger than he looks. Not to mention, he’s a blood magic witch, as well as an incubus, who has—”

  His words cut out, and we all stare at the floor. Two of us stare with shock. Two of us stare with shock and horror.

  Idun’s body is sliding across the floor. Well, at least her torso from the neck down to her waist. The triplets are giggling as they walk beside it, somehow rolling it across the ground.

  I think.

  Or maybe Idun is rolling it where they told her to go?

  Look away for one damn second, and something else is already happening. I need a fucking moment to process at least one motherfucking thing before the next thing happens.

  “My head hurts,” Emit says to me.

  “I hate that you’re the only one I can relate to in this moment,” I tell him very honestly.

  “Same,” he answers, taking a step back when Idun’s legs come inching by.

  “Maybe we should worry about Talbot later and focus on our all-powerful girlfriend for a little while,” Damien suggests, scratching his head when Hansel and Gretel start throwing breadcrumbs at Idun’s legs.

  “Where’d the bloody vampire go?” Emit asks.

  Hell, I didn’t notice him missing.

  I start to go, when I see Clyde’s severed body inching by in the same fashion as Idun’s, only his head getting bounced around like a soccer ball…

  His eyes are wide and furiously bloodshot.

  His flesh is burned.

  His teeth are all missing…

  “Surely you didn’t think Idun was the only one who was going to have to take a fall,” Anna states, suddenly appearing right in the middle of the three of us.

  “Daddy Neopry was right by her side, patting her on the head like a good pet, and goading her along every step of the way. Everyone blamed you for that monster. Violet saw things differently,” Anna says, rubbing her hands together with glee.

  I want to argue, but…can’t really argue. Clyde’s fucking terrible, but the only one who pays him any mind is Idun. To us, he’s a washed-up has-been who never-really-was.

  Cold.

  Jaded.

  Cruel.

  A man who kept his soul after he’d already blackened it with stains of the darkest, most selfish of sins.

  Arion’s a compassionate priest all over again by comparison to Clyde.

  But Clyde’s mostly powerless without Idun.

  I take a step back, examining the entire scene. Clyde, the proudest man who never could understand he was nothing and nobody, the man who hated his children for being embarrassing, and the man who supported every vile act Idun ever committed with the utmost pride, has his eyes frozen in terror.

  At the risk of it sounding like a bad pun, he looks like he’s…seen a ghost.

  “It’s been a very busy twenty-four hours,” I decide to say.

  Warily, I follow Emit and Damien. They’re following a convoy of severed body parts that is moving down the hallway. It’s embarrassing the way we creep behind the scene with wild confusion and baffled intrigue.

  She’s turning us all into jokes. Even I feel more ridiculous than I’ve ever felt.

  Idun’s a fucking joke.

  Idun’s. A. Fucking. Joke.

  She’d never allow this. Her heart’s intact. She’s still conscious.

  She’d have already brutally tortured us all before she’d let this happen. Only Violet’s in the business of letting things happen.

  If Idun could stop this, she’d have already done it.

  “This is really happening,” Emit says, echoing my thoughts.

&nbs
p; I’m sharing a wavelength with the fucking mongrel, while he’s naked and perched at a lean.

  The barbarian is the only one struggling alongside me to truly take this in.

  The world truly has ended. It ended last night, and now it’s starting all over. It’s also spinning in a completely different direction.

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” I murmur in response.

  Somehow, though I’m not sure how, we turn the corner and realize we’ve lost the convoy. Almost immediately, children’s laughter echoes down the hallway, and another trail of breadcrumbs appears.

  Even though we can no longer see them, Idun’s and Clyde’s shared fear is palpable from here, though the apples are slowly masking the scent. We follow the breadcrumbs all the way to a distant stairwell I never noticed on the blueprints.

  I study the door, taking in the fact it’s a bookcase that’s been left opened. A hidden room in Sanctuary? She really does love horror movies. There’s always a hidden room in good monster movies.

  As I descend, it starts garnering a dungeon theme rather quickly, given the thick stones layered with some black tar-like stuff. A dungeon with fluorescent lighting, also.

  Sure. Why the hell not?

  Dwarfed, green apple trees are growing in small pots, nothing more than tiny sprigs tied to poles to help support the weight of the many apples.

  It occurs to me that the stench of Idun’s fear is now completely absent.

  “My senses have had a few cosmically empowered moments here and there where they’ve been heightened to somewhat match yours, I think,” Violet tells us, smiling tightly. “Nothing really to help me out, since it was just fleeting tastes that slowly gave me a little insight into you.”

  She looks nervous again.

  “You were frozen in this state,” Violet says, and then eyes Emit. “Only you got a few perks post-immortality,” Violet notes. “I was frozen the day my head came off. Your senses are only better than mine, because my senses adapted to be less sensitive to the more polluted world I was born into,” she carries on.

  She gestures around. “That’s why you live in small, woodland towns, isn’t it? It’d be easier to keep a low profile and anonymity in larger cities. However, your senses are too sensitive to live too close to bigger cities.”

  “Why are we discussing our senses and location?” I ask, unable to follow her confusing directional shifts.

  She decides it’s the perfect time to turn and lift Clyde’s head. His eyes are just as frozen wide as Idun’s…which brings my gaze over to the head on a shelf.

  How did I not notice Idun’s head on a shelf the moment I walked in?

  No…not just a shelf. Is that a display case?

  Sure enough, Violet closes the glass door in front of Clyde’s face, and then she turns to gesture to the body parts.

  “Do you want to help me put these on the other shelves?” she asks, acting like this is obviously the next thing on the agenda.

  It’s like speaking to the bloody Vampyre, only the exact opposite.

  “Violet, please focus on one thing at a time,” I cut in, as our…very complex little Simpleton monster wrings her hands very nervously.

  “Well, my apples sort of level the playing field where senses are involved, is what I was getting at. I didn’t realize I was doing that. I just really like growing apples and oranges. I favor the apples, but it’s not a deliberate power move to make your heightened senses an irrelevant advantage,” she rushes to explain. “Please believe me.”

  For the first time, I feel my lips twitch, and I struggle to resist the urge to smile.

  Damn her.

  “We believe you,” the four of us state in a dry, humorless, somewhat incredulous tone, as well as in perfect unison.

  Violet looks surprised, for whatever reason, that we don’t find her to be some sort of sinister mastermind.

  “You really should be a little more suspicious of me after the events of the evening. Clearly, I’m not as sweet as all of you have claimed,” she carries on, actually looking somewhat irritated with us.

  It’s just now that I’m realizing this sweet accusation has come off as a bit insulting to our prideful little monster, who clearly thinks she’s far more devious than she is.

  “It’s definitely Violet,” Damien says, elbowing me with a growing grin. “I already knew that, but now it’s indisputable.”

  Arion struggles to smother his laughter, and she cuts a chilling glare toward him, as the room chills a few degrees.

  His laughter only doubles, as Violet struggles to not posture, fidgeting nervously, even as her jaw tics with some subtle ire.

  “How have I not noticed how much that bothers her?” Emit asks, the words minced with some suppressed laughter.

  Damien finally loses it, his laughter slipping out, and he gives up the fight to restrain it. It sets off a chain reaction, with all of us following and joining in on the hysterical fit.

  Violet very angrily starts heaving Idun’s body into the case by herself, which only elevates Arion’s laughter into a wheezing sort of state.

  “You’re more damaged than I even realized,” Violet mutters, as her ghosts float around her, helping her load Idun in.

  “Anyone else getting a mental image of birds helping Cinderella get dressed…only not?” Anna asks as she takes a seat between us, watching Violet just as we are, while the other ghosts help Violet cram the rest of the body parts in their respective cases.

  That sobers us just somewhat, only because…how do we even begin handling this new complication?

  Violet’s monster has been having a lot of conversations with us.

  Since the beginning.

  “No?” Anna asks, smirking. “Just me then?”

  “I swear, she’s not really reading my thoughts like a diary. I do not think like that,” Violet is assuring us, while finally managing to get the case shut.

  “Should someone tell her she’s swapped the torsos or just leave it be?” Anna stage whispers.

  Violet turns, darts a gaze between the cases, and presumably sees the father’s torso resting on the shelf between the daughter’s head and legs…

  I scrub a hand down my face when Violet’s cheeks heat like this has embarrassed her. She’s trying hard to look like she’s not frazzled and has a problem with being called sweet.

  Over and over, I struggle to keep my lips pressed in a respectable line. Steadily, that weight starts to lift from my shoulders, this surreal new reality slowly setting in.

  January Violet Carmine.

  We knew she was fucking special. None of us saw this shit coming, though.

  “I’ve been alive too damn long,” Emit decides, lips twitching, as he sags to take a seat on the floor, landing roughly.

  He sighs, a slow smile curving his lips, while he watches Violet get the right body-parts where they belong.

  “Isn’t this the best date-night ever?” Anna muses.

  “Damn it, Anna. Stop saying shit like that. Now that they know you’re just some leaky section of my subconscious, it’s mortifying every single damn time you open your mouth,” Violet gripes.

  The case door swings open, and Idun’s legs fall out, landing on the ground with a hard thud.

  Violet cuts her eyes to Idun, who I swear looks ten times more terrified than ever.

  “Chill. The weight was just poorly distributed,” Anna says around a bored sigh. “Honestly, you can’t function without me.”

  “What the hell did I do with that salt?” Violet says as she starts patting down her bra.

  “I’ll give you some time alone. No need to get so salty,” Anna says, grinning. “Get it? Salty?”

  Violet glares. Anna’s smile falls.

  “That joke is always funny, and you never laugh. You’d think the girl who calls her fuck-hot boyfriends the monstar quad would have a better sense of humor,” Anna chides.

  Then she grins and disappears, along with all the other ghosts. I can’t help but find it all terrifyingly fascin
ating, and stare at Violet with some admitted fresh intrigue.

  It’s like seeing her for the first time all over again, only this time, I’m already in love with her, so I notice much more.

  My lips curve in a grin, as she finally manages to once again get Idun’s legs encased. She then locks both cases.

  “Is there some sort of magical barrier to hold that in place? Are you that powerful?” Arion muses, going to examine the display cases with too much fearless abandon.

  Idun’s eyes only seem to plead with him for help. She couldn’t even mock that emotion to that degree if she tried. It’s…something she hasn’t faced.

  “No,” Violet says, shaking her head. “I don’t know all those fancy barrier spells. I don’t even really know how to use much gypsy magic, if I’m honest. I’m a potion brewer, just like all the Jackals were. Just like most of the Portocales too. My monster started hijacking my family’s line a long time ago, according to what I could dig up.”

  She inspects the blood smears on the glass and lifts her dress to wipe it away.

  Casually, she carries on speaking, while continuing to wipe away the smears, “The earliest one I found, was a story of one Jackal, who drank a potion ‘strong enough to give his subconscious its own voice.’ He called it the voice inside his head. He journaled that the voice demanded the worst deeds be done in his honor,” Violet tells us somewhat sadly. “He thought he’d given the devil his soul, having no idea what had been done to him. I’ve only recently started learning more and more. I was planning to tell you soon enough, but…”

  She lets the words trail off, as she looks over at me very directly. Then she flits her gaze to the others, one by one, giving all of us a rather exasperated/sardonic look.

  “How many of you would have ever believed me, even if I’d tried my best to explain it to you?” she asks, arching an eyebrow at us.

  “Fair enough,” Emit immediately concedes.

  “My grandmother, the one my parents always said I’d look like, and the one who unknowingly left me a lot of great monster-bartering antiques, was a Jackal-Neopry. She had records of our family history, but Mom hid it from me. I stopped trusting her, so that means I searched all her things and found a lot of answers. Also, I know why she kept it from me. It’s…hard to find a way to explain all this to a girl who is already confused about the fact there’s a monster living inside her.”