This Broken Wondrous World

by Jon Skovron

  Then the Dragon Lady snapped off his head in a single bite. His body fell back into the water with a splash.

  Sophie got weakly to her feet and walked slowly over to his headless body, her lips pressing into an expression of pain.

  “You are the last member of your family,” said the Dragon Lady. “I am sorry for what needed to be done.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and nodded.

  “Soph . . .” I said, struggling to stand.

  “Boy! Are you hurt?” Ruthven was next to me, helping me into a sitting position.

  “I’ll live,” I grunted, then spit out some blood as I climbed unsteadily to my feet. There was only the Dragon Lady and Ruthven. “This all you brought?”

  “Mozart said speed was critical, so we left the rest behind and came as fast we could,” said Ruthven.

  Then he turned and saw Maria. She held Mozart’s body in her good arm, the other broken and useless at her side. Tears streamed down her face as she stared up at the night sky.

  “But it looks as though we were not fast enough.”

  A FEW RABBIT people had survived and crouched on the beach, as if they were waiting to be told what to do or where to go. They watched silently as we stacked the bodies of the dead ones into a big pile.

  Laurellen helped Maria place Mozart’s body on top of the mound of dead rabbit people. Then he gently led her back to a safe distance where Ruthven, La Perricholi, Sophie, and I stood.

  As the Dragon Lady inhaled, a crackling sound came from deep in her chest. Then she blew out a jet of fire that engulfed the bodies. She fanned the flames with her wings, and the fire twisted high into the night sky as thick black smoke billowed out to sea, taking with it the stench of burning hair and flesh. It smelled awful. It was awful.

  “As far as I know, he was the last of his kind,” said Ruthven, his deep, rich stage voice carrying over the roar of the fire. “He and I had been enemies once, long ago. I suppose it isn’t all that surprising that the worst enemies can sometimes become the closest friends.”

  Those words seemed inadequate to me. But what words could possibly be enough? Mozart had been a mentor to me, a hero. He’d shown me how a monster could be true to himself and still exist in a human world. Only now did I realize how much I’d needed that example. How much I’d looked up to him. Who would be that for me now? And for others?

  What did it mean for the world to lose the last werewolf?

  19

  Boy Meets World

  WE WATCHED THE fire until it was only a charred and smoking pile of ash. Then the Dragon Lady turned to us. “War does not give us long to grieve, my friends. There is much to be done.”

  “We must find Moreau,” La Perricholi said grimly as she loaded her pistol. “I will claim vengeance for this.”

  Vi buzzed in my pocket.

  “I have an incoming call from Agent Holmes,” she said.

  “What?” I asked. “How did she even—”

  “She says it’s urgent.”

  “Put her through on speaker.” The phone clicked. “Hello?”

  “Boy, listen, there isn’t much time—”

  “How did you find me?”

  “You gave me the first clue. That was all I needed. I’m a Holmes, after all. Now I know who you are. What you are. And whom you’re up against.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “What I don’t know is why you’re down in Lima, when Moreau has just invaded Arizona with an army of beast people.”

  “He what?”

  “An abandoned cargo ship was discovered adrift off the north coast of the Gulf of California. As far as we can tell, he packed them all in there and sailed from the South American coast up the gulf just under a week ago and landed near Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. Then he somehow managed to get this army across the border and through the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and some of the most desolate terrain in the Southwest. What’s more, he did it completely undetected. From there, he moved into Arizona and in only a few hours he’s managed to take Phoenix, a city of roughly one point four million people, hostage.”

  “Has he made any demands?”

  “You haven’t seen it on TV? He made a very public address.”

  “Been busy,” I said. “Vi, can you pull it up?”

  “Hmmm?” she said. The screen had gone black.

  “Can you pull up a video of Moreau’s recent public address?”

  “Oh, yes, of course, sure, no problem!” She appeared with a wide, toothy smile. A giant drop of sweat slowly ran down the side of her head.

  “Are . . . you okay?” I asked.

  “Never better!” She gave a high-pitched nervous laugh, her smile fixed in place. Clearly, something was up, but I didn’t want to deal with it while Holmes was still on the line.

  “Great,” I said. “So can you pull it up?”

  “Here it is!”

  Her avatar was replaced with Moreau’s face, the eagle eyes piercing.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dr. Moreau and I am a monster. Most of you humans don’t realize this, but we monsters have been living among you for centuries, forced to hide in shame and fear. But your worldwide domination is now at an end. A coalition of monsters has seized the city of Phoenix and all its inhabitants. The governments of the world have seventy-two hours to grant us personhood status and the basic rights normally reserved only for humans. Otherwise, we will kill every human here. Then we will move on to the next city, and the next, until our demands have been met. Perhaps you think this sounds cruel. But the U.S. government made their intolerance for monsters abundantly clear a few days ago when they slaughtered a secret but peaceful enclave of monsters living beneath Manhattan.”

  The video cut to black-and-white footage of FBI officers firing on monsters at The Show. Flashes of gunfire and creatures screaming in pain. It was the security video stored on the drive we hadn’t been able to find in the lobby. The FBI hadn’t taken it. Moreau’s people had.

  The video cut back to Moreau, his thick gorilla lip curled up into a snarl. “Those monsters were completely unarmed. They were theatrical performers who had been delighting humans for decades, not terrorists. So now you tell me what seems cruel.” He leaned in closer to the camera so you could see the yellow of his sharp canines. “And if there are any monsters out there who hear this, anywhere in the world, I beg you to rise up from your hiding places, throw off the shackles of your oppressors, and join us in a united, international rebellion. The humans will share this world with us, or they will die.”

  The video went black.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about the people you lost in New York,” said Holmes quietly. “We have reason to suspect that it was Moreau or someone who works with him who gave the FBI the anonymous tip about the terrorist cell.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “The military claims they can keep Moreau contained and neutralize him within the three-day deadline. But the FBI believes we need more intel. We need experts. Your father said you’d help us.”

  “My father?”

  “The U.S. government is offering to release your father in exchange for your assistance. If you agree to these terms, come to the U.S. embassy in Lima within the next six hours.”

  The line disconnected. I stood there, staring down at the black screen for a moment. Then I looked up and saw that everyone was staring at me. “You all heard that, I take it?”

  “Are you really going to team up with a human government?” asked Laurellen. “How do you know you can trust them to free your father?”

  “I don’t trust them,” I said. “But I do trust Holmes. I think she has more in common with us than maybe even she realizes. Mozart told me once that the lines between human and monster are a lot blurrier than people usually want to admit.”
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  “Speaking of pet humans,” said Ruthven, “what ever happened to yours?”

  “Henri!” I said. “He’s been missing for hours. Where the hell could he have gone?”

  “I have a guess.” La Perricholi pointed out to sea.

  The stars had come out and I could just make out the silhouette of the ship that had held the rabbit people. The ship was completely dark, except for a single porthole window in the cargo hold that flickered with light.

  Minutes later, the Dragon Lady vaulted into the sky, with Sophie, La Perricholi, and me clinging to the coarse line of fur on her back.

  “I’m surprised you wanted to come,” Sophie shouted over the wind.

  “I know he has suffered because of me,” said La Perricholi. “I cannot choose whom I love. Or whom I don’t.”

  “Neither can he,” I said.

  “That is why I am coming.”

  The Dragon Lady landed on top of the ship, settling her weight carefully so as not to tip it to one side or the other. The ship’s deck was scattered with dark brown spheres about the size of golf balls.

  “Ugh, giant rabbit turds.” Sophie slowly made her way across without stepping on any.

  “Moreau needed to quickly raise a large number of creatures to act as a decoy army,” said La Perricholi. “Rabbits were an inspired choice.”

  “You sound like you admire him,” said Sophie.

  “I respect him.” She held up a pistol. “Like I respect anything that is dangerous. Now, let’s get below to the cargo hold and hope that Henri is still alive.”

  The cargo hold was dark, the ceiling so low I had to stoop. The floor was smeared with rabbit shit and rotting vegetables. There were even a few dead, naked rabbit people.

  “I wonder how long they had to live like this,” I said.

  It smelled so bad, if I hadn’t already thrown up everything when Stephen punched me in the stomach, I probably would have done it then. Sophie did.

  “Sorry,” she said weakly as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

  I shrugged. “Can’t make things much worse. Come on, I think the light is coming from back there.”

  We waded slowly through the refuse until we came to a small area at the back of the hold that was sectioned off with a chain-link fence. There was a door in the fence held with a padlock. Inside, off to one side, were two laptops, open and facing each other.

  “That’s how Moreau spoofed the location,” I said, walking over to the laptops. “Vi traced to the geolocation of the first laptop, making it appear like Moreau was here. But that laptop was actually recording the screen of the second laptop, which was broadcasting from a third laptop at some remote location. Vi couldn’t trace that because there’s an analog gap between the first and second laptops.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” said La Perricholi.

  “Ultimately?” I said. “It means that Moreau knew Vi was monitoring him and he’d already prepared a way to throw her off his trail.”

  Something shifted under a tarp on the other side of the fenced-in area.

  “Henri?” I said.

  There was a wet, gurgling noise beneath the tarp.

  “That doesn’t sound good.” I yanked on the fence door but the padlock was too strong.

  “Stand back,” said La Perricholi. She shot the padlock, which snapped open and fell to the ground.

  I lurched inside and ripped back the tarp.

  “Oh, Henri . . .” said Sophie.

  He lay there, naked, bruised, bloody, with both arms broken, and probably other internal stuff, too.

  “Henri, can you hear me?” I knelt down beside him.

  “Boy?” he rasped faintly. He turned his head and looked up at me, his eyes unfocused.

  “What happened?” asked La Perricholi.

  “I thought I could take him,” Henri said. He coughed weakly and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Who, Stephen?” asked Sophie.

  “It was still Robert. I thought I could take him before he changed. I was . . . stupid. I wanted . . . to prove myself. To her.”

  “Henri, I’m sorry,” said La Perricholi.

  He turned his head toward the sound. “Oh. You are . . . here. That is . . . embarrassing. . . .”

  “Henri, stay focused,” I said. “Do you know why Stephen brought you here?”

  “Not sure . . . He said something about . . . needing me for some tests. . . .”

  “What kind of tests?” asked Sophie.

  “No idea.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” I said. “Right now Henri needs to get to a hospital. Nobody else dies today.”

  THE DRAGON LADY barely made it back to shore with the extra weight. The three of us clung to her back while she carried Henri in her claws.

  “What on earth happened to Henri?” asked Ruthven, his red eyes wide.

  “Parting gift from Stephen,” I said tersely. “I’ll explain later.”

  La Perricholi and Sophie hopped off the Dragon Lady.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said the Dragon Lady.

  I turned to Sophie and La Perricholi. “Back in a minute.”

  They nodded.

  “Wait,” said Ruthven. “Where are you—”

  The rest was drowned out by the sharp snap of the Dragon Lady’s wing as we launched into the air with Henri.

  It only took us a few minutes to get to the hospital. La Perricholi had been right when she said it would be hard to miss. The building was half bright-blue stucco, half orange brick, with a big sign that said CLINICA GOOD HOPE.

  The Dragon Lady circled in and gently laid Henri on the sidewalk in front of the hospital before setting down herself. As soon as she was on the ground, I hopped off, picked up Henri, and charged into the hospital.

  I placed him carefully on the front desk, where a woman dressed in white stood.

  “Please help,” I said, breathing hard. “My cousin.”

  She stared at me, her eyes wide, not even looking at Henri.

  “What . . . what are you?” she said in a thick Spanish accent.

  “It doesn’t matter what I am!” I shouted at her. “This man is dying. Will you help him?”

  She finally looked down at Henri and saw the broken, bloody mess he was. “Dios mio!” She began barking orders in Spanish, and people were suddenly scrambling around, carefully lifting him onto a gurney, putting an IV into his arm.

  “You are . . . family?” she asked, her eyes looking back at me, squinting with distrust.

  “His name is Henri,” I said. “Henri Frankenstein.”

  Her eyes widened and all the color drained out of her face. “You are . . . el monstruo!”

  “Please,” I said. “Please take care of him.”

  She drew in a long, shaky breath, then nodded. “Of course. We turn no one away.”

  “Gracias,” I said. Then I turned and walked back toward the entrance. But as I went, now I was aware that everyone was staring at me. And not in the old, pitying way. No, this was fear. This was borderline terror. Moreau’s little world address had scared the shit out of them all.

  It was worse once I got outside. The Dragon Lady stood waiting, and a huge crowd had gathered, keeping what they thought was a safe distance. They talked among themselves excitedly in Spanish. I wondered how long it would take before fear turned to aggression.

  “We have to do something before this turns into the world’s largest angry torch-wielding mob.” I said as I climbed onto the Dragon Lady’s back.

  “What do you propose I do, roll over on my back and show them my tummy?” asked the Dragon Lady, a little testily.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “We just have to tell humans that not all monsters are on Moreau’s side.”

&nbs
p; “And how do we do that?”

  “Vi, how many local broadcast systems do you think you can commandeer?”

  “Okay, well, Boy, please don’t get mad.”

  “What did you do?”

  “So when Agent Holmes established that connection with us, it went both ways. So while she was talking to you, I decided to poke around on her end of the connection. And I found this really nice server cluster. I mean, really nice. And it was hardly being used at all. It broke my heart. And so, um, I kind of . . . took it over.”

  “Vi, how could I possibly be mad? That’s awesome! So with this CPU upgrade, how widely can we broadcast?”

  “Oh, well, the whole thing, I think.”

  “The country?”

  “The world.”

  “BOY, WHAT EXACTLY are you doing?” asked Ruthven.

  The sun was just rising over the hills, casting the first warm rays on us. Ruthven’s shadows were drawn close. Sunlight isn’t really deadly to a vampire, but when you have no pigment, a regular sunburn is instantaneous.

  “Boy, I’m ready when you are,” came Vi’s voice.

  “Ready for what?” asked Laurellen.

  “Moreau gave his little monster PSA to the world,” I said. “Well, he was right about one thing. It’s time to stop hiding. For all of us. But he shouldn’t have tried to get in a media war with Vi and me.”

  “So you’re going to . . . what, hold a world address and reveal us all to the humans?” Ruthven sounded amused, and a slight smile played on the corners of his mouth.

  “You’re going to allow it?” asked Laurellen.

  “It’s not for me to allow or disallow anything anymore,” said Ruthven. “I failed as coven leader. Now I’m merely a wise elder. And if you want the council of a wise elder, I think we need new methods, new ways of thinking if we are to defeat Moreau.” He turned back to me. “The older generation has made a mess of things, it seems. Perhaps your generation can fix them.”

  The awkward, seventeen-year-old Boy inside me nearly squeed himself to death right then. But I held it together, took a deep breath, and just nodded. “Okay, Vi, let’s do this.”