The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow Book 1)

by Casey Matthews

  Her phone buzzed and she clicked the button to receive a text.

  Naomi

  I’m not asleep.

  Ryn wondered what that meant.

  Another buzz from Naomi:

  Dad went straight to bed. Has to be in office tomorrow.

  Ryn puzzled over the messages. Would Naomi send her a text updating her every thought? Based on the third buzz, she guessed so.

  That means sneak in.

  Oh. Ryn skittered up the tree behind their tall stone wall, across the rooftop, down to the windowsill, and pushed through the curtains covering the open window.

  “You can be so dense sometimes.” Naomi sat on the corner of her bed, legs crossed, so pretty it hurt Ryn to look directly at her.

  “Did you want to talk?” Ryn asked.

  “No,” Naomi whispered. “I want you to sit. Here.” She patted the bed and Ryn swallowed.

  She did what Naomi asked, and the girl slid behind her. She noticed there were hair bands on her wrists.

  “Can I touch your hair?”

  “Yes.” A shiver scrunched Ryn’s shoulders together.

  It was the same bliss as months ago, when Naomi had braided her hair the first time. Ryn shut her eyes and every touch soothed her.

  “I’m sorry for that night when I yelled at you,” Naomi said after a while.

  “It’s all right.” It really was. Everything everywhere was all right.

  “I was mixed up. I still am.”

  Ryn opened her eyes and could tell Naomi stared across the room at the plastic structures she’d built with her mother. She looked in particular at the unfinished, jagged model that was supposed to have been the Eiffel Tower.

  Naomi glanced away. “I think kids are always trying to save their parents. Trying to learn from their mistakes and do it differently; do it right. Or just, you know, avoid the same tragedies. My mom never got the happily-ever-after, she never got the Eiffel Tower. I thought I’d get married in her church, and then go with my husband someday, and maybe that’d make it… cosmically right?

  “And it scares me. Not just the church part, but because I never really talked to my mom about how she’d feel if I were gay. It never came up. I’ll never know what she thought—but I guess I have to believe she’d love me no matter what.”

  Naomi had stopped braiding, and Ryn reached back to touch her hand. Their eyes met through the mirror. “You smell like half of her. If she is even half of you, then you shouldn’t worry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  Naomi laughed. “What for?”

  “Scaring you.”

  “You’re not that scary; not underneath.”

  That worried Ryn. She looked at Naomi through the mirror. “I am, though.”

  At that, Naomi averted her gaze and went back to braiding. She did it for a while, and Ryn couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Only that she was. Was she remembering all the people Ryn had killed? Humans always seemed especially bothered by that.

  “Remember that deal we had last time I braided your hair?” Naomi asked.

  “If you could still hug me after I told you what I was, you got to braid it and put a flower in.” It was a sweet memory now.

  “Want to play again?” She didn’t look up from the work of her fingers.

  “What is the bargain?” Ryn asked, heart beating harder.

  “You let me put the flower back in your hair and I’ll let you take me out on a date. No boys this time.” She glanced up into their reflection again. “Just us.”

  Ryn smiled, turning on the bed and pushing Naomi back, enjoying the way she relaxed into the mattress beneath her. “I’d like that.”

  Naomi reached for her glasses, sliding them off, and Ryn’s gaze chased her back to the headboard.

  “One condition.” Ryn prowled after her.

  “What’s that?” she asked, breathless.

  “I dress how I like.”

  “Be careful.” Naomi’s eyes crinkled with mirth. “Some humans make assumptions about girls who don’t wear underwear.”

  “Then you can wear it.”

  “Maybe I won’t,” Naomi challenged, and for some reason her tenor excited the monster.

  Seizing the auburn-haired girl’s ankle, Ryn dragged her close, Naomi’s breath hitching as she was pinned under glowing eyes. They kissed again, and from her friend’s sigh and arching body, it was as good for her as it was for the deva. “You should wear a dress,” Ryn purred.

  “So you do like them.”

  She nodded. “On you.”

  “You realize, of course, that I’m hopelessly bossy—if we do this, if we really do it, you’re going to get dragged into things—things like dresses and family dinners and who knows what else. You hate change, but with me, it’s going to happen.”

  The stars couldn’t change and neither could Ryn. She was finding, though, that Naomi could unearth parts of her that she’d never known existed. “We’ll see,” she said, and before they could argue, she kissed Naomi again.

  EPILOGUE

  John Laek’s buddies dropped him at the curb, blitzed and swaying on the short walk to his apartment building. His neck burned from a fresh tattoo and the whisky bottle sloshed. They’d grabbed it off an amputee vet in the Draintrap.

  He rummaged for his keys, making three attempts at putting it in the lock before he got into the building. On the short elevator ride he checked his texts: two from Gregor congratulating him on the dropped charges for that dustup back at the Nine Lives; one from Senna looking to score, but he was sick of screwing her.

  He was horny, though. Drunk and horny and he’d been jacking it in his cell for months, waiting on Gregor to pay off that Nine Lives bouncer who was threatening to testify. Next time, Gregor had warned him, Try not to fuck with a senator’s kid.

  Crashing in his apartment, he pulled up a few names, looking for that honor-roll chick he’d had almost a year ago. He found her picture, having entered her name as “A-Plus Mouth.”

  “Come over,” he typed. “Want an oral exam.” He giggled at his joke.

  “Leave me alone,” she replied.

  “Nah. Get over here.” He waited, blood going icy hot.

  “You’ve got the wrong number.”

  He looked at the message a while, face souring. Laek shook his head and pulled up the footage from last September when she’d been high on his couch and a little more willing, sending it along. “Really? This ain’t you? Shame.”

  A long, long pause, and he grinned while he waited. Finally: “You kept that?”

  “Babe, it’s on the internet.”

  A barrage of misspelled, raving texts followed: curses, threats that she’d call the cops, informing him her dad was one. He liked that one best. The last message read, “You know I’m underage, right? That’s child porn. You’ll go to jail, you pedophile.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t post it. My face ain’t even in it. Who says I did that shit to you?”

  Another pause. “What do you want?”

  He took his time typing: “Too late, bitch. Hope this doesn’t go viral and ruin your life. If you want to beg, you know where I am.” Laek wasn’t sure he even wanted her anymore. Her mouth had been more of an A-minus, come to think, but he was interested to see if she’d show up with tears in her eyes.

  It wasn’t long before his door buzzed. Standing, he fumbled for his handgun—he gave it fifty/fifty she’d sent her pissed-off dad or older brother to knock his head off. When he opened the door, though, the hall was empty.

  “The fuck?” He took off the security chain, stepped out, and had a longer look around: just the same old cracks in the plaster and an empty beer bottle on the hall’s far window.

  Back inside his apartment, he turned on some porn and picked up the phone, typing, “You out there, Miss College Scholarship?”

  He went to make a sandwich and heard a ding, and was halfway back to the living room when he realized it hadn’t sounded like his phone�
��s usual tone—and besides, his phone was dark in his pocket.

  Laek realized his fine hairs were on end. Through his drunken haze he felt a tickle of fear, and realized someone else was here. The question slithered through his brain: Did I lock the door?

  Rushing back, he checked, and the security chain was firmly in place. “Stop freaking out, John,” he told himself. But he heard it again: the soft ding indicating a text, but not from his phone.

  It had come from the bedroom.

  He cocked the hammer on his gun and trod to the bedroom with care, hugging the wall and focusing on being stone-cold sober. Hopefully the noise of his porn covered the occasional scuff from his sneakers.

  His door was partly open, which wasn’t unusual, and he prodded it further, using the hall light to look across his darkened bedroom. But it was empty. He realized one of Gregor’s guys must have crashed at his place while he’d been in a jail cell—and left their fucking phone. “Christ.” He dragged a sweaty palm down his face. “Going to kill Gregor.”

  He stormed inside, tossing pillows and blankets aside, going through drawers to find the errant phone.

  Another ding, from under his bed. “Seriously?” But a split second later, his own phone chirped. He saw it was a video file and briefly wondered if that pretty high-schooler had sent something interesting.

  The short video played. It showed two sneakers from a weird angle on the floor.

  His shoes. The video had been shot from under his bed.

  The number wasn’t the high-schooler—he recognized it as Pavlo’s, who he hadn’t seen since the Nine Lives.

  He whipped out his gun. “Who are you, you—”

  The growl came softly from under his bed. It surged from the gap between the mattress and floor, made from wet ink and hatred. Its eyes stole every reasoning part of Laek’s mind, familiar eyes that had haunted his nightmares too many cold nights. Razor fingers wrapped around his gun hand and he watched from beside himself as the whole arm came off. He heard the meaty rip, and was staring at the space where he’d used to have a limb.

  It was only a moment later that the pain hit and he screamed.

  ~*~

  Ryn didn’t stop, not through the screams and not through the begging. She could have told herself this was because mortal prisons had failed to punish him, or for what he’d have done if she’d let the monster live. But the truth was simpler: she was made to eat monsters, and John Laek’s heart was as good as any other. She plucked it free and devoured him, sending him off to the fires of gehenna, where the world would be free of him and he would be free of himself.

  She picked up his phone when she’d finished, using what remained of his finger to access it. These were useful devices—she’d messaged him using the phone of Pavlo, the handsy one he’d been partnered with at the Nine Lives, whom she’d already eaten. There was a girl messaging Laek, afraid of images he had of her, but the phone also had contact information for the last monster who’d been with them at the Nine Lives.

  Ryn’s own phone dinged. It was Naomi yet again: “You’re just full of questions about phones tonight. Glad you’re taking to this. Sure you don’t want to come over and talk date logistics?”

  Her thumbs smeared blood on the screen as she replied, “No.” The other good part of a phone was that Naomi had a harder time seeing through lies. “Going for a run. Talk again soon.”

  She stepped over the pieces of John Laek she hadn’t eaten and left through the window.

  Ryn will return

  Sometimes Casey Matthews and M.A. Ray play together in the same sandbox—they are two writers who try to be friends even though they’re very jealous of one another. M.A. Ray writes fantasy, though a different sort, set in the world of Rothganar, which has Casey’s fingerprints all over it. Since they’ve developed their skills and worlds in such close concert, there’s a good chance that if you like Casey’s work, you’ll also like M.A. Ray’s. Below is a sample of Ray’s take on a tiny, murderous creature falling in shojou-manga sparkle-vision love with someone of the same gender. Enjoy.

  An excerpt from The High King’s Will

  © 2015 M.A. Ray

  Eagle Eye lay broken and reeling on the floor of the cavern. The dark hulk of the great red Worm loomed over him, tail backlit by the gold that shimmered in heaps on the floor. Huge wings hung limp, casting strange shadows. The last dead twitches passed through Eleazar.

  Eagle’s head ached. His vision swam, and distantly he heard the Crown Prince call out, “Hey-la-hey!” Brother Fox struggled over the thick tail with a blob of golden mage-light hovering just above his head. He called out again: “Eagle, brave Eagle, you’ve done it!”

  He didn’t feel brave. He hurt so badly. The cruel black horns on Eleazar’s head, the knife teeth, and the massive eye, which had only a few minutes ago fallen upon him with hungry menace, sent a trembling to his soul.

  Brother Fox blocked his view, partially, and he was glad of that. Light wreathed the Prince, making a glowing spirit of a flesh-and-blood youth, and Eagle understood why his stomach clenched when Brother Fox smiled. Gold threads gleamed in his dark hair, and his face sent Eagle’s heart staggering. Impossibly beautiful.

  The perfect mouth moved, but Eagle couldn’t hear. Blackness teased at the edges of his awareness. When the Prince bent over him, shadows swallowed amber eyes, like the bruises that so often marred the face. Eagle had preserved Brother Fox’s life, but he wondered if he had done the Prince a service.

  Then—nothing.

  Eagle had done for the Worm with a single, lucky arrow, but the Worm had nearly done for Eagle, too. More properly, Eagle had nearly done for Eagle. He’d dashed himself to pieces on the rocks. Broken bones, cracked skull. Two days he’d been deeply unconscious, in the care of the healers, but this morning, when he woke, the High King had tacked Vistridir onto his name. Wormsbane. Father had hustled him home straightaway, after Brother Fox had given him a scale from the Worm’s own hide. “You ought to have it,” the Prince had said. “You earned it. And after all, I did promise you one.”

  He’d felt Rothganar’s biggest fraud when the High King called him Wormsbane. All his dreams of great deeds had fallen to ashes before the terror he’d felt in the Worm’s cave, and a numbness had come over his heart since, which he distantly feared would never go away. Even all the loveliness of the flowers and the sweet songs of the frogs had lost their power to move Voalt Vistridir. Nothing seemed quite real after Eleazar, and Eagle himself the least real of all.

  The royal gardens showed spectacular on a summer’s night, especially a night like this, scented and breezy and clear. All the mage-lanterns shone in the cottage behind Eagle, who sat on a stool just outside the front door, gazing into his own shadow. In his hands he held the Worm’s ruby scale, the size of his palm. He rubbed at it unconsciously with a small, callused thumb, over and over.

  He was alone. Father had gone on a hunt that afternoon, to stock the High King’s larder. He always took Eagle along, and today was no exception, but Eagle had asked to turn back. His leg, the site of the worst break, pained him. Normally there would have been no excuses accepted, but Father allowed it today, on the condition that he stayed inside.

  He’d meant to obey, but the cottage stifled. Here he sat, with the achy leg stretched out in front of him, turning the scale over and over. Remembering, though he would sooner not: images cloaked in darkness, lit by flashes of red mage-light and gold, by a blast of flame bright as day. His memory tainted the sweet-smelling night with Worm stench. The world was half unremarkable dream, half nightmare, and Eagle wandered in it, lost, feeling only enough to realize, from a distance, that he hurt. So lost that when a figure stumbled around the yellow rose hedge, it surprised him. Ordinarily he would have heard someone coming, particularly someone so very drunk.

  Brother Fox. The Crown Prince’s bruised face dripped tears and blood, and he shuffled toward the cottage, cradling a swollen arm that surely must be broken. Not drunk. Beaten. Father would h
ave sent Eagle away to do some chore right off, but he stared, rooted to the spot, so much that the Prince nearly tripped over him. He popped up, overturning the stool, and remembered to bow. “Your Highness,” he rushed out, slipping the scale into his pocket.

  “Please don’t,” Brother Fox rasped. He swayed on his feet. “Is your father here?”

  “No, Your Highness.” Eagle bit his lip. Father would have sent him away, but Father wasn’t here, and one of Brother Fox’s eyes was so badly swollen he couldn’t open it, though tears still leaked from between the lids, a slow trickle. He couldn’t think how the Prince had managed to get through the gardens to the cottage. Had he used the tunnel? In any case, sending him back up to the Palace would be a cruelty not even Eagle’s numb heart could stand. “Come in.”

  The door slammed behind Brother Fox. Eagle knelt by Father’s trunk, which he shouldn’t have gone into, but he felt this warranted the intrusion. His fingers brushed one of the shiny wood boxes Father brought down sometimes after he’d answered a summons, but he didn’t feel the least temptation to open it—not now, anyway. He found the little glass jar of all-heal.

  “Where’s Falcon Eye?” Brother Fox pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness. He went out this afternoon. Hunting. He hasn’t come home yet.” Probably wouldn’t until late tomorrow morning.

  “I thought he always took you with him.”

  Eagle said simply, “Not today.” The agony in the Prince’s voice made him rush. He went into the washroom and fetched a bowl of hot water, and a pile of clean rags. Brother Fox stood in the spot he’d occupied when Eagle left him, rocking slightly and staring into the distance, hunched with pain and—if Eagle read him right—shame. “Your Highness?”

  “What?”

  “I can help you, if you want. My father taught me. But it’d probably be better if you sat down.”