by R. J. Blain
“It’s a…”
“… sea monster,” Ryder said, slamming on the brakes next to Myra’s cruiser and Jean’s truck. “It’s a sea monster.”
Chapter Eleven
“Technically,” I said, “it’s an ocean monster because seas are smaller bodies of water partially surrounded by land.”
“What is it doing here?” he asked, a little too loudly.
Sea monsters—ocean monsters—never came to Ordinary.
Was this beast here to become a citizen of the town? If so, why hadn’t it come in some sort of disguise? People must have seen it by now. It was massive. And angry.
I mean, everyone had a cell phone. Anyone could snap a photo of that monstrosity.
Or livestream a video.
Shit.
Someone might even be doing that right now.
“No, no, no!” I opened the door and ran out onto the beach.
The weather was worse. Wind and rain mixed with saltwater and sand lashed at my exposed skin until it was red and stinging.
The only good thing about this weather was that no one was stupid enough to be down on the beach.
Except for us. We were the stupid ones.
I could just make out the shapes of Myra and Bathin, Jean and Hogan, and Crow, all of them a couple hundred yards away on the tide’s edge.
I ran across the hard sand toward them, the smell of kelp, salt and deeper, meatier things sharp in my nose, my boot prints filling with water instantly after each step.
The ocean crashed in my ears, and that monster roared like multiple, smaller, stormier oceans. My heartbeat settled into the run.
Running was good. This motion, this Zen of my body falling into my running stride cleared my thoughts. Logic snicked into place.
Yes, there was a monster in the ocean.
Yes, it looked like a super-sized cross between a giant squid and a multi-headed Loch Ness monster. Yep, there were lots of brownish-red tentacles sprouting around three long-necked plesiosaur heads, all of them sporting huge, filmy yellow eyes and massive, jagged teeth.
Yes, it was probably being caught on film right this minute and uploaded to some cloud storage somewhere.
But it hadn’t come ashore yet. Hadn’t destroyed any buildings or eaten anyone.
Which, really, was a point in the “good” column.
I had no idea how to talk to it, or get rid of it, or kill it (an image of an exploding, rotted whale flashed behind my eyes), but my sisters were both already facing off against that huge monster. Myra with a spell book in her hand. Jean with a bullhorn and mallet.
Crow was there too, hands on his hips, head tipped up, scowling at the beast.
Then, even as I closed the distance, blinking away the stinging rain and sand, I saw Bathin, who was a demon, next to Myra, nodding as she read out of the book. Hogan, Jean’s boyfriend, who was part Jinn, had his arm looped around her waist, an anchor, holding her tight.
I was almost there, my heart in each footstep, my thoughts a mantra: please let them stay, please don’t let them be hurt, please let me get to them in time.
Then: motion.
Coming down the cliff side, over layered basalt ridges and tough knolls of sea grass, were dozens of people. No, not people, werewolves and vampires.
The entire Rossi clan flowed over that cliff like a wave of black, Old Rossi in the lead, his lean, blade-thin body cutting through the wind like the edge of midnight against a liquid dawn.
Rumbling right behind the vamps was a mob of muscle. At least three dozen werewolves powered across the rock and sand. Granny Wolfe, small and quick and way too old to be moving that fast, led the charge.
No one had shifted into wolves. The vampires still looked human and so did the werewolves, but they were all moving at a speed no human could match.
Moving toward the edge of the ocean.
More cars drove onto the sand and spilled out various gods and goddesses. None of them were carrying their powers, but I could tell by how they were marching this way that they were pissed off.
They were not about to let an ocean monster ruin their vacation time.
Just before I made it to Jean, just before I could ask her how this had happened and what we could do to stop it, she shouted into the bullhorn.
“Now, Chris, now!”
I pulled up short and spun on my heel, expecting a monster attack. But instead, I saw a flash of black dive through the stormy gray and white waves.
Chris Lagon, our local gilman.
He was the owner of Jump Off Jack’s, an award-winning craft brewery. But right now he didn’t look like a businessman. No, he looked like black lightning: fast and deadly and sleek.
He swam through the curl of waves, closing in on the ocean monster.
The Hollywood creature from the black lagoon couldn’t hold a candle to the real deal. Chris was built for this, his body a bullet, his arms and legs cutting through the chop like he was taking a dip in a summer-smooth pond.
The ocean monster spotted Chris and roared again, all three heads tracking the gilman. The monster thrashed, tentacles falling from a great height, hitting the water with earth-shaking booms, each slap a crack of thunder, a rolling earthquake.
Chris just kept swimming, diving and ducking the whip-fast tentacles. He narrowly missed being grabbed and dragged to the bottom of the ocean, once, twice. Again and again.
Jean yelled, “Do it! Do it!” and Chris dove beneath the waves, shooting into the barrel of a massive curl.
He popped out the other side, but instead of avoiding the tentacle slapping down to grab him, he pushed up, jumped out of the water and landed on his feet—on top of the tentacle.
He sprinted the length of the twisting, knotted appendage, headed toward the triple necks.
I had good eyes, but I couldn’t see what happened through that much spray and rain.
One minute Chris was running, his fist cocked back like he was going to punch the ocean monster in the neck. A huge wave lifted, blocking my view.
Then the next minute, the monster roared. Tentacles whipped wildly as it sank down and down beneath the waves, the ocean swallowing it up: suckers, necks, and heads until, finally, it was gone.
Jean swung the bullhorn toward Crow and yelled, “Ha! I told you so!”
He clapped one hand over his ear. “I still think a dart gun or slingshot would have been more fun.”
“Did that really happen?” Ryder had caught up with me and now stood with his shoulder against mine, staring at the water.
“Like you would have been able to hit it from here,” Jean shouted through the bullhorn again. Then she noticed the crowd of gods and weres and vamps streaming onto the beach.
Unfortunately, human citizens were coming down to the sand too.
She turned toward the crowd of people standing near the shoreline. “Okay, it’s okay everyone. Everything’s fine.”
“Did he just punch a sea monster to death?” Ryder asked, sounding dazed.
“Ocean monster,” I corrected absently.
One of the gods snickered, the vampires all moved in to make sure there weren’t any bits of beast evidence washing up on shore, and the werewolves all strode out to the shoreline, instantly falling into crowd control mode.
Crow spotted me and came strolling up.
“Delaney Reed. Whatever are you doing out in this miserable weather?”
“What the hell happened, Crow?”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see a sea monster get its ass kicked by Chris.”
“Ocean monster,” Ryder added.
“Then you’re up to date on everything that’s happened,” Crow said. “Good talk.”
“Spill,” I said, grabbing the sleeve of his hoodie. “What. Happened?”
“It was a cursed item,” Ryder said.
Crow pointed at him.
“How do you know?” I asked Ryder.
“Got the call. Came for you.”
Myra and Jean both walked over. The rain wasn’t any better and the wind was worse. It made standing here no fun at all. Myra wiped her hand over her face, the book already tucked away safely in her waterproof satchel.
“What was it?” I asked.
“A denizen of the sea,” Myra said. “Not an eldritch abomination, but one of the unnamed monsters of the watery void.”
“Huh,” Ryder said. “Watery void monster.”
“And it was here why?” I asked.
“This.” We all turned to see Chris Lagon jogging up to us. He had a wide grin on his face and looked like he’d just had the time of his life.
Chris had worked magic into his tattoos so that most people saw his scales as part of the intricate, beautifully inked designs, and otherwise ignored the slight differences that marked him as gilman instead of human.
But here, after a strenuous swim in the ocean, a fight with a monster, and now, a jog in the rain and wind, he looked wilder. His long hair streamed in dark rivers over his shoulders and back. Even the magic in his tattoos couldn’t dampen his natural form.
“Pandora thing.” He handed me what I, at first, thought was a collection of sticks.
They were not sticks but rather delicately carved pieces of wood linked together with what looked like chains of gold. I shifted them to figure out how they all connected and realized it was a child’s mobile, the arms of which were a giant squid. Hanging from each tentacle were little Nessie monsters and jelly fish.
Smack dab on the neck of one of the three Nessies was a familiar yellow butterfly sticker.
“Who had it?” I asked.
“Molly.” Myra took it from me and dropped it into a red and gold box before tucking it in her bag.
“Your waitress?” I asked Chris.
He nodded. “She wanted to hang it up at Jump Off’s. I liked it and said yes.”
“And when she took off the sticker?” I asked.
Chris shook his head. “I took it off, like an idiot. I thought it felt like magic, but I couldn’t be sure. And then, bang. Big-ass monster.”
“Bang,” Ryder echoed. “Big-ass monster.”
“Is everyone okay?” I asked. “Is your brewery still standing?”
“Everyone’s fine,” he said. “The curse called forth a monster from the watery void, and luckily that watery void was out here offshore instead of in my kitchen sink. Hey, weren’t you going on vacation this morning?”
Myra handed him a shirt and Jean just scoffed. “Oh, yeah, she’s so into vacationing. Can’t you tell?”
Chris nodded and shimmied into the shirt. “I can tell.”
“We’re gathering quite the crowd,” Ryder said. “How are we going to convince the humans they didn’t see what they just saw?”
Myra looked to me, I looked to the gods all standing in their own huddle. They made a point of pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping on us. Probably didn’t want to volunteer to pick up their powers for something this small, since that would mean they’d have to leave Ordinary, and their vacations, for a year.
“I got this,” Jean said. “Boyfriend?” she asked Hogan. “Would you grant me a wish?”
Hogan still had his arm around her waist. “You know I’d do anything for you, babe. But there’s a limit on wishes. You sure you want to use one now?”
She tipped her head up and fluttered her lashes. “Can we negotiate later? Tonight? In bed? When I do that thing with my mouth that you—”
He clamped his hand over her mouth, and if his skin hadn’t been so dark, and it hadn’t been raining so hard, I would have sworn he was blushing.
“What’s your wish?” he asked. “Be specific.”
He dropped his hand and Jean straightened a bit, thinking through what she was going to say.
He stood in front of her, both hands on her upper arms, catching her gaze. “You got this. You totally got this.”
She nodded. “All right. I wish that all the humans of Ordinary who do not know about the gods and magic and supernaturals in the town, and those among them who saw, or took pictures or video of the monster, no longer remember the monster.”
“And,” he encouraged.
“And they instead saw… a storm and big waves and crashing water and driftwood in the waves. Maybe a whale. And,” she added, her voice going up in a question, “the pictures they took and videos are all deleted?”
“That’s very specific,” he said.
“But you can do that?”
“As you wish.” He gave her a little bow.
Aw. Movie quote love.
Jean’s smile softened and she gazed at him like he hung the moon. “I am so gonna do that thing you like with my mouth tonight.” She breathed out dreamily.
He chuckled then turned to me. “I don’t grant her wishes all the time.”
“That’s good.”
“Most of her wishes are just little things.”
“Okay.”
“Food things. Bedroom things.”
“Didn’t need to know that last part.”
“If I were ever going to grant a really big wish, I’d run it past you or Myra first.”
“Hogan,” I said. “I am one hundred percent in favor of you granting my sister’s wish. Now would be good.”
Relief smoothed his face into a smile. Hogan wasn’t someone who liked to throw his magic around. Wishes could be dangerous.
“All right,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s grant this thing.” He recited something silently, his mouth moving, his eyes closed. Then he clapped his hands together hard. Once. Twice.
Wishes were tricky magic. They weren’t flashy like curses or showy like spells. They were more of a gift, a boon. They were hope inherent: the sound of an ice cream truck pulling up to the curve, the glow of birthday candles right before they became smoke, a love letter unopened.
This wish manifested as a pause in the rain. The wind slowed to a warm summer swirl; clouds pulled apart to reveal a patch of blue that allowed one sweet, golden spear of sunlight to scatter across the waves.
The crowd which had been restless and loud, held very still.
Someone laughed, someone else whistled, and then the blue sky was swallowed, the rain sifted down, and the wind buffeted us all.
The moment had passed, the event was over, and I was confident the people in town who were unaware of magic were now convinced they’d seen a stormy ocean, driftwood, and maybe a whale.
Too bad none of their pictures or videos would be viable.
“I love it when you do that,” Jean said. “Makes me all shivery.”
Hogan had his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth, quick. “You’re welcome.”
“Is that it?” Ryder asked. “Did it work?”
Chris tipped his head to one side like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “Yup. He’s good.”
“Thanks, Hogan,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“No problem.”
“And thank you, too, Chris,” I said. “That would have been a nightmare without you out in the water.”
“Happy to do it,” he said. “Anyone want to warm up and get a beer? On me.”
That got everyone’s attention. More than half the gods were up for it, and the vamps were suddenly all headed his way. So were the werewolves now that they and the weather had sent the crowd packing.
Chris was carried away in a crowd of weres and vamps and gods.
Crow, Myra and Bathin, Jean and Hogan, and Ryder and I all walked back to our vehicles.
“Wanna go get a beer?” Jean asked, yelling over the wind. “I mean until the next curse hits?”
“You’re on duty,” Myra yelled back.
Jean tipped her face to the stormy sky and howled a silent, “Why!” then spit salty rain out of her mouth. She tipped her head back down. “Right. Of course. And I love my job! Love working outside in a storm. Love my wet socks. Love my wet bra.”
Myra laughed. “We can get out of the weather
. If another sticker is removed, we’ll see the beam of light.”
“You still going with electric lines?” Bathin asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The power outages make a perfect cover story. Why?”
He shrugged. “You know if you wanted a little demon mojo, I’m more than happy to lend you my services.”
Myra gave him an arch look. “I think adding demon mojo to an avalanche of curses might not be the safest way to go, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, baby, since when do you drive in the safe lane?”
Even in the dim light, I could see my sister blush. “No mojo,” she admonished.
He crossed his chest. “Hope to die.”
“That’s not where your heart is.”
He winked and ducked down into the passenger side of the cruiser.
Hogan had swung up into Jean’s truck, and I was next to Ryder at the door of his, but both my sisters and Crow were still standing out in the storm, looking at me.
“What’s the play, Chief?” Myra asked.
“Well, I for one, am going for that beer,” Crow said.
“No,” all three of us Reeds said.
“This is your mess,” I said. “You finish the clean up.”
“Clean it up. Stay away. You girls have got to make up your mind,” he grouched.
“You go with Myra,” I said, and she nodded. “Jean, is Hogan staying with you?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, so you’re covering south side of the city. Think you can call in Kelby or Hatter or Shoe to cover central?”
She frowned, “Kelby’s available. Maybe Than?”
“Yeah, they could team up. Myra, you and Crow can take north.”
They were all silent for a second.
“What part of town are you taking?” Crow asked with an innocent lilt that was totally fake.
“No part.” I grabbed Ryder’s hand, and it was warm and somehow dry. “I’m going on vacation.”
Chapter Twelve
A flash of yellow lit up the rearview mirror, the earth to sky beam massive and thick before it winked out of existence.
“We can turn around,” Ryder said, as he slowed the truck.
“I know.”
“It’s another cursed object.”